What Your Cycle Is Really Telling You About Your Health, Fertility & Ovulation (That Most Women Don’t Know) with Toni Weschler

The following podcast is a deer media production. Welcome to RealPod. It's your host Victoria Garrick Brown and this is the podcast where we hold nothing back. Oh, so we're getting deep, huh? I really cried for 12 days straight. Why do I want to be perfect? There's nothing in my life that is perfect. Every week I'll bring you honest, unfiltered and eye-opening conversations to help uncover the real in all of us. I crave the type of content that you're talking about. I actually felt insecure. Oh, my God. I'm like, I'm going to cry. Let me just unload everything. New episodes every Wednesday leave those filters at the door, because it's time to get real. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to RealPod. I am geeking out about today's episode and our guest because Tony Wechler is joining us today. She is the author of the renowned life-changing book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility. She's a master of public health. I first came across this book from my VIPs on Instagram who recommended it to me and I could not put it down. I learned so much about my cycle, the different phases my body was in, what certain things meant. I really truly believe that every single person with a period should read this book. I don't know why it's not mandatory. Everything I also want to say is this book is for everyone with a period. It does not matter if you want to get pregnant tomorrow or you never want to have kids. It's just all about understanding your own fertility, which is something that occurs in your body every single cycle, whether you want it to or not. And maybe it doesn't, which then Tony's book can help you understand why it's not. But my point is, if you are interested in a natural form of contraceptive, so to know when you're fertile, to avoid having sex if you don't want kids or to know when your fertile window is, so you can capitalize on that, this book has all this incredible information. Taking charge of your fertility is the book that I read and loved, which came out in 1995, which is wild. And Tony's also the author of Cycle Savvy, which is a similar educational book, but designed for teens. I'm telling you, like if and when I hopefully am blessed with a daughter in this lifetime, she will be versed in all of this stuff when she gets her first period. She won't be like me, 27 years old, 28 years old, just starting to realize, oh, that's why there's a group in my pants. Yep, we're going to talk about that today. We're going to give you all the information. Before we dive in, I want to say that Tony gives a few examples. So if you want to watch this episode on YouTube, you can head to the RealPod YouTube channel. So you can kind of see the things she's showing. If not, it's still an incredible listen in your ears. One more thing you may have seen online that my new book didn't balance planner in the color bloom is out. We have restocked. We've brought back espresso, cream, and this beautiful blue that I'm obsessed with. Like, oh, my God, I love it so much. So if you are not yet the owner of a booked and balanced planner, make sure you go to Victoria Garacbrown.com where you can shop the planner or if you want to get a new one to finish the year out, buy one for a friend because you loved it so much, you can shop booked and balanced, which is restocked now with newest color and limited edition color bloom. All right, without further ado, let's dive into this episode with Tony Wechler. I'm so excited to have you on the show. My best friend and I are obsessed with you. Literally, we tell everyone to read your book. I just told her I was going to chat with you. She said, Teller, I had dinner last night, Marine, Ali, Jew, we're all reading the book. We had a girl dinner. We talked all about it. That is so cool. So when you guys are going to start teaching, no, we literally call ourselves mini OBGYNs. We joke. We're like, so we're OBGYNs. We're like, what kind of cervical fluid did you have? We do so funny. That is so great. I'm going to do a little demo to show you guys how to see what cervical fluid looks like that whole thing. Oh, great. I love that. Yeah. That would be incredible. I was actually doing research, of course, in preparation for this podcast. And I heard you tell some stories about how when you were pitching the book, you did demonstrations to different publishing companies. I was most blown away about just the years you started this. I was born in 1997. So I just cannot believe this is not more mainstream. Let me tell you, I actually charted for almost 400 cycles, almost 30 years. And I started when I was 27, how old are you? I'm 28. So you basically learned it around the time that I did. So I learned it at 27. And I felt like that was about 10 years too late. So you're learning it at a great time. Oh, well, I mean, it would have been better 10 years ago, but you know, you do what you can. That's the thing, though, is, you know, I really resonated with what you said in the book about your taught. You get a period, use a template or a pad, and then your period goes away. And that's that. So much deeper than that. There's so much more happening. I'm grateful that I came across your book because I asked my audience on Instagram. I said, I want to learn more about my cycle. What do you recommend? And a lot of them said to King Charge of Your Fertility, which actually I know that you said you didn't love the name of the book. And I understand it. I mean, it does sound like this is for someone who's trying to have a baby. Exactly. That's not really what the book's about, you know, so that creates a barrier to entry for people who are not ready for kids. Exactly. Exactly. And as a matter of fact, what we found out after the fact is that I did have the right, the final decision on the book title. And I didn't know that. So I kind of embumbed about that that I never got to choose it myself, but that's how it's now water under the bridge, but you ever do a re-addition and a, and a, I'm working right now. The thing is, it's, it has such a name now. It's iconic. I can't change it now, but I am in the process of doing a major overhaul of the book. So it is going to have so much more information. If you think you've learned a lot now, wait till the next edition comes out in about a year or so. It'll blow you away. There's so much new information about women's bodies. So yeah. That's amazing. Okay. I can't wait. I mean, I've even been sharing what I've been learning with my mom. And she's like, oh my gosh, I have no, I didn't know. Many of this. She's postmenopausal now, but she was like, this is, you know, it's wild for her to think that she didn't know anything about any of us. None of us knew anything. None of us. Do you remember the intro of my book where I talked about running off to the gynecologist what seemed like every month? Because I kept thinking I had an infection. I don't know if you saw that in the intro. I didn't. And it was so humiliating. Yeah. Because I kept thinking I had an infection every month. Once didn't OB/GYN say, oh, no, what you're seeing is absolutely healthy, normal. You want to see something every month. This is telling you that your body is working completely normally. And then they could have said, and also, let me tell you what else it's telling you about your cycles. Because in essence, your cycles are a window into your whole body, your whole health. And so I just wish back then that they would have said what you're seeing now is telling you whether you're ovulating all together, whether the second phase of your cycle is long enough to, for example, sustain a pregnancy. It's telling you whether you might have certain hormonal imbalances. And the list goes on and on and on. But I think when we grow up, all we're focused on is like what you said. We're focused on just that the period is the main event. When in reality, the main event is the woman's ovulation. And when she ovulates and where she ovulates in her cycle, tells her everything about her health. And so it's just, it's so cool. It is so cool. It is so cool. And I have so many questions and things I want to get into with you today. I'm so excited and grateful that you're here. I think just to kick it off, though, can you just share how you got into this work specifically? Yeah. Well, it started with a humiliation of going to the gynecologist and not understanding what's going on. And then one day, I just, I got it in my head. I have no idea why I just got it in my head that I wanted to be a women's health educator. I was so naive. I had no idea that you actually need to have a background in something health sciences or a master's in public health, like I have, at that time, I had no idea. So I decided to apply for position as a women's health educator. And it was one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life because when I was waiting for the medical director to come and meet with me for my, my interview, I noticed that there was a brochure there that said something about fertility awareness and being totally clueless about women's health. I never heard the word fertility awareness. So I assume that they meant to be antiquated rhythm method, which we all know doesn't work. So as I'm walking into her office, I grappled, do I say something? Do I not? But it was a really well-known and important women's health clinic. So I'd learn it out, something to the effect of, I'm really surprised that you guys teach the rhythm method here because we all know that the rhythm method doesn't work. And she did one of these things, like look down at me and say, "Your name is Wedding again? Tony Weshler. Yeah, Tony, you know, it went in both so well to be a women's health educator. If you don't even know what the difference is between the rhythm method and fertility awareness, but thank you so much for coming. Oh my god. So with my yellow between my legs and still holding onto this brochure, I walked out the door, went to my car and burst out crying, just humiliated. So embarrassed, but well, I'm crying out there. I'm looking at the brochure and I'm like, and I'm trying to read the brochure. And as I'm reading it, I'm thinking, why not? This is not what I thought it was. So I snuck back in a few weeks later to take their fertility awareness class and it changed my life. Wow. It absolutely changed my life right then and there. And that's when I said, okay, I'm going to devote the rest of my life, the rest of my adult life, which turned out to be we're going on 45 years now of dedicating my life to empowering women. And thank God that women's health director was not there at the class. So I was able to do it and just kind of sneak in and remain incognito in the back. Wow. Well, I'm so glad that that all happened the way that it did because it led you to this work and to creating the books and information. And I know you have an app now that is helping women. So it all happens for reason. What is the fertility awareness method for probably the 90% of people listening who've never heard it? Yeah. Well, now I know I didn't know 40 some odd years, so let me tell you what it is. It's basically a way in which women can identify on a day-to-day basis whether or not they're fertile. The fertility, though, again, is not the main objective of the fertility awareness method. Unfortunately, my book has the word fertility in it, taking charge of your fertility. Fertility awareness method sounds like it's just about fertility. But what is about is learning to identify when a woman is ovulating. And if she's ovulating, because to know all of this will allow her to know a myriad of things about her body, basically there's three fertility signs that indicate if a woman is approaching ovulation and when it's passed. I'll start with the first one with just the temperature because it's easiest to understand. So this is an example of what my paper charts used to look like. And I'll talk more about the cyclicity, which is our app now. But this is what I charted for, like I said, 400 cycles. So when I was teaching at a women's health clinic, what I did is I took about three years' worth of my charts and I taped them all together like this. So women can see that these ups and downs, ups and downs, ups and downs of the woman's temperature first thing taken in the morning will allow her to understand what's going on with her ovulation. Because temperatures before ovulation are low and after ovulation are high. And the reason for that is that once a woman ovulates her body every single cycle, whether she wants to or not her body prepares for potential pregnancy. And so one of the ways it does that is the temperature warms in her body until she either remains pregnant or she has her next period in which case the temperatures drop again. So that's the first sign. That's the temperature which I've been doing with my or ring has been amazing. I'm the morning and takes it automatically. So that's been great. That's really good because I've been a little reluctant to mention the or ring because I feel like temp drop is probably better. But I do talk about all that in the new edition of the book because there's so many different wearables now that you can use. The one thing about or ring is I does it give you an actual temperature that you can then put on your chart or are you only seeing just the basics? Yes, I am getting an actual temperature like you know 97.3. Okay, good. I'm using an app currently called natural cycles. And so then that plugs into natural cycles and it creates an auto chart. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you why we use the different systems. Please do. Yeah, but I'll first finish about cervical fluid which is the next sign. The way I like to explain to people is cervical fluid is to the woman what seminal fluid is to the man. So what does that mean? That means a man is fertile every single day. Therefore he produces a substance which is seminal fluid and that includes sperm every single day. Women on the other hand only release an egg or they only ovulate once per cycle. Therefore they only produce basically the analog to the man's seminal fluid right around the time that they're getting close to ovulation. So the way to think of it is that the woman's body after her period and as she starts getting closer and closer to ovulation, her body starts preparing to be like seminal fluid. So it's basically saying this is the time that sperm can travel through the woman's body and help the sperm get to the egg. So that's why the woman's cervical fluid gets closer and closer. And for those of you that will end up seeing this on YouTube, what I'm going to do is I'm showing you this is what I used to do in my classes. I'm going to put substances in here that show how it goes from basically sticky to creamy to egg white as a woman approaches ovulation. I'm going to use just glue. This is literally just a glue to show that as a woman's approaches ovulation, her cervical fluid is not yet like a man's seminal fluid. Then she might get something that's more creamy and you can see here that the point is that it's starting to get wetter and wetter. Again, creamy doesn't really look like a man's seminal fluid. But what does look like a man's seminal fluid? I'm using something called probe. This is lubricant that clearly a man must have designed because it's called probe. And let me see. I'm going to try to hold this up. It's probably going to make a mess. So I'll hold this here. This is the how it's starting to drip down. Yeah. That you can see that basically what's happening is that after your period as your pro-jobulation, it gets wetter and wetter. So that's the second sign. And on that note, Tony I'll say I was just like jaw dropped when I was reading about this because I never knew that the stuff in my underwear was telling me something that it had a purpose. None of us knew that. Did you think you were dirty or that you had infections? I didn't think I was dirty or had an infection. I guess I just thought like, oh, this happens. You know what I used to think a lot is like I must have been like aroused. I like tried to think back on my day. And I'd think like did something happen today that turned me on. And I wasn't mentally present for it. And now I'm seeing it in my underwear. Like, and then I remember Amy Schumer had a really funny stand-up comedy special where she said something like, I just wish one day I could pull my underwear down and it not look like I just blew my nose. And it was the first time I was like, oh my god, okay, so other women have shit in their pants. And we both that is so funny. Well, no, when I teach women, part of what I do is to say, look in your underwear because your body is telling there's a wealth of information. This episode of RealPod is brought to you by Element. We love Element so much. 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I don't know if you've seen this anecdote in the book, but she talked about the first time that that long string of what we now know. is like egg white quality cervical fluid it is so healthy if women are trying to get pregnant and they don't take anything away from this right now that wet cervical fluid that's very stretchy is what you want to have when you're trying to get pregnant and what a lot of women would come to me when they took my class they would come to me in tears and tell me that before they took my class they would abstain when they saw that because they thought they had an infection and they were trying to get pregnant this is the kind of ignorance that's out there because nobody knows about this information this one instructor told me it's grossed her out so much she didn't know what was going on when she was like around 15 16 she would roll up toilet paper and literally throw it at that long string because she didn't want to touch it and didn't know what it was we could change that we do and we need to talk about it and it's exactly does mean that our body is doing what it's supposed to it's doing exactly what it's supposed to and I'm not sure if you all caught one Tony said this just a few minutes ago but that cervical fluid is helping carry the sperm to where exactly go it's like it's an aid in the traveling and the transportation of the sperm to fertilize the egg so it's absolutely important and the way to think of it is that in the man because he always has that very kind of slippery stretchy semen that the sperm lives in the way to think of it is if a woman is trying to get pregnant it goes from the man whereas it it moves in the semen into the woman's cervical fluid and if she doesn't have that photo quality cervical fluid then she'll have problems getting pregnant but the beauty is once you know this information once you chart and you see that you're not producing it there are things that you can do about it yeah so it's being in control of your cervical fluid and of your temps and everything else that's telling you what's going on and on that note about men's fertility men are fertile all the time women are fertile for only a few days each cycle yet the list of contraceptives and things that have been created for women to take every day that affect our hormones fuck with our bodies fuck with our mental health exactly to to try to time the three days we might be fertile and the lack of contraceptives for men who are fertile all the time exactly ridiculous it's very ridiculous you gave an example in the book that actually had me cracking up which was can you imagine if female doctors came out with a male contraceptive that you stuck a little umbrella through the tip of a penis and on the inside of the male body it opened up to keep the sperm inside and we said yeah you know some people die some people will get depressed some people will this but hey whatever 95% of you should be fine that's what we do to women yeah that is exactly we do to women it's crazy it's crazy so the third sign just so you know this is an optional sign but the third sign is the cervix yes and again if you're watching on YouTube you'll see what I'm about to do but what happens is I'm going to use a lemon here's a lemon I'm actually excited about this because I haven't done this one because I'm I don't it is interesting you got to stick a finger inside of yourself and yeah it's uncomfortable and I haven't done it yet but I want to try I want to show you and you know just so you know that this sign is actually an optional sign some women find it fascinating some women their little screen mission initially but then once they do it they just say oh I can't believe I never utilize that one it's a great sign so you you end up having three fertility signs that corroborate each other so basically if you can imagine that this is your uterus it's actually a little more about the size of a small pair that you can see at the bottom is what the cervix looks like so imagine that normally your uterus is tipped forward like this and around ovulation what happens is it rises it rises up and gets higher in the body and what happens with the cervix which is this part right here in order to get ready for sperm to enter the cervix which is the opening of the uterus here's the uterus and here's the cervix it becomes soft and high like I pointed out soft and high and open to allow sperm to get in that's why it's doing that and the reason it gets hyped by the way is it has to do with the way the ligaments hold uterus in place so round ovulation that's what happens and I also want to mention one other thing because again this isn't really about the method that women need to know this women need to know when they go to the gynecologist what the hell is going on down there and why are they going so in my classes do you recognize this this is a lovely speculum but I want women to see this to understand what's going on so if this I hope this doesn't trigger people the sound of the sort of the speculum do you see this is what the doctor sees when they look in they are looking at the opening of the uterus that's exactly what they're looking at so when you go to get a path test for example they'll take something like this they'll insert it in and they'll go around they'll either use God this is hard to do yeah for those listening the silver metal tool that at the OBGYN's office they put inside you they can get open to widen the opening of your vagina and then they're looking dead on at your cervix dead on at the cervix and anytime the doctor is there and they're telling you to scoot down there you need to know why are they doing that I didn't know any of this until I took a fertility awareness class that changed my life at 27 yeah I had no idea and this is what they're looking at and when they might use something like this which is a type of brush that they put in they there's any number of things that they might use but that that bottom line is what they're looking at it's this and they're also making sure I'm going to remove this now the sign women love to hear that sound that it's finally out of their body one of the reasons they're checking is they're checking to make sure that a woman doesn't have precancerous cells and so that's why you're having it done that's why you get a path test and I also use this to show women that this is something I have no idea what it is and I don't remember where I found it but I like to show this because it gives you an idea of when you're feeling it you're feeling how soft it is how open it feels and just how high it is in the body you don't need to do it but it helps you to understand more and that was something that also blew me away was you mentioned how if you're ever having sex and you are feeling yes it to be more painful or it should be like deeper or something different why is this happening it's because your cervix is most likely in a different position correct exactly so remember how I just talked about how the cervix around ovulation is higher in the body yeah so if you remember the expression show soft high open and wet so most women around ovulation their cervix gets soft high and then open and it produces cervical fluid it often happens when the woman is on top if her cervix is really low in the body and if she's let's say squatting or in a position where the cervix comes down she might get hit by her partner's penis and that could be an outch moment and at another point she might not feel anything and so now the couple might be thinking I don't get it I don't think we can do this position anymore because you know it hurts and they can miss the whole point that no it's just at that time of the cycle there are different times where the cervix does different things and fertility awareness is about teaching about so much more than just that whole concept of whether the woman's fertile or not so this is a classic example of how it affects a woman sexually I know and there's so there's so much overlap right it's not just about fertility it's about understanding your body at each point in time so Tony just went over the waking temperature the cervical fluid and the position of the cervix and the cervix yeah and also something I wanted to get your opinion on that I've been navigating is I've really loved educating myself on all of this a lot of it is happening prior to trying to conceive so I received commentary from people of oh well don't get too into it and psych yourself out don't stress yourself out and I'm like knowledge is power like I always just gonna say thank you for saying it's just the opposite of stressing you out it's so powerful yeah notice in fact let me give you a couple examples I already gave the example of a couple that came to me in tears because they had been trying for really long time to get pregnant before they took my class and remember I told you when we first started talking that they had been abstaining when she had fertile quality cervical fluid that stretched herself because she thought she kept having an infection so they abstained at the most fertile moment terrible another example is I don't remember Laura she came one of my dear friends in a great obgyn and she talks about how sometimes women will come in and they'll say they've been using an app and they don't understand they've been using it for a year and they're not able to get pregnant, they don't understand why. And the app basically was worthless. And this is where I don't want to disparage a lot of apps out there. But I have to say, in this case, Lord Shaheen, what she said would happen is that apps would basically just say tell women when to put in the first year of her period. And then they would use an algorithm based on average women and when that woman might be fertile. So if the woman wasn't a Barbie doll that had perfectly, quote unquote, average 28 day cycles and supposedly, ovulating on day 14, which I hope people understand is not accurate. Women cycles vary from cycle to cycle and between women. So anyway, she told me that women would come in and tears to her office because they were using apps that were worthless because they didn't identify on a day-to-day basis. The only way an app is accurate is if every day a woman in inputs, what her temperature is, what her cervical fluid looks like. And if possible, if she wants to, what her cervical position is. And in doing so, a woman knows on a daily basis, whether or not she's approaching ovulation, whether or not she's already ovulated. So that's why we decided to, and I say we because, and this is kind of embarrassing, I never wanted to do an app because I thought it would sound kind of hypocritical because throughout my book, I talk about, you don't need modern technology. You have your fingers and a thermometer. That's all you need. But once I realized how many bad apps are out there, once I started hearing from women left and right, saying they don't know how to use the app and the app doesn't match my book. And it doesn't refer to any pages in my book. And how do they really know it's going on? I realized, oh man, I really do need to get into the 21st century in my niece. I'm thankful for my niece and for allure-shaking. Actually, there'll be do I end. It maybe took 10 years of them trying to convince me, but finally they did. So the reason I mentioned it is that I dare say most apps out there only use algorithms, basically, to tell women when they're fertile. And if you're not charting on a day-to-day basis, putting in your cervical fluid every single day, you won't be able to identify when you're really fertile. I've talked to friends and they'll be like, well, I'm ovulating and I'm like, oh, so you like track your cervical fluid and you chart your temperature? And they're like, no. And then I think to myself, okay, so you don't know if you're ovulating, but I'm not going to come attack them right away. But yeah, I mean, you can refer them to this. That may be the bad time because women think that if they just put in when they've gotten their period on an app, that that's going to tell them when they ovulate. Even women that can input what their cervical fluid or what their temperature is doing, the analogy that I like to use is the idea of garbage and garbage out. How can a woman know how to check her temperature? How can a woman know how to check her cervical fluid or how to check her cervix? If she doesn't know how to do that, how can an app possibly be accurate? So what we've done with psychicity with an S, what we decided is we wanted my book to be a manual and manual for the app itself. So here's the manual. Anything you want to learn about, how to chart your cycles, let's say you want to know about cervical fluid. It's all right here. Let's say you want to learn about the cervix itself. Anything you want, when you put it in, the book will refer you to what page it is. Our goal is to make it educational. We want the app to be so educational that as women are going along, they know, oh, this is how I check my temperature or my cervical fluid. This is how I check my cervix. It'll refer you to that page. And then if you're not sure you're doing things right, you just press on that day and it'll tell you the reason you're fertile is because your temperature's doing this, your cervical fluid is doing that. So it is the exact companion to the book. So when so it's not this concept of garbage in and garbage out. Why don't OBGYNs educate or preach this to their patients? You know, I've had good OBGYNs say to me, once you decide to try, just come back in a year if it hasn't happened. I don't want to give it a year. I would like to know and get going. Absolutely. And I will defend them in one way. No, in two ways, they never learned this in medical school even to this day. My niece's husband went through medical school and he acknowledges we never learned this. Laura Shaheen talks about it. She's a phenomenal OBGYN. There are numerous OBGYNs who are excellent OBGYNs, but they never learned this in medical school. And it's shocking to them. It reminds me of how like most nutritionists are just taught diet culture. And it's like, exactly. Oh, you know, and a lot of nutritionists will say, I had a needing disorder and I was a nutritionist and I was learning and then I was prescribing disorder eating habits to people. You know, because similarly, they're learning the BMI, which we know is a lot, but that's on their test in their school. It's crazy. Exactly. Exactly. That's a great analogy. So the two things I would say in defensive doctors, because I don't want to disparage doctors, but I want them to understand why it is a problem. So the other thing besides the fact that they're not taught this themselves in medical school is that imagine like my classes I taught using two three hour sessions and then I would meet with each couple or woman for about two hours. Now think about the average amount of time a doctor has when you go in for your path test or for anything. I mean, you're lucky if you get 15 minutes with them. So in their defense, I think it's easier to just prescribe the pill. Oh, you have this problem. Here's the pill. Oh, you have this. Here's the pill. Or for any number of issues, gynecological issues, it's often just easier. And same thing with the concept of just try for a year and if you don't get pregnant, then come back. That one I really have a problem with. Women's women do in sincerity. They do have a biological clock and to tell a woman to wait a year and then come back is outrageous. With something like fertility awareness, I tell women, if you've charted your cycles for four cycles and you've charted and had intercourse at the most fertile time and you're still not getting pregnant, then you go to your OBGYN and if you go with your charts, you should be able to go with I'm going to again use this one. But I knew when I ovulated, it was very obvious when I ovulated and I knew what was going on with my cervical fluid. But if a doctor doesn't know how to read a chart, imagine they're not going to be able to help you really. Of all the people who have fertility issues and end up doing IVF for really struggling for years and years, what percentage of them would you estimate are issues that could be solved with fertility awareness method? You know, I wish that there was a study that would show that I have no way of knowing that, but this is what I do know. You may chart your cycles and find out so many things that are preventing you. Like, let's say you find out that your cervical fluid isn't getting wet enough. Well, that's a problem. You shouldn't have to wait a full year. If you see that during the time that you're charting during those four cycles, you're not getting egg white quality or you're not getting even any wetness. What if you noticed during those four cycles that your temperature isn't rising? That means you're not ovulating. What if you notice that in the second phase of your cycle, that it's so short that there wouldn't be time for the egg, for the fertilized egg to implant? And you go to a doctor and they just immediately say, you know what? At this point, if you've been trying for a year, it's time to move on to idea. Can you imagine there are so many things like this that if women just learn to chart their cycles, they wouldn't need to go on to more high-tech treatment. I will say also, even if a woman charts and she sees it, there's problems, that doesn't mean it's been a waste of time. What that means is that she's a step ahead of her doctor. And again, in doctor's defense, there's no way that a doctor can know more about your body than you yourself know. You live in this body. You see what your cervical fluid does. You see what your temps do. You see what exercise may or may not do. You see what stress does. Any number of these things can affect your cycle. So when you go to the doctor, you are the expert of your body. And you are there to work as a team member with your doctor. For occasionally I'll hear or I'll read a review that says, I read Tony's book and I didn't get pregnant, so the method didn't work. No, it's not that the method didn't work. It's that the method will teach you that if you're not getting pregnant and you still are doing this and this and this and this, then yes, indeed, you need to now start looking into what else is going on. Because if you're timing properly, if you have all the signs that your body is doing what it's supposed to do, you should be able to get pregnant. The other thing that I want to mention before I forget and it's kind of analogous to what you were saying a few minutes ago about how there's so many methods of birth control for women and basically more or less nothing for men. The other thing I wanted to mention is it's kind of similar with testing. Why is it that a woman or a couple goes through a full year and the doctor never tells the woman, "Oh, and your partner should be checked, his semen should be checked as well." Because half the time the issue could be a man's sperm and not the woman. And so imagine a couple goes through a full year and it turns out there's some issue with a man's sperm and it never had anything to do with a woman. So let's say she's charting, they're timing everything around egg white, the cervical fluid is perfect, everything is perfect and she doesn't get pregnant for a year. Why is that? The doctor should say that the man should get checked as well if there's any reason to believe that there's something wrong with his sperm. And then together they can work on how to treat that. To what we were saying as well about the knowledge is power. Let's say someone gets really into this, they want to get pregnant and now they're charting and then they're waking up thinking of their temperature. Do you think that there's a mental component that the stress can affect the ovulation? You know, that's interesting. Yes. One of the reasons why I encourage women to do wearables is just that it allows the woman to just relax and just sleep. You know, she doesn't have to be thinking to herself. I really should take it about the same time and I should have this many hours sleep. So that one component alone is really helpful. The other thing about stress and the way stress affects the cycle is typically what happens is if a woman experiences stress, it doesn't usually affect the part after ovulation. It's what happens before ovulation. So when women say, oh, I'm so worried about, let's say she's trying to avoid pregnancy and maybe she had sex one time close to her period and now she's really worried and she thinks that it's going to delay her ovulation. That is a myth because if stress is going to affect the cycle, what it does is it tends to delay ovulation. That in turn makes it a longer cycle. So stress, if it does affect anything, it's usually the first part and not the latter part. So before ovulation and not after. And if she's using a thermometer that she's wearing, she doesn't have to be thinking about waking up. Oh gosh, now I'm going to ruin my temperature or whatever. Yeah. So yeah. Okay. Thank you. That makes sense. And I agree. It's so nice. You know, especially when I first was charting, you know, you're excited. You're like, am I ovulating? Am I working, quote normally? And so then you can get excited to measure. But then I shifted into a place where I was like in five days, I can look and see how long my luteal phase was or how long this was. And it's going to be taken for me. Actually, another question. I'll use myself as an example because I think this can happen, right? So I've been charting with the idea and excitement about us trying to conceive in the future. And so I'm like, great, I can do this kind of now while we're not trying and then get this information. And I've noticed that in my luteal phase, my progesterone, I don't think is that high because my temperatures don't seem to be strongly raised. They seem to go up and then they kind of come down like they're fighting to stay up, but they seem to drop a little bit. Well, you know, sure, it's not something like this where they go up and because it's okay if they go up and down as long as they're above the cover line. You know, I know about the cover line, let me double check in my app here to see if I. And each cover line could be different every cycle. Again, remember, that's the beauty of charting is that each cycle is unique. So like in Encyclicity, you'll see it's very obvious how the cover lines might be different and that's fine. And your champs may be different each cycle. You know, I wonder too. I'm looking at my kind of charts in natural cycles, but I don't know if like the cover line they've chosen, the cover line isn't it the highest of the last five temperatures before ovulating? It's a high, no, no, no, you look at the last six temperatures. I'll use this one. It's an example. This is my own. But what you do is you look at the last six days, you identify the highest of the last, which in this case, what's there. And then you draw the cover line one tenth above. Oh god, you know what I'm realizing is an issue with this in the natural cycles format. Unless I'm doing something wrong, is that the cover line appears to be in the same place every single cycle. And we know that that's not can't go true. That's helpful for me because it's like, look, here's a real life example of me looking at something assessing it and noticing, oh my god, the cover line hasn't moved for four months. No, I'm going to go, I'm going to go pen to paper and see and then do it. No, I think better than that is you go, uh, cyclicity. Cyclicity. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm going to imagine exactly the book. You know, I don't want it to my own heart, but I'm really proud of cyclicity. You will not find another app out there because it matches exactly exactly. Yeah. Like I said, so many apps out there. Right. Right. Not designed correctly. I'm excited after this to go kind of fix this and see what what information I get. I guess to finish the question anyways is a hypothetical. Like I went my last OBGYN appointment. I said, oh, I've noticing that I don't think my progesterone levels are high enough. Do you think I should start to take a progesterone pill after I ovulate after like, you know, my temperature spikes and I'm two days into ovulation so that, you know, I can just start to regulate that or if when I start trying to conceive, I can make sure on that first go at it, my egg can implant. And she was like, look, I'll prescribe it to you. Like if not going to necessarily hurt, but she was like, I see this fix itself within the first few months of trying. And if it doesn't, then we'll have the progesterone. But I was torn in that moment of like, here I am feeling like I have the data and I'm like, look, it's not high enough. And I was grateful that she was like, I'll prescribe it to you. Look, like I want you to feel like you're going to get what you want. But I don't think you should take it. And then I'm thinking, okay, well, then what if that means I'm going to have more months of trying that don't need to happen. So there's a bunch of things there that I would say. The first thing is you can't tell just by temps how how your progesterone is to also save the details. I have like a soft PCOS that I treat. I got my blood for the ACH level tested. There were a few other things that helped corroborate my evidence. Yeah. And so did they test your progesterone? Because if they test the progesterone, it has to be tested at the right time. And a lot of people, a lot of doctors don't know when to tell you. So do you know if you had your progesterone tested? I did have my progesterone tested in a blood draw. I did with super power. But I don't know what time it was in my cycle. Okay. This is really important because this is how so many women are led astray because they don't get the whole picture. And that's why having your charts will help you to know when to have your progesterone tested. So the general idea is that in a more normal luteal phase, a woman should have her progesterone tested about two or three times. And the reason is, again, not to disparage doctors, but often they'll say day 21. Why do they say day 21? Because they're still of the mindset that a woman has a 28 day cycle and that ovulation occurs on day 14 and therefore halfway through the luteal phase would be day 21. That is not how it works. So the first thing I would say is in my book, I have a section where I talk about better ways to check your progesterone. The other thing is that if you were to actually then want to start taking progesterone, there's a specific progesterone to do. And that's something I don't want to say on air like this because I'm not a doctor. But what I would do is I would really encourage you to read. There's a great book. It's called "Hormone Repair Manual" by Laura Brighton. She is amazing. She's amazing. And she talks about things that you can do in all facets, in everything with women's health and women's cycles. And she talks about using something called "micronize progesterone." If you're going to do it at all, there's a lot more that you can do than what she said. And the other thing is just because a woman's progesterone Drone is low, doesn't necessarily mean that she'll have a problem. The issue is more the length of the luteal phase, is it 10 to 12 days, right? Well, you wanted to be at least 10 days. Right. You wanted to be at least 10 days. And the reason you wanted to be 10 days at least is that once a woman ovulates and conception occurs. So let's say conception occurred on date, I'll just say day 20. And the time that the fertilized egg gets to the uterus is about a week or so. And then it needs a few days to burrow in. And so the reason you say it needs to be about 10 days is you want to make sure there's enough time for the fertilized egg to get to the uterus and implant. And if there's not enough time, if the woman has a short luteal phase and she starts her period too soon, then there won't be the lining won't be there for the egg to implant. So that's one of the reasons you want to have the right length luteal phase. Yeah. I mean, even listening to talk about all this, it is just so exciting and it's so hopeful because it's like, hey, we know what are most likely the problems, how the problems can be solved. You know, the issue already exists within the system. And that's why I'm just like, I want every woman to know about this. I know. 15 year olds to know they have a follicular phase. They have a luteal. Exactly. So that they're educated because I think there would be, you know, a lot of something you talk about a lot in the book is just like, imagine you don't have to spend as much money. You don't have to book as many appointments, you don't have to go to the doctor's office and misswork as many times because like you would actually have the answer or you'd be able to walk into the office and say, here are the five things I know to be true. And then now your doctor has a month ahead of schedule. Exactly. You know, I actually wrote a book for teenagers, did you know that? I didn't. Yeah. Cycle savvy, the smart teens guide to the mysteries of her body. I feel like I started to read it. Oh, well, here's the thing. There's good news of bad news. They should read it only online. It was absolutely gorgeous when it came out. Let me just show you some of the graphics in here. Every single graphic has a little wink in it. And what it says backwards is cotton crutches galore because girls need to know that they should not be wearing synthetic anywhere around the vagina because that can breed bacteria. This applies to girls and women. Everybody should not wear synthetics. They need to let their body breathe. So this book is filled with that. The only reason I say they should read it only online is because, see how beautiful these beautiful images are. To your point about underwear, someone from my college created a brand called Iris Undies and it's a hundred percent cotton and I've been wearing them for months and months and I love it. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Iris Undies. And sometimes the cotton underwear can be marked up. And the hers had even a comparable price to this one. My friend was using Iris Undies was lower. So I love it and they're really comfortable. And yes, I switched to all cotton. Absolutely. All cotton. That's another thing is in order to be able to even check your underwear to see what your cervical fluid is doing. Sometimes when you walk around and your body is so fertile, it's so prime for sperm to theoretically get in and conception to occur and you go to pee and there's this big round circle on your underwear and it's like, what did I just pee? Did I just, no, you did it pee silly. What it was is your body is just producing so much wetness at that time. That again, it's what's called a secondary fertility sign. There are a bunch of secondary fertility signs. Right. There are three main ones, the temperature, cervical fluid and cervical position. And then there's things like the pain that sometimes women get around an ovulation, which has to do with the egg actually being released. And one of them is like that round thing on your underwear. And so you don't want to be walking around with anything synthetic that will allow that to become a breeding ground. So you want to be always using cotton for that reason. And I'm glad that your friend developed that. That's great. Interesting you talk about the secondary signs because I've noticed, so I was using some ovulation sticks, but because I have PCOS, I know that the luteinizing hormone spike is not very consistent for me, but when I was peeing into this cup, I would notice that when I would get closer to my egg white cervical fluid, my pee, like, had lots of flakes in it. And I was like, it's because it's transitioning. And so I'm like, it would be interesting because when I was really dressed, my pee was very clear. And then the weather I was getting, I'd have all these flakes in my pee. Yeah. So there you go. It's amazing. Once you start charting, there's so much you notice about your body and even your appetite changes at certain certain times in the cycle. I don't know if you remember reading this in the book, but there is an anecdote about a woman, one of my clients, and she loved mustard, but around ovulation, the smell of it made her nauseous. And so that was one of her secondary fertility signs. And there's so many things like that. So it's just, yeah, it's my best friend just gotten her an IUD out. So she was like re-regulating. And she had her first luteal phase in like a decade. And she was like, this is insane. I can't believe we have to go through this. She was crying. She's emotional. And I was like, it is your luteal phase. And she literally texted me yesterday, got her period. So I'm happy. And so she, I assume her temperature dropped when she got her period. Yes. And during her luteal phase, that's how we knew she was in her luteal because she got the IUD and she had an a period yet. So it took a while to regulate, but then her temperatures were high. And we were like, you're in your luteal and then she got her period. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Okay. So obviously, listening who want to begin to practice this method, first things first is to get your book, taking charge of your fertility, read that you won't want to put it down. I was just like, I can't believe this isn't mandatory like for all women. And then next you'd say is to use the Cyclistity app to chart their periods. Yeah. Yeah. And just remember it's within S. So it's not cycle city. So it's cyclistity. Well, Tony, thank you so much. It was an honor to speak with you. And I'm, I've been so forever impacted and changed by your work. And I've already spread it to the women in my life and we'll continue to. And then so just thank you so much for all that you've done and I really appreciate it. Yeah. It was an honor to chat with you and congratulations on the app. And I will keep you posted. Hopefully everything's good with my cycle. If not, you don't have to come knocking at the expert store. You have an end. Yeah. Thank you so much. Tony, I appreciate it. This was so great. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of RealPod. If this hit home or helped you in some way, send it to a friend, a teammate, Rumi, share the love, share the realness. New episodes of RealPod come out every single Wednesday. So make sure you are subscribed to this podcast so you never miss an episode. To leave a rating or review of the show, head to iTunes and let me know what you think. I love hearing from you. Not to mention you can stay connected with RealPod throughout the week, seeing behind the scenes info and sneak previews of upcoming guests by following the @RealPod account on Instagram. All information about today's show and guests will be linked in the description of this episode. Thanks again for listening. I love you guys so so much. Let's go dominate the day and as always, keep it real.