Cycle Syncing for Hormonal Health (Episode 334)

Full Transcript: Episode 334

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: This is the fertility Friday podcast episode number 334 welcome to the fertility Friday podcast your source for information about the fertility awareness method and all things fertility I’m your host Lisa Hendrickson Jack I’m the author of the fifth Vital sign and the fertility awareness Mastery charting Journal I’m a certified fertility awareness educator and holistic reproductive Health practitioner with nearly 20 years of experience teaching women to connect to their fifth Vital sign through menstrual cycle charting balancing hormonal health and optimizing the menstrual cycle without hormones I’m outspoken about hormonal birth control and its impact on fertility and overall health because you have the right to know how your body works and how artificial hormones disrupt that natural process I host live coaching programs to help you achieve optimal fertility and health because it’s important to have healthy menstrual cycles regardless of whether or not you want to have babies I’m also a wife and mother of two beautiful boys I know I know I’m a busy girl but I managed to fit it all in this podcast is designed to empower you to take full control of your Cycles your fertility and your overall health and I’m so excited that you’re here with us today today I’m sharing my conversation with Alisa Vitti about her new book in the flow and I know you’re going to love this conversation it was such a fun and informative conversation and we really get into the topic of surprise surprise really learning to live in the flow really getting in tune with your Cycles understanding how deep it gets in terms of how our bodies are designed in this way that is cyclical how certain things are easier and harder at certain times of the cycle and really demystifying that once you learn about the menstrual cycle and how it’s connected to emotion and mood and then as we get into it digestion and even carbohydrate consumption and how our body processes different types of foods when you really get into that it seems so obvious in retrospect so any woman who’s been charting and is beginning to be aware of how her Cycles shift how her moods shift with her Cycles or you know any of these really interesting details about our health it just seems so obvious like duh of course it does but until you are welcomed into that knowledge many of us are just flailing trying to figure out why sometimes we’re super productive other times we don’t feel like doing anything beating up ourselves about it and just not working in the flow so this is a conversation for you I know you’re going to love it let’s jump into my interview with Alisa Vitti Alisa Vitti is a women’s hormone and functional nutrition expert and Pioneer in female biohacking she’s the bestselling author of WomanCode and her new book in the flow she’s the creator of the cycle syncing method a female Centric diet and lifestyle program that leverages hormonal patterns for Optimal Health Fitness and productivity as the founder of FLOLiving.com she has built the world’s first menstrual Healthcare platform that helps women around the world put their period issues like PCOS fibroids endometriosis and PMs into remission naturally and using her highly effective flow protocol and the flow balance supplements and I’m excited to be here today with Alisa Vitti we are talking about her new book in the flow and I’m so excited to have her here welcome to the show Alisa

Alisa Vitti: I am so excited to be here Lisa thank you for having me we have been like wanting to hang out for a while cuz you wrote such an awesome book yourself so it’s nice to uh chat with a fellow Women’s Health sister

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: It’s great yes no thank you so much it’s it’s just such a pleasure to finally be able to meet you and chat with you and before we dive into the amazingness which is in the flow I well I just wanted to hear firsthand from you what brought you into this work and what’s your story that really made you resonate with this topic for all these years

Alisa Vitti: I mean it was a couple of things it’s funny people have been asking me this and the at first it was just my hormonal Journey with my PCOS but that really isn’t the full story is it it’s really that it’s it’s sort of these three parts the first part is my sex ed class in sixth grade the very which is the very first time that I was exposed to the idea that I would have a period somehow my mother just did not not you know she we so I’m first generation my parents come from another country and they did because of that they they didn’t have any of this cultural narrative running that said oh you have to say certain things or so I had like a lot of protected innocence around my relationship with my body which really I think paid huge dividends always because when I first heard about menstration in in sixth grade sex set class I was like are you kidding me this is the best thing I have ever heard I’m going to have a period I can make babies I mean you know because literally when I asked my mom when I was younger where did babies come from she’s like oh we grew you in the tomato garden you know so I was like oh okay great so you know when I came to that as a as a TW 11year old or 12-y old I was like wow you know I was a struck a struck and excited was my natural reaction to hearing this information about the female body and reproductive system but then when I looked around the room Lisa and I saw all the other girls in my class who looked horrified and disgusted and upset I could not reconcile that I couldn’t understand why I was having this reaction and they were having that reaction and it didn’t make any sense to me but I put a little pin in that memory for later because then it really made sense later on and then immediately after that class it was recess so I lunch and recess so I grabbed my three best friends and I I immediately started the period Club on the spot I was like the I am starting the period Club the two functions of the period Club it’s like the fight club the two functions of the period Club are one to guess who is going to menstrate first so here I was before any of my training basically doing facial diagnosis in a way right because you could see estrogen’s effect on the face and who is who is developing at which rate and and I will say I was 100% accurate as to the order in which we would be getting our periods after yeah and and then the second function of the period Club was to take regular bathroom breaks during recess to see if anybody got it because we didn’t know what it would feel like when you first got it so we were just like well we have to go check to see and it was like every day at lunch so yeah my first encounter with menstruation was Joy excitement and then leadership you know like I started something around it then I went into my pubescent years and then things didn’t go well so as I predicted I predicted that I would be the last of the four of us to get my period but I just didn’t realize how last in that line I would be so I didn’t get my first period until three months before my 16th birthday and I remember it very vividly there were no pads in the house at that particular moment and uh it was just a lot of brown staining and there wasn’t really much action and then I got my period between the so between that moment and 22 a total of like five or six times two of which were chemically induced with synthetic progesterone and then I just I just felt like something was really off you know I remember speaking to my dad on the fence of um we were leaning up against the chain link fence watching my younger brother play Little League one of these little league games and I said dad you know I must have been like 17 I said you know something’s not something’s off with me with my body he he’s like no you’re fine you’re beautiful you know all the wonderful things you want your dad to say but it wasn’t that I was looking for that I wasn’t it wasn’t coming from a place of oh I don’t feel good about the way I look it was I was confused by why my body wasn’t uh doing the things that I knew it was supposed to be doing and I could see that other I could see the development in other girls my age that I wasn’t having physically and I just thought something must be off you know and again this is before I knew all I now know that then progressed to full-blown PCOS by the time I was 19 18 19 so I had 5 foot6 I tipped the scales at 210 I was covered face chest and back and cystic acne like I said I had only had like a handful of of actual bleeds and no one and I’ve been going to the gynecologist since my very first period no no one diagnosed me with PCOS so by the time I figured out what it was I was actually a student at John’s Hopkins oh every the science nerd and I was researching at the library one night because what does an insomniac obese acneic you know anxious depressed young woman do on a Friday night she’s trying to figure out what what to do to help herself so there I was researching and I found an article in an obstetrics Journal that explained my symptoms to a te and so I was so excited because I finally felt like I had an answer and then I went to my gynecologist the next morning and we did some confirmatory tests and when we got the results she’s like you know you are right this is what you have you have PCOS so I was happy at least to know what it was because for that whole decade from 12 to 22 when I should have been going through normal puberty I wasn’t and no one had any answers for me so at least now I had an answer but then this was the the pivotal thing that happened I think that sort of set me on the path that I have been on now for the past 20 years which is that when I asked her great what do we do she said well there’s nothing we really can do for you the the symptoms you’re having are going to get progressively worse the Obesity is going to put you at risk for diabetes and heart disease and cancer you’re likely not going to get pregnant on your own we’ll medicate you along the way you’ll need more and more medications and we’ll just do our best to manage it and I just had this moment in that room again as I can remember this as clear as I remember the first time I heard about that I would have a period my there was this it’s such a strange thing to say but there was this like something said no that’s not your future you know like I don’t know if it was my cells I don’t know it’s was my inner voice whatever you want to say that just said no and I so I just opened my mouth and I said no I don’t want to do that I don’t want to start on this road of medication she said well what are you going to do I said I don’t know but I’m going to take my very expensively trained Hopkins mind and I’m going to go figure this out because if one thing I had learned to do properly was research and so so that began my journey of of really really looking at the endocrine system looking at epigenetics looking at nutritional functional nutrition looking at Chinese medicine and then really figuring out that there was a way to approach the endocrine system that would allow you to help it turn itself back or turn write itself right to to recalibrate itself and within about a year of figuring that out I watched my body transform and dropped the weight cleared the skin and have been ovulating and menstruating ever since and really promised myself in that while I was going through all the the experiments that I put myself through I promised myself that if I could figure out how to do something that should be so easy to do that I would build a platform that would help other women who found themselves in situations like mind because I found it to be pretty unbelievable that here we are in the 21st century Lisa and over half of the female population is suffering from hormonal issues for four to five Decades of their life right while you’re bleeding from puberty to menopause right your first period to your last that I would sit down with a Hopkins or Harvard train gynecologist and here we can’t help you I found that to be unacceptable and I thought if I could do something to help if I could build a platform that would help women get the information about their hormonal issues and get programs products Services one-on-one support anything that you could possibly need to to hold your hand through the confusion of how do I get out of hormonal chaos and get back into hormonal balance that I would build that place and so that is what flow living is and I’m really proud to have built a historic and you know from a feminist Point of View kind of a feminist business because in the sense that we haven’t had enough support around our hormonal health care and so it’s I’m really proud to have brought that out into the world for us because we deserve it it is time for us to change this Millennia of just passively accepting this cultural narrative that we’re supposed to suffer that we’re cursed because we’re women and that there’s nothing to be done this could not be further from the biological truth and so now you know my story well Alisa what you damn I’m only a little bit passionate about wh

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: At I do just a just a smidge um thank you so much for sharing your story wow you know for all the listeners like this is the point at which you can like reverse back and listen to it again I had goosebumps the whole time and it I resonated with your story so deeply I’m sure as you know partly because I’ve heard not the same story but we’ve both over the years heard so many women say similar things you go to a doctor with an issue nothing we can do pill painkillers that’s it very very you know very much my story and what was really interesting to me is that you were tapped enough into your intuition to hear it loudly and listen to it when it said no to what you were presented with and you know maybe that’s one of the big similarities between you and I which is that you know I was told similar things I I had different issues long irregular cycles and well the only thing you can do is go on the pill right hide fibroids well the only thing you can do is go on the pill in my mind it was like nope and then I kind of marched out of the office and vowed to figure it out on my own and so here we are that’s right

Alisa Vitti: Wow I think it’s important that women you know however you and I came by that should not be the exception however you and I came by the ability to really tap in and trust that inner knowing should be every woman should have that experience because that’s how you lead in your life you know with certainty and conviction and Clarity it’s from that that click inside you that feeling inside of you as opposed to constantly grasping outside of you for am I okay what should I do do I want this right and the disconnect that you are conditioned to have from your body when you’re told a side effect that takes place from the conditioning of being told that you’re cursed to have a female reproductive system is that you somehow disconnect so profoundly from your body that that’s where you end up you end up needing a leader right you need someone else to tell you what to do what should I do am I okay what do I want right and so you then you spend a lot of your time and money like get trying to get those that information from outside sources when if you had just been given the correct orientation to your biological extraordinariness you would have had a just an immediate oh I know what I want I know what I need I know what feels right and there’s no it’s unequivocal that feeling and you don’t need to go outside of yourself and I I really want that for every woman because that is what embodied Womanhood powered like fully powered up Womanhood looks and feels like again that resonates so deeply when I first started this work I’m a charting instructor so it very much was that excitement about like wow this is so neat you can track your cycles and it’s very practical and the longer that I’m in this work and the more I work with women I feel like that’s the icing and it’s sweet and tasty but really we’re here to connect with our intuition I think I think I think we’re here to come home to ourselves I think it’s long long long overdue that we have suffered Millennia of negative propaganda about our bodies that has really deeply impacted us psychologically and affects the way that we make decisions and and engage in behaviors around our self-care that just really put us on a detour that wastes a lot of time so yeah I’m I’m I’m certainly excited about the possibilities that information you know knowledge is Power full stop right so that’s why I was so excited to write this book the first book about the infradian Rhythm because when we have language when we have information we have accurate knowledge we it just changes the trajectory of your life period pun intended

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yes okay well in your book you gave a really interesting example that I would like to hear from you so back to I think you said it was your eighth grade biology textbook and reading the way that uh the male reproductive Anatomy was described versus the female

Alisa Vitti: And I was reading that going like really but of course it’s not a surprise listen I I’m the girl that was that excited about sixth grade sex ed class so I was super I was waiting like I was like what which semester are we getting to human reproduction I wasn’t like oh I love biology I was like when are we doing that section you know I was like marked on my calendar couldn’t wait so then when we finally got to that part I was like ready eager excited ready to be dazzled with science and and then I was just really disappointed that the I well I was I noticed I just was I noticed and I and I felt the impact of it so I guess disappointed feels like to intellect so I was just reading the text and it was like oh this the the testies are this Powerhouse of productivity and they you know they do what they do every day and it’s unbelievable and they never stop and it’s amazing right and it’s very positive language right I’m I I wrote I was more specific in the book but that’s the paraphrasing of it and then we get to the female reproductive cycle and it was like okay the lining builds the egg is released and then if the sperm is there and there’s conception then the Miracle of Life takes place if not then the lining sheds and starting over again she has another chance next month and I was like something about the way that that was written I could feel that something was being left out even though at that time I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and I just felt I felt the energetic difference of the description one was being heralded as the model of efficiency productivity and optimal functioning and the other one was being presented as having these like two tracks one being useful right in the form of conception and the other one being useless and a waste like oh it didn’t happen so now you just have this sad unfortunate byproduct of the bleed and just the way that that landed in my heart in my body just felt like I didn’t like the way that it felt I felt I I didn’t felt misrepresentative and and it wasn’t the whole story far from it combined with the the historical context and leaving women out of scientific and medical testing and then the way it’s talked about I mean even in the Bible right like we’re cursed with painful childbirth forever because like right like all of that is just not very positive

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So in the book you talk about the myths the most common myths that you know a lot of the women in my audience are familiar about regarding the menstrual cycle I just would like to hear from you about some of those myths and basically why should we be celebrating our periods instead of hating them it feels like not it feels like we’re actually programmed to hate our periods and to hate our femininity in many ways

Alisa Vitti: Well because if we were programmed to know the accurate information then we’d be equally powerful and we would demand more inclusivity at the table right and would have for all this time and for whatever reason that hasn’t been what’s been wanted I don’t you know and I don’t I do not Proclaim to understand all of that but it’s certainly simple to see what I will say about the myths there are there are many you know we’ve we’ve Hit Upon a few but I think the most important thing that I could share today because I know your audience is very dialed in so I don’t want to I want to share something maybe a little slightly different than just the myths about for example cramps and PMs being normal and pain being normal we all know that that’s not true what I think is the most toxic thing is that you are taught that to ignore this biof feedback right so I’m going to put this in a different way when you have a fever right and now especially in the time of covid right if your temperature is elevated right as is gonna break loose well and even before the time of Co when you have an a fever right you have been culturally conditioned to think about that in a very specific way right you have been culturally conditioned to see that as an important piece of biof feedback you then immediately take rapid Massive Action you stop what you’re doing you’re regularly scheduled life you make the chicken soup you go see the doctor you take the medicine you take your temperature regularly you rest you hydrate until you are better you don’t stop until you resolve it right so it’s not just that you see it as an important biomarker you stop your you stop your whatever you’re doing in your life and you wholly focus on this until it’s over and resolved that is what you have been conditioned to expect as your behavioral response to that biomarker it is one of the vital signs that they take when you go to the emergency room right your temperature in 2016 the American College of Obstetrics and gynecologists decreed that your cycle your period is your fifth Vital sign as is the title of your book so the challenge with that because of all the mythology because of the cultural conditioning is that even though that decree has been made you have not yet made the mental switch to to destroy totally eradicate pull out weed the mental Garden the conditioned respon bonds that this is something to just ignore and suffer through and to replace it with this is equivalent period anything PMS cramps heavy bleeding irregular periods anything that is off with your cycle the wrong color of the bleed the texture the length you are not you haven’t yet replaced your response to that with it being perceived as equally problematic as having a fever having a temp elevated temperature you just say oh it’s the curse oh it’s PMS haha I’m PMSing we joke about it it’s a cultural joke it’s a cultural but the butt of a joke right like oh I’m don’t you know don’t mind me I’m a I’m on my PMS week or then we have shark week we have all these euphemisms to joke about these biomarkers no one has a there are no euphemisms to joke about elevated temperature elevated blood pressure right we don’t joke about those things because they’re life critical are in the emergency room when those things are not reading right but we totally denigrate and just continue to sort of propagate this negative like you know we should just ignore this there’s nothing to be done and what’s so problematic about that of course is that as you have these problems one month two months 6 months 2 years 5 years 10 years you do nothing you’re walking around with with the equivalent of a fever and you do nothing because that’s what you’ve been taught to do and that is the most toxic dangerous serious health consequence negative Health consequence thing that is the sort of side effect of our of our super outdated super uninus conversation about women’s health and women’s bodies and I it cannot stand and luckily between the ACOG decree more information getting out on the internet I I do have hope that this cultural narrative will shift but it has to start with you and then you have to I think you know I always say at Flo living you have to give good OV Karma once you get so meaning if you get this information do not just keep it to yourself like the next time your friend says oh yeah I got PMS or I’m having cramps virtually grab her by the shoulders so to speak energetically grab her by the shoulders and say hey um this is the equivalent of having a fever and here’s why and here’s some places you can go get some information about this this is what you need to know we have to learn one and teach one as we say in medicine right you learn something you got to teach it because that that’s how we’re going to really change this cultural narrative it’s just so important the root of the issue here is that we’re taught to be passive victims of these symptoms and we have to learn how to to to take leadership with our health and and the truth is you can change your hormonal outcome very easily very quickly and very naturally it’s not complicated at all yeah I I just want women to know that the most so I’m not even asking you to get to a place of celebrating your cycle yet because what I want you to have first is as as I needed myself the bridge of science to walk over because where you’re at today is that you are in probably utter disbelief that you could have a beautiful easy pmsf free pain-free healthy beautifully colored cycle right it see it could if depending on what your cycle is like it could seem like that could be the the most Fantastical idea that I could present to you but I’m asking you to walk over a bridge of facts information and scientific truths and then once you go through the process and you reclaim your hormonal balance what you naturally be without me having to convince you is you will be in disbelief about how easy it is to feel good in your body and that you wish you would have known that this could have been your reality sooner and then you will be in a place where you want to celebrate your hormones and love your body and all of that will all of that will flow as I like to say but I don’t even want you to take I you don’t even need to go there first it will come uh but you just need to walk over the bridge of Science and start taking the right action to care for yourself properly and then everything else will fall into place what she said you know listen we are still on the same wavelength all that oh my goodness this is going to blow people’s minds I can just hear it I I feel like I can hear because I’ve been doing this for so long what people are thinking what they’re going to say and I feel like to some extent a lot of women obviously and understandably have resistance to this idea that even just that you could have a period without pain I’ve been pushing that hard on social media uh in my classes and it’s just the responses I receive are just I mean it just reflects where we are as a culture that you could be in such pain that you are vomiting or on the floor and even if you’re not because I talk about those because we need to understand that women are experiencing that degree of pain but even if you just have to take Advil for the first two days we the the fever example example is is a beautiful way of explaining that because you would do something if you had a fever but yet still having that level of pain just as an example of one of the possible issues you could have with your cycle we think nothing of it and I’m at the point in my practice where I have to actively search for this problem because women are so resolved to have terrible periods that they stop looking for support with it which is such a tragedy because nature you know it’s why section one of in the flow really goes into detail as you saw of really explaining to you the Majesty of your bodies designed by Nature how extraordinary your brain is compared to men you know I hate to and I’m not I am absolutely just to be clear not coming from a male bashing point of view whatsoever the male body is extraordinary too I love men I have a great relationship with my dad and brothers and husband and it’s all good but someone needs to say and clarify for women because all we’ve heard is the extreme false opposite I just wanted to go out of my way to point out the scientific truth which is that nature has designed you to be an extremely efficient elegant machine for leadership Community Building 3D printy tining human beings your immune system is is more powerful I mean pick a system of the body you’re met up you you retain nutrients for longer and so I wanted to just I wanted to take you on a tour I wanted to since I’m asking you to come home to yourself I wanted to take you on a home tour in section one of the book of the of your brain of your immune system of your microbiome of your reproductive system of your stress respons system to show you why you are so fortunate to be in a female body because I understand what you’ve been told and what we’ve all been told and it is it is just not actually biologically accurate all the like the weaker sex you know that vertical of the conversation it just falls apart when you actually put the data behind it it’s quite the opposite I’m not saying I don’t have a I don’t have any teeth in the game of saying we’re the more powerful sex or not but we are powerful and and if we want to just look at it from the point of view of men have their powerful biology set up we do too and I think that that’s a reasonable thing to suggest at this point in our society that we be seen um you know or we we see ourselves as uh equally powerful and different because of our differences right as opposed to trying to compensate for them and act like the tiny men that science views us as right and this was the other reason why I wrote this book was because well I wrote the book for a couple of reasons after so many now 20 years of taking care of women from a hormonal point of view I thought about five years ago there was this you remember I’m sure what was happening about five years ago online Millennials were posting pics of themselves on in Instagram with their bloodstained bed sheets or pants or and that sparked a a media conversation about menstration that had just never been had before so like this menstrual positivity movement moment happened about five years ago and I said oh my gosh I recognize that as a historic unprecedented moment and I got really excited because in the 20 years of working on this and just looking back at all of modern recorded human history there was nothing like that going on at all ever never no one was taking selfies of their period blood no and no one was no there were no journalistic you know coverage of it you know no and then that sparked a lot of Industry you know we had um companies that were popping up in the menstrual hygiene products founded by women for women really cool so a lot of media coverage I said great now we have more information online we have more access via the Internet glob for women this should equal finally more healthy women and I waited and waited and waited and three four years in I said actually the statistics are getting worse now we have 50% of women who are struggling with hormonal issues why and I’m a root cause analyzer that’s just my orientation probably from my experience with my own health issues why is this happening why are we not getting better why is it that 50% of women suffer with hormones but only 10% of men or less do how could that be we live in the same environment it did not add up right we’re all exposed to the same endocrine disruptors Alle you know essentially right how could it be so I dug and dug and I found two things that uh were so important to share that I thought I would write this book to to sort of share about it one you need to know that you’re being left out of medical Fitness and Nutrition research you need to know that so let’s yeah it was good that you took a big breath because we have to take that in because what that means is every article that you read about this trend diet this trend workout this is the best this oh the research says this this is the this is going to give you you need to know that you as a female in your reproductive years have been actively left out of that research and so the research that I was able to dig up actually shows that a lot of these things are contraindicated for women in their reproductive years is not we can go into that if we have time but this is why all these years you’ve been trying things to get healthy and they don’t work for you it’s not you and of course the side effect of you trying all these things aside from wasting time and money and is this inner self dialogue that becomes more and more critical more and more self-loathing and the focus of your life instead of being that you know you you were put on this Earth to sh share your unique music in the world whatever that is you bring your unique creative gifts to make the world a better more beautiful place right instead of using that do using your life for that you have to spend your time right which is your most valuable currency working on your body with the wrong approach that is only going to lead you to failure and then you’re just always on that hamster wheel of like let me try it let me keep trying trying trying and then you’re totally distracted from doing what you’re here to do I just it’s got to we got to change that you know because what would happen to the world if we had all the women focused on making the world a better place as opposed to making their butt a better size it sounds funny but at the same time I’m serious right it’s legit right so there’s that the medical community has known that this is a big problem because since 1996 the NIH put out sort of like a special request for researchers to include women in their reproductive years in human clinical trials because they know how dangerous it is for women to be left out of medical research right sorry okay I just have to so in 1996 yes that’s a long time ago they had to but 96 was long ago but not that long ago and they had to make a special request to put women in the science now here in ’96 that’s unfortunately not the worst part of it as of 2016 the status report showed that progress has been slim to none and this is what that means what does that mean that means when you go under general anesthesia for example you’re being dosed as if you’re a smaller version of a man and luckily that seems to work out okay but we could do better and we should it’s time it’s time however they need to figure that out I am confident that the scientists who are capable of inventing the most extraordinary things and doing the most extraordinary research could figure this out um no question there no question so it’s just a matter of habit and institutionalized preferences and and old standing habits and practices around research that need to change and be updated everything is figureoutable right and so as Marie forio has said so we should figure that out now it’s more complicated when it comes to let’s say drug therapy and all of that using women in their reproductive years and human clinical trials should should be very cautious ious ly undertaken but there’s plenty of research to be done that does not involve drug therapy that from a medical point of view that needs to be done and we should start there but then so that at least we can understand why it’s taken a little bit of time with the medical research but the Fitness and Nutrition research that that is just more frustrating because there’s no is it damaging for a woman in reproductive years who might be pregnant to try for 30 days a a workout plan that 30 minutes of running three times a week versus whatever she normally does in the first month of her pregnancy it’s the risk that what’s you know the the difference of risk between that versus taking an experimental drug are obviously a different galaxy of risk differential right so why are we not in or or oh uh you’re going to eat 200 more calories a day but they’re going to be protein we can we can and should include women in their reproductive years in these nutritional studies because we need this data because the fact of the matter is estrogen is a met is a metabolic modulator as it is a modulator of many things and you do not have a slower metabolism you have a modulated metabolism compared to men men have a static metabolism it’s the same every day so anyway I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself but you don’t but we need to study that and so that was the first thing that we being left out and it’s causing us to try things that make us sick the second thing that I found was that we have this second biological clock called The infradian Rhythm which no one has ever heard that term before we all know about the Circadian rhythm a chronobiology is a relatively young div vertical within biology started in the late 60s early 70s circadian rhythm has been a a huge interest and focus of that vertical they just awarded the Nobel Prize a couple years ago to two scientists who discovered the genes that govern the Circadian rhythm in the body we need the research to discover the genes that govern the infradian Rhythm the infradian rhythm is so instead of the Circadian that you experience over the course of 24 hours the infradian rhythm is the clock that governs that you experience over the course of the cycle but it does not just affect your period so like the Circadian rhythm does not just affect when you wake up and when you sleep right it affects when you have normal normally higher or lower blood pressure during the day when you have more or less active bowel function during the day and other things right so the Circadian rhythm governs different functions of the body the infradian rhythm is only active in women from their first bleed to their last and it governs six systems of your body your brain brain your metabolism your microbiome your immune system your stress response system and your reproductive system and this is why so every so because you’re being left out of all that research you’re doing the things that optimize the circadian clock because the male hormonal biological pattern follows the Circadian rhythm and by virtue of doing that you’re actually disrupting your infradian Rhythm that hit workout you’re doing every day that intermittent fasting you might be do it’s disrupting this infring rhythm making these six systems of your body perform suboptimally which is why you have you feel foggy and you lack Clarity which with what you want to do which is why your metabolism isn’t what you want it to be which is why you might have some sort of autoimmune thing going on with your skin or Worse which is why you have issues with your period fertility and sex drive Etc it’s all connected to this root cause of infradian Rhythm disruption and once you start supporting that infring Rhythm everything starts to flow

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: That is amazing on so many levels I think on the most basic level we gotta we’ve just been programmed to think of ourselves as men and that’s a problem because we’re not and I feel like the first point that you made that we are different that we can’t underscore that enough men and women are not the same we’re just not the same we yes similar we have some similarities we’re humans we’re human beings but we’re not the same because men cannot make life men do not have this infradian Rhythm as you talked about and that makes us different and the reason one of the many reasons that we think we’re the same is because even now when we intelligently talk about research so much of it has been done on men so that’s like one thing but I’ve never heard of the infradian Rhythm and when you were talking about it it makes so much sense uh so kind of indirectly there’s kind of this knowing that there’s some sort of cyclical force that controls these various aspects of health so because of the work that I do I’m looking at the cycle and what I always say is like it doesn’t matter what you say matters what your body actually is doing and so indirectly then I see what happen s when you do the things that men do like the intermittent fasting and the you know the crazy intense workouts and you might think whatever you want to say think what you think or say what you say about what’s happening but then when your cycle is disrupted and you don’t feel good and all of those things what you said just really makes perfect perfect sense with how the female body actually works and how it is different to the male body and then what’s worse is because of that conditioning we were talking about before of ignoring those biomarkers those bio feedback right you’re like no but I’m I’m doing a good I’m being a good girl I’m doing the intermittent fasting the way I’m supposed to and yeah I’m having all these period symptoms but I’ve been taught to ignore those so it doesn’t matter that’s the worst part of it right it’s a perfect trap it’s a the container for you to stay in to stay stuck is perfect you you believe we set up to destroy ourselves I don’t know I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole because I’m a I’m an optimist I believe the I I’m a I think the The Arc as as Martin Luther King said I think the Arc of human you know the trajectory is a positive one and I do and I have studied a lot of the the moments of history if you look at things things are getting better even though cleaning things up as we’re seeing right now with black lives matter and everything that’s going on in this in this conversation right now that’s happening in this country it might be challenging to talk about the the things that have taken place that may not be fair you especially when we talk about women’s health I mean there there’s a long history of things not being good there um even worse for women of color but I think it’s still good to have the conversations and then move forward and and remake the cultural narrative to be one that is inclusive is positive and is accurate you know just

Alisa Vitti: Well one thing I’ll say is that by bringing up the the the reality of the situation or the history I don’t believe that we need to dwell in it but I also don’t think we can gloss over the understanding of the problem with and just kind of skate towards the solution I feel like there’s some value in looking at like how did we get here what is the history behind this what happened and sometimes it’s really ugly because yeah I mean Generations thousands of years of repressed femininity repressed science repressed understanding of our bodies I feel like if we can look that in the face and understand what’s going on and not dwell in it but understand it absolutely like you said the bridge of Science and then like walk over that bridge of science

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Maybe share with us because when you were talking about the infradian Rhythm I I immediately had two responses so one is that yes this sounds complicated I believe you said that there were six body systems that are intertwined in that infradian Rhythm and that can sound very intimidating but on the flip side I live in my body and I am in the flow if you will so the most part meaning that I’ve been dancing with my cycles and my fertility and aware doing so in an aware fashion for the better part of two decades and so although it sounds complicated if you pay attention and back to what we talked about initially getting to that place where you’re listening to those messages it’s actually just living your life in tune with what’s actually happening in your body so maybe share with you share love the way you said that yeah

Alisa Vitti: I love the way you said that it is really but I agree that it can feel overwhelming at the beginning which is why each you know and I know you read the book each chapter has a chart so you do not need to become expert in this like I am you do not need to create a new file folder in your brain to keep all these details there are charts that say do this now do that then it’s it’s just organized for you so it takes all the guesswork out but essentially once I saw this issue of you know the infring Rhythm disruption I said okay so what is then the method by which we need to care for our infring Rhythm and so I created something called the cycle syncing method which is the what the book really describes in sections two and three but the cycle syncing method has three pillars fundamentally it has a food pillar a fitness pillar and a time management pillar and when you combine these three ways of taking care of your infradian Rhythm then these six systems of your body function optimally you don’t have to go in and troubleshoot each six system each of the six systems what you have to do is support the four phases of your infradian cycle if you will so you have that follicular phase the ovulatory phase the ludal phase the bleeding phase and by eating differently for each of those weeks and I’ll tell you why in a second by working out doing specific workouts and specific lengths of workouts for each of those phases and then working taking advantage of your cognitive strengths each of those weeks you supercharge your metabolism you decrease cortisol production and inflammation and you get more you’re more productive with less friction so that then sets you up to have a really supported brain immune metabolism stress response system reproductive system microbiome right so you don’t have to do and this is also the same methodology sort of from a fundamental Viewpoint as to my First Book Woman code when we look at the flow protocol you don’t want to spot treat your cramps your period problems right you want to go and support the functionality of your endocrine system so you start with blood sugar support then you move on to adrenal then you do gut and um estrogen elimination gut and liver and then your then your endocrine system takes care of the ovulation and everything else right so similarly if we go to this to the place where you can actually interface with supporting the correct inputs for this basic function of your body of the fraan Rhythm then it your body will do the job that it’s supposed to do that it’s designed to do so that’s what makes it easy so what does this mean this means that for example in the first half of your cycle your metabolism is slower and your resting cortisol levels are lower first half of your cycle is the as we Define it is folicular and ovulatory so slower metabolism lower resting cortisol level what this means is that you’re going to eat fewer calories and you’re going to do higher intensity workouts for longer periods of time as long as feels comfortable to you anything over 30 minutes is great the combination and you’re going to eat specific foods that help flush out estrogen the combination of these things together will cause you metabolically and stress response system wise and immune system wise and cognitive wise to function at a peak level you will burn fat stored fat efficiently you will build lean muscle efficiently your verbal social centers will be on on target you will met metabolize estrogen extremely efficiently and you will feel great right then in the second half the ludal and the menstrual phase is your metabolism actually speeds up you need about 250 more calories per day this is all documented and researched by the way from third parties is not just me saying oh you need 250 more calories this is all based on research the book is full of so much research we couldn’t and studies we couldn’t even fit all the studies in the print version there’s a link to all the clinical research that I pulled for this book it was just too many pages to print and we thought we’d save some trees so I pulled the most important ones to print in the book but the rest are on our website that are listed there for the studies um because again I want you to feel confident that this is actually what’s happening in your body and your because your metabolism speeds up and your resting cortisol levels are higher you must not do higher intensity training you must not do a hit workout in fact the study show if you do hit workouts after ovulation you’re going to turn on fat storage and turn on muscle wasting so if you’ve ever thought to yourself gee I don’t understand I’m so dedicated I’m so committed I’m so disciplined and at the end of every month I feel like I’ve gotten nowhere that’s not in your head you’ve actually by restricting calories and doing the same hit workouts every day for the whole infradian cycle you undo what progress you make in the first half of the cycle in that second half you undo it you reverse it and then that’s the best case scenario the worst case scenario is what I’ve seen more commonly where women will put on weight and don’t understand why you know not that I’m weight focused at all but weight I know is a is an important biomarker of how you’re functioning metabolically so there’s that your energy will be stable when you when you eat more calorie dense nutrient-dense foods and the appropriate amount of calories you will eliminate binge eating that PMS again the butt of the joke like you’re not going to devour in a zombie like fashion bags of food the salty or sweet versions of like it’s you’re that’s going to go away you’re going to actually be able to sleep you’re going to feel energized there will be no mood swings no PMS right you’re designed to feel good all mon long but if you are going about your self-care under the premise that you’re just a smaller version of a male with a slightly slower metabolism which is the rhetoric of the diet and fitness industry because we have been excluded from the research then you’re going to make yourself symptomatic around your cycle in fact that’s one of the first places to look to see how bad is your infradian disruption you could ask how bad is your PMS how bad is your period you know from a symptomatic point of view how how big is the symptom load and the more of that that you have the more you feel like you’re not the same person first half of the cycle to the second half you you can’t sleep or you’re so exhausted second half of the cycle versus the first half if you have this big difference right that’s a great sign just quickly to see that the diet and lifestyle and fitness plan that you’re using in the first half is actually disrupting you profoundly in the second half and ex and ex making worse exacerbating your symptoms so it’s pretty amazing actually there was a a woman on Instagram who posted on her stories she’s been struggling with fibroids and painful periods and the vomiting and the passing out that you mentioned and she literally I mean it was very sweet to watch because I I love this Reclamation moment she was just like I can’t believe it I can’t believe that after just two months of sort of half doing this cycle syncing method thing that I’m painfree not blacking out not throwing up and I’m not even doing this 100% dedicated and that’s what I’m it’s so powerful when you start to support the infring Rhythm because your body then starts to do what it’s supposed to do which is to function optimally so that you feel good and it’s just it’s just so much easier than we’ve been led to believe right we’ve been led to believe our periods our hormones our bodies as women are so complicated the Great mysterium so complicated mysterious unknowable well no they’re just underresearched there’s a there’s a weird negative false conversation being had about them for Millennia and the science is actually quite the opposite we we have this incredible tool of the infradian Rhythm to help exactly Mark out what to do when to take care of your body perfectly in tune with what your body wants and as long as you follow that pattern everything else will flow and the third section of the book goes into how you can then once you have this Foundation of taking care of your physical body the right way then you can start to get into so once you get into flow of your health then I want you to get into the flow of making the rest of your life flow right your career your relationships your sex life motherhood and and again this came out of just sort of my consternation SL frustration with being exposed to wonderful teaching like Tony Robbins and Franklin cvy around this idea of like Peak flow States and feeling like that just didn’t apply to me the same way they were describing it and and I have since found that actually women architect a peak Flow State in a very specific way and again it’s this cycle syncing method that allows for that chapter six of the book has something very special it’s the first time management system that incorporates both the infradian Rhythm and the Circadian rhythm which is essential for your well-being and productivity so really that would be a first place to crack open and just look at that what does that look like to manage your time with knowing about these two clocks it’s it’s uh how I get to do as much as I get to do and I hope I I’m so excited about women knowing even I mean there’s so much to learn it’s it’s like a it’s like a rediscovery of like wow there’s just so much good in your body and now here’s what it is here’s how you take care of it now run with it and I am just so excited that that we can

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well at least so that is just incredible this is such important information and I love that you took the time to do the research and I love the just the inquisitive mind to look at these issues and really ask you know what is going on what is the problem if more of us did that the world would be completely different you took us through the cycle in such an incredible way and honestly I think that all the listeners are going to be buying your book so that we can really understand and learn about how we can optimize our our Cycles in a way and and our lives in a way that is in tune and in the flow with what’s actually happening um but there was one question that I wanted to ask you about because in the book you talk about sex and you break it down in the cycle so that I would love for that to be the last topic that we talk about today because I think that more of us need to have Earth shattering orgasms and I think that we don’t necessarily recognize the importance I mean we talked about how just femininity is suppressed and this knowledge and information we didn’t even get into how much sexuality is repressed from a female standpoint I’m so glad we’re not GNA leave this important piece out you know

Alisa Vitti: Again I just came from the place of I was shocked to find the statistic that 60% of women are sexually unsatisfied and when you compare that to the male cohort it’s again not on the same galaxy you know um men may not be having sex as often as they want or whatever but every time they have physical stimulation they achieve their positive outcome and so that’s what’s different women 60% of the time are not achieving that positive outcome that’s what it means it’s not about are we having sex as much as we want is it all the it’s just about are you achieving your pleasurable outcome That’s not healthy for women for 60% of the time for you to not have your pleasurable outcome because the the sexual response system in your body produces some pretty powerful neurotransmitters and chemicals that are very healing and balancing for your for your biochemistry oxytocin nitric oxide will having positive high quality orgasm not just climax but the orgasmic plateau and I talk about the four stages of arousal because again without this knowledge you are powerless to architect your pleasure you’re you cannot do it you have to know the the the map think of this book in the flow as I remember when I was trying to come up with this the subtitle my husband was like why don’t you just call it like the blueprint for living as a woman and I’m like you know we don’t like the idea of a blueprint but in fact um you know we don’t want but in fact it really is like mapping exactly out for you so there’s no question or confusion the map of yourself uh your body and and how you function so that you can always get what you need and what you need is to have quality orgasms because they’re so hugely beneficial having quality orgasms will boost your immune function will keep ovulation regular will increase the collagen production of your skin um we slow down the aging process I mean you don’t need intermittent fasting in your reproductive years actually it’s not safe to do outside of the nighttime fast from dinner to breakfast and that’s also documented in the book um what you need to boost your longevity and auto fasy and all of that that you get when you’re a man from intermittent fasting or postmenopausal woman from intermittent fasting which you should do if you’re post-menopausal you need quality orgasm right that’s what’s going to do it for you actually and how lovely that nature so wanted you to stumble upon this reality that it gave you one little gland the clitoris that has 8,000 nerve endings exclusively designed for you to have such a positive biof feedback experience right in terms of pleasure that you would do this on a regular basis for yourself right whereas the male part the penis I always joke I mean listen I say this with a lot of love but it is like a multiun it’s like a multicolored pen like if you click one you get the blue ink if you click the other one you get the green ink right so depending on what’s going on you’re peeing you’re ejacul ating right just different things going on the clitoris is not that thing in fact the whole female genital structure is extremely specific there’s a urethra for urine there’s a vagina for vaginal fluids and the delivery of babies and menstrual fluid menstrual flow and then there’s the clitoris also separate for pleasure so that in and of itself should tell you just how nuanced and special your urogenital structure is but also how important it is for your well-being because it’s that separated out okay then you have these four stages of arousal Etc which you can read more about in the book because I know we’re sort of running out of time here but what I will say that you should know is that climax is not where you want to spend where where you want to put your focus climax is great you do get a lot of benefit from a nitric oxide oxytocin oxytocin push and a cortisol flush but the massive benefits that you get from a health point of view the most is from your orgasmic Plateau stage which precedes climax think of your whole arousal process as going from 0 to 10 you want to stay between a four and an eight to maximize your orgasmic Plateau right once you cross over the eight you know how what happens you’re feeling like it’s going to happen and then you’re at nine and then boom 10 yay climax you’re done and then you got to stop and worse if you’ve used a vibrator because now you’ve short circuited your nerve endings and you know what happens when you try to squeeze out another orgasm another client clax with your vibrator it’s like not as good your clitus is like please stop and then you got to like wait three days before you approach it again right it’s not it’s it’s too strong it doesn’t need that much stimulation the clitoris wor these 8,000 nerve endings so what you need to do is use your hand okay and you need to approach the clitoris and I’m going to tell you also something about the infradian Rhythm that is really important because you think that sometimes you have a great response and you don’t know why and then you think other times you it’s flat and you don’t know why and what I want you to know is that you’re infradian Rhythm will impact the you the way you have the way you experience your sexual desire and sexual response so well in the ovulatory phase and the ludal phase these are your wet phases that are driven by testosterone so that means you don’t need lube and you’re going to be naturally primed to be interested in sex during these two phases the bleeding week and the follicular phases are your dry weeks where you must start before you start any activity whether it’s solo play or partner play you must incorporate lubricant because you will not naturally make it so if you’ve had this story in your head of like you have to get self-lubricated or something’s wrong with your sex drive no nothing’s wrong with your sex drive you have two dry phases in two wet phases and you should use Lube during the dry phases otherwise you’re going to have friction friction equals pain pain is the opposite of pleasure you’re not going to architect your your pleasurable outcome and because it’s not a testostrone driven set of two phases the follicular and the the bleeding week you need to use different types of foreplay to get you in the mood not the not the clitoral foreplay but the brain foreplay so you have to engage your other big sex organ which is your brain and I have suggestions for what to do there’s a chart in chapter 8 of the book that takes you through how to really architect a pleasurable outcome every time um with different types of foreplay different types of dates different things that are going to help you optimize your your sexual response overall because what you should have is a pleasurable outcome each and every time and it’s possible 100% yeah I think it’s hard it’s again this is one of those things where we’re not told about this uh one of my best friends put it really succinctly I’d say you know in sex education class boys are taught about their orgasm it may not be called that but at the end of the day they get to learn about wet dreams and and ejaculation and how to achieve that pop up erections yeah and we learn about how to keep ourselves clean while bleeding so it’s completely different message because the orgasm aspect is not ever mention well at least in my experience no it’s not so um and then what’s worse is that then you learn about what you believe is normalized sexual female response from the pornography industry which is created by men for men and it’s and it is not is not biologically representative of your actual sexual function right not at all now the good news is there are is a whole movement happening within the pornographic industry of women directors creating visuals for women by women that do more accurately depict how long it takes and what is needed to achieve a pleasurable outcome so that is happening and I am thrilled that that is happening because it just means more inclusivity and more reality and that will then create a shift in our beliefs about what we you know if you have the belief that you should go from a busy stressful day to having your clothes taken off and then immediately being wet and then achieving an orgasm 60 seconds later or or something to that effect your version of that story that is absolutely ludicrous and also doesn’t serve you like you will not have your pleasure right it is more realistic that it will take you some time to unwind mentally to get into your physical body that could take a half an hour of focused effort and then anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes of clitoral stimulation for you to achieve a proper full-blown orgasmic plateau and climax that you deserve that your body is designed to do and I think putting that sense of timing to it is important because how you don’t know and and you’ve never been told and you’re basing it off of porn which is like you know it’s like right it’s immediate which is not how it happens yeah and there’s nothing wrong with you and your physiology apologizing because it takes so long we just this is the conversation the the theme is that we just have not been taught how our bodies actually work and this is symbolic of us reclaiming that that’s what this conversation is about

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: That’s right Alisa I could talk to you all day legit I we we may have to have a virtual coffee we’re talking we should we I would love that well this has been so amazing so informative so important and I’m just thrilled that we were able to come together and and have this conversation I know how well I can just imagine how impactful and Powerful this will be for my listeners and I can’t wait to share it could you share with us you know where the listeners can go to get your book in the flow also your bookwoman code just all the places and all the things so you can get the book anywhere books are sold but

Alisa Vitti: Please do come to the book website to get all of your your free gifts with purchase so that’s in InTheFLOBook.com you can even take an a biological Rhythm evaluation uh quiz there to see how disrupted your if infring Rhythm might be so that’s a really fun tool there you can buy woman code wherever books are sold online you can download the mylow app at MyFLOtracker.com which help which incorporates the cycle syncing method into a period tracking app so that really helps you keep track of what you should be doing when if you’re ready if you’ve been listening and you’re like I just this is what I need I know this is what I need and you want to join a group of women from around the world who are using the cycle syncing method you can do that with us we have a program called flow 28 and so you can you can join us at the CycleSyncingMethod.com sorry CycleSyncingMembership.com and that’s where you’ll get grocery lists meal plans recipes for each of these phases you’ll get workout videos for each of the phases and you’ll have master classes with me monthly it’s a really fun community and we’re all making the transition of living a more infradian oriented lifestyle there so it’s a really Dynamic and interesting conversation as we’re navigating the Circadian environment and then if you are struggling with period issues or any of that and you need help you could come to the flow Living Center at flow living and then on social media you can follow me at flow living

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And at elisa.

Alisa Vitti: Well we will make sure to link all of those places thank you so much for being here Lisa this has been amazing thank you Lisa for having me

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Thank you for listening if you enjoyed Today’s Show please share it with a friend you’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertility friday.com 334 so I know that many of you had your minds blown along with myself after this conversation this is literally what we should all just know this this is the information we should all just know about our bodies all women everyone in a female body should know how this works how the cycle works and how it interplays with everything just to make our lives easier to make everything make sense so that things just click and it doesn’t mean we’re always going to be perfectly living our lives in such a way doing everything you know I’m only going to do certain things in my pre-ovulatory or my postovulatory it doesn’t mean that it has to look like that but it just gives us the the option and the insight for really optimizing Our Lives when we’re ready and even just being aware so that we’re not beating up ourselves even if we did everything the same but just had this knowledge so that we could just give ourselves a break when we you know we feeling tired or or down or whatever it is instead of feeling like we need to perform and even just recognizing that the world was really designed on this male circadian 24-hour cycle and our bodies were not all of these pieces of information regardless of how they play out in your day-to-day life are so essential and obviously we should know this and we should have this so thanks again Alisa Vitti for coming on the show this was such a great conversation make sure to grab her book in the flow I mean if you haven’t already it is a great resource so full of useful tangible ways to as much as I kind of hate that word hack it really does Let Us Hack our menstrual cycles I mean if men had menstrual cycles it would be on every billboard and they would all be hacking it and there would be programs of biohacking specifically related to their cycles and be celebrated and this like a big old thing this is why I cited that um if men could menstrate i h shared a portion of that poem by glorious steinm in the fifth Vital sign because it’s true like if men could menstrate actually if if you haven’t read that I’m actually going to read it cuz I feel like it’s appropriate okay so I’m not going to read the whole thing but I am going to read a portion of it because it is relevant so what would happen if suddenly magically men could menstrate and women could not clearly menstruation would become an enviable worthy masculine event men would brag about how long and how much young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood gifts religious ceremonies family dinners and stag parties would Mark the day so I’ll leave it there but so I’m reading that from chapter one of the fifth Vital sign but the point is that men would celebrate this we don’t really do that and not only that we don’t even often think about how our lives could be easier if we understood how our moods and everything shifts until someone brings it to our attention it’s not necessarily something innate that happens unless we’re kind of made aware of it and many women May stumble on it on their own as they get a bit older out of necessity when they really start to notice that these patterns are sickly and and not just random and so with that said you are going to love next week’s episode if you liked this week’s episode because we’re going basically on the same wavelength I’m sharing my interview with Jenny Halbert and in that interview we are talking about exercise as it relates to the menstrual cycle and how to really optimize our approach to exercise in Fitness based on the menstrual cycle it is wild I love talking about these topics and so with that said I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode if you know someone who could benefit from today’s episode make sure to share it you’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertility friday.com 334 and so I hope you have a wonderful week weekend whenever you’re tuning into the show and of course as always until next time be well and happy tring