Have you experimented with every diet & trend raved about on instagram? Drinking your vegetables, living off uncooked foods or eliminating anything that looks like bread? Have you injured yourself trying to keep up with the latest high intensity workouts & bullied yourself into sweating when your body was begging you to skip cardio day?
Well, here’s some good news. The secret to finally reaching your goals & seeing the results you’ve desired for years is simple. LISTEN TO YOUR BODY! The way to do this is through tuning in to your cyclical female rhythm. Working in unison with your hormones will lead to faster results with less overall energy exerted. It’s about WHEN to do WHAT, not about how often or how intensely you can do it.
I’ve always been a relatively health conscious person, but I’d have the same internal discussion every year around this time. “This is the year I will build my strongest, healthiest body!” Just in time for the Summer beach season. But every year, I’d come up short. I’d start out strong on an exercise schedule & eat what I believed to be really healthy. Smoothies for breakfast, salads for lunch & a bag full of work out clothes to change into after work. Then my routine would start to fall apart, life would go on & Summer would arrive. I’d still feel & look the exact same way I did several months before. It felt like I was constantly walking up a hill, never to reach the top, sometimes being pushed further down, sometimes making headway, but regardless, never making it to the top.
Side note: I was on the hormonal birth control pill for 10 years up until last Fall. This little pill was a giant shield, blocking me from my natural female rhythm. I wasn’t aware of this at the time, but the pill was one of the main reasons I was stuck on a hill with no tools to climb up.
Once I came off the pill, I started to feel differently. I started to pay attention to my emotions more as they were varied each day, something I had not experienced in a long time. It was an odd sensation for someone who’d been living her life in a linear, male rhythm for 10 years. Once I started paying attention, I could notice the subtle signs my body was sending, “It’s time to slow down, you’re about to bleed & shed all that is not serving you.” “You’re hormones are rising & so is your energy, so run, jump, dance, move & do it all.” Clear signs & directions were being sent. All I had to do was listen & work with them, not against them.
We have been directed away from our natural rhythm in today’s society. We are taught to look outside ourselves for the answers. Listen to your doctor, follow a friend, get a certification before you can help others. The real truth is that we have the answers we are looking for. Our bodies hold so much wisdom, we just haven’t been taught how to use our most important, self-sustaining resource. Our bodies work differently than men’s & since we live in a masculine dominant world, where scientific research is mostly performed on men, it’s no wonder we aren’t seeing results from our structured & intense health/exercise routines.
It’s time to reorganize the way we view our schedules. Time is cyclical for women. Once you can adjust your routine, focused on weekly changes in diet & exercise, you will begin to help your body process the world. We’ve been working so hard trying to hammer a bunch of square pegs into round holes. The work gets so much easier when you just start using round pegs.
Aside from diet & exercise, your mental health & emotional digestion is also a key component to reaching your healthiest body. This again, can be worked on through harmonizing with your cyclical rhythm. Each month we are asked to release stored emotions & spend time with ourselves clearing out our internal world. This happens in our Autumn to Winter (end of Luteal phase into Menstruation). We must clear out what isn’t serving us to make room for the new. If we don’t prioritize this release, then emotions get compounded. This causes internal turmoil & added stress, and we all know how stress is debilitating when trying to make any progress in life.
Below is a simple guide for Harmonizing your routine with your cyclical Rhythm:
Winter: (Menstruation)
- Slow down, rest & limit exercise to walking, light yoga or gentle movement.
- Eat warm, nourishing foods. You are losing blood from your body so try incorporating foods that are blood tonics & packed with nutrients.
- People don’t give enough credit to bleeding. Our bodies are doing a lot of work at this time internally so it’s natural to rest externally. This is not weakness, this is the necessary counterpart to making activity sustainably productive.
- Meditate, journal, & reflect on the past cycle. Think about what you need to let go of, how you’ve grown & changed over the last month & replenish your cup so you are able to tackle everything that comes in the next cycle ahead.
Spring: (Follicular Phase)
- Energy picks up so you can jump into your favorite exercise routines. Run, dance, move your body in any way that speaks to you
- This is a great time to start eating seasonally & locally. Visit your local Farmer’s Market & buy what looks good to you. Cook in a lighter style, not over indulging at this phase.
- New ideas start to bloom from this cleared space you’ve created. Start projects, get active socially & view the world through a bright new lens. There are endless possibilities.
Summer: (Ovulation)
- Hormones & Energy are peaked. Continue to move & exercise to your highest degree, as much & as often as your body directs.
- This is the hottest time according to TCM so raw foods & smoothies (both considered cold) are best eaten at this time. Again, tune in & listen to what your body is craving (I don’t mean fries, although sometimes you do need fries).
- Get out there. We are our most social & attractive in all aspects at this time. Be the highest & brightest version of yourself & don’t hold back. Let it all out & you’ll see that the world has been waiting for you.
Autumn: (Luteal Phase)
- This is a phase that I feel changes for me each month so really tune in & adjust accordingly. Sometimes I’m still active, spilling my Summer vibes into this phase, staying energetic & moving. Sometimes, I slow down sooner & head into an early Winter vibe. Move your body the way it’s asking you to. The key is to not force yourself to work out at this time if your body is telling you to slow down, as this actually turns on fat storage and muscle wasting.
- Here our metabolism speeds up but we also require a higher caloric intake. So eat until you’re full & don’t judge yourself if that is more food than last week. Go for the nourishing heavier foods like sweet potatoes.
- This is the biggest time of the month emotionally. People call it PMS but it is not a syndrome, we are Powerful Mother Spirits. Your emotions are rational, they stem from something that has happened to you in this cycle or maybe in the past. Your body sends the emotions back up your way so you can have the opportunity to release them & clear out. This is a gift. Don’t judge yourself & don’t belittle your feelings. Let it out & let it go. Take time to be alone to process these feelings, if you don’t your body will find unique ways of driving people away so you no longer have a choice.
With this guide you can begin to tap into your natural ebbs & flows emotionally & physically. Listening is one of the most important qualities on the road to improvement. When systems work together in harmony, results are achieved faster & a whole lot easier than if they work in opposition. I encourage you to try listening a little more every day because once your body starts feeling heard, she is going to show you the way & nothing can stop her!
Happy Healing!