Cycle Syncing Secrets with Dr. Jen Pfleghaar

Intro to Hormone Heroines and Dr. Jen 0:00

men you know they're kind of like the same every day because their hormones are the same every day so they have this rhythm that is a daily rhythm where we have a monthly rhythm so our hormones are different every day of that month and we can either you know complain about it and um i don't know like be dramatic about it which we see on social media and like you know or even commercials like might all makes it all go away for example you know no like If we are having horrible PMS symptoms, then we need to use those as clues that God gave us that something is wrong.

Because if you're having hard, heavy periods or something wrong with your cycle in your 20s, that's going to look like something else in your 40s and 50s. Do you feel like your hormones have turned against you? Trust us, you're not alone. We're Dr. Serena and Dr. Heidi, and on Hormone Heroines, we explore all the root causes that are behind hormone imbalances, and we teach you how to thrive through them. Join us for real talk, expert tips, and even a few laughs. Hi, and welcome back to Hormone Heroines.

I'm Dr. Heidi. And I'm Dr. Serena. And today we're going to be talking to Dr. Jen Fleger. She is a double board certified physician in emergency and integrative medicine. She earned her medical degree at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, completed her residency at St. Vincent's Mercy Hospital, and fellowship at the Andrew Wales Center for Integrative Medicine. She believes true wellness thrives when body, mind, and spirit are aligned with God's design. Diagnosed with Hajimoto's, she became passionate about autoimmune healing, hormone balance, and root cause medicine.

Dr. Jen co-authored Eat, Sleep, Move, Breathe, serves on the boards of the Invisible Disabilities Association and American Board of Integrated Medicine. Through her practice, Healthy by Dr. Jen. She provides vital care and shares education as our integrative doctor mom.

What Perimenopause Is and Why It Matters 2:00

She lives on a mini farm in Tennessee with her husband and four children. She loves cheering at her kids games, lifting weights, reading scripture, and tending to her chickens. Her newest book, The Perimenopause Reset, was written on a mission to change the health of 500,000 women navigating perimenopause, empowering them with face-based, science-backed strategies to reclaim their energy, clarity, and joy. We are so excited to have you today. Thank you for coming on. Thank you so much. Super excited to have a good discussion.

Yes, thank you for bringing up this very passionate topic. I am in the throes of perimenopause, so I love hearing about everybody else's experiences and what everybody else knows too, because you can always learn. The more I learn, the more I know I need to learn. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just a special time for women, you know? It is. Yeah. And I think the hard thing is we see social media and obviously it's addicting, right? And like, we like to I don't know. We like to complain with people. We like to think things are sad or wallow in it.

And we don't need to, we need to like reclaim that and just have joy, have joy in every season of life. Cause it's all. I feel like it's a very empowering time of life too. At least for me, it's been very empowering trying to figure out my new me. Yeah, I don't know. I see it differently. I see it as like humbling, refinement, sanctification, death to self a little, but that's my personal experience with perimenopause. It has been less about me and more about my family. And with doing that, I feel the best I've ever felt.

So it's been good. So I kind of flipped the script a little bit with perimenopause, putting the faith-based faith-based in, which has really seen hundreds and hundreds of patient perimetropause, without that, they're still lost. Because part of me, functional and integrative medicine is like the new conventional medicine. And I'm like, it's just not working. Because I see people when they've been to so many people, so many doctors, even functional doctors, even integrative doctors, even metropaths, Yeah.

So I put a little bit of a spin on it. Yeah, but it's been great. I love my patients. I love the women. I've met through social media and we're all getting through it and thriving. Yep. Okay. So today we're going to talk about cycle syncing secrets, how to eat, train and thrive in perimenopause. So let's get to it. Okay, first of all, because we have other people listening, not just doctors, can you explain perimenopause and why women need to know about it? Yeah and I think you guys said it right, how you just kind of feel different, you don't feel like yourself and hormones are changing, we're getting older and we're entering to menopause and people have heard of menopause where we have complete cessation of like our ovaries functioning so women are prime to carry babies to have birth and estradiol is an important factor in that plus our other hormones.

And when we don't have any more follicles in our ovaries, then that feedback loop is disrupted and we have menopause. We don't have our cycles anymore, cycles are part of our fertility. It's a vital sign for how well our hormones are balanced and perimenopause is this time leading up. So we're having decreasing progesterone and that is declining. It's just a steady downward slope like a good. Yeah, I mean that is like, we know that is more consistent, but then we have estradiol which is super erratic, like a roller coaster.

So like a sledding hill versus like a roller coaster going up and down as we have these surges. So this is why it makes it kind of complicated and confusing, but it doesn't have to be. The interesting thing, I don't know if you guys have seen this in your practice, is that women are getting these perimenopause symptoms such as, you know, not feeling like themselves, waking, Fatigue, problem sleeping, palpitations, anxiety, you know, the list goes on and on earlier and earlier, younger and younger, right?

Yeah, I had a 29 year old who's actually going through that more of a kind of a premature, premature ovarian failure, but it hasn't failed yet. So she's like already going through perimetapause and it's just, it's kind of crazy. Yeah it's actually been a big trend in our practice lately where we've seen a lot more premature or very earlier which is basically early onset perimenopause. Yeah and I think the harder part is is because they are so young it's not even on the radar when they go to a regular doctor when yeah and you guys said it correctly like we're still learning like I'll always be learning you know it's the problem I've seen is this like pride gets in the way of like conventional

Cycle Syncing Basics and Hormone Phases 7:00

medicine doctors or even Yeah, or even other doctors where they're like, oh, I know it all I'm done Laurie and you're like, no, it's not works. It's continue growing. But they'll go to their doctor and they'll say, you know, I don't feel like myself like maybe I'm a little depressed. Maybe I'm a little anxious. And they're like, oh, like you need to be on antidepressants or they're like, my cycle is just different. It's like shortening. It's unpredictable. They're like, oh, let's go on birth control, which will So this is literally what women are given.

I'm sure you guys have heard this and it's just like, you could almost like guarantee it. It's like, let's put money on what you're going to get if you go to your insurance, conventional doctor. Yeah. So, and the interesting thing is, is I use an oven analogy. I don't know. I like to cook in base. I always use analogies. So I'm all up for more that I can use. So this was great so think like get on your apron or get ready to cook with your kids or whatever but our ovens as women like think of like the oven you know heating up to 350 is menopause like we all preach at different times so if you go to your parents house versus your house we're all different and that's what makes us unique.

So you can't compare, like, I can't compare my menopause journey with yours. Like, we can't do that. So we have to think of it, we're all personalized, we're all different. You can get a little bit of, you know, an idea if you look at parents, if you look at your siblings, you know, when they went through menopause, that is a pretty good predictor. But sometimes we can see that accelerated due to like, I've seen a lot of really stress on the body, either stress due to root cause problems like stealth infections versus just stress of life, put them into early perimenopause or earlier and earlier symptoms of that.

We know that because of imbalance of progesterone and estrogen. The good news is if we recognize that, we can use tools like cycle syncing to regulate it and get our body back on track and more comfortable. So on that note, what exactly is cycle syncing and why should women pay attention to it? Yeah, yeah. So it's so funny because men, you know, they're kind of like the same every day because their hormones are the same every day. So they have this rhythm that is a daily rhythm where we have a monthly rhythm.

So our hormones are different every day of that month. and we can either you know complain about it and I don't know like be dramatic about it which we see on social media and like you know or even commercials like might all makes it all go away for example you know no like if we are having horrible pms symptoms then we need to Use those as clues that God gave us that something is wrong, because if you're having hard, heavy periods or something wrong with your cycle in your 20s, that's going to look like something else in your 40s and 50s, usually a hormone-related cancer.

you know, and it's not it's like we have to pay attention to these symptoms now because it means something. Same with we can use like an example of getting a stomach ache. Like, I used to think that oh, I have an upset stomach, I'm going to take some tums and no, like if someone would have told me that is a That is a sign that something's wrong. Maybe I wouldn't have had Hashimoto's growing up. Maybe someone would have said, hey, your gut's probably inflamed. Let's get to the root cause. Let's fix that.

So our hormones are the same way. We have to really dig into what's going on. Now, part of this, like I said, is an imbalance of progesterone and estrogen, but also it's fighting our cycle. So we have these two parts of the cycle, the follicular phase, which is the first half of the cycle. This is where we have more estrogen compared to progesterone. So estrogen is kind of shining here. And then the second half of the cycle after ovulation, and this is the luteal phase, this is when progesterone should be more predominant and progesterone should shine.

And we have different things that come when that is out of balance too. Yeah, so when we think about getting our body ready to carry a baby, and this is what our cycle was designed for, this is why we have a menstrual cycle and a 28-day cycle versus a man that just has a 24-hour cycle. I think this is also interesting, if men don't know about this, they should probably learn about the menstrual cycle. and work with it with their wife, with their girlfriend, you know, whatever, because... And daughters.

And I think it's a huge, it really needs to be taught to fathers of daughters. Like, they need to be able to understand this. My husband knows everything about the menstrual cycle. We make it like a joke. I'm like, hey, I'm going to be a little bit more emotional because I'm luteal phase, like more sensitive, right? So that second half, that luteal phase, so this is progesterone. So we need to protect the progesterone. We want to decrease stress. We want to just think of like, You know, our body is getting ready for implantation and to hold a baby.

So we don't want to do stressful things. Okay. So the luteal phase, that second half of that cycle, what happens a lot because it's trendy the last few years is fasting. So we have. Oh yeah. Yeah, so we have a woman coming into pairing on a pause and they're gaining weight. So they're freaking out, right? So what are they going to do? How to lose weight fast and what's going to come up like cardio, high intensity interval training, all of that. And recutting all of the fun stuff. Yes, yes. So exactly.

And so they go to Orange Theory or they go to do a HIIT workout. And maybe it works for a couple months, but then they end up gaining weight, right?

Fasting, Blood Sugar, and Eating by Cycle Phase 13:00

But if we do those things in that luteal phase of our cycle, that is going to stress the body out. And that stress can affect our insulin levels, stress is going to have us hold on to weight because our body is like hunkering down. It's going to affect that progesterone too because our body is going to shift to down the hormone cascade to cortisol and the progesterone is going to be depleted. Now, this is like multiplied during perimenopause because remember we have this downhill, this sled hill of progesterone.

Yeah, so we feel that like estrogen dominance is what we call it because it's in the mouth. hormones. Now, now fasting, though, is such a good tool. So what do we do? We can't just like throw it out and say it's not good. No, we can do it in the follicular phase that first half of the cycle. Now, some women, once they start bleeding, they need a couple days, they're like, they feel a little depleted, you know, I usually day three, four, I'm like, let's go. running sprints ready to go. So it just lessen your body a little, but this is where you want to start fasting.

If you want to try keto for two weeks, do keto and then in your luteal phase shift to more carbohydrates or more calories. So this follicular phase is where I tell patients to initiate these things like intermittent fasting. Like a carnivore, like a keto, if we want to do those things. Not during the luteal phase, because I know they're going to fail. They're going to restrict and binge their body. So during that follicular phase, the fasting, it's not going to cause as much of a stress response.

We are more insulin sensitive. during that follicular phase and we're more insulin resistant during the luteal phase. So let's talk about what that means. So insulin sensitive means actually our body during the follicular phase would do okay with carbs. but also more stress resilient here. So this is why I have patients do the fasting, do the more keto. If they're going to cut calories more, like lean down, that's when they're going to do it. If we go to the gluteal phase, we're more insulin resistant.

So it's kind of like, oh, that doesn't make sense, like adding calories. Well, we have more of a calorie demand there. And when I say we're adding carbs, we're not I'm not giving permission to like donuts, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, we're doing healthy carbs. Like this is like when I really like like to snack on popcorn. And sometimes I put like you know, like the protein popcorn powder on there and stuff. But like, we're not like shaming ourselves for eating carbs or calories, which happens so much in our culture.

I've seen continuous glucose monitors where patients have gained weight. I don't have you guys seen that patients gaining weight intermittent? You know how us women are always just pushing through it, and then when we go to find help, we're often not taken seriously or told, oh, that's just part of being a woman. Yeah, we've lived through it, prioritizing everybody else and then our own health falls to the wayside. That's why we started blossoming longevity. by women or women. We created programs that meet women where they are, addressing the root causes and all of the struggles that come with every stage of life.

Like our vitality program, it reconnects you with your youth and your life so that you can thrive through the years. And with Clarity, we go beyond the skin to restore your health, clear your complexion so you can feel radiant from the inside out. With our silhouette program, we help you reclaim your strength, optimize your metabolism and your body composition so that you can feel great in your body again. And with Harmony, we help you rebalance your hormones to heal from within so you can feel vibrant and ready to take on the world.

That is why it's time to stop saddling and start flourishing. Visit blossominglongevity.com today. Yes. I love intermittent fasting. I was not a breakfast person and I liked having just that eating window. And of course I grew up in the eighties and nineties. So everything was calories in calories out. Carbohydrates are bad. Like fat is that, you know, all that. I know that's not true now, but that's always like in the back of my mind. Um, but I've always loved intermittent fasting. And then when I started going in deeper into perimenopause, it worked for a while.

Um, but when I started going deeper into perimenopause, it did not work at all. like at all. My body did not like it. It completely rejected it. Yeah and I have a similar experience where I like I had an eating disorder growing up and like it got to the point where I just like I didn't lose any more weight because I was in such a calorie deficit my body was just hanging on to it. So I like learned that I like that wasn't going to work for my body just through that experience even before I got to We're getting to that next phase in my life.

Yeah. Yeah. And with women, it's very emotional. Like eating is, there's a lot of women that have. eating you know not maybe not even eating disorders but like have that thing where sometimes they do binge or emotionally eat and stuff and and it's more tied to women than men we see so what i love about disorders eating than eating disorder yes and we even see that like in the health world right like i'll like bowl like oh you have to eliminate everything from your diet who's bad or you know and I'm like well they're so stressed out that their gut health is is messed up because of that right like so what if out everything that irritates the gut so yeah we need to bring it back in balance so I had a patient that was gained weight intermittent fasting so we put a continuous glucose monitor on her she was actually menopausal and she was spiking every morning a big a big glucose which is insulin cortisol spike Put her on meals a day with the morning meal, you know, having a lot of protein and healthy fats and she dropped a couple dress sizes.

So just just with that. So that that is where when we look at the stress component, you know, we really have mindful of that. And a lot of times our bodies, you know, if we're You know, we might wake up one morning and we're like, oh my goodness, I'm hungry and I'm usually not or, you know, eat like listen to your body eat healthy food. So that luteal phase, it's okay to increase calories. It's okay. If you're doing keto more and you're not doing the refeeding, which I think is a good idea to. to change things up, you could just increase fats if you wanted to.

So I do have some patients that they're like, I just want to stay keto. But the carbs are going to be healthy carbs. Okay, and we're going to try to eat the carbs, you know, at the end of the meal. We're also going to wear a continuous glucose monitor and see, balance your blood sugar. You can eat lots of fiber and some carbs with a meal and still have a flattened curve. We don't want these big spikes. It's hard because women, we just really don't tolerate carbs as we age as well, but we still want to balance that with our hormones and how they work.

We still need them to keep our muscle too. People also don't understand that in perimenopause and menopause, you lose a lot of muscle. It's harder to build it, and you have to feed your body to build it. Otherwise, it's going to take it from your muscle. Yeah, so after age 40, we lose like one to two percent of our muscle mass as we go on. And the big scare with this is that everyone is getting on, you know, a GLP one shot. And that's accelerating muscle loss if they aren't eating protein, if they're not lifting weights.

So that's really hard to see because these women are going to have a really hard time building muscle if they just lose it to just be safe. So muscle is also going to be a buffer for that luteal phase and eating some of those carbs. So I've noticed personally, like I have such a buffer with like eating right now because I have more muscle mass. So, you know, it's a nice buffer for shuttling that glucose floating around the body. into the muscle and it helps with that insulin resistance, which leads to diabetes, which we don't want.

So muscle is really important. So another part of that is like working out. So we talked a little bit before about like the HIIT workouts and stuff. So should women, should we just lift all the time and not do any cardio? Well, that is a question and digging into the research, we do want aerobic capability and capacity and VO2 max is consistent with longevity and aging. So when we would want to do those, you could do the HIIT workout, you can do the sprints. I do sprints, I do 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off for 10 minutes.

Exercise, Muscle, and Training in Perimenopause 22:00

We do that in the follicular phase. So remember, in that follicular phase, our body is more resistant to stress, can handle it a little bit more. So build that in your cycle. And I don't know about you guys, but when you're in that second half of your cycle, you don't want to run sprints. you don't. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's like, yeah, no, I'm hungry and tired. Yeah. Yes. Kind of going off of that a little bit. Can you really quickly before we go back to exercise, can you kind of explain in in each phase, there's different fluctuations of the hormones, right?

But how does that affect women's moods and fatigue and energy levels all over and like even metabolism because I think people really don't understand like yeah you can say do these things at these times but I don't think they really understand why we're saying that. Yeah. So I'll keep it like simple, just follicular and luteal because there is like a menstrual phase where, like I said, those first couple of days of bleeding, you might feel a little bit low energy, but the follicular phase, that's when estradiol is kind of the queen bee.

She's doing great and we're getting more energy. Okay, ovulation is the best time to do like a photo shoot, we're glowing, we get a little bump in our testosterone, because, you know, it's kind of like my turkey that I have, like he prances around looks pretty, right? Like, yeah, that's, that's For mating, our hormones are all around procreation, taking dominion over the earth. This is what it's about, right? So it's nice because you can plan things sometimes based on that. But if not, it's no big deal either.

So then that luteal phase, that's when progesterone is more predominant. And that's when we're hunkering down. And we're not maybe as motivated for projects, but we might be a little bit more creative. Same with around ovulation. and we are getting ready to be pregnant, to have that implantation, and then it starts all over again. Progesterone calms things down because we're ready to go. We're doing all the things and progesterone is like, hey, let's just relax and chill out a little bit. It's good to give yourself grace.

I think that's the biggest thing is that we don't need to operate on the same high-level performance all the time. We really don't. And I don't know, I'm a recovering Type A personality, so I definitely was terrible at it. Yeah, me too. We both are Type A. Yeah, I always say I'm a recovering Type A. It's funny because we just moved to Tennessee last February, or like nine months ago, and people don't know how Type A I used to be. It's gotten better with every kid. I've gotten more and more relaxed.

Yeah, I have four kids too. you're kind of a little bit OCD almost with the first one and then it just kind of trails off because you can't you learn you can't control anything. It's very it's very humbling to know yes control so yeah that is a big part of me that I had to release so that's great so um back to like the the muscle and the working out so first half of that cycle that follicular phase so you're gonna feel like excited to run sprints to do HIIT workouts like you're gonna be crushing it at the gym, you're going to hit PRs, we're going to lift heavy.

So lifting, lifting, lifting. Women need to lift throughout their cycle, but this is when you're going to lift heavy. Put an extra 45 pounds on the leg squat. or I you know you can warm up and see how you feel but this is where you're going to really push it and your body is going to be okay with that there's not going to be any negative consequences to this okay um and you can still like go on your walks and stuff for extra that's fine but this is when you're gonna you know push the sprints like I said vo2 max is important and really having that aerobic capability.

This is so important too. Side note, we recently got some mini cows and my heifer escaped and I had to sprint after her and I was like, I'm so glad I'm in my follicular phase. If I was in my luteal phase, I would have missed her. I know, well, I'm like, or I would have been like, that would have been so stressful in my body, I'll probably get like a shortened cycle, right? Because that's one of the signs of restaurant being delinquent deficient, and that estrogen and balance is shortened cycles.

So we're 28 should be the goal 272829 should be the goal. But then we kept going, you know, 2624. So that shortening cycle that we don't want that. So anyway, it was funny because I was like, this is why I stay in shape. This is why I don't just lift. This is why I do run sprints on the treadmill. I know sprints are very good for women. So anyway, pretty funny. But she's fine now. It's like a whole thing. Yeah, so then when we hit ovulation and that luteal phase, this is where we are more prone to injury.

So we talked about the cortisol and the stress with fasting and the HIIT workouts with fasting that can overload our cortisol and then have negative consequences. We are also more likely to get injured and they've done studies on these football, which is soccer, you know, abroad. in England and they had more injuries during their luteal phase. So we are going to get more injured. And I don't know if this has happened to you guys, but some days I'll be in my luteal phase and I'll feel real good. And I'm like, I'm going to go like, heavy on the weight still and then I like tweak my back.

I mean that's happened to me with squats so many times. I'm like I feel great and I and I didn't pay attention or I pushed past because my type A personality pushed past what my physiologic you know what's going on physiologically with my hormones and then I got a little injury tweak. So still do weights but don't do don't go for PR's like don't like no like take a gap. Here's what the person in the gym thinks of you, and they're like, well, they're not lifting. No, do more reps, honor your cycle, and don't get hurt, because if you're hurt, then you're out for a while.

And you'll be hurt past your follicular phase, because it takes us longer to heal. Well, yes, yes, and no, yeah, but well, there's peptides to help healing and stuff. Yes, true. So what we want to do is just be more mindful of the cycle. So what do we do instead? So we still lift, okay, but not as heavy, maybe more reps, okay, but we're still activating that muscle, we're still eating protein, we're still taking our creatine, all of that. We can do walks with the weighted vest, you know, everyone likes that.

There's a study also on the, they looked at people walking on the treadmill for fat burning and it was three miles per hour at a 12% grade for 30 minutes. And it was a really good energy expenditure balance versus fat loss. So you could do that. You could do an incline walk. Getting out in nature is always great. You could do mobility exercises where you're stretching during that luteal phase and doing like active recovery. So there's still so much we can do, so much movement. That way we're not getting hurt and we are not stressing out our body.

had a patient that this is, okay, one of the worst things you can do in perimenopause. This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I'm sorry. is run a marathon impairing menopause. When I see someone doing that, I like cringe and I'm like, and like, we know it's not good. But then I actually had a patient that messed up her hormones for well, it took like six months for them to recover and gain 20 pounds. When she crossed that marathon finish, she was 20 pounds heavier and she trained for a marathon.

Yeah. So, but that goes back to everything we just learned about. You know, we're affecting cortisol. Cortisol is going to have you hang onto that belly fat. It's going to disrupt your hormones. It's going to make you feel more perimenopausal because that hormone balance is off. There could be a way to train for something that you really want to do if you just utilize it with your cycle syncing, do your heavy training, all the long stuff in that, you know, follicular phase, luteal phase, do more recovery type workouts, maybe what tempo runs or whatever.

I used to run half marathons. Not, not anymore. um just well yeah now i'm just like no like i'm good yeah telling your own advice yes right so so there are ways to tweak it and you could also tweak your calories now say you do want to run a 5k or something and you're like well i looked at my cycle and i'm in my luteal phase the day of the race your body

Stress, Recovery, and Hormone Support Strategies 31:00

is resilient this isn't meant to be like a scare tactic or you know you can't do something every once in a while in the wrong part of your cycle. It doesn't work like that. Our bodies are super resilient. It's just the day in and day out. We want to be more aware of what our hormones are doing to complement it and just to support. A lot of the cycle thinking is being more intuitive to your body and really listening to your body, which I think can be really hard in today's day and age because we're generally told to like always push through it and push past everything to just like get things done or get to the next thing.

Especially as moms and working moms. Yeah. Yeah. But we talked a lot about how to like biohack our cycle with strength training, exercise, as well as eating. Is there any other like biohack tips that you have that can help us improve like our blood sugar, fat loss, and overall hormonal health besides the things we already covered? Yeah, I definitely, if you haven't worn a continuous glucose monitor, I would recommend wearing that for a full cycle and just seeing if there are certain triggers that happen or certain foods that you just can't eat that snack while you're in the car.

You have to eat protein and fat before it. So I think that can be really helpful. The other thing is coffee too. I know we all like our coffee and caffeine. Caffeine by itself can be a cortisol stressor or a trigger. So I talked about this in the book because I really dove into the studies with this. And if you're having just coffee on an empty stomach without anything else, like black coffee, yes, you probably just want to have decaf. But if you want to have caffeine, you can put some fat in there or like amino acids or something to kind of like buffer it.

And it's not just like a shock like to the adrenal system. So that is really helpful because I know everyone loves their coffee. And this is where if you were a continuous glucose monitor, you'd be able to see how it affects you. So I think that is really helpful. And then, you know, all parts of the cycle, I think you touched on it that We, you know, if we're working mothers, if we're stay-at-home mothers, which is hard to, you know, we have aging parents, we have all these things that we do really give ourselves some grace that we are spending time, you know, reading the Bible, doing breath work, doing meditation, doing all that to really get in that parasympathetic space because that is another thing that We could do everything perfect, be on every peptide, eat perfect, work out perfect.

Everything is great. But then, you know, we are just still like at this unrest and we don't have peace and we're living in the fight or flight or the sympathetic system. And we need to have that parasympathetic, that rest or digest. And I think this is a big part of why there are so many fertility problems now. We are just. constantly like on phones notifications all of it and if you start being more aware of like how do I feel after I watch the news or even watch TV or you know on your phone versus what it you know when I'm in community when I'm at church when I'm doing that kind of stuff like just feel the difference for me it's been very interesting taking care of animals.

And I'm sure you guys heard the guinea fowls and the roosters in the back. Yeah, it's okay. I have chickens too. So yeah, well, just like when you're in that, you know, when you are in nature, like that your body feels safe. It's back in that parasympathetic. And that is how we get a lot of healing. You can get a vagal nerve stimulator. I use that every night before bed. But really, we just have to be aware of what our body like that we're overstimulated all the time. And I've had to have a lot of her conversations with patients about that, that like, look like you just can't take a supplement like a pill, you know, we really have to get to like, Why do you have trauma?

What's going on with your limbic system? And that's going to also help that transition from perimenopause to menopause. Speaking of supplements and medications, once we are doing all these other things, we can do things to help increase the progesterone during that luteal phase. So early perimenopause, chase treeberry or vitex is really helpful. So that helps our body produce like a little boost to its own progesterone during that moodial phase. But then if we're in late perimenopause or I'm looking at the lab work and I'm like, yeah, your progesterone is really low.

Yes, we're working on the cortisol. We're working on the estrogen detox. We're working on all the other things, but I'm like, hey, like we're going to get some progesterone, some bioidentical progesterone in here in the mints during that luteal phase. And that I'm sure you guys have seen it. That has been like life changing for women. Yes, it has. We've had lots of patients tell us that hormones have changed their lives. Progestin does feel like that miracle, like miracle hormone when you get it back.

That is, yeah. And we want to test, not guess. You know, I have switched, most of my perimenopausal women are on oral. Progestin helps with the sleep. You can do topical too. Even younger women, if you have younger women listening, if their cycle is out of wax and their doctor is like, oh, you can only do birth control. That's the only option we have to regulate your period. Well, no, they can also have a luteal phase progesterone. I usually do top on my younger patients. And that has saved so many of them from going on birth control from heavy bleeding or PMS or whatever.

the excuses to use off-label birth control as regulating period, because that is off-label for birth control, by the way. Right. Yeah. We see that all the time. We have people come to us all the time on it, and we switch them to bioidentical. Especially like PCOS cases and then they're usually just so low in progesterone and then you get them on the progesterone and they feel so much better and they suddenly have more regular cycles and they just do better. Bodies like, oh, thank you. I wasn't deficient in conjugated equine estrogen, which is toxic.

Yeah. It's really hard because if you look at the messaging out there and what's in our face, it's pharmaceutical, pharmaceutical. Even now, if we're seeing, have you guys seen the campaign of Let Me See Your Patch and the estradiol patch for women in menopause? And I'm like, do you know what's in that patch? It's actually petroleum-based products. So your body, you're getting with your estradiol, which is bioidentical, yes, that is a step in the right direction. But that patch, the adhesives and the delivery system is made from petroleum, which is an endocrine disruptor.

So we also need to use discernment when we're seeing the loudest and the most, you know, the biggest faces out there in perimenopause or menopause and see if they are pushing something that is not healthy. You know, wolves in sheep clothing, this is not new concepts. But anyway, I wanted to bring that up because I went down a rabbit hole on petroleum and why it's pushed and why the byproducts are pushed. And that is a tin hat. That is another time. That is a story for another time. Well, for this time, yeah.

Do you have any cool texts or apps or stuff that women can actually use in perimenopause to kind of cycle track and sync their cycle correctly like you were telling them to do? There's not one yet. That's actually one of my projects that I have. I mean, I just use a generic one, which I hate because it gives me all these weird suggestions and articles. And I'm like, is this what we, is this what women are seeing? This is like, so I just usually, I just like, like posting ghost, which I do on social media sometimes when it gets heavy, you know, I just post it and go.

So, but definitely make sure you're tracking your cycle and noticing really subtle things. If you are early one month, you know, look back and say, was I more stressed? What happened here? And we saw that with the pandemic, when people would get sick, it would mess up their cycle. I know When I moved because I hadn't had like moving is one of the stress most stressful things you could do my cycle was jacked. I think I had like 14 day cycle and I got and I started bleeding. I really was stressed.

I'm like, ah, so there are things there are moments that You might get off track, but it's okay.

Progesterone, Tracking, and Practical Cycle Syncing 40:00

It's all about recovering, working with someone that knows hormones that can walk you through that. Like, well, why did you have a 24-day cycle and you were doing so well? Let's stay on track. And we also have to know that perimenopause, you will start when you get later and later in perimenopause, you will have wacky cycles. You, it will be, it might be kind of wild. So don't get frustrated. And like I said, you have to work with someone that knows that how they can use that progesterone to get you through to menopause.

Then when you could be on full bioidentical hormones and do it. Yeah. So then kind of as a wrap up, like what would a perfect cycle sync week look like for a woman? Oh, yes. That's a great question. Okay. So let's just do a follicular phase week and then alludial phase week. So follicular phase week, you know, you would get up and you could do a fasted workout because your body could do okay with this if you wanted to you know you could run sprints sometimes I usually do like a leg day and then sprints to like burn out the quads you're doing great you're in ketosis have your creatine um and then you can you know eat eat later like around noon or something, have some fat and protein.

Maybe you're doing carnivore for a few days or more keto because you're trying to lean down. You know your body is going to do well with this. You're in keto. You're very sharp. You're doing great. You're getting tasks done. You feel very motivated. Your immune system is prime because you're in your follicular phase. Then we move into luteal phase. wake up, maybe do some mobility workout depending on what time, have some coffee with cream or coffee with ketones or butter or MCT oil and amino acids, have some eggs, have some bacon if you want to have you know, something with some carbs, like some sweet potato, how you can, but you can also just eat like lots of fat.

Um, so you've done your workout, you've done everything else. Um, then plan your lunch and dinner, make sure you're still, you know, eating three meals a day. You're, you're not snacking all day. You're not just eating chocolate all day, but you're, yeah. Um, You know, maybe it's luteal phase and you know, you have a bunch of friends that are going out and maybe you're just like, Hey, can we all just meet at someone's house and just hang out, you know, and talk and be in community there. Um, you know, you're making sure you're getting in your sleep during luteal phase.

You might be taking that progesterone before bed, maybe a little extra magnesium because your body needs it. Um, this is a time in luteal phase because of estradiol. getting lower and the change in the hormones and because our body is preparing to maybe have an implant and have something that is not all our DNA in there, our immune system is a little more suppressed. So the worst thing you could do in your luteal phase is You know, eat a bunch of sugar, which suppresses our immune system, right?

And be like, oh, I got the green card for luteal phase. I'm just going to go and eat a bunch of candy. No, because then that's going to have other consequences. So we want to have smart, healthy carbs, things that aren't bumping our blood sugar and our insulin really high. Um, so, so also keep in mind that that is that luteal phase that you just, you don't want to be in bed sick, you know, you don't want to, to feel worse. So make sure you're not staying up late and binging on TV, make sure you're going to bed and still being smart about things.

So I would say that's kind of like the perfect balance. Um, you know, if life isn't throwing crazy things at you, then that would look like a good, good, good days in those cycles. Yeah, perfect. Okay. Well, great. I just want to say thank you so much for coming on our show today. We really, really appreciate it. It's been very interesting and I love it. Any last bit of words for our listeners? Like, where can they find you? What books do you have available for them? You know, anything you want to say.

Yeah. Yeah. Kind of the hub is healthy by Dr. Jen and I'm on Instagram and YouTube at integrative Dr. Mom, integrative DR Mom. So the book just came out a few months ago, the perimenopause reset. It kind of has everything in there. I kind of wanted to have something over the last decade of practicing integrative medicine, just something that I could offer to women to get started and If you follow everything in there, I mean, you're going to almost get there. You might need someone to niche down your supplements a little bit or to prescribe progesterone, but it's really going to help women out there.

And it is faith-based. You know, I think that having peace in perimenopause is so important too, because we can be more easily triggered and we can be attacked more spiritually. And I do that a lot with women is like, you're down and the devil is just waiting there, you know, like a like a lion ready to pounce. And, and I think just letting women know that we We can through prayer and through, you know, reading the Bible and having friends that are praying for us that we can get through perimenopause and it can be great.

It can be such a great time. So, but I really appreciate you Dr. Heidi and Dr. Serena and it's been such a great time. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. And that has been another episode of Hormone Heroines. If this has resonated with you, please share it with someone who you think also needs to hear it. And we'll see you next week. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thanks for watching Hormone Heroines. If this episode spoke to you, follow the show and share it with someone who also needs to hear it. And write a review.

That helps more people find their way back to balance. See you next week.