Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / #HURDLEMOMENT: An Expert Talks Training Based on Menstrual Cycle

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#HURDLEMOMENT: An Expert Talks Training Based on Menstrual Cycle · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: Tracking your minstrel cycle and being able to work with
0:03
Speaker 1: your hormones on an individual level can accelerate your training adaptations,
0:07
Speaker 1: which means then you get fitter faster without over pushing
0:12
Speaker 1: or overreaching.
0:27
Speaker 2: Okay, everybody, Emily Abody here coming to you from the
0:31
Speaker 2: Age Studio. You are listening to hurdle a well on
0:35
Speaker 2: this focused podcast. Reconnect with everyone from your favorite athletes
0:38
Speaker 2: to top experts and industry CEOs about their highest highs,
0:41
Speaker 2: toughest moments, and everything in between. We all go through
0:45
Speaker 2: hurles in life, and my goal through these discussions is
0:48
Speaker 2: to empower you to better navigate yours and move with
0:51
Speaker 2: intention so that you can stride towards your own big
0:54
Speaker 2: potential and of course have some fun along the way. Now,
1:00
Speaker 2: this topic that I'm reading to the feed today is
1:03
Speaker 2: one that has been long re quested from a lot
1:06
Speaker 2: of the hurdlers, but also something that was super relevant
1:09
Speaker 2: to me this week. That is, my friends, the female
1:14
Speaker 2: cycle and training eating how to manage it. You get
1:19
Speaker 2: the gist. I am bringing in the expert of all experts,
1:23
Speaker 2: doctor Stacy Simms, to wrap with me about this. Doctor
1:27
Speaker 2: Stacy Simms is a leading researcher and author who specializes
1:30
Speaker 2: in female physiology. And we are going to be talking
1:35
Speaker 2: about all of the things. How does your menstrual cycle
1:37
Speaker 2: impact your training? Why your recovery is typically better during
1:40
Speaker 2: your period, best practice for training mid flow? Oh my goodness,
1:45
Speaker 2: there's definitely TMI ahead. I am sure. Also, let's talk
1:49
Speaker 2: about cycle sinking, workouts and nutrition. We get into all
1:54
Speaker 2: of that. Doctor Sims is again a super qualified expert.
2:00
Speaker 2: So for so much of this, I, like all of you,
2:03
Speaker 2: was just listening and absorbing information. A huge thank you
2:08
Speaker 2: to my friends at WOOP for connecting me with doctor Simms.
2:12
Speaker 2: She I first discovered her when she was on the
2:14
Speaker 2: WOP podcast. I learned so much I wanted to bring
2:17
Speaker 2: her knowledge here. Whoop is also a sponsor of Hurdle,
2:23
Speaker 2: so if you are interested in getting in on the
2:26
Speaker 2: Whoop gang, I have been using Whoop since April twenty nineteen.
2:31
Speaker 2: Believe it or not, I cannot advocate for it enough.
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Speaker 2: I have a special discount code for you. You can
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Speaker 2: use Hurdle one five at checkout for fifteen percent off
2:40
Speaker 2: any Whoop membership plus a free Loop four point zero strap.
2:45
Speaker 2: Make sure you're following along with Hurdle over at Hurdle
2:47
Speaker 2: podcasts on social media. I am over at Emily a
2:51
Speaker 2: body and with that, let's get to hurdling today. I
3:05
Speaker 2: am sitting down with doctor Stacy Simms. She's a leading
3:09
Speaker 2: researcher and author who specializes in female physiology. How you
3:13
Speaker 2: doing today, doctor.
3:14
Speaker 1: Sims, I'm doing well. How about you?
3:17
Speaker 2: I'm so good. I'm so excited to have you here
3:20
Speaker 2: today because this is a topic female anatomy physiology, how
3:25
Speaker 2: it impacts our training that honestly I have not dove
3:30
Speaker 2: into just yet on the show. And we were connected
3:34
Speaker 2: by our friends at WOOP And after listening to you
3:37
Speaker 2: on the WOP podcast, I was like, well, this is
3:40
Speaker 2: an absolute no brainer for me. Talk to us a
3:42
Speaker 2: little bit before we dive in with the particular questions
3:45
Speaker 2: about what encouraged you to specialize in this area of study.
3:53
Speaker 1: Being a very inquisitive woman or young female athlete and
3:58
Speaker 1: being involved in exercise physiology and undergrad and seeing things
4:05
Speaker 1: that didn't quite make sense where we would be doing
4:08
Speaker 1: labs and they would throw out my data because it
4:11
Speaker 1: didn't quite jive with what the men's data was doing,
4:15
Speaker 1: or asking more specific questions about women in the history
4:18
Speaker 1: of sport when they weren't really profiled, or asking about
4:23
Speaker 1: women and why they tend to be less speed capable
4:28
Speaker 1: and less power, and the question or the answers to
4:32
Speaker 1: my questions were always, well, you know, women are very
4:35
Speaker 1: similar to men or just small men, so we just generalize,
4:38
Speaker 1: or we don't know enough about men to study women,
4:41
Speaker 1: or women have a menstrual cycle, and so they're not
4:44
Speaker 1: really included in sports science or medical research because the
4:48
Speaker 1: hormones kind of affect the results. So as a very
4:51
Speaker 1: inquisitive young undergraduate student, none of that really sat well,
4:56
Speaker 1: and so I started really digging and trying to push
4:59
Speaker 1: and push and push, and so that kind of started
5:02
Speaker 1: to be in my bonnet. But also being an elite
5:05
Speaker 1: athlete trying to get the best out of myself and
5:07
Speaker 1: my teammates and finding that a lot of us were
5:10
Speaker 1: getting overtrained, or we weren't being able to peak well
5:13
Speaker 1: for races, or our strength programming wasn't getting us to
5:17
Speaker 1: the point where we needed to be, and then retrospectively
5:21
Speaker 1: looking back and saying, well, that's because all the protocols
5:23
Speaker 1: were designed for men and applied to us. So there's
5:26
Speaker 1: just been small things throughout the early parts of my
5:29
Speaker 1: career that have made me been really push and been
5:33
Speaker 1: pushing for gosh, I don't want to say how many years.
5:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, to really push, and I mean with good reason, right,
5:40
Speaker 2: you found that this was something that we really needed,
5:44
Speaker 2: We really needed to focus on what was going on
5:48
Speaker 2: with women and the female body. And so for you,
5:51
Speaker 2: as you were pushing, aside from the resistance that you
5:54
Speaker 2: mentioned upfront, what were some of the other hurdles that
5:57
Speaker 2: you encountered along the way in your studies?
6:01
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, there have been so many. I feel like, well,
6:04
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say, I feel like I hope that all
6:06
Speaker 1: the things that I have done have paid the way
6:09
Speaker 1: to make it easier for upcoming academics or upcoming female athletes.
6:14
Speaker 1: Like every step of the way, there's been some kind
6:16
Speaker 1: of issue regards to funding. It's really hard to get
6:20
Speaker 1: sports science funding, and if you start specifically focusing on
6:23
Speaker 1: women with a question, you often don't get the funding
6:28
Speaker 1: because they're like, well, we don't have the basis to
6:31
Speaker 1: understand this in men, why are we going to do
6:33
Speaker 1: it in women? So it's always referring back to the
6:36
Speaker 1: cis male, which tends to be the supposed gold standard,
6:40
Speaker 1: not now, but earlier days. I've been in a room
6:45
Speaker 1: after I've gotten my PhD, presenting to physicians and they
6:50
Speaker 1: would turn to me and be like, well, you're not
6:51
Speaker 1: a real doctor. What do you know because I don't
6:53
Speaker 1: have an MD. So there's so many different discrepancies along
6:58
Speaker 1: the way. When you're trying to talk about the minstrels
7:00
Speaker 1: cycle and talk about how women feel or how they perform.
7:05
Speaker 1: There is pushback even in the research world today, where
7:08
Speaker 1: there are other groups who are headed by people who
7:12
Speaker 1: haven't done specific research on women and say, well, there
7:15
Speaker 1: really is no research to support that minstral cycle phases
7:20
Speaker 1: affect women's performance. And it's like, well, if you look
7:23
Speaker 1: at what you are investigating, no, because the methodology is poor.
7:27
Speaker 1: So I could agree with you there, but we have
7:29
Speaker 1: to redo it to see it if there really is something,
7:32
Speaker 1: because you can't have all of these women across the
7:34
Speaker 1: world with the same similar stories about how they feel
7:37
Speaker 1: across their minstrual cycle and say that there's no effect,
7:40
Speaker 1: especially if it's coming from a man who hasn't done
7:43
Speaker 1: research on women. So there's been these pushbacks every step
7:47
Speaker 1: of the way, even to a peer reviewing a journal
7:51
Speaker 1: article maybe a month ago, and in it they said
7:54
Speaker 1: that they recruited thirty six people for the study, three
7:58
Speaker 1: of them were women. Because there were only three women,
8:01
Speaker 1: they didn't include their data. I was like, you can't
8:03
Speaker 1: do that now, like why were there only three women?
8:07
Speaker 1: Did you not recruit well enough to bring more women
8:09
Speaker 1: into your study? And granted, yes, three women, that's not
8:14
Speaker 1: enough to draw conclusions because it's only three, But you
8:16
Speaker 1: don't throw out their data. You write a case report
8:18
Speaker 1: or you say this is what's happened with three women
8:21
Speaker 1: and you describe it. You don't just say we don't
8:23
Speaker 1: have enough data to do comparisons. Like even now, I'm
8:27
Speaker 1: like twenty twenty two and you're saying this, So yeah,
8:30
Speaker 1: it's still it's still really hard when you are pushing
8:35
Speaker 1: against the cis male idea of the gold standard and
8:39
Speaker 1: trying to get people to understand that that's not the
8:41
Speaker 1: gold standard. And if we look at the history and
8:44
Speaker 1: the cultural evolution of what's been happening within biomedical research
8:49
Speaker 1: and understanding that before we had research and science, women
8:55
Speaker 1: were the ones that were heading up medical and we're
8:59
Speaker 1: heading up the healing until they got pushed out by
9:01
Speaker 1: men saying no, you can't be educated. You are a witch.
9:05
Speaker 1: We're going to burn you at the stake because you
9:07
Speaker 1: know you. So this is Salem witch trials is all
9:11
Speaker 1: looking at women who were using herbal remedies or other
9:14
Speaker 1: methodologies that they had learned down the line to help people,
9:18
Speaker 1: but they were deemed as being witches because the men
9:20
Speaker 1: didn't understand it, or the men didn't seed it as
9:23
Speaker 1: being educational. So like, no, that's not part of the
9:26
Speaker 1: modern aspect that we're doing. So when we look at
9:30
Speaker 1: the history, it's all been through this gendered lens, this
9:33
Speaker 1: male gendered lens. And even now people have a really
9:37
Speaker 1: difficult time understanding of things like protocols for strength training,
9:40
Speaker 1: protocols for testing, protocols for how we eat, how we
9:45
Speaker 1: should be looking at fueling are all based on that
9:48
Speaker 1: male data through that male lens. And until you can
9:51
Speaker 1: actually confront someone and say, hey, wait, we need to
9:54
Speaker 1: look at it from a female environment, from a female lens,
9:57
Speaker 1: they don't get it until someone says something definitively to
10:01
Speaker 1: be like, hey, look, we have to understand that we
10:05
Speaker 1: all don't come from that same male lens. We come
10:08
Speaker 1: from a different experience, a different environment, and we have
10:11
Speaker 1: to look at how that might affect what you're saying
10:13
Speaker 1: or what you're doing.
10:14
Speaker 2: And I feel like we could like sit here and
10:16
Speaker 2: like go back and forth on how messed up like
10:18
Speaker 2: so many of the things that you just said are.
10:22
Speaker 2: But I do I know it's like so easy to
10:24
Speaker 2: be like, oh, this system is so broken, and let's
10:26
Speaker 2: just like sit here and complain about it and like
10:29
Speaker 2: looking for comfort within fellow women.
10:33
Speaker 1: I know.
10:34
Speaker 2: I will say that for another day, and in the
10:36
Speaker 2: meantime we will talk about women and our bodies and
10:41
Speaker 2: specifically our cycles. So I know this is a broad
10:45
Speaker 2: question and I will let you be the one who
10:48
Speaker 2: decides what direction we take it in, but let's start
10:51
Speaker 2: off by talking about our menstrual cycle and how it
10:54
Speaker 2: does impact our training month to month.
10:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, for just a brief review for people who
11:02
Speaker 1: might not be completely aware of what menstrual cycle, we
11:06
Speaker 1: say textbook, it's twenty eight days. Day one is the
11:08
Speaker 1: first day, bleeding, around Day twelve or thirteen is ovulation.
11:12
Speaker 1: After that is a high hormone phase until day twenty eight,
11:15
Speaker 1: which is to last day, and then day one again
11:18
Speaker 1: when you start bleeding. So estrogen progesterone affect every system
11:22
Speaker 1: of the body, and when they are lower in the
11:25
Speaker 1: low hormone phase, this is where we're quote more like men.
11:28
Speaker 1: We can access carphydrate well, our core temperature is lower
11:32
Speaker 1: or more resilient to stress, our immune system is super
11:34
Speaker 1: resilient to stress, and we have the capability of recovering faster.
11:40
Speaker 1: So when we're looking at the low hormone phase, so
11:42
Speaker 1: that's day one and bleeding through ovulation, this is where
11:45
Speaker 1: our body is the most capable of taking on higher loads,
11:49
Speaker 1: recovering from them, and getting really good training adaptations. Around ovulation,
11:53
Speaker 1: some women feel super flat and some women feel bulletproof,
11:57
Speaker 1: depending on how they respond to estrogen. So we can
12:00
Speaker 1: use that timeframe to have another really heavy, hard session
12:05
Speaker 1: because estrogen is anabolic, so you can have really good
12:09
Speaker 1: muscle recovery and tissue building. Then after ovulation estrogen progesterones
12:14
Speaker 1: start to come up, and this is where we see
12:16
Speaker 1: all the changes that make us completely different from men.
12:19
Speaker 1: Where we have a fuel shift where we have less
12:23
Speaker 1: reliance in carbohydrate because we can't really access it from
12:25
Speaker 1: the liver and the muscle because progesteron estrogen work together
12:29
Speaker 1: to conserve it in the liver and the muscle in
12:32
Speaker 1: order to preserve what's coming in and shift it over
12:34
Speaker 1: to the building endometriol lining, because the endometrial lining comes
12:38
Speaker 1: really really thick with glycogen and storage forms of fuel
12:43
Speaker 1: because it is supposed to well. It's being developed to
12:46
Speaker 1: allow an embryo to then develop. So when we look
12:49
Speaker 1: at the fueling mechanisms there, we have more reliance on
12:52
Speaker 1: free fatty acids, so we can't hit intensities very well.
12:56
Speaker 1: Progesterone is catabolic, so we have a harder time building
13:00
Speaker 1: lean mass. We have more of a breakdown. Progesterone also
13:04
Speaker 1: increases our respiratory rate. It increases our arresting heart rate.
13:08
Speaker 1: So our capacity for hitting high intensities is it a
13:11
Speaker 1: little bit dampened because our workload capacity is also a
13:15
Speaker 1: bit shorter. Our core temperature is up, so our heat
13:18
Speaker 1: tolerance is a little bit lower. Our ability to again
13:23
Speaker 1: hit those higher intensities is also a little bit compromised
13:26
Speaker 1: because our increased core temperature. And then we also have
13:30
Speaker 1: the mood factor that comes into play because estrogen, progester
13:33
Speaker 1: and cross blood brain barrier. Estrogen particular affect our NeuroD
13:36
Speaker 1: transmitters and our motivation and our mood, so we start
13:40
Speaker 1: to see a little bit more anxiety, depression and self doubt.
13:44
Speaker 1: And if women aren't tracking what they're doing, and they
13:48
Speaker 1: aren't aware of how these hormones affect us or affect her,
13:52
Speaker 1: then there's always going to be that sense of negative
13:55
Speaker 1: self talk of why didn't I hit my workout today,
13:58
Speaker 1: I didn't recover well, I didn't sleep well too stressed,
14:01
Speaker 1: I'm not fit enough, I'm not gaining any fitness. And
14:04
Speaker 1: when we know that tracking your minstrel cycle and being
14:07
Speaker 1: able to work with your hormones on an individual level
14:11
Speaker 1: can accelerate your training adaptations, which means then you get
14:15
Speaker 1: fitter faster without over pushing or overreaching.
14:19
Speaker 2: Man, I'm so happy that I'm going to be like
14:23
Speaker 2: prime in my cycle come this weekend when I'm supposed
14:28
Speaker 2: to run a half marathon. You'd sweet, sweet, oh my goodness, Well,
14:34
Speaker 2: I mean you mentioned something here. Obviously, the different times
14:37
Speaker 2: of the month where training may not feel as easy
14:40
Speaker 2: for women that are in that time of the month,
14:43
Speaker 2: what advice would you offer to them if they do
14:46
Speaker 2: have hopes or goals or maybe they too are going
14:50
Speaker 2: after some sort of big destination moment.
14:54
Speaker 1: So there's a nuance here where we know that if
14:57
Speaker 1: we're looking at one point in time of an acute
15:00
Speaker 1: per formance. So if you were going to be running
15:01
Speaker 1: your half marathon this weekend and it happened to be
15:04
Speaker 1: like three or four days before your period started, and
15:07
Speaker 1: we know that that's a high hormone phase where you're
15:10
Speaker 1: most compromised from a physiological perspective, you can go out
15:14
Speaker 1: and run that half marathon in pr because the psychological
15:19
Speaker 1: component supersedes a physiological So if you're like, yeah, I'm
15:22
Speaker 1: going to go nail it. I know that I'm in
15:23
Speaker 1: a high hormone phase, but I'm taking more carbohydrate in
15:27
Speaker 1: during my race. I've loaded up on protein of days
15:31
Speaker 1: leading up to it, and I'm making sure that I'm
15:33
Speaker 1: hydrating during my race, then you're going to nail it.
15:36
Speaker 1: Because there's no point in time during the minstrual cycle
15:39
Speaker 1: that there's a negative performance aspect we talk about training.
15:43
Speaker 1: Training is different. It's the chronic repetition for adaptation. So
15:47
Speaker 1: if we're looking at how we use our hormones to
15:50
Speaker 1: train and garner those ergogenic effects of our hormones, this
15:54
Speaker 1: is where we want to do the phase based training.
15:56
Speaker 1: So that we know that we can hit it hard
15:59
Speaker 1: in that low hormone phase because this is when our
16:01
Speaker 1: body's really primed for that. And then we want to
16:05
Speaker 1: look at slowly tapering as we go. So the four
16:08
Speaker 1: or five days before your period starts, this is where
16:11
Speaker 1: we're deloading, where we're working on running technique, we're working
16:14
Speaker 1: on economy of movement, We're looking at mobility, range of motion,
16:20
Speaker 1: skills and drills like really low intensity taking care of yourself.
16:24
Speaker 1: And that's how we're looking at the difference between performance
16:28
Speaker 1: at one point in time that we build up and
16:30
Speaker 1: we're training for and we can nail it at any
16:32
Speaker 1: point in the cycle versus training where we want to
16:36
Speaker 1: harness the aspect of being able to have a wider
16:41
Speaker 1: capacity for workload in the low hormone phase into Yeah,
16:45
Speaker 1: I know my body needs more recovery, especially in a
16:48
Speaker 1: few days leading up to my period.
16:49
Speaker 2: Got it okay? Okay? And then a huge part of
16:52
Speaker 2: this as well would be taking your nutrition into account
16:55
Speaker 2: when you're at the different phases of your cycle. So
16:58
Speaker 2: talk to us a little bit out what we can
17:00
Speaker 2: do there.
17:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the high hormone phase, so that's after ovulation,
17:05
Speaker 1: we have around a twelve to fifteen percent increase in
17:08
Speaker 1: our protein needs. So this is where we really want
17:10
Speaker 1: to make sure that we are eating protein in around
17:13
Speaker 1: our training. We're having a good twenty to thirty grams
17:16
Speaker 1: at every meal just to keep circulating amino acids up.
17:20
Speaker 1: And the reason why we have an increase in the
17:22
Speaker 1: amount of protein that we need is because our body
17:24
Speaker 1: is building that endometrial lining, so it's taking all the
17:27
Speaker 1: building blocks to actually build tissue in that. Also, we
17:32
Speaker 1: can't really carbohydrate load per se in the high hormone phase.
17:37
Speaker 1: We just can't shove it into the liver and the
17:39
Speaker 1: muscle because our body is pushing it over to the
17:42
Speaker 1: endometril lining. To kind of counter that, we want to
17:47
Speaker 1: make sure that we have more carbohydrate available, so we
17:50
Speaker 1: are upping our carbohydrate intake across the day so that
17:53
Speaker 1: we have a higher amount of carbohydrate coming in. And
17:56
Speaker 1: that's okay when women are like about that means more calories.
18:00
Speaker 1: I don't care about calories. Most people shouldn't care so
18:02
Speaker 1: much about calories. We want to talk about the nutrient
18:05
Speaker 1: density of food. But our metabolism is also elevated because
18:10
Speaker 1: it's building tissue, so we need more food. We need
18:14
Speaker 1: more fuel, and the way that we can counter what's
18:17
Speaker 1: going on with regards to inflammation and the changing of
18:20
Speaker 1: the hormones is upping your protein and carbohydrate and taking
18:23
Speaker 1: that high hormone phase and the low hormone phase. This
18:26
Speaker 1: is where you can get away with a little bit
18:28
Speaker 1: less carbohydrate because your body is more resilient to being
18:31
Speaker 1: more metabolically flexible, so it can use carbohydrate, can use
18:34
Speaker 1: fatty acids, It recovers well, so not as much of
18:39
Speaker 1: a paying attention in that low hormone phase as you
18:41
Speaker 1: are on the high hormone phase. But the big rock
18:44
Speaker 1: for everyone is to make sure that you eat enough
18:46
Speaker 1: because there's so many women who are recreationally active that
18:51
Speaker 1: are in a low energy state. They just don't eat
18:54
Speaker 1: enough for what their body needs and their training that
18:57
Speaker 1: they're doing. And it might be that that they are
19:01
Speaker 1: following some kind of fasting protocol or they're too busy
19:04
Speaker 1: and they forget to eat. So there are big holes
19:07
Speaker 1: between food intake, especially after training, and this is when
19:12
Speaker 1: your body starts to perceive you having a low amount
19:16
Speaker 1: of nutrition coming in, so you start conserving a lot
19:19
Speaker 1: and you have a downward spiral of your thyroid. You
19:21
Speaker 1: have a downward spiral of your resting metabolic right and
19:24
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to come out of that. So the
19:27
Speaker 1: big rock there is to make sure you're fueling for
19:31
Speaker 1: your training session and recovering from it so that way
19:34
Speaker 1: your body gets the signals that there's nutrition coming in
19:39
Speaker 1: and it gets the signal to start repairing and rebuilding
19:43
Speaker 1: after your training session instead of delaying and being in
19:46
Speaker 1: that breakdown state. You have food to remind your body. Yep,
19:50
Speaker 1: there's nutrition. Let's rebuild, adapt.
19:52
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21:28
Speaker 2: at Beamorganics dot com slash hurdle. For someone who feels
21:41
Speaker 2: like their period symptoms gout one hundred percent knock them over.
21:43
Speaker 2: They're feeling super sluggish, just blah. Of course they may,
21:48
Speaker 2: and I'm sure that you may advise them of this
21:50
Speaker 2: as well, want to listen to their body and just
21:53
Speaker 2: chill out. But for someone who is like convinced that
21:56
Speaker 2: they've got to get something in, what do you tell them?
22:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, so everyone's different and nuance in their minstual cycles.
22:05
Speaker 1: So that's why you want to track for yourself. And
22:08
Speaker 1: there are quite a few female athletes recreational to lead
22:12
Speaker 1: who have heavy minteal bleeding and severe cramping and nausea
22:16
Speaker 1: and bloating and stuff associated with that transition between high
22:20
Speaker 1: hormone and the bleed phase. And if you have heavy
22:24
Speaker 1: menstrual bleeding, then that's something and gets some medical help
22:26
Speaker 1: with because it's not normal. And we don't really talk
22:28
Speaker 1: about what a normal bleed pattern looks like and what
22:31
Speaker 1: heavy minstrual bleeding is versus normal bleeding. But if you're
22:35
Speaker 1: flat on your back and you can't move because of
22:38
Speaker 1: really bad cramps and heavy bleeding, then that's not normal.
22:42
Speaker 1: If you're someone who's feeling sluggish, bloated, some cramping and
22:46
Speaker 1: feeling like I just can't do anything, what we want
22:50
Speaker 1: to try to encourage is maybe a couple of twenty
22:52
Speaker 1: second bursts of intensity, because with those few twenty second
22:57
Speaker 1: bursts of intensity, you can even be just running up
22:59
Speaker 1: your stairs, just getting that higher elevation of heart rate.
23:03
Speaker 1: That versus of intensity, it releases more growth hormone and
23:07
Speaker 1: anti inflammatory responses. So if we have that, then it
23:11
Speaker 1: counters the cramping and the bloating, and it boosts your mood.
23:15
Speaker 1: So it's not going out for a serious session. It's
23:17
Speaker 1: going out to do just a couple of maybe four
23:20
Speaker 1: or five of these twenty second bursts of intensity. So
23:23
Speaker 1: your body's like great, Okay, now I'm going to reduce
23:27
Speaker 1: my inflammation and I'm going to have the signaling for
23:31
Speaker 1: anabolic capacities, which helps with the whole bleeding. It helps
23:35
Speaker 1: reduce bleeding and reduce cramping. We can also support by
23:39
Speaker 1: increasing our magnesium and our zinc intake because our immune systems,
23:44
Speaker 1: coupled with growing tissue, then releasing the tissue go through
23:48
Speaker 1: a lot of zinc and magnesium, and if we have
23:50
Speaker 1: those on board, that also reduces PMS and the cramping
23:54
Speaker 1: and the bloating associated with the first few days of
23:56
Speaker 1: your period.
23:58
Speaker 2: Got You, Got You. And then something else we haven't
24:00
Speaker 2: touched on just yet is the different phases of our
24:04
Speaker 2: cycle and sleep. So I would love if you could
24:07
Speaker 2: shed a little bit of light on that.
24:11
Speaker 1: Yes, so in our you might notice because our friends
24:14
Speaker 1: at OOP, right, so I'm assuming that you use a
24:17
Speaker 1: loop as well, do Yeah, So if we look at
24:20
Speaker 1: our sleep patterns in the low hormone phase, most of
24:23
Speaker 1: the time it's really easy to get into the green,
24:25
Speaker 1: and we have good sleep quality. We have a lot
24:28
Speaker 1: of slow wave sleep, we have a lot of rem sleep,
24:31
Speaker 1: and our sleep metrics look pretty good. Then after ovulation,
24:35
Speaker 1: or really about the seven or so days before our
24:38
Speaker 1: period starts, it's really, really, really hard to get into
24:42
Speaker 1: the green and we start to see more yellow, maybe
24:44
Speaker 1: some red, And that has to do with an increased
24:48
Speaker 1: autonomic nervous system drive. So we are more in a
24:51
Speaker 1: sympathetic driven state due to progesterone. So if we're in
24:55
Speaker 1: that sympathetic driven state, we have to look at how
24:57
Speaker 1: can we get into more parasympathetic to get into a
25:01
Speaker 1: good sleep pattern. So this is where some mindfulness stuff
25:04
Speaker 1: comes in, where you are really taking care of the
25:08
Speaker 1: idea of good sleep hygiene to your cool room or
25:10
Speaker 1: maybe weighted blanket, whatever works with regards to good sleep hygiene,
25:14
Speaker 1: not eating two hours before bed. And part of it
25:18
Speaker 1: also is not only do we have this increased sympathetic drive,
25:22
Speaker 1: but because we have this elevation and estrogen, it has
25:25
Speaker 1: a play in with melatonin so that we don't produce
25:29
Speaker 1: as much melatonin, so it's harder to get into that
25:33
Speaker 1: deep sleep and progesterone increasing our core temperature. We have
25:38
Speaker 1: a higher baseline resting core temperature, so it's hard to
25:42
Speaker 1: get into that drop in your temperature in order to
25:47
Speaker 1: get into the slow wave sleep. So the way that
25:49
Speaker 1: we can look to counter it is something like cold
25:53
Speaker 1: tart cherry juice within thirty minutes before going to bed.
25:58
Speaker 1: The coldness of the drink drops your core temperature to
26:01
Speaker 1: be able to oscillate below that kind of waking line
26:05
Speaker 1: and you can drift off into a good deep sleep.
26:08
Speaker 1: And then the tart cherry juice works with your body
26:11
Speaker 1: to produce more melatonin because it also contains melatonin, but
26:15
Speaker 1: not using melatonin tablets because melotone and tablets is a
26:18
Speaker 1: big hit of melotonin and it doesn't work with your body.
26:21
Speaker 1: It's it's giving it too much, so then you can
26:24
Speaker 1: wake up feeling hungover or really lethargic. So just looking
26:27
Speaker 1: at some of the more natural ways to work with
26:31
Speaker 1: your body to mitigate what estrogen progesterone.
26:34
Speaker 2: Are doing so interesting, so so interesting, And really, I mean,
26:38
Speaker 2: the last thing that I want to touch on here
26:41
Speaker 2: would be I'm so sure that there are so many
26:43
Speaker 2: women listening to this podcast right now who may not
26:46
Speaker 2: have a quote unquote regular cycle. I mean, I'm certainly
26:49
Speaker 2: one of them, and that I have been told for
26:52
Speaker 2: years that my period coming quote unquote when it wants
26:55
Speaker 2: to is large in part because I'm quote unquote super
26:58
Speaker 2: active and going to many many different obgyns over the years. Literally,
27:04
Speaker 2: I've just been told, well, like, do you feel okay?
27:08
Speaker 2: And for the most part, yeah, I feel fine, But
27:10
Speaker 2: it sucks not knowing when I'm going to like sporadically
27:13
Speaker 2: get my cycle despite being on birth control pills. So anyway,
27:18
Speaker 2: that's just my personal complaint here. But for women that
27:21
Speaker 2: don't have a quote unquote normal cycle, what advice do
27:24
Speaker 2: you offer to them when it comes to losing your
27:28
Speaker 2: period and should we be concerned about getting it back?
27:32
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, there's so much to impact there. First,
27:36
Speaker 1: being on an oral contraceptive pill or birth control does
27:39
Speaker 1: not give you a period, does not give you a
27:42
Speaker 1: cycle that downregulates your natural hormones, and so it's not
27:45
Speaker 1: a true representation of your integrine system. Even the sugarpool
27:50
Speaker 1: week and the bleed that you get with contraception is
27:53
Speaker 1: a withdrawal bleed, so it's really not a true period bleed.
27:57
Speaker 1: If you've had issues before, and you've been put on
27:59
Speaker 1: an SEE because you've had issues of not having a
28:02
Speaker 1: mintual cycle or having irregularities, that problem is still going
28:05
Speaker 1: to be there. If you lose your period, then that
28:09
Speaker 1: is also a clinical problem. And a lot of it,
28:11
Speaker 1: again comes from not eating appropriately. It doesn't mean not
28:15
Speaker 1: eating enough, It means not eating appropriately where you have
28:19
Speaker 1: big holes in your day where you have high stress
28:22
Speaker 1: and low nutrients. Can be again that early morning training
28:26
Speaker 1: and then super busy and not eating breakfast, not eating
28:28
Speaker 1: n till like ten, and then not eating again until
28:31
Speaker 1: two or three, and then having dinner and then going
28:34
Speaker 1: to bed, So you have these big holes where your
28:36
Speaker 1: body's like I don't have enough nutrition coming in. What
28:39
Speaker 1: happens with that is we have two areas in the
28:42
Speaker 1: brain and the hypothalamus specifically that have the expression of
28:47
Speaker 1: kiss peptin neurons. Now, kiss peptin is super important for
28:51
Speaker 1: regulating the integrint system as well as the full function
28:55
Speaker 1: of your minstrual cycle. If you do not have enough
29:00
Speaker 1: carbhydrate and food coming in, it downregulates kispeptin. And if
29:04
Speaker 1: it downregulates kispeptin, we don't get a lutinizing hormone surge.
29:08
Speaker 1: If we don't have a lutinizing hormone seurge, then we
29:11
Speaker 1: won't have ovulation. If you have no ovulation, then you
29:15
Speaker 1: don't have progesterone. And then you start to see this
29:18
Speaker 1: irregular pattern to no periods, and that's a sign that
29:22
Speaker 1: there is significant endocrine dysfunction. What we can do about
29:26
Speaker 1: it if it's early days and you're starting to see
29:29
Speaker 1: really erratic periods where it might common, it might go,
29:32
Speaker 1: might common, it might go is really dialing in that
29:35
Speaker 1: nutrition in and around your training so that you stay
29:38
Speaker 1: out of that catabolic or breakdown state if you have
29:41
Speaker 1: lost your period. This is secondary amin area and it's
29:45
Speaker 1: a significant clinical state and it can be the precursor
29:49
Speaker 1: to full relative energy deficiency in sport. And this is
29:53
Speaker 1: a syndrome where you start having cardiovascular issues, gut, psychological, immiological,
29:59
Speaker 1: just a whole gamut of problems. And you can start
30:02
Speaker 1: to say or see it as my periods are irregular
30:05
Speaker 1: and I'm having a lot of GI distress when I'm exercising,
30:08
Speaker 1: So this is another warning sign that you're just on
30:11
Speaker 1: the cusp of hitting the syndrome. And the long term
30:15
Speaker 1: effect of it is we look at it at our
30:18
Speaker 1: boned and CIDI goes down. We end up with sarcopina,
30:21
Speaker 1: which means that we don't have a lot of really
30:23
Speaker 1: good muscle integrity. We end up with a lot of
30:26
Speaker 1: fat tissue within the muscle, got dysregulation, a lot of
30:32
Speaker 1: cardiovascular problems, so you can see high blood lipids, you
30:36
Speaker 1: can see heart arrhythmia. So it's it's a significant impact
30:40
Speaker 1: on overall health. So for women who don't have periods,
30:44
Speaker 1: please go see somebody like go see an indocronologists who
30:47
Speaker 1: understands it. But also don't let them tell you you
30:50
Speaker 1: have to stop everything, because I work with a lot
30:53
Speaker 1: of professional female athletes who can't stop what they're doing
30:57
Speaker 1: because they're in a contract. So what we do is
30:59
Speaker 1: we look at the delta or the change, so we
31:02
Speaker 1: see how much they're expending in a day when they're
31:06
Speaker 1: eating to support the stress, and we back it down.
31:09
Speaker 1: We go, let's drop volume, let's keep intensity, and the
31:13
Speaker 1: intensity can be through some interval training or can be
31:17
Speaker 1: through resistance training. So we're maintaining fitness levels and we
31:21
Speaker 1: can start to keep building a bit on the fitness,
31:24
Speaker 1: but we've dropped the volume, so energy expenditure is not
31:27
Speaker 1: as high, and we fuel specifically in and around each
31:31
Speaker 1: training session so that their calorie needs are there when
31:36
Speaker 1: their body's under stress. And as the body starts to
31:38
Speaker 1: understand this, kiss peptin turns back on. Kiss peptin turns
31:42
Speaker 1: back on, then you get the lutinizing hormonsurge and periods
31:45
Speaker 1: come back. So it's a little bit of a what
31:49
Speaker 1: is my training? Why are my peers going away? And
31:53
Speaker 1: how can I back down that volume and match my
31:56
Speaker 1: nutrition to support the stress I'm under? And it's not
31:59
Speaker 1: as necessarily the training stress either, it's also life stress.
32:03
Speaker 1: So it's that whole allistic stress compound of when we
32:07
Speaker 1: start to have too much daily stress and training stress
32:10
Speaker 1: and not supporting it with good nutrition, then our integrine
32:13
Speaker 1: system takes a hit. And when we look at it,
32:16
Speaker 1: why it's not as well known, especially in practitioners. Is
32:21
Speaker 1: a threshold for men is so much I guess I
32:25
Speaker 1: shouldn't say lower, but it is with regards to calorie intake,
32:29
Speaker 1: So men need around fifteen calories per kilogram before they
32:33
Speaker 1: start seeing dysfunction, but for women that's thirty five to forty.
32:37
Speaker 1: So in order not to have that dysfunction, we need
32:41
Speaker 1: that thirty five to forty calories per kilogram of body
32:44
Speaker 1: weight just to maintain really good health. And this is
32:48
Speaker 1: where we start seeing all the discrepancies between those trendy
32:51
Speaker 1: diets too, like ketogenic diet, low carb, high fat, intermitte fasting.
32:56
Speaker 1: How they all work on the male population and they
32:58
Speaker 1: don't get into dysfunction and they lean up, they get fitter,
33:01
Speaker 1: they get faster, But for women start to get intocrine dysfunction,
33:05
Speaker 1: putting on weight, fatigue, lethargy, and it's just not working
33:09
Speaker 1: and has to do with this threshold sensitivity in the
33:12
Speaker 1: brain of calorie needs. And how do we support our
33:16
Speaker 1: bodies to really adapt to all the stress we're putting
33:20
Speaker 1: under it. So the long or the short of the
33:23
Speaker 1: long is eat more around your training.
33:27
Speaker 2: Eat very important, very important. Well, so many amazing takeaways here.
33:33
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for your time at doctor Sims. How
33:35
Speaker 2: do the hurdle listeners follow along with you? How do
33:38
Speaker 2: they keep up with you? For more intel? Give us
33:40
Speaker 2: your details.
33:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, so social media, Facebook and Instagram, doctor Stacy Sims,
33:47
Speaker 1: and we're posting lots of tibits of information from puberty
33:51
Speaker 1: all the way to menopause. And postmenopause. And then on
33:55
Speaker 1: my website, doctor stacysims dot com has a list of
33:59
Speaker 1: all the courses that we have going events I'm speaking at,
34:03
Speaker 1: different podcasts, yours profile of course, and all the stuff
34:09
Speaker 1: that I'm up to and publications and stuff that are
34:11
Speaker 1: coming out.
34:13
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I'm over at Emily Body and
34:15
Speaker 2: at Hurdle Podcast Another Hurdle Conquered. Gotch you guys next time.