Latest / Nourished Fertility / 3 Unexpected Root Causes of Period Loss + Unpredictable Cycles (+ How to Fix Them)

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3 Unexpected Root Causes of Period Loss + Unpredictable Cycles (+ How to Fix Them) · Nourished Fertility

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Well, welcome back y'all to the Nourishing Women Podcast, your go-to podcast to
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get your peer back and get pregnant.
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I'm your host, Victoria Myers, peer recovery specialist, fertility, dietician,
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and owner of the virtual coaching practice, nourishing M Nutrition, where we
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work together to restore your fertility.
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Now, today, if you are tuning in to listen to this very episode.
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I'm gonna guess one of two things is happening for you that, number one,
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your period is like full on missing.
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It's been missing for months or maybe even years and years, or ever since
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you came off the birth control pill.
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Or number two, you do technically bleed sometimes.
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But your cycles, they're wildly unpredictable.
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You have really long flicker phases.
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Maybe you never get confirmation of ovulation.
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You have short light bleeds, short luteal phases, like your period is a mess.
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There are problematic periods happening, and if you're trying to get pregnant.
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I know how heavy that feels because when your cycle isn't working,
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it feels like your whole dream of becoming a mom is on hold.
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So today I wanna walk you through what I teach inside of my fertility
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trainings and what we really do and how we help our clients.
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The framework and unique methodology that we use in our
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practice, because this is the part.
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I believe no woman with peer loss or unpredictable cycles ever
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gets told, and I wanna fix that.
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Today your missing period, your unpredictable cycles, they are
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not the root of the problem.
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It is a symptom.
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And what we need to do is stop obsessing over the symptom and finally
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treat what's actually causing it.
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So that's what we're gonna talk about in today's episode.
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I'm gonna explain why these root causes shut down your cycle signs
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that you might have these root causes.
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Outside of just pure loss alone.
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And then what it all has to do with the same result, which is some, some amount
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of either hypothermic dysfunction, all the way to hypothermic, Amenia,
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meaning that there is a brain ovary miscommunication and depleted hormones.
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So let's dive in with root cause number one of three that we're gonna address
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today, which is a damaged metabolism.
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So when it comes to damaged metabolism.
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This is like the one of everything.
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Honestly, everything today is something that no one's ever addressing or talking
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to you about or even testing for, but this one is just so interesting to me because.
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Your metabolism is the foundation of every system in the body.
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Your metabolism is essentially how well your body takes raw material from food
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and turns it into energy and listen, I know when it is occasionally talked
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about to talk about metabolism, it's most often a reference to weight loss,
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but that's not what we're doing at all today because metabolic health is
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about so much more beyond just body recomposition or your fat to muscle
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distribution, or again, weight loss.
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It is so important for so many systems in the body.
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It is so important specifically for our conversation today.
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Period.
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Infertility recovery.
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And you know what the problem is when it comes to your metabolic health
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is that your metabolism, your body rather, is metabolically adaptive.
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For better and for worse, your metabolism adjusts the environment is put into.
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So if you've spent years under fueling.
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Restricting living on diet after diet, putting every bite
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you eat into my FitnessPal.
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You're extremely disciplined with how many calories you eat per
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day, how many macros you consume.
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You are the clean eater, right?
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You exercise intense sleeping, and you rarely ever take rest days, or maybe
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even for you, you're bouncing between.
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Yo-yo dieting or restriction and binge eating and all of these scenarios,
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again, your body has adapted.
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Your metabolism has either slowed down, become less efficient, or over time has
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become damaged from the amount of dieting whiplash it's experienced, and what
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happens over time of a slowed or damaged metabolism is that your body, because
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it is metabolically adaptive, learns to survive in the environment it's put into
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your body, starts to conserve energy because it is simply trying to survive.
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And what is the first thing your body is gonna do when it's in survival?
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It's gonna shut down non-essential systems in the body, your reproductive health,
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a k, a, your period, and your fertility.
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And it also affects so much more than just your reproductive health alone.
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But really, unfortunately, if you think about it.
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Pregnancy is not required for survival.
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Pregnancy is not like the thing that's deemed necessary if your body
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is literally under the pretense.
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I am surviving.
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I am in a famine.
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When in survival, your brain is not thinking about things like,
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can I produce a baby right now?
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Can I go to the bathroom daily?
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Instead, it's focused on surviving.
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It's focused on your heart.
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Beating your lungs, breathing your brain's like basic, basic functioning, and just
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basic energy production, fertility.
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Unfortunately, when your metabolism becomes damaged from the years of
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under fueling and over exercising, and yo-yo dieting and disordered
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eating, fertility becomes optional.
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So how might you know if you have a damaged metabolism beyond just
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a missing or an unpredictable cycle or problematic periods?
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Some signs that this may be you when you're experiencing
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this is cold, hands and feet.
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I see that with like every client we work with.
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I also see this all the time, low body temperature, constipation, or slow
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digestion is what 95% of our clients experience when they come to us.
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As well as bloating or indigestion.
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You may be experiencing fatigue or afternoon crashes.
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That feeling as if like I have to have a diet.
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Coke or coffee to survive the day.
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You may have a low resting heart rate and have been told, Hey,
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that's because you're an athlete.
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And while there is some truth to that, it's also because your metabolism has
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slowed down and because your body, again, is metabolically adaptive, it is.
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Surviving off of less a low resting heart rate.
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You may feel like your body gains weight easily if you don't follow
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this very rigid, disciplined approach to your food and exercise.
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And again, of course, your cycle is missing long,
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unpredictable, or problematic.
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So if you're struggling with that or any of the symptoms I just mentioned,
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you may have a damaged metabolism.
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Okay, up next, root cause, number two, depleted nutrients.
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This one's sneaky because so many women don't even realize
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that it's happening to them.
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I know you've probably heard too this idea that you just need to eat more
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to get your peer back and to get it consistent and to restore your fertility.
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But in our practice, something that makes us really different in
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the peer recovery space is that's just not the approach that we take.
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You don't need to just eat more.
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Like I'm not gonna ask you just to eat 30 donuts a day to get your period back.
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I'm just not gonna do it because I know you need to eat more for
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the right foods that support your fertility and you need to replenish
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what's been depleted and what's been depleted is kind of a twofold picture.
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Number one, your body is nutrient depleted because you've been focused so much on
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low calories and counting your macros and being as clean as possible, but really
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what that means is you're just eating like protein, fruits, and vegetables.
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And while there is.
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Of course beneficial nutrients in those foods.
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You do need to eat more than just that to get all the nutrients your body
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really requires for optimal health.
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But for fertility especially, so, and not only are we, you know, really not focused
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on the right type of nutrient focus when we are dieting heavily, but secondly, you
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know, almost all women, I would argue all women with pure loss and unpredictable
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cycles struggling with infertility.
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They have a very stressed lifestyle.
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Like these are very stressed people, so their body's been in a state of stress
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for years and not focused really on getting proper nutrients in the diet.
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And also because of the high stress, you were depleting your nutrients so
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much more rapidly than you realize with every hair tissue mineral analysis
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or HA that we do with our clients.
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We see it so clearly in the picture of how their labs come back.
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Like they are so depleted in the proper nutrients and minerals for
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that test specifically that their body needs again, to thrive, but
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also to have proper fertility.
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So fertility is so much more than just calories.
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It requires key nutrients, and we have to think beyond even.
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Replenishing these nutrients and replenishing from the high stress.
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But we also wanna think beyond just ovulation and hormone production.
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Of course, for our clients, that is the main cause of their infertility.
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But we also wanna think, how do we make the eggs as healthy as possible
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that will eventually potentially become your future baby, right?
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We wanna think of egg quality.
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This is including and really emphasizing of the diet key nutrients like iron.
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Vitamin D, vitamin B12, magnesium, zinc, sodium and potassium, Omega-3,
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fatty acids, folate, and antioxidants like vitamin C and vitamin E. So
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again, if you've been eating in a way that's super low calorie, low
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carb, low fat, that's a big one.
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Highly restricted, this kind of perfect eating.
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But what that really means is that you're eating 1200, 1500 calories a day and
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just focusing on protein in the diet.
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Or even potentially you've cut out food groups in the name
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of health or even fertility.
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Uh, you know, you're not eating gluten, you're not eating
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dairy, you're not eating sugar.
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It is extremely likely that you've not only damaged your metabolism, but
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you've also deprived your body of key nutrients for hormone functioning and
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the material needed to make healthy eggs to create and develop a healthy baby.
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Now, some signs outside of period loss that you might be nutrient
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depleted is that you are frequently sick or experience frequent illness.
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You have slow recovery from your workouts, frequent injuries,
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headaches, or migraines.
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I cannot tell you how often we have clients come to us
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that are like, oh, I just.
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I have headaches.
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I'm like, okay, give two weeks.
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Once we give you back your HTMA protocol, every single
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time their headaches are gone.
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It's incredible.
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That one's one of my favorites because it's always something that
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they never expected to get a positive benefit from, from our work together.
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Um, some other signs is fatigue, poor sleep, anxiety, brittle nails, your hair's
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thinning, or you're losing clumps of hair.
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You may also be having GI issues like constipation, bloating, um, or
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in, you know, instead of kind of the fatigue, you might be wired and tired
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like you cannot rest no matter what.
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You've been told you need to gain weight, stop exercising or do IVF
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to get pregnant with no period.
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What if I told you that's not actually true?
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You're tracking your food, working out, trying everything to be healthy,
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but your period is still missing and now pregnancy, it feels impossible.
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I know exactly how that feels because I've helped hundreds of women get their
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peered back and get pregnant naturally.
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Inside my free training, I'm walking you through the exact five step
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method that's helped women like Lex.
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Lauren and Stephanie restored their fertility in 90 days or less.
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Without extreme weight gain or giving up on movement, you'll learn what's
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really causing your missing period.
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Why food freedom is essential for fertility and the customized approach
11:24
that actually works even if you've tried.
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Everything.
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If your dream is to see two pink clients and hold a baby in your arms,
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this training, it's your first step.
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Click the link in the show notes to watch the free training.
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It's time to restore your period, your fertility, and your hope.
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Now let's get back to today's episode.
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Okay, up next, the third unexpected root cause that we are going to address
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today is nervous system dysfunction.
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Now, this third root cause is one of the most overlooked, and
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honestly one of the biggest missing pieces for high achieving active.
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Women for my people specifically, and y'all, I say this from a
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place of like, I'm in your shoes.
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I'm right there with you.
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To this day, even though it's been 11 years since I've gotten my period
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back, this is the area where I am consistently still focused on improving
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because I have so much work to do here.
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So I'm right there with you.
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So when we're talking about the nervous system, there's actually multiple
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types of nervous systems within your body, but specifically in the
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conversation, whenever you hear someone say like nervous system regulation.
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We're talking about the autonomic nervous system and its control over the two modes.
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Parasympathetic or your rust and digest, or your sympathetic, which
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is your fight or flight mode.
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And a healthy body can move in between both states appropriately, staying in
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rust and digest the majority of the time, but being able to to appropriately when
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warranted, move into fight or flight.
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What happens though when you're under chronic stress, which
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can come from over exercising?
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Under eating perfectionism.
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It can come from anxiety, trying to control or manipulate your body, right?
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Trying to be as small as skinny as possible at all times.
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The pressure to do everything right and to be perfect, the fear of
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weight gain or extreme body distress, like all of those gets your body
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stuck either in fight or flight.
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Again, it's stuck in actually high cortisol output, but what also
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happens over time is your body.
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Your adrenals specifically cannot keep up with that amount of cortisol output.
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So then you become stuck in a state of burnout or freeze because your body is
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now creating too low of cortisol output.
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And again, we see that in our clinical picture of our lab work, specifically
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our stress profile and our HMA also.
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Points to adrenal health with our clients too.
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Either clients are just like producing way too much cortisol or
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they are just completely tanked.
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We see it over and over and over again.
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Now, some signs that you might have nervousness and dysregulation
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again, outside of just period loss or regular periods, or problematic
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periods, because again, with any of these, that is always a given.
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Like if you have that, you have these three root causes no matter what.
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But some other signs might be constant anxiety.
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Irritability, racing thoughts, um, constant perfectionism and people
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pleasing, like I hear all the time, like, well, if I gain weight,
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what are people gonna think of me when I walk into church that day?
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Or when I, my coworkers see me, or what are they gonna think of my eating changes?
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Or, I'm not at the gym with my, um, my friends that I. With, um, it's also
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the feeling of like, I can't relax.
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Like you are constantly fidgeting and doing things even when
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you're at your house, right?
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Like, you can't even let yourself sit down and watch a TV show or read a book.
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Uh, maybe even the feeling of like, you have to earn rest.
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You're using exercise as a coping mechanism, uh, for this extreme
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stress that you constantly feel you're burnt out, but you can't slow down.
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You're wired and tired, and you may be struggling with insomnia and just in
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a chronic state of worry too, not only about everything that's going on in
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your life, but about your period health and your fertility, you may even be
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spending hours and hours researching things kind of in a manic mode, trying
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to figure out what's going on, but.
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Information doesn't really change things, right?
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Like you can research that the sun goes down, but it's not gonna lead to action.
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And action is what changes things.
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Not just learning more and more and more.
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I think information's so valuable.
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Knowledge is power, right?
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But we wanna make sure that we're taking it beyond just knowledge
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and truly implementing many.
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So one thing I wanna say, I kind of at the end of this with.
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F nervous system dysfunction specifically is normalizing that like, hey, like if
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you're type a high achieving active woman, like this is so common you're not alone.
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Again, I know I started off the root cause talking about that, but I
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get that you, you were carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.
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You're trying to do everything right and your body's just responding exactly how
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a body responds under chronic stress, and that's why we must address this and
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really look at your fertility is kind of like a whole body approach to health
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so that you can get your fertility back.
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Yes, the goal is ultimately a positive pregnancy test and
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holding a baby in your arms.
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But again, to achieve that, we've really gotta think beyond just pure
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recovery and how do we truly support your body from a holistic approach.
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So when we are looking at kind of all three of these unexpected
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root causes, a damaged metabolism, depleted nutrients, when we're
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looking at nervous system dysfunction, they all create the same outcome.
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This is why with each of these, I was like, Hey, in all of these scenarios,
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you're gonna likely have a problematic period in their regular period, or
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you are having no period at all.
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Because in all of these situations, when the metabolism is damaged
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and your nutrients are depleted, when your nervous system is.
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Dysfunctioning, your brain stops communicating with your ovaries.
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This is what we call brain ovary miscommunication.
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Your hypothalamus in your brain is the control center.
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Its job is to assess safety, so when the brain senses not enough energy.
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Not enough nutrients, too much stress from under eating and over exercising
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and just simply the way that you live.
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Live It shuts down the entire hormone cascade that leads to ovulation.
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That starts off with your hypothalamus producing G in rh, which then triggers
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in your pituitary K to create F, s, H and lh, which then tells the ovre to mature
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follicles leading to increase in estrogen levels as we increase in estrogen.
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This allows your pituitary gland to release a surge of lh.
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This triggers ovulation.
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After ovulation.
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In your luteal phase, you produce, uh, progesterone levels, which then
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creates a healthy luteal phase.
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It also is what thickens your uterine lining.
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What creates a healthy cycle?
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Because you're bleeding enough and you're having a long enough bleed.
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Again, short light bleeds are problematic too.
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So all of this to be said when your body doesn't feel safe, that entire.
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Hormone cascade gets disrupted, and that's why you are seeing as a
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result of all these unexpected root causes that we discussed today.
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It's why you're seeing an entirely missing period.
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It's why you're seeing irregular cycles.
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It's why you're seeing long folic phases or an ovulatory bleeds.
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It's why you may be experiencing short luteal phases, spotting
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thin, uterine lining, low libido, and boom, what happens next?
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After.
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Kind of this domino effect that happens because of these root causes.
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And then this brain ovary miscommunication is depleted hormones because when
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that brain ovary communication shuts down, hormones drop right estrogen
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drops, progesterone becomes low to non-existent because you're not ovulating.
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But even further than just estrogen, progesterone, or even FSH and
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lh, your thyroid slows down.
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Cortisol becomes dysregulated, and then the symptoms expand beyond
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fertility into your whole body.
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This is why period loss is never just about your period, or certainly
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that's how we approach things at our practice because we want you
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to feel good as you become a mama.
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It's also why depleted hormones are so vital to address, because
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it impacts every area of your life.
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You may not know this, but you actually have estrogen receptors in every cell
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in your body, and that's why when we have low estrogen, because of everything
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that we just discussed and more, it impacts bone health, cholesterol,
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digestion, mood, libido, sleep metabolism, energy, like it affects everything.
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Heart health, like everything becomes effective brain health.
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So.
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The ultimate question here today as we are wrapping up this conversation
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is if these are the root causes, then how do we actually fix 'em?
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Because I think this is where most women get stuck, because again, coming
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back to what I just referenced earlier, information doesn't get you pregnant.
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Action does.
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But most importantly, we need to be taking the right action.
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You probably have taken some action, let alone like all the research and
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all the information you've learned, which again, is great and we wanna
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take it beyond that, beyond even just, you know, taking a few actions.
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Maybe you've added a snack and you've added a rest state in.
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You're eating more healthy fats like avocado.
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But we need to take things beyond that to really understand what the body needs,
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and that's why our clients get such.
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Quick and phenomenal results.
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This is exactly what we do inside of Premier peer recovery for fertility.
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We don't just tell you like eat more and stress less, like,
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no, we repair your metabolism.
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We replenish depleted nutrients.
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We regulate your nervous system.
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We restore brain ovary communication and rebuild healthy hormones so
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that you can ovulate consistently.
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And also have healthy eggs and a healthy body that feels safe enough to
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get pregnant naturally without relying on IVF without giving up all exercise
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or without excessive weight gain.
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With that shared, and this being our first episode of February, this
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is being released on February 3rd.
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I'm so excited to officially announce that our February spots, our
20:48
limited spots inside February four.
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Our Premier program are officially open as of today, so if after listening
20:55
to this episode, you're ready to stop guessing and you want a clear proven
20:59
path to getting your peer back to ovulating regularly, to fixing all of
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these root causes so that you can do a whole body approach to restoring your
21:07
fertility so that you can get pregnant this year, your next step is to apply.
21:14
And you can do so with a link in our show notes.
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Now, if you enjoyed this episode, if this episode resonate with you in any
21:21
way, please take a screenshot of you listening, share it on Instagram, tag me
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and tell me what root cause you feel like you're finally connecting the dots on.
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I'll see you in our next episodes for February.
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We have a really fun one coming in two weeks, kind of talking about some
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connecting dots, a little bit more specifically with your metabolic health.
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And also we're gonna do a bonus episode on YAMH.
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Is not a reliable predictor for women with pure loss, struggling with infertility.
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Until then, know that in nourish bodying is a powerful one.