EPP: Meet Lindsey (Train With Your Cycle, Not Against It)

Ever feel like your body has a mind of its own? Here’s how to navigate your menstrual cycle and performance. This week I had a chance to sit down with Lindsey, owner of Female Fight Nutritionist. She shares her expertise on helping female fighters learn how to optimize training throughout their cycle in order to be stronger on and off the mats. This episode is not just jiujitsu focused, but really any woman looking to improve their athletic ability can learn so much!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi everyone and welcome to Emily's Pojama Party. I'm your host, Emily, and I'm so glad you're here. Each week on Emily's Pajama Party, I sit down and talk to phenomenal folks in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Usually I talk to women, and they share their tips, their tricks, their special little corner, their story, their journey. And I hope you have so much fun listening. Each week is truly a treasure for me. So without further ado, let's jump into the episode. It is no surprise that those that listen to the episodes often will hear me talk about how I love to listen to the shows. So every time I try to embed a little bit of knowledge that future Emily will hear and hopefully remember and take with her to class. So this week, talking about how being in bottom of any position is going to be exhausting if someone's weight is all on top of you. Thinking about my own journey, like being under someone in the mount, it's just like the worst. All that pressure, it's exhausting. And my scary moment is I always think about quicksand. If I'm flat against the mat, I'm stuck. But instead of getting out using an explosive sweep, which like never works, I have to off balance, make them post, then sweep. And I need to rely on the technicalities. Take a minute to make sure they're off balance, otherwise, nothing works. Make them stick out something and react to it to knock them over. I need to remember to be smart because it is possible. And I know blah, blah, blah. The best thing to do is if you don't like something, don't get there in the first place. But inevitably I will. So off balance, make them post, then sweep. And finally, we get to the interview. As a female in the sport, it's important for me to find guests that are going to speak to our needs. As a female athlete, training can be a challenge, especially when you feel like your body is going through different phases during your menstrual cycle. You might feel great one week and exhausted the next. And understanding these fluctuations can be key to maximizing performance. Today on the episode, I was so excited to sit down with Lindsay. She is a nutritionist and a strength coach, and she helps explore the five essential insights on how to train effectively around your menstrual cycle. And I really feel like it's such a tip of the iceberg. She is insightful, she's funny, she's a jujitsu athlete herself. And I learned so many things I'm getting out of my notepad of paper right now because writing down is the best way for me to learn. And as I listen, I'm going to mark all the great nuggets that she says because they are going to make me better, so much better in the long run. So here, meet my friend Lindsay. Lindsay, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate that you're here.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

No problem. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

So, Lindsay, if people didn't know you outside of jujitsu and like the things, how do you describe yourself?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Outside of jujitsu, um I am a nutritionist and strength coach living in Dublin, Ireland. I work with mainly female athletes that have to make weight and weight-based sports. I'm really, really passionate about female athletes, female sport, keeping women in sport and women understanding their bodies and working with them rather than against them, especially in weight class-based, male-dominated combat sports. Um, I am a mom to two kids and a dog, and I have a husband, and we've just bought a house. I own a physical gym in Dublin, a personal training gym with my husband and one of my long-term training partners. Um, so my life revolves around martial arts, lifting weights, my kids, my dogs, and good food.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

So all of that focus on the strength and conditioning and female athletes. Did you grow up athletic? How did you find jujitsu? All of those kind of questions.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, I did. I always was in sport as a child, more as a way to get out of class in school. Whenever a sport was offered that might require leaving the school to go for a race or something, I would I would be down with that. Uh, but I picked up martial arts kind of in my early teens. Uh, striking was kickboxing was my my first love. And I'd done that quite heavily. That dominated my life until my late 20s. Then I I had kind of lost the gro or like fell out of love with it. I had fought all over the world. There wasn't much more getting me excited with it. So I decided I needed a new martial art, but I wanted to be a complete beginner. So I went to jujitsu when I was 29, which was 12 years ago.

unknown 4:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

My mom, I laughed one day. We were talking, she's like, Why do you do all the hard things? It's there's something to be said about really pushing yourself, whether that's like a mental toughness or the physicality of it, or kind of combining the two, that I like the small little gains instead of like the spray of success. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yes, absolutely. I was only speaking to a friend of mine who she's a black belt high-level competitor in jujitsu last week, and we were talking about resilience in people. And sometimes in the real world, when you're had when you're interacting with people, you can see there's no resilience, and you're like, you would have really done well with some jujitsu or some martial arts, teach you how to deal with crap and move on anyway, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Absolutely. And I think the problem solving that comes along with that, and also when you're exhausted and when you are just so spent, all of you, and then you're still having to push through that. That's kind of where the magic happens.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Absolutely, yeah. But that was that's why I loved fighting. I really, really enjoyed uh competing in kickboxing and then boxing MMA jujitsu because it's the only time I feel like I can entirely have to focus on what's happening in front of me. It's like a meditation, it's a very, very active, violent meditation, but a meditation all the same because everything else that's going on doesn't really matter in that moment. You just need to figure out what's what's going on with the person in front of you. And I really like that. And you learn a lot about yourself and your character in those situations.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

That's such a smart way of looking at it because I know when I get into meditation, like ideas come in and I kind of visualize them on a cloud and I just kind of like blow them away. There is really no choice but to be in the mid-present moment when someone's like trying to punch you in the head or joke you, yeah, absolutely. Or joke you, absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. And being a female in a martial art or really any sport, we just come with our own special, unique bag of like physicality. And something that I don't hear a lot talked about is just that piece of energy, performance, and also times of the month and things like that. What did you notice early on that your energy or performance fluctuated? Or have you always been able to kind of push through everything?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Uh well, early on myself in my own fighting career, I thought that because again, I was the only woman in my kickboxing gym, so it was just say nothing, push through, don't draw attention to the fact that you're a woman because you you might not be welcome here. So it was like just get on with it. Um, but also, as most people are, I was put on a contraceptive pill as a teenager, so I was kind of in a state of hormone shutdown, so I had no fluctuations to give me any feedback. Um, I think now all of the damage I'd done to myself to make way for many fights. I believe if I hadn't been on a contraceptive, I would have noticed I probably lost my period. I was probably in red-S syndrome, but we will never know because the contraceptive was uh dulling my hormones. But basically, I noticed the more the more I made weight and the more extreme things I had to do to make weight every time it got harder. The rebound was more, and what I had to do to get the weight off was more and more difficult, and that opened up my curiosity around it. And I was travelling the world with a team of men, male fighters, who literally would just skip dinner and they'd be on weight, or they'd be like, Oh, don't worry, you can sweat off three kilos in the sauna, and a woman can't, you know, sweat that much, and like muscle mass differences. So I became very curious, but at the time there really wasn't that much research. There was some old wrestling research um from high school wrestlers in America, which was great, but again, all done on men. So I started reading up that stuff and self-experimenting on myself for weigh-ins. I had some terrible ones, some great ones, and and then I kind of got to grips with it, and then teammates on the Irish kickboxing team started asking me to help because they could see that I was actually eating food and I was still making weight, and so I just kind of got really curious about that side of things. That drove me then to actually go back to university and do a master's in nutrition so that I could then start actually helping people.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Now, what it's unfortunate, I feel like as a woman, we are not given a ton of information. I feel like, as you've said, you're like, this doesn't feel right, or I want to know more because I can't do what they're doing, so I'm gonna do my own research. And I find now in the days of social media, there is some out there, but really, can you break down the idea of a woman's menstrual cycle? How does that I know it's going to change depending on like teenager, middle age, perimetopause, blah, blah, blah. But kind of an overarching idea for women of what that looks like?

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, like generally, if we just look at say a woman's fertile years is probably the best place to name it. So men have like uh their hormone cycle goes over 24-hour period, it's the same most of the time, you know, whereas women it goes over a month or like a you know, an average they would say is 28 days, but anything from 24 days to 35 days, we consider a normal menstrual cycle. Um, so there are variances very, very woman specific. So at different times of that month, I mean in that early phase when all the sex hormones are low, so the we would consider day one the first day of bleeding, so that's everything resets on day one, your first day of bleeding. The sex hormones are all low, so your energy is also low, your metabolism is a little bit lower here, your recovery is a little bit lower, your fuel utilization, so how your body is using the different foods that you're given it, is a little bit low. So you can feel things can feel harder. And again, I always preface this by saying it's very female, like individual, female specific, and the real power comes in knowing your own cycle. And you and I both might show up to the mats on our day one, and I might feel great, and you might feel terrible, and neither of us is wrong. That's our body and our things. So, some of these things that are going on, some people might notice, some people might notice more, some people might notice less. So, don't wake up and decide I'm gonna be crap today because I'm on day X. You know, just wake up, see how you're feeling, and go from there. But there are things you can do to minimize how you notice those things, and as you move through the month, so that's your follicular phase where your body is preparing to release an egg. So then, as we get up to ramping up to ovulation, this is like my favourite time of the month. I always say the girl that's ovulating is the girl that's gonna win the competition, you know, because that's like what I call the Beyoncé phase. You're feeling great, your testosterone is up, your reaction times are up, your recovery is up, your metabolism is is up, you're because Mother Nature wants you out mating, you know what I mean? So you're you're you're social, you're feeling good, you're feeling yourself. That's a great time. And then after that, we kind of go back down to some more fluctuation, so you have the luteal, and then then the early luteal phases be after ovulation for like seven days when your body isn't sure if you're pregnant or not yet. So it's preparing for possible pregnancy, so the progesterone is coming up while the estrogen is coming down, so that's going to start affecting our energy, and then that's seven days later when it realizes there's no embryo present, the progesterone also starts to drop, and that's when we get into that PMS phase that people don't like, and it's a time when your body is less efficient with carbs, right? So if you're eating carbohydrates for energy, it's not absorbing them as well as it would have two weeks ago. So that's why you're feeling like I just feel like I can't recover, or you know, you might just feel a bit gassed. Um, your even things like your pain tolerance is reduced at this time, can be reduced. I should say can be. Some people notice, some people don't. Me personally will absolutely not roll with a white belt when I'm in my PMS phase because my pain tolerance and my patience for dealing with crazy people is is pretty low, and I don't want to fight for my life that week. I don't mind fighting for my life other weeks of the month. But also, what's going on then is your metabolism is raised and your serotonin is reduced. So serotonin is our feel-good hormone, and our body uses carbohydrates to make serotonin. So at that stage, if you imagine my serotonin is down, my body is craving carbohydrates to make it make serotonin so I feel better, but actually I'm giving it these carbohydrates, but it's not using them very well, so I'm not getting where I need to be. So that's why sometimes people talk about that like hunger and sugar craving right before they start their bleed, and there's three things going on there that's causing that. So, but again, the power comes in knowing that. Like when I work with with my athletes, we talk about what are their PMS symptoms and what we can do to minimize them. But mostly, most of the reassurance comes from the validation of knowing yes, this is something physiological going on, and here are a few things we can do to dull it. And listen, if it's still doesn't work, go and have whatever it is you feel like you want, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

It's so important, you're right, to listen to the body, but there are so many messages that tell us don't. Like I was feeling that like a week ago, like I could not eat enough that made me feel like I wasn't just scraping the ground as I walked. I I just felt I was exhausted all the time. I'm trying to change this language in my head to like what is wrong with me into like what my body is telling me. And that is such a hard shift as a female because like I have a 16-year-old daughter, and she was she has her own experience and hers is not regulated, blah blah blah, all the things because she's young. And we're both like, why do we we still have to do this every month? And that I have a lot of feelings about that. We should we but also if I reframe it to not it's like a mosh pit. If you're going to fight it, you're gonna break every bone. But if you kind of just like trust the process that you're gonna end back on your feet, you're gonna be okay. But you can't fight it too hard. So I guess if I can change the language to that or like a wave, if I learn to ride the wave instead of trying to stand tall, it'll knock me over. But there's a lot of society and also like my own head that's telling me, no, make your body perform the way it's supposed to, not let it do what it does and adjust around it. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah, yeah. But the question is when we talk about supposed to's and shoulds, is where does that come from? That's not coming from you, that's coming from the noise around you.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Right, right. So, so it makes it really interesting because I had some friends on the mat the other day, and it was it was a women's class, and it fluctuates from size from two girls to eight girls. It just depends. And two of the girls were there and they were like, Oh, we were both on day one, we were exhausted. And so training looked different.

unknown 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

And like, what a lovely thing that sometimes that can happen. We can change how our training looks depending on how we feel, and it's okay. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

And I know that you will have people saying, you know, you know, the the never miss a Monday brigade, which I hate, there they will be like push through regardless. But actually, honoring your body is the best way to get your body to do what you want it to, then, you know, like it's there's obviously a school of thought now, everybody's saying about this cycle sync training and all that, so they think everybody should just go to a hut for seven days of the month and just meditate and do yoga. But if you've ever met an athletic person with goals, they're not gonna do that either. But having the intelligence to know if I'm on day one, today is not the day to try out a new technique that I'm trying to drill, or today is not the day to roll with the very, very competitive blue belt teenager that's gonna wrap me up in my own clothes and choke me. Maybe today I just hit it with the girls and I roll with a few higher belts and just flow roll and I'm happy to move my body, and then when I'm feeling better, I'll go after it. But the only way you can maximize that stuff is by knowing your own body and knowing your own cycle. And there might be a day one where you're feeling great and you don't care and you just go in at it, you know. But it's more just about knowing. But I think those cycles, there's a lot of power in those cycles, and that's what people are women generally. We'll go deep now, but society wants us to feel weak and you know, take up less space, make less noise, you know, do less things. A woman that's in sync with her body is a very, very powerful woman, you know, because you don't get the you know, the night without the day. So that beyon say phase of ovulation, there has to be a uh a different side to that. And for me to truly enjoy that, then I need to get down to the time in my luteal phase when my body needs me to just bring it down and give it some nutrients and you know, just move however my body wants to. The longer you push against that, the the more your body is gonna is gonna fight you on it, you know. Never mind society and everybody else around you. Of course, this leaves out a whole cohort of fertile athletes that are actually on a hormonal contraceptive, which are also kind of it doesn't really count for them. But again, even at that, I I say, you know, if you're on a hormonal contraceptive for contraceptive purposes, great. But if it's been sold to you as something that will improve your acne or your PCOS or whatever, it's not the case, or if it will regulate your period, that's that's a lie too. So, but if you're on it for contraceptive, great, stay on it if that's your best choice, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

There's so much to that. Because my first question was starting talking about like tracking your own, keeping track of it because I sometimes be like, huh, how am I feeling? And then trying to make sense of that. But I also love data, and so if I'm looking for patterns, it makes a lot of sense. And then you start mentioning contraception, how like I have an IUD, I have marina, and so that's going to affect my body in a very different way. And so I still have like symptoms and signs, they just might not be as prominent. And so, are those as trustworthy? Can I still get the same data from that information? Yeah, well, this is the thing.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

So basically with the marina, so it's a hormonal contraceptive, it's it prevents ovulation. So you're if you are having a bleed on that, that's what we call a withdrawal bleed. It's not actually a menstrual period. Um, it's just like a hormonal switch up. So, like a true period is preceded by ovulation, basically. But what the research shows is the with the even on the hormonal contraceptives, we can see the psychological effects of the menstrual cycle dulled, but the physical effects can still show up, you know. So, like the blowing, the water retention. So I always say to everybody, and be that an athlete that's lost her period entirely, or be that someone that's on a contraceptive that doesn't have a withdrawal bleed, you can still, without having the bleed to anchor, you can still record your symptoms and you will find a pattern even if there's no bleed to anchor it to. So you'll you'll see like every fourth week that you're you're feeling that fatigue, or you feel like you can't recover after training no matter how much you eat. So the power comes in now in your body. The issue then with the contraceptives is over time the effects in the body kind of build up, so it's not as easy to predict, and then also we just don't have enough research around them with athletes. We have research on how many athletes take them, what the reason they take them for, but we don't know, you know, like your marina, for example, it's local low-dose, constant release of hormones. But every month that that's in your body, that's building and building and building. So on the third month of your marina versus the 36th month of your marina might look different in your body. Whereas when I have what we call a naturally cycling athlete that just has no hormonal contraceptive, I can kind of predict what's going to happen with her cycle. With yours, it's a bit less predictable.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

It's interesting as we think more about our body and our space that we take up, as well as our space within. And I guess bringing it back to the jujitsu idea is that training takes place more than just on the mat. And I think about the best version of myself that I can bring to train. And there are everything I choose in life, it starts neutral, but it's like the pros and the cons that are going to make it more it's gonna sway my decision whether or not to take it. And I think for so long, as you've said, like women have been told you there's this um birth control pill that you can take. Yeah, it helps with this, but it also helps your acne, or oh, it helps with this symptom. And so then it becomes, oh, yes, I take it for this reason, but it's also going to be giving me a a little dose of hormones because I'm going into perimenopause or something like that. And so do I want to like if I stop taking it or if I have it removed or whatever case, how is that then going to affect my body? It's kind of like it's hard to take ingredients out of a soup and know what it's going to taste like. And so we're constantly. Constantly trying to think of what's the best I can be for not only on the mats, but just me as a person and really knowing your body how important that is.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah, and that's it, and it's such a personal decision. But what I dislike is I guess people aren't making informed choices. People are sold this easy option. You know, you get a teenager, their their menstrual cycle, like people always forget, like they have such sympathy for menopause and they understand all the fluctuations and the symptoms that go on with menopause, but they forget that Mernarch, or like when girls get their first period, the same thing is happening, but just at the opposite spectrum. So, but they see a teenager with heavy periods, painful periods, irregular periods, and they're like, put you on a pill, we'll solve this. And then that poor girl comes off that at 35 because she thinks she wants to now start have having children, and then she, this menstrual irregularity that she's had since her teenage years has been masked by this contraceptive pill, and now she has to figure that out and write that before she can go and look at starting a family, um, which I think is happening a lot. Or people are, you know, I know a lot of athletes used to do injections or pills so that they could not be on their period on competition day because that really messed up their competition, and that's also a thing, then when they come off that, regulating their own natural cycle can be hard, you know. Like I'm currently working with an athlete that's come off an injection, and I think we're about three and a half months in, and she hasn't had a period yet. It can take up to a year to ovulate after coming off that, but there's so many other things going on with her, but she's decided to come off now. She wants to regulate and she's going to stay the course and figure it out, you know. But it is it is quite complex, and what irks me is the athletes that are going on a contraceptive to manage their period for competition need to realise that actually a lot of lifestyle and nutritional interventions can really minimize their PMS, and then and then when they've tried all of that, if they still can't manage competing on their period and it's a real worry for them, then a contraceptive might be the might be the right option for them. But they're given this at the first sign of trouble rather than, you know, try this, this, and this. There's there's many things that we can do. The biggest thing I see with athletes is when we get their meal timing right, their PMS symptoms plummet, you know, like they'll uh a month or two into working with me when we've got their meal timing right, around their training, their recovery meals, they're like, oh my god, I just had minimal cramps before my period. You know, it even happens quicker than I expect it to sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

I think the society we live in is we're looking for a lot of quick fixes and instant gratification. I mean, for better or for worse, we live in a time of technology where you can we don't have I was just talking with the behaviorist, and like when we decide we want to quit something, the reward is so instantaneous, it can be very gratifying. I think for take this, it's going to kind of calm everything down, and then you're gonna adjust your body around it. You're like, okay, here's a plan. That seems simple enough. And it's this is not simple, but the rewards are not simple either. There's going to be these huge benefits from it, but it takes a lot of time, it sounds like to get the what do they call it? Like a case study of one. Everybody is so unique in learning just what those pieces are that are going to make their bodies work better. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

And the body is like a car, you know, there's an engine in a Ferrari, one thing will affect everything. It might not show up instantly. So just changing this one thing will certainly show up elsewhere. Nothing in the body works in in isolation, you know?

SPEAKER_00 25:41

I think for so long as women, and then I'm to keep making those global statements because I really feel like that. We just said, someone said, We know better than you. And so we're going to rec recommend this for your body because it's a woman body and woman body fits in this box. And so now staking claim over our own future and our own autonomy and what our bodies, how we want our bodies per perform and what do we want from them in the future is so powerful. And so such an intricate and complex planet path to go on for sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Yeah, it's like even mentioning you have your period is a rebellion in and of itself. You know, I love rebelling about around these things that women have been told are shameful that aren't shameful, their bodily functions. Um the the very, you know, the seven-day break you take on a contraceptive pill that you know that was created by the to please the Catholic Church because they believe a woman that didn't bleed was unclean. So there's no medical reason to take a seven-day break on your pill pack, other than the Catholic Church think a woman should bleed once a month so that she remains clean. This is what we're up against, you know.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

It's like the little things we've never thought about. Why do we do what they do? And it's like, because we've always done it that way.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Um, so okay, so we've gone so deep. I love it. There's this like analogy. I used to oh I in like in my teachings, somewhere along the way, there was a story of a woman who would make pot roast, and she would always cut the ends off it because that's how her mom made it. That's how her grandmother made it. And have you heard this one before? And so then they go back, they're like, Why do you do it? Oh, my mom always did it this way. Yes, mom, why did you want to? Oh, because my mother always did this way. So they asked the grandma, why did you do it? She's like, Because my pot wasn't big enough. So we had to cut off the ends to make it fit and sign. And sometimes we just don't ask the question, why? We're like, it's just always been done. So how can women reframe their cycle as an advantage? So we're talking about this is going to be a miraculous, amazing thing. And how can we use that for training instead of limiting our bodies? Because that reframe is so important.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Yeah, well, the first thing to remember is your mental cycle is like a report card from your body as to how it's doing that one, you know. So you know, if you travel a lot or you've been on antibiotics, or if you have been had a particularly stressful month, your cycle will feel different. You might have more PMS, it might be go on for longer, it might be a few days late. That is literally the rapport card from your from your body. So for me, embracing that I have a healthy menstrual cycle, my PMS is minimal, it means I'm looking after my body. Um, especially a lot of athletes that are making weight often will potentially lose their menstrual cycle altogether because they've got their body to a stage where it's down regulating all non-essential functions because it's just trying to survive on the minimum calories that it's getting, um, so it stops ovulating, stops menstruating. So looking at that healthy period, that you know, good cycle, good length, good time is like a well done to you. You're looking after your body, you know, and then knowing, just knowing your cycle and empowering yourself. So there's things that we can do. For example, in the few days before you bleed, the bloating people always report, or the water retention. What's happening then with most people is progesterone is um involved in your body fluid balance, and our progesterone has dropped because it's real our body has realized we're not pregnant, so we don't need to thicken up the wall of this womb, we can clear out the progesterone, and it takes your hydration with it. So if we add in extra electrolytes in those five days before we bleed, we can help our body to replenish that hydration and we can minimize that water retention and bloating before we get our period. Likewise with the hunger, if we can adjust if we're on say a certain level of calories, but we know we get very hungry for those five days, we can adjust our calories during the rest of the month to allow for extra calories in those five days so that we can eat more, then we will feel better. You know, if we know we're gonna want carbohydrates so that we feel better, we can prepare for that and allow for that and have like colourful sweet carbs like berries and stuff to help ourselves feel better. So there's many, many things we can do, making sure we don't go too long without eating, we don't go training on empty, all of those things will really help with your PMS. And then your period is just something that you have to dress for. I mean, it's never gonna happen where you're just gonna go, oh, my period is here, I don't realize, but still it it shouldn't be disturbing your day too much, other than you needing to account for it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Right. And I like the smart choices you're talking about. I like the idea of thinking of weight or whatever end goal is being spread out over a cycle versus just like day-to-day. Because if we are just taking my oldest is a type one diabetic. And so if I take a blood sugar reading without any context at two o'clock in the afternoon, and then I take it another day at nine o'clock in the evening, and I if I'm just taking little thoughts without looking at the bigger picture, I'm gonna miss like the details that went into that, but also knowing that it's going to change like throughout the day. So I like that idea of the bigger one and also being smart with those choices because if I frankly, if I'm intuitive eating and I'm starving, I'm going to just eat like a can of frosting and whatever. I would not eat a can of frosting, but like there's going to be choices like reaching for whole food, unprocessed food, ones that will serve me in the long run, that would make more sense than like a big scoop of peanut butter or something.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

What I what I see a lot of, I love that comparison to the type one diabetic, by the way, and the you know, the comparing like day one to day two to day three of your cycle. And a lot of people forget, you know, if they've eaten late, if they haven't had a poop, if they've had extra sodium, all of that affects your weight. So like a real true comparison for a female will be comparing day one to day one a month later, you know. But obviously, with competitions coming up, we don't have that luxury, but not losing sight of the bigger picture, as you said, which is perfect. Um, but the a thing I see a lot with athletes is they do this thing where they say, like, I'm trying to be good. So they generally will way under earing the day, and then that's why in the evening they're binging on the frosting or they're emptying the biscuit press, because your body is always going to want what it's missed that physiologically it wants to catch up, and and they've also often trained in amongst this time when they've really heavily undereaten, and then they put that down to their own discipline, so they're like, Oh my god, I have no discipline, or I keep binging in the evening. Actually, if they would just eat enough calories during the day, they might still want something sweet in the evening, but it wouldn't be the entire press worth of food, it might just be a small chocolate bar, a small insert your treat of choice here, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yes, it's it's kind of it reminds me of like pain. You have to, you can't chase pain, you have to address it like early on, otherwise you're going to be overcompensating during the day because it just gets away from you. And so I like that idea of being prepared. I was interested, you talked to before about like the PMS symptoms really minimizing, depending on eating and training. I know that good heavens, I really have to eat something incredibly small, even an hour before jujitsu, because anything that's just sitting in my stomach is not gonna serve me or my uh teammates well. How do you eat and prepare knowing that you are sluggy or you're shaky before going to class because of psycho reasons? I don't want to skip out of class.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

No, no, and you don't want to train on empty either. Um so we'd have to just remember that training is a stress on your body, just like you know, a lot of things, but you're training a martial arts, you're going in to have a physical altercation with other human beings, it's quite a stressful thing. But also it requires fuel in your muscles. Your muscles are gonna need fuel to do that. Your body is gonna need to be hydrated so that your brain can communicate with your muscles efficiently, and your gut, your digestive tract, like it needs to be trained like you train your bicep and your quads and your glutes. You know, people say, Oh, I can't train after I eat. You have to start if you want to if you want to compete, if you want to do well competing, you're gonna have to learn how to eat. Now, I'm not suggesting you're gonna have a big roast dinner half an hour before you get on the mats. The closer we're getting to the mats, the easier and faster digesting the foods that we have. But I would argue that a lot of people have the time to get ahead and start training, testing out different foods and stuff, you know. So, like, say half an hour or less on the mats, we're going just fast-acting carbohydrates. So things like honey on rice cakes or dried fruits like dates and figs, or I love the baby food aisle in supermarkets, is where it's at for the purees that they they give the little babies when they're weaning, they're generally just mushed up fruit, very easy to digest, not going to be heavy in your tummy at all. But then when you move away, if we're talking an hour to two hours before training, then we will be able to have some more significant food, like maybe a bit of chicken and rice, you know, and then further away, two to three hours, you should be okay to have a normal meal, whatever a normal meal looks like for you.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

It's funny to me thinking about training and eating because my background isn't ultra running. And so when you're out there for 33 hours, we're eating like pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches and ramen. But it's something and people laugh about it, but I would rather have Whole Foods versus gels or something because I'm not at like a high level of exertion, and so I'm just like the foot turned over. Sometimes I'm walking that you can eat those real things and they sit better in my stomach. But in such a different way, you know, jujitsu is high intensity, high, it's like sprinting. Oh well, I'm I'm I'm still in my under my first five years, and so everything feels like I am fighting for my life. So it's gonna be a different game than if I was like a more experienced trainer. But it's smart to just I like the idea, and I've talked with the behaviors about well, we can do it before. What are we doing to set ourselves up for success? And if we are constantly waiting to the last minute to give our body what we need, whether that's a menstrual cycle thing, whether that's a food energy thing, we are doomed to only get the rewards that we are setting ourselves up for. It takes some planning, it takes some thought for sure.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Yeah. And then generally, as women, if we are busy with families or jobs or other responsibilities, we're very good at leaving ourselves to last. Because again, we've grown up in a world where we're told take up less space, make less noise, look after everybody else. When actually, if you just take the time, like I often say with a lot of my athletes, can we get, you know, the the hour you spend on Sunday prepping food is gonna like come back to you threefold by Wednesday. If you've you know take that, start your week on Sunday for an hour, get in, get your snacks to hand, get just being putting enough forethought into the fact that you're gonna need a grab and go type snack if you're gonna commute from the office to the mats, but you haven't eaten since lunch at 1 pm, jujitsu's not till 6 30 pm. That is too long to go without eating, to then go and ask your body to exercise. And you know, you wouldn't expect your car to go and race on with no petrol or with no gas in it, but you're expecting your body, and then you're likely also the type of person that's gonna be so annoyed if you have a bad training session and you're gonna think I'm so crap at jujitsu when actually if you hadn't just put some fuel in, you aren't crap at jujitsu, you're just empty.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

I can still be crap at jujitsu if energy well, but maybe that's why I'd like it. I like that it's so hard. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

There's a lot of things. I can't control who's on the mats and who I am gonna roll with today, what the level is, what the energy is. I can control whether my glycogen is full because I have fueled myself and hydrated myself well to give myself my best shot. But also, people lose sight as well of that's your recovery as well. Your recovery from training sessions starts beforehand by going in fueled. Um, and especially as women, we're generally lighter and smaller, so our bodies take a lot of a lot of beatings. I think you're asking a lot of your body, so the least you can do is give it the fuel that it needs.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

I think, as you said, like if I go to the mat exhausted, shaky, tired, whether that's uh like again, all of the reasons if I haven't done the steps to prepare, like and I train that way, I'm gonna come out of class feeling defeated and sad and put myself down. If I go to class fueled and like in a good state of understanding, I can go train and I can come out exhausted, but I come out happy. It is the mood is so different because I can still get like I'm still at the end of the day, I'm still a blue belt, I'm still learning, I'm still going to work with all of these people. But my overall outlook of how the training session went, I walk away. Man, I got smashed today. It was amazing. I learned this new thing, whatever. But truly, yeah, and it's gonna, and if I have more days like that, it's gonna keep me on the mat because otherwise I'm gonna start looking for those excuses because it wasn't worth it at the end if if I keep walking away defeated.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Yeah, 100%. And we can't have you get in the blue belt blues.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

It's a it's a nice, humble place to be. But I like it. We're right. We like the hard stuff.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Yeah, absolutely. I was a bluebelt for a very long time because of COVID and pregnancies and stuff, so um I I had all aspects of the blue belt career.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

It's good. It's good, it's it's a um character developing period of life.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Jiu Jitsu, I think even as you're if you're a black belt, it's still developing character, you know. It's um it's one of those things, just keeps on giving. That's why I chose it as my retirement martial art, basically, because I'll it it'll never get boring, but I can I can do it. I think as it stands with all of my responsibilities, do I want people kicking me in the head right now? Probably not. Am I happy to tap to an arm bar or a choke? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

And it's so funny, like as a rudder, I'm like, don't do anything to my knees and ankles. You can bend my arm all you want to, but just like I tap so fast when anyone grabs my foot, I'm like, nope, not today.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Which is great, and that's the beauty of jujitsu. It's it's totally up to you how far you push it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Now I'm curious, you've done so many different combat sports. You are now in your jujitsu era, and hopefully this continues a long time. Do you feel the same? I don't want to rank them because it's like your children, you can't say which one is your favorite, but you've coming from like kickboxing and like the different striking sports. It do you see which ones you gravitate towards more than one than the other?

SPEAKER_01 41:00

Yes, I uh I absolutely like kickboxing is my first love and always will be. I I much enjoy striking sports. Um I enjoy jujitsu. So my husband is a black belt um and he's trained in jiu-jitsu a long time, but he is one of those people that's obsessed with jujitsu. So he is watching instructionals, he's thinking about jujitsu most of the time. Whereas I enjoy jujitsu while I'm doing it, but once I leave the jiu-jitsu gym, I don't think about it unless we're watching matches on flow grappling or something like that. You know, I don't I think I've maybe watched 20 minutes of a Gordon Ryan instructional over his shoulder on the sofa one day, but other than that, I'm not watching instructionals, I'm just showing up to learn a technique and roll around on the floor with my friends, and I'm happy.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

I love that, and I love that it could be different things at different points in your life. Like if I would have started this in my early 20s, I would be a very different person than I am now. But I can appreciate the time that I can get in on the mat. Um, I love the community and the people that I meet at jujitsu. And so I think it's more than just the rolling part. I love the podcast that I've been able to talk to people because all of these stories um it's such an interesting cross-section of society for sure.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

It's amazing. And that's what I love about jujitsu. You walk into the room and there are people, there are accountants, there are policemen, there are carpenters, there are electricians, there's tech people. Like nobody knows what anybody does for a living. They just kind of have an idea of what they weigh and what belt they are and whether they're a safe role or not. Basically, it's all that matters.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

And sometimes the the not safe role is like the soccer mom that just has been like had a really stressful day. We're like, don't mess with her. Today's not the day for a role.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

Yeah. But it's it is true that like with jujitsu, when I started jujitsu, I really was craving being a beginner because I had had a very, very decorated kickboxing career, and there everything was kind of a pressure. I was defending belts, I was, you know, all over the world, and I just wanted to just be a beginner. And then when but when in kickboxing I wanted to, I needed to be the best in the world. I needed when's my next belt, when's my next fight? So when I started jujitsu and I kind of competed really early on, and then I could see myself going down that road again, and I was like, no, this is not this martial art, is actually just for me. I'm not collecting belts for anything other than this is just me. Time is passing, and I'm, you know, if Austin, my husband, competed a lot, so I often just jumped in because I was going to be there with him anyway, but it was mainly his passion, he wanted to compete. And kind of the same now. I'm kind of just still going because some of my best friends in the world I've met in jiu-jitsu. My husband does it, so it's like part of the family now almost. But like time is just passing and I'm just on the mats and I'm enjoying it, but I'm I don't need to be the best in the world.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

I joined jujitsu because I teach and I'm like often the leader, and I am always telling people, even in the home, like what to do. And so I got On the mats, and I said I'm at the new gym, I'm like a larva, like I'm such a baby, and I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't know where to stand. I thought I knew what I was doing, but to come to a place where everybody is the teacher, it I'm working with like 11-year-old kids and they're teaching me. And I'm working with and professors and they're teaching me and my teammates. And one, they're like nice enough to help work with me, and so that's exciting. And two, like it's really nice to pass on the teaching to somebody else. I'm like, I just get to take things in and learn and grow with it. That's so fun.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

I love it. Um, so speaking of and women on the mats, and we are a smaller side of the population. We are by no means 50-50 on the mat um as representation. Is it worth it for coaches to know like how these affect women? Like, how far do we have to come in this education piece? Is what are some basics that professors and gym owners, coaches should recognize for having women on the mat? What's important?

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Yeah, I mean, it's a tough one because I often think about that. And I'm actually giving a talk in Dublin in a couple of weeks at a health and wellness festival. And my talk is titled, Why Are We Still Whispering About Periods and Sports Clubs in 2026? You know, and why are we? You know. But when I think about coaches should know this and this and this, often these coaches are actually in voluntary roles. They're not, this isn't their job, they're not paid. So they'll be taking time out of their days to learn about this. But having said that, I believe if you are a coach and anybody that walks into your gym, if there's anything affecting them, I think it's your responsibility to learn about it. So personally, I think really simple things like having period products in the toilet. You know, having if you have like a kids' class, if in the first aid kit, have like a Ziploc bag with like uh knickers and a pad in case that one of the younger kids gets her period for the first time or blah blah blah, and just have the the girls know if you need anything, it's in the first aid box there. Have posters in the change rooms about periods, about the menstrual cycle, you know, and just get the coaches to just have a general knowledge and not be afraid of it. I think a fear of it is a big problem, and then of course, as a man, most of these instructors are men and they're older than the people they're instructing, or you know, whatever. There's a lot of stuff going on in the jiu-jitsu world right now about inappropriate behavior and stuff, so they're not sure what to do. So maybe they need to assign a female higher belt or a female that's working in the gym as the person that takes this under her wing to just be the go-between, you know?

SPEAKER_00 46:44

I think the language around periods have definitely changed in it as taboo as it was, and then you get to that weird spot, they're like, it's not really taboo, but we don't know what to say and we don't want to step on toes. And so sometimes that inaction comes off as silence because nobody kind of knows what to do to talk about it. And I love the idea of having like walking into a gym for open mat. I remember walking into a woman-owned jujitsu gym, and in the bathroom, there was like hair ties and some tampons, like and out in the open. They weren't even hidden. We don't even have to hide our things anymore. Like it's not something to be scary about scared about. And of course, there's hygiene things and all the things we need to worry about and to keep everybody safe. But it doesn't have to be this the more we whisper, the more shame. And it's just how it is. That's just how the bodies are.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And like I feel like it's a mini revolution. I'm always encouraging people, you know. Like, I'll say to people, are they comfortable with the mental cycle? And they'll be like, Yeah, and I'll be like, and do you hide your tampon when you're walking to the toilet? And they're like, Yeah. And I'm like, Well, why? Like, carry that over your head, show it to everybody. I'm just going to change my tampon. Like a little mini revolution, you know, just like tell people, listen, I'm on my period and don't be ashamed of it, you know. But then there are different cultures that are like, you know, that don't talk openly about things like this as well. And we we have to be careful of those things. But is that again, I would question, is that culture coming from you know, religious, or is it actually, you know, is it what you want or is it what you've been told is your culture? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 48:23

And I think so um interviewing guests and things, we talk more about having pregnant women on the mats, postpartum women on the mats, women bringing young children, um, breastfeeding the different, like all of these pieces where this is part of us, we have this amazing gift that we can create life. And there's all different stages in it. Just because I'm not physically holding an infant in my arms doesn't mean that I'm not part of that journey. And just letting that be known. We're not gonna beat you over the head with it and make everybody have to talk about it all the time. But it's just one facet of me. It's not all of me, it's just one part of me.

SPEAKER_01 49:03

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's it's a big deal. And like, because you know, people have done their ACL, everybody's like, Oh, how's your ACL? Every time they're on the mats, it's mind the injury, mine the knee, you know. So, what would be great would be if you could get the stage where, you know, I off I trained whilst I was breastfeeding, and you know, I I would sometimes say to people, like, I can't take any chest pressure today, you know, or whatever, just totally fine with it. Or, you know, you'd be pregnant and you'd have to tell people who you barely know their name, like, oh well, I am pregnant, so take it handy in this role, you know. Um it's it can be quite intimate and confronting, but I think it's also necessary and it's just normalizing the stuff that women are going through. Um, unfortunately, we just don't have yet, I hope we will eventually, but we don't have blueprints for women in all seasons of life in sports in mainstream just yet, you know, so we don't know what a 50-year-old woman that has a few kids who but has done jujitsu looks like unless we go and find her. But my hope would be in 15 or 20 years we will, you know, we still have all this menobelly crap being advertised to us, and you know, because you God forbid that you get a bit heavier as you grow older in that season of your life after doing whatever you've done to get there, you know?

SPEAKER_00 50:18

Right. And and I love that it's not it, it's not an injury, it's not a weakness, it's just how we're made up and we're going to be present and we're going to use this as data to make us better people, as we do with all of our things, whether, and this could even be like that's a whole nother topic, but like thyroid things or autoimmune disease or other things, um, neurotypicality. We have all sorts of things and divergency that we will bring to the maps, and it's just one piece of us, and it just makes us each unique that way. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

And just figuring out as a gym owner or a coach what people need, how they you know, you don't have to be the expert in stages of the female life, fertility journeys, but what you do need to be is the expert in making people comfortable to come to you with things.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Yes, I love that. Oh, and and as we're wrapping up our time, hooray, we made it. I don't want to be I I would so appreciate you taking your time out of your very busy schedule, trying to find time for us to be together. We're like jigsawing, finding time. I'm glad I didn't have to talk at five in the morning. I can do it, but it's a little early for me. But for the podcast, I totally do. But as so, Lindsay, I would love for you to take the end of this time period to talk. You mentioned at the beginning your specificity, but that you work with all sorts of people. How can people find you? What do you do?

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Yeah, they can find me on Instagram. It's uh female fight nutritionist, or my website is femalefight nutritionist.com. And yeah, basically, I'm just there on Instagram trying to normalize the menstrual cycle, give people content that might be helpful for them, and then I give talks in like schools and clubs and stuff about even like teenage normalizing teenage menstrual cycles. I have a real B in my bonnet about the fact that, and you probably see this, Emily, in your gym. In the younger kids' classes, there's there's mostly 50-50 girls to boys, and then when they hit like 10, the girls all drop off, and it's just mainly boys. And I really think that normalizing the menstrual cycle, especially the teenage menstrual cycle, will keep girls in sport in those years that we lose them, and then we'll get them on the mats lifelong because we have many studies showing that a lot of females that hold CEO positions played sports all through their life, so it's not even just about them being good at jujitsu, it's about them being good at life.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Being good at life. We need all those women to be good at life. I love that. That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

And yeah, I I like that this is not just something we deal with, this is just something that we are, and I like that you're normalizing that. That's really important these days. Well, thank you again, Lindsay, for talking with me. I really appreciate your knowledge today. And I love that it's a podcast because I always pre-listen to it to edit and when it goes live, and I can't wait to like take notes to go along with this. Yeah, brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

Well, if anybody has any questions that come up, they can just send me a DM on Instagram. I'm always happy to chat about these things.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

Well, perfect. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

No worries.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

My jujitsu shout-out today goes to taking a chance, asking a question after a roll, or DMing someone on Instagram. You never know who is going to help you find that next breakthrough. It could be your new great friend that's in Ireland and like eight hours away in time zone time, anyway. But the world is so big and there's so much at our fingertips. Take a chance, reach out, and just see what exciting jujitsu magic you might find. Thank you so much for Lindsay being on the show. I love that so many of my episodes are very jujitsu focused, but I feel like there was this huge umbrella of just being a woman and how cycles work. And it's so important that at every stage we're thinking about how we can normalize it, how we can work with our body instead of against it. What a great reminder, and what a wonderful source of knowledge. So thank you, Lindsay, for taking your time to be on the show. If you're listening, ladies, share this out with some of your teammates or a friend or a coworker or someone, maybe that'd be weird with a coworker, but you never know. Hey, let's make it not weird. Let's normalize this thing. This is something all women to hear, and frankly, a lot of men do too. They don't realize just what us women go through. So, again, thank you to my listeners. A huge thank you to my guest Lindsay, and thank you for the pajama party and all of this. So stay cozy and remember, drink some water, and that's an Emily reminder, maybe for you too.