Blood & Guts Podcast
Blood and Guts exists to make women feel less alone in the real, messy, and often unspoken parts of womanhood.
Periods. Bodies. Food. Shame. Cycles. Self-love and everything in between.
We’re creating a sisterhood where women can share, laugh, learn, and own their stories.
Leaving lighter, more connected, and reminded that no woman was ever meant to do this alone.
We are not here as experts or gurus.
Just two women with lived experience, open conversations, and a whole lot of guts.
Blood & Guts Podcast
What is a healthy cycle?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
How do you actually know if your menstrual cycle is healthy?
Is period pain normal? What about PMS? Should your cycle be the same length every month? And what is your body trying to tell you when something changes?
These are the questions we wish someone had answered years ago.
In this episode, we break down the menstrual cycle in a way that’s simple, empowering, and easy to understand. We chat about what a healthy cycle actually looks like, why so many women have been taught to accept symptoms that deserve attention, and how our modern world often works against the female body.
We also share our own experiences of how stress, under-fuelling, and life circumstances affected our cycles, and why the menstrual cycle can act as one of the body’s greatest feedback systems.
In this episode, we cover:
- How the menstrual cycle works and the four phases.
- Five signs of a healthy menstrual cycle.
- Common signs your body may be asking for support.
- How stress, nutrition and lifestyle can impact your cycle.
- Why your menstrual cycle is an important indicator of overall health.
- Simple ways to reconnect with your body and work with your cycle instead of against it.
Whether your periods have always been painful, you’ve never really understood your cycle, or you’re simply curious about how your body works, this episode is for you.
Your body isn’t working against you. It’s communicating with you.
Grab a cuppa, get comfy, and join us. 🤍
Looking for support?
Join Annie's 12 week program Sacred Cycles.
Connect with us on instagram @bloodngutspodcast
This is the Blood and Guts Podcast. I'm Annie. And I'm Millie. And we're here to make women feel less alone in the real, messy, and often unspoken parts of womanhood.
SPEAKER_03Periods, bodies, food, shame, cycles, self-love, and everything in between. We're not here as experts or gurus. Just two women with lived experiences, open conversations, and a whole lot of guts.
SPEAKER_05Before we begin, we acknowledge the Bonnerong people, the traditional custodians of the land on which we record here on the Monnington Peninsula. We pay our respects to elders, past and present, and honour their ongoing connection to land, waters, culture, and community.
SPEAKER_03The information shared in this podcast is for educational purposes only. While we share evidence-informed information and our lived experiences, nothing discussed is intended to replace personalized medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any concerns about your health, please seek guidance from a qualified healthcare professional.
SPEAKER_04Welcome back, everyone. She's a singer now. This is bloody girls. The edgy. The edgy. This is how we do it. Oh do we just get the injurio song together? Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Alright. Enough of that. Today we are gonna be talking about what is a healthy cycle. And by cycle I mean menstrual cycle.
Why Your Menstrual Cycle Matters
SPEAKER_02As you may have listened to in our last two episodes, Millie and I explored our own personal journeys with our menstrual cycle and really just how connected they are to your entire life. How your entire life can be a factor in what's impacting your cycle, and for both of us, it was the first sign that something was wrong with our health. Or sorry, it wasn't the first sign, it was the first sign we listened to. It was the moment where we were like, wait.
SPEAKER_05I guess it's the most obvious sign as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was the thing that stopped us in our tracks and went something's not okay here. Um so today we're gonna explore what is a menstrual cycle. How do we know if it's healthy, and what does that look like? Yeah, hell yeah. Hell yeah. Alright.
SPEAKER_05It's Millie special that one.
SPEAKER_02Hell yeah, yeah. Millie has some real catchphrases, some real slogans.
SPEAKER_04Love. Love, hell yeah. Oh they just come up when they come up. We'll let you know when they come up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we'll get a t-shirt going with all of them. Alright, so yeah, as I was saying, in the last two episodes, you heard, I suppose for me, when I was going through a nutrient deficiency of B12, my anxiety, my depression, my fatigue was really heightened. But the only thing that made me stop in my tracks and go, Whoa, something's really wrong here, was when my bleed became really long, really heavy, really painful, and changed for the first time.
SPEAKER_05So since then you'd had regular.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, your cycle was just like nothing to worry about and never thought about it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then for you.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, for me it was this malnourishment and over-exercise which stopped my bleed. And at the time I was like, yeah, that's normal. Like, I think I actually was listening to a lot of YouTubers who were speaking to this idea that you know when you exercise a lot, you miss your periods, it's normal. And so it wasn't really it was a big indicator for me, but it wasn't really until my doctor said it was.
SPEAKER_02Stacey Sims has a great book called Raw. And she just she talks about this because um she works with women in exercise like athletes, and how the goal was to lose your period because it meant you were training hard enough. Yeah, which is just really interesting.
SPEAKER_05Wow, wow.
SPEAKER_02So I think yeah, I wanted to highlight that your cycle, as you can see through our stories, in hindsight, we both can identify that that was the point that we knew something was wrong, but also that it is an indicator of your health. When I first had that experience with my acupuncturist, and she explained to me that your menstrual cycle is your monthly health report card. I I loved that. And it was just like your body is always responding to everything that is around you in your environment, and from those experiences, your body has a reaction and deals with those factors.
SPEAKER_05And I think it's important to know that everything it does is trying to keep you safe, it's never trying to work against you, it's never trying to punish you for things you've done. All its responses are trying to support you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, especially because reproduction is a luxury in health, right? Like survival is number one. And if your body is under some sort of stress or sees that you're not coping well, it will absolutely pause reproduction so that you can survive. So that's a really good point.
Understanding the Menstrual Cycle
SPEAKER_02So we wanted to talk about the menstrual cycle and how it works and and how you can start to see it as this health report card. If for right now you're not really that familiar with your menstrual cycle, this can sound a little bit um hard to grasp because you're probably like, I don't even know what my period does every month. Maybe you don't know what the colour of your blood is or what the texture is or how long it is. And I definitely didn't. I remember when my acupuncturist said that and asked me those questions. I was like, who cares? Does that matter? Yeah, and so obviously now I know it really does matter.
SPEAKER_05So where should we begin? Yeah. I would love for you to because I think what blew me away when I did Addie's course was just I didn't know the science at all behind the cycle or what hormones were were impacting, what even they were cold, to be honest. So I think what would be really helpful for the audience is to get like a scientific kind of information sheet of of what's actually going on through each phase internally, yeah, anatomy-wise. From the top. How's that? Yeah, amazing. From the da.
SPEAKER_02From the da. Alright. So the menstrual cycle, I think it's important to know that your menstrual cycle is driven by hormones, and your hormones are really just these messengers in the body. And they carry messages all throughout the body to do something.
SPEAKER_03Chemical messages, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Chemical messengers to to send an action to another part of the body, right? And so in this case, it's usually the brain sending a message to the ovaries to create a hormone to move through your cycle. So the menstrual cycle is can be looked at as two phases and two events. So the menstrual cycle, which I didn't know this for a long time, is not just when you bleed. It's not just your period, it is actually every day of your life. Your first day of your menstrual cycle is your first day of full heavy bleeding, and then it lasts until the next cycle when you have that first full day of heavy bleeding. So cycle to cycle, that's what it looks like. It's from the first heavy day of bleeding to the next. And within this menstrual cycle, we have these two events and these two phases. The first event is menstruation. Menstruation is the blood loss that you will have every month, your period.
SPEAKER_05I love this because I always thought that's at the end. Yeah. I love that it's the beginning. It's like Sunday and Monday, like what actually starts the week. Monday.
SPEAKER_04Fuck yeah. Sunday does not the week. I agree. But in this case, menstruation does.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03Which is M. M and M.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Well, that's not what I was thinking. I just like Monday as the start, but I have no science behind that. That's just me. And so then after menstruation, we can call this also like a phase. And so these events and phases can really be broken down into four phases, but menstruation is every day that you're bleeding from the first day of full heavy bleeding until you stop bleeding. After you have finished bleeding, we say you move into the follicular phase. And it's called that because we have inside of our ovaries follicles. And these follicles. These follicles are little circles. They're follicles. And they they actually grow and grow and grow and mature into one of the eggs that you will ovulate. So what happens is you've got this group of follicles and they start to mature. They release your brain releases a message, hormones, to release follicle stimulating hormone. This follicle stimulating hormone grows the follicles. And there's like a group of them that are chosen. They're like the chosen ones. But then they get to a point where they're like, only one can go on. This one in the games. Yeah. This is the one with the most likely chance of reproducing. And so this one will be chosen, and the body, that follicle itself will actually start to release estrogen to start growing that singular one into the mighty single egg that you will get to ovulate, hopefully. So you're releasing estrogen in this time in the follicular phase as well. Which is doing estrogen is the hormone that is really connected to your confidence, your energy, your focus, um, your even your like coordination. Um it makes you feel, yeah, like confident, sassy, sexy. Um, and you might have experienced this in the first half of your cycle. You can feel a little more energetic and and motivated. And so it starts to release this so that this egg can start to grow so that you might ovulate. And I keep saying you might ovulate because ovulation is not a given, it's not guaranteed. In fact, it happened, it doesn't happen for a lot of women, and that is what's causing a lot of the problems with some women's menstrual cycles. So this is the follicular phase, we're building the follicle, hence the name, so that we can grow an egg. Then this phase lasts up until ovulation.
SPEAKER_03Which is the event.
SPEAKER_02Ovulation is the second event. Yeah. And this event, which you could also call a phase, lasts around 24 hours. The actual act of ovulating. And ovulating is really when the egg matures. And what do we mean by egg matures? The egg sits inside the follicle, inside your ovary, and it ruptures from the follicle, it bursts out and it goes up into the fallopian tube. The fallopian tube connects down into the uterus.
SPEAKER_05What does the fallopian tube like look like? An arm. An arm. Great. That looks great visual.
SPEAKER_02It's like ovary. Like a claw machine. Absolutely. Grab the egg. Um so then so the act of that ovulation is the egg being released from the follicle and moving up into the fallopian tube, right? So now we've ovulated. Woo! That process is like 24 hours. We can say that maybe that phase is like 24 to 48 hours because what happens is your estrogen reaches its peak, and that estrogen surging is what gets the egg ready, but then we have another hormone called luteinizing hormone, and that comes in and it like shoots up and it helps that egg to really rupture and release and ovulate. So your hormones kind of come to this peak, this pinnacle moment right at ovulation, so that you can ovulate.
SPEAKER_03Amazing.
SPEAKER_02And then after ovulation, things change, things go a little bit perfect. No, not at all. So, what happens after ovulation is your body's like, cool, we ovulated, we don't need estrogen anymore, we don't need luteinizing hormone anymore, we don't even need that follicle stimulating hormone that came back in to help you.
SPEAKER_04But you're all basically you're all done.
SPEAKER_02No, they're like, take a vaccine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very aggressive, Millie. Cells. Sells. And what happens is we have this shift. And this is why I think a lot of women really notice that they feel different in the second half of their cycle. It's because you have this extreme shift from which hormones are dominating from estrogen to now progesterone. So progesterone starts to release. And so remember we had that little follicle that had the egg. The egg matured, it ruptured, and now this ruptured follicle is called a corpus luteum. And its job is to produce progesterone. Key thing to think about here: if you didn't ovulate, you never ruptured that follicle, you would never create a corpus luteum, you would never make progesterone. Wow. So ovulation is super important for your you know, hormonal balance, for your hormonal health. Because you won't even create one of the hormones that you need. Now, progesterone rises after ovulation, and progesterone is about creating safety. Yeah. It's about creating a beautiful environment to be pregnant, to have a baby in. It makes you feel calm, grounded, safe.
SPEAKER_05I heard a lady talk about like two different women. Like estrogen is like this energetic woman. She's at a party, she's and then progesterone is like this cool, calm, collected, like just like absolutely. I think you're estrogen.
SPEAKER_02Progesterone. Right now. Estrogen they say is like the Beyonce. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who would be who would it be our progesterone then? Someone cool, grounded.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, who's like a celebrity that's really just chilling? I'll think of one.
SPEAKER_02Okay, we'll come back.
SPEAKER_05I'll just blurted out. What that girl from off campus who said she's really calm in her life, Allie.
SPEAKER_02Oh, Allie, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Someone, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, well, I'm like, is Silange? Like that's Beyonce's sister. Her music, I think, speaks to that tone, but I think her as a person is quite fiery.
SPEAKER_05Well, what about like Noah and Miley Cyrus?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Noah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, like and Miley's as well. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, love. Noah Cyrus for sure. Anyway, so Noah Cyrus starts to rise.
SPEAKER_04This is her song, I love it. She has like a little turn to try to get Yeah, I don't know. Is it called July or something?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Alright, off topic.
SPEAKER_02So progesterone starts to rise, and like I was saying, it's creating this environment to have a baby. Like a lot of the um people in the menstrual cycle world call it progesterone, pro-pregnancy. Right? You need progesterone to create this safe environment. And what happens is if you were so that egg that got released into fallopian tube, it travels down, and in the fallopian tube it might meet someone, a little sperm. And if they meet and they connect and the egg is like fallopian tube is the place to be. Yeah. If the egg's like your heart, they may have a baby. It fertilizes. Yay! Okay, so the egg is fertilized, and then it keeps going down the fallopian tube into the uterus, and it finds one of those juicy, plump walls of the uterus. They're plump because estrogen builds the endometrium lining, the uterus lining. And it does that so that when an egg comes along, it can just slide right in. It's got a nice juicy place to land, right? Little landing pad. So if you were pregnant, your body would just keep creating progesterone indefinitely, and that would be it. You would be pregnant. But if after say 10 to 14 days, your body after producing progesterone starts to realize that there's no baby. Yeah, there's no baby, there's no egg implanted. We gotta start again. We really want to get pregnant. This reproduction system is like, we need this to happen. So they're like, Alright, drop all the hormones. Also wanted to say your estrogen also comes back in in the second half of your cycle, but not as high. Progesterone is the dominating hormone. And so your estrogen and your progesterone start to drop, and that dropping of hormones is what triggers your body to have your menstruation. I also didn't say this second half of the cycle after ovulation is called the luteal phase. So now we've got our two phases: follicular phase, luteal phase, our two events menstruation and ovulation. So after the hormones drop, we bleed again, menstruation starts again, we start another cycle.
SPEAKER_05So what are we bleeding?
SPEAKER_02We are bleeding out some of that endometrium lining, not all of it, but also blood. Yeah.
What Can Go Wrong?
SPEAKER_02Um so that's kind of what's happening in your body every month. Now we already touched on what can go wrong a little bit. First of all, you might not ovulate. That is absolutely a problem. That's something that I was experiencing when I went through my um menstrual cycle issues. And what happens is I think I love this analogy of like a car starting. So when you don't ovulate, your body wants to ovulate. It will keep producing project uh it will keep creating estrogen. Trying to keep appearing. She's smiling, it's just like boom, boom, boom, I'm back, I'm back. And it's like a car starting, it's like dr we can't get there. And maybe you will, and maybe you'll ovulate later than usual, and then your period will be a bit longer. Like, sorry, your menstrual cycle will be a bit longer, and your period you'll say your period's late, but really ovulation was late. Or you won't. You will not ovulate. And what you've done is you've created all of this estrogen, your endometrium lining, your uterus lining is growing, growing, growing, growing, growing. And then at some point your body's like, we can't grow anymore. We've got to cut loose. It's almost like having a withdrawal bleed that you would have on the pill, it's not really a period, and so your body will re will have a bleed and it'll probably be really heavy, really painful, because you've built up more endometrium lining that you have to now pass through. Wow. So that's what happens if you don't ovulate. And because we're creating this estrogen trying to ovulate over and over again, this is what we can then call excess estrogen in the body. Now, estrogen, once you use it, you really want to lose it. And the way we do that is through our liver or our stool. You can poop it out. Or you can I mean you still poop it out through the liver. The liver creates like a bile that then goes to the stool.
SPEAKER_04The girls low on estrogen, getting it out of their poop. Yeah, they could no.
SPEAKER_02Do not eat your feces. Oh my god. So what happens is if your liver is not able to process that excess estrogen efficiently and clear it through you, then clear it out of you, sorry, then it's gonna recirculate through your body, and this is when we see symptoms of excess estrogen. Things like bloating, um, sore breasts, really sore tender breasts. This is all in the luteal phase, um, sore tender breasts, bloating, like heavy, painful periods, maybe breakouts as well, um, which was everything I was experiencing. And the reason I wasn't ovulating was because I had a nutrient deficiency in B12. Really fascinating. So we can really start to look at your symptoms and kind of work backwards to see what is the root cause because you can have these groups of symptoms that can point towards a potential imbalance in your hormones.
SPEAKER_05I forgot what was mine.
SPEAKER_02Low estrogen.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So low estrogen can be caused by um yeah.
SPEAKER_05Over-exercising.
SPEAKER_02It's it's not even over-exercising, it's well it is, but it's more not having the nutrition and eater. Yeah, exactly. You're not eating enough. for the output.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um absolutely. So you're not creating enough estrogen?
SPEAKER_05To ovulate then. So like wasn't there wasn't enough to rupture that egg.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it wasn't enough to build the egg or the endometrium lining, exactly. So you that first half of the cycle was just like not much going on. And and you couldn't create a healthy follicle and egg.
SPEAKER_05And with that, like my experience was also like low libido and just like like my mood was just like I didn't have these like highs or anything. Like I just flattered yeah and it feels almost steady. Like it low-key feels stabilizing and safe.
SPEAKER_02It was basically like being on the pill. You weren't having an ovulatory cycle you were just like just level yeah and you're kind of like yeah this is great. I felt like a male I think I said to Annie it was just like running on this same 24 hour cycle every day which kind of feels good at the time but then oh once you get your bleed you're like it's magical I think as well you really said to me like yes you don't have the lows but you also don't have the highs. Yes. So it was like everything was flatlined. Yeah. Yeah. And then you can also have low progesterone so let's say you did ovulate the first half of your cycle's really normal everything's fine. You ovulated on time and everything but then you don't create enough progesterone again. Whether that's because of stress or because of a nutrient deficiency then you can have these symptoms like insomnia feeling wide and tired that anxious feeling before your bleed and you might get like that brown spotting.
SPEAKER_05So you can see that like no asiris is not at the party no one's feeling grounded feeling stable like it just makes so much sense with these hormones and your symptoms.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Totally and you can have more than one like I definitely see like for me with the low B12 I had that excess estrogen um because I wasn't ovulating but then I also wasn't creating progesterone because I didn't ovulate right I didn't have the corpus luteum. So then you have I had both sort of symptoms um and they can go kind of hand in hand like that. Wow. Yeah so that's kind of what can go wrong lots. And and how we can start to identify it through your symptoms
Why You Should Track Your Cycle
SPEAKER_02but you're never gonna know this unless you're tracking your cycle.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_05You had an experience of tracking your cycle yeah tracking my cycle changed everything for me. Do you mean like when I was writing it? Yeah so one of the things Annie um offers you to do is like demands is to get out of journal and you just line your page and there's a few things of like tracking what day it is in your bleed, where like what phase or event you're in, your energy levels your sleep how many hours of sleep you had that night stress levels, libido and like symptoms and and feelings that day and it's just so empowering to check in of like you can kind of see some patterns in your cycle and and when your feelings and your energy and libido will shift but then also for me it was like looking back oh I got low sleep the past few nights no wonder why like my bleed is feeling like this. But even just tracking like how many days my cycle's lasting whether that's fluctuated this month and it's just so educational. And it's like and it's free and it's free and it's only myself like I'm giving myself the education it's it's really empowering.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and I think like you said how would you know if your your period was late which is really ovulation was late. Yes. Unless you know how long your cycles are going for and maybe you have the app great maybe you know that bare minimum of whether the days are changing but do you know that on day 19 every month you break out do you know that on day 26 you have insomnia I also think like with the app like I know when me and my friends had it in school it was kind of like we'd look at the app and be like oh yeah we're we're in follicular phase like we're feeling good.
SPEAKER_05You know it's like it wasn't actually intuitive. We were giving our power over to the device totally of just like tell me how I feel. Yes. And tell me what I should be doing. And it's like you know everyone's cycle's gonna look so different and and for me like my follicular phase doesn't really kick into a few days after like I bled. Like after I bled I'll be entering follicular but I won't feel those the estrogen yeah and until a little while which makes sense with your low estrogen history. Totally but then if I looked at the app I'd be like well why the fuck am I not feeling energized and and all these things I'm you know or I'd convince myself I am it's just not intuitive.
SPEAKER_02Totally yeah and you give like that power away of just like I'm in this phase so I should just feel this thing but really it's about understanding your cycle because we're gonna be talking about what a healthy cycle looks like but I think a healthy cycle is healthy for you. Yes. Not just in general you tick a few boxes because for me I always ovulate like a healthy cycle for me is ovulating day 19 not day 14 like you might see in the graphs day 19 is like a normal cycle for me and my cycle will be like 32 days long. That's great. It's 32 every month that's healthy it's not about having a 28 day cycle with a 14 day ovulation it's about what is normal for you. I really uncovered when I was tracking my cycle and having all of these symptoms and experiences how they would come you know on the same day every month and then from there we can start to create a plan. It's like okay I know that I get exhausted on day 26 I'm gonna create more space in my life you know I'm gonna do less.
SPEAKER_05It's so nurturing so you know how to support yourself and yeah it's good.
SPEAKER_02It's good it's romance is done is good it's really good and I think it's like really good. It's not just good. It's one of the most simple and powerful things that you can do and it is completely free. I actually have a free template that we'll put in the notes of this podcast because I'm trying to convince her to make her own journal help me guys well we should make one together yeah hell yeah yeah you can do the inspiring quotes and I'll do the I'll do the graph honestly I'm not even joking. Alright guys keep in tune yeah keep me accountable um so I I think yeah this is like a great place to start just so that you can get to understand your phases what it looks like for you to have your follicular phase or your luteal phase I've met hundreds of women that I've worked with and some of them you know ovulation is their worst you know some of them follicular is their worst it's not always the same even within myself I was just saying a million and it can change lately my cycle luteal I feel amazing I'm frothing life even my bleed like the first few days I'm like on one and then because I didn't rest because I'm like hell yeah life is great I've been feeling it more like day five day six I just like crash I'm like oh wait I should have rested so where she's coming into follicular yeah and it's like wait I'm meant to be energized now but in the past I've been like fully on one on day five and dead in Ludial you know I just think the point of everything I just said is that there will be a time for rest. There has to be a time if you don't choose it it will choose for you. Yeah absolutely
5 Signs of a Healthy Cycle
SPEAKER_02so we wanted to talk about five signs of a healthy cycle um so let's go Annie give me the five signs okay that's what you were gonna say because you just went for it the five signs of a healthy cycle are that your cycle will be similar length each month. So that means 28 days 32 days whatever it is it will be roughly the same with a little bit of wiggle room like it could be one to three days different so maybe 28 then 32 then 30 that's fine but if your period is like 21 days 50 days 42 days we're not having a regular it's actually really epic when I first like got regular cycles from Annie do you remember I would message her every month and I'd be like oh I'd be like 26 days again 26 days I was just like it's regular because now Millie knew how important that was it meant that she was ovulating regularly which meant her hormones were going to be more imbalanced and that they were working the way they should be which is so special because we could go so deep. Oh yeah but your hormones they affect like your ability for your bones to develop your bone density they affect how your brain works and your neurotransmitters they're not just for reproduction your hormones affect a lot so and if you listen to our last episode on my story I think that's why it's it's a clinical factor in diagnosing an eating disorder because it's a concern.
SPEAKER_05Like you know like it is it's really important to have your hormones working for you so that you can function in in the world.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely yeah they're not just a sign that you can reproduce they're a sign that your body is working the way it's supposed to be which is really important. Within that um the cycle length should be around 20 between 21 and 35 days. Anything over 35 days we might question if there was also symptoms attached to it. I mean like if it's 36 days every month then you're fine that's fine obviously but if it's you know longer than that and there's a lot of symptoms attached we might look at exploring why and then less than 21 days. Yeah so anything shorter than like 21 days every month then that could be a cause for concern. The second one is losing between 20 to 80 mils of blood. So on average we could call this like 50 mils of blood and I'm not talking about a day I'm talking about over the entire period. People are shocked when I say this because I think so many of us have heavy periods and what 50 mils looks like is 10 regular tampons fully soaked.
SPEAKER_05Not just worn for a few hours what does that look like because I've never used tampons what does it look like in a cup like I guess 50ml what is that in a cup yeah I don't it might be like a full I don't know a cup is a 250ml right okay so that's like a measuring cup I'm talking about like a bleeding cup well I'm talking about an actual cup though.
SPEAKER_02If I was to like measure my blood in a measuring cup it would be like a cool what's like a No no no not even an eight yeah okay it's not that much no it's not much at all yeah it's really not much at all I mean I don't even know were you ever a bartender do you know shots? I'm like how many are they? Yeah true they're like 30 mil I think the small one.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02It's like a double shot because I have a bartender. Double shot like she doesn't know my whole life the double shot of vodka okay um someone with the skills for this should let us know what it really is. But yeah it's true because if you are like for me I wear period underwear or maybe you wear a cup um not a shot glass the period cup period cup it it could be harder to tell right but um perhaps you could do the maths through like with a menstrual cup but with the period underwear I think if you have to change them constantly um like more every like two to four hours then that would be a concern because you're bleeding you know so heavily um or maybe you're not bleeding enough and you're only losing 20 mils which is because you know you haven't built up the endometrium lining there's not enough to bleed out whereas the other is you had so much estrogen you built such a strong endometrium lining there's a lot to come out makes that sense the next is that the blood will be bright red and no large clots. Now you will have some clotting like you know those big goops you feel that come through you like exactly you have a little mini burr. The clots are really we say in Australia we have a 10 cent coin um if it's larger than a 10 cent coin then that's considered a large clot. If it's smaller than that that's fine. So yeah just again like noticing if you have clotting you that's easy to do in underwear or a cup potentially as well as on a pad or tampons. And the colour bright red so if it is maybe like darker brown or even I've had women tell me black um that could just mean that it's sluggish. It's not flowing through smoothly it's not flowing through smoothly which just means that it's getting oxidized from oxygen. Yeah and and that's what changes the colour which is still a problem because it's not moving right flowing freely um or it could be like this deep dark purpley colour which is generally a sign of excess estrogen um the fourth one is that there will be little to no pain. Now I don't say no sensation but no pain this is this shocks people because so many of us experience I think it's just normalized.
SPEAKER_05It's like yeah I've got cramps they're really strong I'm in my bleed like it's just it's like we're meant to feel pain every month. But you literally have medication for it you know that most women have in their handbag.
SPEAKER_02Totally exactly and the pain is actually caused by what happens is you have these um these prostaglandins and they're like an inflammatory response. So they are what help contract the muscles so that you can push out the blood and if there's more to push out they're gonna work harder obviously and you're gonna have more cramping but also if you have more inflammation in the body already that's also gonna cause more painful periods. So because it is an inflammatory response so we want to be really reducing inflammation when we have painful periods. But anyway the point is that you have little to no pain you will have like a sensation I have maybe like a little bit of discomfort or I just feel this like I always call it like a rumbling it's like a little storm rolling through but and I hand to heart promise you it's possible I've had pain free periods honestly and they're not light like they're a normal bleed and they're not painful.
SPEAKER_05I like it was hard to fathom that before this journey yeah I don't think I've ever had super painful periods perhaps in the beginning I was quite an early bloomer in comparison to Annie I was 12 yeah getting mine but then I just before I was aware I lost it and then when I when I connected back with it it's never been super painful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah so it's it's it's possible possible and I think one thing to note as well I haven't really talked about conditions as well like endometriosis or you know poly it's now P M O R S not P C O S. It used to be polycystic ovarian syndrome but now it's poly endocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. Woo it's a mouthful um anyway there are conditions of course as well that can be below these other than the hormonal imbalances. Yeah yeah um but we're not here to diagnose right now we're just educating we're just talking about possibilities of what could be beneath it and what I've seen a lot in the work I do and what I've read a lot from you know doctors and experts. So the fifth sign last one will be no PMS symptoms.
SPEAKER_05It should not affect your day-to-day life it should not be debilitating it should not you know make you have to change your plans it shouldn't cause bloating breakouts um I'm interested in this and I want to ask you your your thoughts
Rituals of Menstruation
SPEAKER_05because we talk about back in the day like back in the day back back back medieval times maybe or like that era when you know those stories of they the red tent take women to the forest like when they're in their bleed you know and just like keep them there and and the men would do all the cooking and everything and those women would come out of the forest when they finish their bleed.
SPEAKER_02Not because they're they're pain they're in pain and they're incapable is it's it just well I don't know what that specific story is about but like because I I just think there's so much cultural significance that we could tap into. You know like that particular story could have came from a particular culture that saw the blood as whatever. You know like we don't know but like if you've ever read The Red Tent by Anita Diamante I think she talks about how the women are taken to this tent on their bleed and they just get to sit in there and they get fed wine and like cakes and they just sit in there. Not because it's painful just because to honor it because it's a sacred time of the month and it's it's revered in the community as a sacred thing. It used to be seen in some you know societies as this like the wisest time for a woman and that and they would become they would come to them for advice during this time of their month. So it really just depends through you know history there's so many different meanings and in yoga like we do say the veil is thinner normally in your bleed which for non-yoga context is like a little bit more spiritual kind of tapped into like other realms or just yourself yeah totally and I think I agree with that even from like a hormonal point of view you know in the first half of your cycle you have this estrogen that's like this hype woman. Yeah like I'm in the world I'm living in the world I'm I want to be out and I'm I'm extroverted you know I'm very external and then you move into progesterone and it's like I'm very internal and I'm slowing down but it still makes you feel that grounded kind of calm it has a different effect. I just laugh when I say this because some women are like what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_05What calm feeling in the luteal I was literally about to say that I was like and that's where we get confused with normalizing PMS it's like no the luteal is where I'm kind of like I feel like shit and I'm like irritable and you know all these mood swings it's like that's not normal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah it shouldn't be normal. Exactly and what was I just saying yeah sorry like the veil like oh yeah um cut you off no that's okay and then I was gonna say after progesterone it's like everything drops and we have no hornets it's like this baseline what are we without them so I think even from that point of view it's like yeah like the ups and downs of the fluctuations are gone the fluctuations of the mind yeah and you can come to yourself so yeah it can be a really special powerful time and you can see like obviously we were talking about energy is connected to estrogen you have like a lot of it in the first half of the cycle a little less in the second half of the cycle but during your bleed you have the least so it makes sense to just to rest
What Impacts Your Cycle?
SPEAKER_02so those are the five signs of a healthy cycle but as I said it's about your normal you know and that range of blood loss was between 20 and 80 mils. That's quite a big range. Yeah exactly so you could be sitting at the 70 mils or the 30 mils and it's it's really that you have some regularity and that it's the same every month and that you don't have these symptoms coming up alongside it. So we need to look at everything not just the blood but also what is coming with the symptoms so we're just gonna reiterate if you don't mind Annie just reiterating the factors that impact our cycle we've kind of talked about lower estrogen and things like that but those are more the scientific things that's going on what about the yeah like what actually caused that what are the behaviors totally so everything everything is impacting your cycle as we said at the very beginning your cycle is really responding to your environment right like your body you have this body you have a physical body it has senses through the senses it takes in information and then your brain communicates with your body on how to process this information right so going to work you have a stressful experience you know stress is number one for sure impacting your cycle stress can stop you from ovulating in the first place because your body will prioritize survival and then even if say you did ovulate your body it shares a pathway stress the stress hormone cortisol and progesterone share a common pathway and so again your body will choose survival over creating progesterone over reproduction. So whether you're at the first half or Second half of your cycle, stress will always impact it.
SPEAKER_05And I think, like, let's not hate on Cortisol. No, she didn't choose this life as well. Like, she's like, Fuck, I keep getting chosen, I'm sorry. Like, yeah, I'm keep being produced, but she's not the enemy.
SPEAKER_02She's here to keep you safe. She's like, there's a threat.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna make you awake, I'm gonna make you alert, I'm gonna get you ready to run away from this threat. I'm gonna make you survive. Right? Like, thank you, Cortisol. Seriously, I love her. The real problem is potentially us having this stressful response to in everyday life because our lives have become so stimulating, they have so much pressure on them, there's so much to think about and and worry about in today's life. Um so stress is number one food. Huge thing, it's something you do every day, three times a day, hopefully, you know, eating regular meals is another way you can reduce stress. If you're not eating at regular times, your body's like, when am I gonna get food? I'm freaking out. Are we ever gonna eat again? Fucking seriously. So, you know, having three meals that are at regular times is number one for reducing stress and helping your other hormones. You don't just have reproductive hormones. Stress, you know, cortisol is a hormone. You also have sleep hormones. Yeah, your appetite hormones. So your body knows to produce something that makes you feel hungry, it knows to produce the hormone that makes you feel full. Uh, the less guesswork, the more routine, the better for your body. Absolutely. Same with sleep, going to sleep at the same time, waking up at the same time. Sleep hygiene. Huge one. Um, so these things, even though they seem like different, they all affect your cortisol and your stress response, right? So we're looking at your sleep, we're looking at your diet, we're looking at your stress in general. Um, you know, exercise. Are you exercising a lot and not fueling your body correctly? Or are you not exercising at all and you're not helping your liver to um detox and and to process, right? And you know, exercise, you move the body, you move the organs, you help yourself go to the toilet. Yeah, what do we poo out? Estrogen! And then you can also We need to poo out Dunno!
SPEAKER_05You can also look at stress in terms of relationships in your life and your work relationships and like how connected are you to purpose and how connected are you to you know, there's just it's endless. It really is, it's it really is everything.
SPEAKER_02I always call it like there's physical stress and then emotional stress. Yeah, I love that. I feel like you can do things with your body, like the food and the sleep and the um exercise that can help reduce stress on a physical level, but then emotionally, like how do you surround yourself? What are the things you're taking in and consuming every day on TV or on your own? And they go together.
SPEAKER_05I wouldn't say there's one to to do first. No, like I feel like they, you know, they I think they feed into each other. Absolutely. If you have a toxic relationship, you might not sleep at night, but then if you're not sleeping, your relationship might go haywire because you're angry.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Yeah, they're both really important. So I think everything affects it, and also the products that you're using, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Endocrine system. Endocrine system is our um hormones, and this system can be affected by chemicals and endocrine disrupting um chemicals that we find in plastics, in perfumes, in all sorts of different products, exactly skincare, all of these things that you think you're doing something really nice for yourself, but they add up over time. If you think about how many products a woman might use on her body after a shower or in the shower or throughout a show.
SPEAKER_05And it's not your fault, you're just convinced that through marketing that you need all those different products.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and they feel good, and some of them even look clean. Oh my god, the greenwashing in the wellness industry is wild. I just bought a few pairs of period undies that I'm gonna be doing a review on, and one of them, uh oh. Oh really? They were really bad. They greenwash to the max. It was really interesting. Yeah, mm-hmm. Um, so even that, even the clothing you're wearing, all of the things that you put in or around your body, everything in your environment is going to impact your cycle.
Progress Over Perfection
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and I think on this, like, my brain would just like hearing all of this, it would be like yeah, but um, how can I control how can I control all of this? And like, how can I do everything perfect then so I can get a perfect cycle? I think it's also important to know that like there's you can't avoid all of this. I can't avoid stress for the rest of my life. No, I can't avoid sleeping at that friend's house and I forgot my moisturizer, I'm gonna use hers. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Even if it's not the cleanest thing I've well, you might create stress by having the perfect routine. Exactly. Just just don't do anything. No, it's like, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_05I think that's just don't get attached to it. I like do what you can, but don't get attached to all these things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I talk to a lot of women, like a lot of my work, like you said, in my programme, I really reconnected you to play. Yes, fun, and I think that is the point. It's like in the name of health, are you losing your joy? And in losing your joy, you you are affecting your cycle. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Right? And it's also what do you like? I love your point of just it's so individual, because it is like that. Some of us are the people that need to kick up our ass, kick up the ass in a little bit more control, and then there's people like me who actually need to be told to loosen the reins. So it also depends on who you know yourself to be and what you need.
SPEAKER_02And usually it's not that crazy what I recommend.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It'd be like, go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time.
SPEAKER_05And he was like, go walk to the ocean and watch it for 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'll be like, do nothing. That was her homework assignment. She had to go and I said no podcast. Sorry, we're a podcast. No journaling, no, no meditating, don't even focus the thoughts. Yeah. Just go and be in nature. Yeah. Go and relax, you know, just be. And so, yeah, it's like a lot of the advantage. For real. Literally. It's crazy. It's it's about I think using all of these things, but at the end of the day, I'm really just helping women to eat three meals that are nourishing and whole foods, go to bed and get a good eight hours of sleep every night, and then, you know, like just think about the quality of the things that you put in and around your body, and and make time for yourself. Make time to be, you know, spacious and to rest. Um, because we didn't even really talk about today the energy of each of these phases, right? Like, we talked about estrogen being connected to the your energy. So you'll feel more energized potentially in the follicular phase, you'll have that peak energy in ovulation, it'll start to wean in the luteal and then drop in menstruation. So we can say that you can really lean into that and like rest during those times when you naturally have less energy.
Reclaiming Your Feminine Power
SPEAKER_05Well, that kind of ties us into how we can reclaim our power then. I feel like that's a part of how we're how do we reclaim our feminine power through claiming connection to our cycle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'd love to hear like your experience of that. When you because you lost your cycle. Yeah. And then you even said earlier that it was very masculine. Like you I was literally about to go there. Yeah. Okay. Like Ellie.
SPEAKER_05I was like, I forgot how to be a female. I was so masculine. Like in everything I did, I was so routine, so orderly, and also like really disconnected from like intimacy as well. And these things of just like that comes with I don't know, I just think of feminine nature and I think of emotion and these beautiful things that I ran away from. So when I got my cycle back, it was like, whoa, I'm actually a woman. And that felt powerful. I was in such awe from going to a relationship where I hated my body. I went from this place of being in such awe of it because, like Annie described at the start, the whole science anatomy of what goes on every month is just incredible. And it made me like I'm so blessed to be a woman. I can't believe I get to experience this. Um yeah, and it allowed me to align with nature a lot. Like I felt like I was the moon, like I was a full moon, and then I'd, you know, start to wane and I'd become a new moon, then I'd wax again, and I just felt so in tune with my energy and where I'd be at. I started being able to cancel plans and not be such a people pleaser because I was like, actually, my body needs rest right now. Like it became almost like an excuse, but not in that way. But it was empowering. Yeah. That's just the word I it's a permission slip. It is. It's a permission slip.
SPEAKER_02And also not an excuse.
SPEAKER_05When we talk about, like our whole message with this podcast is sharing your story and the way it connects you to other women. When I started talking about my bleed, like I feel like I gave permission to all my friends to also start cancelling plans because they're on their bleed to talk about it, to talk about, you know, me and my friends like to go to gym or Pilates together and be like, oh, look, I'm actually gonna can the class. Can we go for a walk? Or because this is just how I'm feeling today.
SPEAKER_01Totally.
SPEAKER_05Even food, like I'll ask my friends if they're coming over, I'd be like, What phase are you in? And I'd be like, let me give you that avocado or whatever the fuck it is. That's getting nitty gritty, but it's fun.
SPEAKER_02No, but it could be like I'm gonna make you something really warming and nourishing for your body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or I'm gonna make you something really light and fresh. Like it could be that simple, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, you're you're we're gonna need chocolate, eh? You know, and we need in chocolate.
SPEAKER_02So chocolate does dark chocolate has magnesium. It's magnesium is one of the ingredients for making progesterone. That is why luteal and chocolate are a match made.
SPEAKER_04I have chocolate all sides browns. This is the science. Dark chocolate luteal, milk chocolate ovulation, white chocolate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well hey, white chocolate.
SPEAKER_04Same.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, get that out of there. Get that in the bin. Um, you can have it. Yeah, not it. Yeah, so as you can see, it can really help you connect with
The Moon & Your Cycle
SPEAKER_02this feminine energy. And like we we do notice that the sun, right, rises in the morning, sets at night. It's got a daily rhythm, which is very similar to a male's hormones. Whereas the moon has these four phases. Each phase lasts a week, but it gradually changes every single second of every day, you know, and that's exactly the same as us.
SPEAKER_01Incredible.
SPEAKER_02And like the new moon is this idea of like the light has emptied out, right? It's like emptying out just like the womb empties out the blood. It's also this darker time to be inward. And then the moon starts to create more light, it gets brighter and brighter, the follicular phase. We start to come out of our shell, we get this estrogen, this energy, and then we get the full moon. It's like peak hormones, peak brightness. It's actually insane.
SPEAKER_05Like it's crazy. Like we are nature, we are, and and the masculine and feminine energies, they emulate the sun and the moon.
SPEAKER_04It's just like who God created this world? Fine piece of art.
SPEAKER_02You're on it. Crafted.
SPEAKER_04On it. Yeah, he was on it.
SPEAKER_02And he was in his ovulation, and then yeah, like the waning moon. So the light starts to disappear, starts to go darker again, and we we move into that slower inward feeling. And I will say this: like, everyone's cycle is so different, you know. Some like I said, I feel really energized sometimes in in different parts of my cycle. So there's no rules about that, it's really just like what is normal for you. And so, like you were saying, communicating with a friend, maybe you're like me, and day five and six are like no good at the moment. I'd just be like, Oh, I'm just coming out of my period, and that's when I feel really tired, you know. I'm gonna can that class, but then like the day before my period, I'm like, let's fucking go. You just never know, right? So I think not putting expectations on women to have the same experience as you and just remembering that like we're all so different.
SPEAKER_05I feel like I've even started like speaking about it to guys, and they're actually like with it, yeah, like or just like open or like to understanding. Yeah, um, which is also really empowering.
SPEAKER_02Like, try that, like try communicate that with your guy friend, or you know, my father, Adam, we will have like girlfriends over and they'll talk about their cycle and they don't know much about it, and Adam will literally know more. He'll be like, so this is what's happening, it's so good. Educated king.
Why We Need to Talk About Our Cycles
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah, and I think we'll just close this by reiterating. And we're just gonna close. Just close this, you know, circle. Hell yeah. Can I close? Yeah, God. Just this this circle of what we've been talking about, with you know, the the cycle can be this alarm system to where we're at at life, you know. It can our symptoms. I really love how our symptoms can really point towards what's going on beneath on a hormonal level, but then from there, it's like what are the possible causes of that hormonal imbalance? And from those causes, we can really start to map out a plan of where to go next. It can honestly be that simple, not easy, but simple. Um, so yeah, it's absolutely something we should be taking note of. Absolutely something we should be.
SPEAKER_05I'm sorry. She was on a roll. I actually don't know why you lost it.
SPEAKER_04My tongue. I just keep up and everything. Sounded so weird all of a sudden. Oh, wait, what were they saying? I don't know. You're on this like entirely. Unhooked.
SPEAKER_02And then like unhooked and we absolutely we absolutely just got a bit like we absolutely should be listening to our cycle and noticing our cycle, and we absolutely should be tracking our cycle to know where we're at, so that we can even know if an alarm's going off. You don't want to get to the point where your menstrual cycle becomes 60 days long or that your period disappears, we can have earlier detection of just having any symptom really.
SPEAKER_05So totally and open the conversation too, like with friends, family, like just talk about it. It's fun, it connects you to other women, and it's nice to hear other people's experiences with it as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's the best. I'll I remember being at a wedding last year, and we were all at like the kick-ons in this little like dark room and this dungey little shed, and I was in a circle with like 20 women, and they were just like, so these are my symptoms. And I was like, I fucking live for this. It was like the best thing ever. I was like, I need a camera right now for content, but we all looked so fucked up that I'm not gonna do that to myself.
SPEAKER_05It what connects all of us women together. It's amazing, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's one thing as well, you know, it's like something that's so taboo and not spoken about, but nearly all of us are going through it. Sorry, especially the the issues, right? Like problems with their cycle, it's so common, but it feels like you can't talk about it. So we'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment on this episode and share your cycle story with us. We would love to hear it. We love a cycle story. You've heard ours now. And maybe we don't eat yours. Yeah, maybe like take that power back.
SPEAKER_04Fuck yeah. Own the story. I swear a lot on this podcast. Fucking own.
SPEAKER_02Now it's just Sunday at 5 p.m. That's it.
SPEAKER_04See you next week. See you all next week. Talk about Dun dun dun! If you haven't figured that out.
SPEAKER_02Okay, we're cropping all of this out.