Discover the Power of your Cycle
I’m sure you can relate to those days in your cycle where you just want to go home, relax, and enact the do nothing plan. And before you sit down, you check your phone and realize that you forgot you made plans to go out with some friends- the last thing you want to do. 😣 But you feel obligated to go, so you ignore how you’re truly feeling and you put your big kid pants to go out, even though your body is telling you no.
We’ve all been there. And sometimes, it ends up being an amazing time! But we may feel even more drained the next day or even week because we didn’t listen to our body. Some of us may feel angry or frustrated the next day 😤, for what feels like no reason, but deep down we know it’s because we didn’t listen to what we really needed.
📈 When you chart your cycle, you’ll be able to confirm ovulation with your basal body temperature and vaginal secretions, and once you confirm ovulation, you can usually count out 12-16 days (it varies depending upon your unique cycle) after ovulation to know exactly when you’ll likely be bleeding. This means you have about 2-ish weeks to organize your schedule in a way that supports your body- cancel plans, rearrange plans, make new plans.
When you align your lifestyle with your cycle- you just feel better. You aren’t trying to swim upstream anymore, you are riding the waves of your hormones and you know what to expect and what your body needs.
⭐ Imagine truly understanding your body’s natural rhythm- your foundation.
⭐ Imagine understanding the cyclical nature of your emotions, your desires, why you want to eat certain foods when, why you don't want to always do a HIT workout, and why you may not want to go out even though you love handing out with your friends.
When you track your cycle, you’ll know ahead of time what to expect ⏰ so you can:
Plan your daily activities with more awareness
Understand your emotions, so you’re never surprised by those ‘down’ days
Optimize your diet and exercise routines for better performance
Align your social engagements to match your energy levels
Easily understand if any symptoms you’re experiencing are hormonal
See if the supplements/lifestyle changes you’re making are actually having an impact on your health
Having this awareness allows you to live in harmony with your body and improve your well-being. You feel empowered to make informed decisions about your health and lifestyle and you can confidently communicate your choices to your friends, family, partner(s), and medical team.
And what’s more cycle tracking is…
Versatile
Achieve pregnancy, plan for conception, and understand optimal timing, confirm that you’re ovulating, and make sure you have other key factors to support conception
Avoid pregnancy with effective, hormone-free birth control (Did you know you can’t get pregnant throughout your entire cycle? You are only fertile for a short period each cycle so why keep exposing your body to synthetic hormones?)
Symptom-free & non-invasive
Cycle charting relies on observing your body’s natural signs of fertility without any hormones or medical devices
Safe to use during postpartum and during breast/chest feeding
Provides invaluable medical insight
Understand the root cause of delayed pregnancy or infertility, chronic vaginal infections, cyclical symptoms such as acne, headaches, and other menstrual irregularities, such as irregular cycles, heavy bleeding, pain, etc.
Increases Confident Communication
With your partner(s) and medical team
Offers Life-Long, Cost-Effective Education
From your first period through till menopause, you can use cycle charting and requires nothing more than a piece of paper and a $15 basal body thermometer. While self-teaching the method is possible, (see my favorite DIY books here), taking a class and working with an certified Fertility Awareness Educator (FAE) can greatly enhance your confidence and skills, and thus the effectiveness of this method, especially if you are using it for birth control.