taking care of our bodies as women, cycle syncing

in order to love our bodies, we need to take care of them. in order to take care of our bodies, we need to know how to take care of them, understand how they work, and where our world isn't working in womens' favor.

in this episode, i wanted to share a bit of my cycle syncing journey with you, why i started, and the knowledge i learned including just how different and more complex women's bodies are.

we're just grazing the surface, but i can't wait to bring in more experts and other's with unique experiences in future episodes because we deserve to know how to take care of our bodies and love them right.

books to help you on this journey:
"hormone intelligence" - aviva romm https://amzn.to/46kJBMa
"in the flo" - alisa vitti https://amzn.to/459alOG

connect with julia on instagram @beautybyjulia + tik tok @juliasalvia

unlock more archive content on instagram @theselflovearchive + tik tok @theselflovearchives

sign up for the self-love archives newsletter: www.theselflovearchives.com

Transcript

julia salvia: 0:00

hello, hello. Welcome back to the Self Love Archives podcast. My name is Julia Salvia and I am your host, your brand new bestie, or if you've been here, I am your bestie. We're besties already. It's been a thing already. We have a thing already. I'm your big sister, the big sister that you've always needed, and I'm your self love guide. Whichever one of those three or more that you need most, I am here for you. Today we're going to be having a conversation that's really giving big sister energy. I am the oldest in my family, so I have never had a big sister. I am the big sister. I like to think of our big sisters, our cousins, our parents, the people that surround us that are older than us, that have more experience in living life, less of this authority and more of this guide in our life. Our parents, our big sisters, our older cousins, they're here to guide us on the right track. They're here to guide us to be the best version of ourselves, to be the best woman that we can be. And I'm hoping that I can be that for you today. Today's episode holds a special place in my heart because I didn't have that guide growing up. I didn't have that big sister or that person that was guiding me in the right direction, especially in regards to my health, my hormone cycles as a woman I wish I knew how to take better care of myself as a woman. I wish I was much more familiar with my body as a woman. I wish that I had all of this knowledge that I have today. So that I could make choices for myself and my body because I want to make those choices, not because I felt like I had to make those choices. We're going to be talking about hormone cycles, cycle syncing, and how to take care of yourself as a woman. These topics and this conversation today is not just for women. This conversation, this education, this knowledge is for everyone. We are able to love ourselves more when we are knowledgeable about the bodies that we are in, when we are able and knowing of the love that we need to give to our bodies. And that's our whole bodies. That's our physical body, our emotional body, our mindful body, our soul, all of the above. There are so many things that we either didn't know, was given the wrong information about, or made to feel shamed about. We can blame no one but the system that we live in, and how it wasn't built for women in the first place. But what we can do now is learn and do better for ourselves, our bodies, and all women. As we jump into all of these topics, I want to make it very clear that I am not a doctor. This is just my experience, my opinions, and from the research that I have personally done and the work that I have done on myself as a woman. When I refer to men and women in this podcast episode, I am referring to a biological man and a biological woman for the sake of talking about biological things like our hormone cycles. that's not to disregard a transgender man, woman, or others and their place in this conversation. Even with additional research, this knowledge and this experience is much more new. My confidence in speaking about these hormone complexities and hearing directly from people with these experiences will continue to grow with time and the opportunity to have more of these conversations. The conversation about loving ourselves through the knowledge of our bodies is a truth for all of us. This is going to be a hard statement to start with, but I do not believe that men and women are equal. I don't believe that men and women ever will be equal. Biologically, we are completely different human beings. Our bodies are built differently, our bodies work differently. To say that we would be socially on the same playing field equally, yes, 100%. I agree. But to say that biologically we would be on the same level playing fields, I don't even like the word equality. I don't even like the word equal. I like the word different. Because that's what we are. Different. There is a mutual respect that we should have for one another, but it's essentially non existent in most cases. Our differences are disrespected because people see differences as a negative thing. We want people to agree with us. We want people to like us. It's comfortable, it's easier. But if we took the time to understand and educate ourselves about these differences, we would see that each has its pros and cons. It's collaborative. It's like being in a work project with someone. Your weaknesses may be your partner's strengths, and their weaknesses may be your strengths. At the end of the day, most conflict and miscommunication comes from a lack of understanding or a lack of knowledge, and I really believe that we have both. In this patriarchal society, we are living in the favor of a man's biology. Our education on a man's biology is more advanced and more studied than a woman's biology. Women are more likely to be injured and killed in car accidents than men. I can already hear someone saying, Well, that's just because women are weaker than men. No. Because if we do a little bit more digging, the University of Virginia found that women are 73 percent more likely to be seriously injured in a car crash than men. Even when both are wearing seatbelts. How about if I told you that most of the testing, if not all of the crash testing that car companies do is with a male test dummy and those that have a quote unquote female test dummy isn't even actually built like a female. It's just a smaller version of a male crash test dummy. This is just one of so many examples where the consideration of how different and more complex women's bodies are is secondary to that of a man's. The same secondary consideration happens even with medical testing and clinical trials, resulting in women having more side effects and incorrect dosages. A woman's hormones fluctuate throughout not only different parts of their cycle, but throughout different parts of their life, like while pregnant or when experiencing menopause. Our cycles as women, greatly influences how a drug is metabolized in our body. So my question is, are we cutting corners? Are these huge companies cutting corners? in their testing because it's easier to test on men because their cycles are more predictable? The lack of consideration for a woman's body, and how different it really is biologically in comparison to that of a man's is insane to me. So the lack of consideration, the lack of knowledge, the lack of teaching on a woman's body in this patriarchal world, is it surprising? Not really. Is it sad? Extremely. Disappointing? Extremely. So it's time to take our bodies, our lives into our own hands. Knowledge is power. That saying has so much truth within it, knowledge has power. I have dived into so many rabbit holes about hormone cycles and cycle syncing and taking care of our bodies, and this one came as a huge shock to me. Did you know that the male hormone cycle is only about 24 hours long? Whereas the female hormone cycle averages about 28 days long. That's a big difference. That means in one year, a man is experiencing a hormone cycle 365 times a year. Whereas women are experiencing a hormone cycle averaging about 12 times a year. Of course we knew that men can't create a human, but women can. But to think about how a man's cycle is just quick. 24 hours. But a woman's cycle takes a lot longer to ebb and flow. As an astrology girlie, I absolutely loved this when I saw it. In Mexico, out in the mountains, in the country area. The men and women's bathrooms. On the men's bathroom, there's a sun. And on the women's bathroom, there's a moon. Our cycles are very similar to that of the moon and the sun. A man's cycle is very similar to the sun in that it rises and sets every 24 hours. And a woman's cycle is very similar to that of a moon, where it fills and wanes on a 28 day cycle. In astrology, we compare the feminine to the moon and the masculine to the sun. It's even been said that when you look at your chart, wherever you have the sun emulates your father, and wherever you have the moon emulates your mother or your maternal figure in your life, or your paternal figure in your life. Or the more masculine figure in your life, or the more feminine figure in your life. With these differences in hormone cycles between men and women, not only with the length differences of each cycle, but so many other things, like the amount of hormones, how it ebbs and flows, you can then go on to think about how our world, this patriarchal world that we live in isn't set up for women. It's not set up for our energy levels and our hormone cycle. It's set up for a man's. Now historically, men were the ones working, men were the ones provided education. And I can only imagine that however that came to be was also created by a man. So do I expect that those would be set up for women? No, I don't. But my question, my rhetorical question is if 40 percent of women are the breadwinners, In families now, today, why are we still working off of that same work day, work week, education? Why are we still living in a society set up for men? That brings me to cycle syncing. One of the reasons why I decided to start cycle syncing personally is because I came off of my birth control. And why not try cycle syncing since I'm not taking any medications, I'm not taking birth control, I'm not taking anything that would alter my hormones. So how can I live my life in the best way possible working with my body? Before we talk about cycle syncing, I want to talk about my story with birth control. So that you can kind of understand where I'm at, why I decided to go forward with cycle syncing, and kind of my journey of where I came from and how I got to where we're at right now. So I am 29. Closer to 30 at this point, but I'm 29 right now and we'll, we'll leave it at 29. I went on birth control for the first time when I was 17 or 18 years old. It was this normal thing, and I think it's really become this normal thing that once you are starting your period, you are getting into this place of, I got air quotes, becoming a woman. I will never forget, I will never forget sitting at my dinner table. And I have two sisters, so I have two sisters and a brother. And I will never forget sitting at my dinner table. I was 12, and my period had come. For the first time. And, I don't think I've ever, I think I've definitely told this story before. I was 12. My period had come for the first time and I remember it was this church's picnic and I was working the dunk tank. Don't, don't even ask. It was... That was a really long time ago, okay? And I didn't know anything. I didn't know any better. So I got my period for the first time the day of that little picnic and I remember sitting at the dinner table That week. And my dad announcing to the whole entire table. Mind you, I'm the oldest. If I'm 12, my brother's 11. My sister's like 8. And my little little sister is 2. So it's my two sisters, my brother, my mom, and my dad. And my dad announces to the whole table that Julia has become a woman. And how embarrassing. And it gets worse because he did it for my sisters too. But once I turned 17 or 18, it was kind of like this no brainer, or this regular schmegular thing that, we as teenagers would just go on birth control. And knowing what I know now about birth control and about my body, that is absolutely insane to me. So I was on microgestion for a couple of years before I moved to Connecticut. And when I moved to Connecticut, you switch your pharmacy, and that pharmacy started giving me a different birth control. They told me that it was perfectly fine, that it was the exact same dosage, it was the exact same thing, and I trusted them. Even though the package was completely different. Everything about it was different. The pills looked different. The name was different. The information was different. I trusted their verbal language that it was exactly the same. And I started taking that birth control. And I felt weird. I didn't feel like myself for about a month or two taking that birth control. So I immediately went back to my doctor and the pharmacy and I was like, please change it back to the exact same birth control, microgestion. I want it to be the same packaging, the same product, the same exact thing that I've been taking for years because I really had no issue with taking birth control. At this point, I had been on birth control for, I would say about 6 or 7 years. And I was actually on birth control for my skin Not really to prevent pregnancy or to help with cramps or anything like that I was on birth control for my skin because I would get really bad cystic acne I'd gone on Spironolactone, which is another hormonal medication And That was the priority as to why I was on birth control. So fast forward a couple of years, it's now 2020 and I'm still on the same birth control but all of a sudden my skin starts to break out so badly. I'm talking like horrible cystic acne on my cheeks, on my chin. It was painful. It would scar. It was horrible. And at the same time that I was getting the cystic acne, I also had just gotten Invisalign. So I just felt like it was a flashback to me as a 13 year old girl who just got her period, who is getting acne on her face. Like, I'm reliving my teenage years So what did I do? The only thing that I really knew to do, which is go to my doctor and ask them what, what are my options. I actually went to a dermatologist first and this dermatologist gave me three options. Spironolactone. the same medication I had been on before, a hormonal medication, change my birth control, which is a hormonal medication, or go on Accutane, which is another hormonal medication. Not a single option that this dermatologist gave me had anything to do with a change in diet or there was no option that didn't have to do with a medication and even more so a medication that wasn't hormone based. And I asked. So I felt really defeated leaving the dermatologist. I ended up calling my gynecologist, hoping that she would give me better news. But unfortunately, her options were also the same. And she ended up suggesting that I switch over to the generic version of Yaz. I was on this generic version of Yaz for about a year, and within that year, I felt fucking crazy. I am not generally a mean person. I am not generally someone who is very angry. And that entire year that I was taking Yaz, while my acne did start to slowly disappear, I was mad. I was angry at everything. I felt so out of body. I just really did not feel like myself. So, when I started to feel these concerns a couple of months into taking Yaz, and nothing else in my life had changed, my diet was the same, my activity was the same, my stress levels were the same, my job was the same, everything in my life was the same. But all of a sudden, three months into taking this new birth control, maybe even four months, I started to get really sick. I was sick so much that year. In addition, I had so much anxiety, and I was just mad. I was just mad at everything. At the end of the day, I didn't feel like myself. And all of that, to me, was not worth not having acne. But I was conflicted because, why isn't there another option besides hormonal medication to help with acne. Why isn't anyone giving me more answers as to where this acne is actually coming from? Why is medication just being pushed onto me to take for my acne? At about almost a year of taking this generic version of Yaz. I decided to call my doctor I had been on birth control at this point for almost 10 years. So, to come off of this medication, this hormonal medication, all of a sudden, after taking it for 10 years, seemed really scary. And I wanted to talk to my doctor and see what my options were and talk about how to go about coming off of birth control. Thinking about any other medication that's out there, usually it's kind of like this weaning off, this process of lowering the dosage of the medication or switching the medication to something that is a lower dosage. I was just making this, I think, educated assumption from what I've seen with other things and You know, your doctor is supposed to be the person that you can go to with these questions. And, unfortunately, the response that I had gotten from her was very, Okay, what are you going to do now? What are you going to use now instead of birth control? How are you going to protect yourself from getting pregnant? You could just come off of it. It's no big deal. And I was just so confused by her response to that. Because I wasn't taking the birth control to prevent pregnancy to begin with. I was taking birth control because it was helping to suppress my acne. But then at the same time I'm feeling shamed for choosing to not take birth control anymore because you, as a doctor, aren't giving me any other options. And I don't feel good. I don't feel like myself. And even to that, she had other things to say. So I decided to take my health into my own hands and come off of birth control, stop seeing that gynecologist, and do more research and learn more things about my body. It wasn't until about a year ago that I learned that Yaz was discontinued. And it was discontinued actually a couple of years ago. Bayer, the creator of Yaz or Yazmin, had more than 18, 000 lawsuits against it because of this drug's life threatening side effects, including blood clots, gallbladder issues, heart attacks, and stroke. If Yaz was discontinued, why is my doctor prescribing me the generic version of Yaz? So because of this situation regarding my health. I decided to go off birth control and all medications completely. And try cycle syncing or at the very least learn more about it. If you aren't familiar with cycle syncing, It's essentially changing your lifestyle habits to match your menstrual cycle. And those lifestyle habits are things like what you're eating, How you're spending your time and your energy. So you're matching how you fuel your body and how you stay active in accordance with your menstrual cycle. Cycle syncing can also get into the nitty gritty of how you're critically thinking and the types of energy that you have during different parts of your cycle. We have two different parts of our cycle as women. We have the luteal phase and we have the follicular phase. For my own brain, I separate my cycle into four different parts. That includes my period, the follicular phase, which is the little bit of time in between your period and ovulation, ovulation, and the luteal phase. Ovulation sits right in the middle of our cycle. So our period comes first about five to seven, I was gonna say business days, five to seven days long. We have a couple of days. from the end of our period to the beginning of ovulation. Ovulation lasts about five days, and then once ovulation is over, we go into our luteal phase, which is about two weeks long. This is how I personally set up my cycle, just so I can really see it visually a lot better, but our period begins the follicular phase and ovulation ends our follicular phase. We then go into our luteal phase. I love this way to describe our cycle. This was the first way that I learned all the different parts of the cycle, because I think it can be really overwhelming. Our period is like winter. So, during winter we want to cozy up, we want comfort food, we don't really want to go do too much activity. We want to take care of our bodies. And during our period, our bodies do need a little bit more calorie intake so it's like the perfect winter, if you will. That part of the follicular phase in between the period and ovulation is spring. Estrogen is rising and we are starting to gain a lot more energy. It's like, it's like how you feel in spring. You're starting to go outside a lot more. You want to actually go for your walk you're maybe eating a little bit lighter foods. And then we go to ovulation. And ovulation is summer. Summer is where we're really getting our party on. We are fueling our bodies with lighter foods. And this is where we can take the most amount of exercise. Where we are going to have the most energy to do things. And then we go into our luteal phase, which is the longest part of our cycle. If you're looking at it like me in the four different sections. And this is fall. Our energy levels are going to start to decrease. We're going to want to chill a little bit more. We're going to want to eat a little bit more. We're going to want to fuel our bodies a little bit more. I love looking at the phases of our cycle in this way because it just makes so much sense and it really puts into perspective where our bodies are at and what our bodies need. In the same way that we would look at the seasons. So, after coming off of birth control, I had this opportunity to learn more about my body. And as I learned more about my body and my knowledge grew, especially about my cycle, through cycle syncing, I understood how much We didn't learn as kids about our bodies and how much I remember sitting in those sex ed classrooms and CCD classes where my body as a woman was shamed and where my body felt As though it was only meant to reproduce. It was very interesting to learn that birth control essentially mimics pregnancy. Estrogen and progesterone are at their highest when a woman is pregnant. Birth control is one or both of those hormones, synthetically created. So there are 21 days of pills where we are taking in estrogen and progesterone into our bodies to mimic pregnancy so that we don't ovulate, so that we don't get pregnant. And then we have this breakthrough, which is known as a breakthrough bleed, which mimics our period. Thinking about how we are tricking our bodies into thinking that they are pregnant, for years, doesn't sit well with me. There are women who need birth control. There are so many situations where birth control can be a medication that can help, especially in the cases of PCOS or endometriosis. But coming from my personal experience, and using birth control to help with acne, now that I've been off of birth control for almost two, three years at this point, I don't have acne. I don't have cystic acne. And my skin is so much better. My body feels so much better. And that is my personal experience. and my personal opinion with birth control. I don't believe that it's right that at 17 or 18 years old we are being pushed birth control. It feels as though we are shamed for our bodies and the only way to fix it is to take birth control. That there's no underlying reason to our problems and the only way to fix them is to take birth control. So while I believe that birth control can help certain women with certain medical issues, it's disappointing that it is given. To girls and women whose issues don't need to be band aided, all of our issues deserve more, we deserve better. cycle syncing has really been this beautiful tool that has helped me live without birth control. That has helped me learn a lot more about my body. How to feel my body how and when to do certain exercises and activity with my body. The best thing that I learned about my body during cycle syncing is that Drinking caffeine or alcohol during the luteal phase can have negative or adverse effects on our bodies during our period. Because during the luteal phase, we are detoxing estrogen and that's the job of our liver. But our liver also detoxes alcohol, it detoxes caffeine. So if we're taking in a lot of caffeine and a lot of alcohol, and our body's trying to detox estrogen, our periods may have worse side effects, like cramps, headaches, bloating. Small things like this that help us live within our bodies, with our bodies, with our cycles, can truly make a difference in our day to day, like how we feel. The knowledge that you can gain from learning more about your cycle, And then learning more about cycle syncing and fueling your body with the right foods, the right activity. Almost feels like this secret that no one ever wanted us to know about. So I started cycle syncing by not completely engulfing myself into it, but by learning more about it, by learning more about my cycle, because I was coming from a place where I knew very little about it, by doing what I can to incorporate small pieces of cycle syncing into my life, like maybe watching my caffeine in my luteal phase, or watching the consumption of alcohol in my luteal phase, so that my period is a lot easier to handle. So I'm not getting as many cramps or headaches. There's no perfect way to do cycle syncing. It's incorporating these recommendations and understanding more about your body so that you know how to fuel your body better, like having more vitamin C at a certain time during your cycle or eating more leafy greens during a certain time during your cycle because that's going to help fuel your body better. That's going to help give you the nutrients that you need for those different parts of your cycle. It's not about doing all of these things perfectly. That's never the goal. The hope is that by cycle syncing you'll learn more about your body, learn more about what your body needs, for you. I want to continue talking about cycle syncing and our womanhood and our bodies and how to live within our bodies in the best and most healthiest way. I want to help provide you with more knowledge about the things that you deserve to have knowledge on. The two books that I want to leave you with that I think are the best place to start are Hormone Intelligence and In the Flow. Both of these books are going to be linked in the show notes. And we're going to be talking a little bit more about this subject in the coming couple of weeks I want to get someone who is really really knowledgeable on this subject on the podcast so that we can chat together and learn a lot more about ourselves and our bodies If you are cycle syncing like myself, happy cycle syncing. Don't be too hard on yourself about it. You don't have to cycle sync perfectly. But if you can do one thing that's better for your body, whether that's through fueling your body, providing your body with activity during certain parts of your cycle, that is more than enough. Sending you so much love. Thank you so much for hanging out with me and learning a little bit more about my journey as a woman about cycle syncing and I can't wait to chat more about this. I hope you have a wonderful week and I will talk to you guys super soon. Love you. Bye.