This is your quick-start guide to hormone-friendly and menstrual cycle-informed exercise for women. It’s time to upgrade exercise from a fixed and prescriptive routine to intuitive self-care with workouts that are optimized for your female physiology.

With a few practical changes to food and fitness during the first and last weeks of your cycle, you can be on your way to reduced PMS and period pain.

Learn how to supplement strategically and use movement as medicine for cramps, headaches, and other menstrual malaise.

When it comes to working out on your period, the last thing you want to worry about is faulty protection, discomfort, and leaks. While tampons may still be the go-to for many menstruators, it might be time to jump on the trend toward a more sustainable option.

When you allow your workouts to mirror your natural energy fluctuations, all it takes is a few minor adjustments in timing, intensity, and style to help you remain active, destress, and more effectively reach your fitness goals.

Your pain-free and healthy period starts in the luteal phase. The investment you make in nutrition and recovery during your premenstrual days will pay dividends when your period arrives. Learn how to adapt diet, exercise, and lifestyle to reduce PMS and period pain.

While often associated with cramping and fatigue, the cyclical hormone dip during your period opens a unique window of opportunity for your fitness goals. Learn how to leverage your hormones and work out on your period.

The female body is an expertly designed system that supports the cyclical potential for life. As a result, a menstruating woman’s metabolism operates at a very high efficiency and varies throughout her cycle according to fluctuating hormones. This changing inner chemistry serves a unique reproductive mission, but it can also inform the way we nourish our bodies to support energy levels and vitality all month long.

This is a humble message of compassion for anyone struggling with infertility. I am sharing this story because I remember how amid the unspeakable heartache of an unanswered call to motherhood, I sought out tales of hope and light.

This is mine and as you might expect, it begins and ends with a love story.

Blood sugar levels influence everything from mood to weight management and cognitive function. And this matters for menstruating women because the way your body metabolizes carbohydrates varies throughout your cycle. You may experience more erratic blood sugar when high hormones are present and this contributes to PMS.

After receiving limited support from my doctor for type 2 diabetes prevention, I chose to challenge the prescribed course of action and course-correct with cycle syncing to reduce my blood sugar naturally.

If you are a woman, your blood sugar matters. There are practical ways to support your metabolism and overall health by addressing insulin resistance and they’re not as taxing as you might think—this just is another way to use cycle syncing to feel your best!

The blood sugar conversation is too often lost on young women and we’re rarely given the tools to understand what to look for, with even fewer natural solutions. The blood sugar protocol outlined in this post offers a low cost of entry and the potential to improve mood, cognitive function, hormone balance, and energy levels.

Whether you’ve been seed cycling for years or are in the early stages of exploring this holistic hormone-balancing practice, you can upgrade your pre-and post-workout fuel with a cycle-friendly boost that supports your menstrual rhythm by modulating the key players of estrogen and progesterone.

It’s more than just working out. In this conversation with the lovely Sarah Byrne, we discuss the struggle that many menstruators face when trying to fit into a 24-hour paradigm. We trade practical guidance for surrendering to the flow and how to let the people we care about into that process.

My hormone story involves an awakening late in life that has me feeling more energized in my late thirties than ever before.

The luteal phase is the longest in the cycle and carries you from ovulation until the onset of flow. The second half of the cycle begins with high energy levels, but as hormones taper off the late luteal phase is typically when women experience symptoms of PMS. This is a key time for listening to your body and employing movement as an instrument of self-care.

This is a time to move the way you love and often. Though shortest in duration, this phase of the cycle generally boasts the highest hormone levels—namely testosterone and estrogen—which give you access to explosive power and sustained exertion.

The follicular phase is the 7-10 day timeframe between the end of your period and ovulation. Alisa Vitti refers to the this phase as the body “waking up.”

Your period doesn’t have to be a choice between powering through workouts and hitting pause on exercise. Discover supportive movement that promotes grounding and downward flow of energy during your menstrual phase

For women, exercise is not as simple as keeping energy out > energy in. Burning more calories than you take in does not necessarily result in shedded pounds.