the bossbabe podcast - 124. Six Weeks to Fix Your Period, Hormone Imbalances & Energy with Nicole Jardim

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

Have you ever experienced pain or discomfort while on your period and simply accepted it as a fact of life? What if we told you that you have ownership of what happens inside your body? We’re joined by Nicole Jardim, certified women’s health expert, author of Fix Your Period, and host of the Period Party Podcast, to teach you how to take ownership of your period and overall health.  Having suffered from debilitating pain caused by her period as a teenager, Nicole was put on birth control to help with her painful menstrual symptoms. However, birth control only served as a band aid and instead introduced a slew of new chronic health issues, including hair loss and melasma. Despite being informed that what she was experiencing was “normal”, Nicole decided to challenge everything she was told and started to claim ownership of her health. Since then, Nicole has been empowering women by helping them better understand their bodies, hormones, and period.   It’s time to normalize the fact that we, as women, know what’s best for our bodies. Tune as in as we dive deep into the different types of hormones and how each one can affect your body when imbalanced. After this episode, you’ll be equipped with actionable tips on how to best regulate your body and optimize your health.  Use code BOSSBABE to get 20% off on SOUL CBD products https://mysoulcbd.com/ Fix Your Period by Nicole Jardim https://amzn.to/3jqVqIH  Follow: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis, @iamnatalie Nicole Jardim, @nicolemjardim

Everything that's happening in these first few decades of your menstrual cycle, your teens and your 20s, is going to impact you later on down the line. None of it is mutually exclusive. It's all connected. Move away from looking outside of ourselves for what's normal, and really hone in on what our normal is. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance, and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Boss Babe, and your host for this week's episode.

Today, I'm interviewing Nicole Jardim, who is known as the Period Fixer. She's a certified women's health coach, author of Fix Your Period and host of the Period Party podcast. I'm sure you can guess what we're going to be talking about. So if you're unfamiliar with my story I actually have PCOS which is polycystic ovarian syndrome and I've been really open about my experience and I've actually talked about it more in depth on an earlier podcast that I'll link below but for a long time, I'm talking from being 15 to 25, I was on the pill. And I had so many symptoms that I was continuously told was normal. And I was put on the pill to regulate my periods, which now I know is not quite the way to regulate periods. So I've been really open about my experience

and it was actually reading books and listening to podcasts that helped me really take control of my health, which is why it's so important to me to bring women who are certified to talk about this kind of thing onto the podcast so that if anyone is struggling with hormone imbalances, you can get advice on what's normal,

what's not and what to do about it. I get tons of messages from women suffering not just from PCOS and endometriosis, but an array of hormonal health issues. And I'm no expert, but you'll hear from Nicole today, the period symptoms that so many of us suffer from have been normalized when it is not normal. It does not have to be normal. You don't have to suffer from pain or nausea every month because of your period. You don't need to turn into a crazy person one day a month because of your period and I thought this was normal. You can't fix your period and on this episode Nicole's going to really dive into what that looks like. So we're going to talk all things normal, what a normal period looks like and then

how you can start that process of fixing your period in six weeks. So with that, make sure to tune in, have your notepad and pen ready because we're going to be diving into so many things. And as always, take a screenshot, share your biggest takeaways, tag me at IamNatalie at BossBabe.inc. And then if you want to go the extra mile, if you leave a review on this podcast, take a screenshot of it and send it in an email to podcast at boss.com. We'll send you a completely free resource, which is a 25 essential must haves. So my things from every little item that I have in my office to books, any resources that have really helped me create success. It's all in this like the Holy Grail. We'll send you that free just for leaving a review because it really helps us with the podcast so thank you so much for doing that and we'll dive in a boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise

keep going and fighting on she is on a mission to be her best self in all areas it's just believing in yourself confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Nicole, welcome to the podcast. Hi, Natalie. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. I am so excited. And I was just chatting to you beforehand about what I think we should dive in, which is hormone tears, because I know a lot of people probably listening to this are thinking about sex hormones when they think of hormone imbalance. So I want to dive in and start with that. But before we get there, I first want to know what led you to do what you do right now? Oh, girl, do you have all day? I feel like it's been such a journey. But just to simplify the very long journey, I was that teenager who had absolutely terrible

periods. And for me, it was super heavy, bleeding, very painful cramps that lasted for days at a time that kept me home from school, totally seeing stars because the pain was so bad. And I was always nauseous when I would get my period. I would throw up from the pain. It was so bad. And I was always nauseous when I would get my period, I would throw up from the pain. It was not pretty. And that went on for many years, because my mom just assumed that that was normal. It was what happened to her as well. And she didn't really think there was any solution. And then I started to notice that my periods would come every three or four

months. And I was like, okay, this doesn't seem weird. And she thought this does seem weird. And she thought the same thing too. And so I finally went and saw her gynecologist and she immediately prescribed the birth control pill for me. And that was really what started me on this whole journey because I felt like it was an amazing solution at the time. I didn't have heavy periods anymore. I didn't have period pain. Everything seemed to normalize. But then I started to have all of these awful pill side effects. And I feel like I was the poster child actually for pill side effects. So this went on for a number of years. I saw many, many doctors, no one ever connected the pill to the hair loss and the melasma all over my face and the weight gain and the horrible gut issues and all the things. So eventually I saw an acupuncturist after being allergic to a UTI medication that I'd taken

because I had chronic UTI as well on the pill as well. And I ended up in the ER and I was like, all right, I'm done with this. And so I saw an acupuncturist right after that. And he was the one who finally said, I think it might be the pill. And I think you might have to come off of it. And I was absolutely horrified because I was not coming off of that pill. That pill was like one pill between me and horrible periods. And I was having none of it. But eventually he convinced me and I did. And it was what changed the trajectory of my life. I became so obsessed with the health side of things because I finally realized that I could have better periods and not need the birth control pill and have all those side effects. So it led me on 15 year odyssey, which has led me to here right now of trying to figure out my own period and helping other women in the process.

I love that so much. And our stories are so similar. And I think there's well, I know there's a lot of women listening to this who can really relate because we've talked about the birth control pill before and the side effects and how it often just masks things. But one thing that we haven't talked about, like I mentioned at the beginning was hormone tears, and you kind of touched on this where there's a lot going on in the body that perhaps we have some hormonal symptoms, and we think it's to do with sex hormones and we don't think to really examine hormones as a whole and so I would love if you could explain hormones as a whole in the body and things that we should be considering in different tiers of hormones yes oh my gosh I love this I created

what I call the hormonal hierarchy or the tiered system like you're describing to really help us all understand that everything is interconnected. I feel like for the most part, we've been on a need to know relationship with our hormones, really only paying attention to them when they start to malfunction. So I felt like this was a good way to explain that your period problems started a long time ago. They didn't just manifest out of nowhere. And when it comes to the hormones that dictate what happens with your menstrual cycle, they are the bottom of the tiered system. So if we're thinking or visualizing the hormonal hierarchy, which is in the, I think it's the second chapter of my book.

I can't even keep track. It is. It's page 35. If anyone's got the book. Check you out. I love that. I'm so impressed. So essentially this hierarchy. So I want everyone to visualize cortisol and insulin at the very top. And then in tier two, visualizing DHEA and pregnenolone. And then in tier three, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, melatonin, and thyroid hormones. And this is not a system that is actually existing in the body. It's just one I made up as a visual so that everyone understands that insulin and cortisol are the queen bee hormones. Those hormones will wreck you if you let them get out of control. And what happens is

when they are at levels that are unsustainable, they will have a downstream impact on pregnenolone and DHEA, which I call the parent hormones, because they are precursors to some of the sex hormones, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone in particular. And as a result, when those are out of whack, the tier three hormones will also be. And what's interesting is insulin and cortisol can also directly impact our tier three hormones. And so when we think about this, a lot of this starts to make sense because when you visualize the fact that in our society, in modern society, generally speaking, we have so normalized the symptoms associated with dysregulated blood sugar and insulin and dysregulated cortisol and other stress hormones.

And what we find is that we are all just walking around not feeling so great, right? So we have the cortisol imbalance. So there's chronic stress for many of us that is completely unmitigated. So we're not really doing a whole lot to address that stress. Not all of us, but a many of us that is completely unmitigated. So we're not really doing a whole lot to address that stress. Not all of us, but a lot of us. And the point here is that cortisol levels rise. Cortisol is a stress hormone that sticks around and cortisol will hijack what's happening in your brain. And that conversation between your brain and your ovaries is one of the first to malfunction. And the reason for that is because ovulation and menstruation and fertility are not needed in life and death situations.

So they're non-essential services in your body. And I know that sounds quite ridiculous when we're talking about that now because we're in a pandemic, but it's really what happens. It shuts down that process in our body. So we then start to have period problems, but that takes some time for many of us. So we have these ongoing stress issues. We have the ongoing blood sugar issues because a lot of us are eating foods that are triggering blood sugar problems, generally speaking, and we end up on this blood sugar rollercoaster, but high levels of insulin impact how your ovaries function directly. They raise LH, which is luteinizing hormone, and that will disrupt the whole ovulatory process in your entire menstrual cycle. So what happens is we have these issues like you can't sleep properly,

or you're hungry 30 minutes after you've eaten, or you wake up feeling groggy and need a gallon of coffee. You need more coffee in the afternoon to just get you through the day, you're perpetually tired, you're wired at night, all of these symptoms are cortisol and insulin problems. And yet they're so normalized in our society that we don't even know they're happening. And then further down the line, we start to notice period related problems just from those two hormones. So that's really the hormonal hierarchy and the tarot system. I love that we're talking about this because I've had my own first-hand experience. I'm working on healing polycystic ovarian syndrome and everywhere that I kept reading was blood sugar, blood sugar. So I went to the doctor and I said, can you test my blood sugar?

They told me to fast. They did a blood test. They said, yep, you're fine. Yet I went and looked at all of these books and I'm like, it doesn't sound like I'm fine. It sounds like I'm having all of these symptoms. And I really had to take it into my own hands. And so the people listening who might think, well, I get my regular blood work done and I think these are fine. Are there other things that they could be looking for? Because I feel like these blood tests aren't kind of the be all and end all. Oh, I am so glad you've brought this up because I, of course, used to get my blood sugar tested at my doctors as well. And I was like, okay, I must be fine. But what I

realized in those studying that I did with various functional medicine practitioners is that we really need to be testing our own blood sugar because oftentimes we will go to the doctor and that morning you go, you're fasting and you're fine. But what we don't realize is that you can have a normal fasting blood sugar. And for me, that's somewhere between 70 and 85, somewhere around there is what I like to see. And that might be great. You go to your doctor, that's great. But the problem is, is that we're not seeing what blood sugar is doing after you've eaten a meal. And so that's where I really empower women with this. To me, it's like period biohacking 101. It's great

because we can finally see what's happening on a physiological level with our blood sugar. So what I do is I have women test their fasting blood sugar after waking up or after many hours of not eating. And then I have them test again, 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes, and then two hours after eating. And I know it's a lot of finger pricks, but the information that you will glean from this is so valuable. And what we see is the blood sugar spike typically happens somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes for most of us, somewhere like 30 to 45 minutes mostly. And if we miss that, then we really don't know what has happened with our blood sugar. And so what we like to see or what I like to see when I'm

working with clients is that your blood sugar doesn't go up more than 20 to 25 points over your fasting. And that's very different to what conventional medicine might say. They're way higher and they're okay with that, but I'm not okay with that. And when I see the results of getting your blood sugar under control in this way, so you're eating foods that are no longer going to trigger this huge spike, like 40, 50, 60 points. I've had clients going into the one fifties and one 160s after a bowl of oatmeal, thinking that they were doing themselves a favor by eating a breakfast like that. And in fact, it was actually causing major blood sugar problems and further perpetuating the issues that they are dealing

with their menstrual cycle. But what will happen is you will notice a reduction in pain almost immediately. It's incredible. I've had multiple clients tell me that two months of blood sugar stabilization and their painful periods have reduced in half or completely disappeared, as well as PMS and PMDD symptoms. I've found that the physical and emotional symptoms that we experience because of dysregulated blood sugar and the inflammation that ensues are so directly correlated with the physical and emotional symptoms related to our menstrual cycle. So it is truly incredible to see that. Let's take a quick pause to talk about

my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a

bit of spring cleaning in your business you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe yeah and i love that we're talking about it because a lot of people when they're thinking about having cramping or things with their period they don't think about blood sugar and so i love the approach that your book takes so your book is six weeks to fix your period. So

it's six weeks and every single week you introduce something new, which I love. It makes it easy, manageable. You can tell that I've read it based on how well I know the page numbers. Yes. I'm so impressed. So I would love to talk a little bit about what that six week process looks like, because we have lots of different things in there. We have diet, blood sugar, gut, liver, stress, thyroid. Why are all of these things really important for getting your period back on track? And what does it look like to have your period back on track when you do all of these things? Yeah, I know, right? I feel like this reminds me of what you were saying about what does it look like to have your period back on track? I think that we live in a society that has so normalized period problems that we don't

even know what we're looking for. And we're all feeling around in the dark, which is a massive problem. And I really want to give that power back to women, as you well know, Natalie. That's what we're all trying to do. And for me, that was, I wrote this book as much for my 21 year old self as I did for all the women who are struggling right now, because I was definitely in that place of disempowerment. I was the girl who went to the doctor and made up a date for my last period every time, because I had no idea. I was so clueless about my body. And as a result, I paid a huge price for that because I was not

confident in how my body worked. I didn't understand it. And because of that, I was unable to have educated conversations with my doctor. So that is why I wrote 415 pages of menstruation education, because we really need to know this stuff. And I think that we should have this information from the time we actually get our periods. But coming back to what you were asking, I think that these are the pillars. So when I talk about food to feed your hormones and blood sugar and your gut health and liver and thyroid and stress, we need to address all of these in order to secure our foundational period health and our fertility

and just our health in general overall. And what I did with the book is that I really connected those six things to what's happening with your period and how they all impact your period. Because we're told all this stuff, right? We're told that we need to eat better and have better nutrient profile. And we know that we need to heal our guts and our thyroids are a problem too, potentially, and our stress. Like we all know this, but we never really equate it to this focal point, this central point, which is our menstrual cycle and our period symptoms. And so that was really what my goal was with all of this. So in every page, I'm tying it back to not only your hormones, but your period related symptoms as well. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is to answer that question about what of ourselves for what's normal and really hone in on what our normal is. So look for you, not for what everyone else is doing, because your best

friend could have a great response to the keto diet, for instance, whereas you might lose your period. And that has so much to do with your genetic makeup, your current life circumstances, your body fat. I mean, all of it, it really just depends on what's happening with your body. That's why I really encourage women to not be thinking about what specific diet they can try, but to really get back to basics and start with just good food and see how they feel and then move on to stage two, which is possibly a specific diet. And it's amazing, like when you think about the fact that I quoted this study in the book where I was talking about a study that women did where, or we that they did

on about 800 participants, men and women, and the fact that they fed them all the same meal, and everyone's blood sugar responses were different. And it makes so much sense, right? There's this bio-individuality, we're all different. And so we really have to come back to ourselves. And I think that the first place to do that is to actually track your cycle, to see how your cycle is responding to all of this external stimuli. Because I know that if I eat sugar for two, three days in a row, because I experiment all the time, what I would say is that my basal temperature is definitely going to change because it's a stressor on my body. And so that basal temperature that you take first thing upon awakening is going

to tell you so many things. It tells you if and when you're ovulating, it can possibly indicate low progesterone, low or high thyroid function over or under. It can indicate what's going on with your cortisol because it becomes a little bit jagged like a saw. So there are multiple ways that we can start to see what's going on for ourself. And really, like when you think about what's normal, what's not, anywhere between a three day period and a seven day period falls into that normal range.

Some of us might just have three-day periods. Others of us might have six-day periods. And depending on the symptoms we're experiencing, it might be normal for us. So like I said, I really think that we have to find our own normal. Yeah, I love that so much. And so do you recommend that people, and it's in the book, but do you recommend people follow the same protocol throughout? Or is there certain symptoms that you might look at someone and say, okay, there's definitely some issues going on with your gut that you need to focus on first, or that's coming from your liver? Or is it very much you start with blood sugar and do them bit by bit? Yeah, I felt like it really needed to be done bit by bit and to really follow it in a bit of a linear fashion. And again,

I'm totally a Virgo. And so for me, I think very linearly. So this made a lot of sense and I based it on the Fix Your Period program that I've been doing with clients for many years. And this seems to be the trajectory that works best. And it's also also the easiest to I found, I mean, because for the most part, we can and not all of us, but for the most part, we do change food first. And that really helps. And then you know, you move into the next phase of the food, which is now let's examine what's happening with my blood sugar and what foods are triggering this and things like that. And then really understanding how my blood sugar is affecting my ovaries. And from there, moving into your gut, your liver, your stress and your thyroid. And the reason I put gut before liver is because when you're thinking about what's

happening with your hormones and the process of what happens with your liver and then your gallbladder and then your gut, that is all one process for the most part. I talked about the liver as being like a recycling plant and the things need to stay on the belts to keep going. And if they fall off, we run into problems. And so with your liver, you've got to support that as a key component of getting broken down hormones out of your body. But when you think about your gut, that comes first. So I know that the liver technically comes first in the process, but when you're working on this stuff, you have to work on it from a backwards forwards direction. And the reason for that is because if your liver is working great and your hormones are being broken down and they're passing through the bile into

your gallbladder and then into your digestive system, what ends up happening is that if you're constipated, that neatly packaged up estrogen that you have made in your liver is now going to be unpackaged and sent out into the bloodstream. And so you might end up in an estrogen dominant situation. And those estrogen metabolites might be way more potent than your actual estrogen. So we run into problems. So we have to make sure that we work backwards and that your gut is functioning optimally. You're going to the bathroom every day and that there is no chronic constipation or chronic diarrhea or other symptoms that could be hindering what happens with your hormones. And from there, we work on phase two

and then on phase one of your liver. So this is really, I walk everyone through this because I think this is really important because oftentimes, and you know this, we're told on articles online, like just take DIMM. Everyone takes DIMM for their acne or their estrogen dominance. And that might not be what you need to do because DIMM is supportive of phase one liver detoxification. And so if your phase one is working fine, and it's your phase two, that's a problem. Your phase one is going to be supported, but your phase two is still struggling. And it creates this bottleneck situation, which is not ideal, of course, and ultimately will just exacerbate the issues. So I think it's really important for us to take a more methodical approach to something like this.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break right approach to something like this. Okay, we're going to take a quick break right now to hear from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Sol CBD. Now I want to share a little bit about my favorite CBD line because if you've been following Boss Babe for a while, then you know how much we love Sol CBD. I actually personally for a while then you know how much we love soul cbd i actually personally discovered a while back and one of my favorite products is the calm capsules and the strawberry gummies now i actually started taking cbd quite a while ago to help me with stress and trouble sleeping at times and i started getting into the habit of eating two of their strawberry gummies right before bed and it's really helped me get amazing sleep. Not only do I sleep better,

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our 20% off promo code using boss babe okay so that's 20% off all soul CBD products using the code boss babe and we're back let's jump straight into today's episode yeah I fully agree and for anyone listening as well I've put the link to the book in the show notes because I really really love it and I love how easy it is broken up. And I agree with that. There's just not one size fits all because I remember a couple of years ago seeing ashwagandha everywhere all over Instagram. And so I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to start putting in my smoothies. And my acupuncturist asked me what I was taking. And I told him, she was like, I don't feel like you should be taking that with PCOS. There's better things out there. And just because you see something on Instagram doesn't mean that

it's necessarily the best thing for you. But with that, I want to ask you a couple of questions that I do get constantly on Instagram. Yes. So there's a few of them that are very recurring. One of them is I get asked every day, what supplements do you take? And are there foundational supplements that you would recommend to everyone? Oh, yes, this is a good one. And I want to start by saying, like I was kind of saying before, we can't spot treat our hormonal imbalances, guys. Just so you know, we can take supplements. And I'm a big fan of taking specific supplements.

But just knowing that they're going to have a marginal effect on your hormonal issues if you're not addressing the key areas that Natalie and I've been talking about. So just keep that in mind. But with regard to supplements, I will say also that we live in a crazy time right now. And I think that we can use all of the nutritional help we can get. So for me, I take a multivitamin. I love the company Seeking Health. I use a lot of their products. The owner or founder, Dr. Ben Lynch is amazing. He's very much focused on the genetic side of things. So he does make a lot of supplements that takes certain genetic snips into consideration. So their multivitamin is one that I take. I also, on the very stressful days,

I'll take a B-com complex as well. So I'll just sort of add that in for extra assurance. And then I take cod liver oil because I love cod liver oil. The brand that I love is Rosita Rail Foods. And the reason for cod liver oil is because it does have a decent amount of omega-3 fatty acids in it, as well as vitamin D. It's high in vitamin A, and it's high in the preformed vitamin A. And so vitamin A comes in two different forms. There's preformed, and then there's the vitamin A that needs to be converted. So that's the one that comes in vegetables. The preformed version, or retinol, comes in animal products, particularly liver, which a lot of us don't eat anymore. And vitamin A deficiency is highly

problematic for especially females who are attempting to get pregnant, because vitamin A plays a crucial role in the formation of the baby's facial structure and their jaws. And as we, I don't know if everyone knows this, but as I know, over the last 30 to 50 years, our jaws have narrowed in the human race. And that's mostly linked to the introduction of processed junky food and the vitamin A deficiency that is so rampant that we don't even realize is happening. So big fan of the cod liver oil. It's also necessary for healthy periods too, and great skin that is acne free. So cod liver oil. It's also necessary for healthy periods too and great skin that is acne-free. So cod liver oil, a multivitamin, the B-complex sometimes.

And I have been taking vitamin D mostly for the winter because my vitamin D was low. So that's really the gist of it. I love that. And I had no idea about the jaws. That's blown my mind. I'm gonna end up recession right after this. That's really crazy.

Look into, there was a dentist and he basically, his name was Weston A. Price. And so he created a foundation eventually, but he traveled from the US to countries all over the world. And he visited these indigenous tribes and different cultures that were not touched by the Western world at all. And they didn't have a whole lot for dental hygiene or oral hygiene for the most part, but they all had wide jaws, perfectly straight white teeth. And then he started to notice, or he was noticing back in America that kids were developing all of these cavities and their jaws were narrow and their teeth were crowding. And if you think about it, just our parents' generation, they didn't need to have their wisdom teeth removed, but everyone now has their wisdom

teeth removed. And that's one of the reasons why. Oh my God, my mind is blown. Isn't that incredible? Yeah. I love things like that because it's so true. We have to do so much more now to look after ourselves. Whereas our ancestors way back when that wasn't the case, it was a lot more natural and easier for that, like they didn't wake up, okay, I really need to go and get braces. Like, it wasn't a thing. So fascinating. Okay, so another question that I get asked so frequently is, what does an ideal or a typical day of food look like? So I would love to ask that question to you. Oh, yes. Okay, I love this. So for me, I practice intermittent fasting. And I've been doing that for a few years now. And I don't know that it's for everyone. I think, again, you got to feel it out and see how you do.

But what I will do is I'll stop eating by 8pm the night before. And I usually don't have something again until like 11 or 12 o'clock the next day. So it's somewhere around like, yeah, I guess that's what almost 16 hours, 15 to 16 hours. And usually what I'll say to everyone is if you want to try that, start with a 12 hour interval. So go from eight to eight and see how you feel. But for me, that's what I do. And then breakfast is, it depends. It's breakfast, lunch a little bit. So my partner Hayden and I will usually do something like a warm breakfast bowl type thing. So eggs and lots of greens. So whether that's collard greens or spinach or something like that, we'll throw those in. We'll do a little bit of

sweet potato, sometimes some kimchi or sauerkraut to add in the good fermented probiotic rich foods, and maybe some avocado as well. Sometimes we do a little bit of bacon or some sausage, something along those lines. So that's usually like a breakfasty lunch type situation. Sometimes I will have oatmeal, but I'll make sure that I put a lot of nuts and seeds into that. And then I also mix in some fats, like some coconut oil or coconut butter into that. So I make sure that my blood sugar stays stable. And in the summertime, we do a lot of smoothies. So that's the other thing too. So I'll make sure I get like a protein fat rich smoothie that we'll both have. So that's usually like, like I said, breakfast, lunch, and then

snacks in the afternoon, I feel like snack time's fun. So we'll do whether it's veggies and tahini or hummus, and apple and almond butter, I'm pretty boring. Not like the most original when it comes to these kinds of things. Sometimes we'll do a smoothie bowl if we didn't have a smoothie that day and maybe like a green smoothie bowl or something like that. And then for dinner, it's heavy on the veggies. So we'll do a stir fry with shrimp or something like that. Or we'll do like a steak with veggies and potato. I keep it pretty straightforward. And I feel at this point that I've tested my blood sugar enough times, like I know what works and what doesn't work. And that really is the gist of it. I really do try to bring in very micro or

nutrient dense food. So I'll drop like a bunch of microgreens on my salad or in my smoothie. And, you know, always make sure that I have at least like a cup and a half of vegetables in every meal. I mean, it doesn't work out that way all the time. And when you're launching a book, it definitely doesn't work out that way all the time. So some mornings it's just toast with peanut butter on it. And that's just what has to happen in that moment because there's a crisis. So sometimes it is that. And I don't feel amazing. And I know the price I'm paying, in other words.

I love that. So I want to talk about intermittent fasting then because I hear such varied things about intermittent fasting. And some people say women shouldn't fast for 16 hours. They should do it for 12. So what led you to do intermittent fasting? And do you think it's good for people that have blood sugar issues? Yeah, it's one of those things that I thought, oh, you know, I'll try this because I was reading about it. And I felt myself moving in that direction,

because I would wake up and I wasn't immediately hungry. And I would test my blood sugar and just see how I was doing. And so I did some blood sugar testing, actually. I would test every 30 to 45 minutes on every hour for a few hours after waking up to see what was going on. And I was like, OK, I'm not hungry. And my blood sugar is still stable. So I'm going to wait until I feel hungry and eat. And that started to be between 10 and 12. And for me, I think that it also depends on where I am in my cycle.

I just find that for most of us, we have a predisposition to more blood sugar dysregulation in the second half of our cycle. And the reason for that is because estrogen is an insulin sensitizer. So essentially what that means is you're more sensitive to insulin in the first half or the follicular phase of your cycle. Whereas in the second half, progesterone is a blood sugar lower. So it's a good thing. If you're on the blood sugar roller coaster, those lows are going to be really low. And it's very similar to PMS symptoms. You're not really wanting to mess with blood sugar during that second half of your cycle. Unfortunately, it's the time when we crave the sugar. So my point is, is that I noticed that I can go longer in the first half of my cycle

versus the second half. So I'll eat sooner during that time. And so I really think that this again, comes back to us. Does this feel good for you? Are you doing this because people are saying that this is the thing to do because it is really popular right now. But I have found that some of my clients who have blood sugar dysregulation don't do great on this. I think that they can do the overnight. So I say, okay, stop eating at 8 p.m. and see how you feel when you wake up. If you feel like you need, if you're hungry and you need to eat, you 100% should do that.

And maybe intermittent fasting isn't for you. Maybe you can do the 12 hours, but you can't do any more. And maybe you stabilize your blood sugar and you see how you feel. And then others do really well on it. So again, I think it's so personalized. And I know there are a lot of doctors talking about it. I just prefer to let my client be their own guides around how they feel and then determine if that's what they need to do. Some might just need to eat breakfast as soon as they wake up and others could wait a few hours and it just really depends. Yeah, I love that. And it's like what you said at the beginning, it's just period biohacking and figuring out what works for you and being able to test. Okay, so another question I get asked is a lot of people are still on birth

control. A lot of women that I know are still on birth control because they're almost terrified about what happens when they come off or some feel really good while they're on it. What's your opinion on birth control? Oh, ladies, I know it's so complicated. It's like the most complicated relationship we have in our lives, isn't it? Yeah. I felt the same way too. I was terrified. I was 24 so scared because like I said, the only thing that was standing between me and terrible periods was this tiny pill that I was taking every day. And I was going to hold onto that thing come hell or high water. But the symptoms that I was experiencing for me personally were no longer acceptable. So that was my only choice. But what I will say is that we're only

afraid of the things we do not know. We are only scared of what we don't understand. And when we start to understand and when we start to become knowledgeable about how the menstrual cycle works, about the fact that you are technically only pregnant for one to two days out of every cycle, whereas men are, they're fertile. You can only get pregnant for one to two days out of every cycle and men are fertile every single day. And they have not a care in the world about birth control. So I really think that when you come back to it, what is it? We have to examine the fair.

We have to understand where did that come from? Where does the belief system about our bodies being out of our control or being these very mysterious, very difficult to interpret or understand beings. We really have to think about that. And that to me, if we can trace that, I think we can really reduce a lot of the fear that we feel about coming off of it. That's if you want to come off of it. There was a time when I was on birth control and I felt amazing. I mean, the first few years, I was like, this is incredible. I've found my period panacea. I'm done for life. You know, I'm on this thing forever. But I think that ultimately what we have

to recognize is that some of us do better than others. I remember Dr. Andrew Goldstein. He is, I believe he's an OBGYN, but his focus is on pelvic pain. He's written a few books. And I remember Dr. Sarah Gottfried interviewing him a number of years ago, and it was fascinating what he said. He was talking about the fact that, well, he divided women into two categories. He called the first category, the hybrids, the second one, the hummers, which I thought was quite amusing. But his point was that some of us have very sensitive hormone receptors, whereas others do not. So the sensitive ones are the hybrids. They sip hormones, whereas the Hummers guzzle hormones. I am clearly in the Hummer category because I realized soon after being on the pill that things were not well. I started to have sex started to hurt.

I started to have just vaginal dryness that nobody could figure out. And then I started developing all the hair loss and the mood issues and the dry skin and all the things. And so that's a pretty sure sign that something's going on with your estrogen and your testosterone. The point being is that some of us who are the hybrids do pretty okay on the birth control pill because we don't need a lot of hormones to feel great, whereas others don't. So again, this comes back to you. How do you even feel on this thing? Are you willing to take the chance of coming off this pill so that you can have optimal health? And also not only in this moment, optimal health, but optimal health in your thirties, forties, and fifties and beyond, because everything that's happening in these first few decades

of your menstrual cycle, your teens and your 20s, is going to impact you later on down the line. None of it is mutually exclusive. It's all connected. So I think that it's really up to us ultimately. But being informed about the different birth control options, about the actual risks of the type of birth control that you're on, I think is the first step. Yeah, it's so true. And I think you're right in what you said, being informed because a lot of people similar to me, you start birth control when you're pretty young to mask symptoms and no one sits there and says, let me tell you what this could be doing to you or let me tell you what to look out for. And I think just that self-education piece is really powerful. Okay. So I want to ask another question. This is my final

question. And I've definitely felt this way. And I have a lot of friends that have felt this way. And so my guess is there's a lot of people listening, feeling this way too. So endocrine disorders and hormone disorders are becoming what feels like more and more popular PCOS, endometriosis. We're constantly hearing of these. And we know at least one person who was suffering from something like this. And when you go to a normal doctor, they don't know a ton about this and they're just doing the best they can, but they don't give you a lot of good advice. And I remember going to my OBGYN and she first diagnosed me with PCOS and she was like, yeah, you're going to really struggle with this. And it was not very positive at all. And so for a lot of people listening, they might be thinking, okay, this sounds good, but I got told there's no cure. I got told I will never be able to get on top of this.

So do you believe that they can get on top of it? Is this something that they'll just be able to manage or is it all these things, things that could actually be completely getting rid of if they follow the right protocol? I think that when we have hope, a lot can happen. And like you said, you went to your doctor, your friends have also had these experiences too. They go and they're told all of these pretty negative things about their bodies and the possibilities for healing. I was also told that too. And I completely had to shift the way I viewed what healing looked like, because I was also told, well, this is the only solution. You're essentially going to be dependent on this chemical cocktail for as long as you have a period. And if I think back to that,

I cannot think of a more disempowering message to send to women that our bodies are inherently broken and that we don't have a real solution outside of whether it's a birth control pill or a surgery. I just had a woman say to me today that she's desperate. She's 20. She's so young and she's tried so many birth control options and has also been offered a hysterectomy. This is where we're at in women's health right now in 2020. And it is such a disgrace to me. I think that it is going to take a bit of a period revolution, honestly, for us to start to see that our bodies are capable of so much more.

This is a patriarchal medical system at its finest, right? It is basically telling us that our bodies don't work properly. We need this intervention and we need a great deal of it in order to function optimally or even just function. And that to me is basically the worst thing you can tell any of us. And that is why I wrote this book and have been doing the work that I'm doing. And I will continue to forever and ever because we need a different message. We need a paradigm shift when it comes to women's health. I am so over it. And I know that women are too. And it's not conventional medicine's fault. It's not doctor's faults. It's what they've been trained to do. And I get it. I really do. And I don't want to bash that because when we need medicine, we need medicine, right? Like we need to have surgeries and there are car accidents and there's all these kinds of catastrophes that

happen. And when they work, they work great. But for long-term or chronic conditions, it's just not feasible to utilize conventional medicine to get better. It's a great band-aid. It'll really help you get through something. For instance, if you have endometriosis and you're actively working on all the pillars that we've been talking about, that's great. You can take the pill for a few months to at least help address the pain and the debilitating symptoms that you're dealing with if that's your reality. And I don't want to judge anyone who is on the pill for whatever reason. You know your body best. You know what it is that you need. You're the expert. But coming back to this empowering message of, well, this is the only way,

I fundamentally don't believe that. And I think that women are finally at this point now demanding answers. We're not even asking anymore. We're just straight up like, this is what we need. And you're either going to give it to me or you're not. And I think this is why so many women seek out my work and the work of other guests you've had on like Jolene and others who are offering a different option. And I think that's what we really need to be having the conversation about. I so agree with you. We are definitely all calling for a revolution. And I love the work you're doing because it really is kickstarting that and giving women hope and giving women another option. So I love it. And I love what you do. So for anyone listening, I really, really recommend the book. I've read it. I've put all the

links in the show notes below as well. Nicole, thank you so, so much for being on here. It's been so fun talking to you. Oh, Natalie, thank you so much. It's been a really great conversation. And thank you everyone for listening. If you loved this episode, please subscribe, download a few more, and please leave us a review. I really want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were. And I also want to know what you want to hear us talk about next. To say thanks for leaving us a review, we'll send you a copy of The Boss Babe 25. The Boss Babe 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth. It covers everything from our favorite rituals, books, and hacks. If you want

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