39. Cycle Syncing: Helpful Or Overhyped?

Cycle syncing is having a moment and I get why. It promises a roadmap for your workouts, your energy, your mood, your social life, even your calendar. When you’ve spent years being told to “just push through” or “be the same every day,” a menstrual cycle based plan can feel like the first time your body makes sense.

My bottom line is practical and empowering: track your cycle if it helps, notice your patterns and adjust day by day based on what you can actually do, not what an online template says you should do. If this gave you a clearer lens on cycle syncing, subscribe, share it with a friend and leave a review so more people can find evidence-based wellness that fits real life.

I am happy we can share this journey of leveling up, together. Send me a text by clicking the link at the top of the description. I would love to hear from you :) See you next week! 

- Alita <3 

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This podcast is intended for general educational purposes only. The content discussed does not replace professional medical, nutritional, or fitness advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual needs and responses vary, especially with exercise and nutrition. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making significant lifestyle changes.

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's up? Welcome back to Vito with Alita. This is a podcast about evidence-based wellness for real life. I'm Alita and I'm here to talk about fitness, health, mindset, and building a strong and sustainable life. But doing so without extremes, guilt, or perfectionism. If you care about your health, but you also want a life that you can actually live, you're definitely in the right place. Now before we jump in, I just want to say thank you for being here. It genuinely means a lot that you choose to spend your time listening. And I don't take that lightly. If you've been enjoying the show, following the podcast really helps it grow and lets me know that you're enjoying what you're listening to. And it will actually help more people find these conversations, which means I can keep bringing you new episodes every single week. Alright, let's get into today's episode. I'm Alita and today we are going to dive into cycle syncing. Now I want to preface this episode by saying if you practice cycle syncing and you think it's working for you, that's fine. I want you to do something that works for you. I also want to preface this episode by saying I am not against being in tune with your body and working with it at different phases. I am completely aware that we are cyclical beings who are going through these fluctuations and they do have a real impact on our bodies. I am just trying to bring to light what we know and what we do not know about cycle syncing and some of the issues that I personally have with it. This is just my opinion, and I think that everyone should just look into anything they try to implement a little more deeply rather than just accepting it and moving on. I know that us women are cyclical beings, and I know it impacts us in a very real way. And I know that it's sometimes difficult to keep up or show up in this world that's accept or that's expecting us, I should say, to be the same every single day when we are not, in the sense that in the sense of these fluctuating hormones. But with all that being said, I do really encourage women not to right away give in to this notion that fluctuating hormones impact what you can and cannot do. You are a lot more powerful than that, and you have a lot more autonomy over yourself than that, and that's the main distinction that I want to bring up today. That's all. I'm gonna get into the today's episode, but I really just wanted to bring up that I'm not trying to demonize it or I'm not against it. It's just more of a caution and something to really I think it's more empowering actually knowing that I know that my hormones don't dictate my entire life. That's all. Perspectives are different. Some folks think that having those hormones potentially influence what they do and don't do can be very empowering. I think it's just different ways of seeing seeing things. Personally, I have never let hormonal fluctuations get in the way of doing what I want to do. It was always about listening to how I'm feeling in that moment, if I if I am capable, if it's going to cause more harm than good, those type of decisions. I kind of wanted to get into this topic because it has been very popular lately, and I think it's something it's it's just important to talk about to realize where does our understanding fall when it comes to this to this wellness trend. So honestly, if you spent any time on TikTok or wellness Instagram, you've probably heard of cycle syncing, and it's this idea that you should plan your life around your menstrual cycle. So when to work out, when to rest, when to be social, even sometimes taking it as far as like when to make big decisions. And on the surface, it can sound very empowering, you know, you're finally working with your body instead of against it. So in that sense, I can see why it gained some popularity. And I can see why people like it, you know, you are working with your body depending on how you're feeling and your cycle and all those and all those things. But here's a question I couldn't really stop thinking about. And what if a lot of this advice, you know, it sounds pretty scientific. It has to do with hormone fluctuations and mood shifts and all those things. But is it actually backed by any sort of strong evidence? And that's what I wanted to get into today. Now, before we get into it, of course, our word of the week, concretise. So C-O-N-C-R-E-T-I-Z-E, it means to make something that's abstract more concrete. So to turn an idea into something fixed, into something structured, almost unquestionable, I guess you can say. And let's keep that in mind as we're talking about today's episode, because that's exactly what we are trying to do here with our cycle sinking. So, first, let's break down what's actually going on in the body. Our menstrual cycle, it's not just the your period or what we call your period. It's obviously a full hormonal cycle, typically around 28 days, but honestly, anywhere from 21 to 35, 36 days can be normal. And across that cycle, there are two key hormones that are constantly shifting. There are more. I'm just simplifying it here. So we have estrogen and progesterone. And at the beginning, your period at the beginning, so day one, your period, when you are menstruating, both hormones are low. And that's what triggers your period. And some people will feel low energy, maybe cramps, maybe even a dip in the mood. But even here, of course, not everyone feels the same. And I want us to keep that variability in mind. Next comes our follicular phase. So this is where your estrogen starts rising, and it's linked to things like dopamine and serotonin. So then this is where the idea where we can feel more motivated, more clear, more energized. And this is sometimes I've heard it referred to as the fresh start phase. So after a period's done, now you're feeling good, and you're starting fresh. Now, around the middle of your cycle, ovulation happens. So estrogen peaks, another hormone surges, and this is where your egg is released. And some people report feeling more confident, more social, more outgoing. This is often labeled as the power phase. This is when you're glowing, all of those wonderful positive attributes are usually linked, or people tend to link them, I should say, with this kind of ovulation. Then we have the luteal phase. So your progesterone rises, your body prepares for a possible pregnancy, and this is where some people will experience different PMS symptoms, you know, your fatigue, your irritability, your mood shifts. So your hormones eventually drop again, and then the cycle just continues on repeat. So yes, your hormones are changing, and yes, they really can influence how you feel. I don't want to undermine that here. That part is definitely real, and I think it's something we've all experienced to a certain level. I think we know when we are on our lower energy versus higher energy days. But here's where I want to bring our word back. Concretize. Because what psychosyncing often does is it takes these fluid, highly individual hormone changes and it can turn them into fixed rules. You know, this is oh, you're in your luteal phase, is how you should be feeling during ovulation. This is how you should be feeling, this is what you should be doing then. And I get it, I understand, and I think naturally to a certain extent, we might even be following these rules, especially if you are somewhat in tune with your body. You know that let's say when you're on your period, I'm not usually hitting an extremely hard workout if I'm having cramps and I'm irritable, but that's not always the case. But the thing here is the fixed rules kind of aspect to it. And that leap of having to do of doing this at this time and doing that at that time, it's not strongly supported by science in any way. I don't think surprisingly, because I think we know that women's research, like women's health research, is lacking, but research on psychosyncing specifically is still inconclusive. And some studies show small effects on mood, energy, maybe even performance, but overall the findings are inconsistent and vary a lot from person to person. Now, psycho sinking research itself is not very deeply studied, but there have been a few studies looking at like athletic performance, even metabolism at different stages of the of the menstrual cycle. And honestly, there is not a lot of there's no strong conclusion. So what I mean by that is some studies find there is a small impact on the phase of your cycle. Some studies find no big difference at all. And for the ones that do kind of find a difference, it's not extremely major, it's also very, very variable. And I think that's something that's hard to it's hard to ignore, especially in research when you try to control multiple things, you are trying to control for things that can impact the results. And if something is still very, very variable, that just shows how every person just responds differently and every person experiences their menstrual cycle in a different way. So, in terms of cycle sinking research itself, that has not been extremely studied in terms of aligning your diet and exercise and changing kind of the way you conduct your life based around your cycle, but isolating those things, let's say like athletic performance, metabolism, even I think mood and all those things have been studied separately, but not very strong evidence showing that your cycle is dramatically impacting all of these things. It's not. And the variability is very real, and the findings are inconsistent and vary a lot from person to person, and online that nuance completely disappears. So when looking at specifically cycle syncing research, so when you kind of when you are looking for studies that are addressing cycle syncing specifically, we can see that in one analysis of cycle syncing content on TikTok, only a third of the creators had any formal credentials. And very few of the creators cited any actual scientific evidence. And I'm talking about creators that are proponents of cycle syncing, the ones that are kind of encouraging it. And yet the advice that they're giving, it was very specific, it was structured, it sounded confident, it sounded right. So what you're seeing is maybe not necessarily expertise, is just these ideas being conveyed in a way that's confident. So these ideas are being concretized, they're being propagated. And to be fair, I I totally understand why this resonates. For a long time, women's health has not been taken seriously. So something like cycle syncing feels validating. It gives structure, it gives an explanation, it makes your body feel predictable. Because I know that there's this conundrum of listen to your body, go with the flow. I can understand that having something provide structure can feel very validating and comfortable. But then I also want to bring up the point that it can also create expectations. You should feel a certain way in each phase, and it's okay if you take two weeks off because you're you're in your luteal or you're you know you're menstruating. It's okay. That, you know, there's this optimal version of you depending on the week. You're only the most optimal, most glowy self when you're ovulating. And if you don't match that, or you know, if your life is not allowing you to do that, it can feel like you're doing something wrong. There's even a deeper concern that some researchers have suggested, and it's that this kind of messaging can reinforce stereotypes. Stereotypes that women are inconsistent, you know, you're hormonal, you're less reliable depending on your cycle, oh, she's on her period, you know, those phrases that are not, they're just not something that we want to be propagating. And even if that's not the intention, it is something worth questioning. Because if we are supporting this idea that depending on the phase, I can do certain things, I can't do certain things. Obviously, I'm irritable because oh, I'm I'm menstruating. Yes, maybe, yes, but not giving it that much power either. So where does that leave us? Of course, I do not want you to ignore your cycle at all. I really do want you to work with your body, and I am a very big advocate of, you know, you can take you are in excruciating pain because of cramps or or you are on a very low energy day because this, that, and the other. Take a step back, take a day off, tone it down. I am a big advocate for that, but I think that's just something that you need to pay attention to on a day-by-day basis. It's something that I think you need to learn about yourself. And what I mean by this is go ahead, track your cycle. I think it's important to get to know yourself and how these hormonal shifts affect you. But it doesn't need to become a hard rule. It doesn't need to become, oh, obviously I'm irritated. I'm in my, I'm in my luteal. I don't know. Like, I'm just saying, to me, in all my nine years of working out now, I do have times where I worked out on my period. I do have times where I was on a low energy day even when I was supposedly ovulating. I do have times where I just had to get myself to the gym because my excuse was I just didn't feel like it. Maybe I was in my luteal, I don't know. But sometimes you just have to be in tune with yourself to understand, okay, how am I feeling? Am I still able to do this, that, and the other? Rather than having this pre-con, like this preconceived idea of I should be feeling this, I should be feeling that. Oh, obviously I'm in my face doing this, that, and the other. I think noticing and observing and collecting the data and getting to know yourself better is important, but then not letting it dictate. Not having this preconceived notion of how you should be, because everyone's different. It's just having this understanding of okay, based on today how I am right now. Oh, it's being like being intentional with what you're observing. Oh, I noticed I broke out today. Let me check what day in my cycle I'm in. Oh, that makes sense. My my period is coming. Okay, that's fine. Accept the pimple with grace. You know what I mean. Okay, maybe I you never even know. Even acne sometimes. Maybe you ate something, maybe you didn't. It's just very, very nuanced. And the one thing that I want to caution everyone with cycle syncing is that you don't want it to set yourself up for something. Everyone's different, and the cycle syncing does not take that into account. Even athletic performance in different phases of the cycle was not really impacted. So if you're going in with this idea of like, oh, I'm not gonna do as well today because I'm on my period, that can be true. Yes, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say it's not, but it doesn't have to be. But setting your mind up that way makes it more likely. I kind of rambled a little bit, but I hope you can understand that it's not something I want to demonize. It's not like, oh, don't ever cycle sync. If cycle syncing is something that works for you and it makes you feel in tune with your body, and it's genuinely something that makes you happier and makes you feel healthier, I am not here to tell you not to do it. I'm just providing what we know and what we don't know, and to encourage you to really get to know yourself rather than trying to follow some sort of template based on what you should be, shouldn't be. That's all. So maybe the goal is not to concretize your body into a perfect system, but to understand it without trying to control every phase. I think that's the best way that I can put it. Instead of following these rigid templates, pay attention to your own patterns. Use your cycle as information, not a hard rule book and something that if you don't, you know, my meeting is going to be at this time. I've I've seen video I the reason I bring this up is I've seen videos of these little added stressors of like the meeting or my date is not gonna be at the most optimal time of my menstrual cycle. My it's like, okay. I to me that's taking it a little bit too far. Now, again, your body is more nuanced than a four-phase checklist, and respecting that complexity is probably more powerful than honestly just trying to simplify it to those four phases. Anyway, I think I rambled on a little bit too much. Key takeaway here psycho sinking research specifically is lacking, but there has been research looking at different markers like athletic performance, metabolism, all those things during different phases. The research is honestly still very inconclusive, it's very variable from person to person, but so far there has been no major like life-changing effect on the menstrual cycle phase and these different markers. I think at the end of the day, the most important thing is getting to know yourself and what works for you and how do you feel? Because your body is a little bit more complex than just progesterone and estrogen, and then these four different phases. That's all. That's my little two cents. I hope you enjoyed the episode, and I'll see you on the next one. Bye-bye. Thanks for hanging out with me today. I really appreciate you being here. If something in the episode clicked for you, send it to a friend. Or you can reach out to me directly using the link in the description. I genuinely love hearing from you. And if you want more evidence-based wellness, you can connect with me via my Instagram. Again, that link will be in the description below. Take care of yourself this week, and I'll talk to you soon. See you on the next one. Bye bye.