Follicular Phase: It's All About Substance

If I said the word follicular phase, would you know what I'm talking about?

Did you know that it's the longest phase of your menstrual cycle? Do you know what it does in your body?

Psst...it's all about substance!

Join us this week as we take a deeper dive into the follicular phase, talking about what it does for you biologically as well as energetically, so that you can live your healthiest month.

For a closer look at what is happening in your body take 30 minutes to explore Body Basics.


Ready for a closer look at the energetic changes in your cycle and how to care for each phase? Check out Not Your Momma's Menstrual Course.

Transcript

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If I said the word follicular phase, would you know what I'm talking about? Did you know that it's the longest phase of your menstrual cycle? Do you know what it does in your body? Join us this week as we take a deeper dive into the follicular phase, talking about what it does for you biologically as well as energetically, so that you can live your healthiest month. Hi, I'm Adrian Azari. I am an eastern medicine practitioner who is passionate about women's health and helping women live their best. My goal is to put you in the driver's seat of your menstrual health offering period. Solutions for a symptom free life statements made in this program are for educational purposes only, and not intended as a substitution for medical consultation or advice. We do not claim to diagnose, treat, or cure any diseases. This podcast is inclusive and welcomes all gender identities. The focus of the program is on biological function, and we will use the term women throughout, but it is referencing physiological and social challenges for biology, not identity. Come as you are. I am happy you're here and welcome all performances of identity. I hope you find something helpful in this show. Welcome back to another episode of the Reproductive Rebel Podcast. So we did a 30,000 foot view of what your menstrual cycle in its entirety is doing. Then we did a deeper dive into what is menstruation? What should it look like, what is it? so that now we can talk with more detail about the follicular phase. So if you haven't checked out the last two episodes, I would highly recommend starting with the basics of your cycle and then coming along on this journey with us, because all of this information is the kind of stuff that we. Taught when we were in school, or at least the vast majority of us weren't. And it's very important in terms of your overall health and understanding what's going on in your body. So this week we're looking at the follicular phase. So what is that? The follicular phase, like I mentioned last week is the first half of your month. It does encompass menstruation, but it's from the first day. Of your bleed until you ovulate. So starting on day three of your. Cycle. You start to have a rise in FS H, which is your follicle stimulating hormone. This one drives the bus in terms of getting the egg that is going to be released that month. Prepared as well as having the endometrial lining. The lining inside of your uterus develop and be blood rich enough to support a pregnancy, should that be a goal of yours? So the follicular phase is actually the longest phase of your cycle. I say it goes until about the midpoint, but you know, people for a variety of different reasons can ovulate at different times. For some people, the follicular phase could be until day 15. For some people it could be until day 18 if you're having a longer. Follicular phase that tells us a story about what's going on inside of your system. But it begins on the first day of menstruation and ends when you ovulate. This is really important to know. So the very beginning of your fertile window begins happening during your follicular phase. So the signal of the Fs h rise tells the follicles in your ovaries that, Hey, we have to pick one of these in order to ovulate this month. And so that hormone. Triggers the development of follicles so that a dominant follicle ends up stepping forward and will be the one that is released for ovulation that month. So things to keep in mind during the follicular phase, it is important to have blood building foods. Some people ask me about seed cycling. And I will likely do an episode on that later on very specifically. But things that are helpful during this phase of your cycle is something like flax. There have been, uh, research studies that have come out about the positive effects of flax, not only on the. The actions in the follicular phase, but on positive outcomes in the LAL phase, which is the second half of your cycle. So flax is one that I often will recommend to people. When they are looking at doing seed cycling, but I digress, we'll look at that in a little more detail later on. Vitamin D plays a very important role in this phase of the cycle. So low vitamin D levels can be linked to longer follicular phases. So that person that I was talking about, that ovulates closer to day 18, I would recommend that they talk to their doctor about having their vitamin D levels checked. But. The follicular phase is all about preparation. It's all about substance. It's that yin phase of the cycle. So your follicular phase, you're going to have an increasing amount of energy. This is where, you know you're a little more fatigued during menstruation, but. At day three, when your FSH level comes up, you feel your energy level start to come up. You feel like doing the things, and that's exactly where you should be. If you're finding that you're still mind numbingly exhausted until day eight or nine of your cycle, you're not getting enough blood building foods. You need to have things like dark leafy greens. I cannot emphasize the importance of dark leafy greens in a menstruating woman's body. This should be something that you are incorporating in on a regular basis because it is nourishing for the body in so many ways. It helps to keep blood and chi moving. It helps to feed the blood the right nutrient profile. So, Can do all of the jobs it needs to do. So dark leafy greens. However, for the vast majority of us, because of the way that our digestion works, I wouldn't try to get those dark leafy greens in in a salad. Okay? Salads are not bad. I'm not demonizing salads, but. Having them every day. For a lot of people who have digestive issues, that can be really hard on the stomach. So things like, I like to throw kale into soup, for example, because kale is a little bit. More fibrous and it does really well in terms of not getting mushy and gross when you throw it into a soup. But a lot of times people who have like bloating and things like that, that kind of linger after they have their period. Sometimes it can be, uh, marker. That they are having some stuff going on in their digestion, and when that happens, being able to serve things cooked is actually a better way to go. So in general, for women, I would not recommend. Follicular phase menstrual. Phase spec in particular, but follicular phase, definitely your iced beverages. So people who swear by smoothies, I know you're really not going to like me for this comment, but. Having things room temperature or warmer is so much easier for your digestion because when you're pulling energy from the lower part of your body up into your stomach area, in order to be able to digest cold foods and raw foods, you'll often see that you have cold in your lower extremities. You have a hard time holding heat in your feet, and that energy is being pulled upwards into the stomach in order to be able to break things. So if you were to serve it to yourself, room temperature or warmer, you are not sabotaging the energy in the lower part of your body or the heat in the lower part of your body. You're allowing it to stay where it is and having enough heat for the digestive action in your stomach. So little things like this can totally improve the quality of how nourished you feel. because your body's not working so hard to process the food that you're putting into it, it's going to help how fatigued you feel, how quickly you rebound from your bleeding days, because that's what the very f. Early days of this phase are all about hot, warm, nourishing foods during your period so that you don't have to work so hard to complete this process because menstruation is a big enough process on its own. Starting day three, likely you're still bleeding, so still being very mindful about easy to digest, nourishing, warm. Doing that practice is going to help you come up out of your period, feeling stronger, more resilient, having more energy, and just feeling well fed in a lot of ways. So, These are all like little ways that we can work with the energy of this phase of the cycle. Because as you go through this phase, your energy level continues to increase and increase and increase. You start to feel more social. You want to be more outward, you want to socialize with friends. Like it's normal to start feeling even for I. People, it is still very normal to begin feeling, uh, slightly more extroverted during that timeframe because you are preparing for ovulation, right? It is preparation to mate, right even though that may not be your goal. This is why our body does this. As you're preparing for ovulation to happen, you have more and more energy. You're gonna find your stamina is better when you go to the gym, but a lot of it has to do with how you care for yourself during menstruation and in those early days as you're coming out of your bleed. you are still gonna want to be gentle with yourself, no power lifting on day three of your cycle, please. Because when you do that, and I mean, I'm not saying this from a place of I don't exercise, I weightlift, I exercise. I used to be a competitive martial artist, like folks, like I am not somebody that doesn't exercise But what I'm saying is exercise smarter so that you're not working harder. So if you're trying to set a personal record on day three of your cycle, You are going to be exhausted, or maybe you'll get through that one lift and then the very next day and the two to three days afterwards, you are going to feel completely bombed, like just energy in the toilet, stamina in the toilet. That's when you actually should be increasing your stamina, how you feel, all of your energy like that should. Building point and an increased point in your cycle. So when you push it too hard before you finish your bleeding days, and you're not nourishing yourself in the right ways. Once the bleed is over, and I'm talking like the first one to three days after the bleed finishes. Is really, really critical in terms of getting the right things into your system and in the right way so that you get that natural rise. You start feeling like you can start setting some personal records in terms of your lifting, all of that kind of stuff, like you're setting yourself up for success. So if you are an athletic person, Being super mindful of your rest and care during menstruation, and then in turn nourishing yourself properly in those one to three days. Right after your bleed ends, you're gonna find that your physical output, in terms of athletic ability, is going to exponentially increase. So if you didn't catch episode, Six. I believe it was episode six that I sat down with Rock Hancock and we talked about moving with your cycle. I would highly recommend you go back into the archive and check that out. It was an awesome episode and we talked about what your body is doing hormonally and how that correlates to exercise. In each of the phases of your cycle, because I really truly believe that you can be an athletic person and you can get just as much benefit out of exercise and perform the way that a male does. You just have to do it differently because men experience their hormones in 24 hours. We experience hours in 28 to 30. that difference. I cannot drive home enough how important that difference is because it does not mean that you can't do all the things that a man can do because I don't know about you, but I sure can. I can do everything a man can do and then some. However, I just have to be really strategic about how I'm doing it, how I'm executing it. Choose to do it. How I plan my work, I literally plan my workflow in my business around my period, and I know that that is a totally foreign concept for some people, but I absolutely do. So during menstruation, I save tasks like writing blogs, ahead of time, editing podcasts, scheduling social media. Anytime I have to do any sort of like, Introverted quiet tasks where I don't have to like do a lot of socializing with the outside world. I will schedule those kinds of tasks then because I am in the deepest part of my introverted energy during that timeframe. naturally, I am more of an introvert and people who know me laugh whenever they hear me say that, but it really is true. I'm naturally more of an introverted person during my menstrual cycle when I am in the. menstruation phase. I do not want to people, and it's not that I don't love everyone around me, it's that it just takes so much of my internal resources in order to do the things with the people, right? So anyone who's an introvert, I'm sure that you feel that as deeply as I do, even if you're not. An introvert, naturally you will feel more introverted. You're gonna want to sit in your cozy pajamas on your couch and watch Netflix during your bleeding days and in the first day or two coming out of your bleed. That is normal. So, We shouldn't be shaming ourselves for feeling that way. And a lot of us do, because I have talked to so many clients and I myself used to historically do this where I was like, are you serious right now? Like, ah, come on Adrian. You've gotta do the laundry or you've gotta push through and you, you've gotta go to this event. And you know, like that type of stuff. And I used to. Push myself through it, and then I would get done and oh, I was so tired and I'd be even more tired for like two or three days afterwards. And I'm like, why did I do that? I know better, right? So now I actually plan my work around where I am in my cycle. So if somebody says to me, Adrian, I wanna do a podcast interview with you. Awesome. Let me check my app and they think I'm checking my schedule. Well, yeah, I sorta am, but I also am checking my fricking period app tracker because if I'm going to be doing an interview, Or I'm gonna be talking like I am right now. I am not articulate when I'm in that introverted menstruation phase, I am not articulate. I feel like the words are in my head and I can't get them out of my mouth, and it's so frustrating. So the most verbal time of the month, for most of us as women, where we feel like we wanna go to parties, we want to do networking, we want to socialize, we want to be out and doing the things that happens during the very last part of the follicular phase because that's that attracting eem mate time, right? During ovulation, when our bodies are biologically trying to get us pregnant. Whether that's our goal or not. and in the very early couple, three days there of the lal phase, right? For some people it goes a little bit longer, but in the, the early stage of the LAL phase, because we are wired to attract a mate, to be social, to, you know, those types of things, your face literally gets more symmetrical, right? So when you're in that follicular phase, energy nourish yourself properly at the early stages of it. During your period and just after your period ends, and you are going to be amazed at how much stronger, how much better you feel, that you're more resilient to illness, all those kinds of things, just by being mindful for a. Five to seven day window. It doesn't mean you can't do life, it doesn't mean that you have to like call out of everything. What I am saying is choose and schedule tasks and things that are going to support the energy that you have during that time. As you get into the latter part of your follicular phase, you are wired to be social. So if your job requires you, uh, network as part of your job or do interviews or record training videos or anything like that. Do it. During that timeframe, you're going to have the most energy. You're going to feel good. You're gonna glow in your videos, all those kinds of things because you're working with your natural energy that is gonna carry you into the early part of your LAL phase. So that. Week or a little more focus your tasks in there. I record my podcast during that time. I'm not shy to tell people that whether I'm doing interviews or I'm recording just like I am right now, I do it during that timeframe when I am gonna be able to give the most of myself to. I'm going to give the best version of myself, the most articulate delivery of everything so that you can follow along and really get the most out of what I have to give to you. Because I don't believe in turning anything in half baked. And if I'm gonna give it to you, I'm gonna give you my all. And I'm gonna give you a hundred percent of myself, right? So thinking about these kinds of things in the follicular phase is going to set you up for success. You are wired for more social type activities during this timeframe, so capitalize on that. So if you are really like fired up, as you can tell, I am about working with the energy of your cycle and how that shows up for you and really maximizing this superpower that you have as a female. Biology body, okay? Regardless of how you identify and you move through the world, when you have this biological biochemical process happening in your system, these are the energetic shifts that you are going to experience throughout the month. Why not turn yourself into a superhero? Right when I figured out how to work with my cycle, instead of feeling like I had to swim upstream against it because I was working in a corporate job and the expectation was just that I could work like a man. and I can do as much as a man, but I was actually seeing my cycle suffer because I was trying to work in the same cadence as if my hormones were like theirs. And the thing is, is they're not. And so I can do five times the work during my. Late follicular phase ovulation and early ludial phase that anybody can do in a given day. But outside of that, I have to honor where I'm at. And when I finally realized that this. Kind of planning is actually a superpower and not a handicap. I really felt like my productivity, the way I moved through the world, everything just exploded because I was no longer trying to swim upstream. I mean, think about that in terms of the analogy itself. If the tide is going out and you're trying to swim in you fatigue fast. but if you swim with the current, you're gonna go twice as far, twice as fast, right? It's literally the same thing. Your hormones will carry you and they can be your biggest superpower if you know how to harness it. So if you're super excited and pumped up about it like I am, you may wanna check out not your Mama's Menstrual course, because I actually do a deeper dive on this very harnessing the superpower topic in that course. It's self-study. You can listen to it while you are. Folding laundry or whatever. But it's something that gives you a lot of really meaningful advice in terms of how to harness the superpower that is your follicular phase and each phase of your cycle. So if you wanna have fewer symptoms throughout the month, learn what you need in each phase of your cycle now, and it will change your period and your experience with the remaining. Parts of your menstrual cycle all month. Keep following these episodes because we're gonna keep doing a deep dive into each of these areas. If you are looking to connect with other people who are looking to transform their period problems and are as passionate about it as we are, join us in the Reproductive Rebel Podcast listeners Facebook. Group the link to join the conversation is in the show notes. The link for na. Your Mama's Menstrual course is also in the show notes, so be sure to check it out. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Reproductive Rebel Reproductive. Rebel is recorded by certified Perry Steam Hydrotherapist, herbalist, sound healer, and Chinese nutritional therapist. Adrian, I. Of Moon Essence, llc. If you are interested in setting up an appointment with Adrian for one-on-one support, ordering from our store or checking out our course offerings, visit our website@moonessence.life. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get insider information on upcoming events and offerings. Join the convers. Like us and follow Moon Essence, me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Your voices make this program possible. Thank you all for your continued support.