023: Unleashing Her Potential: Syncing Training with the Female Athlete's Cycle for Maximum Performance with Renae Fieck

This week on the Pod, we've invited cycle synchronization expert Renae Fieck to teach us more about the female cycle and how to use this knowledge to maximize our performance. Our conversation navigates the often uncharted territory of how menstrual cycles intricately affect brain function and the day-to-day lives of women. We shed light on the compelling contrasts between men's and women's hormonal patterns, illustrating why a one-size-fits-all approach falls short for female athletes. Renae explains how each phase of the menstrual cycle can refine training, amplify cognitive abilities, and foster self-confidence. The information from this episode is a valuable part of a parent's toolkit to help empower their daughters to embrace the unique strengths of the female athlete's cycle and help them achieve their goals.

Episode Highlights:

• How the female cycle affects performance
• How to fuel your athlete during her cycle
• How understanding female hormones can help parents provide better support for their athletes

Connect with Renae:
Instagram: @renaefieck
The Cycle Advantage Podcast
www.renaefieck.com

More ways to work with Fearless Fastpitch

• Learn about our proven Mental Skills Program, The Fearless Warrior Program
• Book a One on One Session for your Athlete
• Book a Mental Skills Workshop for your Team or Organization

Follow us on Social Media

• Facebook @fearlessfastpitchmentaltraining
• Instagram @fearlessfastpitch
• Twitter @CoachAB_

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Pro, Welcome to the Fearless Warrior podcast, a place for athletes, coaches and parents who know the value of a strong mindset. I'm your host, Coach AB, a mental performance coach on a mission, former softball coach, wife and mom of three. Each episode we will dive deep into all things mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success. So if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode, All right. So tonight's parent workshop is with.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Renee is a very good friend of mine and I'm so excited for you guys to learn. The title of this workshop is Unlocking the Power of your Athlete Cycle to Achieve Her Goals and, for those of you that are familiar with a female's cycle, we kind of base it off of only one of the four elements, and this might be kind of a fun little subject for us to talk about, because it's not talked about enough, and I know that Renee is an expert in this. She works with a lot of entrepreneurs, high achieving women, and what she makes possible is incredible to watch because when you learn to sync your life with your cycle, you can feel more energized, make a bigger impact, get better results, and why not have this for our softball athletes? I wish I could go back in time and understand more about this, because it relates to everything our femininity and how we show up as athletes. So, without further ado, Renee Feek.

Speaker 2: 1:39

Oh, thank you so much for having me here. I am excited to be here and how ironic that literally like 15 minutes before I hopped on here, I went to the bathroom and my daughter's like Renee, or she goes, mom, there's blood in the toilet and I was like, yeah, and she goes, why? And I'm like it's called a period. Dear, it's called a period and just funny that it kind of all coincided at the same time and that we're here. But I yes, as was already said, I am an expert in the area of hormones and how the cycle really impacts really more, not necessarily just the hormones and how they impact us every day and like what the hormone level looks like, but really how that impacts the way we show up, because most of us have been taught that our cycles, when we think about it, we think of just that period phase and we don't think about all of the other pieces and only other parts that are happening in the background. And up until recently, there really has not been much research that really talks about how women are so different and how women function differently and how we are not the same as men, and so a lot of the research, of even medical research and things like that was really based around the way men perform and the way men show up and those hormones really impact us as we go through the month in every different single way. So I'm so excited to be here, so honored to be here and be able to share with you guys my story.

Speaker 2: 3:01

Starting into this, it was I don't know about seven, eight years ago.

Speaker 2: 3:05

I was pregnant with my third baby and got into business and found that I was just like burning myself out, trying to hustle and trying to work really hard and use all these very masculine strategies for time management and working harder and being consistent and doing all the things and found myself just totally exhausted trying to run a business, raise three kids, juggle life, juggle still working at the hospital, like I was doing all the things all the time.

Speaker 2: 3:32

I'm like there's just something not working and kind of wondered that there was something wrong with me, that it was something I wasn't able to do, that there was this expectation in our society that I should be able to do it, but it didn't feel like it was possible. And that's when I discovered how men and women are just so different, like our hormones impact us in the way we show up every single day. So that has been the journey I've been on really digging in and becoming like honing in and really understanding how it impacts us every single day, how we show up every single day and actually I don't know if you want me to ask questions or if you want me just to go like what do you want to do here?

Speaker 1: 4:11

Yeah, so I guess, what would you talk to an athlete about? As far as you know, we have moms, we have dads, we have coaches a lot of male coaches and when we think about a cycle, can you give us the basis of? Well, first off, if you don't know the average cycle length and what that entails but I think there's a lot of negative connotation around you know, I can go back and, oh my gosh, I remember my dad handing me a Snickers bar and a Mountain Dew when I was on my period. He knew that I was going to pitch like absolute crap because I was exhausted, and so the remedy for that was here, have some caffeine and some chocolate and hopefully you pitch better. So what, what would be kind of your basis of? Hey, if you're new to this or if you haven't ever thought about this, here's the basic cycle and how we view it.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Yeah, okay, so let's start there. I will show this screen here. On the left hand side we have testosterone for men, and so how it functions is in that 24 hour rhythm. So you can see it starts really high in the morning and then it kind of waxes and wanes throughout the day and then they go to bed. They wake up the next morning they get a fresh dose of testosterone. So men function very well, consistently, every single day, whether it be workouts, whether it be their work, whether it be just like going about day to day. Like they function very much on a very predictable pattern. Today is the same, as you know, a couple of weeks from now as tomorrow, like they're very much predictable. Or on the right hand side, we have women. So women have.

Speaker 2: 5:47

Estrogen and progesterone are two of our pretty dominant hormones. When we are at the very beginning of the month, when we're on our periods, it's pretty low, like all of the hormones are pretty stable, and then, as you move throughout the month, that hormone, estrogen, starts to climb and then, as estrogen peaks, right around the middle of the month is when you ovulate, and then, after you ovulate, the estrogen dips down and progesterone kicks back up. Now estrogen and progesterone feel so differently. Estrogen has much more like this testosterone type of feel, so it's very much like the go, get them, get things done. You might feel really productive, you might feel really great, your brain feels really sharp, you feel confident, you feel ready. It's particularly to like very athletic right. So as that estrogen is peaking, it's a really great time for you know, a lot of really high intense workouts, a really high intense performance Like. It's a very like you feel good pushing the limits and going really hard and going really far and it feels okay on your body.

Speaker 2: 6:53

Then, as test, progesterone kicks in and that last half of the month progesterone is kind of the opposite. Progesterone is like I want to slow down, I want to turn in, I don't want to be pushing quite so hard. I may want to get things totally organized and it's not quite that same like push really hard feel. In fact, even in that progesterone dominant phase you're more prone to injury. So if you push yourself the same in that progesterone phase that you would in the estrogen phase, you're more likely to sustain a bigger injuries. So in terms of kind of looking at as you move throughout the month and the way you work out and the way you push yourself would be, in that estrogen phase, like that's the time when you would push harder, that's when you would try to go hard, like hit those next limits and lift heavier weights and try bigger workouts, and then, when the progesterone phase kicks in, is a little bit more of that pull back, recuperate, like restore kind of those muscles and let the body heal itself up again. And so, as you move throughout the month, there's not a single day in the entire month that you're the same. Every single phase of the month, every single day, you have a different level of the way that estrogen and a progesterone are playing out. And so when we look at that, compared to men being very predictable day to day to day and working out every day every single way in the same ways, it's just not the same.

Speaker 2: 8:15

Right, and I have I had this slide up here a minute ago.

Speaker 2: 8:18

This is some new research that's coming out.

Speaker 2: 8:21

There's these are two different studies that I found of MRI results of women as they move throughout the cycle.

Speaker 2: 8:27

So what we know is like the brain impacts everything.

Speaker 2: 8:31

Right, the brain is going to impact the way your girls pitch. It's going to impact the way they run. It's going to impact the way they perform in school, it's going to impact the way they think, how confident they are like, how they show up, like, literally, our brains. Our brains impact every part of us, and so if we look at these two slides, we can see that as we move throughout the month, the brain is actually impacted very drastically throughout the cycle, and so who we are, how we show up, what parts of the brain are being activated All of that is very different as we move through the cycle. So kind of being aware of where those different phases are, how they're impacting you and then how they're helping or even your girls to like right, this is for all women across the board, not just girls but like really being able to ask to one, give some understanding and compassion, but also lean into it and be able to be more effective with what we're doing, instead just pushing ourselves the same way as men would be.

Speaker 1: 9:26

This is amazing and so fascinating. And so, as far as the different phases, what are we looking at here? As far as and we can put it in the show notes too, for those that want to look at this slides, as we use this for our podcast. But what are kind of your talking points on this. As far as you know, we're student athletes, we're studying, we're working out. How does that affect the brain?

Speaker 2: 9:50

Yeah, so well, here this, I mean these are scientific studies, so they're a little bit like getting into the nitty-gritty of looking at it. But really this is menstruation up here, right, so we can see that on menstruation there's a ton of blood flow. So there's some in like the spiritual spaces in the world that will say that during that phase you're most in touch with your subconscious and the most in tune with your intuition and self-awareness and things like that, because and chances are like biologically now we're having research to support it that there's so much blood flow happening there inside the brain and then, as you move through that estrogen phase, it says mid-ludial. Honestly, I would have to kind of dig into what these all the different studies this one was intended to really show, like how different the brain looks, and so I would have to look at exactly what they're talking about in here, what each part of these different parts of the brain that are activated. But I think what's?

Speaker 1: 10:49

fascinating on a neuroscientist, yeah, but what's fascinating is the connection. There's a lot more studies on brain gut connection. You know our hormones and our brains and I think what is interesting is the more research that I do as we stack on to this the phases of development of pre teens and teens, and even my young kids I have five, two and one they're learning how to not only, you know, walk and talk and do all those things, but they're learning how to cope with their emotions, and so this is incredible because it's the, it's the marrying of the physical and the mental.

Speaker 2: 11:30

Yes, well, and one of the things to especially with, like the pre teens, teens, and like I have a one, the daughter that's 12, going on, 13 right now, and what I have noticed is, if you remember, back to middle school, like that high school age range is like so much of it is about learning who you are and learning who you want to be and how you show up and like what things you know. Developmentally, you're separating yourself from your parents and kind of creating your own identity and creating your own space in the world. And then, on top of that, now we have we're trying to create our own identity, but we have all of these emotions that are playing throughout the month that we maybe aren't even aware of, and so one of the things that I think is the most powerful, specifically for this age range, is the understanding of how the cycle is impacting them, because if they know, hey, this week I'm going to have a little bit more doubt, I'm going to have a little bit more fear, I'm going to have a little bit more, you know, self limiting beliefs, and these things come up that maybe wouldn't other phases of the month, but instead, like what I see my daughter, she's like I'm the world's worst person, that I have no friends, nobody likes me, like I suck at my homework, like all of those things that come up when we start to put like a label on the fact that this is a predictable pattern and this isn't them, this is just part of their hormones. We take it away from this place of being their identity. It's not like now. This idea of like I'm a horrible person, it's now.

Speaker 2: 12:57

Oh, I'm just feeling this way right this week because this is where I'm at in my cycle and I think that is a really, really powerful thing to help our next generation grow up without taking on so much of those labels and that identity that maybe some of us did when we were in that phase, and helping really separate out like this is an emotion and this is a feeling and this is what I'm experiencing.

Speaker 2: 13:20

But not who I am, and who I am is something I get to choose and it's very different and I think, like I said I've told this before but if I were not working with entrepreneurs, like preteens and teens would be the people that I would be working with, because I think it's going to make such a huge impact for the next generation. If they can grow up understanding this and understanding that they don't have to be the same every single day, nor are they supposed to, and that when they have that compassion for where they are and that awareness of where they are, then that allows them to show up in a much more powerful way.

Speaker 1: 13:52

That's incredible, Renee. I love that so much. And to stack on to that is if they're not blindsided by it.

Speaker 1: 14:00

So instead of you know I think about my childhood and not knowing about my cycle and you know I have a very predictable cycle and I track it now and I have that awareness before it even happens. You know and you coach entrepreneurs how to do this. I just got done with a very extensive string of camps. We just hosted confidence camp, where I've been on live back to back on zooms and I'm in the middle of my phase and and I wouldn't have planned any other way because that's when I have the most energy if I was trying to do this During any other part of my cycle, it would really feel like I'm really efforting and really trying to pull myself out of my shell when I want to be in that retrospective, introspective phase.

Speaker 1: 14:45

So can you kind of talk about how would you match that for, you know, maybe a preteen or a teen, how would you match that to an athlete's world? Knowing that, you know we can't always control our practice plans, we can't always control what our coaches are requiring us to do, but what would your recommendations be?

Speaker 2: 15:04

Yeah, totally. I mean, life is not going to always match up. Like if it was perfect, that would be amazing, but like it doesn't, I mean you and I, in order to coordinate, to like this, like we're going to have maybe potentially opposite schedules and so if we're never going to be off, like we're never going to actually get the things we want done. So the one understanding and having the awareness of where your cycles at is key number one, Because just that alone can help you understand and give yourself a little bit more grace and compassion without even changing anything. The second step would be to actually start trying to integrate what you can. There's going to be some areas of our life that we probably can adapt much easier than others, and some areas where we maybe can't change at all, and a lot of what I have seen is that it's not necessarily the matter of changing everything. It's about changing the few key players that are going to make the biggest difference. So really understanding and I'll pull this up to this slide of understanding where these different phases are when I was first learning about this, I'm like from the medical field, like I work in the hospital, like that's my background, but understanding like gluteal and follicular and all of the phases I was like I just can't remember like where they're at now. It's like I know it like a back of my hand, but in the beginning I couldn't, and so what I really did was I started naming them based on what the energy felt like. So that menstrual phase is that recharge phase. That is when your energy and their bodies at the lowest that it would be a month long. So physically you may not have a ton of energy, you might feel a little bit like you want to lay on the couch, you might need to rest, you might need to recover, it might not feel like you have as much oomph as you did before, and so kind of tapping into that can really help you focus on how can I recharge this month? What do I need to recharge this week? That recharging doesn't necessarily mean I'm a vegetable on the log into nothing, but what do I need to help restore my, my cup emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, like how can I really tap into that in that phase? So I've gotten a lot of grief from people being like well, women can't just take off a week, a whole, like every single period week. Like the women wonder why the wage gap exists and like all these things right. But it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to just totally step away from the world, like it would be amazing if you could, but you don't have to.

Speaker 2: 17:24

But during that phase, like what are you doing to help support yourself? Maybe at the end of the day it's taking a bubble bath or an epsom bath and kind of like letting your muscles and letting your body recuperate. Maybe it's, you know, going for a walk at the end of the day and letting your mind kind of relax and just disconnect. Like I think that's one of the biggest things that I see is that we're just so overstimulated my background is on occupational therapist and so working a lot with self regulation and the nervous system and like there's no generation before us that's ever had to deal with as much stimulation coming at us nonstop. Like our nervous systems are just overwhelmed and overstimulated All the time. So can you focus like one phase of the month of like can I just disconnect a little bit more during this phase?

Speaker 2: 18:11

Then you move from there into the accelerate phase. So that's when that energy kicks up, that high momentum, the confidence like everything feels great, everything feels wonderful. So take on those big projects like do the big the workouts, push harder, go farther, all of those types of things, all the way up into that connect phase. The connect phase is right around the time when you're ovulating, so you're going to feel the most wanting to be around your friends, being social, connected with other people. It's the best time to communicate. You're going to feel like you're in this relationship, like you want to be around other people and striving. So even thinking like the accelerate phase maybe a little bit different and depends on how you guys just coaching and teams and stuff are structured, but like the accelerate phase maybe is a lot of more like independent workout and pushing harder and going. And where is that connect phase? There's going to be a lot of like how can we support group workouts, how can we support group training? How can we really move into that phase?

Speaker 2: 19:06

And then that reflect phase is when that progesterone kicks in and that that energy starts to dip and that emotional awareness starts to come up and so you're feeling really more emotional and kind of feeling some more of those self doubts and fears and things like that. So, number one, just understanding what each of these different phases are and how we move throughout the month is going to make such a huge difference. Just being like, oh cool, yep, I just lost my ish on the kids, like that's why I feel like I'm about ready to lose my mind right now. Okay, what do I need to do? And I think having that question of what does my body need right now and what do I need to do and how can I support myself can be one of the greatest things to change you going forward. So it may look like changing your workouts, so maybe having like the more restorative stuff at certain times of the month. It may look like just changing your self care. It may look like giving yourself extra space at the beginning of the day or the end of the day.

Speaker 2: 20:02

Just like I said, this impacts your hormones and your impact every part of you, right, your brain. They impact the way you sleep. It impacts the way you communicate. It impacts the way you eat. So the same thing that accelerate and connect phase, your girls may need to eat more food. They may need more like their.

Speaker 2: 20:23

Like your body will eat differently as you're trying to build up more of that muscle versus the progesterone. More phase, you're going to want more of the carbohydrates and so people have like negatively put these stereotypes on it of the chocolate and carbs during that phase. But it's like your body actually needs more carbohydrates. With progesterone heavy versus it likes more of the leafy greens and the proteins and things like that. That other phase of the month. So the sleep, your sleep same thing, you might want to sleep in and you might need to wake up earlier or things like that. So making those small I know I'm like kind of rambling now but like looking at all of the different ways that is impacting your body and looking at how can we just make small micro adjustments based on where it's at.

Speaker 1: 21:07

That's incredible. I just wrote down support, self care, sleep and nutrition, and if you take anything away from this, you know for yourself or for your athlete. Our athletes aren't necessarily going to advocate for themselves when it comes to disconnecting. They're not going to want to put their phones down, they're not going to prioritize their sleep, they're usually not responsible for their nutrition until they're in high school or they're driving on their own, and so you might have to be the bad guy. I do this a lot with my one-on-one clients and I didn't even realize, of course, that this is connected. We do performance profiles, so we track different categories, so it's a way to track their mental goals, and so, yeah, we can track the tactical skills, we can track the technical skills, but the lifestyle skills, so I usually make them pick one lifestyle skill that they want to track, and it's usually one of those four literally.

Speaker 1: 22:01

What are you doing to support yourself, what are you doing for self care, bucket fillers, what are you doing for your sleep and what are you doing for your nutrition? That's incredible. Now I know why that's important.

Speaker 2: 22:12

Yeah, and I think even just having the awareness that they are going to change throughout the cycle, like they're not going to be the same right, and I think that that's where some of this new intuitive eating type of stuff is coming out and really helping people get back to listen to their bodies, because most of us were not taught to listen to our bodies. Most of us were taught to eat a certain way based on as a kid, we were told to clean our entire plates because they're starving kids in Africa and if we didn't eat our entire plates, like they were going to be in herding, or we had to eat certain things on our plate because you had to eat the whole thing or whatever it might be. And coming from a space now of like my expertise in the hospital has been in feeding and seeing so many kids with picky eating and seeing all these things that we've done to the way we believe about our food and our nutrition, and it's no wonder that we now have so many adults who are overweight and obese and don't know how to self-regulate because they don't understand how to listen to their body. We don't know how to listen to those internal satiation cues. We don't know how to listen to, like you know what my body's actually really really does crave salad right now.

Speaker 2: 23:21

And as I started moving through and kind of becoming more aware of the cycle, rather than taking like a cycle-sinking graphic and saying, okay, these are the foods I need to eat this phase, these are the foods I need to eat this phase, I just started to listen to, like what does my body want, and what I noticed is that what my body wanted matched up very perfectly with where people would quote unquote, say you should be eating. So I think, if we get back to really listening to, like okay, my body needs more sleep, like I can tell, like today I actually took a nap right before this. I'm like I don't know if I'm fighting a virus or I'm fighting something, but I can definitely tell. And so I was like I'm going to take a nap this afternoon and I'm going to go to bed early tonight and just to give yourself that permission and know, like this is, this is what your body needs.

Speaker 2: 24:07

There may be a week this month or a week throughout the month. You only need five hours of sleep. There may be other weeks. You need nine and that's okay. It's okay.

Speaker 1: 24:16

Do you recommend for parents? I'm thinking about this as I I'm disclosing some very personal details, but it matters right, and so I'm going to be a little bit vulnerable. After connecting with you and being in this world with you and being friends with you, I mark it on my business calendar and it's very discreet, they're just little red dots and I know you know what to expect. But I think would that be too out of the question to have this conversation with your daughter to empower her to do the same. Obviously you don't want to plaster a big calendar on the fridge for the whole family to see. You know if you want to talk about that. Of course we want to bring awareness to that, but what would be your recommendation of what if we could empower parents and players together to have check-ins?

Speaker 2: 25:01

What would that?

Speaker 1: 25:02

look like. What would be your recommendations for?

Speaker 2: 25:04

that. Well, I think this is an interesting conversation because I do think that I mean just talking about our periods and things that has so much shame and so much stigma and so much around it. There's actually, even if we look at it, like so many women today have so much trauma around that part of their bodies right, whether it be sexual abuse or like molestation or rape or infertility, and no metriosis like there's so much pain and trauma around that area on top of the fact that now we have it's taboo to talk about, like we don't want to. You know, like that's it. I think there was a study I read that like 50% of people believe it's unacceptable to talk about in the workplace, but yet it's impacting more than half of the workforce. So, like why would we not talk about it? So I think there is some element of that there for us as the generation where we are, of parents. Yet I think that if we approach it differently with our kids, our kids have the opportunity to not approach it with that same shame and trauma and stigma around it.

Speaker 2: 26:07

So, like I said, my daughter's 12 and I remember talking to her one day and she was like talking she knows every person in her class who's had their period and who's not. She knows when they're on their period all the time, like, and she's like even the boys know it. And it's like this open conversation for them, I think, and I kind of would be curious to hear, like what's actually happening at school. But for her there is no shame or stigma or trauma around it. And it's like how can we keep that sacredness of like they are coming into this with a blank slate? Whatever shame and trauma and stigma that they get is from us imposing that on them. So like how can we help heal ourselves in order to have that conversation and to be able to support that environment for them, to be able to them experience it from a whole new lens and whole new place? So I think that is a really powerful conversation. It's more about self reflection as a parent of like what stories, what traumas, what beliefs, what stigmas, what things am I bringing into this in the conversation? And how can I get really uncomfortable with myself sometimes and be like, okay, this is no big deal. Like even with my daughter, you know, like just recently today she was like, why is it like the littlest one she's like, why is there blood in the toilet. I'm like it's a period, whereas in the past it probably would have been like it's no big deal, don't worry about it. You know, it's like all of those little micro things that we do are making it be this taboo, off topic.

Speaker 2: 27:30

So I think that would be a big thing, but 100%, I think it's incredibly powerful to help empower your girls to start tracking, whether it's using an app and there are very discrete apps that are geared more towards girls Girls like teens that make it more fun and enjoyable. That'll kind of tell them a little bit about where they're at each phase of the month. I use Google Calendar and so I put it on there as this Reflect Connect, accelerate Recharge, which would probably be a little bit more. It would feel less or I guess it would feel more discrete, and I have had clients that use just emojis, so like each of the different phases on their calendar are different emojis, so they know like this is my great time and this is a time when I need more energy or whatever it might be. So there's ways to do that. But I think, 100% empowering your girls to start tracking beyond just like hey, here's my period, but like where am I feeling and what are those other things I noticed throughout the whole month.

Speaker 1: 28:24

That's incredible. I am loving this conversation so much. I would love to open it up to questions, because I know you guys have some as well, so you guys can put your question in the chat or you can unmute and ask and see where it leads. See where the conversation goes.

Speaker 2: 28:43

I'm open. It's one of those things I never thought this would be the topic of conversation, that I would be running my business from you know, like you. Just this is not where I ever pictured myself being Like. I was the one that was like I will not order pads or tamp, or like buy them at the store, like I'll order them or whatever I have to do so that I don't have to go through the checkout line. And then here I am talking about it on TV and podcasts all the time.

Speaker 1: 29:09

It's amazing yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:10

Heather what you got.

Speaker 3: 29:13

So my question would be is that so? For example, my child, she is not even started her period yet. So like how I guess I'm trying to think of, like the intuitive eating and things like that. Like how do I portray or explain even this situation to her, not really knowing like that's even happening yet? So, maybe the younger girls, how would you suggest implementing or suggesting or planning? How would you go about that? Yeah, how old is she now?

Speaker 2: 29:50

She is 10. Okay, so my guess is that she probably already has some of the hormones starting to cycle. They probably just aren't 100% like fully laid in there, and I mean, even I have a seven year old and there's times where I'm like, oh my seven year old is the sweetest thing since sliced bread, and other times when she's like hell on earth and I'm like I don't think it's actually hormones. I honestly feel like just us, as human nature or human beings, were cyclical and so we do thrive in a cycle. That's. This is why it works. I 100% believe it means, or this is effective and works beyond when we have our period. So if you're in post-menopausal or pregnant or any of those types of things, like women, we just function better in cycles, right? The menstrual cycle follows the same rhythm of the moon, the men's testosterone cycle follows the same rhythm of the sun and, like we have these rhythms in earth and in mother nature. I think it's really just about the way we were designed. So whether our young girls are actually there's probably not their hormones at that point, but they are starting to have these cycles and these rhythms and how they show up, like I would be curious if you notice that too with your daughter, but I started to notice with my oldest, or my oldest when she was about 10 was kind of that phase when I started to notice like times when like emotions would get super extreme, and then other times when they weren't, and that I kind of could start to notice Maybe it wasn't as predictable on a month to month basis, but just kind of starting to pay attention to what's there and what's happening and helping her cue into that and kind of start to notice Like hey, it kind of looks like you're feeling really heavy right now or you're feeling really emotional. Like what we can, what can we do to help support that? Like what do you need? I think is just a great way to kind of start having that conversation. Helping her kind of reflect back I think all of our girls are all of our kids like helping them reflect back on like what are their bodies need, like what are they, what's actually happening? I think can be a conversation we can start as early as very early, right, like two, three years old. We can start teaching them and helping them understand, like what is your body need, not does what does the world tell you you need, but like what does your body need? And so I think that would be the conversation I would start having.

Speaker 2: 31:59

There there is a balance, right, like as a feeding expert and coming from this feeding world, like my oldest, right now she's like all she wants to eat is chips and cereal. I'm like honey. There's you got to eat something other than chips and cereal all the time. Like so there is an element of like you as the parent. So in the feeding space, like, the parent is the one responsible for providing the food. It's up to the child to decide how much of what they eat. So as long as you're providing a healthy variety of diet, or like a healthy variety diet of foods, it's going to help support her growing and support where she's at. If she leans into wanting only fruits and vegetables for a week, by all means I would let it go.

Speaker 2: 32:40

If one week she's like craving more of this and I would look at more of the overarching like over the whole month, is she balancing out carbohydrates and fruits and vegetables and proteins and things like that, rather than looking at it as a day to day thing, even if we look at like kids like my, my, my son I Remember there he's, would eat my entire house out of food and then for weeks he wouldn't eat anything.

Speaker 2: 33:04

And I remember, when he was real little, thinking, gosh, he's got to eat. Like he hasn't eaten anything in the last two weeks, like he's, he's not eating enough. And then we would go a month or two later and he'd eat a whole bunch of food. And it's like they, if we allow them, they will self-regulate what they need. So, like he went through a major growth spurt, went through this growth spurt, and he was eating, eating, eating, eating, eating. And once you got through that growth spurt, he didn't need to eat as much. And so if we let their bodies kind of regulate that, they will be more, way more intuitive than when we think, oh, they have to eat this much every single day. Like it's a very conditioned way of thinking. Yeah, that help, okay, good.

Speaker 1: 33:45

Yeah, good good question.

Speaker 2: 33:48

Yeah, it is a lot of unlearning, a lot of the ways in which we have grown up. Right, we've been learned, we've been taught to eat like a bat, a plate that's all balanced out and we've come in hot to eat this much protein and this much vegetables and this much whatever. There's very few things out there really telling us like, hey, listen to what your body needs. And so as adults it's kind of hard. It is hard to go back to that because we don't understand what our bodies always need, right, we sometimes we think we're like I'm hungry. I'm hungry, but for a lot of people sometimes it's not even hunger, it's thirst. We're like dehydrated, but we don't know that that's what the signal is, because we don't understand what those signals are. So give yourself some space to help kind of re figure and relearn that and like understand, like what is it my body's really needing? And the. But with your kids for sure, like really helping them tap back into that from the very beginning can help support them.

Speaker 3: 34:44

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 34:46

That's some great advice. I have a selfish question Do you have any recommendations as far as what would be a better way to support your daughter when she's on her period versus Mountain Dew and Snickers?

Speaker 2: 35:02

I Think it's gonna be probably girl-to-girl, to be totally honest, if, because what we find is recharging in each for each of us Is gonna be different and so for some of our girls are gonna need more space. Some, like I can tell my daughter she's gonna she's gonna want like time alone in her room to just like decompress and allow herself to be and allow herself to have that space or take a bubble bath or things like that. So I think it's one it's gonna be understanding what your girl needs and what you feel like makes the most support for her. But I would look at it from this perspective of how can I nourish her, like what are some things that are very nourishing for her? So could you even create some like little rituals around, you know, maybe a cup of tea, or Recently I got a gift package in the mail that has this like lavender bag thing that you put in the microwave and you put it on and it's like Nice and warm.

Speaker 2: 35:52

It's like can you create just some like rituals that create this like nourishment, this like positivity sort of thing around that phase that you know this is your, your month. Maybe take a bubble bath and like drink some tea and have this relaxing lavender bath thing and like, can you create some nourishment in that space? And it might be some Exploration, you know, figuring out what you like and leaning into that, like even discovering what do you like during that phase Maybe it's reading a book or quitting outside and going for a walk and then helping her kind of cultivate and create that toolbox with her Would be really powerful and probably even a really restorative bonding experience for both of you.

Speaker 1: 36:33

Yeah, I like that term toolbox. We use that a lot with mental skills and so, yeah, just the another tool in your toolbox. If you guys have questions that you didn't get answered tonight or you think of something after the fact, by all means, renee, tell us what. Where's the best place to follow you? We always want to make sure we shout that out and make sure that you know. If this is something you're interested in or you want to connect with Renee, hit us with your social channels.

Speaker 2: 36:58

Yeah so Instagram is my favorite, so I would definitely say over there. So it's just my first and last name, renee fic, and Then same. My website is Renee fic would be another great place to go. Or the podcast is the cycle advantage podcast? Those would be great places. And now that I'm like it's funny, I didn't even think about it beforehand, but I had a client of mine actually asked for a Like a teen guide. So she was like, can I take your cycle guide and can we convert it into a teen one? And so our, my team had just completed that recently, so maybe I can send that over to you and you can disperse it to your, to your people too, like a teen guide of all of kind of the stuff we talked about, but in a little bit more kid, teen friendly.

Speaker 1: 37:40

Yeah, that's incredible and you work with a lot of entrepreneurs, so I know we have a lot of Business owners and entrepreneurs and people in a lot of different fields too, that listen to our podcasts and stay connected. So I Appreciate your wisdom and your expertise. It's incredible to see you share and work and be in the space, and I really appreciate all the Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2: 38:07

It was great.