Exercise for Endometriosis w/ Amy Grace

Welcome back to the Endo Belly Girl Podcast! Today, I am excited to dive into exercise for endometriosis with Amy Grace. Amy is a fitness trainer specializing in women’s fitness and a hormonal health coach. We also discuss Amy’s journey with endo and how she aims to empower women through their fitness journeys despite endo symptoms.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

-Endometriosis doesn’t end your life; it’s about learning how to work with your body.

-Everyone’s starting point is very different. You might have to do some functional work to get to the point where you feel like you can reach a consistent fitness routine. 

-Meet your body where it is right now. Understand your pain patterns, and menstrual cycles, and work towards feeling capable of having a fitness routine.

-Build foundational strength before you can get back to the old routines you had before your endo symptoms.  

-Exercise varies with your cycle. Some days will be better, and your approach should align with your symptoms.

-Cycle syncing and symptom awareness are crucial. Knowing when to take it easy helps manage pain flare-ups, and helps you identify when to take it easy with movement.  

-Identify movements that feel good. Understanding how different exercises affect your pain can help you stay active on bad days.

-Brainstorm a list of movements that you actually like to do, and then see what you feel from that movement will allow you to start exercising now.  

-Start with small, light exercises to keep your routine manageable. This way, you won’t feel worse than when you started. Gradually build up your routine as your body allows.

When it comes to exercising with endo, it can be frustrating when your body can’t do what it used to, or you want to do more than you can. Start with movements that feel good and are fun so you’ll stick with them. You don’t have to do everything at once. Accepting your body as it is now is the best way to build confidence and exercise routines because, over time, you will only get stronger.

Connect w/ Amy:
Website: www.projectfiercefitness.com

IG: @amy_projectfiercefitness

Freebie: https://download.projectfiercefitness.com/endo-starter-guide

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• Free Endo Diet Guide
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Learn more about Alyssa

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. This may not be the best fit for you and your personal situation. It shall not be construed as medical advice. The information and education provided here is not intended or implied to supplement or replace professional medical treatment, advice, and/or diagnosis. Always check with your own physician or medical professional before trying or implementing any information read here.

Transcript

Alyssa Chavez [00:00:01]:
Hey, my friend, and welcome back to the Endo Belly Girl podcast. I have a special guest for you all today. Her name is Amy Grace, and she is the owner and a personal trainer at Project fierce Fitness and wellness. So she is a certified personal trainer, a women's fitness specialist, and also a hormonal health coach. And Amy is an endowarrior herself. So she really understands how to tailor workouts to your own unique needs. And she's actually been training women now for about ten years. And during that time, really just was having a journey of figuring out that there's got to be a better way for women to work out, actually get strong, actually stay consistent with their plan.

Alyssa Chavez [00:00:52]:
And that's where she came into training based on your menstrual cycle, which can be particularly, particularly important for women with endometriosis. And she went through a personal journey which I'll let her tell you more about. She has a wonderful story where she was already big into the fitness industry and was struggling with wondering why she was feeling amazing in the gym one week and doing great, but then the next week would find it so hard to even drag herself to the front door. Well, it was because she was ignoring something very big, her period.

Alyssa Chavez [00:01:28]:
Right.

Alyssa Chavez [00:01:29]:
And was not recognizing the impact that it had on her life, especially as an endowarrior.

Alyssa Chavez [00:01:33]:
Right.

Alyssa Chavez [00:01:34]:
You all know what that's familiar with. So she figured out a way to navigate fitness that really worked well for her and so many of her clients. And so I wanted to bring her on the podcast here to talk a little bit about that and share with you a little bit about her journey and her story and everything she's learned along the way as far as navigating fitness, exercise and movement as an endowarrior, because I know that that's something that so many of us struggle with. So I thought I would just bring Amy on here. I know she's a wealth of knowledge. I love the information that she shares, and so I thought that you would all enjoy it as well. So I will let Amy take it away.

Alyssa Chavez [00:02:18]:
All right. Well, hello, Amy. Thank you so much for being here today. I am so excited to chat with you and let everybody hear more about what you do, because I love your story and your journey and the messaging that you bring to the endo community here. So thank you so much for being here today.

Amy Grace [00:02:39]:
Yeah, thank you for inviting me. I'm excited to speak about it and connect with everything that you're doing as well. So everything is just so important to just any messages we can get out there to endo warriors and help some living life with endometriosis is just, we just need to do it right. We need to get out there and spread some messages.

Alyssa Chavez [00:03:01]:
Yep, absolutely. I totally agree. Yeah. All right, well, I would love, Amy, if you can start off just by sharing a little bit about who you are, what you do, a little bit of your story and your journey and how you came to be doing what you're doing today.

Amy Grace [00:03:17]:
Yeah. So yeah, I'm Amy. I run a personal training business online focusing all fully on female fitness and also here in Colorado, where I live. So yeah, I moved here to the US about eight years ago with my husband from England. So this is where the accent is coming from. Obviously, I'm not from Colorado here. So yeah, we focus everything on female fitness, looking at sinking to the menstrual cycle, looking at things with empowering women with endometriosis. We also have some other sub specializations with some trainers that we have on our team with pregnancy and postpartum.

Amy Grace [00:03:57]:
So we try and focus a lot of things on how we can just help women in fitness in all different areas. But a big specialization of mine is endometriosis and this is coming from life experience with endometriosis and just really wanting to know that there was better ways to do things for women in general, looking at your cycle, but then also navigating life with endometriosis. So backtracking to where a lot of us started to have issues probably a lot of the time is back in our teen years when we didn't really know what was happening at that time and we know now in our twenties or thirties or plus, that this was a significant indicator that something was going on. Around 14, I started having very big issues with periods and would have very, very heavy bleeding that I'd have to leave school for and just having no idea why. I was continuously bleeding for three months and just thinking, you go to the doctor and they're like, well, you're a young teen, your period will regulate itself, but here, have a pill that you're now going to take for the next ten years of your life. And it was actually moving to the US eight years ago that I kind of figured out like why am I, why am I still on birth control after eight years of like ten years of being on this for heavy periods, not thinking anything about it as you move through your teens, like, this is great. I don't have proper periods or whatever after having all of those issues. But coming to the Us, I actually like it took me changing my pill to realize, like, oh, something is, like, wrong here, and I don't feel like myself.

Amy Grace [00:05:42]:
Like, it was just different to what I'd been taking for the last however many years and, like, you know, randomly crying for no reason and, like, just not feeling myself anymore. So I was like, well, why am I doing this? I just kind of went cold turkey and went off of it. But then I'd already been personal training, and I've been doing this for ten years as well. So I said, well, maybe this is why I don't feel good all the time, or there's weeks where I don't. I don't want to work out or I don't feel like I can, and I don't know what to do with my body at that point. Or, like, why am I so tired all the time? And that's when I really got into syncing with the menstrual cycle years and years ago when I was like, well, then there needs to be something. Something better for doing this. And then thinking back on all those years of, like, all these random symptoms that I would have and not actually knowing it was endometriosis, like.

Amy Grace [00:06:32]:
Like, sharp pains when you're just walking around, like, holding on to something really suddenly because you've got this sharp pain going on and having really sudden, like, sweats as your period was going to start and, like, just so many, like, random things that we. We think, oh, that's normal. That's normal. Being a woman, that's normal as part of having. Having a period. So. So, yeah, a lot of my fitness training and personal training and all of that kind of stuff navigated more towards syncing with the menstrual cycle. Just thinking that, like, there's got to be a better way for women to do this and align with their bodies a lot more and knowing these fluctuations that we have all the time and actually having some consistency with our movement without thinking, like, well, we can only do something when we feel good.

Amy Grace [00:07:14]:
And that was then moving into life with endometriosis, which really kind of kicked off the last five ish years, coming off of the pill and progressively getting more symptoms and, yeah, figuring out that, okay, life is totally different again, having these really huge, debilitating, painful days and my body just feeling like it can't do anything and figuring that out all over again kind of like, well, now, how do I live my life like this? This is something completely different to how I've been working out and exercising my whole life. And now it's. Now it's different again because my body is totally different now and what I feel like I'm capable of doing is now totally different as well. So this is where it came to be of like having that endo specialization, like just focusing on women with endometriosis and endo warriors of like, yeah, this can't be our life. This can't just be like one or two days out of the month where maybe I feel okay is the day that I exercise but that I'm scared to exercise because I feel good. Am I now going to make myself feel worse? So it's really empowering to see women and endowarriors take control back of that after like trying to like re figure out your life in your twenties or thirties or plus and yeah, like, yeah, refiguring out your life again, basically it's a big step and it's, there's not much out there to help you do that.

Alyssa Chavez [00:08:52]:
Right?

Amy Grace [00:08:52]:
Scary.

Alyssa Chavez [00:08:56]:
No. And it's one of those like of course I'm not thankful that you had to go through all of that, but in a way I am because it has, you know, given a pathway towards helping other women who are going through similar struggles. I think that's true of so many of us who have gotten into this industry. It's, we've recognized because, yeah, in the, in the medical world there's, there's support in certain areas. You know, if you need to have a surgery or things like that, great. But you're absolutely right, it doesn't help you refigure out your, your life to use your words. I love the way that you said that and I think it's maybe especially powerful for someone like yourself who your entire livelihood and life was built around fitness and you know, the personal training and being very physical with your body and to all of a sudden have that kind of flipped on its head and not be able to do the things that you used to be able to do and not understanding why and especially given that it's not like you were, you know, ancient, it's not like you're in your seventies, not the seventies are ancient.

Amy Grace [00:10:03]:
Like you should be in your prime right now. And it's like, well, why does my body feel like it can't do anything? And this is why we moved to Colorado in the first place because we've got mountains 20 minutes away from us, want to be out hiking and we want that active lifestyle. We want to be able to use all the bike trails. Plus yeah, my job is fitness. So like it's doing, trying to do all of that as well when you're, like, physically active for hours and hours a day, but then you want your own how to move your own body and navigating surgeries. So I've had two. Had two back to back surgeries for, I have stage four endometriosis, and my endometriomas, the cysts and the ovaries were a significant issue for me, and those were causing pain a lot of the time. So surgery really helps structurally to remove those, but it doesn't, like, it's not the end result.

Amy Grace [00:11:03]:
Like, there's still a lot of stuff that we need to do, and some people really, like, have life changing results from a surgery, and some people don't. And I'm one of those people that didn't from the back to back surgeries just because of how extensive the endo was, and we couldn't remove the majority of it because it's everywhere. But getting rid of the cysts was a great thing. Yeah. Like, pain is significant, and it really does disrupt your life, and you have to figure out ways that you can still live the life that you want and not let endometriosis stop that and live the active things. I always see this, like, coming through. Like, I can't do the things that I love anymore, and I really want to do that. And it's like, well, yeah, let's.

Amy Grace [00:11:47]:
Let's get you to a place of doing that. Whatever that looks like now. Maybe it looks a little bit different, but, yeah, we want that. We want that active life.

Alyssa Chavez [00:11:56]:
Yeah. Well, thank you for. For speaking to that, because I I know that that's something that a lot of women struggle with, is just wanting to do the things, you know, having a desire to be active and, you know, I I actually, funny enough, and from Colorado, myself, different, different area, but, you know, I'm somebody also who just loves to be outdoors and hike and, you know, see all the things in the world. I, you know, I don't want to spend my life on my couch because. Because I'm in pain, and I know so many others are the same. So I love just that you're speaking to that challenge that can come up and kind of enlightening us a little bit on how that journey has progressed for you. And I know we'll dig more into that today and kind of unpack what that looks like, how other people can help to support themselves in kind of getting back to being more active as well, and just. Just the idea that you can have it all right.

Alyssa Chavez [00:12:58]:
That endometriosis doesn't end your life. And there's still so much that you can do. It's just a matter of learning to work with your body. Right.

Amy Grace [00:13:08]:
There's still so much that we can do, and we just need to figure out how to do it and what that looks like for each individual person because everyone is so different and everyone's endometriosis. And life with endometriosis is so different.

Alyssa Chavez [00:13:23]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I would love if you can just kind of share with us a little bit your thoughts and ideology, process, whatever you want to call that, as far as just exercising and fitness with endometriosis, because I know that's something that is just challenging, like we talked about, for a lot of people to navigate. And just if you can even touch on some of those common concerns and struggles that you see either yourself and or clients that you work with struggle with.

Amy Grace [00:13:57]:
So, yeah, let's start with that bit then. Because with the struggles and concerns and stuff, because like we were just saying, everyone is so different, your starting point might be totally different. And I think we do have to understand that with endometriosis is that we get, we're promoting exercise and we're promoting working out and being active, but that might not mean you don't jump straight into the deep end of that. You might have to do quite a bit of work before that as well to get yourself into a place where you feel like you can be consistently active, especially if you are dealing with pain a lot of the days of the month as well. And it can just feel like there is no starting point with that. So there's a lot of background work that we can do. And yeah, that might be looking at more with the medical side of things with your endometriosis, that might be looking at pelvic floor physical therapy, that might be looking at nutrition, that might be looking at other holistic approaches. Like acupuncture was a huge one for me that really helped manage my pain.

Amy Grace [00:15:05]:
And I do think that that has helped me stay active with endometriosis, with health and pain. Like we were saying, with surgery, that might not be like, okay, I've had my surgery, now everything is fine. There might be other steps that you need to take with that. And acupuncture was and is one of my big steps with that. So I want to just like, yeah, pre face that with like, yes, we want you to exercise and we want you to work out, but then there might be other steps. We know how significantly endometriosis impacts lives. So, yeah, there might be other steps with that. So what we like to look at is whether you've taken different steps or not before, we want to start you at a place where we can meet your body where it is right now.

Amy Grace [00:15:50]:
What do your good days look like? What do your bad days look like? How often, if there is some kind of pattern, is that coming up? We want to look at all your different types of symptoms. We know it's not just pain. There's lots of different symptoms that everybody feels with endometriosis, and maybe that's dependent, like, where endometriosis also is on your body. We want to look at your cycles. We want to look at everything as, as a whole approach from the very beginning, and then take you through more of like, like an experience and a journey through this and get you to a place where you do feel like you're. You're capable a lot. So that might be looking at just very minimal movements to start with. Like, yeah, maybe working out for you doesn't look like you're going straight back into things that you did before and, or really had a significant impact on your life.

Amy Grace [00:16:45]:
You might not be going to run the half marathons or going to lift, like, really heavy weights or high intensity all the time. And that is a concern that we see with, well, I want to lift heavy and I want to do the high intensity and I want to run, but those are the things that are causing me flare ups or I'm scared that I'm going to be in pain after that. So we like to think about, like, okay, these are the things that you want to do. These are the things that you love. Let's get you there, but let's start from the very beginning. And this might be how do we look at engaging your muscles in the right way? What areas do we feel are, like, maybe a little bit weaker or once they use, they're just getting fatigued really easily. Are we trying to look at, like, your pelvic area, your core area, your glutes and hips, which is typically a lot of the areas that we see people get a lot of pain with. So a lot of our endowarrier clients, we try and build up some good, solid foundational strength to start with so that you can add and progress to that.

Amy Grace [00:17:49]:
And then looking at your cycle with that as well, you might have some clear indicators of weeks that you're like, okay, I can do more things this week. So looking at maybe just this is, I'm saying a common, common phases, everyone is different. And I'll touch on that in a sec of how we kind of navigate that as well. So typically your cycle phases would be your follicular and ovulatory phases are like your higher energy, you can do more in those phases. Maybe you feel great with that, your luteal and your menstrual phase, your hormone levels are coming down a little bit more. Maybe that's when you're feeling a little bit more symptoms. So maybe there are some patterns throughout the month where you can do more and maybe some that you don't. And we like to look at this as like designing your good days versus your bad days.

Amy Grace [00:18:36]:
Just so you know, you have a template to go off and some idea with that. But then looking at your cycle phases with endometriosis, a lot of us have ovulation pain. So that can be a time where in a typical menstrual cycle we would think like everything is peaking. Your estrogen, your testosterone, everything is peaking at this time. And it gives you that boost of energy and feeling like you can do stuff. But with endometriosis, you can have a lot of pain at that time, depending on what, if you're having those symptoms of like ovulation pain or cysts and stuff that are really just aggravated at that time. So everything is just really dependent on each individual approach, which is why we like that as personal trainers to have that personal approach. And it's not just like, well, I'm going to start exercising again.

Amy Grace [00:19:30]:
I'm going to download this PDF online, which 5 million other people are doing. 3 million of them might be men and the majority of them don't, which we know a lot of fitness plans are not tested on women or cycles and especially not endometriosis. There's just a whole journey that you can go through and it's, it can be really frustrating. And we see like, when we're talking to endo warriors, like, they're frustrated, they're fed up, they don't know what to do, they don't know how to start. But it can feel really empowering once you do get the ball rolling and you're just taking it step by step by step and seeing your body get stronger, seeing your mindset around the capability of your body get stronger as you learn how to navigate exercise with endometriosis.

Alyssa Chavez [00:20:22]:
Yeah, I really want to highlight that part that you said at the very end there that your mindset around it starts to change. Because I think that's something that's huge for a lot of people. I know, I know. I hear from so many women who come to me and are just maybe a little bit afraid of exercising because maybe they've gone too hard before and even have some fear around that. Actually, I was wondering if you could even touch base on that a little bit from your perspective, because, of course, you work with people on a daily basis who might be having these same things when they're coming to you. And I love your personalized approach, by the way. I think that that is super powerful. And the fact that it's tailored not just towards the, you know, women with endometriosis, but it's really tailored towards each individual because, yes, we all have endometriosis, but our experiences can be very different.

Alyssa Chavez [00:21:25]:
The times that you're feeling good and not feeling good. I know I talk to women, some of who feel great during ovulation, and that's like their favorite time of the month because they actually feel good. And I know others where that's when their symptoms flare the most. I've talked to people where it's like, yeah, my periods are actually tolerable, but it's, ovulation is the time when things get really bad. So it's so different for everybody. And I think that's where the personalization of your workouts really matters. But I would love if you can just speak a little bit to that mindset piece of it, especially people who might be listening to this and just kind of really feeling a little bit of that fear when it comes to exercising and working out and just how you would recommend an approach to that.

Amy Grace [00:22:15]:
I feel like that's a huge thing of being afraid and not knowing what to do. And I was 100% that person, which is why I really wanted to dive into more of helping endowers get back to that movement again. So when I first started dealing with, like, very severe symptoms, it was just the period, and then it was ovulation. And then I feel like I had, like, five days of the month where I wasn't in pain and coming from a lifestyle of being active most days and also looking at my cycle, I was like, well, this doesn't match up anymore. What can I do? I was afraid to do this kind of stuff to start with because there was nothing for me to read about most of the time. If you google these things or look up some stuff, there's not really much to go on to see how to do that. And I feel like more and more is coming out, which is great, and we need that as much as we can. But, yeah, to start with, I didn't know what to do.

Amy Grace [00:23:18]:
I feel like I could just walk. Or there was a few things, like I went months where I'd maybe do like two workouts a month because I was like, well, this is the flow of it. And this is what we see. A lot of people that come to us with, it's like, okay, you're in pain with your period, severe pain. I'm not moving. Then it's kind of what I call like a period hangover. You're tired, you're completely wiped out from being in pain for a few days. Well, how do I move then? Because now I'm scared that I'm still going to get back into that pain.

Amy Grace [00:23:50]:
And now I'm tired and I don't really know what to do. Then maybe you have a few days before ovulation, pain starts again, and then that's a few days to a week or whatever, that you're in severe pain again. Then maybe you have a few days before in your luteal phase before then your PM's symptoms start hitting in, and then that fatigue hits again. It's like a vicious cycle. And it's like, well, how do I, how does this happen? How can I do this? How do I move when I'm like, if I'm scared to touch something in case I, like, trigger a flare up? And we see this with clients as well, especially around the period time, because I feel like just, again, going off of common consensus of, like, the period is being the most painful time for what we see mostly with our clients, like, ovulation time or month time can be hard as well. But then it's like, well, how do I get out of this rut again and actually get moving? And it's with that fearfulness, it's like, start small, start with something that you feel confident with. And then even if that is like, proving to yourself that you can get out for a walk a couple of days a week, maybe it's doing some light stretching and some light mobility, and then you move into more like, okay, I can do some body weight movements, some resistance bands. It's more of, again, that mindset of everything.

Amy Grace [00:25:08]:
Of like, yes, it's scary. I don't know how my body's going to react, but I need to find a way that I can try and I can start somewhere and start small so I can do like ten minutes, 20 minutes, build it up from there. You don't have to start, like, what we typically think of as a workout of being hardcore sweaty. If I'm not killing myself, then it's not worth it. What? I don't know. Yeah. We can typically feel like what a workout is. A workout doesn't have to be that it's moving your body.

Amy Grace [00:25:39]:
It's staying active. So it's breaking that barrier of fear of getting your body moving to start with and being like, okay, yeah, this is new territory to me, but I won't know it and I won't navigate it unless I start somewhere and I start small. And this is where having some kind of support system of people that go through this is really important. So you don't have to go through it alone and you can have someone to talk to and share experiences from. And what we see a lot of our endo clients is like, I know what I should be doing. I don't know how to do that right now because of where my pain hits. And also, like, I'll do it for a couple of days. Maybe my period starts, I'm in pain again, or ovulation starts, I'm in pain again, and I don't know how to get myself back up.

Amy Grace [00:26:30]:
This is where we bring in a few approaches and a few methods to try and break that fear as well, to be like, okay, if you are feeling something, let's change this up a little bit. Let's make this align with your body and sync with your body and your endo. So we have a few methods that I like to call our first one is our period empowerment plan, or you can call pain empowerment plan. So it kind of takes you through out of a flare up. I like to say it takes you through your worst pain days. So, for example, day one and day two of my period are my worst pain days. But then how do I get myself back out of that again? How do I break the fear of, like, okay, how am I going to move my body? How am I, like, I've just been in pain for so long, I don't want to cause pain again, again, going through that starting small phase. So you might do a couple of days of just surviving your main pain days, and that's fine.

Amy Grace [00:27:23]:
Like, we don't expect that you're going to move your body through those days. And then maybe that is going for a ten minute walk, adding in some movement, then doing some light weights, building it up, building it up until you're in a good flow of some good days and just having that tool to get you out of that mindset funk of your worst pain days and then also getting your body moving again in a gradual way that you don't have to just go all or nothing. And I feel like that's a big thing that we have to do all or nothing. And that's not how it's going to be with endometriosis. And there's a few other things that we do as well. We call it our evolve pain scale. And I know pain scales can be very general. This is why we created our own.

Amy Grace [00:28:12]:
So it's like a pain scale based on movement as well. So it's like, okay, I feel like I'm at. And our pain scale kind of, it will show everything on there, like, how your body feels, what you feel like you're capable of doing, and then how you can adjust your workouts and stuff based on that. So it kind of, it's very clear on how to do that. So it's not just like, what skip pain level are you on? Like, zero to ten when most of us are probably up there for? Let's base that on you, on your movement. And I think it breaks that fear a little bit more with that. And this is what we found our clients, like, just seem to keep being able to be consistent with because they know they can adjust and adapt and listen to their body, and they know, okay, if I'm at this, maybe I can't lift this heavy weight with a big barbell, but maybe I can do it with two smaller kettlebells, or maybe I can just do it as body weight today, or. Yeah, it's learning how to do it with your body.

Amy Grace [00:29:15]:
That makes sense.

Alyssa Chavez [00:29:17]:
Yeah, it totally does. And I love the way you're talking about just kind of adapting and adjusting things as you go along. And one thing that you mentioned, which I would love, if you can even dive into that a little bit more, I love that you have some specific approaches around kind of changing your workouts with your cycle.

Amy Grace [00:29:38]:
Yeah.

Alyssa Chavez [00:29:38]:
And that's something that I know, I had no idea that that was a thing for most of my life. You know, cycle syncing is kind of the common term for that, although it sounds like you have even a more. A more personalized approach to that, specifically for women with endometriosis. But I know that was something super powerful for me to learn, not just with fitness, but just life in general. The fact that, that we as women, are cyclical beings, we have, whether you have endometriosis or not, your hormones are just changing so much throughout your cycle. And of course, when you do have endometriosis, that can mean your pain levels are fluctuating throughout your cycle and your in your symptoms and just your overall energy levels and the way that you feel. So I love that you have actually created some personalized approaches to that and helping women to find ways to navigate that. Because I know one thing that I've run into in the past myself is maybe I get myself on a really good exercise routine of some sort and then my period hits and I just don't work out for a week.

Amy Grace [00:30:50]:
Yeah, exactly.

Alyssa Chavez [00:30:52]:
And then it's like, okay, well, I've lost all my momentum and so now I feel like I'm starting over from scratch. But I love that you have kind of a, a plan for that, like knowing, okay, that that's like, you know, that might be a thing. You might not feel like doing anything on these days, but I would love if you can really kind of unpack that, just the whole idea of navigating your workouts around your cycle and your pain and, you know, just kind of guide us on that journey a little bit and what that can look like.

Amy Grace [00:31:20]:
Yeah. So this, we do see a lot of that of people have hit a pain, they've hit a flare up and they, they just can't get. Yeah, can't get back into that. They can't find the motivation to do that again because they feel like they're going to get in a good routine and then another pain flare is going to hit and they're going to have that same drop of motivation or consistency in their workout and they just feel like they're in this vicious circle of not really getting anywhere. So this is where we look at both that what you were saying of looking at your cycle phases, but also looking at how that looks like with endometriosis. So a lot of people, even with endometriosis, might not have a cycle because a lot of endowriers are on birth control or if they've had surgeries that lead them to no longer having a cycle to try and help their symptoms at some point. So we try and look at both things with endometriosis, with your cycle, with a natural cycle or with not a natural cycle. And that looks like knowing your four cycle phases.

Amy Grace [00:32:20]:
So your follicular, your ovulatory, your luteal and your menstrual phase, and then what that personally looks like for you then. So, yes, we have the four phases. We can generally say where hormone levels are going to be. Yes, that might still happen. But again, like you were saying, that fluctuation then can lead to different symptoms popping up with endometriosis. So what we want to know is the kind of like the patterns that you feel within your body. Yes, that can be sporadic for some people, and we'll learn to do that. We'll be sporadic with you and figure that out as it goes along.

Amy Grace [00:32:54]:
But a lot of us do have patterns with that as well. So we want to know where do you feel like you have more energy? And I was literally just having a conversation with someone right before this podcast of like, maybe you don't feel like a huge jump of energy because we have, like, a constant level of chronic fatigue most of the time as well. But are there times of the month where you're like, oh, I feel like I can do something today, even if it's just like, oh, I feel like I want to, like, clean the house or do some gardening today. Like, okay, maybe that is a sign that this is a good time for you, or maybe there's a time where you're like, don't look at me, don't touch me, don't breathe near me. That's a time when your symptoms are coming up again and you need to learn how to scale it down again. So we try and link both of them with your endometriosis symptoms plus your cycle phases, because they're going to connect a lot. So looking at that, and then this is where we bring in those tools to help with people as well. For those reasons that we were just saying about, if you have a period or you have a pain flare up at any time, and then it's like, okay, consistency is gone, motivation is gone.

Amy Grace [00:33:57]:
I haven't moved my body for a week. How do I get back into that? So first of all, you can look at, okay, after this pain flare up or period flare up, where am I at in my cycle? What am I going to maybe generally feel like at that point? What do I have going on in life at that point as well? And then using our kind of methods to help that. This is really, really why I put together that period empowerment plan or pain empowerment plan for that reason, and to feel some kind of empowerment after coming off of this and having that control. I think a little bit like endometriosis can feel like it takes so much from us in all areas of life, and I feel like moving our body and nutrition is something that we can control in whatever capacity that might look like for us. So things like the period of pain empowerment plan gives you that feeling like you have something under control. So even if it's like, yeah, you've got a flare up, you've got some really bad pain days. Yeah, you might not do anything on those days but survive. Or maybe like, if you do something that's a bonus for those days.

Amy Grace [00:35:07]:
Like, the other day, it was like period day two, and I did planted some seeds in our garden, and I'm like, that's a bonus movement for me that day. But then coming out of that, knowing how to get out of those bad days and how to get yourself back into your good days so you're not just always waiting for, like, your good days to happen or your bad days to happen. Like, there's a lot of, like, gray area in between that as well that we really need to make the most of. So that when we have good days, we're like, okay, let me maybe, like, do a little bit more or do some more things that I actually love doing in my workouts at that point. So things like the empowerment plan take you from that, from those worst pain days and give you some kind of guidance and give you a control to get yourself out of those worst days so you're not stuck in them all the time. And they give you a guideline. We teach you how to make it your own because obviously everyone is different. I'm referring to day one and day two of my period, but a lot of our clients are like, day one and day two is actually okay, but day three and day four are, like, the worst day.

Amy Grace [00:36:13]:
So everything is, like, needs to be created specifically for you. Same with the pain scale that we look at of knowing how to change things, of, like, maybe you feel like you should be in a good day. So say, if it's like your follicular phase, your ovulatory phase, when you feel like you should be at a good day, but you are experiencing some symptoms and some pain, you can refer back to your evolved pain scale, which is based specifically on movement. And you can be like, okay, I've got this. Like, I can change some. Some things up a little bit. And this is, again, yeah. Where we see a lot of our endowarriors are consistently training months and months down the line because they have something to go off of.

Amy Grace [00:36:59]:
And they're not just trying to do everything on their good days, nothing on their bad days, and then not knowing what to do in between. We're trying to give you, like, a. The tools to be able to do that, basically. So, yeah, to help everything that you. That you want to do to get your body moving.

Alyssa Chavez [00:37:17]:
Yeah, I love that. Super powerful, and I love. I love the approach that you take to that. And that you've created these tools and resources for people. I think that's something that is so needed, because like you said, that the typical pain scale, like, it kind of doesn't even apply when you are someone who has chronic pain or pain levels that most people don't ever have to experience. I think our idea of pain levels can be a little different than most. But I love the approach that you take to that, that you have kind of a pain scale that actually mean something to someone with endometriosis and that actually can correlate to the movement. I think that's a really amazing tool that you've created.

Alyssa Chavez [00:38:08]:
I'm sure that so many people have benefited from that. And definitely before we leave today, I would love if you can tell us more about how we can connect with that and find out more about that and what you do. But I always love for people to listen to these episodes and be able to really get some actionable tools to take with them, you know, if they're thinking, I would really love to start or maybe restart my fitness journey if it's something that's kind of fallen by the wayside. So I was wondering if you can just share a little bit about, like, if somebody wanted to start their fitness journey tomorrow, what would you recommend as kind of a starting point, a jumping off point for people, or just any tips that you could share that would be helpful.

Amy Grace [00:38:59]:
I feel like if you're just trying to get your body moving, I feel like the best thing for you to do is maybe brainstorm a list of movements that you actually really like doing to start with and then see where you feel from that movement is a good place for you to just. To just start with now. So that might be going on a short hike or that might be going to a yoga class or a Pilates class, or that might be just grabbing the resistance bands that you have in a drawer at home and just going on the floor and moving your body somehow. But if you were going to start tomorrow, like, literally just. Just start, I'm going to give you more context about that, because, like, a lot of the times when we're speaking to ender warriors or, like, we're getting inquiries through and stuff saying, well, if I wait for my days to feel like they're perfect normal days, I'm gonna be waiting a long time. Like, that might not actually come or what does my, like, normal day kind of look like now? And we try and help you kind of navigate those and figure, figure that out a little bit. But just, yeah, start start small bit. So for every I've said this multiple times in this podcast now is to start small so you feel like it's manageable, it's achievable, you're not going into the deep end and you don't feel like you're going to be in a worse position after you've done that movement than you started.

Amy Grace [00:40:29]:
You want everything. Every time we train a client, every time they do a session, we want you to feel better from finishing that session than you did coming into it. So that's the same, but doing it on your own as well. Do something that's going to make you feel like it just empowered you a little bit. Whatever that looks like for you. That could be like we were saying, go for a walk, go for a stretch, go grab a friend and be like, hey, come to the gym with me. I want to do something, but I just want you to be there with me so I can do something. It can be literally anything, but start in a way that, yeah, you're going to feel like you're gaining some control back.

Amy Grace [00:41:12]:
I love that feeling. When training endowarriors is like you feel like, yeah, a lot of things have been taken away from you. How you move your body because of the pain and symptoms and stuff has been taken away from you. Whatever you do feel like it's pulling that back a little bit, make sure it's feeling like you are gaining some control back. Like you've just finished your walk around the block and you're like, I did that. I haven't done that in six months now. I feel like I can do the next thing and the next thing and the next thing as and when you feel like you can. But start small, start short, keep it short.

Amy Grace [00:41:45]:
If it's like something that you haven't done in a good while, 1015 minutes, then build it up. 20 minutes. If you wanted to lift weights. Like, I feel like a lot of people come to us because they feel, they feel fierce. Like our big saying is to find your fierce in our training and that's exactly what we want. Feel confident, feel strong, feel fit, feel fierce. And lifting weights is a big thing for that. And that's a big area where people can feel a little bit concerned with lifting weights.

Amy Grace [00:42:15]:
And again, doing the foundational work is going to help you a lot with that stuff. But even with that, start light. Just because you lifted a certain weight a few years ago before you were starting with debilitating pains and symptoms doesn't mean that's where you need to jump in straight away now to prove a point or to prove your ego that you can do stuff. Like you want to find out what works for you right now. So start small, start short, start in a way that's going to make you feel fierce, feel empowered, that you can figure this out as, as you go along. And you're not going to wake up the next day and be like, well, I shouldn't, I shouldn't have done that, like, because then you're not, you're going to go through that vicious cycle again. We want, we want that cycle to be broken and find a way that's, that's good for you. And we have some free guides on this as well, like exercise with endo starter guides, which goes through some of these topics that we went through today of, like, the main concerns that people have, which might be core exercises are a big one that we see.

Amy Grace [00:43:15]:
Like, you want to strengthen your core, like you don't know how because a lot of that can cause issues. So we try and fit, we've tried to figure out a lot of exercises that are helpful for that. Things like high intensity. Yes. Again, maybe you can't do that all month long. Maybe there's certain cycle phases, maybe there's certain times of the month where you can do that. Maybe it's not a full hour, maybe it's ten minutes at the end of your session. Different things like lifting heavy weights like we just touched.

Amy Grace [00:43:43]:
Maybe you're not jumping straight into the heavier weights that you were lifting, but you're gradually building that up again. And I love that I even say this to things like our postpartum clients and stuff, or people that have had surgeries. Like, we have a few endowarriors that have just come back from surgery and it's, it can be like a frustrating thing or like a mindset thing to be like, oh, I'm starting all over again now because x, y and z happened, but I feel like maybe this is the trainer side of me coming out, but it's really cool to see yourself progress through that again and see what your body is actually capable of. Like, yeah, you've just gone through this huge surgery or this whatever huge thing. Look what your body can still do and watch it progress. So there's lots of things in that free guide as well that are different, different cycle phase workouts that you can start with. High pain days, beginners, body weight. Like, we have a few things that you like if you're going to start, maybe start there at the end of this exercise.

Amy Grace [00:44:46]:
Starter guide. It's all written. It's all written in there. You can open it and you can find something that will work for you that day. So, yeah, hopefully you'll be able to just put one step forward and get it rolling.

Alyssa Chavez [00:45:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And we'll definitely, I'll get the link for that guide that we can put in the show notes for anybody who wants to check that out. But I love that approach because I have a very similar ideology mindset when it comes to making dietary changes and lifestyle changes. Like, first of all, that you don't need to go from zero to 60 all at once. It's just put 1ft in front of the other and get started. If someone comes to me, for example, and has been eating just fast food and kind of a standard american diet and just wants to get started, we're not going to dump everything that they're eating and completely change.

Alyssa Chavez [00:45:41]:
It's like, okay, well, maybe we just eat a vegetable this week. You know, I feel like. Yeah, I feel like it's kind of a similar thing with workouts. Right? You don't. If you're. If you haven't, if you have kind of avoided exercise for quite some time or just haven't felt like you could or have kind of lost that sense of empowerment around it, you can start small and simple and just do something that sounds like fun to you, that you'd enjoy, spend 510 minutes doing it and just take, take a step.

Amy Grace [00:46:11]:
And then you feel like you're doing something that you want to do if it. You're not trying to do a workout just for the sake of doing it. If you're picking something fun that you actually. That's going to make you want to do it again. And then same thing with, like, the vegetable concept, just to have a vegetable, it doesn't mean you have to work out five days a week. We have a lot of inquiries coming through as well. It's like that they want to train five days a week or do something five times a week. Like, let's start with one.

Amy Grace [00:46:39]:
Let's make one feel good right now, before you build up your week, especially if you haven't done it in a while or the last time you've done it, you were in pain and now you've got that barrier that you need to break. Start with things that are going to make you feel good and want to continue, basically. And like we were kind of saying at the beginning as well, if you do feel like you are having consistent flare ups for even, like, the simple movements or even like if you are going on a walk and you feel like some pain, then maybe you do need to look at some foundational work to start with, like pelvic floor physical therapy or managing some other symptoms that way. And like I said, that was my journey as well. Like, I did do some background work to help me get to a point where I feel like I can consistently work out as well. And then, yeah, figuring out what that journey looks like for each individual person. Everyone is so individual. So make sure it's you're doing something that's right for you and not something that you've just like, downloaded and randomly trying.

Alyssa Chavez [00:47:45]:
Right?

Amy Grace [00:47:46]:
Yeah, yeah. It needs to be individual.

Alyssa Chavez [00:47:49]:
Yeah, totally agree. I love that. Well, I would love if you can share with us a little bit about just, you know, how you work with people, how we can connect with you. For anybody who may want to just learn more about what you do or wants, maybe that one on one personalized support or just wants to connect with some of those resources that you have available, I would love if you can share a little bit about where we can find you and hang out with you.

Amy Grace [00:48:19]:
We have a few different variations of things that clients come and work with. So we have, see, I'm based here in Colorado, so we do in person training, but we also do fully online personal training as well with both of those program that we follow is called find your fierce. Like I was saying, like, that's our motto for everything. We want you to find your fierce. So through this, we do take you through different projects throughout this training program. We start you from a very foundational level. We meet you where you're joining us right now, and what you need, what's going to be the most beneficial for you and your body at the start of your program and what's going to make you feel like you're going to be able to progress with. So whatever areas of attention you need the most at the start, and then we progress you through different projects.

Amy Grace [00:49:06]:
So we look at your cycle, we gradually look at your cycle as well. So it's not day one and you have to then, like train everything based on what cycle day you're at. So we really start getting you really in tune with your body to start with. We want you to align with your body. We want you to sync with your symptoms or your cycle or just in life and life in general. And then we progressively tune into that more and more as you go through your training. And then that will kind of link up to progressively doing more with what you're physically kind of doing with within your training as well. So we have both of those with the online training.

Amy Grace [00:49:45]:
As it's so personal. We try and make this as high touch, high communication as we can. Like as close to you were standing right there in front of us in person. So we do, everything is personalized to you on a training app. We do feedback. You send us through videos of what you're doing in an exercise. So we can see form, we can see what that weight looks like, how your body is moving, what that looks like. We give you feedback so you can take that on board for your next session or the next cycle.

Amy Grace [00:50:16]:
We do check ins with everything, monthly review. So we're really like, we're right there with you all the time, so you're never feeling like you're on your own. Then we also have some other services that we do as well. So we do actually have a self paced course called the evolve endometriosis method. And this is where you'll find a lot of this that we kind of spoke about today with the empowerment plan, like the pain period, empowerment plant, the pain scales, designing your good days and bad days, literally taking you again through that journey of where are you at right now with your journey with endometriosis? And how does that look like living with endometriosis right now? And then going through it from there so you can do it on your own with that as well. We teach you all these methods and then we teach you how to do it on, like, how to create your own method. So we'll give you the guidance on it. And then, because obviously everyone is individual, each lesson and each module teaches you how to create that for your own life and your own body as well, with workouts on there that you can then put those methods into practice.

Amy Grace [00:51:26]:
All of those have video demos, and you'll know exactly what to do with those. A ton of workouts on there. So you can go through whatever you need to start with. Lots of beginner, lots of workouts that actually then correlate to the pain scale. So it might be like evolved pain scale five, five or six or a pains evolved pain scale three or four or evolved pain scale eight. So you can kind of see where you're at and then test that out to see kind of what that looks like with the actual workout as well. So there's lots of different ways to get yourself moving with what we do. But then everything that we want to do is to help you find your face.

Amy Grace [00:52:09]:
That's exactly what we're here for nice.

Alyssa Chavez [00:52:12]:
I love that. And just, if you can just. We'll put this in the show notes as well for anybody who's, you know, doing stuff, driving or walking or whatever while you're listening. But can you just share where we can find you, your Instagram website, any of those links so we can connect with you?

Amy Grace [00:52:30]:
So Instagram is probably where you'll see most of my endo content, which is Amy, project fierce fitness. We do have a team page as well, which me and the trainers on our team use, which is at Project fierce Fitness. And then website is www.projectfacefitness.com. you'll see on the website everything that we do with online training, one to one training, the endofocus, also the other programs that we do have also which are returning to movement postpartum. So we have lots of connections for all things female fitness. And then Instagram is usually where I'm sharing more of the endo content with that kind of stuff as well.

Alyssa Chavez [00:53:18]:
Awesome. And I've followed Amy on Instagram for quite some time. I think that's actually where we first connected, was finding each other through there. She shares some wonderful content. So we'll link to all of that in the show notes so that you guys can go in and find that. Thank you so much, Amy, for being here today. I think this episode has been super helpful. So many little gold nuggets in there for people.

Alyssa Chavez [00:53:44]:
I think that can really just give people some guidance on where to start and kind of where to take those next steps on getting themselves moving again. And I think that can be so powerful. I love the message that you bring in. Just even the being fierce and empowering yourself. Like, there's so many wonderful ideas that you have around fitness for endometriosis. I love that. That's what really drew me in to want to connect with you in the first place place. So thank you so much for being here today.

Amy Grace [00:54:19]:
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been great. Yeah. Anyone's going to take anything from this podcast, it's you. You can do it. We can do it together.

Alyssa Chavez [00:54:28]:
Nice. Love that. I think that is a perfect note to end on. So thank you so much, Amy. Thank you, everyone, for hanging out with us today, and we'll talk soon.