Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Allie is a seasoned travel writer photographer and filmmaker with an eye on sustainable tourism and Adventure travel beats. She has been to over 100 countries done van life in Australia sailed around the world and lived abroad for five years. Her work is routinely published in thrillists Fox News Case-Mate travel semester at Sea booking.com and More in addition to travel content. She has 10 years of Journalism and public relations experience in addition to seven years of active duty Air Force service with public affairs combat camera and international relations leadership experience. Let's welcome this Allie to the show. Thank you so much for joining me. How are you?
Allie Delury: I'm so good. How are you?
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: I'm great or great. Thank you so much for joining me. I was checking out your website. She is that every woman like, I love it.
Allie Delury: Yeah, it's very all over the place. I now work in film as a producer. And so whenever people ask me what I do, I don't know really what to say because there's so much of my life. That's seemingly very random. But yeah, no, I'm very happy to be here. Thanks so much for having me on.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Thank you so much. And I want to piggyback off of that because we're multifaceted beings, And I feel like sometimes Society tries to put us in a box and…
Allie Delury: Mm-hmm
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: part of our journey is understanding that we're not in a box, but how to just mesh all those different parts of us together to make us happy and I feel you is an example a testimony of that of living your life unapologetically like doing what you love to do and it doesn't have to make sense because it's all Allie, and I love that.
Allie Delury: Yeah, it's literally the opposite of housewife bio. I mean, it's like every stereotype most of I got my start in sports and investigative journalism news military. Those are all very dude dominated fields. And obviously I'm pregnant now in my mid 30s. The reason I wanted to wait is because I wanted to travel the world I didn't Just do the normal thing that I think a lot of women feel like they have to do especially, a certain women that maybe are born and raised with certain religious values or born raised in the South. there's this pressure to do things a certain way and live your life in a certain order and I just said f*** it's all of that. It's just in my own thing. So yeah, it's a good time.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: I can relate it's true. I'm from the south all. I got a lot of people that don't like me because I was that girl. I'm like no, I was one I don't want children. I was the one who was like, I want to explore I left Florida with Once suitcase and haven't returned back,…
Allie Delury: yes.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: it was one of those things so yes, it is true the cultural aspect of it. it's very true. it's just a part of what we have to overcome.
Allie Delury: Yeah, definitely. I mean not to just dive into another topic but one of the last documentaries that I directed and produced was about women in the south after the fall of Roe v Wade and some of the things that they had to go through and it's near and dear to my heart just the struggles that women now in 2023 have to deal with it's absolutely insane, as someone who's currently pregnant. I can't even imagine that right being stripped from me with something as complicated.
Allie Delury: And turbulent as a pregnancy, so many things can go wrong. The people don't even realize and what's sad is that women particularly in the South don't have that right anymore. So yeah, I mean, it's just like the Fight Continues truly and I think it starts with stories like yours and podcasts like yours who can show women hey, this doesn't have to be your life. you know what? I mean, if it sucks please get out of that I get out of that area that mindset there's just I think a lot of value and telling the stories that you tell so thank you very much for podcasts like yours.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Thank you so much for being here. That was actually a nice segue there into talking about women's health because we want to start with you. Now Allie has an amazing story here because she talks about the process in which her period stopped due to athletic training and a lot of athletes can probably relate to this, but we want to start from the Beginning we want to know the Allie before she got very athletic when her period first came on. was on. How old were What were the people thought around you, did that influence you in? Just how did you feel about that experience?
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Allie Delury: Yeah, I was born and raised in the midwest in a strict Catholic Family and I was raised primarily by a single mom and sadly. She never really taught me about any of that stuff everything that I learned about my body and menstrual cycles and my period I learned from class. I had to learn from school and as you can get your period at any point after a certain age. It's not like once you hit, eighth grade we're gonna teach this class, but that's how they approached it in school. So I don't even remember if I had any sort of knowledge that sex ed class before I got it when I was 13. I knew that it was a thing that happens to women, but I didn't really have the support initially from family to deal with it. So figuring out how to
Allie Delury: Insert a tampon was hour-long experience of me in the bathroom trying to read the directions over and over figure it out. So it was kind of a lonely experience. I will say in terms of when I got it. I think I got it at school as of course you would right it's always in the most embarrassing Place possible, but it wasn't anything dramatic. it wasn't like I was wearing white pants at the time and had to do my whole day like that. I just got it and then I was like, all right. this is it welcome to the rest of my life. This sucks already and I can't believe I have to do this once a month forever. So that was kind of what went through my mind.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: that's interesting because one of the things that you were saying is that it was kind of hush. Your family didn't really want to talk about it kind of thing.
Allie Delury: Mm-hmm
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Yeah, and…
Allie Delury: You don't.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: it's like why are we hush about it? this is a part of our health. this is something that we have to understand as women because we have this organ we have to understand it. It's a part of our lives and you said something like you're Sucks and it's unfortunate that we get that feeling very early on with our bodies. I want to kind of know how did you manever did you start to figure things out or was it like I was popping pills every time like how did your journey start to progress with that?
Allie Delury: Yeah, I mean I didn't pop any pills. I tried to because I just didn't have the information or the access I would say I didn't feel comfortable like putting it on display or asking for help. So I did kind of deal with it internally mostly and for me, birth control really wasn't something that I explored until I was in college because when you're under 18, you have to get parent consent because I grew up in a religious household. It was very not okay to be that so it sucked. I had to fly under the radar for a huge part of my formative years instead of just living in comfort and confidence in what was happening to my body. So yeah, I would say for me when I started birth control finally is all so when I started becoming a lot more physically active and I became an endurance.
Allie Delury: Athlete where I was doing marathons and Iron Man competitions and these things that take an enormous toll on your body and right around the time that I was doing birth control was also when I lost my period for a few years which was an interesting shift. but no I didn't immediately go To pop and pills. Let me just because the access wasn't there and sadly, this was not to show my age but back in the early 2000s and you're seeing that a lot of women still struggle with that access today. So it's part of really what I try to do in my day job is bring as much awareness to light as possible on this issue.
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Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: My gosh and Allie, you're such an asset. We are going to take a quick break. And then we are going to come back and understand Allie's story of when her period went. Absent so stay tuned.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: All right. We are back with this Allie Miss extraordinaire I am every woman you will not tie me down. We are going to get into the part of her story where she talks about when her period went absent into her life. So Allie, you said, you started your endurance training period when absent but For that, you're going through, learning more about your body, and getting on a schedule where you able to actually obtain a routine schedule with your period, understand you're cravings when you just need to stop working or did you kind of plow through things?
Allie Delury: Yeah, certainly. So, I'll kind of backtrack just slightly, obviously I got my period when I was 13, I had to kind of live a little bit in silence until I was 18 and out of the house and from 18 to 22. So basically when I was at University, I didn't have health insurance at all. I came from a low-income family and I was working they called me the single mom in training because I was working three jobs and going to school and doing ROTC for the military. So I was just, very spread thin and I just didn't have the funds to pay for health insurance. So the first time I got it was actually in 2012 when I joined the military full-time and I joined as a combat camera officer and public affairs officer. So it was a very rigorous job that required a lot of physical training I needed to be able to run
Allie Delury: And a half and under nine minutes, I needed to be able to do 50 push-ups in a minute 60 sit-ups in a minute. I just had to be on it and since I was an officer, there was an expectation that I had to out of my whole flight get the best scores. So I almost had to do even better than that just to kind of be respected in a very male-dominated career field most of the people who I taught how to document combat were all men who are generally older than me. So it was a very shocking first job out of college I would say…
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Ms Tonya Productions, LLC:
Allie Delury: but it's one that I definitely wanted to knock out of the park. I wasn't really intimidated at all. I wanted to do that kind of work. So I put the work in and I put the time in and I went from running zero hours a week to running 40 at least unlike a slow week. So when you do that to your body
Allie Delury: it puts it under a tremendous amount of stress and you have to be able to compensate with diet and with proper stretching and strength training because I had never done anything like this before I didn't really know there weren't bloggers or influencers back then to tell you how to do it successfully and safely always you have to throw yourself into the fire a little bit so that in addition to going on birth control because I finally had
Allie Delury: Medical insurance for the first time in my life. I think those two things combined made my period go away. And at first it was nice.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: which
Allie Delury: I very much appreciate this break, and the doctor said hey, if you go on I had influent on which now is next one on the arm implant for birth control and at the time they said hey, there's a risk that your period might go away for one or two cycles. So I kind of knew that it was something that could happen to me but after six months and after a year, I'm not getting a period I was like, my God, am I? Okay just made life, a little nerve-wracking like I was still in my 20s and still sexually active and I had no idea really what was going on and I had
Allie Delury: Safety Net in terms of getting it each month and knowing that I was okay and so I was kind of added to just my anxiety and mental stress. But yeah, I think for me I was really nervous. I was Googling a lot of stuff back then and the first thing that pops up is in fertility. And I was in my young twenties, so I didn't want a family I wanted to live my life and be like a career woman and the travel the world and it
Allie Delury: on my radar, but when that happens to you at a young age, you can't help but wonder if it's going to get worse as you get older and is it gone forever? Is it never gonna come back? am I just infertile? How's that gonna affect my future husband and family life. So it was a lot for sure and after I would say, maybe two or three years I finally did come back but it's a long time to kind of go without a thing that is regular in your life. and even though it sucks. It is still a part of your routine and you do still gravitate toward that routine and in some way maybe subconsciously so not having that it did feel a bit lost and ungrounded for some time.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Wow, what's interesting. Is that you get it and you're all right, this sucks, but I'm gonna deal with it and then also you don't get it and it's nerve-wracking and I feel like maybe It's like you don't really understand what's happening. And you're like, am I gonna get a surprise or am I pregnant and we don't want to be pregnant. So it's like do what's gonna happen in that uncertainty throws you off.
Allie Delury: Yeah, absolutely. It makes it very difficult to kind of live your life with the confidence that you initially had when you did have your period so it definitely does affect you psychologically even though it is kind of nice to not have it all the time you do suffer in other ways and I think for me that's definitely what happened. I would say so I got a back probably in 2015 and in 2017. I did my first Iron Man competition, which is I think the largest endurance race that you could possibly do and it's like a two point four miles swim like 112 mile bike and then a marathon all back in the same day and you have to train for a whole year, I didn't actually know how to swim or ride a bike when I signed up. So I had to learn all of the techniques with those two sports in addition to running and
Allie Delury: and what made me laugh is the day of when you're the most nervous and you're up at two in the morning and going to your Corrals and getting ready. I went into a porta potty and I got my period And I had obviously already had it for two years prior to that but it was just a funny little moment it just when I was the most dressed and for the hardest competition of ever done in my life, I got it was funny is I placed fifth in my age group. Day, so, oddly enough. Maybe it was a good thing. maybe it did something to my body that kind of made it stronger or made it more reactive on adrenaline than it normally is so I don't know. It's just a funny thing that kind of happens that day that made me think about my journey and where I've been probably, five years prior to that.
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Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: That is amazing and I really do feel is exactly like your body f*** Okay, we're gonna get regulated here. We are going to get balanced. We're getting out. He we're gonna do this baby. I Got You Babe it just kicked it to keep going because for me I feel during my ovulation phase I
Allie Delury: Good.
Allie Delury: interesting.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Time it's like yeah.
Allie Delury: up
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: So now I'm curious Miss Allie when your period did come on. that really is a big milestone in your life for your period to come. That's so symbolic and beautiful to me. Did you learn how to stay athletic with your period being regular?
Allie Delury: Totally. Yeah, I mean so it came back in I think 2015 and yeah, I mean I was in that phase like I was doing marathons and I didn't start training for the Iron Man until 2016, but I was definitely regular once I did start training and it was nice to just have it around because it indicated that my diet was good that I was getting the vitamins the supplements that I needed that I was taking the rest days that I was supposed to be taking and it kind of just confirmed that I was doing everything right with training because training for an Iron Man is no joke just for context I was working full-time the entire time that I was training and my schedule was I would wake up at four in the morning. I would go to the gym for two hours.
Allie Delury: The morning, I'd go to work at 7:00. I would take a lunch break where I would swim for an hour. And then when I got off work at five, I would have four to five hours to do a long run or a combo like strength and swim or strength and bike and I would finish at nine or ten PM. I would go to sleep and I would wake back up at 4:00 and I did that for 10 months it was very intense because I knew that I wanted to qualify for Kona and I wanted to get a good time which I did but I had to put in just an insane amount of work and we put that amount of stress on your body. If you forget one thing like eating breakfast, it can throw off your whole game. And so I rely on the consistency of having my period to confirm that I was doing all the right things and then I wasn't short-changing any aspect of my training or cutting anything short.
Allie Delury: cutting Corners. So I really appreciated loving it during training. that was the hardest year of my life physically and I haven't really done anything like it since it was nice to just have that regularity.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: That's beautiful because I feel like you were able to change your view around about your period and accept it for what it is. It's like, the indication that I am healthy that things are going. and understanding this is normal and this is okay because as a woman this is my indicator this is my cleansing process and I think that's absolutely beautiful to understand and come to terms with that. And then you flip the switch your mindset is different and so you're able to view your body differently and love yourself differently because of that and I think that's absolutely amazing.
Allie Delury: Yeah, definitely and if I compare it to when I lost my period that was my first started endurance training and I didn't know what I was doing and I wasn't meeting more calories, to compensate for the loss of calories. I wasn't stretching ever like my husband now, but my boyfriend at the time 10 years ago we lived in Italy and we did this half marathon together and I remember we did it after partying all night the night before we just rolled right into a half marathon, which is very unsafe if it's not good for your body. And we were young and we knew that we could do it but the reality is I just didn't really understand how to train for anything endurance. I just would do it and then I wouldn't stretch I wouldn't
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Allie Delury: drink more water even stuff like that. I took for granted and my body reacted to that. And the first thing it did was it said okay this thing that is taking a lot of energy your period or stopping it until you can get your s*** together and learn how to take care of your body so it makes sense looking back why I lost it for the amount of time that I did and it was because in a sense, I was unhealthy I was doing things in an unhealthy way and I wasn't taking care of my body or my diet at all. so yeah I was obviously all is good and we have a nice symbiotic relationship now, but it wasn't always like that and it can be scary to lose it for that amount of time.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: I'm really glad you said that because
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: The things that we do have to consider when it comes to those types of training that you don't know until you experience it so that's very interesting, because it's like, as women we still have to maintain this aspect of Our Lives, even our training, it really has to be a little different from a man's like we have to consider other things than what a man would consider for his training and you learn that you came to learn that naturally and I think that's wonderful because now like you said you have this beautiful relationship with your body and now you're about to bring in a beautiful soul into this world right before this you guys found out Miss Allie's pregnant. So congratulations on that and the excitement of that she is ready. Do you want to give some thoughts on that?
Allie Delury: Yeah, I mean it's a really good feeling especially 10 years ago at this point 2013 is when I was kind of in the thick of not having a period and thinking my gosh, I'm probably not fertile. there's something wrong with me. I can't have kids and even though I was in my 20s and I was okay with it at the time. it's still bugged me. It's just made me stop out my future self like my Allie and my 30s or 40s. And yeah, I mean, I'm just so stoked it's our first we're gonna name him a lot for short and I'm just excited to have just a boy. I can just throw at the wall and go on crazy.
Allie Delury: Measures that I really am just excited. So yeah, I would say now especially I'm learning a lot more about my body. I'm trying to the approach that I take not only with life but just with every endurance race I've ever done or whatever is I try not to do too much research ahead of time because I feel like I'll talk myself out of it if I knew how hard an Iron Man was before I did it. I it's just straight up. I wouldn't have done it same with a military same with everything I've ever done in my life ever. So I only educate myself a little bit and I'm doing the same thing with pregnancy. I feel like every time I go to a public place every woman is like, you're pregnant. Let me tell you my worst pregnancy story and then they just unsolicited advice hit me with a very graphic story of them in labor for 30 hours and…
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: What?
Allie Delury: like Terry and all this stuff where I'm like,
Allie Delury: Is trying to shop at Whole Foods. I don't even know who you are. So I'm having to navigate that a little bit, but I'm trying not to give myself more anxiety. I'm also big on meditation and just facilitating Zen and Consciousness and all of that stuff I think is important and I think the baby can feel all of that. So the more anxious I am I think indirectly also affects the
Allie Delury: And babies, so I'm just trying to be chill and not do too much research like Reddit and Instagram and social media. there's a lot of anxiety there. I just don't need to be a part of but it has been a learning experience just being more in tune with your body and kind of seeing the changes unfold and real time and I'm six months. I'm at the point where I can feel him kick every night and he's so aggressive and beats the s*** out of me every moment of every day,…
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Ms Tonya Productions, LLC:
Allie Delury: but It's cool to hear the heartbeat when you go to the doctor or feel the kicks in the middle of the night. it's bananas and that starts obviously with a period And so the circle of life is definitely real and I'm very thankful a decade after losing my period to have this experience.
Allie Delury: all because I know that
Allie Delury: not so I'm just trying to be grateful every day.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Be Focus so much on the future and what we've done in the past instead of focusing on this next moment. we're so focused over here and your life is truly a beautiful Journey.
Allie Delury: I appreciate that. Yeah, I definitely I mean just talking about being present. I always recommend that people learn how to meditate. It's like it's been such a healing thing for me that I really started doing since the pandemic and one of the things that you learn is Equanimity, which is your ability to identify that your thoughts are strain and to come back to the present and what's interesting is when you meditate you find that your thoughts go one of two directions, they either go into the future which is a sign of anxiety or they go into the past which
Allie Delury: indicates regret or past trauma and the more you're able to identify where your brain is going. You can kind of combat that a little bit in the present and say my head space is very much. I'm thinking about this shoot. I have next week. It's stressing me out. how do I bring myself to just be more present and accept that whatever happens is gonna happen and it's just a really interesting tool to have in your back pocket when you're struggling with these very everyday normal things that I think a lot of women go through so I'm a huge fan of that and I love to hear live in the present because I think that's a huge part of why where I am today is not letting things anxieties of my past or future like cripple my decisions of now,
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Absolutely, beautifully and well said we are going to end it right there. You guys must Miss Allie. you check out her website. Make sure you get her on your project and support her along her journey. We will see you next week for unapologetically women.
