tracking your cycle
As women, our hormonal cycles are so much more than just a menstrual phase (which is your period, if you didn’t know). Our bodies go through 4 different phases in our cycle and they all involve different spikes in hormones and different processes happening inside your body. I think sometimes we think if we can’t see it, it’s not something we have to care about (for example a period); however, cycle tracking can help improve hormonal health, reduce period pain, and can even be used for family planning.
Did you know almost every nutrition or exercise study that has been done has been on men or non-fertile women? There is very little research done on health and fitness for fertile women because researchers realize having multiple women in different phases of their cycles would mess up their results. That’s why understanding your hormonal cycle and what is normal for you during each phase is important to understanding your overall health.
As fertile women, our bodies run mostly off our hormonal cycles, also known as the infradian rhythm, whereas men and non-fertile women run solely off the circadian rhythm. During each phase of our cycle we should be eating different foods, doing different workouts and essentially planning different tasks. Each phase of our cycle has different strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to know what phase you’re in and how to plan your month to use those special strengths as an advantage. Here’s an overview of each phase and its strengths:
Follicular Phase (7-10 days): brainstorming ideas, planning projects
Ovulation Phase (3-4 days): communication, explaining effectively
Luteal Phase (10-14 days): grind time, getting tasks completed
Menstrual Phase (3-7 days): observation, evaluation, self-care
So how do you go about tracking your cycle?
The first step is download a cycle tracking app! The first one I used and loved was the Flo app which was completely free. It’s easy to use and has lots of educational information. On this app you can track symptoms you may experience throughout your cycle, discharge, if you’ve had sex, water intake, if you’ve drank alcohol and what your mood has been that day. Adding more information is always better because it can give you the basis of what happens to your body during each part of your cycle. I recently have also been using the health app on iPhone (which let me tell you, is a HIDDEN GEM) for cycle tracking because it also has the capacity to enter your basal body temperature and your ovulation test result, both of which are objective and accurate ways to confirm your infradian phase.
Basal Body Temperature Tracking:
Your basal body temperature is the lowest temperature your body has and must be taken first thing in the morning before eating, drinking or essentially getting out of bed. To use basal body temperature as a tracking method, it must be taken every morning using the same thermometer at around the same time and documented. Unfortunately, some factors may affect these readings, like alcohol consumption the night before, sleep insomnia, fever, emotional stressors or oral contraceptive pills. Once you have documented these readings for 2 to 3 cycles you should begin to see a pattern (like mentioned earlier, it's best to document these readings in an app so you can also add any symptoms and when you start your period). Personally, I have never successfully and consistently taken my basal body temperature as a tracking method. I would always forget and then by the time I remembered it would be too late in the day to get an accurate reading.
As stated above, your body goes through four different cycles starting with the follicular phase, ovulation phase, luteal phase and then menstruation. After ovulation, something called the corpus luteum forms in your ovary, which secretes progesterone in preparation for pregnancy. The progesterone signals the hypothalamus in the brain (yes, your brain is majorly involved in this hormone regulation) to set a higher basal body temperature. Your body will then keep this higher basal body temperature during the luteal phase until it realizes no egg was fertilized by sperm and menstruation begins to occur. If an egg was successfully fertilized, an early sign of pregnancy would be a sustained elevated basal body temperature. Isn’t it amazing that our body literally sends signals to the brain every month to make our internal body temperature warmer solely to protect and help with development of a possible baby?
Ovulation Test Strip Tracking:
Another objective way you can track your cycle is by using ovulation test strips. You can purchase these test strips on amazon or any place online. I bought my first pack from amazon. It’s best to start using the strips about 3-4 days before your predicted day of ovulation. That way you are able to see right when it’s about to start. The packaging of the strips you choose to buy will explain all the directions you need, but essentially you are just peeing on a strip a few days every month.
Instead of a basal body temperature spike, ovulation test strips test for a hormone called Luteinizing hormone (LH) in your urine. Ovulation can occur within 36 hours of Luteinizing hormone spiking. Ovulation is your most fertile phase of your cycle and a very important one to track! When I track my ovulation I will typically use a strip 1-2 days before my app says I’m about to ovulate. For my test strips, a smiley face reading means I am experiencing my spike in LH and ovulation is about to occur. Once you begin to be more regular you can get away with using less test strips.
How to use Cycle Tracking for Family Planning and Women’s Health:
Remember how I said ovulation is the most fertile phase of your cycle? Well it’s actually the only phase where an egg can be fertilized. However, sperm can live inside a women’s body for up to 5 days, so if you are using cycle tracking as a form of birth control you should use another form of birth control during ovulation and up to 5 days before. If you are on the other end and are looking to have a baby this is your prime time to have lots of sex.
Family planning using cycle tracking can seem strange, risky and even controversial because everyone experiences different (sometimes opposite) symptoms and it’s all considered “normal”. Oral contraceptives and other hormonal birth control methods have been shown to help some people with acne and give it to others. Getting off birth control can make you gain weight or lose weight. Quitting hormonal birth control methods can allow you to be fertile the next month, or cause years to get your body back to normal. There are so many factors coming into place when we talk about hormones, and having a simple pill that can switch it all up and induce synthetic forms of these natural hormones can really change someone’s hormone levels and cause their bodies to do different things. That’s why I like to place a huge emphasis on cycle tracking whether you are taking hormonal birth control or not because you are partaking in this amazing thing about LEARNING YOUR BODY. How cool is that? Nothing is more frustrating than when you go to a doctor or an expert and they try to tell you your truth when deep down you know it’s not your truth.
Since getting off hormonal birth control in February 2020 I didn’t really experience anything different. Then at the end of May I started to get bad acne. I was freaking out trying to diagnose the cause because I had never gotten acne like this before. Luckily, I have a friend that told me the exact thing happened to her a few months after getting off her hormonal birth control until it eventually completely cleared up. Around the time of getting off of birth control, I had started using ovulation test strips to start dissecting my natural hormonal cycle. I realized in the first few months after getting off birth control my body still was not going through an ovulation phase because I never had a positive test result. I honestly thought the dang test strips just didn’t work or that I wasn’t using them right. Little did I know, my body was just in the process of fighting to get back to its true normal. I say all of this to encourage you to spend the time tuning into yourself so that you begin to understand what is “normal” for you, what is a change in your “normal,” and what is an abnormal symptom that requires more investigation. The better you know your body, the more clarity you have on if your symptoms are actually “normal” to you. What an empowering thing, right?
