Getting in the Flow of Your Infradian Rhythm with Alisa Vitti
As women, we continuously want to be the best version of ourselves. We are always into the new trends in diet, fitness, and wellness plans so that we can achieve our best at every stage of our lives.
More often than not, we get frustrated when we don’t achieve results in the time frame that we have set. And that’s okay. It’s not about us; it’s about how we have misperceived our biological make-up all this time.
In today's episode, Alisa Vitti shares with us women’s second cycle, the infradian cycle. She gives us valuable insight into how we can pattern our life after it to achieve the goals that we want for ourselves.
This episode is for every woman whose fitness goals are frustrated. Tune in to understand and embrace yourself for the better.
Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:
- Find out how women are misinformed about how to do our diet and fitness plans.
- You will learn why women's brains are constantly changing and complex.
- How does Alisa feel radically loved?
Resources
Episode Highlights
On Her Book In the FLO
- What prompted Alisa to write this book is to answer the question of why women are struggling so much.
- The book aims to help women battle out hormonal issues and understand why things are the way they are.
- Having the right information will help women navigate the struggles that they face.
Why Women Do Not Have the Right Information
- Women are being left out of medical, fitness, and nutrition research. These are critical information that supports diet and fitness.
- Diet trends are not universally beneficial, particularly for women in their reproductive years. Most of the studies on these diets are tested on men and postmenopausal women; therefore, the results only apply to their cohort.
- For reproductive women, Intermittent fasting, keto diet, and high-intensity interval training worsen insulin sensitivity. They also increase brain fog, decrease metabolic speed, and shrink the ovaries.
- Gender bias is still prevalent in the 21st century.
What Is Infradian Rhythm?
- Women in their reproductive years have a second biological rhythm that men do not have. It is called the infradian rhythm.
- This biological rhythm is active for women between puberty and menopause.
- It governs six systems in the body, namely, the brain, metabolism, microbiome, immune system, stress response system, and reproductive system.
- This answers the question of why women are stressed, overwhelmed, and prone to hormonal and autoimmune challenges at rates that men are not.
- It happens because we are living, eating, and exercising in a way that fundamentally disrupts the infradian rhythm and, consequently, the body systems as well.
- The symptoms that women experience are not separate but are connected to each other.
The Cycle Syncing Method
- This method can help us organize what we eat, how we exercise, and how we move around what is optimal with our biology.
- During the first half of your cycle, the follicular and ovulatory phases, your metabolism is slower. Thus, you only need to eat fewer calories.
- In the other half, the luteal phase and the menstrual phase, you need 237 more calories per day. You have to eat slow-burning calories because your metabolism speeds up.
- When your metabolism speeds up, you are at a higher risk for destabilized blood glucose levels and insulin patterns. Thus, you have to eat strategically.
- If you adjust your caloric intake to match your infradian cycle, you will optimize your insulin, blood glucose levels, and weight without depriving yourself.
Fun Fact About Fitness
- During the first half of your cycle, your cortisol levels are naturally lower. You can do high-intensity interval training and cardio. As a result, you’re going to build lean muscles and use your fat stores and optimize your metabolic function.
- In the second half of your cycle, your resting cortisol levels are higher. Studies show that if you do high-intensity interval training, you are going to turn on fat storage and muscle wasting.
The Complexity of a Woman’s Brain
- In a 1996 study, Dr. Catherine Woolley discovered that the female brain changes by 25% in a month or one infradian cycle.
- Every month, you have different cognitive gifts that you can use to your advantage to do things more efficiently at different times of the month.
- Women do not wake up the same way every day. Women have a more complex brain; thus, the way we operate is also complex.
- You can find in the resources section of her book the four morning routines that you can follow based on the infradian rhythm.
Managing Your Time
- In the sixth chapter of her book, you will find a time management system that incorporates both the circadian biological rhythm and the infradian biological rhythm.
- This system can help women plan their days and the whole month to optimize their biological reality.
Doing Intermittent Fasting Right
- You can do intermittent fasting once you are menopausal.
- Until then, the only safe intermittent fasting for you is from dinner to breakfast at a 12-hour maximum window. Anything longer disrupts your body systems.
The Future of Wellness
- Biohacking will be based on biological rhythms, especially for men and women.
- The field of chronobiology is more focused on the circadian rhythm. Women need a lot more studies on the infradian rhythm.
5 Powerful Quotes from This Episode
“I'm just really frustrated by the fact that it's the 21st century, and we, as a female population, are basically still being given crumbs.”
“Women have been keeping the fitness and nutrition industries going for decades—our dedication, and our motivation, and our willingness to try and show up and be good students and try something new. It's not you. It's that stuff that is not designed for your biology.”
“Once you have the correct information, you can start doing the right things that yield the correct outcome or the desired outcome. This is biohacking.”
“You just need to embrace the fact that you have these dynamic patterns in the body, and you have to stop trying to force yourself to be static and do the same thing and stick with the same thing each and every day.”
“You are not being given the short end of the stick by nature. It’s quite the opposite. You have an extraordinary brain. You have an extraordinary metabolism. You have an extraordinary immune system.”
About Alisa
Alisa Vitti is known as the hormone whisperer. She is an expert on functional nutrition and women’s hormones. She is also the founder of FLO, a modern hormone healthcare company.
You can connect with Alisa on Instagram and Facebook or visit FLO’s website.
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To feeling radically loved,
Rosie