Christine: Tell me if this experience has ever been true for you? You’ve gone in and signed up for a new fitness program. You’re excited about setting goals. You’re exercising hard. You’re doing great in your workouts. And then one day you wake up and feel like you’ve hit a wall. You just don’t have the energy to keep going. It feels like a struggle.

[00:00:21] And you’re frustrated because what you were doing great at last week just, is frustrating and painful. You feel like your body’s working against you, not for you. And you have this thought. “Maybe I can’t do this. Maybe I should just give up. Why is this so hard?” Well, what if instead you ask yourself a very important question. “] What is my body trying to tell me right now?”

[00:00:48] Today on the show, we’re going to talk about the productivity and goal killer that no one ever told you. At least nobody ever told me about it. But when I stumbled upon this concept about a year ago, my mind was blown. I had no idea that this was impacting my performance and goals in all areas of life. So, what do you say, let’s dive into talking about what this productivity and goal killer is, and how you can turn it into a super power instead.

[00:02:17] If you are new to the show, I just want to say welcome. I am so glad that you’re here. We are all about helping military spouses learn to thrive, get unstuck and lives with purpose. And one of the key things I want for you is to stop living in the cycle of overwhelm, exhaustion and burnout. How we’re going to get there is by helping you prioritize what matters most to you, so you can stop feeling pulled in all directions. So you can focus on the things that really matter to you, the things that will lead you to a meaningful and fulfilling life. The things that get you away from what everybody else says you should be doing, or what is comfortable, what is familiar, and instead help you get clear on who you are deep inside.

[00:03:09] And one of the best ways that you can get that clarity is by uncovering your values. I have a free worksheet available on the website. You can also find it in the show notes below. If you go to milspousemastermind.com/values, you will be able to download that worksheet, work through it, and figure out what is it that really lights you up.

[00:03:34] What is meaningful to you and how can you start incorporating more of that in your everyday life so that you are making choices with your time and your energy that fill you up and lead you to a meaningful and fulfilling life. So if you did not know that that resource exists, I want to make that available to you. I hope you will take advantage of that and that you will continue to share this podcast with others in your life.

[00:03:57] So today we are diving into the taboo and talking about cycle syncing. And no, I don’t mean where every woman in your workplace or your home ends up on the same cycle. It’s about understanding our hormones and how we, as women, were created with a monthly rhythm.

[00:04:28] And when we learn to operate in sync with our monthly rhythms, we are capable of amazing things. It can become our super power. So milspouse dudes, I’m giving you fair warning that this episode is about our feminine superpower. So you have a choice to make right now. You can turn off this episode right now and we will see you next week.

[00:04:55] Or you can stick around, and you might be surprised at what you learn, because it might just help you understand your significant other a little bit better and how you can support them in their monthly cycle and in working with the rhythms of how we are created. So today I am talking to cycle syncing expert, Sarah Jane, Ladums of the Fit Productive Mum Podcast.

[00:05:21] There she talks about all things cycle syncing, macros, quick workouts, productivity tips, and energy boosting strategies, so that women can love the life they are in. So here’s my conversation with Sarah Jane.

Welcome back to the show. I am so excited to be here today with my friend, Sarah Jane. SJ can you say, hey, let everybody know who you are and where you’re coming to us from.

[00:05:47] Sara Jane: Hey Christine, I’m so excited to chat with you. You’re such an amazing friend and I’m so delighted to be on your podcast today. As you can tell, I am from the UK, the accent might give it away a little bit. I live in the south of the UK on a farm. My husband is a farmer and we live on a farm with my four year old daughter and three dogs.

[00:06:11] And I am a former secondary school teacher. So high school, I think you call it in the U S. My background is teaching teenagers geography and PA. Like many women, and I’m sure a lot of your listeners as well, when you have children you’re sort of in the situation where you kind of have to make a decision about whether you want to be around for your kids or whether you want to focus on your career.

[00:06:38] And it’s quite a difficult choice to make. And with the work that my husband does on the farm, for me, I chose to take step back from teaching so that I could be around with my daughter, Chloe. And that was where I moved into the health and fitness world and started to dig into our topic today, which is all about cycle syncing.

[00:06:58] Christine: Yes. First of all, I just love the fact that you live on an actual farm. And just hearing some of your stories about life on the farm is really fun, but yes, I am so excited for you to just share with us a little bit about your story and stepping into this whole new world. I know so many of us can relate to that feeling of being in this place where we’re trying to juggle career and kids and trying to figure out the best situation for our family. Talk just for a few minutes before we dig into cycle syncing, just how you took that leap. What led you to make that change? And specifically, what was it about health and fitness that led you there?

[00:07:47] Sara Jane: I spent 14 years in teaching. I love coaching people. I loved helping the children that I worked with. And I worked with some really challenging children, to be honest with you, and some pretty challenging schools here in the UK. And I really enjoyed helping them to succeed. And when I had my daughter, She she went into nursery, so like daycare, when she was eight months old.

And I would drop her off at half seven in the morning. And then I might pick her up at like five, six o’clock in the evening, and I never saw her. And I was spending so much of my energy on other people’s children. I just thought, that’s great. I have this energy and I want to look after other children, by not doing it for my own child.

[00:08:40] And that was the point where I just thought, okay, I need to do something about this. I need to change it. So I went into teaching part time. So it wasn’t a complete, like, right. I’m leaving. Off I go. I needed to transition. We’re in a fortunate position living on a farm.

[00:09:00] Financially, my husband can support us, but I like to be independent. And I’m sure like so many of the women listening to this podcast, I can certainly relate to their situation. My sister’s husband is in the military. So I’ve seen her transition and move and change jobs. And you know, she’s like me, we like to have an independence. You know, we’ve had an education, we’ve had a career and then we have children.

[00:09:28] And when, you know, with our situation, I still wanted to earn some money and I still wanted to be doing some good and having my own thing. And I was working part-time as a teacher, and I was doing all of my qualifications at the same time. Personal training qualifications, life coaching qualifications, because I found people that I was working with needed some sort of life coach support as well along the journey of health and fitness.

And then at the end of 2019, I left teaching. I built up a clientele. My personal training business was going really, really well. And we had plans to build a personal training studio on the farm. And obviously everybody knows, come the end of 2019. We go into 2020 and COVID happens. And that really basically changed everything for me. Here in the UK, we spent most of 2020 in lockdown. Gyms were closed, personal trainers. And I was in a really difficult situation of why I’ve created this business.

[00:10:43] And there’s, so we’re just kind of fallen apart on me now. You know, what do I do? I’ve put all of this time and energy into it. That was really heartbreaking. And I guess in some ways it’s a bit like for you, Christine, as you move from station to station, and you’ve built something up and you’ve created a great community and then it’s not there anymore. And it’s that kind of, sort of situation of, well, you know, where do I go from here? What do I do with this?

[00:11:04] And I started really digging into nutrition at that point, because we had somebody here in the UK, you might not have heard of him. This guy called Joe Wicks. He’s this big famous personal trainer.

[00:11:25] And he was all over the UK, giving away free workouts. And for us personal trainers, we couldn’t compete with that. So I really had to think, okay, what can I do that’s still within the health and fitness world? Cause I love health and fitness. I’m so passionate about it. I love helping people to hit their goals, whether it’s weight loss or whatever. And that was when I started to sort of find out a bit more about cycle syncing and I kind of fell down that rabbit hole.

[00:11:55] Christine: Well, you know, the pandemic and 2020 changed so much for so many people. So you’re definitely not alone. You know, the hidden blessing that came out of this, had you opened the studio and invested all of this time and money a year or two before the pandemic happened, you would be in such worse place. But looking at what you were able to do, and how you were able to look at what was going on.

[00:12:26] Here’s what’s around me and what’s unique. And how can I pivot and make the most of what I have right now. And that’s what we talk about all the time on this show, is just making the most of what you have right now. This is such a great example of that. Thank you for sharing that. So let’s dive into this topic of cycle syncing.

[00:12:47] I think for me and probably for many other people. it’s a newer term right? Up until about a year ago, I had never heard of this term. And the first time I heard a talk about this, it completely blew my mind because I had never heard anybody explain this to me. So talk, just introduce us at a high level. What is cycle syncing?

[00:13:15] Sara Jane: So I’ll share a little bit of my story with cycle syncing.  So I have quite a lot of fitness background. Before I was, when I was teaching and I was personal training, I was competing in sports. I was doing long bike rides. I competed in netball at quite a high level here as well.

[00:13:35] And as I was teaching and competing in these sports, I would notice that I was really, really struggling with headaches. And I would have probably two every month, maybe every other month. I was having like a day off work of teaching or having to have two days off. And I was just really, really struggling with migraines.

[00:13:58] And after I had Chloe, so when I fell pregnant, these headaches disappeared. And then after I had Chloe, when she was sort of about eight months, nine months old, as I was going back to work, these headaches came back and I thought as a teacher, well, that’s probably something to do with the stress of work and teaching and all of the things. I actually started to notice there was a pattern in these headaches. And I went to the doctor.

[00:14:25] And the doctors here sort of have about 10 minutes with us for an appointment. And there’s not a lot you can do in that time. And he was kind of like, you know, here we go. Here’s a pill to help you when you have these headaches. But I was like, I want to know more about this. Like, why am I getting these headaches?

[00:14:44] Why have I got these problems? So I started Googling. I mean like headaches and migraines, women’s health and all of that sort of thing. And it opened up this can of worms around cycle syncing. I started reading every single book that there was, and I could really start to see a pattern with my headaches.

[00:15:05] So that was the first point where it all started for me, with actually unpacking it in terms of my own health. So in terms of what cycles syncing is, I think the key thing for us, as women, is this understanding of our menstrual cycles. And I don’t know about you, Christine, but when I was taught about my menstrual cycle, I was taught when I was about 11 years old in a science lab, in a science lesson.

[00:15:33] By like a 55-year-old science teacher out of a book. And that was how I learned about my body. And I learned about periods and that was kind of like already glossed over. And it was like, well, when you get your periods, you’re going to need to have a tampon, and you might not feel too great, and you’ve just got to kind of get on with life. And that was sort of it.

[00:15:54] And I think it’s such a shame that we aren’t taught more about our cycles, because it’s seen as something that we shouldn’t talk about. It is something that is embarrassing, but actually once you get to dig deep into it and find out a bit more on, I’ll go into this a bit more in a second about what’s actually going on with your body.

[00:16:17] Oh my gosh, it’s so freeing. And I think it’s so powerful because you really get to know how you’re feeling and how you can use this. I talk about it as a superpower, how you can use it to inform so many different areas of your life. And the things that I talk about and how it can impact your life are things like your nutrition, your fitness, your productivity, how you’re doing in your work and also your motherhood and your relationship.

[00:16:48] So in terms of what cycle syncing is, I always talk about cycle syncing in the terms of on average, the average menstrual cycle is about 28 days. So obviously some people have longer cycles and some people have shorter cycles, and your cycle is broken up into four phases.

[00:17:14] I always start with your follicular phase, which is the first part of your cycle. I relate this, this might sound a bit crazy. I often use the seasons to relate to each part of the cycle because we live on a farm and it just kind of makes sense in the way that we do things on the farm as well. So if you think about your follicular phase, I liken that to spring.

[00:17:40] So if you think about what spring is like, you know, you can see, like here, the crops are starting to grow and the flowers are starting to come out, and the buds are coming on the leaves. There’s a real energy in the air of sorts. Things are starting to come back to life. And that’s really sort of what’s going on in your body.

[00:17:57] Your body’s going into this spring phase where your hormones are starting to give, one of the key hormones in this phase is your estrogen, and that’s giving you more energy. So you’re going to feel like you want to start getting out and about and doing a bit more.

[00:18:17] Your next phase is the ovulatory phase. I liken that to summer. Here in the UK, when we have summer, everyone goes crazy. It’s like shorts on, the sun’s out. Cause most of the time it’s raining. Everyone has this real outdoors, let’s go and have a barbecue on the beach, you know, enjoy the sun, make the most of it. And everyone’s really, really sociable.

[00:18:37] And that sort of, if you think about your ovulatory phase, you will probably find that you’re similar. You’re going to have lots of energy. You’re going to want to be out there talking to everybody. And life feels really good. And it feels like the sun’s shining all the time

[00:19:00] .Going into the third phase, which is called the luteal phase. And this is the phase that I like to autumn. So your luteal phase is where the hormones switch, and the estrogen, which was the dominant hormone in those first two phases, hands over to progesterone, and progesterone is often known as sort of like the relaxing hormone. It’s the hormone that is quite important when it comes to the possibility of us becoming pregnant. And in the luteal phase, you’ll often find that you feel a bit more tired.

[00:19:31] You want to slow down a little bit, you think about autumn and you start to, you know, like the leaves are falling off the trees and you start thinking about making hot soup and snuggling up at home, that sort of thing. And for us autumn here on the farm is where things start to slow down.

[00:19:51] We’re reflecting on what’s been going on, we’re starting to take our foot off the gas and actually thinking about taking some rest. It’s also a time where the ground takes rest here as well. Because we’re not always planting seeds and plowing and everything as well. So it’s quite a good analogy to think about those all hormonal sorts of feelings.

[00:20:17] And then your last phase is your menstrual phase, and I liken this to winter. So if you think about how you feel when you have your period. You want to be snuggled up in front of a fire with a nice blazing hair and some, you know, a good cup of coffee. Cause I know you love coffee, Christine.

[00:20:39] Um, and you know, you just want to sort of hunker down. And that’s really similar to what’s going on. That’s what’s going on in your body. Your hormones are really low at this point. Your body’s going through a lot in the second half of your cycle and the menstrual and the luteal phase is, has a lot of hormones going on.

[00:20:56] You’re bleeding, which of course is having an impact on your energy levels. So it’s just a really good way of remembering. Each of those phases and likening it to a season because it just simplifies what’s going on. Just thinking about how you feel in different seasons throughout the year, helps you remember how you might be feeling and trying to understand why you’re feeling a bit more tired, or why at some points in your cycle, you’re feeling a little bit more run down.

[00:21:28] Christine: There’s so much power when we understand our bodies and what they’re doing, and how we can use it to work for us. So, back to your story. You’re reading about these four phases. How did that relate to your headache problem?

[00:21:46] Sara Jane: Okay. So I found out that one of my biggest problems is that I am what’s called estrogen dominant. So that meant in the first half of my cycle, there was a lot of estrogen. And then after, just around the time that I was ovulating, as each origin started to dip and drop, because my estrogen levels were very high, that drop was triggering migraines.

[00:22:14] So I dug into what I should be doing in the front end of my cycle, the follicular and the ovulatory phase of what I could be doing to then help reduce that estrogen dominance. And there’s so many things that we’re not really aware of when it comes to estrogen and. You know, natural estrogen in our body is normal, but the way that we, the environments that we live in, the food that we’re consuming and even the products that we are using on our skin and our hair can actually contain chemicals that mimic estrogen.

[00:22:54] And that is one of the things that I really had to dig into to try and find out what it was that was triggering this for me.

[00:23:00] Christine: And so when you started digging into all of this stuff, what did you learn? How does cycle syncing relate to being our superpower? What are some other ways that we can work with cycle syncing?

[00:23:12] Sara Jane: Okay. I’m going to use an example of fitness because that’s the world that I live in. So, if you are somebody who is, as I was maybe doing a lot of exercise, maybe you are training for a race or something like that, or you’re running, you’re probably going to find that in the first half of your cycle, you’ve got a lot of energy.

[00:23:36] So in that spring and summer phase, your follicular and ovulatory phase, you’ve got lots of energy and you’re going to be like, yeah, I’m going to go and do a run. And I’m going to do all of the things.

[00:23:52] I could see it in the fitness classes and with the clients that I had, they’d come to me at some times of the month. They’d be really energetic and really, really want to go for that. Other times they come back like a week later and you could see they were struggling throughout. So the way that you can use your cycle thinking in terms of your fitness and the workouts that you’re doing is you can actually begin to build a program of workouts, of different types of workouts that you can be doing at different points in your cycle.

[00:24:18] And ultimately the super power with that is it’s actually going to really get your metabolism going. And for most of the women that I work with, they’re on a weight loss journey and cycles syncing their workouts is a really, really good way for them to actually lose weight faster. Which kind of sounds counter-intuitive because I would teach the women in my classes, my personal training clients to slow down and they’re like, what?

[00:24:46] Like shouldn’t I, because society kind of gets us thinking, you’ve got to go hard all the time, and the gym. And you see all these boot camps going on and. I think this is a real trick that male personal trainers are missing. And I think more male personal trainers need to get onboard with this and be willing to have these conversations with their clients because I’m teaching the women to slow down.

[00:25:10] So they know when they work with me, there’s going to be some points in the month where I am going to push them and I’m going to push them really, really hard. But they also know there’s other times, we are going to be focusing on flexibility. And stretching and sort of slower movements. And they’re like, yeah, I can do that.

[00:25:29] That also means they’re less likely to go. Because they know that they haven’t got to be pushing all of the time, every single workout. So that’s kind of one of the ways that I think that we can use this as a super power.

[00:25:42] Christine: I mean, I think we have all signed up for like that workout program and we’re like doing it and it’s going great. And then we hit that wall and it’s like, okay, my body’s not cooperating. This is just like, this was painful to do. And so, I mean, it’s just an amazing thing to think about working with our bodies. And, I think so often when we try to start a new habit or we’re working towards some kind of goal, we get to this part where all of a sudden it seems hard and I feel like it’s like the goal killer that nobody ever told me about. Cause it’s like, oh, it’s not just that I’m having a super off day. There’s a reason why I’m not able to show up the way I was able to show up last week.

[00:26:30] Sara Jane: Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly it. And if you are armed with that knowledge, you’re less likely to quit on yourself. You’re going to go, okay. Right. I know that I’m not going to be at my best. I’m going to do a workout that’s going to work better for my body. I’m more, you’re more likely to show up and carry on.

[00:26:48] Christine: Because it’s really about the habits that we create over the long-term; not just, hey, this was a week. And then we get back on it and keep going versus feeling like, well, I just can’t do this. And we just give up and quit.

[00:27:03] Sara Jane: Yeah, exactly. And one thing I will also add that’s really important to remember is that most of these workouts that are designed, these workouts and these boot camps and all of the workouts out there, most of them have been designed. Firstly, the majority of them are designed by men, and they’re tested on men, and men do not have this cycle. Like they don’t have this cycle of hormones

[00:27:24] know, most guys, I, train often with my guy. And he’ll wake up every morning and he feels the same. And his body is pretty much predictable and he doesn’t have this sort of up and down. Like one day I’m like full of energy. And the next day I just want to go to sleep in the corner.

[00:27:45] He’s fairly consistent. And that’s a really important thing for us to remember as women is that when you’re going through these workout programs, they haven’t been designed for women’s cycles.

[00:27:57] Christine: I mean, that’s such a valuable thing that I hope that somebody who is feeling frustrated today is going to hear this and be like, oh, okay. I can do this. Just keep going. I just think it’s so empowering for women to hear this message and to understand this. So I know when we talk about cycle syncing, it applies to health and fitness a lot, but we can also use it for productivity. So talk about what that looks like.

[00:28:28] Sara Jane: So I think the simplest way to think about your cycle when it comes to productivity is just to kind of divide it in half.

[00:28:36] So, as I was saying earlier, the phase, your spring and your summer, those are the points where you’re going to have the highest levels of energy and you are going to actually want to be out there talking to people more. So if you have control and I’m sure lots of, maybe a lot of your audience have businesses where they’re working from home.

[00:29:00] If you are in charge of your workload, obviously this works really, really well in that situation. You should be thinking about, what are the tasks that I’m going to be doing in that phase? In those two phases, or that half story of your cycle where I need to be out there and I need to be talking to people.

[00:29:18] So maybe you have a business with a network marketing company, for example. I would be suggesting to you that you are doing your onboarding, because those are the points where you’re recording lots of videos for your social media. Those are the kinds of things where you’re putting yourself out there.

[00:29:37] Maybe you’re networking, getting to know people and doing talks, doing presentations. Those are the sorts of things that you want to be blocking into those two parts, two phases. Or if your cycle and the second half of your cycle where your energy levels are going to be lower and you’re perhaps going to be, want to be more sort of introverted.

[00:29:59] Those are the kinds of times where you might want to be at your computer writing content for your social media, or planning your social media. Or you might want to be, you know, looking at your finances. What’s going on? How, what, where am I with my goals? Evaluating, you know, your income?

[00:30:20] What are your goals? How are you going to get there? Building some strategy, those kinds of things, or creating graphics or, you know, building the slides for your presentation, those sorts of things that don’t necessarily involve you being there with a camera in your face and having to show up. If you can kind of divide your tasks in that way.

[00:30:39] And so for you, for example, Christine, as a podcaster, if I was planning a podcast, I would be thinking, I’m going to do the recording of my podcast in the first half of my cycle. The second half of my cycle is when I’m going to be planning the episodes and doing all the research, so that I can then batch record those episodes.

[00:30:59] Christine: Such great, helpful advice. I think when we start to look at our life from this lens and say, okay, what are the things that are most alive and how can I really play to my strengths in each of these areas? Such a difference. And really just starting by noticing what you’re doing. I heard somebody talking about this and they were talking about how it applies to home.

[00:31:29] And how sometimes you get this boost of energy and you go to town cleaning your home, right before you get into the phase of the cycle where we’re powering down and we need that rest. I started thinking, I was like, you know what? I actually do that. And I just started observing just the natural ways and how my body is acting.

[00:31:54] And they were right. And that was like, wow, there’s a lot to this. So of course the next thing that I did was like, I’m going to go research all this stuff. I’m going to go buy a book and I’m going to read all about it. The book I read, Alyssa Vitti’s, Woman Code, which goes all into women’s hormones and all of the ways that it affects our lives and how we can make our lives revolve around being aware and in touch with our hormones.

[00:32:28] But there’s so much information that it was just overwhelming. And I was like, I don’t even know where to begin to start making all of this a part of my life. So, first of all, I would love to know, if somebody is like, tell me more, how do I get more information? Where’s the best place for them to start?

[00:32:50] Sara Jane: Okay. I think the best thing that you can do, if you’re thinking about wanting to apply this, is to actually record and pay really close attention to your cycle. There are so many different ways that you could do that. You could do it with a paper. We are very fortunate in this world with technology that we have.

[00:33:10] If you’re an iPhone user within the health, part of your phone is an app. Your health app has a place for you to be recording your cycle, your symptoms, and that sort of thing. There are other apps out there that go into a bit more detail. So if you are somebody like I was, who was struggling with headaches, there are more in-depth apps. From the author that you mentioned, she has an app called flow living, which is a really good one, and it digs into all of the symptoms.

[00:33:43] And I think if you spend about three months, first of all, recording all of the things that you notice and just making notes, I know it’s not always easy to remember. And just making a note of how you’re feeling on each day. Are you feeling bloated? Are you getting cramps? What’s going on? And you know, it’s not a very nice topic sometimes to talk about, you know, what’s going on with, with your period, how heavy is it on certain days, and what’s going on within the mucus from your vagina at certain times of the month. Those are all massive key indicators of your health. So definitely recording your cycle for three months, like really, really paying close attention to it. And then I think the next step is, which of these areas do I want to focus on. Do I want to look at my workouts?

[00:34:37] Do you have a weight loss goal on your heart? Then? My real first piece of advice is to look at your nutrition, what you’re consuming, because probably so many of those symptoms or, you know, if you’ve got PMS, if you’re struggling with bad periods and that sort of thing. So much of that can be changed by what you’re eating.

[00:34:59] And that’s one of the things that I talk about a lot with the women that I work with. I share with them the sorts of foods they should be eating at certain times of their cycles to support their body in the best way. And once you’ve kind of got an idea of the nutrition, then you could then maybe start thinking about applying it to other areas of your life.

[00:35:22] Maybe if you’re a mum, I mean, you can apply cycle syncing into your motherhood as well. Or if you’re struggling at work and maybe it feels really, really stressful. That might be a different area that you want to apply it to. I think really where you start, it’s going to depend on what your goals and your priorities are.

[00:35:41] Christine: So one question that I have heard from other people, and I’m probably not alone in wondering this, this idea of, if you have a regular 28 day cycle, see how this applies to your life. But if you are not always consistent, if you have shorter or longer cycles, how does this work for your life when, when you’re not having a consistent monthly cycle?

[00:36:13] Sara Jane: The phases aren’t going to change, but it just might be that you have a longer luteal phase. Maybe you have a shorter follicular phase. And the apps are really, really great place where they can support you with this. Because you can literally say, okay, well, I think I’m in this space and it’s those kinds of cues, like I mentioned earlier, in terms of your energy level.

[00:36:36] You can also look at your temperature as well. That can be an indicator of where you are in your cycle. And that’s going to give you clues as to whether your follicular phase is shorter. And also if people are on birth control, for example. There’s no reason why they can’t still use this product.

[00:36:58] Because ultimately, I have women that I work with who are actually going through the menopause who still use the system, because ultimately our bodies are not designed to push hard all the time. I say four weeks just because it’s easier, but actually as cycles, even within the 28 days, It doesn’t perfectly slot into seven days for each phase. Different phases are longer.

[00:37:25] And, for example, you’re a violate two phases is a smaller window and you’ll lead to your face, like to be longer, but you can still apply this whether, whatever stage of your life. If you’re still breastfeeding and you don’t have a period, you could still use this process, because our bodies just aren’t designed to push really hard 24-7.

[00:37:53] And this just gives you permission. To breathe. And I think as women, and I’m sure like so many women, you know, your audience are so used to pushing and pushing and trying to do all of the things, and then we can hit burnout. And I think one of the real super powers of this system of cycle syncing is that it’s really likely to prevent you from ever hitting burnout.

[00:38:15] Christine: Which I love because a lot about having these regular rhythms and how we need rests in our life, so that we don’t get into that cycle of overwhelm and burnout. And that’s something we talk a lot about. So we’ve talked about tracking your cycle for three months. If somebody wants to dive deeper, learn more about cycle thinking and how to make it their super power, where do you suggest going for more information?

[00:38:50] Sara Jane: Me. Yeah, definitely me. Like Christine, I have a podcast and my podcast is called Fit Productive Mum. And that is the place. And I will say it’s about mum cause I’m British and we spell it differently. And we go through on that podcast.

[00:39:09] I talk about cycle syncing. I talk about different ways that you can apply it to different areas of your life. So we look at how you can use cycle syncing for your nutrition, your fitness, your productivity, all of the things, your motherhood. So come and find me over there. It’s a free resource, like you’re listening to now, and yeah, you can get loads and loads of information there.

[00:39:28] And I’ve also got some free download cheat sheets. I have a Facebook community as well. Just come and connect with me in the pocket.

[00:39:37] Christine: Awesome. Yes, definitely go check out the Fit Productive Mum podcast. Um, where do you most like to connect with people?

[00:39:47] Sara Jane: So the podcast is going to be the first place and within the podcast, I talk about my free Facebook group.

[00:39:53] So that is the place to come and find me over in the free Facebook group. I share a loads of recipes, work out and fitness tips, weight loss tips, all of the things over there. I am on Instagram at the fit productive mum. I will be honest with you there. I’m not always great at responding to messages on Instagram. But you can also find my email address on the podcast too. So that’s probably a better way to get in touch with me.

[00:40:21] Christine: Fantastic. Okay. One last question, as we are wrapping up. So we’ve talked about your journey from teacher to really starting this podcast and having a whole business around health and fitness.

[00:40:37] And doing it in a way that allowed you to be there for your family and live into your purpose. So what is one piece of advice that you would want to give military spouses who are really in that place of struggling? They want time freedom and flexibility, but they’re wondering what their next step should be.

[00:40:58] Sara Jane: Oh, gosh, that’s a really, really challenging question. Isn’t it? And I guess the way I would think about this is I think about my sister and the things that have sort of helped her. And I think one of the biggest things that, that she has done for herself is to really get into like, and I know you talk about this on the podcast, is to really think about what she wants as an individual and the job or whether it’s volunteering or just having something that’s yours.

[00:41:30] Because so much of her, I know, is very much determined by what her husband’s doing and all of his schedules and what country he’s going to be working in and all of the things. And it’s just a really good space for her to think about something that she wants to do. And I know she struggled to find jobs and that kind of thing, but she’s always got involved in some kind of volunteering to give her like her own sense of purpose.

[00:42:00] Christine: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for taking time to come talk with us. I hope, again, that y’all will go check out the Fit Productive Mum Podcast. Thank you for joining us SJ.

[00:42:13] Sara Jane: Thank you so much, Christine.

[00:42:18] Christine: We only scratched the surface of this today. So if you’re wanting to know more about any hormonal issues that you may be having, how you can make your body and your cycle work and help you thrive as a woman, I would definitely recommend that you head over and check out SJs podcast. Do the work, dive in, start tracking your cycle. If you want to really get the deep dive crash course. Um, definitelyAlyssa Vitti’s book, Woman Code. I’ll link that below in the show notes as well. And that is a very deep dive into how this can positively impact all areas of your life in truly becoming your superpower.

[00:42:59] Like I said, it can easily become a rabbit hole and that there’s just so much there. But I truly think that we as women don’t know really what we are capable of, and if we learn to make our bodies work for us, rather than fighting against ourselves, it’s just amazing what we can achieve.

[00:43:21] The number one thing I want you to take away from this today is that if you are in that place where you have felt like you set these goals, you’re trying to be productive and you feel like there’s just this obstacle in the way, and it’s made you want to quit. Stop beating yourself up, stop blaming your body, and just know that there are reasons for this.

[00:43:43] There is a reason that you have struggled with this. And there is a solution to this problem. I hope that this encourages you, that this blesses you in some way and that you have amazing week living filled, fueled and full of joy. I’ll see you next time.