“Girls are taught to view their bodies as unending projects to work on, whereas boys from a young age are taught to view their bodies as tools to master the environment.”

― Alisa Vitti, In the FLO: Unlock Your Hormonal Advantage and Revolutionize Your Life

Can I ask you a personal question?

🧘‍♀️ WTF is cycle syncing?

In the past three years alone, it seems like every mainstream fitness brand has released some kind of cycle syncing related program (see Nike, Alo, WHOOP, Tonal). And as of May 2024, there have been over 483M views of #cyclesyncing on TiKTok. So we get it, cycle syncing is trendy. But what exactly is it? 

The term “cycle syncing” was first introduced by integrative nutritionist Alisa Vitti in her 2014 book WomanCode which educates women about their hormone health and introduces her proprietary cycle syncing protocol, the Cycle Syncing Method^TM. The method essentially involves matching your diet, exercise, and lifestyle to your cycle’s phases. As there are different metabolic and hormonal changes that happen in your body during each phase of your cycle, the idea is that you can adjust how you eat, move, and live during each phase to optimize for the best mind and body energy.  

The Four Phases

Before we get deep into cycle syncing, let’s start with the four phases of your menstrual cycle. As you may know, your menstrual cycle is a ~28-day process that prepares your body for pregnancy. During your cycle, your brain and ovaries develop and release hormones into your body that cause the lining of your uterus to thicken and an egg to drop into your fallopian tubes, priming it to receive sperm. If sperm doesn’t fertilize the egg and thus pregnancy doesn’t happen, your body then sheds the lining of your uterus to prepare it for next month’s cycle, and voila - your period comes. The four phases include: 

1. The menstrual phase - This makes up the first few days of your cycle and involves the lining of your uterus shedding, or your period coming. Bleeding typically lasts 3-7 days. 

2. The follicular phase - This starts on the same day as your menstrual phase and ends at ovulation (in other words, it overlaps with the menstrual phase). It is when your uterus lining thickens thanks to the rise of estrogen in your body. It’s also when follicles in your uterus start to grow thanks to follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and during days 10-14 one follicle will mature into an egg.

3. Ovulation phase - This happens around day 14 of a 28-day cycle when another hormone, luteinizing hormone (LH), causes your ovary to release the egg. Ovulation only occurs on one day - the day when you are most likely to get pregnant!

4. Luteal Phase - This composes the longest phase of your cycle where your egg travels through your fallopian tubes and into your uterus. In a 28-day cycle, this phase lasts from day 14 through day 28. The hormone progesterone rises at this time to prepare your body for pregnancy. If your egg is fertilized and attaches to your uterine wall, implantation occurs. If not, estrogen and progesterone levels drop, and boom! Your period comes.

Alright, so why cycle sync?

You’re probably familiar with your circadian rhythm, which is the 24-hour cycle responsible for regulating your body’s sleep, hormones, appetite, and temperature and is largely governed by day and night. Women of course have a circadian rhythm, but we also have an infradian rhythm. This is our second biological clock that keeps the timing of our 28-day cycle on track. And it’s super important because it impacts our brain, immune system, microbiome, stress response system, and of course, our reproductive system. Some manifestations of the infradian rhythm include our metabolism changing throughout the month, our cortisol levels rising during certain times, and women needing an average of 20 more minutes of sleep per night because our brains are more complex. 

According to Alisa Vitti, our bodies and hormone levels are changing so much throughout the month that following the same workout or diet every day (which works for men), doesn’t work for us. For example, during your follicular and ovulation phases, your cortisol levels are lower and your metabolism is slower. So Vitti explains that your body needs fewer calories and HIIT/cardio workouts are helpful in that they prompt fat-burning and lean muscle building. On the other hand, she says that doing a HIIT workout when cortisol levels are already high during your luteal and menstrual phases can add to your stress and inflammation, making you feel anxious and unfocused, and even lead to fat gain. She recommends limiting exercise to 30 minutes during these phases and sticking to low-impact workouts like pilates and yoga. Further, she discusses how during your luteal and menstrual phases, you may need an extra 250 calories a day, and not doing so could tell your body to store fat for survival. Eek! 

According to Vitti’s website FLO Living, over 500K women have tried The Cycle Syncing Method^TM and the results are quite positive: 

• 70% have experienced weight loss

• 85% have experienced mood improvements 

• 83% have reduced PMS symptoms 

• 91% feel more energized

While we don’t know who participated in the study and what their diet and exercise habits were like before, this is certainly promising!

OK, but why aren’t more people talking about this? 

Vitti explains that men produce testosterone according to the circadian rhythm, so it’s no wonder why traditional wellness advice caters to the male reality (if we’ve learned anything in writing NTP, it’s that the male ways of living are often the default). She also touches on the lack of research in women’s health, which we’ve noted before, and the phenomenon we discussed in our piece on women’s pain getting dismissed that women are more likely to be told by doctors that their medical issues are psychological, not physical. But that’s just her perspective. 

Dr. Alice McGee, medical doctor and advisor at period tracking app Clue, co-authored an article questioning whether cycle-syncing is really that productive, especially if it’s discouraging regular exercise and strength training, which have been scientifically proven to improve overall health outcomes. She further explains that it’s impossible to know the exact levels of each hormone in your unique body on a given day, making it hard to pinpoint exactly when certain exercise and eating habits should shift. Dr. Kate Clancy, biological anthropology professor and author of Period: The Real Story of Menstruation, expresses a similar sentiment explaining that no woman follows the textbook case of a 28-day cycle with the exact hormone levels expected during each day. Tory Eisenlohr-Moul, a clinical psychiatrist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, goes even further to condemn cycle syncing as “contributing to this misogynist idea that all females are driven by their hormones.” She later explains that menstruation is just one factor impacting how we feel. So while she’s not necessarily saying it’s pseudoscience, she does caveat that it’s at least incomplete science. 

One thing advocates and skeptics alike can agree on? Like every aspect of women’s health, cycle syncing is still too under-researched for us to have a clear answer on what the impact is on our minds and bodies. 

Let us know what you think by voting in our poll and leaving an anonymous comment.

  💭 Our two cents

While I am definitely a wellness girlie, I often find myself skeptical about the newest wellness fads. First, they tell us to intermittent fast. Then, they tell us fasting stores fat. First, they tell us to do low-impact pilates workouts. Then, they say we need more cardio. First, they say coffee is good for us. Then, they say it’s the root of all evil. So what is it? 

To me, the idea of cycle syncing is intriguing because I do believe that women are not just small men and thus how we fuel and move our bodies will and should look different. And I’ve experienced this firsthand. I spent YEARS doing primarily high-intensity cardio workouts before discovering sculpt (shoutout to The Sculpt Society) about a year ago. For the first time in my adult life, I’ve seen a subtle shift in my body composition, which I assume has to do with doing workouts that are better suited for me and my body (because let me tell you, business school does not encourage healthy eating/drinking habits, so it cannot be attributed to my diet). BUT I also recognize that what works for me won’t necessarily work for you. So my thought on cycle-syncing is that if what you’re currently doing isn’t working, why not try it out? There’s no guarantee it’ll be the answer, but given that it takes into account more biological factors than a typical workout does, it could be better for you than simply following a random exercise schedule. 

I personally tend to follow the mindset of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, so I probably won’t be hopping onto the cycle syncing trend right now, but if you’ve done it, I’d love to hear from you because I’m definitely still curious! 

 ✅ You should also know…

🧘‍♀️MyFlo: Interested in trying out Alisa Vitti’s Cycle Syncing method? Check out her MyFlo app for daily recipes, workouts, and insights here. 

👂On the pod: Want to hear more from Alisa Vitti, herself? Check out her recent interview with Elizabeth Stein, founder of Purely Elizabeth. 

✏️Track your cycle: Step one to cycle syncing is knowing what phase of your cycle you’re in. I just started tracking my own cycle for free using the Clue app so I at least know which phase I’m in at any given time. 

💃 The girls have spoken

Last week, we learned all about the four different types of attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized), how they’re formed, and what they mean for our adult relationships. While a small percentage of us reported having an avoidant or disorganized attachment style (7% each), many felt we were best represented by the anxious or secure attachment style (39% each). Though the share of us identifying as anxious types was higher than estimates suggest they might be, women are more likely to demonstrate this form of insecure attachment style, so this makes sense for our fellow NTP crowd. One segment of last week’s piece that some of you found particularly interesting – and we couldn’t agree more – was the discussion of how your attachment style might affect how you interact with others in settings beyond romantic relationships, even in work environments. While your attachment style isn’t a fixed, unmalleable characteristic of your personality (and certainly doesn’t define you), we think it can be a great tool for more deeply understanding the ways in which you connect with those around you, being able to articulate your emotional needs, and learning how to build strong relationships of all types. So…insecure no more? Maybe one day. 😉

💌 Up Next

That’s all for today! If you liked this edition of Not That Personal, we think one of your friends probably will too – refer one (or two or three) below. ;)

Have something to say? We’d love to hear it – reply to this email or leave an anonymous comment here :) 

Up next: So…should I get a prenup?

💖 S & J