What you need to know about your cycle

Ladies, I'm sure you’re all aware of your individual mood changes throughout the month. You may also be aware that these changes in emotion, energy levels, and concentration are often due to changes in your menstrual cycle. What you may not know however, is that you can use diet and lifestyle to support the rollercoaster of hormones at any given day of your cycle.

How?

Depending on where you are in your cycle, the female reproductive system has different nutrient requirements. First, let’s discuss the basics of hormone fluctuation during your menstrual cycle. Once you master this, you’re a skip and a hop closer to understanding your weird and wonderful body. The fantastical four hormones which dictate the female reproductive cycle include estrogen, progesterone, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), and luteinising hormone (LH).

(Druet, 2021).

Follicular phase

The first 14 days of your cycle is referred to as the follicular phase, dominated by the hormone, estrogen. Here, a follicle prepares an egg to be released at ovulation and is POTENTIALLY fertilised by a sperm cell. This phase is variable and can range from 7-21 days. In fact, a study on 1.5 million Australian women showed that 84% had a cycle length of 26 to 34 days (Grieger & Norman, 2020). You can see in the figure above estrogen (blue line) starts low and begins to spike midway through your cycle.

Ovulation

Professor Prior, a Canadian endocrinologist and medical doctor specialising in menstrual cycles and the effects of hormones on women's health, refers to ovulation as “both an indicator and a creator of health” (2014). Meaning regular and consistent ovulation is a sign that all is well with the body. It’s also a sign that there’s enough food (particularly carbohydrates) and not too much (unnecessary) stress. By ‘creator’ she means ovulation is how we make our much-needed monthly dose of progesterone - a hormone needed for the vitality of every woman.

For ovulation to occur, estrogen must reach it’s peak which triggers a spike in LH, which then triggers ovulation then10-12 hrs later an egg is released.

Luteal Phase

The final phase is the luteal phase. After ovulation, LH triggers the release of progesterone which dominates the remainder of your cycle (the final 14-16 days). During this phase, the surge in progesterone turns the egg into a yellow body otherwise known as the corpus luteum, and if not fertilised, the corpus luteum begins to degrade because it is no longer needed.

Now let’s talk about progesterone… to quote the wise words of Lara Briden, the naturopathic women’s hormone whisperer:

Each and every monthly dose of progesterone is like a deposit into the bank account of long-term health. It builds bone and metabolic reserve to carry us through all the decades after menopause. That’s why it’s so important to ovulate while we can during our reproductive decades, and not shut it down with hormonal birth control. (Lara Briden, 2021).

Yes you read that correctly. The hormonal birth control pill suppresses our own body's production of estrogen and progesterone through a negative feedback loop mechanism. In doing this, it shuts down ovulation. When we hear the word ‘ovulation’ we think ‘fertility’. What we should be thinking it ‘vitality’.

The luteal phase is almost exactly 14 days (10-16 days) and does not vary. If you add up varying follicular phase to the fixed luteal phase, the duration of a healthy menstrual cycle is anywhere between 21 to 35 days. Note this will be longer for teenagers (Briden, 2021).

Interestingly, women aged 18-29 are more likely to have a larger variation in cycle length then women aged 35 and over (Grieger & Norman, 2020). The reasons why are unclear however, it could be because female fertility peaks at around 25 years of age (Igarashi et al., 2015) and the follicular phase is taking more time to ensure the egg is developed and released by the chance it will be fertilised.

Fertility

The decrease in female fertility starts after 30 years of age and only by a small percentage due to a reduction in oocytes (immature eggs). From ages 35-39 there is a 31% lower chance of fertility. Today, birth rates of women aged 24 and below are declining and increasing for women aged 35-44 (Shan et al., 2018). No surprise there! Considering in 2018 it cost $160,000 a year for low paid families to raise a child, well and truly before the recent increases in cost of living (AIFS, 2018). The important thing to remember is you are not a statistic and your parenthood journey begins when you’re ready.

Now that you’ve had a quick science lesson and are hopefully in awe at your hard-working uterus, next read is 4 ways diet can optimise your cycle.

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