Food, Hormones and Women's Lesser Known Rhythm

Food has always been a pleasure for me and I’ve learned to accept the curves that come with my love for it. Though, I always felt that people who knew what their bodies needed and how to help them function at their best, were onto something I was just not meant to in this lifetime.

Turns out, one of the reasons all the solutions and regimens that worked for everyone else but not for me, was that the information we've been fed was leaving out something that the gnostics tried to teach us: know thyself.

I've looked for years for an answer outside of myself, testing advice on my (thank goodness) highly resilient body, that, however, kept trying to communicate to let me know the approach isn't working, because it was 'theirs' not mine. 

Most studies on nutrition, supplements and overall hormonal response, have historically been conducted on men and post-menopausal women. When I found that out, something clicked. I mean it makes sense to study groups with less variables, if you're trying to come to quick conclusions, but it doesn't make any sense to exclude women in their reproductive years, just because we're less predictable and it makes the data harder to collect and put in boxes. 

A friend posted an excerpt of this podcast episode with Alisa Vitti, and I can honestly say this was one of those moments that I will forever look back to as one that changed my life and my relationship to my body. It's as if someone finally taught me what language my body was speaking so I can finally learn how to respond, with something I find not just sustenance with, but pleasure in: and that is food. Learning to work not just with my circadian rhythm, but my infradian - a term I had never heard of before - one, has opened up a new world to me.

I highly recommend giving this episode a listen. You might learn something. I absolutely did. And it changed how I look at food, my body as a woman, and the alchemy that happens when the two meet in a mindful way.

https://www.organicolivia.com/2020/05/episode-16-cycle-flow/