Hello, welcome. This is episode 381. Sometimes I have to speak really slowly as I figure out what episode this is. Oh my goodness. Yes, final answer 381

where we are talking about adjusting keto for your menstrual cycle and supporting your hormones with a ketogenic diet.

Ooh, I love this topic. I just love this topic. Recently I was wearing another CGM because I just love them and at first I thought they were going to be horrible but now I just couldn't even imagine life without putting on a CGM every couple of months if you're not familiar with what a CGM is. It's a continuous glucose monitor and I was reminded yet again that the couple of days usually about eight days before my period starts. I have such a hard time regulating my glucose.

It is all over the place and I don't necessarily react to food like this except that time leading up to my period. So I'm so thankful that we were able to have Zesty Ginger on to talk about adjusting keto for your cycle.

Now this is actually a show from the archives way way way way way way back when I think this was during the time that Kevin and I were learning to sail and it was way more involved than I thought and I barely had any time to work. It was so much I had no idea like who knew moving about with sales would be hard. I'm totally kidding. I should have known this.

And so I started having guests on the show for takeover episodes where it was just them talking and I just loved those because people got to just have their own flair and style on things and it was really like a presentation mode of the show and so I'm so happy to be able to share this episode with you again in it.

Our guests talk about the female cycle to main events the ovulation in the period talking about what if you don't have a period and focusing on the first half of the cycle and what that means for inflammation.

The second half of the cycle what that means for detoxification estrogen how to optimize your productivity brain food workouts and relationships at each form of your cycle always just so good.

Our guest today our doctor Alex and Megan doctor Alex golden and Megan blacksmith of zesty ginger work with pre menopausal women in an online group format they focus on balancing hormones and supporting detoxification by teaching women to use the phases of their menstrual cycles to their advantage you can follow them on Instagram at zesty underscore ginger okay let's get to today's episode.

Hey I'm Liam Vogel you're listening to the keto diet podcast I've created a free guide with tips on how to start keto and maintain your fat fueled life. Grab it at healthfulpursuit.com slash free as a little thank you for listening to the show.

Hi there Megan and doctor Alex here of zesty ginger and it is our honor to be on the keto diet podcast today we are so excited.

So when Liam reached out to us about sharing how we help women optimize their cycle by focusing on the different phases of their cycle.

She didn't even know how serendipitous this request was for us and for me so a few years ago I my name is Megan was looking for some support for my husband who had just been to rehab had a really unhealthy relationship with alcohol and all my research said that the keto diet would be really supportive supportive for him when he got home and in recovery.

So in my research I of course came across Leanne and first started by binging on her YouTube account which is amazing and I just fell in love with everything she was sharing and the way she was sharing it and then I went over to the podcast and then I purchased her fat fuel program and you know we were off we were on the keto plan.

So while my husband was gone for the 30 days I did a test run of keto because I'm a planner and I wanted to have lots of meal ideas and see how it worked and I'm also always experimenting on myself because we work with women on their hormone health and want to understand how that would affect hormones we also test our hormones often and consistently using the Dutch the dried your and test for comprehensive hormones so I thought it would be helpful for me to kind of track and see.

So I was also in a really bad place you know personally and emotionally at this point so I was kind of happy to have this structure.

I was happy to lose the sugar which I knew my body couldn't handle on top of the added stress and I also just stopped any caffeine consumption so I just wanted to feel good as possible physically knowing like the external stressors and then just the mental emotional stressors I had.

So my theory was you know I can't really control my surroundings but at least I can control my blood sugar.

So first time through 30 days was super easy smooth sailing I felt amazing like never needed to use willpower obviously lands program made it even easier it was all spelled out for me and things went well fast forward later husband comes home he's not ready right away so it was about six months later that we jumped on board again and we started in we pick a random Monday start date and we're on the plan and now this time around it was like

pulling I actually just was really judging myself because I felt like why is this so hard why do I feel so deprived why is my energy so low when it was so good the first time around I was just really questioning myself which all led to some deeper digging so Alex and I both love tracking we love numbers.

We love stats that's why we use functional lab work and I started to relate this to where I was in my cycle in which phase of my cycle I was in and as it turns out I happen to start the program the first time around.

Right after my period so as headed into that phase two of my cycle that's what I call it and we'll talk about that later on in the podcast but which happens to be the optimal time to start anything new.

...