Hello and welcome back to the Food Medic podcast. Welcome to our many episodes

Ask Dr Hazel. Thank you for submitting your questions and a gentle reminder if

you do want to submit your own question to please send us your audio recorded

questions to info at thefoodmedic.co.uk. So let's jump into this week's

question. Hey Hazel my name is Nick and I'm really into CrossFit but unfortunately

I can't control my cycle around CrossFit competitions and intense workouts.

What would you recommend if a CrossFit competition falls in my little phase of

my cycle? Okay so competitions in the lootiel phase. This is a really

great question but let's just bring it back to basics. So when we're talking

about the menstrual cycle there are two main phases, the follicular phase and

the lootiel phase with ovulation sandwiched in between. Now lootiel phase is our

second phase just before our next period and during that phase progesterone

that it's highest, estrogen is also high and typically what we find is we tend

to retain a little bit more water during this phase. We may find our

motivation is slightly lower during this phase, our temperature is slightly

higher and our sleep can be impaired as well. So the question is related to what

can I do if I have a competition or a big event or a big kind of training

session during this phase. The first thing I would say is don't panic just

because you're in that phase of your cycle doesn't necessarily mean that you're

going to feel terrible but you can do things to mitigate, bloating, fluid

retention and all of the things I just mentioned. What I would say is maximize

on recovery during this time so it may be that you add in more rest days or more

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