Nest Hormonal Balance
During the third trimester of pregnancy, a woman will have a burst of energy that she uses to organize and decorate her house to prepare for the arrival of her baby. This amazing phenomenon, as you know, is called nesting. I like to refer to nesting, as "getting your house in order." My signature Holistic Nutrition Coaching program is called NEST Hormonal Balance and focuses on helping women optimize their cycles, improve their fertility, and decrease unwanted symptoms.
NEST stands for Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, Stress, Toxins, and Tracking. NEST Hormonal Balance is a holistic approach to menstrual cycle health because it looks beyond nutrition and helps a woman assess each of the factors that contribute to her overall hormonal balance.
NEST Hormonal Balance consists of three phases and looks at supporting and maintaining a healthy cycle as building a house.
Phase 1: Strength--Lay a Firm Foundation
In phase 1, I teach my clients the 3 foundational principals of menstrual cycle health. This phase is all about understanding the life cycle of a hormone and how disruptions in hormone production, utilization, and elimination can lead to to imbalances and unwanted symptoms. Clients learn how to use the foundations to think critically about their cycle symptoms and trouble-shoot cycle problems.
Phase 2: Structure--Build a Supportive Framework
In phase 2, we'll work together to find areas where your foundations are weak and build a supportive framework to strengthen them. In phase 2, we look at the Pillars of Hormonal Balance: Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, Stress, and Toxins and apply them to your unique cycle and lifestyle. We'll analyze your macronutrient, micronutrient, and phytonutrient intake to see how well your body is receiving the nourishment it needs to produce the reproductive hormones and how well your body is able to breakdown and eliminate used hormones from the body. We'll also discuss how your sleep habits, stress level, and movement patterns could be positively or negatively affecting your cycle, and we'll explore simple ways to reduce your toxic load.
Phase 3: Protection--Finish with Protective Elements
In phase 3, we'll look at the unique, unwanted cycle symptoms that you are experiencing. These symptoms may be things like painful menstrual cramps, heavy menses, hot flashes, headaches, bloating, mood swings, etc. With all of the hard work that is done in Phase 2, clients often find that many of their symptoms have already decreased. In Phase 3, we'll take a look at specific, targeted nutritional and lifestyle strategies to work on your unique cycle symptoms. This is like placing shingles and bricks on your house. Just like shingles and bricks protect us from the elements, having a plan to target the symptoms that are common in your cycle can protect your NEST and prevent symptoms from reoccurring or decrease their frequency and intensity.
At the beginning of the program, I teach my clients a simple method of tracking their cycles. My clients learn how to chart the cervical mucus sign, the basal body temperature sign, and the urinary metabolite LH. We then use their cycle awareness charts to visually see how their hormones are functioning in the body. As we move through the program, we are able to use the chart as a measure of progress.
Cycle Tracking is like the window of your house. It gives us a view of what is inside. Instead of guessing if your cycle is improving because of the nutritional and lifestyle changes that you have made, tracking gives us a tool to visually see the results.
Throughout the program, I seek to empower my clients to achieve and maintain sustainable changes by taking a coach approach to holistic nutrition. My clients learn how to assess their readiness to change and use the SMART system to make and achieve goals. Nutritional and lifestyle changes can seem overwhelming, so we never work on more than 3 changes at one time.
The SMART system is like the door of your house. It lets you in so that you can begin making effective changes to your nutrition and lifestyle routine.
When my clients have finished the NEST Hormonal Balance Program, they leave with an organized system to support and maintain the health of their cycles. They are able to use their cycle awareness charts to spot common hormonal imbalances and they can use NEST to make and achieve goals in Phase 2 or Phase 3. My overall goal as your women's health coach is to empower you with the knowledge to understand how your cycle works and initiate change on your own.
Nonetheless, occasionally a chart review or a new strategy may be needed. Even though NEST is designed to empower clients for the long-term, I am always here to lend a professionally trained-eye and can design a custom follow-up service to meet your unique needs and cycle challenges.
Remember, even if a woman is not trying to conceive a baby, ovulation is a sign of health . . . so, a fertile cycle is a healthy cycle. No matter what stage of reproductive life you are in. . . menarche to perimenopause . . . NEST Hormonal Balance can help you optimize your menstrual health, reduce unwanted cycle symptoms, and improve your fertility.