Your Cycle Is a Weather App, Not a Rulebook

What if understanding your cycle didn't mean following more rules — but finally feeling less blindsided by your own body?

If you've ever…

• Written off cycle syncing as too rigid, too woo, or just not realistic for your actual life
• Wondered if tracking your cycle means you have an excuse to opt out of your responsibilities
• Felt confused, emotional, or completely flattened on day one of your period and had no idea it was coming
• Heard the term "cycle awareness" and immediately pictured someone canceling plans because Mercury is in retrograde

In this episode, I walk you through what cycle awareness actually is — and what it isn't — using the simplest analogy I know: checking the weather.

Here's what I want you to know: your cycle isn't a rulebook to follow. It's a forecast to prepare for. Understanding it doesn't pull you out of your life — it puts you more into it, because you're no longer caught off guard by how you feel.

In this episode:

• Why cycle awareness gets misunderstood — and what I actually teach instead
• The weather analogy that will completely change how you think about your period
• What "putting on your raincoat" looks like during your menstrual phase (sleep, food, and magnesium — broken down practically)
• Why warm food beats cold salads when you're bleeding — and what Eastern medicine has to say about it
• The question my dad asked me in Florida that I think a lot of you are secretly wondering too

This episode is for you if:

• You're curious about cycle syncing but skeptical of the all-or-nothing approach you see online
• You want practical, grounded tools for your period — not a new set of rules to stress about
• You're tired of being blindsided by your own body every single month
• You've ever pushed through your period and paid for it later

"We don't follow rules. We learn how to work with ourselves."

☕️ Stay bold, stay balanced, stay thriving 

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (Carly): Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to Coffee with Carly. I'm Carly, a registered dietitian and holistic health coach. And I am here to help women rewrite the rules on their health. So before I dive into today's episode, I want to do a quick check in because April is happening. It's April 8th and I have something going on this month that I really, really don't want you guys to miss. So for the entire month of April, I am offering 50% off my 90 minute health intensive.

0:00:32 - (Carly): And if you don't know what that is, it's basically a one time deep dive session where we get really clear on one specific thing going on in your health. Okay. I think one goal, one area of confusion, one thing you just cannot figure out on your own or looking for a new lens, the female lens, because, okay, we're gonna look at what you're currently doing, what might be holding you back, and you leave with a very clear next step on what to do going forward.

0:01:01 - (Carly): Okay? So this is not my long term private coaching, right? There is no ongoing accountability piece. But honestly, sometimes you just need a little bit of clarity, right? You just need someone to look at what's going on and go, okay, here's what I see, here's what I do. And that's exactly what this is. So it's normally 300, but this month it is 150. So you are saving 150 and you just have to claim it before April's over. Okay, so shoot me a DM on Instagram, send me an email, text me if you have my number, however you want to reach me, just let me know you're interested and we will get it on the calendar.

0:01:39 - (Carly): Okay, that's it for today's reminders. Let's get into today's topic. We are talking about cycle awareness. Sometimes we're going to hear it called cycle syncing. And what really is cycle awareness? What it isn't and why. Understanding your cycle, why tracking your cycle might be the most practical grounding health tool that you are not using yet. Let's dive in. Welcome to Coffee with Carly, your weekly wake up call to a happier, healthier life.

0:02:22 - (Carly): I'm your host, Carly Shade, and I'm here to uncover how good life can get. I want you to think about the last time it rained. If you live in Seattle like me, that might have just been yesterday, but whenever it rained last, you didn't just cancel your entire life. Okay? You didn't just stay inside and refuse to leave the house because the weather wasn't perfect, right? You might have checked the forecast.

0:02:57 - (Carly): You maybe have seen that it was raining, you grabbed a jacket, you maybe threw an umbrella in your bag and you went about your day. That is it. That is cycle awareness, okay? Understanding where you are in your cycle is like checking the weather forecast for your body. It doesn't tell you what to do. It doesn't run your life. It just gives you information so that you can prepare, adjust, and show up anyway.

0:03:27 - (Carly): And yet this is somehow one of the most misunderstood concepts in women's health. Because when a lot of women hear cycle syncing, here's what they picture, okay? A woman canceling her plans because she's in her late luteal phase, right? Someone refusing to go to work because she's on her period, right? She becomes so obsessed with what her body is supposed to be doing that she just kind of stops living her life.

0:03:57 - (Carly): Like, I get it. I get why people go there. Because there is a version of this stuff online that does feel very rigid. Feels really rule booky, right? Like, you must only eat these foods and you can only do this workout. Under no circumstances can you ever schedule a meeting in the second half of your cycle. While there is a framework, while there is tools, that's not what I teach, right? There's guidelines.

0:04:27 - (Carly): But honestly, too, like that rigidness, that rulebook, that's not health. That is just hustle culture, diet culture wrapped again in a bow with a hormone rebrand. So I was actually just visiting my dad in Florida. Hi, dad. I know you're probably listening at some point. And he asked me something that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since. Since. So my dad is one of my biggest supporters, right? He's fully on board with me talking about women's bodies and periods and hormones for a living, even though I know he doesn't fully always understand it because he does not have a uterus. It's not his fault and I love him for that, right? But he had some questions, some very real ones. And he said, carly, I get listening to your body, right? But like, what?

0:05:17 - (Carly): What if life gets in the way? What if you don't feel like going to work because you're on your period? What if your job doesn't care where you are in your cycle? And, you know, then he said, do you think that people get so obsessed with where their body is supposed to be that they forget to actually be present? And honestly, like, my dad is not wrong to ask that. And if he's wondering it, then I guarantee someone listening Right now is wondering it too.

0:05:48 - (Carly): So I'm gonna answer the question directly. The answer is no, and here's why. Cycle awareness, done right, it doesn't pull you out of the present moment. It actually puts you more in it because you're not caught off guard by how you feel, right? You're not white knuckling through a hard week wondering what's wrong with you. You're not blindsided. You're prepared. There's predictability in your life again.

0:06:19 - (Carly): So let's get back to the weather analogy. Just because it's raining doesn't mean you never leave the house. It means you checked the forecast and you grabbed a raincoat. You still go to work. You still live your life. You're just not soaking wet and miserable and confused about why the sky is doing this to you. That's what understanding your cycle gives you. It's not a rule book. It's not an excuse.

0:06:45 - (Carly): It's. It's not permission to opt out of your life and your responsibilities. It's a framework to play in. Okay? I want to make this very concrete because I think this is where it actually is going to click. So stay with me. Let's talk about our period, okay? The specific phase where we're actively bleeding, okay? Our menstrual phase. And specifically, what is putting on your raincoat actually look like in real life?

0:07:15 - (Carly): So let's say we're on our period, we're bleeding, and we want to get prepared for the weather. So the raincoat is like sleep. Your body is working hard during your period, so inflammation is higher, energy is lower, and your system is doing a lot. Okay? And so one of the most supportive things you can do to protect yourself is your sleep, right? Get a full, uninterrupted night of sleep. My last episode was just about the importance of sleep. So tune into that if you need a reminder, right? Let yourself sleep a little longer if you can.

0:07:48 - (Carly): Nine, ten hours. I sleep eleven sometimes. Especially if I've been, like, creating and I'm on my period. Whatever your body is asking for, stop shaming it, okay? That's what it means to put on our raincoat, to be prepared. This is strategy, right? You're setting your body up to actually function that day instead of just survive it. So next up, right, let's talk about putting on our rain boots. So how we apply this to being on our period. In our menstrual phase, putting on the rain boots means eating warm, easy to digest food, okay? So during your period, your body is at its most inflamed and these cold raw foods like big salads, straight from the fridge, icy smoothies, okay? Those actually require more energy to break down. They can increase inflammation.

0:08:39 - (Carly): Also, a lot of cycle syncing. Cycle awareness recommendations is not just western medicine, but it includes Eastern medicine as well. So if anyone has ever done acupuncture, you'll understand that the body has a chi, right? Certain energy running through it. And so according to Eastern medicine, the chi, the temperature, the energy in our body is a lot cooler than during our period. And therefore we need this warmer food to help balance it out.

0:09:11 - (Carly): Okay? So swapping those salads and those smoothies for something like a bowl of soup, a hearty chili, cooked vegetables, that's like putting on rain boots, okay? It's supporting your body, it's being smart about it. You're working with your body instead of against it. Okay, let's keep the metaphor coming. Let's say again, it's raining outside, you're on your period, and now we're gonna grab the umbrella to get prepared for the weather.

0:09:39 - (Carly): And what this might look like when you're on your period is increasing our magnesium and our vitamin E. So let's say you deal with cramps, okay? Your body actually makes twice the amount of anti spasm hormones compounds than cramp causing ones. So if you give your body the support it's looking for, cramps become bearable. Okay? So number one, increasing your vitamin E a few days before you're supposed to get your period, and those first couple days on your period, that looks like eating almonds, adding hazelnuts to your diet, right?

0:10:19 - (Carly): This also means upping our vitamin or not our vitamin E, our magnesium, okay? So magnesium can also help with the cramps and some of the mood shifts. So instead of coffee, swap that for a morning cup of cacao, which is naturally high in magnesium. Delicious. And then you're not pouring fuel on the fire with caffeine on an already inflamed body, okay? This is biofeedback in action. This is your body giving you signals like cramps.

0:10:50 - (Carly): And instead of just pushing through, assuming something's wrong with you and just accepting your fate, right? You learn to read, respond, prepare. That is the whole game. That's cycle awareness, right? So I want to answer my dad's question one more time because I do really want this to land. Cycle awareness is not about becoming so obsessed with your body that you forget to live your life. It's the opposite, okay?

0:11:21 - (Carly): When you understand where you are at in your cycle, you stop being blindsided by it. You stop waking up on day one of your period and feeling totally confused with yourself, right? And being like, oh, didn't know that was coming. You stop pushing through in ways that make everything harder and longer to recover from, right? You check the forecast, you pack accordingly, and then you go live your life just a little more prepared, a little more supported, and a lot less at war with yourself.

0:11:54 - (Carly): That is the cycle awareness that I teach. That is the female framework. We don't follow rules. We learn how to work with ourselves. Okay, that is a wrap on today's episode. Short, sweet, and hopefully something that sticks with you the next time you check the weather app on your phone. And of course, if this resonated, share it with someone who needs to hear it. A friend, a sister, your coworker who keeps wondering why she feels off every second half of the month. Okay? And honestly, maybe even your dad.

0:12:32 - (Carly): And of course, come find me on Instagram at Carly Shade. I love connecting over there and I want to hear what landed for you today. And of course, do not forget the 50% off the 90 minute health intensive for the entire month of April. Save $150 for one session and get total clarity and some clear next steps on what to do for your health. So just reach out and we'll get that scheduled. As always, everyone, thank you for being here, thank you for listening and like a good cup of coffee, stay bold, stay balanced, and I'll see you next week.