It’s not just hype, it’s a paradigm shift. Cycle Syncing, a method guiding you to make self-care choices around the hormonal fluctuations of your hormonal cycle, has been making waves in the world of women’s health and fitness—and for good reason. The Cycle Syncing ® Method is the beginning of a crucial conversation among women, one that sheds light on what we’re not told about our bodies.
But among all the buzz, most of us still have a lot of questions. Why can women benefit from a cyclical approach to fitness? How do our workouts work with (or against) our hormones? And what are the benefits? As part of obé’s partnership with Flo Living, we went straight to the source—researcher, author, founder of the proprietary framework of Cycle Syncing ®, and Flo Living founder, Alisa Vitti.
With her extensive expertise, Alissa provides insights into the impact of gender-biased research, dispels the myths perpetuating the biggest challenges for women in fitness, and demystifies the science behind Cycle Syncing.
⭐️ Prefer to listen? Check out our expert Mat Chat with Alisa Vitti and obé co-founder Ashley Mills.
About the expert: Alisa Vitti, HHC, AADP, is a functional nutrition and women’s hormone expert, founder of modern hormone health care company Flo Living, and bestselling author of WomanCode and In the FLO. She’s spoken on every stage from TED to SXSW and has been featured everywhere from the NYTimes and Forbes to Vogue.
What challenges do women face in the fitness world?
The main challenge is the narrative that you should strive for sameness every day. That’s fundamentally the problem we’re trying to counter with cyclical awareness. If you’re training in the same way, at the same intensity, for the same amount of time, at the same time of day, you’re doing yourself a disservice. You are disrupting your hormones more than you realize—and not just your sex hormones, like estrogen and progesterone, but other daily hormones like insulin and cortisol, which can also disrupt your cycle. It’s a blind spot for many right now—but we have a dynamic hormonal pattern that requires us to shift what we’re doing daily with our fitness.
Why do women get stuck in that cycle of sameness?
I think it comes from the lack of women in research and the trickle-down effect it has on our cultural narrative. Women are left out of fitness and nutrition research, and scientists and researchers often make very unscientific assumptions about women’s bodies. Instead of studying them directly, for example, they assume they’re probably smaller versions of men with more sluggish metabolisms, and then extrapolate findings based on men to women’s bodies. All the recommendations are predicated on gender-biased research, and women keep doing the wrong things because they’re being fed that biased information.
We’re also taught from a young age that hormones are a liability we should strive to transcend. That we will be a success if we manage to ignore whatever happens with our hormones. Naturally, some days you feel like a run, other days you feel more like a stretch, but you’re conditioned to judge that about yourself and to push. We end up overtraining and hurting our hormones.
What are some of the key differences in how men and women react to various fitness regimens?
Men—like children and postmenopausal women—operate on a circadian hormonal pattern. They wake up with a super surge of testosterone and cortisol, so it’s in their interest to do things first thing in the morning, from a workout point of view. They’re going to have energy to burn, and they’re going to be at their strongest. Doing strength training at that time of day is really good, and front-loading all their calories in the early part of the day is effective.
It’s different for women because we have the heartbeat of estrogen pulsing throughout our cycle. And we have testosterone surging as well in the ovulatory to mid-luteal phase. And we have progesterone. So it’s this whole other dance, in addition to the cortisol conversation that fluctuates throughout the cycle. Fundamentally, we need to think about the timing of workouts separately between men and women. When we think about cardio versus strength training, women should strength train most when testosterone is highest to gain muscle more easily.
Why is it crucial to address the unique needs of women in fitness?
The form of our self-care must follow the function of our biology. We should take care of our bodies in a way that’s biologically relevant to our hormonal patterns. Men are already doing this, have been doing this, and will continue to do this, which is why they suffer from fewer hormonal imbalances. We are not, and it’s problematic. Statistically, 80% of women struggle with a hormonal imbalance at some point in their lifetime.
How does the Cycle Syncing ® Method work?
In the first half of the cycle, blood sugar is more stable, resting cortisol is lower, and your metabolism is slower, so you need fewer calories. You can do workouts in the morning, you’ll feel great. If you use the right diet and workouts in this half of the cycle—aka having fewer calories and doing more cardio—you’re going to create an optimal environment for burning stored fat as fuel and building muscle. You can and should still strength train, but you can lean into cardio.
In the second half of the cycle, metabolism speeds up (you need 279 more calories per day) and resting cortisol is higher. You wouldn’t want to work out first thing in the morning—lunchtime or before lunch is best. You can enjoy a heavier breakfast with enough carbohydrates to fuel your workout. But because of this unique hormonal pattern—the faster metabolism, the introduction of progesterone, the higher resting cortisol—you’ve got to stay away from intense cardio.
You can do as much strength training as you want, whether that’s weighted Pilates, using machinery, dumbbells, or kettlebells, but strength training is the focus. You can do lighter cardio, like walking or swimming, but taper the intensity.
What’s the guidance for women on hormonal birth control?
We know that women on birth control have a harder time building lean muscle, using stored fat as fuel, and having sustained energy for workouts. If you are taking a hormonal replacement, then none of this applies to you. You can do whatever workout you want, although I would highly encourage you to focus on strength training to compensate for the impact that this medication has on your ability to build lean muscle.
How does exercise contribute to hormone regulation?
Knowing we have specific patterns of insulin, cortisol, metabolic speed, and sex hormone changes, we want to use exercise to keep the blood sugar stable. When you’re planning your routine—and this is what the Cycle Syncing Method maps out for you so you don’t have to—you have certainty that what you’re doing in that phase will keep your blood sugar and cortisol levels stable.
That has a positive influence on ovulation and progesterone production, the two most important things that happen in your cycle. Every time you ovulate, it confers neuro-, osteo-, and cardio-protection. You bank that brain, bone, and heart benefit for when you are postmenopausal and no longer ovulating. It’s in your best interest to ovulate every month!
Progesterone production is equally important because so many women suffer from hormonal issues and symptoms. Consider PMS. It only occurs in a scenario where there’s more estrogen in the luteal phase than progesterone, which is the inverse of what it should be. There should be more progesterone. And when that takes place, you have zero PMS symptoms.
If you’ve been chronically overtraining and under-eating, your blood sugar stays destabilized, you’re over-stimulating adrenal efforts around cortisol production, you dysregulate ovulation, and pregnenolone has to divert production. Instead of making progesterone, it produces more cortisol to keep up with the insulin-cortisol disruption caused by overtraining and extreme dieting. That creates a progesterone deficiency. You’ll experience it as PMS in your 20s and 30s, but it can also put you into perimenopause earlier than normal down the line.
The best way to keep your hormones balanced is to make sure that your workout routines support and balance blood sugar plus balance cortisol levels so that your sex hormones can do what they’re supposed to do.
Why do so many women fail to see or feel changes in their bodies despite being consistent in their workouts?
They’re given wrong information that has nothing to do with their gender or biology. And they follow it. And then they don’t get the same results as the cohort they’re comparing themselves to. And they think they’re at fault or haven’t worked hard enough, and they punish themselves. And then feel bad and hate their bodies more. They believe this story about why their body is worse, that hormones are a liability. It’s a psychological trap.
So many women end up feeling like they can’t make any progress with weight management or muscle gain, and I’ve personally struggled with that too. But I’ve cracked the code, having lost 60 pounds and maintaining that a couple of times with pregnancy and whatnot. It comes down to not working harder, which is a narrative from the lack of research, but smarter. Fueling your body correctly and working out in a modulated way across the cycle does give you so much more momentum in optimizing your fitness.
What advice do you have for women on a weight management journey?
I think a lot of women feel so afraid of gaining weight that they do the same Stairmaster or bootcamp or high-impact cardio every day. But from a workout point of view and an injury prevention point of view, repetitive motion equals pain. You don’t want to be dealing with knee or hip replacement in your 60s.
We’re all thinking about longevity and pro-aging in new ways, in younger years. If you want to have good dividends in your 50s, you have to be making those investments in your 20s and beyond. And the truth is that it’s building muscle that creates metabolic fire. Muscle is the organ of longevity, in my opinion. Women have been fed this scary fat narrative, but really, we should be having a muscle-building narrative. And how you do that strategically across your cycle is distinct from how men would do it.
What are the benefits of Cycle Syncing?
From a fitness point of view, I’m somebody who had a history of PCOS and was obese. I was tipping the scale at 210 pounds, and I’m five foot six. From a metabolic point of view, it was remarkable to watch the body self-regulate without having to do any sort of calorie restriction in the traditional sense. It was more about mapping calorie needs based on cycle phases.
Now that weight management is not a goal of mine, because it just naturally happens, the biggest benefit is the stability of my energy to workout every day. I’m a woman in my mid-40s, I have my family and I have my career—but I also have the energy to not only do my workouts but live my life.
Observationally, the big three for all the women we’ve helped to go on this journey are the end of PMS, getting the body you want more easily and being able to maintain it, and having energy for your life.
What are your top tips for women who are curious about Cycle Syncing?
When women first start learning about Cycle Syncing, we come to it in a binary way: either I’m doing this, or I’m doing that. But the cycle is a flow, one phase flows into the next. You don’t have to be so rigid.
Try to always ask yourself: what information about this phase of my cycle is important for me to factor in and consider before I make a self-care choice here? And how do I intuitively feel when I think about doing something at this time? That’s what I would like to encourage women to do more of.
When it comes to movement, doing something that makes you feel good, that you crave, that you look forward to, that’s unusual. But it should be the norm! Ask yourself, how would I like to move my body today? And then remember, you have this whole smorgasbord of obé, of different, yummy movement to choose from—and that’s nice.
You may also like
- Navigating Motherhood, Career, and Wellness with Katie Durko Karvinen
Nothing inspires us more than seeing women who balance it… Read more: Navigating Motherhood, Career, and Wellness with Katie Durko Karvinen - Intimidated by Meal Prepping? 4 Expert Tips to Make It Easy
If you’re new to meal prepping, the idea of planning… Read more: Intimidated by Meal Prepping? 4 Expert Tips to Make It Easy - What’s the Best Exercise for Hormones? You May Be Surprised
Ugh, hormones. When they’re balanced and doing their thing, our… Read more: What’s the Best Exercise for Hormones? You May Be Surprised
