Seed Cycling and the hormone connection

Hormones ~ what the hell are they really, and how in the world can they wreak such havoc on someone’s life?  I remember well my teen years, when mere innocence gets replaced by a tsunami of hormonal upheaval, trading hopscotch for cramps, Chinese Jump Rope for headaches, and the monkey bars for a face full of breakouts ~ it doesn’t seem quite a fair exchange.

Later, after I had given birth to my daughter, my hormones just seemed to be pissed off.  Of course, there was still the steady supply of bloating and achiness, but now they were accompanied by an incredible 3-day migraine that became a permanent monthly fixture. They were also accompanied by blurry vision, nausea, you know, the whole enchilada.  Then came the night sweats (luckily I didn’t have too many hot flashes, like my best friend, Virginia, who always exclaimed she was going to tear off her clothes and run down the street naked ~ and I’m sure she made good on that exclamation a time or two.)

But probably one of the worst things, and the one thing most misunderstood by the innocent bystander (usually the men in our lives and our children) are the mood swings.  These moods swings would randomly and without any notice, show up and have me crying, depressed, grouchy, and definitely not a pretty picture to be around. They were accompanied by more drama than a daytime soap opera. My then husband (lord help him) would collect my daughter and patiently take her out for Chinese food, or anywhere, just to have some peace for a short time. He would give me what he hoped would be ample time to sulk in my own misery before calling to make sure the coast was clear before they headed home.

 

Now 25+ years later, and I’m still dealing with it.  It seemed I had broke through, rounded the corner, that I was free for awhile.  But no, recently I woke again with night sweats, and those familiar pounding headaches.  And, they’ve been lasting three days. 

Hormones are not something that we only have to deal with periodically.  They are here to stay, fluctuating and changing their minds on a regular basis. Sometimes they get out of whack, go into hiding and then reappear like a game of hide and seek.  And they always jump out from around the corner and scare the hell out of you. But taking hormone replacement therapy scares me even more.

So, here I am now with what I hope to be some good news.  I just discovered something called seed cycling and have just started doing this.  This is new to me, I have no idea how long it has actually been around, but I’m guessing a long time.

Seed cycling integrates different seeds into the diet at different times to support optimal hormonal balance.  Basically, you eat a tablespoon daily of certain seeds for two weeks, and then the same amount of different seeds the remaining two weeks of each month.  The idea is that seeds carry certain oils, vitamins and nutrients that can help support the body’s production, release and metabolism of hormones.  Different seeds contain different types and amounts of lignans (a chemical compound) and essential fatty acids.  Lignans help our body bind up excess hormones, whereas fatty acids help with our hormone production.

I could tell you all about it, but I think if you just Google it, you’ll find much more than I can offer. I will post one link here where you can go to read up on this practice. The author knows a lot more about it, is clear and precise, making it easy to follow. Seed cycling ~ oh yeah, I’m all over it.

http://www.mountainlakewellness.com/blog/seed-cycling-for-hormone-balancing

Little did they know ~

The doctor basically called me a liar.  I was 13, sitting with my mother in his office as she laid out the story of how her 13 year old daughter had gained a whopping 30 pounds in 3 months.  She told him how she cooked the right foods for me, watched the calorie intake, and still, something strange was happening.  He looked at me, and then looked at my mother and asked “Is she hiding food under her bed? She must be hiding food somewhere.”

At the time, which was around 1970, the school of thought was “burn more calories than you consume, and, a calorie is a calorie.” Plain and simple.  There was no thought given to metabolism, hormones, chemicals, allergies, or any other possible explanations.  Everyone assumed that if you were overweight, you ate too much and were just a lazy couch potato.

5 years later, at eighteen, I had surgery and was in a hospital bed for 10 straight days. And though I can’t quite remember all the details, I do know that for the first few days I was on a liquid diet while the remainder of my stay I consumed nothing more than hospital food, and still unbelievably managed to gain 10 pounds. The doctors had no explanation for it.

Somewhere around my early 20’s, the extra weight just seemed to disappear. It was so gradual that I didn’t even notice.  It just seemed I woke up one day and realized I was no longer fat.  I hadn’t been dieting. In fact, I hadn’t changed anything that I could think of.  No radical exercise regime, no stress, and no change in eating habits.  It was just gone. Through the years I managed to keep the extra weight off. Occasionally I would go up an extra five or sometimes even 10 pounds, but I never took it off by dieting.  It just seemed that somehow without my involvement, it would just disappear.

Now, in my 50’s, I’ve been facing the same situation. But this time I come armed with much more nutritional, emotional, and physical ammunition. I’ve learned a lot.  The biggest and most important discovery I have made over all of these years, as I have struggled to maintain what I felt was a good and healthy weight for me, is that it is about much more than the food.

 

I received my training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, where I was trained in more than one hundred dietary theories and studied a variety of practical lifestyle coaching methods. Drawing on this knowledge, I will help you create a completely personalized “roadmap to health” that suits your unique body, lifestyle, preferences, and goals. My mission is to help those who have had similar frustrations and are at a loss with what to do next.  Together, we can figure this out.

Learn more about my training and my unique approach to health coaching.

Are you curious about how health coaching can help you? Let’s talk. Schedule an initial consultation with me today.

The Rocky Horror-monal Show

Hormones ~ what the hell are they really, and how in the world can they wreak such havoc on someone’s life?  I remember during my teen years, when innocence gets replaced by a tsunami of hormonal upheaval, trading hopscotch for cramps, Chinese Jump Rope for headaches, and the monkey bars for a face full of breakouts ~ it doesn’t seem quite a fair exchange.

Later, after I had given birth to my daughter, my hormones just seemed to be pissed off.  Of course, there was still the steady supply of bloating and achiness, but now they were accompanied by an incredible 3-day migraine that became a permanent monthly fixture. They were also accompanied by blurry vision, nausea, you know, the whole enchilada.  Then came the night sweats (luckily I didn’t have too many hot flashes, like my best friend, Virginia, who always exclaimed she was going to tear off her clothes and run down the street naked ~ and I’m sure she made good on that exclamation a time or two.)

But probably one of the worst things, and the one thing most misunderstood by the innocent bystander (usually the men in our lives and our children) are the mood swings.  These moods swings would randomly and without any notice, show up and have me crying, depressed, grouchy, and definitely not a pretty picture to be around. They were accompanied by more drama than a daytime soap opera. My then husband (lord help him) would collect my daughter and patiently take her out for Chinese food, or anywhere, just to have some peace for a short time. He would give me what he hoped would be ample time to sulk in my own misery before calling to make sure the coast was clear before they headed home.

 

Now 25+ years later, and I’m still dealing with it.  It seemed I had broke through, rounded the corner, that I was free for awhile.  But no, recently I woke again with night sweats, and those familiar pounding headaches.  And, they’ve been lasting three days. 

Hormones are not something that we only have to deal with periodically.  They are here to stay, fluctuating and changing their minds on a regular basis. Sometimes they get out of whack, go into hiding and then reappear like a game of hide and seek.  And they always jump out from around the corner and scare the hell out of you. But taking hormone replacement therapy scares me even more.

So, here I am now with what I hope to be some good news.  I just discovered something called seed cycling and have just started doing this.  This is new to me, I have no idea how long it has actually been around, but I’m guessing a long time.

Seed cycling integrates different seeds into the diet at different times to support optimal hormonal balance.  Basically, you eat a tablespoon daily of certain seeds for two weeks, and then the same amount of different seeds the remaining two weeks of each month.  The idea is that seeds carry certain oils, vitamins and nutrients that can help support the body’s production, release and metabolism of hormones.  Different seeds contain different types and amounts of lignans (a chemical compound) and essential fatty acids.  Lignans help our body bind up excess hormones, whereas fatty acids help with our hormone production.

I could tell you all about it, but I think if you just Google it, you’ll find much more than I can offer. I will post one link here where you can go to read up on this practice. The author knows a lot more about it, is clear and precise, making it easy to follow. Seed cycling ~ oh yeah, I’m all over it.

http://www.mountainlakewellness.com/blog/seed-cycling-for-hormone-balancing