Are You Menstrual? –
In this episode, we are focusing on my favorite method of birth control: The Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) with a certified fertility awareness coach, Nina Boyce. Nina is a certified Fertility Awareness Educator and Reiki Practitioner based in Columbus, OH. Her coaching programs focus on FAM for optimized conception, and/or non-hormonal birth control, and she passionately believes that all women deserve to understand how their body functions. Nina takes a holistic approach, focusing on nutrition and mineral testing, cycle charting, and lifestyle modifications to help her clients achieve their desired fertility goals. She is also the host of the Healing Hormones Podcast, where she interviews leading women in the world of menstrual health.

While FAM is an amazing form of birth control and can also help you conceive, it’s so much more than that. FAM gives you an inside look into your hormones, stress, and overall health. I personally think it is an essential tool on your healing journey and can serve you through the many transitions of female life. If you’re wondering about hormonal birth control methods, we discussed those and their impact in our last episode.
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Links & Resources:

• Follow Nina on IG: http://instagram.com/nourishedwithnina
• Check out Nina’s website: https://nourishedwithnina.com/
• Listen to Nina’s podcast: https://nourishedwithnina.com/podcast/
• https://www.tempdrop.com 
• Free Training: Optimizing Hormone Health with Mineral Balance
• Mineral Imbalance Quiz: https://bit.ly/3ycEn4h

Are You Menstrual? – 
So far on the podcast, we have discussed a wide variety of topics spanning women’s health and hormones, from mineral balance and metabolic health to PCOS and menopause. One area that we have yet to cover is birth control—which we realize is hugely important to most women in their childbearing years. A whopping 80% of women will take the pill at some point in their lifetime, and for that reason, we didn’t want to go any longer without speaking on it. In this episode, we’ll be covering what you need to know about hormonal birth control, including the different types, how HBC works to prevent pregnancy, and the specific impact each type can have on the female body.

Hormonal birth control (HBC) has been a big part of my health journey and morphed my career path, and is something that has impacted many of my clients' lives as well. I don't want any woman EVER to feel bad about taking hormonal birth control. I took it for seven years and then had a copper IUD, and I don't regret it. This allowed me to avoid pregnancy while finishing college and starting my career. I have since adopted and successfully used the Fertility Awareness Method, but we’ll go deeper into that in our next episode on non-hormonal birth control. Our goal today is to educate you on the effects of birth control so that you can make an informed decision for yourself going forward.
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SHOW NOTES:

• Blog post on HBC side effects: https://www.hormonehealingrd.com/blog/side-effects-hbc
• Blog post on how HBC impacts the body: https://www.hormonehealingrd.com/blog/hbc
• Free Training: Optimizing Hormone Health with Mineral Balance: https://bit.ly/3iwRDMk
• Mineral Imbalance Quiz: https://bit.ly/3ycEn4h

Are You Menstrual?
In this episode, we are covering another foundational topic for hormone health: light exposure and circadian rhythm. We can’t talk about one without mentioning the other, and many women don’t realize that both things have a significant impact on hormone health. 
Our bodies take in everything in our environment as information, and light is a big part of that. The focus is often on reducing blue light exposure, but increasing sunlight is just as important, if not even more critical. Our light exposure can impact our circadian rhythm, which is our body’s internal clock. This then trickles down to impact digestion, hormones, sleep, energy, and more! 
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Show Notes:

• Free Training: Optimizing Hormone Health with Mineral Balance: https://bit.ly/3iwRDMk
• Mineral Imbalance Quiz: https://bit.ly/3ycEn4h
• Blue Light Blog: https://www.hormonehealingrd.com/blog/blue-light-exposure
• Red Light Blog: https://www.hormonehealingrd.com/blog/benefits-of-red-light-therapy
• Bluelight blocking glasses (use code HPP for 15% off): https://bit.ly/2xPv8Nq
• Gembared red lights: https://gembared.com/

Are You Menstrual? –
We have a very special episode focusing on midlife women and peri/post menopause with Maria and Kristin from Wise and Well. Maria, an FDN practitioner, and Kristin, a Board-certified nutritionist, are plain spoken friends and practitioners who share a passion for women's health, especially women's health at midlife. As both are themselves menopausal, they've refined the art and science of thriving as a midlife woman based on both clinical and personal experience. They combine individualized nutrition and lifestyle changes tailored to midlife women's needs with mindset coaching, lab testing and hormone replacement therapy education to help women thrive so that they can stop or prevent their health from spinning out of control.
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Links/Resources:

• Maria & Kristin’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/wise_and_well_/
• Free Mighty Networks Group: https://mastering-midlife-mayhem.mn.co/share/BY3x0QVuj7t8oFP8?utm_source=manual
• Midlife Mayhem program: https://wiseandwell.me/midlife-mayhem/
• Free Training: Optimizing Hormone Health with Mineral Balance: https://bit.ly/3iwRDMk
• Mineral Imbalance Quiz: https://bit.ly/3ycEn4h

Are You Menstrual ? –
This episode is a tribute to one of our most hard-working organs: the LIVER. The liver is best known for detoxification, but most people forget that your liver has to be healthy and functioning optimally to detox. We will talk about exactly what that means and how popular detox programs and supplements are missing the mark.
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Links/Resources:

• Vitamin A Blog: https://www.hormonehealingrd.com/blog/vitamin-A
• Castor Oil Pack Blog: https://www.hormonehealingrd.com/blog/castor-oil
• Balance Bod Website (Use code AMANDA for a discount): https://bit.ly/3fpGGtq
• Free Training: Optimizing Hormone Health with Mineral Balance: https://bit.ly/3iwRDMk
• Mineral Imbalance Quiz: https://bit.ly/3ycEn4h

Are You Menstrual?
This is part 2 of our PCOS series. In our previous episode we broke down exactly what PCOS is and how it is diagnosed as well as the different root causes. We recommend listening to that episode first if you haven’t already. In this episode, we are digging into the biggest mistakes we see women with PCOS make when trying to heal and what to do instead.
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Links/Resources:

• Free Training: Optimizing Hormone Health with Mineral Balance: https://bit.ly/3iwRDMk
• Mineral Imbalance Quiz: https://bit.ly/3ycEn4h
• Strength Training for PCOS Podcast with Adina & Diane: https://www.getyourshittogetherpod.com/podcast/episode16
• MegSquats strength training program: https://www.strongstrongfriends.com/
• Steph Gaudreau Core 4 Book: https://www.stephgaudreau.com/core-4-book/
• Blood Sugar Blog: https://www.hormonehealingrd.com/blog/blood-sugar-and-minerals

Are You Menstrual?
Today we’re covering a women’s health topic that is near and dear to my heart...and that is PCOS (or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). PCOS is the leading cause of infertility in the U.S., and it’s a problem that affects 1 in 10 women of childbearing age. That’s A LOT of us. But the worst part is that there is still so much confusion surrounding this modern syndrome and what causes it—even down to its name, which IMO is a complete misnomer (but we’ll get into that later).

Amanda and I have both dealt with the symptoms of PCOS at different points in our lives, and we both know many women who currently struggle with it—which is why we wanted to devote a whole two episodes to this particular hormonal health challenge. The truth is, there’s a ton to unpack when it comes to this common condition, but we’re going to do our best to clear the fog surrounding PCOS.
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Resources & Links:

• Basal body thermometer: https://amzn.to/3fOtvkf
• Vitamin A & Your Hormones Blog: https://www.hormonehealingrd.com/blog/vitamin-A
• Mineral depletions with PCOS: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27925712/
• Full Monty Panel: https://bit.ly/3cWePkc
• Master Your Minerals course & Order Your HTMA: https://www.hormonehealingrd.com/master-your-minerals-course
• Free Mineral Training: https://bit.ly/3iwRDMk
• Mineral Quiz: https://bit.ly/3ycEn4h

Are You Menstrual?
In this episode, we are diving into a topic that many women can relate to--period pain. Period pain used to be considered purely psychological and a reason for women to get out of their responsibilities. Since it couldn’t be identified by a physical or gynecological exam or tested for, those who suffered were mislabeled and told to deal with it. No one could see it, so it didn’t seem real.

Now we know that period pain is very real and can present itself in many ways ranging from cramps, back pain, breast tenderness, headaches/migraines, joint/muscle pain. While we will talk about specific symptoms and get into the types of period pain in this episode, we want you to keep in mind that symptoms are communication from your body. It’s tempting to want to find a remedy for a symptom, but in reality, we need to understand why you have that symptom in the first place. This often comes back to metabolic health. If you haven’t listened to the first episode of the podcast, we recommend starting there!
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Links/Resources:

• Castor oil pack kit
• Castor oil blog
• Vitamin E from Mitolife
• Bone broth protein (use code HORMONEHEALINGRD10)
• Gelatin
• Master Your Minerals Course

Are You Menstrual?
In our episode 8, we shed some light on the popular supplements that we choose to avoid and why, going into detail about how supplementing with things like iron, zinc, and even vitamin D can do more harm than good.

This doesn’t mean that we’re against all supplements, just that we believe that supplements are powerful and should not be taken lightly. We also encourage our clients to focus on FOOD FIRST when it comes to boosting your minerals and balancing your hormones. That said, we know that supplements can be a helpful and necessary part of a healing protocol, and today’s episode is all about which ones we love and take ourselves for optimal health.
Again, we encourage you to do your own research and always talk with your doctor or dietitian before you stop or start any supplement. We are nutrition professionals, but we are not YOUR nutrition professionals. This podcast is for informational purposes only.
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Podcast Links & Resources:

• Ancestral Supplements Beef Liver
• Paleovalley Organ Complex (use code HORMONEHEALINGRD10)
• Perfect Supplements Beef Liver
• OysterZinc from Smidge
• Ancient Minerals Magnesium Bath Salts
• Ancient Minerals Magnesium Spray
• Mitigate Stress Magnesium Bicarbonate (use code AMANDA)
• How To Boost Magnesium Reel 
• Mitolife Vitamin E
• Master Your Minerals course

Are You Menstrual?
The last episode, we focused on how to replenish nutrients and specific minerals in the body. The main focus is food, but we know that there will be questions about supplements, and we do plan to share the top supplements that we can’t live without, but we wanted to first go through popular supplements that can actually cause more harm than good to your minerals first.

We know that many of these will surprise you. We encourage you to do your own research and always talk with your doctor or dietitian before you stop or start any supplement. We are nutrition professionals, but we are not YOUR nutrition professionals. This podcast is for informational purposes only.
This podcast episode isn’t about demonizing certain supplements. It’s about making you think and empowering you to learn more about your body and what you put inside of it.
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Links & Resources:

• Prenatal blog
• Article for cod liver and hemoglobin (studies are linked inside)
• Vitamin D and heart health article
• Vitamin D and Magnesium
• Vitamin D and Potassium
• Vitamins A, D, and Immune System
• Ascorbic Acid vs. Whole Food Vitamin C
• Iron behaving badly article