045 Planning activity with your cycle with Roxy King

In this week's episode I talk to Roxy Kind, a menstrual cycle coach all about planning activity with your menstrual cycle.

We discuss:

• How can you learn to track your cycle to improve your life
• What can your cycle tell you
• What type of exercise suits different parts of your cycle
• How long it takes to start seeing a change in your cycle
• What foods can support your cycle

I hope that beginning to learn more about how you can support your menstrual cycle will enable you to make positive changes. 

About Roxy:

Roxy King is a certified Menstrual Cycle Coach, multi-business owner, best-selling author and speaker. She specialises in empowering online business owners to embrace, heal and work with their menstrual cycles by unlocking the potential of their natural rhythm. Roxy helps her clients to cultivate thriving health, overall well-being and a flourishing business. Roxy truly believes in harnessing the incredible superpower that lies within each person’s unique menstrual cycle.

www.roxyking.coach

www.instagram.com/roxyking.coach

Free guide Cycles of Success: How to Use Your Menstrual Cycle to Grow Your Business www.roxyking.coach/cyclesofsuccess

About Sarah:
Sarah Bolitho helps fitness and health professionals develop their careers and grow their businesses by providing specialist training in teaching, assessing, and internal quality assurance, together with qualifications in exercise referral and disability.   

With over 30 years in the health-related fitness and physical activity fields, Sarah has a wealth of experience and knowledge.  She has worked in most roles in the industry from group exercise to personal training but specialised in working with specialist populations.  For over 25 years Sarah has trained fitness and health professionals to work with clients with long-term conditions, mental health issues, disabilities, older adults and pre/post-natal women.  She has a post-graduate diploma in exercise and health behaviour and extensive training in supporting behaviour change.  She has worked with awarding organisations to develop qualifications and training and with accreditation bodies to endorse high-quality non-regulated training. 

In her spare time, you will usually find Sarah walking in the mountains, by the sea or anywhere in nature.

For more about the training and support Sarah offers, visit www.sarahbolitho.com or contact her at admin@sarahbolitho.com.

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahbolitho

Transcript

Sarah (00:01.464)

Welcome to this episode of Creating Active Lives with me, Sarah Bolitho, and my guest this week, Roxy King. Roxy is a certified menstrual cycle coach. She's a multi-business owner. She has several diverse businesses, which we'll talk about a little bit later. She is a best-selling author and speaker, and she specialises in empowering online business owners to embrace, heal, and work with their menstrual cycles by unlocking the potential of their natural rhythm.  And by doing this, Roxy helps the clients to cultivate thriving health and overall well-being alongside a flourishing business. And I was originally going to say this is one for all the women out there to listen to. But yeah, all you men out there need to listen to it as well because it will give you a clear insight into how our cycles fluctuate and how this impacts our productivity, our creativity and yeah, I have to say our moods as well.

But particularly we're going to focus on in this episode is how we can work our activity, our exercise, around art cycles as well. So, Roxy, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this field in the first place.

Roxy (01:16.438)

Well, thank you first for having me on. It's lovely to talk to you. So, I first got into this work, like menstrual cycles have never been on my radar. Like I've never had much of a problem with my cycle. I was on the pill for many years, unfortunately, and that kind of just blocks everything.

And I just had no connection with my cycle. So, it wasn't I never thought I want to become a menstrual cycle coach. But I happened to see someone that I knew online who was running a group program about reclaiming a menstrual cycle. And it was, you know, it's great. Beta price. And I was like, oh, that's quite intriguing. I think I'll have a look at that. And I signed up and. We hadn't we'd only done a couple of sessions in this group programme, and I was like, well, I'm hooked on this. This is amazing. This is what this is like what I've been waiting for like my whole life. This is what I want to do. And this is this is like my passion. This is this is the thing I've been called to do. So, I went all in and yeah, I'm trained level one and level two now and currently I'm training in natural contraception and fertility as well. So that will be the next kind of string in my bow. But I'm just, I'm obsessed with everything that short cycles and I could, yeah, I love it.

Sarah (02:50.861)

But it's so important, isn't it? And I think it's something that we're becoming much more educated and much more informed about and much more aware of. And this is where people like you can be so helpful because you can kind of explain to people, say, look, you know, this is why you struggle to make decisions at certain times of the month. This is why you can run all the miles and lift all the weights one week. And then the next week you struggle to lift your water bottle. And I think having an understanding of how our cycles impact us throughout every aspect of everyday life is important because we can then plan. So, right. Okay. I've got say you're an athlete. I've got a big race coming up then what's my cycle going to be telling me and doing so? So, let's we know that it's very common for people to experience fluctuations in energy levels, physical performance, and mood throughout the menstrual cycle. So how do our cycles affect us day to day? And then we'll look at how we can plan our activities more effectively, but how do our menstrual cycles affect us and why?

Roxy (04:03.138)

So, it's all to do with different hormone fluctuations and different levels of these different hormones. I won't go into the details because we don't really need to know the details of it. But what I talk about a lot are the four inner seasons. So, you have four main phases to your cycle. And I love to, they're also called inner seasons, which I love because they connect so beautifully to like the outer seasons. So you have your inner winter, which is your period so your menstruation phase, you have, and you can imagine like in, when it's the outer winter season, you kind of want to retreat a bit don't you, and to stay warm and to kind of maybe look after yourself you know in different ways and it's exactly the same with your, when you're on your period, you know you don't want to be socialising and out there and doing all the stuff. And you do, like warmth genuinely does help. So, I love the comparison between the out seasons in the inner season. So, you have your inner winter, then you have your inner spring, which is the phase after your period. And then you have your inner summer, which is when you're ovulating, and then your inner autumn, which is the time between your ovulation and your period again.

And when we understand these four seasons, it's like, when I started learning about them, it was like constant light bulb moments. And it just helps you to understand yourself better and to guide you through your life, through like every aspect. Every aspect of your life is affected by your cycle, whether you have like symptoms and challenges or whether you don't or whether they're quite big challenges that you're facing or smaller ones. Everyone is kind of affected to varying degrees. You may just, like I was not connected to my cycle and it's only now that I look back on my 20s and I'm like, oh yeah, now I can actually see that my cycle was affecting me a bit. But yeah, it affects you in every aspect.

Sarah (06:26.188)

Yeah. I think that's it though, isn't it? I think it's it. I think it's women, we know we get good days and bad days and good weeks and bad weeks, but we don't necessarily link it to our cycles because nobody's ever talked about that. Nobody's ever taught us. Nobody's ever given us the information that actually this does happen. We know that we might get pre-menstrual, but we just think of, oh, it's pre-menstrual. We don't. We accept it rather than looking at, okay, so what can I do about this? How can I make it work for me instead of against me? And this is where I think the education is so important, whether you're in business or not, but it's important, isn't it, to actually be aware of our cycles, not just to say, oh yeah, we've got a cycle and this is what's going on, but it's tracking how we feel, how we perform, how we behave, how we eat, how we sleep, throughout, I'm guessing not just one month, you can't just do it over a month and say, oh, there we go, I know what's going on. But how can you start, learn to track your cycle so that you can then use it to improve your life, really?

Roxy (07:45.698)

Yeah, so tracking your cycle is incredible. And so there's loads of apps out there that you can use, but I'm not a fan of apps because it's like, I mean, so I use the Flow app, but it's literally all I use it for is to record when my period is, like, you know, when it turns up and when it finishes. So, then I can use that bit of data for my planning of my business and my life.  That's all I use it for. And so, I can also so I can see like the average length of my cycles because that's something that I've been trying to make a bit more regular. But the apps, you know, you can put in the symptoms that you're experiencing. I don't like the word symptoms, but like the challenges that you're experiencing. But you know, you just tap, tap. And then it's just forgotten, you're not really connecting. So, I don't recommend that people use apps for tracking. I recommend using pen and paper. And there are loads of free trackers out there that you can just print off. I have a free one that people can download. I have one on Amazon as well for like seven quid. And it's just, it only takes a couple of minutes a day. Like the end of the day, I do mine.

Some of my clients have done it like at the beginning of the day, reflecting on the previous day. And you just, the things that you learn about yourself are just amazing. And you can link it in like with if you do journaling, you can link in with that as well. And it yeah, it's amazing what you learn. So, I would encourage anyone who has a cycle to track. It's amazing.

Sarah (09:49.316)

Do you think it's important for postmenopausal women, who are aware that they still have a cycle, do you think it's important for them to track it? You can't track when your period is, but you can track other things that are going on, can't you?

Roxy (10:06.442)

Yeah, absolutely. You can, if you track, you'll see patterns like you would do for anyone who is still having a cycle. You will still see those patterns emerge; you know. So, you might find when you're tracking, one of my clients, she found that like on day 19 was just a complete write-off for her. So, we were like, okay, well, don't have anything like forward client facing on those days. Don't do one-to-ones on those days. Schedule in massages for that day or going for a nice walk, just gentle things, and nothing stressful. And yeah, you can still find those patterns even once your cycle and your periods are finished. Yeah, you still have those.

it's still worth tracking for sure. And you can track with the moon as well, which is really fascinating.

Sarah (11:11.58)

I thought that's a whole other episode actually. But I know a few weeks back I was talking to somebody, Nicole, but we were actually talking about ADHD and things like that. But she actually said, I now work with my cycle. And she said, there are days and weeks where I know, do not make any big business decisions or personal decisions on these days. It's just not going to happen. But she also said that she's found that her physical activity and she works with a personal trainer, and she's almost had to educate her personal trainer and say, right, during these phases, I'm going to need gentle relaxation, stretching, simple stuff whereas in these phases I can go for it. And I think that's something as well that is really, really important for us to understand, isn't it? And you mentioned the four seasons or the four phases. How do this impact what we can do physically and how can we adapt that and use that and make our activity more beneficial, more productive?

Roxy (12:19.914)

Yeah, so if I go through the four seasons and give you some examples of what is best for each season, you'll be able to see what suits your body best and how you can just tweak things. So, you're in a winter, so your menstruation phase when you're on your period. And it's worth noting that this phase, this season can last a couple extra days after your period as well. It's not like you suddenly switch from in a winter to in a spring, you might need a couple of days there to ease into the in a spring. So, in a winter it's light movement and rest, like meditative walking, foam rolling, restorative yoga, stretching and breath work. So, you can see it's a lot softer.

And if you, you know, these aren't like hard and fast rules. I was still, I did a bit of weight training the other day when I was on my period, just because I had like all this energy. And I was like, oh, I just feel like doing a little bit of, you know, a little bit of light work with some light weights and that's okay. I just don't do anything that involves kind of, you know, be gentle with your core kind of area don't put any extra strain on that, but I was like, I've got this energy, I need to do something with my arms. But yeah, so keep it, keep it nice and light anyway, during your, your inner winter. Then going into your inner spring, you can do some running, hiking, biking, dancing, swimming, and flow-based kind of feminine yoga. So, you're not going all out but just kind of ramping it up a bit then into your inner summer when you're ovulating you can really go for it like with HIIT workouts and spin classes, boot camps, group classes and full-on dancing. This is where you want to push, you know if you're going for a PB this is when you go for your PB.

Don't go try and go for a PB during your premenstrual phase and when you're on your period. And the thing is, if you are overdoing it in those phases, you're going to have less energy and strength in like your inner summer and in a spring. So that's where you need to be careful as well.

Sarah (15:06.976)

Just before we talk about the autumn phase, you mentioned PB's personal best. Do you think that could equally apply to work where you go for your professional best in the kind of late in the spring, in the summer? That's maybe where you're more productive professionally as well as physically. Interesting, yeah. So, talk about autumn, the autumn phase.

Roxy (15:20.24)

Oh, absolutely.

So, in autumn, the first half is great for like strength training, put the teeth in, and then the second half you want to ease off a bit and start to slow down. So walking, gentle yoga, stretching and Pilates, those sorts of things are best. And then you're back into your inner winter. So, you see there's this whole cycle that goes. And this is why I get irritated like with fitness apps. Like I have a fitness app that I love it but there's no accounting for my cycle for being a woman. So, I tend to only use it for a couple of weeks in a month and then I'm like okay, need to change things up here and kind of slow down again.

Sarah (16:19.904)

you know what I mean you said you had light bulbs I've got light bulbs going off here because you know there are times where because we tend to say right I go to the I don't go to the gym three times a week people say right I'll go to the gym I'll do my cardio I'll do my weights I'll do this I'll do that but it's this is my routine and there are some days where you just oh I just don't feel like doing it I don't want to do it and I go along and I force myself and it's just never minding personal bests, it's personal worsts and things. And I think for me, it sounds like being in chimney cycle means you plan, you say, right, these are the weeks I go for it. These are the weeks I do my yoga, my Pilates, my gentle walking. These are the weeks I do my fast walking. This is when I do my running. And by having that, you never feel I'm not in the mood because you've planned for what you’re going to be physically and emotionally in the mood.

And that means you're more likely to do it because if you if you're in, I've just said the winter phase and you've planned to do a 5k, chances are you're going to resent every step of it. Whereas if you plan to do a really gentle yoga and stretch session, you'll just get so much more out of it. So it's like, instead of having a fitness program, a, an exercise program, you, you've got kind of four that you just sequence through and like you say if you do want to do something a bit different you can it's not like you can't but by working with your cycle rather than trying to force your way through it it's going to be much more productive isn't it yeah

Roxy (18:00.106)

Yeah, absolutely. And if you imagine as well, like if you went into the gym and tried to do a PB in your inner autumn when you're, you know, just about to start your period and you don't have a lot of energy in that and you don't hit that PB or you're trying to go for um a run and you just you can't run as far as you had planned to then you're like well What a failure I am, how useless and you get all this like negative talk and negative energy and like, well, you weren't giving yourself the best chance, you know, and your body, that's not what your body needed at that time. And I know that if I overdo it, you know, exercise-wise and workwise in my inner autumn, then it's going to lead me to have so many issues within my inner winter.

Like if I don't look after myself in my inner autumn, come my period, I'm going to be bent over and like with horrendous period cramps and I'm going to be exhausted, not be able to do anything. If I look after myself, I have no period challenges whatsoever. I only know I'm on my period really because I've got my period and I have no discomfort, no pain. I have plenty of energy because I look after myself and I like honour each of the inner seasons and I don't overdo it in my inner in my inner autumn. And stress is linked to that as well. I mean, I lost my gran a few months ago and that has affected my cycle a bit. I can feel that, and I have had some period pain because of that, because of the stress and the grief and everything. So, yeah, you have to look after yourself throughout your cycle and your body will be better off for it. It will thank you for it.

Sarah (20:13.84)

It just makes so much sense. And I think it's something that we kind of almost, we've been conditioned to think of it as an inconvenience every month rather than part and parcel of life that we need to adjust and work with the same as we adjust to the weather, we adjust to the temperature. You know, like I'm sitting here right now in, you know, in a vest and a jumper and all sorts of warm clothes because we're coming into winter in the UK, whereas Roxy's sat there in a t-shirt because she lives at the other end of the world and she's coming into summer, which means presumably as well, I mean anyone who knows me knows that I'm huge promoter of getting outside and being active outside, but also the fact that the actual nature seasons impact on us. And I'm always saying to people in the winter, we want to be doing more gentle stuff, you know, go for walks, do the stretching, do all of this, think of it as nourishing and nurturing your body, and then you're getting ready for the spring where you're kind of speeding up again. So, I suppose it's a very small version of that instead of its weekly rather than quarterly. And it just makes so much sense that we do that. And there's, I'm sure there's going to be people out there thinking, gosh, that might explain why I did so well on that run and yet the week, two weeks later when I did the same run, it was awful.

And it's really looking at things like that. And if you are going for a personal best, then, you know, time it so that you're taking advantage of where you are in your cycle. Just, I mean, how long you mentioned tracking and if you've got a tracker on Amazon, send me the details, because we'll pop that up for people. But how long does it take before you really start to see that rhythm of the cycle, that pattern?

Roxy (22:06.238)

Three cycles really but I mean from when you start tracking you will be amazed at what like you uncover and just writing things down like oh yeah maybe I this does I this does happen quite often to me I do feel like this and we're you know for you may not have registered it but by writing it down you can just briefly, you're not talking about writing paragraphs and paragraphs, it's just a few lines and you can kind of come up with your own little shorthand and stuff as well, you know. But yeah, so three cycles really to get a good understanding and then just, you know, keep going with it. And then you can look back on your previous cycles and when you start seeing the different patterns, it's amazing, yeah.

And seeing, like I write down, you know, if it's been someone's birthday and I've eaten some cake, maybe a bit too much cake, then I will write that down. Because then I can see how that affects me as well, you know, or if I've if I've had a few cocktails on the weekend, I'll write that down. And yeah, so give it at least three, three cycles.

Sarah (23:33.02)

Do you find that what you eat, and drink then also impacts on, or rather our cycles have an impact on how we react to things that maybe we crave certain foods at certain times or that maybe alcohol has a bigger impact at certain times? Because I know I've read that before. I know that our metabolism shifts slightly in the week before, but it's we talk about the menstrual munches and things, it's not quite that straightforward, is it? But is that worth tracking then what you eat, what you drink and how it makes you feel or how it impacts on you? Because I think that would really help with people planning business activities, fitness activities and things like that as well, is knowing right I've got a really, this is a week where if I drink alcohol then I know I'm going to, it's going to have a bigger impact on me than if I don't. And if you've got a big decision or you've got something coming up, you might want to say, actually, do you know what? I'm going to cut that purely because I know the impact it will have on me will affect my decision-making process.

Roxy (24:42.986)

Yeah, so for the four inner seasons, I have like a list of different foods that you can eat, foods that are best for you for the different seasons. So, for example, like in your inner winter, you want to be eating more protein and healthy fats and really focus on nutrient dense foods, especially things containing iron, you know, you need to replenish yourself there.

Then into your inner spring it's like fresh light foods and you know imagine what you would eat in like the outer seasons. What do you feel like in when it's cold and snowy? You feel like warm foods so have nice warm foods like in your inner winter then when you come into your inner spring think like and your inner summer as well think like salads and raw foods, lighter foods, anti-inflammatory foods as well help within your inner summer. And then as you come into eat in autumn, yeah, this is probably when you're going to have those cravings. So, you need to focus on like real blood balance, blood sugar balancing and nutrient dense foods. It's really important in this time.

And yeah, be careful with how much sugar you are consuming. You can consume like 250 to 300 extra calories per day during this time. And that's why you're having those, people often have those cravings during this time, but you know, don't think, oh, I can have an extra 300. Yeah, yeah, I can have some cake. No, no, focus on the good stuff. And it's kind of, it's that going back into the warm foods again.

I was working with a lovely client, and she was like, it was mid-summer in the UK, and it was during the heatwave last year and she's like, I just want a stew. This is ridiculous, it's so hot. I was like, well you're in your inner winter and your body is wanting that warmth. So, we produced a plan that, she didn't want to be stood over the stove making a stew in the middle of a heatwave and her husband didn't want to have the stew. So, when it cooled down a bit, she was going to batch cook some stew and pop it in the freezer and then she could just, you know, bring it out when her body was wanting that warmth, but it wasn't the best time to be cooking the warm food. So yeah, it's so important what you eat, and it does affect you. Yeah.

Sarah (27:26.4)

It's, but it's just again, you know, what we eat really has an impact on, on so many things on our, our emotions, on how our body functions, everything, digestive systems a lot. So again, it just makes sense to track where you know, gosh, I ate this, this and this and I felt sluggish, and I was a bit constipated or whatever. And my energy levels were really low when I tried to go out. So, it's just really putting it all together, isn't it? And thinking, right, OK, this is where I need this kind of thing planning, planning, and preparation, which again is so important, isn't it? We're aware of it, that we plan for it and us kind of we don't deny ourselves the cake, but we say, right, during this week it's going to have a bigger impact on me. So, I'll have less, or I'll just have a small amount. I'll just, I'll be careful. And I think, do you think as well that decision-making is affected? Because I know sometimes when we're thinking about what we're going to eat and what we're going to do, it's sometimes we can make decisions, big decisions, just fall out of us all the time. And other times it's like, you know, which, which colour T-shirt should I wear? And it takes you about three hours to decide on which T-shirt and you take the one off and you put another one on and no, I don't like that one.

So, do you think that that's the sort of thing that is impacted as well?

Roxy (28:53.982)

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I'm chuckling because I'm thinking that, you know, like, so I have some battles with anxiety, less so nowadays, thankfully. But I know if my anxiety is going to rear its ugly head, it is going to be in my inner autumn, and that is going to affect my decisions. And I'm probably, you know, what I wear is going to be affected because I'll kind of want to shrink away a little bit but like in my inner spring where I've got more confidence, more outgoing, feeling a bit sexy, like I've got that extra confidence to wear whatever I want and not give a hoot about what anyone thinks about it. So yeah, it definitely affects everything and the other thing that I should have mentioned before as well when we talk about you know the food and things and how it affects you is you with tracking you might learn some very specific things that affect how you are feeling as well. So, for me it's tea. I will not drink tea during the first three days of my period because I will get instant cramps because it affects the iron absorption and that's what causes cramps.

Sarah (30:16.569)

Really?

Roxy (30:23.158)

I would urge anyone to try avoiding tea and coffee and booze and avoid booze in the lead up to your period as well. And if you have really heavy periods, avoid booze, and track it and see what happens. So, booze can, alcohol can increase your period flow and if you’re if you're

experience having, experiencing having heavy periods and then ease off and yeah track it see what happens. But you that's the beauty of tracking you can be able to pinpoint these exact things.

Sarah (31:02.628)

It's really interesting because I know, you know, coming back to activity and exercise is, you know, if you've got a very heavy period, you just don't want to do anything and it may well be that the things that you're eating and drinking are actually contributing to that or to the cramps and things like that and again this is where having different activities planned means you're more like to do it right, oh this is my slow week, great I'm going to go off and do all the lovely slow things or this is my speeding up a bit week. 

I'm looking forward to getting outside and doing a bit more and having those plans for me it's, I mean, as I said, there are times where trying to decide what to wear will just take me forever and I'll be putting things on and taking them off and just discontent. And those are the days where I've learnt and I'm going to start tracking it and see where it is in my cycle. But the other day I've learnt now if I have everything ready the night before I don't go through that because I've made the decision I've prepared. But other times it's, you know, even just deciding what to eat, you know, I end up grabbing something ridiculous because I can't make up my mind and I will meal plan now so that I don't have to make that decision. I'll batch cook food so that I write. I've got my lunch ready for every single day. I haven't got to make that decision. And I think the more I think about it, the more I've been thinking about it recently is I know that is linked into my cycle somehow, but I don't know how, so this is where tracking could be really, really helpful for me. Because it, it will give me that extra information that I can say, right, I do want to do some weightlifting. I'm in the mood for it. I'm in the right, right timeframe for it. So, I'm going to do it. And other days it will be, do you know, I'm not going to push myself to do that today because that's not what my body needs. It's not what my body wants. And I'm just more and more, I’m so intrigued by the power of nature generally, but this is like we're our own little microcosm of nature over a month rather than a year. And it's just so interesting to hear about how we do with activities because I think people do get really upset, like you said, but normally I can run this far in this time, and I wasn't anywhere near it. And it's nothing to do with your actual fitness level.

It's to do with everything else that's going on that's using up the energy that you would actually need for running. It's not there because your body's doing stuff internally that is taking that energy up. And I just feel that that's, that's such an important thing to do, particularly for people who are quite regular exercises, but just bringing it back a little bit to people who want to get into exercise and activity, who are not active at the moment, who are kind of a little bit nervous, a little bit anxious about being active, how could they use this sort of information to kind of, to start being more active in their everyday life?

Roxy (34:15.402)

I guess you can just yeah look at what uh yeah start tracking look at what season in a season you are in see what's going to fit best for that season check in with yourself like what you feel like doing I have a cycle check-in that I do each morning so I check to see what day I'm on um I check in to see how I'm feeling like emotionally and physically. Do I feel strong today? Do I feel really tired? Like if I had rubbish sleep because of my kids, you know, what is going on? And then I kind of base my day off that and think, okay, so I'm on cycle day. What am I on today? 11 today, so I'm in my inner spring.

It's been a stressful week, but so I don't feel like overdoing it, but I feel like going out and going for like, I can go for a walk on the beach today because it's nice. And I can just go for a nice walk. That's what I'm feeling called to do. So really like tune in with what your body is telling you and how you're feeling.

Sarah (35:42.636)

And that's, can I just say when Roxy goes for a walk, she sees penguins. Because Roxy lives in the Falkland Islands and there are quite a lot of penguins there. And I have to say, I'm so jealous. I love penguins. I love them. One of the things I think people might be listening to and thinking, gosh, learning to track my cycle is going to take me so long, does it take a long time? Because, you know, most of us live quite pressurised lives already, how much realistically, you say it takes about three cycles, how long each day would you spend just tracking?

Roxy (36:23.298)

Oh, I track for about five minutes in the evening when I get into bed at night. And then I will do my little cycle check-in first thing in the morning, which takes two minutes or something. It's really not, it's not a lot. And if you want to dive deeper into it, you can come into my world and you can learn from me. And I do one-to-one coaching with people. So, we really dive deep into helping them and, but you know, yeah, you can just give it a couple of minutes each day. It doesn't have to be this big thing, but what you'll get from it, you know, it sounds so cliche, but it could be like life changing. It really could. Because your cycle is affecting every single part of your day. So just being mindful of it and learning about you and your cycle. You're not just by tracking, you're not just going to learn about your cycle. You're going to learn about you as well. I've, I know me so much better nowadays. And it can, it can help your relationships as well. My marriage is stronger because of it. I can say to my husband, like, whoop, my anxieties, you know, it's, it's beating me today. So, you know, sorry, I'm, I'm a bit crabby today, but you know, my period is about to start. Oh, God, I feel better today as my period has started. And he like checks in. He's like, oh, you know, what cycle day are you on? And has your period started yet? How are you feeling? And like that communication is just amazing. And I teach my boys about it as well. You know, they're five and six. And I'm like, you know, mummy's not feeling great today. And this is why even, you know, Mummy's got loads of energy because I'm, you know, this part of my cycle. So, let's do something fun. Yeah, it's amazing how it can help just like that, that awareness is empowering. Learning about your cycle is empowering.

Sarah (38:40.004)

And I think that's a perfect place to stop. But I do just want to say, it is so important that we do educate children, we educate men, grandparents, everybody, because it's always been a bit of a taboo subject. And I think it's something that is so natural. And everybody needs to understand that it impacts on us, not just us as women, but it impacts on the people around us. It impacts on our decision making, our emotions, and everything. And if we're all kind of, if everybody around you is aware, then it just makes life so much easier, doesn't it? It's like, okay, right, not the best time for us to be making decisions as a family. Let's leave it till next week or the week after, or let's actually, it might be that we've got to make this decision. How can we actually make it easier, bearing in mind where my cycle is and things. So, I just think it's such an important topic. It's such an important subject. And I think anybody who wants to get in touch with you, I know will really, really benefit from learning about their cycle, particularly if you are a business, business woman who, who wants to know much more about really sort of when almost like when to show up on social media and be really sort of vibrant and everything and when actually, no, this is my planning week. This is where I'm going to sit down and do all my evaluations. This is where I'm going to be out there chatting to everybody. This is when I'm going to make decisions. This is when I'm just going to sit and plan and evaluate and analyse. But thank you so much for coming along. As I say, it's, it's a really important topic. I've got your links. If people want to follow you, it's www.roxyking.coach and I will make sure that I'll put the link for your tracker on Amazon in there as well. I think I'm going to get it because I think it will be useful for me and it's something I'll keep wanting to do but I don't know where to start so having something on paper that I can start with is going to be really helpful. Is there anything you just want to finally add before we leave?

Roxy (40:45.986)

Oh, anything. I would just encourage anyone to track your cycle, tune in with your body. And there's a lot to learn with your cycle. It's never too late to learn. I wish, gosh, I wish that I had known about all this earlier on. I wish it didn't take me until I was like my mid-30s and thinking, oh gosh menopause is probably around the corner and I haven't got much time but it's never too late because it can help you from the get-go just learn one little thing at a time implement one thing at a time and it it's just amazing and I guarantee you'll be like why didn't they teach us this at school and why isn't this talked about more, It's amazing. So, thank you so much for having me on Sarah so we can talk about this. 

Sarah (41:45.16)

No, why don't they? Thank you for coming along. You've been, guys, you've been listening to Creating Active Lives with me, Sarah Bolitho, and my amazing guest from the Falkland Islands, Roxy King. So, I will make sure all her links are available for you. And as I say, just let's all get more in tune with ourselves, and our cycles, and move on from there. Thank you all very much.