Julie Hilsen (00:06)
Hello dear friends and welcome to Life of Love this week. I’m so excited to have your ears and your hearts listening and tuning in to your curiosity about your life of love, however it looks today. So first of all, I’m gonna set our intention and get us in our space and then we’ll get started. So very excited. Thank you for being here and sharing this grid of light we’re creating to help this world.

be what we want it to be. And so I honor honor honor the space and this time you’ve set aside to be with us today. Thank you. All right, I’m just gonna take a deep breath and get into my heart.

Thank you, creator, God, goddess for bringing us together and giving us the resources to be here and create this space. We’re going to collaborate and bring forth a message for the highest good to feed our souls and support our bodies as they’re constantly trying to communicate with us. And I’m just so excited to have Chelsea bring forth.

her insights and her guides have shared with her and her life experiences to supplement, enhance, and illuminate ways that we can show up in our highest divinity and our unique sovereign power that we have within us that is begging to shine with grace, abundance, and freedom. So.

we’re holding space for freedom, divinity, grace, and the divine feminine power that is this energy that is available to us that sometimes we use in a way that’s more masculine. And so we’re tapping into using that energy in our power, in our powerhouse of our divine feminine power to be in our glory.

however we decide to spend our energy. Because we have so much energy and we give it away. We give it away so much. So dear God, I’m asking you to work through us and for us to show us how to glorify the divinity within us as you created us to be. Because we’re all perfect. And I ask the Holy Spirit to bring us clarity and the intensity of the signal to reach the ears that need to hear and the hearts which wish to soften to these messages.

Chelsea McLeod (02:11)
you

Julie Hilsen (02:25)
and take what serves you and leave what doesn’t. We’re not healing. We are just working through our divinity and feeling good because that’s our birthright is to be healthy and happy. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I thank my guides for being here. I thank Chelsea’s guides for collaborating as they see fit. And I just, I’m just so excited and honored to be part of this. And I thank you, thank you, thank you. And so it is.

Alright Chelsea, welcome to Life of Love!

Chelsea McLeod (02:54)
Thank you so much for having me.

Julie Hilsen (02:56)
Yeah, Chelsea McLeod is in the house. She’s an integrative health practitioner who coaches women of all, know, high performers or curious minds who are curious about their hormones, their balances and balancing these hormones for releasing weight, for helping with anxiety, gut health, hormone balance, energy, sleep.

all of it stress. Okay, so we’re hitting all of these hot topics that we’re all dealing with. We all wake up in the middle of the night going, what what did I not do? Where am I? I need to show up. Did I pay that bill? Am I? You know, did I call back my friend? Did I say the wrong thing? There was those million question things that come up in the middle of the night when we finally get quiet and, and our bodies and our subconscious say, Hello.

We’re here because we get on the treadmill, right, Chelsea? mean, you’ve been dealing with this and I love your work on the your healthy hustle hormone reset and your podcast is not you it’s your hormones. So yeah, we’re gonna dig deep into this and come out with some answers. So thanks for being here.

Chelsea McLeod (04:07)
Thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited for our conversation today.

Julie Hilsen (04:11)
Yes. I would love to start with with you because I think that having like an extreme example so that you share what you’ve experienced because you’re you’re high achiever, But I understand you’re like you hit a wall or you were

something in you is like, I can’t do this, this isn’t serving me. And you having such a high energy and being so amazing and then realizing this isn’t working is a good backdrop for someone who’s just like, I’m off and I don’t feel good. But you just took your achievements so high that I would love for you to highlight that so that everyone’s on a continuum in this idea, right?

of how we balance things. So share with us what you went through if you want to.

Chelsea McLeod (04:59)
you know, I think a lot of women will probably relate to my story because it goes all the way back to when I was young, when I was the big sister, you know, the one who was raising my brothers and I was doing all the things and I was playing sports and I was kind of that overachiever. I had parents who weren’t around a I stepped up as a young person and so I was very used to leading and doing a lot of things, you know.

Julie Hilsen (05:12)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea McLeod (05:21)
I also went to a very competitive prep school growing up. And so I always had a lot of homework and a lot of athletic games so I’m very used to the culture of competitiveness and being an athlete and being a competitor. And that took me into college where, you know, I,

I went to a school that demanded a lot of my time. It demanded, you know, I played college sports, so I was on the field for two hours a day, and then I was in the library for the rest of the day, and then I was partying on the weekends. So that’s a whole different type of demand on the body, but if you know what I’m saying. But, you know, for me, it was kind of that constant hanging of my worth on my output and what I was achieving. And, know,

Julie Hilsen (05:49)
Yes,

Chelsea McLeod (05:57)
I’m going to launch a magazine and hire a staff today on my college campus and I’m going to get this job over here and I’m going to apply for this competitive scholarship over here.” And it was just always reaching for the next thing, right? And I think it’s also interesting because I work with women who are very high achievers, by the time their body can’t keep up anymore, they’ve typically also had some kind of loss. And it’s interesting because a lot of these women

have been through a divorce, they’ve been through a loss of a loved one, loss of a spouse, loss of a job. And for me, it looked like having a brother who had a traumatic brain injury when I was a freshman in college and he was a 16 year old football player. And from that moment on, he suffered a very serious traumatic brain injury that left him completely physically and mentally disabled. And so from that moment, I had the high achievements over here.

on both my body, my brain, my life, but also the grief over here. And coupled together, they just, it was too much for my body to keep up. And that’s where I started to see hormonal imbalances really worsen. Cause I could get away with it, you know, as a teenager. But once I turned 18 and kind of had more intense, I guess more intense emotional demands on myself.

That’s where I started to see things like cramps. That’s where my skin started to break out. That’s where my body shape started to change. And you know, I never was one of those people who had significant weight gain, but I just didn’t have the body composition. wasn’t performing very well in sports. I was kind of soft. It was kind of fluffy. I was not sleeping well. You know, like the night that I got the call that Zach, my brother was in the ICU having a brain injury was the first night that I stopped sleeping. And so from there on out, it just…

I kind of didn’t realize that that wasn’t normal. Like I was like, every college student is not sleeping. Everyone’s in pulling all nighters. They’re all like laying in bed with their eyeballs open all night. Like I thought that was just normal. And my hair started to fall out. I lost my cycle and then it came back, but I was in so much pain. was like, I had never had a period cramp before, but all of a sudden I had these backaches that felt like my back was literally breaking. And I was like, what is this? Like, I just don’t understand. And.

You know, all those symptoms followed me into my young adult life. I graduated from school, I applied for all these jobs. was burning the candle at both ends in corporate, working for a very high performing e-commerce job at Reebok and later Adidas. And so I was on calls at 8 a.m. and then I was on my laptop until 11 p.m. and I was doing CrossFit during the day and I was just doing all the things.

trying to change my body composition, trying to sleep better. You know, I would smoke weed to fall asleep. I would take crazy supplements during the day and I would take Adderall to keep me awake. I was just on this crazy hamster wheel. And I think so many women in America have tried these things, right? And so it wasn’t until COVID that my body was forced to slow down. Because some women, they go and go and go until they burn out. But that wasn’t my story.

I actually had a pin put in my plans and said, Chelsea, you have to slow down. We’re going to put you in this lockdown. At the time I was living in Australia, we had the strictest lockdown in the world. And the world said, you know what? Before you absolutely cook yourself, we’re going to force you to heal. And so that’s where I could feel my nervous system starting to de-stress. And I was exhausted.

Julie Hilsen (09:09)
Thank

Chelsea McLeod (09:25)
I don’t know if you have ever had that moment where you have been stressed for so long and you’re kind of running on stress hormones. Like that’s the artificial energy you’re running on. And then all of a sudden you’re like, whoa, I’m exhausted now that I’ve had to turn these off, right?

Julie Hilsen (09:32)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because

your adrenaline just keeps going and going and going. Yeah. I’ve been there. Mm-hmm.

Chelsea McLeod (09:42)
Exactly.

And so then you’re like, well, I don’t like this. I’m not used to feeling like this. But from that moment on, it’s like, I was diagnosed with type two diabetes as a 27 year old. Like I had PCOS, I had all these things that the doctor said were just, just eat, eat less, exercise more, change your birth control. Like that’s where I decided, you know what, my body doesn’t feel good.

there’s something wrong here. So I’m going to start taking action to fix this. And that’s where I started listening to the podcast. I started reading the books. I started looking into other options other than kind of like traditional Western medicine. I was teaching spin on the side as well. And I was like, I need to stop doing cardio. Like this doesn’t feel good in my body right now. And I certainly don’t look and feel the way I want to. And so having that force slow down was actually really good for me. And in the process of healing my hormones,

I realized how big of an issue this actually was and how many women were suffering just like I was. Women of all ages, they could be in their 20s, 30s, but also a lot of women who were in their 40s, 50s, 60s, who I was seeing at work, who were not able to get pregnant. know, the women who had the role that I would have in three years, like the VP of e-commerce, were not able to have babies. They were struggling. They were having to do IVF. They were not sleeping. They were losing their hair. And I just looked at that and I was like,

I don’t want that. I don’t want that. Like I want to heal myself. I want to look and feel a certain way. And I don’t really like the trajectory of the people around me who I’m looking at. And so that’s where I started to take my healing a little bit more seriously. I worked with a practitioner myself who helped me balance my hormones. I started doing more holistic stuff. I got on my supplements. I changed the way I exercise and I really balanced my hormones. And that’s where life started to change for me.

that’s where I actually felt real energy and I was not snapping at my team all day at work. And I was actually seeing muscle growth in the gym and I was, my skin cleared up, my hair looked amazing. Like I was looking back at photos during those couple of years where I had really focused on healing my hormones. And I just looked like a different person and people were coming up to me being like, what have you done? Like, why do you look so good? Like, you look so lean, your skin is glowing. And I was like, well, this is what,

health looks like. Like this is what hormone balance looks like. This is what’s possible for every woman if she learns the skill of taking care of herself, learn the skill of balancing her hormones. Because I think so many women want the hack. They just want a cream or a pill. And it’s like, this is a skill set. And this is what I tell women all the time. It’s like the first time you use Excel, you suck at it, but you learn how to do it over time. And now you’re an expert. And this is like, know, women want hacks, but we need habits.

Julie Hilsen (12:08)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea McLeod (12:23)
We need habits, we need skills, and this is why so many women choose to work with me so they can skip the line and just be told like, hey, here are the cheat codes. Like, here’s what to do and here’s how to do it in the context of a life that’s really busy.

Julie Hilsen (12:37)
I love how you said heal your hormones, because that’s freeing in itself because you’re saying, you know, there’s no quick fix. There’s no get your blood, you know, I went through it. It’s like, well, draw my blood and see what’s wrong with my hormones. And they’re like, we don’t know normal hormones for you. Like you’d have to do it over 10 years.

No, you heal your hormones. I am so delighted to have you use those words. You fix your hormones. This is in you. And it’s no shame. It’s not your fault. This is not your fault. This is

us develop in the society that you know that you are your worth is how many stickers you have on your paper as a kindergartener you know did you get a gold star did you get a negative like we were conditioned to this and it’s up to us to say stop it’s not isn’t serving me and and so yeah your story is so powerful and and i do love that

It’s not just perimenopause. This is women’s hormones across the board. And it’s normal for your body to say, hold on, you’re not taking care of me and give you these signs and symptoms. So yeah, that’s what I wanted to get into you, like root cause roadmap. What realization did you come to? it through the…

work with a practitioners or how did you come up with your root cause warm roadmap and then what what are some red flags that you’ve noticed across women just that it is hormones you’re not going crazy and you don’t need some kind of anti-depressant or some kind of you know mind-altering drug or alcohol but

You know, here’s some signs. Could you share those with us? Because I just want to get to the nitty gritty because this is so powerful.

Chelsea McLeod (14:25)
there’s so much here to unpack. And I think the first thing what you talked about is

The symptoms that most women are having are very common, but they’re not normal. And what we have to remember, if we just take a step back and we look at, especially, know, Western society in general, especially in America, it’s like we have an entire economic system, an entire corporate system, this giant engine, but also our food supply that’s really set up.

to maximize profits for shareholders. And these foods and these jobs and these, you know, the corporate grind is not designed with women’s hormone health in mind. And what that does not mean is, we just have to unplug from the matrix and go live on a farm because that’s not realistic. But we need to learn tools to help us navigate our work and navigate the food system because…

The reality is, is it’s really difficult to keep your hormones in balance when you don’t have these skills. And this is why women have so many signs and symptoms. And you know, for women who want to learn more about this, like I always say, it’s not you, it’s your hormones. That’s name of my podcast. And it really helps women drill down on if they have a hormonal imbalance. The first episode I did was just drilling into what are the signs and symptoms that you have imbalanced hormones. And a lot of women listen to that and they’re like, my goodness, I didn’t even realize I had a hormonal imbalance. Cause the reality is, is

Julie Hilsen (15:26)
Hmm

Chelsea McLeod (15:42)
four out of five women in America have one. They just don’t realize it. They just think, it’s normal to sleep terribly. It’s normal to get bloated as the day goes on. It’s normal to not go to the bathroom number two, less than once a day. It’s normal to be constipated. It’s normal to have headaches. It’s normal to have skin issues, hair loss. These are not normal. Like these are all signs of hormonal imbalance. And then you also have other stuff like infertility.

Julie Hilsen (15:44)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Chelsea McLeod (16:10)
especially unknown infertility for women who are trying.

Also, any obvious diagnosis of things like endometriosis, PCOS, type two diabetes from a doctor is also a sign that your hormones are imbalanced. And so I think so many women just say, well, this is normal after having a baby or, you know, after age 40, this is just what happens. Or, know, during menopause, this is just what happens. And I’m here to tell you that it’s not. If you’re having these symptoms, it means there’s an imbalance no matter where you are.

with your age and your hormonal snapshot.

Julie Hilsen (16:41)
Okay, so it seems like if you’re not feeling good, it’s your hormones. Like really, like if you can’t find your joy, there’s something going on with your hormones. And I heard you say like food supply is number one, like what you’re putting in. And I know that was a big pivotal point for me I bought an Eat Clean book. was like.

is how to eat clean. And I started reading labels and then you look at the ingredients and, you know, just basically to help support your hormones, try not to eat anything that you can’t pronounce. To me like, it has these plastic, our food has plastics in it. Our food has natural flavors or chemicals that your body has to assimilate. So that can be a hormone disruptor and it can be bound with some kind of polymer plastic.

Chelsea McLeod (17:22)
I love that.

Julie Hilsen (17:36)
that blocks your hormones from doing what they need to do when it’s a artificial natural flavor. mean, that’s the biggest and I love that what Kennedy Robert Kennedy is doing by raising awareness of these things and you know, all of sudden artificial colors that’s coming up. So the public is ready to hear this. I mean, we were on to the industrial food complex poisoning us and working on shelf life of food versus our health.

Chelsea McLeod (18:05)
Mm.

Julie Hilsen (18:05)
So,

you know, farmers markets are popping up. there’s a culture around this. Like you have support. It’s just you saying no more because our industry, the industry will respond. Like I remember the one, it was like 10 years ago, I went and looked at all the cereals with BHT in them. BHT is, it’s illegal in Europe. And it was in our cereals, like so much, like corn flakes, BHT. was in everything. It was in hot dogs, like everything.

Chelsea McLeod (18:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Julie Hilsen (18:33)
And I just went and I looked at all the labels and I had this blog and I was like, BHT. And now all of sudden there’s no BHT anymore. They’re doing it with a vitamin A or vitamin D, think. Vitamin D helps extend the shelf life of that kind of food now. But it’s a more healthy option. But it took us to say, we’re not buying that crap. And we know it’s crap because they don’t allow it in Europe. And so yeah.

We’re poised, we’re ready, we’re ready for this food revolution. There are people fighting every day to help make us more healthy. But it’s up to you to say, I’m a divine vessel and I’m not letting that shit in. I am not going to eat artificial colors. And it is really hard to go to the grocery store and not find something with a seed oil in it, for example. I mean, it’s almost impossible. Even pretzels. Pretzels have palm oil in it. And I love pretzels. They’re like,

Chelsea McLeod (19:15)
you

Julie Hilsen (19:23)
I mean, it’s constantly like, okay, so you really love that pretzel, but you’re not gonna eat anything else with seed oil the whole day. You’ve just supported your hormones, if I’m correct. Like, are seed oils affecting our hormones? Okay.

Chelsea McLeod (19:38)
Yeah, yeah, for

sure. I always tell women, you know, from a practical standpoint, there’s a whole process of learning how to make good food choices, right? Like this is something I really coach women through over a six month process, but straight off the bat, if there’s a couple skills that I want women to learn how to do, it’s discerning seed oils and just looking for, just being smart consumers around our food, right? It’s like become a, become a package Turner. I always joke with my clients about this. Like just be a label Turner. And it seems kind of nerdy and it might add five minutes to your food shop.

But if you could just turn the package around and I mean, some people even just take a snapshot of it and put it in chat, GPT, but I always tell people like, you know, if it has more than five or six ingredients or if you don’t recognize the ingredients and I’m not talking about like, you know, if you turn it around and there’s raisins and it’s like grapes and then one tiny little bit, like maybe a little bit of citric acid or something. That’s not what I’m talking about, but I’m talking about like long chemical names that you don’t recognize.

Like, do you want to put that in your body? And it’s so funny, I had one client who was with her child and she was kind of learning how to read ingredients and she had her four year old turn the package around and read it. And he was like, ew, what’s that? And it’s just so funny because like kids know, they know better than we do because we just grew up in this and thought it was normal. so…

Julie Hilsen (20:50)
See ya!

yeah, like I grew up, Twinkies were like the best thing. Like Twinkies. my gosh, little Debbie’s. was just gonna say little Debbie’s. Yeah. Yeah.

Chelsea McLeod (20:58)
Ding Dongs, Zebra Cakes, ugh.

Like, can you believe

what we used to eat? It’s crazy.

Julie Hilsen (21:11)
Right, Tang. I mean…

Chelsea McLeod (21:12)
Yeah. my God,

Tang. Well, that is a deep cut.

Julie Hilsen (21:16)
That’s.

my goodness, and now there’s apps like you said there’s apps you can just scan and be like no it’ll give you a rating and then a big thing and I’m not perfect with my hormones in fact I want to share something because it was so awful and wait The other the other awful thing is like you’re trying to labels and most women like when they hit 40 You know the eyesight starts the close eyesight starts to go so you’re like

Not only you can’t read the labels, you can’t even see the labels. You have to bring your readers to the grocery store and be like, okay. And it’s just so awful. It’s like you’re trying to get to the grocery store and it’s taking so long. So I do appreciate the apps where you can scan it or even enlarge it. But I want to get back to my other story about, I guess it was pre-COVID. was. Everyone’s wearing the Spanx leggings, right?

And, you know, I put my Spanx on and I’m like, I look good. look good. And then COVID, I stopped wearing Spanx and I let myself be and I was like, oh my God, I’m three months pregnant. I’ve been three months pregnant for a year now. What is happening? And then, you know, it’s like, oh, you start looking at, you know, the sugar that you’re putting in and intermittent fasting. And I’ve tried so many things. So I’m really excited to hear your insight on this because

Chelsea McLeod (22:24)
you

Hmm.

Julie Hilsen (22:40)
You know, there’s the Galveston diet, which gave me some really good helpful tips about how much protein I should be having. But like, what are things that you have your clients track? I know you said there’s something that you have them track. If people could track four things, it would give them lot of insights on their hormones. Would you share with us about that?

Chelsea McLeod (23:00)
Yeah. So I think one of the most powerful things, let’s talk about inputs and habits to track versus outputs as in like, you know, metrics that you can track. So as far as we’re looking at our habits, we always have to understand like how our choices are impacting the result. Right? So I say like, let’s look at what time you’re eating, what you’re eating. let’s look at your sleep. So how many hours you’re sleeping? let’s look at things like

Julie Hilsen (23:09)
I love it. I love it.

Chelsea McLeod (23:25)
when we look at outputs, right? We want to look at your cycle. So I always tell women if they are under 55, if they are still cycling, tracking your cycle. And I use a specific app with my clients to track their cycle because it’s so important to understand the rise and fall of energy, the rise and fall of stress resilience, because no week is the same depending where you are on your cycle. So if you’re still a cycling woman and you’re listening to this, like really getting in tune with your body’s throughout the month is really important.

so tracking cycle, tracking things like your heart rate variability can really show us how resilient your body is to stress. I always say HRV, you know, if you have an aura ring, which I’m wearing here, or if you have, know, an Apple watch or a whoop strap, you’ll be able to see this, but it’s really powerful in terms of showing how. You know, a lot of the times with women who have hormonal imbalances, their HRV is going to be really low and we want to create some upward trend in HRV to make sure that they’re.

becoming more resilient because the higher your HRV is, the reality is the more balanced your metabolism is, the better you’re able to actually burn fat, just healthier your entire system is. So that’s one thing we look at. We look at REM sleep, deep sleep, total sleep, because if you’re having those two or three a.m. wakeups, that’s a sign that your hormones are not balanced and we gotta get things back into balance. So a couple other thing we look at is resting heart rate.

And then obviously I use functional medicine lab tests to look at specific markers of, know, what are your hormones doing? Where are your hormones at? Cortisol, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. Like we want to look at all of those things in addition to, you know, fasted. Insulin levels, we want to look at HbA1c. So there’s so many different biometrics and biomarkers to really signal, is this woman healthy? And if she is having trouble losing weight,

Why is that? We want to really laser target the protocol to make sure that she’s able to release the weight and start feeling the way she wants to.

Julie Hilsen (25:22)
And from what I heard you say in the beginning, there’s a lot of this is tied to stress. the harm, if your body is focusing on survival, because this is what it is, we’re putting ourselves in a survival state instead of a thriving state by having external stresses coming at us and not functionally dealing with them because there’s quick fixes. There’s a glass of Chardonnay.

there’s a movie on and so you don’t have to deal with your own thoughts you can just project and suppress and whatever socially is appropriate because honestly people don’t want to get together and hear each other’s problems like we want to get together and have fun and celebrate life okay but it takes some work to get to the fun part but we’re skipping the work part because we’re working so hard at our jobs so like that stress relief is to me that’s a

great place to start just without a lot of.

blood tests or anything, like just look at your baseline stress. And I think your heart, is the heart rate, does that give you a metric for that baseline stress? Is that what you’re saying?

Chelsea McLeod (26:35)
Yeah, we kind of, you know, obviously there’s ranges that I work with clients on, but if, know, if I’m just working with someone in a non-client capacity, what I would have you focus on, if we were to take out all of these fancy metrics is just look at your energy levels throughout the day. So on a scale of one to 10, what is your energy level at 8 a.m., 12 p.m., 3 p.m., 7 p.m.? You also want to write down what’s your mood? You know, are you having big swings in energy and mood throughout the day? Also, do you wake up anxious? Like is your heart

Julie Hilsen (26:49)
Okay.

Chelsea McLeod (27:04)
pounding when you wake up, if you really tune in with your body. Like if you’re waking up and your chest is thumping and you’re waking up to an alarm and you feel like you just got shot out of a cannon, like that’s a sign you’re in survival mode, which means you’re not really priming your body for fat loss, for full spectrum thinking, for the ability to actually move through the day in a way that doesn’t feel frantic. And so I always tell women, like, if we can track those two things throughout the day,

Julie Hilsen (27:14)
You

Chelsea McLeod (27:31)
it’ll also tell us kind of like where our blood sugar is at. Because if you’re having big crashes in the afternoon and cravings and, you know, demonic sugar cravings or, you know, absolute hanger where you feel like you are going to murder your spouse if he takes more than five minutes to order at a restaurant, like that’s all a sign that your hormones are inbound. So I kind of always start with those few things on day one, just to get a sense of where a woman’s at with their hormones.

Julie Hilsen (27:50)
Okay.

So the the timestamps through the day. And then I like how you said that our bot, depending on where your cycle is, you’re gonna feel different things. And how does that, like, do you have a general pattern for, for example,

if you’re working out is are there better days to do like weightlifting in your cycle than others? And you know, maybe a gentle walk is better when you’re having your menstruation or or what are the general patterns you see with the time in your cycle that you could you could share with us because I think that’s it’s brilliant and I cannot believe like I was a competitive like I didn’t

compete nationally, but I was a runner. Like I never, didn’t have my period because I had no body fat because I was such a runner. And like, there are definitely times in my cycle where I know I’m going to play tennis better. Like I know some days, but I never knew there was like a, there was a guide post to deal with your hormones and what to expect from your body. And then we beat ourselves up for not showing up. Right. So illuminate for me that because this is great.

Chelsea McLeod (29:02)
You know, understanding your cycle is one of the most, it’s one of the biggest hacks that women can do, right? Especially if you’re an athlete, especially if you’re working in a big role where you’re doing a lot of speaking or client engagement stuff or, you know, dinners with clients. The reality is, is the front half of our cycle, which is, you know, let’s call day one of our cycle is the bleed, right? So you’re bleeding for anywhere from four to six days. Some women bleed longer, some a little bit shorter. But,

Julie Hilsen (29:24)
Okay.

Chelsea McLeod (29:28)
The next 10 days after your bleed is the best time to smash workouts. That’s where you’re playing like an absolute savage in tennis. You’re feeling amazing. Mood is high. Your libido is gonna be higher. So this is when women tend to, you know, they wanna be social. They wanna go on dates with their husbands. They generally want sex more, right? And so they…

because they’re kind of leading up to ovulation and that’s when your energy is the highest. where I always think estrogen is energy, right? And so as estrogen rises for ovulation, that’s where you feel the juiciest. And then the two weeks following ovulation, estrogen winds down, right? And so as you approach your period, so especially those three days before your period, that’s when you’re gonna be the most irritable, the most cranky, the most tired. And so I always tell women like if they can,

Julie Hilsen (29:55)
Okay.

Chelsea McLeod (30:16)
get in a lot of their heavy training in that week after their period, it’s going to go so well for them. And then if they can really wind down and focus on more gentle stuff, recovery, don’t put pressure on yourself to go to the spin class, the hot yoga, the super heavy weightlifting the days before your period, because it’s not going to go well for you. And you’re better off in order to get the result of releasing weight. You’re better off just relaxing.

replenishing, having a little bit more healthy carbohydrates and just doing some reflecting as opposed to going and trying to smash a spin class or berries at 6 a.m.

Julie Hilsen (30:49)
that we’re not robots. Like, we’re, we’re dealing with this really, it’s a real thing. These hormones are real. So yeah, I’m thinking like more restorative, you know, just like gentle walks on a stretching, like, you know, respect what your body’s going through in those times, instead of being like, Oh, PMS, you know, we didn’t even have a name for it. It’s a literal phase. Is that what you’re talking about? The literal when you’re

Chelsea McLeod (31:14)
Ludial, yeah,

yeah.

Julie Hilsen (31:16)
Ludeal. Okay, because I do life. It’s a it’s a period tracker called life. I’ve done it for years and I’ll even I won’t even go on vacation during my literal phase because I will make everyone miserable. Like I go into I call her she’s like my Brenda. I don’t know. Like she’s like my alter ego and I’m like, I’m sorry,

Chelsea McLeod (31:29)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (31:35)
everyone knows it when I’m going through it because I’m very in their face about when I don’t feel good.

Chelsea McLeod (31:43)
honestly, this

is it. You gotta have that alter ego because you do. I mean, I always joke that I have four personalities depending on where I am in my cycle, but like that’s a very real thing because your hormones are at a totally different place every week of your cycle. And it’s also really important to mention Julie that like, if you are having massive, like obviously rises and falls and energy and mood are normal, but if you are having massive swings and I’m talking just like,

Julie Hilsen (31:46)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea McLeod (32:11)
ones that really impact your day-to-day living and you have crazy cramps, you have crazy cravings, you can’t get out of bed, you feel like you’re a different person, like that’s not normal. That’s a sign that your hormones are a little bit out of balance. What we do want to expect is rises and dips in energy that are normal where we’re just like, you know what? I’m a little bit slower today. I’m just gonna slow down versus feeling like you’re on death’s door.

Julie Hilsen (32:35)
Right. And the other thing is when you’re at work or you’re in a situation where other people are depending on you, just being your authentic self can help them honor you. And it’s not like you’re not calling off. You’re just like, you’re being comfortable where you are. And you don’t have to explain your face to the people around you, but you’re not trying to be the other part of your cycle that’s super go-getter.

but I mean, because people pick up when you’re trying to be something you’re not, and you’re putting this mask on. I’m gonna be the super producer because I just walked through the doors of work. No, you have to show up as your best self today. And that slower version of you might take the time to notice something, because you’re not over producing or.

not over producing, but you’re not so focused on your output, but you’re more reflective on, on how things are going. Maybe that’s when you go internally and you, you look at things that you might want to change and, come forth as your Phoenix again. Those are all really important things to know is like what, needs to pivot, what is fine, what’s going well, you know, like these different phases you can use to your advantage and, and

Chelsea McLeod (33:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

That’s right.

Julie Hilsen (33:51)
This is going to sound crazy, honoring that part of the detox of your phases, of your menstruation, it’s a beautiful thing. There’s stem cells in your menstruation. And that was life. That could have been another person. And so it’s beautiful. And we flush it down the toilet. you know what I mean? It’s like honor that.

and send it back to the earth and, you know, in the toilet be like, thank you, precious potential life, I’m sending you on to your next cycle too. Like honor that beautiful part of being a woman. It’s not just dirty and something you get through. It’s beautiful. And we don’t have the red tent anymore, but I wouldn’t mind having a red tent to go to every once in a while. Like, it might be fun to bring that back, but we’re not there. Like we live in our society, right? I don’t know.

Chelsea McLeod (34:38)
Yeah

Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (34:46)
I just don’t know a rant

Chelsea McLeod (34:46)
I’d love that.

Julie Hilsen (34:47)
about menstruation.

Chelsea McLeod (34:49)
No, it’s amazing though, because I think sometimes we need to ritualize the mundane. And for so many women, we become so separated from our feminine energy just by not understanding our cycle and honoring our cycle. And it’s so easy to say that. It sounds so corny and cheesy, but the reality is, when we learn to connect with our cycle, which starts with understanding, right? It’s like, no one was taught how to do this, right? Like no one was taught how to…

really work with their cycle to get better outcomes with how they look and feel, but this is a huge hack. And I think in 15 to 20 years, this is going to be something that’s taught in schools. our daughters are going to be like, you mean you didn’t learn how to do this in high school? And we’re to be like, yeah, we never did. And so I like packaging it as a skillset and a hack that women can use for their advantage. But I think a lot of

what the trap that a lot of women fall into, because I work with a lot of very alpha women, a lot of very type A women is they don’t honor the bleed. They don’t honor the back half of their cycle because they just want to be operating like a crackhead at all times where they’re tornadoing through the day, max productivity, because that’s what makes them feel it’s worth something, right? And so

Julie Hilsen (35:51)
Mm-hmm.

Great.

Right,

it’s fortifying to get that paycheck. It’s validating. Right?

Chelsea McLeod (36:04)
Correct,

correct, that’s right. And so, but what I find so many women, once they actually give themselves permission to rest, their life actually changes for the better and they look better than they ever have.

Julie Hilsen (36:17)
Mm hmm. Yes, I can see that and I applaud it and it is scary to, to break the mold in that way. But so worth it. I it’ll literally take wrinkles off your face. Because you hold on to that tension and that trying to control and we’re not made to control, we’re made to create and, and be, you know, contribute and feel joy and love. And so anytime you’re not in

Chelsea McLeod (36:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah!

Julie Hilsen (36:43)
you know, every everyone gets disappointed, you know, but if you if you can’t find any joy or inspiration or, you know, like, you’re always looking for someone to tell you good job, then those that’s to me, that’s a red flag that that you’re not in your divinity and you deserve I’m holding space for every woman to feel their divinity because it’s your birthright. And we need to claim it. It’s like it’s not no one’s gonna know no man or boss or

coworker or child, no one’s going to tell you what your divinity is. You have to claim it. It’s yours to claim as a sovereign being. everyone’s fighting their own battles. They’re not going to look out. Like we would look out for someone and say, hey, claim your divinity. no, like that’s not on most people’s minds. They’re just trying to get through their day and do the best they can. So it’s up to you to, have it, to get, to go get it however it looks for you. So thank you for.

for being a warrior in this. It’s so exciting and I just adore your work. So I’m excited for people to take advantage of what you’re offering.

Chelsea McLeod (37:44)
You know, I think there’s never been a better time for women’s health as far as awareness, educators, women who are coming to the forefront and not shutting up about how important this is. you know.

I help women who are interested in a serious transformation, right? It’s not the women who want to do a GLP one or fix it with a pill. Like they come to me with a true understanding of, I don’t want the quick fix. I’m not interested. That’s repulsive to me. I want to do the work on my physical body, my mind, and me as a person and a soul in order to get me where I want to go. And so that’s the kind of woman who I guide through a real transformation. And it’s really inspiring because…

Every day I have a new woman coming to me ready for this kind of transformation and being able to hold women through it is, let me just say it’s way better than being in a boardroom in corporate. So it’s fantastic. And I think in 10 years, things are gonna look so different for women.

Julie Hilsen (38:31)
Yes.

Yes, I agree. I agree. Well, I’m happy to be part of that message and hold space for that. So thank you for sharing all your wisdom. This has been so fun.

Chelsea McLeod (38:50)
Thank

you and thanks for the work you’re doing. think having shows like yours and content like yours in long form is ultimately what helps guide people along in their soul’s journey. So thank you for the work you’re doing as well.

Julie Hilsen (39:02)
So if it hits your heart, that’s your sign. So thank you. Appreciate it.