Most of you know that Marcus is a health, nutrition and martial arts expert.
Most of you also know, based on how comfortable I usually am talking about sex, that I have a relatively healthy sexual attitude and sex-drive.
But what the majority of you do not know is that my cycles have been off. The reason I'm sharing this is because it's pertinent to what has transpired this past month and especially this past week.
In the last year or two, I've noticed my cycles being a little odd. Sometimes 28-29 days (which according to doctors is "normal" - matching the cycle of the moon), but often would be 22 or 24 days, and 31 days. It seemed to be every other month, which indicates I had a "lazy," aggressive (is that possible?) or otherwise misbehaving ovary.
This concerned me mainly for the following reasons:
a) I don't care to have my period more often, for how obviously inconvenient it is.
2) This is likely an indication that something is off with my hormones and/or ovaries.
c) This could mean, over time, a reduced time period for when I am able to have children, and I want to have that option for as long as possible. Women, unlike men who produce sperm their entire lives, have a finite amount of eggs, and I'm not really interested in running out of mine any sooner than necessary.
Noticing this inconsistency in my cycles, I tried a few different things, very casually, over the last year. A slight adjustment in my diet (which is already pretty organic and raw, and theoretically longevity- and fertility-encouraging). Acupuncture and supplements recommended by a holistic doctor I saw last year. Needless to say (or I wouldn't be writing this blog), nothing changed. Same odd cycle continued.
About a month ago, I asked Marcus, again, what he would recommend. Surprise, surprise, I didn't listen the first time.
He said, "You should clean up your diet."
I didn't like that idea the first time he said it to me 6 months ago, thinking I'd have to be more weird in my eating habits than I already am, and thinking I'd have to spend more money on raw dairy or raw whey protein or whatever specialty item or supplement he'd undoubtedly want me to ingest more of...
But I was (a little) smarter this time, and asked, "can you tell me, specifically, what you mean by that?"
He explained that if I really wanted to re-balance my hormone levels, giving up carbs was the best route. No bread, pasta, starches, sugar or even raw honey (which is my main sweet ingredient these days).
"Really?" I said.
Yes. Of course.
A month ago, I started eating less carbs, but honestly, I was still eating carbs daily, just way less. That helped my energy level a little.
About five days ago, I started this really seriously. I've dabbled with my diet a lot over the years, but have never really given up carbs for longer than a day or two tops. Even when I've done juice cleanses or fasting, there was still enough sugar in the juice or tea (sweetened with honey) to satisfy that...craving and whatever it was doing to my body.
Marcus has some biological explanation for anyone interested - my understanding and sum up of it is this:
All carbohydrates are converted into some sort of sugar, whether it's long or short chain carbs. It goes into your blood and your blood sugar goes up. In order for your cells to receive that energy (glucose), a body has to release insulin to allow the glucose to go into the cell. High insulin levels cause a host of other issues, including a bunch of metabolic/hormonal issues: More insulin means more fat, because your body converts calories to fat more efficiently when a person has more insulin in their blood. More fat means more estrogen, because fat is an estrogen producing cell. More estrogen means reduced testosterone.
The reason humans aren't operating at optimum efficiency eating a lot of refined or even whole wheat carbs and sugars is because we're feast or famine animals. Additionally, humans have not evolved (evolution takes a minimum of 50,000 years, more realistically 150,000+) to deal with processed food for fuel, specifically because they're so high in glucose. For beings who subsisted for thousands and thousands of years on nuts, berries (which were largely sour), fat, meats (mostly raw or sun-dried) and raw dairy (pasteurization is only about 150 years new); large quantities of breads, pastas, sweet corn, sweet fruits, sugars, and pasteurized cheese and milk are relatively new to the human body, and cause these huge insulin spikes, which cause the aforementioned metabolic issues and also, as you might've guessed, lead to obesity and diabetes.
While I am no where near obese or diabetic, I began noticing how eating even "healthy" complex carbs was affecting my hormones.
DISCLAIMER
Before I get into my personal experience with this, I need to give all of you a disclaimer. If you're tempted to try this for yourself, I highly recommend you do your research, as this diet is only healthy if you're eating ample amounts of non-denatured protein every 2-3 hours, large amounts of nutrient-rich vegetables, and raw, healthy saturated fat. If you need more guidance, please comment, or peruse my and Marcus's past blogs, as there's a bevy of nutritional information. Also, of course, check with your doctor or nutritionist.
Now for the lay-woman's anecdotal experience:
Here's what I've experienced. I feel happy. Or at least happier than my normal level of happy. I've felt more energetic. I also feel, to put it bluntly, like a dog in heat. It would seem that my testosterone levels are increasing (weren't they high enough for a chic to begin with?!?) just as Marcus predicted they would. Apparently this can only happen in a healthy way when we give up carbs AND eat plenty of non-denatured (which means raw and unprocessed) protein. Also, my scent is stronger than usual. I do not like this and do not even like admitting it, but it helps no one if I'm dishonest about this experience. According to Marcus, my scent is stronger than usual because I'm not eating glucose, my body finds glucose for fuel by burning the fat off of my hip. We store toxins in our fat, and that gets released as we burn fat and are in what is called ketosis. Ketosis, simply put, is when our bodies use fat for energy.
In the past, my body was using the carbs it was receiving for energy, and keeping fat stored. Currently, based on how I've been feeling, my body is using fat for energy.
The trouble with testosterone is, it's distracting! Sex is on my brain virtually all the time. Construction workers, handsome trees, beware! There's a general warmth and buzzing feeling in my nether-regions. I have more sex dreams than usual, and I seem to be flirting more. (Thank Goddess I'm with a man who doesn't care if I flirt with everyone and everything...there's a good-looking palm tree over there, just give me a minute...)
I don't know how guys do it. From what I understand, this starts in boys around the age of 13 and lasts until the mid to late twenties. How do you function in the world like that? No wonder guys in their teens and early twenties seem kind of stupid. I honestly feel like my I.Q. points have dropped due to this resurgence of testosterone.
Hopefully this is not true. Marcus assures me it is not (and my research says the same), but it can lead to more rash decisions and aggressive behavior. The best correlation is this: when a person is ravenously hungry, they'll do a lot more for food than if they just ate an hour ago.
Marcus assures me this will rebalance itself once my body re-regulates and isn't on heavy fat-burning duty. Once I shift over and my pancreas and liver are healthier, as well as my ovaries, please help me, my body will run more on the raw proteins I'll continue to eat, over the fat that has been stored in my body for at least a decade.
Mainly, I'm looking forward to the day when I can wake up and not feel pure heat from my undercarriage. But maybe this is going to be par for the course because of my age and already high testosterone levels. Only time will tell.
This must be as close as a woman can get to experiencing morning wood.
Poor Marcus. I look at him like a piece of meat now. Mind you, I don't even need my meat cooked to devour it. I just dive right in.
Good thing Marcus doesn't mind so much.
