In the FLO

IN THE FLO

A 28-day plan working with your monthly cycle to do more and stress less

Alisa Vitti

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Alisa Vitti 2020

Alisa Vitti asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008327071

Ebook Edition © 2020 ISBN: 9780008327088

Version: 2020-01-06

Advance Praise for In the FLO

“When I first heard Alisa explain the Cycle Syncing Method, I was floored. As someone who has struggled with hormones, I couldn’t believe what we don’t know about our bodies. I didn’t realize how my everyday routine was affecting my mood, my weight, and my energy. Working with Alisa has shown me how to take care of my biological rhythms so I stay in a peak flow state. It’s given me back my energy, made me a happier mom, and made me passionate about sharing this information with other women—it’s about time for us to get In the FLO.”

—Gabrielle Union-Wade, actor, activist, and New York Times bestselling author of We’re Going to Need More Wine

“Living in alignment with our cycle is the next frontier for women’s health. Alisa’s book provides a tool for reconnecting with your unique female biorhythms—a powerful offering toward helping women reclaim hormone health and much-needed life balance.”

—Aviva Romm, MD, author of The Adrenal Thyroid Revolution

“This book teaches you how to use your biology to tune in to your inner guidance and to create optimal flow in every area of your life. It offers a path toward your highest power and potential.”

—Gabrielle Bernstein, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Universe Has Your Back

“In the FLO is Whole30 meets Bulletproof meets 4-Hour Workweek—but designed exclusively for a woman’s body. This book will change the way you eat, work out, manage your time, and do your work—all in harmony with your body! It’s the next wave in women’s health and, best of all, there aren’t any complicated rules to follow—it’s liberating and logical. Alisa will help you achieve your optimal health and live your best life.”

—JJ Virgin, nutrition expert and New York Times bestselling author of The Virgin Diet

“Alisa is a true pioneer in biohacking for women, and the Cycle Syncing Method is an effective way for women to align with their biological rhythms to optimize not only their health but every other aspect of their lives from career to relationships to motherhood. Every woman should read this book!”

—Mark Hyman, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Blood Sugar Solution

“Trying to operate on a 24-hour clock can leave moms exhausted. Alisa’s revolutionary cyclical time management method will liberate you from the stress and exhaustion of trying to ‘do it all’ and instead adopt a more sustainable approach. Finally you’ll replace guilt over all the things you aren’t doing with guidance on the best ways to bond with your child and care for yourself week by week.”

—Shefali Tsabary, PhD, psychologist, educator, speaker, and New York Times bestselling author of The Conscious Parent

“In this must-read hormonal guidebook, Alisa Vitti takes readers on a fascinating voyage inside the female body and brain to demystify the science of hormones. And she lays out a one-of-a-kind nutrition and lifestyle plan to balance hormones so you can think smarter, feel better, and stress less. Your body and brain will thank you for it.”

—Daniel Amen, MD, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and New York Times bestselling author of Unleash the Power of the Female Brain

“Alisa walks you through the miraculous wonder that is your female body and how to connect your health, career, and even sex and relationships with your cycle to achieve amazing results with less effort—better orgasms included.”

—Regena Thomashauer, New York Times bestselling author of Pussy: A Reclamation

Dedication

“Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force.”

LAO TZU

This book is dedicated to my daughter, Ariana.

May you always know the gifts of nature that you contain and the force of nature that you are.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Advance Praise for In the FLO

Dedication

Introduction

Part 1 Our Bodies, Our Time

1 Ending Your Mys-education

2 Break Free from the 24-Hour Clock

3 Beyond Your Period—Understanding Your Hormonal Advantages

Part 2 Getting Your Body in the FLO

4 Never Diet Again

5 Work Out Less, Get More Fit

6 Your Blueprint to Do More with Less Stress

Biohacking Tool Kit

Part 1: How to Get in the FLO When Your Hormones Are Out of Balance

Part 2: What to Know If You’re on Hormonal Birth Control

Part 3 Getting Your Life in the FLO

7 Sustainable Success at Work

8 Get More of What You Want in Sex and Relationships

9 Making Motherhood Easier

10 Dynamic, Wise, and Free

Meal Plans

Recipes

Guides and Resources

Footnote

References

Index

Acknowledgments

Also by Alisa Vitti

About the Publisher

FEEL BETTER AND LIVE SMARTER WITH IN THE FLO

I’ve created a special bundle of resources to help you put into action what you learn in this book, including a quick-start program to help you get started, a bonus self-care guide, a community where you can connect with other readers, special downloads, and more! You can access everything for free at www.IntheFLObook.com/bonus.

Introduction

What’s the greatest lesson a woman should learn? That since day one, she’s already had everything she needs within herself. It’s the world that convinced her she did not.

—RUPI KAUR

I remember from a young age hearing from multiple sources that to succeed as a woman you have to work hard—twice as hard as a man, in fact. Early on, I felt a drive to do as much as I could and to push myself. In school, I took all of the hardest classes, worked for top grades, and was involved in activities to develop my creative talents and practice leading teams. These are all admirable pursuits—but I noticed that my drive came with a cost. In high school I was regularly up past midnight trying to complete homework. I was spread as thin as I could be, and now, looking back, I can see the toll it was taking on my body. The pressure I felt to perform, create, achieve, and work only grew, however, as I continued on through college and into my career. All the while, my health issues became more problematic. My anxiety went from occasional to constant, my insomnia became a nightly problem, I was gaining weight despite being active daily, my skin was breaking out, my periods were missing, and I felt more and more overwhelmed by all that I had to do. Instead of being invigorated by the things I wanted to do, I felt unable to tackle them and drained. I criticized myself for procrastination, for inefficient time management, and for not having my body and my life perfectly together. I tried diets, workouts, and planners, and I bought every inspirational book I thought might help me figure out how to do it all. I see my struggles reflected all the time in the lives of other women—and the fact is we’re working long hours but struggling to get everything done, care-taking children and friends with little time left over to rest, exercising constantly but not seeing results, trying to eat well but still feeling blah—and we find we have less and less energy left to create our best work, nurture our relationships, and access our joy for life in general. We’re all looking for a way to make everything more doable, but doing everything still leaves us feeling like somehow we’ve failed.

Our culture forces us to keep pushing, pushing, pushing. We overstretch ourselves, our expectations, our bodies, and our time. We race breathlessly to keep up with never-ending to-do lists, put everybody else’s needs first, and juggle career and family. We look outside ourselves—relying on magazine articles or male-centered health research—for healthy living strategies rather than listening to the inner wisdom of our biochemistry.

As a result, our physical health is deteriorating. Fibroids, endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), infertility, low sex drive, premature ovarian failure (POF), and challenging perimenopause are all on the rise. Chronic stress takes a toll on our bodies, our abilities to pursue our dreams, and our bonds with the people we love. At our deepest levels, we feel we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not organized enough to achieve what we desire in our lives.

What if I told you that there was a secret blueprint you’ve had available to you for years—a simple way to be more powerful and more effective in all areas of your life? Not only have you been ignoring it, you’ve viewed it as a liability. You’ve even tried to override this powerful tool, unintentionally dampening its force and causing it to work against you. As a result, it’s sapping your energy, making you sick, and holding you back from getting everything you want—and deserve—in life.

The secret isn’t really a secret—it’s been within you all along. I’ll cut right to the chase: your female biochemistry, and more specifically, your hormonal cycle—the one you probably lament on a monthly basis—is an incredible asset. Think of it as our unique and miraculous female advantage. It’s a game-changing tool we can use to empower every aspect of our lives—if we will only leverage it.

The problem is, we’ve been taught the opposite about our hormonal cycle. From the moment women get our first periods, we’re told about the cramps, the premenstrual syndrome (PMS), the burden our bodies must now take on. From a young age, we’re taught to feel ashamed rather than empowered by our bodies. Something that is so fundamental to us—our biochemistry, our reproductive system, our menstrual cycle—is twisted into “the curse” that we must hide or “deal with” rather than celebrate and use. We’ve been conditioned to ignore our hormonal cycle until something goes wrong with it. Then we treat it like an adversary that needs to be tamed with medication or other interventions so we can go back to ignoring it. This treatment has created a dysfunctional relationship with our hormones, our bodies, and ourselves—obliterating the power of our hormones and rendering them ineffective at best and a stumbling block at worst.

The good news is, with some simple lifestyle tweaks you can tap into this natural power source to biohack your way to better health and fitness, enhance your productivity, master time management, and enjoy greater success in every area of your life. Best of all, it’s really easy (compared with exhausting yourself trying to cram as much as possible into your day, striving to accomplish impossible to-do lists, and ignoring your most basic physical needs). By living, eating, and working in synchrony with your cyclical nature rather than fighting against it, you can unleash your creativity, fire up your energy, strengthen your relationships, and even be a better mom (if you’re a mom). You’ll use time strategically instead of being a slave to your calendar, increasing your energy and ultimately getting more done with fewer struggles. You’ll tap into that elusive sensation of “flow”—that incredible feeling you have when everything just clicks. You’ll be able to reframe your concept of success to feel great about yourself rather than tear yourself down. You’ll intuitively understand how to manage stress, increase self-satisfaction, quiet your inner critical voice, improve your health, and empower yourself to become productive and efficient in ways that are sustainable for you.

All this is achievable, but we can’t access our full potential when we’re living by someone else’s rules and not listening to the wisdom within. Simply put, we are round pegs trying to fit ourselves into square holes—no wonder we’re exhausted. We live out of sync with our unique female brain and body chemistry; we don’t eat in a pro-hormonal way that gives our endocrine system the building blocks it needs to keep our hormones balanced, and too often we’re prescribed medications like synthetic hormones that further prevent us from accessing the inherent gifts inside our bodies that could help us live our best lives. Our non-female-centric diet and lifestyle put a strain on a system that is perfectly equipped by nature to keep our hormones balanced and health optimized. Being out of sync with our female chemistry weakens our thyroid, our ovaries, our livers, our adrenals, our immunity, and our digestion. In fact, being out of sync weakens everything about our physical health, makes our thinking foggy, and takes us out of our creative zone.

The truth is, all the cultural myths about women’s bodies—that we are inherently weaker, more vulnerable to aging, less worthy of study—are BS. We’ve been sold a lie—harmful propaganda that says our body and biochemistry are a disadvantage. It’s time to flip the script. I’ve pioneered the groundbreaking Cycle Syncing Method™ to empower women, finally, to use their hormones in ways that are nothing short of revolutionary.

Syncing with your cycle is all about knowing where you are in your menstrual cycle and using that knowledge to understand yourself better and support yourself as hormone levels change. In my first best-selling book, WomanCode, I shared the eye-opening message that you could put your hormonal problems—think PMS, PCOS, fibroids, and endometriosis—into remission naturally with food and diet changes. I knew this message would create an “aha moment” for many women, but I was absolutely blown away by the response. What I learned from the hundreds of thousands of women who have reached out to me since then—at our center, at wellness conferences where I speak, via social media, and through the MyFLO app—was even more important. Listening to their stories, I realized there was a much bigger message to share—that the false notions about our female biochemistry have robbed us of far more than just our hormonal health. They’ve stolen our confidence, our vitality, and the very opportunity to live our best lives.

Enough!

The time to reclaim your female biochemistry is now. You just need to learn how to start tapping into its power. This book will help you do it. Drawing on leading-edge research in the fields of neuroendocrinology, functional medicine, nutritional genomics, chronobiology, integrative nutrition, and behavioral psychology, this book will explore the intersection of hormones, neurochemistry, and productivity—all in an effort to allow you to reconnect with the feminine advantage that resides within you. The book will also give you a new female-centered paradigm to manage your time and productivity more effortlessly, in ways specifically tailored to your female needs.

Once you have the foundational, perspective-shifting knowledge needed to reverse the cultural conditioning that’s been holding us back, I’ll break down the four phases of your hormonal cycle and how they affect your brain, moods, energy, and behaviors. You’ll learn how to care for yourself in each unique phase and harness strengths around your creativity, energy, emotions, and sexuality. I’ll also introduce you to a female-centered form of time management that works with your hormonal phases to help you get more done with less stress and get more enjoyment out of everything you do. In other words, we’ll throw out living exclusively by the standard 24-hour clock (which—no surprise—happens to be in alignment with the male hormonal cycle) and shift to a more sustainable 28-day approach. This book provides a clear plan to biohack your health and fitness in ways that are specifically tailored to your unique biochemistry, and offers tips to help you bring these insights beyond self-care and personal time management, into your interactions with the larger world around you. Believe me, we get into the nitty-gritty. You’ll know on what day to ask for that promotion, the best time to do yoga or cardio, when to double up on leafy greens, the best week to spend time being introspective and gentle with yourself, and when to unleash your social butterfly.

The book also provides a planner and evaluation tool to help you engage this superpower, and teaches you how to heal the root causes of your hormone imbalances to create a lifestyle that keeps you from being vulnerable to new imbalances, and lets you harness your body’s innate patterns as a tool for peak productivity, flow, and happiness. Even if you aren’t suffering from hormonal imbalance, you can benefit from tuning in to your female biochemistry to help you achieve more with less stress.

I teach women of all ages all across the world how to use the Cycle Syncing Method™ every day—and their hormonal health and lives are transforming in ways they never dreamed possible. (Take note: you can engage this cycle even if you’re postmenopausal or are no longer bleeding.) Whether you’re coming to this book to relieve health issues, decrease stress, or just to figure out how to live your best life, there’s something here for you.

This is the right book for you if any of these statements rings true:

• You feel like you are always trying to do it all, but there’s never enough time.

• You strive to give 100 percent in every area of your life, but it’s hard to keep up with your own expectations.

• You want to be more creative, more enterprising, more consistent, but you feel like you start and then don’t follow through.

• You have tried every kind of planner to be more organized.

• You’ve tried every diet and fitness program and don’t get the results you want.

• You’re interested in biohacking, but not sure where to start.

• You feel continually drained and overwhelmed by all the commitments in your life.

• You want to be having more fun and pleasure in your life, but you struggle to stay up with your to-do list and often feel like you haven’t earned enjoyment.

• You have PMS, PCOS, fibroids, endometriosis, ovarian cysts, infertility, or any other period problems.

• You’ve already seen functional medicine doctors and your regular obgyn and tried everything—acupuncture, in vitro fertilization (IVF), birth control, other medications, antidepressants, skincare treatments, diuretics for bloating, ibuprofen for cramps—and you’re still not getting the results you want.

• You’re eating a healthy diet but you’re still having symptoms.

• You’re a mom with a tween or teen struggling with her period, skin, weight, or moods.

• You are in the first half of perimenopause and are experiencing symptoms.

• You’re not enjoying your relationship or sex life as much as you’d like to be.

• You feel disconnected from your body or feminine energy.

• You think being a woman means you’re destined to suffer.

• You want to live your best life, but need a sustainable way to do it.

IS THIS BOOK FOR YOU?

This book is written for women, but some people who identify as women may not have the biochemical or physical makeup being explored here. What if you’re trans, nonbinary, or taking estrogen or testosterone as you undergo gender transition? You may not fit into a traditional gender box. However you self-identify or wherever you are in your gender journey, understand that working with your unique reality is a gift that is available to everyone. How should you approach using the Cycle Syncing Method™ if you’re transgender, for example? For people transitioning to female, following this program may help you feel more connected to your feminine energy even if you’re not menstruating. For those who are transitioning to male but still menstruating, you may prefer to get in tune with the more linear, 24-hour male pattern. In that case, you may not want to follow a cyclical program. The bottom line is that it’s entirely up to you.

In these pages, you’ll meet some of the amazing real-life women who have adopted this program and not only have found solutions to their hormonal problems, but also have unlocked their potential—gaining the confidence to do the things they’d always dreamed of doing. You can gain this confidence, too.

Once you understand the concept, it’s all very simple. You just need to cut through the misinformation and turn on the power of your body and the time it keeps. After reading this book, you will take with you the scientific understanding, the tactical plan, and the inspiration to change your life immediately.

In addition to these practical benefits for your health and productivity, you’ll gain the opportunity to come home to yourself—to heal the wounds of feminine disconnection. We have tried to survive in a noninclusive culture for too long by compromising too much of ourselves. We don’t have to squeeze ourselves into this paradigm. What women are in desperate need of now is a female-centered framework for how to live. That’s where this book comes in.

This book:

• will give you the freedom and permission to do what’s right for you more of the time.

• will end the confusion about how your hormones work and how they affect more than your period and fertility so you’ll know what to expect and what your hormonal advantages are.