On this post I give a summary of April 2022 by looking at the most important factors that I pay attention to around my lifestyle.

My cycle

This month’s cycle was more normal in length and landed on 35 days. My luteal phase was 11 days which is perfectly normal for me as well. If you have less than ten days, it is a sign that the body is not making enough progesterone. Adequate progesterone is crucial for maintaining healthy bones, long-term heart health, sleeping well, and feeling your best.

Focus on building more muscles

I am currently working on building more muscles. This mean that even though I practice an intermittent fasting lifestyle in the follicle phase I will eat more once I open up my eating window. If I do not supply the building blocks and nourishment to my body, it will not be able to build more muscles. I will aim to have this increase in calories for around four months to really give my body a fair chance to build muscles.

Min fastande livsstil

This month I added more fasting days or rather time restricted eating to my lifestyle. This in order to be able to build more muscles. On average I fasted 17 hours and I collected 402 hours in total. I used to do alternate day fasting but right now I am practicing more of a consistent fasting schedule every day but once I eat aim to reach between 1500 – 1800 calories and 30% consists of protein. Protein is the building blocks for muscles. To read more about protein you can go hit..

Sleep and recovery

Looking at my average HRV I sit on 57 which is awesome! This is a good indication that I have balanced my activity and recovery in a good way. I will however now enter the season (Spring) where I am usually not on top mentally. So I will keep that in mind and be more empathetic towards myself in general this coming period. To read more about sleep and HRV you can go hit..

Digestion

I continue my search to find the best ways for me to have a smooth-running digestion. I have landed in that for me it is probably best to cycle my way of eating to give my digestion some rest. The time-restricted eating is of course beneficial for me as well in giving my digestion the recovery that it needs. By cycling my way of eating I mean that I will for example eat more of a “carnivorish” style the first week of my follicle phase. Making sure to focus on foods mainly from the animal kingdom also helps me to replenish my hem iron levels since this is very bioavailable in foods such as red meat, liver etc. Getting iron from spinach for example requires more work for the body to convert the iron into hem iron. This process might not work optimally either hence the risk is greater to become iron deficient.  

Week two and three I will start to implement some more veggies. My approach is to look at introducing new foods as an hormetic stressor. This means that I will add a little bit of broccoli, asparagus, or garlic for example on my plate along with my fats and proteins. If that goes well without any complaints from my digestion, I will add a bit more the following days and continue like that. The last week (week four) of my cycle I eat a much higher fiber diet such as sweet potatoes, rice, sourdough bread, citrus fruits, and seeds to boost my progesterone levels. But this usually takes its tow on my digestion by causing lots of bloating, gas an indigestion. That is why it is beneficial to remove most fiber as I come into the follicle phase and start week one again. To read more about how I adjust my lifestyle around my cycle you can go hit..

Training regimen

I continue my aerobic exercise approach. I like it a lot actually. It has made me take the next step in being a runner I would say. I have started to extend my runs from 4 – 5 km to between 5 – 7 km as well and slowly building up my resilience. I truly love the process of building up and making something stronger!

So right now I do strength training one day, aerobic exercise the next day, strength training the next day etc. I also try to add one HIIT session per week. But my main focus is still on strength training and trying to become stronger and build more muscles. Each session I always try to challenge myself by adding more weights. If it is too much, then I will back off, but I always try to add more weights each time.

Ytterligare läsning

Summary of March 2022 you can find hit..