As women, keeping fit and incorporating some form of movement into our daily lives is crucial to our overall health and wellbeing. In saying that, many women adopt the ‘same-thing-every-day’ approach when it comes to their exercise regime. Let me say out right that I am NOT a personal trainer nor do I have a degree in sports science but I am a doctor who understands the workings on the human physiology – and understanding how the body works can give us insight on how we should be living and how we can prevent certain diseases from occurring.

So let’s get started. I will briefly explain why I discourage my female patients from participating in the same form of exercise every day throughout their menstrual cycle. The best time for any form of Aerobic Exercise / Cardio is the Follicular Phase. As explained previously, after menstruation estrogen levels begins to rise and this gives you mounds of energy. But most importantly, progesterone and cortisol are still low in this first half of the cycle – which is key to knowing what form of exercise you should be doing. When you have an intense workout at some point your stress hormone Cortisol will be released and in some cases even adrenaline. This is good for energy production but bad for sex hormones – namely progesterone. When we are stressed (that can be mental, emotional and physical stress – like exercise) that takes first preference. Now Progesterone being the base or Mother Hormone which I like to call it converts to produce our sex hormones – testosterone and estrogen and also… cortisol! Stress takes first preference over reproduction therefore if you use too much progesterone to make your stress hormone cortisol you will have little left to make your sex hormones. That is a very SIMPLE BRIEF way of putting it.

Therefore when your energy levels are high and cortisol and progesterone are low in the Follicular Phase it is ok to push yourself physically. I will explain in my next post the type of exercise you should participate in in your Ovulatory and Luteal Phase.

Article written by Dr Tharushka Naidoo