The Journal
Research and practical guidance on how the menstrual cycle affects training, nutrition, mood and health, from the team behind the 28 cycle-based wellness app.
Training
The fitness playbook women inherited was written for male bodies. In women, the first system to shut down under chronic training stress is the one that runs the cycle, and it happens while periods still look normal.
9 min read
Body Literacy
More than a third of clinically normal menstrual cycles are anovulatory. The calendar cannot see it, which is why body literacy starts with knowing what a period does and does not tell you.
9 min read
Body Literacy
The textbook diagram is an average of a population, not a description of a person. The half of the cycle that moves is the half most apps assume is fixed.
8 min read
Body Literacy
Progesterone raises your resting temperature, fragments your sleep and increases how much you eat by a measurable amount. Most of what women blame on willpower in the second half of the cycle is physiology.
9 min read
Nutrition
No food raises your progesterone. What food does do is decide whether your cycle has the energy to run at all, and that mechanism is measured and specific.
9 min read
Symptoms
Two things are true at once. Ordinary cramps respond to things you can do yourself, and severe period pain is a medical signal that women are routinely told to tolerate.
8 min read
Symptoms
Most premenstrual symptoms are ordinary. A small percentage of women have something with a diagnosis, a treatment pathway, and a long history of being told to manage it themselves.
8 min read
Body Literacy
Your resting temperature is higher after ovulation and your sleep is objectively more disrupted before your period. Both are predictable, which makes them plannable.
7 min read
Body Literacy
The bleed on the pill is a withdrawal bleed, not a period. Phase-based guidance assumes a cycle that combined contraception is designed to switch off, and almost nobody says so.
7 min read
Hormone Health
Two things are true. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are a genuine area of concern with a serious evidence base, and most detox products sold on that concern are not supported by it.
8 min read
Studies
A study led by Dr. Sarah E. Hill compared 28 members who adjust exercise and nutrition to their cycle with those who do not, across mood, body image, energy and cycle symptoms.
6 min read
