Reversing Estrogen Dominance & Achieving Hormonal Healing...How Long Does it Take??

A Timeline for How to Heal

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You’re making the move from conventional to organic, you’re syncing your workouts with your cycle, and you’re taking the necessary steps to get your gut and hormonal health back on track. So when exactly can you expect to see a payoff from all that dedicated effort?

If you’ve finally committed to resolving your menstrual symptoms, you’re probably anxious to see results. After all, if you’re like most women dealing with issues including PMS, PCOS, endometriosis, or otherwise problematic cycles, you’ve been struggling with symptoms for way too long and you’re frustrated that you haven't found the cure. Trust us, I get it. Our founder Alisa Vitti suffered through years of painful symptoms before doctors diagnosed me with PCOS. Even then, she had to tell them that she thought it was PCOS before they diagnosed her. It was her own extensive research that led them to the answer! That was her first clue that conventional medicine didn’t hold all the answers.

With a hormone-related diagnosis in hand, Alisa was offered conventional medicine’s most common answer to all hormonal issues: synthetic birth control. After experimenting with every other option, naturopathy, acupuncture, elimination diets, she finally decided to try it even though her gut was telling her not to take the pill. Maybe it will help, she thought?Turns out, it can hurt A LOT. After ten days, she was having a heart arrhythmia and migraines so severe that she would temporarily lose her vision! Alisa quit the pill immediately and never looked back.

Today we know—and research shows—that the pill actually causes a host of hormonal issues. It does the opposite of solve hormonal problems. The fact is, once you have the right tools and you start taking your hormonal healing seriously, you can absolutely see results fast. True, lasting, permanent change takes time and patience, but there’s nothing as encouraging as seeing evidence that things are moving in the right direction. If you commit to the FLO protocol, here are some of the amazing results you can expect to see—and when you can expect to see them.

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In 1 week: You can reduce the endocrine disruptors in your body by up to 90%

How long does it take to restore hormone balance? There are many benefits to healing your hormones that show up quickly, even in just 1 week. We've long encouraged women to follow an organic protocol in every area of their life at least 80% of the time. Now, science is finally catching up to this wisdom, with research revealing that switching to an organic diet reduces the harmful, endocrine-disrupting pesticides in your body by nearly 90 percent.

‍Researchers found that participants’ urinary dialkyl phosphates (DAPs) — a common method of assessing exposure to pesticides — were 89% lower when they ate an organic diet for a week compared to a conventional diet for the same amount of time. Why does pesticide exposure matter so much for hormonal health? Pesticides add synthetic hormones to your body (like xenoestrogens), congest your liver, making it harder for your body to process and eliminate excess hormones, and confuse the hormonal conversation your body needs to have to create balance and avoid symptoms. What’s more, too many pesticides in the body can impair fertility, make the growth of fibroids worse, interfere with regular ovulation, and damage thyroid function.

So if you’ve ever thought that eating organic doesn’t matter, think again! It is a foundational piece of balancing your hormones and erasing your symptoms. And the fact that you can reduce your pesticide load by almost 90% in a week is seriously motivating, right?

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In 9 days: You can improve your blood sugar (and other important biomarkers)

How long does it take to reverse estrogen dominance? When it comes to dietary offenders, there few more hormonally-disruptive bad guys than sugar. When you consume too much of it, it sends your blood sugar and insulin levels soaring and then crashing, which can stop your hormones from triggering ovulation and producing progesterone. This leads to estrogen dominance, the most common culprit behind a slew of hormonal conditions.

‍Research suggests that eating less sugar can stop the blood sugar roller coaster in just 9 days. This is the fastest proven way to reset your hormones. When researchers modified pubescent participants’ food intake by reducing the portion of their diet they typically filled with sugar (from 28% to 10% of their daily calories), and swapped it for starch, their fasting blood sugar levels dropped by 53%, along with the amount of insulin their bodies produced.  Participants’ triglyceride levels, LDL levels, and the amount of fat in their liver, also dropped.

The takeaway? Balanced blood sugar—which can be achieved in under two weeks—protects against estrogen dominance and all the devastating symptoms that come with having imbalanced estrogen levels, including irregular ovulation, severe PMS, acne, weight gain, and painful fibroids. If you’ve been dragging your heels on giving up sugar, consider how much better you could feel in a seriously short amount of time!

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In 2 months: You can improve estrogen metabolism and reduce PMS symptoms

Estrogen dominance is at the root of most hormonal conditions, so flushing the excess hormones from your body is essential to maintaining your overall health. One critical way to do a hormone flush is to fix your gut.

Your digestive health is deeply connected with your hormonal healing. The gut contains a colony of beneficial bacteria called the estrobolome, which produces an enzyme that helps metabolize estrogen. Having a healthy gut means having a healthy estrobolome—and a healthy estrobolome efficiently eliminates used hormones from the body, preventing estrogen build-up (and all the problems that come with it). But in our modern world, everything from a sugar-rich diet to overuse of antibiotics (and even the birth control pill) can throw your gut bacteria off-kilter, increasing your chances for estrogen dominance. There is great news here, though.

Studies have shown that what you eat matters, and your diet can start having a major impact on the composition of your gut bacteria quickly — in some cases, as quickly in a few days. One study showed that microbiome composition changed detectably within just 24 hours of initiating a high-fat/low-fiber or low-fat/high-fiber diet. And the research indicated that the longer participants adhered to specific food plans, the more significant the changes to the bacteria were, which should show you that committing to a hormone-healthy diet for the long haul is your best bet for continued success.

Another study found that increased dietary fiber intake elicits a wide range of physiologic effects, not just locally in the gut, but systemically — something we talk about often at FLO Living. Specifically, fiber helps support the liver, a critical organ necessary in the detoxification process that helps prevent and heal estrogen dominance. One great, easy, Harvard and FLO-approved way to start making major changes: eat fermented foods and use probiotics to help heal the gut.

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In 4 months: You can lower stress and improve menstrual regularity

Stress isn’t just something that’s out of your control or something that requires a variety of meditation principles to cope with. It turns out that the intake of vitamins, particularly the B-vitamins including B6, B9 and B12 may have a number of positive effects on mood and stress.

In a double-blind placebo-controlled study, 138 adults (aged 20 to 50 years) were administered a multivitamin containing B-vitamins versus placebo over a 16-week period. Researchers found that compared to the placebo, 16 weeks of supplementation was associated with a trend towards an increased Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR) — an increase of about 50% in cortisol levels occurring 20–30 minutes after waking. One interpretation of that elevation in CAR associated with multivitamin supplementation is that the supplements helped healthy participants develop an adaptive response to everyday demands. And when stress goes down, that means ovulation regularity and fertility go up.

‍Food is, of course, an amazing source of B vitamins — bananas, wild-caught tuna, spinach, poultry, sweet potato, and more are chock-full of it — but supplements are an important insurance policy to ensure you’re getting the right amount. An easy way to assess whether you’re experiencing the net effects of all these dietary changes is to actually examine the color of your blood. It’s true — just taking stock of your menstrual flow can help you see the progress you’re making and confirm the fact that food is clearly the best medicinal approach to dealing with problematic periods.

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Long-term: Continuing to eat in a hormonally-supportive way over time can slow down aging and protect fertility

Healing is truly all about balance. The New York Times recently covered emerging research that supports everything we stand for at FLO Living! Using the health and behavioral data of 914 women who went through menopause naturally, British researchers found that women who ate an additional two-and-a-half-ounce daily portion of fresh legumes (like peas or beans) were able to delay menopause by about one year, and women who ate an additional three-ounce daily portion of oily fish delayed menopause by about three years.

On the other hand, eating refined rice and pasta, was associated with an earlier age of menopause. This information should inspire and empower you to look at the FLO protocol as a hormonally-supportive way of life (not to mention, we’ve been talking about how to avoid premature hormonal aging years before scientists caught up). No diet, pill, patch, or surgery can address and resolve the root of your endocrine imbalance the way a total lifestyle overhaul can. Learning to eat, exercise, work, love, and play in a way that keeps your hormones happy will change your whole life — and the positive changes may come sooner than you think!

Need more inspiration? Check out these testimonials from real clients below:

• " Thanks to FLO Living, my PCOS symptoms are so much better!  The feeling when you really start believing in yourself is so so powerful! I just want to tell to all the woman with hormonal imbalances to not give up. The answer is closer than you think. Be patient and start step by step. You will get there!" — Lavinia

• "It in many ways changed the trajectory of my life, health and skin. I am happy to say that my skin has cleared, I have a handle on my PCOS symptoms and I now know and respect my body better than before. I now see my struggles as a blessing. WomanCode is a book that I recommend to women a lot and it even served as the foundation of starting one of my now closest friendships. The MyFLO app is an essential and daily companion I now use to keep track of my cycle and FLO Living is a place of community and empowerment and I am eternally grateful for the knowledge that Alisa chose to share with the world and women through WomanCode. I’d hate to think where I’d be right now had I not found that interview that lead me to Alisa’s work." — Jamie

• "My cycles are regular again! There’s an inner peace that comes with predictable cycles throughout the month with a deep understanding and respect for my body’s natural ability to function in a state of wellness." — Kelsey

• "Alisa Vitti, her team and the FLO Living movement inspire me every day to listen to my body and its intuition, live and love in my feminine power and to pass on cycle syncing wisdom to the world!" — Amber

• "I'm totally in and I feel amazing! Anemia is gone. I haven't had another sonogram to confirm the fibroids are gone, but my periods are regular and because of rituals and synced workouts I actually look forward to each phase. My body is looking svelte and stunning with the delicious recipes and food list. Sex is better than ever, my husband loves his emails from MyFLO, work is syncing like never before due to scheduling my life around my hormonal strengths. I'm telling everyone I know about MyFLO." — Nicole

• “Having PCOS, confirmed having anovulation, and having spent several thousands of dollars at fertility clinics to try to get to the root of things only coming up with the possibility of having to take Clomid (which doesn’t guarantee ovulation, and ovulation doesn’t guarantee pregnancy), I was searching for a more natural way to regulate my body and make it function ‘like a normal person.’ I implemented the diet and lifestyle protocol 100%, even getting everything organic because I was fully ready to be fully committed to do WHATEVER it takes. About a month later I had confirmed ovulation and then from the same cycle confirmed positive pregnancy test. I am now 2 months pregnant for the first time ever! I will say, based on how much this makes sense, I fully expected to be pregnant at some point this year, but was shocked when it happened so fast.” — Nate.
• “This got me pregnant at 43! I had FSH levels of 15 and was told IVF was the only way to go. After following this protocol, after 3 months, they were a 7.5! We then got pregnant naturally 3 months later! Every woman should start living this way as soon as possible to avoid any hormonal health problem ever.” — Diane.

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