Nutrition, Fitness + Hormones in Motherhood with Brooke Rozzie

Today on Failing Motherhood, Brooke Rozzie is here to share how as a nutrition + fitness expert, equipping herself with more understanding of her hormones unlocked new levels of energy, clarity and patience in her motherhood.

Brooke Rozzie is a functional nutritionist and owns a women-based coaching company focusing on supporting women in feeling the best in their skin so they can show up their best in their life by aligning hormonal health prioritizing nutrition, movement, and lifestyle factors.

In this episode, she dives deep into the 4 phases of your cycle and what small nutrition, fitness, and lifestyle shifts to make in each.  She shares what to address FIRST when needing to alter your hormones and how to communicate your needs + expectations with your partner.

Don't miss:

• What blows her clients' minds the most
• What you need to know if your cycle isn't 28 days
• The difference in cycles between men + women
• Simple, accessible lifestyle shifts to begin to implement

// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
Do Less: A Revolutionary Approach to Time and Energy Management for Ambitious Women by Kate Northrup

// CONNECT WITH BROOKE ROZZIE //
IG: @brookerozzie
Podcast: The Power of a Woman
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// SCHEDULE YOUR FREE CONSULTATION //
wholeheartedly.as.me/call

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Transcript

Brooke Rozzie: 0:00

When you start to realize like, oh my gosh, like how I'm feeling in that stage of my cycle is how he's feeling at the end of the day, you can start to be more patient with each other to and supportive and it transfers into parenting because when you two can be more cohesive with each other, it can transfer into how you're showing up for your kids or just for your own world. And when he can understand my husband actually tracks my cycle, when he can understand in this stage of my hormonal cycle, I'm going to need some more support here. I'm going to need like maybe you take over the dishes, you take over the laundry, or I'm going to need you to understand that like, hey, for this hour block is not my hour block to get stuff done. It's my hour block to rest.

Danielle Bettmann: 0:43

Ever feel like you suck at this job? Motherhood? I mean, I have too much anxiety. Not enough patience. Too much yelling, not enough play. There's no manual, no village, no guarantees. The stakes are high. We want so badly to get it right. This is survival mode. We're just trying to make it to bedtime. So if you're full of mom guilt, your temper scares you. You feel like you're screwing everything up. And you're afraid to admit any of those things out loud. This podcast is for you. This is failing motherhood. I'm Danielle Bettmann. And each week we'll chat with a mom ready to be real. Sharing her insecurities, fears, your failures and her wins. We do not have it all figured out. That's not the goal. The goal is to remind you, you are the mom your kids need. They need what you have. You are good enough. And you're not alone. I hope you pop in your buds somehow sneak away and get ready to hear some hope from the trenches. You belong here, friend. We're so glad you're here. Hey, it's Danielle. Today I am interviewing Brooke Rozzie. Brooke is a functional nutritionist owns a women based coaching company that focuses on supporting women in feeling the best in their skin. So they can show up the best in their life by aligning their Hormonal Health, prioritizing nutrition, movement and lifestyle factors. And in this episode, I personally pick Brooke's brain, because I feel like hormones and their cycle and just the understanding of what's going on in our body as women is very empowering information that we all need to be equipped with. And we're never given. And we're never modeled how to manage it. Well. I mean, we can have this understanding, it can transform our relationship with ourself, our relationship with our partner and our relationship with our kids. I'm so grateful for her to be able to come on and just share a very practical overview, a 411 of the monthly cycle, and then how it translates for her and the lifestyle factors and decisions that she makes on a day to day basis, how she has been able to communicate and connect with that information with her partner, and how she gives herself grace. And even has plans different activities and has different amounts of sleep different rounds of caffeine based on where she's at in her cycle. So for you, you may know this overall information, but take this opportunity to kind of reflect on what small change could you do either overall, or one of these weeks of your cycle to be able to set yourself up for more success, whether that's with your energy level, or whether that's just in your mindset, to be able to take the weight off yourself to be as productive every single day as you think you need to be, or be able to realize your ups and downs and have just more grace and more self compassion for your ability and your capacity to show up day to day as a mom as a spouse or as a employee. So listen to this episode, to learn what that overall ups and downs looks like. What hormones are at play, when you can expect those ups and downs and how it applies to what your body needs and what you can expect of your body. how that relates to the male composition and their hormones and what that looks like to be able to take out that comparison and have better understanding between the two of you. And then what really practical ways you can take on to make some shifts in your energy. She also explains how your hormones are a byproduct of other systems in your body and what Got to address first if you don't have either a predictable cycle or it's too short or too long, and what to be able to focus on first, the steps that she takes her clients through, and the overall compound interest that really pays off long term. So without further ado, here's my interview with Breck. Welcome to failing motherhood. My name is Danielle Bettmann. And on today's episode, I'm joined by Brooke Rozzie. Welcome Brooke!

Brooke Rozzie: 5:35

thank you for having me.

Danielle Bettmann: 5:36

Know, thanks for being here. I'm excited to have you on the show. I mean, hormones are like a whole thing that I didn't know really even existed until I was a full on grown up. Yeah.

Brooke Rozzie: 5:48

I mean, I knew about it, right? Like I knew about having a cycle and that But up until we wanted to have kids, I didn't realize the intricacy of them. And after that, after becoming a mom, I started to dive into it a lot more than I started to see the layers of things that came along with it and how in one, I always thought when I heard the term hormones, it was just sex hormones, I didn't realize that there was a lot of other hormonal processes going on in our body to

Danielle Bettmann: 6:17

Yeah, which I feel like is cruel, because it's a big part of how we function. And so I feel like not only am I but probably a lot of listeners are in the beginnings of this realization. So I'm excited to be able to dive into that with you, as well as your motherhood journey and all that good stuff. So I've already shared your bio, but just go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners, who are you and who's in your family?

Brooke Rozzie: 6:41

Yeah, so I'm Brooke, I am a functional nutritionist, you'll hear the terms like functional, holistic, etc, kind of thrown all over the place. But essentially, we take a holistic approach, and we take a I guess more of like a western medicine approach at the same time functional is more so we just, we take lab values and things into consideration when we're working with our clients on what their nutritional movement, etc, protocols and things should be. So I got into that. Because after becoming a mom, most importantly, I became the most passionate about it. And we can definitely get into why with that. But through when I like backtrack through like years of my own personal history, but then working with women, I was starting to see a lot of how unsupported women were in their body and how just confused, frustrated left trying the same old things that we used to do. And just feeling kind of like lost and not feeling good in our skin. And I when I was starting to see the only devices that women really had to support themselves was go on a diet and exercise. And there's this whole other piece of the puzzle that wasn't being talked about. And that really led me to

Danielle Bettmann: 7:52

what I do now. Yes. And who's in your family now?

Brooke Rozzie: 7:55

Oh, so my husband, we've got two kids, Lucy is four and a half and sassy as ever. My mom just tells me I get payback all the time. And then our son is about to be two and oh my gosh, she's just boys are just the riot like you never.

Danielle Bettmann: 8:17

And your husband has his own business as well. Right?

Brooke Rozzie: 8:20

Yeah, my husband. So my husband, I actually both met in the fitness industry. We both been in the industry for over 15 years. But we met at the old company that we both used to work for. And he recently laughed and started his own coaching business. We both actually have similar experiences, feeling in our old company that we were kind of like confined to a box and like had to like stay within that box. And that's just not in our nature. We're both challengers and like to question things. And so he struggled a lot in his career with that. So he started his coaching industry to be able to help people who felt that way to be able to like find their own way and navigate.

Danielle Bettmann: 8:57

Go for him. Yeah, that's exciting. And we originally connected, I think about over Lucy, right? Yes, like her strong willed personality. So just so all moms on this podcast feel like they're not alone. What is it like to have a strong willed kids?

Brooke Rozzie: 9:15

I mean, it's me and a four and a half year old form. We joke and I was like, why do we have to be challengers? Because like, it's our nature, right? And that's, it's an amazing thing. Like I secretly love her sassiness and like her will to do those things. But it is it's challenging navigating that because I don't want to dampen that and her I don't want to take that away from her. But I also need her to listen to me and understand that I'm trying to help her at the same time. So yeah, we're I mean, obviously I'm connecting with you on that, but we're in this ever ending like juggle with trying to figure those things out. And we are by far, like not perfect with it at all. But I will say you know the things that we do prioritize when it comes to like our own health and how we feel and those things absolutely To help our ability to be able to like take that step back and have that patience and kind of check ourselves with it,

Danielle Bettmann: 10:06

for sure, that's a huge component of your own capacity, your own ability to show up and have a game face and do the things that motherhood has us do. But let alone the challenges of having a four year old that is very stubborn and knows what they want and will not change their mind that is a whole next level of self development to be able to level up to, you know, to handle that, on top of all the other stress in place. So what's the biggest pain point for you right now? Parenting

Brooke Rozzie: 10:38

her, it's more so having conversations with my husband around her like I can see. So she is someone who knows what she wants, I am someone who know what I want, I will think about the like good and bad and like go through that process in my head. And so when I'm voicing what I want, I know that that's what I want. And she's very similar in that aspect. So it's going through the process with my husband with her of like, okay, actually, when she's having this kind of a reaction, you need to just let her be like, let her go through this and let her have this moment and not fix he very much likes to be the fixer. And I was like, you know, sometimes we got to understand that we can't fix and we have to just let her work through this. And we can be there to support her through this. So the biggest struggle for me was coming to that myself and realizing like, No, this is what I need in those moments. And this is how I can like take that and help support her through that too. So it's working through that. And it's also I think the hardest part for me, honestly, is checking my own, like ego and my own like wanting to solve because I know that's where she's at. I want to be able to get her there faster. And I can't

Danielle Bettmann: 11:44

like expedite the process. Yes, yes. You're definitely not alone. And that takes a lot of awareness to get to that place even to know what you're dealing with and have some tools at your disposal and just be able to have that insight and perspective into her head. Yeah, sometimes that's the majority of it is just being able to realize what it even is, and if there is a problem in the first place. So kudos to you guys for doing that development and growth and really prioritizing your relationship with her. So let's dive back. Let's start at the beginning. Was your entry to motherhood all cupcakes and rainbows? No,

Brooke Rozzie: 12:20

not at all.

Danielle Bettmann: 12:22

Tell us about it.

Brooke Rozzie: 12:23

I actually someone had a really frustrating experience. So when I got pregnant, I felt super disconnected, like everyone was talking about like, oh, you know, it's such an amazing thing being pregnant. And I didn't feel that I didn't feel the glow. I didn't feel like I just didn't know what I didn't know, honestly, when I looked back at it. And then I was filled with a lot of fear during my pregnancy to have. I remember I'd be up at like 2am googling stuff. And you know, I got a sunburn one time when I was pregnant. And I was like, Oh, my god, is this going to impact the baby and just little I was having so much anxiety through the pregnancy and where I was two days overdue with her and went into my appointment and I was starting to lose fluid. I wasn't feeling her move as much. So we went into labor, and I ended up having to be induced. And I remember my first experience that like still resonates with me was I wanted a natural birth and I wanted to be more connected to the birthing process and the nurse in the birthing room. I remember her saying to me, Well, you don't get any brownie points for having a natural birth. And I was like, I wasn't asking for brownie points. Like this wasn't you know, I was like, this isn't something I wanted to brag about. I just this is what I wanted for myself. And I ended up you know, in 12 hours of induced labor and ended up with an epidural and which actually was a great thing. It allowed me to relax and she came out great, she was fine. But after having her, I just felt so alone. My husband tried to do everything he could to support me, neither of us really knew, you know what we were doing. We used to say like, oh, you know, we used to stay up and study for tests, we know what it's like to be tired. But at the end of two weeks, I remember us looking at each other and we were like oh my god like what is going on. And I just felt so in a body that I did not know I looked in the mirror and my belly looked like a deflated balloon after she was a large baby after carrying her and I just did not recognize myself and it was really a really felt lost in myself. And then also it kind of like broke open this part of me that I never really knew was there in an amazing way. But I was still trying to find myself in that journey while also trying to like raise this human and I was starting to feel a lot of anxiety. I was starting to I didn't know at the time like was not normal but I would take her on a walk and I would have like vivid visions of like oh my god What if she like rolled down this hill in her stroller and like what what happened to her and I was starting to get a lot of those fears coming up that I did not realize were not normal but I also was so embarrassed to talk about because I thought that like something was wrong. And I my kind of like Breaking Point was I was drinking coffee, which I shouldn't have been anxiety, like, the caffeine was not helping. And my husband did something small nothing, I should have exploded. But I like exploded on him over it. And I was like, okay, something's going on. And when I look back on it, a lot of my frustration was I was seeing a lot of this, like, perpetual, you know? Well, motherhood means that you need to drink coffee to survive the day and wine at night. And like, this was just the experience that was being shown of like this exhausted mother and like, that's just kind of what was being accepted. And then my challenging nature was like, Well, why does this have to be the experience? Like, why do I have to feel this way. And I was almost angry that that's what was being accepted, because it felt like that's what I had to accept. And I didn't want to. So that was really like the big kind of like, experience that I went through when I first became a mom and was seeing and then I started to challenge it, then I started to challenge you know, this actually, it doesn't have to be the way it is like, we actually can shift the way that this feels. And this doesn't have to be our relationship with ourselves or our kids are. And when I started to tune into that myself, and started to tune into how I was feeling, I started to feel that shift a lot as far as like my experience and motherhood more so because I was feeling better myself. And I started to perceive my motherhood experience a lot different from that.

Danielle Bettmann: 16:18

And what were some of those initial shifts or changes? Or what does that journey look like?

Brooke Rozzie: 16:24

Yeah, you know, I had been in the industry at that point a little over 10 years. And I knew a lot about the body and knew a lot about nutrition. But I did not know a lot about how my hormones were impacting how I was feeling. And I really started to dive into okay, why am I feel this way? And Why are women feeling this way after they have a child and going through these changes, and I was starting to look a lot more into how my hormones were impacting my mood, or impacting not just my mood, but how I was physically feeling on a daily basis, my energy, and it's really started to kind of tune into how I can make that shift and tune more into my cycle, tune more into what I used to be in a mindset of was like pushing all the time, I tried to go back to what I did before I had kids, you know, follow the diet to lose the baby weight and do the intense exercise. And I wasn't recognizing, you know, what, like, my world just took a complete 180 And I have a whole nother like, you know, amazing stressor, but a whole nother stressor added into my life that takes mental capacity and takes energy. And I started to really look at like, Okay, if I only have so much energy to give in a day, how can I prioritize where my energy is going. So I shifted, I actually worked out less than I ever had before, really focused in on foods that was making me feel good, and then really tuned into my hormonal cycle. And what I'll do a lot with clients is just kind of taking it in layers of you know how in this stage of my cycle when my estrogen is higher, how am I feeling here, and what are things that I can do to support my body in this stage. And then the biggest area I focus a lot was in my luteal stage when I'm leading up to my period where my energy can be lower. And I can feel a little bit more of those emotions and being honestly more patient with myself more graceful with myself and giving myself more support and not putting myself in the position to feel like I needed to push it all the time made a significant impact for me.

Danielle Bettmann: 18:21

So for listeners that are still new to that cycle, can you just give like a quick 411. On what we can expect?

Brooke Rozzie: 18:30

Yeah. So you have two big stages of your hormonal cycle. And then within that we have a couple of smaller stages, which shifts in there. But your big stage is called your follicular stage. And this is generally it starts actually on the day that your period starts. But to break that into two different stages, your period is solely like your menstrual stage is really what we'll call it for, you know, the three to seven days that you're bleeding, your hormones are at an all time low in the beginning of that stage. And this is why we can feel more emotional. This is why we can feel more drained. This is why we can feel more exhausted in that stage of our cycle because our hormones are at their lowest point. And to women I want you to think of like your hormones are essentially what are your energy givers, your mood stabilizers, your hormones play a big role in that. So in that stage of your cycle, you can expect to need to take a little bit more rest. I usually say especially now that I have a daughter this is when I started to give myself Grace more was like how would I talk to my daughter about this right is this is the time that like you're openly bleeding. So like anybody who was bleeding, what would you tell them to do? You would tell them to go rest and you know, give your body some time to recoup itself. So you know, that little period I started to not try to challenge my exercise they started to take away the caffeine started to do more nourishing foods that made me feel good. And just focus on recovering and push myself to make sure that like every little aspect of our house was cleaned in that stage and it just kind of let things be and then you're coming out of that until like Full on follicular stage mode where your estrogen, which to you is like superpower hormone is kind of what I call it, it makes us feel the way we really want to feel is on a rise, it's increasing in the stage. And you can start to feel your libido rising, you can start to feel your energy shifting, you're usually more mentally focused, you're usually wanting to feel more social around this stage of your cycle. And primally. There's a reason to that, you know, if we were talking primarily, we're also leading up to our ovulation stage where if we did want to get pregnant, right, that's where we would do it. And obviously, we're going to be getting busy to try to make a baby we want to be feeling good at around that time. So your hormones are at an advantage for that. So this is usually when you're feeling your best and estrogen is on that rise leading up to its peak which is around your ovulation, which is kind of that like other small phase of our cycle, but also signifies the change from your follicular stage to your luteal stage. ovulation, obviously, libido is going to be at its peak, your testosterone actually does a little bit of a spike here as well. And this is all set up that if you did want to get pregnant, this would be the time to make a baby. And then what starts to happen is after that ovulation, our hormones do this little dance with each other. And progesterone, estrogen starts to come down and progesterone starts to kind of take over. And this is usually when as women, we feel a big mood shift in our hormonal cycle, our progesterone can be natural sedative, so we can feel more tired if we're not allowing ourselves to usually on average of 30 to 45 minutes extra of sleep that we need in our luteal stage of our cycle. So we can feel more tired. If you're someone who wakes up to an alarm consistently, you can suddenly start waking up to that alarm in the stage of your cycle wondering like, why am I so exhausted? Or why do I still feel like I need sleep, we can also be more sensitive to caffeine in this stage of our cycle because your serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter is lower here. So our ability to respond to stressors changes, and we can start to have more of a, I guess, anxiety impact from caffeine intake, this is usually in the stage of the cycle, I'll recommend women's switch to like a decaf or like a green tea or something with a lower caffeine intake. Because you can also this is when we start to feel more emotional in the stage of our cycle because of that shift. And then progesterone is actually a pro thyroid hormone. So we can actually start to feel more hungry. In this stage of our cycle and average, if you tracked food, not all my clients do, you need to have like a five to 10% caloric increase in this stage of your cycle. So this could be a couple squares, a dark chocolate, this could be you know, like hummus and veggies or something, it doesn't have to be that much. But we do need a little bit of a caloric increase in this stage to support our hormonal shifts that are going on. And usually I'll describe to women you know, if you don't give yourself that caloric increase, this is when you can start to ask like why am I so hungry and I'm like ravenous. And then you can feel like making love to a pain and brownies the week before your period because you haven't honored that. And then your body's like had enough and it really needs it. So this is you know, 10 to 12 days ish stage leading up to when your period is coming in, then we kind of repeat that cycle again, our hormones start to decrease and come down to a low point right before our period and then we start that cycle all over again.

Danielle Bettmann: 23:21

Okay. Hey, if you're new here, I'm Danielle. My company Wholeheartedly offers one on one and group coaching programs to help families with strong willed kids aged one to seven, prevent tantrums, eliminate power struggles, extend their patience and get on the same page. It's kind of like finances, you can read lots of info about what a Roth IRA is and how the stock market works. But if you really want to get serious about paying down debt or growing your wealth, you go see a financial advisor who can give you very specific recommendations based on all the unique facets of your situation. I'm your financial advisor for parenting. And I've designed the way we work together to give you nothing less than a complete transformation. While we work together, I am able to help you figure out why your child is losing their mind and why you are losing your mind and guide you to master effective long term solutions through three main focuses. Number one, my cultivating cooperation guide teaching you the tools of positive discipline. Number two, managing your mind by working through my triggers workbook. And number three, establishing your family's foundation by writing your family business plan. My coaching is comprehensive, practical, individualized and full of VIP support. So if you struggle to manage your child's big emotions, if you and your partner's arguments seem to center around parenting especially Usually, if one of you is too kind, and one of us too firm, if you struggle to stay calm and be the parent that you want to be, it's possible to stop feeling like a deer in headlights when a tantrum hits, effortlessly move through simple directions and care routines without an argument. And go to bed, replaying the way you handled the hardest moments and feel proud. If you have a deep desire to be the best parent you can be, and your family is your greatest investment. Find me on Instagram, send me a message that says sanity. And I'll ask you a few questions to see if we'd be a good fit to work together. I can't wait to meet you back to the show. So what is usually the thing that blows your client's mind the most,

Brooke Rozzie: 25:51

when I tell people that we are actually as a woman, like you are not meant to feel the same every single day, like you really aren't. And we expect that because you know, society wise, like we do the same things every day, right? Like, I'll have to get up and do similar stuff every single day. So our world is not really set up for someone who doesn't feel the same every day. It's not, it's not at all. And so that can be a challenge trying to navigate through that. But when you know that you're not meant to feel the same every day. And you don't put that expectation on yourself to feel that same every day, you can radically shift how you operate in your world more than anything. And the thing that blows people's minds the most is when I say that like a guy's hormones, like everything that we go through in a 28 day cycle, on average, a guy goes through in a 24 hour period. So their hormones like they wake up. If you think of it now it's not the exact science, but they wake up in that follicular ambulatory stage like that's like peak energetic time for a guy. And then by the end of that day, they're in that like menstrual stage for us. So that's why like guys at the end of the day are like tapped out, because they're going through that shift in a whole 24 hour period where we're not. So that can be why sometimes it can be challenging to one have the comparison game come up. But when you know that, then you can start to work around like, Okay, this is actually when you're at your best. And this is when I'm at my best, and how can we work this together to

Danielle Bettmann: 27:15

Yeah, that understanding can completely shift, not only in a practical space, why we take action in the way that we do, but just for our own mindset, and our own expectations of ourselves and all the shoulds and all of the mind game, and the anxiety and the overwhelm and the guilt, like it's overwhelming the amount of pressure we put on ourselves to perform and to keep up and to be able to just give ourselves even a little bit of grace. Yeah, is transformational. Yeah.

Brooke Rozzie: 27:47

And I think to like in that partnership, too, if your partner is a guy, right, when you're looking at that I used to get so annoyed with my husband, like would be tapped out at the end of the day, because I'm like, Do you know what I've been doing all day, right? Like, I've been dealing with the kids, oh, you poor thing, right? Like, you don't have to be here with all day. Yeah. But when you start to realize like, oh my gosh, like how I'm feeling in that stage of my cycle is how he's feeling at the end of the day, you can start to be more patient with each other to and supportive. And it transfers into parenting, because when you two can be more cohesive with each other, it can transfer into how you're showing up for your kids or just for your own world. And when he can understand my husband actually tracks my cycle, when he can understand in this stage of my hormonal cycle, I'm going to need some more support here, I'm going to need like maybe you take over the dishes, you take over the laundry, or I'm going to need you to understand that like, hey, for this hour block is not my hour block to get stuff done. It's my hour block to rest, and actually rest and but also women, we can lay there to rest and we can mentally torment ourselves when we're doing it. Yeah. Right. Like, we can be like, well, I should be doing this. And I shouldn't be doing that. Sometimes having just that partner to say to you, hey, you know what, I want you to go rest. And I don't want you to think about anything. I've got this, sometimes just that reminder can allow us to have that. And if they're aware that that's how we could be feeling in that moment. They can support us the way that we need it to.

Danielle Bettmann: 29:10

Yeah, that can be a game changer. Yeah. So having tried to facilitate that conversation with your partner, I feel like I'm in the beginning stages of my partner and I being able to talk about that. And for me to just even have the knowledge of where I'm at. Yeah, so that I can have the words to communicate what I need better. That's a whole skill set in and of itself that we were probably never modeled or taught. So for things that we're trying to do that we've never been taught or done before. Yeah, but I first discovered some of this when I read do less and realized how you should use these types of cycles to kind of set you up for your work life and why you do kind of like the tasks you do in certain weeks rather than other weeks, because you're either more social and magnetic or needing to read we'd kind of be a recluse and hermit, and some other times. So how have you used that knowledge to either practically kind of set up your schedule? Or how does that translate to your day to day?

Brooke Rozzie: 30:12

Yeah, yeah, I love that book. By the way, it's such an awesome book. And it's, you know, the challenging thing, I think, for anyone who's working outside of the home is navigating that in a corporate environment, right. And I try to explain to my clients, like, you know, it's not like, you're gonna go tell your boss like, Hey, I'm on my period that week, I'm not going to be giving that presentation, right? Like, it's probably not going to fly before me. But you can be patient with yourself in those kinds of settings to know, hey, this is what I'm feeling this is the extra preparation or support, I'm going to need to show up for this type of a thing. And for myself, owning my own business, I obviously have a little bit more of the ability to create that I do hone into when I'm in Abila Tori's like we're I'm in my ovulate Tori stage right now. That's why we're recording this podcast, right, I can speak to things better, I know that my energy is going to be in a different place, when I'm in that follicular and ambulatory stage in my cycle. So that's usually when I schedule a lot more of my social stuff, I will even to the point of motherhood, plan things with my friends, for our kids to be doing things around that stage of my cycle. And I also will be more social with my kids in that stage of my cycle, too, I also will be more in the mood to get down on the floor and play with them more in the mood to like, go out and do adventure, like take them to the zoo or do those kinds of things. So I will be more in the mood to do those kinds of things show up as that mom more and do those things. And then I know in my luteal stage of my cycle when my progesterone is higher, and I'm needing to give myself more grace. This is more of the time when I might be asking for more support with the kids. Like maybe this is the time that I can have a nanny come for just a couple hours for me to just go do something for myself for a couple hours. This is the time when I'm probably being more creative in my business and not so much of like front facing and social type stuff. I'm stepping back and kind of taking more time to go inward yoga walking, that's more of what my workouts will look like. In that stage, I'm taking time to just give myself quiet space where this is usually where we are naturally more creative, I can have that quiet space to allow that to kind of flow a little bit. And I do actually set aside a little bit more time for sleep in that stage of my cycle, as well. And then when it comes to the nutritional standpoint, I scale caffeine significantly in my luteal stage and then take it out to help my mood and help the anxiety. And then in my follicular stage, you can actually focus a little bit more into like raw foods, veggies, salads, those kinds of things. My luteal stage, I focus more into like cooked type foods, things that are going to be easier on my digestive process to

Danielle Bettmann: 32:55

Okay, well, obviously, the question that everyone's asking is, if we have to take out coffee, then how do we survive? Yeah, like what? How do you create that energy? Especially if you're still needing more sleep at that time? What do you typically recommend?

Brooke Rozzie: 33:09

Yeah, you will survive, I promise. But I know every time I say that to a mom, they're like, don't even go there. But I promise, it's actually so it depends on where you're at. I will usually say like, if you are significantly consuming coffee, then scale it back by like half like it doesn't have to be completely taken out. You can judge your own mood. I don't respond to caffeine. Well, much. So even in my follicular stage, I'm not drinking at a time, but there are people who can handle it. Okay, so maybe it's scaling back a little bit. The ways to judge that would be look at the quality of your sleep, not necessarily the time, even if you're getting woken up, you know, look at the quality of that. How are you waking up feeling in the morning? Are you dreaming at night? If you are able, like if your kids are sleeping through the night, are you sleeping through the night? Is the question, right? Are you waking up feeling rested? Then that might be a good place to judge how you're handling caffeine? I know that if I drink caffeine, I'm okay. I could fall asleep at night. But the quality of my sleep is not good. I wake up still tired. I feel a little groggy. So okay, you can judge by that you can also judge by like how's my mood and energy when I drink this? Do I feel my heart racing? Am I feeling more anxious and you can kind of pay attention. And those might be signs that maybe you're not processing it or handling it as well as you would want to be. So that might be a sign to scale it back a little bit. And the process of scaling it can be a little bit challenging. I recommend increasing your water intake, add some maybe electrolytes into your water while you're doing it. But it doesn't have to be cold turkey and you can cut it down by half or third or whatever you want. Whatever feels good to you. But you might actually find that the more quality sleep you're getting, the more energized you feel without it the next day. I was really surprised when I started to do it to find that like I actually didn't need it and I actually had more energy during the day without it Then when I was consuming

Danielle Bettmann: 35:01

it, yeah, and how would you know, until you kind of run that experiment?

Brooke Rozzie: 35:05

Yeah, we forget caffeine is a drug to right not, you know, not a bad thing. But it is a drug and your body can start to adapt, and it can start to become pretty conditioned with it. So sometimes even just scaling back, so we're not having to consume so much of it right to get the effect that we need can be really beneficial too.

Danielle Bettmann: 35:23

Okay, then the last thing that I have to pick your mind about is what happens if you don't have a perfect 28 day cycle.

Brooke Rozzie: 35:30

So that can be kind of loaded, but we want to look at like where. So if it's a really short cycle, there's different things we can do, we can do like a Dutch mix the cycle mapping test, so we could test your full cycle, do like a salivary and neuronal analysis through a full month to see where in your cycle is getting thrown off. Sometimes what we'll do, you know, a typical physician will do is they'll just do bloodwork, which is not a bad thing, it can give us a good picture, but you want to do the bloodwork on the 21st day of your cycle. And when we do bloodwork, it's only giving us a preview of your hormones at that day and time that you had your bloodwork done. And given what we just talked about in your hormonal cycle, it's not letting us know like, alright, are your hormones off in your follicular stage? Is it that your progesterone is not doing what we want it to do? We want to look at the whole picture. So a cycle mapping test would be a good place to start if it's short, or if it's long. Or if it's irregular, then we want to look at that. I always say we want to take it in layer. So the first step I actually always ask questions to clients about is your sex hormones are a byproduct of something else in the body. So your sex hormones don't just like dysfunction, there's something else that could be causing it somewhere else in your endocrine system could be thyroid could be adrenals, even your gut health can be playing an impact in there. So we always ask like, are you eating adequate protein? You know, is your blood sugar regulated? Are you drinking enough water? Are you getting quality sleep most nights of the week? are you prioritizing balancing your stressors. And those seem so simple and seem like oh, it's not that big of a deal, but they actually play a significant impact in your hormonal cycle as a woman. So always start there. And then if you're doing those things consistently, and things are still off, then we want to look into like, alright, what deeper is going on, and what could be playing a role in here. If it's a shorter cycle, we want to know why. And then we can help support that, if it's a longer cycle where it's irregular and unpredictable, then saying we want to know why and what can be throwing it off more than likely there's some sort of an imbalance between your estrogen and progesterone. Or there could be or stressors could be playing a role in how your body's responding. Okay.

Danielle Bettmann: 37:38

So, obviously, super knowledgeable and passionate about this. So it's hard to like summarize all the things in one hour. But if you had a pedestal where you could just kind of speak to the message that you feel like most listeners would need to hear. Yeah, what is kind of that summarization?

Brooke Rozzie: 37:55

Yeah, the biggest thing I tell my clients is, we can't change your stress, right, I can't change the fact that we have kids, we can't change the fact we have bills, and a job and all these different things. And those are great, right? But we can control what we can control. And instead, we can focus there. So I always say that our stressors that we choose to take on need to match the stressors that we have in our lifestyle. So if you are in a place in your life, where you have significant stress, like I have a four and a half year old and a two year old, right, that's a lot of mental capacity in my day, right now different than when they're, you know, it's still gonna be mental capacity. But when they're more self sufficient, it's going to be a lot less. So I know that what I'm doing and choosing as far as my exercise and nutrition needs to support that stress right now. And I may not be going and crushing my body five days a week at CrossFit, because I've already got a lot of stressors. And like I said, you only have so much energy to give out in a day. My body can't handle that amount. So look at the stressors that you have and look at the stressors you're applying and balance those together are really, really important. And the stressors you're applying, I say our exercise diet, and then just the external things that we're taking on if we have boundaries or not to the things that we're saying yes to. And then in simplest terms when it comes to like wanting to feel your best, and wanting to show up differently. The most important thing is look at habits in the daily basis. Like are you waking up in the morning and checking your phone instead of taking some time to like drink some water? Before you get out of bed? Are you needing that caffeine because you're staying up until midnight binge watching TV shows because it's your only time at night? Could we maybe go to bed two hours earlier and wake up with different energy the next day, look at the habits and look at where and how they're impacting you and making you feel we always want to jump to especially we're so conditioned to jump to diet and exercise. And then we get frustrated and feel like we're failing when those things don't work. And the reason they're not working is because of maybe some of the other habits that we have in our day and if we address those first, that will make a significant impact on how we feel and like I said Your hormones are a byproduct. So your hormones will kind of come in line with that as well,

Danielle Bettmann: 40:05

which is really empowering, because we do have the capacity. Yeah, to do that that's feasible. It's kind of like fundamentals that are easier to take on than a drastic lifestyle change. That's unsustainable.

Brooke Rozzie: 40:18

Yeah, absolutely. And it's, it doesn't all have to be done tomorrow, right? You could, instead this week, you could focus on going to bed earlier. And then next week, you could increase your water intake. And then the following week, you could like prep some food for the week, right? And we don't want to put so much pressure on ourselves to do it all in one time. If we take it layer by layer, and you do that every week for six months, like in six months, you'd be in a significantly different place, and six months is not that much time.

Danielle Bettmann: 40:44

Right? It's the compound interest that builds up with those really small changes.

Brooke Rozzie: 40:48

Yeah, it's the compound interest that has led you to where you are now. And it's a compound interest of the choices we're making now that can lead us to where we want to be.

Danielle Bettmann: 40:55

Yeah. Okay, so how do listeners connect with you?

Brooke Rozzie: 40:59

Social media is probably the easiest and probably on their way more than I should be. My Instagram is Brooke Rozzie, I can just come hang with me over there, shoot me a message and and say hi, is probably the best place to get to me.

Danielle Bettmann: 41:12

Okay, sounds good. And then the last question that I asked every guest that comes on, is how are you, the mom that your kids need?

Brooke Rozzie: 41:19

When I look at the mom I had, she's amazing. I don't want to knock her. I wanted a mom who would maybe support me a little bit more and be more of an emotional comfort for me. So for me, I'm trying to kind of change that narrative and like focus on my own stuff so that my stuff isn't showing up and how I support them, too. So I don't feel I mean, I still have the worries that I'm screwing them up sometimes. And you know that that's how I'm trying to shift it for my kids. Well,

Danielle Bettmann: 41:51

they're lucky to have you. Thank you. Thank you for being able to speak to this, like such practical information that we all need to be equipped with, to be able to know our bodies and be able to manage them well. So thank you so much for your time and for sharing that with us.

Brooke Rozzie: 42:06

Yeah, thank you for having me, of course.

Danielle Bettmann: 42:12

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of failing motherhood. Your kids are so lucky to have you. If you loved this episode, take a screenshot right now and share it in your Instagram stories and tag me. If you're loving the podcast, be sure that you've subscribed and leave a review so we can help more moms know they are not alone if they feel like they're failing motherhood on a daily basis. And if you're ready to transform your relationship with your strong willed child, and invest in the support you need to make it happen. Schedule your free consultation using the link in the show notes. I can't wait to meet you. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. I believe in you, and I'm cheering you on.