A deeper understanding of gender and hormone cycles is driving new fields in women's health and fitness. 

• Courtesy photo
• Taylor Powelson

Concerns about hormone health have skyrocketed as we've discovered the pressure our synthetic world is putting on our bodies. Exposure to microplastics, LED light, polyester fabrics, and pesticides has been unbalancing our bodies and making our hormone levels go berserk.

These imbalances can be the root cause of a spectrum of illnesses from depression and anxiety to weight gain and gastrointestinal problems. Women, whose hormone levels naturally fluctuate throughout the month, can be especially hard hit. But while quick-fix hormone shots and prescription pills are found on every corner, they might not really solve the problem.

Taylor Powelson, of Helper, knows about that personally. She worked for over a decade as a medical assistant in various hospital clinics, including OB/GYN and pediatrics, and had experience as a doula and breastfeeding consultant. But when she had a personal health crisis, she felt ignored by standard medical practice.

"After having my second child, I went to my doctor for extreme PMS, irritability and rage. The doctor said, 'This is what it's like to have two children, here's some birth control and anti-depressants.' I felt like that was a Band-aid," Powelson said. She wanted to get to the root of the problems, which she knew had something to do with nutrition and self-care. In her pursuit of solutions, she said she "fell down a rabbit hole of hormone health."

By tracking her body's hormone signals, Powelson learned to adapt her rest, workout, diet, and supplements to her body's specific needs. In time, her hormones leveled out. Her mood went back to normal, and she felt sane again. Not only that, she was becoming more healthy and fit.

"Basically, female and male hormones are totally different, but I was living my life as if I had male hormones," Powelson related. "Once I learned that women's hormones are different and we should be living a more cyclical life, accepting the ebb and flow and accepting restoration, that's when I started to feel change."

Powelson now offers Cycle Sync Academy through her online business, BeWellWithTay.com. As a coach certified by two accredited organizations, the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and the Institute of Menstrual Health, Powelson teaches women menstrual cycle awareness and how to synchronize fitness, nutrition, and self-care with their cycles. The program includes one-on-one coaching and lots of printable resources.

Powelson's certifications also allow her to order medical tests. The doctors at the lab interpret the results, and Powelson's training has taught her to read and understand the materials so she can further interpret them for clients.

One of the inspirations on Powelson's road to health was Dr. Stacy Sims, an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist, and author of the 2016 book, ROAR. Sims' groundbreaking book explained hormone and sex differences between men and women and promoted a new female paradigm for exercise, nutrition, and health.

As a college-level athlete on an all-women's crew team, Sims observed that the women's team ate, trained, and raced exactly like the men's team, but had inconsistent results. She had her ah-ha moment in the research lab, where she discovered that all diet and fitness research was being tested on obese men, a group preferred because they lose weight quickly. As a result, women end up with diet and exercise advice that's not suited for them. Her team's results were inconsistent because they were following a male training regimen.

Sims pushed back against her research partners with the now-famous statement that "women are not small men," and urged them to support her in studying diet and fitness specifically for women. Sims' groundbreaking work brought hormone health into focus and has inspired a number of practitioners on the ground in Utah.

At Balanced Health Functional Medicine in American Fork, Family Nurse Practitioner Alyssa Vest is one of them. Vest uses hormone indicators to treat women and men. She says that in general, we think of sex hormones like progesterone, and testosterone when we're feeling out of whack, but other hormones are integral to good health, too. These include insulin, cortisol and thyroid hormones. Vest evaluates the whole range.

"Hormones make a difference with our mental health, energy, sleep, bone health, cardiovascular health and even gut health," Vest said. "Conversely the state of our gut health impacts hormone health."

To that end, Vest uses specialty tests to assess hormone and gut issues and notes that sometimes addressing gut health will automatically balance hormones.  

Like Powelson, Vest is focused on finding the root cause. "For women," she observed, "the common blanket treatment for premenopausal hormone imbalances usually involves prescribing birth control. I believe this is not always the best approach because it could be overlooking the root cause and oftentimes contributes to side effects or new symptoms of concern."

Even questioning the side effects of birth control has been seen as a major taboo since the Pill's invention in 1960, a slap in the face of feminism. But as Americans' physical and emotional health outcomes have plummeted, some health experts have begun to push back to find answers.

In her book, This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences, Dr. Sarah Hill notes that the Pill has a severe effect on female hormones and the brain.

"Changing women's hormones changes women. And this is a big deal," the author said. "The research suggests that [the Pill] probably has a hand in women's mate preferences, our sensitivity to smells, our relationship satisfaction, the functioning of our stress response, the activities of multiple neurotransmitter systems, the activity of multiple hormones, our moods, our persistence in difficult tasks, our ability to learn and remember and our sex drive. And this is probably just the tip of the iceberg."

For women who want to quit synthetic hormone birth control, Powelson's Cycle Sync Academy is a major source of support.

"Tracking your cycle off birth control is vital to your hormone health journey," Powelson said. "It's feedback about what's going on in your body — like getting monthly lab work."