After a busy holiday season filled with parties and celebration, you might not be feeling so hot physically or emotionally. You’ve got that familiar holiday hangover, complete with foggy thinking, exhaustion, headache, and feeling blue. There’s no denying it: drinking can feel fun, relaxing, and sexy in the moment, but the aftermath isn’t pretty. In fact, January is often the worst PMS month of the year for women due to the effects of an endocrine disruptive holiday diet. Don’t want to ring in the new year with a raging month of PMS? PMS is not something you should ignore and brush off as normal. PMS is actually a red flag for endocrine disruption.
There’s a reason everyone you know is signing up for juice cleanses and crazy workout classes — the holiday season really does a number on your health and can leave you feeling terrible. But committing to a restrictive detox diet or punishing boot camp classes isn’t the way to solve a hormonal imbalance — in fact, these extreme tactics can exacerbate the issues and leave you feeling worse. We interviewed Alisa Vitti, Founder & CEO of FLO Living, Functional Nutrition and Women’s Hormone Expert, Female Biohacking Pioneer, and Best Selling Author of WomanCode and In the FLO to tell us more about how Dry January works.
Dry January: The Post-Alcohol Hormone “Detox” for Better Health
When we don’t take our hormones into account, they get disrupted and it can take months to regain balance. This is why not only you feel like you can’t stick to your resolutions in January, but also why you don’t feel like yourself until April or worse, continue to spiral out into more hormone symptoms all year. The key to regaining your balance in January and kicking symptoms to the curb is to detox the right way. No intense measures required — simply practical, easy-to-implement steps to restoring your natural equilibrium. Here’s how:
- Focus on feeding your body a nutrient-dense diet. The Cycle Syncing Method(R) detailed in the book, In the FLO, is all about packing your diet with cleansing foods that support your hormones every day of your cycle. Load up on leafy greens, complex carbs, and healthy fats to keep you nourished and satisfied.
- Have one grain free day a week. If you’re in need of some major damage control, try going grain free for just one day a week. It’s easier than you think to cut the processed junk: For breakfast, have eggs with coconut oil. For lunch, have turkey with avocados and greens along with a cup of bone broth. Steer away from the grains and gluten-free carbs today to give your gut the break and take a fiber supplement to sweep out the white flour residue. And always try to add in a brisk walk after eating carbs to help your body use the glucose for fuel.
- Add in a special detox juice. I’m not a fan of juice-only cleanses, but adding this potent beverage to your healthy diet will support your liver as it recovers from all that holiday eggnog. Combine a handful of spinach, 1 carrot, 2 stalks of celery, half a bunch of cilantro, one-third a bunch of parsley, half a lemon with rind, half a green apple in a blender or juicer.
- Add in the right supplements. As far as I’m concerned, certain supplements aren’t optional; they’re non-negotiable micronutrients every woman needs to keep her hormones healthy and happy! Especially after the onslaught of micronutrient depletion from this intense and long holiday period, it’s even more important to take them to get back to homeostasis. Magnesium, vitamins B6, E, C, omega 3s, D3, and calcium are absolutely essential, which is why I decided it was time to create 5 formulations that would deliver these to you every day.
