Show Notes
Your body doesn't separate stress into categories — your 5am workout, your 1,400-calorie day, and your work deadline all land in the same account. And if your period is irregular, your energy is tanking, or your progress has stalled, your total stress load might be the reason. In this episode, we're breaking down how to audit your overall stress load across three key areas: nutrition stressors (under-eating, meal timing, food rules), training stressors (overtraining, HIIT stacking, skipping rest days), and life & mindset stressors (sleep debt, perfectionism, emotional load). You'll learn why chronic stress disrupts your hormones, how cortisol and your HPA axis impact your menstrual cycle, and the sneaky signs your body is keeping score — even when everything "feels fine." Plus, you'll walk away with a simple one-week stress audit tool you can start tomorrow to figure out exactly which stressors are draining you and what to change first.
In this episode, we cover:
Why under-fueling is the most invisible stressor (and why it gets praised) The connection between low energy availability, RED-S, and hypothalamic amenorrhea How to know when exercise stops being healthy and starts being a stressor The hidden life stressors your fitness app can't track A 3-question test to determine if something is actually stressing your body The One-Week Stress Audit: a step-by-step tool to measure your total load
Whether you're dealing with a missing period, burnout, low energy, or hormone imbalances, this episode will help you find the stressors hiding in plain sight — without cutting everything you love out of your life.
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