Carly Beyar Zolga, Alaina Beyar Cross and Julie Beyar.Photo: Elise Meader
Carly Beyar Zolga didn’t have a period for 8 months after she stopped taking hormonal birth control. Her older sister Alaina Beyar Cross struggled with hormonal imbalance when she went off the pill after 10 years.
“We experienced physical, mental and emotional post birth control syndrome symptoms including depression, anxiety, irrational fears, and panic attacks,” says Alaina, 32.
They realized that they hadn’t had a proper cycle in 10 years, since hormonal birth control prevents natural ovulation — and that their bodies were dysregulated. “We started learning about how to heal from those symptoms, which led us to learning a lot about the menstrual cycle,” says Alaina.
Watching them go through this was their youngest sister, Julie Beyar. All three had been competitive athletes through college, and had always felt connected to their bodies and able to optimize them for performance. But now, the Newport, Rhode Island-based sisters weren’t feeling their best.
“That allowed us to talk about how nutrition, exercise and lifestyle habits impact menstrual health,” says Carly, 28. Onsocial mediathey began to share their new knowledge, and they founded their coaching businessBalanced Beyars Healthin 2017.
Elise Meader
It became the sisters' mission to teach women how to track their menstrual cycles, define their phases and understand their own patterns. “Women just know they’re bleeding or they’re not bleeding,” without realizing there are 4 phases across their cycle, Carly explains. They may not be aware of just how much hormones impact the way they feel.
In 2020, they created a program called Power of Periodization to educate women on how to live in alignment with the four phases of their cycle to achieve PMS-free and predictable periods.
“It’s about teaching women what is naturally fluctuating throughout their cycle each month and which hormones are at work and how we can help support where hormones are at each phase,” says Carly. “When we transition from the menstrual phase to the follicular, and the and ovulatory to luteal, our hormones are at different levels. And when we don’t live in alignment with that, PMS can occur.”
“We can experience acne, mood swings, or we feel starving and we have no idea why. When we teach this way of living and having a cycle strategy, women feel so much more empowered because they understand symptoms and signs and know how to better adjust their diet, exercise, lifestyle and habits to support those transitions.”
For example, eating a raw carrot salad can help during the luteal phase, the one right before a period, when women tend to have PMS. “When you are struggling with PMS, it’s usually an imbalance of estrogen to progesterone,” Carly explains. “Progesterone’s supposed to be the dominant hormone in that phase, but a lot of women are estrogen dominant, so they have trouble detoxing that estrogen out of their body. Carrots have a special fiber in them to balance that ratio of estrogen to progesterone and hopefully alleviate PMS.”
But, then things turn around. “After the menstrual phase, when you’re usually pretty tired and reserved, we enter the follicular phase, which is really fun,” say Carly. “You feel your energy rising because there’s a peak in estrogen and overall you are more social and have a good outlook on life. That’s a great time for you to check things off of your to-do list or do more creative projects that you’re excited to tackle.”
Also on the sisters' agenda: removing the stigma surrounding menstruation. “When we were young we were always hiding and feeling shame around our period or changing tampons,” says Alaina. Now, they encourage women to talk about it — not only with each other, but also with their partners.
“We obviously talk to our partners about periods all the time,” says 28-year-old Julie, adding that about 2% of their followers are men. “What we’re finding is that women need to educate themselves and feel empowered to make decisions, but partners are also very much involved.”
If women don’t understand themselves, their partners won’t know what’s going on, either. “If we’re not feeling our best and we’re having mood swings and lashing out and we’re depressed or anxious and we don’t know how we’re feeling, how do you think your partner feels?,” she says. “Helpless. They don’t know what to do to help you.”
Not only did the Beyar sisters heal their own hormone imbalances, but they have since coached more than 500 women, including women who are trying to conceive. That’s a big part of their program, too: helping women realize that regular ovulation, which only happens when you have a period, has health benefits, including increasing fertility.
source: people.com
