Do you take or have you taken hormonal birth control? Do you understand your own menstrual cycle? Have you ever tried to go off birth control and had an awful time trying to regain your natural cycle?  Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Victoria Felkar once again. She was in some of the first episodes of EMBody Radio (episodes 5 & 6 to be exact), and she is a wealth of knowledge. Victoria is a researcher and she studies the things that other people don't seem to want to touch - women and hormones, particularly exogenous ones like birth control and anabolic androgenic steroids.  As usual, we talked on and on, so this is part 1 of 2 episodes. In today's show, we talk about: -hormone history and where the gendering of hormones began ("male" hormones vs "female" hormones) -the back story of hormones -the back story of sports medicine/hormone manipulation -the development of synthetic hormones (estrogen, testosterone, progesterone) -how hormonal birth control pills and anabolic androgenic steroids are both "enhancement drugs" from a performance perspective/when used for sport -hormonal birth control pills, why it's prescribed, drug effects, different kinds of synthetic BC pills  -getting to know your cycle and how to track it (get your free cycle tracking download here) -why we need to stop demonizing estrogen -castrating the HPO axis (hypothalamus-pituitary-ovarian axis) via synthetic estrogens, i.e. birth control -the importance of ovulation -does birth control make fat loss harder and why -SO MUCH MORE! ---------------- Find Victoria here:  Instagram Website ----------------- Today's episode of EMBody Radio is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic provides the best in adaptogenic/therapeutic mushroom products. You’ve seen me post about this stuff on Instagram and IG stories all the time, and I wanted to take a sec to tell you a little more about them today. I started using them because I love adaptogens, and many of their mushroom products are just that – adaptogens. Adaptogens basically help you respond better to physical and emotional stress. I run a business, run multiple social media platforms that tie into my business, I’m a student, and I have a life outside of all that that I’m trying to live, so stress management is key. Mushrooms can also be used to help everything from your gut health to your skin. My favorites are the Lion's Mane Mushroom Elixir and the Mushroom Hot Cacao with Reishi... Be sure to listen to the whole episode to learn why ;). If you want to try Four Sigmatic products, use the code "EMDUNC" to get 15% off your order at foursigmatic.com/emdunc.  --------------------------  Find me here:  Instagram Twitter YouTube My Website