In the FLO

How can you create sustainable success without fighting your own biology? In In the FLO, functional nutritionist Alisa Vitti argues that modern women are living out of sync with their bodies because virtually every lifestyle system—from workplace design to wellness programs—follows a male biological rhythm: the 24-hour circadian clock. Women of reproductive age, however, operate by two clocks: the circadian and the 28-day infradian rhythm. This second timing system orchestrates four hormonal phases—follicular, ovulatory, luteal, and menstrual—and governs energy, mood, metabolism, and even creativity.

The missing rhythm

Most human optimization frameworks assume a static body that wakes early, performs all day, and rests nightly. But women experience predictable waves of hormonal shifts that change their physical and cognitive strengths week to week. When you ignore this rhythm (as fitness, productivity, and diet culture often do), you burn out: your body creates cortisol imbalances, estrogen dominance, and metabolic stress. Vitti calls these predictable consequences—not female weaknesses—symptoms of “living out of FLO.”

Respecting your infradian rhythm means accepting that your best self looks different each week. In one week, you’re curious and idea-rich; in another, charismatic and communicative; later, you’re detail-driven; finally, reflective and intuitive. Using both clocks—the daily and the monthly—helps you align your energy cycle with your responsibilities.

The four phases and their powers

Follicular (Prepare): Estrogen rises; you generate new ideas, learn quickly, and feel adventurous. Perfect for visioning and planning.

Ovulatory (Open Up): You’re magnetic; communication and confidence peak. Ideal for networking, presentations, and social engagements.

Luteal (Work): Progesterone climbs; attention to detail and completion flourish. Time for editing, organization, and finishing projects.

Menstrual (Rest): Hormones fall steady; intuition deepens. Ideal for reviewing what worked, journaling, and setting plans for the next cycle.

A social and scientific blind spot

Until recently, even medical science ignored the infradian rhythm. Many studies excluded women because hormonal variability complicated data analysis. The result: the female body became underresearched. Alisa Vitti traces this bias through early cardiology and aging studies, showing that standard exercise and work models were designed around testosterone-based consistency, not estrogen-progesterone cycles. Several NIH studies, including the BioCycle Study, now correct that gap, proving monthly hormone fluctuations affect metabolism, cognition, and cardiovascular function.

The reward of syncing

Once you start tracking and planning your month around the four phases, life stops feeling like running uphill. Women using Vitti’s Cycle Syncing Method™ report not only hormonal balance but a surge in productivity and wellbeing. Her MyFLO app and planning system encourage shifting from time management to energy management—doing the right work at the right moment. You change how you eat, move, work, and rest to honor what your biology wants. Respecting cyclical energy becomes a competitive edge, not a weakness.

Whole-systems ripple

Vitti’s lens is integrative: syncing isn’t just about feeling good. When you live by both clocks, you optimize the five body systems she details—the brain, immune system, metabolism, microbiome, and stress axis. Estrogen affects synaptic density and serotonin; progesterone modulates immunity and anxiety; phase-specific nutrition stabilizes insulin and cortisol. Your cycle, she argues, is not random; it’s a built-in self-care feedback system—your body’s second operating rhythm.

Core insight

You don’t need to fight your hormones; you need to cooperate with them. When you live “in the FLO”—timing your projects, nutrition, and workouts to your cycle—you convert biology into your strongest productivity strategy. Ignoring the infradian rhythm, Vitti says, is like ignoring half your body’s timekeepers.

The Cycle Syncing Method™—Vitti’s cornerstone system—translates hormone phases into a practical framework called POWR: Prepare, Open Up, Work, and Rest. It teaches you how to coordinate nutrition, fitness, scheduling, and even relationship care around your monthly strengths rather than ignoring them.

Prepare: Follicular energy

After menstruation, hormones rise and brain focus widens. This is your innovation window—perfect for creative planning, learning new skills, and brainstorming. Alisa herself reserves this week for strategic planning, mirroring her clients who use it to outline projects before execution.

Open Up: Ovulatory connection

Estrogen peaks; you’re articulate and emotionally magnetic. Schedule pitches, interviews, or social events. This is the time to speak publicly and collaborate—something Vitti calls “right-timing your charisma.”

Work: Luteal completion

Progesterone dominates; patience and orderliness rise. Task lists find closure here: editing, organizing, coding, bookkeeping. You execute ideas seeded in the follicular/Ovulatory phases, maintaining focus without overextending.

Rest: Menstrual recalibration

Hormones are lowest; clarity and intuition heighten. Vitti reframes menstruation not as downtime but as integration time. Journal, review, and plan upcoming goals while prioritizing sleep and restoration. Treat bleeding as maintenance, not malfunction.

Takeaway

POWR transforms your month into an energy-aligned operating system. By managing workflow, food, and relationship energy with the phases, you achieve balance while reducing burnout—turning hormonal changes into strategic advantages.

Vitti’s nutritional philosophy integrates traditional Chinese medicine, endocrinology, and modern dietetics. Her rule: your diet must change with your cycle. “One diet fits all” undermines hormonal health because micronutrient needs evolve weekly.

Phase-by-phase nutrition

• Follicular: Light, fermented foods and greens (kimchi, sprouts) detox liver and prime estrogen metabolism.
• Ovulatory: Cooling, raw produce (salads, berries, broccoli) optimizes high estrogen clearance.
• Luteal: Slow-burning carbs and B-vitamin foods (sweet potatoes, beans, leafy greens) stabilize progesterone and blood sugar.
• Menstrual: Warming proteins and iron sources (bone broth, red meat, shellfish) restore vitality post-bleed.

Case studies like Allie—a chef who recovered her cycle after adjusting foods—illustrate these benefits. The change isn’t radical: rotating vegetables and moderating caffeine have measurable effects within weeks.

Biohacking caution

Vitti warns against male-tested diet fads like keto and intermittent fasting, which may suppress ovulation or thyroid function. She encourages adaptive eating: start with seed cycling, use slow-carb strategies for PMS, and forget rigid macros. Balance, not deprivation, supports your infradian rhythm.

Core insight

Eating with your cycle fuels hormonal balance and mood stability. Small, phase-specific shifts in food timing deliver outsized improvements in vitality, fertility, and emotional health.

Exercise success depends on timing. In In the FLO, Vitti urges women to match training intensity to hormonal phases, showing how generic high-intensity programs can backfire through cortisol spikes and ovulation suppression. Her phase-based framework helps women stay lean and hormonally strong.

Phase-based fitness map

• Follicular: Optimal for cardio or HIIT; your rising estrogen supports metabolic efficiency. Try new classes.
• Ovulatory: High power and sociability—ideal for group workouts, sprints, public events.
• Luteal: Early: resistance training for growth; late: transition to yoga, Pilates, stretching.
• Menstrual: Gentle recovery—walking, breathing exercises, and sleep prioritization.

Real clients like Emily, who lost her period due to overtraining, illustrate the necessity of syncing. Vitti references athlete research (e.g., Stacy Sims) demonstrating that menstrual alignment enhances stamina and prevents the female athlete triad.

Key insight

When exercise intensity tracks your hormones, recovery improves and cortisol stays balanced. Respecting monthly energy variation is the smartest way to build strength and longevity.

Part three of the book offers a biohacking toolkit for women with irregular cycles or conditions like PCOS, fibroids, or endometriosis. Before syncing, you must repair foundational imbalances: blood sugar, adrenal function, and detox pathways. Vitti’s protocol works in five steps.

Step 1: Learn your V‑Sign

Your period color and texture reveal hormonal clues—purple with clots suggests estrogen dominance, brown signals low progesterone, pink implies low estrogen. Tracking these markers helps you troubleshoot naturally.

Step 2: Rebuild basics

Stabilize insulin, rest adrenals, and support the liver and gut. These steps reduce hormonal congestion that fuels PMS and infertility.

Step 3–4: Remove disruptors and replenish nutrients

Avoid plastics, pesticides, and processed soy. Add magnesium, B vitamins, omega-3s, and vitamin D3, which rebuild hormone pathways. Targeted foods—flax and fermented soy for fibroids, magnesium for cramps—offer low-risk interventions.

Step 5: Gradual syncing

Once your foundations stabilize, begin gentle phase-based habits—food rotation, seed cycling, warm meals during menstruation—to keep results consistent.

Essential message

Don’t layer advanced biohacks over unstable foundations. First detox, nourish, and balance—then use cycle syncing to sustain hormonal harmony long-term.

Vitti dedicates a major section to dismantling five myths that disempower women: PMS is inevitable, cramps can’t be changed, the pill regulates cycles, periods are optional, and nothing can fix bad periods. Her countermessage: every symptom is modifiable when you understand your hormones.

Science over shame

PMS stems from estrogen–progesterone imbalance and poor nutrient intake (low magnesium, B6). Cramps link to prostaglandin imbalance; increasing omega‑3s raises anti-spasmodic levels. The pill masks symptoms and halts ovulation—creating a false sense of regulation while depleting nutrients and altering gut flora. And the cultural push to skip periods ignores ovulation’s lifelong protective effects on bone, brain, and heart health.

From fatalism to agency

Vitti reframes the period as a monthly biological feedback test. You learn to diagnose imbalance through color, texture, mood, and pain instead of medicating symptoms blindly. This understanding restores personal authority and dismantles menstrual taboo.

Reclaiming power

Ending myth-based thinking transforms women’s health from reaction to prevention. Pain and PMS are not destiny; they are messages your body sends for correction.

Vitti closes with a life-stage lens—from adolescence to postmenopause—showing how cyclical wisdom evolves. She defines matrescence (the hormonal and neurological rewiring of motherhood) and guides women in preparing for fertility, postpartum recovery, and perimenopause transitions.

Motherhood as transformation

Neuroscience shows postpartum brain regions for empathy and caregiving enlarge for years. This reshaping explains the identity shifts mothers feel. Vitti urges embracing change, not resisting it, and syncing parenting activities with each phase—novel play in follicular weeks, community connection during ovulation, home projects in luteal, rest during menstruation.

Preparing for pregnancy and recovery

Fertility prep mirrors cycle syncing: heal gut and liver, refill magnesium and vitamin D, and manage blood sugar before conception. Postpartum mirrors the menstrual phase metabolically—your body needs warmth, nutrient density, and patience. Vitti shares her own story: her cycle resumed nine months postpartum, proof that healing takes time.

Perimenopause and post-FLO living

Later life returns women to a single circadian rhythm but with decades of cyclical awareness—knowledge of timing and intuition. Teaching girls about their cycles, she says, prevents them from inheriting cultural myths. The goal isn’t uniform performance; it’s rhythmic intelligence across all seasons of life.

Final insight

Your hormonal life is a continuum, not a series of crises. Whether you’re cycling, conceiving, or entering menopause, the same principle applies: work with your hormones, not against them.