Meet April
This is my offering to ALL women who:
Want to know their bodies more deeply
Are struggling to find answers
Need relief from their period problems
May this be a help and a guide to you all.
XO, April
H I, I’ M A P R I L
Mom, wife, yogi, entrepreneur, champion for women’s hormonal health. I’ve had my own journey in and out of the hormonal trenches. My 20s were a breeze, I asked a lot of my body, gave her little in return but she persevered.
Enter 30s and motherhood. It started out smooth, healthy pregnancy, swift home birth, healthy baby boy. Fast forward a year and a half and I found myself with a sick kiddo trying to unravel a medical mystery no doctors seemed to have the answers for….needless to say my stress level was through the roof!
My Journey…
Through unrelenting persistence I was able to unravel the tangled web (hello Lyme Disease) and aid in my son’s journey toward wellness. But the years long process of illness, appointments, therapies and treatments had left me utterly exhausted and my own health payed a hefty toll.
During all this I continued to teach yoga - the same style of fast flow I had always loved. I didn’t slow my practice or take into account what my body truly needed to be supported at that time.
This manifested in injury - recurring frozen shoulders, seized up neck muscles, intercostal muscle strains - my body was talking to me, sometimes shouting, but I didn’t know how to listen.
As my son’s health stabilized I finally, for the first time in years, had a moment to check in with myself and what I discovered was I was running on fumes.
My cycles had become erratic, my skin was a mess, my sleep was lousy and I spent every day feeling BONE tired - I had entered the world of HPA axis dysfunction (aka adrenal fatigue).
I spent the next few years focused on adrenal recovery. I worked with a naturopath to determine correct supplementation, I prioritized sleep (Naps became my best friend), I quit caffeine and dairy and trimmed all the excess from our schedules so we could truly slow the heck down.
Things were going well, my sleep had vastly improved, my stress level had gone down, my skin had cleared and my energy level had bumped up quite a bit.
But as I started to creep towards the big 4-0 I noticed a few extra pounds that I couldn’t seem to shake (I had always been able drop weight easily), bloating that came and went, sore boobs, mysterious rashes, and a period that didn’t want to start or end (aka endless spotting).
I knew something was off and wanted to get to the root cause. Enter that unrelenting persistence again - and all signs pointed to hormone imbalance.
Interested in learning more about my yoga and pilates journey?
Want to know more about me?
I’m a Certified Women’s Hormone Coach as well as a yoga and Pilates teacher. In addition to The Period Yogi, an online yoga membership site that offers targeted, therapeutic movement classes aimed at reducing period pain and discomfort throughout all phases of the menstrual cycle, she’s also the owner of Centered Pilates + Yoga, a boutique fitness studio.
CERTIFICATIONS:
What I found out real quick?
That I knew VERY little about how my hormones and menstrual cycle operated. Like crazy little. So I dove in, I read, I researched and educated myself about the body I was living in and it’s hormonal process.
Along the way I discovered the book Fix Your Period by Nicole Jardim and went on to study with her in her 6 month apprenticeship program where I learned about all things women’s health and hormones.
As my knowledge expanded I leaned in to my own health journey more, I cleaned up my diet and finally broke up with sugar and empty carbs (it was a dysfunctional relationship that needed to end). I upped my nutrient intake, I modified my movement practices to support how I was feeling each day and I started really tracking how I felt at different points in my cycle.
What happened?
After a few months my periods started to regulate, the endless spotting before and after my periods stopped, I dropped the bloat, my boobs returned to their normal size, the mysterious rashes disappeared and I lost those stubborn few pounds that weren’t willing to budge before.
I realized that with the right diet and lifestyle changes and the proper education I had gotten my hormones back on track and alleviated the nagging discomfort that had dragged me down two weeks out of every month.
Through this process I became super passionate about sharing this info with other women….maybe I could help them ease their period problems to create more space and energy for them to purse their desires??
The idea lit me up.
So I learned more, studied more, and jumped into the Women’s Health yoga training with Tiffany Cruikshank to marry my two passions: Yoga + Women’s Health.
There was no way I couldn’t NOT share this info with other women so I followed my heart, set my fears aside and jumped all in to create The Period Yogi. I hope that you will join me on this journey of discovery & healing.
