Interview with Andrea Núnez
INTERVIEW | ANDREA NÚÑEZ | HORMONE SPECIALIST“Tapping into your intuition and reclaiming your power and reconnecting just to your essence.”
Interviewer: I met Andrea in Antigua, Guatemala. Somebody had just recommended that I get in touch with her because of my interest in menstrual cycle health, and then I just happened to run into her at the local herb store. I asked her if she would do an interview with me shedding light on menstrual health and she kindly invited me into her home for an interview + photoshoot. I’m so grateful I ran into her because her interview really helped me understand the menstrual cycle + women’s hormones in easy to understand ways. I hope in reading her interview you’ll find the same.
What is your name? And where are you from?
My name is Andrea Núñez and I'm 26 years old right now. I was born and raised in Guatemala. I feel very lucky growing up here. It's a very beautiful place, even though I didn't appreciate, when I was younger, the richness of life you get here. Now I do. I really appreciate the slow living and I feel like I can connect a lot with nature, with people, with everything.
Tell us about yourself.
I have always been interested in performance. I went from being a high-performance athlete into a complete burnout. That's when I started to question everything – everything that I had learned, everything that I was doing, and how I was living. And it was there when I started to dive deep into health – true health, real health – and I went through a lot of hormonal problems. I went to so many health professionals and everything, and I realized that I had to learn how to heal myself, and that's when my life changed and I started to really dedicate my life into women's health to support other women in the same process. And I just love creating and sharing and supporting and being with women and being as honest as I can with my process. It's all about building community with women.
How would you describe you in your essence?
Super enthusiastic, creative, spontaneous. I feel like I'm always looking to do new creative projects and change, and grow, and learn, and overall grow a better understanding and connection with myself.
What inspired you originally to get into your field of work or service?
Honestly, it was the need. When I started sharing my process, there was this huge thirst for knowledge, for information, for all women's health, everything. I dropped a little something of what had happened to me, and I felt like it was so well-received. And people were really – women were really – thirsty for more. And that's when I was like, Whoa. I’m not the only one. And this is a problem. This is a huge problem, and I felt like it was my mission. It was my mission to share and to support.
How did that flip from being a high-performing athlete occur? What inspired that change in your perception of yourself?
I went from this conventional approach to health where I had to be super strict with my nutrition. Calories in, calories out – a lot of training. I was on birth control. I was using commercial makeup products, all sorts of chemicals. And I thought I was super healthy. I honestly believed I was super healthy.
But I spent many years not feeling like myself. I had underlying anxiety. I went through 2 years of depression. I went through eating disorders. I went through extreme acne, weight gain, and just feeling tired all the time to being like, What is going on with me? I feel like I'm doing all the healthy decisions and I'm not feeling any results. I'm not feeling myself. I'm not feeling like I'm thriving.
And that's when I – first of all, I came off birth control. And I started my process of understanding and befriending my period. And then everything kind of fell into place. And now I understand health in a completely different way.
Birth control was my “a-ha” moment. I think I heard it in a podcast, something like, “Oh, birth control is not good for you because it can cause blah, blah, blah.” And I'm like, What?! I've never heard about this. Why has nobody told me about this? I'm experiencing all these symptoms.
So, I just immediately stopped taking it, but I had no guidance. None of the healthcare professionals would support my decision. Everyone was like, “What are you doing? You should keep on taking them. They’re safe.” And I was like, “I need to figure this out by myself because nobody understands what's going on.” And that's actually where it started.
“I started the process of understanding and befriending my period, and then everything kind of fell into place”
What has been your relationship with your period and your cyclical nature in general?
It's been a slow, beautiful, loving process. In general, I was just very disconnected from my feminine energy, just living that fast-paced life – work-work-work, train-train-train – and also not having my real hormones because of birth control. I was just completely disconnected from my body, and it's taken years for me to really ground and feel.
And as I tune more and more into my cycle, and take more time to be in my body and out of my mind, I feel like I've finally embodied that feminine energy and I can have a better understanding of my body and its inner seasons. And now I feel like we finally understand each other again, and I intuitively know where I'm in my cycle. I know what I need. I know what type of exercise, what type of food is good for me. I also understand my thinking patterns, depending on which phase of my cycle I’m in – my emotions, my energy levels. It's amazing.
What helps you get in your rhythm and flow?
Definitely stillness. It's only when I'm in stillness that I can really tune into my body. I need to cut distractions and get off social media a little bit. Stop doing so much and just take a moment for myself a few times a week. If I can do it every day, that's amazing, but sometimes that's not possible. Listening to my body being gentle and being consistent, but also leaving this space for flow to act on based on intuition. Nurturing myself.
What would you describe as rhythm and flow in your body?
It's being in complete synchronicity with nature. Nothing is static; everything is moving all the time. The moon and its cycles align a lot with a menstrual cycle, and you just feel like you’re in this beautiful, natural flow. Everything is easier, comes with ease. There's no need to control or change or suppress. It's just effortless.
What is beauty to you?
Beauty has changed so much over the years. I would say it is authenticity, freedom, and just vulnerability.
What is one thing you wish everybody knew?
They can find all of their answers in the body.
Do you have any well-being rituals? if so, what are they?
I would say that the most important part of my day, for myself, is my morning ritual – waking up preferably without an alarm, just waking up naturally with the cycle, with the sun. Following a cleansing routine in the morning. I usually do Ayurvedic cleansing, tongue scraping, and then I always do warm water before anything, just to warm up my digestive system, and take half an hour maybe to journal, meditate, and just start the day in a very pleasant-centered point. For me, that changes everything. Then you can go on and do whatever you want in the day, but it really plants the seed to be present in the day.
For women, too – pausing every morning and just taking a time to think, Okay. How am I feeling today? What phase of my cycle am I in today? Do I feel energetic? instead of just waking up and running over to the gym or to work. You don't even know what's going on in your body. Waking up and being like, Okay, what am I gonna do today?
What is one thing you learned from somebody else that stuck with you?
That discipline is freedom. I used to be like, Oh, I’m a free flower. I'm just gonna do whatever I want all the time. But with discipline comes freedom. So, we need consistency and we need discipline in order to create and flow. There needs to be this yin-yang, masculine and feminine, structured and flexible. Sometimes we get up. We get caught up in the, Let's just flow. It's the feminine energy. And then it's like, wait, you need both. You won't do anything if you stay in this floaty space.
Can you tell us more about the Moon Calendar and the benefits of tracking your cycle?
It's a menstrual tracker, but it’s a manual menstrual tracker. There are so many apps that do that. But it kind of distracts us from what's actually going on in the body. You can just log in the dates and data surrounding your period, and it will automatically give you predictions and statistics about your cycle, which can be helpful at times, but it's not truly encouraging self awareness. During the time I was trying to figure out my own cycle and hormonal mess, I came up with a completely holistic concept of the Moon Calendar.
I was really trying to make sense of what was going on in my body. I had so many symptoms, but I couldn't figure out how to interpret them. And nobody seemed to help me either with that because there was a lot going on.
So that year, a dear friend gifted me a beautiful mandala moon calendar, which I started using every single day to track my menstrual cycle, as well as anything that came up as relevant: emotions, digestion, libido, complexion, energy levels...etc. After a few months of tracking, I was able to look back and find very specific patterns that I would have never realized or noticed if I wasn't tracking so closely. And that's where I found so many of the answers I had been searching for.
Having a headache during your luteal, menstrual, or follicular phase – it will not mean the same thing. So, I can't ask my clients, “Do you have headaches?” Okay, great.... It doesn't tell me anything. I need to know when? Which day? Is it repeating? Is it a pattern? Then I can start understanding, “Oh, okay. Which hormone could be doing that?” It really gives me a great understanding of what's going on.
And it was incredible to witness the natural ebb and flow of my cycle, as well as its connection to the moon phases. That's when I decided I wanted to share this with more people and I created the first calendar two years ago. And I sold it only in Guatemala, and then in 2022 I created the second edition which sold in Mexico and Guatemala. It's an amazing tool.
Some people relate bleeding to the phases of the moon (e.g., new moon phase, full moon phase, etc.). What are the differences?
So yeah, there are so many different phases. You don't have to necessarily align with the full, or the new moon, the waxing, or waning. And there are also a lot of ideas and things that people say about what's going on energetically.
However, in my experience, the only thing I know is that when we align with the new moon, the new moon is always an energy of the start of new cycles and cleansing. So, I feel like when you're bleeding with the new moon – your period usually comes smoother, with fewer symptoms, less PMS.
In contrast, when you're aligned with the full moon, it intensifies everything and it's the closing of cycles. So, women who bleed with the full moon usually experience more pain, maybe more cramps. The bleeding may come a little stronger, heavier, and they might feel a little more emotional.
What are some ways to incorporate nutrition, exercise, and daily rituals for optimal hormone health?
That varies depending on which season you’re in, which phase of your cycle you’re in. So, I think number one is just creating a plan. Creating a plan and knowing what feels good for you and what's possible. I'm trying to think how to answer this. At least for myself, if I don't plan food prep or something, I'll end up just making wrong decisions – making decisions that don't feel aligned with what my body needs. However, I believe that step #1 is always observation, and knowing, Okay, in this phase, I really thrive doing this. You must dedicate some time to each phase of your cycle to gain a better understanding of what works and what doesn't. Once you have this clarity, you can start building great habits and rituals that support you in each phase.
What are some suggestions for natural Birth Control methods?
There are so many options for natural birth control from which you can choose. I believe it's just about learning about your body, exploring different options, and finding the one that works best for you. And by simply tuning into your cycle every month, you understand that it's not super complicated math to understand. We’re only fertile about 7 days a month. [Interviewer note: Additionally, sperm can live in your system for up to 5 days, so there is a 5-day window before ovulation where you can be unprotected.] Knowing this, it’s not hard to understand what's your fertile window.
We must understand that everything is controlled by our microbiome and our hormones. They control how we feel, how we think, how we perceive life, everything – they're in complete control of everything. And when we are on Hormonal Birth Control, our natural hormones are completely shut down. So, we're not thinking and feeling the same as we would naturally. And second, they affect our gut health. So, over time, they really start to mess up your microbiome. And so, your body starts to become deficient in nutrients because you're no longer able to absorb nutrients from foods. Your body becomes depleted of life force. Even if you have an amazing diet and are taking all the supplements, you're simply not able to utilize them! Which will then show up as lack of energy, sleep disturbances, digestive disorders... etc.
And then emotionally, well yeah, you're not feeling like yourself because the "hormones" in play are not yours. You're actually being driven by synthetic hormones, which are chemicals.
What are some general myths around women's health that you would like to shed light on?
Well, I already talked about this, but “I can get pregnant every day of the month.” No, we can only get pregnant during our fertile window. No matter what. You can't get pregnant any other day. [Interviewer note: Additionally, sperm can live in your system for up to 5 days, so there is a 5-day window before ovulation where you can be unprotected.]
“Cramping and cravings are normal. PMS is normal.” No, it's not normal. It's usually your body's way of asking you for nutrients. If you're having chocolate cravings, you might be deficient in magnesium or Vitamin B or you're simply not getting enough calories from your food. And cramping is usually a sign of inflammation in your body. So, you might want to take a look at your diet. Maybe you're eating foods that you're slightly intolerant to or you're just eating too many inflammatory foods like dairy, gluten, alcohol, sugars. Oh, and the swelling of the breasts and pain is also not normal. It's usually due to iodine deficiency.
Do you have any remedies or holistic practices that you recommend for any phase of your cycle and/or optimal hormone health?
I think that the most helpful tip I can give to improve your cycle is to get to know your cycle. There's no one-size-fits-all at all, but you do need to always honor the phase you're in. Generally speaking, avoiding dairy, sugars, and alcohol will be a period savior.
Sometimes the return of a regular period can be delayed after coming off of birth control. Do you have any tips for getting your period back if that’s the case?
First of all, there should be a protocol to come off hormonal birth control. You must make sure that you're supplementing, sleeping and exercising accordingly... as well as nurturing your body with really nutrient-dense foods.
How would somebody get in touch with you if they wanted to work with you?
You can go to my Instagram, @iamthecreatrix
What are some of your favorite books?
I would definitely recommend the Period Repair Manual by Lara Briden. That’s like the Bible of the period. It's amazing. It will tell you exactly what to do and what every single symptom means. You can decode your entire cycle with that book. It's a true manual.
And then, if you want to understand a little more about just a more holistic approach to hormonal health, this book from... Balance Your Hormones, Balance Your Life by Dr. Claudia Welch. It's a holistic approach, merging Ayurvedic wisdom, Chinese medicine, and Western science to provide a truly comprehensive approach to women's health. It's really good. Those two are my favorite ones.
How does menopause fit into the seasons of the cycle?
When women go through menopause, they slowly stop having these regular hormonal cycles. This explains why women during their post-menopausal years can benefit from standard nutrition and exercise plans – because their body has stopped cycling in this way. Interesting fact: Most of the trials for drugs, exercise and diets are all done with post-menopausal women because their data is consistent, way easier to interpret.
And what are your thoughts on hormone supplements?
There are a lot of benefits from bioidentical progesterone. However, I think that's the one I would recommend because all the other ones can make you feel good for a short period of time, but they're not natural. So, they will eventually mess with your natural body.
Who are some people that inspire your work and why?
Lara Briden for sure. I like her objectivity. And she has a very strong background in science and the way she breaks down everything is incredible. And she also has a great understanding of the body and how it works, and is super passionate about her work. She's amazing.
Lisa Hendrickson-Jack from Fertility Friday. She wrote the book called The Fifth Vital Sign, which is a complete guide on how to track your menstrual cycle naturally. She really focuses on educating women on the fertility awareness method. She has so many programs and a podcast... and it's all about empowering women and teaching how to do it responsibly.
What are some of your favorite podcasts?
Some of my favorite podcasts are, Fertility Friday, The Lara Briden Podcast, and Are You Menstrual? Also anything by Dr. Sara Gottfried, she's written many books and her approach is amazing.
What is your favorite mantra or affirmation?
Your body knows.
