# Why You Feel Like a Different Person Every Two Weeks | Sarah Hill

An episode of [Live Well Be Well with Sarah Ann Macklin | Health, Lifestyle, Nutrition](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1508380100), 15 May 2026, 6:26.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/1033d1554/podcast/play/119922005/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-4-13%2Fbfedff3d-df5a-0deb-5567-857e7f814109.mp3

👉 Practical beats perfect.Here’s a free 5-recipe PDF I use to support energy and stress during busy weeks.https://sarahannmacklin.com/5_free_recipes 👉 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who readThe Compassionate Cure each week.https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/ Why do your mood, energy, appetite, and sex drive feel different at different points in your cycle? It’s because estrogen and progesterone shift the brain and body between two core reproductive “modes” across the menstrual cycle. This clip explores how the first half of the cycle is more estrogen-driven and tends to orient the brain and behaviour toward mate attraction and sex, including higher sexual desire and greater interest in men. It then looks at what changes after ovulation, when progesterone rises and the body shifts gears toward supporting implantation and pregnancy, affecting everything from the immune system and circulation to energy levels, mood, and appetite. Sarah Hill in conversation with Sarah Ann Listen to the full episode here. Watch the full episode on YouTube here. *** This episode is sponsored by: NOWATCH: The compassionate health trackerConnecting body and mind with unique stress recovery insights so you can live fully today15% off with code LWBW15 at https://nowatch.com/ Mojo: the app for expert-led courses in better sex.Learn from world-class sex therapists and relationship experts with courses tailored to your needs.15% off with code LiveWell15 at mymojo.com/livewellbewell *** The Great British Veg OutHow to support your gut, energy, and hormones by eating more — not less. 👉 https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/p/the-great-british-veg-outReset Your HealthIf your body feels off after stress, travel, or burnout — this is where to start. 👉 https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/s/reset-your-health-in-30-days *** Let’s be friends! 📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/📹 Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah 🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin 📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast💌 Newsletter: https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

## Transcript

[0:02] This is a beware moment, the most replayed moments from my
[0:05] latest conversation. It's a glimp into the wider
[0:08] episode, which you can find LinkedIn the show notes below.
[0:12] Because sometimes one small moment is enough to reconnect to
[0:16] living well and being well. What's happening in the high
[0:24] facility state versus the low fertility state across our
[0:29] brain? Like what's happening in those
[0:30] moments? Yeah, so.
[0:32] When you look at women's cycles like, and, and you're trying to
[0:34] understand like, like how hormones are changing across the
[0:37] cycle and what's what that's doing, you have to just like,
[0:41] understand why we cycle in the 1st place.
[0:43] And the reason that women's cycle and men don't is because
[0:46] men's bodies only have one job that they have to do in order to
[0:50] reproduce and that's have sex. And so it's a very simple
[0:54] system, right? It's a system that's built for
[0:56] sex and made attraction and partner choice.
[0:59] Women, our bodies have two jobs that we have to do in order to
[1:03] reproduce. We have to attract mates, choose
[1:05] mates and have sex just like men.
[1:08] And that is something that is coordinated by our primary sex
[1:11] hormone, estrogen. And in the first half of the
[1:13] cycle, estrogen. One of the things that it does
[1:16] in the brain is it helps optimize ourselves to be in a
[1:20] state that is ready for maid choice and sex.
[1:24] And what you tend to see with estrogen is that it sort of
[1:27] orients our brain and behavior toward maid attraction and sex.
[1:32] And what we tend to find is that women are more interested in men
[1:35] during that time. They are more easily distracted
[1:38] by men during that time, they have higher sexual desire, they
[1:41] tend to have more sex. I mean the list goes on and on.
[1:45] I mean, all of these things are being coordinated by estrogen
[1:48] during the time, the cycle when sex can lead to conception,
[1:51] right? The other job that our body has
[1:53] to do in order to reproduce is that we have to allow an embryo
[1:56] to implant and we have to be able to maintain a pregnancy.
[1:59] And that's what's coordinated by our second primary sex hormone,
[2:02] progesterone. And so after the egg gets
[2:05] released and that empty egg follicle starts releasing
[2:08] progesterone, that causes our brain and the rest of our body
[2:11] to shift gears from being optimized for like all things
[2:15] sex and attraction to then being optimized for implantation in
[2:19] pregnancy. And this causes changes, I mean,
[2:22] throughout the body from head to toe it it makes our immune
[2:25] system shift gears, it makes our brain shift gears, it makes our
[2:29] energy levels shift gears, it makes our circulatory system
[2:33] shift gears. I mean, it just it causes
[2:35] sweeping changes in our body from head to toe.
[2:37] Because the types of things that cells in the body and systems in
[2:40] the body need to do to be maximized for maid attraction
[2:45] are very different than the types of things that a body has
[2:47] to do in order to be able to maintain a pregnancy.
[2:50] And so as our body is making that shift, we feel it, you
[2:54] know, we can feel it and we feel it from head to toe.
[2:57] We feel it in the way that our moods change.
[2:58] We feel it in the way that our energy levels change.
[3:01] We feel it in the way that our appetite changes.
[3:04] Because as our body is preparing for pregnancy, it actually
[3:07] causes our basal metabolic rate to increase significantly.
[3:11] It increases by like 7 to 11%, meaning that we burn through an
[3:15] addition like an additional like 150 to 200 calories a day in the
[3:19] luteal phase because our body is working really hard to prepare
[3:23] itself for the possibility of implantation in pregnancy.
[3:26] It changes our sexual desire because sex is no longer
[3:29] conceptive and becomes more about connection and less about
[3:33] sort of base sexual desire and needing to scratch that itch.
[3:37] I mean, it's our whole body changes and, and, and it's
[3:41] actually, when you think about it, it's incredible.
[3:45] You know, it's incredible that, you know, on the one hand, we
[3:48] can look at women and say like, wow, you know, you are, you
[3:52] know, we're shifting from this state to this state and who do I
[3:54] trust? And you know, who am I going to
[3:56] show up as? But the other in the other hand,
[3:59] like when you look at and, and you know, and I detail a lot of
[4:02] this in the period brain, when you look at the sweeping number
[4:05] of changes that go on in the body and in the brain as we're
[4:09] shifting gears from being optimized for sex to being
[4:12] optimized for pregnancy. It's amazing that we experience
[4:15] as much consistency as we have. And I mean, it's really
[4:18] remarkable that our brain and our body is able to maintain a
[4:22] sense of integrity with itself given the extent to which we
[4:27] experience these changes within us.
[4:29] And so I actually think that it's a really remarkable thing
[4:33] that we are able to handle it with so much grace.
[4:37] You know, even though we tend to give ourselves a hard time about
[4:39] being maybe more emotionally sensitive during the second-half
[4:43] of the cycle are having less energy.
[4:46] The, the extent to which we're able to navigate gracefully
[4:50] these these vast changes within our body is really incredible.
[4:54] And there's a lot of things that we can do also to help support
[4:57] that, to make those changes feel less jarring 'cause I think that
[5:01] a lot of women do experience their cycle phases, particularly
[5:05] in the last two weeks of the cycle, which are a lot more
[5:08] hormonally dynamic than what happens in the first two weeks
[5:11] of the cycle. And a lot of women experience
[5:14] that is worse than what they need to just simply because they
[5:17] lack resilience to those hormonal changes, because their
[5:20] body doesn't have enough cellular plasticity, just
[5:23] because of environmental changes that have happened in the last
[5:25] 250 years. You know, people eat worse
[5:28] diets, they don't have social connection, they have chronic
[5:32] inflammation, they're not exercising, they're not doing
[5:35] all of the things that help to promote cellular resilience and
[5:38] plasticity within the body. And when those things erode it,
[5:42] it means that our cells aren't able to quickly adapt to huge
[5:46] hormonal swings like we get, especially in the second-half of
[5:49] the cycle. And so taking steps to just
[5:51] improve the quality of our health and the health of our
[5:54] bodies can actually go a long way in terms of making and
[5:58] creating a greater sense of integrity within the self across
[6:02] the cycle. Thank you for listening to this
[6:07] Be Well moment. If it resonated, the full
[6:10] conversation is LinkedIn, the show notes, and I hope it gave
[6:13] you a small pause to take a moment for you and to reconnect
[6:17] to living well and being well. If you loved it, please do leave
[6:21] a review, follow the show or share this maybe with someone
[6:24] you love.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.