Woman Explains How She Stopped “Living Like a Man” and Completely Changed How She Eats and Works Out, Goes Viral

Wellness creator Art of Anna went viral after explaining the concept of cycle syncing and the internet is losing it.

If you’ve ever spent an entire week before your period wondering why you suddenly have the willpower of a golden retriever at a buffet, you’re going to want to hear what this woman has to say.

Wellness creator Anna – better known as @artofannaa on YouTube – recently posted a video about cycle syncing and the response was HUGE.

Long story short: Anna used to treat every day the same. Same workouts, same eating habits, same expectations for her energy and mood, regardless of where she was in her cycle. 

“I lived like a man,” she says. “I had zero regard for my cycle, and I really didn’t pay attention to my hormones or my menstruation or anything like that.”

Then she started cycle syncing.

And what is cycle syncing, exactly?

For those who haven’t heard of it, cycle syncing is the idea that you can eat, exercise, and structure your daily life around the four phases of your menstrual cycle. 

Those phases are:

Menstrual phase (days 1–5)
Your period. Energy is low. Hormones are at their lowest point. Anna says this is when she slows everything down, eats warm cooked foods like soups and curries, shortens her work days, and basically gives herself full permission to rest. 

“I just want to wear the biggest pants possible, the biggest hoodie, and just be at home in a safe space,” she says. And I felt that one.

Follicular phase (days 6–13)
Energy starts picking up. Estrogen is rising. Anna uses this phase to take on bigger projects, do more intense workouts, and eat lighter, fresher foods. This is her “go mode.”

Ovulatory phase (days 14–16)
Peak energy. Anna says this is when she feels her most social, most creative, and most physically strong. She goes harder at the gym and takes on the things that require the most output.

Luteal phase (days 17–28)
This is the most interesting part, more below.

The luteal phase part is the one that’s breaking the internet

Anna explains that before she started cycle syncing, her luteal phase was a disaster.

She was exhausted, moody, bloated, and insatiably hungry. She’d try to push through, maintain her workout intensity, restrict her eating, and so on.

Your body burns more calories during the luteal phase. Like, measurably more. Research puts it at around 100–300 extra calories per day. Your body is doing more metabolic work during this phase, so of course you’re hungrier.

“The biggest shift for me was realizing that there’s nothing wrong with my body,” Anna says. 

“The hunger that I would get during my luteal phase, the mood fluctuations, the energy changes, it’s just part of hormones and part of life.”

After she started cycle syncing, her cramps disappeared, her period became more predictable, her digestion improved, and her overall mood and energy stabilized significantly.

Why this matters if you’ve ever tried fasting

Anna’s video is about cycle syncing broadly, not fasting specifically. BUT scroll through the comments and you’ll see the same thing over and over: women connecting the dots between this and their fasting struggles.

And it makes complete sense. Most intermittent fasting protocols (16:8, 18:6, OMAD, whatever) give you one set of rules and tell you to follow them every single day.

But if your metabolism, hunger hormones, and energy levels are shifting on a roughly 28-day cycle… then yeah, fasting the exact same way every day is going to feel amazing some weeks and absolutely miserable other weeks. 

A random fasting plan is not built for a body that changes across the month. And the fact that most fasting apps don’t account for this is kind of wild.

→ You can get a cycle-based fasting plan HERE

The good news

The concept behind cycle syncing isn’t complicated. Anna herself says it best: “Cycle syncing is not about perfection. You don’t need to follow a rigid chart.”

And if you want to get started, her video is a genuinely great place to begin. 

She walks through exactly what she eats, drinks, and does during each phase, and keeps it practical and doable.

If you’re the kind of person who wants a little more structure (no judgment, some of us need the plan), there are tools popping up that build this into a fasting program.

Beyond Body Fasting is one that’s been getting attention because it adjusts your fasting windows and meals depending on your cycle phase.

As far as I know, it’s the only fasting program on the market that was built taking this stuff into account instead of just handing you a fixed schedule and hoping for the best.

→ I’ve tested Beyond Body Fasting for 60 days. Click here to see what it looks like

But honestly, even just watching Anna’s video and starting to track how you feel across your cycle is a solid first step. 

As she puts it: “The basics is just sleep, move your body, eat good food, and take care of your mind. That’s really what cycle syncing is all about.”

Hard to argue with that.