Meet Carly Hartwig – fertility awareness educator, holistic reproductive health practitioner, and low-tox living expert. We chat with her about healing hormone imbalance, circadian rhythm walks, and her Ned essentials.
Ned: Can you tell us more about the work you do?
Carly: I'm a Fertility Awareness Educator and Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner Intern! I’m also a bit of a low-tox living expert, as I’ve been on my own journey to reduce my exposure to environmental toxins for over a decade now and I love doing research!
Ned: What led you to this line of work?
Carly: Healing my own hormone imbalance and discovering the power of my menstrual cycle after coming off of hormonal birth control after having been on for 15 years! I truly had no idea how much hormonal birth control was affecting my mental and physical health until I came off; it’s like I was a completely different person. I started living my life cyclically, charting my menstrual cycle and supporting my hormones, and my whole world opened up. I want to empower women to rediscover their own incredible bodies, make informed decisions when it comes to their reproductive health, optimize their hormone health and learn to identify their fertile windows whether their goal is to achieve pregnancy or avoid pregnancy.
Ned: What’s the most rewarding aspect of your work?
Carly: Empowering women to learn how their incredible bodies work and supporting them as they take charge of their health! I also feel a strong pull to normalize and celebrate our menstrual cycles, since we sadly live in a society that fosters a lot of shame around them. I love getting messages from women who finally understand just how important their menstrual cycle is – it’s truly our fifth vital sign! It’s just as important as our body temperature, pulse rate, respiration rate and blood pressure! When you learn how to chart your menstrual cycle you can tap into this incredible power and optimize your health and wellness!
Ned: What’s your favorite health and wellness ritual?
Carly: My morning circadian rhythm walk! I’ve been doing it now for 3 months and haven’t missed a day, even in the snow. Getting daylight in your eyes first thing in the morning has incredible benefits for your overall health, your thyroid health, and your hormone health (including your menstrual cycle) but it also makes me feel so much better, especially after nights where I didn’t get much sleep! Also, charting my menstrual cycle. It’s completely changed my life!
Ned: What’s one thing you wish more people knew about?
Carly: How magical cervical mucus is! Our body creates different types of mucus during different phases of our cycle. One type stays in our cervix and acts as a barrier to infection and bacteria and another type filters out weak sperm, nourishes and feeds sperm to keep it alive, and allows sperm to travel to the egg – sperm literally can’t move without E-type mucus! And ALL cervical mucus is fertile, not just the stretchy/clear egg-white consistency we hear so much about! Cervical mucus is what gives us a 5-6 day fertile window, since it can keep sperm alive for 5 days leading up to ovulation. So if you were taught that you can get pregnant any day of your cycle, you were taught wrong! (I know I was!)
Ned: What is one simple way people can begin their wellness journey?
Carly: Start walking outside in the morning! We talk so much about health and wellness gadgets and all of these expensive supplements you can buy but there is so much power to just moving your body, getting fresh air, and getting sunlight in your eyes first thing each day! Even if it’s just 5 minutes! (Although 20-30 is even better!)
Ned: What’s your experience with Ned been like?
Carly: I’ve been using Ned’s products for years! I found the company when I was researching high-quality hemp products that were organic, full-spectrum and third-party tested (third-party testing is so important with supplements!). I discovered Sleep Blend when I was dealing with some horrendous insomnia and it was life changing! I started using the Hormone Balance Blend and then the Mellö Magnesium Superblend when it launched!
Ned: What product do you most love and why?
Carly: Mellö is definitely one of my favorites! I'm a HUGE believer in the power of magnesium supplementation (it’s so freaking important and most of us are deficient) but most supplements are garbage, especially the drinks! I love that Mellö has 3 forms of chelated and absorbable magnesium and contains L-Theanine and GABA for extra calming effects! It’s truly the best magnesium supplement I’ve found by a long shot!
Ned: How do you start your day?
Carly: I drink electrolytes and then go on a walk outside with my 1 year old daughter, rain or shine! (Or snow – we live in Western New York so you truly never know what you’re going to get!)
Ned: How do you end your day?
Carly: Reading! I got a kindle years ago and it makes it so much easier to read before bed.
Ned: Who do you follow that really inspires you?
Carly: Juli Bauer Roth (Friend of Ned @Paleomg) is one of my favorites! I’ve followed Juli for over a decade now and have loved watching her evolution over the years. We had similar journeys in terms of deciding if we wanted to have kids, and then feeling passionate about empowered physiological birth and breastfeeding. She had her daughter a few months after me, so it’s been fun following along! And I LOVE her recipes!
Ned: What’s something you’re grateful for?
Carly: My daughter! She’s brought such joy into my life since the day I took a positive pregnancy test! I’m extra grateful that I’ve been home with her since she was born, too. It’s been the greatest year of my life.
Ned: What do you see for yourself in the future?
Carly: Working with women who want to learn how to practice a fertility awareness based method, supporting couples as they try to conceive, running seminars and workshops on our menstrual cycles and hormonal birth control, and being a full time working from home mama! And one day I will be a doula too, because my doulas were incredible and such an integral part of my positive birth experience, and I want to do for other women what they did for me! Thank god for doulas!
Ned: Where can we follow your journey?
Carly @cleanlivingwithcarly.
