New Certification

I Completed Dr. Hazel Wallace’s
Align Course — Here’s What It Means for You

By Coach Sofi · Sports Nutritionist & Endurance Coach

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Your body isn’t broken. It’s cyclical — and once you understand that, everything changes.

Menstrual Cycle and Athletic Performance

I’m so excited to share that I’ve just completed the Align certification program, led by the brilliant Dr. Hazel Wallace — founder of The Food Medic, NHS doctor, registered nutritionist, and bestselling author. This course has genuinely deepened my practice in ways I couldn’t wait to bring directly to you.

If you’ve ever felt like your training and nutrition advice wasn’t quite designed for you — your energy swings, your cravings, your cycle — you were right. For too long, female athletes have been coached using research built almost entirely on male physiology. Align changes that. And now, so does my coaching.

What Is the Align Course?

Align is a specialist certification program focused entirely on the menstrual cycle — covering the hormonal science, nutritional strategies, athletic performance implications, sleep, mood, and the very real metabolic shifts that happen across each phase. The course brought together leading voices in endocrinology, sports nutrition, psychiatry, and dietetics, and left me with a genuinely comprehensive, research-backed roadmap to support clients across every phase of their cycle — including perimenopause and beyond.

Here are the key areas I deepened my knowledge in, and what it means for the work we’ll do together.

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Understanding Your Cycle from the Inside Out

One of the most grounding things this course reinforced is simple: you are not a textbook. Cycle lengths vary, symptoms vary, and the goal isn’t to fit yourself into a 28-day template — it’s to understand your own body’s unique rhythms and respond to them with curiosity instead of frustration.

The course gave me a much richer framework for the four cycle phases — and critically, what’s actually happening hormonally in each of them:

Understanding this rhythm means we can plan with it instead of pushing against it — adjusting your training load, your nutrition timing, and your recovery strategies to match where you actually are in your cycle.

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Nutrition & The Menstrual Cycle: What the Research Says

This was one of the most practically rich modules of the course. I bring you a concrete, evidence-based toolkit for how to shift nutrition across each phase — and how to specifically address the most common symptoms my clients struggle with.

PMS Nutrition Strategies

*With any supplement, consult your doctor to make sure it’s not interacting with current medications.

Managing Bloating

• Limit common triggers: alcohol, highly processed/salty/high-fat foods, very gassy vegetables, and artificial sweeteners
• Increase water intake and consider swapping caffeine for decaf in the days before and during your period
• Address constipation through fiber, fluids, and movement
• Magnesium reduces cramping and peppermint can relax the gut wall; daily gentle movement also supports gut motility

Cravings & the Luteal Phase

Research confirms what so many of us experience: cravings genuinely do increase in the luteal phase (7-14 days before your period) as progesterone rises. This isn’t a lack of willpower — it’s a hormonal signal.

Here’s what actually helps:

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Athletic Performance & Your Cycle

For my athletes specifically, this module was a game-changer. The hormonal fluctuations across your cycle don’t just affect how you feel — they measurably affect your strength, power output, recovery rate, and injury risk.

Key takeaways I integrate into programming:

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A Note on Low Energy Availability & RED-S

The course also deepened my understanding of Low Energy Availability (LEA) and Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (HA) — the loss of menstrual function that can result from chronic underfueling, often in endurance athletes chasing performance or body composition goals. I’ll be far better equipped to identify early warning signs in my clients and intervene before these become serious long-term health issues.

If you’re an athlete whose period has become irregular or has disappeared, that’s not a badge of hard training. It’s your body asking for more fuel and support.

I am incredibly proud to have helped more than one client regain their period after a long period of amenorrhea. Contact me if this is you.

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Everything I’ve absorbed through Align is coming directly into how I coach, plan, and support you. Whether you’re training for your next race, trying to understand why your energy crashes every month, or simply wanting to feel more at home in your body — I now have a richer, more nuanced set of tools to help you get there.

In practice, this means:

• Personalized nutrition guidance that shifts across your cycle — not a static meal plan that ignores your hormones
• Training programs that account for ligament laxity, recovery capacity, and energy availability at different phases
• Targeted strategies for your most challenging symptoms — whether that’s cramping, bloating, cravings, or mood changes
• Support that takes into account life phase — including perimenopause, which is still so underrepresented in sports nutrition conversations
• A coaching relationship where your cycle is treated as data and an asset, never a liability

I’m genuinely excited by what this course has added to my practice — and even more excited to bring it to you. Your cycle isn’t in the way of your performance. When we understand it, it is the performance.

Ready to Work With Your Cycle?

If you’re curious about what hormone-synced training and nutrition could look like for you, I’d love to connect. Let’s build something that actually fits your body.

Book a Discovery Call