What are the top four habits women need to establish for long-term health? I’d argue that they should be cycle charting, healthy nutrition, exercise, and meditation. I recently participated in Revelation90, a new 90-day program geared towards helping women root themselves in these pillars of health and well-being for a “happier, healthier, and smarter fertility.”
Inspired by Exodus 90, a spiritual growth challenge for men, the founders of Revelation90 wanted to create a 90-day challenge centered on the unique needs of women. Revelation90 helps women establish fertility awareness tracking, exercise, and balanced nutrition habits with the added emphasis of incorporating regular prayer times each day. As I worked through the course, integrating all four of these habits into my daily life became an almost seamless process.
Who created Revelation90?
Three different organizations–the Couple to Couple League, SoulCore, and Temple and Table –collaborated to create this challenge for women to focus on fertility awareness, true self-care, better health and well-being, and growth in their spiritual lives.
Couple to Couple League (CCL)
According to their website, the Couple to Couple League (CCL) is “the largest Natural Family Planning (NFP) provider in the U.S. since 1971.” CCL teaches the symptothermal method based on cervical mucus and basal body temperature (BBT) observations. Through the Revelation 90 program, CCL helps you begin the charting process and recognize the empowering health benefits of understanding your signs of fertility.
SoulCore
SoulCore is a Catholic exercise program rooted in, “integrating the prayers of the rosary with core strengthening, stretching, and functional movements to nourish body and soul and encourage deeper reflection on the virtues.” In Revelation 90, SoulCore teaches women to integrate healthy movement with prayer practices. As you work through the course, especially the SoulCore portions, you will clearly see how all areas of health are intertwined.
Temple and Table
Temple and Table is centered on the belief that the physical and spiritual are inseparable. Amanda Rohwedder, the founder of Temple and Table, is a Degreed Nutritionist with a Bachelor’s degree in Nutritional Science and a Master’s degree in Medical Science. “Our culture is starving…” she says, “we are starving for community, for value and literally for nutrients, for real food.” Amanda contributes to the spiritual and nutritional aspects of Revelation90. Through her instruction, you will learn how simple it can be to incorporate healthy eating into your life and how this practice will in turn enhance your fertility and spiritual health. Amanda’s love for community likely plays a large role in the emphasis on community involvement throughout the program.
What is included in the cost of the course?
You unlock specific workouts, recipes, tips, and more as you work through the course, along with live and pre-recorded webinars for community involvement. Revelation90 is a seasonal course with cohorts occurring in the fall and spring.
- 24/7 Access to recorded videos with recipes, workouts, and fertility awareness tips for the duration of the program.
- Weekly live webinars
- A community of women to journey with
- Revelation90 Journal
- Shorter, Lighter, Pain-free Periods book
- Prayer, exercise, nutrition and charting tips
- 90 day subscription to the PeakDay app
- Basal body thermometer + quick overview of the Symptothermal method
Pillars of the Revelation90 program
The pillars of Revelation90 are prayer, exercise, nutrition, and charting.
Prayer
Because this is a Catholic program, Revelation90 specifically invites the participants to pray The Angelus prayer during the 90 days. The Angelus is traditionally prayed at 6 am, noon, and 6 pm, but even picking one time a day can help you ground your day in prayer. You receive a copy of The Angelus with your course.
Even though this is the recommended prayer, participants can choose to replace this practice with something of their choosing or to add more prayers to their daily prayer routine.
Exercise
Similar to the prayer habit, you are encouraged to pick an exercise routine that you will enjoy. Every month you will be given access to two low-impact workout videos through SoulCore. Even though there are only a couple of workouts every month, the average length of each video is 45 minutes to an hour long. Following each month’s theme, these videos are paced through the prayers of the Rosary and Morning and Evening Prayer. The goal is that you go through the workouts multiple times, integrating them into your daily prayer routine.
Nutrition
Temple and Table leads the nutrition aspect of this course. Each month, you receive three videos from Amanda Rohwedder on nutrition and its connection to fertility and spiritual health. One webinar in particular focuses on how to feed your body for cycle health. In addition to the videos, you will also receive downloadable PDFs of multiple recipes to help jumpstart your healthy eating journey.
Charting
Through Revelation90, you receive a 90-day free trial of the premium version of PeakDay, CCL’s app. A basal body thermometer is also provided with the program.
At the beginning of the course, you are encouraged to watch four pre-recorded videos on female cycles and fertility, observe your basal body temperature and cervical mucus each day, and chart inside the PeakDay app. These videos provide some of the basics of fertility awareness charting, but are not intended to replace instruction in a method of natural family planning (NFP) (that is, a method with rules for avoiding or achieving pregnancy). Because CCL is one of the founders of Revelation90, their instruction is focused on their Symptothermal method. However, any method of charting can be used and is supported through the PeakDay App.
A day in the life of Revelation90
One of many great things about Revelation90 is its self-paced nature. Ideally, you ground your day in prayer and use the Revelation90 journal as a tool for holding yourself accountable for your specific goals. The rest of your day could flow as follows:
- Nourish your body well throughout the day and recognize how this affects the way you feel.
- Spend some time watching one of the recorded videos or doing a SoulCore workout on the course platform.
- One evening per week, spend an hour with the Revelation90 community learning about holistic health and wellbeing.
- Every evening, chart your observed biomarkers in the PeakDay app.
The whole goal of Revelation90 is your growth in knowledge of your fertility health and an increase in your spiritual, physical, and mental health.
My experience of Revelation90
I signed up for the Revelation90 program in the middle of my third trimester of pregnancy. As someone who enjoys the benefits of cycle-syncing, the process of adjusting your diet, exercise, and other daily habits according to the phases of your cycle, I was excited to learn more about cycle health before having regular cycles again. My goal was that the habits I established through the end of pregnancy and early postpartum would help better my cycle health from the beginning.
Because I was pregnant, there were a few aspects of Revelation90 I could not fully participate in. The PeakDay app is not intended for women starting to chart during pregnancy or postpartum, so even though I was charting, I was not able to utilize all of the app features. Additionally, the SoulCore workouts did not include modifications for their exercises, which limited my ability to complete the workouts. I would recommend that they update the videos to include one instructor doing a modified routine.
Overall, I enjoyed and benefited from my experience in Revelation90. The nutritional portion of the course was my favorite component. I learned so much about how different foods impact my hormonal health and how to make delicious, hormone-happy meals. I have never charted basal body temperature and am excited to add that biomarker to my charting routine. Now that I am postpartum, I can already see how the habits of prayer, daily low-impact exercises, and hormone-geared nutrition I established at the end of my pregnancy are helping me to feel and be my best self. As someone already well-versed in health and well-being, I do not regret the timing of my participation in Revelation90; however, I would likely only recommend this challenge to cycling women.
Things to consider
Keep in mind that while Revelation90 will provide you with everything you need to chart your fertility according to the CCL Symptothermal method, there is no formal family planning instruction included in the course. Whether you choose to use the CCL method or another method of charting your fertility, you need to be aware that Revelation90 alone does not suffice for family planning purposes.
The exercises and advice given throughout the program are intended for naturally cycling women, not women on hormonal birth control or women who are pregnant or postpartum. If you are pregnant or newly postpartum, I would advise waiting until your cycles return to reap the full benefits of Revelation90.
Finally, Revelation90 is a Catholic program. Even though you are not required to participate in every aspect of the course, it is important to know beforehand that the prayers and exercise program, especially, are rooted in Catholic spirituality.
To buy or not to buy?
The Revelation90 program gets a buy from me. For only $40, you receive a wealth of cycle knowledge, overall health tips, support for new habit-building, community, and so much more. Regardless of where you are in your reproductive life or your religious affiliation, it will be difficult to find another source that consolidates so much instruction and accountability in one place.
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