why am I still binge eating in HA recovery 2

Why am I still binge eating in HA recovery?

This post is inspired by someone I spoke to yesterday but I’ve been asked similar questions many times before. Often it comes from women in recovery from Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (HA) who are on the journey of recovering their natural menstrual cycles. They have changed their diet, cut back on exercise and gained healthy weight. But still they experience binge eating episodes which impact their physical and mental health. They are left wondering “why am I still binge eating?” when they thought they were doing everything right.

“Characteristics of a binge eating episode can include eating much faster than normal, eating until feeling uncomfortably full, eating large amounts of food when not physically hungry, eating alone through embarrassment at the amount being eaten, and feelings of disgust, shame or guilt during or after the binge.”

This dysregulated eating pattern can certainly play a role in the hormonal imbalances which lead to HA and other menstrual cycle issues.

Binge eating due to physical hunger

The only element from this definition I would remove when talking about women with HA is the part about not being physically hungry. Often, in those who binge as a result of restriction (current or historical), physical hunger does play a major role in triggering binge eating episodes. It can be that beginning eating in response to an initial physical hunger signal leads to eating unusual amounts of food, continuing long after the physical hunger has passed.

For many women in recovery, there is an initial period of extreme hunger where their appetite appears to be insatiable. The physical hunger may not be what a “normal eater” experiences day to day. However it’s definitely driven by a deep hunger signal from the physical body. Usually once the nutritional rehabilitation is complete and the body is truly satisfied, the binge eating stops naturally. However, this may take longer than many women expect or hope for.

Why am I binge eating in HA recovery?

If you are in HA recovery and you still experience binge eating you might be wondering why. Especially if you have been providing your body with enough food for a while. Or if you have reached or even surpassed a healthy weight for your body. You might be waiting patiently for your menstrual cycle to return. Or maybe you have already had a few recovery periods. Perhaps you are in quasi-recovery where you have made progress but are still not quite where you want to be..

In my experience, there are a few common causes of binge eating in HA recovery. These are the same reasons why someone might experience binge eating before recovery too. If your body is giving you regular signals to eat unusual amounts of food and you find yourself asking “why am I still binge eating?” long into HA recovery, it’s a sign something isn’t right. Some of the common “binge foods” are:

  • Whole jars of nut butter
  • Boxes of cereal
  • Packets of biscuits or crackers
  • High calorie fruits such as dates
  • Sweets, crisps or chocolate

These are all foods that the body understands to be quick and dense sources of calories. This gives us a hint as to why someone might still be binge eating.

Why am I still binge eating? Reason 1: Not enough calories or nutrients

This one might seem obvious and yet at the same time, it’s elusive. You might feel you are eating enough and the right types of foods but are you really? But what are you basing your ideas of “enough” and “right” on? Many women with HA don’t trust their own bodies and so often they outsource this knowledge. They rely on calculators or follow specific diets which tell them how much and what to eat. This creates a feeling of safety and control. Everything will be ok if I just follow X, Y and Z rule.

I see women who recover from HA by increasing their calorie intake whilst following restrictive diets. For example, vegan, keto, paleo, gluten-free, sugar-free, whole 30 just to name a few. It’s definitely possible to recover your period on any of these restrictive diets. But it’s a fine line between holding onto mental restriction and food rules vs. following a diet because it truly supports your optimal health.

Thinking about the list of common binge foods above, some are higher in fat and others in carbohydrates. The go-to usually depends in some cases on what the body is missing or in others what you consider acceptable based on the current dietary rules. For example, someone following a keto diet could find themselves binge eating foods high in carbohydrates. OR they might consume large amounts of high fat foods in an unsuccessful attempt to satisfy their bodies’ need for carbohydrates. Hopefully that makes sense!

I find that any diet which is too strict usually causes an issue at some point. I’m all for having some general dietary principles to guide us. In fact I think it’s necessary for each of us to find a sustainable lifestyle philosophy that works for us. However, when rules become too binding and we feel like we are doing something wrong when we break them, it’s not ok. There is simply no right or wrong way to eat and buying into any dietary dogma and food fear never works in the long-term.

Why am I still binge eating? Reason 2: Over exercising

Over-exercising is another trigger for binge eating that I see commonly in clients. It was an issue for me too at the start of my recovery from HA. After taking a complete break from intense exercise and getting three recovery periods, I decided it was time to get fit again. I jumped back into a workout routine and BAM my period disappeared. I also started to experience binge eating episodes again when previously my appetite had balanced out completely.

This was a major red flag for me and luckily I was committed enough to the journey to do something about it. I knew that long term health and balance was my goal. So I was prepared to accept being patient for a little longer. I stopped exercising and went back to my recovery routine of walking and yoga. My appetite quickly stabilised, I stopped having urges to binge eat and the following month I got my period again. I see this exact same pattern with women I work with time and time again.

There appears to be a sweet spot for exercise intensity for women. Up to a point, exercise helps to suppress appetite and has many health benefits. However, high intensity exercise leads to increased appetite. Interestingly, this is not the same for men! In women with HA, I see that returning to high intensity exercise often leads to binge eating episodes with energy intake way above that burned via the exercise. I know, it might not seem fair. But if you want to train like an athlete you need to fuel, rest and reduce stressors like an athlete would too.

Why am I still binge eating? Reason 3: Emotional dysregulation

Finally, another trigger of binge eating episodes is emotional dysregulation. For many women with HA, binge eating becomes a way to relieve uncomfortable emotions, particularly stress and anxiety. Eating large amounts of food in one sitting has a numbing, soothing effect. It helps to calm down the nerves, and is a distraction from racing thoughts. Unfortunately, this usually only lasts for a short while until the shame and guilt of over-eating kick in. Then anxiety can rise even higher and the cycle continues.

HA recovery is an emotional rollercoaster in itself. For many women it’s an unravelling, a time when their whole identity and belief system is called into question. Who are you now you are no longer the “fit one” or the “health freak”? How do you move around the world in this new recovery body? Is everyone thinking that you’ve let yourself go? These questions are often swimming around on the surface or deep within the sub-conscious of women with HA.

So for some, binge eating can become a way to self-regulate through this difficult time. Especially when there aren’t adequate emotional-management tools and support systems in place. Even in women who are nourishing their body and taking plenty of rest, binge eating can come an emotional crutch. However, it’s a double edged sword as the effects of binge eating on the metabolism, hormonal balance and also self-esteem tend to out-weight the benefits. It can easily become a catch 22 situation.

So what’s going on with you?

So if you find that you are still binge eating in HA recovery, I hope that this post gives you some ideas as to why. It could be one of these, a combination of all three or something else entirely! Only you know the truth for you. In coaching I help woman to drop into their internal wisdom system and find the answers. It’s up to them to then go and put this into practice consistently.

The same reasons apply if you are still on the fence about starting recovery and you are experiencing restriction and binge eating cycles. Each of you are individuals with a unique history and physical constitution. So your HA recovery will not look like anyone else’s. If you are committed though I believe it is possible for every woman to recover her natural cycles and find that sustainable, balanced lifestyle that she is longing for.

Over to you…

If you would like to work with me 1-2-1 to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We will create a plan tailored to your individual needs and vision for your health. I will then be there for support, guidance and accountability as you work towards your goals!

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period recovery story

Client success! Elise’s period recovery story

To celebrate 50k views at Moon Life, I wanted to share something special with you all that I don’t usually do. Today I will share the recovery story of one of my lovely clients, Elise. This beautiful soul came to me last year because she wanted to recover her missing period which had disappeared after falling into restrictive eating patterns. She was ready to heal her relationship with food and her body and get her period back.

I know that these period recovery stories are inspiring and great motivation for anyone on this path. So I asked Elise if she would be kind enough to share her story here on my blog. She is also incredibly insightful and has a way her experiences and emotions through her writing. I hope her recovery story speaks to you and offers you a glimmer of light if you are finding this journey tough or you feel that it’s not going as perfectly as it “should”.

Elise’s recovery story: The Nature of Recovery

“It’s like you have a shield in front of you. Imagine if you let down that shield.”

The eating disorder was my shield. It was like a protector from everything I could not control in my life. If I felt like my work was not perfect, then I tried to make my food perfect. The smaller I got, the more obsessed I became with feeling like I could control something and that I could achieve something. The achievement of being smaller was a way to isolate myself from the world, to not have to confront the uncertainty of life.

My eating disorder became my preoccupation. People became bodies to compare myself with and the voices inside of my head grew noisier and noisier. What was I going to eat later? Was the food I was eating too much? How would I reject food if someone offered it to me? Holding onto these thoughts and behaviors were painful and each night when I told myself I would do better, I still chose to make the same decisions the next day.

Recovery is not a linear process, but it starts when you decide to make a change and act on it. At one point, I went to Italy with a friend, and she saw that I was struggling. She told me she had been there and that she promised it wouldn’t be like this forever. Hearing her say that and seeing how she recovered made me believe that I could too. Moreso, it was a moment where I realized that this was not how I wanted my life to be.

I woke up each morning feeling like I had been run over by a truck and even with no energy in me, I got on my yoga mat and did pilates. My spine hurt when I rolled, my knees felt sharp pains in them, and it felt like sometimes my bones were popping out of their socket when I walked. Getting ready in the morning meant checking the flatness of my stomach and wrapping my hands around my arms or my thighs to see if they were thin enough.

My camera roll became photos of salads, comprised of lettuce, beans, and avocado. The photos became another thing to stare at for hours, wondering if it was too much. My body was crying for help. I had dug myself into a hole and I was trying to get out but the hole was deep, a culmination of years of negative childhood impressions around food, a desire for self-perfection, and a strong obsessive mentality that was fixated on food, exercise, and remaining thin.

How dark does life need to get before you seek help? The “I’m not sick enough”
mentality constantly permeated in my mind. The state of my body was not in its equilibrium. It did not feel safe and so it stopped my periods to help keep me warm, even though I was always freezing. It stopped my periods to help me think, even though most times I could hardly think clearly. It stopped my periods to help keep me alive.

Not having my period made me think a lot about what it means to have a period and to be a woman. It made me reflect a lot on how much I wanted children and how much I wanted to be a good role model for them one day. Not having my period made realize that my body was shutting down and so was my life. At one point, I remember saying I have had enough. I need to make a change. I tried to get myself out of the hole I had dug, but some holes are too deep and you need someone to throw you down a rope to help you climb out.

Over a year had passed without a period before I decided to get help. Journaling became a big part of my recovery. Hearing the way I talked to myself and changing the narrative became a big part of recovery. Self compassion and perseverance became another really big part. I never stopped trying to do better for myself. After four months of recovery with myself and Amy, I got my period. I got it three months in a row, and it was exciting to see how far I had come.

While now it has been over two months since I have had one, I know recovery is not a linear process. It takes time and patience for your period and your mind to feel normal again. Now, when I see myself slipping, the hole I fall into is less deep. I know as long as I keep reminding myself that I can be healthy, have a healthy relationship with food, and love my body, that sooner or later when I slip, I won’t fall into a hole but I will be there to catch myself before I fall.

Life is about becoming the best versions of ourselves. I have learned it’s okay to let down the shield. Feel the fear and do it anyways.

My thoughts

Can you hear yourself in her words? Maybe your story is different but can you recognise something? What I can say is that after working with many women desiring to recover their periods, is that this idea of perfection is nearly always involved. It played a big part in my story too. Wanting everything to be perfect and organised and never feeling like we measure up to the standards we set for ourselves.

This idea of perfection can then creep into recovery too. We feel that we are not doing well enough if we don’t do recovery “right” or if our period isn’t perfectly regular every month once it comes back. Or we can even feel that we aren’t “perfectly sick enough” to deserve to begin this healing journey. But there can be no perfect recovery story. Or more like, every story is perfect and plays out exactly as it should for us to learn the lessons we need to learn.

Elise’s story is not unusual. She is a great example of the results you can have if you really commit to this work. What is possible when you are open to reflecting on your beliefs, thoughts and behaviours mindfully and witnessing your own patterns without self-blame and judgement. So many of the stories we tell ourselves and the thought patterns we fall into don’t belong to us or simply aren’t true. But they stick and as time passes we become more and more attached to them.

Unravelling these messy entanglements doesn’t happen overnight. But it does happen slowly and surely. One step at a time. And eventually years later you look back and see just how far you have come. I still do this today, many years after I considered my personal recovery story to be over. Some days I reflect on who and where I was before and the journey I’ve been on and I’m still amazed.

So thank you Elise for sharing your recovery story. I’m so proud of you and excited for what’s to come!

Over to you…

If you would like to work with me 1-2-1 to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We will create a plan tailored to your individual needs and vision for your health. I will then be there for support, guidance and accountability as you work towards your goals, whether that is recovering your period, healing your relationship with food and your body, overcoming hormonal imbalances or increasing your fertility naturally.

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person holding a blue empty silicon

How can I get my period back quickly and easily?

One of the questions I get asked the most by women is how can I get my period back? I get it, missing periods can be worrying. Even if you are not trying to get pregnant, irregular menstrual cycles are a sign that something is not quite right with your health. It’s always a good idea to visit your doctor first if your cycles have been missing for 3 months or more. They may carry out an ultra-sound scan or check the levels of hormones in your blood. This will allow them to see if there is any medical condition which could be causing your missing periods.

In many cases, missing periods (aka amenorrhea) is functional and a temporary state. Functional amenorrhea can be caused by:

  • Under nutrition i.e. not eating enough or the right things
  • Over exercise or not fueling your body adequately for your exercise level
  • Losing a lot of weight quickly or being underweight for your body type
  • Short or long term stress
  • Being on or just coming off birth control

So how can I get my period back?

In this post I will share the basics of how to get your period back in a holistic way by looking at 3 elements: diet, exercise and stress management. In my experience, these basics are enough to support 90% of women with functional amenorrhea to get their periods back.

#1 Diet

Nutrition plays a key role in your overall health and ability to produce the right amount of hormones. If you are trying to get your period back, it is so important to make sure you are eating enough energy and macro nutrients on a consistent basis. This means regular meals and snacks at least every 3-4 hours containing a balance of carbohydrates, fat and protein.

The exact amount of energy you need will depend on your height, weight, body type and your activity level. You may also need to eat more than you usually would in order to heal your body and to get your period back. Now is not the ideal time for low-fat, low-carb, keto or vegan diets. If you want to recover your missing periods as quickly as possible it is best to let go of all food rules and restrictions while you heal.

Eating a wide variety of foods will also help you to cover your vitamin and mineral requirements. These are important for correct hormone production but also help your cells to produce energy and for your body to grow healthy hair, skin and nails. Some of the common nutrient deficiencies I see in women with missing periods are copper, zinc, B vitamins, vitamin D, calcium and magnesium.

If you need support with nutrition to get your period back, I have created a Period Recovery e-book. This guide to getting your period back includes 27 recipes and a 7 day meal plan designed to meet your nutritional needs and support hormonal balance. I also offer personalised meal plans and eating recovery coaching via my 1-2-1 programs if you need more individual attention and support on your period recovery journey.

#2 Exercise

The second key element in the journey to getting your period back is to address your exercise. Are you working out too much or too hard? We are made to believe as women that we must be super lean and that we should be in the gym every day if we want to be healthy. Unfortunately, often this goes too far and women are exercising like crazy without providing their body with enough fuel to balance it out.

Many of the women who come to me with missing periods are doing lots of cardio, HIIT workouts or exercising in the morning before breakfast. What they don’t realise is that exercise is a stress on the body, especially when it is high intensity or long duration. If you are working out regularly, you need to take extra care to support recovery with adequate fuel and rest. Yes, moderate exercise has many benefits for our physical and mental health. But when taken too far it can create additional stress which can lead to missing periods.

Do I need to give up exercise to get my period back? Usually the answer is no but if you are exercising at a high level you will likely need to reduce the intensity and frequency of your workouts until your period returns. Walking, yoga, pilates, dance and leisurely biking are all great ways to move your body while you are healing your hormones. These lower intensity workouts combined with plenty of rest and relaxation are ideal to help you get your period back.

exercise-during-ha-recovery
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

#3 Stress management

Finally, but no less important to getting your period back is stress management. Stress can be a tricky one to cover as often we feel like our stress levels are out of our control. It is true that sometimes external stressors are present which we cannot change. For example, illness in the family, moving house, the loss of a job or the end of a relationship. In these moments, all we can do is do our best and find ways to manage the stressful emotions we feel.

Yoga, meditation, journaling, art, music and time in nature are all great ways to reconnect with your spirit during stressful times. Incorporating stress management tools such as these as well as traditional tools such as therapy and counselling are just as important as your diet and exercise if you want to get your period back. They can help to reduce the levels of cortisol, the stress hormone which can cause disruption to your entire hormonal system if it is too high for too long.

As well as external stressors, you also have internal stressors which can effect your sense of wellbeing. This includes the way you speak to yourself and the story you tell yourself about the things that are happening in your life. An over active inner critic, a victim mentality and the tendency to over work, rush or pressure yourself are just a few examples of internal stressors which can contribute to high stress levels and missing periods.

get my period back

In my 3 and 6 month Total Nourishment coaching programs, I provide you with tools such as restorative yoga, guided meditation and journaling activities to support you in reducing your stress and tackling some of the mental and emotional challenges that you may face on your period recovery journey.

How long will it take to get my period back?

I am adding this as it’s another question I get asked so often. Unfortunately it’s so hard to say! How long it will take to get your period back depends on many factors including your health history and how consistent you are with your recovery efforts. What I will say is that for clients who are ready to go “all in”, the typical recovery time is 3-6 months. Sometimes it can be faster than this, others need longer to heal. Back in 2017 when I was recovering my own period, it took 4 months to get my period back from the day that I finally discovered the right path to heal. I hope this offers you some encouragement if you are currently on or about the embark on this journey!

Over to you…

If you would like to work with me 1-2-1 to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We will create a plan tailored to your individual needs and vision for your health. I will then be there for support, guidance and accountability as you work towards your goals!

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Powerful Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs to look out for

It’s been over 5 years since I recovered my natural cycles after 8 years of missing periods aka Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (I explained what that is in this post). I remember feeling like I was doing all the right things to recover and just waiting for my period to return. It can be a long wait full of uncertainty and sometimes you just want a sign you are on the right track. So today I want to share a few Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs that indicate your body is healing and your period may be about to arrive!

Physical Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs

Part of the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery process is reconnecting with your body. With all of my clients, not just women who want to recover their periods, body awareness meditations play a key role. It’s so easy to become disconnected from our bodies and their needs. This can happen due to working in front of a computer all day leading to numbness. We can also experience disconnection when we deny our bodies’ needs for too long e.g. chronic dieting or pushing through fatigue. One of the key Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs is feeling reconnected with your body and it’s sensations.

In general, this can mean knowing absolutely when you are hungry, thirsty or tired and exactly what you need. This might sound obvious to some but I am sure many of you understand how it feels to “lose touch” with your body. During Hypothalamic Amenorrhea you can feel so unsure and no longer trust the signals your body is sending you. Especially if you start the recovery process and feel that your appetite is out of control or you need to sleep all of the time. Building this trust with your body and accepting everything is so important to recovering your periods.

More specifically, experiencing sensations in the area of your womb is one of the most powerful Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs. If you are connected through this part of your body (e.g. through practicing regular womb meditations and breathwork) you will feel when the energy of your womb and sacral chakra come back online before your first period arrives. This can feel like tingling, warmth, heaviness or any other subtle sensation. It’s a deep inner knowing that comes via the physical body and makes you realise what a powerful energetic being you are!

woman suffering from a stomach pain
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Emotional Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs

As well as physical changes, you will also likely experience emotional changes during the recovery process. Again there are two facets to this. Generally, one of the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs is feeling more emotionally stable day to day. Recovery can be a bumpy road where you experience a rollercoaster of emotions. Sometimes you can feel worse than before you started and that’s ok. Deciding to recover your period can bring up a lot of “stuff” as you face fears and challenge your beliefs.

What I experienced personally and see in other women is that once our hormones start to balance out and our period is due to arrive, some of this instability settles down. Partially this is due to a calming of the nervous system once you are well nourished and energy balance is restored. Less mental chatter around food and body weight fears will mean you experience less anxiety and feel calmer overall as you progress through your recovery. Your body and mind reach an equilibrium and it can be such a relief.

a person sitting on wooden planks across the lake scenery
Photo by S Migaj on Pexels.com

That said, another of the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs is experiencing pre-menstrual symptoms. You might notice some long forgotten signs of feeling moody or irritable and wonder why. This can be particularly surprising if you have started to feel much better emotionally during recovery. It’s important to watch out for a period of feeling not yourself as this could be a sign that your period is about to arrive. Often, we don’t realise until afterwards that it was hormonal changes leading to us feeling off. But as a positive, cyclical mood changes can be a sign that your body is gearing up to menstruate again.

Measurable Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs

Finally, for those of you who like to track and measure things, one of the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs which is measurable is Basal Body Temperature (BBT). Often during Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, your metabolic rate is lower. Your hypothalamus detects that not enough energy is coming in and turns down the metabolic dials. This is what causes your reproductive hormones to shut down but your metabolic rate also decreases so that you waste less energy as heat.

This can mean that your core body temperature drops from the usual 36.6°C to less than 36°C. I explained more about this in a previous post about signs of a low metabolism. So tracking your BBT under the arm or tongue a few times a week can be a good way to keep an eye on your healing process. Ideally, you want your BBT to reach 36.6°C first thing in the morning before eating anything. If you are resting and eating enough food to restore your hormones, this should happen naturally over time.

Another interesting pattern to watch out for is a sudden rise in BBT. All ovulating women experience this temperature shift each cycle. After ovulation the body temperature can rise by around 0.5°C and remain there until menstruation. This is how the fertility awareness method works to identify ovulation and therefore fertile windows. Towards the end of my recovery process I downloaded a menstrual cycle tracking app to record by BBT. Before my first period I noticed this sudden and sustained shift in temperature and I got so excited as I knew I was on the right track and my first followed 2 weeks later!

Summary

I hope that understanding these Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery signs gives you confidence in your recovery process. I know how hard it can be to trust your body and wait but I promise you can heal. Your body is a powerful healing machine that it is designed to find balance once it has the right conditions. Keep listening and responding again and again. Build that connection with yourself and your physical body and wait for the miracle to occur. I promise it will be worth it!

Not sure what to eat to recover your period? Check out my period recovery meal plan!

Over to you…

If you would like to work with me to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free 15 minute discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We work together using a combination of modalities to support your individual needs and help you to feel your best.

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Period recovery meal plan

THE Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan

It’s been a bit quieter around here for a while, and for a very good reason! For a long time I have wanted to create a tool to support women to recover their missing periods. I know that changing my diet was one of the hardest things parts of my period recovery journey. So, my secret project for the last couple of months has been creating a Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan!

I am so excited to finally have this ready to share with you. Hopefully it will be a helpful tool for you on this exciting but challenging journey of getting your period back. I know that a large percentage of my readers are women who are were I was 5 years ago. At that time I was trying to get my period back after 8 years of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea. I have also shared many posts previously about why your periods can stop and how to get your period back.

When I finally realised that my “healthy” diet and workout regime was the reason for my missing periods I was stunned. I remember being extremely confused and so unsure of how to eat more after years of restricting how much and what I ate. I swung between restriction and binge eating on processed foods more times than I can remember. I’d feel ashamed of my huge appetite and couldn’t understand why my meals weren’t satisfying.

Back then I would have loved to have a Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan to guide me. I even went back to university to study nutrition and spent countless hours researching nutrition, metabolism and hormonal health to figure it all out! Then I trained to become a Women’s Wellness Coach because I was determined to use this experience to help other women. So I am very happy to finally be able to offer your this period recovery meal plan where I have done the hard work for you.

What does the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan include?

The Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan is 38 pages long and split into 10 sections:

I have created 20 simple recipes and combined these into a 7 day Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan to inspire you on your period recovery journey. As I highlight in the book, I am a Nutritionist and not a Chef. For this reason, all meals are super easy to make and take less than an hour to prepare. The recipes use cheap and easily accessible ingredients that you will find in your local supermarket. No expensive superfoods needed!

I have based this meal plan on a minimum of 2500 calories per day. This is the recommendation of Dr Nicola Rinaldi, researcher and author of No Period Now What. I highly recommend purchasing her book for more on the science of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea and the recovery process. Yes 2500 calories can sound scary if you are coming from the world of diet culture. I explain why this minimum energy intake is necessary within the guide.

How was the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan designed?

I have carefully designed the meal plan to ensure that each meal and snack is energy dense. Each one contains a balance of macro-nutrients i.e. carbohydrates, fats and proteins which each have an important role in your hormonal and metabolic health. This is to provide your body with the fuel and building blocks it needs to recover your hormones and restore your period.

In addition, I have chosen a wide variety of foods throughout the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan. This is to maximise the micro-nutrient intake and ensure that your nutritional needs are met. Nutritional rehabilitation is a major part of recovering your period if it has gone missing due to under eating, over exercising or excessive stress. Therefore this was an important element when designing the period recovery meal plan.

You want your body to finally feel safe and nourished. I hope that the recipes in the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan will do just that! The plan is designed around whole, unprocessed foods with a high nutrient density. Not because these are the ONLY foods you should eat. Rather to give a strong nutritional foundation from which you can play around with other foods.

It is designed to inspire you and give you a launch pad from which you can get creative. The sample 7 day period recovery meal plan includes different recipes for each meal, every day of the week. However you can use the 20 recipes in which ever way you choose. Personally I like to consume the same lunch and breakfast for a whole week to make meal preparation easier. Then I switch it up to ensure variety throughout each month.

I have provided a full macro and micro nutrient breakdowns of the 7 day meal plan. Additionally, each recipe comes with a summary nutrient breakdown in EU label style. I know not everyone likes to focus on numbers. However it can be a useful tool to understand how different foods can support your body. Full macro and macro nutrient breakdowns for each recipe are available as additional pdfs.

Will I definitely get my period back if I follow this meal plan?

Of course there can never be any guarantee that you will get your period back. I would be lying if I told you that. However it is very possible and so many women have made this journey to regain their natural cycle even after many years of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea. It is important first to confirm the diagnosis your doctor. You want to rule out any other medical issues which could be causing your missing period. The rates of recovery for confirmed Hypothalamic Amenorrhea are very promising when following a healing lifestyle.

A survey concluded that after making lifestyle changes (including adopting a period recovery diet and reducing exercise), 57% of women recovered their period within 6 months. For some women the process can take longer, sometimes up to 2 years. What I can say is that regardless of the outcome, adopting the period recovery diet will NOURISH you. Eating this way will ensure that your body gets plenty of energy from nutrient dense source. This will improve your overall health and vitality, not just your hormones!

Remember to focus on the process and not the outcome. Your body is intelligent and knows how to heal itself when it has the resources it needs.

How can I purchase the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan?

So, is this is something you are interested in? Would you like to invest in the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery meal plan as a tool for your period recovery journey? Well I have an exciting offer until the end of the year! I will be selling the plan at a discounted price until 31/12/2022. So if you want to have this as a tool for the new year to start or continue your period recovery journey then go ahead and grab your copy now.

NOTE – If you have any questions about the meal plan, you can email me or leave a comment below. If you do purchase the plan and you find it helpful, I encourage you to please leave a review and to share the product link with other ladies who might benefit from this tool.

Over to you…

If you would like to work with me to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free 15 minute discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We work together using a combination of modalities to support your individual needs and help you to feel your best.

  • Please like this post and share to support my business
  • If you liked this post, follow my blog or subscribe by email to receive updates on new content
  • Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily updates and inspiration

Comparing your body to others on social media

Self-comparison is a natural human instinct. We are social creatures and self-comparison is one of the ways in which we form our identity within society. Your psyche has built in mechanisms to compare yourself with others in your community. You then use this comparison to make a judgement as to whether they are above or below you in the hierarchy. This could be in terms of comparing your body to others, your beauty or strength, intelligence or material belongings. Basically any other factor that might affect your ability to survive and reproduce. We also learn from others through role modelling and we based our self-image on the response we receive from those around us. We are primed to be hyper focused on others, what they think of us and how we compare to them.

Self-comparison and social media

Unfortunately, the people we tend to compare ourselves with are not those that we see in our daily lives. Rather it is those we see in the media, far removed from our own communities. We forget that the people we see in the media are usually in the spotlight because they are amongst the most beautiful, most successful or most wealthy people in society. We use them to benchmark our own worth and feel inadequate as a result.

Comparing yourself to others in this way often leads to negative self-talk and feelings of not being worthy or good enough. And since the explosion of social media, our exposure to visual media has sky-rocketed. Teens across the world are now spending around 3 hours a day on social media according to this report by Social Buddy. Instagram, the most visual social media platform, now has approximately 1 billion users, with almost 40% under the age of 25.

Comparing your body to others on social media

Based on the number of beauty and fitness influencers, it’s pretty clear that comparing your body to others is one of the ways that we compare ourselves to others. When I was a teenager in the early 2000s, I was already under the influence of media messages. I would compare myself to celebrities and models that I saw in the glossy photos in magazines or on TV. This led me to spiral into extreme body dissatisfaction and almost a decade spent chasing the thin-ideal. I believed that if I only looked like the women I saw in the media I would be happier and my life would be perfect. But at least this was only a small part of my life and most of the time I was in the real world with real people.

These days though, social media is full of “real” people showing us how beautiful and successful they are. We are constantly surrounded by advertisements whose sole purpose is to make us feel like we are not good enough as we are. Research into the impacts of social media on body image shows that social media use increases body dissatisfaction and self-objectification. Social media users are also are more likely to internalise body-ideals, that is adopting the belief that certain body types are more socially acceptable than others. It is a double edged sword as you open yourself up to feedback from others when you post images of yourself and you compare yourself to others in images that they post.

How to stop comparing your body to others online

I’m not saying that you have to avoid social media altogether if you want to stop comparing yourself to others, although it definitely could help! I simply want to raise awareness of this issue and share a few tips from my training in the Non-Diet Approach to Health Coaching on how to stop comparing your body to others online.

Practice mindfulness

Staying mindful is the first step as self-comparison is most toxic when we don’t see clearly what is happening. In particular, when we believe everything that we see online and we create a world view in our head that is different from reality. Exposure to images of ideal body types changes our perception of what is normal in society. We then raise the standard that we set for ourselves. If you spend too much time online comparing your body to others, you can easily start to believe that all women look like models and that you are the only one who doesn’t measure up. Your standards of what is healthy and normal become warped. Especially when you are constantly exposed to images that use posing, lighting and editing to curate a perfect image of beauty.

The simple act of becoming mindful that not everything you see online is real can really help. Stay aware that that social media can negatively impact your body image and self-esteem to reduce these negative effects. Pay attention to how you are thinking and feeling when you spend time on social media. Identify which channels trigger self-criticism or negative self-talk and work towards creating a healthier online space for yourself. Make the conscious effort to bring yourself back to reality and recalibrate your mind by spending time with real people. Observe the huge variety of body shapes and sizes that exist amongst normal, healthy women rather than only comparing your body with images you see on social media.

Use critical thinking skills

Alongside practicing mindfulness, start to think critically whilst you are spending time online. If you view content passively, you let it dictate your emotions and program your subconscious mind. Take a moment to question why that content is there and how it was supposed to make you feel. Remember you are in control of what information you feed into your mind. Question everything! Especially when someone has something to sell, don’t take anything you see or read at face value. Be aware that every image you see is possibly edited or airbrushed and may not represent reality. Even photos from “normal” people who are not trying to sell anything but still want to portray themselves in a certain way.

I had a discussion with a friend not long ago about why she was editing her photos for social media. Her opinion was that it is harmless and just a way to show your best self online. My opinion is that it can be extremely detrimental and create impossibly high standards that you and everyone who sees your photo then feels like they don’t measure up to. It is one thing to see a perfectly curated photo in a glossy magazine advert. In that case you are aware of the amount of work that went into creating the image. But it is entirely another thing to see a “casual” selfie on social media of someone looking completely flawless and suddenly become acutely aware of your own imperfections. So keep a critical eye when you are on social media knowing that everything may not be as it seems.

Cultivate body appreciation

Finally, develop an appreciation and gratitude for your body and all it can do for you. Body appreciation is a proven a weapon against comparing your body with others online. This study showed that women with low body appreciation were more likely to experience body dissatisfaction after watching media adverts. On the other hand, women with a higher body appreciation were more resistant to feeling bad about their body and were more likely to remain neutral. You can nurture a positive attitude towards your body by using techniques such as guided meditations and affirmations. These techniques work by planting the seeds of positive thoughts in your mind. For example by repeating to yourself or writing down statements such as:

  • My body is strong and capable
  • This physical body is unique and beautiful
  • My body enables me to experience the joys of life
  • I am more than my physical body
  • My body is a miracle of life
  • I deserve love and respect

Focus on qualities you like about your body. Perhaps the amazing things your body does everyday or the things it allows you to do. Cultivating respect and gratitude for your body can help to boost your self-esteem and create a more positive body image. Therefore enabling you to be more resistant to comparing your body with others in a negative way. This also gives you the freedom to stay in your own lane when it comes to improving your health. It allows you to focus on healthy behaviours rather than aiming for a particular weight or body shape goal.

Summary: How to stop comparing your body with others

Next time you are online, remember these 3 key points to protect yourself against negative self-comparison:

  1. Practice mindfulness
  2. Use critical thinking
  3. Cultivate body appreciation

In today’s world, with so many potential traps to fall into, it’s so important to be mindful of our thoughts. We need to actively work towards mental health, especially maintaining a healthy sense of self-worth and self-esteem. I try my best to be authentic and honest on my social media platforms. Perhaps that is why I don’t have a huge audience! Unfortunately perfection sells pretty well.. BUT I commit to empowering myself and finding my own path to true health. I encourage you all to give yourself this precious gift too.

Over to you…

If you would like to work with me to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free 15 minute discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We work together using a combination of modalities to support your individual needs and help you to feel your best.

  • Please like this post and share to support my business
  • If you liked this post, follow my blog or subscribe by email to receive updates on new content
  • Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily updates and inspiration

Stop comparing your body to others on social media

Self-comparison is a natural human instinct. We are social creatures and self-comparison is one of the ways in which we form our identity within society. Your psyche has built in mechanisms to compare yourself with others in your community and make a judgement as to whether they are above or below you in the hierarchy. This could be in terms of physical beauty or strength, intelligence, material belongings or any other factor that might affect your ability to survive and reproduce. We also learn from others through role modelling and we base our ideas of who we are on the response we receive from those around us. We are primed to be hyper focused on others, what they think of us and how we compare to them.

Unfortunately, the people we tend to compare ourselves with are not those that we see in our daily lives but those we see in the media, far removed from our own communities. We forget that the people we see in the media are usually in the spotlight because they are amongst the most beautiful, most successful or most wealthy people in society and we use them to benchmark our own worth. Comparing yourself to others in this way often leads to negative self-talk and feelings of not being worthy or good enough. And since the explosion of social media, our exposure to visual media has sky-rocketed. Teens across the world are now spending around 3 hours a day on social media according to this report by Social Buddy. Instagram, the most visual social media platform, now has approximately 1 billion users, with almost 40% under the age of 25.

At this age, we are extremely vulnerable to self-comparison and based on the number of beauty and fitness influencers, it’s pretty clear that comparing your body to others is one of the ways that we do this. When I was a teenager in the early 2000s, I was already under the influence of media messages from TV and magazines and I would compare myself to celebrities and models that I saw. This led me to spiral into extreme body dissatisfaction and almost a decade spent chasing the thin-ideal, believing that if I only looked like the women I saw in the media I would be happier and my life would be perfect. But at least this was only a small part of my life and most of the time I was surrounded by real people.

These days though, social media is full of “real” people showing us how beautiful, how successful and how wealthy they are. We are constantly surrounded by advertisements and influencers whose sole purpose is to sell us something by making us feel like we are not good enough as we are. Research into the impacts of social media on body image shows that social media use is associated with increased body dissatisfaction and self-objectification as well as internalisation of body-ideals, that is adopting the belief that certain body types are more socially acceptable than others. It is a double edged sword of opening yourself up to feedback from others when you post images of yourself and comparing yourself to others in images that they post.

I’m not saying that you have to avoid social media altogether if you want to feel good about yourself and stop comparing yourself to others, although it definitely could help! I just want to raise awareness of this issue and share a few tips from my training in the Non-Diet Approach to Health Coaching on how to stop comparing your body to others online.

Mindfulness

Staying mindful is the first step as self-comparison is most toxic when we don’t see clearly what is happening. In particular, when we believe everything that we see online and we create a world view in our head that is different from reality. Exposure to images of ideal body types changes our perception of what is normal in society, raising the standard that we set for ourselves. If you spend too much time online comparing your body to others, you can easily start to believe that all women look like models and that you are the only one who doesn’t measure up Your standards of what is healthy and normal become warped when you are constantly exposed to images that use posing, lighting and editing to curate a perfect image of beauty.

The simple act of becoming mindful that not everything you see online is real and that social media can negatively impact your body image and self-esteem can help to reduce these negative effects. Being aware of how you are thinking and feeling when you spend time on social media and which channels trigger self-criticism or negative self-talk is the first step towards creating a healthier online space for yourself. Also making the conscious effort to bring yourself back to reality and recalibrate your mind by spending time with real people and seeing the huge variety of body shapes and sizes that exist amongst normal, healthy women rather than only comparing your body with images you see on social media.

Critical thinking

Along with this is to start thinking critically whilst you are spending time online. Rather than just viewing content passively and letting it dictate your emotions, take a moment to question why that content is there and how it was supposed to make you feel. Question everything! Especially when someone has something to sell, don’t take anything you see or read at face value. Be aware that every image you see could have been edited or airbrushed and may not represent reality, even photos from “normal” people who are not trying to sell anything but still want to portray themselves in a certain way.

I had a discussion with a friend not long ago about exactly this, why she was editing her photos for social media. Her opinion was that it is harmless and just a way to show your best self online. My opinion is that it can be extremely detrimental and create impossibly high standards that you and everyone who sees your photo then feels like they don’t measure up to. It is one thing to see a perfectly curated photo in a glossy magazine advert when you are aware of the amount of work that went into creating the image. But it is entirely another thing to see a “casual” selfie on social media of someone looking completely flawless and suddenly become acutely aware of your less than perfect appearance.

Body appreciation

Finally, developing appreciation and gratitude for your body and all it can do for you has been proven to act as a weapon against comparing your body with others online. This study showed that women with low body appreciation were more likely to experience body dissatisfaction after watching media adverts but women with a higher body appreciation were more resistant to feeling bad about their body and were more likely to remain neutral. You can nurture a positive attitude towards your body by using techniques such as guided meditations and affirmations which work by planting the seeds of positive thoughts in your mind. For example by repeating to yourself or writing down statements such as:

  • My body is strong and capable
  • My body is unique and beautiful
  • My body enables me to experience the joys of life
  • My body is a miracle of life
  • My body deserves love and respect

Focus on qualities you like about your body, the amazing things your body does everyday or the things it allows you to do. Cultivating respect and gratitude for your body can help to boost your self-esteem and create a more positive body image, enabling you to be more resistant to comparing yourself with others in a negative way. This also gives you the freedom to stay in your own lane when it comes to improving your health and focus on healthy behaviours rather than aiming for a particular weight or body shape goal.

In today’s world, with so many potential traps to fall into, it’s so important to be mindful of our thoughts and actively work towards mental health, especially maintaining a healthy sense of self-worth and self-esteem. I try my best to be authentic and honest on my platforms and perhaps that is why I don’t have a huge audience as unfortunately perfection sells pretty well.. BUT I am committed to remaining authentic and finding my own path to true health and I encourage my clients to do the same!

Over to you…

Has social media and self-comparison impacted your body image? Share your thoughts and experiences below, I would love to start a conversation and raise awareness of this issue. Go ahead and like and share this post to support my business and follow my blog for more useful posts on nutrition, yoga and holistic health.

If you are looking for guidance, support and accountability to reach your health goals, I offer 1-2-1 holistic health coaching. My specialty is helping women to balance their hormones and heal their body and metabolism after chronic or restrictive dieting but I also help anyone who is looking to improve their overall health and find the perfect balance for their body. I would love to work together with you to move past any health blocks and get you feeling your best again!

Other posts you might like

How to deal with weight gain in HA recovery

Hello everyone! Today I want to share my experience with dealing with weight gain in HA recovery. HA stands for Hypothalamic Amenorrhea and is when your periods stop because of under-eating, over-exercising, being underweight for your body or too much stress. I am sharing this because I know a big proportion of my audience have found my page because you are trying to get your period back.

If you want to balance your hormones and find true health after years of restrictive dieting and/or over-exercising then you are in the right place! It’s been 5 years since my recovery from Hypothalamic Amenorrhea. I don’t talk about it here as much as I used to. However, I know so many women are still struggling with this and I want to offer support and inspiration.

Weight gain in HA recovery

Dealing with weight gain in HA recovery was one of the most challenging aspects for me. I hear from many women the exact same thing. It can a struggle to let go of exercise and to eat more food but they are actually simple behaviours to change. It’s the thought patterns behind restrictive and controlling behaviours that are hard to change. Accepting weight gain can be extremely difficult as it relates to to our deepest beliefs and fears.

If you haven’t already, you can read my story of how I got my period back after 8 years of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea. I also have written about the reasons you can lose your period and the recovery process including how to eat to get your period back, exercise during HA recovery and can you recover your period on a vegan diet. In this article I want to focus on the weight gain aspect of recovery. Particularly my tips for dealing with weight gain in HA recovery.

Not sure what to eat to recover your period? Check out my period recovery meal plan!

Why is dealing with weight gain in HA recovery challenging?

Most of us who have experienced Hypothalamic Amenorrhea did so because of a fixation on maintaining a lower weight than is natural for our body type. A major part of the recovery process is therefore gaining weight. It sounds simple but for many not accepting weight gain is a major roadblock to recovery. I know for me this kept me stuck in “quasi recovery” for years. I gained some weight by eating more and exercising less but I was unable to allow myself to truly let go and let my body reach it’s natural set point.

Often with HA we become attached to a certain image and identity as the skinny one or the fit one. Our mind is corrupted with beliefs around our self-worth and our weight. We believe that gaining weight means letting ourselves go or giving up. We also compare ourselves to others. Especially those who are thinner and still have a healthy period. And we are hyper-critical of our bodies. We are constantly checking and assessing our body against our internalised ideals.

My weight gain in HA recovery

Accepting weight gain is one of the most important mindset shifts we need to make during HA recovery. Allowing yourself to gain weight can also be one of the most difficult. For me personally, I was never underweight according to the BMI scale. This made accepting that I needed to gain weight even more challenging.

I am not going to share specific weight numbers as I don’t want to trigger any comparison. However, I will share that during my recovery I gained a total of 30lbs. This was 10lb during the initial quasi-recovery stage then a further 20lbs in the space of 4 months when I went “all in” . By that I mean zero exercise and completely unrestricted eating.

On my 5ft 2 frame, this was quite shocking to me and I felt extremely uncomfortable in the beginning. My clothes didn’t fit and I felt like I didn’t recognise my body anymore. I was afraid of what other people would think about my changing body. It felt like a total ego death as I let go of my previous identity which revolved around fitness.

I also got tired more easily and I just felt this over all sense of heaviness and lethargy. Now I realise that my tiredness was partly because I had finally stopped exercising and started eating enough food. This allowed my body to go into a deep rest and healing phase. But at the time I blamed my recovery body. Every day it was a struggle not to give up and go back to my old ways.

Tips for dealing with weight gain in HA recovery

In this post, I want to offer my top 3 tips for dealing with weight gain in HA recovery. I also summarise these tips in this video on my Youtube channel, which I filmed earlier this year. These are physical actions you can take to support you through the weight gain process. Alongside this, it is also important to do the mental work of changing your beliefs around body weight and your self-worth. But I will save that for another post! So go ahead and watch the video and read my 3 tips below.

3 simple actions to help with dealing with weight gain in HA recovery

1. Wear comfy clothes which fit

My first tip for dealing with weight gain during recovery is to wear comfortable clothes which fit. It might seem obvious but how many times have you gone back and tried on old clothes during your recovery process? I know I did this a lot in the beginning and I was only torturing myself. I might have woken up in the morning feeling fine in my body. But then I’d try on an old dress or a tight pair of jeans and be totally crushed when they didn’t fit or no longer suited my body. It might seem superficial and I guess it is really. But at the time my mood and self-worth were so tied to my body image and to the thin ideal that I had internalised that it seemed perfectly normal.

So, wearing comfortable, loose fitting clothes that don’t bring awareness to the changes in your body can really help! For me that looked like soft yoga pants with loose tops or flowy, feminine dresses. I avoided tight waistbands, form-fitting dresses and crop tops. I have to say, once I had accepted my new body I went back to wearing these things without an issue. But at least in the beginning it helped to feel more relaxed and less self-conscious of my body as it changed. Also, I spent a lot of time relaxing during my recovery process. So it was really nice to feel comfortable and cosy.

2. Hide the full length mirror

My second tip for dealing with weight gain during recovery is to hide the full length mirror if you have one. I used to have a full length mirror in my bedroom. I would check my body in it several times a day, even more during recovery as I was anxious about the changes I was seeing. In my mind it would ease my anxiety. However, checking the size of my stomach or thighs only made me feel worse and focus on my body more. I am sure many of you can relate to this excessive body checking if you are experiencing Hypothalamic Amenorrhea…

One of the best things I did for my recovery was covering up the mirror with a big colourful scarf. This helped me to break the habit of body checking and shift my awareness to how I was feeling on the inside. After the initial period of fatigue I actually started to feel more energetic and alive and I think not focusing on my outer appearance helped to observe this positive change.

I won’t say that it was easy, in in the beginning I found it tough not to just take a peek. Body checking was almost like an addiction and after quitting cold turkey it became much easier not to do it. It was exactly the same for weighing myself daily, I got rid of the scales and this helped immensely to let go of the fear of seeing those numbers creeping up.

3. Do a social media purge

My third tip for dealing with weight gain during recovery is to do a social media purge. If you are a social media user, you are trying to get your period back and you follow any diet, weight loss and fitness accounts, you are not helping yourself! I know I used to follow so many health and fitness accounts and I would be constantly negatively comparing myself to other people’s bodies online.

Every time I opened up Instagram or YouTube, I would be feeding my mind with ammunition to beat myself up with later. I’d constantly find new things to dislike about my body or areas I didn’t measure up and needed to improve. So at one point it had to stop and I did a huuuuge purge of all of my accounts, unfollowing anyone that I compared myself to or anyone who shared content relating to weight loss or the diet mentality.

Instead I followed normal people with normal, unedited bodies as well as accounts promoting body positivity and the non-diet approach to health which is what I now use with my health coaching clients. This was such a big step and helped me to shift my perspective and let go of some of the ideas about how I should look. I reprogrammed my brain to see what a healthy, female body should look like and this helped me to accept the changes I saw in my own body during recovery.

Over to you…

If you would like to work with me to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free 15 minute discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We work together using a combination of modalities to support your individual needs and help you to feel your best.

  • Please like this post and share to support my business
  • If you liked this post, follow my blog or subscribe by email to receive updates on new content
  • Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily updates and inspiration

Dealing with weight gain in Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery

Hello everyone! Today I want to share my experience with dealing with weight gain during my recovery from Hypothalamic Amenorrhea aka HA. I am sharing this because I know a big proportion of my audience have found my page because you are trying to get your period back, balance your hormones and find true health after years of restrictive dieting and/or over-exercising. It has been 5 years since my recovery from Hypothalamic Amenorrhea and I don’t talk about it as much as I used to but I know so many women are still struggling with this and I want to offer support and inspiration.

If you haven’t already, you can read my story of how I got my period back after 8 years of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea for context. I also have written other posts about the reasons you can lose your period and the recovery process including how to eat to get your period back, exercise during HA recovery and can you recover your period on a vegan diet. In this article I want to focus on the weight gain aspect of recovery, particularly how to deal with weight gain during HA recovery. Most of us who have experienced Hypothalamic Amenorrhea did so because of a fixation on maintaining a lower weight than is natural for our body type. A major part of the recovery process is therefore accepting that we need to gain weight.

As well as being one of the most important mindset shifts we need to make during recovery, allowing weight gain can also be one of the most difficult. For me personally, I was never underweight according to the BMI scale which made accepting that I needed to gain weight even more challenging. I am not going to share specific weight numbers as I don’t want to trigger any comparison but I will share that during my recovery I gained a total of 30lbs, 10lb during an initial “quasi recovery” stage and a further 20lbs in the space of 4 months when I went “all in” with zero exercise and completely unrestricted eating.

On my 5ft 2 frame, this was quite shocking to me and I felt extremely uncomfortable in the beginning. My clothes didn’t fit and I felt like I didn’t recognise my body anymore. I also got tired more easily and I just felt this over all sense of heaviness and lethargy. Now I realise that my tiredness was partly because I had finally stopped exercising and started eating enough food which allowed my body to go into a deep rest and healing phase. But at the time I blamed my recovery body and every day it was a struggle not to give up and go back to my old ways.

In this post and also in the video below, which I filmed earlier this year, I want to offer my top 3 tips for dealing with weight gain during HA recovery. These are physical actions you can take to support you through the weight gain process. Alongside this, it is also important to do the mental work of changing your beliefs around body weight and your self-worth but I will save that for another post! So go ahead and watch the video and see a summary of my 3 tips below.

Top 3 tips for dealing with weight gain in HA recovery

Wear comfy clothes which fit

My first tip for dealing with weight gain during recovery is to wear comfortable clothes which fit. It might seem obvious but how many times have you gone back and tried on old clothes during your recovery process? I know I did this a lot in the beginning and I was only torturing myself. I might have woken up in the morning feeling fine in my body but then I’d try on an old dress or a tight pair of jeans and be totally crushed when they didn’t fit or no longer suited my body. It might seem superficial and I guess it is really but at the time my mood and self-worth were so tied to my body image and to the thin ideal that I had internalised that it seemed perfectly normal.

So, wearing comfortable, loose fitting clothes that don’t bring awareness to the changes in your body can really help! For me that looked like soft yoga pants with loose tops or flowy, feminine dresses. I avoided tight waistbands, form-fitting dresses and crop tops. I have to say, once I had accepted my new body I went back to wearing these things without an issue but at least in the beginning it helped to feel more relaxed and less self-conscious of my body as it changed. Also, I spent a lot of time relaxing during my recovery process so it was really nice to feel comfortable and cosy.

Hide the full length mirror

My second tip for dealing with weight gain during recovery is to hide the full length mirror if you have one. I used to have a full length mirror in my bedroom and I would check my body in it several times a day, even more during recovery as I was anxious about the changes I was seeing. I thought it would ease my anxiety but checking the size of my stomach or thighs only made me feel worse and focus on my body more. I am sure many of you can relate to this excessive body checking if you are experiencing Hypothalamic Amenorrhea…

One of the best things I did for my recovery was covering up the mirror with a big colourful scarf. This helped me to break the habit of body checking and shift my awareness to how I was feeling on the inside. After the initial period of fatigue I actually started to feel more energetic and alive and I think not focusing on my outer appearance helped to observe this positive change. I won’t say that it was easy, in in the beginning I found it tough not to just take a peek. Body checking was almost like an addiction and after quitting cold turkey it became much easier not to do it. It was exactly the same for weighing myself daily, I got rid of the scales and this helped immensely to let go of the fear of seeing those numbers creeping up.

Do a social media purge

My third tip for dealing with weight gain during recovery is to do a social media purge. If you are a social media user, you are trying to get your period back and you follow any diet, weight loss and fitness accounts, you are not helping yourself! I know I used to follow so many health and fitness accounts and I would be constantly negatively comparing myself to other people’s bodies online. Every time I opened up Instagram or YouTube, I would be feeding my mind with ammunition to beat myself up with later. I’d constantly find new things to dislike about my body or areas I didn’t measure up and needed to improve.

At one point it had to stop and I did a huuuuge purge of all of my accounts, unfollowing anyone that I compared myself to or anyone who shared content relating to weight loss or the diet mentality. Instead I followed normal people with normal, unedited bodies as well as accounts promoting body positivity and the non-diet approach to health which is what I now use with my health coaching clients. This was such a big step and helped me to shift my perspective and let go of some of the ideas about how I should look. I reprogrammed my brain to see what a healthy, female body should look like and this helped me to accept the changes I saw in my own body during recovery.

Over to you…

If you found this article valuable, like the post and follow along with my blog for more real health and nutrition advice. Let me know in the comments below your thoughts and experiences in the comments below and share this post with anyone who might benefit!

If you are looking for guidance, support and accountability on your period recovery, take a look at the holistic health coaching packages I offer and send me an email if you have any questions. I would love to work together with you to get you feeling your vibrant, feminine self again!

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How I finally let go of dietary rules and let myself eat more food

One of the hardest things for me in my recovery from disordered eating and Hypothalamic Amenorrhea was finally being able to let go of control around food. I went from restricting the amount of calories I ate and recording every bite in a calorie tracking app to various phases of restrictive diets including dairy-free, gluten-free, paleo and finally all varieties of veganism. Whole foods, high-carb, low-fat, raw foods you name it, I tried it. I was addicted to manipulating my diet in some way or another but now, 3 years later I can honestly say that I eat whatever I like and however much I like. And the ability to not overthink food and trust in my bodies’ signals is one of the most beautiful things about being recovered.

Now as a nutritionist and health coach, I support women through this process of escaping dietary prison to find food freedom, true health and a regular menstrual cycle. With so much information available online and in books, I find that most women know exactly what they need to do but the problem is actually doing it. What seems so simple (eating more food and resting) becomes extremely difficult when we factor in all of the emotional ties and conditioned beliefs around food and body image. We have been brainwashed to believe that we aren’t good enough if we don’t look a certain way and that certain foods are bad for us or even toxic. I found this to be especially prevalent in the raw vegan community where everything is considered toxic, even cooked food.

When I first realised how important it was for me to recover my menstrual cycle and the damage I could have caused to my body through 8 years of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, the first hurdle I had to jump was allowing myself to eat more food. I was so used to dieting and living life with this restrictive mindset that to suddenly jump to eating 2500 calories a day (the minimum recommended for recovery) seemed nearly impossible. One thing that terrified me was this idea of losing control. During this time of restrictive eating, I experienced a lot of binge eating episodes where I would accidently eat more than I intended to or something “unhealthy” and this would trigger a huge overeating spree where I would eat everything in sight. I felt like I had to control every bite or my appetite would over take me.

However, at some point I realised that the more I tried to restrict my food, the stronger the urge to binge became. When I purposely ate less food after a big binge episode, it would only make it more likely to happen again a few days later. Over a period of a few months, I started to entertain the idea that maybe if I just ate more food on a regular basis, the binge eating would stop. I think I even did a calculation of the average number of calories I ate in a week , taking into account days of restriction and binges (see the graph below for a visual!) and I realised that actually I would probably be much happier and my body would be more stable if I just ate that amount consistently each day. I also finally accepted this idea that food is fuel and that our bodies need a certain amount of energy each day just to function and keep all our systems going, even if we are completely sedentary.

And it worked, this was the first step towards letting go of control. That said, I still had a long way to go! Even though I was eating more food and feeling healthier, I was still consciously controlling the amount I ate and the idea of stopping tracking my food or increasing my calorie intake made me extremely anxious. I still avoided certain foods that I believed were unhealthy like bread, dairy and processed foods. Then a funny thing happened. I discovered the idea of a vegan diet, first through watching documentaries about the environmental impact of animal agriculture and then through the world of Vegan YouTube which was booming at that time. Back in 2015, everyone in this community was promoting the idea that you can “eat as much as you want, as long as it is plant-based” and stay slim and healthy. I was so desperate to be free of this restrictive mindset, but I still was so attached to maintaining a low body weight that I fell straight for it.

This led to a weird couple of years where on one hand I felt extremely free and I allowed myself to eat more food than I ever had, without tracking. However this control that I had around food hadn’t disappeared, it had only shifted to another form. I no longer checked the calories for every food I ate, but I would rarely eat anything that wasn’t vegan or a whole-food e.g. fruit, vegetables, starches, nuts and seeds. I did get my period back during this time because I was finally providing my body with enough fuel, but I still suffered with signs of hormonal imbalance and other chronic health issues like insomnia and fatigue. Because I had allowed myself to be brainwashed by the idea that a vegan diet cures everything I thought that I needed to be more strict with my diet if I wanted to heal. Actually it was an illusion of freedom and abundance that took me a while to identify and break free from.

Don’t get me wrong, the foods I ate when I was vegan were very healthy but as PART of a balanced diet, not the whole diet!

So fast forward 3 years, I started to realise that some health problems I was trying to heal from via my vegan diet could actually be a result of this very diet which was really quite restrictive. I also started to experience new health issues out of nowhere which I couldn’t explain like dry skin, hair loss and constipation. I never considered that it could be the vegan diet but once I started to research online, I discovered a whole community of people talking about how their vegan diet had impacted their health in a negative way. I read stories of people who had done a complete U-turn and adopted a high-fat, animal-based keto or even carnivore diet and were claiming to have healed their chronic health issues. I could have fallen down this rabbit too but luckily, this really opened my eyes to the real situation, that humans can survive on many different diets and that we thrive on a variety of foods.

I had believed for years that animal products caused all sorts of health issues and here were people healing using these exact foods. Same with calorie restriction, for years I had thought this was the healthy thing to do until I found out about the impact of dieting on our hormones and our overall health. Finally, I started to open my mind and see that when it comes to nutrition and I discovered that there is so much conflicting information out there and you can find research to back up any claim that you want. The online health and wellness sphere is a minefield and it is almost random which hole you fall down. The problem with social media is that once you fall down a hole and adopt a certain mindset, you only see information which supports these views. If you want to question your beliefs you really have to make the effort to seek out new information because everything that is fed to you is more of the same.

(Side note – I recommend the documentary The Social Dilemma if you are interested in learning more about how social media sells our attention as it’s main product!)

Luckily, this was also the time that I decided to go back to university and study for a Masters’ degree in nutrition because I knew I wanted to help women heal their hormones using food. This gave me a much better understanding of human nutrition and metabolism and an understanding of the damage that extreme or restrictive diets in any form can do to the body. During my years of study, I adopted a much more balanced diet. I reintroduced animal-based foods and processed foods in moderation. I completely let go of all my conditioned beliefs around food and stared to understand both the health and environmental benefits of eating more seasonal and traditional foods. It’s funny because my diet is definitely much less like the typical “healthy diet” now and yet I am healthier than ever. I feel like we are given the false idea that we are either following the typical SAD junk-food diet or that we are on some super restrictive clean diet when in reality there is a huge grey areas between those extremes where, I believe, true health can be found.

Now I eat ice-cream and crisps but also salads, fruits and organic meat. I realised that foods are not inherently good or bad, they just has more or less energy and nutrients. Even processed foods with additives are fine in moderation our body can handle them and, despite what healers in the detox world say, they do not build up in our tissues and need to be purged by colonics and fruit fasting. Sure, if you only eat processed foods and don’t provide your body with enough nutrients, it will be overloaded. Plus, such cleansing practices have been used by ancient cultures on an annual basis for example but you only need to look at long-term detox practitioners to see that this restriction and stress actually ages the body causing premature skin damage and thin, poor quality hair, never mind the likely damage to internal organs. Perhaps it is vain, but seeing this reality really helped me to let go of some of my lingering fears around certain foods.

Some examples of foods that I had written off as unhealthy which are actually very nourishing for the body and soul!

I think to finally let go of dietary rules and surrender to the unexplored territory that is your natural appetite, a key thing is to really explore this idea of control. Why do you need it and what does it really mean to be in control? My idea of control has shifted dramatically over the last few years. I used to feel in control when I ate clean and resisted my hunger. I now see control as taking my health into my own hands and making decisions based on what works for my unique body, rather than listening to the advice of others who claim to have found the holy grail in terms of food and lifestyle. It also helps to consider your idea of health and what it means to be healthy. For me health is a feeling, having energy, a strong and fertile body and feeling free to live my life and have fun. No restrictive diet ever gave me health in these terms but I never considered that at the time.

This post is perhaps a bit long and jumbled but I think it is really important to talk about this subject and I wanted to write without editing. I speak to clients and female friends and so many have been indoctrinated into some dietary cult or another. Whether it is an attachment to the low-fat, low-calorie diet and the idea of being skinny or whether it is an obsession with clean eating and having a cupboard full of supplements at home, it’s so unnatural and is so far away from true health. Breaking free of whatever dietary rules and restrictions you have become attached to is a personal journey and a decision that only you can take but I hope that my story at least helps you to see that there is another way to find health and it is one that can include chocolate!

Over to you…

Please leave a comment below if you have any thoughts on this topic, I’d love to hear your opinions and have a discussion. If you found this article interesting, please like this post and follow my blog to be notified when I post something new.

If you are looking for guidance, support and accountability on you health journey, please contact me or check out the nutrition and holistic health coaching packages I offer. I am a qualified Public Health Nutritionist and hatha yoga teacher and my specialty is helping women to balance their hormones and heal their body and metabolism after restrictive dieting. I would love to work together with you to move past any health blocks and get you feeling your best again!

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