Tag: recovery

Dealing with weight gain in Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery

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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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Real health #15 The epidemic of burn out and adrenal fatigue

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Long before COVID19, there was already another epidemic silently over-taking the world. Adrenal fatigue aka burn out or the “21st century stress syndrome” is a condition which probably affects millions of people but often goes undiagnosed or untreated because it is just seen as normal in our busy society. Have you ever felt totally exhausted, overwhelmed and like you just can’t handle the stresses of life? Maybe you have experienced it already. Burn out is a phrase people often use lightly but it can actually be pretty serious and have a huge impact on your life and health.

Adrenal fatigue or burn out is the effect of being too stressed over a long period of time. Our nervous systems are only supposed cope with a certain amount of stress and pressure and usually for only a short duration. Our fight or flight responses are designed to give us a quick burst of stress hormones to help us to get out of a dangerous situation and then to relax and go back to baseline once the danger has passed. These days we are constantly bombarded with stressors, from news alerts direct to our phone to high-pressure jobs which demand us to be switched on and ready to respond for most of the day. Our adrenal glands are constantly pumping out cortisol and adrenalin to help us to cope and survive the day. Combine this with too much caffeine, unhealthy habits and poor self-care and you have a recipe for burn out.

I shared my own experiences with adrenal fatigue and insomnia in a previous post. It really is something that is close to my heart as it had a huge impact on my life. I couldn’t sleep, I was experiencing all sorts of weird physical symptoms and I had nearly constant brain fog. I was able to push through and keep up my job, studies and some form of a social life but everything felt like so much effort. On the outside I probably seemed like I had it altogether but I looked completely exhausted and inside I felt drained. Even fun things became a chore and I just wanted to hide away. Luckily I was able to get myself out of the hole and now I want to help others who are struggling with the same thing as I know it’s such a dark place to be.

How to recognise burn out or adrenal fatigue

Often the symptoms of burn out start gradually. You hit snooze a couple of extra times in the morning, you feel more tired throughout the day and you start to lose interest and motivation for your work or your daily activities. Over time it can gradually get worse to the point where you don’t feel like yourself anymore. Some symptoms to watch out for:

  • Feeling tired even after a good nights sleep
  • Not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep (insomnia)
  • Low energy and lethargy
  • Loss of interest in work and hobbies
  • Feeling heavy and achy, especially in your legs
  • Not wanting to socialise and preferring to be alone
  • Blood sugar issues, craving sweets and crashing an hour after a high carbohydrate meal
  • Craving salty foods more than usual
  • Relying more on coffee and tea to get through the day
  • Feeling zoned out or “brain fog”

What to do if you have burn out or adrenal fatigue

The most important thing to do first is to identify your stressors. Take some time to reflect on all areas of life including work, family, relationships, hobbies, diet, exercise and creative projects. Make two lists, one of the things that steal your energy and the other of things that boost your energy. Once you have your lists, you can make a plan for how you will decrease the “energy stealers” and how you will increase the “energy boosters” in your life. Some things will be harder than others but start with a few of the low-hanging fruit and notice the impact it has on your overall wellbeing. Then move onto the more challenging things on the list.

Energy stealersEnergy boosters
Working 2 hours overtime a dayTaking a full hour lunch break
Responding to email notifications immediately 5 minutes of deep breathing
Drinking coffee in the afternoonDrinking more water
Speaking on the phone with X friendGoing to a dance class

Another really important thing is planning and organizing. Being reactive and responsive is one thing that keeps us constantly on alert. Maybe you work in the emergency services where you have to be ready to respond at all times, but if you work in an office job, feeling like you have to react and respond to every phone call or email right away could be contributing to your stress and feelings of burn out. If you can, try turning off your email notifications and setting a couple of windows throughout the day to go in and check your inbox. Use your calendar to block out time windows for specific tasks and try to stay focused. Being interrupted and distracted by multi-tasking uses up a lot of brain power! Keeping a task list with both to-do today and a “later list” can be helpful for prioritizing so that you don’t spend your day fire-fighting small tasks and can actually get something done which helps you to feel accomplished.

Next up is getting true rest and downtime. You might think you are resting and relaxing when you are watching TV or Youtube videos but your brain is still being active and stimulated. If you are suffering from burn out, you want to try to get yourself into a deep relaxation state at least once a day, more if you can. You can do this by lying down and listening to relaxing music or a guided meditation, sitting outside or going for a slow, mindful walk, taking the time to stretch out your body or having a bubble bath. These things might feel difficult, especially if you are in the stressed phase of adrenal fatigue where you are stuck on high alert mode. It might feel challenging to sit and do nothing, you might feel like you are wasting time and you should be doing something productive, you might feel agitated and restless in your body or your thoughts might start to go crazy once you let go of busyness and find stillness. All of these are signs that you need to stick at it!

Let yourself feel the agitation and notice any thoughts and resistance that comes up. Stay with the feelings and wait until the dust settles. If you are feeling physically restless, yoga or moving your body to music can be a great way to release some of that trapped energy and soothe your nervous system enough that you are able to let go and allow yourself to be still and relaxed. You’ll know you are there once you start to feel your body melt and your mind drift. You want to be in that almost-sleep brain state where you aren’t actively thinking or planning and thoughts can drift in and out of your mind. This is such a healing state to be in for anyone with burn out as the parasympathetic nervous system state is engaged and the adrenals are able to rest and recharge.

Taking time to relax a few times throughout the day is like emptying your “stress cup”. Imagine your stress capacity being a glass and every stressor throughout the day adds a drop or a splash of water to the cup. Once the cup is full and starts to overflow, you are going to be experiencing a state of stress or over-whelm. Taking breaks to breath deeply, go outside or just to be with yourself is like emptying out a bit of that water to give you more space in your cup i.e. more capacity to deal with stress. The idea is to keep the level as low as possible, either by reducing the inputs (stressors) or increasing the outputs (relaxing activities). If you can reach the end of the day with your cup half empty then you are on the right path to healing your adrenals and recovering from burn out. Having a solid morning routine including yoga, breathwork and meditation can also be a way to strengthen your nervous system and increase the capacity of your stress-cup over time.

Over to you…

So those are my thoughts on adrenal fatigue and tips on how to recover. Let me know in the comments below your experiences with burn out and how it has affected your life.

  • If you want to follow along with this Real Health January series, like this post, check out the recommended posts below and follow my blog for daily updates. And please share with anyone you think might be interested!
  • If you are looking for guidance, support and accountability on you health journey, please contact me for information on the nutrition and holistic health coaching packages I offer. I would love to work together with you to get you feeling your best again.

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Adrenal fatigue and burn out, the epidemic

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Long before COVID19, there was already another epidemic silently over-taking the world. Adrenal fatigue aka burn out or the “21st century stress syndrome” is a condition which probably affects millions of people but often goes undiagnosed or untreated because it is just seen as normal in our busy society.

Have you ever felt totally exhausted, overwhelmed and like you just can’t handle the stresses of life? Maybe you have experienced it already. Burn out is a phrase people often use lightly but it can actually be pretty serious and have a huge impact on your life and health.

What is adrenal fatigue?

Adrenal fatigue is the effect of being too stressed over a long period of time. Our nervous systems are only supposed cope with a certain amount of stress and pressure and usually for only a short duration. Our fight or flight responses are designed to give us a quick burst of stress hormones to help us to get out of a dangerous situation and then to relax and go back to baseline once the danger has passed.

Unfortunately, these days we are constantly bombarded with stressors. From news alerts direct to our phone to high-pressure jobs which demand us to be switched on and ready to respond for most of the day. Our adrenal glands are constantly pumping out cortisol and adrenalin to help us to cope and survive the day. Combine this with too much caffeine, unhealthy habits and poor self-care and you have a recipe for adrenal fatigue.

The literal idea of a gland becoming tired is disputed by medicine. I am not here to say whether adrenal fatigue is “real” or not. But the functional state of chronic exhaustion which comes after a long period of stress cannot be denied. And more and more of us are experiencing the symptoms. Whether you call it adrenal fatigue, burn out or any other name doesn’t really matter.

How to recognise burn out or adrenal fatigue

Often the symptoms of burn out start gradually. You hit snooze a couple of extra times in the morning, you feel more tired throughout the day and you start to lose interest and motivation for your work or your daily activities. Over time it can gradually get worse to the point where you don’t feel like yourself anymore.

Some symptoms of adrenal fatigue to watch out for:

  • Feeling tired even after a good nights sleep
  • Not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep (insomnia)
  • Low energy and lethargy
  • Loss of interest in work and hobbies
  • Feeling heavy and achy, especially in your legs
  • Not wanting to socialise and preferring to be alone
  • Blood sugar issues, craving sweets and crashing an hour after a high carbohydrate meal
  • Craving salty foods more than usual
  • Relying more on coffee and tea to get through the day
  • Feeling zoned out or “brain fog”

The symptoms experienced depend on the stage of adrenal fatigue. Dr Lam, adrenal fatigue expert, writes in detail about this. Stage 1 is the state of chronic stress and elevated cortisol levels. Often this stage can be ignored and pushed through using stimulants such as caffeine, sugar and high fat junk foods which stimulate the nervous system.

During stage 2 you will likely experience increasing fatigue as cortisol levels are no longer able to keep up with the demand. Stimulants may no longer work and increasing levels of will power are needed to make it through the day. You might experience other symptoms such as insomnia or PMS. By stage 3 you feel like the walking dead! This represents total collapse, when you no longer can function normally.

My experience with adrenal fatigue

I shared my own experiences with adrenal fatigue and insomnia in a previous post. It really is something that is close to my heart as it had a huge impact on my life. I couldn’t sleep, I was experiencing all sorts of weird physical symptoms and I had nearly constant brain fog. I was able to push through and keep up my job, studies and some form of a social life but everything felt like so much effort.

On the outside I probably seemed like I had it altogether but I looked completely exhausted and inside I felt drained. Even fun things became a chore and I just wanted to hide away. Looking back I was probably at stage 2 of adrenal fatigue. Luckily I was able to get myself out of the hole and now I want to help others who are struggling with the same thing. I know it’s such a dark place to be and I want to give hope that recovery is possible!

What to do if you have burn out or adrenal fatigue

1. Identify stressors

The most important thing to do first is to identify your stressors. Take some time to reflect on all areas of life including work, family, relationships, hobbies, diet, exercise and creative projects. Make two lists, one of the things that steal your energy and the other of things that boost your energy.

Once you have your lists, you can make a plan for how you will decrease the “energy stealers” and how you will increase the “energy boosters” in your life. Some things will be harder than others but start with a few of the low-hanging fruit and notice the impact it has on your overall wellbeing. Then move onto the more challenging things on the list.

Energy stealersEnergy boosters
Working 2 hours overtime a dayTaking a full hour lunch break
Responding to email notifications immediately 5 minutes of deep breathing
Drinking coffee in the afternoonDrinking more water
Speaking on the phone with X friendGoing to a dance class

2. Get organised

Another really important thing is planning and organizing. Being reactive and responsive is one thing that keeps us constantly on alert. Maybe you work in the emergency services where you have to be ready to respond at all times, but if you work in an office job, feeling like you have to react and respond to every phone call or email right away could be contributing to your stress and feelings of burn out.

If you can, try turning off your email notifications and setting a couple of windows throughout the day to go in and check your inbox. Use your calendar to block out time windows for specific tasks and try to stay focused. Being interrupted and distracted by multi-tasking uses up a lot of brain power! Keeping a task list with both to-do today and a “later list” can be helpful for prioritizing so that you don’t spend your day fire-fighting small tasks and can actually get something done which helps you to feel accomplished.

3. Rest fully

Next up is getting true rest and downtime. You might think you are resting and relaxing when you are watching TV or Youtube videos but your brain is still being active and stimulated. If you are suffering from burn out, you want to try to get yourself into a deep relaxation state at least once a day, more if you can. You can do this by lying down and listening to relaxing music or a guided meditation, sitting outside or going for a slow, mindful walk, taking the time to stretch out your body or having a bubble bath.

These things might feel difficult, especially if you are in the stressed phase of adrenal fatigue where you are stuck on high alert mode. It might feel challenging to sit and do nothing, you might feel like you are wasting time and you should be doing something productive. You might feel agitated and restless in your body or your thoughts might start to go crazy once you let go of busyness and find stillness. All of these are signs that you need to stick at it!

Let yourself feel the agitation and notice any thoughts and resistance that comes up. Stay with the feelings and wait until the dust settles. If you are feeling physically restless, yoga or moving your body to music can be a great way to release some of that trapped energy and soothe your nervous system enough that you are able to let go and allow yourself to be still and relaxed.

You’ll know you are there once you start to feel your body melt and your mind drift. You want to be in that almost-sleep brain state where you aren’t actively thinking or planning and thoughts can drift in and out of your mind. This is such a healing state to be in for anyone with burn out as the parasympathetic nervous system state is engaged and the adrenals are able to rest and recharge.

4. Let go of stress

Taking time to relax a few times throughout the day is like emptying your “stress cup”. Imagine your stress capacity being a glass and every stressor throughout the day adds a drop or a splash of water to the cup. Once the cup is full and starts to overflow, you are going to be experiencing a state of stress or over-whelm. Taking breaks to breath deeply, go outside or just to be with yourself is like emptying out a bit of that water to give you more space in your cup i.e. more capacity to deal with stress.

The idea is to keep the level as low as possible, either by reducing the inputs (stressors) or increasing the outputs (relaxing activities). If you can reach the end of the day with your cup half empty then you are on the right path to healing your adrenals and recovering from burn out. Having a solid morning routine including yoga, breathwork and meditation can also be a way to strengthen your nervous system and increase the capacity of your stress-cup over time.

Over to you..

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walking exercise for period recovery

Tips for exercising during HA recovery

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If you have read my last post on Why has my period stopped and how do I get it back?  you will know that I recommend to take a break from intense exercise when you are trying to balance your hormones and get your period back. This includes any form of intense cardio such as running or HIIT as well as heavy weight lifting. 

What types of exercise are ok during Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery?

Low intensity is always the way to go. Walking, easy cycling, yoga, stretching, swimming, dancing.. all of these can be great ways to move your body and feel good without increasing your heart rate too much. If you use a heart rate device I would suggest to stay below the “light” zone of 60-70% HR max which should be an easy pace and not too tiring on your body. You should be able to exercise without pushing yourself and afterwards you should feel energised and happy, otherwise you are likely overdoing it.

That said, if you are tired and you don’t feel like exercising. It is totally ok to rest and do nothing! Actually this is the fastest way to recover so don’t feel guilty if you want to relax on the sofa all day. It’s much better to take a complete break for a month or two than try to continue exercising and the process take much longer, right? Feeling tired is common once you start to eat more and your body goes into repair mode. It’s a good sign that inner healing is happening so don’t freak out and let your body guide you to when it’s time to start moving again.

How long and how often can I exercise during HA recovery?

I really think that the way to recover your period is to take a total break at least for a few months. In the beginning I took a break from all exercise except walking to work and back and gentle yoga for 4 months until I got my period back.

Although I had got my period back, I was still addicted to exercise and I missed the “stress relieving” effects of getting a good sweat on. So once I had 3 regular monthly periods I thought I was good to go and I joined a gym. I started going to exercise classes and lifting weights again.. bad idea! My next 3 periods were 50-60 days long and a lot of the healthy fertile signs I had vanished again. I thought because I wasn’t doing long runs or intense cardio sessions I would be fine but not the case. So I was back to zero exercise for another few months until my hormones balanced out.

Can I exercise again once I get my period back?

Once you have recovered your period, if you decide you want to exercise more, you can experiment until you find the sweet spot where you get the benefits of moving your body but without over-stressing your body. I experimented with exercise a lot throughout my hormone healing journey. In the first couple of years, I found that to maintain a regular cycle I could do moderate intensity exercise a few times a week but I had to keep my workouts to 30 minutes or less and I had to pay attention to my energy levels and stop if I started to feel fatigued. I could walk and practice yoga daily with no issues but I keep these activities to an hour or less.

Now I am 3 years into recovery, I am back to a much more active lifestyle again although nowhere  near the obsessive gym-rat I used to be. Now I can cycle, run or do at home circuits a few times a week and still get a regular period. I also walk a lot and go to dance classes like salsa and zumba. I recently tried a couple of times to go back to weight lifting because I genuinely enjoy it but I could feel that my body felt exhausted afterwards and my recovery was very slow. I got moody and irritable for no reason and eventually I realised it was my workouts that were depleting my energy reserves and I had to stop. This whole process has definitely given me a greater awareness of my how my body reacts to different things. This year I started “cycle-syncing” my exercise routine which I am finding really beneficial and I will share about this once I have a few more months of experience with it.

So if you are just starting out on this hormone healing journey, know that the decisions you make now are not forever but just a step on the road towards better health. Sometimes if you have taken things to the extreme (e.g. exercising like a fiend) then the pendulum has to swing right to the other side (e.g. sitting on the couch all day) for you to eventually find a healthy balance. Give yourself the gift of rest and learn to enjoy it. Chances are if you are over tired and stressed, you aren’t reaching your fitness goals anyway and taking a break may actually help you come back stronger than ever. Even competitive athletes take off seasons for recovery and repair and this is all part of their fitness journey.

Over to you…

I hope this article was useful and you feel more confident about how to exercise during your period recovery. Please like this post and follow my blog for more posts on healthy hormones, HA recovery and holistic health.

  • Let me know in the comments, if you are trying to recover your period, do you think exercise was part of why you lost your period and how do you feel about taking a break? If you have recovered your period, have you started exercising again? Are you doing the same types of exercise or have things changed?
  • If you are looking for support, guidance and accountability on your period recovery journey, please contact me for further information on the health coaching packages I offer. Together we will set you up with a plan to get your hormones balanced and you feeing your best mentally and physically.

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Why have my periods stopped and how do fix it?

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If you haven’t read my “Why am I so interested in hormones?” series (linked at the bottom of this post), see here for my story on how I lost my period and my journey to getting healthy again. Here I will share what  learned about why our periods can stop and how to get it back for those of you who want to know exactly what to do.

For those who don’t have PCOS or any physical or structural issue with their reproductive system, it is often a condition called Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (HA) that leads to absent menstrual cycles and missing periods. What I have found from working with and speaking to other women is that everybody’s situation is different but it is 99% of the time a combination of the points below. If you have already recovered your period and it has gone awry again, come back to these basics and I’m sure you will find somewhere you can realign.

Can diet cause missing periods?

Food and nutrition play a major role in our hormonal (and general) health. If we are not eating enough to fuel our bodies over a period of time, our brain registers that there isn’t enough energy coming in and decides to shut down some unnecessary functions in order to preserve energy.  This includes our menstrual cycle but can also lead to other symptoms which come along with HA such as feeling tired and cold all of the time, hair thinning, digestive issues and poor muscle recovery.

If you have been trying to lose weight for many months or years and notice any of the above symptoms it is a good idea for you to reconsider your diet. You are likely in “starvation mode” which is a state of reduced metabolism and limited bodily functions. If this is you, what should you do? EAT THE FOOD! Eat as much as your body is asking for with no restrictions. Eat carbs, fats and proteins. Eat both “healthy foods” and “fun foods”. I know this is easier said than done and I will go into the mental and emotional aspects of this in another post but for now I will just say that you need to nourish your body with good food and lots of it.

diet and hypothalamic amenorrhea

 Can exercise cause missing periods?

Simply put, yes too much exercise can stop periods. It is fairly common for female athletes or very active women to lose their period. This can be due to an energy deficit if she is not eating enough to fuel the exercise she is doing. Or it can be due to stress on the body from too high frequency or intensity of exercise. The fitness industry is huge these days and it is not unusual for women to be running or doing HIIT workouts on a daily basis. Social media these days is full of images of lean women with abs and defined muscles but this is far from the ideal fertile body for many women. Exercise supports our cardiovascular and muscular systems but like anything, too much can be unhelpful. As women, we need a certain amount of body fat to maintain our reproductive systems and therefore a healthy period.

If this sounds like you, what can you do? If you are serious about recovering your hormonal health I would strongly recommend taking a break from intense exercise for a few months. Keep movement to a minimum only light walking and stretching, yoga or any other gentle activity you enjoy. Not only will this help to balance your hormones but it will give your body a chance to repair any muscle and tissue damage caused by over-exercising and help you to come back stronger than ever.

walk

Can being under weight cause missing periods? Can weight loss cause skipped periods?

This one really goes with the above two points but I will say it as a separate point just to be clear. Our bodies have a “set point weight” at which they are happy and healthy. However many women today are pursuing an unhealthy ideal due to images in the media of skinny, sexy women. The truth is, we don’t know the full story and many of these women are harming their body to look this way, despite looking healthy on the outside. The majority of women need to be at the “fertile BMI” of 22-23 to have a healthy period but of course some women will menstruate at a lower weight than this and others will need to reach a BMI of 25+. This all depends on your genetic tendencies and history of dieting and over-exercising.

So if you don’t get a regular period and you are not already in the healthy BMI range of 20-25, considering gaining weight is an absolute must. Follow the above diet and exercise recommendations and allow your body to reach what it considers to be a healthy weight. It may be that your body needs to sit slightly above this range to feel safe and you will need to learn to be ok with that. Really start to reflect on your beliefs around body image and reprogram your brain to disassociate health and weight loss. Of course, this is easier said than done and may take some time but it will be totally worth it when you have a natural, regular cycle again.

low body weight and hypothalamic amenorrhea

Can stress cause missing periods?

Finally, but no less important, is stress! Some women are not dieting or over-exercising but lose their period anyway due to an extremely stressful event in their life or to a lifestyle which leads to chronic low level stress on a daily basis. This doesn’t have to be anything extreme but can be a typical busy lifestyle of having a full time job, active social life and looking after a family. Again, the hypothalamus, detects stress as a threat which can cause it to shut down our fertility system until it feels safe again. Unfortunately, many of us live our lives in this chronically stressed fight-or-flight state which means that our bodies never truly feel safe.

yoga

Of course it’s not always possible to drop everything and walk off into the sunset to recover our cycles! So what can you do to reduce stress? Start by reflecting on your lifestyle and eliminate any unnecessary sources of stress. This could include saying yes to things when you mean no, worrying excessively over things that are not important in the grand scheme of life or being perfectionistic or over-critical of yourself. It can also include over-use of stimulants such as caffeine which fire up your nervous system and can lead to to spending all day in a state of urgency. The second thing is to allow yourself to get into a calm state every day. Mindful breathing, meditation, baths, calming music can all help to drop out of “fight or flight” and into “rest and digest” mode allowing your body to enter a state of deep relaxation.

This is a huge topic so that’s all I will say for now. Spend some time reflecting on these four areas of your life and see if you can identify what may be preventing your hormones functioning as they should. I understand you completely if you feel like your body is broken and this can’t work for you but if I managed to recover my cycles after 8 years of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea and have maintained healthy cycles for over 3 years then anyone can do it!

Over to you…

I hope you found this article interesting and you now understand some of the factors which can cause your periods to go missing. Like this post and follow my blog for more on HA recovery, healthy hormones and holistic health. Please share your experience below I’d love to hear from you!

  • Let me know in the comments, which of the above factors do you think is the most important for you?
  • If you are looking for support, guidance and accountability on your period recovery journey, please contact me for further information on the nutrition and health coaching packages I offer. Together we will set you up with a plan to get your hormones balanced and you feeing your best mentally and physically.

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The power of a morning ritual during a crisis

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I have known about the power of the “morning ritual” for a while now and it was a key part in my healing from hypothalamic amenorrhea and adrenal fatigue, but with work and other commitments its very easy for this to fall by the wayside. With the current global drama that is sweeping the planet right now, getting back to a morning routine has really helped to reduce my anxiety levels and help me to cope. It’s such a bizarre situation that I never would have imagined could happen in my lifetime but here we are.

In the first week of lockdown I was glued to the news, switching on the TV first thing in the morning to see the latest updates whilst drinking my coffee. I didn’t realise but this was the worst thing I could possibly do. Right after waking up, stressing out my mind and body with scary information and a caffeine hit on top sent me on an anxiety rollercoaster for the rest of the day. As someone with a sensitive nervous system, I tend to easily get overwhelmed and overstimulated. Maintaining my hormonal health is a priority for me so when I started noticing symptoms of cycle imbalance, I pretty quickly realised I needed to find a better way to start my day if I wanted to stay healthy and sane during this crisis.

However, I also can easily fall into a perfectionistic, over-controlling mindset so I knew that a prescriptive morning ritual was not what I needed. This is a really great time to embrace the intuitive, fluid feminine energy rather than the rigid, inflexible masculine. So rather than set out exact steps of what to do each morning, I thought about the building blocks that make up a healthy morning routine and now I use these as the foundation to create a unique ritual each morning to start my days off on the right foot.

  1. Hydration

Getting some sort of fluid into my body first thing in the morning always helps me to wake up and feel energised. I know a lot of people prefer to just go straight into breakfast in the morning but I always wake up with a dry mouth and I am so used to this now I can’t imagine staring my day without it. I don’t think it’s necessary to drink a litre of water or anything crazy but just a small cup of something is great to wake up my digestive system and feel refreshed. What I drink depends on the day but its usually either lemon water, green/herbal tea, a smoothie or plain water. I still drink a coffee most days but I make sure its later in the morning to allow my body to wake up naturally.

     2. Quiet time 

Having a moment of stillness and quiet is really important. We spend most of our days being bombarded with information either from the news or social media and it’s very easy to distract ourselves by constantly seeking stimulus. I’m not saying that we should (or could) avoid this altogether but giving myself the gift of 30-60 minutes of quiet time in the morning has done wonders for my stress levels during the day. Again it depends on the day but I will use this time either to read, play with my cat, write in my journal, meditate or just sit and watch out of the window. I just do whichever or a combination of these depending on how I’m feeling each day.

3. Movement

The last thing I like to do before getting on with whatever activities I have for the day is to move my body. I am generally not in the mood for intense exercise early in the morning but going for a walk in the park outside my house or a gentle yoga practice is a great way to refresh my mind, wake me up and reduce muscle stiffness after a night’s sleep. I was resistant to practicing yoga in the morning for a long time as I preferred to do it later in the day when my muscles were warmer and I felt less stiff. But I’ve started to enjoy doing a short practice first thing and then on the days I feel like doing a longer or more intense practice doing this at lunchtime or early evening.

I’ve actually enjoyed following yoga practices on youtube lately. Even though I’m a qualified yoga teacher there is something soothing about being guided through a sequence and it allows me to really relax and melt into the flow rather than thinking about what comes next. Plus it’s great to see other teaching styles and get inspiration for developing my own lessons for when this quarantine is finally over! Some of my favourite morning yoga flows:

The Mindful Movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQiMhQ9DO_A

Yoga Upload: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvfHJ9dJXak

Yoga with Adriene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Q7H8afamg

Cat Meffan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFw7wOqLJO0

I hope this gives you some inspiration for how you can start your day off on the right foot. Let me know your morning routine or if there are any other morning yoga flows that you enjoy as I am always looking for new teachers to follow 🙂 P.S I look hench on this photo.. who said yoga is easy??

morning yoga

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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Why am I so interested in hormones? Part 3 – recovery, relapse, repeat

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Continuing from my last post.. I started working with an online coach to heal my PCOS. Through working with her I started to uncover all sorts of ideas around my relationship to food and exercise and how it had impacted my body. Even though I was still very restrictive in my food choices I was eating a lot more and really cut down on my exercise routine. Over time, I started to doubt my diagnosis. I didn’t have any of the symptoms of high “male hormones” and just didn’t seem to fit the profile for PCOS. Eventually, I had the confidence to go and see another doctor and ask for further tests. I had some blood tests which confirmed my testosterone levels were normal and a second ultrasound scan which showed my ovaries were totally normal too. So I was “undiagnosed” from PCOS!

But I still didn’t have a period..

I continued researching trying to figure out what was going on and eventually I came across something called Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (HA). This is basically the loss of menstrual cycle due to physical or emotional stress. Finally something that seemed to make sense! It pointed at 4 basic causes:

  1. Under-eating
  2. Over- exercising
  3. Maintaining a low body weight
  4. Stress/anxiety

Over the next few months I found various people speaking about this online who I can’t thank enough for opening up this world to me. Especially Nicola Rinaldi and This Girl Audra whose books No Period Now What and Get Your Period Handbook really helped me to figure out a path out of this mess i’d got myself into. And this is where my relationship with my hormones started to shift from one of fear, panic and confusion to a softer, kinder understanding. I finally accepted that I needed a complete lifestyle overhaul if I wanted to heal and that my idea of healthy was totally warped and influenced by the diet and fitness industry.

I took an “all in” approach to healing my hormones where for a few months I did zero exercise, ate as much as I wanted (which was a lot!) and tried to reduce stress as much as possible. And in March 2016, at age 23, I finally got my period back. It wasn’t an easy journey, I had to gain weight which was something that terrified me and I had to totally rewire my brain and tackle disordered eating thoughts that had become so automatic that I didn’t even notice them anymore and just thought they were part of me. I had many fear foods and food rules to overcome and constantly doubted that what I was doing.

But I continued and since then I have been so aware of my cycle and grateful each month that I get my period. I was so amazed by the female body that I continued to read and learn about how to maintain balance and work with my hormonal cycle. I read Woman Code by Alicia Vritti and Wild Power by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Wurlizter and these became my handbooks for life. I started to experiment with cycle tracking and cycle syncing and I have been doing this now for a couple of years. I am still learning but honestly I am completely fascinated and in awe by the magic of our hormones. I realised just how powerful they are in affecting the way we feel and show up in the world and the importance of working with our cyclic rhythm rather than against it.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing, I have relapsed several times in the last 3 years. Stressful periods at work and in life have triggered my “eating disorder brain” and resulted in me restricting food groups, creating food rules, tracking my calories and falling back into obsessive exercise in an attempt to change my body. These things help me feel in control and give me something to focus on when life gets too much to handle. But now I have my period as my “fifth vital sign” and any time it goes awry I know I need to re-evaluate and get myself back on track. I think it is something that I will always have to be mindful of, like many others who have struggled with disordered eating. However, I will never go back to the destructive habits that used to be my life.

During this time cycle tracking and syncing has been a key spiritual practice for me, helping me to learn more about my self and get closer to nature. I am still working on putting things I am learning into practice, especially as cycle syncing is not easy in the world we live in. But I keep going and I am excited to share my experiences on this blog. I hope this answers the question of why I am so interested in hormones, after the last 10 years I feel like its impossible for me not to be!

Why am I so interested in hormones? Part 2 – veganism, PCOS and orthorexia

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Unfortunately after I graduated I slipped back to some of my old ways. I was still struggling with gastritis and other digestive issues and doing endless research online to find the “perfect healing diet”. This is where I found veganism, specifically the high-carb low-fat vegan diet. I started following all of these Youtube channels with skinny, shiny women promoting this diet where you can eat as much as you want and as long as it is vegan and low fat you won’t gain weight. I dived straight into this whole-foods based diet. I was convinced I was doing the right thing for myself as well as the planet and the animals. My diet took on this new moral value instead of simply being a way to control my body.

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On one hand it was great as after years of calorie counting and restriction I finally let go and allowed myself t eat as much as my body wanted. This meant loads of fruit, potatoes, grains etc. At first I felt amazing with this new found freedom and I genuinely believed I had found the golden ticket. However, in reality my eating disorder had just morphed into something new that I didn’t recognise: orthorexia nervosa. This is an obsession with eating healthy food to the point where it controls your life. I might have been allowing myself to eat more but food was still taking centre stage in my life. I spent so much time reading and watching videos/ documentaries on the vegan diet, talking about veganism, writing about veganism, taking photos of my food for instagram etc..

At the time it was fun and I genuinely enjoyed it. It’s crazy how eating disorders can shift and manipulate you. I know my parents were worried about me at this time thinking that I had switched from one restrictive disorder to another but I couldn’t see it. I was in denial and so defensive if they ever brought it up. I gained this self-righteousness that I was following the way and they just didn’t understand. I tried not to be preachy and annoying but I definitely was! I was always the odd one out at social events and had to bring my own special food. I pretended that it didn’t bother me but of course it did. I started to feel so isolated and dived into the online world and groups of vegans where I could feel like I belong. This only pushed me away from my real life friends and left me feeling insecure and lonely.

Around this time I also got back into exercise as a way to control the stress from my new graduate job. Again I thought that this time was different because I was weight lifting instead of spending hours on cardio machines. But I was still using exercise as a way to manipulate my body, following fitness influencers and trying their workout programs to look like them. I was still choosing to go to the gym instead of socialising and still pushing myself to exercise when my body was crying out for rest. By this time I was struggling with insomnia and feeling exhausted ALL of the time but instead of letting go and allowing my body to heal I continued to exercise on a daily basis using pre-workout and coffee to drag myself through.

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So it won’t come as a surprise when I tell you that my periods disappeared again (if you could count the couple of feeble periods I had as them returning). After a year I was back in the doctors office and this time something showed up on an ultra-sound scan that I hadn’t seen before. Small cysts over both of my ovaries. With this and blood test results which showed low estrogen and elevated testosterone, I was diagnosed with PCOS and the doctor told me I might never be able to conceive naturally. This was such a bombshell I literally cried for days afterwards. I was angry at myself thinking that my behaviours had caused this and I was screwed for life.

My doctor recommended that I took birth control pills to regulate my cycle but I knew straight away that this wasn’t something I wanted. It just didn’t seem to make sense to add extra synthetic hormones into my already imbalanced system. Plus I knew that it would be a fake period and was really only masking the problem. Once I’d calmed down I (again) turned to the internet. This time looking for natural ways to heal PCOS. I found an amazing community where omen were healing PCOS naturally via a plant-based diet. As I was vegan already I was like bring it on and jumped straight in to the 8 week program. 

This was only fuel for the fire of my eating disorder. Of course in the mindset I was in this was exactly what I wanted to hear and I carried on down my orthorexia path with my food choices getting stricter and stricter over time. I spent months trying to do various detoxes and cleanses – raw food, fruit diets, smoothie cleanses.. Foods that I had previously thought were healthy under the high-carb low-fat diet banner such as bread and pasta now moved into the “unhealthy” category. I became more and more attached to my healthy food choices so that it became part of my identity to be the “health nut”. I rewired my brain to think that ordinary foods were toxic for my body and I became afraid of them.

Am I saying that veganism is unhealthy or “orthorexic”? No!! Am I saying that exercising and wanting to tone up is unhealthy? Again, no!! What I am saying is that the mindset I had at the time was unhealthy. I was over-controlling and the reasons behind my choices were out of fear and anxiety about what would happen if I chose otherwise. Maybe you’re reading this and you think well I do these things and I’m perfectly healthy. Maybe that’s true and if it is then good for you. However, I know that there a a whole bunch of girls out there (guys too but this is aimed at women) who are trapped in this cycle of obsessive thoughts. The easy access to information that the internet brings only makes this worse. You only have to look at the number of “what I ate today” and body transformation videos on Youtube to see this collective pre-occupation with food and fitness.

In Part 3 I will talk about what finally motivated me to recover and what this process has been like for the last 5 years.

Why am I so interested in hormones? Part 1 – my battle with disordered eating

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My journey with my hormones has been up and down to say the least. I started my period at age 12 with no major celebration.. my mum explained what to expect and how to use pads and tampons and that was that for a few years. I don’t really remember much from that time but I think my cycles were pretty “normal” coming each month with some pain and emotional ups and downs but it was no big deal. I was a happy, active kid. I played hockey in school and had competed in judo competitions since I was 10 years old.

I don’t remember ever being a fussy eater as a child but once I got to my final years of high school, I became pretty self conscious (like many teenage girls do) and started to manipulate my diet in the quest of “the perfect body”. It started off pretty innocently with me trying to eat more healthy foods and cut down on snacks (especially the buttery doorstop toast we used to have daily in the school canteen- yum!). But over time things spiralled and I became obsessive with my eating habits, trying to eat as little calories as possible and joining a gym to burn off anything I did eat. This carried on for a couple of years, all through my final exams and the summer before college. I some weight but I was still in the normal BMI range so no one was too worried.

High school2   High school   sophs

Looking back there were a few personal issues that most likely played a big part in me falling into this black hole of anorexia. At the time I wouldn’t have even called it anorexia as I was eating, just not a lot. But the official definition of anorexia is “an emotional disorder characterised by an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat” which is exactly what I was doing. I was so focused on dieting and weight loss and it never even crossed my mind that what I was doing could be impacting my hormones. Then at age 16 I decided to go on the birth control pill and that set off a cascade of events for the next decade.

I was having a regular period but I didn’t realise at the time but the periods you have on the birth control pill are not real, they are simply a reaction to the drop in synthetic hormones when you take a week break from the pill each month. I didn’t react well to the pill – like many women it made me anxious and emotional so after a year I decided to come off it.  And that’s when my periods went MIA. I saw a doctor after 6 months and was told that my body just needed to rebalance after the pill and that it would take a while for my body to settle out. But 12 months later.. still no period.

Back in the doctors’s office, after asking some questions and finding out that I was very active I was diagnosed with the “female athlete triad”.  I was told that losing your menstrual cycle  is common amongst women who exercise a lot and that it was nothing to worry about if I wasn’t trying to get pregnant. I felt something in my gut right there, my intuition telling me that is WAS something to worry about. I hadn’t been totally honest about my restrictive eating but I was in denial so I ignored the voice inside, accepted the doctor’s advice and carried on with my life. I tried to keep up my diet and exercise regime but after a while my body started to fight back with EXTREME HUNGER.

I still had my goal in mind though so I carried on working out and restricting my calories. But I would keep having these full on crazy binge eating episodes. I didn’t understand what was going on. Seriously I felt like something was invading my mind and forcing me to eat everything in sight! Then afterwards I would feel panicked and confused, guilty about everything I had eating and would vow to eat less and exercise more the next day. Always frustrated, angry at my body for not conforming to the size and shape I had decided it should be. Every time I binged I thought there was something wrong with me and I worked hard to make my body pay for its mistake. I spent hours researching how to stop binge eating, trying all sorts of tips to distracting myself from taking a shower or painting my nails to going for a walk or calling a friend but none of them could help me past the strong compulsion to eat when it came.

So my weight would fluctuate by up to 20lbs as I yo-yo dieted and the cycle continued until I was about 22..

Montpellier   bbq   Leaves   World challenge

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Don’t get me wrong I had some amazing times whilst all of this was going on. I made amazing friends, travelled Europe, volunteered in South America, got a job as a waitress, joined the university cheerleading team, had boyfriends, worked a year in industry and was on track to get a first in my engineering degree. But there was this underlying current of worry and anxiety and I was hiding the anorexia part of my brain leading me to go through periods of isolating myself from my friends and leaving me stuck in these mental patterns of criticising my body and myself, never believing I was good enough. I did seek help a couple of times with support from my mum but because I could go through periods of feeling ok again and because part of me was still in denial, I would discharge myself from therapy.

By my final year at university, my over-exercising and under-eating had spiralled into some pretty disordered eating patterns. I had been battling this whilst studying for my final exams and keeping up an active social life and eventually my body crashed hard. I was still in denial that I had a problem, believing that I “wasn’t sick enough” to need help (which I now know is a common symptom in disordered eating). So I carried on dieting and exercising until I was hit with chronic gastritis. This totally wiped me out and I wasn’t able to work out at all other than walking and some yoga. I put on some weight and funnily enough I got a period! It was only light and lasted a couple of days but after nothing for 5 years I was over the moon.

pub   chem eng ball  laos

I graduated from university and went travelling in South Eat Asia for 6 weeks before I started my new graduate job. Things were looking pretty good, I was exercising again but much more relaxed around food. I was maintaining a slightly higher weight that my body seemed happy with. But the story didn’t end there…

To be continued