Losing my period, obsessively clean eating, and gaining weight

First of all, I want to say a few things… you guys know I am not a doctor (obv) so it’s important that you remember that this is simply MY story and what worked for me. 

Second, if someone is telling you that it’s not a big deal to NOT have your period, I really encourage you to research more into it and form your own opinion. Menstruation is a really important sign of our health. 

How I lost my period

I stopped getting my period (aka Hypothalamic Amenorrhea aka HA) when I was at a point in my life where I was overly obsessed with clean eating. Don’t get me wrong, you guys know I still absolutely love eating healthy and am always looking for cleaner ingredients/alternatives… buuuut, it doesn’t cause me the stress that it once used to.  

In the past, going out to eat, traveling, and really just any uncertainty of ingredients in what I was eating… gave me major anxiety. I wanted everything to be organic, cooked in “good” oils, and I wanted to be aware of the exact ingredients so that I could be “perfectly healthy”. 

To be honest, I can’t even explain my rationale behind this because deep down I knew that eating a meal every now and then with subpar ingredients wasn’t going to damage my health at all. Basically, I was just caught up in the perfectionism of clean eating. 

Due to obsessively clean eating, I reached a weight that was unhealthy for me. The weirdest part of it all is that I didn’t even like the way my body looked at this point. I was constantly thinking about how I could gain weight… but with the way I was eating, it wasn’t possible. And I wasn’t ready to give up the perfectionism that I was putting into clean eating. 

Now that I am past those days, I’ve realized that “clean eating” to that extent was partly a coping mechanism that helped me feel “in control” when other things in my life felt out of control. Ironically, it eventually made me feel much more OUT of control around food.

I never counted calories, my goal was never focused on weight loss, and I never even deprived myself of meals and snacks (although when you’re struggling with HA, it’s common to lose your appetite… not a good sign).

I strived for perfection with my eating habits. Each day, I had breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and a dessert. To someone on the ouside, it may have even looked normal. But my obsession with having perfect ingredients, the perfect portion, restricting major food groups that I had deemed “unhealthy” AND all the stress that came along with this… is what caused me to lose weight and therefore, lose my period for about 16 months (this was back in 2017-18). 

“Stress is worse for your health than any food” is a quote I’ve seen and truly believe in and live by nowadays!

How I got my period back 

It’s hard for me to explain exactly how I got my period back because it took a HUGE mindset shift over the span of a couple of years. It wasn’t one specific thing, and trust me, it didn’t have anything to do with adaptogens… 😂

(disclaimer: I love and believe in the benefits of adaptogens but what I needed at the time was more calories, less stress, and to gain a few pounds… not f*cking ashwaganda)  

• Delved into Intuitive Eating (some of my favorite sources listed below).
  • Intuitive Eating Book 
  • Nourishing Women’s Podcast (this one was huge for me, I recommend to start listening from the first episodes)
  • Instagram (@restoringradiance, @hummusapien, @thereallife_rd, @avokween, @megeatsworld, @maddaliveswell, @simibiotic, @nourishingmindsnutrition are a few of my favorite intuivite eating based accounts)

• Increased the amount of calories I was eating. It’s easy to eat a huge bowl of protein and veggies without too many calories but I had to make sure I was eating enough CALORIES, not volume. I still didn’t count calories but I went by “if I’m questioning if I had enough calories that meal/day, then I didn’t”. More is better here! If you’re not ready to make a complete 180 with your eating habits, my advice is to add extra healthy fat in order to up calories without making any huge changes to your meals. Plus healthy fat is AMAZING for hormone health (exactly what you need when struggling with HA) and makes food taste delicious. For example, I love adding things like olive oil, avocado oil mayo, Primal Kitchen dressings, etc, to my bowls to make them more filling and satisfying. 

• Went out to eat more often and didn’t stress about what was in the food. In the past, there were definitely times when I went to a restaurant and picked the healthiest thing I could find on the menu. Then proceeded to go straight home and raid the pantry because mentally, I was unsatisfied. Now, when I go out to eat, I look at the menu and choose what sounds the best TASTING. I don’t consider health, calories, or ingredients. This makes for a much more enjoyable experience anyways! It’s cool because now sometimes I actually WANT to order the salad, and other times I want pizza or a burger… and I don’t judge myself as “good” or “bad” depepending on which one I’m craving that day. Funny how the body works! I also made sure that I didn’t do anything to make up for indulgent meals, ie. eating extra clean the next day etc.

• Started eating more carbs. I have always been down with healthy fats and I never purposely cut down on carbs but when I was struggling with HA, my carbohydrate intake was TOO LOW. Especially for a woman of reproductive age who is pretty active! I started incorporating more bananas and other fruit, bread, large sweet potatoes, rice crackers and pasta, more desserts (lots of healthy recipes here on my blog!), and really anything I was craving.

• Began to better manage my stress. Listed all my self-care favorites in this post.

• Let up on the high-intensity/cardio workouts. I still did some high-intensity a couple times a week but I swapped out a few of my workouts for walks and made sure I was taking at least a couple days per week completely off). 

Things I tried that didn’t work for me

• Completely stopping exercise. There were a couple times that I took an entire week off from exercise and it didn’t really seem to help much in the long run. I love working out so it wasn’t sustainable for me to completely stop. It was more about what I was doing continuously for months and months (RE: laying off high intensity/cardio, decreasing the frequency of my workouts, and swapping out a couple workouts per week for relaxed walking) 

• Adding more “nutrition”. No matter how many vegetables I ate or how many nutrients I crammed into my diet (I tried all of the nutritional powerhouses like seaweed, sardines, etc.), but nothing was going to change until I changed my mindset and habits.

• Adaptogens— like I said, adaptogens are amazing and I truly believe in their benefits… but for me, they were no substitute for eating more and gaining a few healthy pounds.

Things I gained when I gained weight/my period (the important part!!!) 

• Digestion that actually works. When I was struggling with HA, I was ALWAYS bloated, gassy, and constipated (sry for the TMI). When your body thinks it’s starving (aka not getting enough calories EVEN if the amount of food your eating LOOKS like “enough”), it’s going to start shutting down systems that aren’t essential in keeping you alive (aka reproductive system, digestive system, etc.). 

• My personality and energy. I know this sounds weird, but when I was at a lower weight, I didn’t feel like myself. I didn’t have as much energy, I didn’t laugh as much, I didn’t socialize as much, and overall I didn’t feel like my happy, bubbly, energetic self. And there were probably times when I wasn’t as kind to my family and friends as I could have been. 

• BETTER SLEEP. This is a HUGE one for me. I need to write a whole blog post about sleep because its something I’ve struggled with on and off since I was little but ESPECIALLY during this time. I couldn’t sleep. Ever. I would be exhausted all day long and then when bedtime rolled around, I still felt tired but at the same time weirdly wired. Cue– cortisol. Let me tell you, it’s not fun waking up every morning feeling groggy and awful. I pretty much sleep like a baby every night now. One of my favorite feelings is waking up from a good night’s sleep. It honestly changes my whole day.  

• Better workouts. Once again, more energy! I feel amazing during my HIIT workouts, weight lifting, walking, running, and I still have energy throughout the day afterwards. 

• SO. MANY. MEMORIES! Since then, I have traveled more times than I can count, so many date nights, wine night with friends, going out for ice cream in the summer (and winter 😂), tried things out of my comfort zone, and felt genuine happiness much more often. 

To be honest, I didn’t think I would get this deep when I started writing this blog post but it all just kind of flowed out. Never thought I’d say this but it’s reminding me why I am so thankful to bleed every month, hahaha!

I hope that sharing my journey is helpful and that it provided some inspiration and hope for anyone struggling with something similar. I feel for you and am here for you!

Love you guys! 💕