Hormones is the leading role in regulation of a woman’s reproductive health system. It regulates mensuration, fertility, menopause, and sex drive. Which is why when you restrict food, over exercise, with low estrogen, well the last thing on your mind is sex. Things like fat cells produce estrogen, so if we don’t have enough body fat, we don’t produce enough of estrogen, that means we wont get a normal period. Hormonal issues can be pretty complex, and medication often times only masks the problem.
This topic has become something im passionate about because I have dealt with it first hand. It was something that scared me! Never did I think I would go through this and actually miss having a period. Missing my period started to bring physiological feelings. I dealt with feelings of not feeling like a normal woman.
Being lean is not all that fun. In fact it’s something that is NOT normal. It is impossible to maintain long term. And let me just fill you in that there are different levels of leanness and some people physically are not meant to be as lean. It is something that by nature, women carry more body fat then men due to our reproductive organs. The level of leanness that I learned or viewed as lean and perfect, and normal for me, but it’s NOT normal. My mind has been distorted. People look at me now and think i’m lean, and I know I am but, I also know I’m not. According to a overall population I am lean, but according to a athletic/competitive world im not so lean.
Level of leanness:
- Stage lean = Extreme low body fat levels , not maintainable, not normal. You only see this in people who compete. This is a level of being very shredded. (possible body fat in women usually 7-12% body fat)
- Lean (Athletes) – Varies from person to person and may or may not be maintainable. Usually if you are athletic/into fitness with a healthy nutrition of calories that vary from just below maintenance or maintenance level (possible body fat in women usually 12-18/20%)
- Lean (Fitness) – Again same as above. Usually into some fitness and a balanced nutrition. You may see an upcoming higher population in this category. Those that are gym goers but aren’t training over 5 day’s a week. Usually in between maintenance to a slight surplus or mix of these in calories. What is considered healthy (possible body fat of 21-24% for women)
- Other – this varies and honestly I dislike the scale and our “standard BMI chart” that was created that is an “average” but not the end all be all. (possible body fat 25%+) Our bodies are different with different set points that can function at different BMI and 25% may not mean overweight.
Feelings of being lean:
- lack of energy
- lack of sex drive
- hungry to the point all you can do is think about food
- slowed metabolism
- may cause sleep issues
- hormonal imbalances
- always cold
- Irritability
Just because you’re at a “healthy BMI” doesn’t mean you’re at a healthy weight for YOU. Typically, women need about 17% body fat to have their first period and about 18-20% in some women, but more average id 20-23% to maintain a healthy menstrual cycle. In light of that though, every woman is different. There are women who have very low body fat, and not menstruate. There are also women who run marathons and regularly menstruate. That’s okay. You are YOU. Looking at a woman’s BMI and shrugging off an irregular or absent period because she has a “healthy BMI” is ignorant and puts the body and healthcare into a BOX.
Now let’s get into some facts and details that play a large role in how and why are hormones work and how it plays a connected role to losing our periods and to get it back.
BMI
Women menstruaste naturally with a whole range of BMI’s. What is important is that your body is at a weight that is healthy for YOU. A BMI *average* to majority of a “healthy” population is around 23%.
A BMI doesn’t take into account waist size, muscle mass, or bone size. Bone is denser than muscle and two times as dense as fat, therefore a person with strong bones, good muscle tone and healthy body fat is going to have a higher BMI compared to someone with little muscle tone and thinner bones who might be “healthy” by BMI standards, but actually not healthy. This is exactly why many athletes or even physically fit people find themselves with a higher BMI, but in good health from all other parameters – waist size, body fat, strength, lab values etc etc. BMI is simply unreliable. Just like a scale it also follows these same rules.
Personally I have not tested my body fat much over the years. When I lost my period, I believe my BMI was lower than my natural set point.
A healthy period is every 25-35 day’s. Personally I have always had a semi irregular period. Meaning my period is never set to exactly a set number of day’s. For example, I may get my period the second week of the month and the following month I will most likely see my period anywhere from 3-6 day’s off. I got my period at the age of 10. And never had a missing period only irregular. I had better control of it when I started taking birth control from the age of about 14 until about 20 yrs old. My period started off with a average of 5 day’s through a cycle. However, in the last 8-10 years it decreased to 3 day’s. Each female is going to vary as to when you get your period, how often, how long, etc. If it’s either too high or too low in any of these cases, then something is off. Check with your doctor.
Exercise
You don’t have to be an extreme athletic person to have exercise induced amenorrhea. If energy and nutritional intake is not enough for YOUR body, the body begins shutting down organ system as a survival mode.
There are two types of stress – productive and unproductive stress. Exercise is supposed to be productive, but it can quickly become an unproductive stress and cause more harm than good. Too much exercise for many people or even certain kind of exercise may cause more stress and can be taxing on your body. Without proper sleep, nutrition (quality and quantity), can cause cortisol levels to rise and our adrenals glad to eventually become fatigued, all of which are huge role to metabolism. So in other terms, your exercise regimen could be adding fat instead of burning it, causing you stress and so on.
If energy and nutritional intake are not sufficient enough to support energy expenditure, the body begins shutting down organ systems that are not what the body think is absolutely essential for survival. And you guessed it, the reproductive system! If your body isn’t getting enough energy + nutrients to support YOUR own needs, then it thinks well ok I can’t grow a baby, therefore you will lose your period. Also, our bodies can have different thresholds for exercise depending on the “season” or in other words, if you are going through a period of high stress, different changes of some sort, the more exercise or the same amount of exercise is not going to be optimal.
Although I ate healthy, I was not eating enough, which I knew because I was trying to maintain a weight that was much smaller than I should be. I had loads of stress from personal life + the amount of training I was doing that it was too much for me personally, especially in a state where im depriving my body of food, of sleep + stress. The amount of exercise I was doing was adding in more negative stress rather than good.
I think a point here is we are conditioned regardless if your an athlete professional or not or if your a gym goer or whatever, that we all must train 5-6x a day. There are plenty of studies that show we actually need much less activity for health purposes. No one really see’s, the fact that just like we are each so unique, why would the style or amount of exercise also be the same? In other words, there is a difference between what we WANT and NEED personally. If you or you want to look like a Pro Bikini IFBB or a very particular aesthetic look, yea that means I need to train 5-6x a week, eat restrictive and basically I have to always be on point if that’s what I want. Do I NEED to, or anyone for that matter? No. As I learned these facts through all the research I did, I drastically reduced exercise until I got my period back, and once I did I actually started to change to what FEELS right for me. Which means I now train 2-3 day’s straight in a row, take a rest day and continue another 2-3 day’s then take 2 rest day’s. There are times where I may take more rest but you get the point. I still have a split workout regimen of bodybuilding style because that is what I enjoy and it doesn’t mean all goals need to change or stop. When you first start training, you do not start off by training 5-6x a week, you gradually build that through time. Just because we build to be able to do that doesn’t mean we should. As I mentioned this is a culture conditioning thing we believe in. Health vs Aesthetic, Want vs Need. I had to get used to this, because I too felt, omg im not working hard enough, omg im going to lose my gains, get fat, people are going to think less of me, compare myself to how much someone else is training, etc. Maybe it may not be so much of less “activity”. Sometimes it also is the style we may be doing. For instance, high intensity style of training or cardio may not optimal for you, or perhaps cutting down on it. In some cases for some people eliminating exercise period is what you may need. It all comes down to your personal threshold, and how much you exceeded that in the past, including how long you did it for. If you have amenorrhea and weren’t really exercising, then you know this tip or point is not for you, but there could be other areas you need to fix at least for a period of time.
Stress
We can go through a number of way’s that stress affects us.
• Physical
• emotional
• work
• relationship
• mental
• nutritional
• sleep
Also, everyone’s body has a different threshold of the stress hormones in which they start interfering with the brain’s production of reproductive hormones to keep your menstrual cycle flowing.
Sleep
Is one of the biggest hormone disruptors. During sleep your body repairs, detoxifies, adjust blood sugar levels, balance hormones, and more. If you aren’t getting 7-8 hours, shit get’s out of wack. So all those people who preach team no sleep, child that isn’t healthy. You can believe all that “team no sleep” is the way to life, but soon enough it’ll catch up.
Healing & Nutrition
The healing process of hormonal issues is way more elaborate than following a protocol or set of guidelines because we have to account for a range of things starting with psychological stress, or perceived stress. If you surpass your body’s threshold, you begin over activating the body’s HPA axis. Visit Robyn’s post for a scientific description. She is a huge reference and guidance for this post and to my recovery. Additionally, it’s important to get tested especially if you have had other issues, had them longer, etc because the more you pro-long the process to getting recovered properly the more you pro-long the real and actual issue to getting fully recovered. I find many women are being diagnosed incorrectly with PCOS.
How long can it take for you to get your menstrual back will vary from woman to woman. There’s not a black and white time frame. For some it can be 3-4 weeks and others even up to a year. Mine happened to be around the 2ish month mark. I think because I took action with in a “shorter” time frame. I know many girls who have or are struggling with this had a missing period of more than a year. Due to all the competing and or dieting. As I mentioned it was roughly about 6-7 months I didn’t have one and took me 2ish months to get it back. Depending on the loads of “stress” you put your body in, and the amount of time you allowed this all to happen will be a factor to how long it can take. Your body needs time to know it can trust you again. It’s trying to catch up first, heal and then still has to trust you before you can fully notice and recover. I also believe given the fact that I kind of went “all in” with the healing process, allowed for a quicker recovery. Although it only took me roughly 2ish months for my menstrual to return, I could tell I had not fully healed. I felt more healthy and normal probably at about 7 months total from the day I made changes. I cut back drastically on working out, and at first I had started reverse dieting and tracking macros, but when I decided that it was a problem and needed and wanted to fix it, I went straight to not counting calories and I just worried about making sure I felt well fed. Of course I took into consideration having balanced meals (carbs, fats & protein). But I wasn’t worried about anything other than feeding myself mostly with quality food. I also started taking things like Maca powder and prime rose pills, along with eating more fats.
In the past since I started tracking macros, regardless if I was in a surplus or maintenance or cut, my macro ratios were at the lower end of fats. However with my research (not all specific to amenorrhea), I realized that I should try a moderate fat ratio instead. In which I think played a huge role as well in my recovery. To be honest I also feel a bigger difference with strength and putting on muscle. Don’t be afraid of quality fats, they are truly a necessity.
I was honestly on the lucky end of this whole problem, yet it still scared me half to death. I think it was a huge wake up call. I started to read lots about health and creating a healthy relationship with food. And it’s all just an ongoing journey. It has shifted a lot, along with my mental process. I’m no longer in that obsessive mindset. It’s never easy but it get’s better. Finding that balance especially one where it’s YOUR balance is a journey. Months later and I find myself feeling anxious a little whenever I am expecting my menstrual visit, in fear that it could go missing. Dieting is a touchy subject for me personally because I don’t want to go through what I went through. It took a while to get my appetite hormone called gherlin back to a normal and stable level. It took a few months for my body to trust me again.
xoxo
Unfiltered 