Latest / Eat More Carbs | A Period Recovery Podcast / 149. How I Lost My Period As a College Athlete: Reilly's HA Recovery Journey

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149. How I Lost My Period As a College Athlete: Reilly's HA Recovery Journey · Eat More Carbs | A Period Recovery Podcast

0:00
Hey girlies, just a quick reminder before we dive into
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today's episode. The information shared on this
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podcast is intended to be general sports nutrition advice
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and education related to period recovery for female athletes.
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This is not specific to anyone individual and it may or may not
0:13
apply to your situation. If you are looking for
0:15
personalized guidance, be sure to apply to our RBSN Period
0:18
Recovery nutrition coaching program.
0:20
Our four month period recovery program is designed to help you
0:22
sustainably get your period back and keep it.
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You can apply now to get started in our program and we'll leave
0:27
the link for the program below. This is the Eat more Carbs
0:29
podcast. Hello and welcome back.
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This is the Eat More Carbs podcast.
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We're Riley Beatty Sports Nutrition, and we're a team of
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dietitians and we talk every Thursday about sports nutrition
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for the girlies. I'm Jenna and I'm the host.
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Of this podcast and I'm Riley. I'm the founder of Riley Beatty
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Sports Nutrition. We like to call it around here
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our BSN. Before we get into today's
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episode, we are going to do our high and low.
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So sharing just a little bit about our week, the good and the
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parts we wish have gone a little bit differently.
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As always, Riley, can you kick us off?
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Yes. Hello everybody.
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I'm going to start with my low. It's been like, I think like a
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low for about a month and a half because I'm struggling right now
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with a little bit of an injury, which I'm really super bummed
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about. I have something kind of going
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on with like my hip and it's going down to my hamstring and
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so I'm not being able to run as much as I want to, which is just
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a bummer. I'm still able to run and I'm
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like navigating it and managing it.
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It's just like never fun when you have an injury.
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It's never fun, especially hamstring.
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I feel like like any type of leg pain and running, it's so tough.
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It's mainly my hip and it's like coming down into my, my
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hamstring. I have a little bit of like some
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weakness in my pelvis because of like being postpartum and
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pregnancy and all of that stuff. And just because of like the
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high training load I had leading up to the marathon and the
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recovery after the marathon. It's some of like the weakness
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has shown. So I'm struggling with like some
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stabilization stuff and therefore it's putting a lot of
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pressure on my hamstring. So it's mainly my hip, but it's
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like showing up in my hamstring if that makes sense.
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Yeah, totally. Such a bummer though.
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I'm so. Sorry, it's OK.
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My height is though. I did plan a spring race, so
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even though I am kind of like managing the injury, I am still
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lucky enough that I'm able to run.
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I'm at like about 20 miles per week right now.
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But I'm hopefully going to try to bump that up because I have
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my like spring half marathon in April.
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It's just like a local. It's like our local Winston
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Salem half. We have like 2 big halves in
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Winston, one's in the spring and 1 is in the fall.
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So I'm running a spring half on April 4th and I'm excited about
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it because it's at 8:30. I don't have to travel.
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I get to sleep in. It is 950 feet of elevation
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though, so should be a good time.
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That's a lot I know, because that's more than the New York
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Marathon and the. Sea and this is 1/2.
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Man, those hills out there in North Carolina, they aren't
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messing around. Not messing around.
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I did like kind of talk about this a little bit on my story,
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like kind of a secondary high, I guess high, you know, 1B is I
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was like, guys, I'm so nervous that I have to run, you know,
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950 feet of elevation. That's close to 100 feet of
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elevation per mile, which pretty steep.
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Everybody just responded with like, you can be so much faster
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after this. Like you're going to feel so
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strong in those hills. And I was like, OK, this is like
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the mindset that I'm supposed to be going into this with like not
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being like I have to run up all this elevation.
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So I got called out and I just appreciate everybody for the
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call out. I love that everybody was just,
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you know, taking the positive approach.
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Yeah, You're going to be so much faster after that.
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All those, all those hills. And I was like, heck yeah.
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I'm going to be like, yeah. Thank you.
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Yeah, I am. You're right.
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Yes. So I will keep everybody updated
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on that if people care. But I'm very excited to continue
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to train for something, even though it might not look the way
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that I want it to look because I'm kind of navigating injury.
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But I got something on the calendar.
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I'm so excited for you though, always good to look forward to a
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race. Yeah, it's just nice to have
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something. Does I feel like train for a?
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100% yeah. How?
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Are you? How's your week going, Riley?
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I wish I had great news about my week, but as per usual, George
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is part of my high and my low. Specifically my low and George
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love him to pieces, but he is a true golden retriever in that he
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will eat anything and everything.
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So like a yard snack is his favorite snack.
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It doesn't matter what it is. Sidewalk sandwich, somebody's
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trash is another man's treasure is George's MO and he's been
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that way since he was a puppy. So a lot of times, like when we
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take him outside, he's usually leashed or we're watching him
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very closely or he's in our backyard where we know
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everything that he can get into. But occasionally we have dogs
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that are walking past that they want to all play together.
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And the front yard is an easy place to do that because that's
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where we have the majority of our grass.
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So we'll let them all off the leash and they just, you know,
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get the zoomies out. And we did that.
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And somewhere in that time frame, George picked up a yard
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snack. And I saw him do it and Nolan
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tried to get it away from him, but he took off running, ate
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whatever the heck it was. Still not sure, still don't
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think I want to know what it was.
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And George has been so sick since then.
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So we had to take him to the vet.
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We had to do like testing on him, which like kind of vet just
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isn't fun because you know, your dog is like unhappy and kind of
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scared. So we're hoping we're out of the
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thick of it. But George has had a week, which
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means we have had a week with getting up pretty much every two
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hours through the night and letting him outside or sometimes
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more frequently. So just a little bit sleep
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deprived and working through that.
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But it's OK. We love George.
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He's OK. And that's the most important
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thing, George. So that's my, well, my high is
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that we have some extraordinarily exciting updates
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coming from RBSN within the next like coming days.
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And I'm just really excited. I'm super proud to be a part of
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this team that worked so hard to make sure that, like, when we
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roll out these updates and these changes, that they are the way
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that they are. And I just, like, want to give a
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shout out to you for leading this team, for making sure that,
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like, all of those things are happening the way that they've
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happened to Lily and to Joy, who have also worked so tirelessly
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to make sure, like, everyone of these updates, like, is just
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going to better serve the athletes that we work with.
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And I'm super excited to be a part of it.
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Yeah. Me too I'm we're so excited to
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share with y'all. We have lots of things coming in
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the next couple of days, yes, so.
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Make sure if you haven't subscribed the podcast, we'll
5:53
know about it probably first because that's where we tend to
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to announce things. So make sure that you are
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following along so that way you hear about all of our exciting
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updates. On today's episode, Riley has
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graciously offered to share her story with HA relationship with
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food and all of her past history with all of that leading to
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where she is today. Riley, for people who don't know
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you, can you give a little bit of a background on like your
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sport, where you came from, all of that good stuff?
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Yeah. Hi, I'm Riley.
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I started this private practice and the period recovery program
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like six years ago, which is crazy.
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I'm a sports dietitian by practice and now specialize in
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like female athletes period recovery and just like overall
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helping athletes like overcome poor habits when it comes to
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fueling their body and restriction.
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And this really stems from like my personal journey, which I'm
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really honored to share about it today.
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So many of y'all like reached out on social and have asked to
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kind of hear a little bit about my journey as you know, a club
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athlete, then a college athlete, then a retired athlete, and now
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like as a postpartum athlete. So really excited to kind of
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like share with you all today. Can you tell us about like when
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it all started for you? Yeah.
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So this is a little bit of a journey.
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I hope you guys are like out on a walk.
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You're sitting down. Because I might.
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Ramble a little bit today, but I actually had like a pretty
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positive relationship I feel like with food, like growing up
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like when I was younger, I was always somebody that like loved
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food. I was always outside running
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around. I remember like, you know, you'd
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come inside, you'd like grab a popsicle, you drop some ice
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cream and then you go back out. I have like super fond memories
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of like having like little sandwiches at the beach or
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having fun treats with friends and things like that.
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And I feel like I just always really loved food, but I never
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really understood the basics of it or the foundations of it.
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And like as a 10 year old, like not many people really kind of
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understand that. But I had always been somebody
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that was like a good eater. And I always remember like I
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just felt like food was like already part of my personality.
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Like even though I was like 10:50 just because like, I don't
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know, I was always around me. I had a good relationship with
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it. I think things started to get
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really hard for me when I was about like 141516 because I was
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in club sports and my goal was to play college soccer.
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And during this period of time, and that's when like recruiting
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had started to happen. I actually committed very early
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to play soccer at the University of Georgia.
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I was actually the first person on my team to commit to school.
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There's just a lot happening at that period of time, right?
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Because I committed to AD 1 program, the first person,
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there's a lot of pressure related to that.
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And then during that time I also started to go through a lot of
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body changes because of puberty. When we look at like menstrual
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cycles and like amenorrhea, I actually started like I didn't
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have primary amenorrhea. I got my period around like 1213
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again, like nobody was like really checking on it.
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I feel like a while ago, but I felt like I did, you know, start
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my period at a normal age. Like I said, things started to
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kind of get complicated and start to go, you know, awry
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around that, you know, later teenage years because of the
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pressure from committing to college.
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And then I started to have a lot of body changes which were
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totally normal and totally natural, but because of puberty.
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I think it's so common that around that time that we do
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start entering puberty, the pressure to continue to perform
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the same way that you have really paired with those changes
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like you start to wonder about are those changes going to
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impact my performance? And a lot of times and very
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unfortunately, some of those changes are called out by like
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peers, parents or maybe even coaches.
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Is that anything that you experienced?
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Yes. So I think things got really bad
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for me and I feel like it's like the tip of the iceberg or like
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clicking period where like my relationship with body and food
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went from. I don't really think about it, I
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liked it to negative was I got comments, one from a family
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member about something that I was wearing.
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And then I feel like the next day I got comments from my
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coach. It was like an assistant coach.
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He like pulled me aside after practice and said like, you're
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going to, it was your scholarship.
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He like basically told me I had gotten fat.
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Like I don't remember the exact conversation or exact words that
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were exchanged, but I just remember being pulled aside and
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being like, you're not fit, you've gained weight.
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Like it's not good. And I think it was just like the
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back-to-back comments that like really just started this like
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negative snowball effect because I remember I went home, I was
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really upset. I told my mom and my mom decided
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that she was going to bring me to a registered dietitian and my
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mom's a pharmacist. She was like, I'm bringing you
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to a credentialed practitioner. But the issue was, was that
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dietitian was not specialized in sport.
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And this is something that we talk about all the time, but
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like nutrition is very individualized and like as
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dietitians, we have specialties for a reason.
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And I, I remember this dietitian like took my BMR like she did
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like indirect calorimetry where she like took my resting
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metabolic rate and then told me to eat like 1400 calories a day
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to lose weight. Because again, like my mom
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brought me and was like, how many calories does she need to
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eat? Like, because that's, you know,
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that's what people think they need to hear is like how many
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calories does she need to eat to lose weight?
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And the dietitian was like, yeah, well, her resting
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metabolic rate, is this she to lose weight like, you know, just
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like a basic formula, like the usual stuff, she should eat 1400
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calories a day. We know working with the
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athletic population that 1400 calories is a lot less than even
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like adolescents need. So definitely a very strong
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caloric restriction there. But she knew that, like, the
11:14
goal for the client at the time was weight loss or body
11:17
modification. And just like Riley said, like
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dietitians are specialized, we specialize in different things
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for different reasons. Maybe she should have recognized
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that there were some patterns there that weren't positive, but
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yeah. And I'm not like saying anything
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against that dietitian. And that experience has
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obviously stuck with me and was also one of the reasons that I
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decided to become specialized in sports dietetics because I saw
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that there was a need in the space.
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So kind of going back to like me being 1516, me being now
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starving on 1400 calories. This is when I started to also
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really realize that I never had a period.
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I started my period like I shared like at about 12 to 13.
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And I don't think it was particularly regular.
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Even up until this point. I just, nobody was talking about
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this as a big deal. And I remember like in my brain
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that I thought that when I didn't have my period, I was
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more fit because I noticed that I would go months without having
12:09
a period, like when I was in season or I'd start preseason
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and then I'd get my period back like maybe during summer or like
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the winter Christmas month when I didn't have as much training.
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But what my, you know, 15 year old brain connected that
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correlation as is like, oh, I'm not as fit.
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Like I get my period. Which can be so hard because
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sometimes that pushes extremes into that offseason too, because
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you want to keep up with fitness if that's what you're equating
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your fitness to during that time.
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Did anyone ever talk to you about like having a regular
12:37
period, or the importance of having a regular period?
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Or even ask you if you were having a regular period I.
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Don't think I ever brought it up to my mom because I didn't think
12:47
it was a big deal. And it's actually really sad.
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I don't think I've like ever even told anybody this, but I'm
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going to share it with you right now.
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Is like, I was thinking like, hey, if I don't have my period,
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like this is again, this is 15 year old brain, 15 year old
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brain was like, if I don't have a period, like guys don't get
13:03
their period. And like, maybe I'm more
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genetically like a guy. Again, I'm 15, I don't know what
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I'm talking about. I'm more genetically like close
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to a guy and that will make me a better athlete.
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But just because at least when I was growing up, like we didn't
13:15
have professional sports for female athletes.
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Like we didn't have like female athletes, you know, getting
13:21
recognized for their athletic achievements.
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We only heard about male athletes.
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And so I used to always think that I was like subpar as a
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female athlete because I wasn't a male.
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And I was like, well, if I can try to get like closer to that,
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like I'll become a better athlete, which is obviously not
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the right approach at all. But it's also really sad that I
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like, I felt like that for like a couple of years there.
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I. Think it's also really valid,
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especially like given like the timeframe, don't want to like
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put an exact date on that. But just like Riley mentioned
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around that time, like there was such an emphasis on the
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dominance of male sports and like such a diminishing focus on
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female athletes and female sports.
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So it makes sense that when you saw that you were like, oh, if I
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can be better, faster, stronger, like a male athlete, then I
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would be better, faster, stronger player as a female
14:06
athlete. Like it makes sense that that's
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the correlation that your brain at that time would have
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connected to that lack. Of a period.
14:11
Yeah. So I kind of like the reason I
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share that story is like, I didn't think it was a big deal.
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So I never brought it up to anybody.
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And I feel like the only time I ever had that conversation was
14:20
like during my annual checkup. And then my pediatrician would
14:23
be like, I've gotten your cycle on a public.
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I haven't gotten it for six months.
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And it always was like, well, you're athletic.
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Like that's what happens. You're an athlete.
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It's normal. Unfortunately, something that we
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still sometimes hear today from athletes that apply to the
14:34
period recovery program, that's what's and said to them, oh,
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you're a runner, this is normal. We see this all the time, things
14:41
like that. Just because it's common doesn't
14:43
mean that it's normal. I feel like we've said that 600
14:46
times, but so sad that like nothing was done to kind of help
14:50
correct your energy imbalance during that time.
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Did you notice or did you see from like prolonged low energy
14:55
availability, changes in performance or even things that
14:59
maybe we think of like secondary to that loss of a period?
15:02
Yes. And I feel like I experienced so
15:05
many of those symptoms, but I was, I just, I feel like the
15:08
experience that we see with our athletes in the period recovery
15:11
program now is like so parallel to that.
15:13
What I mean by that is like you almost don't know those symptoms
15:17
are happening until they don't happen anymore.
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If I had like a literally a penny for every single person
15:23
that like reached out and was like, I don't have my period,
15:25
but like, I feel fine. My energy feels fine.
15:28
And then they like go through the period recovery program and
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get their period back. And like, they don't realize
15:33
like how much their energy suffered, how much of a shell of
15:35
a person they were because of their low energy availability.
15:39
And sometimes when you're just in the thick of it, you don't
15:41
even understand how bad it is. And I really think that's what I
15:45
went through for so much of my athletic career.
15:47
So a lot of. What you've talked about so far
15:49
is pre collegiate. What happened when you actually
15:51
got to college? Those bad habits, that poor body
15:56
image, that disordered eating behavior, like continued and I
15:59
got worse, to be completely honest.
16:01
And again, there was so many like symptoms and so many things
16:04
that were masked because I was still like, OK, air quotes where
16:08
like, I still was playing D1. I still had a very big
16:11
scholarship, right? Like I still, you know, was
16:13
captain of the team. So I, I think a lot of things
16:16
got brushed off. I was injured like all the time.
16:19
But like, it was just because I was a college athlete or like
16:22
because of the position I played, things were brushed off
16:25
because they were not that big of a deal because on the surface
16:28
everything was OK, if that makes sense.
16:30
You've talked on previous episodes because you have shared
16:32
kind of like bits and pieces of your story in the past.
16:35
But there were some like really, really big signs that looking
16:38
back now would probably be like red flags if we had a
16:41
conversation today specifically around like how you were
16:44
feeling, what you were doing from a fueling perspective.
16:47
Do you mind sharing like a couple?
16:48
Of those, yeah, I think one of the biggest things like looking
16:52
back at it was like my obsession psychologically with food and my
16:56
body obviously like energy and things like that.
16:59
But I don't know if I ever could put like a measurable amount or
17:02
it doesn't really like stick out in my brain as like like a huge
17:06
kind of. And again, like I was playing
17:08
soccer in the ACC, like every game was hard.
17:11
Like you're always tired as a college athlete.
17:13
And again, like I had been like that my entire career.
17:15
So I didn't know any different. I do think though, it's always
17:18
really interesting to me. And I haven't played soccer
17:20
since pre Charlie. But like even like 10 years
17:23
later, like I felt like my energy was better, I was
17:25
stronger, like I can make decisions faster and things like
17:28
that. Even though like I wasn't
17:29
playing college soccer anymore, but I just I felt more fresh
17:32
because again, I had been more fueled.
17:33
But I think a lot of things that like stuck out in my brain were
17:37
things that were happening off of the field where like I said
17:40
that like obsession with food or like that restriction or that
17:43
binging or even, you know, not wearing like certain clothes.
17:48
There was this like running kind of like personality trait that I
17:52
had in college and a lot of my teammates like would comment on
17:56
it. And things like that were like,
17:57
I would never wear like a short sleeve shirt or like a tank top
18:01
because I was so like self-conscious and like
18:04
embarrassed about my arms and like being strong or like just
18:08
how I looked. And it was the 100% in my head.
18:11
But like, those things like just really helped me back like off
18:14
of the field. And I know that we focus on
18:16
helping with athletic performance, but like,
18:18
confidence plays a huge role in sport.
18:21
And so does like quality of life, like outside of sport as
18:24
well. It's so sad that like even the
18:26
things that you were wearing were dictated by like the
18:29
underlying situation or like the underlying condition, or however
18:33
we want to say that. Was there a moment at which like
18:35
you realized what you were doing was negatively impacting?
18:38
Your health, not in college, to be completely honest, because
18:41
again, like, because everything on paper was fine.
18:44
It like went under the radar. And I think that's why with our
18:48
programming and with our period recovery program and the work
18:51
that we do with athletes, there's always an emphasis on
18:54
like optimization, right? And like how you can reach your
18:58
ceiling as an athlete and everything can be fine on paper,
19:02
but it's not as good as it could be.
19:04
And I think so many people go for so long in their life being
19:07
like, OK with, like the status quo when they could be so much
19:10
better in and out of sport. And I feel like that is really
19:14
kind of what happened to me where, like, I was held back,
19:17
where like, yeah, everything was fine.
19:18
Like, I was totally one athlete. But like, there was so much
19:21
missed potential there. That makes sense.
19:23
What about post college? What did that look like for you
19:26
knowing that you became a dietitian eventually?
19:28
But how did that play into like becoming a dietitian and during
19:31
that time, So I was actually. Originally going to go to
19:34
medical school, which I do think would have been like, it might
19:36
have just been like a different path in life where I think if I
19:39
had gone to medical school and became a physician, I would
19:41
probably still be doing this work or just be like a different
19:43
area of this work. But I took like a gap year, like
19:47
after senior year, like senior year, I haven't shared this yet,
19:50
but I've shared a couple times before.
19:51
But senior year I tore my ACL, which was like is the big soccer
19:55
injury and I tore my ACL first game of senior year.
19:58
That was a really hard time for me for multiple reasons.
20:00
Just that rehab is challenging, it's difficult.
20:03
And then, you know, working through a lot of disordered
20:05
eating, potentially even an eating.
20:07
Disorder and then, you know, all my friends were graduating like
20:10
there's lots of decisions and lots of things happening senior
20:12
year, but so I decided to take a gap year and I was going to like
20:15
get experience in a lab and a physician's office, something
20:19
like that in preparation for medical school and kind of
20:21
throughout that, you know, journey, applying for jobs,
20:24
things like that. I took the MCAT poof.
20:26
I started being more interested in trying to get like sports
20:29
related positions or sports nutrition related positions and
20:32
I decided that I would rather be working in the nutrition space
20:35
and working with like college athletes or just athletes in
20:38
general. So I decided to kind of pursue
20:41
the dietetics route over medical school at that.
20:43
Time Had your feeling improved or were there still maybe some
20:47
like lingering leftovers from your collegiate experience?
20:50
So many lingering leftovers. Oh my gosh.
20:53
Something that you and I talk about a lot, Jenna, is like, you
20:56
get into nutrition because you either love food or you fear
20:58
food. And I definitely feared food
21:01
during that period of time. And I was learning all about
21:04
nutrition. I was learning about sports
21:06
nutrition. Then there's a dual master's
21:08
program at San Diego State. I had entered that in
21:10
preparation to do like my Dietetic internship and get the
21:13
Rd. credential. I was learning about how to fuel
21:16
athletes, but I no longer saw myself as an athlete because I
21:20
was a retired college athlete. I didn't think that anything
21:23
that I was learning about actually applied to me and that
21:27
I should be doing basically the opposite.
21:29
So I do feel like things got even worse when I was like 22 to
21:33
26 like right before we met because I had not solve my own
21:38
ish first even though I knew with air quotes like how to fuel
21:43
others. OK.
21:43
I want to ask a question about coming into the internship
21:47
because that is when we met. And I want to know about how you
21:50
were feeling about food at that time.
21:52
Because I remember some things at that time that we're going on
21:56
for myself that we had conversations about.
21:59
So I kind of want to touch on that, not to make this
22:01
conversation about me or anything.
22:02
I'm just curious about like how you were feeling from a fueling
22:05
perspective entering that that point in time.
22:07
Like, do you feel like at that point you had fully healed your
22:10
relationship with food? No, I don't think so.
22:12
Like I think it had gotten better, but when you have
22:16
disordered eating or you have a relationship that's negative
22:19
with something for an extended period of time, it's not going
22:23
to be, you know, solved overnight.
22:25
You have to tell me. I'm super curious, Did I chew
22:29
gum during the Dietetic internship?
22:30
OK. Yes, you did up until about like
22:33
halfway through and you were like, I think that the
22:36
artificial sweetener in the gum is maybe causing some gut
22:39
disturbances. But I remember one of the very
22:41
first days we met like Riley, Riley is a little bit of an
22:44
intimidating individual when you first meet her in the best way
22:48
possible because she's so driven and you can like pick up on that
22:51
right away. But we first met when we were in
22:53
like our classroom doing like our onboarding, all of that good
22:55
stuff. But then the second time that we
22:57
were interacting was like when we were meeting our preceptor at
22:59
the hospital, which was already a very intimidating scenario, at
23:03
least it was for me. But they give us like the keys
23:05
to our little office that we're going to be kind of give us some
23:08
like preliminary information and we just kind of start talking
23:10
about like, why did you want to be a dietitian?
23:12
Like typical conversations that Dietetic interns have.
23:14
I feel like, and I remember you said to me, like, my goal is to
23:17
become a sports dietitian. Like, I want to make athletes
23:20
big and strong. And you were like, I know a lot
23:22
of dietitians become dietitians because they fear food.
23:24
But I became a dietitian because I love food.
23:27
And I remember that so well because I have never felt more
23:32
like called out because I became a dietitian because I feared
23:36
food as much as I wanted to be like, Yep, same sister.
23:39
Me too. I love food.
23:40
I love the idea of making athletes big and strong.
23:42
But in the back of my mind, like, I knew I was sitting in
23:45
that hospital still struggling with my own ish at that point in
23:49
time. It's really interesting, I think
23:50
looking back now and the things that we attempted to convince
23:54
ourselves were like, normal and healed and OK with our
23:56
relationship with food, that maybe we were still working
23:59
through some things. Yeah.
24:00
I do think I was definitely at the beginning of my healing
24:02
journey because the worst period of time for me, like when I was
24:05
was when I was in my mouth master's program and that was
24:08
before the Dietetic internship. And I do remember taking steps
24:12
like I used to chew, like honestly, like this is
24:14
disgusting. I cannot believe that my husband
24:16
like is still with me and married to me.
24:18
But like, I would literally chew a pack of gum a day so I didn't
24:20
have to eat, which is like crazy.
24:22
I'm just like, people are like, I'm doing this.
24:24
I'm like, I, I've been there. I know I do think that like
24:28
going through that journey and like I think I was at the
24:30
beginning of that journey during the Dietetic internship because
24:34
I think I started to kind of go back to that idea of like, OK,
24:37
like I loved food before and then I feared food.
24:40
But like now I'm back in it because I love it again.
24:42
I think for a. Lot of people, the actual
24:44
healing kind of starts when you're in your Dietetic
24:46
internship or maybe late in your like learning experience to
24:49
become a dietitian because you kind of start to view things
24:53
like not in a selfish way, but like what have I been doing
24:56
truthfully? Because I think a lot of us
24:58
like, declare a major as a dietitian early on in college
25:01
because we're attempting to still control something.
25:03
Yes, I actually remember she's a different sort of dietitian now
25:06
than we are, but I had a dual bachelor's degree.
25:10
I had nutrition science and then I had human biology because
25:13
again, I was going to medical school and then I was like, I'll
25:15
just also add on nutrition because it has a lot of
25:17
correlating classes and I like food.
25:18
I had a friend from high school who like invited me to go to the
25:22
nutrition club meeting. I just remember sitting in the
25:25
class with her and I was like, wow, that's like so cool.
25:27
She invited me because like I'm a nutrition major and she didn't
25:29
know I was a nutrition major. She just invited me because like
25:32
there was free food and she knew that I liked food.
25:34
I love that. So I do think that he journey
25:37
like it didn't happen overnight. And I also think that we have
25:41
this conversation a lot with other dietitians or other
25:43
Dietetic students because they join our period recovery
25:46
program. And it's just really hard
25:48
sometimes to connect the education and the information
25:51
out there that is for athletes or that is available to
25:54
ourselves because so many people underestimate like how much of
25:57
an athlete they actually are. And that was something that I
25:59
was doing like in that post grad life, I would run 8 miles and be
26:03
like me, I'm not a, I'm not a college athlete anymore.
26:05
So like that was just like a job and it's like girlfriend, you
26:07
ran 8 miles. An interesting thing is that,
26:10
you know, both of us thinking about my clients, but I have a
26:13
lot of clients who are declared nutrition majors hoping to
26:16
become dietitians one day. And a lot of them throughout our
26:18
time working together will say something along the lines of
26:20
like, I'm so embarrassed that I don't have a period and yet I'm
26:24
studying nutrition And I obviously like can't be like I
26:27
have X amount of people or so and so is the same way or
26:30
anything like that. But it's the same for a lot of
26:32
us that a lot of the driving force behind becoming a
26:36
dietitian is having our own struggles with nutrition and
26:39
fueling in general. And that's because, like, we
26:41
often see so many people who are trying to do the right things
26:46
when it comes to fueling their body.
26:47
And because of all the poor nutrition education out there
26:50
and misinformation, it turns into an unhealthy habit because,
26:54
again, people don't realize, like, how much of an athlete
26:56
they are or what it truly looks like to fuel their body because
27:00
of all of the focus on Wellness culture, skinny talk, all of
27:03
that. I don't know all of that noise.
27:05
There is so much out there and it is so common that we see
27:09
people who are just trying to do the right thing that this is
27:11
where they end up. If you had told me, like, those
27:13
beginning years at San Diego State when I was, like, just
27:16
getting into, like, all of my, like, nutrition classes, that I
27:19
would be a dietitian and, you know, 8 to 10 years, that was
27:23
telling people to eat less vegetables, I would have never
27:25
believed you. Yeah.
27:26
I feel that. I want to do that trend.
27:28
It's like super old now, but like that trend where it was
27:31
like, I used to be cool, but now I say things like this because I
27:34
would be like eat less vegetables.
27:36
Did you have cervical mucus today?
27:38
Have you had acne? Like did you eat full fat yogurt
27:41
again? It's very interesting because a
27:43
lot of like what I was trying to do initially, like, you know,
27:46
when I was younger, it was like I was trying to do the right
27:48
thing. Like I was trying to become a
27:49
better athlete. And because of the
27:52
misinformation or like the lack of information that was
27:55
available, it turned out to be something that was actually very
27:58
detrimental to my health. Closing thoughts you want to
28:00
share about your own personal journey period recovery.
28:03
Well, obviously, thank you for listening.
28:05
I hope this helps, Right? I just want everybody to know
28:07
that they're not alone in this journey.
28:09
And I think one of the most beneficial things that you can
28:12
do is to like continue this conversation, right?
28:15
So not even just like this episode, but you know, we always
28:18
talk about like sharing this episode with friends, but like
28:20
sharing and spreading the word about, you know, the importance
28:24
of having a, a menstrual cycle, about having a positive
28:27
relationship with food. That if you're constantly
28:29
thinking about food or always trying to get into a smaller
28:32
body, like there might be something going on where like we
28:35
need to do a little bit of investing to gating into kind of
28:38
like maybe your mental health, your emotional health, maybe
28:41
there might be some disordered eating there.
28:43
Riley. Thank you so much for sharing
28:44
more about like your story and everything that you've been
28:47
through to get you where you are today.
28:48
I know that I'm so thankful that you have shared this and I know
28:52
that a lot of other people are too.
28:53
If you do have questions for Riley about like her own
28:55
personal journey, please leave them in the comments of this
28:57
podcast or you can reach out to her.
28:59
You can find Riley online at Riley dot Beatty dot nutrition.
29:02
You can find me at Jenna dot Fisher dot nutrition.
29:05
Thank you so much for listening to episode of the Eat More Carbs
29:08
podcast. Please make sure you rate,
29:09
subscribe, and review. And as always, remember to eat
29:12
more carbs.