Latest / Eat More Carbs | A Period Recovery Podcast / 156. How Busy College Life Lead to Accidental Under-eating and Period Loss

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156. How Busy College Life Lead to Accidental Under-eating and Period Loss · Eat More Carbs | A Period Recovery Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey girlies, just a quick reminder before we dive into.
• 0:02
  Today's episode the. Information shared on this
• 0:04
  podcast is intended to be general sports nutrition advice
• 0:07
  and education related to period recovery for female athletes.
• 0:10
  This is not specific. To anyone individual and it may
• 0:12
  or may not apply to your situation.
• 0:14
  If you are looking for personalized guidance, be sure
• 0:16
  to. Apply to our period.
• 0:17
  Recovery Nutrition Coaching Program Our four month period
• 0:20
  recovery program is designed to help you sustainably.
• 0:22
  Get your period back and keep it.
• 0:24
  You can apply now to get started in our program and we'll leave
• 0:26
  the link for the program below. This is the Eat more Carbs
• 0:28
  podcast. Hello and welcome back.
• 0:36
  This is the More Carbs podcast. We are a team of dietitians and
• 0:39
  we talk every Thursday about sports nutrition for the
• 0:41
  girlies. My name is Jenna and I host
• 0:43
  this. Podcast and my name is Riley.
• 0:45
  You'll also see me on this podcast.
• 0:46
  I am the owner and founder of Steady State Performance
• 0:49
  Nutrition. We specialize in helping female
• 0:51
  athletes recover from low energy availability and together along
• 0:54
  with Lily Reimer, we are team steady state.
• 0:56
  Before we get into today's episode, we are going to do our
• 0:58
  high and low, so sharing just a little bit about our week, the
• 1:01
  good, and the parts we wish had gone a little bit differently.
• 1:03
  Riley, how's your week going? We're OK.
• 1:05
  We're on the up. I shared a couple episodes ago
• 1:07
  that like February was a month and not our in March.
• 1:11
  We're we're staying positive. We're staying positive.
• 1:13
  We're on the up. I will start off with my low
• 1:15
  though. I just said that everything is
• 1:16
  going good, but we we love our highs and lows.
• 1:19
  My low is just potty training. We're going through potty
• 1:22
  training right now and I don't know, just a journey.
• 1:26
  We were at the pediatrician like earlier this week and the
• 1:29
  physician and was like, yeah, so are you guys potty training?
• 1:32
  We're like, yeah, we're. Starting it and she was like, I
• 1:34
  hated that part about being a parent.
• 1:35
  She was like being a parent is magical, but like even the
• 1:38
  doctor was like, it's not. Enjoyable.
• 1:40
  So that instills a lot of faith and confidence, yes.
• 1:43
  Yeah, So I was like, thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 1:46
  It's a journey. We're doing all the things.
• 1:48
  There's all these things that I didn't know about when I became
• 1:51
  a parent. Probably should have done more
• 1:52
  research, but I, you know how I am, I kind of just wing it and
• 1:56
  go for it. Potty training is one of those
• 1:57
  things. So there's lots of different
• 1:59
  like techniques and skills and like ways to bribe your kid into
• 2:03
  like peeing, like we have like potty sprinkles and all these
• 2:06
  things. So it's.
• 2:08
  Sounds a little bit more complex than I was thinking.
• 2:10
  Yep, Yep. Stay tuned for updates on Char
• 2:14
  Char's potty training. All the good.
• 2:15
  Vibes to the baby household. My high is actually like kind of
• 2:19
  like a high by proxy. It's one of my clients and you
• 2:22
  always share client highs. So I'm really excited to share
• 2:25
  one of my girlies today. This is a client.
• 2:29
  She's a podcast and she's going to know.
• 2:31
  Exactly who she is. Because she lessons so shout out
• 2:34
  to her we've been working together for the last couple of
• 2:36
  months and she's one of those girlies that has an irregular
• 2:39
  cycle. So she does have a consistent
• 2:42
  cycle, but with our work together, we.
• 2:45
  Have really focused. On helping her have a normal
• 2:49
  cycle and she's one of the girlies that like did all in and
• 2:53
  it was pretty traumatic for her. So we've been navigating
• 2:56
  incorporating back in exercise, making small sustainable changes
• 3:00
  in incorporating this way of fueling into her life so that
• 3:04
  again, she gets a normal cycle, but then she can continue to do
• 3:07
  the things that she loves and we.
• 3:10
  Talk. All the time about her athlete
• 3:13
  identity, and she's one of these girlies that really
• 3:16
  underestimates her, like athletic potential.
• 3:18
  I know that so many people. Reach out to.
• 3:21
  Both of us asking about does your information apply to us
• 3:25
  because like I'm not an athlete her and I have this conversation
• 3:28
  all the time because again, she really, she just underestimates
• 3:31
  how hard she trains. And again, like her potential,
• 3:33
  she's one of my CrossFit athletes.
• 3:35
  And right now there is a CrossFit open going on and she
• 3:40
  participated in it. She didn't get to do it last
• 3:43
  year because. She was, really.
• 3:44
  Struggling, but this year she's been able to participate in it
• 3:47
  and it's so great that she's involved because CrossFit and
• 3:51
  her boxes, her community. But then what was crazy is on
• 3:56
  the first week she actually got the best score in her box.
• 4:01
  She'd beat. All the other women and all the
• 4:03
  other men and she got top 12% in her region.
• 4:07
  Gosh, I know I'm not like super knowledgeable about the CrossFit
• 4:11
  like community, but I know that. She was super, super.
• 4:15
  Like impressed with herself, if you're like in the top 20% of
• 4:18
  your region, you like move on to the next stage and.
• 4:21
  She was just like. Wanting to finish the like
• 4:24
  workout and then she got like top 12%.
• 4:27
  My gosh. Well, Congrats to her.
• 4:28
  I know who this is. I know who this is.
• 4:30
  So super exciting for her for sure.
• 4:33
  What an accomplishment. Yeah, I'm so excited to like.
• 4:35
  Share her story. A little bit because again, like
• 4:38
  she is somebody that listens and somebody who's tried.
• 4:40
  Really, really hard to get her. Period back.
• 4:42
  I don't know, I just, I'm so proud of her and I'm just.
• 4:45
  Also so happy that. She has like this joy back in
• 4:48
  her life and that joy has translated over to.
• 4:51
  Also. Success and athletic
• 4:53
  performance. I love that you.
• 4:54
  Know you go, girl. How has your week been?
• 4:56
  Week's been good. Can't complain.
• 4:58
  It's another sunny week in Arizona, which no one is
• 5:00
  surprised by that, but always a good week when it's a sunny week
• 5:03
  in Arizona. My high this week, we're
• 5:05
  recording this high and low a little bit earlier than we
• 5:07
  usually would because Riley and Lily, the day that this podcast
• 5:10
  comes out will be with me here in Arizona.
• 5:14
  And I'm just so excited to have the team together, get to be
• 5:16
  together in person. We obviously all work virtually,
• 5:19
  so we don't get the opportunity to be together often.
• 5:21
  So I'm just like, I'm super excited and I'm so thankful for
• 5:24
  the team that I'm on. I'm so thankful for team Steady
• 5:26
  State for both you and Lily. Just excited, so happy.
• 5:30
  Believe it I. Keep forgetting.
• 5:31
  Not like I keep forgetting, I just like, cannot believe it's
• 5:34
  real. I know, I know.
• 5:35
  And we talked about this like this was something that we
• 5:37
  announced that we were going to be able to do back in December.
• 5:40
  And obviously like we're not super far into the year.
• 5:42
  But at the same time, like it felt like such a long time in
• 5:44
  between when we decided that we were going to be able to have a
• 5:47
  company off site and it actually being here.
• 5:50
  What a great week. What a great.
• 5:51
  Week. I was also thinking about this
• 5:52
  this morning because I was like thinking about like planning out
• 5:55
  agenda type stuff. And I was also thinking about
• 5:58
  how you and I and our diet tech internships set a goal and we
• 6:02
  wanted to see each other at least once a year.
• 6:03
  So we've accomplished that. Well, we will have accomplished
• 6:06
  that in 2020. 6 Super proud of us.
• 6:08
  We actually did good last year too because you, your family,
• 6:10
  just happened to be travelling through Arizona, so I saw you
• 6:13
  last year too. Yes, exactly.
• 6:15
  Milo, if you've been following the Eat More Carbs podcast for a
• 6:18
  while or if you just know anything about me, I am
• 6:20
  restarting my hunt for running shoes and I know, OK, I don't
• 6:26
  know if I want to just get another pair of the ones that I
• 6:29
  like. I'm not sure that I love them.
• 6:32
  So I'm like, is it is good enough what I want to be running
• 6:35
  in or is there something better? So I think I'm going to start
• 6:38
  looking at different options. I rotate through a couple
• 6:41
  different pairs of running shoes, but like the main ones
• 6:44
  are the ones that I use probably most frequently for longer runs
• 6:48
  are the ones that are very much so need to be retired.
• 6:50
  Which ones? Do you use?
• 6:52
  I use a couple different of the Nike ones.
• 6:54
  I use the Nike Invincibles and the Nike Pegasus, and then I
• 6:57
  also use the Brooks Hyperion. Is that right?
• 7:00
  I really like those. That's the one that in three.
• 7:03
  Yeah. And I don't know if I should get
• 7:05
  the next ones of the Brooks because that's definitely like
• 7:09
  my favorite one right now. But they need to be retired so
• 7:11
  badly. And I'm unsure if I want to try
• 7:13
  something different. But like they're my favorite
• 7:15
  ones out of the ones that I kind of like consistently run in or
• 7:18
  rotate through. So do I get?
• 7:20
  Do I get them again, or do I try something different?
• 7:22
  Oh, I don't know, this is so hard because it could be like
• 7:24
  such a good payoff. Or it could go so bad.
• 7:27
  Yes. So that's my low is that I am
• 7:29
  back. If you know, you know that.
• 7:31
  Like it takes me 1200 years to decide on a pair of running
• 7:34
  shoes. It will be 2027 and Jenna will
• 7:37
  have decided her new shoes. Yep, Yep, cuz you.
• 7:41
  Wear you wear What is the? Vapor Max for racing?
• 7:45
  Isn't that what it's called? Alpha fly.
• 7:47
  Yeah, something like that something fly, I don't remember
• 7:49
  which one it is specifically. I have had several people
• 7:52
  recommend the Puma super shoe and I'm curious how those are
• 7:56
  good. Yeah, what that would
• 7:57
  potentially be like, but because I do often train like lower
• 8:01
  mileage in Nikes, I don't know if that translates over.
• 8:03
  So TBD. Keep us posted, I'm always so
• 8:06
  interested because I also know that you.
• 8:08
  Really have like blisters so you like are very.
• 8:12
  Very their shoes have to be right.
• 8:13
  Yes, they do. And if they're not right, my
• 8:15
  feet are not cute baseline, but I'm never going to show them
• 8:18
  online. But like blisters, calluses, all
• 8:21
  of those things are a heavy part of my running life.
• 8:24
  So if I can find something that minimizes that, I'm going to do
• 8:27
  it. So that's where I'm at.
• 8:29
  We have a team of dietitians here at Team Study State, Riley
• 8:31
  and myself included, but we also have Lily Reimer.
• 8:34
  Lily is an amazing dietitian that works along with us, who
• 8:37
  works with our athletes and supports everyone.
• 8:39
  So today we have Lily on sharing a story about one of the clients
• 8:43
  that she worked with here at Team Steady State to help her
• 8:45
  get her period back. On today's episode, we are going
• 8:48
  to be doing a case study walking through how one of the athletes
• 8:50
  we worked with got her period back.
• 8:52
  I'm joined today by both Riley and Lily, and today's client is
• 8:55
  a client that Lily worked with for confidentiality purposes.
• 8:58
  Some of the details about this client have been altered.
• 9:01
  Lily, thanks so much for sharing.
• 9:02
  Yeah, I can't wait to share more about this client and the
• 9:05
  amazing work she did to getting her period.
• 9:07
  Back, can you tell us a little bit about like starting out this
• 9:10
  particular client like background, like what's going on
• 9:12
  in her life, who she is? Yeah, so this client is a
• 9:16
  college aged girlie. She is currently in her junior
• 9:20
  year of college and she's just someone who really loves
• 9:24
  activity. She grew up playing sports.
• 9:26
  She really like just loves staying active and also feels
• 9:30
  really connected to the social aspect of exercise.
• 9:33
  And so that was how she was feeling when she came to us for
• 9:38
  help with her period recovery and we were excited to get her
• 9:41
  started where she could sustainably make changes while
• 9:44
  keeping the aspects of exercise that she loved.
• 9:46
  So we heard a. Little bit about her background
• 9:48
  and how she loved activity. What did her fueling look like?
• 9:51
  Was it supporting her active lifestyle?
• 9:53
  When she had kind of started college, she really fell into
• 9:57
  kind of those Wellness trends of like waking up super early,
• 10:02
  which is great for a lot of people.
• 10:03
  It helps you have that morning routine.
• 10:05
  And she also was a student who was studying, so she went to
• 10:09
  sleep pretty late. So we ended up having a really
• 10:12
  long period of time that she was awake during the day and her
• 10:15
  feeling didn't really match that she was only eating three meals
• 10:18
  a day, which is what people normally do, but we were missing
• 10:22
  snacks. We were missing a lot of those
• 10:24
  in between type items. And that eventually was leading
• 10:28
  to her under fueling, especially when we were in times that would
• 10:33
  affect with our appetite. Stress and emotions can play a
• 10:36
  huge role in appetite and what we do from a fueling
• 10:39
  perspective. So I definitely think we'll talk
• 10:41
  more on that later. But you mentioned that she loved
• 10:43
  activity and that was a huge part of who she is.
• 10:46
  Can you share a little bit more about like what her training and
• 10:48
  activity looked like? Was she involved in intramurals?
• 10:50
  Was she training for anything? What did that look like?
• 10:52
  Yeah, so like I said, she really loves the social aspect of
• 10:55
  activity. So it kind of was a lot of like,
• 10:58
  whatever came up is what she did.
• 11:00
  She didn't have what you would say is a favorite type of
• 11:03
  activity, but like if her friends were going on a walk,
• 11:05
  she was going on a walk. If they were going to a workout
• 11:07
  class, she was going to a workout class.
• 11:08
  She grew up an athlete, so she kind of could shift based off of
• 11:12
  what other people were doing and she enjoys activity as a whole.
• 11:15
  So we are looking at some kind of exercise pretty much every
• 11:19
  day, whether it be a walk, a group training class, something
• 11:21
  like that for at least an hour. And then of course you bring in
• 11:24
  that aspect of being on a college campus, you are walking
• 11:28
  a ton. And so she just had a really
• 11:31
  high step up count. She was doing a lot of
• 11:33
  unintentional exercise as well and it just led to her being
• 11:37
  super active all the time. I do think that transition from
• 11:41
  high school to college where you have so many more steps that you
• 11:46
  have to walk even, you know, just walking to the CAF or the
• 11:49
  dining hall, even walking to fuel your body, right, is going
• 11:52
  to expend additional exercise and additional energy.
• 11:55
  So I do think that is a big trap that athletes fall into often.
• 12:01
  Did she mention any history with food?
• 12:05
  Poor body image prior to starting to work with you.
• 12:09
  Yeah, so I had kind of mentioned briefly before where she follows
• 12:13
  a lot of those Wellness trends. That's what was popping up in
• 12:15
  her feed on TikTok, on Instagram and things like that.
• 12:18
  With that comes a lot of food noise because there are a lot of
• 12:21
  people out there who are telling you what is good and bad for
• 12:24
  your body. And so she did struggle with a
• 12:27
  lot of food noise and that ended up leading to some restrictive
• 12:30
  patterns with her food choices. So we're looking at a lot of
• 12:35
  Whole Foods and not really feeling like she should be
• 12:38
  feeling extra for her activity because she didn't feel like
• 12:42
  what you would call an athlete. Like we're having this
• 12:44
  conversation all the time with people about like, what is an
• 12:47
  athlete? How do you define an athlete?
• 12:50
  And all of those types of things as her dietitian and thinking
• 12:53
  about like this kind of base that we had from her being a
• 12:56
  college student, her being a very active college student, all
• 12:58
  of maybe the lifestyle changes or adjustments that she'd made
• 13:01
  in between in high school and college and losing her period.
• 13:04
  What were some of the initial red flags as her dietitian that
• 13:06
  you picked up on from like starting to work with her that
• 13:09
  you knew might need to be addressed?
• 13:11
  Of course, we had a really high activity level, but what's
• 13:14
  similar to a lot of the clients that we see is that she
• 13:18
  genuinely enjoys this activity. And I feel like a lot of girls
• 13:21
  feel like their relationship with exercise is great because
• 13:25
  they don't see it as a punishment.
• 13:27
  But that doesn't mean that you don't have to feel for it
• 13:29
  because you enjoy doing it. And it might be intentional.
• 13:32
  So we saw a lot of mismatch between her energy in and energy
• 13:35
  out. And like I mentioned before, we
• 13:38
  had long periods without fueling with a busy class schedule.
• 13:41
  You're studying, you're out of the house or out of your dorm
• 13:44
  for multiple hours every day. You rarely think about things
• 13:48
  like snacks. Or it might be a couple of hours
• 13:51
  and you're like, oh, I haven't had lunch.
• 13:52
  I'll have lunch late. Things like that where fueling
• 13:55
  is just taking a backseat in your mind because you have so
• 13:59
  many other things going on. It's hard to make it a priority
• 14:02
  when you feel like you have so many other priorities,
• 14:04
  especially if you are, like so many of the people that we work
• 14:07
  with, a driven athlete and also caring about like the social
• 14:10
  side of things and the academic side of things.
• 14:13
  Like all of those things seem very, very important.
• 14:15
  And so incorporating another piece that feels just as
• 14:18
  important or equally as important can sometimes feel a
• 14:20
  little daunting with all of those things that were kind of
• 14:23
  holding her back in terms of adequate fueling.
• 14:25
  When you're looking at that or when you're working with
• 14:27
  somebody, what does that mean from the standpoint of concern?
• 14:31
  Like why is that concerning when we notice these things like
• 14:33
  going long periods of time without fueling, like not making
• 14:36
  fueling a priority, Why is that concerning?
• 14:38
  It's mainly just a lack of structure.
• 14:40
  So if we aren't going to be intentional, which is something
• 14:44
  that we also talk about a whole lot with our fueling, to a
• 14:47
  certain extent, until we get into a routine with it, we're
• 14:51
  not going to be successful because it's so different from
• 14:54
  where she started day one. When she first started with me,
• 14:57
  she wasn't prioritizing her fueling and she didn't know what
• 15:00
  prioritizing her fuel meant. And so when we first started
• 15:04
  working together, the first thing that we did was really
• 15:06
  implementing a structure that she could follow day-to-day
• 15:09
  because that is what allowed her to know what adequate fueling
• 15:13
  actually looked like, even if it felt uncomfortable at first.
• 15:17
  You've mentioned the idea of unintentional under fueling a
• 15:21
  couple of times. Can you define what under
• 15:24
  fueling is like intentionally and unintentionally?
• 15:28
  Because I do think a lot of people out there think that if
• 15:31
  they're not intentionally under fueling, then it's not a
• 15:35
  problem. Yeah, unintentional under
• 15:37
  feeling normally comes from just a lack of knowledge or
• 15:40
  misinformation around what fueling means for a specific
• 15:44
  person. Getting back to social media and
• 15:46
  what we see online, a lot of the times you see people's like what
• 15:49
  I eat in the days or things like that where they're eating very
• 15:52
  minimally and you might see that and think that's what I should
• 15:56
  be doing too. And that's where we see
• 15:59
  misinformation or lack of knowledge on what fueling
• 16:01
  adequately for you as a person looks like versus when we have
• 16:05
  under feeling intentionally, which is where we are
• 16:07
  purposefully restricting ourselves from eating.
• 16:11
  And that can be for a variety of reasons like disordered eating
• 16:15
  habits and things like that. That's the main difference is
• 16:19
  unintentional you just don't know what your body actually
• 16:22
  needs. Whereas intentional, you do
• 16:24
  know, but you're choosing not to follow it.
• 16:26
  I think that's such a good definition of what unintentional
• 16:30
  and intentional under feeling can look like for people.
• 16:32
  Knowing that she had a lot of potential changes that she
• 16:35
  needed to make in order to be adequately fueled, where did you
• 16:37
  start with her? What were some of the first
• 16:39
  changes that you 2 work together and kind of building that
• 16:41
  consistent schedule that you talked?
• 16:43
  About we really focused on like you said, building that
• 16:47
  schedule. So what did that look like
• 16:48
  day-to-day? A lot of times college students
• 16:51
  have a different schedule every single day.
• 16:53
  And like I previously mentioned with her, she likes to be fluid
• 16:57
  in her activity. She doesn't have a set training
• 16:58
  schedule, but she's very active. So we kind of brainstormed all
• 17:02
  of the possibilities that could be happening in her day and then
• 17:05
  also match it to her class schedule.
• 17:07
  So if she's choosing to go to a workout class on a day that she
• 17:10
  also has two classes back-to-back, we make a plan on
• 17:14
  how we can include snacks, how we can bring snacks to campus,
• 17:18
  what classes she can eat in and what classes she can't.
• 17:22
  And really just brainstorming what each day looks like and
• 17:25
  also having a Plan B, because when we're making these changes,
• 17:29
  it's really important that we have a backup plan because
• 17:32
  sometimes the change is uncomfortable and we need to
• 17:34
  make sure that even if we're making uncomfortable changes, we
• 17:38
  are able to do something and slow and steady is going to make
• 17:42
  the best changes. Let's dive into some of these
• 17:44
  changes. Did she find that the changes
• 17:47
  were easy to implement at the beginning or did she feel, you
• 17:51
  know, that they were challenging?
• 17:52
  And what happened after a couple weeks of implementing change?
• 17:55
  At first, I think it was overwhelming, and I think that
• 17:58
  is how a lot of clients and girlies who are starting their
• 18:02
  period recovery journey feel. Just because you can look at all
• 18:05
  the things that you might need to change and it feel like
• 18:09
  you're never going to get there. It feels like you're so far off.
• 18:12
  So we really broke it down to one step at a time.
• 18:15
  We would focus on one snack a day or something like that.
• 18:19
  And honestly, once she started making the small changes, she
• 18:23
  realized how easy it was to keep going.
• 18:25
  It wasn't as hard as she thought it was going to be.
• 18:27
  So she was able to focus a lot more in classes when she ate
• 18:31
  right before, and she was seeing a lot of benefits rather than
• 18:34
  pushing off her meals and not making it a priority and feeling
• 18:37
  like she had to catch up at the end of the day.
• 18:39
  I think that's a really big feeling that helped her a lot
• 18:43
  with her food noise as well is fueling consistently throughout
• 18:47
  the day helped her think less about food.
• 18:49
  It helped her focus and her energy levels, and so it
• 18:51
  motivated her to keep going. That shift between energy or
• 18:55
  even noticing energy that we didn't even know was missing
• 18:58
  beforehand is such a positive reinforcement that so many of
• 19:01
  the athletes that we work with experience when they start to
• 19:04
  change their fueling. I'm really curious about the
• 19:06
  implementation of fueling for spontaneous activity, which it
• 19:10
  sounds like she might have had some of.
• 19:12
  So how did you guys work through that together to make sure that
• 19:14
  if there was something that came up like her friends were all the
• 19:16
  sudden going to a workout class, how did you feel for those
• 19:19
  moments that were maybe a little bit more unplanned or not part
• 19:21
  of her structure? With us building a scheduling,
• 19:24
  kind of brainstorming those ideas, we also built the
• 19:28
  fluidity into that. So of course we can have a
• 19:31
  detailed meal plan of all the times you're going to eat in a
• 19:34
  day and you're going to have your snacks, but life happens.
• 19:36
  And this was very, very true with this athlete with this
• 19:39
  spontaneous kind of habit of exercise.
• 19:41
  And So what that looked like is we kind of set guidelines
• 19:45
  instead of strict timelines. And we had rules of OK, well, if
• 19:50
  you're going to go to a spontaneous workout class,
• 19:52
  you're probably going to book it two or three hours before.
• 19:54
  So you know, an hour before that you need to have a pre workout
• 19:58
  snack. We always planned for her post
• 20:00
  workout fueling. So that way it was.
• 20:01
  Adequately available in her fridge at all times and it also
• 20:05
  was super quick. So we found that quick items
• 20:08
  that she can grab and go were really helpful for this athlete
• 20:11
  just because of her busy schedule.
• 20:12
  If she was squeezing in a workout class in between
• 20:14
  classes, she needed to have that quick turn around.
• 20:17
  So as easy as we can make it is what we did and that's what
• 20:20
  worked really well for her. Easy.
• 20:21
  Works. I always used to joke, like even
• 20:24
  before I had Charlie, if you went into my pantry or you went
• 20:27
  into my fridge, it would look like a kid lived in my house
• 20:29
  because there was all these like easy need to grab and sometimes
• 20:33
  even kids snacks. Because like now, especially as
• 20:35
  a mom, like I'm always looking for quick, easy things to grab.
• 20:38
  Like because we're on the run or you know, Charlie's running
• 20:40
  around the house or something like that.
• 20:42
  And that quick, easy and like accessible snack is such a great
• 20:47
  option. On the topic of some of those
• 20:49
  fun and spontaneous workouts, did she have to modify her
• 20:51
  training schedule at all, or did she have to cut back on her
• 20:54
  training? This is also where we kind of
• 20:56
  explored intentionality with her movement because she had such a
• 21:00
  strong connection to the social respective workouts.
• 21:02
  It wasn't something that we wanted to take away from her.
• 21:05
  Especially in a busy life of a college student, you want to
• 21:09
  have time with your friends that you're able to unplug and step
• 21:12
  away and go on walks and things like that.
• 21:15
  But we had to prioritize recovery.
• 21:17
  Also, it's not a negotiable thing in performance or period
• 21:21
  recovery that we do have some sort of recovery day.
• 21:24
  So we did implement that, but it just looked like us aiming for
• 21:28
  less than 10K steps. It worked best for her on the
• 21:31
  weekends so she was able to do some kind of small walk Saturday
• 21:34
  morning with her friends and it was less than 10K steps and she
• 21:39
  was able to recover for the rest of the day.
• 21:41
  So really making sure that she had some her full recovery days
• 21:44
  in there in addition to keeping the activity that she loved as
• 21:48
  part of her routine. Yes.
• 21:50
  Where is she at in the period recovery process right now?
• 21:52
  So after about 2 1/2 months is when she finally got her period
• 21:57
  back, which we were super excited about.
• 21:59
  It was a little bit irregular at first.
• 22:02
  So what we mean by what we say irregular is that we aren't in
• 22:07
  between the 21 to 35 days of a cycle.
• 22:10
  So she actually got her period back and then got her second
• 22:13
  period in a pretty short period of time.
• 22:16
  And we saw that it was a little bit lighter.
• 22:18
  So what we saw that as a sign of is that she needed to keep going
• 22:21
  and we needed to keep pushing. So we saw our first spot slash
• 22:25
  bleed at 2 1/2 months and then we ended up having a full
• 22:29
  regular cycle right around that four month mark.
• 22:32
  I think that this is such a good thing to bring up because I
• 22:35
  think sometimes people get, again, that like positive
• 22:38
  reinforcement of seeing some type of a bleed and they think,
• 22:40
  OK, what I'm doing right now is enough.
• 22:42
  And that's not always the case. Riley, I feel like you talk a
• 22:44
  lot about this. So if you want to add to that,
• 22:47
  But sometimes we need to keep going.
• 22:49
  Yes, I think that it was somewhat challenging for her to
• 22:53
  keep going because she did kind of feel that positive
• 22:56
  reinforcement of being like, oh, I'm done.
• 22:59
  But then once we saw that period, that second one come
• 23:03
  back, and I believe it was around 1718 days, we saw that,
• 23:07
  yes, we're making progress, but we aren't quite there yet, so we
• 23:11
  needed to keep pushing. So while she got her period back
• 23:14
  and was so excited by that, when the second one came, it was kind
• 23:17
  of a refocus, like we can't step back now, we have to keep
• 23:21
  pushing. And This is why we always
• 23:22
  recommend not to make substantial changes for at least
• 23:26
  three to five normal cycles if you want to make changes.
• 23:29
  I think that's also a big thing too, and that's not written
• 23:31
  necessarily what we're talking about today.
• 23:33
  We talked about that in other episodes, but your cycle and
• 23:36
  your hormones are going to be irregular in the beginning and
• 23:39
  your body has to adjust, especially if you haven't had
• 23:42
  your period for an extended length of time.
• 23:44
  Your body is still adjusting to those hormones.
• 23:47
  And if you make too many changes because you think you're in the
• 23:49
  clear because you have had a couple days of a light bleed,
• 23:52
  you're going to lose your period again.
• 23:53
  A. 100%. So kind of just to wrap things
• 23:56
  up, what do you think really helped her get her cycle back or
• 23:59
  was there a specific turning point for her in the recovery
• 24:02
  process, something that I. Always get asked about.
• 24:05
  On my stories or in my DMS and I know that both of you all are
• 24:08
  getting this question as well as people.
• 24:10
  Are like what's the? Top tip for a period recovery or
• 24:13
  like what's the one thing that I need to be doing?
• 24:16
  Did she have singular thing that she did that changed everything
• 24:19
  or is there multiple things that you feel like helped her get her
• 24:22
  period? Back, this is hard because I
• 24:23
  feel like all of us would love to say that there's one thing
• 24:26
  that you can do to get your period back, but this athlete's
• 24:30
  a perfect example of that. It's it's all the small things
• 24:32
  working up together. It wasn't one specific change
• 24:36
  that she made that I wish I could broadcast from the
• 24:39
  rooftops that will help you get your period back.
• 24:41
  It really was focusing on her day-to-day and taking it one
• 24:45
  thing at a time and adding in where we can add in and when
• 24:49
  we're busy and we have a lot of outside stress and things like
• 24:52
  that. It is really important to make
• 24:55
  sustainable small changes that continue to add up overtime.
• 24:58
  I'm really glad you brought up the small sustainable changes
• 25:01
  and that being is something that adds up over time because we
• 25:04
  talk a lot about small sustainable changes and that
• 25:06
  being something that can lead to a period coming back.
• 25:09
  And those things that we do, we have to continue to build on
• 25:12
  those small sustainable changes. So that way we have the
• 25:14
  consistency within them and also building upon them to get a
• 25:18
  period back. What advice would you have for
• 25:21
  maybe someone who's in a similar situation as a college student
• 25:24
  with a stressful academic life and also having a very active
• 25:28
  schedule with training? I would just try and sit down as
• 25:32
  often as you can when your schedule's changing and really
• 25:36
  plan out as much as you can. And anytime you can't plan, have
• 25:40
  a Plan B. You really have to focus on
• 25:43
  certain things like fueling around training, making sure
• 25:46
  we're eating on a consistent basis, and also making sure that
• 25:50
  we're taking care of ourselves with recovery.
• 25:52
  So even when we enjoy activity as much as this athlete did, we
• 25:57
  still have to take care of ourselves.
• 25:58
  And that also includes stress management.
• 26:00
  So with school you have have to take care of yourself too,
• 26:03
  especially when we're in times of finals and things like that.
• 26:06
  And so it's looking at yourself as a whole person and really
• 26:10
  making a plan that works for you.
• 26:11
  And making sure you're eating three meals a day and having
• 26:14
  snacks too is a big stepping stone.
• 26:17
  Lily, thank you so much for sharing about your particular
• 26:20
  client and all of the hard work that she did in order to get her
• 26:22
  period back. Congrats to her on getting her
• 26:25
  period back and Congrats to you on helping her get there.
• 26:27
  If you do have questions for Riley, Lily or myself, you can
• 26:30
  always leave them in the comments of this podcast or you
• 26:33
  can reach out to us online. You can find Riley at Riley dot
• 26:36
  Beatty dot nutrition. You can find Lily at Lily dot
• 26:38
  reimer dot nutrition and you can find me at Gemma dot Fisher dot
• 26:41
  nutrition. Thank you so much for listening
• 26:43
  to this episode of the Eat More Carbs podcast.
• 26:45
  Please make sure you rate, subscribe and review.
• 26:48
  And as always, remembered to eat more carbs.