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Exactly What to Do with Uncomfortable Fullness in Period Recovery · Nourished Fertility

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Welcome back y'all to the Nourishing Women Podcast, your go-to podcast to
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get your peer back and get pregnant.
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I'm your host, Victoria Myers, peer recovery specialist, fertility,
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dietician, and owner of the virtual coaching Practice, nourishing
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Minds Nutrition, where we work together to restore your fertility.
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Today we're gonna talk about some questions you have
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been asking me on Instagram.
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In my dms, I've been getting a lot of feedback about dealing with
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uncomfortable fullness and peer recovery.
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When can you listen to your body to listen to your hunger and fullness?
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And even a lot of you who really want to practice intuitive eating,
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I think that's freaking awesome, but like when do you get to do that?
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Maybe for you, you are even using intuitive eating, potentially using
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intuitive eating or your hunger fullness cues in your period recovery.
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And I hope by the end of this episode you're gonna know not to do that.
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And that like right now, is just not the time to focus specifically on body cues.
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So I wanna just start first by saying that the uncomfortable fullness
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in peer recovery is probably one of like the two to three hardest.
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Difficulties and challenges that I hear from my clients time and time again.
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I feel like uncomfortable fullness, gaining weight, and the unknown of it all,
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like when will you get your period back?
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Those are probably the three biggest hurdles for people.
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And when it comes to uncomfortable fullness and pure recovery, this can
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be a really tricky and challenging sensation to deal with because a
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lot of you are trying to heal your relationship with food, and you're like,
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okay, well, you guys are telling me to listen to my body, and that my body has
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all this wisdom and to trust my body.
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Then you're also telling me I have to eat how much, but every time I try
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to eat that much, I'm like so full.
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I can't even stand it.
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Let's talk about it.
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The first thing I want you to know is that your overwhelming
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sensation of fullness does not.
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Does not mean that you were overeating.
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I want to remind you that fullness is a normal and healthy feeling for the body
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to experience, but for you specifically, your overwhelming sensation of fullness
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is a consequence of your body's adaptation to inadequate intake For you specifically.
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If you have a missing period, you either suspect or have been
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diagnosed with hypothermic, amenorrhea, or ha you are not, not
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listening to your hunger right now.
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This is not a sign to stop.
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I know you're like, okay, well what if I'm eating too much?
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What if this is my body trying to tell me this is too much food?
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And I promise you that's just like not true for you.
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If you have a missing period, you are not.
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Overeating.
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You instead have to normalize yourself to the sensation of fullness and
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that eating enough and eating normal portions is healthy because that is not
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something you have been doing, and I have so much compassion for you that.
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You feel like your fullness is a reason to stop eating, but I just
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promise you that is not true.
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In fact, with all of our peer recovery private coaching clients, we do not have
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them listen, like at all to their hunger and fullness cues in the beginning.
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When we're in peer recovery and we have not yet had three consistent cycles,
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which of course is true for like all clients that come to work with us
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initially and throughout most of the time together we're working to get there.
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So for them, with intuitive eating counseling, we focus on the principles
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that are not specific to your body cues.
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Until you have been all in for six months and until you
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have three consistent cycles.
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Once you have had those two things, you've been all in and you have
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gotten three consistent cycles.
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That's the main thing that I look for.
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That is when you can both start to exercise again and start to play around
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with how much exercise your body can handle with still getting a monthly
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period, but also like listening to body cues like hunger and fullness.
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In my opinion, this is really the wellness without obsession
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customization piece, right?
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Like how do we keep your period monthly and play around with things like
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the intuitive eating principles, uh, your exercise, your health habits,
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wellness, all that good stuff, right?
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So, uh, if you were to look at the 10 principles of intuitive
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eating, reject diet mentality.
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Honor your hunger.
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Challenge the food police.
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Make peace with food.
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Discover the satisfaction factor.
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Feel your fullness.
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Uh, cope with emotions, with kindness, body respect, joyful movement,
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and finally, gentle nutrition.
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It's the honor your hunger, feel your fullness and joyful movement.
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Those three of the 10 principles are the ones that we are primarily
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not focusing on until the wellness without obsession, customization.
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Portion of our time with our clients.
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So as you can tell, there's still so much of the intuitive eating framework
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that you can use and so much of these guidelines that become how you eat,
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exercise, and live your life, you absolutely have available to you.
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During your peer recovery journey, so just be excited by that.
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Like there's so much you can focus on, and it's just for you
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that you are not focusing on your body's cue specifically right now.
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What I also want to encourage you to consider as you're dealing with the
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uncomfortable feeling of fullness is that for you, you need to learn how to not
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only get used to eating these amounts.
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Adapting your body to eating this, these amounts again, but also
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learning how to sit in the discomfort.
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And here's why I say this.
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For most people, the fullness causes them to feel physically full in their bodies.
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I actually had a client last night who shared with me that she, just because
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she's eating more and because she feels actually full at mealtimes now,
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although we're like not focused on that, but she's obviously feeling that.
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Uncomfortable fullness, feeling that you are likely feeling right now too.
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So we're talking through that.
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It makes her feel larger in her body.
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It makes her feel physically bigger in her body, which leads to the
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perception of body change or maybe the actual reality of body change too.
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Obviously both can happen in period recovery, which then leads to negative
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body image, thoughts, perceptions, feelings, thoughts and behaviors.
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Are the four aspects that affect body image.
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This is perception and also behaviors.
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Fiddling sauce.
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I mean, they're kind of all influenced by the feeling of fullness in our bodies.
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So because of that and because it affects all four aspects, no
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wonder then that you're having negative body image thoughts.
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So you can not even actually gain weight.
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You could just have that perception that you've gained weight from
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simply feeling full one single time.
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And negative body image thoughts can become pervasive because it's affecting
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how you physically feel in your body.
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With that, I typically use both brain and body-based body
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image tools with my clients.
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You've been told you need to gain weight, stop exercising or do IVF
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to get pregnant with no period.
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What if I told you that's not actually true?
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You're tracking your food, working out, trying everything to be healthy,
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but your period is still missing and now pregnancy, it feels impossible.
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I know exactly how that feels because I've helped hundreds of women get their
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peered back and get pregnant naturally.
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Inside my free training, I'm walking you through the exact five step
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method that's helped women like Lex.
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really causing your missing period.
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Why food freedom is essential for fertility and the customized approach
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that actually works even if you've tried.
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If your dream is to see two pink clients and hold a baby in your arms,
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Click the link in the show notes to watch the free training.
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It's time to restore your period, your fertility, and your hope.
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Now let's get back to today's episode.
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So for example, with this client, we talked about reframing what fullness
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means to her, challenging herself to remember that the feeling of fullness
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will get easier in time as she adapts to it, but also body-based tools.
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So.
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Specifically for this client, we talked about taking really
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hot or really cold showers.
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The difference in temperature can help you to regulate your nervous system.
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You could even hold like, um, ice cubes in your hand.
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We also talked about going outside for a walk and we talked about box
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breathing, which is breathing in for four, holding for four, uh, exhaling
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for four and holding for four.
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Um, so just different like tools of nervous system and regulation, which
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are forms of body image coping that we use to help her adapt to fullness.
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So a lot of times with my clients, with a feeling of fullness, we're
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focused on actually other things.
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Like what I'm sharing with you right now, even wanting ice cubes as a means of
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dealing with this uncomfortable fullness.
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And I say that because I'm gonna guess I'm gonna gander, there's someone listening
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to this episode who's like, okay, well if I'm feeling uncomfortable fullness,
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I obviously need to be eating less, or I need to, um, you know, fix something
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with my digestion or this and that.
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And it's like, no.
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Most of all, it's learning how to sit in the discomfort.
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It's teaching your body to adapt to this amount of food.
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Again, and I will say sometimes, just sometimes there are tools that we will
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use specifically supplementation that will help with the intense feeling of fullness.
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I only use those with clients that I suspect may have some
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amount of gastroparesis.
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So that's muscles weakening in your GI tract or gut motility issues because
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honestly, that can happen quite a bit in disordered eating and eating disorders.
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However.
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That is like a case by case basis and certainly not all clients that need that.
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I actually say that's more the exception than the norm, uh, for the dealing with
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the feelings of fullness for most people, I think it's more just adaptation,
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time, practice, and patience, as well as learning how to sit in the discomfort
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of how that feels in your body and how that may be impacting your body image.
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When it comes to fullness, I also wanna encourage you to focus on what you'll
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gain by getting used to and feeling familiar with a feeling of fullness.
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Ugh, that even right there, like saying that reminds me of how
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unfamiliar, it's not only that it's uncomfortable, it's unfamiliar, right?
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Like so many of my clients have never actually felt the feeling of fullness.
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So yes, you can be uncomfortably full because you're eating more
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and your body has to adapt to that.
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But even for a lot of you guys, you just have literally.
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Never felt fullness.
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So learning how to deal with an unfamiliar sensation, your body can cause even
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more negative thoughts about your body or otherwise, and I just think
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that's even important to recognize.
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It's just unfamiliar and it's much harder to deal with uncomfortable
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sensations when they're unfamiliar.
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So as part of that, again, I want you to focus on what you will gain by learning
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how to cope with a feeling of fullness.
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Remember, you're gonna feel so much more energy.
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I mean, my God, the way you will have more energy.
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You're gonna have less thoughts about food.
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You're no longer gonna be cold all the time.
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You're gonna sleep like a baby.
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You're going to poop so much better.
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I promise.
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All these things, in addition to getting your freaking period back, right?
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Like how cool is that?
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You're gonna get your period back.
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You're gonna restore your health and fertility.
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And you are gonna feel so much better mentally and
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physically, I promise you that.
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So I hope that helps you as you're dealing with the feelings of uncomfortable
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fullness and period recovery.
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Again, I just wanna remind you that when it comes to listening to your body and
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even practicing all 10 of the principles of intuitive eating, you can do that.
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You just don't wanna focus on that specifically during your period recovery.
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You wanna be all in for about six months and more specifically, what
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three consistent cycles before you start listening to hunger and
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fullness and applying all 10 of those principles of intuitive eating.
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With that shared, I want to wrap up today's conversation on the podcast
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with a combo, a like motivational conversation for you about.
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How disruption always follows intention, and what I mean by that is.
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When we are setting a goal for ourselves, for example, getting your period
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back, we have this intention, right, of like, I'm gonna do these things.
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I'm going to eat more.
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I'm gonna pause on exercise in order to get my period back.
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Right?
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That's your intention.
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What I think we don't remind ourselves of enough though, is that
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disruption is always gonna happen.
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Like I said, disruption always follows intention.
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The disruption may mean that you're feeling the uncomfortable
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sensation of fullness.
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It may mean that like you didn't pack enough food for the day, um,
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while you'll be at work and now you don't have enough food to eat.
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It may mean that you really wanna exercise and you're really uncomfortable with the
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fact that you don't get to, and like you actually end up going to go exercise.
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It could be so many other things, of course, uh, like maybe a high stress,
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something, you know, unfortunate happens in your personal life.
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Like all to say disruptions happen all the time.
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They are inevitable along the way.
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And I think if you can remind yourself of that in your peer recovery
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journey, you can remind yourself not to let them become excuses or like
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reasons why you don't follow through.
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Now, I may no longer be in my own period recovery journey, however.
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I'm always on a journey with something.
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'cause that's just like how I do life.
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I love a growth mindset and more specifically, like I'm always working
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on goals with my business, uh, with just like how I do life, right?
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Especially in business though, and reminding myself consistently that
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disruption always follows intention, allows me to see the disruption
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for what it is, is like, oh, you're trying to, you're trying to stop me.
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From reaching my goals and like that simple shift of reminding yourself,
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that simple statement I find for me at least reminds me so easily, like,
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oh, don't let that get in the way.
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Like, don't let that become a thing in your head where you use it as a reason
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to almost self-sabotage and not follow through with your goals and take.
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Actions that are necessary to make that happen.
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So remind yourself of that in your period recovery journey.
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And alongside of that, we've had this conversation about
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compassionately challenging yourself here on the show before.
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I actually have a bonus episode specifically on this, but I just wanna
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like remind you to come back to this idea specifically if disruption is
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following your intentions or if like.
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Just things aren't going as you thought they would, and things
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aren't going as planned because again, that's always gonna happen.
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So what do you do when that happens?
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Or what do you do when like goals are harder than you thought?
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I think that's true of most period Recovery journeys, honestly is
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it seems easy, but in fact it is.
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The exact opposite of that.
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I want you to compassionately challenge yourself.
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What does that mean?
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Most people who struggle with disordered eating and missing
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periods are perfectionists.
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People pleasers, oh my God, am I right there alongside of you guys?
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And you're type A, right?
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That's so cool.
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In so many ways.
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It's allowed you to be so driven and so motivated.
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Ever.
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It also means that you are typically very harsh and critical with yourself.
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So if you don't meet goals, you just give up entirely, or you talk so much
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shit to yourself, um, and just, you know, really berate yourself honestly.
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That's gonna make it really hard to heal your relationship with food,
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with exercise, with your body.
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Part of the many reasons that I love this process of healing and of recovery is that
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it's such a journey of self-discovery to becoming and living the life that you want
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and become the type of person you want.
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And I know for me, I want to be someone who treats myself with so much
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love and kindness and graciousness.
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And when I say that, and all of this is like goal setting stuff, right?
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Like you have to do things.
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That are hard things in order to get your peer back.
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When I talk to people about being compassionate with themselves, they
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see it as like the exact opposite of being critical with themselves.
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So they're like, uh, it's okay that I didn't meet my goals today.
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It's okay that I didn't take action.
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It's okay.
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This and that happened.
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And again, almost allowing it to be become an excuse, like, I'm just
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being kind to myself and I just wanna offer this idea to you today.
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That not only do you need to expect disruption to happen, but you
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need to compassionately challenge yourself to not allow it to stop you.
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When we compassionately challenge ourselves, we are always kind
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loving to ourselves 'cause that is what we do in this world of
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intuitive eating and healing, our relationship with food and bodies.
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But that doesn't mean that we, like, we use that as an excuse or
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we give up on our goals because I think that's how you view it.
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I really do think that's how you view it.
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So when you are compassionately challenging yourself, you're
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saying, Hey, I love you and I see that you're having a hard time.
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You can do this.
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Do not stop just because it's hard.
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Keep going.
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Stop being a perfectionist.
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You can do this.
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Or as our lovely, Glenn and Doyle will tell us all we can do hard things, right.
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That is a wonderful example of compassionately challenging yourself.
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Hey, I see that you're struggling right now, but you can do this, and I just
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wanna remind you that it's so much easier to deal with the disruptions, but
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also compassionately challenge yourself and specifically learn how to do that.
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If you come from a more critical, harsh, like self-talk and narrative.
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With support with private coaching.
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I mean, gosh, do I spend so much time talking to my clients about how they
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talk to themselves because it affects so much of your actions, and I really
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do hope through listening to the podcast, you can so clearly see that.
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That is it for today's podcast episode.
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Thank you so much for listening.
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We'll be back for another episode next week.
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Until next time, love to each of you