Latest / Eat More Carbs | A Period Recovery Podcast / 167. Do You Have to Weight Restore to Get Your Period Back?

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167. Do You Have to Weight Restore to Get Your Period Back? · 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 or may not
• 0:13
  apply to your situation. If you are looking for
• 0:15
  personalized guidance, be sure to apply to our period recovery
• 0:18
  nutrition coaching program. Our four month period recovery
• 0:20
  program is designed to help you sustainably get your period back
• 0:23
  and keep it. You can apply now to get started
• 0:25
  in our program and we'll leave the link for the program below.
• 0:27
  This is the Eat more Carbs podcast.
• 0:34
  Hello and welcome back. This is the More Carbs podcast.
• 0:37
  We are a team of dietitians and we talk every Thursday about
• 0:40
  sports nutrition for the girlies.
• 0:42
  My name is Jenna and I host this podcast.
• 0:44
  And my name is Riley. You'll also see me on this
• 0:46
  podcast. I am the owner and founder of
• 0:48
  Steady State Performance Nutrition.
• 0:50
  We. Specialize in helping female
• 0:51
  athletes recover from low energy availability and together along
• 0:54
  with Lily Rhymer, we are team steady state before we get into.
• 0:57
  Today's episode we are going to do our high and low, so sharing
• 0:59
  just a a little bit about our week, the good and the parts we
• 1:01
  should have gone a little bit differently.
• 1:03
  As always. Riley, can you kick us off?
• 1:04
  Yes, hello. I'm so glad that you all are
• 1:07
  back and joining us for another episode.
• 1:09
  I'm going to start with my high for today.
• 1:11
  It has to do with our recent trip to the mountains for
• 1:13
  Memorial Day weekend, which if you are new to the podcast, I
• 1:17
  don't know how much I've talked about it, but I love the
• 1:19
  mountains. I used to think I was a beach
• 1:20
  person, but now I'm definitely like mountain gal.
• 1:22
  So I'd love the mountains. We have found this place that we
• 1:25
  really like. It's called Black Mountain, and
• 1:27
  I've been sharing a little bit about it on social and a couple
• 1:29
  of you all all reached out and said that you like you liked it
• 1:31
  as well. But I think I'm super partial to
• 1:34
  Black Mountain because they have a goat farm there.
• 1:37
  This is the silliest tie ever. They have a goat farm there.
• 1:40
  They make the best goat cheese. It is.
• 1:43
  Oh, ridiculous. OK, that is not where I saw this
• 1:46
  high going. I know it is the craziest thing.
• 1:48
  I didn't think I liked goat cheese.
• 1:50
  But we last year we went to Black Mountain for the first
• 1:52
  time and we did this like goat tour on a farm and we got to
• 1:55
  sample all the goat cheese that they made there.
• 1:58
  And it's like crazy flavours. It's like a cranberry, blueberry
• 2:02
  nut goat cheese. It's like all these fancy
• 2:05
  flavours. And every time I go to Black
• 2:07
  Mountain, I buy like $100.00 of goat cheese.
• 2:10
  I'm gonna keep it in my freezer. And I was so excited to go back
• 2:13
  so I could get my like haul of goat cheese.
• 2:15
  And it's, it's such a ridiculous high.
• 2:17
  But the goat cheese is so good. Like I love it, Rob's love it,
• 2:21
  Charlie loves it. And it like lasts us for a
• 2:23
  couple of months because you freeze it and then you just like
• 2:25
  have a new flavour every month. Do you have a?
• 2:27
  Favorite flavour? I don't know, like it's just.
• 2:29
  Like you can't. It's it's all about.
• 2:30
  I can't pick yeah. It's so fun.
• 2:32
  I was like just like expecting regular cheese, but like it's
• 2:35
  fancy cheese, like different options for you to pick from.
• 2:37
  So it's not like you're just doing the same thing over and
• 2:39
  over again. Yeah, like we're doing like a
• 2:40
  campfire jalapeno right now. And like, I didn't even think I
• 2:43
  liked goat cheese, but I don't know, it just it's such a great
• 2:45
  fat source, has a great protein in it.
• 2:48
  And I just, you know, I'm not like a big foodie, but man, I
• 2:51
  love this goat cheese. I am so excited for you.
• 2:53
  I am also very excited for me, so if ever in Black Mountain,
• 2:56
  you have to go to, I think it's called like Round Mountain
• 2:59
  Creamery. It's again, it's the silliest
• 3:01
  high, but always a reminder to me that like feeling is supposed
• 3:04
  to be fun and you're supposed to do it with things that you
• 3:06
  enjoy. I love that.
• 3:07
  My low is also a little ridiculous, but I don't know if
• 3:11
  you knew John had that. I have a forerunner.
• 3:13
  Yes, like in between when we were working together in Las
• 3:16
  Vegas and now, correct? Yes.
• 3:18
  OK. And we sold it last week and I'm
• 3:20
  very upset. I'm so sorry that's.
• 3:22
  OK, we like traded it in for a new car, but I just like loved
• 3:26
  the Forerunner so much and I didn't drive it anymore because
• 3:29
  now I'm driving like another car and it made sense.
• 3:31
  But I don't know, it's just sometimes like, I don't know, I
• 3:33
  get emotional when I like say goodbye to cars because there's
• 3:36
  like so many memories on them. So that's another silly low.
• 3:39
  I'm kind of bummed to that my Forerunner is gone.
• 3:40
  I know I totally get that. Like it's something that you tie
• 3:43
  a lot of, like life. Events to like.
• 3:45
  If that was the car that you had when you brought Charlie home or
• 3:48
  when you guys moved from California out to the East
• 3:50
  Coast, like all of that stuff is kind of tied to those things.
• 3:53
  I probably like saying all the things that you're like, yeah,
• 3:55
  exactly why I was sad. What did you get to replace it?
• 3:58
  You don't have to share. You.
• 3:59
  Can't do with this. Rob's got a.
• 4:01
  Truck. No he didn't.
• 4:02
  Yes, he did. So now we have a truck.
• 4:04
  I love that for you guys. The first thing we did is we
• 4:07
  just drove it to Home Depot. I just love this for us.
• 4:09
  This actually ties perfectly into my high and low because I
• 4:12
  played also about like home ownership.
• 4:14
  It's not like no Nolan and didn't go out and buy a new car.
• 4:17
  Love him, but he thinks he's going to do like 1200 house
• 4:19
  projects and I'm like, I don't even know where to start with
• 4:21
  these 1200 house projects, but it is entering summer in
• 4:25
  Phoenix. Things are hot.
• 4:27
  Things are very dry here. I know that's like shocking
• 4:29
  because I live in the desert, but something that happens this
• 4:31
  time of year is that you have to be very diligent about like
• 4:33
  watering plants, watering trees, watering your grass.
• 4:36
  Otherwise it dies. We have some fruit trees and.
• 4:39
  Those require like a. Ton of water.
• 4:42
  One of them gets water through irrigation, which is great, but
• 4:45
  a couple of the other ones don't.
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  So I have to go and like hand water them, which means that if
• 4:50
  I don't remember early in the morning, I am doing it late at
• 4:53
  night when it's just hotter than I'll get out to like go out
• 4:55
  there and just water plants like it's not something you want to
• 4:57
  do. So it's kind of my low tied with
• 4:59
  the fact that because I'm not doing as a diligent of a job,
• 5:02
  our grass is dying and bringing back grass that has died here is
• 5:06
  not an easy thing to do. But where our grass has died, I
• 5:10
  was like, that's a sprinkler head.
• 5:11
  And I was like, not a sprinkler head that I'm aware of.
• 5:14
  That's on our normal sprinkler system.
• 5:16
  This is my high. We found a whole set of
• 5:18
  sprinklers that is on a different system that waters
• 5:22
  some of our fruit trees and we had no idea.
• 5:25
  We've lived here for a year, but I never would have known because
• 5:27
  you can't see them in the grass and they're not on the regular
• 5:30
  sprinkler system. So we found those yesterday and
• 5:32
  now I have a way easier time watering part of my lawn.
• 5:35
  I guess it's not even like a lawn, it's my trees than before.
• 5:39
  So just the things that I didn't know about my house that I've
• 5:41
  lived in for over a year now. What a lovely surprise.
• 5:45
  Right. Yeah.
• 5:46
  So now I don't have to hand water that one.
• 5:47
  Just nice. Hey, you got to take what you
• 5:49
  can get, especially in that Phoenix heat.
• 5:51
  It's already hot. It's.
• 5:52
  Right now it's 8:30 in the morning and we're looking at
• 5:55
  80°, so it's only going to get hotter.
• 5:57
  Vegas flashbacks. I know it's somehow better
• 6:00
  though. It is better mate, I don't know
• 6:02
  why. I think, you know, we could go
• 6:03
  on and on about maybe why, but it's all speculation and
• 6:06
  personal opinion. Could be time of our lives.
• 6:08
  Yes it is. We look back with such good
• 6:11
  memories, but man, it sucked at the time.
• 6:13
  We just aren't now. We're trauma bonded.
• 6:15
  We're OK. Yeah, we're OK.
• 6:16
  We're OK, and today we have a great episode for you all to
• 6:19
  listen to, so we hope you enjoy. On today's episode, we are
• 6:21
  talking about weight restoration during the period recovery
• 6:24
  journey. I am joined by both Riley and
• 6:26
  Lily to talk about today's topic.
• 6:28
  Before we get into some of the questions about HA recovery and
• 6:31
  weight restoration, Lily, do you mind defining some of the common
• 6:34
  terms that we use on this podcast for the first one being?
• 6:36
  HA, yeah. So HA is hypothalamic amenorrhea
• 6:39
  and HA is defined as missing a menstrual cycle for three or
• 6:45
  more months. This is due to a down regulation
• 6:48
  of our hypothalamus, which produces a lot of our hormones
• 6:51
  and also plays a large role in our reproductive health.
• 6:53
  What about L EA? Yeah.
• 6:54
  So L EA is low energy availability and it actually is
• 6:58
  one of the most common causes of HA.
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  And to put it simply, L EA is our energy in which is our food
• 7:06
  that we take in throughout the day is less than what our energy
• 7:09
  out is. Our energy out of course is
• 7:11
  coming from training, but it also includes what it takes to
• 7:15
  breathing just go about our daily lives.
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  So a lot more can go into our energy out than just training
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  and having an energy deficit or low energy availability can be a
• 7:26
  cause for H. A.
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  The last one I want to talk through is red.
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  Sometimes Reds and Lea can get a little bit confusing or maybe
• 7:33
  even feel really similar. So what is Reds and what is
• 7:36
  maybe the difference between Reds and Lea?
• 7:38
  Yeah. So Reds is relative energy
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  deficiency in sport. This was formerly known as the
• 7:43
  female athlete triad, but it's been expanded because males can
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  also have Reds too. And Reds is of course an energy
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  deficit. Reds can be interchangeably used
• 7:54
  sometimes with Lea because we see energy deficiency and we see
• 7:58
  low energy availability and we think they're the same thing.
• 8:00
  However, when we're talking about Reds, Reds is a medical
• 8:04
  condition that we see all of the results of what an energy
• 8:07
  deficiency can do in the body. And it puts an label on the
• 8:11
  things that are happening in our cardiovascular system, on our
• 8:14
  bones, on our menstrual cycles, things like that.
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  And a big difference between Reds and HA is you can have Reds
• 8:20
  without having HA. So relative energy deficiency
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  and sport can be happening to anyone who has L EA and we're
• 8:27
  seeing other effects of it. I'm glad that you brought up
• 8:29
  that Reds is a precursor perhaps to HA, but that doesn't mean
• 8:34
  that all athletes with Reds also have HA.
• 8:37
  So something that we talk about a lot on this podcast, but for
• 8:40
  the specific purpose of today's episode, we are talking about
• 8:43
  HA. So hypothalamic amenorrhea and
• 8:46
  getting your period back, actually going through the
• 8:48
  restoration piece of recovering your cycle.
• 8:51
  We get a lot of questions about weight restoration and that
• 8:53
  being a piece of that period recovery journey.
• 8:56
  And this can be really, really intimidating for a lot of
• 8:59
  athletes. So we want to talk about it.
• 9:00
  The first question that we get is what does weight restoration
• 9:04
  actually mean? I think that people hear that
• 9:06
  and they just want like a clearer understanding of what is
• 9:09
  weight restoration, what does that entail?
• 9:11
  What does that look like? Before I define this, I want
• 9:13
  everybody who's listening to like take a deep breath because
• 9:16
  I feel like you all are stressed right now about the weight
• 9:19
  restoration piece and you might be really stressed out listening
• 9:21
  to this episode. So everybody take a deep breath
• 9:23
  like it's going to be OK. Weight restoration definitely
• 9:26
  means different things to different people and as a
• 9:29
  practitioner, when I think weight restored, I'm following
• 9:32
  the Endocrine Society's guidelines for weight
• 9:35
  restoration and that says you should be within 5 to 10% of the
• 9:39
  weight that you last had your period at.
• 9:41
  And I use that as a starting point.
• 9:44
  I don't know what y'all use, but I use that as a starting point
• 9:47
  because that might be enough. That might not be enough.
• 9:51
  For example, if you are a 30 year old athlete right now and
• 9:55
  your last period was when you were 15, you're probably going
• 9:58
  to be at a different weight than when you were 15, and you're
• 10:02
  going to need to be at a different weight to menstruate
• 10:04
  properly again. I'm really glad you brought this
• 10:07
  up. And this definitely plays into
• 10:08
  some of the other questions that we're going to be talking
• 10:10
  through a little bit later on about how much weight we
• 10:14
  actually need to restore in order to get our cycle back.
• 10:16
  And I think it's really important to emphasize that
• 10:18
  weight restoration is very individualized to the person.
• 10:21
  And even though you may be close to the weight that you were at,
• 10:24
  but your previous cycle, that may not be what your body needs
• 10:27
  now. Just like Riley mentioned, if
• 10:29
  there's been a long period of time or just maybe there's been
• 10:31
  a lot of changes, maybe there's a lot more going on that we
• 10:34
  might just be having different needs now than we did when we
• 10:37
  last cycled. Is there a specific amount of
• 10:40
  weight that is required from a like baseline starting point to
• 10:44
  actually recover a period is our next question.
• 10:46
  I wish there was a magic answer and I could tell you exactly how
• 10:50
  many pounds every single person needs to gain.
• 10:53
  And I know that people listening probably clicked on this episode
• 10:57
  hoping that this question was going to be answered.
• 10:59
  Where you got a straight answer, but it really is individual.
• 11:03
  I think Riley brought up a really good example of that
• 11:06
  where if we're having really long periods of time that you
• 11:08
  aren't having a cycle. You've gone through so much life
• 11:11
  in her examples, 15 years of not having a cycle that we don't
• 11:16
  know what weight you need to be at to get your cycle back.
• 11:19
  If you are at a low BMI or you have lost a significant amount
• 11:24
  of weight even in a normal BMI and you have to gain back, we
• 11:28
  don't necessarily know what the trajectory of that will be in
• 11:31
  order for you to get your cycle back.
• 11:33
  I wish I had a better answer, but it also shouldn't be serving
• 11:36
  as a barrier. And that's also when sometimes a
• 11:39
  number is a really hard thing for people to be aiming for is
• 11:43
  because what happens if you hit that number and you don't have
• 11:45
  your cycle back? So weight can be very tricky
• 11:48
  sometimes in period recovery because we don't want you to be
• 11:52
  setting a ceiling for yourself and then getting disappointed if
• 11:55
  that's not where you need to be. I think that's what is so
• 11:58
  intimidating about weight restoration is because you don't
• 12:03
  know. You don't know if it's going to
• 12:05
  be 3 lbs or 30 lbs. And a lot of the time when you
• 12:09
  have been in the HA recovery process for an extended period,
• 12:12
  you think maybe not worst case scenario because weight gain
• 12:15
  isn't bad. But you think, Oh my gosh, I'm
• 12:18
  going to have to gain weight and I'm going to overshoot and it's
• 12:21
  going to be horrible and I'm not going to be able to compete in
• 12:23
  sports and it's all not worth it.
• 12:25
  And that can make it really frustrating and also really
• 12:30
  overwhelming. I think that unknown piece
• 12:31
  creates so much fear for so many people because we really don't
• 12:35
  know the amount that needs to be weight restored in order to
• 12:38
  recover a cycle. One of the things that kind of
• 12:40
  goes along with that that we get asked a lot about is muscle
• 12:44
  mass. Can weight restoration and
• 12:47
  getting a period back be achieved by increasing muscle
• 12:50
  mass? Yes, maybe, but not really.
• 12:53
  When you're gaining tissue, there's likely going to be some
• 12:56
  muscle mass that happens with the change in weight.
• 13:00
  But if you're only focused on gaining muscle mass to hit an
• 13:03
  arbitrary number, you're not going to get your period back.
• 13:06
  Yes. And I think that they're also on
• 13:08
  the other side of that is when people think of them having to
• 13:11
  gain weight, prepared recovery, they assume every single pound
• 13:14
  is just fat. We see that in our clients when
• 13:16
  they start gaining weight, they start freaking out and being
• 13:19
  like, all I'm doing is gaining fat.
• 13:21
  It's all in certain parts of my body.
• 13:23
  Like that's all that it is. But realistically, there's so
• 13:26
  many factors to weight, like water, of course, muscle mass,
• 13:30
  even if it's had a smaller amount, you still are having
• 13:32
  some changes there. And also just food.
• 13:34
  We have so many things that attribute to our weight that
• 13:37
  yes, it can be muscle mass. It's not going to be all muscle
• 13:40
  mass, but it's also not going to be all fat either.
• 13:42
  Lily, I'm glad you brought up the piece of there can be
• 13:44
  changes on the scale that aren't necessarily reflective of true
• 13:48
  adipose tissue gain. Riley, I'm really glad that you
• 13:50
  brought up that if your goal for weight restoration is to only
• 13:53
  increase muscle mass, that's almost impossible to do because
• 13:56
  of all the things that Lily just mentioned about how your body is
• 13:58
  going to be interacting with more fuel.
• 14:00
  But doesn't mean that as an athlete, if you continue to
• 14:03
  train through your period recovery journey and you start
• 14:06
  to fuel adequately, that your body won't be able to complete
• 14:09
  the process of muscle protein synthesis and maybe accumulate
• 14:12
  more muscle mass in the process of getting your period back.
• 14:15
  That's I think maybe one of the contributing reasons, and I
• 14:17
  don't know if this is true or not of like why we do see some
• 14:20
  performance benefit with adequate fueling is that we
• 14:22
  might be increasing our muscle mass.
• 14:24
  You might be actually getting stronger.
• 14:25
  So it's not impossible to put on muscle mass during the period
• 14:29
  recovery process, but it shouldn't be the only thing that
• 14:31
  we are attempting to do when we also need to weight restore.
• 14:34
  I agree with you and it goes back to what we always talk
• 14:37
  about on this podcast is the why.
• 14:39
  So if your goal during period recovery is to gain muscle mass
• 14:43
  because that's the only thing you want to gain, that's going
• 14:46
  to be really challenging. But you are going to see an
• 14:49
  increase in muscle protein synthesis.
• 14:51
  Your body's in starvation right now.
• 14:52
  It's not going to build additional tissue if it can't
• 14:55
  support the current tissue that's already on your body.
• 14:58
  So yes, you are going to see an increase in muscle mass when you
• 15:01
  go into a more positive energy balance.
• 15:03
  It's like your body is going to be able to maybe restore tissue
• 15:07
  or bone that maybe it wasn't doing beforehand.
• 15:11
  Question. We asked a lot.
• 15:12
  I don't know. I feel like I get this question
• 15:14
  frequently. I don't know about y'all, but
• 15:16
  can you avoid weight restoration in period recovery?
• 15:20
  No, if you've lost weight to lose your period.
• 15:23
  If you had your cycle at a certain weight and then lost a
• 15:27
  significant amount of weight in a very fast period of time, you
• 15:31
  aren't magically going to get your cycle back by not changing
• 15:34
  anything at that lower weight. We don't know exactly what will
• 15:37
  happen when you start implementing changes, but it
• 15:40
  shouldn't be something one that's stopping you and it also
• 15:43
  shouldn't be something that you are afraid of when entering this
• 15:47
  journey. If you're worried about gaining
• 15:49
  weight, you're not focused on getting your period like that's
• 15:53
  not your priority. Riley, that's always my biggest
• 15:55
  concern when I see this question or when we get a question along
• 15:58
  these lines about how do I avoid it, Can it be avoided and things
• 16:01
  like that. Is that maybe we aren't ready or
• 16:04
  maybe we aren't truly taking the necessary steps in order to
• 16:07
  actually recover a period if we're going to be constantly
• 16:10
  maybe subconsciously still restricting in order to avoid
• 16:13
  any type of weight restoration, I do think.
• 16:16
  That when you continue to train and you work on nutrient timing
• 16:21
  and you're focused on making your body optimized and
• 16:24
  efficient, you will likely see less body changes than if you
• 16:28
  stop training completely and completely change your diet.
• 16:33
  I think that often can bring on weight and body changes very
• 16:38
  fast, even if they're needed, right?
• 16:40
  If your body is responding to something and doing something,
• 16:43
  it's often needed. But I do think sometimes with a
• 16:46
  gradual increase and continuing to train and optimization of the
• 16:50
  body versus like I'm going to completely change everything I'm
• 16:52
  doing, the changes will be less all at one time and they're more
• 16:56
  manageable. I totally agree rightly, and I
• 16:59
  think that it all goes back to the why, of course, like why are
• 17:04
  we on this journey? Why are we including training?
• 17:07
  Of course, if we're doing it in a way to avoid weight
• 17:10
  restoration, then that's not good.
• 17:11
  But it also is a great way to focus yourself on nutrient
• 17:15
  timing, on optimizing your health and your fueling in a way
• 17:19
  that isn't just focused on period recovery.
• 17:22
  Training in general can be a great way to help athletes that
• 17:25
  are working through the period recovery process, almost like
• 17:27
  work through or focus on a different goal when it comes to
• 17:30
  period recovery, like nutrient timing and optimizing
• 17:33
  performance and seeing those benefits and then getting the
• 17:36
  benefit of getting their period back along with it, which is why
• 17:38
  we're so passionate about keeping athletes moving during
• 17:41
  the period recovery process. But just like Lilly said, if
• 17:44
  your goal with training is to reduce or minimize or not have
• 17:49
  any weight restoration as part of your period recovery journey,
• 17:52
  then we aren't training for the right reasons.
• 17:55
  Bradley, you kind of answered this next question already.
• 17:57
  This question is, is it better to?
• 18:00
  Have. All of your weight restoration
• 18:02
  as fast as possible or slowly? Does that change how much weight
• 18:06
  restoration is actually needed? Is really dependent on the
• 18:09
  individual and you have to decide what is best for your
• 18:13
  journey because some athletes are like I want to get my period
• 18:17
  back as soon as possible or I'm TTC.
• 18:19
  My main goal in getting my period back is to get pregnant
• 18:22
  as fast as possible. And to be completely honest with
• 18:24
  you, if that's your goal, you probably want to look at
• 18:26
  minimizing exercise, and you're going to see a faster weight
• 18:29
  restoration because of that. But that's what your body needs
• 18:31
  to feel safe and to allow potential pregnancy.
• 18:34
  I think that of course it is individual to everyone.
• 18:37
  It doesn't change how much weight you have to gain though,
• 18:40
  because whether you do it over three months or you do it in
• 18:44
  three weeks, that number that your body needs to be at in
• 18:48
  order to feel safe. Even in our like non TTC
• 18:52
  individuals, everyone is what you need to get at in order for
• 18:55
  you to have a cycle and to keep it.
• 18:57
  It's just a matter of what's more sustainable.
• 18:59
  For you, I think that sustainability piece is a big
• 19:02
  part of period recovery. Like we focus on making small
• 19:05
  sustainable changes because we don't want any of the athletes
• 19:08
  or the individuals that we work with to get their period back
• 19:11
  and then revert back to old symptoms and then lose the
• 19:14
  period again. We want you to keep up with
• 19:16
  these changes so that way you can keep your period.
• 19:19
  There's so much information on the Internet about like, how do
• 19:22
  you get your period back, but nobody's talking about how you
• 19:26
  keep it. And we have a couple episodes on
• 19:28
  that, but I think that is a really important factor into
• 19:32
  deciding which Ave. is right for you.
• 19:34
  Yes, because there are different avenues and there are different
• 19:37
  ways to work through period recovery.
• 19:39
  We've talked. A lot about them, obviously we
• 19:41
  talk about training and period recovery, but that doesn't mean
• 19:43
  that that's the only way that you can go about getting your
• 19:46
  period. But in order to keep it, we want
• 19:48
  to teach you how to fuel for the activity that you currently do.
• 19:51
  So that way, once your period does come back, you don't lose
• 19:53
  it because all of a sudden you start adding in training again.
• 19:56
  This next question that we have from a listener kind of goes
• 19:58
  back to some of the other. Questions that we've already had
• 20:01
  today, but I am at the weight that I previously had my cycle
• 20:04
  and I still don't have my period.
• 20:06
  It goes back to what both Riley and I have already said of that.
• 20:11
  It's kind of a baseline is what we the approach that we take
• 20:14
  with our athletes. Yes, it's great and
• 20:16
  congratulations for getting back to that weight that you were at.
• 20:20
  But it's just a sign that you need to keep pushing because if
• 20:22
  you had your cycle, even to you could have had your cycle a year
• 20:26
  ago. Your life and what your body
• 20:29
  needs change and so you just have to keep pushing.
• 20:32
  Add to that too, the more you're up and down with period
• 20:35
  recovery, I do think that changes the weight.
• 20:38
  So if this is your first time with HA or trying to overcome
• 20:42
  your energy deficit, I do think that can affect or change the
• 20:46
  weight that you have to gain or be at versus like if this is
• 20:49
  your fifth time doing this. Yes.
• 20:52
  And I also think that if you are at the same weight and you're
• 20:55
  worried about it, I would also really focus on nutrient timing
• 20:58
  because just because you're eating enough and you're at the
• 21:00
  weight you need to be at doesn't mean that you're fueling
• 21:02
  properly for your day. Well, we I'm so glad you brought
• 21:04
  that up because under fueling has so many different looks And
• 21:08
  I think that we often associate under fueling with only having
• 21:11
  one specific look. But there can be so many ways
• 21:14
  that athletes are actually under fueling.
• 21:16
  And I know that we talk about that on other episodes and we
• 21:18
  are planning on talking about that in an upcoming episode
• 21:21
  about how under fueling can have so many different looks and you
• 21:24
  can still be under fueled even if you are weight restored and
• 21:29
  even if you feel like you are adequately fueling.
• 21:32
  For individuals who are listening to this episode who
• 21:35
  maybe submitted some of these questions or maybe even have
• 21:37
  more questions about weight restoration, what tips do you
• 21:40
  have for those individuals who may be like very intimidated by
• 21:44
  the idea of weight changes that come along with working through
• 21:47
  period recovery? I always bring back the why.
• 21:50
  We talk about the why so much. People are probably so sick of
• 21:52
  us talking about the why, but it's so true.
• 21:55
  And you started this journey for a reason.
• 21:58
  You did this because you want to be the healthiest version of
• 22:01
  yourself. Maybe you want to hit a training
• 22:03
  goal. Maybe you want to do all of
• 22:04
  these different things with your life and not having a cycle is
• 22:07
  holding you back. If you are worried about the
• 22:09
  weight gain, just think about how much you could do in a
• 22:12
  healthy body. And healthy of course means
• 22:15
  different for everyone, but the bottom line is if you don't have
• 22:17
  your cycle, then you aren't the healthiest you can be.
• 22:19
  And so you just you got to keep. Pushing if you do have questions
• 22:23
  about weight restoration, the period recovery process, period
• 22:26
  recovery program, please leave them in the comments of this
• 22:29
  podcast. We know that weight restoration
• 22:31
  is a very challenging piece of the period recovery journey,
• 22:34
  perhaps maybe the most challenging piece of the period
• 22:36
  recovery journey. So we just want to talk about
• 22:38
  weight restoration and be open and honest about that being part
• 22:41
  of the period recovery journey. Because I think there's a lot of
• 22:43
  information about there about period recovery, but not
• 22:46
  everyone is talking about like the changes that might come
• 22:49
  along with the process that is period recovery.
• 22:52
  If you do have questions, please leave them in the comments of
• 22:54
  this podcast or you can reach out to us online.
• 22:56
  You can find Riley at Riley Beatty Nutrition, you can find
• 23:00
  at Lily Reimer nutrition, and you can find me at Jenna dot
• 23:03
  Fisher dot nutrition. Thank you so much for listening
• 23:05
  to this episode. Please make sure you rate,
• 23:07
  subscribe and review. And as always, remember to eat
• 23:09
  more carbs.