The power of having a period

A book that’s changed my life recommended by a friend who’s equally changed it too @mjs_personaltrainer

March is a very powerful month for us females so I’m taking the rest of March as an opportunity to enlighten you a little more about what’s really going on in your body.

Lads this stuff is golden you might want to listen up ⬆️ too ✌🏻

Our bodies are extremely clever things that we take for granted an awful lot have you ever taken time to really think about the behind the scenes of your body ?

Taking periods of rest ... literally 🕔🚩

During the early follicular phase of our menstrual cycle (the point at which our periods start) there’s a far higher chance of muscle tissue damage when training.

We expect this to happen as a result of normal training frequency but the changes of damage to this tissue is far greater during this stage of your cycle.

When the muscle tissue is more vulnerable to damage it’s important that we might start to look into longer rest periods or lighter loads during our sessions.

It’s not you throwing in the towel and giving up rather than learning how to manipulate your cycle a little more to your benefit.

Can you think of a time during a workout or training session you experienced muscle tissue damage, not just your average muscle soreness. Did you consider it to be a technical error or load (but I’ve lifted this before) did it ever cross your mind that the injury maybe has been a result of the shift in hormones instead.

How could you adapt your training to manipulate more of your own cycle, do you discuss your cycle with your coach or track it yourself.

Rest and recovery or even changing a weight load are all just as important to the main sessions themselves.

I’ve always been a strong believer in listening to your body but don’t just listen to it learn from it too 🧠

What our bodies go through each month is completely different from one another so taking a rest on day 5 might work for you but not someone else. It’s not a one size fits all approach.

Curving the cravings

The massive shift in hormones during your menstrual cycle it’s had a huge effect on a few different things sleep being one to touch on lightly right now. Your a great sleeper but a few nights a month you have a pretty rubbish sleep, your a little restless or uncomfortable it’s harder to turn over for your sleep. Our restless night sleep means a few more hormonal changes not from the menstrual cycle but from that poor night’s sleep. We have two hormones out of Sync as we start the day. These are ghrelin and leptin, ghrelin stimulates our appetite and leptin decrease our appetite levels. 

These help to regulate when we feel full and when we are satisfied. There’s a lot of this that will play a role in menopause too but we are a few years before that.

Sleep now plays a huge role in our cravings for food that day but so too does the role our menstrual cycle has. Again that huge shift in hormones will have some effect on our body. We struggle to control those cravings and it’s something we beat ourselves up about every single time that time of the month comes around. 

Instead of taking things month by month let’s change the way we focus on that and think about your cycle. Lasting roughly 28 days (4 weeks) this shift in food cravings happens in the luteal phase of our cycle which lasts anywhere between 12-14 days but remember everyone is different and it’s important to know that this is a rough guideline. This phase is after the period of bleeding and sometimes because we forget that our cycle is still ongoing but we can’t see it we think that the change lies within our self-control. 

This isn’t the case at all we have disconnected from our bodies and the understanding of what it needs at this time. Or maybe we had no clue in the first place. 

Each cycle you take on you get to the end of the cycle in the luteal phase when you start to bloat again due to this surge in hormones and we blame it on those foods we have been eating from our cravings the past two weeks or so. 

Changes to consider 

✅ let’s look at adding an extra small meal or two snacks in giving us more control over this change rather than trying to curve the cravings by not eating and resulting in a quick binge of foods 

✅ it’s not all airy fairy to listen to your body a little more it’s actually going to really benefit you a lot more in the long run 

Making the decision to increase these calories during this period using foods that will have more nourishment can help enormously instead of forcing us down the path of a big binge. 

Take a little more time to put pen to paper and become a little more understanding of what’s going on and when start to see the pathway from your cycle and the similarities of each one. 

A better understanding helps to create a better plan of action to ensure the best success for you.  Understanding the power of having a period 

Sleep during the menstrual cycle

Days 1-7

⬆️ The rise in oestrogen = deeper and longer sleep 😴

The increase in this hormone allows for an increase of our serotonin levels helping to regulate our sleep.

Day 8-14

Ovulation, when both oestrogen and serotonin are higher helpings with a deep sleep 🛌

Due to these continual high hormones, we have a much deeper sleep due to that extra boost in serotonin all be it that good night’s sleep gives us a lot of energy both physically and mentally we still have good sleep here.

Day 15-19 ⬇️🥱🥴

The massive change in oestrogen, the plunge of this could possibly result in insomnia.

Periods of insomnia due to this big drop in oestrogen results in much lower serotonin levels.

Day 19-22

⬆️✅Increase of progesterone towards the end of this period we see a rise again in oestrogen and progesterone that acts as a sedating hormone, these two together and you will be having some of the best night sleep during your 28 day cycle. 🤩

Day 22-28

Low serotonin and oestrogen levels cause light and poor sleep 💤

During the PMS phase of our cycle, we can have difficulties falling asleep and periods of restlessness with light sleep throughout. The drop in oestrogen is what causes this result along with the low levels of serotonin. Resulting ins us becoming more receptive to factors that interrupt our sleep.

There are many key 🔑 points in our cycle we might need to focus a little more emphasis on having a better evening routine to encourage a night of better sleep, exercising during that period and the foods and drink we have during this stage too.

Next time you have a restless night sleep take note of it, is there any way you could improve it?

Contraceptive methods and how we use this to manipulate our menstrual cycle, more specifically OCP oral contraceptives.

The reasons we might do this are both from a clinical perspective to help reduce PMS and for performance. Many female athletes would have the aid of OCPs to help control the timing of their periods around competition dates or even to stop them all together.

We aren’t all athletes so this won’t apply to me, maybe not but your own training is still important too and maybe you lift weights for strength performance and have never considered the effects our contraceptive methods have on our goals.

I’ve always used the pill myself and have tried to maintain a relatively consistent pattern when taking it, looking into hormone-free replacements but unfortunately, this path was unsuccessful. Lifting weights has always been a huge part of my life and I enjoy becoming stronger and lifting more.

Do these hinder our strength over time or do those myths need busting?

There’s is a lot of evidence to suggest that the use of hormonal contraceptives don’t have an impact on our overall strength for regular gym users/ fitness goers. Our OCPs have an effect on our cycle due to the 28-day pattern we follow 21 days on and 7 days off causing our “period” to occur. This bleed is not a real bleed but again that’s something we will go into more detail about real soon. Our natural hormones are suppressed during this pill cycle as they provided us with artificial oestrogen and progestins (not to be mistakes for the bodies naturally occurring progesterone)

It’s thought that by taking OCPs we are able to reduce the PMS symptoms females go through during their cycle therefore would give them the opportunity to work at a better level of performance when they might see a significant difference. But the quality of research to support this isn’t quite there yet.

This conversation isn’t the easiest to have when talking about contraceptives isn’t always an open discussion but talking freely to your GP or coach about any concerns or questions you might have about your contraceptive method.

Finding what works for you and with your body. 📝

Let’s talk about being lean ladies

Unfortunately, the fitness industry is full of ripped bodies and lean physiques, an image I thought I had to adhere to myself to ever be taken seriously or to make this a full-time career.

I have been fortunate to have a regular menstrual cycle, but unaware that the chances of missing a week or being a few days out were due to my own actions. But because it eventually arrived I thought nothing of it we all do.

Experience a loss of your period over time due to over-exercising and under-eating in conjunction with high-stress levels on your body from work/ life and exercise is extremely dangerous for females.

Something we don’t talk about often in this industry is the side effects of weight loss in young women.

“Functional hypothalamic amenorrhea is associated with stress, weight loss, or exercise or a combination but the diagnosis requires ruling out organic or anatomic causes of anovulation.”

*Anovulation is a menstrual cycle with no ovulation

FHA can occur in young females even with a very slight calorie deficit as a result of trying to achieve this lean goal. A diet that causes anxiety and stress can result in a loss of the menstrual cycle.

You might be thinking well I don’t care I don’t plan on having children of my own later in life and if that’s the only purpose my period serves me then I’m cool with that.

Funnily enough, you would be wrong, your menstrual cycle is more than just a baby-making machine, it’s a way to aid in bone health, heart health and cognitive function.

A lean lifestyle comes at a price of both happiness and health, a balanced life comes with benefits galore.

Happiest when living a life filled with memories regular movement and cake 🧁