There are challenges in life that are the sole provenance of women.
Sorry fellas, this is a post about ladies.
Anytime I engage in a major dietary change, it's no surprise that it also dramatically effects my menstrual cycle. First, some brief backstory. I was on the pill for a decade, and when I went off it (some fingermath just told me that was a DECADE AGO, what the hell...) it took my body almost two years to renormalise to a regular, cyclical schedule. Crazy. But I would have pretty regular, totally normal like-clockwork cycles. If clocks came with mind-numbing cramps, of course. Which they don't. So, as far as my body's concerned, we've only been doing our own thing here for a decade.
almost five years ago I became vegan. (YAY!) and, once again, there was a huge change in my cycle. My periods were down to 3 days, with almost zero cramps and my (apparently infamous) mood swings were much abated. FELT GOOD. It took about 18 months of this for my body to figure out how to work around my healthy eating to provide me with the terrible cramps I had so clearly missed. Thanks, body.
In the last five years I have also, due to the only method that works- vastly increased exercise and moderated food intake- lost 30 lbs. I had been moderating my diet before that, and losing weight more slowly. In total in the last 6 years I have lost 55lbs. Never say never! Now, I'm a big tall lady, so it looked ok on me being a weight that would be pretty obese on one of my shorter sisters. But still. So when I say now that I'm 167lbs, for perspective, I measure 39-29-39. I'm 6'1", it's ok.
When I started hard-core losing the last 30lbs, of course, my periods changed as well, in a new and exciting way- they became totally random! Of course, body fat is related to hormone regulation in women, so no surprise. But I spend almost a year in there having a period every two weeks. Which meant I had PMS actually almost all the time. I am a pretty princess. This was followed by long cycles when I wouldn't get my period for 5-7 weeks, and I would freak out. Understandably.
After a bunch of people whose opinions I take to heart (unlike most of society, whose opinion I wrote off decades ago) said that hey maybe I might want to stop losing weight now huh maybe, well, I took that under advisement and stopped. That was 2 years ago, almost exactly. In that time I slowly put back on 20lbs. (10 of that in the last 6 months. Thanks, whisky.) Of course, the chart is muddied on that as well, because while there was certainly some fat gain in there, I was also hitting the workouts pretty hard and cycling a LOT more- we were getting trained to do the Tough Mudder race last August. (It was AWESOME you should do it). I put on a fair bit of muscle. I could tell that there was fat in there too, my clothes were a bit tighter, but I was fit as hell.
But, I was feeling unhappy with how I looked. More importantly, how I *felt*. I felt puffy. I felt like I didn't look like myself. Ok, the awesome muscles can stay. But the extra body fat, it had to go. About a year I took my body fat percentage on the scale we have- and it said 31%. This morning, when my period started, I was still at 23%. At the heaviest time of my cycle. Feels pretty good, man.
Which brings us back to today. 27 days precisely after my last period started, on the full moon like a good witch, BAM. Good morning.
So, why was this surprising? Well, I had NO cramping, NO food cravings (chocolate/iron/fat related) and very little bloating. I complained a bit about feeling bloated last week, but there was obvious intestinal reasons for this. ('Nuff said there.) And yesterday I was at my lowest weight so far on this diet. With zero cramping and bloating. I felt a tiny bit lazy/unmotivated/cuddly and THAT WAS IT.
I would like that thank my good friend Potassium at this point. Did you know that potassium is sovereign for helping prevent muscle cramps? And did you know that I've been eating something like twice as much as the daily recommended dosage of potassium for a month? Coincidence? I think not.
Well, I've never written so much about my period in my life, including when I was a teenager. I think I'm done.
I'm always fascinated about how what we put into ourselves, how we alter and modify our bodies from the inside and the outside changes us. I was curious to see what would happen this month with my cycle, and here we are! I'll be interested to see if I develop *any* cramping later on, and of course, duration. I'll probably update this post in a week after I gather more data.
and now, I'll have me another banana, just in case. Mmm.
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