Fear of Under Eating or Over Eating Calories During HA Recovery
This article is based on a recent podcast episode I did on The Hypothalamic Amenorrhea Podcast. If you'd like to listen to the episode OR learn more about myself and my services, as well as The HA Society, a membership that I run for women with HA, click here.
Today we’re going to discuss a common question for hypothalamic amenorrhea recovery…
How do I eat 2500 calories and how do I know how much I need to eat?
This is when you’re worried that if you pop, you won’t stop. I was SUPER afraid of this. Everyone talks about “set point theory” and your hunger calming down, but it’s still terrifying.
We want to be eating in a surplus when recovering our periods BUT it can be scary and we can often want to go in the other direction.
Here’s my experience.
I’ve found that when I stopped restricting, I almost immediately stopped thinking about food. It was the flick of a switch for me. But I do want to talk about what specifically happened when I stopped controlling my intake.
I tracked calories for about a month and a half to ensure I was eating ENOUGH calories and enough fat specifically.
I found that on the days that I wasn’t very hungry and maybe ate less, say, 2000 calories, the next day I was more hungry and would eat 2600 calories.
Then I would eat about 2300 the next day and the following day, 2300 again. Then Maybe 2600 but back down to 2100 and then the following day, 2500. I noticed this constant theme in averaging around the same amount of calories over the week.
It felt counterintuitive because I FELT like my eating was erratic but really it was just ebbing and flowing and averaging out.
So, when you worry about the feeling of over and under eating, I’m curious if you track that, could you notice that your numbers are evening out? Or, could you not track it but just trust that they’re evening out and you’re eating the amount that’s right for you?
There are people that this may not work for immediately, and intentionality behind eating in a surplus will be super important, but over time, you should be able to trust that what you’re eating is enough for you!
It’s also important to be keeping some kind of a pulse on your eating – are you aware that eating a balanced diet of carbs, proteins and fats will help with balancing your blood sugar AND ensuring you’re actually hitting the calories you need to be hitting? It’s true! So how are you making sure that’s happening, and you’re not just favouring certain food groups or continuing to avoid certain food?
For myself and many of my clients, it’s helpful to work towards eating about 750 calories per meal and a snack or two to hit our target of 2500 (you may need more!) and the best way to do that is to assess your current intake, look for what you’re not currently including in your nutrition and adding it in.
Don’t forget to keep a close eye on your exercise and stress too, because if you’re aiming for 2500 calories but still getting a lot of movement in or experiencing a lot of stress, you may need more food.
How do you keep track of this and figure out what you’re missing? Well, because of all the clients and HA Society members I’ve helped work through this, I ended up creating the perfect tool for you to DIY it!
The Best Tool For Figuring Out Your HA Recovery Plan
Can one guide really change the game? Actually, yes.
The Period Recovery Game Planner is your primary tool for figuring out WHY you have hypothalamic amenorrhea and what your next steps are going to be to treat it and get your period back.
This guide covers every foundational thing you need to have in place in order to recover AND most importantly, makes sure you’re not missing anything.
So grab a cup of tea and a snack, get comfortable and dive in to building your own hypothalamic recovery plan thanks to the guidance and tools inside of this planner.
