Hypothalamic Amenorrhea Recovery Without Weight Gain
This post was inspired by my YouTube video “YouTube: HA Recovery Without Weight Gain”
If you’re struggling with hypothalamic amenorrhea (your missing period/menstrual cycle) it’s typically due to a combination of over exercising and under eating, where weight loss has played a role in why you lost your period.
Yes, there are other avenues of how someone can develop HA i.e. being on a strict elimination diet due to severe digestive issues. But if you’re asking the question “can I recover my period without weight gain”, the chances are you are someone who diets and or works out a lot. And so, I will answer this question from that perspective.
So can you recover from amenorrhea without weight gain?
Or can stay close to the same weight you’re at right now and get your period back?
The short answer is probably not – but keep reading!
Here’s what you’ll need to consider in order to answer that question.
1. Your starting weight
There’s a BIG difference between if you’re starting at 17-19% (or lower) body fat vs starting at 20-30% body fat. Remember HA can happen to people at a variety of different weights and if you’re starting at the lower end of the spectrum (17-18%), YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO GAIN SOME WEIGHT. The chances of you getting your period back going from 17-18% body fat to 19-20%, is slim to none, which leads into the next consideration, optimal hormonal function.
2. Optimal hormonal function:
If you are one of those people who can or has gotten their period back with only a small amount of weight gain, which does happen, I would want to double-check that your cycle is falling within the normal parameters for each phase of your cycle: your bleed, follicular phase, ovulation, and luteal phase.
I see this all the time in my practice: women gain just enough weight to turn on some hormonal activity and get their cycle back, but not enough to have an optimal cycle. This can be really problematic because you may not have restored your weight to a place where you have sufficient hormonal function which can lead to other health complications such as your ability to get pregnant.
All in all, some level of weight gain is going to be required and it will all depend on your starting weight and what your body decides is needed for optimal hormonal function, which is not something you can control. So comparing yourself to other people and how much weight they had to gain is not going to be helpful or productive use of your time. The body does not care what your body looks like or what works for someone else, only your mind does.
3. Lifestyle Factors and Stress Levels
You don’t have to experience acute stressors all the time to live a stressful life. You might really love your job, enjoy your relationships and feel quite content with your overall life. But, what I want you to become aware of is- how much do you consistently have on your plate, and are the demands you’re putting on your body are higher than the fuel/rest you’re providing your body?
For example: do you get up early, work out fasted, have coffee, maybe have a little breakfast at work, knock out emails, walk on your lunch break, have more coffee, go to meetings, then go to a workout class and or happy hour after work or pick up your kids from school and run them around to all of their activities?
What I'm getting to is your schedule consistently jam-packed with the next thing always waiting for you. Is the ability to not be hyperproductive something you can do or do you feel like you need to always fill your time with something?
If you’re living a go, go, go type of lifestyle, stress is probably a component for you and you most likely need to sit at a higher body weight than you think is acceptable. I know that’s really hard to hear, it was for me too, but unfortunately, we’ve been sold the lie that we can do it all and have our health.
The long and the short, do not underestimate the power of stress, and do not overestimate how in tune you are with your stress levels. If recovering your period without weight gain is an approach you want to take, reducing your stress levels and what you have on your plate will be key.
4. Why are you afraid of weight gain?
Your missing period and what you have to do to get your period back is more than likely a stressor in and of itself due to the fact of your fear of weight gain. My conversations with women in our practice are often around weight gain is typically what we spend a lot of time on.
Weight gain can be hard to accept …maybe you’re hearing for the first time that you were never meant to be that small in the first place. Maybe being small isn’t actually what it’s cracked up to be and maybe being small isn't the sign of health and status that you once thought it was?
This is some deep stuff and It’s going to be really important for you to dig into why you’re afraid of weight gain, what weight gain means about you and why you’re heavily pursuing the path of restoring your period without weight gain.
Regardless of the path you take, you have to be willing to really understand your fear, otherwise, you will end up losing your period again and again. Going through recovery without trying to get to the root of your fear of weight gain is just like asking: how can I cure this problem without addressing what caused the problem?
Getting to the root of your fears isn't an overnight process and definitely not something I can walk you through in a blog post or YouTube video, it takes commitment to the process and time.
5. See recovery as a season of life
People tend to freak out, thinking recovery is forever, but it’s not, it’s temporary.
Maybe in the past, you’ve strived to do it all without taking time to rest, and maybe you pride yourself on being seen as the successful one, the girl who works out all the time, eats perfectly, and never takes time off. If that sounds like you, you might need to consider seeing recovery as a temporary season of life.
I know you may identify as the girl who can do it all, but if you don’t have a period right now then excessive exercise, dieting, and forcing yourself to be small are not helping you, it’s actually hurting you. And so, try to see this as a season of life vs if I gain this weight it’s going to be this way forever.
Ask yourself (or journal on it), “can I, for a season of time while I navigate through this problem, be ok with weight gain, regardless of what happens”.
Is it hard? YES! But, unfortunately, your body doesn't care that you decided or that society held you to a standard of living that is not serving you.
So can you consider this a season of life or is the idea of temporary weight gain actually impossible for you? These are all interesting questions for you to journal on.
6. Next steps: Try it your way!
You have some context and perspective, so what’s next?
Try it your way! You can totally do everything to get your period back, except gain weight…I did that, it didn't work, but I sure tried! There’s no shame in trying it your way, recovery isn’t one size fits all, but you must be willing to be objective and track your progress to know if what you’re doing is working for you or not! Sometimes I think it’s almost necessary for people who are really struggling to come to terms with the fact that they might need to gain weight. it provides them with objective data that helps take the emotion out of what actually needs to happen to get their period back.
You don’t need to go “ALL IN” either, you can edge yourself in by slowly cutting back on exercise and increasing your calorie intake, but you have to be willing to be objective about what you're doing and track your progress. Also, remember that there’s more than one way to see progress other than getting a period i.e. increased body temperature, cervical mucus, and feeling free around food. I have tons of content available on progress markers in recovery like this one.
Something else you’ll need to consider/become aware of as you navigate getting your period back is how to train again. It’s clear you did something wrong that got you here, it’s not morally wrong and you’re not wrong, but something didn’t quite go right because you ended up with HA. And so, something needs to be relearned.
Is it possible that your fear of weight gain is the thing? Probably…because it’s that fear that will drive you to overtrain and undereat, so we need to relearn the truth behind actual nutrition and training principles, at the same time being curious as to why you believed that it was not ok for you to train and fuel your body appropriately. Really dig deep to understand the story you had as to why you deserve that.
You may not see it this way, but when you’re asking the question “how can I recover from HA without weight gain” what you’re really saying is “I know I have a health issue, but I don’t deserve to rest, and recover, I don’t deserve to do what is actually prescribed and how can I do it in a way that I actually deserve. That way of thinking isn't actually serving you and it is something you will have to battle with for a bit, you will figure it out, you just have to be open to having the conversation.
7. Next steps: You can’t hack recovery
The truth is you can’t hack recovery. There are no tips for how you can do this without weight gain to get your period back, it’s just you can try and make something work for you and maybe it won't, that’s just the reality.
Some women do choose to never explore the possibility that they need to gain weight and would rather never have a natural period over gaining weight. There’s no shame in what you choose to do, but seeing women refuse to do what’s best for their health makes me really sad. Because the whole weight gain thing is just fear, worried that you are not worthy, that you won’t be loved, you won’t be accepted by your friends or seen as special. Maybe you’re like me, which is more than you think, and believe that it's not ok for you to gain weight because you don't fit the body type of someone with HA or you’re at a higher body fat percentage. If that's the case I highly recommend you go back and watch my HA recovery story, because I totally resonated with the story “I wasn’t small enough”. However, none of that matters, all these tips and considerations still apply to you if that’s you.
The long and the short, You can’t hack recovery, I don’t care what your starting weight is.
What your body needs to recover is what it needs and it will tell you if you are listening. If you decide you’re going to try to get your period back without gaining weight even though your body definitely needs it, then you are saying- “I’m not willing to listen to my body, my body has to comply. These are my goals, this is what we're going to do, I want to weigh this much, I want to do this much and I don’t want any of these things to happen such as weight gain or loss of fitness and to just figure it out”.
Whether or not you agree with my perspective, I’m saying this with love, because I've totally been there and I work with women every day who are struggling to accept this same truth! I want you to know it’s not your fault for thinking this way. We’ve been sold the lie that if you work hard enough you can achieve it all.
If you’re still pushing back on the concept of weight gain in your head and think you can figure it out, I encourage you to try it your way but just be open to the fact that maybe it won't work or that your cycle won't be optimal if it does.
8. Next steps: Tools for recovery
The HA Society is a community support group of over 100 women in all stages of recovery. Both Ashley and I (Dani) are there helping women and answering questions. We have community calls a few times a week, and menstrual cycle mastermind classes, and when you join you can listen to the replays of past community calls.
If you’re feeling like committing to this process is really difficult I recommend doing our Recovery Kick-Off Challenge. It’s totally FREE too! It’s a 7 days challenge where I take you through all the necessary steps that will actually help you commit to the process of recovery. Hopefully, by the end of the week, you will feel confident and have the tools you need to be able to do this.
If you need more of an individualized approach, consider 1:1 coaching with us or visit our resource story for more DIY recovery tools.
We also have a Podcast, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, so don’t feel like there’s no options for you and the direction you want to take. We are all about people trying to DIY this and figure out what works for them.
To sum it all up, if I’m being completely honest with you, most people will not regain their cycle without some amount of weight gain. What that weight gain is, is individual to you. There are lots of different examples out there of different amounts of weight people had to gain. What we do know is that it will have to happen. Be willing to try it and be willing to pivot when things aren’t working for you and really work on why you’re asking this question at the same time.
