365. Letting Go of the ‘Healthy Girl’ Identity to Get Your Cycle Back: Recovery Story w/Romi
The Hypothalamic Amenorrhea PodcastShow Notes
Join the Restore Program: https://thehasociety.com/restore-live Romi did everything “right.” She worked out. She ate clean. She was disciplined, knowledgeable, and praised for it. And still...her period disappeared. In this episode, Romi shares what it actually looked like to unravel years of restriction disguised as health, control disguised as discipline, and an identity built around being the “fit, healthy girl.” Her journey wasn’t fast. It wasn’t linear. And it didn’t fit neatly into a 10-week recovery "timeline", but that’s exactly why her story matters. We talk about low energy availability that hides behind salads and productivity, binge eating that was really just hunger, the fear of eating more and resting more, and the deep resistance that comes up when healing asks you to let go of who you’ve been praised for being. Romi opens up about body changes, grief around muscle loss, developing body image for the first time, and the quiet but powerful moment when her body finally felt safe enough to ovulate again. This episode is for the woman who feels stuck even though she’s “trying.” For the one whose labs aren’t moving, whose body won’t respond on command, and who secretly wonders if she’s broken. Romi’s story is a reminder that recovery is not just about food and exercise, it’s about trust, identity, and learning how to stop micromanaging your body long enough to let it heal. If you’ve ever thought, “Why is this taking so long?” or “Why can’t I just fix this?”- this one is for you.
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More from The Hypothalamic Amenorrhea Podcast
In this episode we answer listener questions that range from: - I used to menstruate at X weight, why not now? - Cycling going backward when REDUCING coffee, is this possible?! - How does BC affect lab work & more - and we address a listener comment from a past episode, explaining that honestly, having HA probably isn’t very feminist either.
If you’ve ever thought, “I’ll do what it takes to get my period back…I just really don’t want to gain THAT much weight,” you’re going to relate to Ali. Ali spent years in and out of recovery, sometimes bleeding, sometimes not, but never really letting go of the food control or trusting her body. And when she finally decided she wanted to become a mom, she had to face the thing she’d been afraid of since childhood...allowing her body to change without knowing exactly where it would land. We talk about her years of “quasi-recovery,” trying to find a way to recover while staying thin, the very real fear of weight gain, and what changed when she finally said, essentially, screw it, I’m doing this. Once Ali went all-in, she got her first period in about 50 days, ovulated, and eventually got pregnant on her third ovulation. If you’re currently trying to figure out how to recover without having to fully surrender to recovery…this episode is for you.
Mady thought she’d go all-in on HA recovery, get her period back in 3 months and move on with her life. Instead, recovery took about a year and forced her to completely rethink health, her identity as the “healthy girl,” weight gain and her need for control. Ironically, it wasn’t until she stopped making recovery the center of her life and started actually LIVING again that her period finally came back.
You've lost your period, you know you're not pregnant... the good news is it's probably just something called hypothalamic amenorrhea. Easy to understand and simple to resolve but surprisingly difficult to actually execute. In this episode we walk you through why you should be relieved that it's not something else like polycystic ovaries, premature ovarian insufficiency or early menopause and how to approach it!
You've gained weight, you've been eating more food consistently, you've even reduced or stopped working out. This isn't making SENSE! I get it and as a coach who works with many women with amenorrhea all of the time, this isn't an uncommon concern.