379.“I’ll Get My Period Back, Then Go Back to Normal”: Recovery Story w/Zoe
The Hypothalamic Amenorrhea PodcastShow Notes
Zoe got her first period back about a WEEK before she was supposed to start coaching with us. Amazing, right? Except… she knew she wasn’t actually recovered. Her luteal phase was basically nonexistent, her relationship with food and exercise was still crap (her words 😂), and part of her was already thinking: cool, I stopped exercising, got my period back… now I can go back to what I was doing. And THAT is what we talk about in this episode. Zoe shares her long history with an eating disorder, years of running 10K a day + going to the gym + doing HIIT, being told by doctors that her exercise was “great,” and eventually learning that she had hypothalamic amenorrhea. She also talks about what happened AFTER that first period came back. Because getting one bleed and building a body that can consistently ovulate are not necessarily the same project. We talk about: Why exercise was the biggest thing Zoe had to change Her struggle with eating breakfast without “earning it” first Weight gain and the moments she wanted to restrict again Why getting her first period back didn’t magically fix her relationship with food and exercise Learning how to read her cycle and understand what actually moves the needle for HER body Reintroducing exercise without going straight back to old habits Why recovery gets easier when you finally have enough experience to trust your body Her TTC journey and chemical pregnancy Why she’s actually grateful she didn’t get pregnant immediately Body comments from other people and learning to care a whole lot less 😂 And the freedom of being able to miss a workout, sit on the couch, and… not lose your freaking mind over it Zoe is now 8 cycles into recovery, exercising again (WAY differently), fueling for it, TTC, and in a completely different relationship with her body than when she started. This episode is such a good reminder that the goal of recovery isn’t just to force your body to produce one period.
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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.