I hear it allllllllll the time from clients, “Well, it’s time of the month, so my weight is up.” Or, “Ugh.. I’m so bloated.. I hate TOM.”
I get it.. there’s not much we can do to stop mother nature from doing her job but we can do things to control the damage. Here are nine tips to help you minimize bloating during your cycle.
1. Get extra sleep. Chances are you are tired from your hormones being out of sorts and your body doing extra work during this time, so go ahead and plan for an extra 60 – 90 minutes of sleep each night. This will cut down on your cravings as well and hopefully make you less cranky-pants.
2. Drink a buttload of water. I don’t know exactly how much truth there is to this, but keep flushing your body with water. I can’t guarantee it will help a ton, but I can tell you that it can’t hurt!
3. Do your daily workout. If I’m cranky or frustrated running sprints makes makes me feel better, so that’s the first benefit. But the other is that I recognized a significant decrease of TOM symptoms when I started working out regularly and got fit. I barely notice when it’s TOM now.
4. Try to curtail carbs. Yes, I know you are craving chocolate like crazy right now (I’ll get to that,) but try to keep the extra carbs to a minimum. They will only make you feel even more bloated. Fill up on lots of lean protein and fibrous veggies. This doesn’t meal always follow a low carb diet though.
During the Luteal phase (between ovulation and day one of your period) you are more insulin resistant and carb sensitive. This may be a good time to eat higher fat/ lower carb. So rather than having a steak with salad and baked potato, go with some avocado or bacon on your salad and skip the potato. Try going under 75g of carbs (not including fiber) and see if that helps.
5. Speaking of fiber, eat it!!! Add flax to your oats. Make your fruit in the morning 3 – 4 prunes. Eat lots of fiber – this will keep you regular.. and we all know it’s easy to get backed up during TOM.
6. Keep some 85% (or more) pure cacao squares on hand. You will develop a taste for it, and I promise you, after a nibble or two, your cravings will be gone!
7. Supplement with some BCAA’s. They can keep you feeling satiated and satisfied to reduce cravings. Dairy is also high in BCAA’s so perhaps a bit of cottage cheese or adding half an ounce of cheese to your salad can help minimize cravings.
8. Eat/ cheat pre-emptively. Rather than going too long between meals that satisfy you, eat something you really enjoy so you can keep it in check.
9. Try seed cycling. Days 1 – 14 (first day of period to ovulation) eat 1T ground flax and 1T pumpkin seeds daily, then days 15 – 28 (post ovulation to first day of period) eat 1T ground sunflower seeds and 1T sesame seeds daily.
What are your tricks to keep TOM from getting you down? Leave a comment below.
Your Coach,
Kyra
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