Nutrition and your hormonal cycle

The balance (or indeed imbalance) of our hormones can have a significant impact on cravings, carb-loading, mood swings, appetite and energy levels. This blog is primarily focused on the female hormonal cycle, but there’s reason the guys should stay tuned with the chance to learn about B3 (niacin), tryptophan and serotonin.. What’s more guys, you might learn a thing or two about females, their hormones and be better equipped to deal with the lady(ies) in your life.

When I told a male friend that I was writing this blog post he said that he disagreed with having to take the hormonal cycle into account as ‘it just complicates things’. It’s comments like this that make it even more important to share my experience. Many nutrition books and training plans unfortunately do not take the female hormonal cycle into account, and especially how it can have a dramatic impact on our performance and results in the gym.

Trying to rationalise your diet around the idea that one-size-fits-all male-based physiological perspective is arguably unrealistic for females. The same can ring true for training. A training protocol for a male could possibly be made up of a four-week hypertrophy phase, followed by a two-week functional strength phase. This same protocol would not necessarily be optimal for all females, as it does not align with their testosterone peaks.

The ideas I present below may not suit every female as there are many factors such as time to train, career, family commitments and lifestyle responsibilities that need to be taken into consideration. The below information is written to build an awareness of how the female body changes throughout the month (and not just during the ‘PMT’ week). The information is designed to improve our training gains, free you from food cravings that damage our bodies, and reduce the stress (cortisol) in our lives.

Here is a general guide to how the month goes if you are not on the contraceptive pill and if you have a ‘normal’ (I use the term loosely) hormonal cycle…

Day 1 (when menstruation begins) to Day 7 – estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone begin at rock bottom with estradiol and testosterone steadily increasing by day 7. Once you are past the initial days of fatigue with the onset of menstruation and you move closer to day 7 you will get a boost in energy, mood, optimism and cognitive skills, which ultimately affects your self-worth (your individual internal environment) and your self-esteem (your perception of and interaction in your external social environment). The rising estradiol has an appetite suppressing effect making it easier to eat small meals and lighter foods during this period (i.e. more salads and vegetables and less ‘poor’ carbs such as pasta, bread, biscuits, cakes, and sugar and dairy based chocolate etc.). A clean diet is easy to stick to for this week (and the next). Hypertrophy or strength endurance based circuits would be optimal during this phase. The rising levels of testosterone will aid recovery, give a more positive outlook on body image and make you feel less stressed, all of which will give you both the motivation to train harder and with more focus. It will also provide the stress free environment needed for optimal recovery an improve body composition (lean muscle to body fat ratio). The rising levels of estradiol will contribute to all of the above but will also increase the sensitivity of the serotonin receptors in your brain. This will help to improve your sleep (serotonin is needed to convert to melatonin), which in turn elevates the release of growth hormone.

Day 8 to Day 14 – this week is when you will generally feel at your most radiant as estradiol and testosterone are heading towards their peak at ovulation. The peak in testosterone around ovulation makes this the key time in the month for strength training as it helps to increase both muscle gain and strength and aids recovery by synthesising protein. Both your sleep and recovery will be enhanced and the high estradiol levels will have a pain masking effect, which may make strength training more pleasurable compared to other times of the month. Nutritionally this would be the best time to be ‘yang’ with more red meat (including in the mornings to pick you up for the day). The essential amino acid profile in lean red meat (ideally from grass fed animals) is suggested to be the most beneficial for muscle gain when in the presence of testosterone. That said ladies, don’t worry about becoming ‘bulky”. Comparable to males the testosterone levels in females are very low and unlike hypertrophy, strength training does not promote great gains in muscle size. Lean red meat is also high in iron, zinc and B-vitamins, all of which assist in improving body composition and recovery. Iron is also beneficial during the first two weeks of your cycle to replace what has been lost during menstruation.

These first two weeks of the cycle are ideal for keeping a clean diet, with an increase in starchy carbohydrates (i.e sweet potato) at around days 12-14. Clean carbohydrates can be used to fuel the increased demands of strength training but also to stop the cravings that will start as progesterone increases and estradiol decreases with ovulation.

Days 10 – 16 should be the peak of your training, for hypertrophy and/or strength. Generally feeling more confident and full of energy make this the optimal time to smash out some serious CrossFit WODS. Chances are you will perform at your best during this phase of your cycle.

Day 15 to Day 21 (Luteal phase) – during the first half of this week moods shift and sleepiness sets in as estrodial plunges and progesterone increases. This is when you need to eat more starchy carbs for the first three days while estradiol is plunging. As estradiol levels start to increase over the next few days you can start to taper off the starchy carbs . The rise in progesterone – to prepare and maintain the uterine lining – is a key driver of cravings for sugary or fatty foods and may make you feel less social and less confident. This is possibly not the best week for some serious CrossFit WODS! Progesterone is preparing your body to maintain a fertilised egg, as your body will need to quickly provide the energy needed to to build the uterine lining. Hence, the cravings to eat more during this phase that can sometimes feel as if you are eating for two, even when you are not pregnant. Resisting these cravings arguably sets you up for a fall in the next week when you have ‘PMT’ as trying not to eat causes stress. Increase your carbohydrates during this week and you will usually find that cravings in the week prior to menstruation will cease. That’s not to say that you need to eat the processed sugary foods that are detrimental to your health (there is never a need for those!) but rather just to increase your healthy starchy carbs (sweet potato, carrot, swede etc…or if you eat grains – brown rice and gluten free oats for example). This would also be a good time to have raw cacao (it is full of flavonoids and polyphenols that are good for health – try Perfect Chocolate or make homemade snacks that will give an insulin spike i.e. flapjacks made with gluten free oats, raw cacao and a few dates. This could also be the best time for circuit based training i.e. the metabolic conditioning classes. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t do other training, just that your body’s ability to make the most gains from strength training, for example, would have already passed in the last week.

Day 22 to Day 28 – if you are a female that feels like crap during the week prior to menstruation then this is the time when you could benefit from more ‘ying’ and active recovery. Thrashing your body in the gym when you feel fatigued (and then getting frustrated with yourself for not performing optimally) only adds to stress and the release of the catabolic hormone cortisol. Cortisol, estradiol and progesterone are all produced from pregnenolone via two pathways and an increase in cortisol will decrease the estradiol and progesterone pathway and throw your hormones out of balance. Listen to your body and do what it needs – i.e. guided meditation, pilates, light rowing or swimming… go to the cinema, sauna or massage therapist, laugh, sleep, rest, recover. Don’t try to be a strength hero during this week.

Nutritionally increase your omega 3 (oily fish) and turkey and refrain from animal fats due to their potential to increase PMS. The increase in turkey will increase tryptophan, which is a precursor to serotonin – you will need this to help your mood and sleep during this week. You might also benefit from supplementing with B-vitamins, especially if on a Paleo diet, and from eating more cruciferous vegetables as these are high in di-indolylmethane that helps the liver to detoxify estradiol.

Guys you can check back in now… for a reason why to avoid those sugary and white carbs:

Vitamin B3 (niacin) is essential for the conversion of carbohydrates to energy and for the use of proteins and fats in the body. It also helps the body to make various sex and stress related hormones in the adrenal glands. So when you are under stress there is a heavy need for niacin. If the diet is lacking in B3 (‘white’ foods – sugar, flour, pasta, rice, cakes, biscuits etc. – deplete the B-vitamins) then the body can use tryptophan and B6 to make B3. Tryptophan is a pre-cursor to serotonin (your feel good factor neurotransmitter that is also needed to convert to melatonin to help you sleep) and if all your tryptophan is being used to make B3 (niacin is more desperately needed by your body than serotonin) then you are likely to experience low mood, irritability, depressive symptoms and lack of sleep. It takes approximately 60mg of tryptophan to make 1mg of niacin, so eating those white carbs and sugary snacks that deplete your B-vitamins is also going to deplete your tryptophan and serotonin levels and seriously affect your mood and your ability to rest and recover. For those non-Paleo people the ‘fortified with B3’ cereals in the supermarkets are not the answer either. These are often fortified with niacinimide (it’s cheaper) which does not trigger the switch in pathways to allow tryptophan to be directed towards serotonin synthesis instead of conversion to B3 (nicotinic acid is needed for this). So there is a much wider reason than weight loss for why not to reach for those sugary foods. A whole blog could be written on the many more reasons of which this is only one.

In summary, the best times of the month for the following might be:
Day 1 – 7: Hypertrophy training. Clean diet.
Day 8 – 14: Strength training. Clean diet. Increase lean red meat. When strength training around ovulation (when testosterone increases) eat more accordingly.
Day 15 – 21: Circuit based training. Extra starchy carbs and raw cacao etc.
Day 22 – 28: Active recovery. Relaxation. Fun! Increase oily fish and turkey (and chicken). Reduce animal fats. Increase B-vitamins and cruciferous vegetables.
NB: Always eat a lot of vegetables!!

Designing a general training program around these ideas may not be easy for everybody. But by being aware of what is happening in our bodies and giving our hormones the respect they deserve we can at least start to reduce the stress we feel at certain times of the month. We can start to pay more attention to our appetites and understand when/why they change through the month. We can also get to grips with our individual performing in the CrossFit WODs or Met-Con classes. An *unstressed*, fit healthy animal is much more likely to become a lean animal.

If you have any questions about nutrition, training, or your cycle please feel free to e-mail me on: [email protected]