Hypothalamic Amenorrhea - how I am combating this condition

I am very nervous to talk about this as my whole livelihood is based around girls becoming the best and healthiest versions of themselves. However how can I help people if I am not my healthiest self. So it is time I make a change.

I wish I had someone to talk to about this/knew of someone who had been through this for as long as I have to be there for support, to know what to do, how long it takes to get your period back etc etc.

I have been suffering from Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (HA) for over a year now. For those who do not know what this is - this is a condition where you lose your period for at minimum of three months due to your hypothalamus not releasing enough GnRH, this can lead to very low oestrogen levels. HA can lead to many long term problems like bone density issues and fertility problems later down the line.

From numerous visits to the GP in the first few months, to blood tests, to scans - I was basically not really given any clear guidance of what was going on. My first few trips to the doctor I was told, oh it is normal don’t worry about it just give it a few more months stress can cause your period to go away but it will come back. It got to about 8 months down the line and I decided enough was enough I needed to find out what was going on and I was tired of being told to just “wait it out”. I went to a Women’s clinic and got literally everything tested from inside & out.

The only thing that didn’t come back normal was the fact I had a few cysts on one ovary, which apparently is not enough to be diagnosed with PCOS, and my oestrogen was very low. So again, Western medicine was a bit stumped, and the answer was ‘go back on the pill’. After almost a year of trying to get to the bottom of things, the result I was given was go back on the pill, this was completely disheartening.

After this, I was confident there must be some other way, so I booked myself in to have a consultation with a Naturopath and Nutritional Therapist. I am such a strong believer that food is fuel, so I decided I would use it as medicine too. I really wanted to get to the root cause of my condition and my naturopath helped me to dig deeper.

A conclusion was made that there were likely numerous factors that contributed to the onset of HA - one being cutting carbohydrates out of my diet completely for two weeks, and largely restricting them there after for a significant amount of time. I am not saying this was the exact cause, but this was definitely a catalyst. I also increased my exercise by a lot around the same time as I started doing my PT qualification, whilst just moving to a brand new country. So there were a lot of factors. However, severely cutting carbs out of my diet lead to my restriction behaviours with food that I am only just combatting now. Improper fuel, and too much exercise has ultimately lead to where I am today, still with no period.

I think I went from eating too little carbs, to eating too little fats when I started calorie counting and ultimately putting myself in deficits that were too little and totally unattainable for my body and lifestyle. So I would just end up overeating on bad foods on the weekends, and not nourishing my body with the healthy foods that I would eat during the week. And for my line of work, and passion (fitness) - food is absolutely essential for muscle recovery and growth. However I was just thrown into the whole instagram highlight reel seeing how other people ate and thinking, oh well if they can restrict that much and still be healthy then I must be able to - this is just a vicious cycle. Remember the best diet is the one you can adhere to, not the one that you see on someones highlight reel - and let me tell you that is probably 20% of their normal food intake.

The reason I wanted to bring my condition to light and make this public is because I am sure there are other girls out there who are in the same position and need support - I wish I had read something like this when I first lost my period. Just know you are not alone. Normal girls, with normal lives and normal bodies go through this too (this condition is usually seen in anorexics, ballerinas, gymnasts etc, anyone with basically 0% body fat).

It is so important for us to listen to our bodies, and I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what I am going through feeling uncertain, and letting it get to a point where the effects are almost irreversible, and harder to come back from. If you are in my position, over a year on with no period, you can get it back! You may just have to put in the work, and be okay with taking a step back, as well as gaining a few pounds. Shifting your mindset is the hardest part, especially when you have been dieting/over exercising for so long, you believe this is the way it is meant to be done. But your body is literally telling you that the way you are living your life means you are not fit to carry a baby. Something needs to change.

Here are the steps I am taking to help heal my body and gain back my cycle:

• EATING what I want, when I am hungry, until I am satisfied. Now when I say what I want, I love eating healthy and my body craves healthy food, so I am nourishing my body, and am conscious of this - remember you have to use food as medicine. Roughly I am sitting anywhere between 2,000 - 2,500 calories per day. I have a very active job so this is probably around maintenance/just above for me.

• Introducing more HEALTHY FATS into my diet. From trying the keto diet last year, I almost went the other way and basically cut out any form of fats from my diet for the fear of the caloric content. However, fats are absolutely essential for hormone growth, repair, and rebalancing. I have added 10g of flax seeds to my morning oats, as well as two brazil nuts per day as conscious change as these are phytoestrogens (oestrogen boosting foods). I have also started cooking in olive oil and coconut oil instead of using spray (and my food tastes so much better), lastly, I am not being so stingy with my avocado portions hehe. This is all I am doing in terms of increasing fats and it is making a massive difference. I feel satiated after every meal, do not feel the need to snack or binge, and I have more energy (fats are your long term energy store). On top of this my skin is bloody fantastic, huge bonus for me.

• SUPPLEMENTS - introducing these slowly, just one every couple of days as I if I have any adverse reactions, I want to know what is causing this. I have started taking a Vitamin D supplement, a fish oil/evening primrose oil blend, I am also going to introduce some pre and probiotics, a hormone balancing supplement and an inflammation/stress easing supplement. I will touch more on these as I introduce them.

• EXERCISE - this will be my biggest challenge, however my overexercising is a serious contribution to my HA. I absolutely love exercise and being active in every way, however the recommendation for me at the moment is to exercise three days a week and reduce my steps from 10,000 to 5,000 per day. This is not forever I am sure, but just until I have everything back on track. Considering I teach 12 classes a week, as well as have private clients, my job just requires me to basically be exercising all the time. This is why my food is so important and that is going to be my main focus. Hopefully when lockdown eases and gyms open again I will not be required to actually pretty much do all my classes, as most of them are online. At the moment, I am doing all of my classes purely bodyweight, on top of this I have just started resistance training again twice a week, with a bit of skipping here and there. This sounds like an awful lot still as I am writing it down, I still have work to do but its a slow process for me considering I am actually a fitness addict :’D

• there are a few other little things I am implementing like educating myself with books, dry body brushing to boost circulation and reduce inflammation, little naps here and there if I feel tired etc etc etc.

I am very excited to document this, and I truly believe I will be able to get my cycle back without having to go back on the pill or doing anything artificial. I will document the whole process and anything new I learn from my experience and educating myself, as I would love to have had something like this from someone I know, or just to know that I was not alone and there are others around going through the same thing. So if you are, or know someone that is suffering from what they think might be HA, then please reach out, read this, and share with anyone who needs to read this. Even if you are not suffering, but you feel stressed, burned out, overworked, anxious - these are all signs that your body is telling you to slow down, take a break, and maybe there is something in your life you need to change, not forever, but for a little while. Our bodies talk to us and we mustn’t ignore what they have to say <3

Nutrition Advice

I like to think I have learned a lot within the past year about nutrition, through my Personal Trainer qualification, my own research and personal trial and error. I looked extensively into nutrition when trying to fix my acne, and the subject just fascinates me - I am am massive foodie, a big believer in balance, treating yourself, whilst respecting your body and eating to reach your personal goals. So I wanted to note down a few things that I have found helpful, just the basics, easy to understand, and hopefully helpful tips that you can take away to better your understanding of food groups, nutrition and how to better your life through what you eat.

Firstly - a mantra to live by. You cannot out-train a bad diet. Just because you go to the gym a few times a week, and burn a lot of calories on a spin bike for example, does not give you the allowance to eat more that day, when for majority of the rest of the day you are sitting down at a desk, staring at a computer.

Try and have a balance of each major food group for each meal. E.g. some form of carb, protein, source, healthy fat on top of a bed of micronutrients.

Consume the majority of your starchy carbohydrates e.g. potatoes, rice, oats, before and after your training sessions.

Protein: made up of branch chain amino acids, essential for muscle growth and repair

Carbohydrate: the bodies primal energy source

Fat: a source of energy, as well as essential for efficient hormone functioning

Vitamins and minerals (from micronutrients): contribute to just about everything in the body – essential for immune functioning, gut health, skin health, energy, mood, cell reproduction and repair etc etc.

Food is energy – what is used is burned (calories), what is not used is stored as fat. Therefore, to lose fat, you simply need to be burning more than you are eating (a calorie deficit). If you want to gain muscle, you need to be eating more than you are burning (a calorie surplus).

In order to gain lean muscle, the best thing to do is start in a 10% deficit from your maintenance calories (burning the same amount as you are eating), and gradually increase your calories once you have dropped a certain amount of body fat until you reach a 10% surplus. Ensure you are eating wholesome, nutritional whole foods as this food is the best for the gut and will ensure lean muscle gains without too much fat storage.

Try and stay away from anything out of a packet or processed as the artificial ingredients are very bad for our gut health which can lead to stubborn fat.

If you can keep eating out to a minimum, this is your best option as there are a lot of hidden calories in food, and you cannot control this.

Track everything – this is the only way to be sure you will lose the fat; you need to be in control of your calories. I use Lifesum, myfitnesspal is another good one to use. Just make sure you do not have your activity connected to the apps, as it is better to work out your own BMR (basal metabolic rate – what you burn by simply existing) and TDEE (total daily energy expenditure – the amount burned taking into account your daily activity) beforehand and set your own calories to an average per day.

Drinks: stick to water. Liquid calories are empty calories, they cause you to store fat and do not fill you up. Try and stay away from alcohol if you can if you are really serious about getting into shape – alcohol is highly calorific, and because of its effect on our perception, it also causes us to eat more unhealthy food in large quantities. 

We are all human, and it is normal to want a treat every now and again, whether this be a night out, a dessert, a fancy meal. This is fine, and encouraged, but just be smart with it. You need to burn off the energy in other ways, or intake less energy. For example, if you are going to have a big meal on Saturday night, including alcohol and dessert which may end up being a 2,000 calorie meal – just reduce your calories by about 200-300 less per day a couple of days before, and a couple of days after this, or reduce them to 100 less per day, and increase your daily activity so you are burning an extra 150-200 calories per day. As long as you are still averaging at your TDEE goal, it is fine to indulge every now and again, just be smart with it, and be aware of the extra work needed to compensate for this.

What should be on your plate:

Macronutrients – you need to have a source of protein, carbohydrate and healthy fat in every meal, as well as a variety of micronutrients per meal.

Good protein sources:

-          Chicken

-          Fish

-          Lean turkey mince

-          Grass fed beef

-          Protein powders (try and find a natural one without a lot of artificial ingredients)

-          Eggs

Good Carbohydrate sources:

-          Sweet potato

-          Pumpkin

-          carrots

-          Brown rice

-          Quinoa

-          Lentils

-          Beans & pulses

-          Apples

-          Bananas

-          Berries

-          Rolled oats

-          Wholegrain bread (sourdough or rye – in moderation)

-          Mushrooms

-          eggplant

Good fat sources:

-          Avocado

-          Eggs

-          Organic nut butters (check ingredients – should be 100% nuts)

-          Almonds

-          Cashews

-          Macadamia nuts

-          Chia seeds

-          Flax seeds

-          Pumpkin seeds

-          Extra virgin olive oil

-          Hemp seed oil

-          Avocado oil

-          Coconut oil

-          Ghee

-          Edamame beans

Micronutrients (your veggies)

-          Spinach

-          Kale

-          Broccoli

-          Bell peppers

-          Alfalfa sprouts

-          Asparagus

-          Green beans

-          Cauliflower

-          Cabbage

-          Peas

-          Onion

-          Garlic

-          Ginger

-          Zucchini

-          Herbs and spices

I hope you found this helpful, and if you implement any of these tips let me know:) Thank you so much to those of you who are reading my blog it really means a lot!

The best diet that will get you the results you have been looking for

I have felt such a strong urge to write this post in the past few days as I feel I have not been completely honest about my food and diet journey, and what I am currently doing.

I have never ever been satisfied with the way I look - to be honest I don’t think anyone is. Especially in the line of work I have chosen, my body is basically my livelihood. A personal training career has always been my dream career - for as long as I can remember. And for the longest time, it was just that, a dream because I did not think my body fat percentage was low enough to be a PT, or my glutes were not big enough etc etc. There would always be a limiting belief created by myself that was standing in my way. So this stopped me from going after the career path I wanted. As a result of this, I partied too much, never dieted (I ate well, just probably too much, and the wrong food groups at the wrong times - my diet was basically 100% carbs and not much else). But I consistently showed up to the gym, and educated myself on weight training, because I just loved it, and the way it made me feel.

It was not until the beginning of this year, when I started working at a gym whilst looking for full time corporate work in London, that I actually thought - to be honest, I f**ing love it here and I feel like this is where I belong. As soon as I stepped in that gym, I just knew, and there was no turning back for me - I had to be a personal trainer. At this point I was seriously suffering with my skin issues as well, and I decided to really do some research into diets and what to eat to become shredded, that would clear my skin and give me all the energy in the world. Diets are glorified, trendy, and everyone wants to believe there is a quick fix to get them to where they want to be - so when you try and do research into optimal diets for fat loss - these are the first things you will come across. I fell right into this trap, and believed that I needed to be on some crazy restrictive diet to achieve my goals. So I basically tried out Keto on and off for 6 months, truly believing this was the answer to my fat loss conundrum. I am going to be honest, I saw great results very fast, I lost a load of weight in two weeks and my skin cleared up pretty much instantly. But I was f**ing miserable. I hated it, I was awful to be around, slowly my energy started deteriorating, I couldn’t lift as heavy as I usually would, I had no social life (which is depressing for a 22 y-o who has just moved back to London to be close to her friends), and every couple of weeks I would just go full out binge, my stomach was like an empty pit - then I would be back to square one and I would repeat the cycle again. This was really no way to live, and in my opinion, mental health is just as/if not more important than physical health, because if you are not mentally fit - you simply will not get where you want to be physically. Your mind is your most powerful muscle, if it is not keen, you wont do it.

The thing this little diet adventure did teach me however, was the importance of a balanced plate. I saw all those great results in the initial because my body had never really been used to eating a balanced macro plate in its life. So yes, increasing my protein intake and fat intake was great for my skin and my health, because our bodies thrive off this, but restricting carbs in the long run is just not something I can recommend - we need them to function, and we need them to be happy.

So from here, I decided that the carb restricting was just not for me. I then went on to believing that clean eating was THE way to achieve the figure I desired. Yes, clean eating makes you feel bloody great. I had energy again, my lifting significantly improved, I was losing weight, my skin stayed clear, I was fun to be around. But I still was not satisfied with my diet - I found every time I went out for dinner, or on holiday, no rules applied and I would still proceed to binge like crazy to the point where I felt sick. I thought it was because I was eating these unhealthy foods that my body was not used to, but in actual fact, I was honestly just stuffing myself, which ultimately was putting my body under stress.

So this takes me to where I am at now. I am going to be real, I am currently sitting at 20% body fat, which is such a healthy range for an average female. I am still trying to shed a little bit of fat, and it is working! But here is the thing, I am not actively trying, I have a goal in my head (I wont say what it is because that’s my personal goal), its not a dramatic decrease, I am just being mindful about not exceeding a certain amount of calories per day to keep me in a slight deficit that is sustainable and will help me reach my goal, and making sure I am hitting the macros that work for me. I am 99% certain I have PCOS so for me, it is good to save my carbohydrates for around my workouts. But other than that, I am just enjoying my food. I do love eating healthy, my body definitely thrives off this so I would say 80% of my diet is healthy, but if I feel like a glass of wine with my friends, I’m guna have it, if I want a date night, I’ll go for it, if I want to eat Kinder Bueno every day, I will (in moderation). I think the key is to enjoy what you are doing to get yourself to your healthy goal, be excited about it, and be excited about that treat here and there because you bloody deserve it for working hard.

I have honestly never been happier with my body than I am right now, I may not be the leanest Personal Trainer out there, but to me that is not what it is about. I do it because I want to help people, that is my true passion, I want to help people change their lives through what I truly love, and that is exercise and health.

And I believe my physique is attainable because I am the definition of your average girl. Doesn’t have abs, struggles to shift body fat and gain muscle quickly - but I have worked hard, and I have transformed my body, and I am very proud of what I have achieved, and I want to help other girls, in a world of unrealistic instagram goals - feel the same way. I am in no rush, I am just working towards a goal that is achievable for me, without decrementing my mental, social and physical health, but enhancing them.

A last note I want to put here before I will stop rambling on I promise is please do not compare yourself to what you see online. These teeny girls you see on Instagram are literally less than 1% of the population, they are not genetically normal, or they are putting themselves at risk to look like that. If you think of how many people you see face to face on a daily basis that look like that, the answer is probably less than a couple per week. Strive to be the best version of you, not someone else <3