How My Fitness Coach Screwed My Hormones

 In 2008, I entered my first body building competition. They didn't even have a bikini competition like category back then it was all female body building and female figure. And in 2009, I won my first competition.

Back in 2008, I was scouted by this trainer who will remain nameless. He offered to coach me for free. And that was super enticing because I saw all the women, he coached in the winner circle. That is what I had my eyes on during that time in my life, I wanted to be in that winners circle. So I was like, heck, this coach is offering me free training because he believes in me, I'll take it!

So once I received the training and nutrition plan from him, I was actually pretty astonished. I was already a personal trainer in 2008, 2009. And I knew that variety of exercise and nutrition were important, but this program didn't have exercise variability at all. And I was literally eating the same things every single day. I could tell you what it is too. Quarter cup of oats, nine almonds. Or was it 10 almonds? I think I got 10 almonds and then chicken broccoli, rice for lunch, like four ounces of and four ounces of broccoli, four ounces of rice. Um, and then, you know, almonds again. Oh, my favorite was the rice cake with almond butter.

That was like a treat. It was just, it's so sad. It's so sad. What I thought I needed to do in order to, in order to look a cert look a certain way, right? This is what I thought I needed to do. I did it because he was the guy that was getting all those women into the winners circle. So I'm like, I'm a, in a train with him. I followed the regimen to a tea. I did not cheat once on that diet plan for 16 weeks, that 1400 calorie diet plan weighed, everything counted all of those fricking almonds. And what it got me was hypothyroid syndrome. What it got me was PCOS my PCOS got worse. My hypothyroid syndrome got super bad. After that, I ended up gaining 30 pounds in three months after I won at nationals in 2009.

The worst part was that I didn’t know how to recover my body. I didn’t even know how to eat anymore because I was on this diet for so long. And if you've been on a diet, you can totally relate to this. Because of this extreme calorie deficit that I was in and because I didn't have any guidance and I didn't really know what to eat because I had turned off of cut off my intuition to my own body. I started eating everything and I mean, everything there was a gallon peanut butter, M&Ms mixed with nuts and little pretzels and stuff. I think I ate a half of that in a day. And I think I picked through to get all the M&Ms. :)

So I went from being 111 pounds to when I weighed myself at my highest, I was 163 pounds. I wanted to mention this because it's really, really important. I stopped working out entirely for like a couple of years. And once I started working out again, it correlated to me also working at this functional neurology clinic where I learned more about amenhorrea or period loss and how with period loss, we actually have to train our to be safe, again, being safe, like your body, knowing that you have access to food more than 1400 calories a day, more than 10 almonds!!!!
And so after taking time off exercise for a long while and eating whatever I wanted, I started reintroducing steady state exercise, my body started responding to exercise appropriately. I was able to start seeing differences in my own body. And that's where my journey in menstrual cycle health and fitness began when I started understanding the impact that fitness has on hormones, the impact that food has on hormones, the impact that environmental estrogen has on hormones. And if you are in the body building figure or bikini industry, and you've lost your period, and you're wondering how that impacts your overall fitness, I feel you. Feel free to reach out to me via instagram right here to share your story with me.