What to do when a client gains weight before her period

If you’re a personal trainer, you’ve probably heard your female clients complain of weight gain before their period. And if you’re like most personal trainers, you write this off as a “water retention” or “hormonal” issue.

But did you know that it’s actually preventable? In this blog post you are going to understand why water retention happens and how to become even more of a rockstar coach who can empower clients with menstrual cycle health.

So if you’re the coach that informs your client that it’s just water retention, you’re totally right. But why does that water retention happen? It’s the hormone aldosterone’s impact on the balance of sodium and potassium within their body around 10 days before they start their period. What can she do about it? I’ll tell you what I do for it myself and how I’ve helped my clients manage it…

Potassium:

That’s with high potassium foods! These work to help balance the sodium potassium ratio. High Potassium foods includes

Asparagus

Cantaloupe

Potatoes

Cooked broccoli & spinach

Dates

Prunes

Bloating

With weight gain, your client could also experience lots of bloating as well. Bloating is most common when the hormone progesterone surges also around 10 days prior to their period, in our luteal phase. Progesterone can contribute to bloating by slowing down gastric transit, making her have less bowel movements leading to more mass within her GI tract! No fun!

Although the progesterone surge is normal, if your client has slow gastric transit time, you can help her with that by increasing her fat, water and fiber intake. And if you think that increasing her fat intake might push her back on her goals, I want you to know that all women have a higher basal metabolic rate at this time in their cycle. So they are burning more calories, therefore will be more hungry! You can be a rockstar trainer, anticipate that and inform them of how to work with this.

If you want to earn a certification to assess and address hormone balance using science based menstrual cycle fitness and nutrition so that you can not only help your clients get fit, but also help them be aligned with their cycle, apply for the Confident Menstrual Cycle Coaching Academy.

The application process is simple. All you do is click this link to book an application call. On our call, I’ll ask you a few applications and you and I will decide if working together is a fit for both of us.