Jump to content

PMS and Carbohydrate Cravings


jryan047

Recommended Posts

I baked a huge bag of sweet potatoes and ate them with every meal during pms... so delicious and totally healthy. At first I had a little bit of "carb guilt" because I usually only eat one sweet potato per day, but I quickly got over that because they taste so good and Melissa's post about extra glucose made perfect sense...I am loving whole 30!

nice work! periods are bad enough...so enjoy that little extra bit of sweet potato, especially if it keeps you from diving head first into a bowl of ice cream!

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

I used to have an awful dragging ache feeling during the period (rather than the usual cramping) and the mooncup just cured it,I don;t know why or how....Sadly It didn't cure my pyscho tendancies at that time!

But that is just one of it's advantages,are you consdiring changing over?

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

Mooncup is brill and I highly recommend it.I have been using one for the past 6 years.

I am concerned about upcoming period.I know I have severe carb/sugar cravings but I will be damned to cave this time around.

Banana ice cream might be a solution.Freeze brown bananas.When frozen,puree in food processor with a few tsps of water.Add flavour as you like..cinnamon,dark chocolate,nut butter.This could be the sugar craving buster.

Link to comment

Anjelevil -

If you're doing a Whole30, I would caution you to stay away from the banana ice cream (and chocolate with any added sugar is a no-go absolutely). I know it can seem like a better choice option, but it's not doing anything to reduce the psychological aspect of your cravings. Your best bet is to pre-game with some increased carbs and give yourself a little more room with fruit during. You may want to check out the cravings thread under this topic for more ideas.

Link to comment

Robin, Melissa and everyone else. This is all great advice. I too am having issues and actually gave into the cravings. I'm about 2 weeks in to my whole 30. It really wasn't worth it and the chocolate (or maybe the sugar in it) actually made my pms symptoms worse. Pre-empt with with fruit, much better idea!!!

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

Some pureed sweet potato after my sushi dinner tonight hit the spot. I couldn't ever really FEED the beast during the beginning of menstruation. Now a few spoon-fulls of sweet potatoes shuts my desire for sweets down! I have never had this experience so it's refreshing to see the desire...realize it's been sated..and move on.

Thanks for the information Melissa! What a great piece of knowledge to add to my repertoire.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Hey ladies - what happened to my PMS?? :)

Seriously - I'm kind of in shock. Ever since my youngest was born (3yrs ago), my PMS has gotten progressively worse and worse. (And after years and years of never really having that, it's been a real drag. I was spoiled.) Anyway, the past year has been the worst by far. A week to 10 days ahead of time I could tell it was coming, like a train - every symptom on the list...and then on my first day, I felt totally out of commission. Horrible. I'd even gone to see my midwives and ask if they could suggest something to help - they planned to do some testing to see if I was developing issues (but I had a few months that weren't "as bad as they had been" so I never went back in.)

Anyway, I'm on Day 16 of Whole30...and today was my first day of my cycle and I was quite nearly shocked by it. I mean, I knew based on the calendar because I'm pretty regular, but I just figured it must be off because I hadn't felt anything. Virtually no PMS symptoms. None.

Am I imagining this?? Is it a fluke? Is 16 days too soon to see this drastic kind of change?

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks for this thread. On day 7 and 2nd day of my period. This is usually when I caved when on gf/df diet. Fried a head of cabbage last night and ate two bowls of it. Went to bed without temptation of cookies or ice cream. Now I know why. Will consider other carbs to add to meals over next couple days to stay on track.

Link to comment
  • 2 years later...

I think next week is PMS time, so I think I'm going to try to head it off as suggested with additional sweet potato. I'm on day 16 and I've had sweet potato twice at this point, so maybe I'll up that by adding chunks to a ground meat, veggie, egg scramble and pureeing it with cinnamon and egg for something sweet and creamy. This is good to know ahead of time. I would hate to get knees deep in it and want to vacate my entire body/down a bottle of wine and salt and vinegar chips (yikes!).

 

Thanks!

Link to comment
  • 4 weeks later...

During your luteal phase (pre-menstrual), the body shunts tons of energy in the form of glucose (sugar) to your ovaries and related activities, like producing more hormones. As more glucose goes to your reproductive system, less is left for the rest of the body... which responds by craving more "fuel" in the form of... you guessed it... sugar!

Understanding this, perhaps purposefully bump up your starchy carb intake during this time period. (Chocolate will provide fast glucose, sure, but any form of carbohydrate will do.) Pre-emptively eating more carbohydrates and providing your body with the glucose it needs may help to diminish some of those carb cravings.

Best,

Melissa

 I'm so curious if this applies also to when we're ill. My friend and I crave JUNK when we are sick. Does the body shunt glucose to the parts of the body fighting infection or a virus and that's why we tend to crave the junk when sick?

Link to comment
  • Administrators

 I'm so curious if this applies also to when we're ill. My friend and I crave JUNK when we are sick. Does the body shunt glucose to the parts of the body fighting infection or a virus and that's why we tend to crave the junk when sick?

Totally could be!  Stick to starchy veggies as much as you can, sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes/parsnips etc.  When you're sick your body needs nourishment and junky food won't give it that.

 

For me, being home alone, sick in the middle of the day as a kid was always a ticket to eat junk food and nap....so sometimes if I'm home sick as an adult I have to really talk to myself about what my body NEEDS vs what it thinks it should get.  ;)

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...