How to Heal Hypothalamic Amenorrhea & Hypothyroidism [Diet Recovery]

"HELP I lost my period!"

» Mysteriously lost your period? Trying to heal your hormonal imbalance to balance hormones but you've tried everything and nothing's working?

» Suffering from no period on a keto, vegan, bodybuilding or after other ways of changing your diet, trying to eat clean & healthy and/or after going on or off birth control?

» Have you missed your period but the pregnancy test was negative?

+ If you are looking to learn about:

👉 amenorrhea causes, treatment and advice to get period back,

👉 what is amenorrhea and the symptoms and what is the holistic natural way to recover,

👉 how to get your period back,

👉 why your period is inconsistent and irregular

👉 the connection between your thyroid and period / hormone health

👉 how to heal hypothyroidism whether your period is gone or present

then you're in the right place!

In this article I talk about my personal journey and how my hormones went all out of wack and how I managed to heal my Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, get my period back, heal my thyroid, metabolism and my body in general, naturally, without eliminating foods I love.

And I will show you how you can also balance your hormones, including those who suffer from hypothalamic amenorrhea, hypothyroidism, over exercise and eating disorders (overtraining, disordered eating, bulimia, chronic dieting, orthorexia, etc).

QUICK INTRO TO MY HORMONAL DISASTER STORY

As some of you may know by now at one point during my extreme fitness modeling, bikini competing days and extreme clean eating, my hormones began to go all out of wack, and I lost my period altogether for about 4 years.

After slowly getting out of the fitness industry and excessively exercising, traditional health care failed me in helping to heal my hormones.

Therefore, in my quest to heal my hormones naturally, I tried all sorts of other “healing diets” out there to heal my body, but my period remained inconsistent or absent at periods, my hair continued to fall out, my body temperature remained low, my metabolism was low and my digestive issues, bloating and food allergies got worse and worse..

The healthier I tried to be, the worse my health declined.

I tried both western and eastern modalities to try to heal myself – medications from the doctors and then supplements and other natural alternatives..

but eventually saying screw this, after nothing was helping, and after seriously trying EVERY kind of alternative healing protocol out there, I can’t even begin to name all of them, but probably if you name it, I tried it..

...I tried all sorts of crazy things to try to heal me: from cutting dairy, greasy foods, to  👉 GAPS and going vegan to 👉 10 day water fasting and coconut oil fasting to 👉 spending thousands on medications and and herbal supplements..

After 4 years of having an inconsistent and then a completely absent period right before I found diet recovery, I got my hormones tested once again and the doctor told me he suspected I was going into pre-menopause.... in my early 20’s!

He wanted to put me back on hormones (after I was on birth control from the age of 14 until 19) and I just didn’t want to go back on birth control or follow hormone replacement therapy at all because all the birth controls I took made me feel crazy, mentally and emotionally and made my physical body not feel well either!

So, I carried on with hopes that I’d finally find something…

...fast forward several months later, I fell into a binge eating episode (after not bingeing or purging for about 4 years after my last fitness contest ie extreme dieting and exercising)

I was literally binge eating on 10,000 calories a day, for a few months, on lots of starch and fats, such as: jars of peanut butter, loafs of bread, gallons of ice cream and all the foods I had been cutting for my clean strict diets for almost a decade..

And after a few months of just saying screw it (I felt uncontrollable hunger), and I couldn’t take it any longer, my body took over and I couldn’t control myself around food anymore, so I allowed it because I was at a point of no hope anyway…

…and low and behold, a few months in, my body temperature began to rise, I started having hot flashes and night sweats every night for weeks, my nipples becoming slightly sore and a few weeks later or so, I couldn’t believe it, but my period returned!

So that’s my story in short, I talk about my story more in depth in my book HERE

I’ve now been able to help hundreds of other women get their period back and slowly heal their hormones metabolism, hunger cues, thyroid and digestion as well.

NUTRITIONAL REHABILITATION (AKA DIET RECOVERY) FOR HORMONAL REBALANCING

When balancing your hormones, getting your period back, raising your metabolism and regulating your appetite...

(which these are all interconnected, so all these systems need to heal and work in harmony again together, and this will happen – the healing will occur in all systems as you go through a nutritional rehabilitation process, known as diet recovery where you're nourishing your body to heal your metabolism and mind) 

...Your main focus needs to be on not restricting calories/macros, dieting, skipping meals, and so forth and not going on any diets EVER again (aka anything that leaves you feeling deprived, hungry and depleted).

The best thing you can do is eat both:

• starchy carbs, (potatoes, bread, oatmeal things like these)
• fats, (both saturated and poly- and mono- unsaturated. Cholesterol will be crucial in cell regeneration and production as well as hormone production. I.e. eggs, avocado, peanut butter and oils especially olive oil, coconut oil, butter.
• proteins as well, and from all kinds of sources – animal protein is super beneficial and bioavailable in healing and nourishing in recovery, as well as plant based protein, so altogether: eggs, meats, nut butters, dairy, beans, seeds, tofu, tempeh, etc. 

There’s a reason you’re probably always thinking about and/or extremely craving or bingeing on jars of peanut butter or loads of starchy carbohydrates..

Because those are needed by your body to restore and heal, balance and return to homeostasis.

They all play a unique roll in the healing process.

I noticed way more healing with high starch, high fat and high protein – in other words a “high-everything diet.”  🔥

No compensating or "low this" or "low that" diets.

And if you don’t have your period back, you need to be eating more in general, so whatever you’re eating now.

Double or triple that.

Seriously.

People in the diet restrictive mindset and counting, measuring, calculating habits, they need to get out of that OCD, fearful, controlling behavior and get rid of the measuring spoons, cups, scales, calorie tracking apps and just eyeball their food.

So double the bread and double the spread. 😉 

I also recommend getting high quality dairy, so grass fed and humanely raised when possible, but don’t stress about it if you can’t get access to grass fed organic because then this is counterproductive and you’ll be creating more of the stress you’re trying to reduce.

Remember it’s all about trying to reduce your stress response to food and eating, and not being perfect.

Perfectionism is very stressful on the psyche and physical body and often comes with control issues. 

CHOLESTEROL & HORMONES

As I mentioned before your cholesterol/saturated fat intake might be too low.

Cholesterol is the pre-cursor for the production of pregnenolone, which goes on to become estrogen, progesterone, etc.  

This fear of cholesterol needs to go!

Their is good cholesterol (HDL) and bad cholesterol (LDL) yes, so cutting or avoiding cholesterol  does not help to keep the bad cholesterol down, no!

Cholesterol is great for your hormones.

By getting good cholesterol from quality egg yolks and butter, you then can lower the bad cholesterol.

I’ve seen it with blood tests – by eating whole eggs, people in fact see their bad cholesterol lowered and the good cholesterol rose.

EXERCISE & HORMONES

You absolutely need to CHILL.

Cool it on the exercise and make sure you’re not doing high intensity workouts (HIIT training) long distance cardio or anything that leaves you feeling stressed out, exhausted and dreading your form of exercise.

Otherwise it’s again too stressful and not healthy anymore.

You'll need to go through a proper exercise rehab process and then re-intergrate balanced body movement thereafter, which if you'd like a step-by-step guide on how to do this, my Find Your Balance program is designed exactly for this.

Remember, health and fitness is not a look it’s a feeling.

→ If you’re doing exercise for the abs, or strict vanity purposes solely because you hate your body and don’t value or respect your body or don't know your worth as a human beyond your abs/flat stomach or beyond sexualizing yourself for attention, validation and love… this is unhealthy relationship with exercise.

→ If you’re doing exercise because you have the energy and desire to move the body in your form of fitness without guilt or shame or body hate driving you... this is healthy relationship with exercise

THYROID & METABOLISM

Again, stress and cortisol from not eating, and over exercising…

...hypothyroidism can also be, (but not always of course), directly caused from malnutrition and the lowering of the metabolism as the thyroid gland is directly connected to metabolic function.

Low metabolism > means low hormones production > which means low glandular function > which are: the thyroid gland, adrenal glands, reproductive glads, etc.

High estrogen, but also low hormones in general, is a common problem among people who don’t meet their nutrient needs, as we see in common diet trends that are restrictive in their nature out their today.

Long periods without eating creates a stress reaction in the body

– elevated stress hormones and long-term of not enough kcals, macros, micros can significantly impact your thyroid conversion and progesterone production, which naturally oppose estrogen.

Having a healthy amount of body fat is essential to having healthy balanced hormone production.

If you’re at too low of a BMI, or body fat % for YOUR body type, then your hormones will remain all out of wack, and it’ll be hard, if not impossible, to get your period back.

Especially as females, even though we live in a world that now even females want to be very masculine physically (think: hard body, muscular, always lifting heavy weights, not in tune with hormone fluctuations, etc),

...it’s not natural, and long term as a lot of us have seen, it’s not healthy for our physiology, biologically speaking.

BODY FAT & HORMONES

To have a healthy reproductive system (which is controlled and stimulated by hormones), having healthy body fat is essential, or else the body will sense it’s not in a healthy enough state to reproduce.

Therefore the body doesn't feel reproduction is a priority and rather turns off reproduction as a conservation mechanism in order for survival and conservation of precious (limited) energy (calories/macros/consistency).

The body will turn the energy focus into finding an abundance of energy: which is food.

This is why once we consistently feed ourselves ENOUGH starch, fat and protein and for long enough in diet recovery, eventually we get our period back and we see other systems begin to slowly heal and work properly again and your health markers improve.

The problem here is if you mentally think:

“oh but a BMI of 19 or 20 is healthy for me so I don’t need to gain weight, I need to maintain weight or even LOSE weight...,” 

...but you still don’t have your period or your hair is still falling out or you have other signs of impaired hormone production such as infertility and low libido...

....it’s probably because your body’s like: 

“yea nice try, but we need to be at a BMI of like 25 or even higher for a temporary time and overshoot your weight set point to heal the metabolism and hormones, or more or less permanently” 

This will depend on your body, your past and present of what you’ve done and what you’re currently doing with your diet as well as exercise, sleep, stress, genetics and amongst other things.

If you have a hard time letting go of the identity of the ultra lean, ripped or skinny body that brought you misery, yes, this can be the hardest part of recovering but it can be lifesaving and ultimate freedom, and I have other articles on how I dealt with the weight gain which you can read here and here.

A big factor as to why people are stuck in that pseudo/quasi recovery is because they can’t let go of and deal with their body changing or deal with the grief of their old malnourished body…

...even if they know it’s what they need for their health, healing and future quality of life.

And even if it's only a temporary healing symptom.

So if you need help on this be sure to check out these other resources, or enroll in my program Find Your Balance for a comprehensive step-by-step guide to go deep into the healing process for the best and thorough guidance.

IS IT TOO LATE?

I truly believe, it’s not “too late” to heal or get your life back.

Here are ONLY A FEW screenshots from clients:

I believe the body is VERY resilient and when provided with the right level of environmental support (food, rest and inner work), it can spring back from A LOT, I mean A LOT, A LOT.

As for the mental side of things, I too believe it’s not too late to change the bad habits behaviors and mindsets.

You can create the resilience and motivation you need for yourself in order to recover.

Because it takes both mental, physical and emotional resilience to get to where you want to be.

And yes this absolutely plays into hormonal rehabilitation!

It's what I refer to as the metabolic-mind connection.

Healing takes time and that amount of time is dependent on how many years someone has spent not providing their body what it needs.

HUNGER, SATIETY & HORMONES

As your hormones continue to heal, so will your hunger and satiety signals.

So if you’re worried about when your hunger / cravings are going to die down or when you’re satiety is going to become more present or pronounced again (aka you can feel satisfied after eating normal amounts of food and not keep thinking about food after eating)...

...just know that as you’re working to heal your overall hormones, so will your hunger and satiety hormones also heal.

Because these appetite signals are fueled from hormones – Ghrelin and leptin, hunger and full hormones.

THE NEED FOR UNDERSTANDING & RESEARCH

Real quick, before we rap it up, I want to acknowledge a question I got about understanding all and every step and process in recovery –

“Is it necessary to get wrapped up in all of micro details of every step and process that occurs during hormonal healing right now or are these things that research shows will sort themselves out if we are just patient, rest, and eat? I’d love for you to do a video on this!

In a nutshell, yes.

In the beginning I can see from personal experience how it can be helpful to get caught up in the research of the WHY: ie what’s happening during healing and during recovery.

But after a while it can be more stressful than anything to have to understand and know the WHY to everything at all times.

(And it can be a form of self sabotage to prevent you from doing what you know you need to do because you're afraid.)

And what’s the biggest detriment to the body?

Negative ongoing stress.

And this can easily turn into an obsessive compulsion to have to understand every minute detail and bit of research and if you don’t understand exactly what’s happening or ”if and when” things will pass," then you can’t endure it or you can’t carry on with recovery and you cannot trust in the process and you have a panic attack!

Instead, at some point, after you gather some knowledge, (like reading this post and the one's linked) the best thing to do is let go of trying to understand and in a sense, control, everything and just let it be

– just let go and let the body do its thing, get out of your own way,

while you eat to satisfaction of what you crave and desire, rest and chillax, work on self acceptance, work on reconnecting with your true self and passions and what brings you adventure, sense of fulfillment, joy, peace and self love.

I hope this has brought value and help to your journey, and I truly wish you the freedom and peace you deserve and is here for you!

Xx 

Kayla Rose

Holistic Nutritionist

P.S. I’m hosting a free masterclass specifically for people who want to stop feeling obsessed around food and truly heal their metabolism and you’re invited! Click here to sign up.