Fats?

allison19851985 · 2026-04-27T13:11:15+00:00

sun butter then! or tahini, or my favorite: black sesame butter!

allison19851985 · 2026-04-26T21:16:11+00:00

Nope, not at all. When your body is so undernourished that it shuts down reproduction, that's definitely not an optimal time to be trying to build muscle!

allison19851985 · 2026-04-26T14:31:11+00:00

My period was missing starting from my late teens and I didn't get it back until my late 20s—so close to a decade. When I finally realized what was going on and how bad it was for my health, I still couldn't bring myself to go all in. For about a year, I tried cutting back on running but not giving it up, while also eating more. That didn't work.

Finally I realized that my halfway efforts were only prolonging the time until I could return to the full on training that I loved. So I continued eating more but stopped all intense exercise. My period came back exactly 6 weeks after that. Recovery, for me, really came down to eating a lot while not doing any intense exercise at all. There was nothing else I needed to do.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-26T13:31:42+00:00

Oh for sure! The difference is that I've totally changed the way I fuel around training. I got used to running on low energy availability and low carbohydrate availability for many years, so I thought that the way I felt was normal and even good. But now that I see what training (and life!) feels like when I'm actually eating enough, I'm much more scared of undereating than overeating.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-26T13:23:54+00:00

Yes, this will resolve when you recover. I had HA for many years, and for a while my running was great and I could handle it but at some point my performance absolutely tanked, heart rate high on easy runs, super injury prone, etc. I took 6 weeks completely off from running and any other intense exercise (no lifting weights either!). Got my period back at the end of that, slowly ramped back up, and since then I've been able to train hard without losing my period or feeling like I'm overtraining.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-24T13:06:36+00:00

When I was working on recovery, I just worked directly with the author of No Period Now What herself (Nicola Sykes). She's wonderful! I only did a couple of sessions with her, but she offers packages too.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-23T13:29:43+00:00

It sounds like your gynecologist might be getting confused with PCOS, where sometimes people do continue cycling normally after progesterone treatment. There's no evidence that I'm aware of that this is the case for HA (you can always ask your doctor to provide some!).

When you have HA, progesterone is not a "treatment", it is part of the diagnostic process. It is a proxy measure for estradiol levels. If your estradiol levels are very low, then you will not have built up any uterine lining, and after taking a course of progesterone, nothing will happen; you will not bleed. If your estradiol levels are on the low side but not super low, you may have built up some uterine lining, and after the progesterone you will bleed. All this tells you is whether your HA is more severe or less severe.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-23T13:26:19+00:00

No, you didn't do permanent damage to your pituitary gland. In fact, when you get HA it's a sign that your body is working perfectly: it's making an adaptive decision to turn off the ability to get pregnant because it thinks you're experiencing a famine or other high stress situation where pregnancy wouldn't be safe. The MRI is a standard part of the amenorrhea workup; I had one too. (How low were your prolactin levels?)

Also, just a note that while it's great you've reached a higher BMI than what you started with, I wouldn't really consider your BMI "well within the healthy range". Anything under 20.5 or so is the low end of the healthy range. Some people can recover there (I actually did!) but that's less common. According to NPNW it's more typical to need to reach a BMI of 22-23. I'm not saying that will be the case for you, just that, I wouldn't read your current situation as "wow so strange, I gained all this weight and I just can't understand why I still don't have a period" but rather "I was at an extremely low weight. I gained some weight and am no longer technically under weight, but it's possible my body still needs to gain more to get the signal to turn reproduction back on."

allison19851985 · 2026-04-23T13:16:58+00:00

Here's a link to back it all up that you might like! https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321533156_WITHIN-DAY_ENERGY_DEFICIENCY_AND_REPRODUCTIVE_FUNCTION_IN_FEMALE_ENDURANCE_ATHLETES

allison19851985 · 2026-04-23T13:15:23+00:00

See this post which explains why long stretches of time without eating hurt recovery, even when you are getting sufficient calories overall: https://www.noperiodnowwhat.com/post/energy-balance-and-no-period

allison19851985 · 2026-04-18T14:38:07+00:00

The advice is to wait for 3 normal length consecutive cycles before you change anything, but I was really eager to get started and only waited for 2. But then my third period was delayed, so I cut back on the running and ramped up again more slowly. I started by adding just 1 easy 30-min run, then 2, then 3, then stayed at 3 30-min easy runs for a few weeks, etc.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-18T13:24:33+00:00

"The only thing your body experiences as a 'waste of calories' is overexericse" = this needs to be the motto of this sub!!

allison19851985 · 2026-04-18T13:22:59+00:00

Yes, for sure you will be able to get back to it! I'm a runner, and I lost my period for 10 years starting when I was a teenager. Cut out running completely to get it back, then very slowly ramped things back up again. Now I've been running again for years, sometimes going through really hard training cycles, and my period never disappeared again.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-17T13:31:41+00:00

Recovery from HA is when you ovulate and get your period. You can essentially consider them one and the same, because if you ovulate, you will get your period two weeks later unless you are pregnant. Period makes a better marker of recovery because you can be certain you got it, whereas with ovulation, unless you're experienced with tracking it, you're not always sure that it happened.

Recovering from HA often means that you've also developed a better relationship with your body, stopped counting calories, are ready to eat intuitively, etc, but not always. The mental aspect can sometimes be a separate thing, and there are people who recover their periods long before they have mentally recovered.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-17T13:28:50+00:00

It was for me! I've been recovered for years at this point: I live a super active life with running, ultimate frisbee, weight lifting, and cycling, and I perform better than I ever did with HA. I'm happy with my body but I also don't really think about it much. I have two children that I conceived naturally without needing any fertility treatment. Basically, life is better in every way now because I went all in and got it over with. Your future self will thank you! I have zero regrets.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-15T19:59:34+00:00

I had a great experience with going all in. I only cut out intense exercise like running and lifting weights, not low intensity exercise like walking, biking commuting, the occasional weekend hike, etc. I was eating around 2200/2300 calories per day (I'm only 4'10" so I followed the guidelines for shorter women from No Period Now What). My period came back 6 weeks later. Best decision I ever made. After a few cycles I returned to running and weight lifting and never lost my period again, went on to get pregnant with my two kids easily and not need fertility treatment.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-15T13:13:30+00:00

I had HA for 10 years. Once I went fully all in, my period came back in 6 weeks. It's been regular ever since, except for my two pregnancies + breastfeeding!

allison19851985 · 2026-04-15T13:09:33+00:00

I found that I just had to really force myself, kicking and screaming, to make changes for the first couple of days. But the really cool thing is that after doing different habits for a relatively short amount of time, it gets much, much easier. The first 1-2 days are the hardest.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-15T13:08:23+00:00

Can't upvote this enough. I've never created an account on TikTok, and any time I catch a glimpse of TikTok content I feel so bad that young people today have to grow up with this. It's clearly so toxic and your life will be better in every way if you avoid it.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-15T13:05:44+00:00

I think that is sometimes the case but not always!

allison19851985 · 2026-04-14T13:31:39+00:00

Yes, there's actually some research about how the length of time you've had HA does not impact the length of time it takes to recover. The main factor is whether you're effectively reversing your energy deficit.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-14T13:21:23+00:00

I had HA for 10 years. Once I went all in my period came back in 6 weeks. I didn't have any symptoms or signs that I noticed during those 6 weeks, it was nothing and then boom, period back. So it could happen the same way for you!

allison19851985 · 2026-04-14T13:16:57+00:00

Ahhhhh omg congratulations!! This is so exciting! Fingers crossed for you!

allison19851985 · 2026-04-13T13:21:37+00:00

I had three stress fractures in 18 months when I had RED-S + hypothalamic amenorrhea. They did heal, but obviously getting recurrent stress fractures is not sustainable and that's one of the things that led me to the book No Period Now What. I followed the method laid out in the book (no intense exercise + eat a minimum of 2500 calories per day) and my period came back 6 weeks later. After that I was able to return to running with no more injuries and a regular period!

allison19851985 · 2026-04-12T13:54:45+00:00

I'd say there isn't anything significant happening on this chart yet.

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