***for the women out there*** Help!

Sometimes you can't fight mother nature. Many women crave carby foods and sweets during pms so it's a natural, hormone driven tendency. I eat a high carb diet and have sweets weekly but I still crave even more sweets during that time. The solution is to embrace it and just roll with it. It usually only lasts a couple days anyway.

The more you try to avoid or restrict, the more you crave and end up consuming more than you would have if you just allowed yourself a given amount. So go ahead and enjoy that extra ice cream or chocolate or whatever.

As I sit here... Eating a snickers bar... I just have to fit it in with my other food or add some extra exercise. I figure one week a month won't kill me! (I also eat sweets normally, but it really is different)

I roll with it. If I'm craving a certain food, I go eat some of it. "Some", not "all", which is the disgustingly hard part because my ovaries want ALL.

for me I will eat lower than normal amounts of carbs(less than 150) around that TOM and for some reason that helps with the cravings. you could always try doing lower carb a week or so before and during and see if that helps. this way I dont overeat and I dont have the crazy junk food cravings either. plus I dont have all the bloating issues and my cramps dont seem as bad either.

I find if helps a lot if I eat a little of what I crave. 5 almonds. 1/4 cup of ice cream. Counting out those 17 chips in an ounce. Lots of tea. Deprivation is not good for me. But eating just a little of what I want and I do fine. Not at all at once - pick one and walk AWAY from the kitchen with your tea.

RunRutheeRun wrote: »

I once found that to be true, but my consistent self control meant that my eating habits changed and regardless of hormones I don't crave anything coming up to/during TOM..... but maybe I'm a special snowflake LOL

I was that way while losing too... thankfully LOL. Did not see any difference before or during TOM.

It only started once I got within 3 pounds of my goal weight (so 17 pounds under the overweight category) and decreased my deficit. Maybe it's because I'm older. Maybe it's because I eat more. Who knows. It sucks horribly though. Thankfully the 10-15 days after are much easier and it's much easier to exercise self control when your hormones are not driving you crazy.

Mother nature will mess with a women's with leptin and grelin causing all kinds of cravings and what not. Some are sensitive to that and some are not.

You can either cave into it, or you can eat enough food that is high enough in the right calories to keep you fuller such as high protein moderate fat meals. The key is, you need to be satisfied with this this meal (or large snack) and allow you and your brain to understand that you are full. If your body keeps trying to tell you to continue to eat and you already had enough calories for saiety's sake, don not cave in and eat more than you need to in order to meet some sort of unnecessary food cravings.

You can choose to replace your meal or snacks with the specific food you need in order to do this but make these calories NOT go over your deficit. I personally would not replace 300 - 400 calories of say for example high protein sandwhich or salad with veggies, and with fruits for 300 - 400 calories of chocolate, chips and unnecessary carbs but this is your choice.

These food cravings do not get you to goal out of this 1 week per month. I think once a reasonable person out there that is serious about goals realizes this issue with their TOM and food cravings can either work this through, or just deal with they fact they MUST do what ever they need to do to get through the TOM blues! LOL

pvju wrote: »

Does it balance itself out? When I had periods (back in the day I remember the week before was insane hunger and cravings but the week of my period, I had virtually no appetite for the first few days at least.

Yeah. But it doesn't always help me. It's much easier that week for sure because at least I'm not starving all the time, but it's also the only time I can actually make the higher calorie stuff that I like fit in my days - stuff I can just never fit otherwise because I'm naturally hungry - which makes it harder to make up for PMS week. Vicious cycle... the only way for me would be to just deprive myself all the time, unfortunately I can't stick to it and always end up binging when I do that.

So that's why I'm still 6 pounds from my goal after 2 years. Apart from that week (and obviously PMS week that is much worse), I can't fit more than 200 'empty' calories (and I count bread in that) on my 1800 calorie goal. When I try to, that's when I end up eating at maintenance because I'm just too hungry.

When I'm lucky, special events coincide with PMS week so I can limit the damage. When it doesn't, I gain 2-3 pounds, and I'm still trying to lose the ones I gained in December!