A question for the ladies...

I've always counted my calories and never noticed a difference long term.

Short term ovulation week I could spring up between 3-7lbs of water weight.

The day after my period started it would shoot back down.

Looking at the 28 day picture my weight loss or gain has always matched my calorie intake/out

Seffell wrote: »

All the studies which I've read show that there is no increase in BMR. My own experience of several years of careful logging confirm this.

Runaroundafieldx2 wrote: »

Looking at the 28 day picture my weight loss or gain has always matched my calorie intake/out

Yes.

When I'm on a mission to lose weight, I just keep logging and eating as normal, and weight loss happens as normal.



Also, just an anecdotal thing but ... when I'm heavier, I am a bit hungrier just before my period. However, when I'm lighter, I don't get hungry before my periods. No idea why that is, but that's how it works for me. So as long as I stay under a certain weight, there's no appetite difference between a "pre-period" day and any other day.

I have never heard of this but even if my body did burn 10% more calories in the lead up to my period it just isn't worth it to me to calculate/track it. Every month I put on a few pounds in the lead up to my period (water retention) and I am also more hungry so I eat at maintenance if I feel the need to. To be honest I'm losing 0.5lbs per week (based on a monthly average) and so I wouldn't even notice a 10% fluctuation.

I just started the week before my period today. I won't notice any increased appetite, but what I will notice is that for the next week to 10 days my weight won't really budge on the scale even if I'm sticking to my plan. Towards the end of my actual menstruation and after the weight will drop off. Not an answer to your question but an interesting observation I had once I started closely tracking both my weight and my cycle.

If I was desperate enough for an extra 150kcal for bleeding-days that I was logging menstruation as exercise to justify it I would probably need to take a good look at my plan. If you're starving eat more.

7 days bleeding, averaged over 28 day cycle = an extra 37.5kcal a day. That's definitely margin of error territory.

Alice_in_VVonderland wrote: »

Here is a source, by the way.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3766447

Granted that test was only done on 10 people, but I've read a handful of articles all making similar statements.

I mean, if we round that down to 100 calories a day for the sake of margin of error, and lower body weights, it's only 1/5th of a pound a month. So no, I wouldn't really expect anyone to notice a significant difference. I was just curious if anyone bothered with it. It's about the same amount of calories as a brisk 30 minute walk, so it's not an insignificant amount in that perspective.

What concerns me is that 10 women is an insignificantly low number and the paper was published in 1986. This is not a reliable study.

Alice_in_VVonderland wrote: »

More specifically, this is a very odd question for the ladies who are
A- of menstruating age,
B- possess a uterus, and
C- are not on birth control.

I've been reading that in the week prior to menstruation (you know, that week when we binge eat so much that even the cat is afraid of becoming our next entree), our Basal Metabolic Rate increases by approximately 10%. For me that's roughly 150 additional calories burned per day for about 7 days.

I was wondering if anyone logs those calories burned? Or do you happen to notice a trend of exceeding your calorie goals by roughly 10% during that week?

Alice_in_VVonderland wrote: »

Here is a source, by the way.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3766447

Granted that test was only done on 10 people, but I've read a handful of articles all making similar statements.

I mean, if we round that down to 100 calories a day for the sake of margin of error, and lower body weights, it's only 1/5th of a pound a month. So no, I wouldn't really expect anyone to notice a significant difference. I was just curious if anyone bothered with it. It's about the same amount of calories as a brisk 30 minute walk, so it's not an insignificant amount in that perspective.

From the abstract of that article, it sounds like they're talking about TDEE ("24-hour energy expenditure"), not BMR, and they're talking about the two weeks following ovulation, not just the one week before onset of menstruation. The writers hypothesize the increase in energy expenditure is due to the release of progestin. Interesting to me that there's no mention of any link to the energy and building blocks needs to create the uterine lining each month.

ETA: no, I've never logged those calories, as I assume that's accounted for in part by adjustments in the BMR formula based on age -- which may be one reason MFP underestimated my maintenance calories, since I was later than average to perimenopause.

Alice_in_VVonderland wrote: »

Here is a source, by the way.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3766447

Granted that test was only done on 10 people, but I've read a handful of articles all making similar statements.

I mean, if we round that down to 100 calories a day for the sake of margin of error, and lower body weights, it's only 1/5th of a pound a month. So no, I wouldn't really expect anyone to notice a significant difference. I was just curious if anyone bothered with it. It's about the same amount of calories as a brisk 30 minute walk, so it's not an insignificant amount in that perspective.

I don't bother with it, but if I'm having a hungrier day, I will eat a bit more. I usually have about 3 hungry days during the week before.

Interesting. For me, I just keep logging like normal. I have one day where I am a ravenous beast, not a whole week. On ravenous beast day I usually do not stick to my goal and will go above - usually to around maintenance or even a bit more dependent on how ravenous I am. Then it seems to get 'satisfied' and the next day i'm OK again. My ravenous beast day is a bit over a week out from my period (I used iPeriod for a few months to track the pattern of when I am crazy/bottomless pit/horny/ready to kill anyone who crosses my path/etc). About 3 days before my period I become very very tired and need extra sleep.

So yeah - I figure one day of overeating won't kill me.