Do you have a functioning uterus?
wunderkindking
Posts: 1,615 Member
I never start threads, but I see this come up a lot and wanted to be helpful.
Women talking about stalling for 3-4 weeks and calling it a plateau.
Your cycle impacts things, it really does. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but hormones absolutely impact scale weight. I only show loss ONCE in a month, for a few days in a row and that's immediately after I start my period.
Women talking about stalling for 3-4 weeks and calling it a plateau.
Your cycle impacts things, it really does. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but hormones absolutely impact scale weight. I only show loss ONCE in a month, for a few days in a row and that's immediately after I start my period.
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That's one question I can't recall ever hearing asked in my lifetime.
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I agree, the week prior to my period I seem to steadily gain 1 kg/2 pounds, then the week after my period I lose that and some more...I always trust the long run because my body's bloat levels fluctuate constantly. Even during the same day, my level of leanness is completely different from morning to evening and my clothes fit differently.5
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Me too! I drop rapidly, like 1-2 lbs per day, in the first couple days of my flow. Otherwise it's really rare to see any scale drops.
I think it's water retention.2 -
Love that title!...don't have anything to add since mine is no longer functioning (when it did it blessed me with 3 children!)3
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A better thread title would have been "do you have functioning ovaries," since even if you've had a hysterectomy and don't have a uterus anymore, if they left the ovaries in and you aren't in menopause, you can still have hormone cycles that affect water retention like this even if you don't bleed anymore.
But I will cosign the general vibe of your post which is that bodies gonna body how bodies do, trust the process.11 -
As I begin my ride on the red tide any second now, I note that this month I had a tendency to overcompensate on calories for not 7-10 days beforehand but almost 2 weeks.
Therefore the calendar reminder I made a few months back that's synced to my cycle in an effort to help me mitigate overeating with more mental awareness of my endocrine system's cruel trickery? Ineffective.
Perhaps my body adapted, perhaps I'm too close to maintenance weight now, or perhaps it's due to another diabolical reason?
It's only a couple of days; I'll deal 🤷🏿♀️
Also, shout out to all the bio lessons shared here about our lady bits✌🏿8 -
I think I've said this in a couple places here already, but for those of us females who love data collection, I do highly recommend tracking cycles, because you can learn a LOT about how your body works (and even get heads-up about possible health issues). Like nutrition, there's several approaches that you can pick from, but in many cases just starting somewhere is enough. And of course certain methods have their fans who insist it's the only way, etc.
I've been tracking my cycles for a long time, but with joining MFP I've learned a lot more about how nutrition plays a part too and it's really fascinating stuff.4 -
penguinmama87 wrote: »I think I've said this in a couple places here already, but for those of us females who love data collection, I do highly recommend tracking cycles, because you can learn a LOT about how your body works (and even get heads-up about possible health issues). Like nutrition, there's several approaches that you can pick from, but in many cases just starting somewhere is enough. And of course certain methods have their fans who insist it's the only way, etc.
I've been tracking my cycles for a long time, but with joining MFP I've learned a lot more about how nutrition plays a part too and it's really fascinating stuff.
I'll cosign this, too! I'm not as good about tracking this anymore since my Nexplanon stopped my periods (10/10 would recommend, I've had an excellent experience), but I can recommend the app Clue to track this kind of thing for anyone who wants to start collecting that data. It's not focused around trying to get pregnant like so many menstrual-tracking apps are and you can track SO MANY things with it.3 -
goal06082021 wrote: »penguinmama87 wrote: »I think I've said this in a couple places here already, but for those of us females who love data collection, I do highly recommend tracking cycles, because you can learn a LOT about how your body works (and even get heads-up about possible health issues). Like nutrition, there's several approaches that you can pick from, but in many cases just starting somewhere is enough. And of course certain methods have their fans who insist it's the only way, etc.
I've been tracking my cycles for a long time, but with joining MFP I've learned a lot more about how nutrition plays a part too and it's really fascinating stuff.
I'll cosign this, too! I'm not as good about tracking this anymore since my Nexplanon stopped my periods (10/10 would recommend, I've had an excellent experience), but I can recommend the app Clue to track this kind of thing for anyone who wants to start collecting that data. It's not focused around trying to get pregnant like so many menstrual-tracking apps are and you can track SO MANY things with it.
Yep, the one I use is called OvuView and you can use it for trying to conceive, trying to avoid pregnancy, or just general health tracking. Before I used an app I used paper charts and did the interpretive work myself, but it's really nice to have an app calculate it for you. When I have health appointments I can just export the data and print it (I actually did this once to adjust a due date because I knew the standard "40 weeks from start of last menstrual period" was not going to be a good due date - and then when that baby was still late from the new date and on the small side at birth, I was really glad I hadn't been subjected to an artificially early induction date because he clearly needed all that growing time!)
The idea that we might have slightly different calorie needs based on cycle time is really interesting to me. Women joke about hormone cravings and such, and perhaps even sometimes use them to justify excess, but I do think it's important for us to remember that our bodies are not static. Men's aren't static either, but it's definitely different and worth it to be aware of that.3 -
penguinmama87 wrote: »goal06082021 wrote: »penguinmama87 wrote: »I think I've said this in a couple places here already, but for those of us females who love data collection, I do highly recommend tracking cycles, because you can learn a LOT about how your body works (and even get heads-up about possible health issues). Like nutrition, there's several approaches that you can pick from, but in many cases just starting somewhere is enough. And of course certain methods have their fans who insist it's the only way, etc.
I've been tracking my cycles for a long time, but with joining MFP I've learned a lot more about how nutrition plays a part too and it's really fascinating stuff.
I'll cosign this, too! I'm not as good about tracking this anymore since my Nexplanon stopped my periods (10/10 would recommend, I've had an excellent experience), but I can recommend the app Clue to track this kind of thing for anyone who wants to start collecting that data. It's not focused around trying to get pregnant like so many menstrual-tracking apps are and you can track SO MANY things with it.
Yep, the one I use is called OvuView and you can use it for trying to conceive, trying to avoid pregnancy, or just general health tracking. Before I used an app I used paper charts and did the interpretive work myself, but it's really nice to have an app calculate it for you. When I have health appointments I can just export the data and print it (I actually did this once to adjust a due date because I knew the standard "40 weeks from start of last menstrual period" was not going to be a good due date - and then when that baby was still late from the new date and on the small side at birth, I was really glad I hadn't been subjected to an artificially early induction date because he clearly needed all that growing time!)
The idea that we might have slightly different calorie needs based on cycle time is really interesting to me. Women joke about hormone cravings and such, and perhaps even sometimes use them to justify excess, but I do think it's important for us to remember that our bodies are not static. Men's aren't static either, but it's definitely different and worth it to be aware of that.
This is a big, big reason how I handle a deficit changed. For a while I was being pretty rigid with it but it got pretty awful as my weight approached normal. I now set cals at maintenance and find that over a week - and more so over a month - I keep a decent deficit but I am WAY more hungry - really, physically, hungry around my period.
Fighting that got old and a few hundred extra cals (up to maintenance) made a big difference.
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Great thread title! I'm 54 and am so ready to stop having a functioning uterus
After weighing daily for a while I learned I gain weight at ovulation as well as premenstrually - sometimes as much as 6 pounds!4 -
I always seem to drop weight at the start of my "period" which I put in quotes because I'm on the pill, so it's not a real period. I never quite understand why this happens so regularly when I'm not actually ovulating or menstruating because of the birth control pills. But it happens every month.2
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No, I do not, I had a hysterectomy at age 33.
Although I kept my ovaries at the time (I'm 57 and those aren't functioning either now!), I did notice a welcome decrease in PMS symptoms after the surgery and it rapidly became a non-event. There are hormone fluctuations tied to the buildup and shedding of the endometrium (progesterone?) and I obviously lost those along with the uterus.
I was not sorry to say good-bye to the two or three days of ridiculous PMS cravings.3 -
ChickenKillerPuppy wrote: »I always seem to drop weight at the start of my "period" which I put in quotes because I'm on the pill, so it's not a real period. I never quite understand why this happens so regularly when I'm not actually ovulating or menstruating because of the birth control pills. But it happens every month.
This has been my experience also, and I too am curious about why it seems to happen like that.1 -
ChickenKillerPuppy wrote: »I always seem to drop weight at the start of my "period" which I put in quotes because I'm on the pill, so it's not a real period. I never quite understand why this happens so regularly when I'm not actually ovulating or menstruating because of the birth control pills. But it happens every month.
Could be a result of the drop in hormone levels that lead to lower water retention, perhaps? But that's purely conjecture on my part.0 -
I'm so not reading this and I'm so not using it ever again. Over that crap. I do love the boys I got though so that was nice way back then.1
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What's fun for me right now is wondering if I'm heading into perimenopause and figuring out if my bloat is food-related or hormone related! I do track it somewhat using my Fitbit app, which has been one way for me to know if the bloat was hormone related. Now that I've started becoming irregular, it's been harder for me to tell.
I could gain up to 5 pounds during ovulation, and actually seemed to gain more then during PMS.3 -
You can have a functioning uterus and have an abnormal cycle...2
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Safari_Gal_ wrote: »You can have a functioning uterus and have an abnormal cycle...
Oh yes, and that's one reason tracking is useful, too - it can catch normal variations from cycle to cycle or find symptoms of underlying health problems.
My cycle has only just returned since my last pregnancy (I have an 11 month old.) It was perfectly normal and healthy that I wasn't having any cycles prior to this because that's body chemistry for you. And I'm pretty sure, thanks to tracking, that I'm actually still not ovulating at all - there are signs my body is trying to, but I'm probably still making enough prolactin that ovulation is very unlikely. Some of that can only be determined after the fact, though, or if I decide to buy some cheap ovulation tests to confirm, which I might do. But there's nothing "wrong" with me or my cycle, even though it's not presently acting the way I learned it would in health class (woefully inadequate, in hindsight.)2 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Great thread title! I'm 54 and am so ready to stop having a functioning uterus
After weighing daily for a while I learned I gain weight at ovulation as well as premenstrually - sometimes as much as 6 pounds!
YES. The ovulation bloat is awful. It *may* retreat just in time for the PMS bloat to begin. If I eat any extra salty stuff in between, it probably won’t.
A younger friend said her weight stays in a 3lb window and I almost choked laughing. My weight can fluctuate 3-5 lbs in a day. Thanks, perimenopause.
Another vote for cycle tracking. I’ve been tracking for over 15 years and can see how my cycle has changed (ovulation happens earlier now, shorter total cycle length than in my 20s), and when something is wonky. That led me to get a full hormone panel (multiple blood draws over the course of my cycle, so we could see if hormones were doing their jobs before, at, and at a few points post ovulation). Turns out I have normal to high progesterone but low estrogen, so that explains why ovulation is just as fun as pre menstrual period, bc estrogen naturally dips then, and my already low estrogen bottoms out. It actually made me feel much better to know there was a reason, and to be able to know/plan in advance that at certain times during the month I was going to feel like a cranky, constipated pregnant woman 🙄
Another bonus with tracking is getting a feel for how your performance and cycle are connected. My normal working weight for lifts definitely feels heavier in the last week or so of my cycle, even if I don’t have any other PMS symptoms. And I feel like superwoman bt days 4-10, so I need to be wary of over enthusiasm that has led to some minor injuries in the past 😆
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