Is Your Menstrual Cycle The Key To Long Term Weight Loss?

How To Use Your Menstrual Cycle To Supercharge Any Diet, Reclaim Your Energy, And Honor Your Unique Biology

NOTE: This article is 3,009 words. If you want the simple supplementary checklist with weekly recipes on How to Lose Weight by using your Menstrual Cycle as a PDF download, get it right here. It’s free.

It didn’t make sense to me at first…

See, over the past few years, I’ve helped thousands of men and women lose tens of thousands of pounds through my online programs and in my clinic.

And over that time 1 pattern became apparent:

It was MUCH easier for the men in my programs to lose weight (and keep it off in the long term) versus the women (using the same protocols).

Something had to be done.

I needed to figure out why.

So I spent months and months digging through the literature, studying research papers, and geeking out on the science…until I made a massive discovery…

Women can lose weight, and keep it off if they eat based on their menstrual cycle.

What I am proposing is slightly radical, and every bit revolutionary.

Simply put, women are not little men.

What that means is we cannot, by definition, eat the same way through the month the way men can, and expect the same results.

In fact, trying to eat the same all month long is setting us up for monumental failure.

Women Need To Eat Like Women.

“What sets you apart can sometimes feel like a burden and it’s not. And a lot of the time, it’s what makes you great.” — Emma Stone

In this article, I will be making the case for why we, as women, with our unique biology, complex hormonal landscape, and augmented susceptibility to the stress response have unique dietary and physical requirements.

I have discovered, both in my online program and in clinical practice, that women need to modify how we eat, how we train, and how we recover all through the month.

Eating like a woman is the key to harnessing the power of our female biology.

I am often asked to speak at events, and when I share how to pair your menstrual cycle with your eating patterns (a framework I call The ESTIMA Method™), most (grown, and highly successful) women are blown away.

Understanding your period, its ebbs and flows, and how it changes your mood, your sleep, your sex is a vital sign.

Your period is a vital sign!

When evaluating vitals, there are four primary signs:

• heart rate
• respiratory rate
• blood pressure
• body temperature

But women have a 5th vital sign that is unique to us alone — our menstrual cycle.

In other words, your menstrual cycle is an extraordinarily important clue to your health and vitality.

My job is to help you understand your cycle, and ultimately fall in love with it.

This knowledge is going to help you figure out how to harness your divine feminine power that comes from the gift of your cycle.

Introducing…The ESTIMA Method™

Simply put, The ESTIMA Method is a 4-week eating cycle based on the 4 weeks of your menstrual cycle.

In the following sections, I’m going to share:

• How your menstrual cycle SHOULD look each week
• How to eat during each week

Let’s start by going over how your menstrual cycle should look in Week 1…

Week 1 — The Bleed

“..by honouring the demands of our bleeding, our blood gives us something in return. There arises a side of ourselves with whom we may not at first- be comfortable. She is a vulnerable, highly perceptive genius who can ponder a given issue and take her world by storm. When we’re quiet and bleeding, we stumble upon solutions to dilemmas that’ve been bugging us all month. Inspiration hits and moments of epiphany rumba ‘cross de tundra of our senses.” — Inga Muscio

Your period. Aunt Flo. The Red Badge Of Courage. Moon Time. Crimson Tide. On The Rag.

Whatever you choose to call this week, this is the shedding of your endometrial lining. This is your biology saying — nope no pregnancy here, let us scrap this effort and start anew.

This is a time where you want to be paying attention to the quality of your blood flow:

• Are there gobs and gobs of blood in the first few days of your period?
• Do you see lots of clots that are bigger than the size a quarter?
• What is the color of the blood? Is it dark, bright red, pink?
• Does it change color throughout the duration of your period? How?
• How long is your period?

This information will give you clues about your hormones.

For example, if you are seeing gobs of blood, and large clots, this may be a sign that your estrogen levels might be too high (relative to progesterone) in the second half (luteal phase) of your cycle.

In this week of your period, your estrogen levels, and progesterone levels will be low.

Actually, most of your hormones related to your menstrual cycle take a little holiday this week.

Luteinizing hormone, Estrogen, Progesterone, Testosterone, all relatively low.

The only worker not on vacation here is FSH — follicular-stimulating hormone.

As its name suggests, FSH is designed to stimulate the follicle.

The follicle is a Chanel bag that encapsulates your precious egg inside.

Over this week and next, FSH is going to drive the development of the follicle, and the egg inside it.

(Which, by the way, is the main point of your cycle — to mature and produce a viable egg for fertilization)

This is, of course, independent of your wishes as to whether or not you want a fertilized egg! Mama Nature has her own agenda here.

How To Eat In Week 1:

1. Eat a higher-fat, lower-carb Diet

This is a time where we can take advantage of a female-appropriate keto diet.

In other words, this is one of the best times of the month to comfortably eat a low carb, moderate protein, and high-fat diet.

In my program, the Estima Diet, the way we lay this out for our members is

70% Fat

20–25% Protein

5–10%Carbohydrates.

This is because progesterone (a potent stimulant of your appetite) is at its lowest this week, so it is much easier to go low carb.

Week 2 — The Week Before Ovulation

“In chaos, there is fertility.”— Anaïs Nin

Sexy, flirty, extroverted, gorgeous, and horny!

Welcome to Week 2.

Estrogen is making its first rise, and is working to plump up our cheeks, lips, and making our eyes bigger and brighter.

Testosterone is also rising here, serving to make us feel flirty, sexy, and horny.

Mother Nature is a wily minx, isn’t she?

She knows in a few days there is going to be a viable egg, and if your libido is rising, it increases the likelihood you will have sex. Pair that with the fact that sperm can live up to 6 days, this will increase the likelihood of pregnancy.

From a metabolic point of view, this is the time to profit from testosterone rising by modifying our diet.

Testosterone is involved in maintaining lean muscle mass, and driving something called muscle protein synthesis.

There are 2 main ways we can increase muscle growth:

1. Through our Diet
2. Through Exercise

I will be discussing the exercise piece in a future article, so for today, let’s stick to how we can amp up muscle protein synthesis (mps) through diet.

The key to getting mps going is by the consumption of an amino acid called leucine. This is a branch chain amino acid that is found abundantly in chicken, meat, eggs, and fish.

Leucine is the forewoman that gets muscle protein synthesis started.

Multiple studies (a few samplings can be found here, here, here, here and here) all suggest about 2.5g of leucine are required to get the gears turning on mps.

Practically speaking, this equates to about 20–25g of whey protein, or about 40g of soy protein.

How To Eat In Week 2

1. Increase Protein Consumption

I generally like to change my macronutrients up in the following way:

50% Fat

40% Protein

10% Carbohydrates

I would also try to time your carbohydrate intake along with your protein as this will amplify anabolic growth.

Congratulations, you are about halfway through my geeky magic carpet ride. The nerd in me loves and honors the nerd in you. Just a reminder if you want the simple supplementary checklist with weekly recipes on How to Lose Weight by using your Menstrual Cycle as a PDF download, get it right here. It’s free.

Week 3 — The Week After Ovulation

“Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month that I can be myself.”― Roseanne Barr

After ovulation, the metabolic landscape becomes dramatically different.

Now it is all hands on deck to develop the endometrial lining, and with it, some drastic changes in our proteins, fats, vitamins, and circulating antioxidant levels.

The second 2 weeks of our cycle (the luteal phase) is a time that many women experience worsening of preexisting symptoms and conditions.

Things like diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease, bloating, poor sleep quality, and premenstrual syndrome (PMS) can all seem exacerbated during this time.

Women will tend to have an increased appetite, intensified food cravings and excess calorie intake which are associated with cyclical changes in progesterone and serotonin.

Pause here for a moment — take a breath and recognize that what this really means is that you are NORMAL.

This is SUPPOSED to happen.

There is nothing wrong with you.

What I see on a global scale is this is the time when we try the hardest to stick to that ONE way of eating, without consideration for our hormones.

Any woman will tell you this is the hardest time of the month to stick to that ‘one’ way of eating.

We are not designed, as women, to eat the exact same way all through the month.

We assume it is because of our willpower, or some inherent mindset work we are not doing as the reason we are caving in and failing on this regimented ‘diet’.

It is simply ludicrous to think so. So let’s just cut some energetic cords around that and let it go.

In particular, it is hard (nay, herculean) to stay low carb during this time of our cycle

You have different dietary requirements due to the changes in our metabolomics.

Let’s start with what is happening to your hormones over the next 2 weeks:

In the first half of the luteal phase (the first week after ovulation), most women can tell there is a subtle, yet palpable, shift.

Not quite as flirty, as sexy, or extroverted.

The hallmark of ovulation, both from a mental and cellular landscape is a shift inwards.

In the days immediately after ovulation, there is a sharp decline in testosterone, mimicking levels in week 1.

This is a great week to return to high fat / low carb with a few considerations for the building of the endometrium:

How To Eat In Week 3

1. Consume Resistant Starches Every Other Day
2. Cycle (2 days on:1 day off) Between The Classic Estima Protocol (70–20–10) & Carb-Ups (60–20–20) This Week
3. Go Big On Increasing Green Leafy Vegetable Consumption
4. Drink A Minimum of 2L / 68oz Of Water Daily
5. Take Glutathione, Magnesium, and B Vitamins Daily

Week 4 — The Week Before Your Period

“If women ran the world we wouldn’t have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days”— Robin Williams

Progesterone peaks at around day 21, or the first day of Week 4.

A peak week of sorts. It is do or die. Literally.

Progesterone is now being secreted from the artist formerly known as the follicle. (Now referred to as the corpus luteum).

Progesterone stimulates appetite, slows down bowel movement, affects mood.

It also

• inhibits the pituitary gland’s secretions of FSH & LH
• reduces cervical mucous (lending to dry days post-ovulation)
• inhibits ovulation
• prepares the endometrium for a fertilized egg
• inhibits uterine contractions
• has potent protective effects on the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system
• enhances memory
• acts as an anti-depressant

Estrogen (or more appropriately, estradiol) will also reach its secondary apex of the month.

Estrogen will also:

• continue to develop the endometrial lining
• stimulate the fat cells to store more fat
• improve your verbal articulation
• possibly act as a mild anti-depressant

A few other notable changes happen towards the end of week 3 and into week 4:

• The biggest drop in serotonin
• Glutathione levels drop
• Vitamin D3 levels drop
• B vitamins drop
• Magnesium drops

Protein Requirements Change

In this last week half of your cycle, we see decreasing amino acid levels and elevated nitrogen utilization.

The decrease in amino acid levels are likely due to progesterone’s upregulation of cell growth and protein biosynthesis required for endometrial thickening.

Fat Requirements Change

We also see lipid levels decreasing which can be due to higher utilization of fat for lipid or steroid synthesis

This is mainly for 2 reasons:

1. Cholesterol is being used for progesterone and estrogen synthesis. (So typically what this means is you will see cholesterol and HDL reduce in your luteal phase)
2. Your free fatty acids are being used to build out your endometrial lining. (Total phospholipid content of the endometrium is increased by 26% relative to any other time period!)

Another consideration for the seemingly proinflammatory state that happens in the 2nd half of our cycles is the poor or incomplete processing of fatty acids in the mitochondria.

When the mitochondria do not fully oxidize fats, we get these byproducts called acylcarnitines, which are pro-inflammatory.

Interestingly, these byproducts are often found in Type 2 Diabetes and those with insulin resistance.

In other words, the breeding ground for PCOS.

Taken together — the throughline is relatively consistent — all macronutrients and micronutrients decrease as all available substrates are being used to build up our endometrial lining.

With that in mind, in Week 4 we want to return to a higher protein, higher carbohydrate composition of the diet. Protein will help with satiety (feeling full), and the complex carbohydrates will provide the phytonutrients and minerals we are depleting this week, as well as curb your sweet tooth cravings.

How To Eat In Week 4

1. Consume Resistant Starches Daily
2. Increase Total Caloric Intake by 10–15%
3. Increase Carbohydrate Consumption (A Good Macronutrient Guide Would Be 50% Fat, 30% Protein, 20% Carbohydrates)
4. Double Down On Sleep Hygiene
5. Take Glutathione, Magnesium, and B Vitamins Daily
6. Love Yourself Like You Mean It.

Wrapping This Up With A Red Bow

“We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes — understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.” — Arianna Huffington

If you have failed to try to eat the exact same way all through the month, you are not alone, and there is nothing wrong with you.

The decades of guilt, shame, negative self-talk, and the belief there is something wrong with us comes to an end now.

Let’s cut those energetic cords and let it go.

We are not little men.

We have a complex hormonal landscape that is uniquely distinct and should be treated as such.

Women are the creators of life, and the very cycle that perpetuates that life can break us if we do not lean into it, learn our rhythms, and harness the power of our unique female biology.

Change your eating patterns in accordance with the rhythmicity of your menstrual cycle.

Eat like a woman!

Want My Quickstart Guide To Using Your Menstrual Cycle To Lose Weight?

I have created a quick start guide, including meals and nutrient breakdown for how to eat during each stage of your cycle.

>>Click Here To Get The Guide Now<<

References

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18. The Estima Diet & Program: https://www.drstephanieestima.com/courses/estimadiet
19. The Complete Guide To Long & Short Term Fasting: https://readmedium.com/the-complete-guide-to-short-long-term-fasting-3748f296dfb7
20. Sleep Your Way To The Top: https://medium.com/s/story/sleep-your-way-to-the-top-debf3fd215c6
21. Stephanie’s Online Supplement Store: https://drstephanie.ehealthpro.com/