Wednesday, April 22, 2009

How Do You Feel?

Since I didn't have enough energy to train for the last couple of months, I experimented with my diet a bit in an attempt to make myself feel better. Rather than than eating to change how I look, I ate to change how I felt. And I discovered something interesting about myself.

In March, to give myself more energy, I decided to up my carb intake to around 55% (from oats/quinoa, sweet potato, legumes, veggies and fruit) and dropped my fat intake to around 20%. Near the end of the month I had the worst PMS ever. Cravings, irritability, depression, frequently bursting into tears, etc.

So the next two weeks I bumped my fat back up to about 30%, and dropped carbs back to 30 to 40%, with the majority of carbs coming from veges - a LOT of veges - and oats with flax seeds at breakfast in the second week. By the end of the second week (just prior to Easter) I felt great - relaxed, increased libido - better than I've felt for a long time. I ate a lot of starchy carbs over Easter so the following week I dropped carbs way back and pushed my fats even higher during the week (up to 60%), relaxing and including more carbs again this weekend just gone. Yesterday I was surprised when my period arrived, because I had no PMS symptoms.

So at this stage I'm not sure if it was the fats, the HUGE amount of veggies, the tablespoons of flax seeds, or the large amounts of starchy carbs that I ate in the weekends that made the difference, or if it was a combination of all four, but I want to keep working it out, as after feeling so crap for the last couple of months, feeling great feels, well, great!

3 comments:

Kek said...

I vote for the fats, Charlotte - they've been my saviour in the hormone department. Can't do without a reasonable amount of starch though.

Finding the right balance is tricky.

Michelle said...

That is so awesome! I've been thinking of taking the higher fat lots of vegies route too. Great to hear you're doing better.

Becca said...

Higher fats and lower carbs work great for me, both diet wise AND PMS wise. I can't help but think there is some backbone to the old cliche' of us women stuffing our faces with chocolate, peanut butter cups and ice cream during PMS times...Now of course we are not as bad as the average, but a little more almond butter and a we have lift-off.

How are you liking the clean week/dirty weekend deal? Guess you will know more after this weekend, huh?