Peating Worsened PMS

[Rosy Thorn]

I started adding some Peat inspired ideas about a month ago. I started restricting PUFAS, added orange juice (maybe a glass every 2-3 days), milk (8 oz a day), 2 cups of coffee with liberal sugar. Three weeks after I started this I ovulated and had the worst estrogen dominance symptoms than I've had in forever. I was bloated even if I didn't eat, swollen painful breasts and terrible cramps. I stopped the coffee, milk, and oj, and pared down my sugar. I also started taking DIM. I've been on progesterone since March and haven't had these symptoms since then. Conventional wisdom says to coffee, dairy, and sugar exacerbate ED. I've never cared much of CW, but now I'm starting to wonder.

I did notice some positives like more energy, better mood, and my fingernail moons came back. Has this happened to anyone else? I've battled estrogen dominance since I started my period at twelve and now I'm 45 and fat, bloated, and depressed.

 

[Luann]

I'm sorry to hear that, Rosy.
Dairy always worsened my PMS, I stopped having a period over a year ago when I under-ate and since Peat it's only back inconsistently; I can't tell you if you'll begin to tolerate milk as you go. Some of the women on here may be able to tell you how to tweak, to have smoother periods?

 

[Rosy Thorn]

Thank you. I kind of feel it might have been the coffee? There were definitely positives with my experiment, I'm just not sure how to interpret the results.

 

[LittleMissy]

I'm right there with you. My pms last month was absolutely horrible. I usually have really bad cramps and some breakouts. Starting the whole metabolism focused diet and lifestyle for several months now. But last month I had intense irritability, lots of tears, horrible cramps, headaches, breakouts, super duper swollen and painful breasts, it was a nightmare.
So since then I have been sticking too my peating. And i have added in magnesium, and trying super hard to make sure I get enough vitamin b6 daily (from liver mostly. I do the frozen liver pills and swallow them whole) and also zinc (oysters. The canned ones. Warm them up in a skillet with salt and consume on top of cubed cheese is quite yummy) and this cycle is a whole lot better.

What really helped me though, is reading this book called Period Repair Manual, can't remember the author. But while she recommends anti peat things like no sugar and such I didn't pay attention to that part. But she gives valuable info about how your whole cycle works and nutrients needed to insure a healthy ovulation (which is crucial for no pms due to the corpus luteum that is majorly responsible for both progesterone and the female hormone estradiol) (not estrogen). Along with other wonderful details that help one to understand the female cycle so one can better support it.

Hope this helps. And good luck. Keep us updated.

 

[tara]

A couple of thoughts.
To me, 'Peating' includes noticing what effects foods have on you, and making personally supportive choices and experiments based on your own observations as well as your understanding of physiology etc. It doesn't mean taking someone else's protocol on faith.

Some of us do have particular difficulties with particular foods.
It can take the gut a while to adjust to any significant change in diet, too. If you have avoided milk for a long time, the relevant digestive enzymes may not be up to speed. Some people apparently manage to reintroduce milk by gradually increasing from very small amounts.
Unfortunately, I still have trouble with milk in large quantities and coffee in even small quantities.
One glass of OJ every few days isn't much, unless you have a personal allergy or intolerance. Some people say they do better with clear apple juice.
Depending on what you were doing before you made these changes, there could be other things going on too. If it was very restricted wrt kinds of food, the digestion may be out of practice with lots of things. If it was severely calorie restricted, then bloating seems to be a common initial response to increasing calories.

Are you salting food to taste and cravings? If not, I wonder if that would help.

Have you had a go at tracking your body temps? Are they close to 37%? Any change with your experiments? If metabolism increases, the demand for many nutrients can increase, and that can result in problems if those requirements are not met.