If you are someone who has lost your period due to inadequate nutrition and/or excessive exercise, it can be hard to know what changes to start making and how aggressively you might need to make them in order for your hormones to recover and your period to come back. Any change can be hard, especially when working on your hormones, as you don’t know for sure to what extent you might need to make changes and for how long.

All of this can feel overwhelming and anxiety-inducing! –> Not knowing how your body might change, what exercise might look like in the future, what eating changes you might need to make, or even how much weight you might need to gain.

What was most helpful for me in my own journey was continually returning my thoughts to the idea that whatever changes I would need to make and for however long I would need to sustain them would be worth it for the sake of my overall health and ability to exercise in a healthy way in the future. I needed to trust that my period would return given enough time and commitment to nutrition/stress/exercise changes. 

In my experience, how long it takes for someone’s period to return generally depends on (1) how long it has been gone to begin with, (2) how “aggressively” someone is making changes on the nutrition/exercise/stress front, and (3) what other underlying factors may be going on.

If you are wrestling with hormonal / missing period challenges, here are 4 key changes to consider TODAY to jumpstart your period recovery journey!

4 Changes to Make Today to Jumpstart Your Period Recovery Journey: 

Add in some morning coconut oil. 

I love this strategy because it is simple to implement from a practical standpoint AND it is effective for helping restore hormonal health. I recommend consuming (yes, straight up) a spoonful of coconut oil in the morning before breakfast. Consider it part of your supplement regimen.

It can be difficult to make eating changes, so I like how adding something at the very beginning of the day is hopefully less likely to feel like a giant shift in your overall eating patterns and likely won’t throw off your hunger cues for the rest of the morning or day. In the mindset of taking a supplement, quickly consume it straight off the spoon and try not to think about it if that helps!

This is a great targeted strategy for hormonal health because of the fat content of the oil. Fat –> provides necessary building blocks for hormones. Inadequate dietary fat = poor hormonal health.

Prioritize your sleep routine.

When thinking about period recovery, some of the key areas of health to consider are nutrition, exercise, emotional stress, and SLEEP. Even if you are eating enough and exercising at a healthy level for you, I can pretty much guarantee that your hormones are still going to be out of whack if you aren’t sleeping well on a regular basis.

That is why I recommend doing what you need to do to prioritize your sleep health however that looks for you. We are talking high-quality, regular sleep for about 7-9 hours per night. I know from experience this is easier said than done!! For me, prioritizing sleep looks like going to bed/waking up at the same times as consistently as possible, prioritizing my winding down routine (stretching, journaling, reading, etc.), and being mindful of other factors I need to consider for good sleep (such as lighting, the room temperature, eating/drinking habits before bed, etc.).

Since I know stressing about sleep is generally not helpful, I’ll include this quote on sleep that I love and have used on the blog before:

“Don’t freak out about not sleeping. The first rule of sleep is that you should prioritize it because it is one of the most important things for health. The second rule of sleep is not to stress out if you don’t get it. So much of what keeps people awake is freaking out about not getting sleep. Sleep like your life depends on it. And if you are up in the middle of the night or not sleeping well, release from the fact that your life depends on it – because it doesn’t!”

Switch from low-fat to full-fat.

As a nutrition rule of thumb, I recommend eating food products in the ways they are naturally made. Eating full-fat dairy and other high-quality full-fat foods means that you are getting the least processed form, with all of the natural and beneficial fat-soluble vitamins intact.

The lower or non-fat versions have artificially-made versions of the fat-soluble vitamins (assuming they have been added) AND they don’t have the fat needed in the actual food product for optimal absorption of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E & K).

You can read more about fat and my favorite high-quality fat sources to include for hormonal health (and overall health!) here.

Switching to full-fat food products is another great swap to make because it isn’t adding more food (which typically feels more overwhelming). It is adding a more targeted and beneficial form of the food.

As mentioned above, you need ample dietary fat to have good hormone levels. Especially if you are trying to get your period back, the more fat in your diet (as tolerated) the merrier!

Some specific recommendations to consider: buying full-fat yogurt + cheeses + milks + ice creams, eating fattier cuts of meat, and using actual butter + oils instead of the fake / more processed versions.

Consider some high-quality dark or milk chocolate smeared with peanut butter with a glass of whole milk for an all-star period recovery evening snack!

Commit to a 2-week break from formal exercise.

If you are working to get your period back, odds are you might wrestle with compulsive overexercising like I did. While also the most difficult, taking a break from formal exercise was one of the most helpful things I did to finally get my period back. I stopped running and going to the gym for an entire year, limiting myself to walking and stretching.

This was very hard as exercise was a compulsive addiction for me at this time in my life. You can read some more on that here. Given how overwhelming stopping formal exercise for an extended period of time can be, I recommend committing to a relatively short interval – 2 weeks. Commit to 2 weeks and see how you feel. Consider it an experiment, knowing you can reevaluate at the end of the 2 weeks. Maybe you continue, maybe you don’t.

I challenge you to challenge yourself to consider what might be the best thing for your hormones and overall life in the long-term, even if it is difficult in the short-term!

Working to get my period back after over 6 years was one of the hardest aspects of my disordered eating/exercise journey. I kept thinking, “surely I have done enough and it will come back any day now,” only to time after time need to amp up my efforts even more. I say this not to discourage you, but to encourage you to take action TODAY with one or more of the recommendations above. You have your whole life ahead of you — don’t let your fears about your body changing or adjusting your food/exercise stand in the way.

Reach out for support if needed and trust that each step you take over time will add up. On the other side of this challenging journey is a stronger, healthier, more vibrant and more resilient version of yourself that will experience food and exercise in truly healthy ways.