The week before your period doesn’t have to be filled with bloating, mood swings, cravings, fatigue, or breast tenderness. What you eat during the luteal phase (the second half of your cycle) can make a big difference in how you feel—especially if you’re prone to PMS. Your body needs specific nutrients to balance hormones, reduce inflammation, and support progesterone. Let’s break down exactly what to focus on the week before your period for more ease and fewer symptoms.
How to Optimize Your Cycle for the Best Chance of Conception
If you're trying to conceive (TTC), understanding and supporting your menstrual cycle can increase your chances of conception. Your cycle isn’t just about your period—it’s a monthly blueprint of your fertility, hormone balance, and reproductive health. By tracking your cycle, supporting ovulation, and optimizing each phase, you can create the best environment for a healthy pregnancy. Here’s how to optimize your cycle for conception by focusing on each phase and key fertility markers.
12 Reasons Why Periods Hurt
There are many reasons why periods hurt. While period cramps are definitely common, that doesn’t mean that they are normal. Any sort of pain is a sign from your body to investigate that something is not working properly or that something is out of balance.
Endometriosis is an extreme and intense form of period pain, and it requires a medical diagnosis and treatment. This condition has life-disrupting pain characterized by a growth of uterine tissue somewhere else in the body. To help uncover why periods hurt you need to learn about hormone imbalances and stress. These are the two main causes for why periods hurt.
20 Reasons for Heavy Painful Periods
There are many reasons for heavy painful periods. While period cramps and heaviness are definitely common, that doesn’t mean that they are normal. Any sort of pain is a sign from your body to investigate an imbalance in the body.
Endometriosis is an extreme case of period pain and requires a medical diagnosis. This condition has life-disrupting period pain and heaviness characterized by a growth of uterine tissue somewhere else in the body.
A heavy period consists of...
1. A period lasting longer than 7 days
2. Losing more than 80 mL of blood per cycle (or 16 regular tampons or pads)
3. Changing tampons or pads every hour or two
4. Needing to double up on period protection products
5. Having to wake up to change your tampon or pad in the night
6. Planning activities around your heavy period
7. Blood clots the size of a quarter or bigger
Why Is My Period Early?
Paying attention to your period regularity is one of the best ways to determine if your hormones are balanced. Our hormones are vital for maintaining many of our daily functions. If hormones are imbalanced over an extended time, this can lead to many complications like PCOS, osteoporosis, nutrient deficiencies, hair loss, fatigue, depression, and low energy. Your cycle length is extremely important because women go through 4 phases throughout each cycle, and all of them need to occur in the correct window of time for a regular period. As a rule of thumb, if your menstrual cycle length is shorter than 21 days, then your period is early and it’s time to look into what is causing your hormonal imbalances. It is important to take into consideration your own body patterns because you can still have an early period, though your cycle length may be more than 21 days. An example of this is if you regularly have a cycle length of about 34 days and then suddenly it is dropping to 23 days, then you could also have a period early. Watch your period patterns, and if your cycle length drops significantly for 3 months then you should dive deeper into asking ‘why is my period early?’
How to Track Your Period
Your period relies heavily on your hormonal production in order to be regular each month. We have to produce our hormones in different amounts every day to create the 4 phase menstrual cycle. Due to this, your period can give you important clues about your overall health when you track your period and any related symptoms.
10 Reasons for a Missing Period
If you have a missing period for any amount of time, that is a signal your body is trying to send you that something is imbalanced. Your hormones are driving the bus that leads you to your menstruation every month. If your hormones are too low or too high, the bus will take a turn in the opposite away from menstruation. Hormone levels can be greatly impacted by your lifestyle and nutrition, so it is important to figure out what the root causes are for your missing period.
Is it Possible to Miss a Period for a Month?
A period happens on average every 28 days for females when an unfertilized egg passes through the body and the uterine lining sheds as blood. The period is the end of the menstrual cycle, and a new egg will be released soon after the bleeding stops. Notice that the cycle is an average of 28 days. For some women this could be more or less, and in some cases you could have both. Your period should fluctuate on its punctuation during puberty and menopause, but in between these time periods it should be predictable, and occur once a month. Deviations from this rule of thumb can be an indicator of a health concern.
Your period existence is a result of hormones, so when these become over or underactive, you can develop health problems. Amenorrhea is defined as the absence of a period for at least three consecutive months. Though, the absence of a period is not the only menstrual cycle-related problem you can have. You should always keep track of your cycle and watch to make sure you are getting it once every 21 to 35 days. A period outside of this window of time is considered abnormal and should be identified.
Which Exercise is Best During Periods?
The first day you start to have a full bleed is the start of your menstrual phase which is the first of four phases in your period. The period phase of your menstrual cycle should last 3-7 days on average. During the start of the menstrual phase, your progesterone and your estrogen are at their lowest point. Your uterine lining is shedding the build-up of tissue and blood from the endometrium. Your energy may be the lowest during this time and your period blood should be a bright or dark red (kind of like cranberry juice). You may still be experiencing some leftover PMS symptoms during the beginning of this phase, like cramps, moodiness, and sore breasts. Though these symptoms are common, if they are life-disrupting or if they cause you to dread your period each month, it may be time to dig a little deeper and decipher what is going on with your hormones. Extreme PMS symptoms are not normal because they are signals that something is wrong and imbalanced with your hormones.
How Does Your Period Work?
Your menstrual cycle in simple terms is basically the outcome of a failure to conceive. Every month your body prepares for pregnancy by releasing an egg in hopes of fertilization to occur to start the pregnancy process. If this does not occur then the egg will be excreted along with the endometrium lining which is made up of tissue and blood. Typically the length of time you bleed is called the period and it usually lasts 3-7 days. The menstrual cycle is usually 21-35 days where day 1 is the day you start to bleed and the last day is the day before your next period.
Your menstrual cycle has four phases: menstrual, follicular, ovulation, and luteal. It’s easy to think about your phases as 1 per week if following an average 28-day cycle. This is helpful for syncing food, exercise, and even mindset to your cycle, however, each phase varies a bit from being a perfect 7 days (see below). Also, a 28-day cycle is AVERAGE - it’s perfectly normal to have a cycle from 21-35 days as long as it’s consistent for you.
