Eating 2,500 calories, 3 solid meals, light exercise… will her period recover?

“Hi, I’m increasing calories to 2,500 a day with only light walks once a day and a light swim… protein, carbs, and fats for 3 meals a day but I don’t like to snack. I love fruit and I’m not often eating it for my carb portion, but I am trying to increase complex carbs…I’m hoping my BMI of 20 won’t go up so much…” —Anonymous in Italy

This is a great scenario question (she’s wanting to know if her current description should help her get her period back). I thought it would be helpful for me to break it down for you guys as well!

It’s great that she’s increasing her calories. 2,500 isn’t a magic number, but she has to try things to see if they work. I think often in the beginning, it's okay to still look at your calories just to know how much you’re actually eating (if it's enough). As she moves on with her restored period later, I would challenge her to eat intuitively with her hunger cues instead of mandating and tracking specific calories. 

3 meals a day with all three macros is wonderful! She mentioned that she’s eating fruit as her carb portion. I would include the complex carbs, but I wouldn’t stress the fruit as a carb. Appreciate fruit for the minerals and nutrients it's bringing to your health; typically, they’re very light in calories and it's hard to eat enough of them in calorie form. Enjoy fruit freely! She should definitely include things like potatoes, pastas, and breads here so she won’t have to feel like she’s eating continuously to supply her body with enough carbs through fruit. In fact, I would think it would be hard to get the calories needed WITHOUT the snacking that she doesn’t like.

I question here why she doesn’t like snacking. Aren’t you curious? Is it the way she was raised? Was she taught that snacking was gluttonous? Did she stop snacking long ago to try to keep her body weight low? Did she watch members of her family snack? It’s always worth asking more questions because there might be a hidden food rule that holds her back from a full recovery. 

Every single body is different. However, she has to know that her body isn’t currently menstruating at that current BMI of 20 she spoke of. She doesn’t sound very willing for it to change, but she’s thinking it might change a little which means she realizes that her body doesn’t have a lot of fat on it. She also mentioned that a few years ago, she reached 54 kilograms (119 pounds) while at 157 cm tall (about 5 foot 1 inch). She’s trying to keep this weight in mind for being an acceptable recovery weight—she had recovered a few cycles at this weight. This is still very lean! I wonder how much she currently weighs if her past recovery is 119 pounds! This brings up another point that while you do have to eat enough for your body to function, it isn’t about trying to pack on weight. You don’t have to be “heavy” in order to menstruate. You have to eliminate the stresses on your body (and many times that’s nutritional). 

I would challenge her and everyone reading to also consider everything that was going on in her life at the time she was able to recover her period before at such a low weight. What were her other stresses? Was she working? Did she have many responsibilities? What were her relationships like? What exercise was she doing at that time? How have her eating habits changed? Why did they change?

I hope this breakdown is helpful and interesting to you in your journey! Keep writing in! Good luck out there!