Lose Weight Through PMS, Your Cycle, and Even Perimenopause | Ep 450

Ladies, I've been getting a lot of questions about whether you should cycle sink your diet

or training and how to deal with your period and PMS when it comes to things like cravings

and hunger, when you're trying to lose fat. I've also heard, hey, I get a lot of fluctuations

in the scale due to water weight and maybe some other things. Today, I'm covering the real

numbers behind cycle-related weight swings. White cycle sinking has almost no real world evidence

in the literature and a measurement and nutrition framework that does work whether your cycle is

predictable or completely all over the place. And if you're in Perry, Menopause, that last part

is for you. Welcome to Whits and Wates. The show that puts a popular piece of fitness advice under

the microscope finds a hidden reason it doesn't work and gives you the deceptively simple fix

that does. I'm your host Phillip Ape and today we're talking about something that affects

roughly half the population and it gets discussed either with way too much complexity or way too

little. Your menstrual cycle, your weight and how to actually lose fat when your body seems to be

working against you every few weeks. Now, I'm recording this because over half the women I work with

report hormonal concerns as a major barrier to seeing results. And the advice that they've gotten

falls into two camps, both of which are woefully incomplete. And we're going to fix that today on

Whits and Wates. Stick around to the very end because after the episode wraps up, I'm going to

share a one meal change that can blunt your cravings before they start, whether it's from PMS, a bad

sleep night or just a high stress day. It takes five minutes and the physiology behind it is

surprisingly clean. In this episode, you will learn the actual magnitude of cycle related weight

fluctuations. Spoiler alert, it's probably less than you think. Why cycle syncing has almost no

clinical trial support and it falls apart entirely in a parimenopause. Any measurement plus nutrition

framework that you can start using this week, that filters out some of that hormonal noise from

the real fat loss progress. So let's get into it. And if you are a woman who tracks her weight, and by

the way, if men, you guys are listening to this, it really helps us as guys to understand women

and the plight of hormones and parimenopause because there is a lot going on there. And the

medical industry and the women's health domain is very incomplete at this point. So the more we can

learn the better to support our ladies, our wives, our clients, our friends, anybody who needs support,

who's asking for support and one thing as a man, I know it's to not try to fix things unless

asked. And the first thing you always want to do is listen. I hope I have that right. So if you're a

woman who tracks her weight and you've noticed that it jumps around a lot during your period or

around your period, you've probably gotten some different pieces of advice. And I'm going to

guess that it's one of two things, especially the first one is around cycle syncing. There's so

much marketing around cycle syncing everything. All right. Eat more carbs in your follicular phase,

cut back in your luteal phase, train harder in the first half of your cycle. Go lighter in the

second half. There's actually apps for this. There's courses for this entire Instagram accounts built

around color coded phase charts. And I get the appeal as a numbers guy, even though I don't have

a period myself, but it feels like you're finally, you know, working with your body. That's what we

talk about here, right? It's like, okay, listen to the signals and individualize it, personalize it,

and work with your body. The problem is the evidence doesn't necessarily support it. And we're going

to come back to that in a minute. Option two, the other thing they say is, you know, you just got to

be patient, ladies. It's your water weight. It'll pass. I mean, I've said that to some extent,

to folks that like, hey, if you have a 10 pound weight that goes up and down 10 pounds and you've

been stuck in that range, how much of that is water weight could be a lot of it. I don't know for

sure until I know you and your patterns of what's happening. But to just be told or gaslit and said,

like, well, it is just water and don't worry about the rest. Although technically true,

someone telling you, hey, just ignore it without having a framework for what to do instead so that

you can track the right things, such as, hey, let's track your actual trends over time, month over

month, and maybe compare your different cycle phases to each other to actually get rid of that noise.

Then that's like someone telling someone, you know, just live with it. That that is what it is. I

can't actually help you. And so both of these approaches, you know, like, hey, cycles in everything

or don't worry about it are obviously a failed approach because they treat the cycle as the

problem to solve. Either you micromanage it or you dismiss it. And by doing that, you're not

addressing the real issue. You're not addressing it, which is that most women don't have a system in

place for distinguishing the hormonal noise, I'll call it from say actual fat loss or fat gain

signals. And honestly, most men don't have one either. This is definitely not a gender thing. This

is a most people don't have a system. And every spike in the scale, every jump in the scale becomes

an emotional event. Do you feel me? How does that hit you? Okay. And then every time you have a

plateau, like weight loss resistance, it feels like this permanent thing. And you can never get out

of that cycle. And, you know, I'm broken or I don't know what to do going forward. And it's just

not going to work for me. Okay. And there's different flavors of that. The research shows us what

happens next, what happens next in this situation. A 2024 study tracked 50 women in a weight loss

program. And they used daily assessments. On the days when participants saw the scale go up,

they reported, guess what? More guilt, more shame, lower confidence, they were less likely to track

their food or to exercise that day. And essentially the behavioral response was immediate. And then

there was a separate analysis of the data that found that after a full week of weight regain,

participants successfully lost weight the following week, only 5% of the time, 5% of the time.

So this is what we talked about in the last episode, the what the hell effect in action.

Psychologists call it the abstinence violation effect, the abstinence violation effect,

when you perceive that you've broken your rules or you've lost your progress,

you don't only feel bad about it, you also disengage, you stop doing the things that were working.

Now, here's what matters the most for today's episode. The late luteal phase, the week or so

before your period is when the scale weight is most likely to spike up to jump from that fluid

retention. However, it's also when emotional eating vulnerability hits its peak. In other words,

you are most likely to eat emotionally while you're also most likely to gain weight from fluid.

Kind of stings, right? There was a twin study of 460 women. So twins, they looked at twins.

And they found that genetic influences on emotional eating were twice as high after ovulation

compared to before. So you're looking at a window where the scale is least reliable and at the same

time your psychological response to it is most reactive. And that combination is what often derails

the fat loss. So I didn't even realize this powerful connection until I looked into the research

for this episode. And the reason I looked into this research is because I hear this challenge all

the time literally every day with our clients and in our community. And I want to help. And this

is how we're going to do it. So today's kind of the framework for that. Obviously in our programs,

we dive deep and actually figured out for you as an individual. But that combination is a big

challenge. And it's so it's not the water weight itself. It's not your hormones. It's the interaction

between misleading data and this heightened emotional reaction. So that's a real problem.

We're going to solve today, right? Not how to hack your cycle. Not how to hack your cycle because

the evidence doesn't say that that's something that you should even try to do. But how to stop your

cycle from hacking your behavior. Oh, my drop. Okay. So we're not going to hack your cycle. Your

cycle is not the problem. You're not the problem. It's how do we stop your cycle from interfering with

your behavior? Okay. So let's talk about what the research actually shows is happening to your weight

across your cycle because the numbers matter. They matter. You know how much I love numbers and

data and math. And it helps to understand this context. The most commonly cited figure is three to

five pounds of water weight. And you'll see that everywhere. For some women who have, I'll say

clinically significant PMS. That is very accurate. But the best prospective data actually tells

something different. So stick with me. A 2023 study looked at 42 women. Twice a week,

they use bio-electrical impedance across full menstrual cycles. That's kind of the body fat scale

like the in body. Okay. And the average weight increase during menstruation was 0.45 kilograms.

So I'm switching between metric and imperial because it was reported in kilograms. So 0.45 kilograms

about one pound. And it was almost entirely accounted for by a 0.47 kilogram increase in extra

cellular water. So there was no change in fat mass or lean mass and no change in body circumferences.

So it was about one pound. That's like the median, not three to five pounds. Even though we talk

about that a lot, even I've used numbers like, yeah, two to five. I usually say two to five because

I'm a little bit more conservative. So fortunately, the two is closer to one and one is the median.

Now, does the range go higher? Of course, it does. Women, like I said, women with significant

PMS symptoms can retain two to three kilograms, which is five to six pounds. So that's a real thing.

It's a real phenomenon. We have to acknowledge that. This is the problem between population

averages and individuals with certain use cases. And there can be a lot of people that fall into

that ladder category for sure. But you have to, you have to, when you're looking at studies,

you have to compare what's being studied and what populations being looked at and don't make

assumptions. So the population average is much smaller than the internet is saying basically. And

if we conflate the PMS subgroup with all women, I think that creates a lot of panic for people that

just unnecessary. So this is where the nuance comes into play. So that's the pounds. Okay, so it's

usually like one one pound, but it could go as high as five to six if you have significant PMS

symptoms. The timing is also different from what a lot of people assume. So there was a study that

tracks 62 women across 765 menstrual cycles. And they found that fluid retention actually peaks on

day one of menstrual flow, not during the luteal phase. The mid follicular phase, which is about

day seven through 10 shows the lowest retention of fluid. So the lowest noise, I'll call it, the

lowest noise window for weighing yourself is about a week after your period starts, not right after

it ends. You may want to go back and listen to what I just said just to get all that. Okay, but it's

different than what some people assume. Now, the hormonal mechanisms underneath all this are worth

understanding as well because they explain why this isn't just something you can supplement away.

There's so much misinformation about supplements for all this stuff hormonal support and all that.

Estrogen lowers the threshold for your body to release anti diuretic hormone. So you hold on to water

at a lower set point, right? That means you're you're more prone to hold on to more water.

Progesterone initially promotes sodium excretion, which you would think would help.

And guess what happens? The body loves homeostasis. So when you have more when you're excreting

morisodium, it triggers a compensatory response from the reenin angiotensin aldosterone system.

I had to write that down because I would not remember it. The reenin or renin angiotensin

aldosterone system and that overshoots and increases your water retention. And by the way,

this is what happens a lot when you dehydrate it or when you drink too much alcohol and you get

dehydrated, your body compensates by actually retaining more water. And so that's why sometimes people

see a big jump on the scale like a day or two after they drink a lot, even though they were dehydrated

because the body compensates with water retention. So this is happening hormonally with with women.

One study actually showed progesterone drives a nearly three times increase in

aldosterone production just by itself. So your body is always trying to manage the fluid balance,

trying to keep things in balance. And it is doing it in response to these reproductive hormones

that are wildly changing every few days because of your cycle. And so there's really no supplement

or even food timing strategy that can like override that. It's going to happen. The question is

to what extent does it happen for you? Now what about metabolism? Let's talk metabolism.

Does your metabolic rate actually go up in the ludio phase? Yes, it does, sort of.

A meta-analysis of 30 studies found a small increase that favored higher RMR that's resting

metabolic rate in the ludio phase. But when they restricted the analysis to studies only published

in the last 25 years with better methodology, the effect became not statistically significant.

Okay, this is why we have to be careful how we reference the studies.

So a more realistic estimate of metabolic rate going up during the ludio phase is probably

about 100 extra calories a day on average. And that's about 1400 calories across a 14-day

ludio phase, which is the energy equivalent of 0.4 pounds of fat. So it's not nothing, it exists,

but it's not like 300 calories a day, you know, which would be three times that amount. And you're

like, oh, that's why I gain a pound of fat every month. No, but but it's not nothing. So again,

I don't want to gaslight any of this stuff. I want to approach it with some nuance. And honestly,

this is where this whole cycle syncing pitch starts to fall apart. I mean, it starts to fall apart.

There's a lot of other ways that it falls apart because the premise is that your metabolism

and your physiology shift enough between phases to justify different eating and training

protocols. But if in reality, the metabolic difference is small and the weight, the fluid retention

differences are actually rather small, then the case for restructuring your entire nutrition plan

around it really gets pretty thin. So I want to put this cycle syncing under the microscope

even more directly. That's what we do here, right? We put these things under the microscope and

see what makes sense. Let's talk about training first. The claim is that, okay, you should train

harder during the follicular phase. Your estrogen is higher. And then back off during the

luteal phase. And there's two studies that seem to support this. One is from 2014 looked at 20 women

and it assumed every participant had a 28-day cycle with ovulation on day 14, which is one of the

problems. Lauren Clenzel simple talks about that a lot is like these assumptions that everyone's

the same and then it totally waters down the data, if you will. And they verified the cycle phase

but only with basal body temperature, which is somewhat unreliable in doing that. The other study

from 2017 mixed together naturally cycling women with women on oral contraceptives in the same groups.

And neither study would probably pass the methodological bar that you would want from evidence-based

advice. And that's just scratching the surface. When we balance against those two studies,

there's an umbrella review. This is the highest level of evidence synthesis. We have synthesis

meaning combining multiple studies together, especially a meta review, especially an umbrella

review. It combines a lot together, concluded that prescribing resistance training based on

menstrual cycle phase is just not evidence-based. Three independent studies that used what would be

the gold standard muscle biopsy and stable isotope in their methodology. They found zero

difference in muscle protein synthesis between the two phases of the cycle, between the

follicular and luteal phases. In other words, your muscles respond to training the same way regardless

of where you are in your cycle. And this is consistent with a lot of what I'm hearing from experts

in the field who understand the literature. On the nutrition side, it's even simpler. There has

been no RCT randomized control trial that's ever compared cycle synch calorie or macrointake versus

consistent intake for fat loss or body composition outcomes. So there's just no evidence.

Any recommendation for syncing to your nutrition is probably extrapolating from hormonal fluctuation

data without testing that they actually produce different outcomes. That's all. And I want to be

fair about this. I want to be fair, okay, because cycle awareness is not the same as cycle syncing.

This is this is the side that I stand on knowing that you you dear listener tend to feel more

fatigued and low. You have a low energy state. You feel wiped in the luteal phase. And then adjusting

your training intensity based on how you feel that day and your recovery. That's a smart thing to do.

That is responsive auto regulated programming. And it is what I recommend. Awareness of your body

signals and how you feel and perform and all of that is great. Also tracking your symptoms

so that you can spot patterns and then know what's coming is smart too. But all that is is

listening to your body with with a better set of data, just like we try to do with other forms of

biofeedback, whether you're a man or woman, whether you're menstruating or not. That is not the

same as following a color coded calendar in an app that tells you to eat sweet potatoes in day 14

and reduce training volume on day 21. That is complete nonsense. I mean, even Stacey Sims,

who came on what was she on with Lauren Kalenzel's simple they kind of went at it and they argued

with each other. And you know, Lauren's more on the side of the nuance and like much of this stuff

is pretty much not supported by the evidence. Stacey Sims is probably the most prominent advocate

of training around the menstrual cycle. But she has even acknowledged this evolution in the

evidence recently, like last year, 2025. She wrote that there is no single right way for all women

to train around their cycles. And I heard her say it on the podcast. And so she's kind of evolved

her thinking as well. Good for her, right? The real story is individuality, which is essentially the

position that I'm presenting here and that I always try to present on the show. Now for women in

Perry menopause, Perry menopause is the entire period of hormonal fluctuations leading up to

menopause, which could be as long as 10, 15 years, you know, starting it as early as you're

mentally 30s. For women in Perry menopause, cycle seeking, cycle syncing is I'll say structurally

impossible. Because when your cycles shift from 26 days to 45 days to skipping months as you get

closer. And I know a lot of you are going through that. We don't talk about it enough, ladies. I know

that your cycle is not this fixed 28 day thing. If it is great, but that's not the case for a lot

of women I talk to. It changes. It sometimes gets wildly all over the place. It extends out. Sometimes

you don't have one. And this is even outside of like low energy states, a menorrhea and all that

from dieting. This is just it happens because of hormones, because of a pair of menopause.

In that case, what are you going to sink to? Like it's just going to, you know, drive yourself crazy.

The entire framework assumes a predictable hormonal pattern. And Perry menopause is often

defined by the loss of that predictability. All right, if you're hearing all of this, if you're

thinking, okay, okay, I get that cycle syncing is oversold. I also know just be patient and gas

lighting isn't going to do it for me. But I need I want someone to actually help me build that

system that works for my body. That is exactly what we've built with eat more lift heavy.

And I hope you guys love the name. I I'm really loving it because it says exactly the thing that

many of you need to do right in the name eat more lift heavy. It's a 26 week coaching program

launching March 30 where you get both training and nutrition coaching together, which almost nobody

offers at this price point over half the women in our intake data report hormonal concerns affecting

their progress. And our curriculum has an entire week dedicated to hormonal pattern awareness.

You learn about it, you personalize it, you apply it to yourself and you get coaching. And every

member gets a personalized plan that accounts for where they actually are, not where a generic chart

says they should be. If you want in at the lowest price that'll ever be our founders price,

get on the wait list now at witsandweights.com slash eat more. That's witsandweights.com slash eat more.

A link is in the show notes. The early access window is opening March 16. So get on the list so

that you get the emails that say here it's open. Here's the special deal you're going to get

once and only once, but you're going to get it because you're on the list. Go to witsandweights.com

slash eat more or click the link in the show notes. Okay, so we've established that cycle

syncing over promises under delivers and that just be patient does the same. So what do you do

instead? All right, two things. You're going to fix how you measure progress and you're going to

fix how you eat during the luteal phase. Here we go. How do we fix how we measure progress?

The goal is to separate the noise from hormones from the real body composition signals.

What's actually happening with your body and this is going to help you a lot emotionally too

and help you not overreact and know what's going on. The engineering principle here is simple. You

don't make decisions on noisy data. You have to filter it first. So I want you to think of it like a

filter. Step one, okay, we've got three steps here. Step one, weigh yourself daily but use a trend.

So for that, I recommend an app that can smooth the trend for you. You can do it in a spreadsheet,

you can do it on your own, but it takes a lot of math and using the right equations and like making

sure you do it and that tends to create a lot of friction and it's harder for people to get into

or stick with. So I would definitely use something like macro factor. That's my favorite app that does

that. And that's, I want you to weigh every day not because daily weigh-ins are some magical thing,

but because we know from the evidence, there was actually a study of 10,000 smart scale users in

2021 that found daily weighing was the only frequency associated with weight loss across all

BMI groups and and maintaining the weight loss. So the key here is you never react to a single

day's number. I know easier said than done. I get it, but if you're taking away it every day,

it eventually starts to get, it becomes less and less important and you just kind of get used

to seeing that it goes up and down. But what you really care about is the trend. And macro factor

does this well because they have an exponential moving average and then they have their expenditure

algorithm that takes your trend weight and your calorie intake and then they actually have their

algorithm now has improved handling of cyclical fluctuations. So and you can track your period as

well alongside it. It's it is very fast. So I like that app because it does all of that. So like

if you're working with us or if you're an eat more lift heavy, that's our recommended tool. And if

you come to say me or Carol and you want some feedback on your data, we're going to say, hey,

one of the one of the data points we need is your macro factor data because then we have your trend

weight and we know what your expenditure is. If you don't have that data kind of flying

blind, right, kind of flying in the dark. And so if you're doing this for yourself, same thing.

Step two. So that's step one is weigh yourself daily and use a trend smooth a smooth trend.

And that should that trend, by the way, should be over at least a two week period, but I really

prefer three weeks. Step two is to use same phase comparison. So phase to phase is how you

want to compare as your monthly sanity check. So you're going to compare your weight from the

mid follicular phase this month, like days seven through 10 to your mid follicular phase last month.

That's that's your most stable hormonal windows, the mid follicular phase. And again, you want to

take the trend weight from that point, but even if you have just a few spot weights, a few

individual scale weights, at least it's been a month and you can do that comparison, but take

several of them. Don't just take one day. If that numbers moving in the direction you want over say

three months, hey, your plan's working. If it's flat, something is off and we need to adjust.

And that eliminates a lot of the false alarms that come from weighing yourself, you know,

pre-mancerally, and comparing it to a random day three weeks ago. Step three, and this is really

important if you're in perimenopause. And that is to extend your evaluation window. Listen to me

carefully. I want you to extend your evaluation window, the window if within which you evaluate

what's happening, because when your cycles are more and more irregular as they tend to be in

perimenopause, especially closer to menopause you are, you cannot rely even on step two, the same

phase comparisons, because there's no reliable data, no reliable phase to compare. Instead, you're

going to use longer moving averages. You're going to use four to six week moving averages before

concluding that any weight change is real. And I know that takes patience. And I know you got to

wait and you want the quick fix and the quick change, but you're not going to get it. In fact,

you're going to slow your progress down. You're going to go in the wrong direction if you over

react to the short term, because if you end up under eating and stressing your your body out

further, it could actually compensate the wrong direction by burning fewer calories and actually

making you have a worse outcome. But in addition to this, see that that's just scale weight.

Honestly, you've heard me talk about how scale weight is just a tiny piece of the puzzle and

really not that important. I would supplement your scale data with your waist measurement,

how your clothes fit, of course, how you're improving in the gym with your strength,

and even progress photos. Those things can all be very helpful, because the scale alone is going

to miss all the changes in your body composition, like building muscle and losing fat at the same time,

for example. And during period menopause, those shifts can be pretty dramatic. We know from

plenty of research at this point that the rate of fat gain tends to jump up almost double. I think

it did double at the start of the menopausal transition. And lean mass is declining as well.

Of course, you know, you listen to whits and weights, you lift weights, you're reading a protein,

right? Well, if you're not, that's a whole different thing we got to deal with and get you doing

that. But a woman whose scale weight is fairly stable still might be gaining fat and losing muscle.

Obviously, the opposite could happen to you. It could be gaining muscle and losing fat.

It depends on your lifestyle and what you're doing. And the scale alone is not just is just not

going to tell you that. So that's the measurement side. On the nutrition fix, okay, let's talk about

nutrition. We have the behavioral side of this first. And this is big. Luteal phase, the

luteal phase is notorious for having lots of hunger. I've seen it over and over again. Okay.

I can't imagine where like once a month your hunger just is higher than it is the rest of the

month. So I feel for you. There's a meta analysis I found of 15 data sets that show the average

increase in energy intake. So how much you eat during the luteal phase is about 168 calories per

day. And for women with PMS, it's closer to 300. And then if you fight this, we're trying to

restrict calories. That's like the worst possible strategy because all it does is amplify the what

the hell effect, the all or nothing effect. And then it works against the the serotonin deficit.

That's what's going on here that is driving the cravings. Now why is serotonin important because

serotonin levels drop in the luteal phase. And carbohydrate, carb cravings appear to function

as a form of self-medication because eating carbs increases trip to fan. The trip to fan ratio

that feeds how your body synthesizes serotonin. And there's a study on this. There was a

double blind crossover study that gave women with confirmed PMS either a high carb beverage or

an identical tasting placebo. And the carb drink significantly reduced depression, anger,

and cravings within 90 to 180 minutes. And the placebo did nothing. So the cravings are not

a failure of your willpower. They are your brain requesting a specific input that it needs.

Interesting, right? So what's the fix here? Well, it's not to fight the hunger. It's to redirect

that hunger. This is a powerful tool, ladies. Listen, okay? This is something I've learned working

with clients and it works a lot. First, you've got to leverage protein. If you are not already eating

the right amount of protein per day and having protein in every meal, that's your biggest

opportunity. 30 to 40 grams of protein every meal, especially your first meal of the day during that

gluteal phase. The reason is protein is when it's diluted in your diet, like when you don't have

enough, right? Total calorie intake goes up because your body keeps eating it until it gets enough

protein. So if you can front load protein, you're going to satisfy that target earlier for your body

and reduce the amount of calories you'll calories you overshoot for the day. So if you're not

already leveraging plenty of protein, that's number one. The second thing is using complex carbs

strategically. Don't cut carbs during the gluteal phase. That's the opposite of which a brain needs.

But what you can do is include complex carbs like whole grains, legumes,

starchy vegetables in all your meals. And then you support your serotonin without the crash

and blood sugar that comes from simpler carbs. Although I don't want to overstate the blood sugar

thing if you're eating balanced meals anyway, even if you have simple carbs as long as they're with

proteins and fats, you tend to be okay anyway. And then if you're lifting weights and walking,

it just makes it even better. But carbs can be your friend for sure. So listen up. If you're low

carb, this could be the problem. Third, I want you to allow a modest increase during that phase.

So actually shift your calories. If your metabolic rate actually does go up at least 100 calories or so,

like if you've proven it for yourself through your tracking, and again, the only way to do that is

a tool like macro factor where you can tell. Then eating an extra say 100 to 200 calories

during those 10 to 14 days is just going to offset it. In other words, you're not going to,

you're not going to stop losing fat. You're not going to gain weight. It's just going to offset it.

And I know you want to like take advantage of the fact you're burning more calories. But if you're

also massively more hungry, you might overshoot that benefit through your food. But if you intentionally

increase your food a little bit to match it, then it can on the net work out better. And then over

the full cycle, the math washes out in your favor. But if you're trying to maintain a steep deficit

during the phase when your body is most resistant to it, then it usually creates the psychological

conditions that lead to you binge eating. Does that make sense? I hope that all makes sense that I

didn't get like two technical because even for myself, I realized the way I worded all that was

kind of in the weeds. But the principle across all of this is to work with your biology,

not to sink or cycle sink, but understand your body has physiological explanations that are going

on. And little tweaks in your nutrition and your measurement can go a long way to supporting you

through your pattern of your cycle. And not every woman's going to need every one of these

strategies. Now, I want to be clear about what I'm not claiming here because, again, nuance,

guys, nuance. I'm not saying your cycle doesn't affect how you feel. I'm definitely not. It absolutely

does. It does fatigue, mood shifts, bloating, cramps. You name it. All of that is real. And if you

adjust your training intensity or expectations based on how you feel, that's a smart thing to do.

And it's independent of trying to align it with your cycle. It's based on how you're feeling.

I'm also not saying that tracking your cycle is useless. It's actually very useful. I even

mentioned that in macro factor, you can track it and then it aligns it with the other stuff going

on there. And it's helpful if you have a coach or if you're in our program and then you can share

your data. But for yourself, knowing those patterns gives you better data. And a lot of you do

already track your cycle and may not be tracking it against the other things. But what I'm saying,

what I'm not saying to do is restructure your entire diet and training plan around this 28 day

idea that half the population doesn't even follow predictably. Like half of women don't even fall

into the quote-unquote normal, you know, ovulation cycle. I'm also not saying the scale doesn't matter.

It's a useful data point among many. But I am saying that a single day's weigh in during the

late luteal phase is one of the least helpful things you can collect and that making decisions

based on it is not helpful for the reasons we talked about earlier. So what I am saying from

this whole episode is this, you deserve a better framework than quote-unquote sink your macros to

the moon or quote-unquote just relax. The water weight fluctuations are normal and it's all going

to average out. No, you've got to be intentional and the fix here is a measurement system to filter

the noise out. A nutrition approach that respects your individual biology and then of course patients

to evaluate progress over multiple cycles, not just days or a few weeks. Before we wrap up,

remember that I promised you a one meal change that blunts cravings before they start any time

they spike. I will share that in a second. But if this episode is clicking for you, if you are

enjoying this, if you want a structured system for navigating all of this with human coaching,

support, eat more, lift, heavy is coming. It's a 26 week program. It integrates training and

nutrition coaching together. It is built for women over 40 who lift and track but are not seeing the

results. And hormonal pattern awareness is built directly into the curriculum, not to mention

coach Carol. She is amazing. She is an expert in women over 40 hormones and thyroid health,

especially and has personal experience with all of those. The weight list with founder pricing

at the lowest it'll ever be is open now go to witsandweights.com slash eat more. That's witsandweights.com

slash eat more. There's no obligation at all. You can join the list for free just so you get the

information go to witsandweights.com slash eat more. By the way, if you're already on my email list,

you still want to go there and get on the weight list specifically because you'll get tagged for the

early access and the founders pricing. All right, let's talk about the strategy for cravings.

Next time you have cravings, whether it is PMS week, maybe you had a bad sleep night, maybe

you have a stressful afternoon. Honestly, men, women, whatever the cravings are from,

this is what you do. At your very first meal of the day, hit at least 40 grams of protein before

anything else. And that could be two eggs plus a couple of Greek yogurt. That could be a protein

shake. And the 40 grams is more than enough to suppress grailin that's your hunger hormone.

It elevates CCK. That's a satiety hormone. And it does so for several hours because cravings

are partly a hunger management problem. They are partly a hunger management problem. You're like,

yeah, duh, but what I mean by that is when your baseline hunger is already elevated because of

your hormones or poor sleep or stress, your threshold for giving into the hunger is lower.

And protein raises it back up. It raises it back up. So you front load the protein,

and then you build the rest of the meal around things like whole grains and start to vegetables,

a little bit of fat, especially if carb cravings are the issue. You see what I'm saying here?

If carb cravings are the issue, why don't you eat some carbs? But eat the carbs that you choose

that will benefit you. All right, I'm not talking about donuts and pizza. I'm not talking about

reading the pantry or the fridge on a whim. I'm talking about be intentional and have whole grains,

fruits, starchy vegetables, things like that. And that way you're not fighting the craving.

You are taking the edge off with intention and responding to it gracefully instead of reacting

to it. And isn't that what we all want to do? All right, until next time, keep using your wits,

lifting those weights. And remember, your cycle is not the enemy of fat loss. It's just data that most

people never learned. I'm Philip Pape, and I'll talk to you next time here on The Wits and Wits