I guess I don't have to explain, the title says all. Whenever I pms, I always have a crave for sweet and meat, sometimes I feel like I could kill for them ;_;. And since I decided to go on diet, I feel like the craving just max it level ;_;. So ladies, can you give me some advice. Do you have the same experience? And how do you deal with it? Thanks.

I do..... unfortunately.
I crave sweet and salty stuff. m&m peanuts, ice cream, pizza, cheeseburger, peanut butter filled pretzels, I can just eat a chunk of cheese at one sitting...
and have another one ,,, and when PMS comes, I don't even want to look at veggies ..... fruits like mango, cherries OK cuz' they are sweet I guess.

what I do is try to workout as early as possible despite the fact that we don't really have much energy while PMSsing... at least that helps minimizing the damage. and try not to go over 4000 calories a day. still the damage turns out to be almost a .5 lb. a day.... terrible.... I can gain 5 lbs. during PMS and TOM days.... even if 50% of that is water, it is so bad.

Part of the battle is already won. You know what PMS triggers in you. Work with it. Eat as healthy as you can, but work your "cravings" in to you plan. What I mean by working into your plan...your TOM is on it's way be extra conscious of your eating (making sure you are not eating from boredom & be sure you are drinking plenty H2O), add a little more exercise even if it's just 10 mins. & be forgiving of yourself.
The sweets, I'm not sure why they are a normal craving when PMSing. Meats I think are a craving because of the need for iron. Salt cravings may be the for iodine. Yes, your body can crave that, too.

What I have done in the past when I was on my weight loss journey before & I'm doing now is:
1. During my PMS, TOM & even a few days after I take iron. I like to use a time released iron. This helps not to crave tons of red meat. In other words, it helps keep me away from all the burger joints in town!! ;-)

2. Salt/iodine I will keep something like soy nuts or pretzels on hand. If you look you can find that they will give you the salt you crave without all the grease/oil from chips/fries. I like to use the little snack zip bags for this, because I can portion it out in servings I control.

3. Sweet is the toughest. I do not like to keep sweets in my home at all, because I can't control myself around them. If you absolutely positively need some, have a little, because if you don't it may cause you to fall completely off the wagon. One thing that worked for one of my friends was to buy the little fun sized ones & hide them in the back of the freezer. Take out only 2 or 3, leaving the rest frozen. Maybe a spouse or friend can help you be accountable.
Like I said, for me this is a toughie. I just don't have sweets in my home. I'll buy a single bar, usually dark chocolate. I like dark chocolate & it has antioxidants. Yet I can usually only eat 1/2 of one at a time.

Hope this helps. I know how tough PMS & TOM can be. Frankly I'd like to start menopause. I had false/temporary menopause when I had my thyroid removed years back, but then it came back after an 8 month hiatus. UGH!

I'm exactly the same ugogurl - as soon as I'm within a week of my period I start to crave 'bad' food. As MrsTryingAgain said though, as soon as you know what triggers you it can be easier to work with to solve your problems!

Thanks guys, it helps a lot
@MrsTryingagain: Well, I normally drink a lot of water, but on TOM like these I drink less. It may sounds silly but I read somewhere that says the reason we ladies bloat on our TOM is because of the water our bodies hold. It scares me a little bit, since I get bloated almost all TOM, and since water retention is the main reason I think it would be reasonable to reduce the water intake. Is that true? Just my logic, you know
And I don't get why I crave for meat, I don't have a heavy period, but well, i'm not an expert.

Willpower willpower willpower, the urges and cravings during cycles can be diabolical, but I know I'm not going to win if I give in.

Stay strong girls!

Geraldine
xx

Same here!! About a week before I get a wicked craving for a big juicy burger and a huge peice of chocolate cake. It's intense. I become obsessed with fulfilling the craving. And nothing else will do, since it doesn't satisfy me, and then I just end up over-eating to fill the craving.

So, I give in. But I plan for it. I make all my other food choices for the day be extra healthy, lower fat, lower salt, etc. I exercise extra. And I enjoy every single bite. Cause the way I am looking at it is, it's just 1 day, just 1 meal, and it will NOT affect my weight loss journey. Well, negatively anyways. Fulfilling that craving makes me happy and feel less crazy Which is good for everyone!

Period-related water retention is normal for a lot of women and goes away by itself. Why worry about it? If you're thirsty, drink.

FWIW, I've found that having a high fluid intake (e.g., lots of water and soup) usually helps mitigate my PMS symptoms. I've also found that I feel better and don't usually show a post-period gain if I indulge my meat and sweet cravings a little bit during my period.

If you crave meat you're probably iron deficient - which means you should give in to that craving because you're losing a bunch of blood (yes, i said it in public lol) and your body needs iron to form healthy blood cells.

High quality iron supplements taken with vitamin c (an orange or some lemon/lime juice in water) for assimilation or red meat are good. It's just something most women struggle with and we should account for that.

Apart from that - I realized the cleaner you eat, the more you will just crave fruit instead of processed sugar over time. Which is totally fine. Sometimes I want to eat like an entire papaya lol or stuff of equal volume. And that's ok!

So just hang in there and stay strong, keep pursuing to eat more and more healthy and clean, maybe do a cleanse to reset your body and you'll be right there!!

Just as an aside, a new meta-analysis came out reporting that the mental/mood effects of PMS are illusory -- in other words, that women don't experience mood swings, cravings, etc. during the premenstrual phase any more than they do at other times of the month.

I'm sure many women will be appalled at these results, and the research may very well be flawed. It does happen to reflect my own experience, though: I've never noticed ANYTHING different about mood, cravings, etc. before my period.

F.

Ditto. I always just assumed I was one of the lucky women who don't experience those symptoms! That's very interesting... thanks for sharing.

I get a little cranky and definitely hungrier than usual. Craving meat and sugar is pretty standard and sometimes I am a little heavier. I consider myself lucky in that I don't cramp/get nauseous/other debilitating physiological symptoms.

Long long ago, I read that our bodies dump magnesium and calcium prior to your period. I used to take a supplement about a week before, it seemed to help with moods swings and such.

The last few months I've been having a kale/spinach/banana/almond milk/wheat germ smoothie for breakfast and realized this month that my period snuck up on me with no pms symptoms, so I'm believing that my body's telling me something when it's craving, I've had that iron deficient craving red meat mentioned above.

I've also had good results with just taking a good quality women's multivitamin. Right now eating better, cleaner, more whole foods, veggies is working well for me.

best to you

I get bad cramps, like the can't stand up, sit, lie down, talk, or breathe kind (hallelujah for Aleve), cravings for grilled red meat or weird stuff like pineapple juice?! lol and fruit mostly. A little bit of bloat but not bad. And I'm not keeping track counting days or anything so the only way I know TOM is ahead is by those feelings and they never go wrong.

Can't really say that's just in my mind..


I heard what happens is in our most fertile days we become more attractive, healthy looking, extracting all these happy hormones and things to 'attract a mate' - so it's like we're getting high on that awesomeness for a few days and then when the egg dies and all that subsides, we fall into a hormone hole which is why some women get moody.

Cravings are just resupplying the body with the nutrients that whole process took. Makes perfect sense to me at least LOL

Thank you, gals, cause my mom and my sis normally don't have these problems, they just experienced moods swing so they never understand why I'm suddenly become a pig, *sigh*, it's good to have ppl to talk to