PMS cravings are all the rage (sometimes literally) in the luteal phase of our cycles. When we’re not clued into our monthly changes, it might feel like something otherworldly has taken over and cleaned out the fridge.
Intense cravings can be the result of a few different things: emotional needs, physical hunger, or a sign that your body needs a certain type of nourishment. How can you tell which is which? We'll talk about it on today's show.
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PMS cravings are all the rage (sometimes literally) in the luteal phase of our cycles. When we’re not clued into our monthly changes, it might feel like something otherworldly has taken over and cleaned out the fridge.
Intense cravings can be the result of a few different things: emotional needs, physical hunger, or a sign that your body needs a certain type of nourishment. How can you tell which is which? We'll talk about it on today's show.
Listener perk: 15% off Funk It Wellness seed cycling kits with code KRISTEN15
View all podcast listener perks here.
How you can work with me:
Keep in touch!
Website
Instagram
Virtual Tip Jar
Thanks for listening!
Hello and welcome to the Lunar Body, I'm your host, Kristen Ciccolini, period priestess, nutritionist, and the founder of Good Witch kitchen
It just so happens that this episode is coming out during the waning moon. I would love to tell you that I planned it that way, but I have reorganized the episode schedule so many times it’s just by chance that we’re going to be talking about PMS cravings during the phase of the moon that corresponds with the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, which is when PMS symptoms arise, and we start to experience cravings. So, so many cravings. Feeling insatiable. Feeling hangry. Feeling out of control and like a bottomless pit. Can you relate?
If you’re new here, the luteal phase is the time in your cycle after ovulation, when your body is preparing for menstruation. Your energy is winding down, your motivation to be social and outgoing and productive are naturally decreasing, your focus turns towards more internal intentions. Self-care, projects that require deep work and attention to detail, it starts to be quieter.
If you experience PMS symptoms, the luteal phase is when it all occurs. You’re angry, you’re irritable, you’re crampy, you’re tired. Today we’re going to focus on premenstrual hunger and cravings, and this may or may not be related to those other symptoms. It really depends on the root of your symptoms. If your symptoms stem more from blood sugar dysregulation, or nutrient deficiency, whatever, we’ll talk about all that, I won’t get too into the weeds right away.
Basically when you’re not clued in to your monthly changes, understanding your needs or not adequately meeting your changing needs, it might feel like something otherworldly has taken over and cleaned out the fridge.
Intense cravings can be the result of a few different things: emotional needs, physical hunger, or a sign that your body needs a certain type of nourishment. But how can you tell what’s actually causing them?
We’ll go over five common cravings that people tend to experience with PMS but first I want to touch on that piece about emotional and physical needs.
There can be a lot going on in the premenstrual phase, including emotional fluctuations, energy dips, and mood swings. Since many of us have learned to cope with our emotions using food, those PMS symptoms can be confused for one another. The result of using food is a temporary fix for a whole other problem.
It’s important to talk about the difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger. This is one of the fundamental pieces of intuitive eating. As you learn to pause and check in about how you’re feeling, you can start to understand the more subtle signals that your body is sending you. Rather than any ounce of discomfort immediately causing you to reach for food, with practice you’ll be able to examine that discomfort, pinpoint where it’s coming from, whether it’s emotional or physical, and adjust accordingly.
Emotional hunger tends to come on suddenly. Something triggers it, maybe something upsets us, or there’s a habit that we’re stuck in that triggers it. Maybe you got a passive aggressive email from a coworker and that instinctively made you reach for a snack. In my case, a habit I used to be in was that I would eat healthy when my boyfriend was around, but save all my junk food habits for when he went to work, because I worked from home. So literally as soon as he would go to work and the door would close, I’d bolt to the cabinet and grab my snacks. Was I hungry? Usually no. Not for what I was eating anyway. But that’s the type of emotional hunger I’m talking about, it comes on suddenly, there’s usually some kind of trigger for it. It tends to be when we make more impulsive decisions around food.
Physical hunger comes on more gradually. You start out with subtle symptoms. Things that you may not immediately connect to hunger, like not being able to concentrate on your work, or getting a headache, or feeling a bit tired. Eventually it becomes more obvious with hunger pangs or a rumbling stomach. But that’s the difference, it happens over some time rather than it being triggered by something.
With emotional hunger, we tend to crave specific foods. Like you absolutely cannot and will not rest until you have the exact flavor of the exact food that you have in mind. You absolutely must have the limited edition birthday cake Oreos, but you go to the store and they only have regular boring Oreos, and you think maybe you’ll get by with just the regular ones and it’ll be fine. But you take them home and you eat the whole thing and you know what? It’s not good enough! You wanted the funfetti version! You will literally DIE if you don’t get them.
In the case of physical hunger, you tend to be open to more options to get your needs met. So if you don’t have the exact thing you have in mind, another food will satisfy just fine. Because the ultimate goal was to satisfy your hunger, rather than to satisfy a specific craving or calm a certain emotion.
Along these lines, emotional hunger isn’t usually satisfied by feeling full. So in the case of the regular boring Oreos, maybe you ate them all thinking that eventually you’d forget about the birthday cake flavor. But no, no, no. Even though you ate it all and you feel unconfortanly full, you still want to go back to the store and buy some funfetti cake god dammit.
With physical hunger, the sensation of fullness is satisfying. You feel content after eating, you’re ready to move on with your day. If you’re chasing a certain food to cope with a certain feeling, and you’ve eaten to the point of discomfort, that usually ends up with feelings of guilt and shame after eating. Which adds to the cycle of uncomfortable feelings. And then you restrict as punishment, get overly hungry because of the restriction, and fuel the cycle.
So as you can see, emotional hunger tends to be more direct but ongoing, whereas physical hunger is more relaxed in its characteristics and easier to move on from once you eat.
This isn’t to demonize emotional eating, but like I said, if we’re trying to fill one type of need with a different type of solution, the puzzle pieces don’t really fit. You might be able to wedge it in there but eventually, you’re going to need to figure out where it actually goes.
And if it is emotional, let’s do away with the myth that it’s an issue of willpower.
Emotional eating is often a learned dopamine response. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter responsible for feeling pleasure, so it’s natural for us to create a habit of reaching for food that soothes us because the brain creates associations over time. If you’ve trained your brain to think that food = happiness, even if that happiness is only temporary, just know there’s nothing wrong with you—everything is working the way it’s designed to. What we want to do is retrain that response, find dopamine from other non-food sources. I’ll share some resources on emotional eating in the show notes, but we’re going to continue talking about cravings.
As you know, one of the ways I track my cycle is by using a “word of the day” for how I’m feeling. Closer to the start of my period, one word that pops up is INSATIABLE. I feel like a garbage disposal. Like just keep dropping things in and I’ll make it disappear, no problem.
It’s a lot easier to deal with when you understand that your metabolism is actually stronger in the second half of your cycle than in the first. This means the amount of food your body needs increases. That insatiable feeling isn’t about your willpower. It might just mean your typical serving sizes just aren’t big enough to meet your needs in this phase. You need to eat more.
I want to be careful not to categorize cravings as bad. It’s all just information for you to work with, neutral information. So as your cravings come on, by all means, satisfy them in whatever way you see fit, but it can help to get curious about them too. Consider whether there’s an emotional root you can tackle in some way, or if you’re actually eating enough during the day. And if you track your cycle like I do and know that feeling’s coming, make a meal plan that adjusts to your needs.
[AD BREAK]
Keep in mind that the differences between emotional and physical hunger aren’t always as clear-cut as what I just discussed. The indicators that I shared are just a place for you to start, something general that you can use as a guide to see what’s true for you and your body.
If you are hungry, and you do have more direct and intense cravings for certain foods, it might be your body’s way of telling you what type of nourishment it needs.
So let’s talk about those common PMS cravings that I mentioned earlier, and what they might mean.
I’m going to share the craving, what it might mean, and how you can get ahead of it. Do keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive list, and by no means the only potential reasons for the craving. I’m sharing this for you to use as some breadcrumbs, some clues for you to consider as to the underlying cause of your cravings and possibly other symptoms.
The first is the craving for refined carbohydrates.
This might mean that you have low energy from skipping meals, from not eating enough fiber, or from not eating enough in general.
This is number one on the list because it’s THE most common thing I hear. Bread, pasta, cookies, etc. You are DYING to get them down the hatch.
Remember that the strength of your metabolism changes throughout the month, and your body naturally burns more energy or calories in the luteal phase, when PMS symptoms arise. I hesitate to use the word calories, because I don’t want this to equate to food measurements, but the term is how we describe energy in this context. Calories are energy for the body.
A quick lesson for you so we’re on the same page: carbohydrates are converted into glucose, also known as blood sugar, when you digest them. The speed at which the glucose enters the bloodstream can increase or decrease depending on what you eat with those carbohydrates. Protein, fat, and fiber eaten along with these carbs all help slow down digestion so you’re not spiking your blood sugar (and eventually crashing it).
Because you naturally burn more energy in the luteal phase, in turn your body is going to want more energy to refuel. The bread and pasta and cookies you’re craving are the quickest and easiest way to get it because (typically) there is little to no protein, fat, or fiber to slow down its digestion and entry into the bloodstream.
So in clearer terms, your body is burning more energy at this time, and if you aren’t eating enough to properly refuel, refined carbs are the fastest way to replenish that energy so that’s what you naturally gravitate towards
To get ahead of this, keeping blood sugar stable throughout the day is key. Skipping meals or not getting enough food to meet your needs can lead to low blood sugar, which is where that craving for quick energy can stem from, and also other symptoms like headaches, irritability, and fatigue. For more energy and satisfaction out of your meals, remember the elements of balance: protein, fat, fiber.
The next common craving is chocolate. Oh yes, the stereotypical PMS food.
There are a couple of reasons you might be craving chocolate when you’re PMSing. First is exactly the reason we just talked about. If you’re craving the sweetness and sugar aspect of chocolate, maybe you really want chocolate cupcakes or something rather than like a square of dark chocolate, the low energy we just discussed is a potential cause.
What’s another likely possibility, if you’re someone who deals with painful cramps, is that your body could also be craving magnesium.
When we think of our muscles we tend to think of the ones we can flex and tone and work out at the gym. We forget that our organs have muscular tissue too, and the uterus is one of our muscular organs. The uterus is a muscle, and one of its jobs is to contract in order to push out its lining and blood that it’s shedding during your period. Magnesium has muscle-relaxing properties that can reduce period pain if you’re finding the cramps are too much. (In a healthy menstrual cycle, only mild cramping is normal, anything more occurring regularly is worth looking into).
Chocolate also contains anandamide, which is known as the bliss chemical (the word ananda is Sanskrit for “bliss” or “happiness”). Anandamide is part of our endocannabinoid system, which is not my area of expertise, but research shows it’s a mood-enhancing neurotransmitter. So you might just be looking for a mood boost!
To go on a little soapbox tangent… buying fair trade can boost your mood too. Ok that’s not scientific, but I imagine you’ll be happy knowing you are supporting an ethically sourced and sustainable product. The major chocolate companies like Mars, Nestlé, and Hershey are known to use child slavery for their products, so if you have the privilege of being able to avoid their products and afford a more sustainable option, consider it. Ask your local chocolate maker about their sourcing, usually they are happy to tell you about their sustainability efforts, or you can also check out Thrive Market for some options that are listed in the Fair Trade category.
Ok, moving on.
The third common craving is red meat. Red meat cravings don’t discriminate, I’ve heard this one from vegetarian and vegan clients of mine who are horrified that they’re craving a big hunk of beef. But no need to be horrified! Remember we’re getting curious about these cravings. Whether or not you’re someone who would eat a big juicy steak, what it could mean when it’s all you can think about is that your body may need iron.
Iron is a key nutrient to watch particularly if you have a heavy flow. Grass-fed meat is a great iron source, so is liver if that’s in your diet, poultry, salmon — all good animal sources. Plant sources include leafy greens like spinach, lentils, nuts, seeds, beans, chickpeas, and olives.
One thing to know is that the body absorbs more iron from animal sources than plants. There are different types — heme and non-eme. Heme comes from animal foods, and non-heme comes from plants.
Those of you who don’t eat animal foods — because of the absorption rate you will have to work a bit harder to get optimal iron levels. You’ll need a a higher quantity of non-heme iron sources in your diet like the ones we just talked about. Another option is to eat those foods with Vitamin C-rich foods like citrus fruits, bell peppers, broccoli, and brussels sprouts. Yes, vitamin C is in more things than just oranges, and it aids in the absorption of iron so it can help you out here.
Otherwise, you may need to supplement with iron — BUT, always get tested first, because iron supplements can be hard on your system so I would avoid just going to the store and buying it without knowing for sure that you need it, and speak to your doctor or another health practitioner who knows your situation first because it’s not always as simple as supplementing with iron alone, like I said it can be tough on your system.
If you are supplementing, do be careful if you’re supplementing with calcium at the same time because calcium can block iron absorption. So if you are taking both, aim to take them at least one hour apart. And yes calcium-rich foods can also work against that iron absorption. I don’t want to make this complicated for you, you don’t have to plan out your iron and calcium meals down to the time — just make sure that especially if you are vegan, you are getting in adequate amounts and a variety of different plant foods.
Also, fun fact, cooking in cast iron can contribute iron to your diet too. Non-heme, but still iron.
The fourth craving is caffeine.
This could mean a couple things. One is similar to the refined carb issue — you may be low on energy because you’re not sleeping enough or not eating enough. Since we’ve covered that, another possible reason we can look at is low or imbalance cortisol.
As you near your menstrual phase, if you find yourself wanting to smash your alarm clock, you’re hitting snooze 100 times, you’re noticing an increased need for a cup of coffee… and another one… and another one… yeah we’ll want to take a look at cortisol. Even more so if you feel like this is a major struggle all cycle long that’s exacerbated in your luteal phase.
There’s this thing you should know called the cortisol curve. Cortisol is one of our stress hormones. When your hormones are balanced — and actually I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while but hormone balance is really a misnomer, there’s no equal balance since hormones are always changing and fluctuating, what we’re really talking about is just adequate and appropriate amounts, anyway — when things are functioning optimally, cortisol peaks in the morning.
You might be wondering why it’s a good thing for cortisol to peak if it’s a stress hormone. Well, first, it’s not peaking like if you were being chased by a bear, it’s just a natural peak for the morning. Cortisol gives us energy, so you want it to be relatively high in the morning to make you feel awake and alert and ready for the day.
Then what typically happens is that it bottoms out before bedtime. If you look at a healthy cortisol curve on a chart, the curve looks like you’re downhill skiing from the top of a mountain during the day. Then melatonin takes over at night. Kind of like how estrogen dominates the first half of your cycle and progesterone takes over in the second? Cortisol dominates in the morning and melatonin takes over at night to help wind you down.
So we need cortisol in healthy amounts to get through the day, not only to deal with stress, although on top of our daily needs, it is secreted to help us deal with short-term stresses.
If your cortisol is low in the morning, that curve on a chart looks more like there’s no ski lift in sight to take you up the mountain. You wake up tired and slog through your day. You rely on caffeine for stimulation because you can’t seem to muster up any on your own. It’s like flatlined.
Or, you might be going in reverse, waking up with low cortisol only for it to rise and make you feel wired when you’re supposed to be getting ready to sleep, you’re flying up that mountain.
And here’s where it gets a little tricky, low cortisol can actually be the result of chronically high cortisol. Chronically high cortisol comes from too much stress, things that make you regularly pump out cortisol, draining your ability to cope). If that’s the case, reaching for multiple cups of coffee every day is actually working against you and your cycle.
Here’s why that is. First, we use progesterone to make cortisol — and as you know, progesterone is a key hormone in our cycle, predominantly in the luteal phase, when PMS arises. If you have low cortisol as a result of chronic stress, you end up with low progesterone as well (and thus, estrogen dominance). A second reason why overdoing the coffee can work against your cycle is that caffeine can exacerbate stress imbalances by elevating cortisol.
So, long story short, your morning coffee isn’t a detriment to your health necessaarily, but if you’re relying on multiple cups of coffee to get through your day, especially in the luteal phase, you might be contributing to PMS symptoms and adrenal issues, and its definitely worth exploring.
If you want to work on boosting your energy naturally, you can do a few things. First, get some sunlight. Sunlight sets up your circadian rhythm, cortisol is part of that. When you wake up in the morning, go take a walk, or sit out in your backyard, or by a window. Open the curtains and let the light in. Turn on all the lights if it’s raining out. Get some light into your eyes and let your body know it’s time to start the day.
Also make sure you’re hydrated. So many of our problems can be solved with drinking enough water. Tired? Drink water. Depressed? More like dehydrated. Crabby? Thirsty. I’m exaggerating, but only a little bit. Drink a big glass of water first thing in the morning, stimulate your digestion, that’ll energize you too. Keep a bottle of water with you all day to remind yourself.
And exercise! Exercise that feels good for your body will energize you. If you’re feeling miserable or depleted after a workout, those endorphins are nowhere to be found, you gotta find a different workout, or your might want to lower the frequency of your workouts. You should feel energized, not completely wiped mentally and emotionally.
Alright and the last common PMS craving I want to cover is sour candy.
What could this possibly mean? It could be an indicator of low stomach acid.
The first four PMS cravings that we talked about are definitely more common, but I’ve also gotten questions about whether craving sour candy means anything, enough to include it in this episode. This also goes for other sour, tangy foods (like citrus) or vinegary flavors.
Those sour or tangy cravings may be your body’s way of telling you stomach acid production is low. So if you were my client, I would ask you the following follow-up questions:
Digestive issues can often be a sign of low stomach acid, otherwise known as hydrochloric acid or HCl. Its purpose is to help prepare food for digestion by softening tissues and activating an enzyme called pepsin that breaks down protein in the food that you ate. If that’s not happening, the food will then sit in your stomach and putrefy (sorry, I know that sounds disgusting, but bodies are gross, and fasincating). Basically the food starts to rot, protein putrefies, carbs ferment, and it all creates the gas that makes you feel bloated. You’ll also know if you’re having trouble breaking down protein if you have smelly farts. Telltale sign.
If you deal with acid reflux, that’s also a symptom of low stomach acid, though we think of it as the opposite problem. The issue is often that your lower esophageal sphincter is weak. The lower esophageal sphincter is a bundle of muscles that connect your esophagus and your throat to your stomach. It keeps that passageway closed until you swallow, when you swallow, it opens and lets food travel to your stomach. When you have acid reflux or GERD, those muscles are weak and so the gas in your stomach and the gas in your stomach can push up on it and cause what little acid there is to escape. So we take antacids because we think it’s *too much* acid that’s the problem, and those antacids decrease the amount of stomach acid even more.
And again, water intake is important here too. Proper hydration helps regulate your stomach acid production, water allows our body’s processes to function properly. However, too much before a meal can dilute your stomach acid. So make sure you’re getting in the amount your body needs, get your 8 glasses or whatever is the right amount for you, but do be mindful of drinking too much before eating, if you have low stomach acid, if you’re dealing with these sour cravings, and see if that helps.
Also, as with so many other conditions, stress is a major contributor to poor gut health and impaired stomach acid production. So get your self-care on my friend, find those stress-relieving activities. Perhaps one of those activities is leaving a review of this show in Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode, and if you enjoy my other episodes. Because that’s the end of this one, folks.
If there are other cravings that you deal with when you’re PMSing, please send them my way, maybe we can do a part 2, or we can do a Q+A of what some of the weirder cravings you have could possibly mean. That could be a fun one.
Either way, I would love if you could share this show with a friend, rate it in Apple Podcasts, share the episode from Spotify in your Instagram stories, however you feel like supporting, I super appreciate it, I appreciate you. I’ll talk to you next week.