Weight Loss After Hypothalamic Amenorrhea Recovery

How do I lose weight after I've recovered from hypothalamic amenorrhea??

… is one of the most asked question about under eating/HA recovery so let's talk about it.

If you ever asked this question, here are the things that you need to keep in mind:

1️⃣Getting your period or getting rid of some symptoms related to chronic under eating doesn't automatically mean that we're now 100% recovered, so it also doesn't mean that we should start losing weight immediately! Give yourself at least 2-3 months before you change anything.

2️⃣ Even after 2-3 months, don't do anything extreme, like cut calories by 500 or go back to 6x HIIT per week. If you want to start working out, get Simple Strength for Women instead!

3️⃣ Don't cut your calories and start intense training at the same time.

4️⃣ Remember, recovering from HA wasn't just a few month project that you did once and can now go back to your pre recovery weight. There was a reason why you needed to put on all this weight!

5️⃣ Most importantly, I wouldn't force the weight loss at all. Not what you want to hear, I know! But one beautiful thing that recovery can teach us, is that we don't need calorie calculators or anyone else tell to tell us what and how much to eat. We can move towards trusting ourselves and our intuition not someone else's external rules.

6️⃣ Instead, let's start being more mindful of our food choices. This topic is covered in Simple Strength for Women too. Things like: Ok, in recovery I needed a huge bowl of ice cream every night, but now – do I even want it? Or maybe I want little less? We don't have to eat everything in front of us like we maybe did when in recovery, we start asking questions about our hunger and satisfaction we can actually find naturally how much we need to eat. No myfitnesspals necessary.

7️⃣ Yes, a lot of us end up with some “overshoot” weight. A lot of women lose a little bit of it naturally over the course of a year or two, and stop where they naturally should be. Sounds like a long time but it's much better choice than forced weight loss that drives your mind and body crazy again! This is me today – between my pre recovery weight and right after recovery weight. Somewhere in the middle and made complete peace with it.

 

What do you think? If you are recovered, do you have a weight loss goal? Why or why not?