Exercising more then I ever have in my life...

Freelancer180

Freelancer180

New member
Okay, the problem: I stopped having my period (2.5 months now) and other then this I've only ever been late by a week or two max.

I'm 26 years old, 5'3, female. 2 years ago I weighed 260lbs. I dieted down (1200 cal/day no exercise) to 180lbs and have maintained it for 1 year.

Recently (3 months ago) I started exercising for the sake of health (Sure, I'd like the weight loss but I was more interesting in combating boredom/anxiety then thinking about even trying to lose weight.) I've read online that athletes who exercise alot have this problem with their period stopping but I am not an athlete, in fact my BMI puts me in the "obese" category. I was wondering if you guys can tell me if the exercise I've been doing is indeed "strenuous" enough to merit this problem.

(I realize your not doctors but I can't go see one about this problem until I hit the 3 month mark, apparently until its been that long they won't troubleshoot problems.) I have never been pregnant and I've taken 2 pregnancy tests (one was just 2 weeks ago, the other about a month ago) both came back negative. (thankfully, I don't want to have children)



So heres the exercise I'd been doing:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Swimming 45mins/day 5 days per week (1300-1500 meters in laps)
Gym Cardio (Elliptical Machine) 25 mins/session, 4 days per week
Gym Weights 20 mins/session 4 days per week. (alternate legs one day, arms the other day, rest 1 day then repeat.)

Other then those I ride my bike (I don't own a car) everywhere including to and from the gym. I also go on 2-3 hour bike rides (one day I had a 7 hour bike ride) with my husband. Probably about 3 times per week. On the days I don't bike ride I've been playing Tennis for about 45m-1h per session about 2 times per week, sometimes more depending on how nice the day is. We also play "catch" in the park when we're too sore to ride our bikes or play tennis.

I started at 185lbs 3 months ago and I wasn't watching my diet so I didn't lose too much. I am sitting around 178lbs now (eatting 1500 cal per day now since last week).

Other Misc information: I am on a very low dose of Lithium (300mg) and I have a stone in my Salivary Gland which I will be getting removed soon.

Anywho anyway anyhow, What do you guys think? =/
 
For the past week I've been following 1500 calories (and balancing them very well with the right fats (nuts, olives and olive oil, fish etc), carbs and lean protien in a 4:3:3 ratio)

But aside from last week when I decided to get "serious" about the food aspect of this lifestyle change I actually didn't change my diet much. I just used the exercise I was doing to burn the weight. I lost about 1lb per week if even. I'd estimate (aside from this past week) that for 3 months I've been eating roughly 1800-2000 calories. I was trying to stick with 1600 but I was picking at alot of the food while I cooked, adding in extra small meals after a workout etc.

I don't know how I did it now to be honest, 1200 calories a day is not a number I am comfortable sticking with as far as food intake goes. When I was following that number I was doing 0 exercise (I work from home and my pass times were playing video games). Before losing that 80lbs I had never dieted before in my life, I basicly had no idea how calories worked.

On a good note I went from 178lbs to 175lbs in the past week, probably some water weight from getting my food intake right, but its nice to see the scale bustin' a move like that :hurray:
 
I'm not a doc of course but I can tell you I've experienced something similar, though not as pronounced. I've been doing almost as much exercise as you for a little over four months and I've noticed some differences in my cycle. I've still had it every month, but its been both a week late and a week early and I've had spotting in between. Everything was very regular until I started this level of exercise, and I started with a BMI of 23 and now its down to 20.9. I've also had insomnia and fatigue at times, and one of the staff members at the gym was even questioning the amount I was doing and asked me to cut back to strength training then no more than 60 minutes of cardio at a time.
 
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