To Digest or Not to Digest: How Your Hormones Eff With Your 💩

This week started off extra turdy.

Literally.

It all started with college football and two pies. One was a pizza and the other was an actual pie.

Let’s start with the football, lol.

🏈

By nature, I am not a sports fan. However, if I have a good enough reason to watch a game, I will. I have a distant cousin who is a quarterback for an SEC team. I really don’t know him that well, but I sat across from him at Thanksgiving last year. And there’s just something about seeing someone you “know” on TV.

🍒

A few days before the game, I decided to buy the ingredients to make a Cherry O’ Cream Cheese Pie. It’s Mom’s favorite pie, but I wanted to try a “healthy” version using Splenda’s sugar-free sweetened condensed milk.

Y’all. That shit tastes just like the real deal.

Anyway, I whipped up the pie Friday night and popped it into the fridge to set.

The next day, me, Wilma, and the cherry pie headed down to Mom’s to watch the game.

Here’s the part that ended up mattering more than I realized at the time: it was Day 15 of my cycle.

📉

A few days earlier, I had experienced what I call The Big Letdown, that period after ovulation when everything feels like it comes crashing down.

My energy dips. My mood tanks. My appetite gets louder. And sometimes food becomes less about “what would make my digestive system happiest?” and more about “what will make me feel better right fucking now?”

So a little emotional/hormonal eating was definitely on the docket.

🍕

I stopped and picked up a pizza and two real Cokes.

That was Saturday.

Fast-forward to Sunday . . .

DEAD AND BLOATED

I feel like the Stone Temple Pilots song “Dead & Bloated” could literally be my theme song for the entirety of my luteal phase.

This day was no different.

I don’t experience the kind of bloating that you can brush off by drinking more water or whatever.

🤰🏼

The bloating I experience feels debilitating. My stomach distends so much that I could totally pass for being nine months pregnant.

I am not even kidding.

I went for a walk to help with the bloat and ended up waddling down the street with my hand resting on top of my belly for most of the walk.

It was soooooo uncomfortable.

PRUNES, ANYONE?

I guess I’m officially an old woman now because monitoring my daily, ahem, digestive activities has become all the rage.

I’m a daily dump kind of gal, so if I miss a day, all hell breaks loose.

I know what you’re thinking.

“Well, Crystal, no wonder you were all backed up. You ate all of that bullshit on Saturday. What did you expect?”

You’re right.

Loads of cheese and zero veggies are one way to bring things to a full stop.

But here’s the kicker.

My missed dump happened Friday.

The day before the pie madness.

To be fully transparent, I was not exactly living on kale and chia seeds in the days leading up to it. But my food choices weren’t so horrendous that I expected an interruption in my daily programming.

So whatever brought my digestive system to a screeching halt had started before Saturday’s food choices ever entered the picture.

And suddenly I needed to know what the fuck was going on.

BLAME IT ON THE . . .

🌧️Rain?

⭐Stars?

🍕Food?

What about them wild-ass hormones?

But for real, do our hormones have any say in the frequency and quality of our waste-removal process?

Turns out, yes.

And what I found was more interesting than “hormones make you bloated.”

Progesterone can affect how quickly things move through the GI tract.

Estrogen is involved in appetite and satiety signaling.

Your mood can affect what and how you eat.

And then, right when your period starts, prostaglandins can come barreling in and change the whole damn situation again.

In other words, digestion across the menstrual cycle is not one thing.

It’s a pileup.

(Y’all. I ain’t a doctor. This article is based on my experience and research. This is not medical advice. Please consult yours if you have concerns about your health.)

SMOOTH OPERATOR

First up, let’s talk about progesterone.

If you aren’t familiar with this hormone, here’s the quick and dirty.

After ovulation, when a follicle releases an egg, the ruptured follicle remains behind. It becomes the corpus luteum, which starts producing progesterone.

Progesterone helps prepare the lining of the uterus for the possibility of pregnancy.

Basically, it’s fluffing the baby crib just in case one of them eggs meets Mr. Right.

Sooooooo, what does that have to do with digestion?

Progesterone also has a relaxing effect on smooth muscle.

🎷

And I cannot read the words “smooth muscle” without immediately hearing Sade singing Smooth Operator in my head.

The uterus contains smooth muscle.

Guess what else does?

Your digestive tract.

So while your reproductive system is getting its post-ovulation progesterone memo, your GI tract is living in that hormonal environment too.

Progesterone can reduce GI motility, meaning the wave-like muscle contractions that help move food and waste through the digestive tract may slow down.

🐢

Less movement can mean slower transit.

Slower transit can mean harder stools, constipation, fullness, and bloating.

Or, in my language:

Less oomph may lead to fewer dumps.

Fun, huh?

And no, your body is not “holding onto food” in your colon because it thinks you might need extra calories for a baby.

By the time things reach the colon, most of the calories and nutrients have already been absorbed higher up in the digestive tract.

What’s more likely happening is that progesterone is doing what progesterone does throughout the body, and your intestines happen to be along for the ride.

BUT I’M STILL HUNGRY

Now here is where things get especially rude.

🐷

Even when I feel bloated and gross, I want to eat more during PMS week.

I know that sounds completely counterintuitive because Sade and them are already in there chillin’ and DO NOT want any extra company.

But appetite can change across the menstrual cycle too.

Research has found that women, on average, tend to eat more during the luteal phase than during the follicular phase.

That does not mean your body has issued a medical prescription for a sleeve of Oreos every night.

Tragic, I know.

But it does mean that increased hunger around this time is not necessarily you being “bad” or lacking willpower.

And then there are cravings.

For the love of God.

Fucking cravings, man.

My go-to during PMS week is an entire box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese for dinner.

It is the last thing my already-slow digestive system needs.

But lord does my body want it.

So why does food suddenly seem so loud?

Ya girl, estrogen, is totally part of the story too.

💃

Our bodies have estrogen receptors all over the place, including the brain and GI tract. Estrogen is involved in systems that influence appetite and satiety, and higher estrogen levels are generally associated with lower food intake and greater feelings of fullness.

Toward the end of the luteal phase, both estrogen and progesterone fall.

And during perimenopause, those hormone patterns can become far less predictable than the cute little textbook curves would have us believe.

You may ovulate one month and not the next.

If you do not ovulate, you do not form a normal corpus luteum, which means you do not get the usual post-ovulation rise in progesterone.

Estrogen can also swing around dramatically from cycle to cycle.

So now we have a digestive system that may be responding to changing hormone levels while appetite and satiety signals are changing too.

But hormones still are not the whole story.

THE BIG LETDOWN RETURNS

This is the part I think gets left out when we talk about cravings.

Food is emotional too.

If you tend to use food for comfort, pleasure, relief, grounding, distraction, or emotional regulation, PMS week can be a perfect storm.

Think about it.

You’re exhausted.

Maybe you’re irritable.

Maybe you feel anxious, flat, sad, or completely overstimulated.

Maybe The Big Letdown has hit, and you just want to feel normal for five fucking minutes.

Are you more likely to reach for an apple?

Or are you more likely to reach for the maple-glazed donut?

Exactly.

Highly palatable foods, especially foods rich in carbohydrates, sugar, and fat, can feel rewarding and comforting. That does not mean your brain is broken. It means food can absolutely participate in the reward and mood-regulation systems of the brain.

And cravings themselves are not the problem.

Sometimes you choose the apple.

Sometimes you choose the donut.

Sometimes you choose pizza, pie, and two real Cokes while watching college football at your mom’s house.

And that is okay too.

But from a digestion standpoint, here is where the layers start stacking up.

Maybe progesterone has already slowed your gut down.

Maybe you are eating a little more because your appetite is louder.

Maybe your mood changed, so your food choices changed.

Maybe those food choices contain less fiber and more fat, dairy, sugar, sodium, or whatever your personal digestive system tends to get cranky about.

Maybe you slept like shit.

Maybe you moved less.

Maybe you did not drink enough water.

And then you wake up bloated and constipated and blame the entire thing on whatever you ate last night.

When really, the food may be one piece of a much bigger hormonal and behavioral puzzle.

Which brings me right back to my pizza and pie.

Did they help my situation?

Absolutely not.

Did they single-handedly cause the whole thing?

Also, probably not.

EVERYBODY GET TF OUT

And then, because our bodies have a sense of humor, the period arrives and everything can flip.

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

Days before period: Nothing is moving.

You feel heavy, full, bloated, like your entire midsection is one giant clog that WILL NOT MOVE.

Day 1 of period: Everybody fucking out!

The release can feel good.

The “crime scene,” as a friend of mine calls it, left in the toilet afterward?

Less glamorous.

But there is a reason for this fuckery too.

Introducing prostaglandins.

🦠

Prostaglandins are not technically hormones, but they act a lot like local chemical messengers.

As progesterone falls and menstruation begins, prostaglandins are produced in the uterine lining.

Their job is to help your uterus contract and shed that lining.

Translation: We are tearing this fucker down.

Those uterine contractions are part of why cramps enter the building.

But prostaglandins can affect the GI tract too.

So the same general chemical environment that has your uterus contracting can also increase intestinal activity in some people.

And suddenly the digestive system that felt like it had been moving through wet cement has changed its mind.

Full-blown evacuation event.

This is why some people go from constipation and bloating right before their period to looser stools, urgency, or diarrhea once menstruation starts.

The chemistry changed.

WE ARE SO COOL

So what actually happened to me that weekend?

I cannot point to one thing and say, “There. That was the culprit.”

And I think that may be the whole point.

My digestion had already slowed before the pizza and pie entered the scene.

I was also in the post-ovulation part of my cycle, where progesterone can affect GI motility.

My mood and appetite had shifted.

My food choices shifted with them.

And all of those things landed in the same body at the same time.

It was not hormones OR food.

It was hormones AND food AND mood AND behavior AND my own individual digestive system.

That is what I find so fascinating about our bodies.

Symptoms that seem completely random can start making a lot more sense when we stop looking at them in isolation.

Your constipation may not happen every luteal phase.

Your cravings may not look like mine.

Your period may not turn your bathroom into a crime scene.

But if something keeps happening, it might be worth asking:

When does this happen?

What else is happening in my cycle?

What was my mood like?

What was I craving?

What did I eat?

How was I sleeping?

Was I moving my body?

Was I stressed?

Not because you need another thing to obsess over.

Because sometimes your body has been leaving clues all along.

And I think that is pretty fucking cool.

AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I’M CREATING CYCLE SENSE

Honestly, this whole turdy little investigation is exactly why I’m creating Cycle Sense.

Because it’s one thing to know that hormones can affect digestion, cravings, mood, sleep, energy, and a whole bunch of other shit. It’s another thing to recognize how those pieces show up in YOUR body.

Cycle Sense is about learning to notice, track, and review those patterns so you can stop treating every weird symptom like a random new crisis and start connecting the dots your body has been leaving you all along.

More on that very soon. 💜👽

I’d love to know what you thought about this article, or if there are other symptoms or topics you want me to dig into.

E-mail me at hormonehysteria@gmail.com and let me know.

And if you want more articles like this, you can sign up for my weekly newsletter HERE while you’re there.

In the meantime, stay safe out there in the perimenopausal streets.

💜

Crystal