Relieve PMS Symptoms Naturally (4 Diet Hacks!)

- Hunger. So cravings, a lot of women struggle with like sugar cravings, really intense cravings, getting more hungry the week before their period. That's kind of the phase when the PMS starts to really show up. Fatigue, getting tired, getting more tired. Bloating. Bloating is really common so that your belly likes expands and it like maybe it feels airy or like full like a balloon.

- Welcome, or welcome back to my channel where I post videos every week, empowering you to biohack hormone balance in your thirties and forties. I'm Stephanie Holland, creator of the Body Brain Rese, the ultimate guide to resetting your body and brain and feeling like yourself again in your thirties and forties. Tap that subscribe button to stay up to date on all the latest tips and strategies that me and my guests have for you every single week. Today's guest, Bo De Vries, is on a mission to help women thrive in their female bodies throughout every phase of their cycle. She's actually learning how to work with her hormones instead of against them so that she can feel her best self every single day no matter where she is in her cycle. And she's really passionate about sharing what works for her so that other women can do the same. Today we're talking about how Bo's experience of burnout led to her quitting medication and the contraceptive pill, leading her to notice how her real hormonal cycle was affecting her mind, mood and body. Identifying monthly patterns in her symptoms. as PMS, she adopted diet and lifestyle changes that alleviated her symptoms and gave her more energy and balance throughout the month, as well as ingraining a deeper sense of self-kindness and self-coaching where she wouldn't take 'no' for an answer even from herself. If you suffer PMS, we really hope this episode inspires you to tune in to your body language and discover what really works for you to feel more energized and balanced as well. Enjoy. So Bo, you are really passionate about helping other women overcome the symptoms of PMS. And we know that PMS is something that strikes actually quite a lot of women, I couldn't find the exact data. Some sources say that up to 90% of women experience some form of PMS every month, some so severe that it's actually got its own acronym, PMDD. So when did this story start for you personally? 'cause I know this is based on your personal experience of the symptoms of PMS. So tell us about how you recognized PMS within your own body and experience and how that got you passionate about helping other women.

- So for me, it really started four years ago when I got burned out and I was struggling with extreme fatigue, couldn't sleep at night. I was having headaches, got really intense mood swings, cramps during my periods and I got the panic attacks and that was like a time when I realized, oh I need to take a break. Like it was my body telling me like I'm done. You know, I hadn't listened to what was my body was trying to tell me with, with the symptoms. I had no idea about that. And so I got burned out, decided to stop studying. I got into yoga and meditation to like learn to calm my body down. And that was when I, when I decided to, to stop the medications I was taking, 'cause I've had a lot of health issues over the years and I decided to stop because my boyfriend was really into like natural ways of healing. I got a bit curious, I was like, that might be something, you know, I was very skeptical but I was also curious. So I, I stopped medication, I stopped birth control and then I started to learn, yeah, like all the books on women's health and I got into and started tracking my, my cycle naturally. And that's when I realized that a lot of these symptoms I was experiencing were actually PMS. And that's when the ball started rolling and I started to find out, okay, what do these symptoms mean and how can I like in a natural holistic way, free a lifestyle, get rid of it.

- So you've quit, at this point, You've quit medication and you've quit the contraceptive pill and your natural cycle is starting to reveal itself and you're starting to notice all of these different symptoms. You've mentioned a few, but could you just give us, you know, it it, you've researched more obviously because now you've sharing this with other women. Could you just give us like a top line summary of what other most common and prevalent PMS symptoms that women go through?

- Yeah, I mean the PMS symptom lists can get really, really long, but the things that I've noticed as much is hunger. So cravings, a lot of women struggle with like sugar cravings, really intense cravings, getting more hungry the week before their period. That's kind of the phase when the PMS starts to really show up. Fatigue, getting tired, getting more tired. Bloating. Bloating is really common so that your belly like expands and it like maybe feels airy or like full like a balloon. That's something I really had as well. Mood swings, right? Like, I mean it's in our whole society. Oh you're so moody, you must be on your period. You know, that's a whole message that we get out there. So the mood swings like getting irritated one day and then crying suddenly and then getting angry, like really like going up and down the waves. So mood swings, acne as well. Like that's very common. I had that very intense and, and, and while on this journey I started to see the patterns like when is my acne showing up and, and and why? So that was very interesting. And then headaches, some women experience like migraines or headaches or like that. I think those are like the ones that I see the most. Yeah. Oh actually brain fog. That was one I wanted to add. A lack of focus, like having a hard time concentrating, doing things, like yeah, the brain focus, I think is a big one as well.

- It's so interesting because one of the symptoms or I guess side effects in a way of perimenopause is that existing PMS can worsen particularly the mood swings and the breast tenderness because those fluctuating hormones fluctuate more, they get higher and they get lower. And so PMS can intensify. So if women don't already recognize that their PMS is caused by the hormonal changes, you know, from cycle to cycle or within the cycle, then they're also going to have a really tough time in perimenopause if they don't connect those dots. It's really important to recognize that a lot of these symptoms they might experiencing, well if they're connected to hormone fluctuations throughout their cycle, that there's actually a lot of dietary and lifestyle changes they can make to kind of soften those symptoms or maybe even alleviate them completely. And I know that you've found a sort of blueprint that works for yourself by sort of going through lots of specific dietary and lifestyle changes and this is what you share with other women, what's working with you. So Bo, I know that one of the steps that's really worked for you to alleviate your symptoms is balancing your blood sugar. And I know that this really kind of hinges around changing, well not only what you eat but 'how' you eat. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

- Yes, absolutely. So balancing our blood sugar is very important because it's connected to our cortisol levels, our stress hormones, and those are impacting our reproductive hormones. So when we balance our blood sugar, we can balance our female hormones and regulate our cycles and a lot of the symptoms that we experience with that, and I love what you say because it's not necessarily about what you eat, it's more about how you eat the food. And one of the things that really helped for me is starting my day with a savoury breakfast. And that means prioritizing good protein sources, a good healthy fat and then some good carbohydrates and then with lots of fiber, so lots of veggies. Having that like savory breakfast instead of a sweet one has worked to me give like stable energy. Another thing that I started doing is walking after a meal. And that can be like as small as 10 minutes because what we do when we walk after a meal are our muscles soak up more of the sugar that we just had, more of the glucose. And so we balance our blood sugar with that. So it's very easy and it's also very nice for digestion. So walking after meal, very easy thing to do. Drinking cider vinegar is a little, maybe you have to try it. So what you do is just have a glass of water and you add, start with like a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and just mix it through and drink it with a straw to protect your teeth. And what this does is it tells your muscles again to soak up more of the glucose from the food. So you eat it, you drink it before you meal and that again helps to balance your blood sugar and it's very easy to bring with you if you go out for dinner for example. And another thing that's worked really well for me is having a veggie starter and a veggie starter is important because in vegetables we have fiber and fiber creates a layer in our, in our intestines. So anything we eat after that, it goes much slower into our bloodstream. So if we would just eat sugar, it goes directly into our bloodstream. But if we have that layer of fiber that some foods naturally contain like fruits, we we, we avoid that sugar spike and we, it becomes a lot more, more gentle. So the veggie starter can be like the size of the carbohydrates that you're going to eat. And then lastly, making sure that every meal contains a good protein source, a good healthy fat, a good amount of fiber, so veggies and a good amount of carbohydrates. Those are like having those and then knowing what to eat first. So starting with your veggies, then your proteins and healthy fats and then your carbohydrates last, that will really help to balance your blood sugar. So those are like a few very small tricks, but you'll notice like if you start with them, they have a big impact.

- Yeah, all of that is just fantastic advice and has really worked for me as well. I love the savory breakfast. Oh my goodness, my favorite is vegetables with a fried egg and kimchi and then I put Tabasco sauce on it. So that is definitely not a recommendation because that might not agree with everybody having Tabasco in the morning, but it really works for me and I noticed a huge change in my energies when I switch to the vegetables for breakfast. I also just want to reiterate for everybody who doesn't know that all whole foods contain a ratio of protein, fats and carbohydrates. So as long as you're eating fruits and veg and nuts and seeds and legumes and yes of course animal proteins as well or animal foods, they all contain various ratios of protein, fats and carbohydrates. And just by learning what ratio each food has, you can kind of create the, the correct ratio on the on your plate that really works for you. Also. Ah, I want to share something about apple cider vinegar because that doesn't agree with my system and I know that for a lot of people it might just feel too strong in their stomachs, especially on an empty stomach. So what works better for me is just putting lime or lemon in my water and I, I believe that that is creates a sort of similar effect in the body but is may but maybe works better for people who are a little bit too sensitive like I am to the apple cider vinegar. Alright, cool. So let's talk about healthy carbohydrates, right? So I know that you eat or focus on eating more complex carbohydrates. So tell us a little bit about why you do that and which carbohydrates you love adding to your plate.

- Yes, carbohydrates. I think a lot of these food groups get a lot of bad rap and it's very important to know that it's about quality. So I consider myself a 'qualitarian', which means I prioritize the quality of the foods that I eat. And why do we increase carbohydrates? That's because in this part of our cycle, like we say, we need to increase our calories, we also need to increase our carbohydrates because the progesterone, the hormone, the female hormone that's present here needs a little bit more glucose. And if we don't give that, that's also why we get cravings. So I love to add a good sweet potato to my meals. Sweet potatoes is my favorite source of healthy carbohydrates that are complex, which means they don't spike my blood sugar, but they're more gentle. And also I love some nice fruits and I love like eating a little bit of like good quality, 70% or above dark chocolate, which also has a lot of benefits. But the carbohydrates that I love are slow burning carbohydrates from nature. And that could be, like I said, sweet potato, a beet or normal potato, like anything that has more starch. I love chickpeas just like my favorite carbohydrate form as well. So those, you know, beans also contain more of that starch.

- Yeah, I'm a huge fan of hummus. Funnily enough, I can't digest chickpeas in their whole form, but I can digest them in the hummus form. So that's one of my favorite sources of healthy carbohydrate along with sweet potato. When I discovered that the traditional Okinawan diet comprised of 69% sweet potato, that made so much sense to me. And I'm such a huge fan that I literally, I keep it in my fridge. There's always a Tupperware of sweet potato and I add it to every meal. I absolutely love it. And you, and I know particularly you focus on increasing calories during the 'luteal' stage of the cycle, which is sort of like the last part of the cycle. It could be 12 to 14 days of the cycle. In some women it could be 11 to 17 days. We know that only 16% of women have a 28 day cycle. And it's more normal. The range is between 21 and 35 days. So, so why do we need to listen to those hunger cues and eat more calories?

- Why do we need to increase our calories? It's because our bodies use more calories and that's because the uterine lining is built up in this part of our cycle to fuel the potential fetus. And so all the vitamins and, and the the proteins and amino acids that you eat, they go to this lining. Besides that your metabolism increases, which means that you, the the, the food you eat turns into energy quicker. So in rest we burn around 300 more calories as women in this part of our cycle. And that's why we get more hungry if we do not increase these calories. So it's this narrative we think we we will gain weight, no, because it will go to the uterus and we will lose that as soon as we, we get our periods. So that's why when we increase our calories with natural and good foods, those hunger cues and and cravings will go away because it's just a sign of our body trying to tell us we need more fuel.

- It's interesting because I've, I've read in a lot of places the the recommendation for women to eat 1500 calories a day, which doesn't seem like enough. I mean I'm 52 kilos, which is the equivalent of 105 pounds and I eat 2000 calories a day on a moderately active day and on a, at really active day, I bump that up to 2,200 calories. And so I don't think women are getting enough fuel or that they realize that they need more fuel to run their body and that's why their system feels very low and they can feel flat and off their game and really fatigued 'cause their body actually literally doesn't have enough calories to run all of its vital processes. How did you figure out how many calories you need and how do you track that? Do you track that? Do you do it very intuitively? I know you consider yourself a qualitarian, so it's all about eating quality food. How do you manage that? - I've never tracked, like never tracked like how much calories I was actually getting because I think as women that can get it can become obsessive and it can be hard to, to, I think it can make us very obsessive and I don't think that's always a healthy thing. But I think the biggest, like the easiest way to know if you're getting a lot of calories is to see how you feel, to track how you feel to you have energy to do what you want or are you feeling tired all the time? Like that is a big cue that somethone is not getting enough fuel. So for me it's always been just listening to my body and seeing and not ignoring it because when I was younger and I was very afraid to gain weight and I would starve myself. I would just like avoid the hunger cues and I would not... because I was afraid, right? So now I give my body what it needs because I know that this energy, these good foods, like you say I'm a qualitarian so I prioritize quality food. It's, it's not going to gain weight. It's going to give my body to do what it needs to do. You know, give my my organs and the whole system the energy to do what I want to do so that I can do what I love to do. I can work out, I can meet my friends, I can work and have the energy to do so.

- So let's move on to electrolytes. I know that you are huge fan as well as Stacey Sims, Dr. Stacy Sims, and you're a fan of her book 'ROAR'. I'm a fan of her book 'NEXT LEVEL' and she talks a lot about the importance of electrolytes and how actually, you know, the waters in our body aren't just water. So, you know, that's why drinking water can seem very ineffective and just feels like it flushes straight out of you. It can't really be readily absorbed by the body. 'cause all the waters in our, in our body are really kind of like a solution of glucose and amino acids and salts as well. And so it makes sense to drink a solution that's, you know, comprises of similar things because in our small intestine, 90, 95% of the waters we drink are actually absorbed through the wall of the small intestine into the blood and then taken to every cell that we need it. So if it doesn't have adequate levels of electrolytes, amino acids and glucose, that absorption doesn't really happen. So what's been your sort of like experience of adding, adding electrolytes to your diet? How do you do that?

- Such a good question. I love that you touched on this because electrolytes are such a simple way to add your diet, but again, it's a salt and salt gets a bad rap, right? We eat too much salt, it's not good for us. But the thing is like, like you say, the water that we drink nowadays from the tap, it's, it's cleaned right? And it's cleaned of a lot of the minerals that our bodies need to absorb the water into the cells and give us the energy. So what I noticed is few things, when I started to incorporate car electrolytes into my diet by, by drinking it, I drink it first thing in the morning. I have a glass of water and I add some electrolytes to it, which contain all kinds of minerals. And I do this because when we sweat we get, we we get rid of these electrolytes. And so that's why when we taste our sweat, it tastes salty, right? And that's the thing, it's salt. And so we, when we we increase those electrolytes, it fuels our cells and that gives us energy. I notice I get, I get a lot of energy when I drink drink electrolytes and also it helps me avoid peeing all the time because, you know, sometimes I drink a lot of water, it just goes through. If you get that feeling, it's because yes, you're giving your body water, but it's not able to extract it and putting into your cells like you so beautifully explained. And then lastly actually with the skin, because it hydrates us on a cellular level, like I said. And so if you have very dry skin, which I've always had, drinking electrolytes will actually nourish your skin more and then give you that more healthy glow. So those are a few benefits that I've noticed. And I just like, like I said, I take a glass of water, I do a teaspoon of electrolytes, I drink it in the morning and sometimes I also drink it after workout. And always when I have my water, I, I just do a touch, like a pinch of salt just to help my body like get a little bit of extra salt.

- Yeah, actually I have done the experiment of tracking what I eat on various days just to see what nutrients I'm getting and to see what nutrients I might be naturally lacking in. And I've always been naturally low in sodium because I, I got that no salt messaging growing up, you know, being really into health, the health message was don't eat too much salt. And so I became naturally sodium deficient. So I actually have to consciously add Himalayan crystal salt to everything. And I found that the only way personally I can get my sodium levels up to the recommended daily amount, the RDA, is by adding at least half a teaspoon of Himalayan crystal salt to my water every day spread across the day, obviously. And that's, that's really worked for me. I feel my skin is more hydrated, my body's more hydrated, I'm less thirsty, I go to the bathroom less. And so it really just, it just really works for me and I really hope that if people are listening and they hadn't known this already, that if you, when you experiment with this, it makes such a difference. And literally the day you start you actually feel more hydrated and you go to the bathroom less, which is like a win-win. That's better. I know, I know Stacy Sims actually recommends a solution of salt and maple syrup and I tried that and I found that the maple syrup is like, it's almost like too sweet and too sugary for my body. So what works better for me and what I have in my water every day and even the water I take to the gym is about four or six twists of the Himalayan crystal salt and lime. Lime is my sort of a glucose, glucose and amino acid combo because obviously all the nine essential amino acids are in are in fruits and plants, all plant food. So I get my sort of like little solution that way and it, oh, just, it makes such a huge difference. Like what, what, what would be your advice to say, I mean if we bring it back to the, you know, PMS symptoms? Someone, a woman is suffering with PMS symptoms every month and she's really fed up of it and she's sick of taking ibuprofen and you know, her doctor can't help her and she's on the contraceptive pill or not on the contraceptive pill, but she's like, ah, what would be the first step that you would recommend just to kind of like start on that journey of self-discovery?

- I love it. I think the first step to do is track your symptoms, actually write down: how do you feel? Do you feel tired? How are your energy levels, how is your focus? How is your belly feeling? How is your mind feeling? How's your skin looking? And also to track how your, you know, the things that you're flushing out are looking, how is your pee looking? How's your poo looking and how is your period blood looking? Because those are, they can like tell you so much. If your pee is very dark in color, that means that you are not getting enough water. And so knowing what these things mean can really help to know what your body needs and is lacking of. So that's the first step I would do is to track your symptoms and to find out what, what's causing it for you.

- Bo thank you so much.

- Thank you so much for inviting me. I, I absolutely loved sharing and talking about this. It's, it's amazing though. I love that we sat together and did this together.