A short transcript excerpt from a YouTube interview in which Dr. Mindy Pelz explains that the week before menstruation is the worst time for women to fast, push heavy workouts, or stay up late because rising progesterone requires higher glucose and lower cortisol; failing to honor this leads to PMS symptoms (cramps, cravings, irritability).
So many women have written off, like, oh, your cycle is just a terrible thing. This is what I'm trying to demystify. It is not a terrible thing. Our hormones are our superpower. And if you learn how to work your lifestyle to match them, you will witness your body in a new way. All these women were going into this low carb, low sugar experience the week before their periods. We hear of athletes losing their cycle all the time because they're not minding the rules of progesterone. And so that's the worst time to fast. It's the worst time to push your workouts. It's the worst time to stay up all night because progesterone wants glucose to be high and cortisol to be low. When you don't honor that, the week before your period, when your period starts, you have cramps, you have cravings, you are irritable. So that whole thing about us feeling horrible when our period starts happened because we didn't take care of what progesterone needed the week before. She's a diva. She's a total diva.
