Why exactly is it that we crave sweets, chocolate, carbs for us just before our periods?
I hate it. I’ve been good all month and then days before I get my period, I just can’t help helping myself to all the things I’ve spent the whole month trying to avoid!
Yesterday afternoon I ate a HUGE family-sized bar of chocolate, I felt sick afterwards and I thought why the hell did I just do that??
It got me thinking, “why do us women crave carbs and chocolate so much on particular days during our monthly cycles?”
The answer, I discovered, is so enlightening I just had to share it with you!
Apparently, carbohydrate and sugar cravings before our periods is first off, totally normal – hurrah! Goodbye guilty feelings!
When we are about to have our period, our oestrogen levels drop and with that, our serotonin levels also drop, hence we suffer more from mood swings during PMT. Serotonin is a neuro-transmitting chemical in our brain that regulates our moods and keeps us happy; it’s made in the gut and the more carbs we eat, the more readily it is made by our bodies. So when our oestrogen levels drop, our serotonin levels do too and with that, we start craving carbs because eating them will rebalance our serotonin levels and in turn, rebalance our moods!
So the next time like me, you find yourself gorging on the sweet stuff during PMT, know that it’s not out of greed BUT it’s actually our amazingly clever bodies regulating our happy chemicals in our brains!
It’s also worth knowing that straight after a period, our appetite declines just a little to regulate our body weight…ah-mazing!
I love finding out cool facts about the body, it makes me appreciate how wonderful and efficiently we live and breathe, it’s the fantastic ‘behind-the-scenes’ of all of us!
Enjoy your PMT chocolate fix!
Love
Makeup Artist | Stylist | Founder of Beautyandtheboutique.com