Building a plate that actually supports your cycle

Did you know your body's needs around food shift in more ways than just what you're craving?

We're taught to fast, cut carbs, skip meals, count every calorie, the same rules, every single day, no matter the week. And it doesn't always match what our bodies are actually asking for.

Many of us grow up trying to find one consistent way of eating that just works, and when it doesn't, we assume something's wrong with us. Some weeks lighter feels right, other weeks heavier and warmer does. Sometimes a specific food gets craved for just a few days, then disappears completely.

But the problem was never a lack of consistency. The norm we're taught, one fixed way of eating, doesn't take into account our inner rhythm. Our bodies move through four inner seasons every menstrual cycle, inner spring, inner summer, inner autumn, inner winter. In each one, the body is quietly doing something different. Building things back up. Releasing an egg. Preparing space, just in case. Shedding what's no longer needed.

Food can support what's happening in each season, giving the body what it needs, when it needs it. When that support is missing, it's often in late inner autumn and inner winter, the premenstrual and menstrual days, that we feel it most.

That craving for something lighter or warmer is only the surface of it. Underneath, how much we need, and what kind of support our plate can offer, shifts too.

We were never taught any of this. But things are different now, we have more access to information than ever, and sometimes what we need most isn't more information, it's permission to do things differently from the norm.

I'm going deeper into exactly what that looks like, appetite, caloric needs, and the kind of support your plate can offer at each point, in the Embody your cycle series this September. Sign up here.

With love,

.Tarsila.