Crying in the Walk-in

There is a week every month…the one where most women try our best to prepare for and preemptively warn those around us ahead of time…you know the one.

Everything feels TOO BIG…hormones…emotions…thoughts…waistline…the list goes on. That thing your partner said three days ago lingers heavy…that work situation that’s fine is suddenly, this week, unbearable. The craving for chocolate or salt or bread or all three at 10pm staring at you like an old bill you forgot about on the counter. It all seems TOO MUCH and TOO overwhelming.

I’ve tried to warn Yas and Millie ahead of time…but to be honest, whenever I feel those BIG feelings and am aware enough to warn them, it’s already too late…I’m mid-freakout over the DANG drawers and cabinet doors being left open AGAIN after 2 of the 3 ADHD’ers in my household have left the room.

You wake up on day three of this particular stretch and think: maybe this is just who I am now. Less patient…more irritable…less chill…maybe, I’m just a person who can’t handle things now.

But you guys…that’s not entirely true…the reality is as we get older, our nervous systems tend to operate closer to the edge and with genuinely depleted resources. We know all the quick fixes or ways to smooth our rough edges…but really the choice about WHAT to eat during that week might just be the single highest-impact decision and change we could actually make. So what would it look like for us to start with our food? What are the best, highest-impact foods we can eat during those particular phases of our cycles that will support balance over chaos?

I honestly had ZERO clue about the correlation of it all throughout the majority of my adult life. Mid-40s seems like a good a time as ever to learn some new shit…so let’s go. I may not have had the words or scientific backing to “know what I know” but along the way, my body totally gave me some clues…I just needed to pay attention. What I understood, beyond words, was that some weeks…all I wanted was sushi…and a salad with a sharp, citrusy vinaigrette that made my teeth sing…oh, and raw vegetables and fresh fruit and generally the lightest, crispiest thing on the menu. And then, two weeks later, this same body put eggs on literally anything in front of it. An egg on rice. An egg on toast. An egg on the leftovers from two days ago I’d avoided until I put an egg on them and suddenly they were dinner. Oh…and Cheez-Its…not sweets, not anything smooth or creamy, but only things that were savory, salty and crunchy. Okay, and maybe a mini Snickers ice cream bar at 11pm because the chocolate…texture…the crunch and the sweetness all felt like a necessity than a choice.

I thought I just had weird food moods…but a closer look revealed it was all a little more connection than that. Turns out, these cravings are part of my cycle.

Once I became a chef, I spent years reading other people’s bodies. It’s the job in a way…a chef calibrates constantly, the way a good host reads the table, noticing who walked in depleted and who walks in fine, who needs something warm and who needs something light. I got pretty dang good at reading people, at paying attention. Earlier this spring, I started building one of my meal prep client’s weekly menus around where she is in her cycle, and it’s been really interesting to watch these theories at work in real time. My other “test subject” has been myself…and here I am, re-learning and adapting my own operating manual in my 40s, the same way I learned everything else…standing off to the side, paying attention, taking notes.

Most nervous system advice is written for a body running on a 24-hour clock. Wake, cortisol spike, coffee, work, eat, wind down, sleep, repeat. The entire wellness machine is built on that loop…morning routines, evening routines, circadian this, blue-light that. Blah blah blah.

Most of the time, I guess that framework is fine…maybe sometimes, even useful. But if you have a hormonal cycle, you’re not only living on this 24-hour loop…you’re living on TWO clocks at once. We have the daily one mentioned above…and then also, a second…it’s a slower one, roughly 28 days (give or take) and she only gets mentioned in a negative, blame-game sort of way…the one we like to blame for mood swings and weight gain. She actually has a name: the infradian rhythm. Essentially, that’s just a fancy term for any biological rhythm that lasts longer than a day…and yet, my girls, this is the one that has been quietly (or not so quietly) running the show your entire life, beginning in your preteens.

In real terms: our stress threshold, our nutritional needs, and our body’s baseline reactivity ebb and flow from week-to-week. The good news? It’s literally a measurable, hormonal, trackable thing. Eating the same way on day 4 of your cycle as you do on day 24 is like trying to wear the same sweater from January in July and wondering why you’re effing sweating all over. Your biology has changed seasons; your plate has to change with it.

It’s different from the current wellness trend of cycle syncing that we’ve probably all seen on the socials. It’s not another color-coded app, a seed rotation protocol, or even a $40 moon journal. I have nothing against moon journals or apps…okay, I have a little something against downloading any more dang apps…but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

I really wanted to understand this part of our body’s biology that somehow never made it in the “body” curriculum in middle school. Estrogen and progesterone are not just reproductive hormones…they’re neuroactive steroids. They literally change how reactive our brains are, how much stress we can absorb before we tip over, how much fuel we burn, what our guts can comfortably digest. The operating conditions of our nervous systems change each week with each cycle. We got one awkward health class video in fifth grade and then decades of silence and guesswork. It’s almost as if someone or something didn’t WANT us to know more or understand the true inner workings of our bodies or systems…I’ll let you mull that one over a bit…

So, let’s add some addendums to our body’s user manual…a little closer look and plan for the 4 very different phases of our cycles.

Days 1–5: The Menstrual Phase. (Our monthly winter…)

During this phase, estrogen and progesterone are both at their lowest point of the month. The hormonal noise goes quiet, and interestingly, some women even report feeling an unusual sense of clarity on these days. Notice I didn’t say energy…I said clarity. The body is doing heavy physical work, but the signal-to-noise ratio in our heads is strangely clear.

Our assignment during this period (pun heavily intended) is to rest, and for my women in the back…that’s an actual assignment, not a reward you have to earn first. Your body is literally shedding blood and iron, so it needs iron-rich, warming, anti-inflammatory food to make it through. This time is begging you for slow, uncomplicated things. Soups, stews, braises, a pot of dal. It’s the time for letting the pot do all the work and you can just stand near it and maybe stir a little, occasionally, like a supervisor.

One thing to know is that not all iron is the same. The iron in animal foods, red meat especially, is called heme iron, and your body absorbs somewhere between 15 and 35% of it. However, plant iron (spinach, lentils, beans) is non-heme, and absorption can run as low as 2 to 20% depending on what you eat it with. Don’t immediately abandon the lentils just yet…it’s just asking you to be strategic: pair plant iron with vitamin C (a squeeze of lemon or add some bell peppers), or put a modest piece of beef next to a pile of spinach and let them work together like they want to. Seared beef over wilted greens during your period is not indulgence, it’s replenishment.

A little Freckled Fork Plate for this cycle: A simple pan-seared piece of beef or lamb over wilted garlicky spinach or swiss chard. Season it well, let it come to room temp before you put it on the pan, cook it to your preference (mine is med-rare like the good lord intended), eat it with those lightly wilted, garlicky greens alongside. Under fifteen minutes and it does more iron-replacement work than almost anything else you could eat that night.

Days 6–13: The Follicular Phase (Our monthly season of bloom…Spring)

Our estrogen starts to climb during this phase, and with it, everything else seems to lift. Our energy builds, our ability to handle stress increases…the same email that would have wrecked you a few days ago is now just an email that barely makes a dent in your psyche. Our nervous systems are measurably more resilient in this window, and if you pay attention, you can really feel it. This is the week for me that salads (all the salads) actually sound like indulgence.

Feed that lift. Lighter food works SO well in this phase…think fresh things, green things, lean proteins, sprouted things. This is also when fermented foods shine brightest and have the highest bang-for-our-buck…the kimchi and kefir and pickled things we talked about last week. Our gut is more receptive, our energy climbs, and the psychobiotics from the fermented things get to do their work on our systems when they finally have bandwidth to deal. This is the week to try that new recipe you flagged a couple weeks ago…the week to take risks and have fun in the kitchen. Spring is for experiments, for growth, afterall.

For me, this is when I crave ALL the sushi. Raw fish and fresh rice and that brightness and lightness that doesn’t weigh down anything. This is when I want the HUGE ass salad with a sharp, citrus vinaigrette that my follicular-phase specifically craves. My body is telling me my digestion systems are firing on all cylinders, estrogen is doing its job, and I can handle lighter things…and they’ll actually satisfy me.

This is the week to schedule the hard conversation you’ve been putting off, start the project you’ve been circling, host the dinner with friends. Your nervous system has the bandwidth during this phase, so use it.

A little Freckled Fork Plate for this cycle: Kimchi fried rice with a fried egg. Kimchi is the psychobiotic superstar from last week’s post, and follicular phase is when your microbiome is most receptive to fermented input as your estrogen rises. Day-old rice, a big spoonful of kimchi sizzled in sesame oil, a perfect crispy-egg fried egg gently slid right on top. Soy sauce and chili oil and a drizzle of Kewpie to finish. Ten minutes, under $5, your gut will love you forever.

Days 14–17: Ovulation (Literally, Hot Girl Summer)

I’ll keep this one brief, because honestly, she do be short.
And, I think we all LIVE for this one.

This is the part of our cycles where we FEEL too hot to trot. These are the days we tap into our buried gumption and confidence to wear that sassy, not-sure-we-can-pull-this-off outfit. These 3-4 days? We can rock that shit and we know it.

It’s PEAK estrogen, peak resilience, the easiest phase in our bodies, for most of us. We can literally eat whatever sounds good, say yes to ALL the things…this is the time to shine, to spend your energy out loud. Cook for people, sit at long tables, stay an hour later than you planned. Our nervous systems have their full safety net of support under it right now, take full advantage of it.

A tiny ahem…or warning, however…this time is S H O R T. Seemingly shorter than the others with the luteal phase anxiously waiting in the wings to rain on your parade. So if you’ve been under-eating or under-sleeping in preparation for your own imagined peak performance, you will feel that ISH heavily on or around day 18. Fair warning…tread lightly.

A little Freckled Fork Plate for this cycle: Lamb chops or a good steak or grilled fish with blistered cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs. You have the energy and appetite for a real dinner during this time. Season generously, sear in a very hot pan, let it rest. Scatter cherry tomatoes in the same pan after the meat comes out, let them blister in the fat, pour them over everything with fresh herbs and a squeeze of lemon. Eat it at an actual table, phone nowhere near, have that fancy beverage, too, and even some dessert. You deserve the full experience this week.

Days 18–28: The Luteal Phase (The Long FALL…I mean…autumn)

This one here…this is where we’re spending the rest of the post, because this stretch is among the longest in our cycle, and ironically enough, it’s the one wellness culture has either ignored or weaponized…and it’s where most of us have decided there’s just something wrong with us.

Nothing is wrong with you.

After ovulation, progesterone rises…it runs warm and sedating, and our core body temperature rises and rises. Progesterone breaks down into a neuroactive steroid called allopregnanolone, (don’t you DARE ask me how to say that out loud) basically it’s a steroid that has the same calming effect on your brain as a glass of wine or Xanax. It is, functionally, your body’s own brake pedal. In these last days of the luteal phase, progesterone and ALLO-roid (the only way I can pronounce or even remember it) go hand-in-hand, JUMPING off a dang cliff like star-crossed lovers they are. The brake pedal goes soft. The baseline smoke alarm in our brain becomes hyper-reactive because the chemical cushioning that held the alarm in check is suddenly GONE. Basically, our ability to handle stress drops dramatically.

The superhero ability to handle stress like a boss in follicular and ovulatory phases suddenly DROPS sharply. Things that didn’t bother you three weeks ago bother you now…BIG time. This is a hormonal shift, not a flaw in your character, ladies.

For me, this shift was clearest those nights on the line in the restaurant. Some weeks, the stress of running service was SO exciting. Needing to re-plate a dish over and over to get it exactly right was a challenge, a learning experience…honestly, the part of the job I was there for.

And yet…there were other nights…same job, same kitchen…and my chef would look at the plate I put up at the pass, suck his teeth the way he did when he wasn’t happy, and say, without anger or yelling, just matter-of-factly: do it again. Those nights, my capacity to handle feedback was non-existent…my eyes would fill with tears and I would make up some quick excuse to go grab something from the walk-in before anyone noticed. I’d stand in the cold for a minute…cry quietly for another and then quickly wipe my eyes before I returned to the line. Those shifts, I KNEW. I didn’t have the words or the research or the science to make sense of my overwhelming feelings then, so I just chalked it up to something being wrong with me instead of something being right. I totally misunderstood my body’s gift to fully do it’s thing…I was the one in the way.

Talk about misunderstanding…I had no idea that our metabolism actually increases in this luteal phase. Research consistently measures it…the body literally runs hotter in this phase, and it burns more fuel, too…like a few hundred calories more each day. Your body is doing more work, so it needs more food. The late-cycle hunger when you claw for anything in reach isn’t the battle cry of a failing discipline, it’s our body sending us signals that we keep missing. PMS is NOT a weakness, it’s simply the part of our cycles where our nervous systems are operating TOO close to the cliff. Of course it feels different…it is different.

I don’t know about you, but during this super fun time, my cravings include eggs…on literally everything. I’ll put an egg on rice, on leftovers I’d been avoiding all week, on toast, on chips, whatever…eggs on everything. The message my body is sending? It’s asking for complete protein and choline (the neurotransmitter building block we learned last week)…and this body has apparently decided that eggs are the most efficient delivery vehicle.

And, then there’s the Cheez-Its, chips & salsa and really any other salty, crunchy things. These cravings are my adrenal glands signaling that they need the sodium they’re burning through as they work overtime to manage my stress responses.

The mini Snickers ice cream bars at 11pm…that’s my body craving magnesium (the chocolate) wrapped in a blood sugar request (the sugar and fat) wrapped in a texture craving the calming effect of crunching on peanuts. I’m not losing the plot here…these are all examples of how my body has been working overtime to file very specific requests, and in reality, the requests make complete scientific sense.

So, what does this look like for you, specifically, in the kitchen?

Magnesium-rich food. Leafy greens, dark chocolate, pumpkin seeds, avocado.
The research on OTC magnesium supplements is genuinely mixed…some studies show real improvement, especially for the anxiety component, others show less. But magnesium-rich real foods naturally contain fiber, good fat & folate. All good things.

Complex carbohydrates and root vegetables. Sweet potatoes, squash, oats, fresh bread. Steady carbs keep blood sugar from spiking and crashing…and, every crash you can prevent is one less cortisol surge landing on your nervous system that’s probably forgotten how to use the brakes during this phase.

Protein at every meal. Not the astronomically high protein-influencer amounts…I’m talk about like a normal person amount…every time. It’s the most reliable way to keep blood sugar stable…and stable blood sugar is exactly the kind of balance that the nervous system can REALLY feel and make use of.

I know most of us are trying our best, but sometimes, instead of helping, we are ACTIVELY making things worse for ourselves. Restricting food, skipping meals, unsupervised intermittent fasting or even treating our cravings as the enemy. These tactics all bring guilt and shame and do more damage than assistance. Our brains read these food scarcity tactics as survival threats. They can’t tell the difference between a famine and a wellness cleanse, and they’ll respond with the very anxiety and irritability that we’re attempting to discipline our way out of. We cannot punish our bodies into feeling safe…it’s impossible. Life is hard enough, we don’t need our bodies engaging in a full-on revolt against us.

A little Freckled Fork Plate for this cycle: Braised chicken thighs with oranges, fennel, sweet potato and greens. Dark meat for the zinc…for the iron…and honestly, for the staying power. Sear/brown four bone-in thighs skin-side down until golden, soften a diced onion and garlic in the fat, add a cubed sweet potato, a squeeze and some slices of orange, and a splash of apple cider vinegar and a cup of chicken broth. Nestle the chicken back on top and braise covered on low heat for 25 minutes. Add two big handfuls of greens (your choice) at the end and let them wilt. Salt, lemon & another squeeze of orange, done. One pan, under $10 for four servings, reheats perfectly for a couple days after (and you know…always good the next day with an egg on top).

Our cycles have ruled almost our entire lives as women, from our preteen years until the ‘pause…and it’s something so present, so relentless, and we’ve treated it as an inconvenience rather than a communication system. What if we considered these cycles through a different lens…as something our bodies were designed to do. As if the signs and shifts each week weren’t holding us prisoner to our hormones, but in fact, they’re our hormones acting as partners…being helpers and communicators for what our body needs to fully and wholly function. What if we just learned to listen to them instead of despise and blame them? What if we actually listened to their suggestions the way we’d listen to that of a therapist or a doctor…including them in our health journeys for balance?

The mini Snickers at 11pm wasn’t a loss of control…the tears in the walk-in wasn’t a weakness…both were signals from my body telling me something real, in the most direct language it had. I just didn’t know how to listen.

Figure out where you are in your cycle, and start there. Once you know what week your body is in, the kitchen starts making a different kind of sense.

So, what’s going on this week for you? What’s YOUR body going through this week, and what does it need to support its good work?

A note for the dudes in the room…you guys, YOU have one too. This isn’t just a lady thing. Men, you may not bleed every month, but you CERTAINLY have mental, emotional and hormonal shifts that work like clockwork…on a cycle each day, even each month. You guys have a clear testosterone cycle that peaks in the early morning and drops throughout the day, which is why the version of you who picks a fight at 9pm isn’t quite the same animal as the one who got up early to make your wife coffee at 7am. You guys have your rhythm, your ups and downs…and food, my friends, is necessary in aiding your body’s functionality just the same. The magnesium, the protein, the complex carbohydrates, the warm grounding food…these aren’t just for the ladies, these are for you too! A depleted nervous system is a depleted nervous system, and doesn’t discriminate by gender…and for you guys, as well, the kitchen is the first place to address it, at any age, at any hormonal stage.

And for my ladies who have already cleared the menopause hurdle, you guys are navigating a similar but different kind of shifting ground. In peri and in full-blown menopause, estrogen becomes very unpredictable before it ultimately drops permanently. The typical symptoms of hot flashes, disrupted sleep, brain fog, manic anxiety, etc., are all signs and signals from your nervous system as it’s grasping for straws trying to deal and adapt to the unpredictability of that estrogen loss, and then slowly to a new lower baseline. The phase-based eating mentioned above still applies as best as you can track it. When in doubt, stick to the core four…magnesium, fiber, complex carbohydrates and protein, incorporating each in every meal. These will support your body’s ability to deal and manage the threshold regardless of where you are in the cycle. Even when the cycle completely stops, your correlating nutritional needs don’t just disappear, you’re just losing the connection with your signals. Those fermented foods and complex starches should become your best friends. They provide phytoestrogens…plant compounds that gently bind to your body’s empty estrogen receptors, and trick the nervous system into feeling stabilized while your gut microbiome rebuilds from the ground up. Protein at every meal becomes even more important as the estrogen that was previously protecting your muscle mass disappears, and it’s then up to protein to help carry more of that load.

Happy cycles and happy cooking, turkeys!

xo, Jess