Under‑Fueling, Wonky Hormones, and Missing Periods: Are You Eating Enough to Ovulate?

In our previous episode, Dr. Millie and endocrine dietitian Dr. Yardena Bauer mapped the four phases of the menstrual cycle and showed how nutrition, training style, and sleep can be aligned with each phase for better energy, mood, and long‑term health.

This follow‑up conversation goes a level deeper.
Dr. Bauer explains what happens when energy intake doesn’t match those hormonal needs, specifically, how chronic undereating, extreme calorie deficits, and long‑term restrictive diets can:

• Lower basal metabolic rate and push the body into “fuel‑saving” mode
• Suppress FSH, LH, estrogen, and progesterone, leading to irregular or missing periods
• Reduce egg quality and compromise fertility
• Intensify stress responses, disrupt sleep, and stall fat loss despite eating less

Listeners will learn:

• Why calories are only one piece of the puzzle: protein, fiber‑dense carbs, micronutrients, and meal timing play equal roles
• Practical protein baselines (~30 g per meal) for stable blood sugar and ovulation support
• How fermented foods, prebiotics, and a diverse microbiome help clear “used” estrogen
• When intermittent fasting or time‑restricted eating can be useful and when it can backfire
• The metabolic benefits of closing the kitchen 2–3 hours before bed
• Why strength training combined with adequate fueling is a non‑negotiable for hormone balance

Who this episode is for:
Anyone dealing with missing or irregular periods, HA (hypothalamic amenorrhea), PCOS, endometriosis, lingering fatigue, stalled weight loss, or a desire to rebuild trust with their body after years of dieting.

Links:

Connect with Yardena: @Yardena Instagram
Follow Millie:  @milliedpt
Join the Core to Floor community:  https://millie-schweky.mykajabi.com/intimacy

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & setup — under‑eating and hormone health
• 0:42 Meet Dr. Yardena Bauer (endocrine dietitian; neuroscience & women’s health)
• 1:00 Food = energy = fertility: under‑eating lowers BMR; body conserves, hormones de‑prioritized
• 1:56 Do you need a calorie deficit to lose weight? Why calories alone miss the point
• 2:45 Beyond calories: macros, micros, timing, food quality, and hormones
• 3:18 Red flags of under‑nutrition: lost periods, anovulation; impact on egg quality
• 4:02 Estrogen metabolism & the gut: fermented foods, microbiome diversity, “bad” estrogen clearance
• 4:58 Probiotics vs. prebiotics: ferments vs. onions/garlic; supplements vs. food
• 5:34 Intermittent fasting (IF): who it helps, who should skip (stress, food noise, binges)
• 6:26 Stop eating earlier: why 2–3 hours before bed improves sleep & recovery
• 7:28 Evening cravings & “the freezer stare”: sugar at night, practical workarounds
• 7:58 Benefits of improving insulin control: more energy, better sleep, clearer decisions; weight follows
• 8:52 Time‑restricted eating: outcomes even when food quality is unchanged; Maimonides note
• 9:42 Fasting across the cycle? Consistency vs. flexibility; life happens
• 10:13 Ghrelin (“the gremlin”): training hunger signals; fixed eating windows
• 11:02 Do we need carbs? We do need fiber‑rich carbs; minimize refined sugar
• 11:48 Whole grains quality; pasta vs. rice fiber; sourdough & rye
• 12:18 Carbs, fiber & ovulation: choose fiber‑dense sources
• 12:54 Protein targets: RDA = survival; thriving needs ~30 g x 3 meals (≈90 g/day)
• 13:44 Eggs as a complete food; simple 30‑gram combos (yogurt + eggs, salmon, chicken)
• 14:56 We don’t “crave protein”: tips to make protein appealing and consistent
• 15:26 Priorities: protein, fiber, strength training; move away from ultra‑processed carbs
• 16:02 Seeds, trail mixes, kid‑friendly “sprinkles” (chia, flax, pumpkin)
• 16:36 Recap checklist: early dinner, fiber‑rich carbs, 30 g protein per meal
• 17:05 “Good fats won’t make you fat” — fats for brain & fertility; closing thoughts
• 17:20 Sign-off

Transcript

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Hey sis, and welcome back to the What they didn't tell You from Core to Floor. I'm your girl, Dr. Millie Schweky, your favorite pelvic floor physical therapist, and I'm here with Dr. Yardena Bauer, a PhD and highly qualified dietician with an impressive academic background and expertise in the fields of psychology, physiology, dietetics, nutrition, neuroscience, and endocrinology.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Her focus is on hormone nutrition, including PCOS, fertility and endometriosis. Okay, ano, welcome back to the studio. So happy to have you today. , Someone asked in the question box about undereating, they wanna know, 'cause I guess they weren't under eater for a long time. It seems from the question, how could undereating or chronic dieting impact the hormonal cycle?

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Oh,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: I love that. Okay. Well, we, why, first of all, why are we undereating? Why are we avoiding food? Um , Food is nutrition. Food is energy, food is vitality. So if food is going to give us life, like if you don't eat, [00:01:00] you cannot live. So now how do you want to make a baby another life if you're not actually nourishing your own life?

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So under eating, what happens is our basal metabolic rate, which is, you know, how many calories you burn in a day exactly is gonna go down and the body is not. The body now needs to keep the amount of energy inside it. You know, it needs to preserve energy. And because our bo our body metabolic grade is gone, going down production of hormones is not the priority.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So last episode, we spoke a lot about estrogen and progesterone, but we didn't speak about the other two hormones, which is luteinizing hormone and follicular stimulating hormone, FSH and lh, and these hormones actually need nutrition to function. And when there is undernutrition, your body thinks it's in starvation.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Even if you like, yeah, but you know, I'm just trying to lose a few kilos. It's like your body thinks it is starving, but

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: it's like you could do that short term, right? We're just talking about a chronic situation now. Don't you need to [00:02:00] be in a calorie deficit to lose weight? No. I need. Okay. Well we're gonna come back to that.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: I'm so excited. No, you do not need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. How does that make any sense? Okay. So a calorie is a, is a scientific term of the measure of water, of how we to boil to bottle, to boil water.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Okay.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: We are not in the lab. We live in life. There are other things besides for a calorie that are important that will impact our weight and how we look.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: We need to look at macronutrients. That is protein, carbs, fat, thank you. Protein, carbs, fat. We need to look at micronutrients, which are vitamins and our minerals. We need to look at our hormones. It's, we need to look at the quality of the food we eat and when we eat.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Interesting,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: but calories, calorie counting.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: So you don't need, doesn't work to be chronically undereating to be. To way less. Correct. Okay. And how could it affect our hormonal cycle? What could it do to the period, [00:03:00] let's say? So

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: one of the, main, the key points we have in, uh, key symptoms are undereating, is you lose your period. You don't have a period.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: And even if you do have a period, sometimes you won't, ovulate.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: And does it affect egg

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: quality as well? Absolutely. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? so we need to eat correctly. We need to eat good quality food. and we need to eat, I balance in order to have good egg production. And there is stuff to eat to make your egg quality better.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: And

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: there's stuff to not eat. Remembering last time we spoke about the inflammatory experience. So we wanna have anti-inflammatory foods. There's food to get rid of the bad estrogen. 'cause estrogen needs to metabolize in the gut. So we wanna have good microbiome diversity. We wanna, which is, eating.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Your, sour sauerkraut, yogurts. Anything

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: fermented,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: anything fermented. Fermented is great. Even your sourdough, your sourdough bread. Sourdough bread. Just by the way, all the listeners, Millie [00:04:00] has a starter. Uh, yes. So we wanna have sourdough bread. We have one prebiotics.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: I love cyran by the way. I put it as a side one spoon with like, whenever I eat lunch at home, I do that to feed my gut.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Do you need to do pro probiotics with that? Or it counts as probiotics? You need probiotics and prebiotics. So

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: prebiotics is the, all the fermented food. That's at no probiotics. Probiotics. Probiotics is all the fermented food and prebiotics is onions and garlic. So

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: I don't need to take a probiotic supplement if I'm eating.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: SERT every day. Could it replace it? Well, we also, you need, because I'd rather get my things from real food than supplements. I, I think most people would rather do that.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Yes. And we also need to know which STR strains are right. Bacteria we needing for what purposes? Uhhuh. So it's not, you can't replace it really.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: you should, we should be eating, we should be eating food before we are going on to supplements. I do think sometimes supplements are just trendy and money making. I think we can get a lot of our stuff from the food.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Yeah. Okay, cool. Um. [00:05:00] Okay, let's go into another fad. I love breaking down fads, but this one might, might actually be worthwhile.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Intermittent

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: fasting. Okay, so intermittent fasting or time restricted eating, they often called, you know, interchangeably, is actually, there's really good research on it. For what, what would, well, why would someone do this? Okay. First of all, who wouldn't do it? Okay. If it causes you stress. Then it's not recommended because if, if someone is like not eating at a certain time, and it's making you either overeat afterwards because you go into food anxiety.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Or it's making your food noise get too loud when your food noise being, when am I going to eat? , What am I going to eat? If you can't stop thinking about, you just can't stop thinking about food, yeah. Then it's not for you. Understood. And if it leads you to binge afterwards because, oh my God, I can finally eat and I only have eight hours to eat and I have to eat everything I can see not for you.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So [00:06:00] it definitely depends on your personality. Definitely depends on your behavior response. The idea of intermittent fasting and time restricted eating is that we don't need to be eating all the time. The old way of teaching us how to eat was to have three main meals and snacks in between. The idea now being is that we actually don't have to eat so much.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: We don't have to eat all the time. We can. We can give our bodies a break from food.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Do you recommend stopping to eat early in the day so that you can have breakfast? 'cause like isn't it not so good to skip breakfast as opposed to. Skipping breakfast, starting to eat later, and then now you're closing your window closer to the night, which is when we usually make bad decisions.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Excellent. So excellent question. And it's more important that we are stopping to eat early in the evening in that we might, let's say we eating late into the night and then we, we now stop eating and we go to bed, but our bodies are now working so we are asleep, but our bodies ha [00:07:00] aren't able to go to sleep yet, so we are not even getting as much sleep as we think we did.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: S because we, our bodies are still metabolizing the food. Wow,

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: that's so interesting. So

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: we wake up and we like, oh my God, I'm so tired. But I went to bed early. I don't understand. But we ate until we went to bed. So

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: how long before bed should we stop eating? Ideally,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: two to three hours.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Interesting. And

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: that's hard.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Hey,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: that's hard. Sure. That's hard. Especially if we

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: saying

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: go

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: to bed

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: early.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Oh yeah. Because if you could like stop eating at 7:00 PM. And then you gotta be bed by like nine 30. I suppose. You could do it. Well,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: you could do it. And also because you'll be like, oh, I might, I'm not going to eat now and there's nothing else to do.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: I might as well just go to sleep.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Yeah, totally. By the way. Totally. I love staying up to have a snack.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: We, that's where, that's when we, our biggest sugar cravings come in the evening. So we open

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: the Wal app at like 10:00 PM and just like, look at the pictures or the freezer. Yeah. Wait,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: where's the ice cream?

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Okay, so intermittent fasting can be helpful.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: And what, what are the benefits? So insulin resistance is [00:08:00] gonna decrease, which is, which is going to help prevent metabolic disorder. So how would

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: that look

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: practically?

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Like what am I gonna see different

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: in my

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: life? Am

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: I gonna have more energy? Great. The first experience women have with, controlling, with insulin, controlling their insulin resistance or controlling their insulin.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Completely is the first experience is gonna have more energy. Second thing we hear is women's sleep better, better quality of sleep and easier to fall asleep, less stressing up and ruminating over everything that's going on. So then

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: you'll be more fresh the next day 'cause you're getting better sleep the night before

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: and then you make better decisions.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Love that. If you can keep it going, then the next thing we start seeing is weight loss. Even if you're eating the milk you normally eat in a shorter window of time, they're actually saying, they're showing that it has been shown that it doesn't matter what you eat, but restricting the time of eating will lead to better health outcomes.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: interesting. You know, Maimonide that run bomb says, I, I forgot if it was 12 or 13 hours from your last meal of the day till your next meal. The next day. So it's like totally sounds [00:09:00] advice. Science is just catching up to it now. There you go. Cool. Cool. Okay. what about fasting at different times in your cycle?

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Like should you be continuing it throughout, let's say it's a 28 day textbook cycle. Should you be continuing it the whole time or are there certain times that you should lay off?

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Great question. So first of all, we have to remember that. When we fast, we also affect another hormone secretion. So we eat also from a, another hormone called ghrelin.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: The gremlin That is, you know, secret, makes us hungry, makes us hungry. So the gremlin. Is secreted when we are tired. That's why we often are hungrier at night. , And ghrelin is also secreted at a tiniest manner so it knows when our meals are. So when we, at the first two weeks of intermittent fasting, it's very difficult because the ghrelin saying, eat, eat.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: We used to snack yesterday. Why can't I have a snack now? But we train it. [00:10:00] We train it to only be secreted at specific hours, so then we start being hungry only at those hours. So if you wanna do intermittent fasting, while it could be important to manage it over the cycle, you kind of have to decide which one are you going to do.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Cool. And also your hours. Your hours have to be fixed. You can't, you

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: can't really change them around so much. It's really hard and you're like going out and you have things. It's like it's not for everyone. It's really not for everyone. It's

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: really not for everyone. And it's also about saying, also remembering that life happens.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Yeah. So don't. Don't like give up if you

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: have. Right. If you skip a day, it doesn't go back the next day. Exactly. It's the hardest thing. Oh my gosh. Okay. what about keto? Like, do we need carbs? What's the story with

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: carbs? we, we definitely need fiber and we get fiber from carbs, car fibers very important for our gut.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Bio microbiome for cholesterol, cholesterol management to lower cholesterol. So we definitely need fiber. [00:11:00] Fiber we can get from the legumes. We can get fiber from all our vegetables. Uh, we definitely, even fruit. Even fruit, even fruit, uh, eating the skin of the fruit, especially. 'cause that's where the fiber is.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Kiwi skin isn't bad right now. I know. I, I can't, it gross. It's, it's so fuzzy. It's disgusting. I mean, my sensory alarm goes off just looking at it. remembering. So, so we need fiber and we are getting fiber from cops. We don't need sugar. We love sugar. We don't need sugar, we want sugar. I often think about sugars.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Remembering the sugar cane is like a plant, actually, we've just taken out all the fiber.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: ,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: And we've like pro, it's like ultra processed, so. So what about whole grains? When you say whole grains, what are you? Whole wheat. I'd say whole wheat. Whole wheat. Whole wheat sourdough bread. I like rye. So sourdough bread.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Sometimes whole wheat is just brown, but it doesn't actually have so much fiber in it. Uhhuh. [00:12:00] so it depends on the quality of the wheat you're getting

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: the quality. Correct. Cool, cool, cool. so do we need carbs to ovulate and make our cycles healthy? We need fiber. Fiber, which is the good quality carbs.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Okay, so you need good quality carbs. Love that. That's what you're saying. We don't need the refined white sugars, the pasta, the pizza you could buy. I, I buy like the lentil pasta once in a while, things like that. so

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: for example, pasta actually has more fiber in a thin rice. Which is so surprising 'cause we always think rice is, you know, healthy.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: I'm having Su Brown. Brown, yeah. Brown rice. Probably a little bit more, but still not, I mean, like, it's like minimal. You know, in Asia they eat rice, you know, sugary rice. Rice, they make rice into sweets. ,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: ,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: rice is very, very sweet.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Very starchy. It's very

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: starchy.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Cool. And what about, stress?

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: How does that actually, I don't wanna ask that. Stress is a good one. Okay. Let's, uh, we're gonna come back to that one. Okay. could we talk about protein? How much protein should someone be getting in a day?

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Okay,

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: so

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: protein, [00:13:00] according to the RDA, it's 0.8 grams per kilograms. Okay. So, traditionally it was quite low.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: They expect to, the, the basic amount of protein we need is very little. Do we trust the RDA?

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: For, to, to keep us alive. Yes. Okay. Right. But it's like the, but it's like the minimum. It's the minimum. It's the minimum we need to be alive. What about to be healthy and and thriving? How much protein do we need a day per kilogram of our

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: body weight.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So my average would be like one and a half to two grams per kilo. So that being like, I think the easiest way to do it is 30 grams times three. So for if you're having three meals a day, 30 in the morning, 30 for lunch, 30 for dinner, 30 grams is five eggs. , 30 grams it, which probably not gonna have, but it's

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: a pro 20 yogurt and two hard boiled eggs.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Exactly. Exactly. Or

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: it's the 25 Mueller yogurt with one egg. Exactly.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So for most people who aren't gonna have a yogurt and an egg, let's say Yeah. Because we also [00:14:00] lazy and we can't be bothered to, you know, boil an egg. Even though egg is, eggs are like vitamin, the ultimate, the best, the ultimate vitamin. the ultimate food has all the vitamins, all the amino acids, and it keeps you full.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: You can't actually eat eggs, too many eggs, and also it won't increase your cholesterol. Okay? but okay,

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: how much protein do we need then? Protein, you think 30 times three.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: It's like a fillet of salmon. It's a spillt of, of chicken. It's like, you know, a portion, it's a portion, like a portion

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: of meat.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Yeah. Okay,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: cool.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: So the with, so get it three times a day.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Get it three times a day and eat protein. The problem is that we often don't, we don't crave protein.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: What about, by the way, we do not crave protein and it's really, really hard. Once you get into it and you're like really eating protein, I think you start to crave it more.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: No one

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: comes home and says, oh, I just need a hard boiled egg.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: I know, you know, sometimes I crave like a really juicy piece of chicken. Nice. But it's gotta be juicy. Like I don't want that. I don't want dry chicken breast. I want like juicy on the bone chicken. Eat the,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: eat the brown chicken. Yes. Because as we spoke [00:15:00] about, we now are, we are leaning more to not twiggy, we are saying we actually need food and we need to be prioritizing protein, over processed carbs.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So protein, fiber. Building, building and then building weights. by, by strength. By strength, exercise.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: So if, if you had to give like a, like a general. Recommendation, you would say 90 grams of protein per day. And, but if you weigh more, you might need a little more. And you could kinda like play around with that as you go.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Right.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: And also if you're having all your seeds, they also have protein in them. You know, your, your canoa has some, has protein in it. Your what? Canoa. Quinoa. Oh,

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: quinoa. Quinoa has

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: your protein in it. People

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: really like quinoa. I think they're faking it. Yeah, I know. I, I can't come behind that one. Yeah,

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: I are.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Yeah, I'm with you. but so they, you know, like flax seeds, cheer seeds. , Pumpkin seeds, they're all gonna add their little bits of fiber are gonna add up. I'm be into seeds. [00:16:00] Like, yeah, you are Seeds are fantastic. They, you've gotta find your recipe. And I like making like, you know, a trail mix with it.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: And

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: my kids ask for sprinkles on their yogurt, but sprinkles means cheese seeds and flax seeds. Well, they sprinkle it on their, on their yogurt in the morning. Mom. Yeah. Wants sprinkles. Well, you are a mom goddess. Yeah. So they, they ask for it and it's like really impressive in my opinion. Okay. So to sum it all up, you could try and remain fasting.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Try to get an early breakfast at an early dinner. Get enough sleep, eat carbs, but only good quality carbs that have a lot of fiber, and eat enough protein. 30 grams three times a day at the minimum. Any other less minute quick fire tips.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Good fats won't make you fat.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Love that. Yeah. There was a whole movement in the, I think it was like the nineties, right?

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: That fat makes you fat. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, fat does not make you fat. And good fats are good for your brain. [00:17:00] They're good for your fertility. Right, exactly. And we, we need, we really need fats. Okay. Thank you ya, Dana. These were really practical tips. I hope people can try implementing these three things, maybe changing the hours that you eat.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]: Definitely eating enough protein and definitely getting good quality. Carbs that include fiber. All right. This was a great episode. I hope you enjoyed and stay tuned for next time.