ASK BOBBIE WEDNESDAY “Why am I suddenly STARVING before my period?” Ever have a week where your normal meals are fine…and then suddenly you feel like you could eat everything in the kitchen? First: you’re not imagining it. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis pooled 15 datasets involving 330 naturally menstruating women ages 18–45. On average, women consumed about 168 more calories per day during the luteal phase—the phase after ovulation and before the next period—than during the follicular phase. (PubMed⁠) What might be happening? Think of your body like an engine whose idle speed gets turned up slightly after ovulation. Progesterone rises during the luteal phase, body temperature increases slightly, and research suggests resting energy expenditure may rise a little too. A meta-analysis of 26 studies involving 318 women found a small increase in resting metabolic rate during the luteal phase. (PubMed⁠) A newer systematic review found increases generally around 30–120 calories per day, or roughly 3–5%, although results weren’t consistent across every study. (PubMed⁠) So yes—your body may actually be using slightly more energy. But here’s where we need some nuance. A newer controlled study published in 2026 followed 18 women and found no significant difference in appetite or food intake between late-follicular and mid-luteal phases. (PubMed⁠) Translation? The average pattern exists. That doesn’t mean every woman experiences it every month. 🐐 GOATGETheR TAKE If your hunger increases before your period, don’t immediately label it: “I have no discipline.” Instead ask: “What is my body telling me?” Your cycle may be part of the answer. But so can: Poor sleep. Harder training. Stress. Eating too little earlier in the day.

📝 Sunday Weekly Reflection: What Did Your Body Teach You This Week? We spend a lot of time asking: “What should I be doing?” More protein. More steps. Better sleep. Lift heavier. Recover better. Be more disciplined. But there’s another question I want us to get better at asking: “What is actually working for me?” Your body gives you information every week. Maybe you realized you perform better when you eat before training. Maybe your appetite went through the roof after several nights of bad sleep. Maybe you trained less this week but actually felt stronger. Maybe your period hit and you felt completely normal—despite being told you were supposed to feel weak. Maybe you realized stress affected your recovery more than your workout did. Or maybe the biggest thing you learned had nothing to do with fitness. That information matters. GOATGETheR isn’t about becoming obsessed with tracking every signal your body gives you. It’s about becoming better at noticing patterns before blindly changing the strategy. Your Sunday check-in Drop these three things below: 🏆 Biggest win: What went right this week? ⚠️ Biggest struggle: Where did you struggle—with training, food, recovery, sleep, stress, confidence, consistency, your cycle, or life in general? 🧠 What I learned about my body: What did you notice that you want to remember? One bonus question: What ONE thing are you carrying into next week? Not five goals. Not an entirely new routine. One. Maybe it’s: I’m eating breakfast before morning training. I’m going to bed 30 minutes earlier. I’m taking a recovery day without feeling guilty. I’m adding weight to the bar. I’m actually eating enough. I’m walking when I’m stressed instead of abandoning the entire day. Small observations become patterns. Patterns become information. And good information helps you make better decisions. 🐐 GOATGETheR Thought of the Week Your body is information—not an excuse. The goal isn’t to let every mood, symptom, or cycle phase dictate your life.

Before we rush into another week, let’s pause and collect some evidence. GOATGETheR isn’t about having a perfect week. It’s about becoming more aware of what strengthens you, what drains you, and what your body may be trying to communicate. Answer these three questions: 1. What was your biggest win this week? It can be physical, mental, personal, or professional. Small wins count. 2. What was your biggest struggle? No judgment and no pretending. Awareness gives us something to work with. 3. What did you learn about your body this week? Think about your energy, appetite, sleep, mood, stress, training, recovery, pain, or menstrual cycle. Your answers don’t have to be polished. The goal is to start noticing patterns and building evidence about yourself. I’ll go first in the comments. What did this week teach you? — Bobbie My biggest win: teaching My son a new skill My biggest struggle: being consistent with being present What my body taught me: my body taught me I love being in masculine energy because it pushes to to accomplish my goals . I have to accept that about myself One small action I’m carrying into next week: being the version of myself that requires me to get out my head

This week I want to focus on something less flashy than hormones or supplements—but probably more important for performance: Eating enough. A 2025 systematic review examined nutritional strategies for female athletes and physically active women. It included 71 studies and 1,654 women, ranging from recreationally active women to competitive athletes. 🔬 Study Snapshot Paper: Nutritional Strategies for Optimizing Health, Sports Performance, and Recovery for Female Athletes and Other Physically Active Women: A Systematic Review Published: Nutrition Reviews, 2025 Study type: Systematic review Studies included: 71 Participants: 1,654 women About one-third were competitive athletes, another third were trained women, and the remainder were recreationally active. Evidence strength: 🟢 Moderate Why not “high”? A systematic review sits high in the evidence hierarchy, but the studies underneath it had moderate risk of bias and inconsistent control of menstrual-cycle phase and diet. ❓The Big Question What nutrition strategies actually improve performance, recovery and health in active women? One of the strongest themes was surprisingly basic: Don’t underfuel your training. Higher-carbohydrate strategies benefited exercise that substantially depleted muscle glycogen, while carbohydrate-rich pre-exercise meals increased carbohydrate availability and metabolism during exercise. And protein matters—but distribution matters too. The review found evidence supporting protein distributed across the day, with individual feedings generally exceeding about 25 g in the studies reviewed. A female-specific sports-nutrition position stand separately recommends roughly 1.4–2.2 g/kg/day of protein for female athletes, distributed every 3–4 hours, while emphasizing adequate overall energy availability as the first nutritional priority. What this means for everyday women If you’re training hard while constantly: - skipping meals, - severely restricting carbohydrates, - chasing the lowest possible calories, - eating very little before training, - or trying to survive on protein shakes and caffeine,

💪 Friday Performance Challenge: Stop Trying to Have the “Perfect” Fitness Week This weekend’s challenge is simple: Accumulate 60 minutes of intentional movement between Saturday and Sunday. You can do it all at once or break it up: - 30-minute strength session + 30-minute walk - Two 30-minute walks - 20 minutes Saturday + 40 minutes Sunday - Hike, bike, swim, lift, run—pick something you’ll actually do Why we’re doing this A lot of women fall into the “I missed Monday, so this week is ruined” mindset. The research doesn’t support that thinking. Large observational studies have found that people who accumulate recommended amounts of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in only 1–2 days per week can still experience substantial health benefits. A 2025 study using activity trackers found lower all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality among both “weekend warriors” and people who spread activity throughout the week. A previous cohort of more than 350,000 adults—about 51% women— similarly found no significant mortality difference between people concentrating their activity into 1–2 sessions and those exercising ≥3 times per week when total weekly activity was comparable. Important: these studies are observational. They don’t prove that cramming exercise into the weekend is better, and they don’t tell us the ideal training schedule for muscle growth or athletic performance. They tell us something more practical: A disrupted week doesn’t have to become an abandoned week. 🐐 GOATGETheR Take Your health doesn’t reset because you missed Tuesday. Consistency should be measured over months and years, not by whether every seven-day period looked perfect. Get your 60 minutes this weekend and drop a DONE below when you’ve finished. 🧬 Friday Peptide Spotlight: Retatrutide — What Do We Actually Know Now? Retatrutide deserves a spotlight because the conversation around it is moving much faster than most people’s understanding of the evidence. First: what is it? Retatrutide is a single investigational molecule designed to activate three receptors: