Most girls who play sports have regular menstrual periods, and girls who are very active may skip a few periods. However, some girls who train really hard may skip many menstrual periods, or they may get their period at a late age, especially if they’ve lost weight or developed an eating disorder. Girls may begin to skip periods if they are not getting proper nutrition, or if there is too much stress on their body from sports. This stress lowers estrogen levels, which may cause skipped periods. Low estrogen levels and a lack of menstrual periods can lead to low bone mass and stress fractures (small cracks) in your bones.Health care providers, athletes, and coaches use the term “Female Athlete Triad” (triad means three) to refer to athletic girls who have the following:Each of the three conditions (inadequate nutrition, amenorrhea, and low bone mass) are serious problems that can cause problems in the future and need medical care. Even if you only have one or two of the conditions, it’s important to talk about them with your healthcare provider.

athletes may eat a healthy diet and yet still skip menstrual periods and be at risk of low bone mass.Disordered eating can cause heart problems such as an irregular heartbeat, muscle weakness or fatigue, fainting, and loss of concentration with school work and athletics.Amenorrhea is a sign that your body is not functioning properly. The biggest concern is that low estrogen levels may result in low bone mass.The teen years are the most important time in a girl’s life for developing normal, strong bones. Girls should add half of the bone mass that they will have for their lifetime during their teen years. Very little bone mass is added after you are 20 years old, and so the teen years are very important for getting the right amount of bone for your lifetime.During your teen years, weak bones and intense exercise can make it easier for you to get stress fractures. A stress fracture is a very small crack that can occur in bones when you do the same activity over and over for too long. For example, a runner may get a stress fracture in her lower leg or foot, and a gymnast may get a stress fracture in her spine.

If you continue to do the activity in spite of the pain, the bone may break.Teddy Bear Puppies SacramentoIf you are skipping periods and your health care provider is worried about low bone mass, he/she may suggest that you have a test that tells whether your bones have lost thickness or strength. Toilets For Sale In Las VegasOne of these tests is called a DXA (Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry) scan. Foam Floor Tiles 1It’s a painless test that uses low radiation waves to take a picture of your bones. The test results tell your health care provider whether you have more or less bone mass than other girls your age.Athletes who do a great amount of physical activity are at risk for any of the three conditions of the Female Athlete Triad. Athletes who are very competitive or focus a large part of their lives on their sport are considered to be at a higher risk.

Certain activities that involve a lot of endurance (such as long distance running) may put you at more risk for the Triad. There is also a higher risk among girls involved in activities that demand a thin physical appearance, such as gymnastics or dancing. Being aware of these demands or pressures on your body is a good first step towards keeping yourself healthy. It’s important to remember to balance your sports activities and nutrition. The right balance will keep you healthy. As a teenager, it felt like I had no control over the amount of food I would eat. I would grab a bag of chips and devour the whole thing. I also felt really stressed about school—even if it was only high school—and didn't know how to handle it other than eating. Although I was active in junior high by playing softball, volleyball, and basketball, I had to stop sports my freshman year of high school because I injured my shoulder playing softball, which was really a bummer because softball was my favorite.

When I was playing sports, I was at a healthy weight that stayed stable—but I didn't know how to transition from always being active in sports to not having structured workouts. I basically just gave up on exercising. Get our new daily newsletter! It wasn't long after that when my weight started spiking. Like a lot of teenagers, I loved sandwiches, muffins, chips, and junk food. I was a huge carb lover. And as far as family meals went, we would eat a lot of beef. Although there would always be veggies on the table, we loved the starchy vegetables like potatoes and always had dinner rolls. Between my freshman year and my senior year of high school, I gained at least 50 pounds and hit 198 pounds by my senior year of high school in 2011. During my junior and senior years of high school, I wasn't feeling very well. I would get headaches that would put me out of commission for a week and really bad acid reflux. My dad also had the same problems and his doctor recommended that he start trying to lose weight.

After that, my parents talked to me about doing the same thing because I really wasn't at a healthy body weight for my height. When I stepped on the scale in 2011 and saw that I was almost 200 pounds—which was probably more than my boyfriend at the time—that was when it hit me that I needed to get my weight under control. My dad had a lot of success losing weight by using the Atkins diet, so I decided to try the same thing. It was so hard at first counting how many carbs I was taking in, but I tried to keep it under 20 net carbs per day. I ended up cutting out a lot of my pre-diet foods, like sandwiches and chips. Another thing that was hard to eliminate, though it sounds kind of weird, was ranch dressing. I would eat salads and just drench them in ranch, which wasn't exactly healthy. Beside avoiding those foods, I also added new ones to my diet. Canned tuna and chicken became my go-tos instead of beef, and even though I have really never been a vegetable person, I began eating cucumbers, broccoli, and okra (I had no idea what it even was before I started losing weight!).

Once I gave them a chance, I actually started to like veggies! When I got to college, I was still trying to drop pounds, but the campus cafeteria was so tempting. I would see people eating cereal or at the pasta bar, and it was definitely hard not to do the same. I just told myself that I have to stick to what I know is good for me. In the cases where the cafeteria didn't have anything I could eat, I would eat the Atkins frozen meals in my dorm room. The dining hall wasn't the only thing that threatened to derail my weight-loss plans, either: My roommates would always go out to eat or out to the dorm's ice cream socials, and I didn’t want to just sit in my room by myself.  So I would go along and just order an iced tea. This was surprisingly helpful because I was still doing something with my hands and going through the motions while spending time with my friends. By 2012, the end of my freshman year of college, I had gotten down to 125 pounds. My mom loves shopping for clothes with me, but when we would go I would always get grouchy.

I would get into the car knowing I wasn't going to find anything cute that fit me. Now it's actually fun for me again because I can fit into clothes that I like. Plus, I don't have to worry that stores or brands won't have my size. Another random thing I can do now that I couldn’t do before is get a piggyback ride from my boyfriend. For the first three years of our relationship, I knew he could lift me but I was embarrassed about how heavy I was. My first piggyback ride from him made me feel really proud of how far I've come. Pay attention to serving sizes. One of the hardest parts was controlling how much I ate. If I couldn't find it on the box, I would search for it online so I would know exactly what I was eating. You don't always realize that there is more than one serving in a container. Use your family as your mirror. You might not see results right away, but don't get discouraged. My friends and family gave me reassurance and told me that even though I couldn’t see a difference they could see that my body was changing for the better.