Bug, this is going to be long, but I promise it will be worth your time to read.
Your period is suppressed because of your body's survival programming. It's not JUST the cardio, it's the combination of the negative caloric state you are maintaining overall---this is a function of dailycaloric intake, resting metabolism expendature, and training energy expendature. If you consume less calories than are necessary to maintain bodyweight, then your body pulls from fat stores to keep your organ's and critical functions going. Everyone knows this...it's why we diet! Once your bf% is relatively low, which by the looks of your pics it is, then you leave your body few other options for "survival" and force it to start conserving resources and limiting caloric expendature. In essence, you've triggered a survival instinct. Anyone who trains seriously does this routinely. If you were in the wild with little food, eventually the same thing would happen. Your body remembers what you do and adapts to it---the body knows how much is coming in, how much is typically needed to get through the average day, and then looks for ways to make up the difference by depressing resting metabolism, dropping body temperature, electrical function, and any other non-essential bodily functions like a woman's period.
Since your monthly period is a relatively "expensive" process to execute in terms of energy, your instincts suppress the endocrine system from making it happen. The other thing that happens is that your body's resting metabolism will DROP SIGNIFICANTLY. This just reinforces your current need to diet and do cardio to maintain your current physique.
You could be eating more and doing less cardio and still maintain a low bf AND keep your period. But the trick is to GET to that point without triggering the fat storage mechanisms. Now, if you are going to compete, then getting your period back is probably NOT going to happen, because you simply have to train too hard to compete. But, if you want to restore your female processes, then read on...
Let's take a look at the main variables:
First, caloric intake--- You can eat a little more and do the same cardio. But, as soon as you start to eat a little more, your survival programming will instruct your body to conserve and preserve those extra calories. Remember, you're in survival mode now, and that doesn't change overnight. This could very well mean your body responds to extra calories with extra fat stores.
Second, cardio training---Your resting metabolism is now in a relatively depressed state. As soon as you train a little less, your depressed resting metabolism will not immediately increase. It's been trained to stay where it is now, and will need to be re-trained to be any higher. So, if you do less cardio, the net result will be less expendature in any given day, which will mean more available calories, which might be converted to fat storage.
Everyone is different, but in knowing all of this, here is what I would recommend:
Work-up an 8week timeline to slowly ease your system into a higher daily caloric intake with a bit less weekly cardio. At some point, you'll reach a balance where you can maintain a good bf and physique as well as keep your period. Look at how many calories you take in now, and add say 300-500 to that evenly over 8 weeks. On cardio, look at what you do now, and scale it back to say 3 or 4 (I would go for 3) 30-40 min sessions per week. Start off keeping the frequency of cardio the same, but just cut back on the duration of each session. Then when you get the duration down to 30-40 min, you can start to eliminate sessions altogether. Do this SLOWLY over 8 weeks.
IMPORTANT===
One last important factor---add some weight training time into your training. Since I don't know how much time you devote to cardio or resistance training, I can't really say exact amounts. But, resistance training will help you boost that depressed resting metabolism. Here's why: muscle mass requires energy even at rest. Repair to damaged muscle tissue from resistance training requires energy at rest. See the importance? Cardio elevates metabolism during the workout and only for a few hours afterward. Weight training elevates overall metabolism 24hrs/day!
So, in summary, slowly add in calories (clean carbs, good fats and plenty of protein!), cut back on cardio, and increase weight training over a period of 8 weeks. This very slow progression should be just the ticket to avoid triggering the fat storage response which is natural when the body is in survival mode. At some point you'll get your period back to normal. (Although being a man, I'm not sure why you'd want that! LOL)
Give me a shout if you want to talk more about it. GOOD LUCK BUG, AND BE SURE TO KEEP US POSTED ON YOUR RESULTS!
Hey guys-
