This is you if
- Pale complexion, pale lips, pale inner eyelids
- Dizziness on standing, floaters or blurred vision
- Scanty, pale, or short menstrual periods
- Muscle cramps, twitching, numbness or tingling
- Brittle nails, dry hair, hair falling more than it should
- Palpitations and difficulty falling asleep
- Poor memory, anxiety without an obvious cause
- Easily startled
What is happening
Your blood, in the traditional sense of nourishing substance rather than the lab value, is thin. Energy deficiency makes you tired. Substance deficiency makes you fragile: the sleep, the vision, the nails, the cycle, and the mood all draw from the same reserve. 🩸
Your five rules
- Never skip meals and never crash diet. Restriction is the most common cause of this pattern.
- Dark, red, and mineral rich foods, daily.
- Cooked, warm, and slow. Raw food does not build substance.
- Coffee away from meals, since it interferes with the absorption you most need.
- Protect your sleep. Blood rebuilds at night.
Eat more 🍚
Beetroot, dark leafy greens well cooked, black bean, adzuki, goji, longan, jujube, black sesame, mulberry, liver and red meat where appropriate, sardine, egg yolk, nettle, molasses, bone broth.
Eat less 🚫
Raw cold food, excess coffee, crash diets, very spicy food, alcohol, skipped meals, over exercising.
🔪 The habit that matters more than the food
Eat deliberately in the week after your period. That window is when building lands hardest, and most people spend it doing exactly the opposite.
⚠️ The mistake your type makes
Treating this as low energy and reaching for stimulants: coffee, sugar, energy drinks, more training. Stimulants spend a reserve you do not have. Your type needs to build, and building is slow, quiet, and unglamorous.
Your first week
Days 1 to 7: three cooked meals daily, something dark red or dark green every day, no skipped meals, coffee after food only. Sleep and skin often shift first.
Start here
Beetroot, Goji and Jujube Bone Broth Congee 🫐
🚩 See a doctor if
You have significant breathlessness, heavy uterine bleeding, or symptoms of anaemia. Ask for bloodwork.
