Why you crave sugar, salt, and carbs before your period

5 min read  ·  Science-backed

The chocolate. The crisps. The pasta at 10pm. The sudden, urgent need for something sweet, something salty, or something heavy — and the feeling that willpower alone simply isn't going to cut it. Pre-period cravings are one of the most universally recognized experiences among women, and yet they're still widely dismissed as a lack of self-control. They are not. What's happening in your body during the luteal phase is a precise, multi-layered biological process — and your cravings are a direct response to it.

Three cravings, three different reasons

Sugar, salt, and carbs don't all arrive for the same reason. Each craving has its own biological driver — and understanding which is which makes them a lot easier to navigate.

The serotonin connection — why your brain sends you to the kitchen

The deepest root of most pre-period cravings is serotonin. As estrogen drops in the late luteal phase, so does its support for serotonin production and receptor sensitivity.⁴ Your brain, now running on lower serotonin, begins to look for other ways to restore it — and one of the fastest ways the body knows how to raise serotonin is through carbohydrates.

Here's the mechanism: eating carbohydrates triggers an insulin response, which clears most amino acids from the bloodstream — except tryptophan. With less competition, tryptophan crosses the blood-brain barrier more easily, where it's converted into serotonin.⁵ In other words, your body is using food as self-medication — reaching for carbs and sugar not out of weakness, but because it has learned that this is one of the fastest ways to feel better when serotonin is low.

Why insulin resistance makes everything worse

Compounding the serotonin issue is a lesser-known but significant effect of the luteal phase: temporary insulin resistance. Research tracking insulin and glucose levels across the menstrual cycle found that insulin resistance increases measurably in the late luteal phase, associated with rising levels of estradiol and progesterone.⁶ This means your cells are less responsive to insulin than usual — blood sugar becomes harder to regulate, energy crashes more sharply after eating, and your brain sends increasingly urgent signals for a quick glucose fix.

The result is a craving cycle that feeds itself. You eat something sugary, blood sugar spikes, insulin responds, blood sugar drops again — and the craving returns stronger than before. This isn't a character flaw. It's an entirely predictable hormonal response to a temporary metabolic state.

The salt craving explained

Salt cravings operate through a slightly different pathway. Progesterone has a mild diuretic effect — it influences aldosterone, the hormone responsible for regulating sodium and fluid balance in the body.² As progesterone fluctuates in the luteal phase, sodium balance can be disrupted, leading to mild losses that the body tries to compensate for by increasing the desire for salty foods. Dehydration — which is also more common before a period as the body retains and then releases fluid — can further intensify salt cravings.⁷

Why the cravings feel so intense

One reason pre-period cravings feel so different from ordinary hunger is that they are reinforced from multiple directions at once. A 2016 study published in The FASEB Journal found that women with higher estradiol levels in the luteal phase reported increased cravings for carbohydrates and sweet foods, while those with higher progesterone reported higher consumption of sweet drinks.⁸ The hormonal push is real — and it comes on top of lower serotonin, disrupted blood sugar, and a nervous system that is already more sensitive than usual. The craving isn't a signal to ignore. It's a signal to understand.

Smarter ways to respond to the craving

You don't have to white-knuckle your way through the week before your period. But you can respond to your cravings in ways that actually satisfy the underlying biological need — rather than triggering the spike-and-crash cycle that leaves you craving more.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists notes that a diet rich in complex carbohydrates can reduce both mood symptoms and food cravings in the premenstrual phase — because complex carbs provide the serotonin support your body is looking for, without the blood sugar crash that refined sugars cause.⁹

When do the cravings stop?

For most women, pre-period cravings peak in the final 2–5 days before menstruation begins and ease significantly once the period starts — often within the first day or two.¹ This is because once menstruation begins, estrogen starts rising again, serotonin support gradually returns, and the luteal phase insulin resistance resolves. The urgency of the craving lifts not because you've gained willpower — but because your hormonal environment has shifted.

Tracking your cravings across your cycle is one of the most revealing things you can do. When you log what you're craving and when, patterns emerge quickly — and you start to recognize the craving not as a random impulse, but as a consistent signal that appears at a predictable point in your cycle, for a reason that makes complete biological sense.

Your cravings are on a schedule — your cycle's schedule. Open Feelings, check your phase, and log your cravings so you can watch the pattern emerge across cycles. Your body isn't failing you. It's communicating.