That time of the month

If you are wondering how "that time of the month" is fitness related you obviously haven't had it while being on a regular workout & eating schedule. I have only recently (since Oct/Nov) realized how much the two are connected. It is this time of the month that I am truly tested on how strong my willpower is & how much I rely on all the things I've learned at boot camp & by researching healthy eating habits. It is also the time when the things that I thought were becoming deeply ingrained habits are just as easy to skip (exercising) or stop all together (eating healthy) at least for a few days as they ever were/
When I am newly pregnant one of my first "symptoms" is a bone deep exhaustion that no amount of sleep or caffeine can alleviate. I have confirmed that this is also one of my "new" PMS symptoms. In my "old" life I would go carb crazy about every other day & eat bread & starch like it was my last day on earth. This is also one my my new symptoms. The worst part of all this is that (for some reason) I forget from month to month how miserable the week leading up to my period is and I get myself in this mode of "I'm so awesome, I workout so hard, I can sleep when I'm dead" and then the exhaustion hits and I am about knocked flat on my back for a few days. Add in the carb craze & I am bloated like a dead fish. Combine all that with even a minor household catastrophe (in December our dryer broke and last month my washer did & we don't get a new one until next week!) and I am constanly on the verge of a nervous breakdown for 7-10 days. Cool, yeah?
So why am I immortalizing all this insanity? Because I am currently looking into ways around this. I am not talking about shortcuts or cheats. I mean real, significant methods to allay my symptoms & to continue in the good, life changing habits I spend the other 3 weeks of the month cultivating. So far I haven't found anything but I am confident in my ability to discover the answer to a problem that is plaguing me (and I hope I'm not the only one who could benefit from knowledge like this!).
On a different note, this has been the first week of a new month of boot camp. Every four weeks new people can sign up for a free 4 week trial (and subsequently become addicted to an early morning hour long self torture session) and this is my 5th month doing this. I have found each month that this week is the hardest week of every month. I am getting to a size where I look reasonably fit & healthy (in my opinion) and I have decided that I don't want to be looked at by the "newbies" as a fat old lady (we keep having young, somewhat skinny girls sign up, WEIRD!!!). I want to wear a sign that says "MOTHER OF 3, YOUNGEST BORN VIA C-SECTION ON MAY 2, 2009" to explain my lack of abdominal strength or why I can curl 8-16 pounds (sometimes we do one arm at a time & I double up my 8 lbs weights) but barely shoulder press 5 pounds for 1 minute before feeling like my arms are going to come out of their sockets. More importantly I feel like I get to push myself to my absolute limits every exercise to show how I've progressed. While some of these things are semi-detrimental the last is absolutely to my benefit. I want to grow & get stronger & I know that will happen as I push myself.
So I'll continue to look for ways around my latest challenges (or maybe ways through them) and it is no coincidence that the first week of a new boot camp is happening the same week as my PMS. There are no accidents.