April 9, 2024 • 43 mins
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Struggling to hit the gym with PCOS? You're not alone. The dance between exercise and PCOS is intricate, but I've discovered that movement is an essential rhythm in the music of a PCOS-friendly lifestyle. This episode is a deep dive into why those of us with insulin resistance can't afford to sit it out, and how the right kind of physical activity can be a powerful ally in regulating blood sugar and safeguarding our mental health.
We all know that one size rarely fits all, and that's especially true when it comes to PCOS and exercise. Some of us need to slow down and breathe a little deeper, while others need to find that sweet spot of consistency in their workouts. This episode unpacks the myths and truths about cardio and strength training, and why a sustainable and enjoyable fitness routine trumps a rigid regimen every time. It's all about balance, rest, and not letting your exercise ambitions steal precious sleep.
I’ll share why any exercise is better than none and how to move from inactivity to activity without sacrificing joy or health.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, welcome back to An Amber A Day,
the functional PCOS nutritionpodcast.
I'm your host, amber Fisher,and thanks for being here.
Today we're going to talk aboutexercise and PCOS.
I've been seeing somecontroversial opinions online so
I thought I'd throw my hat inthe ring and give you guys my
opinion on exercise for PCOS.
(00:20):
Oh, how are you guys?
You doing good, I'm doing good.
I've been sticking to my littleorganized schedule here.
So I think you've been seeingthere have been more podcasts
coming out lately.
So you know I'm very proud ofmyself for that.
It's not easy for me.
I'm not historically a superorganized person, but just
sticking to a schedule hasreally, really helped me.
(00:42):
So if you have ever beencurious about like, how to do
that or you know need some tipsor whatever, I interviewed a
friend of mine named ReneeClaire who does a lot of work on
time blocking.
She's been on the podcast acouple of times.
So if you go back and scrollback, I think I way back in
season one.
I interviewed her like back in2020, I want to say and then I
(01:03):
interviewed her like back in2020, I want to say and then I
interviewed her last yearsometime.
So those are really interestingpodcasts if you need some help
getting organized.
Okay, let's talk about exercise.
Have you ever wondered whatkind of exercise you should be
doing?
There's a lot of stuff outthere, right.
So the reason I decided torecord this one today is because
(01:23):
this morning I was on storiesand I saw some people getting in
a fight about exercise for PCOS, because there is this one
particular influencer who hasreally capitalized on marketing
slow, weighted workouts for PCOSand it upsets a lot of other
(01:44):
people, other nutritionprofessionals.
So I saw this little argumenthappening online and I thought
let me talk about exercise today, because I have been thinking a
lot about exercise lately andjust how important and helpful
it is, how much it's been reallyhelping my mood lately.
I talked to you guys a coupleweeks ago about my struggles
(02:06):
with depression, and exercisehas been my real saving grace
throughout that process.
Without it I don't know whereI'd be right now mentally.
So I think the importance of itfor that aspect of PCOS is not
to be denied, and there's sometruth to the fact as well that
(02:26):
there are some things that tendto work better with PCOS or tend
to be more supportive ofhormone health than others.
But then there's also this kindof element of like people
around PCOS and throwing offyour hormones even more.
(02:54):
So let's talk about some of thebenefits of exercise first.
So exercise in and of itself,separate from nutrition, plays a
big role in PCOS.
It's like one of those pillarsthere's kind of three big
pillars of a PCOS-friendly life,and those pillars are healthy
(03:15):
diet, exercise, consistentexercise and stress reduction
stuff.
So in and of itself, even ifyou didn't alter the other two
things, just incorporating aregular exercise routine could
make a big difference for yourPCOS, especially if your PCOS is
(03:35):
driven a lot by insulinresistance.
So some of the cool things thatexercise does is not only does
it kind of like burn starchesand things that are in your
system that you're digesting orwhatever.
It helps clear out your bloodsugar, but it also helps clear
space in your storage areas.
So our muscles and our liver aswell can store glucose, which is
(04:00):
a well, they store glycogen.
Sorry, glycogen is like astorage form of glucose and
glucose is the sugar that's likein our blood.
So when you say blood sugar,that's glucose in the sugar in
the blood and glycogen is whenour body takes it and puts it
into storage form and thenstores it in our muscles, and
(04:20):
the cool thing about that isthat it's there when we need it.
So we um, we store it in casewe need to run away from
something or in case, and thisis why, when you get stressed,
sometimes your blood sugarspikes.
So this is why sometimes, whenyou're stressed or you know
something stressful happens, youyou'll spike your blood sugar
because you store sugar in yourbody and your body's going to
(04:44):
pull on it when you might needsome energy.
Sugar is energy.
Your body's going to pull on itwhen it needs energy.
So glycogen is the storage formof this and we're storing it in
our muscles.
And the cool thing aboutexercise is you can clear out
some of that glycogen that'sstuck in your muscles.
So the next time you eat afteryou exercise, instead of the
(05:04):
sugar having to kind of directlybe processed or put into like
made into fat or whatever, itcan just go in the storage place
because you've got room.
It's like I play this video gamecalled Pallia.
Shout out to any.
If any of you play Pallia, Idon't know, dm me or something,
(05:24):
because I want to be your friendon Pallia.
I'm obsessed with this game.
This is like my new like zoneout scroll activity, but it's
this free.
It's a free game on.
I played on Switch, on theNintendo Switch, but you can
play it on the PC as well, andit's like a cozy game, like
there's like a farming elementto it.
(05:45):
You like decorate your plot andyou know there's hunting and
fishing and bug catching andmining, and you know it's like a
cozy game, but there's nomonsters, there's no like time
pressure, whatever.
Anyway, you have a, you have allthese, you have an inventory,
okay, and so I'm like my innernerd is being revealed right now
.
So you have an inventory andyou, the inventory has a limit,
(06:09):
right, like it's like 10,000items that can be in this
inventory.
So you keep filling it up withdifferent stuff or whatever.
Eventually you hit your limitand then you know you can't
store any more stuff.
It it's going to have to bestored somewhere else.
So if you take that concept andapply it to the body, your
muscles have a certain amount ofstorage space and once they're
(06:33):
full, then you have to startstoring in other spaces, and
body fat is another storagespace.
But if we clear out some of ourinventory or some of our muscle
glycogen, then suddenly we haveall this space where we can
like throw some more stuff inthere.
So exercise, first and foremost,is really really effective for
(06:54):
insulin and blood sugarmanagement.
Another thing that it's reallyhelpful for is gut health.
So there are some studies thatshow that even if you don't
change your diet, justexercising differently will
change the makeup of your gutbacteria.
So that's pretty cool, we know.
If you've listened to me for awhile, you know gut bacteria and
inflammation kind of go hand inhand.
So it can be anti inflammatoryto exercise.
It can also be helpful for yourstress and adrenal responses.
(07:17):
And this is where we get intosome tricky territory, because
people will often point out thatexercising raises your cortisol
, and that's true.
But raising your cortisol isnot necessarily a bad thing.
Think about it this way If youthink about exercise as being a
stressor, right, it's a stressorthat then makes you more
resilient to other stressors.
(07:38):
So building muscle, for example, you're stressing the muscle
out, you're tearing the musclefibers a little bit, so you're
causing some damage, but therepairing of that damage
actually makes you stronger andmore resilient later on.
Same thing with bone density.
You do strength training, itincreases your bone density by
first kind of causing a littlebit of damage that, once it's
(07:58):
repaired, makes it stronger.
There are a lot of things likethat, and so our adrenal and
stress responses can be a littlebit like that too.
We bump up our cortisol.
But where the argument fallsapart for this sort of like you
don't want to bump your cortisolever with exercise thing is
that there's also ample evidencethat, let's say you are
(08:22):
stressed out, let's say you getlike a mean text or something,
or you check your Instagram DMsand somebody said something mean
to you.
You're going to spike yourcortisol, right, your blood
sugar is going to rise, etcetera.
I remember hearing in one of myfunctional medicine courses and
I'll see if I can pull up theexact study for this, but that
(08:43):
when you experience a stressorlike that, it actually is really
helpful in the moment to jumpup and down, exercise, run like
get some energy out and actuallyraise your cortisol, because
what's going to happen is thatit's going to help your nervous
system kind of almost get thisburst of energy out, which is
essentially what it's asking youto do by raising your blood
(09:04):
sugar and by raising those likestress hormones.
And so if you get that energyout right then and there then
the cortisol level comes downlower than baseline.
So it actually relaxes you.
And if you've ever kind of beenthrough something like that
before, you know like, let's say, you're going to give a speech,
right, you know how you kind ofwant to like pace and stuff
before the speech, like youdon't want to sit down because
(09:24):
you're like, ah, and you need tomove.
It's sort of like that.
And so in the context ofexercise itself, we're almost
priming those responses to be alittle bit more resilient to
day-to-day stressors.
And by exercising we may beraising our cortisol in the
moment, but we're also helpingour body to have a more balanced
(09:45):
cortisol response throughoutthe rest of life.
So the thing about exercise iswell, there are many things
about exercise obviously,because this is a podcast about
exercise but one of the thingsabout exercise is that it's
going to be really helpful to dosomething consistently for your
(10:07):
PCOS, even if it's maybe notnecessarily the ideal thing.
So there's like a lesser of twoevils option here.
If somebody is naturally moresedentary, then they are going
to benefit from really any kindof consistent exercise.
Where we get into trouble withoverstressing our bodies with
(10:30):
exercise is usually not withthat person.
So let me go backwards a littlebit.
I always think of exercise andlike folks with PCOS and
exercise, as being kind ofdivided into two groups.
One group is like 80% of us,the other group is 20% of us.
So the 80% of us are those ofus who are dealing with energy
(10:52):
issues.
We're tired, we kind of don'tfeel like it Get home from a
long day at work.
Who wants to like go out andtake a walk Like well, you know,
it's no fun.
We struggle to get movement in.
We sit a lot during the day ormaybe we have a job where we're
like kind of on our feet a lot,so we don't want to do anything
more than that.
We're already tired, right, andso the thought of exercising
makes us more feel more tiredand we're not waking up before
(11:16):
work to exercise.
You know, it's just like one ofthose things where it's a
constant struggle to kind ofmotivate ourselves to move.
That's about 80% of us, that'sa lot of us, right.
And on that side of things,like we may or may not be
dealing with weight issues, butwe tend more commonly to
struggle with like weight gain,weight maintenance, weight loss,
like, because movement andinsulin production and stuff
like that is an important pieceof managing that.
(11:37):
So you know, we don't always do, we don't always, we don't
always do the best with withmanaging that.
And I saying that from a placeof total compassion, cause I'm
one of those people like I'mwith you, I don't want to work
out, I just want to play Paliall night.
Anyway, then there's 20% ofpeople and this is my I've
noticed this kind of makeup inmy private practice because I've
(12:01):
been doing this for a long timeand so I will get different
types of people diagnosed withPCOS and they're so wildly
different from each other thatit's almost funny.
This 20% are your people whoare maybe they were like college
or professional athletes.
I see a lot of people who atsome point in time were like
semi-professional orprofessional athletes with PCOS.
(12:22):
Maybe they're a personaltrainer with PCOS or they do
some kind of like intense,regular activity, like they're
involved in some kind of likereally intense hobby or sport or
something like there's athey're doing, um, like they've
been crossfitting for like years.
You know that type, this type ofperson over here, has that kind
(12:46):
of push through the painmindset.
They often rely on exercise astheir stress relief.
So I typically will hear themsay things like well, I have to
exercise, like every day, if Idon't like, I just don't feel
like myself, I don't feel good,like it's a I don't want to say
it's a compulsion, but it's kindof a compulsion.
It's different from like, forexample, this, the 80% category
(13:09):
over here that we're talkingabout before.
You may feel better when youexercise and know that if you
don't exercise you're not goingto feel like yourself, you're
not going to have a good mood.
Like it's going to help you alot, but that knowing doesn't
necessarily overcome thetiredness and the lack of
motivation to actually do it.
Like you might think about howyou should do it, but actually
(13:30):
doing it is harder, right,there's more of a like I need to
force myself kind of vibe.
There's more of a willpowersort of vibe that has to be
pulled in that category Overhere.
This category it's almost likeit doesn't require a lot of
willpower for them because it'sso integral to their experience
of themselves as a person.
(13:50):
It's like they cannot notexercise, and some of them even
to the point where they have toexercise multiple times a day,
and oftentimes these peoplestruggle with high anxiety,
right, and so exercise calmsthem down and, you know, without
it they feel like there's justa lot of energy inside of them
that they just don't know how to, how to deal with or manage.
(14:11):
And so they use exercises.
They're kind of likeanti-anxiety tool and it can be
a very effective one for that.
And so they use exercise astheir kind of like anti-anxiety
tool and it could be a veryeffective one for that.
But the problem in this categoryis that these people tend to
kind of like push and push andpush and not know when they need
to rest and not listen whenthey need to rest.
So they tend to get injured,and then they rest while they're
recovering from an injury maybe, and then they go right back to
(14:32):
it.
Right, they push and push andpush and then they go right back
to it, right, they push andpush and push, and that kind of
level of pushing is what startsto stress their adrenals.
These people tend to like towake up really early and like
skip out on sleep so that theycan exercise.
They tend to like to dobootcamp type stuff or like
(14:52):
really intense HIIT exercises,like, like said, crossfit, or
they play a sport or somethinglike that, where they're
required to practice a lot.
That is a totally different vibe.
You know it.
If you know who you are, youknow which category you fall
into.
Okay, and there's variation,obviously across categories,
right, like there's people likeme who maybe fall more in the
80% category where we don'treally like to do it but we
(15:15):
build up the habit of exercisingor we find something that we
really enjoy doing, that'sexercise related, and find that
we can have consistency andactually a desire to go and do
it in those circumstances.
So we may look from the outsidelike we fall into the 20%
category because we exercise alot, but it's because we've
built the habit of it, notbecause it's naturally, like
(15:38):
it's what we use for our anxietyrelief and we're just like
compulsively overdoing it.
So the reason I'm giving youthis example of these two
different types of people isthat the whole slow, weighted
workouts thing and never doingany HIIT and never doing
anything intense and neverrunning and never doing any
endurance, cardio, et cetera, etcetera tends to be a
(15:59):
recommendation that I do have togive for a certain type of
person and it's that person,it's that 20% category.
Those people often need to stepback.
They need to incorporate moreactual rest days not active rest
days, but actual rest dayswhere they're not doing a lot.
They tend to do a quick45-minute hot yoga sesh and
(16:21):
that's their recovery day.
I'm like no, that's notrecovery.
These people need to actuallyrest.
They need to sleep more, theyneed to relax more.
They need to probably work onmindfulness and use their rest
days as a chance to work onmindfulness, meditation, stress
reduction.
That is not exercise-based,because that constant pushing
(16:43):
and pushing and pushing nowthat's what's damaging for the
adrenals, that's what's gettingthose stress hormones up, that
cortisol up all the time andeventually kind of like causing
the body to make a lot moreandrogens from that adrenal mode
.
So if you have high DHEAS, thenyou may be kind of in that
category that tends to sort ofgo along with it, but not always
(17:05):
.
But that is one way thatsometimes people will develop
worsening PCOS sometimes isbecause of overdoing it.
And so where this sort ofrecommendation of like only do
slow, weighted workouts comesfrom is acknowledging that that
is a very real category ofpeople that does exist.
But remember when I put youinto two categories and I said
(17:26):
80 and 20, because the realityis that the majority of us with
PCOS are not in that 20%category.
Some of you listening right noware are not in that 20%
category.
Some of you listening right noware, and you know, take a rest
day, babe, take a nap.
Some of us are in that category, even some of some of you who
(17:47):
are listening right now but mostof us are going to fall more in
the 80%.
Like we just kind of need to toto do more movement.
We need to put more effort intothat movement.
So telling the majority of usthat the only thing we can do to
not spike our stress hormonesis slow, weighted workouts is
well, number one, it's a littlebit misleading.
And number two, it's just likea little silly, honestly.
(18:11):
So what I saw was you knowanother nutritionist kind of
being like.
So what I saw was you knowanother nutritionist kind of
being like you don't need to dothat, like that's like overkill,
like any kind of exercise isgoing to spike your cortisol.
And that can be a good thing.
Like spiking cortisol is notnecessarily a bad thing and,
yeah, I fully agree, but I dothink that there is a type of
person that needs to kind ofcalm down a little bit with the
(18:33):
exercise.
I usually think they kind ofknow who they are, though
Sometimes they don't want toadmit it, but they know in their
soul that that's who they are.
So you know, you know.
But for the rest of us, what Iguess I want to get across is
you don't need to worry so muchabout exercise from the
standpoint of, like, what's okayto do, what's not okay to do.
(18:53):
So I get asked this question alot and reasonably realistically
.
I'm not a personal trainer,like I don't have any kind of
fitness certification.
So I may be speaking a littlebit out of turn by doing this,
but a lot of personal trainerstalk about nutrition too.
So I think we you know ourfields overlap a lot.
But this is what I've seen overthe years with people is that
(19:15):
the real issue with PCOSexercise is not that the type of
exercise we're doing is bad.
It's that we don't have enoughconsistency with them, and I
think we kind of sometimesstress ourselves out about that
too, which can be hard on ouradrenals, but it's not the
exercise itself that's causingthe problem.
What I have seen be kind of noteffective over the years, as
(19:38):
often is when people do just docardio.
So I see a lot of people wantto take up running.
They want to do like a couch to5k situation, which I've done
before, so I understand theimpulse.
So I see a lot of people kindof want to do something like
that.
Or a lot of people want to joina gym and they go get on the
elliptical.
You know it, a lot of peoplekind of want to do something
(20:00):
like that.
Or a lot of people want to joina gym and they go get on the
elliptical.
It doesn't tend to do very much, it doesn't tend to be that
helpful for their PCOS ingeneral, and I don't necessarily
think it's because those thingsare bad.
I think there's a way to dothem well and a way to not do
them well, but I don't thinkthey're necessarily bad.
I think the reason they're noteffective for PCOS is because
they're not paired with anystrength training.
And one thing that is true isthat strength training is very
important for PCOS.
(20:20):
I mean, I think it's importantin general because it's
important as a woman to increaseyour bone density, and strength
training does that.
It's important to increase yourmuscle mass, especially if
you're trying to lose weight,because that changes your
metabolic rate.
And if you have insulinresistance, it's really
important because strengthtraining does a lot more than
cardio for managing your insulinresistance and it's more
(20:43):
effective at clearing outglycogen and all that kind of
stuff and it also impacts youfor longer.
So where cardio is kind of likehelps you today, strength
training will help you for thenext three days because it
upregulates your muscles.
Strength training will help youfor the next three days because
it upregulates your muscles,because it upregulates your
metabolic rate for like 72 hoursafter strength training.
(21:09):
So the reason I think thatrunning and elliptical and stuff
doesn't tend to be thateffective for PCOS is mostly
because a lot of us don't reallywant to do the strength
training part and there's a lotto that right, sometimes we just
don't want to like we'reembarrassed.
That was a big thing for me,was like I don't necessarily
know how to use these machinesor like certainly I don't know
how to use the free weights andI don't want to embarrass myself
.
A lot of us are just like justtrying, like it's a struggle
(21:31):
enough just to get through thedoor of the gym, right, let
alone go and like actually haveto interact with the gym bros,
like they're always by the freeweights, you know.
So that's a big piece of it.
But my point here that I'mtrying to make is that with
(21:51):
exercise, there needs to be twothings involved.
We need to have cardiovascularexercise and that can look
different for different peopleand we need to have some
strength training.
So let's talk about thestrength training and what that
should look like.
The thing that I've seen to bemost effective is two to three
days a week of full body heavystrength training heavy and slow
(22:12):
.
There's something called thesuper slow method that I've
always done with strengthtraining with my trainer she's
the one that taught me that andbasically put a timer on for two
minutes and I do the weight.
It's a heavy weight, but I doit as slowly as I possibly can,
and so it's like the going backand forth.
That's really good and I don'texactly know why it's so
effective, but it works.
So two to three days a week Isee that more effective than
(22:33):
people who do like four sets of12 reps and they go like today's
upper day and tomorrow's legday and they go like four days a
week.
That also can be effective.
You just again consistency.
So the real problem withexercise and PCOS is finding
(22:54):
something that we can keep doingover and over and over and over
again, and the gym often is notthe best place to find.
So the gym can be a great toolfor getting your strength
training in if you struggle withgetting that.
But going to the gym andwalking on the treadmill and
(23:16):
then doing strength trainingthere's a subset of people who
love that and they canconsistently stick with that.
I think the majority of us findthat really boring and
triggering and after a few weeksor a few months or whatever, we
burn out on that.
I know I certainly have.
I've joined a gym many timesand I cannot make myself go to
(23:36):
the gym with any sort ofregularity or consistency
because I just don't enjoy it.
I just don't find it fun and alot of us are like that, you
know.
But we do need to get somestrength training in and I do
find that like slow and weighted, like heavy weighted workouts
are more effective.
I think this particularinfluencer likes to talk about
(23:56):
like lightweights, like I alwayssee their videos they're doing
like two pounds or five pounds,like really lightweight.
I don't necessarily think thatthat's as effective.
But if you have that's what youhave at home and you're doing
it at home like and it works foryou, I mean cool.
Some strength training isimportant, but when it comes to
the cardio piece, that's where alot of misinformation happens,
because you're often told andI'm pretty sure I've said this
(24:17):
in the past like don't run,don't do cardio.
My opinions on that havechanged a lot over the years
because I found that, you know,doing some cardio, as long as
it's paired with weights andappropriate rest times and it's
not overly focused on endurance,training can be really
effective.
So running we get in troublewith running when we start
(24:38):
wanting to run miles and milesand miles every day and not
giving our body appropriate timeto rest and not pairing it with
strength training and propernutrition.
Running is it's hard on yourbody, it's hard on your joints,
it's hard on your feet.
It's well known that running ishard on your body.
It's not necessarily known as avery effective exercise.
(25:00):
Now, some people love runningand if that's you cool, I would
say that with running, we wantto avoid too much endurance,
because that's where we start toget into overstressing our
bodies.
I think so I tend to recommendpeople keep it to like max of
like three miles and that theyhave like at least a couple of
(25:21):
rest days throughout the week,that they're not doing that
every single day.
And, you know, more focused onlike, almost like if you can do
more like speed based stuff, sowe call that sprints rather than
like just jogging.
But it's so, if you likejogging, then go jogging.
(25:44):
Just try to make sure thatyou're listening to your body
about when it needs rest.
And I would also say don'tsacrifice your sleep for it.
Blanket statement for anyexercise.
Do not sacrifice your sleep forexercise.
I know, with working full time,it can be really really hard to
find a time to actually doexercise.
I'm so lucky that I work fromhome so, if I wanted to, I could
(26:05):
get up right now and do someexercise.
I'm so lucky that I work fromhome so I can like, if I wanted
to, I could get up right now and, you know, do some exercise.
But the reality is that, eventhough I'm at home and some of
you are at home as well I'mworking and I don't want to take
a break in the middle of myworkday and work out, so I work
out in the evenings Now, is thatideal?
No, not necessarily.
The ideal time to exercise isprobably about 10 o'clock in the
(26:29):
morning, but who can do that Ifyou can count your blessings?
The reality of the world we livein is that we have two options.
We work out before work.
We have three options Work outbefore work, don't work out at
all, or work out after work,don't work out at all, or work
(26:50):
out after work, and a mix can befine, but I wouldn't want you
to sacrifice your sleep forexercise.
So, in order to exercise beforework, if you have to wake up at
like 4 am, just don't.
Don't Try to do it as close toafter work as possible so that
you can still get home and havea reasonable bedtime.
But that's neither here northere.
This is a very rambling one,guys.
I'm sorry.
I hope I'm not following mynotes at all.
So I hope, I hope you're stillgetting something out of this.
(27:12):
The biggest point I want to makehere is that exercise is good
for you, no matter what kindyou're doing, as long as it's
the difference between you doingnothing and you doing something
.
So if you're coming from aplace where you're doing, as
long as it's the differencebetween you doing nothing and
you doing something.
So if you're coming from aplace where you're not
exercising or not doing much andyou're bumping it up and the
(27:36):
way you're bumping it up is bydoing a couch to 5K do it.
It's the movement that'simportant.
There may come a time, if youget really into exercise, where
you start acting like the 20%crowd and it starts to really
affect your sleep and yourhormones and you'll know when
that happens because you'llstart having an increase in your
PCOS symptoms, you will starthaving sleep issues, you will
(28:00):
start having hair loss, You'llstart having stubborn weight
gain.
That doesn't make sense.
All that kind of stuff canhappen in that department too.
But there's a nice middleground that a lot of us can meet
and still do the things that welike to do.
And I also want you to thinkoutside the box with exercise a
little bit.
(28:20):
I've been really into dancingfor the last five years or so I
guess I don't know four yearsbut first it was pole dancing,
you know, and I did like tangolessons, and now I do Latin
dance, I do salsa and bachata.
That's a type of enduranceexercise.
There's a lot of endurancethere.
It's similar to running in alot of ways, but it's also a
(28:43):
really great mindfulnesspractice.
It's really fun, I love it andit helps a lot with keeping my
blood sugar balanced.
So, and the biggest benefit forme is that I like to do it
enough that I look forward togoing and I actually go and I
actually do it.
And for me that makes a bigdifference, because I'm the type
(29:04):
of person that if I don't wantto go do something, then I'm
always looking for excuses tofind a way to not do it and then
I end up not exercising thatmuch and my hormones suffer a
lot more by not doing anything.
And maybe dancing or running orwhatever it is that you like to
do is maybe not the most idealthing for your PCOS hormones,
(29:27):
but at least, if you like whatyou're doing, you'll get joy out
of it, and don't underestimatethe positive effects of joy.
You'll get joy out of it andyou'll be helping your PCOS
hormones by helping your insulinresistance and keeping your
blood sugar balanced, and thosebenefits are huge.
(29:47):
So try to find something thatyou really like.
Try to think outside the box,because a lot of things can be
exercise but maybe are notbilled as exercise.
Look outside of the gym Now.
I will say the gym often haslike classes, zumba things like
that.
That can be really fun and youcan build a community.
But for me, having a communityof people that I feel connected
(30:15):
to and that I enjoy spendingtime with and hobnobbing with
and all of that, that's whatkeeps me going and keeps me
going back to exercising, and Ioften find that in hobbyist type
stuff and not necessarily atthe gym.
The gym is a collection ofpeople who, most of them, are
not going to be consistentlygoing there.
The reality is that a lot ofpeople join the gym, do it for a
few months, cancel theirmemberships right, the types of
(30:37):
people who go to the gym all thetime and just keep going and
going and going forever and ever.
You know, there's not that manypeople like that and a lot of
them are gym bros who no offenseto gym bros but like they're
not really the types of peoplethat we're like making BFFs with
.
So try to find something thatis outside of the world of the
(30:59):
gym.
Look into things like Pilates.
Pilates can be a great exercisefor PCOS.
Look into things like, yeah,yoga studios.
I mean you can get a greatworkout doing yoga.
What else Dance?
Of course pole dancing.
I love pole dancing for PCOS,but also I've been enjoying
Latin dance a lot and I foundthat it's really helping me a
lot.
So there are lots of otherthings, sports, you know.
(31:23):
Find something that Okay.
Hey guys, I'm popping in herewith a little editor's note so
that I can inform you of what'sgoing to be happening the rest
of this podcast here.
So you may have noticed that Ipublished this and then had to
take it down, and I just wantedto kind of first of all explain
what happened and then let youknow and then thank those of you
(31:43):
who reached out to me, emilybeing one I can think of off the
top of my head, anyway.
So what happened was I edit intwo times speed, and I do that
so that it doesn't take me solong, and I, you know, usually
remember to change it back.
But this particular time Ididn't remember to change it
back, I think, because the firstlike minute of the podcast was
(32:04):
still on regular speed.
So trip me up.
Anyway, I published the thing,then didn't realize till later
that evening that it actuallywas like that, and so I was
super embarrassed but I came andtook it down.
It probably took a while tocome off of Spotify, but anyway
took it down and I would havejust republished it with the new
(32:28):
audio file.
But unfortunately, in themeantime between when I
published it and when I realizedthat it was messed up, I
actually deleted some of theoriginal files because I needed
space on my SD card to recordnew ones.
So the last little bit of thepodcast here I had to bring in
(32:51):
from the exported file and thenchange the speed down and
unfortunately when you do thatit's like it messes the audio
quality up a bit and so it justdoesn't sound as good and it's a
little bit like there's like Idon't know, it's just not going
to sound as good.
So I just wanted to let youknow I still think it's worth
listening to, but it may not beas enjoyable of a listening
(33:13):
experience.
But if you make it to the end,you know.
Thank you, I appreciate you andsorry for the inconvenience of
all of it.
And yeah, that's all I wantedto say.
(33:40):
Okay, bye, main point I'mmaking with this extremely
rambling podcast.
Thank God for you.
If you've made it this far, Iguess my point is the best
exercise you can do for yourPCOS is the one that you
actually do for your PCOS, theone that you actually do
regularly and the one thatbrings you the most joy.
(34:02):
Um, so, whatever that is,whatever that looks like, and
then watch out, watch yourself,watch how your body responds.
If you're responding in apositive way, you know if you're
, if you're losing weight andyour skin's clearing up and
you're feeling more energeticand you're feeling happier and
like all these good things arehappening.
Wait, keep doing what you'redoing.
That's working for you.
(34:24):
If eventually, you know youstart feeling like you don't,
you can't wake up anymore to goexercise.
Like, let's say, you decide tostart doing boot camps before
work, which I don't love, butlet's say you start doing that
and suddenly it becomes harderand harder and harder to get up.
Your body's fighting you.
You're tired during the daythat you're going to do a bunch
(34:44):
of things to push through.
Like that's when you'reprobably doing something that's
not ideal for you and especiallyif you start like losing hair
and things like that.
You know you may be pushing toofar in the other direction, but
for most of us it's really justabout the thing that you enjoy
enough to be consistent with,and consistency doesn't have to
last forever.
(35:04):
You don't have to put thepressure on yourselves to like
find the thing, find theexercise that's going to be your
exercise for the rest of yourlife.
Um, something that I've had tolearn is to not make things my
saving grace.
So much like to not be likeokay, this is the thing right.
Because for a long time I waslike oh, this is the thing, like
I'm gonna.
For a long time I was like oh,this is the thing, like, I'm
(35:26):
going to do pole dancing forever.
And then I started feeling, Istarted getting injured, I
started not feeling good havingto force myself to go and just
not like enjoying it as muchanymore.
My therapist was like I mean,were you going to be doing pole
dancing when you're like 90years old?
And I was laughing because I'mlike yeah, I guess I couldn't do
it forever.
But in my head I was like oh, Iloved this so much, it helped
(35:52):
me so much.
I have to do it forever Likeit's my thing Right, and that's
just like not true.
You know, I did it for a time.
It was really fun.
I loved it for so long I lovedit and I thought I would never
want to do anything else.
And then I didn't love it asmuch anymore and it started to
be harder on my body and so Idecided to do something
different.
And right now I'm doing this,and who knows how long I'll be
dancing.
You know, I I mean personally atthis moment in time I think
(36:14):
I'll always be dancing, at leastin some capacity.
But who knows?
But open yourself up to thefact that, like you can enjoy
something for a time and thenmove on.
And when you start feeling thatdesire to not do it anymore, to
do something different, that'swhen you start working.
What have I not tried?
What can I try next?
What could be my new thing?
Hey, just do, just do something.
(36:34):
Just do some exercise, even ifit's just walking around outside
.
Don't worry about all thesemantics of like oh my god,
does it have to be slow?
Does it have to be fast?
Does it have to be hit?
Does it have to not Whatever?
Just do what speaks to you andtry to find a balance.
And I have reached out to avery popular PCOS fitness
influencer very recently and shesaid she'll come on the podcast
(36:56):
, so hopefully we will get heron here and I will ask her her
opinions about this and she'smore of an expert.
For now, let's see what's on.
And thanks for listening.
Guys, thanks for hanging onthis one.
Now I saw some of some of youhave left me some reviews.
Well, I saw one new review, sothank you to to you who gave me
the review.
I really appreciate it.
(37:17):
This podcast like desperatelyneeds reviews.
Um, because the podcast is soold it it?
Uh, it doesn't get pushed asmuch.
Um because, like it wasn't very, it wasn't that popular for the
first few years.
I wasn't super consistent withit.
So in order for it to likeactually reach the bigger
audience it needs, like, we needreviews to kind of show that
the podcast is still.
You know, we're growing it's,it's improving and sound quality
(37:41):
is better, all that kind ofstuff.
So if you have not left areview for the podcast on iTunes
specifically is where it's themost helpful, but you can also
review on Spotify, please,please do.
And I would love to.
You know I love when you guystype a little note for me about
what you like about the podcast.
It makes me feel so good.
So thank you to those of youwho have done that and thank
no-transcript.
Hello everyone, welcome back to An Amber A Day,
the functional PCOS nutritionpodcast.
I'm your host, amber Fisher,and thanks for being here.
Today we're going to talk aboutexercise and PCOS.
I've been seeing somecontroversial opinions online so
I thought I'd throw my hat inthe ring and give you guys my
opinion on exercise for PCOS.
(00:20):
Oh, how are you guys?
You doing good, I'm doing good.
I've been sticking to my littleorganized schedule here.
So I think you've been seeingthere have been more podcasts
coming out lately.
So you know I'm very proud ofmyself for that.
It's not easy for me.
I'm not historically a superorganized person, but just
sticking to a schedule hasreally, really helped me.
(00:42):
So if you have ever beencurious about like, how to do
that or you know need some tipsor whatever, I interviewed a
friend of mine named ReneeClaire who does a lot of work on
time blocking.
She's been on the podcast acouple of times.
So if you go back and scrollback, I think I way back in
season one.
I interviewed her like back in2020, I want to say and then I
(01:03):
interviewed her like back in2020, I want to say and then I
interviewed her last yearsometime.
So those are really interestingpodcasts if you need some help
getting organized.
Okay, let's talk about exercise.
Have you ever wondered whatkind of exercise you should be
doing?
There's a lot of stuff outthere, right.
So the reason I decided torecord this one today is because
(01:23):
this morning I was on storiesand I saw some people getting in
a fight about exercise for PCOS, because there is this one
particular influencer who hasreally capitalized on marketing
slow, weighted workouts for PCOSand it upsets a lot of other
(01:44):
people, other nutritionprofessionals.
So I saw this little argumenthappening online and I thought
let me talk about exercise today, because I have been thinking a
lot about exercise lately andjust how important and helpful
it is, how much it's been reallyhelping my mood lately.
I talked to you guys a coupleweeks ago about my struggles
(02:06):
with depression, and exercisehas been my real saving grace
throughout that process.
Without it I don't know whereI'd be right now mentally.
So I think the importance of itfor that aspect of PCOS is not
to be denied, and there's sometruth to the fact as well that
(02:26):
there are some things that tendto work better with PCOS or tend
to be more supportive ofhormone health than others.
But then there's also this kindof element of like people
around PCOS and throwing offyour hormones even more.
(02:54):
So let's talk about some of thebenefits of exercise first.
So exercise in and of itself,separate from nutrition, plays a
big role in PCOS.
It's like one of those pillarsthere's kind of three big
pillars of a PCOS-friendly life,and those pillars are healthy
(03:15):
diet, exercise, consistentexercise and stress reduction
stuff.
So in and of itself, even ifyou didn't alter the other two
things, just incorporating aregular exercise routine could
make a big difference for yourPCOS, especially if your PCOS is
(03:35):
driven a lot by insulinresistance.
So some of the cool things thatexercise does is not only does
it kind of like burn starchesand things that are in your
system that you're digesting orwhatever.
It helps clear out your bloodsugar, but it also helps clear
space in your storage areas.
So our muscles and our liver aswell can store glucose, which is
(04:00):
a well, they store glycogen.
Sorry, glycogen is like astorage form of glucose and
glucose is the sugar that's likein our blood.
So when you say blood sugar,that's glucose in the sugar in
the blood and glycogen is whenour body takes it and puts it
into storage form and thenstores it in our muscles, and
(04:20):
the cool thing about that isthat it's there when we need it.
So we um, we store it in casewe need to run away from
something or in case, and thisis why, when you get stressed,
sometimes your blood sugarspikes.
So this is why sometimes, whenyou're stressed or you know
something stressful happens, youyou'll spike your blood sugar
because you store sugar in yourbody and your body's going to
(04:44):
pull on it when you might needsome energy.
Sugar is energy.
Your body's going to pull on itwhen it needs energy.
So glycogen is the storage formof this and we're storing it in
our muscles.
And the cool thing aboutexercise is you can clear out
some of that glycogen that'sstuck in your muscles.
So the next time you eat afteryou exercise, instead of the
(05:04):
sugar having to kind of directlybe processed or put into like
made into fat or whatever, itcan just go in the storage place
because you've got room.
It's like I play this video gamecalled Pallia.
Shout out to any.
If any of you play Pallia, Idon't know, dm me or something,
(05:24):
because I want to be your friendon Pallia.
I'm obsessed with this game.
This is like my new like zoneout scroll activity, but it's
this free.
It's a free game on.
I played on Switch, on theNintendo Switch, but you can
play it on the PC as well, andit's like a cozy game, like
there's like a farming elementto it.
(05:45):
You like decorate your plot andyou know there's hunting and
fishing and bug catching andmining, and you know it's like a
cozy game, but there's nomonsters, there's no like time
pressure, whatever.
Anyway, you have a, you have allthese, you have an inventory,
okay, and so I'm like my innernerd is being revealed right now
.
So you have an inventory andyou, the inventory has a limit,
(06:09):
right, like it's like 10,000items that can be in this
inventory.
So you keep filling it up withdifferent stuff or whatever.
Eventually you hit your limitand then you know you can't
store any more stuff.
It it's going to have to bestored somewhere else.
So if you take that concept andapply it to the body, your
muscles have a certain amount ofstorage space and once they're
(06:33):
full, then you have to startstoring in other spaces, and
body fat is another storagespace.
But if we clear out some of ourinventory or some of our muscle
glycogen, then suddenly we haveall this space where we can
like throw some more stuff inthere.
So exercise, first and foremost,is really really effective for
(06:54):
insulin and blood sugarmanagement.
Another thing that it's reallyhelpful for is gut health.
So there are some studies thatshow that even if you don't
change your diet, justexercising differently will
change the makeup of your gutbacteria.
So that's pretty cool, we know.
If you've listened to me for awhile, you know gut bacteria and
inflammation kind of go hand inhand.
So it can be anti inflammatoryto exercise.
It can also be helpful for yourstress and adrenal responses.
(07:17):
And this is where we get intosome tricky territory, because
people will often point out thatexercising raises your cortisol
, and that's true.
But raising your cortisol isnot necessarily a bad thing.
Think about it this way If youthink about exercise as being a
stressor, right, it's a stressorthat then makes you more
resilient to other stressors.
(07:38):
So building muscle, for example, you're stressing the muscle
out, you're tearing the musclefibers a little bit, so you're
causing some damage, but therepairing of that damage
actually makes you stronger andmore resilient later on.
Same thing with bone density.
You do strength training, itincreases your bone density by
first kind of causing a littlebit of damage that, once it's
(07:58):
repaired, makes it stronger.
There are a lot of things likethat, and so our adrenal and
stress responses can be a littlebit like that too.
We bump up our cortisol.
But where the argument fallsapart for this sort of like you
don't want to bump your cortisolever with exercise thing is
that there's also ample evidencethat, let's say you are
(08:22):
stressed out, let's say you getlike a mean text or something,
or you check your Instagram DMsand somebody said something mean
to you.
You're going to spike yourcortisol, right, your blood
sugar is going to rise, etcetera.
I remember hearing in one of myfunctional medicine courses and
I'll see if I can pull up theexact study for this, but that
(08:43):
when you experience a stressorlike that, it actually is really
helpful in the moment to jumpup and down, exercise, run like
get some energy out and actuallyraise your cortisol, because
what's going to happen is thatit's going to help your nervous
system kind of almost get thisburst of energy out, which is
essentially what it's asking youto do by raising your blood
(09:04):
sugar and by raising those likestress hormones.
And so if you get that energyout right then and there then
the cortisol level comes downlower than baseline.
So it actually relaxes you.
And if you've ever kind of beenthrough something like that
before, you know like, let's say, you're going to give a speech,
right, you know how you kind ofwant to like pace and stuff
before the speech, like youdon't want to sit down because
(09:24):
you're like, ah, and you need tomove.
It's sort of like that.
And so in the context ofexercise itself, we're almost
priming those responses to be alittle bit more resilient to
day-to-day stressors.
And by exercising we may beraising our cortisol in the
moment, but we're also helpingour body to have a more balanced
(09:45):
cortisol response throughoutthe rest of life.
So the thing about exercise iswell, there are many things
about exercise obviously,because this is a podcast about
exercise but one of the thingsabout exercise is that it's
going to be really helpful to dosomething consistently for your
(10:07):
PCOS, even if it's maybe notnecessarily the ideal thing.
So there's like a lesser of twoevils option here.
If somebody is naturally moresedentary, then they are going
to benefit from really any kindof consistent exercise.
Where we get into trouble withoverstressing our bodies with
(10:30):
exercise is usually not withthat person.
So let me go backwards a littlebit.
I always think of exercise andlike folks with PCOS and
exercise, as being kind ofdivided into two groups.
One group is like 80% of us,the other group is 20% of us.
So the 80% of us are those ofus who are dealing with energy
(10:52):
issues.
We're tired, we kind of don'tfeel like it Get home from a
long day at work.
Who wants to like go out andtake a walk Like well, you know,
it's no fun.
We struggle to get movement in.
We sit a lot during the day ormaybe we have a job where we're
like kind of on our feet a lot,so we don't want to do anything
more than that.
We're already tired, right, andso the thought of exercising
makes us more feel more tiredand we're not waking up before
(11:16):
work to exercise.
You know, it's just like one ofthose things where it's a
constant struggle to kind ofmotivate ourselves to move.
That's about 80% of us, that'sa lot of us, right.
And on that side of things,like we may or may not be
dealing with weight issues, butwe tend more commonly to
struggle with like weight gain,weight maintenance, weight loss,
like, because movement andinsulin production and stuff
like that is an important pieceof managing that.
(11:37):
So you know, we don't always do, we don't always, we don't
always do the best with withmanaging that.
And I saying that from a placeof total compassion, cause I'm
one of those people like I'mwith you, I don't want to work
out, I just want to play Paliall night.
Anyway, then there's 20% ofpeople and this is my I've
noticed this kind of makeup inmy private practice because I've
(12:01):
been doing this for a long timeand so I will get different
types of people diagnosed withPCOS and they're so wildly
different from each other thatit's almost funny.
This 20% are your people whoare maybe they were like college
or professional athletes.
I see a lot of people who atsome point in time were like
semi-professional orprofessional athletes with PCOS.
(12:22):
Maybe they're a personaltrainer with PCOS or they do
some kind of like intense,regular activity, like they're
involved in some kind of likereally intense hobby or sport or
something like there's athey're doing, um, like they've
been crossfitting for like years.
You know that type, this type ofperson over here, has that kind
(12:46):
of push through the painmindset.
They often rely on exercise astheir stress relief.
So I typically will hear themsay things like well, I have to
exercise, like every day, if Idon't like, I just don't feel
like myself, I don't feel good,like it's a I don't want to say
it's a compulsion, but it's kindof a compulsion.
It's different from like, forexample, this, the 80% category
(13:09):
over here that we're talkingabout before.
You may feel better when youexercise and know that if you
don't exercise you're not goingto feel like yourself, you're
not going to have a good mood.
Like it's going to help you alot, but that knowing doesn't
necessarily overcome thetiredness and the lack of
motivation to actually do it.
Like you might think about howyou should do it, but actually
(13:30):
doing it is harder, right,there's more of a like I need to
force myself kind of vibe.
There's more of a willpowersort of vibe that has to be
pulled in that category Overhere.
This category it's almost likeit doesn't require a lot of
willpower for them because it'sso integral to their experience
of themselves as a person.
(13:50):
It's like they cannot notexercise, and some of them even
to the point where they have toexercise multiple times a day,
and oftentimes these peoplestruggle with high anxiety,
right, and so exercise calmsthem down and, you know, without
it they feel like there's justa lot of energy inside of them
that they just don't know how to, how to deal with or manage.
(14:11):
And so they use exercises.
They're kind of likeanti-anxiety tool and it can be
a very effective one for that.
And so they use exercise astheir kind of like anti-anxiety
tool and it could be a veryeffective one for that.
But the problem in this categoryis that these people tend to
kind of like push and push andpush and not know when they need
to rest and not listen whenthey need to rest.
So they tend to get injured,and then they rest while they're
recovering from an injury maybe, and then they go right back to
(14:32):
it.
Right, they push and push andpush and then they go right back
to it, right, they push andpush and push, and that kind of
level of pushing is what startsto stress their adrenals.
These people tend to like towake up really early and like
skip out on sleep so that theycan exercise.
They tend to like to dobootcamp type stuff or like
(14:52):
really intense HIIT exercises,like, like said, crossfit, or
they play a sport or somethinglike that, where they're
required to practice a lot.
That is a totally different vibe.
You know it.
If you know who you are, youknow which category you fall
into.
Okay, and there's variation,obviously across categories,
right, like there's people likeme who maybe fall more in the
80% category where we don'treally like to do it but we
(15:15):
build up the habit of exercisingor we find something that we
really enjoy doing, that'sexercise related, and find that
we can have consistency andactually a desire to go and do
it in those circumstances.
So we may look from the outsidelike we fall into the 20%
category because we exercise alot, but it's because we've
built the habit of it, notbecause it's naturally, like
(15:38):
it's what we use for our anxietyrelief and we're just like
compulsively overdoing it.
So the reason I'm giving youthis example of these two
different types of people isthat the whole slow, weighted
workouts thing and never doingany HIIT and never doing
anything intense and neverrunning and never doing any
endurance, cardio, et cetera, etcetera tends to be a
(15:59):
recommendation that I do have togive for a certain type of
person and it's that person,it's that 20% category.
Those people often need to stepback.
They need to incorporate moreactual rest days not active rest
days, but actual rest dayswhere they're not doing a lot.
They tend to do a quick45-minute hot yoga sesh and
(16:21):
that's their recovery day.
I'm like no, that's notrecovery.
These people need to actuallyrest.
They need to sleep more, theyneed to relax more.
They need to probably work onmindfulness and use their rest
days as a chance to work onmindfulness, meditation, stress
reduction.
That is not exercise-based,because that constant pushing
(16:43):
and pushing and pushing nowthat's what's damaging for the
adrenals, that's what's gettingthose stress hormones up, that
cortisol up all the time andeventually kind of like causing
the body to make a lot moreandrogens from that adrenal mode
.
So if you have high DHEAS, thenyou may be kind of in that
category that tends to sort ofgo along with it, but not always
(17:05):
.
But that is one way thatsometimes people will develop
worsening PCOS sometimes isbecause of overdoing it.
And so where this sort ofrecommendation of like only do
slow, weighted workouts comesfrom is acknowledging that that
is a very real category ofpeople that does exist.
But remember when I put youinto two categories and I said
(17:26):
80 and 20, because the realityis that the majority of us with
PCOS are not in that 20%category.
Some of you listening right noware are not in that 20%
category.
Some of you listening right noware, and you know, take a rest
day, babe, take a nap.
Some of us are in that category, even some of some of you who
(17:47):
are listening right now but mostof us are going to fall more in
the 80%.
Like we just kind of need to toto do more movement.
We need to put more effort intothat movement.
So telling the majority of usthat the only thing we can do to
not spike our stress hormonesis slow, weighted workouts is
well, number one, it's a littlebit misleading.
And number two, it's just likea little silly, honestly.
(18:11):
So what I saw was you knowanother nutritionist kind of
being like.
So what I saw was you knowanother nutritionist kind of
being like you don't need to dothat, like that's like overkill,
like any kind of exercise isgoing to spike your cortisol.
And that can be a good thing.
Like spiking cortisol is notnecessarily a bad thing and,
yeah, I fully agree, but I dothink that there is a type of
person that needs to kind ofcalm down a little bit with the
(18:33):
exercise.
I usually think they kind ofknow who they are, though
Sometimes they don't want toadmit it, but they know in their
soul that that's who they are.
So you know, you know.
But for the rest of us, what Iguess I want to get across is
you don't need to worry so muchabout exercise from the
standpoint of, like, what's okayto do, what's not okay to do.
(18:53):
So I get asked this question alot and reasonably realistically
.
I'm not a personal trainer,like I don't have any kind of
fitness certification.
So I may be speaking a littlebit out of turn by doing this,
but a lot of personal trainerstalk about nutrition too.
So I think we you know ourfields overlap a lot.
But this is what I've seen overthe years with people is that
(19:15):
the real issue with PCOSexercise is not that the type of
exercise we're doing is bad.
It's that we don't have enoughconsistency with them, and I
think we kind of sometimesstress ourselves out about that
too, which can be hard on ouradrenals, but it's not the
exercise itself that's causingthe problem.
What I have seen be kind of noteffective over the years, as
(19:38):
often is when people do just docardio.
So I see a lot of people wantto take up running.
They want to do like a couch to5k situation, which I've done
before, so I understand theimpulse.
So I see a lot of people kindof want to do something like
that.
Or a lot of people want to joina gym and they go get on the
elliptical.
You know it, a lot of peoplekind of want to do something
(20:00):
like that.
Or a lot of people want to joina gym and they go get on the
elliptical.
It doesn't tend to do very much, it doesn't tend to be that
helpful for their PCOS ingeneral, and I don't necessarily
think it's because those thingsare bad.
I think there's a way to dothem well and a way to not do
them well, but I don't thinkthey're necessarily bad.
I think the reason they're noteffective for PCOS is because
they're not paired with anystrength training.
And one thing that is true isthat strength training is very
important for PCOS.
(20:20):
I mean, I think it's importantin general because it's
important as a woman to increaseyour bone density, and strength
training does that.
It's important to increase yourmuscle mass, especially if
you're trying to lose weight,because that changes your
metabolic rate.
And if you have insulinresistance, it's really
important because strengthtraining does a lot more than
cardio for managing your insulinresistance and it's more
(20:43):
effective at clearing outglycogen and all that kind of
stuff and it also impacts youfor longer.
So where cardio is kind of likehelps you today, strength
training will help you for thenext three days because it
upregulates your muscles.
Strength training will help youfor the next three days because
it upregulates your muscles,because it upregulates your
metabolic rate for like 72 hoursafter strength training.
(21:09):
So the reason I think thatrunning and elliptical and stuff
doesn't tend to be thateffective for PCOS is mostly
because a lot of us don't reallywant to do the strength
training part and there's a lotto that right, sometimes we just
don't want to like we'reembarrassed.
That was a big thing for me,was like I don't necessarily
know how to use these machinesor like certainly I don't know
how to use the free weights andI don't want to embarrass myself
.
A lot of us are just like justtrying, like it's a struggle
(21:31):
enough just to get through thedoor of the gym, right, let
alone go and like actually haveto interact with the gym bros,
like they're always by the freeweights, you know.
So that's a big piece of it.
But my point here that I'mtrying to make is that with
(21:51):
exercise, there needs to be twothings involved.
We need to have cardiovascularexercise and that can look
different for different peopleand we need to have some
strength training.
So let's talk about thestrength training and what that
should look like.
The thing that I've seen to bemost effective is two to three
days a week of full body heavystrength training heavy and slow
(22:12):
.
There's something called thesuper slow method that I've
always done with strengthtraining with my trainer she's
the one that taught me that andbasically put a timer on for two
minutes and I do the weight.
It's a heavy weight, but I doit as slowly as I possibly can,
and so it's like the going backand forth.
That's really good and I don'texactly know why it's so
effective, but it works.
So two to three days a week Isee that more effective than
(22:33):
people who do like four sets of12 reps and they go like today's
upper day and tomorrow's legday and they go like four days a
week.
That also can be effective.
You just again consistency.
So the real problem withexercise and PCOS is finding
(22:54):
something that we can keep doingover and over and over and over
again, and the gym often is notthe best place to find.
So the gym can be a great toolfor getting your strength
training in if you struggle withgetting that.
But going to the gym andwalking on the treadmill and
(23:16):
then doing strength trainingthere's a subset of people who
love that and they canconsistently stick with that.
I think the majority of us findthat really boring and
triggering and after a few weeksor a few months or whatever, we
burn out on that.
I know I certainly have.
I've joined a gym many timesand I cannot make myself go to
(23:36):
the gym with any sort ofregularity or consistency
because I just don't enjoy it.
I just don't find it fun and alot of us are like that, you
know.
But we do need to get somestrength training in and I do
find that like slow and weighted, like heavy weighted workouts
are more effective.
I think this particularinfluencer likes to talk about
(23:56):
like lightweights, like I alwayssee their videos they're doing
like two pounds or five pounds,like really lightweight.
I don't necessarily think thatthat's as effective.
But if you have that's what youhave at home and you're doing
it at home like and it works foryou, I mean cool.
Some strength training isimportant, but when it comes to
the cardio piece, that's where alot of misinformation happens,
because you're often told andI'm pretty sure I've said this
(24:17):
in the past like don't run,don't do cardio.
My opinions on that havechanged a lot over the years
because I found that, you know,doing some cardio, as long as
it's paired with weights andappropriate rest times and it's
not overly focused on endurance,training can be really
effective.
So running we get in troublewith running when we start
(24:38):
wanting to run miles and milesand miles every day and not
giving our body appropriate timeto rest and not pairing it with
strength training and propernutrition.
Running is it's hard on yourbody, it's hard on your joints,
it's hard on your feet.
It's well known that running ishard on your body.
It's not necessarily known as avery effective exercise.
(25:00):
Now, some people love runningand if that's you cool, I would
say that with running, we wantto avoid too much endurance,
because that's where we start toget into overstressing our
bodies.
I think so I tend to recommendpeople keep it to like max of
like three miles and that theyhave like at least a couple of
(25:21):
rest days throughout the week,that they're not doing that
every single day.
And, you know, more focused onlike, almost like if you can do
more like speed based stuff, sowe call that sprints rather than
like just jogging.
But it's so, if you likejogging, then go jogging.
(25:44):
Just try to make sure thatyou're listening to your body
about when it needs rest.
And I would also say don'tsacrifice your sleep for it.
Blanket statement for anyexercise.
Do not sacrifice your sleep forexercise.
I know, with working full time,it can be really really hard to
find a time to actually doexercise.
I'm so lucky that I work fromhome so, if I wanted to, I could
(26:05):
get up right now and do someexercise.
I'm so lucky that I work fromhome so I can like, if I wanted
to, I could get up right now and, you know, do some exercise.
But the reality is that, eventhough I'm at home and some of
you are at home as well I'mworking and I don't want to take
a break in the middle of myworkday and work out, so I work
out in the evenings Now, is thatideal?
No, not necessarily.
The ideal time to exercise isprobably about 10 o'clock in the
(26:29):
morning, but who can do that Ifyou can count your blessings?
The reality of the world we livein is that we have two options.
We work out before work.
We have three options Work outbefore work, don't work out at
all, or work out after work,don't work out at all, or work
(26:50):
out after work, and a mix can befine, but I wouldn't want you
to sacrifice your sleep forexercise.
So, in order to exercise beforework, if you have to wake up at
like 4 am, just don't.
Don't Try to do it as close toafter work as possible so that
you can still get home and havea reasonable bedtime.
But that's neither here northere.
This is a very rambling one,guys.
I'm sorry.
I hope I'm not following mynotes at all.
So I hope, I hope you're stillgetting something out of this.
(27:12):
The biggest point I want to makehere is that exercise is good
for you, no matter what kindyou're doing, as long as it's
the difference between you doingnothing and you doing something
.
So if you're coming from aplace where you're doing, as
long as it's the differencebetween you doing nothing and
you doing something.
So if you're coming from aplace where you're not
exercising or not doing much andyou're bumping it up and the
(27:36):
way you're bumping it up is bydoing a couch to 5K do it.
It's the movement that'simportant.
There may come a time, if youget really into exercise, where
you start acting like the 20%crowd and it starts to really
affect your sleep and yourhormones and you'll know when
that happens because you'llstart having an increase in your
PCOS symptoms, you will starthaving sleep issues, you will
(28:00):
start having hair loss, You'llstart having stubborn weight
gain.
That doesn't make sense.
All that kind of stuff canhappen in that department too.
But there's a nice middleground that a lot of us can meet
and still do the things that welike to do.
And I also want you to thinkoutside the box with exercise a
little bit.
(28:20):
I've been really into dancingfor the last five years or so I
guess I don't know four yearsbut first it was pole dancing,
you know, and I did like tangolessons, and now I do Latin
dance, I do salsa and bachata.
That's a type of enduranceexercise.
There's a lot of endurancethere.
It's similar to running in alot of ways, but it's also a
(28:43):
really great mindfulnesspractice.
It's really fun, I love it andit helps a lot with keeping my
blood sugar balanced.
So, and the biggest benefit forme is that I like to do it
enough that I look forward togoing and I actually go and I
actually do it.
And for me that makes a bigdifference, because I'm the type
(29:04):
of person that if I don't wantto go do something, then I'm
always looking for excuses tofind a way to not do it and then
I end up not exercising thatmuch and my hormones suffer a
lot more by not doing anything.
And maybe dancing or running orwhatever it is that you like to
do is maybe not the most idealthing for your PCOS hormones,
(29:27):
but at least, if you like whatyou're doing, you'll get joy out
of it, and don't underestimatethe positive effects of joy.
You'll get joy out of it andyou'll be helping your PCOS
hormones by helping your insulinresistance and keeping your
blood sugar balanced, and thosebenefits are huge.
(29:47):
So try to find something thatyou really like.
Try to think outside the box,because a lot of things can be
exercise but maybe are notbilled as exercise.
Look outside of the gym Now.
I will say the gym often haslike classes, zumba things like
that.
That can be really fun and youcan build a community.
But for me, having a communityof people that I feel connected
(30:15):
to and that I enjoy spendingtime with and hobnobbing with
and all of that, that's whatkeeps me going and keeps me
going back to exercising, and Ioften find that in hobbyist type
stuff and not necessarily atthe gym.
The gym is a collection ofpeople who, most of them, are
not going to be consistentlygoing there.
The reality is that a lot ofpeople join the gym, do it for a
few months, cancel theirmemberships right, the types of
(30:37):
people who go to the gym all thetime and just keep going and
going and going forever and ever.
You know, there's not that manypeople like that and a lot of
them are gym bros who no offenseto gym bros but like they're
not really the types of peoplethat we're like making BFFs with
.
So try to find something thatis outside of the world of the
(30:59):
gym.
Look into things like Pilates.
Pilates can be a great exercisefor PCOS.
Look into things like, yeah,yoga studios.
I mean you can get a greatworkout doing yoga.
What else Dance?
Of course pole dancing.
I love pole dancing for PCOS,but also I've been enjoying
Latin dance a lot and I foundthat it's really helping me a
lot.
So there are lots of otherthings, sports, you know.
(31:23):
Find something that Okay.
Hey guys, I'm popping in herewith a little editor's note so
that I can inform you of what'sgoing to be happening the rest
of this podcast here.
So you may have noticed that Ipublished this and then had to
take it down, and I just wantedto kind of first of all explain
what happened and then let youknow and then thank those of you
(31:43):
who reached out to me, emilybeing one I can think of off the
top of my head, anyway.
So what happened was I edit intwo times speed, and I do that
so that it doesn't take me solong, and I, you know, usually
remember to change it back.
But this particular time Ididn't remember to change it
back, I think, because the firstlike minute of the podcast was
(32:04):
still on regular speed.
So trip me up.
Anyway, I published the thing,then didn't realize till later
that evening that it actuallywas like that, and so I was
super embarrassed but I came andtook it down.
It probably took a while tocome off of Spotify, but anyway
took it down and I would havejust republished it with the new
(32:28):
audio file.
But unfortunately, in themeantime between when I
published it and when I realizedthat it was messed up, I
actually deleted some of theoriginal files because I needed
space on my SD card to recordnew ones.
So the last little bit of thepodcast here I had to bring in
(32:51):
from the exported file and thenchange the speed down and
unfortunately when you do thatit's like it messes the audio
quality up a bit and so it justdoesn't sound as good and it's a
little bit like there's like Idon't know, it's just not going
to sound as good.
So I just wanted to let youknow I still think it's worth
listening to, but it may not beas enjoyable of a listening
(33:13):
experience.
But if you make it to the end,you know.
Thank you, I appreciate you andsorry for the inconvenience of
all of it.
And yeah, that's all I wantedto say.
(33:40):
Okay, bye, main point I'mmaking with this extremely
rambling podcast.
Thank God for you.
If you've made it this far, Iguess my point is the best
exercise you can do for yourPCOS is the one that you
actually do for your PCOS, theone that you actually do
regularly and the one thatbrings you the most joy.
(34:02):
Um, so, whatever that is,whatever that looks like, and
then watch out, watch yourself,watch how your body responds.
If you're responding in apositive way, you know if you're
, if you're losing weight andyour skin's clearing up and
you're feeling more energeticand you're feeling happier and
like all these good things arehappening.
Wait, keep doing what you'redoing.
That's working for you.
(34:24):
If eventually, you know youstart feeling like you don't,
you can't wake up anymore to goexercise.
Like, let's say, you decide tostart doing boot camps before
work, which I don't love, butlet's say you start doing that
and suddenly it becomes harderand harder and harder to get up.
Your body's fighting you.
You're tired during the daythat you're going to do a bunch
(34:44):
of things to push through.
Like that's when you'reprobably doing something that's
not ideal for you and especiallyif you start like losing hair
and things like that.
You know you may be pushing toofar in the other direction, but
for most of us it's really justabout the thing that you enjoy
enough to be consistent with,and consistency doesn't have to
last forever.
(35:04):
You don't have to put thepressure on yourselves to like
find the thing, find theexercise that's going to be your
exercise for the rest of yourlife.
Um, something that I've had tolearn is to not make things my
saving grace.
So much like to not be likeokay, this is the thing right.
Because for a long time I waslike oh, this is the thing, like
I'm gonna.
For a long time I was like oh,this is the thing, like, I'm
(35:26):
going to do pole dancing forever.
And then I started feeling, Istarted getting injured, I
started not feeling good havingto force myself to go and just
not like enjoying it as muchanymore.
My therapist was like I mean,were you going to be doing pole
dancing when you're like 90years old?
And I was laughing because I'mlike yeah, I guess I couldn't do
it forever.
But in my head I was like oh, Iloved this so much, it helped
(35:52):
me so much.
I have to do it forever Likeit's my thing Right, and that's
just like not true.
You know, I did it for a time.
It was really fun.
I loved it for so long I lovedit and I thought I would never
want to do anything else.
And then I didn't love it asmuch anymore and it started to
be harder on my body and so Idecided to do something
different.
And right now I'm doing this,and who knows how long I'll be
dancing.
You know, I I mean personally atthis moment in time I think
(36:14):
I'll always be dancing, at leastin some capacity.
But who knows?
But open yourself up to thefact that, like you can enjoy
something for a time and thenmove on.
And when you start feeling thatdesire to not do it anymore, to
do something different, that'swhen you start working.
What have I not tried?
What can I try next?
What could be my new thing?
Hey, just do, just do something.
(36:34):
Just do some exercise, even ifit's just walking around outside
.
Don't worry about all thesemantics of like oh my god,
does it have to be slow?
Does it have to be fast?
Does it have to be hit?
Does it have to not Whatever?
Just do what speaks to you andtry to find a balance.
And I have reached out to avery popular PCOS fitness
influencer very recently and shesaid she'll come on the podcast
(36:56):
, so hopefully we will get heron here and I will ask her her
opinions about this and she'smore of an expert.
For now, let's see what's on.
And thanks for listening.
Guys, thanks for hanging onthis one.
Now I saw some of some of youhave left me some reviews.
Well, I saw one new review, sothank you to to you who gave me
the review.
I really appreciate it.
(37:17):
This podcast like desperatelyneeds reviews.
Um, because the podcast is soold it it?
Uh, it doesn't get pushed asmuch.
Um because, like it wasn't very, it wasn't that popular for the
first few years.
I wasn't super consistent withit.
So in order for it to likeactually reach the bigger
audience it needs, like, we needreviews to kind of show that
the podcast is still.
You know, we're growing it's,it's improving and sound quality
(37:41):
is better, all that kind ofstuff.
So if you have not left areview for the podcast on iTunes
specifically is where it's themost helpful, but you can also
review on Spotify, please,please do.
And I would love to.
You know I love when you guystype a little note for me about
what you like about the podcast.
It makes me feel so good.
So thank you to those of youwho have done that and thank
no-transcript.
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