August 8, 2023 • 64 mins
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Today we're covering a highly requested topic: weight loss in PCOS! Specifically, I'm going to cover why it actually is harder to lose weight and what can be done.
Today's discussion focuses on the interrelationship between PCOS, insulin resistance, and weight loss. You'll learn how insulin, a hormone that cues your body to store fat, can become a barrier to your weight loss journey. We're also shedding light on leptin resistance and its role in intuitive eating, which many with PCOS find challenging.
In the latter part of our conversation, we delve into the roles of stress hormones, chronic inflammation, and insulin resistance in PCOS. Grasp how to strike a balance between activity and rest, understand the role of food sensitivities in inflammation, and realize the importance of breaking the leptin resistance cycle.
You'll also learn why measurements and progress photos can be more effective for tracking body composition changes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome back to an Amber Day.
I'm your host, amber Fisher,and today is the topic of all
topics we're talking aboutweight loss in PCOS.
So first of all I just want todo a few little disclaimers.
You know, because this is asensitive topic, I feel like
it's my responsibility as atrained nutrition professional
(00:26):
to give you all the informationthat I know.
I also like to share with youguys the information that I've
sort of gathered over the years,anecdotally, and I know that
weight loss is a topic that alot of us, you know, struggle
with.
It's something that like we'rereally interested in but we also
sort of feel maybe embarrassedabout being interested in, or we
(00:46):
feel like it's not okay tothink about weight loss, or we
feel like we're obsessed withweight loss.
So it's just a tricky topicbecause you know, on the one
hand, as a nutritionist you candip very quickly into diet
culture and I hope nothing I saytoday does that.
I'm just going to try to layout the facts and be honest.
But on the other hand, I alsodon't feel like it's responsible
(01:11):
for me to not talk aboutsomething as important to people
as weight loss just becauseit's something that a lot of us
sort of either feel that we needto do or our doctors are
telling us we must do, and we doknow that in some circumstances
weight loss is something thatwill be helpful for our health.
It can reduce pain and increasequality of life with energy and
(01:35):
things like that.
So there are some benefits toweight loss in certain
situations.
But I do also know that a lotof us with PCOS are coming from
places where we have historiesof disordered eating, things
like that, and so talking aboutweight loss can be triggering.
So if that's you, you may notwant to tune in for this one,
and that's okay, I love youstill and I will see you next
(01:57):
week.
Well, next week.
This year the podcast have notbeen coming every week, and you
guys know.
But next time we have a podcastI will see you.
But for those of you who stickaround, what we're going to talk
about today is why weight lossin PCOS is difficult because
(02:17):
you're not crazy, it is harder,why that's happening, whether
the scientific reasons for that,what are the underlying sort of
things going on, and we'regoing to talk about kind of the
pillars of PCOS nutrition andlifestyle that help with weight
loss and why that works, so that, ideally, my goal by the end of
(02:39):
today's podcast is to get youto switch your mindset a bit or
reframe your thinking from hyper, focusing on the weight itself
and even body composition ingeneral, and moving more towards
looking at the deeper reasonswhy someone with PCOS struggles
with weight loss.
Focusing on those thingsBecause this is off.
(03:01):
This is root cause nutrition,right.
So the goal is to get us deeplydown into the body as we can,
and things like weight, thingslike hormones, should improve
with time if we can do that.
Okay, so that's the goal fortoday.
I have the very best ofintentions but again, as I said,
this is a triggering topic, sobear with me, be patient with me
(03:25):
.
All right, so let's well.
First of all, I want to say acouple of things before I get
into everything.
So couple of little updates onme and what's going on in my
sphere.
You guys probably know I'vebeen taking a little bit of a
break.
You know my, my executivefunctioning is not what it used
to be pre pandemic.
I don't know if it's.
(03:47):
I had a child in late 2019, likeI had a hysterectomy, so I've
been through menopause.
A lot has happened to me in thelast four years and it's been a
little hard on my brain and sothat's been tough because I
always used to be somebody whowas like very, very, very good
at remembering details.
(04:08):
I had probably the one of thebest memories of anybody that
I've ever known.
I think it's part of the reasonwhy of how I got to where I am,
with just knowing facts andknowledge and things about PCOS,
because I just absorb stufflike a sponge and that that's
not necessarily the case anymore.
I still have my old knowledgeand I can build new knowledge,
(04:29):
but it's different.
You know, I forget things more.
I'm just like in my day to daylife I'm a little bit more
forgetful, foggy, that kind ofthing, and so and also a little
overwhelmed, honestly.
I mean, I'm running a full timepractice, got to my business, I
have all this social mediastuff and just different things,
(04:51):
so there's a lot of my play andI'm a mom and so I sometimes
have to take a step back fromfrom stuff that's a little too
overwhelming.
And social media is kind of oneof the first things that just
wears on me because it's thenecessity of posting so often.
You know it's like if I don'tpost often enough, then my
(05:17):
content doesn't go anywhere andit sort of feels like what's the
point of making this ifnobody's going to see it?
Then at the same time, you knowI'm posting all the time and
it's just so much, it's a lot ofpressure and so sometimes I
just, sometimes I just have tostop for a while.
So I took some time off in July.
I'm getting, I'm gearing backup and the goal is to get more
(05:38):
organized for the fall I'mhaving.
I hired some people to help mea little bit with organization
and stuff.
So we'll see, but that's thegoal there.
The other thing that's going onis that Hannah Mule, who runs
the conscious nutritionist, youguys know I've run a group
program with her for the lastlittle over a year.
We've run, I think, four orfive programs together and we
(06:02):
work really well together,hannah and I.
You know we have complimentarystrengths and so we want to
continue doing that.
But we're going to change theformat up a little bit.
Hannah is announced recentlythat she's pregnant and so we
don't have much time left beforeshe's probably going to take
(06:24):
some time off, obviously tomaternity leave and stuff like
that.
So we are going to run one moreprogram this fall, kind of a
back to school, get ready forPCOS type of deal, and it's
going to be a little shorterthan our normal program.
Our normal program is about 12weeks, so this one we're not.
We haven't done the fullplanning yet, but we're looking
(06:46):
at something shorter, probablymaybe around four weeks,
something like that and it'sgoing to be more condensed but
kind of like the reallyimportant information that you
need.
We're going to cut out some ofthe extra stuff that maybe isn't
as important but is kind ofinteresting to have.
We're also going to condensedown how often we have meetings
(07:07):
and so we're going to have themeetings more frequently so that
you can still get a lot of theinformation.
It's still going to come withmeal plans and all that, and
everybody who's done the groupshas had a great experience.
To my knowledge, I have a lotof positive feedback.
I haven't had any negativefeedback yet.
Let me say that.
So we've had a really good timerunning them and really, really
(07:28):
enjoyed it.
So we want to keep doing it.
Anyway, we're going to run thisgroup.
Since it is going to be shorter.
The financial cost, the cost toenroll, is going to be a lot
less than previous groups havebeen, so it may be a little bit
more financially feasible foryou.
If you had wanted to join oneof our groups before but felt it
(07:50):
was too expensive for you atthe time, this may be your lucky
fall, so I'd love to see you Ifyou are interested in that.
We don't have any of the like,specific like.
We don't have the sales page upyet or it's in very early
stages of planning.
So my suggestion would be tomake sure that you're on my
(08:12):
email newsletter list.
You can join that by visitingmy website, and then I would
also say if, for some reason,you have issues there, just send
an email to the podcast andAmber a day podcast at gmailcom
and we can get you on thewaiting list or what have you.
But yeah, I would love to seesome of you guys there.
(08:36):
I love to meet podcast griliesAnyway.
So let's get into today's topicand talk a little bit about Hoyt
loss in PCOS.
I'm going to pull up some stuffthat I made here to keep me on
topic.
Okay, so the reason I'm doingthis podcast today is because
(08:57):
currently on Instagram andTikTok I'm running a little PCOS
myths series.
So I sat down and I wrote outall the things I could think of
that I hear people say sometimesand I'm just like, why are
people still saying that?
Like that's not true and juststuff.
That kind of gets on my nerves.
And I think I talked about someof my controversial opinions in
(09:18):
the last podcast as well, ifyou're interested in that.
But one of the big ones that Iwrote down was weight loss
related, because I'm alwayshearing people say that it's
impossible to lose weight withPCOS.
It's just like you're justdoomed to keep gaining weight or
to at least to stay the sameweight.
Like it's just not even worthtrying because it's totally
impossible and it's PCOS isfault.
(09:38):
Like the implication is thatyou have PCOS, you know, and
that's just.
It's just something you haveand there's nothing you can do
about it.
And so you know, one of thethings that it does is it makes
you gain, gain weight, and it'slike it's a very.
The concept is like blaming, thelike as if you have a disease
(10:01):
and you blame the disease.
It's like a side effect of thedisease that you, that you're
overweight, kind of similar toto hypothyroidism, right, it's
the same concept like yourthyroid's not working well and
that prevents your body fromfrom managing weight properly,
and so you're overweight becauseof your thyroid.
But with PCOS there's no likemagic pill or drug, you know.
(10:24):
I mean, besides metformin,ozimpic stuff like that can be
helpful, but that's anothertopic for another time.
There's really nothing thatlike taking thyroid medicine can
help with the thyroid.
So that's the concept.
There's truth and myth in that.
So if you have felt like it'simpossible for you to lose
(10:46):
weight, if you've reallystruggled, if it's been like you
gain and gain and it seems likeyou gain faster than other
people, there's nothing that youfeel like you can do.
You're not crazy.
There is truth in that it does.
Pcos, especially uncontrolledPCOS, makes it very difficult to
lose weight, very easy to gainweight.
So if you live a lifestylewhere you eat a you know, weight
(11:09):
loss friendly diet I don't know80% of the time, but 20% of the
time you don't think about thatand you you know, I don't know
eat whatever, then if you'remore prone to storing body fat,
you could store more body fatduring that time and
(11:30):
simultaneously lose less bodyfat during the times when you're
not, when you are, you know,paying attention, leading to
equilibrium right, leading tonot dropping anything at all or
sometimes, depending on you,know what's going on, gaining
weight.
So you're not crazy, it's not aweird concept Like, it's not
(11:51):
totally untrue.
I guess that's what I'm tryingto say.
It absolutely is more difficultto lose weight with PCOS because
of factors outside of yourcontrol.
However, there are solutions tothose issues.
So the things that cause it tobe difficult to gain, to lose
weight in PCOS, they do havesome nutritional solutions or
(12:15):
some nutrition methods that areeffective for improving them.
So let's talk about what someof these things are today and we
can, you know, go down the listof like what the underlying
factor is, why it's affectingyou and what you can do about it
(12:35):
.
So the difference betweensomeone with PCOS and someone
without PCOS on a weight lossjourney is that, without PCOS as
a factor, you cut your calories.
Your body responds by droppingbody fat because it's not
(12:57):
getting enough to eat, so it'lleat its own fat cells and that's
basically how it works, right,and it works pretty well if
you're pretty disciplined.
And this is why so many peoplewho have lost weight point the
finger at those of us with PCOSand kind of like make it, make
(13:19):
it, they make it our faultBecause they're like well, I've
done it and I've seen lots ofother people do it and all they
had to do is be disciplined.
And you must not just not bedisciplined, but if you've ever
truly tried to lose weight withPCOS, you know that even if
you're disciplined, you might beable to lose some weight, but
(13:40):
you stall out like it's really.
It takes a long time, goes alot slower and it's just a
really frustrating experiencewhich does lead to less
compliance with programs andthings like that.
Because, like, who wants tostand something?
That's not working right.
So the normal person withoutPCOS is going to just eat less.
(14:01):
Their bodies can respond bylosing weight.
Unfortunately, in PCOS we haveall these conflating,
confounding comorbidities, allthese little factors that get in
the way right.
So we have the biggest issue,which is insulin resistance, but
we also have something calledleptin resistance that's based
(14:26):
off of that insulin resistance.
We've got stress, hormonecraziness, we've got chronic
inflammation and, paired withthat, sometimes we don't have a
good grasp of what our caloricneeds are or our activity needs
are, and that can impact things.
So you just have moreopportunities to not be aligned.
(14:51):
Basically, with PCOS, there'smore factors fighting against
you than somebody who doesn'thave PCOS, and that can make it
very difficult and can make youwant to give up, and it can make
you make it very difficult foryou to figure out, like, exactly
what path to go down.
The other thing that I think Iwon't probably talk a ton about
(15:12):
is just energy.
You know a lot of us with PCOSbecause of these other issues,
and each one of them can causeenergy issues, honestly, but we
tend to be a little bit moretired than the average person
and that makes it hard tomotivate, like you know.
I mean, I relate to that somuch, especially just the way my
(15:32):
life has been the last fouryears where I've been doing
everything the same, but alsobeing a mom, like it's been
tough to keep my energy levelshigh enough to focus on me at
all, and so you know, havingenergy is kind of a precursor to
like being motivated.
You have to have that energyfirst in order to actually get
(15:56):
up and do anything and makechanges.
And the frustrating thing aboutenergy, too, is that sometimes
if you get up and you move andyou go like I don't know, go do
some exercise or whatever youfeel better after.
You have more energy after, butthen the feeling fades and you
have to keep doing that to getthat feeling and it's just that
(16:19):
initial motivation to get up anddo it.
That's really, really tough andit is a little bit worse in
PCOS than in your average personand so that makes it tough to
motivate, right.
But let's talk about some ofthese other factors.
So first we'll go over insulinresistance.
I know I've talked a ton aboutthis before, so if this is your
(16:39):
first podcast here, I'll giveyou the basics, but I would
highly recommend going backwardsand listening to some of my
specific insulin resistancepodcasts.
I have several of them.
By the way, guys, I'm puttingthis podcast together the day
before I'm going to actuallypost it, so I probably won't
(17:01):
have time to do like a ton ofediting like I normally do.
So bear with me on the ums andthe pauses.
This is how I talk, but Iusually edit it out so that it's
not such a frustratinglistening experience for you.
But I'm not going to have timeto do as much of that with this
particular podcast, so bear withme, okay.
(17:22):
So insulin resistance.
I've done lots of topics onthis before, a lot of podcasts
on this before and lots ofInstagram content for sure on
this.
All of us with PCOS are dealingwith some level of insulin
resistance.
This is pretty much across theboard, like there's really very
little evidence that folks withPCOS don't have some type of
(17:43):
insulin resistance.
What's often happening if youdon't think you have insulin
resistance is that it hasn'tbeen measured properly for you.
Most people's blood work thatthey get is like so base level.
It often doesn't show PCOSinsulin resistance, because PCOS
insulin resistance cansometimes be in earlier stages
or it can be something calledhyperinsulinemia, which is where
(18:03):
we have high insulin levels,but it doesn't necessarily
affect our blood sugar.
So the early stage, earlierstages of like insulin
resistance are your body makingenough insulin, so it's bringing
your blood sugar down the wayit needs to, so that on paper it
looks normal, but actually it'sthat excessive insulin that's
(18:23):
causing all the problems.
So you know that's the issue.
Now, how it affects weight lossand weight is that insulin is a
fat storage hormone.
So your body, when it has a lotof extra insulin, it's going to
prefer to store fat overanything else.
(18:45):
So we know this.
If you look at you know thereyou can look up PubMed studies
on, like the insulincarbohydrate model theory of
obesity, for example and this isnot unique to PCOS.
This is something that manydifferent chronic health
conditions deal with.
Anything that's got any sort ofinsulin base.
(19:07):
You know, diabetic conditions,things like that, and a lot of
obesity issues surround thissort of phenomenon, where the
calories don't matter so much asthe composition of the food
itself, because if the foodthat's being consumed forces the
(19:28):
body to make more insulin thanyou know your average person,
then you are going to prefer tostore body fat over somebody who
doesn't have insulin resistance.
And so what happens over timeis that you know you got to eat
every day, right, and so lifegoes on and you're making too
(19:50):
much insulin and so you'vealways got this extra little bit
of preference for fat storage.
So if you're eating more thanyou need, you're going to store
more than you need of body fat,and we'll get into calories in a
(20:10):
little bit, because caloriesare complicated.
It's not as simple as likecalories and calories out like
that.
That's been debunked.
I don't.
You know, most of the timeyou're going to hear that kind
of information from, likepersonal trainers and fitness
bros and stuff who don't have adeeper nutrition education.
(20:30):
They just kind of have like abase level of like performance
level nutrition education.
But this has long been debunkedthat it's all calories and
calories out.
It's really not how it works,because hormones and other
factors do play a role in weightcomposition.
So we'll talk about calories ina little bit.
But one thing that you shouldknow is that they do matter some
(20:52):
.
It's not like they don't matterat all.
If you overeat, your body isgoing to have to do something
with that material and it'sgoing to put it into fat.
So the problem with insulinresistance is that you're
already prone to that.
So then if you overeat, it'slike you're really prone to that
.
Everything's amplified.
(21:13):
Your experience of fat storageis amplified versus somebody
else, and so even when you cutcalories, if you're not also
accounting for insulinresistance, then you're still
going to struggle with your bodyhaving that insulin and wanting
to store it as fat.
It's like looking to store itas fat, whereas somebody else
(21:37):
who doesn't have insulinresistance their body might not
do that, and that can be a realbummer.
I can just tell you right now Imean, you guys can't tell what I
look like on the internet, I'monly showing you from the waist
up, but I do carry my body fatin my middle.
I've struggled with my weightmy whole life.
(21:57):
I've been a yo-yo'd over theyears depending on what was
going on, and it really wasn'tuntil I got a good basic
understanding ofinsulin-friendly eating that
things started to reallystabilize for me and I found
that I'm not the thinnest personyou've ever seen in your life
(22:19):
for sure.
I'm a very average size, butit's a healthy size for me and
the real key is that it doesn'tshift and change a ton, so I'm
not gaining 40 pounds in a fewmonths and then having to lose
that and then regaining andyo-yoing and stuff.
(22:42):
I'm stable and that's what agood understanding of
insulin-friendly nutrition cando for you can help you
stabilize and even if you needto drop some weight.
So insulin is a fat storagehormone.
Your body's going to prefer tostore fat when it's got too much
insulin in the system.
(23:03):
Insulin also throws off yourhormones because it's insulin
really that does a lot of thetriggering of the testosterone.
So insulin is kind of thetrigger that tells your ovaries
to make too much testosteroneand then the testosterone's
where a lot of your PCOS obvioussymptoms come from your facial
hair and hair loss and all theacne and things like that.
(23:26):
They're oftentimes driven bythat high androgen level or the
high testosterone level andthat's triggered by the insulin.
So those things, thosedownstream things, those hormone
imbalances, can also lead tosome issues with weight
maintenance and weight gainbecause you can start to get
(23:48):
kind of estrogen dominant overtime.
I'm pretty sure there's apodcast on estrogen dominance
that's too complicated to gointo today, but you can get kind
of estrogen dominant over time.
You've got too much estrogen inyour system.
Your body doesn't like to letgo of fat.
It's like it kind of feeds theproblem.
So not only is controllinginsulin important for
(24:09):
controlling weight but it's alsoimportant for controlling that
excess hormone production thatcauses all the other PCOS
symptoms.
So that's the good thing andthe bad thing.
It's kind of a.
It's a double-edged sword,because it's good in the sense
that you focus on one thing.
You make big changes to a wholerange of things.
It's bad because if you don'tfocus on that one thing you're
(24:33):
not going to see much movementand unfortunately a lot of the
information that you get out onthe internet at large is not
going to be super insulinfriendly.
A lot of the things that yourfriends and family have done to
lose weight are probably notgoing to be super insulin
friendly and they may not workwell for you, and so it can be
confusing.
(24:55):
And you know the other, theother downside of it is like you
got to do something about it,but you, unfortunately, with
PCOS, we have this like theburden of, of action, right,
like I guess technically wecould not do anything about it
at all and just sort of acceptit, and there are some people
that do that.
But if we want to feel anysemblance of like just decent,
(25:22):
then we often have to do thingsthat other people don't have to
think about.
You know, let me give you myhusband, for example Cool, six
foot three, just a little skinnyrail.
He's never, ever and he's we're, we're in our mid thirties now,
so he's starting to kind of,you know, start to get a little
(25:44):
dad bod.
But he's always been so thinand it really truly doesn't
matter what he eats.
And we've run experiments beforebecause I'm like I love to run
experiments.
Okay, so we've run experimentsbefore where we've eaten the the
the same thing, but likeadjusted for our uh, bmis or
(26:04):
whatever.
So he's a little taller than me, so obviously he's metabolic
rate is higher.
But I used to have this bodyscanning.
It's like professional bodyscanning machine that would give
you a really accurate BMR.
So basal metabolic rate, by theway, is what that means, which
is the minimum amount ofcalories that your body needs to
sort of function.
So we'd run these experimentswhere we would eat according to
(26:25):
that, but basically eat the samestuff, eat the same amount.
I'm five, eight, by the way, sonot too much shorter than him.
Anyway, you should have seen thecraziness that ensued.
I mean my body if, if I'm notjust so careful with, with, kind
(26:47):
of how I feed it, it does notrespond the way you would expect
.
It doesn't respond according tothe math, and I think that's
the case for most of us withPCOS.
We can run all these onlinecalculators do my fitness pal,
the weight watchers, whateverand let them tell us how much of
this and how much, how manycalories, we need to eat.
(27:08):
But at the end of the day, ourbodies don't work the same way
as other people's bodies and ifwe're not accounting for those,
those differences, we're notgoing to be very successful.
So it was just funny because itwould be like we'd go, we'd get
like about the same thing.
I'd always eat a little bitless than him, but you know
essentially the same thing and Iwould gain weight very rapidly
(27:33):
from you know some of this stuffand not a not a thing would
happen to him.
So lovely, we just love thatfor me.
But I know you guys can relate,so that's why I tell you that
personal story.
But yeah, insulin resistance isis what's going on with that?
And that is a commonalityacross even people who don't
(27:58):
have weight issues in PCOS.
Most of them are dealing withinsulin resistance as well.
It's just there is kind of likethere can be some genetic
changes to how much fat storageyour body prefers.
There is a subtype of insulinresistance where they're really
thin and they struggle to put onweight, but that's a topic for
(28:19):
another time.
That is not what we're here totalk about today.
Okay, so that's insulinresistance, and insulin
resistance can drive this otherissue that I want to talk to you
about, which is leptinresistance, and leptin
resistance is.
Leptin is a hormone that tellsyou what you want to eat and
(28:39):
it's a hormone that tells youwhen you are full.
Have you ever had any troublewith that.
So I definitely have personalexperience with this and also
see this with my clients quite abit.
With PCOS it can be so hard toknow when you've had enough,
when you haven't had enough,when you've had too much, when
you've had just right.
It's so hard to knowintuitively from your physical
(29:03):
body signals if you're noteating too much food or not
eating enough food.
Why is this?
Shouldn't it be easy?
Shouldn't our body just tell usoh, you're full, stop eating.
That would be lovely if thatwas true, but unfortunately
that's not what happensoftentimes in PCOS, because
(29:24):
we're dealing with this thingcalled leptin resistance.
This is where we get intotalking about kind of the
overall concept of intuitiveeating, or at least how people
think about intuitive eating andwhy it sometimes doesn't work
very well for PCOS.
Because if we're only listeningto hunger cues to tell us when
(29:47):
we're done eating or when we'vehad enough, oftentimes in PCOS
our hunger cues are warped.
We won't be able to figure outthe right equilibrium with that.
We have to use other cues toknow when we are full or not
full.
That's because of leptinresistance.
(30:10):
When we have leptin resistance,it's similar to insulin
resistance.
Our body doesn't listen to thesignal from leptin.
It's not listening to thatsignal that's saying I'm full,
it's resistant to it.
So the body is making moreleptin and then, over time, you
start to get this warped, likeyour brain's, like I don't know
how much leptin we need to cueus, that we need to stop eating.
(30:34):
The way it plays outpractically in your day-to-day
life is just.
You probably will feel fullslightly later than someone who
doesn't have leptin resistance,but that can build up over time,
because, if I like to use theexample of cheesecake factory,
(30:56):
this is where my leptinresistance comes out.
I love the cheesecake factory.
This is my theory on cheesecakefactory.
It's like the most Americanrestaurant.
I think people talk aboutburgers, fries.
I mean they have burgers andfries, but the cheesecake
factory is America.
It's just so over the top.
(31:17):
It looks like Disney World.
The menu is so insane.
It's America guys.
Anyway, the cheesecake piecesare like the size of your head.
You go to cheesecake factory,and person without leptin
resistance will probably getmaybe halfway through a piece of
(31:40):
that cheesecake and be likenope, cannot keep going, I'm
getting sick, I feel physicallyill.
Someone with leptin resistance,though, won't get that cue
right away.
They may get three quarters ofthe way full.
They may eat the whole piece ofcheesecake and only afterwards
would they feel like, oh my gosh, I really feel nauseous, I feel
(32:01):
sick, I ate too much.
Whatever that's what leptinresistance does is it slows down
your reaction to those cues.
You don't know when you've hadenough or when you haven't had
enough.
That is so difficult when itcomes to weight loss, especially
if you're trying to do it in anintuitive way, because we hear
(32:21):
all the time that it's notmentally healthy it's a count
and to count carbs or countcalories or this or that, or
have too much structure, becausethat can be triggering
emotionally, mentally.
On the same token, if we don'tdo that and we have leptin
resistance, sometimes we reallystruggle and we end up gaining
(32:44):
weight without really intendingto, because we don't know what's
too much, what's not enough.
It can be really really tough.
My solution to that, to leptinresistance, is a combination of
factors.
I think it's helpful for folkswith PCOS to have, if possible,
a professional create astructure for them at the
(33:07):
beginning.
I don't have my clients countcalories and count carbs, but I
do that for them when I create ameal plan for them and I give
them a template, basically, ofhow many servings a day do I
want them to have this category,that category?
I break it down acrosscategories where I've already
(33:29):
done the math of this is howmany carbs-ish a day I want this
person having.
This is how much protein I wantthem having.
This is how many calories Iwant them having.
All that kind of stuff I justincorporated into that structure
of telling them how manyportions they have the structure
of saying I know I need to eatthis many portions of meat, I
need to eat this many portionsof vegetables, I need to eat
(33:49):
this many portions of grains,and this is how I'm going to
spread them out throughout theday, because Amber doesn't want
me having all of them at onemeal or whatever.
That's the specificity that Iget into with them.
But their experience of it is,if they follow it, they just
know I'm eating this portion ofthis, this portion of that and
(34:11):
at the end of the day it's goingto add up to what is ideal for
the body.
If that's possible for you, Ithink that's really really
helpful at the beginning becauseyou just may need an outside
objective perspective to tellyou you can do that work on your
own.
You can figure that stuff outon your own.
(34:32):
There are enough free toolsonline to do that.
But it gets a littlecomplicated if you don't have
the training and how to domacros and how to figure out how
many calories you need and allthat kind of stuff.
I do cover all of that in agood amount of depth in both of
(34:53):
my courses.
So if you're new to PCOS andyou're new to eating for PCOS
and for the root cause, youwould probably like PCOS
Foundations my course first,because that's kind of my intro
to PCOS course.
It's not surface levelinformation, it goes deep.
I want to say it's got five orsix hour long video modules on
(35:18):
specific PCOS topics so you geta lot of information.
But it's kind of a four weekmeal plan, like the meal plans,
organized to kind of help youstart understanding portions a
little bit better and it's agood place to start and I only
charge $49 for it.
So it's a good value if you'rejust getting started.
(35:40):
But if you are beyond that alittle bit and you've been doing
PCOS nutrition for a while andyou want to get even deeper with
it, there's a big weight losssection in functional PCOS,
which is like my kind of moreintense in depth course.
So if those interest you andyou want a little bit of a
(36:04):
little bit of that informationbut you're not ready to hire
somebody to do it, then checkthem out.
But I think it's helpful at thebeginning to have a bit of a
structure so that your brain canget used to that structure,
because over time if you kind ofeat like this, similar portions
and amounts of stuff, you startto get used to it and you start
(36:24):
to expect it and that's kind oflike you know, this is what I
eat, right.
So that's helpful at thebeginning.
And the other thing that I findhelpful is accounting for the
PCOS pillars of nutrition first,which we're going to get into,
and then pairing calories on topof that.
(36:45):
So insulin resistance is thefirst pillar, right.
And if we eat a diet that'sfriendly for insulin resistance
and we pair in appropriateamounts of calories based on
calculating your basal metabolicrate and all that stuff, the
pair of those two things can bevery effective for weight loss.
(37:07):
But it has to be together,Because if you're just doing
calories, it may work for youfor a while but it's probably
not going to work as fast as itcould and blah, blah, blah.
So how do we eat well forinsulin resistance.
How do we support that?
The biggest things with insulinresistance are making sure that
(37:30):
you are eating a low glycemicdiet.
So if you go and Google, likeglycemic load, glycemic index of
foods, you'll see charts withrankings of what the glycemic
index or the glycemic load is ofthese foods, and there's a
difference between index andload.
(37:51):
Glycemic load is the scorebased on what you would probably
eat, like what a typicalportion size is, whereas
glycemic index is based allaround just the original.
I think the first thing thatthey ever glycemic index was
(38:12):
like a slice of white bread orsomething.
So you look at the glycemicindex versus load of carrots,
for example, and glycemic indexof carrots is really high, but
the glycemic load is pretty lowbecause most people are not
going to eat however many gramsof carrots at one time.
They're probably going to eat adifferent amount because of the
(38:35):
fiber Anyway.
So glycemic load is a littlebit more accurate.
So I recommend that one, butglycemic index can be helpful
too.
Anyway, if you look up chartson that, you can find scores and
rankings for different foodsthat can help give you an idea
of what foods to prioritize.
So prioritize the lower indexfoods and what foods to limit
(38:55):
higher index foods.
That's a great place to start.
Another great place to start iswith a Mediterranean diet.
That's got good positiveresearch for PCOS and it's a
great starter diet.
I have a podcast on how to doit for PCOS as well.
(39:16):
The other things to considerare increasing your fiber amount
and increasing your proteinamount.
Fiber is gonna have a lot ofbenefits for your health, but
the main one for insulinresistance is that it slows down
digestion and the slower youdigest stuff, the less insulin
you need to pump out at any onetime.
So it helps with that.
(39:38):
Protein does the same.
Fiber and protein also fill youup faster and keep you full
longer, and that preventsovereating.
So the more protein, the better, the more fiber, the better.
Protein needs are verydifferent across people, but I
generally say like try to aimfor about 30 grams at each meal.
Sometimes that's hard to do atbreakfast, but other meals it
(40:00):
seems to be pretty doable.
Generally like around 100 gramsa day tends to be good amount
for weight loss, but again it'sdifferent person to person.
And then balanced activitylevels.
I mean you're not probablygonna get too far working on
insulin resistance if you're notincreasing your activity.
And there was a time when I wasvery pro only strength training
(40:24):
and like light walking and nocardio whatsoever.
My opinions on that haveshifted a little bit because I
have seen that like if there's atype of cardio that you really
love, that really makes youhappy, and you can do that kind
of cardio regularly, that doesreally tend to help with insulin
(40:45):
resistance.
So a good example would be I'vebeen taking salsa lessons for a
while now and it's cardio, it'spure cardio.
There's not a bit of strengthgoing on with it, but it's so
fun.
It relieves stress because it'sfun and I enjoy it.
It keeps me motivated and Ikeep going and it has helped
(41:06):
with my insulin levels, myinsulin resistance.
So choosing some strengthexercises is probably the most
important because those aregoing to impact your insulin
resistance longer term.
More muscle mass helps withinsulin resistance and having
enough strength training in yourlife will improve your insulin
(41:31):
resistance like 72 hours, Ithink, after a strength training
exercise or strength trainingday.
So it helps longer term withthe way that you process insulin
.
But having daily cardio is alsoimportant, and so if you're just
(41:53):
getting started, walking isgreat, but also consider looking
into something that maybeyou've always been a little
scared to do, but it's alwayssomething fun.
Like that's dance for me.
I've always wanted to do it,but been a little nervous too,
because I don't want toembarrass myself.
But you never know, until youtry, if you're going to be good
at something, and sometimes whenyou get involved in some sort
(42:16):
of community, it keeps you a lotmore motivated.
I've found that to be true formyself when it comes to pole.
You guys know I've been doingpole dance for the last two
years I'm at a high intermediate, almost advanced level now
solely because I made friends atthe studio and it was fun to go
(42:39):
because of those people.
I mean, I like doing it too,but I don't know that I would
have been motivated to continueif I hadn't felt like I was part
of a community and that therewas something to strive for.
And same thing with dance.
It's like I'm building acommunity, there are levels that
you work up to and it's fun.
So see if you can findsomething like that.
(43:00):
Exercise doesn't have to be justlike this horrible thing that
you just hate doing andunfortunately a lot of stuff
even at like the gym, evenclasses at the gym and different
things like that.
It can be kind of unmotivating.
The other thing that's workedreally well for me long term is
I hired a personal trainer andI've been seeing her once a week
(43:21):
for the last five years, sothat helps as well.
I don't love going, but I feelguilty.
My guilt keeps me going, soguilt can be a good motivator
too, guys.
Anyway, balance activity levelsare really key for insulin and
so whatever sounds better to youat the beginning like changing
your diet, changing youractivities pick one, start there
(43:44):
, then kind of incorporate moreDiet-wise carbohydrates,
especially simple carbohydratesthat don't have a lot of fiber,
so pasta, potatoes, bread, thatkind of thing.
It is worth limiting them,especially if your insulin
(44:04):
resistance is not in the bestplace.
You may find that you need tolimit them a little bit more at
the beginning to kind of getthings moving.
But those are my generalrecommendations.
Like I said, I have some morespecific podcasts that go more
in depth on insulin, and samething with the next two pillars.
So we've talked about insulinresistance, we've talked about
(44:24):
leptin resistance.
Let's talk a little bit aboutstress and how that impacts your
weight.
So those of us with PCOS tendto have higher than normal
levels of stress hormones,particularly cortisol.
And just like insulin, cortisolis a little bit of a.
It's not that it's a fatstorage hormone, but we do tend
(44:50):
to store more fat in our bellieswhen we have a lot of cortisol,
and so that contributes to thesort of like PCOS apple shape
sort of thing which a lot of usget really frustrated with.
Right, with stress hormones, themajor issue with those is that
they can make us more insulinresistant.
So what happens is when weproduce a lot of stress hormone,
(45:15):
it tends to cause our body tosurge out some sugar.
So we store sugar in ourmuscles and our liver.
We keep that there for a rainyday, like we keep that there for
it's a primal thing.
Let's say we're getting chased.
Right, we need to pump out somesugar to get our body some
(45:38):
energy so that we can run.
That's the concept.
Well, in our modern world, ofcourse, we don't necessarily
need to run from our stressfultriggers, but we do get a lot of
stress triggers and our braindoesn't really know the
difference, and so we'll bepumping out sugar.
And guess what happens?
When we pump out sugar, we'regoing to pump out insulin as
well, right?
(45:58):
So we get this sort of thingwhere we get stressed, our blood
sugar spikes and then we makemore insulin and that
contributes to that wholeinsulin fat storage thing that
we talked about before.
So that's the major issue inhaving high stress hormones.
It kind of increases thatresistance.
(46:20):
So it is key especially if youare going to start a whole new
exercise program and things likethat it is key to also balance
it.
That's why I say balancedactivity, because you can overdo
it.
You can do way too much, andwith PCOS sometimes it's hard to
find the balance of what's notenough, what's too much.
(46:41):
But generally boot camp typesituations are not ideal.
They tend to be reallystressful.
Anything where you're having towake up at the absolute crack
of dawn or like before dawn,that can be too hard on your
adrenals.
Some of us don't have theoption right.
(47:02):
So I know some of you have towork long hours and you don't
have the option to do anythingbut exercise before work.
In that case I would bejudicious about how many days a
week we're doing that right andnot do it every day.
But sleep is so important.
Sleep is almost just asimportant as activity for
(47:22):
balancing insulin, because ifyou're not getting enough sleep
you will be more prone toovereating the next day.
It makes you crave sugar andthen it's going to also
contribute to that sort of cyclewith insular resistance.
And so getting enough sleep,balancing out your life with
(47:45):
enough rest, having firmerboundaries, is something a lot
of us struggle with, but thatcan help a lot.
And then mindfulness.
There are some good researchthat shows that mindfulness
whatever type of mindfulness youwant to do can be helpful for
PCOS and kind of reduceinflammation, make insulin
resistance better.
It's really interesting.
(48:05):
Try practicing being where yourfeet are.
That's a new thing that I'mworking on.
Be where your feet are.
So you know, we're always kindof in our mind right,
daydreaming Often another world,thinking about the past,
thinking about the future.
Instead, every time you catchyourself doing that, try to be
present here in the moment.
(48:26):
Be where your feet are.
What a daydreaming thing it is.
The stress-friendly lifestyleis like tough to talk about in
just a few minutes because it'sit gets really deep into like
psychology and you may need tosee a therapist right To help if
you've got like trauma historyand things that can make us more
(48:47):
prone to those stress spikes.
So there's a lot to it.
I'll refer you to some of myAdrenal podcast episodes to
learn more about that.
If we go full keto and join theGladiator Bootcamp program, that
may help for the first month ortwo we may lose some weight,
(49:13):
but long-term we're going todevelop probably a really awful
weight loss resistance from that, because that's going to be a
recipe for a yo-yo.
Every time you yo-yo it seemsto get more difficult on your
metabolism.
So avoid doing that.
Avoid pushing yourself too hard.
(49:33):
It's really all about balance.
The other thing I will say withthis, especially if you're kind
of like getting motivated to donew things, is balance.
Is Balance is really dependenton where you're starting from.
So if you don't exercise at all,please don't force yourself to
(49:58):
go five days a week.
You won't stick with that longterm.
Maybe you will, but most peoplewon't stick with that long term
because it's just it's too muchtoo soon.
Go where you are and build fromthere.
So if you're not active at all,maybe try working on one thing
(50:19):
at a time, whether it's it'sfrequency of movement or it's
time of movement right.
So you go three days a week for20 minutes, or you go five days
a week for 10 minutes orsomething like that.
You know however you want to doit, but it's just about
starting small and building anddon't be discouraged that you
have to do that.
That is really the key to longterm success.
(50:42):
So that's how stress impactsthings.
Now inflammation impacts thingsby also making insulin worse.
It can make stress hormonesworse.
So then we call comes back tothe insulin.
Right, but chronic inflammationis also, I think, connected to
(51:06):
weight loss resistance,particularly so.
I've had situations where I'vehad people on a really very well
aligned diet, like it shouldhave worked, but they were
eating a lot of a food that theywere sensitive to and they
weren't losing weight, eventhough everything else was
aligned.
And this is like coming youknow professional nutritionist
plan which, to be fair, like I'mnot always 100% on the money
(51:30):
like nutrition is a practice,it's a, it's a, it's an art and
a science.
So I'm not always perfect, but,you know, sometimes I'm like,
okay, what's going on here?
And it's it's ended up beingone of two things either the
person has insomnia, doesn'tsleep enough I've seen that
(51:51):
before or they have a foodsensitivity, and so oftentimes
it's dairy or it's eggs, becausethose are things that we tend
to eat more of when we're on,like any sort of weight loss
plan.
Dairy because it's delicious,but it doesn't Supposedly won't
impact our insulin that much,right, and it makes our kind of
(52:11):
lower caloric food taste better.
And eggs because they're aneasy breakfast right, and so
it's an easy entire protein,like it's better than having
pancakes or whatever.
So, but those are common foodallergens and that's not to say
that just because you have PCOS,you shouldn't eat those foods.
Go back and listen to my likeshould you be gluten and dairy
(52:34):
free with PCOS podcast?
So I'll give you a littleinsight.
But you know they are morefoods that we are more likely to
be sensitive to if we have afood sensitivity.
So if you find that you'rerelying a lot on a certain food
category, particularly those two, rethink that maybe if you, if
you feel like you've goteverything else aligned, because
(52:54):
what could be happening is thatthat could be triggering some
inflammation and then theinflammation makes your body
resistant.
I always tell people that it'skind of like the concept of your
body needs to feel safe to letgo of weight because weight is a
safety mechanism.
Well, fat is a safety mechanism.
So body fat is your body's wayof preparing for potential
(53:18):
starvation for winter.
You know your body is a veryprimal system.
So when your PCOS body wants toprefer to hold on to body fat,
it's trying to protect you, it'snot trying to harm you, hurt
you.
And that mentality shift if youcan make that shift from being
(53:42):
angry at your body tounderstanding that your body is
doing its best with its limitedresources to protect you, it can
really help a lot.
Because it can be sodiscouraging when you think that
your body is like against you,but because your body wants to
(54:02):
keep you safe.
If your body is chronicallyinflamed, you know it can be
like do we have an infection?
Like something?
We need the fat.
Because if we don't have thefat, then what are we going to
do?
Right?
And so it can resist letting goof weight even though you know
you're you're eating low calorieor you're eating low carb or
whatever.
So that's how that can work.
(54:27):
Also, the bacteria in your gutplay a big role in how insulin
sensitive you are.
So the bacteria in your gutplay, I mean, they're just
hugely important for, likeeverything Gosh, there's so many
things I could go into on thegut that I just won't even touch
because it's like such acomplex, beautiful system.
But it does play a big role inyour hunger signals and cues how
(54:51):
insulin sensitive you are.
Like the gut is really thecenter of all of it.
I think the guts even morecentral than the insulin
responses.
So when we want to get intolike genetics and the reasons
why our genes are expressing acertain way, we go back to the
gut more because we can changethings a little bit more from
there.
(55:11):
So we have to make sure that ourdigestion is in a good spot,
because that's a good generalindicator that our gut is in a
good place.
Not always it's not 100%, butand we need to also think about
doing things that are going tolower inflammation.
So that would mean moreunprocessed foods, eating more
(55:32):
fiber too, because that's goingto feed good gut bacteria.
More omega threes, which arethey come from, like fatty fish,
like salmon.
Those are very antiinflammatory.
And then less advanced locationin products, ages, which are.
You know when you, when youcook like meat or something and
you caramelize it and it getslike so delicious and like
(55:55):
caramelized on top, that's anAGE.
So trying to avoid that as muchas possible.
You know, baking steamingthings more often can be helpful
and but mostly try to work onyour food sensitivities if you
think you've got them, becauseif, if you have really poor
digestion, you're pretty sureyou've got food sensitivities,
(56:18):
you're like lactose intolerant,whatever.
You probably need to do a lotmore focus on your gut health
than you do even on your insulinNot always, but that's what
I've seen.
So those are the three sort ofpillars of a nutrition PCOS
nutrition, healthy lifestyle andif we work on those, then
(56:46):
anything that we do withcalories and activity should
work the way nature intended.
So there are read some researchstudies that show, you know,
they did some experiments to seeif, like the PCOS metabolism
was truly slower than theaverage person's metabolism.
Like, is it actually ametabolism thing?
And it's not.
Our metabolism functions thesame as somebody else's, but
(57:09):
it's these other confoundingfactors that make it seem like
our metabolism is so slowbecause they're forcing us to
hold on a more weight and thingslike that.
So if we can deal with thesethree pillars and make sure that
those are on point, then anywork we do with calories should
function a lot more like themath says it does.
(57:31):
So if my fitness pal tells youthat you need to eat 1500
calories to lose a pound a week,or whatever, then it should
work If you're eating an insulinfriendly diet and inflammation
friendly diet and you're gettingenough sleep and stress
reduction.
Now, I know that's a tall order, okay, so I didn't say it was
(57:51):
going to be easy, but that'swhat has to happen in order for
this to really work out for you.
Now, there are always going tobe exceptions to this rule.
There are folks with PCOS whogo on crash diets or have
success with this thing orcarnivore or that thing.
You know.
There there's always going tobe outliers, and that's because
(58:15):
everybody's different, but longterm, I believe you're going to
have the most success justfocusing on your nutrition
quality and pairing yourquantities with that.
Some advice that I would giveyou on calories, though, is
(58:37):
avoid going too low for too long.
1200 is usually my lowest thatI'll go.
There are some exceptions tothat, like if a person is really
, really petite, but you reallywant to aim to lose about a
pound a week, and I think that's.
The other thing that I reallywant to stress is that
(59:00):
expectations are often reallyunrealistic about what a healthy
weight loss looks like.
Like we generally want to losemore than a pound a week.
I mean, you know, I know how itis who wants to just lose one
pound a week.
That's boring, especiallybecause the way that weight loss
works is that it doesn't showup on the scale every week.
Right, even though we might belosing a pound a week, it may
(59:22):
not show up on the scale when weweigh in every week, so we
could feel very defeated.
But that's really thehealthiest way to lose weight,
though.
That's the way where your bodycan adjust.
You store a lot of wasteproducts and things in the fat
cells, so when the fat cellskind of, you know, start letting
(59:43):
go of stuff it's got to beprocessed through your liver.
You know it can be kind ofoverwhelming for your body.
So take it slow.
The more weight you have tolose, the faster you can go, but
as time goes on and you getwithin, you know, maybe 30
pounds, if you're whatever yourgoal is, then it's got to slow
(01:00:03):
down.
Be patient with yourself.
Like I said, the scale is notalways a great indicator of
actual fat loss.
So the final thing that I willtell you is to have more than
one method of measurement.
Whenever I am trying to losebody fat or I'm working with a
client, I'm taking weight,although infrequently, usually
(01:00:28):
like no more than once a week,sometimes less, but I'm taking
measurements weekly and I'mtaking progress photos.
And I think measurements andprogress photos actually are so
much more effective for seeingchanges because you can get like
a little like a pic, collage,the app, but you can like put
(01:00:51):
them side by side, blow them upto the same size and see the
changes and at the end of theday, right, it's not really
about what we actually weigh onthe scale, it's about what we
want our body composition tolook like.
So why does the scale numbermatter?
If you're gaining weightbecause you've been increasing
(01:01:13):
your strength training orwhatever, that may also be a
factor.
So, especially if you plan tostart doing more strength
training, I highly recommend Idon't know, I don't even weigh
myself on the scale anymore likejust measurements and progress
photos, because once you startgaining muscle in any
significant way, it can reallythrow things off All right.
(01:01:36):
So I think, hopefully that washelpful.
I think I'm going to close it upfor the day because we've
already gone for a long time,but I want to mention that there
is a form you can fill out withquestions for the podcast, and
so if this triggered anyquestions for you, please feel
free to reach out.
I am currently taking likeanything that where, if you just
(01:01:58):
give me a little background onyour story, I've been reading
people's, you know differentstories and then giving them
advice.
I'm doing like an advicepodcast every few episodes or so
.
So submit your questions, okay,and thank you for being here.
Don't forget to leave us arating.
If you never have, okay, we'llcall it a day now, goodbye.
Welcome back to an Amber Day.
I'm your host, amber Fisher,and today is the topic of all
topics we're talking aboutweight loss in PCOS.
So first of all I just want todo a few little disclaimers.
You know, because this is asensitive topic, I feel like
it's my responsibility as atrained nutrition professional
(00:26):
to give you all the informationthat I know.
I also like to share with youguys the information that I've
sort of gathered over the years,anecdotally, and I know that
weight loss is a topic that alot of us, you know, struggle
with.
It's something that like we'rereally interested in but we also
sort of feel maybe embarrassedabout being interested in, or we
(00:46):
feel like it's not okay tothink about weight loss, or we
feel like we're obsessed withweight loss.
So it's just a tricky topicbecause you know, on the one
hand, as a nutritionist you candip very quickly into diet
culture and I hope nothing I saytoday does that.
I'm just going to try to layout the facts and be honest.
But on the other hand, I alsodon't feel like it's responsible
(01:11):
for me to not talk aboutsomething as important to people
as weight loss just becauseit's something that a lot of us
sort of either feel that we needto do or our doctors are
telling us we must do, and we doknow that in some circumstances
weight loss is something thatwill be helpful for our health.
It can reduce pain and increasequality of life with energy and
(01:35):
things like that.
So there are some benefits toweight loss in certain
situations.
But I do also know that a lotof us with PCOS are coming from
places where we have historiesof disordered eating, things
like that, and so talking aboutweight loss can be triggering.
So if that's you, you may notwant to tune in for this one,
and that's okay, I love youstill and I will see you next
(01:57):
week.
Well, next week.
This year the podcast have notbeen coming every week, and you
guys know.
But next time we have a podcastI will see you.
But for those of you who stickaround, what we're going to talk
about today is why weight lossin PCOS is difficult because
(02:17):
you're not crazy, it is harder,why that's happening, whether
the scientific reasons for that,what are the underlying sort of
things going on, and we'regoing to talk about kind of the
pillars of PCOS nutrition andlifestyle that help with weight
loss and why that works, so that, ideally, my goal by the end of
(02:39):
today's podcast is to get youto switch your mindset a bit or
reframe your thinking from hyper, focusing on the weight itself
and even body composition ingeneral, and moving more towards
looking at the deeper reasonswhy someone with PCOS struggles
with weight loss.
Focusing on those thingsBecause this is off.
(03:01):
This is root cause nutrition,right.
So the goal is to get us deeplydown into the body as we can,
and things like weight, thingslike hormones, should improve
with time if we can do that.
Okay, so that's the goal fortoday.
I have the very best ofintentions but again, as I said,
this is a triggering topic, sobear with me, be patient with me
(03:25):
.
All right, so let's well.
First of all, I want to say acouple of things before I get
into everything.
So couple of little updates onme and what's going on in my
sphere.
You guys probably know I'vebeen taking a little bit of a
break.
You know my, my executivefunctioning is not what it used
to be pre pandemic.
I don't know if it's.
(03:47):
I had a child in late 2019, likeI had a hysterectomy, so I've
been through menopause.
A lot has happened to me in thelast four years and it's been a
little hard on my brain and sothat's been tough because I
always used to be somebody whowas like very, very, very good
at remembering details.
(04:08):
I had probably the one of thebest memories of anybody that
I've ever known.
I think it's part of the reasonwhy of how I got to where I am,
with just knowing facts andknowledge and things about PCOS,
because I just absorb stufflike a sponge and that that's
not necessarily the case anymore.
I still have my old knowledgeand I can build new knowledge,
(04:29):
but it's different.
You know, I forget things more.
I'm just like in my day to daylife I'm a little bit more
forgetful, foggy, that kind ofthing, and so and also a little
overwhelmed, honestly.
I mean, I'm running a full timepractice, got to my business, I
have all this social mediastuff and just different things,
(04:51):
so there's a lot of my play andI'm a mom and so I sometimes
have to take a step back fromfrom stuff that's a little too
overwhelming.
And social media is kind of oneof the first things that just
wears on me because it's thenecessity of posting so often.
You know it's like if I don'tpost often enough, then my
(05:17):
content doesn't go anywhere andit sort of feels like what's the
point of making this ifnobody's going to see it?
Then at the same time, you knowI'm posting all the time and
it's just so much, it's a lot ofpressure and so sometimes I
just, sometimes I just have tostop for a while.
So I took some time off in July.
I'm getting, I'm gearing backup and the goal is to get more
(05:38):
organized for the fall I'mhaving.
I hired some people to help mea little bit with organization
and stuff.
So we'll see, but that's thegoal there.
The other thing that's going onis that Hannah Mule, who runs
the conscious nutritionist, youguys know I've run a group
program with her for the lastlittle over a year.
We've run, I think, four orfive programs together and we
(06:02):
work really well together,hannah and I.
You know we have complimentarystrengths and so we want to
continue doing that.
But we're going to change theformat up a little bit.
Hannah is announced recentlythat she's pregnant and so we
don't have much time left beforeshe's probably going to take
(06:24):
some time off, obviously tomaternity leave and stuff like
that.
So we are going to run one moreprogram this fall, kind of a
back to school, get ready forPCOS type of deal, and it's
going to be a little shorterthan our normal program.
Our normal program is about 12weeks, so this one we're not.
We haven't done the fullplanning yet, but we're looking
(06:46):
at something shorter, probablymaybe around four weeks,
something like that and it'sgoing to be more condensed but
kind of like the reallyimportant information that you
need.
We're going to cut out some ofthe extra stuff that maybe isn't
as important but is kind ofinteresting to have.
We're also going to condensedown how often we have meetings
(07:07):
and so we're going to have themeetings more frequently so that
you can still get a lot of theinformation.
It's still going to come withmeal plans and all that, and
everybody who's done the groupshas had a great experience.
To my knowledge, I have a lotof positive feedback.
I haven't had any negativefeedback yet.
Let me say that.
So we've had a really good timerunning them and really, really
(07:28):
enjoyed it.
So we want to keep doing it.
Anyway, we're going to run thisgroup.
Since it is going to be shorter.
The financial cost, the cost toenroll, is going to be a lot
less than previous groups havebeen, so it may be a little bit
more financially feasible foryou.
If you had wanted to join oneof our groups before but felt it
(07:50):
was too expensive for you atthe time, this may be your lucky
fall, so I'd love to see you Ifyou are interested in that.
We don't have any of the like,specific like.
We don't have the sales page upyet or it's in very early
stages of planning.
So my suggestion would be tomake sure that you're on my
(08:12):
email newsletter list.
You can join that by visitingmy website, and then I would
also say if, for some reason,you have issues there, just send
an email to the podcast andAmber a day podcast at gmailcom
and we can get you on thewaiting list or what have you.
But yeah, I would love to seesome of you guys there.
(08:36):
I love to meet podcast griliesAnyway.
So let's get into today's topicand talk a little bit about Hoyt
loss in PCOS.
I'm going to pull up some stuffthat I made here to keep me on
topic.
Okay, so the reason I'm doingthis podcast today is because
(08:57):
currently on Instagram andTikTok I'm running a little PCOS
myths series.
So I sat down and I wrote outall the things I could think of
that I hear people say sometimesand I'm just like, why are
people still saying that?
Like that's not true and juststuff.
That kind of gets on my nerves.
And I think I talked about someof my controversial opinions in
(09:18):
the last podcast as well, ifyou're interested in that.
But one of the big ones that Iwrote down was weight loss
related, because I'm alwayshearing people say that it's
impossible to lose weight withPCOS.
It's just like you're justdoomed to keep gaining weight or
to at least to stay the sameweight.
Like it's just not even worthtrying because it's totally
impossible and it's PCOS isfault.
(09:38):
Like the implication is thatyou have PCOS, you know, and
that's just.
It's just something you haveand there's nothing you can do
about it.
And so you know, one of thethings that it does is it makes
you gain, gain weight, and it'slike it's a very.
The concept is like blaming, thelike as if you have a disease
(10:01):
and you blame the disease.
It's like a side effect of thedisease that you, that you're
overweight, kind of similar toto hypothyroidism, right, it's
the same concept like yourthyroid's not working well and
that prevents your body fromfrom managing weight properly,
and so you're overweight becauseof your thyroid.
But with PCOS there's no likemagic pill or drug, you know.
(10:24):
I mean, besides metformin,ozimpic stuff like that can be
helpful, but that's anothertopic for another time.
There's really nothing thatlike taking thyroid medicine can
help with the thyroid.
So that's the concept.
There's truth and myth in that.
So if you have felt like it'simpossible for you to lose
(10:46):
weight, if you've reallystruggled, if it's been like you
gain and gain and it seems likeyou gain faster than other
people, there's nothing that youfeel like you can do.
You're not crazy.
There is truth in that it does.
Pcos, especially uncontrolledPCOS, makes it very difficult to
lose weight, very easy to gainweight.
So if you live a lifestylewhere you eat a you know, weight
(11:09):
loss friendly diet I don't know80% of the time, but 20% of the
time you don't think about thatand you you know, I don't know
eat whatever, then if you'remore prone to storing body fat,
you could store more body fatduring that time and
(11:30):
simultaneously lose less bodyfat during the times when you're
not, when you are, you know,paying attention, leading to
equilibrium right, leading tonot dropping anything at all or
sometimes, depending on you,know what's going on, gaining
weight.
So you're not crazy, it's not aweird concept Like, it's not
(11:51):
totally untrue.
I guess that's what I'm tryingto say.
It absolutely is more difficultto lose weight with PCOS because
of factors outside of yourcontrol.
However, there are solutions tothose issues.
So the things that cause it tobe difficult to gain, to lose
weight in PCOS, they do havesome nutritional solutions or
(12:15):
some nutrition methods that areeffective for improving them.
So let's talk about what someof these things are today and we
can, you know, go down the listof like what the underlying
factor is, why it's affectingyou and what you can do about it
(12:35):
.
So the difference betweensomeone with PCOS and someone
without PCOS on a weight lossjourney is that, without PCOS as
a factor, you cut your calories.
Your body responds by droppingbody fat because it's not
(12:57):
getting enough to eat, so it'lleat its own fat cells and that's
basically how it works, right,and it works pretty well if
you're pretty disciplined.
And this is why so many peoplewho have lost weight point the
finger at those of us with PCOSand kind of like make it, make
(13:19):
it, they make it our faultBecause they're like well, I've
done it and I've seen lots ofother people do it and all they
had to do is be disciplined.
And you must not just not bedisciplined, but if you've ever
truly tried to lose weight withPCOS, you know that even if
you're disciplined, you might beable to lose some weight, but
(13:40):
you stall out like it's really.
It takes a long time, goes alot slower and it's just a
really frustrating experiencewhich does lead to less
compliance with programs andthings like that.
Because, like, who wants tostand something?
That's not working right.
So the normal person withoutPCOS is going to just eat less.
(14:01):
Their bodies can respond bylosing weight.
Unfortunately, in PCOS we haveall these conflating,
confounding comorbidities, allthese little factors that get in
the way right.
So we have the biggest issue,which is insulin resistance, but
we also have something calledleptin resistance that's based
(14:26):
off of that insulin resistance.
We've got stress, hormonecraziness, we've got chronic
inflammation and, paired withthat, sometimes we don't have a
good grasp of what our caloricneeds are or our activity needs
are, and that can impact things.
So you just have moreopportunities to not be aligned.
(14:51):
Basically, with PCOS, there'smore factors fighting against
you than somebody who doesn'thave PCOS, and that can make it
very difficult and can make youwant to give up, and it can make
you make it very difficult foryou to figure out, like, exactly
what path to go down.
The other thing that I think Iwon't probably talk a ton about
(15:12):
is just energy.
You know a lot of us with PCOSbecause of these other issues,
and each one of them can causeenergy issues, honestly, but we
tend to be a little bit moretired than the average person
and that makes it hard tomotivate, like you know.
I mean, I relate to that somuch, especially just the way my
(15:32):
life has been the last fouryears where I've been doing
everything the same, but alsobeing a mom, like it's been
tough to keep my energy levelshigh enough to focus on me at
all, and so you know, havingenergy is kind of a precursor to
like being motivated.
You have to have that energyfirst in order to actually get
(15:56):
up and do anything and makechanges.
And the frustrating thing aboutenergy, too, is that sometimes
if you get up and you move andyou go like I don't know, go do
some exercise or whatever youfeel better after.
You have more energy after, butthen the feeling fades and you
have to keep doing that to getthat feeling and it's just that
(16:19):
initial motivation to get up anddo it.
That's really, really tough andit is a little bit worse in
PCOS than in your average personand so that makes it tough to
motivate, right.
But let's talk about some ofthese other factors.
So first we'll go over insulinresistance.
I know I've talked a ton aboutthis before, so if this is your
(16:39):
first podcast here, I'll giveyou the basics, but I would
highly recommend going backwardsand listening to some of my
specific insulin resistancepodcasts.
I have several of them.
By the way, guys, I'm puttingthis podcast together the day
before I'm going to actuallypost it, so I probably won't
(17:01):
have time to do like a ton ofediting like I normally do.
So bear with me on the ums andthe pauses.
This is how I talk, but Iusually edit it out so that it's
not such a frustratinglistening experience for you.
But I'm not going to have timeto do as much of that with this
particular podcast, so bear withme, okay.
(17:22):
So insulin resistance.
I've done lots of topics onthis before, a lot of podcasts
on this before and lots ofInstagram content for sure on
this.
All of us with PCOS are dealingwith some level of insulin
resistance.
This is pretty much across theboard, like there's really very
little evidence that folks withPCOS don't have some type of
(17:43):
insulin resistance.
What's often happening if youdon't think you have insulin
resistance is that it hasn'tbeen measured properly for you.
Most people's blood work thatthey get is like so base level.
It often doesn't show PCOSinsulin resistance, because PCOS
insulin resistance cansometimes be in earlier stages
or it can be something calledhyperinsulinemia, which is where
(18:03):
we have high insulin levels,but it doesn't necessarily
affect our blood sugar.
So the early stage, earlierstages of like insulin
resistance are your body makingenough insulin, so it's bringing
your blood sugar down the wayit needs to, so that on paper it
looks normal, but actually it'sthat excessive insulin that's
(18:23):
causing all the problems.
So you know that's the issue.
Now, how it affects weight lossand weight is that insulin is a
fat storage hormone.
So your body, when it has a lotof extra insulin, it's going to
prefer to store fat overanything else.
(18:45):
So we know this.
If you look at you know thereyou can look up PubMed studies
on, like the insulincarbohydrate model theory of
obesity, for example and this isnot unique to PCOS.
This is something that manydifferent chronic health
conditions deal with.
Anything that's got any sort ofinsulin base.
(19:07):
You know, diabetic conditions,things like that, and a lot of
obesity issues surround thissort of phenomenon, where the
calories don't matter so much asthe composition of the food
itself, because if the foodthat's being consumed forces the
(19:28):
body to make more insulin thanyou know your average person,
then you are going to prefer tostore body fat over somebody who
doesn't have insulin resistance.
And so what happens over timeis that you know you got to eat
every day, right, and so lifegoes on and you're making too
(19:50):
much insulin and so you'vealways got this extra little bit
of preference for fat storage.
So if you're eating more thanyou need, you're going to store
more than you need of body fat,and we'll get into calories in a
(20:10):
little bit, because caloriesare complicated.
It's not as simple as likecalories and calories out like
that.
That's been debunked.
I don't.
You know, most of the timeyou're going to hear that kind
of information from, likepersonal trainers and fitness
bros and stuff who don't have adeeper nutrition education.
(20:30):
They just kind of have like abase level of like performance
level nutrition education.
But this has long been debunkedthat it's all calories and
calories out.
It's really not how it works,because hormones and other
factors do play a role in weightcomposition.
So we'll talk about calories ina little bit.
But one thing that you shouldknow is that they do matter some
(20:52):
.
It's not like they don't matterat all.
If you overeat, your body isgoing to have to do something
with that material and it'sgoing to put it into fat.
So the problem with insulinresistance is that you're
already prone to that.
So then if you overeat, it'slike you're really prone to that
.
Everything's amplified.
(21:13):
Your experience of fat storageis amplified versus somebody
else, and so even when you cutcalories, if you're not also
accounting for insulinresistance, then you're still
going to struggle with your bodyhaving that insulin and wanting
to store it as fat.
It's like looking to store itas fat, whereas somebody else
(21:37):
who doesn't have insulinresistance their body might not
do that, and that can be a realbummer.
I can just tell you right now Imean, you guys can't tell what I
look like on the internet, I'monly showing you from the waist
up, but I do carry my body fatin my middle.
I've struggled with my weightmy whole life.
(21:57):
I've been a yo-yo'd over theyears depending on what was
going on, and it really wasn'tuntil I got a good basic
understanding ofinsulin-friendly eating that
things started to reallystabilize for me and I found
that I'm not the thinnest personyou've ever seen in your life
(22:19):
for sure.
I'm a very average size, butit's a healthy size for me and
the real key is that it doesn'tshift and change a ton, so I'm
not gaining 40 pounds in a fewmonths and then having to lose
that and then regaining andyo-yoing and stuff.
(22:42):
I'm stable and that's what agood understanding of
insulin-friendly nutrition cando for you can help you
stabilize and even if you needto drop some weight.
So insulin is a fat storagehormone.
Your body's going to prefer tostore fat when it's got too much
insulin in the system.
(23:03):
Insulin also throws off yourhormones because it's insulin
really that does a lot of thetriggering of the testosterone.
So insulin is kind of thetrigger that tells your ovaries
to make too much testosteroneand then the testosterone's
where a lot of your PCOS obvioussymptoms come from your facial
hair and hair loss and all theacne and things like that.
(23:26):
They're oftentimes driven bythat high androgen level or the
high testosterone level andthat's triggered by the insulin.
So those things, thosedownstream things, those hormone
imbalances, can also lead tosome issues with weight
maintenance and weight gainbecause you can start to get
(23:48):
kind of estrogen dominant overtime.
I'm pretty sure there's apodcast on estrogen dominance
that's too complicated to gointo today, but you can get kind
of estrogen dominant over time.
You've got too much estrogen inyour system.
Your body doesn't like to letgo of fat.
It's like it kind of feeds theproblem.
So not only is controllinginsulin important for
(24:09):
controlling weight but it's alsoimportant for controlling that
excess hormone production thatcauses all the other PCOS
symptoms.
So that's the good thing andthe bad thing.
It's kind of a.
It's a double-edged sword,because it's good in the sense
that you focus on one thing.
You make big changes to a wholerange of things.
It's bad because if you don'tfocus on that one thing you're
(24:33):
not going to see much movementand unfortunately a lot of the
information that you get out onthe internet at large is not
going to be super insulinfriendly.
A lot of the things that yourfriends and family have done to
lose weight are probably notgoing to be super insulin
friendly and they may not workwell for you, and so it can be
confusing.
(24:55):
And you know the other, theother downside of it is like you
got to do something about it,but you, unfortunately, with
PCOS, we have this like theburden of, of action, right,
like I guess technically wecould not do anything about it
at all and just sort of acceptit, and there are some people
that do that.
But if we want to feel anysemblance of like just decent,
(25:22):
then we often have to do thingsthat other people don't have to
think about.
You know, let me give you myhusband, for example Cool, six
foot three, just a little skinnyrail.
He's never, ever and he's we're, we're in our mid thirties now,
so he's starting to kind of,you know, start to get a little
(25:44):
dad bod.
But he's always been so thinand it really truly doesn't
matter what he eats.
And we've run experiments beforebecause I'm like I love to run
experiments.
Okay, so we've run experimentsbefore where we've eaten the the
the same thing, but likeadjusted for our uh, bmis or
(26:04):
whatever.
So he's a little taller than me, so obviously he's metabolic
rate is higher.
But I used to have this bodyscanning.
It's like professional bodyscanning machine that would give
you a really accurate BMR.
So basal metabolic rate, by theway, is what that means, which
is the minimum amount ofcalories that your body needs to
sort of function.
So we'd run these experimentswhere we would eat according to
(26:25):
that, but basically eat the samestuff, eat the same amount.
I'm five, eight, by the way, sonot too much shorter than him.
Anyway, you should have seen thecraziness that ensued.
I mean my body if, if I'm notjust so careful with, with, kind
(26:47):
of how I feed it, it does notrespond the way you would expect
.
It doesn't respond according tothe math, and I think that's
the case for most of us withPCOS.
We can run all these onlinecalculators do my fitness pal,
the weight watchers, whateverand let them tell us how much of
this and how much, how manycalories, we need to eat.
(27:08):
But at the end of the day, ourbodies don't work the same way
as other people's bodies and ifwe're not accounting for those,
those differences, we're notgoing to be very successful.
So it was just funny because itwould be like we'd go, we'd get
like about the same thing.
I'd always eat a little bitless than him, but you know
essentially the same thing and Iwould gain weight very rapidly
(27:33):
from you know some of this stuffand not a not a thing would
happen to him.
So lovely, we just love thatfor me.
But I know you guys can relate,so that's why I tell you that
personal story.
But yeah, insulin resistance isis what's going on with that?
And that is a commonalityacross even people who don't
(27:58):
have weight issues in PCOS.
Most of them are dealing withinsulin resistance as well.
It's just there is kind of likethere can be some genetic
changes to how much fat storageyour body prefers.
There is a subtype of insulinresistance where they're really
thin and they struggle to put onweight, but that's a topic for
(28:19):
another time.
That is not what we're here totalk about today.
Okay, so that's insulinresistance, and insulin
resistance can drive this otherissue that I want to talk to you
about, which is leptinresistance, and leptin
resistance is.
Leptin is a hormone that tellsyou what you want to eat and
(28:39):
it's a hormone that tells youwhen you are full.
Have you ever had any troublewith that.
So I definitely have personalexperience with this and also
see this with my clients quite abit.
With PCOS it can be so hard toknow when you've had enough,
when you haven't had enough,when you've had too much, when
you've had just right.
It's so hard to knowintuitively from your physical
(29:03):
body signals if you're noteating too much food or not
eating enough food.
Why is this?
Shouldn't it be easy?
Shouldn't our body just tell usoh, you're full, stop eating.
That would be lovely if thatwas true, but unfortunately
that's not what happensoftentimes in PCOS, because
(29:24):
we're dealing with this thingcalled leptin resistance.
This is where we get intotalking about kind of the
overall concept of intuitiveeating, or at least how people
think about intuitive eating andwhy it sometimes doesn't work
very well for PCOS.
Because if we're only listeningto hunger cues to tell us when
(29:47):
we're done eating or when we'vehad enough, oftentimes in PCOS
our hunger cues are warped.
We won't be able to figure outthe right equilibrium with that.
We have to use other cues toknow when we are full or not
full.
That's because of leptinresistance.
(30:10):
When we have leptin resistance,it's similar to insulin
resistance.
Our body doesn't listen to thesignal from leptin.
It's not listening to thatsignal that's saying I'm full,
it's resistant to it.
So the body is making moreleptin and then, over time, you
start to get this warped, likeyour brain's, like I don't know
how much leptin we need to cueus, that we need to stop eating.
(30:34):
The way it plays outpractically in your day-to-day
life is just.
You probably will feel fullslightly later than someone who
doesn't have leptin resistance,but that can build up over time,
because, if I like to use theexample of cheesecake factory,
(30:56):
this is where my leptinresistance comes out.
I love the cheesecake factory.
This is my theory on cheesecakefactory.
It's like the most Americanrestaurant.
I think people talk aboutburgers, fries.
I mean they have burgers andfries, but the cheesecake
factory is America.
It's just so over the top.
(31:17):
It looks like Disney World.
The menu is so insane.
It's America guys.
Anyway, the cheesecake piecesare like the size of your head.
You go to cheesecake factory,and person without leptin
resistance will probably getmaybe halfway through a piece of
(31:40):
that cheesecake and be likenope, cannot keep going, I'm
getting sick, I feel physicallyill.
Someone with leptin resistance,though, won't get that cue
right away.
They may get three quarters ofthe way full.
They may eat the whole piece ofcheesecake and only afterwards
would they feel like, oh my gosh, I really feel nauseous, I feel
(32:01):
sick, I ate too much.
Whatever that's what leptinresistance does is it slows down
your reaction to those cues.
You don't know when you've hadenough or when you haven't had
enough.
That is so difficult when itcomes to weight loss, especially
if you're trying to do it in anintuitive way, because we hear
(32:21):
all the time that it's notmentally healthy it's a count
and to count carbs or countcalories or this or that, or
have too much structure, becausethat can be triggering
emotionally, mentally.
On the same token, if we don'tdo that and we have leptin
resistance, sometimes we reallystruggle and we end up gaining
(32:44):
weight without really intendingto, because we don't know what's
too much, what's not enough.
It can be really really tough.
My solution to that, to leptinresistance, is a combination of
factors.
I think it's helpful for folkswith PCOS to have, if possible,
a professional create astructure for them at the
(33:07):
beginning.
I don't have my clients countcalories and count carbs, but I
do that for them when I create ameal plan for them and I give
them a template, basically, ofhow many servings a day do I
want them to have this category,that category?
I break it down acrosscategories where I've already
(33:29):
done the math of this is howmany carbs-ish a day I want this
person having.
This is how much protein I wantthem having.
This is how many calories Iwant them having.
All that kind of stuff I justincorporated into that structure
of telling them how manyportions they have the structure
of saying I know I need to eatthis many portions of meat, I
need to eat this many portionsof vegetables, I need to eat
(33:49):
this many portions of grains,and this is how I'm going to
spread them out throughout theday, because Amber doesn't want
me having all of them at onemeal or whatever.
That's the specificity that Iget into with them.
But their experience of it is,if they follow it, they just
know I'm eating this portion ofthis, this portion of that and
(34:11):
at the end of the day it's goingto add up to what is ideal for
the body.
If that's possible for you, Ithink that's really really
helpful at the beginning becauseyou just may need an outside
objective perspective to tellyou you can do that work on your
own.
You can figure that stuff outon your own.
(34:32):
There are enough free toolsonline to do that.
But it gets a littlecomplicated if you don't have
the training and how to domacros and how to figure out how
many calories you need and allthat kind of stuff.
I do cover all of that in agood amount of depth in both of
(34:53):
my courses.
So if you're new to PCOS andyou're new to eating for PCOS
and for the root cause, youwould probably like PCOS
Foundations my course first,because that's kind of my intro
to PCOS course.
It's not surface levelinformation, it goes deep.
I want to say it's got five orsix hour long video modules on
(35:18):
specific PCOS topics so you geta lot of information.
But it's kind of a four weekmeal plan, like the meal plans,
organized to kind of help youstart understanding portions a
little bit better and it's agood place to start and I only
charge $49 for it.
So it's a good value if you'rejust getting started.
(35:40):
But if you are beyond that alittle bit and you've been doing
PCOS nutrition for a while andyou want to get even deeper with
it, there's a big weight losssection in functional PCOS,
which is like my kind of moreintense in depth course.
So if those interest you andyou want a little bit of a
(36:04):
little bit of that informationbut you're not ready to hire
somebody to do it, then checkthem out.
But I think it's helpful at thebeginning to have a bit of a
structure so that your brain canget used to that structure,
because over time if you kind ofeat like this, similar portions
and amounts of stuff, you startto get used to it and you start
(36:24):
to expect it and that's kind oflike you know, this is what I
eat, right.
So that's helpful at thebeginning.
And the other thing that I findhelpful is accounting for the
PCOS pillars of nutrition first,which we're going to get into,
and then pairing calories on topof that.
(36:45):
So insulin resistance is thefirst pillar, right.
And if we eat a diet that'sfriendly for insulin resistance
and we pair in appropriateamounts of calories based on
calculating your basal metabolicrate and all that stuff, the
pair of those two things can bevery effective for weight loss.
(37:07):
But it has to be together,Because if you're just doing
calories, it may work for youfor a while but it's probably
not going to work as fast as itcould and blah, blah, blah.
So how do we eat well forinsulin resistance.
How do we support that?
The biggest things with insulinresistance are making sure that
(37:30):
you are eating a low glycemicdiet.
So if you go and Google, likeglycemic load, glycemic index of
foods, you'll see charts withrankings of what the glycemic
index or the glycemic load is ofthese foods, and there's a
difference between index andload.
(37:51):
Glycemic load is the scorebased on what you would probably
eat, like what a typicalportion size is, whereas
glycemic index is based allaround just the original.
I think the first thing thatthey ever glycemic index was
(38:12):
like a slice of white bread orsomething.
So you look at the glycemicindex versus load of carrots,
for example, and glycemic indexof carrots is really high, but
the glycemic load is pretty lowbecause most people are not
going to eat however many gramsof carrots at one time.
They're probably going to eat adifferent amount because of the
(38:35):
fiber Anyway.
So glycemic load is a littlebit more accurate.
So I recommend that one, butglycemic index can be helpful
too.
Anyway, if you look up chartson that, you can find scores and
rankings for different foodsthat can help give you an idea
of what foods to prioritize.
So prioritize the lower indexfoods and what foods to limit
(38:55):
higher index foods.
That's a great place to start.
Another great place to start iswith a Mediterranean diet.
That's got good positiveresearch for PCOS and it's a
great starter diet.
I have a podcast on how to doit for PCOS as well.
(39:16):
The other things to considerare increasing your fiber amount
and increasing your proteinamount.
Fiber is gonna have a lot ofbenefits for your health, but
the main one for insulinresistance is that it slows down
digestion and the slower youdigest stuff, the less insulin
you need to pump out at any onetime.
So it helps with that.
(39:38):
Protein does the same.
Fiber and protein also fill youup faster and keep you full
longer, and that preventsovereating.
So the more protein, the better, the more fiber, the better.
Protein needs are verydifferent across people, but I
generally say like try to aimfor about 30 grams at each meal.
Sometimes that's hard to do atbreakfast, but other meals it
(40:00):
seems to be pretty doable.
Generally like around 100 gramsa day tends to be good amount
for weight loss, but again it'sdifferent person to person.
And then balanced activitylevels.
I mean you're not probablygonna get too far working on
insulin resistance if you're notincreasing your activity.
And there was a time when I wasvery pro only strength training
(40:24):
and like light walking and nocardio whatsoever.
My opinions on that haveshifted a little bit because I
have seen that like if there's atype of cardio that you really
love, that really makes youhappy, and you can do that kind
of cardio regularly, that doesreally tend to help with insulin
(40:45):
resistance.
So a good example would be I'vebeen taking salsa lessons for a
while now and it's cardio, it'spure cardio.
There's not a bit of strengthgoing on with it, but it's so
fun.
It relieves stress because it'sfun and I enjoy it.
It keeps me motivated and Ikeep going and it has helped
(41:06):
with my insulin levels, myinsulin resistance.
So choosing some strengthexercises is probably the most
important because those aregoing to impact your insulin
resistance longer term.
More muscle mass helps withinsulin resistance and having
enough strength training in yourlife will improve your insulin
(41:31):
resistance like 72 hours, Ithink, after a strength training
exercise or strength trainingday.
So it helps longer term withthe way that you process insulin
.
But having daily cardio is alsoimportant, and so if you're just
(41:53):
getting started, walking isgreat, but also consider looking
into something that maybeyou've always been a little
scared to do, but it's alwayssomething fun.
Like that's dance for me.
I've always wanted to do it,but been a little nervous too,
because I don't want toembarrass myself.
But you never know, until youtry, if you're going to be good
at something, and sometimes whenyou get involved in some sort
(42:16):
of community, it keeps you a lotmore motivated.
I've found that to be true formyself when it comes to pole.
You guys know I've been doingpole dance for the last two
years I'm at a high intermediate, almost advanced level now
solely because I made friends atthe studio and it was fun to go
(42:39):
because of those people.
I mean, I like doing it too,but I don't know that I would
have been motivated to continueif I hadn't felt like I was part
of a community and that therewas something to strive for.
And same thing with dance.
It's like I'm building acommunity, there are levels that
you work up to and it's fun.
So see if you can findsomething like that.
(43:00):
Exercise doesn't have to be justlike this horrible thing that
you just hate doing andunfortunately a lot of stuff
even at like the gym, evenclasses at the gym and different
things like that.
It can be kind of unmotivating.
The other thing that's workedreally well for me long term is
I hired a personal trainer andI've been seeing her once a week
(43:21):
for the last five years, sothat helps as well.
I don't love going, but I feelguilty.
My guilt keeps me going, soguilt can be a good motivator
too, guys.
Anyway, balance activity levelsare really key for insulin and
so whatever sounds better to youat the beginning like changing
your diet, changing youractivities pick one, start there
(43:44):
, then kind of incorporate moreDiet-wise carbohydrates,
especially simple carbohydratesthat don't have a lot of fiber,
so pasta, potatoes, bread, thatkind of thing.
It is worth limiting them,especially if your insulin
(44:04):
resistance is not in the bestplace.
You may find that you need tolimit them a little bit more at
the beginning to kind of getthings moving.
But those are my generalrecommendations.
Like I said, I have some morespecific podcasts that go more
in depth on insulin, and samething with the next two pillars.
So we've talked about insulinresistance, we've talked about
(44:24):
leptin resistance.
Let's talk a little bit aboutstress and how that impacts your
weight.
So those of us with PCOS tendto have higher than normal
levels of stress hormones,particularly cortisol.
And just like insulin, cortisolis a little bit of a.
It's not that it's a fatstorage hormone, but we do tend
(44:50):
to store more fat in our bellieswhen we have a lot of cortisol,
and so that contributes to thesort of like PCOS apple shape
sort of thing which a lot of usget really frustrated with.
Right, with stress hormones, themajor issue with those is that
they can make us more insulinresistant.
So what happens is when weproduce a lot of stress hormone,
(45:15):
it tends to cause our body tosurge out some sugar.
So we store sugar in ourmuscles and our liver.
We keep that there for a rainyday, like we keep that there for
it's a primal thing.
Let's say we're getting chased.
Right, we need to pump out somesugar to get our body some
(45:38):
energy so that we can run.
That's the concept.
Well, in our modern world, ofcourse, we don't necessarily
need to run from our stressfultriggers, but we do get a lot of
stress triggers and our braindoesn't really know the
difference, and so we'll bepumping out sugar.
And guess what happens?
When we pump out sugar, we'regoing to pump out insulin as
well, right?
(45:58):
So we get this sort of thingwhere we get stressed, our blood
sugar spikes and then we makemore insulin and that
contributes to that wholeinsulin fat storage thing that
we talked about before.
So that's the major issue inhaving high stress hormones.
It kind of increases thatresistance.
(46:20):
So it is key especially if youare going to start a whole new
exercise program and things likethat it is key to also balance
it.
That's why I say balancedactivity, because you can overdo
it.
You can do way too much, andwith PCOS sometimes it's hard to
find the balance of what's notenough, what's too much.
(46:41):
But generally boot camp typesituations are not ideal.
They tend to be reallystressful.
Anything where you're having towake up at the absolute crack
of dawn or like before dawn,that can be too hard on your
adrenals.
Some of us don't have theoption right.
(47:02):
So I know some of you have towork long hours and you don't
have the option to do anythingbut exercise before work.
In that case I would bejudicious about how many days a
week we're doing that right andnot do it every day.
But sleep is so important.
Sleep is almost just asimportant as activity for
(47:22):
balancing insulin, because ifyou're not getting enough sleep
you will be more prone toovereating the next day.
It makes you crave sugar andthen it's going to also
contribute to that sort of cyclewith insular resistance.
And so getting enough sleep,balancing out your life with
(47:45):
enough rest, having firmerboundaries, is something a lot
of us struggle with, but thatcan help a lot.
And then mindfulness.
There are some good researchthat shows that mindfulness
whatever type of mindfulness youwant to do can be helpful for
PCOS and kind of reduceinflammation, make insulin
resistance better.
It's really interesting.
(48:05):
Try practicing being where yourfeet are.
That's a new thing that I'mworking on.
Be where your feet are.
So you know, we're always kindof in our mind right,
daydreaming Often another world,thinking about the past,
thinking about the future.
Instead, every time you catchyourself doing that, try to be
present here in the moment.
(48:26):
Be where your feet are.
What a daydreaming thing it is.
The stress-friendly lifestyleis like tough to talk about in
just a few minutes because it'sit gets really deep into like
psychology and you may need tosee a therapist right To help if
you've got like trauma historyand things that can make us more
(48:47):
prone to those stress spikes.
So there's a lot to it.
I'll refer you to some of myAdrenal podcast episodes to
learn more about that.
If we go full keto and join theGladiator Bootcamp program, that
may help for the first month ortwo we may lose some weight,
(49:13):
but long-term we're going todevelop probably a really awful
weight loss resistance from that, because that's going to be a
recipe for a yo-yo.
Every time you yo-yo it seemsto get more difficult on your
metabolism.
So avoid doing that.
Avoid pushing yourself too hard.
(49:33):
It's really all about balance.
The other thing I will say withthis, especially if you're kind
of like getting motivated to donew things, is balance.
Is Balance is really dependenton where you're starting from.
So if you don't exercise at all,please don't force yourself to
(49:58):
go five days a week.
You won't stick with that longterm.
Maybe you will, but most peoplewon't stick with that long term
because it's just it's too muchtoo soon.
Go where you are and build fromthere.
So if you're not active at all,maybe try working on one thing
(50:19):
at a time, whether it's it'sfrequency of movement or it's
time of movement right.
So you go three days a week for20 minutes, or you go five days
a week for 10 minutes orsomething like that.
You know however you want to doit, but it's just about
starting small and building anddon't be discouraged that you
have to do that.
That is really the key to longterm success.
(50:42):
So that's how stress impactsthings.
Now inflammation impacts thingsby also making insulin worse.
It can make stress hormonesworse.
So then we call comes back tothe insulin.
Right, but chronic inflammationis also, I think, connected to
(51:06):
weight loss resistance,particularly so.
I've had situations where I'vehad people on a really very well
aligned diet, like it shouldhave worked, but they were
eating a lot of a food that theywere sensitive to and they
weren't losing weight, eventhough everything else was
aligned.
And this is like coming youknow professional nutritionist
plan which, to be fair, like I'mnot always 100% on the money
(51:30):
like nutrition is a practice,it's a, it's a, it's an art and
a science.
So I'm not always perfect, but,you know, sometimes I'm like,
okay, what's going on here?
And it's it's ended up beingone of two things either the
person has insomnia, doesn'tsleep enough I've seen that
(51:51):
before or they have a foodsensitivity, and so oftentimes
it's dairy or it's eggs, becausethose are things that we tend
to eat more of when we're on,like any sort of weight loss
plan.
Dairy because it's delicious,but it doesn't Supposedly won't
impact our insulin that much,right, and it makes our kind of
(52:11):
lower caloric food taste better.
And eggs because they're aneasy breakfast right, and so
it's an easy entire protein,like it's better than having
pancakes or whatever.
So, but those are common foodallergens and that's not to say
that just because you have PCOS,you shouldn't eat those foods.
Go back and listen to my likeshould you be gluten and dairy
(52:34):
free with PCOS podcast?
So I'll give you a littleinsight.
But you know they are morefoods that we are more likely to
be sensitive to if we have afood sensitivity.
So if you find that you'rerelying a lot on a certain food
category, particularly those two, rethink that maybe if you, if
you feel like you've goteverything else aligned, because
(52:54):
what could be happening is thatthat could be triggering some
inflammation and then theinflammation makes your body
resistant.
I always tell people that it'skind of like the concept of your
body needs to feel safe to letgo of weight because weight is a
safety mechanism.
Well, fat is a safety mechanism.
So body fat is your body's wayof preparing for potential
(53:18):
starvation for winter.
You know your body is a veryprimal system.
So when your PCOS body wants toprefer to hold on to body fat,
it's trying to protect you, it'snot trying to harm you, hurt
you.
And that mentality shift if youcan make that shift from being
(53:42):
angry at your body tounderstanding that your body is
doing its best with its limitedresources to protect you, it can
really help a lot.
Because it can be sodiscouraging when you think that
your body is like against you,but because your body wants to
(54:02):
keep you safe.
If your body is chronicallyinflamed, you know it can be
like do we have an infection?
Like something?
We need the fat.
Because if we don't have thefat, then what are we going to
do?
Right?
And so it can resist letting goof weight even though you know
you're you're eating low calorieor you're eating low carb or
whatever.
So that's how that can work.
(54:27):
Also, the bacteria in your gutplay a big role in how insulin
sensitive you are.
So the bacteria in your gutplay, I mean, they're just
hugely important for, likeeverything Gosh, there's so many
things I could go into on thegut that I just won't even touch
because it's like such acomplex, beautiful system.
But it does play a big role inyour hunger signals and cues how
(54:51):
insulin sensitive you are.
Like the gut is really thecenter of all of it.
I think the guts even morecentral than the insulin
responses.
So when we want to get intolike genetics and the reasons
why our genes are expressing acertain way, we go back to the
gut more because we can changethings a little bit more from
there.
(55:11):
So we have to make sure that ourdigestion is in a good spot,
because that's a good generalindicator that our gut is in a
good place.
Not always it's not 100%, butand we need to also think about
doing things that are going tolower inflammation.
So that would mean moreunprocessed foods, eating more
(55:32):
fiber too, because that's goingto feed good gut bacteria.
More omega threes, which arethey come from, like fatty fish,
like salmon.
Those are very antiinflammatory.
And then less advanced locationin products, ages, which are.
You know when you, when youcook like meat or something and
you caramelize it and it getslike so delicious and like
(55:55):
caramelized on top, that's anAGE.
So trying to avoid that as muchas possible.
You know, baking steamingthings more often can be helpful
and but mostly try to work onyour food sensitivities if you
think you've got them, becauseif, if you have really poor
digestion, you're pretty sureyou've got food sensitivities,
(56:18):
you're like lactose intolerant,whatever.
You probably need to do a lotmore focus on your gut health
than you do even on your insulinNot always, but that's what
I've seen.
So those are the three sort ofpillars of a nutrition PCOS
nutrition, healthy lifestyle andif we work on those, then
(56:46):
anything that we do withcalories and activity should
work the way nature intended.
So there are read some researchstudies that show, you know,
they did some experiments to seeif, like the PCOS metabolism
was truly slower than theaverage person's metabolism.
Like, is it actually ametabolism thing?
And it's not.
Our metabolism functions thesame as somebody else's, but
(57:09):
it's these other confoundingfactors that make it seem like
our metabolism is so slowbecause they're forcing us to
hold on a more weight and thingslike that.
So if we can deal with thesethree pillars and make sure that
those are on point, then anywork we do with calories should
function a lot more like themath says it does.
(57:31):
So if my fitness pal tells youthat you need to eat 1500
calories to lose a pound a week,or whatever, then it should
work If you're eating an insulinfriendly diet and inflammation
friendly diet and you're gettingenough sleep and stress
reduction.
Now, I know that's a tall order, okay, so I didn't say it was
(57:51):
going to be easy, but that'swhat has to happen in order for
this to really work out for you.
Now, there are always going tobe exceptions to this rule.
There are folks with PCOS whogo on crash diets or have
success with this thing orcarnivore or that thing.
You know.
There there's always going tobe outliers, and that's because
(58:15):
everybody's different, but longterm, I believe you're going to
have the most success justfocusing on your nutrition
quality and pairing yourquantities with that.
Some advice that I would giveyou on calories, though, is
(58:37):
avoid going too low for too long.
1200 is usually my lowest thatI'll go.
There are some exceptions tothat, like if a person is really
, really petite, but you reallywant to aim to lose about a
pound a week, and I think that's.
The other thing that I reallywant to stress is that
(59:00):
expectations are often reallyunrealistic about what a healthy
weight loss looks like.
Like we generally want to losemore than a pound a week.
I mean, you know, I know how itis who wants to just lose one
pound a week.
That's boring, especiallybecause the way that weight loss
works is that it doesn't showup on the scale every week.
Right, even though we might belosing a pound a week, it may
(59:22):
not show up on the scale when weweigh in every week, so we
could feel very defeated.
But that's really thehealthiest way to lose weight,
though.
That's the way where your bodycan adjust.
You store a lot of wasteproducts and things in the fat
cells, so when the fat cellskind of, you know, start letting
(59:43):
go of stuff it's got to beprocessed through your liver.
You know it can be kind ofoverwhelming for your body.
So take it slow.
The more weight you have tolose, the faster you can go, but
as time goes on and you getwithin, you know, maybe 30
pounds, if you're whatever yourgoal is, then it's got to slow
(01:00:03):
down.
Be patient with yourself.
Like I said, the scale is notalways a great indicator of
actual fat loss.
So the final thing that I willtell you is to have more than
one method of measurement.
Whenever I am trying to losebody fat or I'm working with a
client, I'm taking weight,although infrequently, usually
(01:00:28):
like no more than once a week,sometimes less, but I'm taking
measurements weekly and I'mtaking progress photos.
And I think measurements andprogress photos actually are so
much more effective for seeingchanges because you can get like
a little like a pic, collage,the app, but you can like put
(01:00:51):
them side by side, blow them upto the same size and see the
changes and at the end of theday, right, it's not really
about what we actually weigh onthe scale, it's about what we
want our body composition tolook like.
So why does the scale numbermatter?
If you're gaining weightbecause you've been increasing
(01:01:13):
your strength training orwhatever, that may also be a
factor.
So, especially if you plan tostart doing more strength
training, I highly recommend Idon't know, I don't even weigh
myself on the scale anymore likejust measurements and progress
photos, because once you startgaining muscle in any
significant way, it can reallythrow things off All right.
(01:01:36):
So I think, hopefully that washelpful.
I think I'm going to close it upfor the day because we've
already gone for a long time,but I want to mention that there
is a form you can fill out withquestions for the podcast, and
so if this triggered anyquestions for you, please feel
free to reach out.
I am currently taking likeanything that where, if you just
(01:01:58):
give me a little background onyour story, I've been reading
people's, you know differentstories and then giving them
advice.
I'm doing like an advicepodcast every few episodes or so
.
So submit your questions, okay,and thank you for being here.
Don't forget to leave us arating.
If you never have, okay, we'llcall it a day now, goodbye.
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