My journey this year with PCOS, inflammation & weight loss

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1:43What is up? I'm Grace Beverley and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast-shaped guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

1:57Hey guys and welcome back to Working Hard. Today is another Thursday bonus episode and this is a weird one because it is not our normal type of episode in lots of different ways but I have been getting so many questions on this so I wanted to find a space to do like a long form in-depth kind of completely transparent episode on this just because I don't know it's been a huge part of my life over the past year and I know how much of a nightmare it can be for so many women trying to navigate the PCOS, trying to navigate a load of different symptoms. And it's something that I have dedicated so much time to this year.

2:31And I really just decided this year was going to be the year that I actually fixed it after getting some like not so great results at the end of last year. So this is, I guess, just my full account and what I tried and what worked and what didn't work and all of that. But on Monday, we obviously did an episode with the amazing Dr. Hazel Wallace all about PCOS and gyne health. And that was like such incredible in-depth education. And I'm so thankful to Hazel for helping me to create a resource where everyone who wants to know more about PCOS as a condition can go and listen to that episode and get all the latest research and understand like what the different types of it are and all of that but I obviously mentioned in the episode that I have been on a real journey with my PCOS this year I've mentioned it on Instagram as well I've talked about it a number of time on my stories and as I said it was kind of just really one of my new year's resolutions to get it under control and at the beginning of this year I was trying to I guess revamp my life in lots of different ways I have lived so go go go go for the past like 10 years and constantly been a million miles per hour and I feel like towards the end of last year I was just really noticing how much that was affecting like my entire body and how much I'd really just pushed myself to my limit in lots of different ways and I just think that I don't know I'm one of those people who really wishes I could go 100 miles per hour 24 hours a day I don't actually have any problem with it but I don't think my body likes it very much and I think I had lots of times where I was just realizing that my body is not happy and healthy and I should be young and happy and healthy and I am I'm very fortunate to not to have the ability to be that way I guess and I just wasn't think I was putting my body through a lot all the time and I just really wanted to get on top of that I mentioned in the episode with Hazel that for example like I'd been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue which basically as far as I understand it is that it's when your cortisol stops working correctly based on the fact that you've pushed it so hard for so long or you've been through something or whatever it might be and I think that especially since Tala nearly went bankrupt I've literally been operating in and actually far before then like I'm very much like a fight or flight work girly but I'd been working in this constant state of like oh my god everything's gonna fall apart if I don't work 15 hour days every single day and like travel from here to here and then do this back to back with this and then go to New York for two days because I need to do this specific thing.

4:46And then don't worry that I come straight back into the office and all of these different things. And my body was not happy at all. I'm not going to go into the details of like everything that I was told, but I had some really scary moments. Like with my adrenal fatigue, there was one day where I literally could not get out of bed. And I thought that it was something not more serious because that's just such a classic me way of looking at it. But I thought that I was, I had something that would basically mean that I was actually at the end of my tether and really like actively couldn't get out of bed which I couldn't but it was because my cortisol had stopped working that way and because I was getting so many different PCOS symptoms all the time things like really really intense acne not being able to control that through any other way irregular periods really up and down blood sugar all of these different things I was getting a number of other tests done at the time I did Dutch testing I did Dutch Plus testing, I did GI testing, all of these different things.

5:41And I was told based on those results that I would likely find it probably quite hard to get pregnant and also keep a healthy baby. And that like really, really shook me to the core because that is one thing that I have always really, really wanted. And I feel like it's just so many women's biggest fear just to find out one day that that is not something that you can have. And I feel like I just, I don't know, that news really hit me hard on top of everything, on top of feeling like my body was constantly fighting against me and really wasn't happy despite the fact that I should be happy and healthy.

6:20On top of it, just like hearing that, I was just like, okay, I need to get everything under control and I want that for myself and I want to be healthier and I want to feel healthier and I feel like all of these I don't know I always looked at my acne in a way where I would have done absolutely anything to cure it apart from slowing down and apart from doing a number of different things to lower my inflammation and generally improve my all-round health so so that's I guess a little bit of background but I just wanted to give full it's not complete full transparency because I deserve medical privacy but I that was kind of the background of where I was coming from going into this year it really got to a low point where my body should not be in this place and I am annoyed that that requires me to change lots of different things because I think so many women for so long we have to constantly think about like what we're eating and how much we're working out and all of these things because of diet culture and then if you throw on top of that the fact that we then need to do that because you know we have PCOS and there's not enough medical research around what we can actually do to improve that.

7:26It's just like it feels unfair. Like I've spent so much of my life thinking about what I eat. I don't want to suddenly go back to that far later on. And I care a lot less now about, you know, how I look than I probably did when I was a teenager and all of that. But I guess I realized how much a lot of that for me personally was linked to my PCOS and like how a lot of my lifestyle factors were all linking together and how bad stress is for PCOS and I will be the first person to say that I'm not going to be cutting all stress out of my life I'm not going to get rid of a business or something and change my whole job because I'm not going to do that but I was trying to do as much as physically possible to improve my PCOS and lower inflammation and improve my skin and I just saw all of these symptoms as kind of my body crying for help and showing that it was unhappy so another quick disclaimer just before we really get into it I'm obviously not a doctor very clearly I'm just a girl who was fed up of her symptoms and wanted to try absolutely everything to feel her best for her wedding but also I think it's really easy to look at someone who loses weight in the way in the lead up to their wedding as kind of like oh she was losing weight for her wedding like yes I'm not gonna I'm not gonna question that at all like and it's something that went hand in hand with the fact that you know all of these everything I've been doing was to improve all of these symptoms but at the same time they did really go hand in hand so they kind of helped each other and yeah I want to look 10-10 slay amazing for the wedding but really at the beginning of this year my number one thing was just I want to be happy and healthy and I want my body to stop needing to give me all of these symptoms all the time that make me feel completely at the end of my tether and are not being fixed by medication all of these different things of which weight loss was one of those improvements.

9:14So this is all my personal experience. It is not medical advice. You can have any opinion on it you want, but it is my personal experience. And I got the help of a lot of experts in order to form this plan. I've talked to leading hormone doctors. I obviously had a lot of testing, all of this. But this is not to say that anyone needs to do anything in order to solve anything at all. You can do whatever you want at any time in your life. This is just me sharing my journey. Okay, so a little fact file on my PCOS. So I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was around 13, 14, I want to say, could be 15, 16.

9:47I remember first going to the doctor with heavy irregular periods at kind of like 12 and being sent for referrals. I've talked about before how my first referral went, which was that I waited for a referral for about six months because they said that I should go. And then the doctor looked me up and down and said, well, you're not fat and you're not hairy, so you don't have PCOS. So that was real great and shows how far we need to go in women's health. But I was put on the mini pill. I know lots of people who were put on Yasmin or other combined pills for their PCOS and had good results from it.

10:15I obviously couldn't do that. I then was put on the implant for over 10 years. That was my preferred form of contraception. And I just found it really easy. It was your new arm. One of the doctors I talked to, the endocrinologist, she actually did suggest she was like, I wouldn't have actually put you on the implant because I think that the type of PCOS you have, it doesn't always respond well to that but que sera sera I was on that for over 10 years and no doctors had a problem with it but I do also think that that's just the thing with contraception they're like just choose whatever you want which is great and a huge privilege but well no it should be right but it is a privilege to be able to have that access but I don't think we always get the best advice it's kind of always just around like women not getting pregnant or girls not getting pregnant rather than actually what would be right for your body and what shouldn't you do for your body and then kind of as I said a little bit before, the symptoms that I was really having before this year and that I was really having intensely, and I will come back to this to cover what I now have less, were I had really cystic acne and would have it over and over and sometimes it would be truly very intense and like all over my face and quite painful.

11:25And anyone who's struggled with acne before just knows like how demoralizing and debilitating it is it's just it's something that shouldn't affect you so much but it really really does and it's just horrible to spend time like looking in the mirror and just being like and that's not to say that anyone should feel like that that's just how I felt a lot of the time when I would just be like ultra stressed and then you just look at your face one morning and you're just like and for fuck's sake and like also just being an adult you're just like I'm fucking 28 like why like why do I have a full base of acne I don't fucking understand but that was one of my big symptoms then also brain fog so I would get really really bad brain fog a lot of the time so a lot of the time in the afternoons a lot of the time after eating but I tried to pinpoint kind of what was giving me brain fog which was generally eating lots of naked carbs so having carbs without having protein or fats at the same time and I really started introducing at the beginning of last year like having 30 grams of protein with every meal which is just like an arbitrary number but for me really made a difference to that brain fog then I would also have like a lot of really intense emotions back and forth like really high highs and really low lows and I I was worried at one point that I might have like PMDD just because my PMS was really really intense sometimes but I don't think I actually did because I thought well I don't know but my the lifestyle factors I've changed I think have made a big big difference to this so that was one thing also I had like this huge pick and mix addiction which like obviously it's not actually an addiction but I just I craved sweets more than anyone I know like I would look at someone who was able to eat a few sweets or would like turn down sweets and I'd be like how the fuck do you do that like these sweets would solve all of my problems and I obviously felt like absolute shit afterwards but it was like I constantly like needed it like at any time if you asked me what I would want most it would be that and I would feel like I actively needed it but I definitely don't have that at all anymore and actually I had some pick and mix the other day at the cinema and I had to actually force myself to finish it which is kind of crazy for me because I feel like I could enter a pick and mix eating competition but I really think that that was like insulin resistance and my body just craving any sort of like hit that would make me feel better from some of these things.

13:47I don't know. Again, not a scientific explanation, but that's one thing that I found hugely different is that I don't have those cravings anymore. I still like a little bit of choccy, a little bit of sweet treat. Like I love my chocolate covered dates. She says, if anyone told me to go from pick and mix to chocolate covered dates a year ago, I would have slapped them in the face. So please take what you want from that. But I do like a bit of choccy after a meal at all times, but it's nowhere near what it was. Like I honestly could have eaten a huge like one kilogram thing of sweets. Then I had also been put on metformin from about January of last year and I'd also tried spironolactone which I mentioned in the episode with Hazel.

14:26It just really really didn't work with my head but some people love it and spironolactone from what I've read is meant to decrease the effects of androgens which obviously lots of the time if you have PCOS you have high androgens but you want to be able to do testing to know what type of PCOS you have. I do have high androgen PCOS or I don't think that's what it's called but I have PCOS with high androgens and I found metformin really really helpful. I'm still on it now. I still take it every single day. I have the slow release one because the other one apparently makes people shit themselves and I prefer not to do that in the day or actually in the night either.

14:58I actually found one of the big things that made a difference for was food noise. Like I think because I have insulin resistant PCOS I was constantly thinking about food all the time, like all the time, like when like getting really almost like anxious about like where my next snack is going to come from, all of this, because I used to get so shaky and feel like I was about to keel over if I hadn't eaten in a few hours. And that's obviously insulin resistance. But I found metformin super, super helpful, still on it now. Obviously, that's not advice, but whatever works for you. Also, another one of my symptoms was that I wasn't ovulating properly.

15:32So I've talked a little bit about some of the results I got, but yeah, I was not doing that and I would like my body to do that but I didn't really have regular periods and I they weren't super irregular but they weren't they weren't predictable yeah I wasn't ovulating properly and I was told that I would probably struggle to get and stay pregnant which was horrible news to receive then I guess on timeline wise in September of last year I got back into kind of regular working out. I set some time aside in August to like reset goals for that kind of back to school time of year. And I just wanted to become the type of person who would just regularly work out, not necessarily for physical aspects, but just, you know, I was already getting inklings that I really wanted to solve all of these PCOS related issues back then.

16:26So September, I kind of got back into regular working out and just like being a bit healthier and all of this, but no huge changes, just kind of like routine, like being better at a good routine. Then in January, that was like just after I'd received those more kind of serious results and I was having more impactful symptoms. Well, I really just got serious about it and realized that all of these symptoms were too big to ignore. And the fact that I'd been, you know, in the endocrinology pathway in the NHS for years and like nothing was really happening. and like yes I got metformin and that was helpful but like you know you don't want to be told some of the things I was told and I really didn't want that to be my reality and it scares the shit out of me that that's what I was told and so I just kind of at that point I was like right yeah you don't want to change the way you're eating and you don't want to pay attention to these things but like if that is where your body is now and you know you want to start a family then like suck up it's frustrating but people have it way worse and so yeah January is where I really got serious about everything.

17:28So just to give context, I guess that was my before in terms of symptoms. Now, just going through them, my skin is pretty clear. Most of the time I still do get breakouts. I'm trying to work out what that is. I actually did a food sensitivity test and I believe it actually might be soy and egg whites, which we'll see. But I got breakouts a few weeks ago again and I had a feeling it might be eggs, but I was trying to decide between it being eggs or soy and at the time I started getting coffee from a place that did soy milk and didn't do other milks and so I was getting soy and that's when I was breaking out so I cut them both out and actually my skin's gone much better but at the same time I was opening the store so maybe I was just super stressed so it's not the best control experiment but my acne is so much better like so so so much better my skin is a lot clearer and I don't have so many touch wood I'm literally whacking on the table right now and I don't have so many like surprise breakouts that I really can't work out like where they're coming from I think that was one of the most annoying things is like I was changing everything I like didn't have dairy I didn't do high intensity exercise like all of these different things just like literally I didn't have alcohol a lot I gave up coffee like all of these different things and then I'd still get random breakouts and it was just so frustrating but that's a lot a lot better it's not perfect but it's a lot better brain fog I hardly get brain fog now at all.

18:53And I think one of the biggest things that's made that change is eating and knowing what my body responds to well. So I don't really have any carbs ever without having high protein at the same time. There's a lot of different schools of thought on that, or all the schools of thought say that that does create a blood sugar spike, but not all of them say that they're bad. All of that, I'm not going to argue it. I don't know, but I know that that made a big difference for me. Far fewer mood swings and intense emotions. As I said, find it very hard to eat a full thing of pick and mix, which is, you know, really newsworthy.

19:24Still on metformin. And one of the biggest things for me is that I can now tell when I'm ovulating. So kind of TMI, but I never, ever, ever used to have ovulation symptoms. And I both have a regular period and can tell when I'm ovulating now, which is just so exciting. Like I'm not trying for a baby. But I, you know, that's something I really, really, really want. And to be told last year, you know, well before my egg reserve is up, that not only do I need to, as a woman, worry about the fact that, you know, your time's running out, but also at the same time being worried whether that would even be able to happen was just terrifying.

20:03Like as soon as they told me that, I was like, oh, I'm, I was like, is it that my egg reserve is running out because I will happily cancel my wedding and just try and get pregnant? Because like that's something like that's really, really high priority for me and they were just like no because it's not about the egg reserve it is that your body is not ovulating properly for other reasons and like the the cortisol situation and like the amount of inflammation and all of these different things I would try and get healthier before you even tried to get pregnant at the moment and I was like oh okay great shit so that's been a bit of a journey mentally i'm obviously well not obviously but i am not trying for a baby but i would really really really really really really really like that so that was just a bit of a shock to the system and obviously a huge motivation in actually changing everything because i know that it is very hard sometimes for women with pcos to get pregnant and to be told that on top of everything it was just like fuck me choose the technical Why does every recipe I try need 18 ingredients, including a jar of something paste I'll never use again, but will sit in my fridge for nine months?

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23:01another big symptom is that i have lost about 20 pounds so i'm going to be fully transparent about all of this so i wanted to lose weight i wanted to lose weight generally i wanted to lose weight for the wedding i wanted to lose weight because you're always told that it's going to improve pcos symptoms so that's like my full list as of like january i didn't suddenly switch to focusing on weight loss at all. In January, I was focusing, like I gave myself three months to just focus on the diet changes that I wanted to make and like decreasing inflammation. And then from March onwards, I did put focus on weight loss.

23:33So from March, I have had this focus on weight loss and I think I lost probably about maybe 10 pounds before, 10 pounds after. But that was, you know, like over the past few weeks and months, like I have been making a genuine effort to lose weight because I want to. I think that like a lot of that weight kind of started moving because I was decreasing inflammation and like eating a lot better and all of these different things. And then obviously I used the knowledge that I have about actually losing weight and calorie deficits and all that from March onwards when I was like getting serious on my like weight loss concentration rather than health concentration.

24:08So these are like two different things, but obviously intertwined and obviously have actually ended up helping each other. And we're always going to help each other because they always tell you just lose weight when you go in with PCOS. So I've broken down what I did and like what helped in terms of diet, working out and other. Again, I probably don't need to keep saying this, but this is just what I tried. And I have no doubt the half the shit I tried is woo woo and like not rooted in any science. I'll just tell you what I think worked and what I didn't think work and what I didn't think makes a difference.

24:43Different things might work for you no one come for me I'm just sharing my experience as has been requested so I just want to be completely transparent and like I think when you get bad medical results and you start to feel like nothing's solving things you are very open to trying anything like I tried going down the like purely NHS route first and like obviously have changed to doing like lifestyle factors as much as possible with also with the help of medication and in metformin though I was obviously using that before too and I just think that when you get desperate you get desperate and I tried lots of different things so I'm going to talk through them and just be completely transparent and you can take what you want and leave what you want so diet one of the biggest things I was told was that I needed to level my cortisol for my inflammation I actually look at like videos of myself and I sometimes see like videos of myself coming up in like Tala ads or TPM ads or whatever it might be from last year and you'll see the difference in my face in how much inflammation there is versus me now.

25:42And it's crazy the difference. So one of the big things I wanted to do is decrease my inflammation and get really clear on what foods were inflaming me. So the first thing I did was I went gluten and dairy free. I was already dairy free. And originally, obviously, I'd been vegan. I was for like seven years or whatever and then I reintroduced I obviously found like I wasn't reacting well to soy and all of this so then I reintroduced fish and I've kind of like been on a journey from there but I wasn't eating dairy I did reintroduce eggs but I actually just don't think they work for me so I'm not eating eggs anymore or not really at least I'm a little bit flexy with it but I was recommended to go gluten-free again I think people really debate this so I'm not actually up for debate on this.

26:28I'm just saying what worked for me. But the reason I was recommended to go gluten-free was because it is an inflammatory food and I was just told that there is a lot of inflammation in your body and for people who have a lot of inflammation they find sometimes getting rid of gluten makes a big difference. I am not celiac and I am not sensitive to gluten but you know I was even told people lots of the time people with arthritis go gluten-free because it just decreases inflammation and they find that really helps. So I instantly went gluten and dairy-free and just kind of took that as my baseline rules and I did start to feel better quite not that quickly but I started to feel lighter like not weight wise but just in terms of I didn't feel super heavy after meals I didn't feel super kind of like weighed down or like brain foggy and all of this I did just feel like a little bit lighter I also made sure to spend some time on getting really clear on like what is processed food and what is not processed food and I think that the differentiation that really helped me was like whole foods are obviously whole foods they're like single ingredient foods processed foods are things like pasta and bread and yogurt and all these things then ultra processed foods are those things with like loads of ingredients that are like all these different watch them flips and I think you could probably like the name the difference between them but again I was told that you could get a lot more inflammation based on eating lots of ultra processed foods and before that because I'd been trying to introduce more and more protein I think I was eating a lot more ultra processed foods than I actually needed to be so I just educated myself on what was processed and not processed then I also educated myself on what was AIP so AIP is autoimmune protocol and it's basically meant to be the most anti-inflammatory diet.

28:17And that is because you can't eat fucking anything. Like they take everything out of that. And it's basically everything you could be allergic or sensitive to completely removed. So even things like pepper, things like all nightshades, things like gluten, like everything. So I got clear on what was in AIP. I never did AIP, but I did get educated on it. And then I kind of like did mini experiments of testing like one week at a time if I removed nightshades did I feel better if I removed I don't know I was already gluten and dairy free but if I removed this if I removed this and that was actually super helpful because I realized for example that like fajita seasoning does make me really inflamed and I can see the difference in my face and like my how puffy I am I can also feel the difference in terms of my stomach like I don't digest well when I've had like fajita type seasoning but that's something I never would have known before and I never did AIP I did there's this really really great girl who I follow on Instagram she is called Sophie Richards and I like listened to and looked at like a lot of her stuff on like AIP she went AIP for a while I don't know if she's not AIP anymore but just like a lot of that kind of anti-inflammatory autoimmune stuff she did some really great videos as well on how like endometriosis isn't an autoimmune disease but it does flare up in the same way as autoimmune diseases so lots of people with really severe endometriosis benefit from AIP as well I don't have a confirmed diagnosis on endometriosis because I haven't done a laparoscopy but doctors have always said that they assume I have endometriosis based on my symptoms and sometimes it does really flare up based on like extreme pain I also get extreme pain in my coccyx so like in your tailbone which is apparently a niche type of endometriosis or could be an niche type of endometriosis but I have to say mine has never been so bad that I've considered a liposcopy and like the time out from work and like having the operation so I yeah I don't definitely don't have the worst endometriosis at all but I did get really really clear on AIP and I think that that was really helpful because I just was able to know that like if I was feeling a little bit kind of heavy and inflamed.

30:33And I have to say when I say heavy, I'm saying this over and over, but like when I say heavy, I do not mean weight wise. I just mean, you know, when you just feel heavy, I just really kind of would avoid general things that weren't AIP friendly. And I just got loads of seasonings and stuff that were AIP friendly and it just made everything a lot easier. I've also started having celery juice on an empty stomach in the morning. Fuck knows if this is a TikTok fad or whatever it might be. I noticed a difference in my skin from when I started doing that. But please note, these have been bad controlled experiments because I've been doing lots of different things.

31:04So who knows, but I did find that super helpful. Also, every single morning I have ACV, apple cider vinegar with glutamine, which was recommended by a functional doctor. And again, don't know if it works, still doing it. Lots of things are working. I'm sure lots of things I'm doing are not. Who knows? Then I switched as well, I would say, to relatively low carb. I am not a low carb girly. I just, I mean, I was going gluten free. So I basically just ensured that most of my carbs were potatoes, sweet potato rice, like generally AIP, but I was just generally going lower carb. I do find that I get really, really hungry and touchy if I'm properly low carb.

31:45So that's just not a thing for me. And originally I gave up coffee. So I gave up coffee. When my, when would it have been? I don't know. I gave up coffee a bit ago. I can't really remember exactly when it was, but again, as like lumped into all of this, me just being like, I need to fix this, especially with the cortisol levels, all of this. So in, oh, in September, I remember I used to do fasted exercise. I used to not have breakfast. I used to not eat until 1pm. And I stopped all of that, started forcing myself to eat breakfast, started only having caffeine on a full stomach and then I cut out coffee completely and now I've introduced it back in because I like having the will to live but I have decaf which still has some caffeine in but I found that makes a huge difference and it just does still have caffeine in it either placebo effect or I must be very strong placebo effect because I do actually feel the effects of coffee but I do think that now having given enough for a while now when I do have it like proper coffee I once forgot to order decaf the shit it did to my body I was like oh my god that cannot be good that cannot have been good for me having had that many coffees back to back all caffeinated for so long and like on an empty stomach and all of that so I do think that was something good to do but yeah I'm back now on decaf coffee I also switched away from oat milk again some people hate oat milk some people hate the oat milk haters so choose your team and cheer them on but I switched to almond milk which I always try to avoid because I do believe it is the least environmentally friendly out of all of the milk alternatives but I can't have soya I can't have oat and lots of the oat ones aren't gluten-free and they're often filled with like they're the more processed ones so at the moment I'm settled on almond I love a nut milk of any other form but they're just often not readily available then in terms of my working out I one of the first things I introduced was 10 ,000 steps a day and this is something that obviously lots of people talk about it's apparently not a magic number apparently like seven eight thousand is more accurate in terms of like what has real health benefits but I do have to say that last year I probably got around three thousand steps a day every day and would also spend the whole day all day every day at my desk and not moving and like I've never been the type person to go on a lunchtime walk or a lunch break at all or just like any of these things like generally healthy.

34:08So I just tried to introduce that because I did read lots and lots and lots of how you can't really out train a sedentary lifestyle and everything. So I moved to 10 ,000 steps a day and then changed that to actually 70 ,000 steps a week. So I do think like if you're a busy person, sometimes you're just going to have a back to back to back day where you don't have time to be walking for an hour and a half. Like I know that so well. A lot of my days are like chocker and I'm getting a car somewhere so that I can do a call on the way there and then going back to back to back to back and it's like I can't fit an hour and a half of walking in there so I did move that to 70 ,000 steps a week and I'm still trying to get 10 ,000 steps a day but it does just mean if there's a random day where you get 5 ,000 you can just make it up another day in that week and I think it makes it a lot more motivating because you don't actually have to stick to that in the same way it's more flexible you can plan your life around it and then at the beginning of introducing regular working out again and I guess with this whole like health weight loss all of this journey the first thing I introduced back in was weight lifting and I did that three times a week and everything else was extra so I think one of the best things I did with this journey was I really didn't go into it with intensity and I think that usually one thing I do very well is I do intensity well I don't do consistency well so that's with anything I can get anything done as long as it takes not very long.

35:27Like I believe that I can really, really, really push and get anything done. Like that's just one of my traits that I like credit myself with is like the fact that I could do anything and the fact that I will work through the night to do anything. But actually that's not always the right thing to do. Like sometimes you just need to not give yourself the dopamine hit of going 100 miles per hour and you need to actually take it slower and be more consistent and all of that. So I just told myself, no, you just have to, until you can earn extra workouts and extra things that are in line with the progress you want to make, you have to stick to the three times a week weightlifting and everything else is extra.

36:03So I did that for a few months and that was really great. And then I was able to add things in. I was able to tweak things. I added in like two times Pilates a week from January and then added in around like one cardio a week from April. But the main thing I did that I think was really good is I did not allow myself to add on workouts until I was doing that three times a week weightlifting consistently. And I think that really helped my brain where my brain usually just tries to jump to doing a million things at once and actually doesn't necessarily nail just the baseline, which is the most important thing from the beginning.

36:38So I really worked my way up slowly. And I do think that weightlifting personally has been one of the most helpful things for ptos in general i feel like my body just responds well to it i think also i saw this tiktok lol of someone explaining the fact that if you have a high androgens it also means that you are much better at producing muscle and building muscle faster and then the more muscle you have the lower your pcos symptoms that's hugely simplified and a scientist is probably out there just like screaming into their headphones but it was something along the line to the fact that if you have high androgens it's easier to build muscle and to reduce PCOS symptoms you generally want to build muscle so those things go hand in hand and I do think that was really really helpful.

37:19Since then I've had a little bit more flexibility in terms of what I actually want to do so like generally my basis is three weightlifting sessions a week two pilates one cardio at the moment and that's been like amped up I never would have gone into September doing six workouts a week at all but as we know I'm in my wedding era and I want to and I have been working very very hard to look how I want to look and feel how I want to feel and all of that I did this is all actually the exact plan is on shreddy it's the wedding plan that's the plan that I have been doing and have done it's like a 24 week one so I've been doing it for months and months but that is based on the 3-2-1 method so it's three times a week weightlifting two times a week pilates and one times cardio and then also just like I'm amping up my cardio in from now till the wedding so I've gone to 2-2-2 so two times a week weightlifting two times a week pilates two times a week cardio but I just cannot express enough two things actually first of all don't go in with intensity if you're going in wanting to do everything a million miles per hour and wanting to do everything by the book you're going to fall off whereas if you're going in building foundations first before you do that you have a much higher chance of success.

38:31So I'm really, really glad I did that. The second thing I want to say is to stick to working out, one of the most effective things I did was give myself substitute workouts for anything. So any single workout could be switched for a 12-330, which is walking on the treadmill at three miles per hour, 12 incline for 30 minutes, or it could be switched for something else that was easy. So like a 30-minute Peloton, for example, because I have one at home. That meant that every single workout, if for example, I couldn't get to the gym, I didn't have an excuse. Like it wasn't just like, oh, well, this can't happen.

39:04It was okay. Every week you can switch something out for one of these, but you always have a substitute workout. So the next best thing isn't not doing anything. The next best thing is doing this other option. And then to go into the other category. So like other things I generally changed that had this result of like reduction in symptoms really important to say you cannot reverse PCOS as we discussed in the episode but I guess a drastic reduction in symptoms for me and the ability to lose weight and the ability to get regular periods and all of this I tried going to sauna quite regularly I managed to do that quite regularly in LA for obvious reasons because it's so LA but I don't do that as regularly in the UK just I find it hard because a lot of the time I'm going to the gym I'm going to work straight after and if I make myself super sweaty then literally my makeup won't stay on my face when then getting ready for work.

39:50So, you know, I'm trying my best. But yeah, I haven't been doing as much sauna, but I do actually want to do more of that. I tried some acupuncture as well, which some people really swear by. I do think it builds over time and I didn't give it long enough. So I had probably about like five acupuncture sessions. I didn't notice a huge difference just based on that, I don't think. Another thing in the other category is obviously, I don't think I would have been in this situation I was in in my kind of before if I wasn't so stressed for so long and ignoring everything. Like, I can't tell you how a million miles per hour my life was.

40:24And I think that, you know, I have zero dependence. I don't have anyone dependent on me other than myself. Like, I like to be a good partner. I like to be a good sister, friend, all of these things. But like, my life is very stressful entirely based on me and the fact that I have started businesses for fun and the fact that I have had such a tie to productivity and external validation, all of these different things. And I think that for so long I have worked in this like maximum fight or flight a million miles per hour and never stopping and like I don't know like always working out at 6am and then going to the office and then going from that to an investor thing and then like traveling the next morning and going through all these different time zones and then like dialing into a board meeting in a completely different time zone and like all of these things I just like never let myself rest and constantly on top of that receive like pretty soul-shattering news on the weekly I would say like there's always something.

41:14There's always something that's like huge, very hard to deal with, very emotional, like all of these things. And I have no doubt that I just would not have been in that situation had I not been so stressed. And I think that like, if you look back at all my videos where I've like talked about PCOS or whatever it might be in the past, lots of people have been like, oh yeah, it's stress, it's stress. And that's, it's just, it fucking annoys me so much that like, not only do we have to think about like food and exercise when thinking about PCOS, but you also need to think about things like stress like it's already so fucking hard for women to be able to like get ahead and do well or like match the success in industries set up and like run by and owned by men it's like another thing that we have to carry like a lot of the mental load and a lot of the you know primary caregiving and like home stuff and all of that and then also need to think about the fact that our bodies aren't on the same 24-hour hormonal cycle and like I don't know just all of these different things and I just have probably lived in denial for a very long time that I can't do the exact same thing because I don't believe I can't do it but I do think that maybe I put my body through too much stress and too much like relentless bad news and problem solving and like going between time zones and just treating treating myself like I never needed anything other than like to do well at work so I do think that's a big factor and I massively changed a lot of things around that in from January onwards to again like some of it related to health results some of it related I was just like why am I feeling like this and having all of these symptoms and all of this like that's not where I want to be that's not how I want to feel especially when I should be like young and healthy and so I did try and change some of those things too and it did lead to me being better at delegating and all of that but I do often find it hard to know what I should be delegating and what it would be negligent to delegate because yes, I should be able to say, oh no, you deal with this completely and I don't even need to see it before it goes live.

43:10And at the same time, if something went live and it was wrong or whatever, people kicked off about it, then it would all come back to me. And it's just like, I don't know, it's the job I chose, but it has led to a lot of stress. I do think that giving myself a sense of control in all of this went a very long way, like being able to take these steps and just being able to be like, do you know what, I'm doing this for my health. and I think that one of the biggest things that changed my mindset was understanding that 80 % good for anything work-wise is better than 100 % and you literally not being able to get out of bed lol so that was one of the big things that I tried to change and it's been a journey and I definitely am not there fully but I do think that that's made a big big difference but I hope this has covered a lot I feel like I've been talking for fucking years and obviously I've covered lots of different areas of like what I've done in terms of diet and workout and all of this and not everything will be for everyone as I've already said I have wanted to be really transparent on like what I've done for weight loss versus what I've done to actually like improve my health and I do think it would it's probably like a half and half because I do think that lots of the things that I've done to improve my health had a kind of weight loss effect and I wasn't necessarily like treating my body the best in terms of like what I was putting into it and how I was you know as I said like never eating in the mornings and then constantly going into like high intensity exercise and having three coffees on an empty stomach and like all of these things.

44:31But then I would say that like those kind of had like a knock on effect of like less inflammation and losing weight and all of those things. And then I would say that definitely like, I don't know, around 50 % maybe of the rest of it was me actively trying to lose weight and get those results and kind of be really consistent in the gym and with my eating and all of that, which I have been really for the past few months, especially since March, I would say. And that's something that I'm like really, really proud of myself for and I think I have made great progress and I'm feeling really really happy about it and I want to feel you know I want to keep feeling absolutely amazing and I think it's been such a good side effect I guess of me wanting to get really really healthy and make sure that I'm going into the next year of my life like not feeling out of control with my health or with what my body can do or feeling too concerned that I'm like not ovulating or anything like that because that obviously takes up a lot of headspace but thank you so much for listening I hope this has been helpful to anyone also navigating the confusing world of PCOS and generally being a woman.

45:32Obviously, this is my personal experience. It's not a how-to. It might not work for you. You might find, you might have tried some of these things and been like, absolutely the fuck not. I just feel like I tried everything and actually really what I just needed to do was have an entire life overhaul, which is kind of what I've done. And it has been amazing. So if you feel like you're on the verge of this as well, then like my love goes out to you because it's not easy. And I think Like you have a few like come to Jesus moments before you actually have one. And I think that mine were really like how dire my medical results were, which obviously like I haven't got into in that much detail.

46:02But like, yeah, I think it is worth changing your lifestyle if it is impacting you in lots of different ways. And it's shit that we have to think about those things. But sometimes we do. And I know it's hard. You know, you're always told to lose weight when you have PCOS and then you're like, OK, it's also 10 times harder for me to lose weight. But I'm glad I've done all of this. and as unfair as it is, I'm glad I've spent the time on that and I feel so much better. I'll also leave some links in the show notes with exactly what has helped me and a few resources where I learned about the condition.

46:33And as always, have a lovely week. Come over to the Instagram at Working Hard Pod and tell us thoughts, feelings. I would love to hear your experiences and anything that's really helped you because this has been a long journey and we are all in this together to quote High School Musical, the poets of our generation. But have a lovely week and I will see you next week.

47:06We'll see you next time.

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