Episode #113: PCOS and Fitness: Effective What Works Best

2:22 – 22:40 Episode 10- Exercise for PCOS Hormone Balance

I’m going to apologize in advance that today’s episode will probably include some ranting because today’s topic has been drastically misrepresented and there are so many myths that have been propagated for marketing purposes services. But today we will be setting the record straight based on actual scientific data about exercise. When you have PCOS.

You’re listening to the PCOS Repair podcast where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally with a little medical help. Sprinkled in Hi, I’m Ashlene Korcek and with many years of medical and personal experience with polycystic Ovarian syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their bodies in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset and our environment, and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at the root cause.

Welcome back to the PCOS Repair podcast where I’m going to be setting the record straight about exercise when you have PCOS. And I will do my best not to get too heated because I can get quite passionate about this topic. So first of all, what kind of myths are out there about PCOS and exercise? Perhaps you’ve heard some of these so they might be something like you should only do gentle workouts if you have PCOS. Cardio isn’t a good idea if you have PCOS. Walking and yoga are the best exercises for PCOS. High-intensity interval training hit is okay in short workouts, but be careful not to overdo it. The reason you aren’t losing weight is because you’re working out too hard. The reason you aren’t having regular ovulatory periods is because of your exercise program. Sound familiar? Maybe you’ve heard some or all of these. Let me guess though, it was probably someone who was trying to sell you a program or service. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for providing women with the programs and services that they need to get help. I mean, that’s what I do because being a few steps ahead of someone and being able to help them is an extremely beautiful thing.

But you will never hear or see me telling you false information to get you to sign up for one of my programs. What I just can’t stand is using promises of not needing to sweat or telling women that their workouts are harmful to their health. Here is a better option in order to entice them to buy something. I don’t know why they do it. Maybe they are just poorly informed about PCOS, or maybe they have their own issues with exercise and there is certainly not a one size fits all way to reverse your PCOS. But spreading blanket statements and false information isn’t cool and as you can see, it kind of really annoys me. So what is the truth about exercise and PCOS? Well, just like anything else, we can always overuse a good thing and overexercising can lead to burnout and adrenal fatigue and be harmful to our health. But I find this is rarely the case when it comes to PCOS. And we’re concerning is that this topic of exercise has been made very confusing to women by influencers and hormone gurus suggesting that they should be careful how much they’re exercising so it’s not to stress their body or increase cortisol, et cetera.

And that suggestion that you need to be careful, it puts us in an inactive mode, like we don’t know what to do, we don’t know what to do next, so we do nothing. There is some basis for these warnings, but let me try and paint a more clear picture of when they may be necessary. So elite athletes with extremely low body fat percentages that work out intensely many times per week for long periods of time. These women have been known to stop having periods and maybe causing some hormone disturbances. They’re not concerned about it. They’re after a different goal with their bodies to each their own. If they’re not worried about their fertility right now, we don’t need to be worried about it either. But we have seen scientifically that that level of aggressive exercise can have a toll on our current fertility and our hormone health. And so we warn women about exercising too much. But that is a very small percentage of women. The other situation where caution might need to be advised is for the very type-A driven woman who approaches exercise in an overly aggressive manner. Now, not every Type A woman approaches exercise in an aggressive manner.

In fact, many type-A women have everything in their life under control except for exercise, and that they’re not doing it. And they feel like they have control over everything, but they don’t have the motivation, they don’t have the self-discipline when it comes to exercise. So definitely not all type-A women have this problem. But there are type A women who attack exercise very aggressively with a determination to overcome weight struggles, to be super fit, and even as a means of coping with other areas of their life. Approaching exercise this way without any regard for how their body is responding to it can be harmful and it can be another cause of stress instead of a relief from it. All right, so these are the extremes and definitely not the norm. Most women find that it’s hard to find time to work out. They don’t feel like they have the energy, and when it starts to hurt, they ease up instead of pushing through to the end of their workout. As you can see, for the average woman, these warnings are not necessary. And simply encouraging regular exercise. Listening to how your body is responding would be much better advice.

That said, understanding your primary PCOS root cause is always very important, and if you are having a stress response, it is worth looking at how is exercise fitting into that? Because your PCOS root cause can provide a lot of great insight into what exercise routines may benefit your PCOS, as well as how to adjust your lifestyle bubble in order to help your body thrive instead of working against it. As always, you can take the PCOS Root Cause quiz to learn more about this, and I will link it up in the show notes below. Okay, so how does exercise benefit PCOS? Exercise can help to balance blood sugar, decrease inflammation, manage stress, maintain healthy hormone balances. As you can see, exercise pertains to every single PCOS root cause, so it is definitely important to include movement as part of your natural healing for your PCOS. So while there may be a few cases of too much exercise being a problem, feeling restricted and fearful is far worse. The concern of doing something wrong paralyzes us to take action. And without getting started, we can’t discover what is or isn’t working for our bodies, and we can’t adjust and make proper improvements.

And that is the key. It has to work for your body, not somebody else’s body, not following someone else’s program or method. And this is why my programs really don’t tell you exactly what to do. They give you examples. But ultimately we focus on listening and learning for yourself and taking your own feedback and learning how to interpret that so that it works for you. It’s about discovering, trying, taking action, tweaking, adjusting, making it better, and working with your body. I can tell you what has worked for me. I can tell you what has worked for other women as inspiration or to help you get ideas. But what we really need to look at is what is happening in our body so that we can address it where it needs help. So sadly, these blanket statements that only apply to 10% of women with PCOS who are currently in active burnout are being applied to 90 plus percent of women with PCOS who would greatly benefit from adding exercise to their PCOS healing plan. But they’re not sure what to do about it. So where does that leave you? What practical actions can you take to improve your PCOS balance with exercise?

Okay, so first of all, just start with the habit of movement. This is basically just a dedicated amount of time each day that you commit to moving your body five to 10 minutes or even half an hour. Start realistically, don’t commit to too much time that you’re not going to be able to fit in, and really do it. Second, make it count. Build some muscle. Get that blood moving. Ideally, break a sweat. Even if it’s a small sweat. Just get your body to heat up a little bit and get it moving because it’s going to make your brain feel better. It’s going to make your muscles feel better. And even if it’s only for 10 minutes a day, make it count. Step three, push yourself a little bit more every time as you listen to your body a little invigorating discomfort is just your body growing in its capacity of strength and movement. So don’t be scared by a little bit of pain. So the question I get asked a lot, and you’ll see posts all over social media about this, about what is the best exercise for PCOS. So I can’t answer that question because there is not one.

It is completely different for every person and every situation, and it changes as that person’s fitness improves or lessens. So it’s completely not static. And there’s definitely not one size fits all when it comes to this. But I can tell you what has worked best for me and what has not worked for me over the last 20-plus years of me trying to stay healthy and fit and feeling good in my body. So I started exercising and being aware of the need to exercise when I was in high school. And one of the times where it really started to click that this is like, amazing for my body was on swim team. I was on an intermediate level of a high school swim team, and we were swimming about an hour and a half, three to four times a week. And it was hardcore swimming. We were sharing lanes, and there were people behind you, like, right on your heels, and they were basically going to swim right over the top of you if you didn’t swim fast enough. And so you swam hard for an hour and a half. And it was fun. I loved swimming.

It felt amazing. I enjoyed the people I was with. I enjoyed my coach. It was just like this quiet in the water, nobody talking to you, like just let down of all things from life. And I loved it. Over a few weeks and months, the transformation in my health, the way my posture was, the confidence in my body, just like the way my clothes fit better. My goal was not weighted loss. My goal was not really anything other than just being healthy. And it was just amazing. And it was one of the first times, looking back that I just felt good in my body. And prior to that, I had not. So the contrast just felt amazing. Around that same time, my dad was trying to also lose some weight, and we were both trying to kind of focus on health and fitness. And so we started running together somewhere, like in a mile and a half to 2 miles, maybe every once in a while, three if we were feeling really motivated when he would get home from work. And it really wasn’t about going crazy. It was about connecting with each other and having a special time when I got to talk to my dad as a high school student, and he really enjoyed that.

And we both had this kind of feeling where the other person wasn’t going to do this if we didn’t go and we were doing it for them. And it was probably one of the first times where it really felt like exercise was beyond me. It wasn’t just me doing it for me, and that had a big impact on just the meaningfulness behind exercise as compared to just I need to do this. So then in College, I had some pretty good fitness in high school. And as College got busy and time with friends and studies, I definitely had periods of time where I was not working out hardly at all. And yet I would then also take times where I would push myself really hard as if I hadn’t taken any time off and definitely had some injuries. A lot more dislike of exercise and it became more of a chore every once in a while. I still liked it, but it was definitely a lot more hit-and-miss and brought up a lot of the negative patterns that people can fall into with exercise. That was definitely not a time when I felt amazing about my exercise routine.

I was young overall, fairly healthy, and I could push through to maintain a level of fitness that I was trying to maintain, but at the same time, I wasn’t doing it in a very productive or healthy way at the time. I probably wasn’t super aware of that, but looking back, definitely not my best moment when it came to fitness. However, I had a really good friend throughout College that got me into weight lifting, and it was the first time I’ve ever lifted a weight. I’d known what I was doing with it, and he was very knowledgeable on the topic and knew how to tailor workouts to different body types and different genders and goals. And he put together some really nice workouts and my girlfriends and I would get down there regularly, hang out with friends. It’s a fun group activity and it brought back some of the fun and excitement about actually seeing some really good results with a fairly minimal amount of effort putting in, but just having it be nice and focused. And that kind of got me back into just being a little bit more moderate with my exercise, but consistent.

And that carried on through my 20s until about the time that we were about ready to try to start having kids. And at that point I was busy. I had gotten my Master’s and I was commuting in La traffic and I was busy working as a PA full time and I was not necessarily skipping workouts, but I wasn’t focused on the workouts. And so if you remember, if you had listened back to episode six when I talked about my PCOS success story and getting pregnant, I had this four-month wait to see the infertility specialist and I had not been exercising very much up to that point because of the age-old like be careful how much you exercise if you’re trying to get pregnant. Since I was struggling to get pregnant, I was hesitant to really push the exercise because I’d heard that that could make it harder to get pregnant. So I had this four-month wait. I’m like, you know what? What the heck? I am going to get super healthy. I’m not worried about a specific weight or anything, but I’m just going to focus on my health. My mental health is going to be better if I exercise.

My physical health is going to be better if I exercise. And if I’m heading into infertility treatments, I need to be at my best. So my husband and I started running sprints at night when we get home from work. And it was something like we would warm up for a half a mile down to the spot that we ran sprint. We would do quarter-mile sprints. I think we did four of them, like, their back, their back. And then we did the half-a-mile jog home. So it’s like 2 miles of running, but we would sprint all out for the quarter-mile. And it was amazing. I was super slow. And over the course of those four months, I got pretty fast. And I really noticed the change in my fitness level, my ability, my performance, my cardiovascular health. It’s amazing how quickly we can go from pretty much nothing to doing pretty good. And it’s super exciting to see that transition in ourselves. And it’s personal. It’s not something that you have to be comparing to anyone else but in yourself. When you think about where you were a month ago and all of a sudden where you’re at today, it’s pretty exciting.

So then after each baby, I did different things. After baby number two, I started walk running. So I had an amazing double jogger. Both my babies woke up early, and I would stick them in the jogger, and we’d go out on these lovely spring morning runs. I called them runs, but they were really more of a walk with a really slow jog at the beginning for about a mile. And it’s amazing how over about a month of doing that, all of a sudden I was running about 2 miles, pushing the stroller a pretty good clip. And I was able to join friends at the stroller. I was able to go and join some of my girlfriends running up to 5 miles and actually keeping up with people. And at this point, my husband is like, hey, we should train for a half marathon, which I ran when my daughter was six months old and got one of my best times on a half marathon. And it’s amazing how quickly your body just kind of kicks into gear. And so this kind of leads me to some of the takeaways of when it comes to exercising, what is it that it should feel like?

Because when we think okay, don’t exercise too hard. What is the best type of exercise? And here I’ve given you some examples of how it has fit into my life. But what is it really that we’re looking for? Okay, first of all, when I get started, it’s hard. So any of these times where I got back into it started something new. Even when I was on a swim team and started running with my dad, the running was hard. It starts out hard, and that’s normal. And it’s not a sign that you’re overdoing it, but it is a sign that you need to give yourself some Grace. Take it slow and steady. Don’t try to go from couch potato mode to elite athlete mode overnight. That would be overdoing it and not good for your health. But take it slow and don’t compare yourself to where you used to be, even if you’ve been super fit in the past. Like, a good example for that for me was after my second baby was born, I couldn’t even run a mile. And if I was comparing myself to where I’d been in the past, that would be super depressing.

But if I compared myself to where I was two weeks ago, I was doing really good. The fact that I was out there was a win. And so changing that mindset is huge. Everyone has to ramp up each time. Just because you’ve been there before doesn’t mean you can just jump back to it. So again, stop comparing yourself to other people. And this is where someone else’s program may or may not be right for you. When you look at the workout program, it may need to be scaled back. And so I try to look at workout programs as kind of starting out intermediate, more advanced, and it’s more of are you putting the time in? Are you creating that movement habit that I mentioned earlier? And then second, I feel my best about two months in. So it takes a little while. There’s kind of a hurdle about two months in, everything seems to start kicking in. My body is responding well. I’m feeling in my stride. There’s always the motivation piece of, like, I may not feel like getting up in the morning and working out, but when I get out there and work out, my body’s responding, I can push myself.

It’s exciting. I’m seeing the results. And typically that takes about two months. And so give yourself some patience while you get to that two-month Mark or whatever it is for you. Everyone’s a little different with that and then listen to your body because when I listen to my body instead of my excuses, that’s when I have the best energy. So I may say, like, oh my gosh, it’s four in the afternoon. I said I was going to go for a walk or run or I was going to do something, and I am tired. I feel like I just need to go lay down. Kind of like I need an afternoon coffee and instead remembering I have my best energy when I get my workouts in. I have my best sleep. When I get my workouts in, I have less symptoms, I have less headaches, I have better cycles, I have better moods, I fit my clothes more comfortably. I just feel better in my body. And so right now I don’t feel very good and I don’t want to go work out. It is the workout that I need to feel better. And the more we realize that by doing it and having that kind of feedback, the easier it gets to remind ourselves when we don’t feel like doing it.

And just like everyone else, change it up, I lose interest, you guys. I get in ruts, I Peter out, and then I have to get back into it. And so when you need to change it up, keep it interesting for you. Again, listen to it. What it is that you need from your workout. So in closing today, what I really want you to take away from this episode is how amazing exercise is for PCOS, how it is a huge gift to yourself to feel better, to feel stronger, to have more energy, and that it can take a little bit of time to get over that hump. So be patient with yourself, but stick with it, that there is not the best exercise and that you can choose what works best for you, what you enjoy the most at any given time. And I have worked with women who find it hard just to walk up a flight of stairs and they’re like, I can’t exercise. I can’t even like, I feel so heavy in my body, I can’t exercise. And sometimes it’s just a matter of starting really slow. Maybe it’s walking around the block every day and doing it with the mindset of I’m just going to enjoy the fresh air.

And then when I get done, I’m going to be super proud of myself. I’m going to be proud of my legs, I’m going to be proud of my body for carrying me around and letting me just get my blood moving and feeling better. And there’s no judgment. And that I only went around the block because there is not only it’s so much more than I did last week. And that’s amazing. And ultimately, remember to tune in to how you are feeling and let your body guide you to your best PCOS workouts. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to hit the subscribe button on your favorite listening platform so that you don’t miss the next episode. Next week’s topic is how to lose weight when you have PCOS. And I will let you in on a little secret before I end. For today, it goes way beyond eating less calories than you burn. So until then, bye for now.

Did you know that studies of PCOS epigenetics have shown that our environment can either worsen or completely reverse our PCOS symptoms? I believe that although PCOS makes us sensitive to our environment, it also makes us powerful when we learn what our body needs and commit to providing those needs. Not only do we gain back our health, but we grow in power just by showing up for ourselves.

This is why I’ve created a guide for you to get started.

My PCOS fertility meal guide can be found in the show notes below. I want to show you how to create an environment that promotes healing while still being able to live a life that you enjoy. This guide is completely free so go get your copy now. It’s so that you can step into the vision that you have for your life and for your health.

22:44 – 33:01 Episode #24: Enjoying being active

Exercise does amazing things for PCOS, but many women I work with don’t love to exercise. I get it. I have definitely felt that way as well. With so many should-do’s and don’t about exercise and PCOS, it can become really unfun. In this episode, I’m going to help you get rid of all the shades so that you can move your body in a way that feels great and enjoyable while using exercise to reverse your PCOS and alleviate your symptoms.

You’re listening to the PCOS Repair Podcast, where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally with a little medical help. Sprinkled in hi, I’m Ashley Cortez and with many years of medical and personal experience with polycystic Ovarian syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their bodies in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset and our environment, and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at the root cause.

Welcome back to the PCOS Repair Podcast, where today I’m going to be covering not only how to get all the benefits of exercise, but how to actually enjoy adding exercise into your daily routine. So let’s dive in. Let’s start with just a quick recap of all the benefits of exercise for PCOS. It’s going to decrease your risk of insulin resistance, it’s going to lower inflammation. It will improve your mood, and reduce long-term risk factors of heart disease, diabetes, and other health problems. It’s going to help you manage stress. You’re going to feel stronger, boost confidence, and it’s going to give you more energy plus so many other things. Now, I know you’ve probably heard all of those benefits of exercise before. We all want those exercise benefits, right? The hard part is making it happen. That part can feel overwhelming and like quite a chore, partially because we know exercise is something that is good for us and that we need to do. But all of the enjoyment gets sucked out when it becomes a should. And that brings me to the first step of how to enjoy physical activity and exercise. You got to get rid of all of the shoulds expectations, the fads that are being talked about, and marketing rhetoric that tells you the best or the right way or the wrong way to exercise.

Got to stop trying to be where someone else is at and trying to do a level of workout that they are doing. There isn’t one best exercise for PCOS. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you their workout program. It’s about doing a little bit of all of them and creating a balance of cardio strength, intensity, recovery, and stretching. Your body needs it all. And they all work together to provide your body with all of the balanced hormones. Better health, better mood, better energy, and all those benefits of feeling better because you exercise regularly. So as you move away from the mindset of the best way to work out, let’s look at what you actually enjoy doing. And if you don’t necessarily enjoy any type of exercise, then let’s start by telling yourself what you do like about it. I personally don’t love getting out of bed early in the morning to go work out. But when I step back and look at what I do love, I love me time. I have programmed myself to be grateful for creating a few minutes each day to do something that makes me feel good and that I know is good for me.

I love the energy boost that I get from exercise. On the days that I get a good workout, I can actually feel my mind and body more alert and awake and energized. I have even started to love that good used muscle feeling. Kind of like the soreness that you get. Not too sore, but just a little soreness that we get after a good workout, because I know it’s the feeling of my body getting stronger. And of course, I love seeing the results in the mirror. I remind myself of these things every time I don’t want to get out of bed or I don’t want to get sweaty and mess up my hair. I remember how I actually do love getting my workouts in. Also, as a side note, there are a lot of things that we can do to make our workouts more pleasant. Find music that you like to listen to, get a new water bottle that you’re excited about, and choose a space or a location to work out that inspires you and that you feel good to be in. This could be a local gym, a corner of your house, or a lovely trail in nature, but it’s really those little things that create an enjoyable experience and it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Like I said, just choose a trail that you enjoy being out in nature and you like seeing new things or maybe trying different ones because it’s fun to try something new. Whatever your personality is there, it can be the simple of finding something new to spice it up or finding something that is just beautiful and helps calm you down and lift your spirit. Those little things can make exercise something that you look forward to and that you enjoy. All right, the next step is to think about and make a list of activities that you enjoy and healthy movements that you would look forward to doing. These could include things like walking, yoga, running, swimming, biking, workout, classes, tennis, etc, etc. Anything that you enjoy. It could even be paddleboarding. I mean, the sky’s the limit. It could be cross-country skiing if you live somewhere where that’s something that is available at certain times of the year. But the goal is to fill your week with more movement in a form that you will enjoy so that it becomes one of the best parts of your week. And so instead of looking at what other people are telling you, this is the best way and this is what you should be doing, let’s get back in touch with what you actually enjoy doing.

And maybe it seems hard at the moment, maybe it’s been a long time since you’ve done any of these things, or it’s been a long time since you’ve done any exercise and there’s something new that you want to try, but you feel a little bit uncomfortable getting started. We have to start somewhere, so you might as well pick something that you’ve been wanting to do. One of the things that I even like to do for exercise, and this may be out of a lot of people’s comfort zone, but as an example of something that you may want to try that are a little nervous to try, I love going down to the local rock climbing walls, manmade. Rock climbing walls. It’s a great way to get a full body strength workout, especially the upper body. It works your core, it helps with your balance, really boosts your confidence, and gives you some adrenaline, but it’s very, very, very fun. And if that’s something that you would enjoy and have never done, add it to your list. All right, the third step is to create a commitment and most importantly, a realistic plan that you can both follow in regards to your physical ability.

So where you’re at right now, time and the schedule of your current week, not what you wish your week looks like. So starting very realistically, if you’re not in the habit of working out, the hardest part may just be the habit of showing up and doing it. And that means that we don’t want to push ourselves in the activity that we’re doing, the duration of sessions, and so forth. The goal is just to get in the habit. Then once you’re in the habit and that part is starting to feel normal, like you remember to bring your shoes with you so that you can walk on the way home from work and so forth, then you can start to push yourself in the number of times and how long your sessions and how hard your intensity is and so forth. But first of all. If we try to bombard ourselves with too much. It will get to be overwhelming. Because if you already feel like you don’t have enough time. Then you’re pushing the intensity and you’re trying to get the duration up. And you’re doing all sorts of new types of exercise. It will become too much.

And ultimately it will end in you not being able to follow through. So the most important thing is to make it doable and then progress from there. Another way to take the pressure off is to focus on enjoying the process and receiving the benefits of exercise. It’s about remembering that you don’t have to be ultra fit to reverse your PCOS, while women with PCOS, including you, can become ultra fit. If that is your goal, it is not necessary to improve your systems and to improve your PCOS. You can definitely use the tool of exercise to reverse and improve your PCOS without needing to become an elite athlete. It’s really just about getting consistent movement to balance sugar, reduce inflammation in your body, to increase your circulation and oxygen flow to your body. And this will happen even if you are just doing a little bit more than you were before and you continue to slowly progress. It has nothing to do with comparing yourself to where you’ve been in the past or where anyone else is in their fitness journey. It only has to do with where you were a few weeks ago and where you’re headed and how you’re improving your abilities day by day.

So let’s do a quick recap about how to find joy in fitness. It really starts by creating a space so that you don’t feel pressure. Anytime that we feel like we just have one more thing to do, it sucks the fun out of it. Choose an activity that you enjoy so that you can look forward to it as a gift that you’re giving yourself. Remember that you’re doing your best and you are progressing, and it’s all about that. Just what progress are you making? Let go of any judgment of where you currently are and where you want to be or compare yourself to others. That also just sucks the fun right out of it. Focus on being proud of yourself for the things that you’re doing well and then using the things that you want to improve as learning. Like maybe, okay, that workout didn’t go quite as I wanted it to. I feel kind of down about it. Instead of getting into judgment towards yourself, what if we looked at it? What could I have done differently? Maybe I felt rushed. So how can I create just a little bit more space so that I can really lean into my workout?

Maybe I didn’t like what I was wearing. It wasn’t comfortable, whatever the case was. How can you make it more fun? How can you make it more enjoyable so that you’re more excited to do it next time? So there you have it, my friend. When you create this type of mindset and approach to your physical activity, not only will you have a lot more fun with your workout, but you’re going to experience all the benefits of exercise at a whole new level as you show up in this way. If you have found this episode helpful, be sure to hit the subscribe button so that you are notified each week when the next PCOS health topic is available. And if you have any questions about this episode or any of the other episodes of the PCOS Repair podcast, I invite you to connect with me over on Instagram. My handle is at nourish to healthy so that we can continue the conversation over there and until next time, bye for now.

Did you know that studies of PCOS epigenetics have shown that our environment can either worsen or completely reverse our PCOS symptoms? I believe that although PCOS makes us sensitive to our environment, it also makes us powerful. When we learn what our body needs and commit to providing those needs, not only do we gain back our health, but we grow in power just by showing up for ourselves. This is why I’ve created a guide.

For you to get started.

My PCOS Fertility Meal Guide can be found in the show notes below. I want to show you how to create an environment that promotes healing while still being able to live a life that you enjoy. This guide is completely free, so go get your copy now so that you can step into the vision that you have for your life and for your health.

33:04.10 – 51:27 Episode #70: Mastering Your PCOS Routine: Daily Success Strategies

If you’ve ever felt like you’re just floating with your health goals, you have ideas of what you want to change, you’ve done your research, you’ve discovered your PCOS root cause, and now you’re trying to take action, but you feel like you have a couple of steps that you’re trying to incorporate in your daily life, and they just seem to be out of reach, or you feel like you’re floating, or you can’t quite get them in your grasp, then you’re going to love this episode because we’re going to go step by step how to master your daily routine so that you can have success long term in your PCOS health. So let’s get started.

You’re listening to the PCOS repair podcast where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally with a little medical help sprinkled in. Hi, I’m Ashlene Korcek, and with many years of medical and personal experience with polycystic ovarian syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their body in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset, and our environment, and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at

the root cause. Welcome back to the PCOS Repair Podcast, where today we’re going to be discussing how to master your daily PCOS routine, some daily success strategies, so that you can feel in control and confident and really excited about your progress on your journey to PCOS health. There’s nothing more discouraging than feeling like it’s within your reach if only you could get your act together. We all feel like that from time to time, and ultimately, we need to give ourselves grace because there will be days like that but how do we set ourselves up so that we have fewer days like that and spend most of our time plotting forward, excited about the improvements that we’re making, the progress that we have, but ultimately feeling just confident in ourselves that we’re making the changes necessary to achieve the results that we want.

Step one is always having a plan and first part of having a plan is really knowing what you need to do. That’s always going to start with discovering your PCOS root cause, understanding the science and the metabolic and endocrine and hormone connections that are going on in your body and how they relate to your environment so that you have a clear picture of what habit changes, what things you want to incorporate, what things you want to remove from your daily lifestyle. We’ve talked about that in other episodes. Those are things that I work with women on. But in this episode, I want to focus on how do we, once we have picked that habit or two or three, how do we create a plan that actually becomes successful in our day to day. I highly recommend, as you get started, that you pick one habit or one small aspect of your lifestyle. This could be as simple as a bedtime routine or drinking more water one thing at a time, simple, small, ideally something that’s going to be highly impactful. So if you already have a pretty good sleep routine, even though that may sound like a nice one to choose, I would pick something where you’re going to get some good bang for your buck but ultimately, one thing is a really good place to start, especially if you feel like these changes throw you, that they’re hard to make stick, that they’re hard to incorporate in your daily life. Sometimes that can simply be because we’re trying to do too much too fast with how much we already have going on in our daily lives. So why is planning so important?

Well, whether we have a conscious plan or not, there is a nebulous plan in place, at some point, you’re going to wake up, at some point, you’re going to eat, at some point, you’re going to leave the house or do whatever it is that’s going on in your day, you will go through those motions, you’ll probably brush your teeth, you’ll probably scroll through your phone. There’s just things that are going to happen. The more intentional we are about these plans, the more that our plan will be one that leads to the things that we want or our success. The less that we plan, the more that we will wonder at the end of the day what happened with our day and ultimately, whether we meant to or not, we plan to “fail” and feel discouraged about how our day unfolded. So whether we realize it or not, we are planning. The lack of planning leads to being discouraged at the end of the day a well thought out plan that is reasonable and attainable and not setting us up for failure allows us to succeed in our day. I’m not someone who has to have a super detailed plan.

If you are highly type A, you probably are someone who has a very detailed plan and you know exactly what time you’re going to get up and you have every little thing planned out. I would caution that personality type that sometimes we overplan, and by overplan, I mean we forget to plan in the unexpected because we don’t like the unexpected and so when we’re a type A, and I used to be very type A now with three children, I’m a little bit less type A. I’ve had to relinquish some of my type A-ness but I understand from the type A point of view how hard it was for me to accept that no matter how well I planned out my day, there would be disruptions that were unplanned and so creating space for that, not overplanning yourself, not overcommitting and overextending yourself was my best way of setting up my three top priorities, making sure those happened, and then the rest of it was bonus. When you’re thinking about your health goals, let’s say that drinking a gallon of water a day is your goal, just because it’s a simple example. If your goal is to drink a gallon of water a day, do you want to drink a gallon of water at nine o’clock at night?

Now, if this was your goal and it was your priority and you were staying true to yourself of meeting your priorities and making sure they happened, sure, you could drink a gallon of water at nine o’clock at night but I wouldn’t recommend it. Your stomach is going to feel full, you’re going to be up all night having to use the bathroom, and you’re going to have been dehydrated all day long. So better would be if your priority is to drink a gallon of water a day to when you first wake up, get started right away. It energizes your body. It wakes up your digestive tract. It helps you feel alive and awake and rehydrated for the day. It decreases your risk of brain fog and then, of course, you can have other beverages as well throughout the day but get that water started first thing in the day. Start your priority early on so that you are ready and primed to continue it as you go. The more that we put it off throughout the day, even if it’s something that’s only one thing that we can do later, unlike trying to get a certain amount of water in, when we put it off, we start to feel like it’s hanging over us and it starts to feel more daunting. It’s like we’re procrastinating and so when we think about that task, it can become bigger and more ominous than it really is and so if we get up and we start chipping away at whatever our priority is earlier, the better in our routine, the more likely we’re going to feel excited and successful in our endeavors and continue to carry through. Another important part of planning is to make sure that anything you’re going to need ahead of time, anything that’s going to require a little bit of thought has been planned out. So for me, this looks like I know what workout I’m going to do in the morning. I have, again, this is going back to being maybe a less type A planner. Okay, so let’s think more, but if you’re more type B. So I have a loose plan. I will do 2-3 depending on the week. I alternate to fit in other types of workouts as well of leg and glute strength. Then I will add in things like upper body, I’ll do core. Those are my strength routines. I like to do some stretching and yoga to do more mobility and flexibility training and then I also like to do some cardio, which will include some stationary cycling or outside, depending on weather and scheduling. It takes a little bit more effort to get outside. I will do running, more slow paced, prolonged endurance running, as well as maybe a shorter time frame intensity interval training where I’m doing more speed work and then I also do just I’ll go for a run in nature or hike in nature just to get outside, change my scenery and those type of runs tend to be a little bit more mentally uplifting and things as well as compared to just getting the work out done.

So you can see I have this list of things that I like to accomplish in a week. However, it’s not highly planned out. Now, in a perfect world, I would sit down and I would that out further and now that my kids are back in school, maybe I will do that but for now, it’s just been the week flies at me. A lot of the schedule is not under my control. It’s things that are constantly revolving around my husband’s schedule and my kid’s schedule and so when I think about what I’m trying to accomplish, I go through it and I’m like, okay, these are the ones I still need to do. What am I going to do tomorrow? In that, the very least of the planning that I do is set out the workout clothes that correspond to the one that I’m going to do when I first wake up. That way, when my alarm goes off and I’m already wanting to figure out how I could fit my work in later and I could just work out maybe after I drop the kids off at school or when I first get home from the day, and I’m trying to think about how I could just reset my alarm for an hour, I don’t have a ton of excuses and barriers between me and my workout. My workout clothes are already folded and at the side of my bed. I know what workout I’m going to do so I can mindlessly roll out of bed and slowly wake up as I get ready and as I head out the door. This is the type of planning that sets me up for success because I have less barriers between the thought and the intention of doing it and the actually getting it done.

A lot of times when we think about our week, the next step here is how do we combat the chaos? There’s just chaos throughout the week. There’s chaos, whether it’s your work environment or your social environment. There’s just things that are constantly going on and type B people, typically, like when I’m thinking I’m being in more of my type B type of personality because I can go back and forth a little bit and when I’m more in my type B-esque side of my personality, I like to go with the chaos, see what’s going on, be a little bit more spontaneous and be lost in the moment, which is great, and it’s an amazing practice, and I encourage all of you, type A or type B, to experience that more and more and more because it’s where we tend to be more present, and it’s a good thing. On the flip side, though, it can also be something that pulls us off of what our priorities were for the day and so when we think about combating the chaos of our day, we want to think about what are our top priorities. So it’s a really good idea, it’s a really good habit to the night before think about what are the things you absolutely have to do. So there’s the things that are going to happen. You’re going to remember to put clothes on before you leave the house. You’re going to remember to brush your teeth. You’ll remember at some point in the day to feed yourself because your body will remind you. Aside from those, and if you have commitments, like you have to go to work, things like that, you’re going to do those. In your free time, where you have the space to make decisions, where you have the space to mindlessly scroll through social media, or where you have the time to diligently get something that you wanted to get done, we know those times in our day. What are your top three to five priorities that absolutely have to happen? Make sure that your health goal priority is on that list. It’s going to be right there with making sure you pay the bills, that the rent got paid, that you picked up the groceries that you needed, that you fed the dog, all of those things that you know need to happen.

So with that, although life in the day will take on its own flavor, its own chaos, its own stresses, its own excitement, and its own distractions, what is it that you have to get done? Make sure you know those priorities, and that’s really going to help you combat that chaos. It’s also really helpful, step three, is having some degree of tracking involved. When we feel like we have this priority and we’re fitting it into our day, it can become a little bit mundane and a little bit like, Oh, yeah, I’m doing this thing and if we don’t see the progress of it, it’s difficult to keep the excitement about it. Now, most health endeavors, we don’t see progress every single day. Usually, it takes a week or two at most to start seeing or feeling progress. So depending on the habit that you’re trying to incorporate. I would encourage you to find some way of tracking it. If you’re trying to increase your sleep quality, I want you to just have maybe a journal note that you write down, How did you feel? The first starting point, maybe be more elaborate. All the things that you’re not feeling, all the things that you want to feel, why are you doing this. Just jot all those down, maybe put a couple of headings and just a quick couple of thoughts. It doesn’t have to be beautifully written just so that you have something to go back and look at to compare where you started from. If it’s something like you are starting a new strength training or you’re starting a new cardio program or ideally a combination of the two, maybe take a before picture. Maybe take a picture every single day, even though it’s not going to be any change, just to get in the habit of focusing on appreciating the muscles that you’re seeing, evaluating where you’re at, evaluating that like, Yeah, this is still a goal of mine because I still feel like my arms are not looking quite as strong as they want them to be and it’s not a judgment. It’s not a self-critic thing, but you’re continually motivating yourself and looking at the progress of where you’ve come. On a daily basis, maybe too much. Sometimes it’s more a weekly check-in. It just depends on what it is that you’re doing. It depends on your personality. It depends if it’s going to be a positive or a negative.

You want to stick more with the positive, but you do want to find something that is going to help you track so that periodically you can check in and be like, Oh, my goodness, I really am making progress. Look at that bicep definition. It’s starting to actually show. These are things that then help us stay motivated and help us continue to keep that health goal a priority. So then we talked a little bit about being overwhelmed, but in the process of not becoming overwhelmed, the next step is to create a comprehensive plan.

So going back to you discovered your PCOS root cause, you’re looking at what it’s going to take to adjust your lifestyle to nurture and nourish your hormones and to help them to heal. So you might have a whole list of things that you want to start doing. Maybe there’s foods that you want to start eating or foods that you want to reduce in your diet. Maybe there’s an exercise program, some mindset work, all of the things, some stress management and some self-care, some ways that you’re going to start incorporating all of the things that you have learned in your life.

Making a list of all of those is really helpful because as you have made your first priority a priority for day after day after day, and as you see the success begin to come with that, even if it’s just the success of it’s happening, I’m now doing this new thing, even if you haven’t begun to see the results yet because those can take a little time, at some point, it’s time to add in habit number two and so that way, you can slowly progressively add to and flush out the full lifestyle that you’re trying to do. Now, some of us can do more and quicker than others. It has to do with our current situation, our support system, our understanding of what we will take of us. It also has to do with our past history of doing healthy things for ourselves. If we have never cooked healthy or ever cooked period, assuming that we are going to start cooking healthy and cutting up all of these vegetables and prepping all this food for three meals and two snacks a day, that is going to become overwhelming extremely quickly and probably setting ourselves up to fail. It’s so much better to start with one meal and keeping it really simple and then growing from there.

I can’t stress enough that the final step here that I want to talk about is taking it one step at a time. As you take it one step at a time, you’re going to identify and be able to remove any obstacles, anything that is a roadblock for you because you will see clearly, this is what I started doing. This is where the struggle came in. What are some of the solutions to this struggle so that I can continue making this new change a priority? As we start to see these really simple things. In recap, basically, we’re identifying what it is that we’re trying to change. What is our priority here? We’re making a priority. We’re planning it into our day. We’re setting out our clothes, or preparing our water bottle, or setting out our cooler to pack our lunch the next day, or prepping it the night before, and allowing ourselves to really step by step by step, set ourselves up so that our next move is in line with what we want it to be and that way, we’re not constantly fighting against ourselves and feeling like this new thing that I have to do is so cumbersome and so heavy. But instead, Oh, this is actually really nice. I already know what I’m going to have for lunch, or I wake up and instead of trying to figure out what’s going on my day, I just put my workout clothes on, go through the motions. And before I know it, my workout has happened, and it’s only six in the morning and I’m already on a winning streak. That confidence boost of getting up and going into autopilot that’s in line with what it is that you’re trying to add in and grow in your life is really exhilarating. I’m excited for you to start to experience that

And so there you have it, my friend. A couple of steps to really help you to master your PCOS health daily routine and set you up with some daily success strategies. I cannot wait to hear which ones you start to implement and choose, so please let me know over on Instagram. You can find me @Nourishedtohealthy and either drop me a comment or shoot me a DM.

I look forward to hearing how you are going to implement your daily success strategies into your weekly routine and your daily routine and how you’ll plan them out and how you’re going to start seeing them to take form and transform your PCOS health. So until next time, bye for now.

Did you know that studies of PCOS epigenetics have shown that our environment can either worsen or completely our PCOS symptoms? I believe that although PCOS makes us sensitive to our environment, it also makes us powerful. When we learn what our body needs and commit to providing those needs, not only do we gain back our health, but we grow in power just by showing up for ourselves. This is why I’ve created a guide for you to get started. My PCOS Fertility Meal Guide can be found in the show notes below. I want to show you how to create an environment that promotes healing while still being able to live a life that you enjoy. This guide is completely free, so go get your copy now so that you can step into the vision that you have for your life and for your health.