Episode #123: Strategies for Enjoyable Exercise with PCOS

One of the things over the last 11 years that I’ve discovered in creating and maintaining a PCOS healthy lifestyle, is that I have to be enjoying and finding interest in what I’m doing. If I’m just going through the motions, I can push through for maybe a short time, but ultimately, I need to find a way to to enjoy the process, to look forward to, or at least not hate what I’m doing and one of those areas is when it comes to exercise. I know a lot of women really struggle to start getting into the groove. They feel like it’s this should, and it can be difficult to get over certain hurdles or plateaus or to feel like their body is working with them and for whatever reasons, exercise can become something that is a chore and is something that they’re pushing through and by that, it ends up being the thing that falls off the to-do list of, Oh, I just didn’t get to it today, over and over enough times where it’s very difficult to make momentum in our fitness. So today, in our topic of the PCOS Repair podcast, we’re going to dive into how we find joy in exercise and in the movement that our body needs for 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, in 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 talking about how to find joy and be enthusiastic about your movement to enhance your health and to help your PCOS hormone stay balanced and your body working with you to allow you to do all the things that you want to be able to do in your life. First of all, some of you are going to be like, Well, I already enjoy exercise. Well, that’s fantastic. You’re still going to find a lot of great things in today’s episode of being more intentional and being more into the process of making sure you’re getting your daily movement but why is it so important to find joy I talked about it a little bit in the introduction today that if we don’t like what we’re doing, then we’re not going to do it. I think one of the biggest roadblocks is that we have this set idea of what we need to be doing. We watch people on and we see what other people are doing in their fitness. What we’re not accounting for is how long they’ve been doing it. If we’re not judging ourselves by other people, perhaps we’re judging ourselves on what we used to be able to do.

Maybe in high school, we were in track and field, or maybe we were on a swim team, or maybe we were on the basketball team and we used to be moving a lot and we used to be able to do certain things or lift certain amounts in the gym. Then life happened and it’s been a couple of years and we are frustrated that we are not able to do anything close to what maybe we could have done in the past. When that’s the case, how do we find enjoyment in something where it’s like we feel like we used to be at a certain level and now we have fallen back to the beginning. Maybe we started to get some injuries along the way or some deconditioning has left us to feel like there’s just no way we’re going to be able to do that again. It can become this frustrating door shut in our face, lack of excitement activity that we know we’re supposed to do. I think the first place to always start is, well, why do you want to do this? I’m sure you’ve heard all the benefits of exercise. I mean, they go on and on and on.

It’s so far beyond just becoming toned and the way we look but everything, I know one of the things that has blown my mind over the last year is even just how my body handles the foods that I eat. If I eat the same plate of food and then I make that same plate of food a different day. One of the days I sit around and get stuff done very sedentarily. The other day, I ate it and was out hiking or out doing yard work and had done a morning workout and I was just a lot more active. What my blood sugar does with that food is entirely different. Same person, same portions, same food, completely different response in my body and that’s the power of movement and some of it’s a more like handout workout. Some of that is just moving more, like being outside doing yard work or running around with my kids or even days where I’ve gotten more steps because I was running errands and walking all over Costco. There’s just days where I’m more active, and those days, same food, same meals, same everything else but my body responds so differently. That’s just one small aspect of the power of movement when it comes to our PCOS health.

I guess the first question is, why do you care about exercise? Is it because someone told you? Is it because you want to feel different? Is it because you want to be able to do things? Is it because you want to be able to get out and move and enjoy your body and not have your body feel sore and tired and sluggish? You just don’t have the power and the endurance to go and explore the beautiful outdoors or do the things that you love to do outside. That’s the first question. Why do you want to increase your movement? Then that piggyback into, well, what is your goal? And why. So your goal can be whatever it is. There’s no judgment here. Your goal could be that you want to lose some weight, and it could be that you want to be more toned. It could be that you want to have more energy because even though in some ways, exercise makes you feel more tired, it’s a good tired and overall, it actually picks you up and brightens your mood and gives you a lot more energy throughout the day.

You just also need to make sure that you’re getting that recovery sleep time. If you’re increasing your exercise because that becomes so, so, so, so, so important. So why do you want to increase your movement? What is your goal? and why does that goal matter to you? So a bunch of whys and what’s there but take a moment and jot those down. It’s a really important thing to have a clear, I want to increase my movement because I’m feeling stiff and I feel like my body is not working the way it should be, and I feel like my energy is low. That would be one reason. I just feel like I need to be more mobile and energetic. It could be that I feel like I’ve been doing the other things, but this is this area of my health that I haven’t been addressing, and my PCOS symptoms aren’t where I want them to be, and I don’t particularly want to exercise, and yet I feel like that’s the area that I need the most improvement. Whatever your reason is, be honest with yourself, and that’s a really good place to start. Then it’s really important to take a self-assessment.

Where are you currently at? Not where were you back in the past, where were you a year ago, but where are you right now? Because if right now you have not been doing anything, and then all of a sudden, you are trying to go out and run a 5K, and you’ve been not even walking. Maybe build up a little bit of a base first before you expect that of yourself. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for overuse injuries. You’re setting yourself up for more exhaustion, not more energy and ultimately, your body is going to, and this is the really cool part, your body is going to benefit from taking the next step in your movement, not by being where you think would be a good space to be eventually. So then, really important question, what do you enjoy? What is it that your life is ultimately lacking right now that you want to do more of? and then what would it take to get you there? I feel like I’m inside a lot, and I’m in my car a lot picking up my kids and driving around and doing work and doing housework and going to the store and things that leave me inside and so I want to increase my activities that take me outside and I had done a challenge a little over a year ago now that required a certain amount of workouts a week outside. Just the fact that instead of riding my bike on my trainer bike inside in the dark at five in the morning, or instead of doing a workout in the gym. I was, for this challenge, required to get outside for a certain amount of workouts and so I went for a walk. I took my weight outside. And that fresh air felt so good that it’s really woke me up to, I want to be outside more. So that’s something that when I think about my exercise and my movement, I’m like, Okay, I want something that does that. When we stop and think, Okay, what do I need more of? What do I want more of? How do I want to feel? What I want to add into my life? It might be, I haven’t seen any of my friends in a while, or I really want to learn this new skill and so when we start to think like, Okay, or maybe you want to learn how to dance, or maybe you want to learn how to lift heavier or something that you want to do, or you want to see a certain friend more, what is something that you could do that would cross over?

So one thing that I recently stumbled on is a lot of the moms in my kids’ class, they all go to a certain workout class a week and so that’s been a fun way to add in some extra movement in my week, as well as getting to know the moms in my kids’ class as well as socialize and so forth but there’s things like that where you’re inviting a friend along, especially if there’s something where it increases your accountability, it increases your ability to see people that you want to see, it increases your like, Okay, now I have to work hard because someone’s watching and then also your workout is not dependent on them showing up. Your workout is not dependent on their ability because it’s a class. You can work at your own level. Those are all ways to start thinking about what it is that you could do that would enrich your life beyond just the benefits of exercise? Because all of a sudden it becomes this fun thing in your day that you don’t really want to give up. Instead of getting coffee with a friend, now you’re going to this workout class with a friend.

That helps us to start taking it from a should I need to do that, I need to make room in my calendar for that, to, Oh, this is something that’s right in line with what I want more of. Taking that a step further, what is something that you want to be able to do? I recently got a mountain bike because we have beautiful trails that have been going in our hometown that are actually right in town. There’s some green space that has been developed into some biking trails, and they’re not super intense. I think there are some that are super intense, but There’s also options for less intense. Right now it’s a beautiful fall color, and so I want to get out there but I also know that being able to do some hill climbing and all of that and the coordination, I need to be in pretty good shape so I don’t cause an injury. It’s encouraged me to focus on leg days and focus on running days and get my both cardio endurance as well as my lower body strength, increasing that and building that up so that I can get out there and start riding my bike that I had ordered.

Those are things where it’s like, is there something that you want to be able to do and how could you support yourself to do that by your workout regimen? Because all of a sudden, when it’s like, I don’t really want to go and do squats today, all of a sudden, it makes sense why you’re doing it. Because you’re doing it to enjoy your life, not because you’re like, I’m just going to go do some squats because somebody told me it would benefit my hormones. That also helps to bring in that enjoyment of why is it that I’m doing this? Now it gets into the nitty-gritty of how are we actually going to make this happen? So first of all, now that you have to recap, take a moment to think, Okay, why do I want to do this? What are some things that I actually want to do? What are some things that I’ve been in the back of my mind, I know I’m not good enough to do this, or I really want to learn how to play tennis, or I really want to get out and learn how to do this new thing that I’ve been wanting to do, or I haven’t ridden my bike for a long time and I want to try out these new trails, or I think it’d be really cool to go and explore some local hikes, but I don’t feel like I could do the climbing part.

I just feel like I’d be so zapped from energy by doing that long of a hike, even if it’s just a couple of miles. Okay, so you have these things that you want to do, and maybe you want to ice skate. There’s no limit to all the things that our body can do that are amazing. What are the things in the back here where you’re like, Well, I don’t think I could, but this is what I would like to do. Okay, so now that you have those, how could you start to create some training regimens that would help you get to that goal? Say, let’s use the one that you want to hike them of the bigger hills around your surrounding area, and there’s some elevation, so the endurance needs to be there, some hills, so the muscles need to be there, so you’re not sore and unable to walk the next day. So what could you do? Even just some good power walking around your neighborhood on a regular basis a couple of times a week would make a huge difference. A little lower body work, a little mobility work, a little bit of core strength so that you don’t have back pain after doing something like this and maybe carrying a small back, but having that strong core to help support your body.

All of a sudden, a 10 to 20 minute workout doing those type of workouts is pointing you towards something that you’ve been wanting to do. All of a sudden, it creates a purpose and all of a sudden, you’re doing something on your bucket list, it’s not unsimilar to a vacation that you want to go to. I know it’s a stretch. Okay, a vacation is really fun, and now you’re telling me that squats can be fun but what you’re doing is in your mind, instead of doing this because someone told you to do it, You’re starting at a level that is appropriate for yourself, and you’re doing something that allows you to follow dreams you have for yourself and increase your life experience. Experiences and maybe you’re trying to balance your hormones because you want to lose weight or you want to improve your fertility or you’re tired of feeling and you want that energy back but we can also take our fitness, take our workouts and our daily movement for PCOS, and we can also direct it towards other fun and wonderful things that open more doors and create more wonderful experiences for us in our lives.

So now that you have that vision for yourself, how are you going to make it a non-negotiable part of your day, of your week, and of your month? Because this is where it becomes that consistency, where you start to see the momentum, where you start to see the progress. My biggest advice is start small. Start with 10 or 15 minutes every day. Some of the days can be stretching days. If you do a really intense lower body, maybe you do a half an hour of lower body but then the next day, you’re like, Well, I I should take a rest day but instead, you do at least a 10-minute stretching, foam rolling, mobility type workout and so that you get your area that you just worked out so hard, you get it moving and that active recovery is so much better than just sitting around and trying to let those sore muscles repair themselves. So what I hope you take away from today is that there isn’t a one best exercise. There isn’t a one way to do your workouts and your movement but it’s really about what is it that you want to include in your life where your body isn’t doing the things that you want it to do? and maybe it’s that you just want to feel more bouncy and more energetic in your daily activities but where do you feel like you’re struggling? and how can you support yourself with that in a way that you enjoy, in a way that you actually feel is your time. This is my time to make my body feel good, to stretch, and to feel those muscles that I was using get stronger and more powerful and to feel more alive. This is your time to do that, not this, you should do this many times a week with this many reps and for this many minutes and it’s all regimated into this really boring should but how can you get a little more excitement around that and some enthusiasm around that? because it’s actually aligned with things that you’re really excited about and maybe a little nervous about being able to add to things that you’re able to do.

So with that, I would love to hear what are some of the things that you dream about being able to do that maybe are a little hard for you right now? Ski season’s coming up this winter, or maybe you like to cross country ski or snowshoe, and you just want to get out in the beautiful weather instead of being so hemmed in in the colder months. What are some things you would want to do that maybe aren’t something you normally do because you just don’t feel up to it? What are some things that you could think of that you would be excited about that could make your workouts feel more exciting and focused and heading you towards something that you actually want? Besides just, of course, you all want healthy, balanced hormones, but they’re not as rewarding. It’s something that we want them to be good, but they’re not something that adds a lot of fun. It just sucks when they’re not working correctly. I would love to hear from you in my direct messages over on Instagram. You can find me @nourishedtohealthy and until next time, bye for now.