Episode #166: How Jasmine Rebuilt Her Relationship with Food and Hormones

Welcome back to the PCOS Repair Podcast, where I’m really excited to share a story of a patient that I think you will relate to deeply. She had a lot of frustration and was dealing with body image struggles. There’s this all-too-common pressure to be thinner, fitter, and more in control of our health. We see so many people making it look easy and effortless on social media, so many success stories. When we put in the effort and don’t see the results we’re hoping for, it can be incredibly demoralizing and frustrating, to say the least. Jasmine—she was a real patient of mine a few years back—had a journey that shows the powerful transformation that can happen when we stop fighting our body and start listening to it instead. I talked about that a lot in last week’s episode, and this week, we’re going to show what it looks like in action. If you’ve ever felt trapped in a cycle of dieting, over-exercising, and chasing a version of healthy that leaves you feeling like a failure—exhausted, with no progress to show, or progress that immediately disappears because it’s not sustainable—then this story will speak directly to your heart.

When Jasmine first came to see me, she was 26 years old and felt like her body had completely shut down. That’s how she described it: “I feel like it’s just shut down.” Things that used to work were no longer working. She hadn’t had a period in over a year. Her hair was thinning, her energy was gone, and she was beyond frustrated. She said, “This is what I imagine someone in their 50s or 60s feels like.” She was only 26 and thought she had a few more good years left. She had been yo-yo dieting since high school, swinging between complete extremes—strict, intense clean-eating plans followed by throwing caution to the wind. She’d see some progress, but what she was doing was never sustainable. At the time, she was training really hard—high-intensity workouts four to six times a week. On the outside, it looked like she was doing everything right, and she enjoyed athletics. But in college and her early 20s, her exercise became more erratic. Sometimes it was three or four workouts a day, then nothing for weeks. Usually, the breaks started with a minor injury she intended to rest, but instead of modifying, she’d stop entirely.

It became a back-and-forth of extremes. Inside, she felt disconnected, depleted, and angry with her body for not cooperating. No matter how “perfect” she was with food or exercise, nothing improved long-term. At 26, nothing was improving at all. That’s when she said, “I’ve completely shut down.” The scale wouldn’t budge. She couldn’t gain strength. She was plateauing everywhere.

The real shift came when we ran comprehensive lab testing. I often emphasize looking at symptoms, but labs can map out where your body is struggling and what it’s asking for. Her labs were very telling: low estrogen, low progesterone (so she wasn’t ovulating), and very low nutrient levels—iron, vitamin D, magnesium. Her stress markers were off the charts. Cortisol patterns were completely out of whack.

In that moment, something clicked. She realized her body wasn’t failing—it was trying to protect her. She had been failing her body by pushing it too hard without providing what it needed. Her body was doing exactly what it should under the stress she was putting it through. The restrictions, overtraining, and constant pressure had driven her into complete shutdown. She finally understood that pushing harder wasn’t the answer. What she needed was rest, nourishment, and care.

Her healing didn’t happen overnight—nothing with PCOS ever feels fast—but over the year we worked together, the transformation was powerful. The same dedication she had given to overtraining and restriction, she began applying to creating balance.

The first and hardest step was changing her eating. After years of skipping breakfast and trying to eat as little as possible, regular, balanced meals felt scary. I’ve never gone to those dieting extremes, but even I know how hard it is to eat breakfast when you’re not hungry or get too busy. She didn’t do it perfectly, but she started eating within one to two hours of waking up. That worked for her—not a rule for everyone, just her routine. She added protein and fat to each meal, stopped skipping meals, and only snacked when she needed to. As she ate more regularly, her appetite came back. Almost immediately, she noticed her energy improved, her cravings eased, and she felt less frantic around food. Her body could finally relax—it didn’t have to scream for food with cravings or energy crashes anymore.

Next, we worked on mindset. Jasmine had a long list of “bad” foods—carbs, fats, anything processed, even fruit. Slowly, we began to reintroduce some with intention—not all, just to challenge the idea that food was “bad.” I didn’t force her to eat processed food, but we practiced neutrality. Sometimes, she’d eat something she used to consider off-limits just to prove she could do it without guilt. That didn’t mean every day was perfect. Some days were more balanced than others. Some were just okay. Others aligned more with the plan. But this mindset broke the yo-yo cycle. Instead of “I failed, so I’m off my plan,” it became, “I did okay today. I could do better tomorrow.” That shift was huge.

The hardest change for Jasmine was incorporating rest and recovery into her exercise. For her, exercise was about control—extra workouts to make up for eating. Yes, weight loss is math, but if we don’t allow rest and recovery, the equation doesn’t work the way we want. None of her exercises were inherently bad. I don’t think intense workouts are bad for hormones. The issue is that we can’t go from zero to sixty. We have to work up to it and build in recovery. If you’re doing an arm day, then a lower-body aerobic day, that allows for rest. But we need to have built up to the intensity level first. If you’ve taken a break for months, you can’t just jump back in and power through. That’s not how it works.

She started incorporating walks, yoga, gentle strength training, and foam rolling on recovery days. That allowed her more intense days to have a greater impact. And within six months, Jasmine’s cycle returned—a huge milestone. Her period came back, her hair thickened, her skin cleared, her energy stabilized. She wasn’t all the way to her health goals yet, but she said, “I feel like I’m coming back. I feel like being 26 again.”

Beyond the physical changes, she had a deep emotional transformation. “I feel like me again,” she said—not someone chasing an unattainable version of herself, but truly feeling aligned in her body. What she was doing—how she ate, exercised, and rested—felt right. Her confidence grew. She realized her worth wasn’t about a flat stomach or carbs. It was about how she felt, how strong and capable she was. Food became a teammate, helping her fuel workouts and enjoy life, not something to fear. She spoke to herself with more kindness. She stopped comparing and started focusing on her own journey.

That’s what I want to leave you with today. Healing isn’t just about labs and symptoms. That’s just the start. The real work is building a relationship with your body—learning to listen to it, respond to it, and trust it. Over the year I worked with Jasmine, she began giving her body the compassion and support it had always needed. We often think we know better, but when we listen and trust our bodies, they respond. They heal. They make us feel good in our own skin.

If you’ve been stuck in cycles of restriction, shame, and frustration, here’s what I want you to remember: you are not broken. You don’t need more willpower. You don’t need to punish yourself. Learn to listen. Feed your body. Rest your body. Partner with it instead of fighting it. That’s what Jasmine did. Healing her relationship with food was one of the most powerful, peace-providing parts of her journey. Yes, she regained her cycle and saw all kinds of health improvements, but the real transformation happened on the inside.

This is your reminder: you don’t need to be perfect. You never have to have a perfect day. You do need to be intentional. You do need to know where you’re headed. And when you do, your body will begin to trust you too.

I hope Jasmine’s story gave you a little more hope and excitement about what’s possible in your own PCOS healing journey. Healing isn’t linear, but it’s absolutely possible. Sometimes, the biggest breakthroughs come not from doing more, but from giving your body what it truly needs. If you enjoyed today’s episode, there are more stories like this on the podcast, and more coming soon. Feel free to message me on Instagram @nourishedtohealthy—I’d love to hear from you. I can even pass your note along to Jasmine; she’d love to know her story helped someone. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Thanks so much for listening—until next time, bye for now.