Episode #41: How Smart Women Self-Sabotage PCOS Health

You feel like you know what you need to be doing for your health, but at the same time, as you get started, you keep having to start or feeling like you’re getting tripped up, not because you don’t know enough, but because you’re getting in your own way somehow. In today’s episode, we are going to explore all the ways that we, as smart women who are aware of what we need to be doing is sabotaging ourselves and getting in our own way on our journey to PCOS Health.

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, 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 talking about how we get in our own way when it comes to creating the PCOS-healthy lifestyle that we’re working so hard towards. The funny thing is that I know that if you’re listening to this podcast, you are smart enough to realize that there are better options out there, and that there’s things that you can do that your body is struggling. You’re aware of all these things. It’s not that you don’t know what’s going on. You’re living in your body, you’re feeling your symptoms, and you’re smart enough to know that you need to figure out what’s going on and that there are things that you can do to improve your PCOS. Now, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you have actually a lot of the information that you need, and you’ve probably been starting to implement it. But the momentum, the consistency, the motivation, these are all words that I hear over and over and over that women say that they are lacking and that they feel like they keep getting started and then drifting back to where the way they used to do things and then trying to start again and then drifting back to where they used to be,  and then they tweak this or they try a different approach or they try to incorporate what they’re learning in a different way and it feels like there’s a lot of false starts. What is going on there? What are we doing that creates this sense in ourselves that we can’t gain momentum, we can’t gain traction? Have you ever felt that way? I know I did when I was early on in my PCOS journey where I felt like if someone could just give me a boost, if I could just take a break and only focus on this, maybe I could gain some momentum to where this wouldn’t be so hard. That’s what we are going to be talking about in this episode. So I think the first thing that we have to admit is that we can’t do it all. That’s a hard one for me, I have this internal just, I guess it’s like a fire. I get really fired up when someone tells me I can’t do something or when I am struggling to figure out how it’s all going to fit together, and it’s not just in my health, this is something where I’m like, okay, if this is happening and then this other thing is happening, and how is this all going to work together?

I need to be over here, and I need to be over here, and this person needs this, and that person needs that, and I need to do that. Where is it that… I know there’s a way, there’s got to be a way to make all this work. I have this deeply in me where if you tell me that dinner needs to be ready at five and I’m going to be across town, then I’ll figure out a dinner that I can have in the time bake and have ready beforehand, and when I’m going to do it, I like to problem solve, I like the puzzle of it. But it’s taken me years to realize that although I have that deeply in me, I still only have 24 hours in my day, I still only have so much energy, and I still need to make time for me to have balanced meals. I still need to have enough hours to sleep at night, and I have to pace myself on a 24-hour day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year. Sometimes it’s easy to think I can do it all and I can’t, and so I want you to start with just realizing we can’t do it all and we’re not supposed to.

That’s not what we’re here to do. We’re here to create a lovely life that we can be proud of, that we can enjoy, where we have energy left to give to others because that feels good, but also to protect our energy so that we don’t allow others to burn us out. If we can just remind ourselves, we don’t have to do it all. It’s okay to say no, it’s okay to say, oh, that’s going to have to wait until later. That goes into over-committing, I tend to be one where I like to say yes, I don’t like to tell people no, I’m not someone who has a problem saying no, I just would prefer to say yes. And some of you that’s going to be harder for than others, some people really struggle with the no. One of the things that I always try to remind myself of is when you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else. It really comes down to what are the things that need to happen for you, and then the other things need to be either put on hold, need to be told no, or need to be told later.

And the funny thing is that when you say no to something, it’s amazing. If it was important, it’ll happen by somebody else, it’ll take care of itself. But we tend to think that like, oh, someone’s asking me, I guess it’s my job to do this and we feel like we have to say yes. Remind yourself next time that you’re tempted to say yes, that when you say yes when you agree, you are saying no to something else. Okay, the other one, and this is where I really tend to yo-yo and see if this resonates with you. I will get really excited about something in my health or outside of my health, but I’ll get really excited, I will because I’m very type A. I’ll get it all figured out, I’ll get it all planned out, and I get over-excited about it and I think that I, again, can do it all. I know that I would love to go and have a longer workout. I would love to be able to go hiking and do this and do that and all these things and then eat this healthy food. But I have to remember, I still have to find the time to actually do this.

And I have other commitments to my family, to my work, all those things as well. So finding that balance of being excited, being enthusiastic, but at the same time realistic so that you don’t set yourself up for the fail. When we get over excited and we’re like, Oh, I bet I could do this workout in the morning and then go and do this, and then I’m going to eat this healthy breakfast, and between this and that, I’m going to go for a little hike in town. And then I’m going to… You see what it’s like? That sounds great and if it happened, it’s a great thing, there’s nothing wrong with it it’s a beautiful idea. But it might be a bit much because I got a little over-excited. And so I’m setting myself up to be disappointed in myself when I don’t follow through with what I wrote in my planner. So instead, if we can funnel our excitement and our enthusiasm for the things that we’re learning and the things that we are excited to try into a realistic plan where we don’t try to change too much, too fast, where we leave ourselves room, especially at the beginning, to explore and to try and to not be proficient at it yet.

Think about a recipe that you’ve cooked a million times, you can do it with your eyes closed, you can be thinking about other things. It just comes together somehow. You just have the things in your cupboard, it’s things that you know that when they’re running low, you just replenish and you just can create it on the fly. Eventually, your PCOS-healthy lifestyle will become like that. But at the beginning, I invite you to give yourself a little more space with each of the things that you’re trying to learn. Even things as simple as making sure you drink more water in the day, take extra thought and planning. Did you bring your water bottle? Do you have access to your water bottle? Did you forget to bring your water bottle and leave it in the car? These are all things where every step of the way it has to become a habit. Over time, what you’ll learn is that, Oh, this bag that I take with me, if it’s my water bottle right here, it just stays there. I refill it all the time. I know where the water refill stations are, and I know how many of these water bottles I need to have so I can run them through the dishwasher at night.

You just get in this flow of it just happens, you don’t have to think about it so hard. But in the beginning, even making sure you get enough water in your day creates an extra burden on your mind and on the steps of things that you’re doing throughout the day. So that also touches on that I want to just point out, we tend to try to do too much, too fast. Slow way down. Okay? Now, ideally, we eat three lovely, whole-food balanced meals a day with plenty of protein in them, lots of veggies, and lots of fresh things that we’re getting all that vibrant color in our produce. That takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work to get to the grocery store to have things on hand that are ripe and ready and not really ripe or not quite ripe yet. They need to be washed, they need to be cut, and they need to be prepared. It’s a lot more work than grabbing a protein bar, but it’s a lot better for you. However, as you get started with this, thinking that you’re going to go with three meals a day is fantastic and if you can, awesome. But if you’re so far from doing that because you’ve been eating pre-prepared or take-out meals almost exclusively, start with one meal and then try to choose healthier grab-and-go options for the other two. So that might look like instead of grabbing a McDonald’s meal at lunch, you at the grocery store, grab a pre-made salad with some chicken or protein with it. And for dinner, you focus on what can you make healthy for dinner, and for breakfast, you try to have a couple of, again, some easy things that you can grab that are healthier that start your day off with protein. So take a look at what can you change effortlessly. And then what is the one thing you’re going to focus on currently as you create that adjustment? Remembering again that you’re going to create a new habit there. It’s going to become effortless, but it’s not going to be effortless for a couple of weeks. So focus on the one thing, set yourself up for the success of not taking on and diving in too much, too fast. And then lastly, I invite you to be a little selfish when it comes to your health.

I think especially as women, we tend to try to put others first, our spouses, if you have children, family members, friends, and coworkers. But when your health is struggling, and if you’re listening to this and you’re trying to figure out how to repair your PCOS, I really invite you to be a little bit selfish, not even just a little, a lot selfish when it comes to your health. Your health is so, so, so important how you feel, the energy that you have, all of those things are so important that they deserve to be cared for, they deserve to be valued, and you deserve to be a little bit selfish. Again, a lot selfish when it comes to your health. This means it’s okay to say no, like we talked about, it’s okay to make yourself a priority before folding someone else’s laundry, before worrying about what someone else is going to eat as you eat a little bit differently. As you care for yourself, as you regain your health, you will actually have more energy and more to be able to give back to the people that you care about, but always maintain that space to put your health first.

your oxygen mask on first. Again, I really strongly invite you to be selfish when it comes to what you need for your health. Getting to bed on time, getting enough water, getting healthy, real, whole foods every day into your body, and to get some time to move and exercise and work out, get that blood flow, build your muscles, feel good, create that natural energy that we get when we exercise and work out. So there you have it, my friend. These are things that we all know, I’m sure you’ve heard all of these things before in one way or another, but I hope this brings it back to realizing how we get in our own way when we’re trying to create health in our bodies, happiness in our day, and to create a life where we can thrive and feel good and have the energy to engage in all the things that we love and want to do. With that, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, I hope you subscribe to the PCOS Repair podcast so that you get notified each and every week when our next topic of PCOS health support becomes available.

And until next time, I would love to connect with you over on Instagram. I would love to hear what you’re going to do a little bit differently to get out of your way to make it easier for you to create health on your journey to PCOS hormone repair. 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.