How I healed my pcos
Pcos at its peak on the left. I was only 21 years old. Me at 31 on the right, symptom free.
So this post is the one I wish I would’ve found years ago. As mentioned in some of my other blog posts, I was diagnosed with pcos around the age of 20 years old, but was dealing with the symptoms of it in my high school years. It became increasingly frustrating moving into my college years. I would have unpredictable periods throguhout the year. One year I remember I went almost 7 months without a period. It was super scary to me because I knew that I wasn’t pregnant.
I couldn’t understand why my body wasn’t normal like my friends. I noticed my face and features were changing. I would look very dark and it wasn’t because of my natural features. Now that I’m more educated, my body just had so much inflammation that it was changing my appearance. I was having so many skin outbreaks and having some periods that would last as long as 3 weeks. I felt like I was watching my golden happy years go by as my friends looked beautiful and I felt like a shell of myself.
I mainly focused on my career studies, until my early twenties and I watched my first health documentary “Fat, sick, and nearly dead”. That was my first time realizing or understanding that food could impact your health in a positive way, not just negative thus starting my healing journey.
It was a grouling 7-8 years before I actually found helpful information and knowledge to heal me versus just treating the symptoms. Present day I have been able to gain back a regular, pain free, predictable period, ovulate, reduce inflammation in my body tremendously, and shorten my days of menstration to 4-5 days while maintaining a good mood and energy. This is tremendous progress that I was able to gain only within 2 years time of implementing the list below.
I’ll be sharing the resources that helped me understand my body the most, but also what has worked for me from a holistic perspective. My body is very sensitive to pharmaceutical drugs and responds best to natural remedies and supplements that are natural. So I will be speaking from that perspective.
Balanced my hormones
The first thing I had to learn was how to balance my hormones. If you’re reading this post, your probably familiar already with in most cases women who have pcos have too much estrogen. There are many ways to balance your hormones, but here are the methods that worked best for me. Increasing my dietary fiber dramatically. Did you know that the more vegetables that you eat, they help remove excess estrogen from the body? So please increase your green and crucifous vegetables at every meal if possible.
I also took some supplements to help as well. Flo living has a supplement bundle called balance that really helped get me started and gave my body a boost. They are on the pricey side, but don’t worry I’ll share other more affordable supplements as well throughout this post if you decide to try. It’s also good to note that you should not have to take these things for the rest of your life. Its simply an aid to get you back balanced.
2. Reduced my stress
As you may already know, pcos thrives in a stress filled body. If you are mentally stressed or stressed in your environment, I urge to try your best to either eliminate or reduce dramatically. Check my other post on how I cured my anxiety for other helpful tips to incorporate to reduce or eliminate your stress. I began to take a serious look at my life and see what things I was overcommitting to or just overall draining to me.
As women, I don’t think we realize how much impact high stress has on our bodies because we’re so use to being on go mode all of the time for everyone in our lives that depend on us. But you will truly be amazed at how much better not only you’ll feel mentally but also how your body will begin to heal itself when you put in a more peaceful place. You have to prioritize your rest.
3. Changed my diet
Putting your body in a more peaceful place leads me to my 3rd point, changing your diet. Eating a highly processed diet filled with additives preservatives, and chemical also makes our bodies feel stressed. Its simply not natural and drives up our inflammation which my particular pcos drives from. I began doing a ton of research into how I should eat. Not what would be the quickest way I could lose weight. Those two are not the same. Everyone’s body is different and thrives in better environments.
For me, I eat very closely to a paleo, type o blood type, higher animal protein kind of diet. I avoid processed sugars, flour, gluten, dairy, white potatoes and grains. But this is what works for my body type. I took many different assessments to find out this information and also became very intuitive with my body.
I would monitor how I felt after I ate a meal. “Did I feel bloated?” How did that digest? Do I have a lot of gas? Do I feel energetic afterwards? Did my stomach feel flatter than before? Any outbreaks, allergic reactions? What about brain fog? How’s my mood? These are questions that you can begin to ask yourself after you eat a meal to check in with yourself. Everything that seems healthy may not be healthy for you! Ex. My body hates Cauliflower. I will be excessively bloated for 3 days from one serving not matter how its prepared. Practicing this skill will help you learn how to treat your body. The more peaceful of an environment that you place it in, the better your body will be to begin to heal itself.
A few recommendations to find out your body’s preferred optimal diet, I would check out Flo living’s membership program, again kind of pricey but you learn a lot through their modules and assessments. Also learning your blood type and reading up on how your blood type should eat. You can buy a test here through amazon and do a simple finger prick test at home and find out. Don’t waste your time at doctor’s asking for one if you already don’t know. Here’s the book also for a more detailed understanding.
Don’t let all the details overwhelm you as well with this information. It can get pretty specific, but I focus on the major and do my best. Once I did an assessment and learned my blood type, my research overlapped a ton, so I was able to learn how to eat for my own particular body.
If you eat or know you should eat similar way as I or you enjoy healthy, nourishing recipes, be sure to purchase my digital recipe book where I share 12 amazing recipes that will assist you in taking out the hard work of figuring out what exactly to eat. This was my biggest challenge due to my upbringing and simply lack of awareness. These recipes are delicious, nourishing and speak to the soul. Click the image below for more information!
4. Incorporated holistic care (minor post of body care products)
This one kind of goes back to the importance of balancing your hormones. I had no idea how household products and body products disrupt your hormones because of the ingredients. Things like laundry detergents, body wash, lotions etc. can have a great impacts on being hormones disruptors.
I also incorporate herbal teas/tinctures into my daily routines. These are extremely affordable. My favorites have been damiana and mugwort as a tea and clevers as a tinture to cleanse my lymphatic system. I drink this tea every morning. Only two cups because it impacts my body pretty strongly, but it has been shown to naturally balance hormones, heal and strengthen your reproductive system. From my experience, it didn’t take long to notice the benefits. It also has helped improve my overall mood as well throughout the day and even around my menstruation period. Here’s a link to the brand that I recommend and use the most.
5. Started cycle syncing
Cycle syncing is the process of you treating your body differently according to the phase you’re in. This may be difficult to do if you haven’t gotten a regular monthly period yet, but once I did, I found it to be very helpful in maximizing keeping my body in ease going with my natural flow as a woman. I have an entire separate post where I discuss why I cycle sync and go into more details about its benefits. But if you are working from ground zero, the other tips I have listed are a great starting place where you will still see phenomenal results in your body.
Sign up for my Sugar free detox guide to join my email list so you’ll be the first to know when my cycle syncing recipe book is released!
This is a journey, but can happen quickly if you stick with it. I hope this helps you and as always check with your doctor before making any changing to your lifestyle.
