sydgrows
how I healed my PCOS (no more acne, managing my diet & exercise)
hi girlies!!! had so so many requests, since sharing that I have pcos, to share my journey and what works for me so here you are! please feel free to ask any questions down below and I'll try to get back to them. remember to like, comment and subscribe! it really helps me out, more than you would know! 🫶
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chapters:
00:00 intro 🙂
00:15 what is PCOS?
00:51 what are the symptoms of PCOS?
02:06 diagnosis
02:50 my PCOS journey
04:36 insulin & PCOS
05:43 what diet is best for PCOS?
07:42 is exercise good for PCOS?
09:53 medication for PCOS symptoms/what I take
12:05 the impact of stress on PCOS
15:04 conclusion
15:24 outro 🙂
hi guys and welcome back to another video I've been asked this quite a lot and I thought you know what we're not going to do things by Hales we're going to go straight in dive into PCOS and my journey and how to manage it backed by evidence let's talk about like what is PCOS estimated suit affect within around 8 to 133% of women PCOS can cause hormonal imbalances irre periods excess Androgen levels cyst and ovaries irregular periods a lot of women can struggle to become pregnant and it's the leading cause of infertility PCS is a chronic condition which means chronic is like it can't be cured if you have PCOS your lifetime will be spent trying to manage your symptoms but you won't have anything that can necessarily treat your symptoms the symptoms can honestly like range so vastly from wom to Woman um for me it affects me mostly through like my acne um which is something that we'll go into in the video of how I personally like manage to treat that and get to a place where like I feel like my skin is in like a really good place but for the longest time I've really really struggled with that but some other symptoms that can occur heavy long unpredictable or absent periods infertility acne or oily skin which is something that I have excessive hair on the face or body this is a really common one with PCOS mayale pattern boldness or hair thinning again you know it's so funny cuz I just have like acne is the only thing that affects me but I'm actually thinking like no this is also something that affects me like thinning of hair for me especially around like my the the top end people with ptrs are more more likely to also have health conditions including type 2 diabetes hypertension which is high blood pressure high cholesterol heart disease endometrial cancer but not only that because of the symptoms that women face and because it's a chronic condition it's something that like a lot of women will experience an anxiety and depression as a result of having to um deal with these symptoms there's three main ways that you can get diagnosed one of them is with signs of or symptoms of higher androgens which is that like male hormone that's the thing that's causing the unwanted facial hair or the acne um or elevated blood level of testosterone um and this can be found by looking at like your hormone levels um as an indicator you can also have a sign of irregular or um no periods at all that's another very clear sign um and the other one is polycystic like ovaries being able to actually see them on an ultrasound this is how I actually found out that I have PCOS um if I just go into like my journey with finding out because for me me when I had um my diagnosis it was nothing more than I was having bladder problems and I went in for an ultrasound and they couldn't find what it was they were looking for but the nurse decided to tell me oh do you know that you've got PCOS and I was like huh and she's like you got cysts on your ovaries and I was like okay so what does this mean now and she was like well I'll message your I'll email your doctor but honestly beyond that I really haven't had like anything else the woman had said to me in that appointment when I was getting that ultrasound you know it might be a case that in the future you struggle to have children and so for me I was about like I think I was like 17 around that age or something that felt really really I felt like what she said was like held a lot of weight and I didn't know what to do about it and um I actually didn't receive any more help with that at all from my experience with the NHS in the UK it's very much a case of like well there's nothing we can do right now because there's no treatment for it but if it causes you problems in the future you're trying to have children or whatever and you can't then that's when we'll treat it fast forward until like 2 years ago and I have like this real flare up of hormonal acne my PCOS was really like I don't know really affected me by way of having acne and it's something that I've really struggled with for the past couple of years it's really really affects my confidence and and my selfworth now I've managed to treat it which I'll go on to explain but now I've got like a lot of scarring on my face and so yeah that's just like one one case study you know one example of someone who has PCOS many people with PCOS are found to have higher than normal insulin levels insulin is a hormone that is produced in the pancreas and it helps the cells in the body turn sugar glucose into energy if you don't produce enough insulin your blood sugar levels can rise if you have insulin resistance your body may try to pump out higher levels of insulin in an effort to keep your blood sugar levels lower two high levels of insulin can cause your ovaries to produce more androgens like testosterone and so then that is obviously something that's going to contribute to the excess facial hair growth or the acne so you can see how these things that aren't so obvious actually do pay quite a big factor in how your symptoms are presenting themselves insulin resistance can also be caused by having a higher body mass in index so if you are more overweight than you know like what you should be then that can also have a effect on you with your diet let's talk about what foods we will add into our PCOS diet so basically with your diet you want to go for a diet that is full of lots of protein lots of fiber and also things that are anti-inflammatories so these could be Tomatoes kale spinach um it could also be fatty fish high in Omega 3 fatty acids or it could be like turmeric is an excellent one um turmeric I don't know how you say it berries and strawberries although with that you do want to make sure you're just a little bit careful because even if a fruit is healthy unfortunately it does just the body just sees it as sugar you want to avoid foods that are high in carbohydrates muffins or like white breads or like anything with white flour um just because this is going to cause insulin spikes there are some really really helpful resources if you guys are interested the one that everybody knows is gluc glucose goddess and she on her Instagram she helps you really understand how the foods you eat have an impact on this insulin Spike that we're talking about and if you're for example having something sugary if you just maybe have some cheese with it that's like fatty um or you have some yogurt beforehand or some like a leafy green salad you can minimize that Spike which means in turn it's going to reduce like how all of these things are having a knock on effect on your symptoms so I'd say that's mostly how I try to like manage my symptoms is through what I'm eating making sure that I'm not going for like super starchy Foods when I'm plating up my food I will go for like half a plate of like FEG really green Foods a decent amount of protein always with every meal if you're a gy girl anyway you'd be doing that there is suggestion that resistance training and strength training does really really help um with lowering your insulin levels one of the body these major consumers of glucose is the muscle cells so obviously if you're training and you're exercising a lot then your body is going to be using that which can be really helpful in kind of getting rid of that like excess insulin in your body I also found a article that was talking about how in most women strength training will um increase Androgen levels but in PCOS it actually was found to reduce um and levels so I found that interesting um I think like what I come to realize with PCOS is it is just like there's just not enough research or like evidence out there to help women so it really is a case of kind of just finding like what works for you and trying these things that people are suggesting can help manage and then seeing if it works for you there might be some things where you're like actually you know what I don't even struggle with that and have not noticed a difference some things might be completely and utterly life-changing with PCOS there's a lot of like health conditions like heart disease and many many other ones which are list here that can affect your body so just generally people with higher BMI um body mass indexes were found to struggle more with their symptoms being a lot more present it was spoke about quite a lot at length that women with PCOS do really struggle with their mental health as a result of like having these symptoms that they can't you know quote unquote treat so if nothing else exercising is really really beneficial for um increasing the endorphins and making you feel good about yourself um because of the numerous manifestations of PCOS involving cardiovascular metabolic and reproductive Health a lifestyle intervention that includes gradual weight loss sustainable diet aerobic exercise and resistance training is recommended as the primary approach to improving the syndrome I now just want to talk a little bit about like the more medical side of things my acne was getting worse and worse and worse and it was not going every day I would get like cystic acne and it was very angry and very painful and I would get really upset about it I made the decision to go to a dermatologist and I had a blood test where they analyzed like what my hormone levels were like in the blood I was given two choices go on mirac cutane or I can try spaone she said to me look you can try spaone but there is a chance that it might not work and that means that like you know your acne is present for another reason other than you having like higher Androgen levels or surges of Androgen levels so I gave it a go and pretty much as soon as I did I had really like positive um results and I've been on it for like a few months now and I'm really really pleased with how it's gone my dosage has like fluctuated quite a bit throughout like the um months depending on like how my blood tests were coming back I have had like a little bit of concern well the doctors's had a little bit of concern about like my um how my kidneys are responding with this um drug so we're just making s to like monitor that so yeah um I do want to just say that I've had like a really positive reaction uh response to that obviously it's very different and very individual based on like so many factors um another thing that is used as a treatment is the combined oral contraceptive pill which is usually used to treat excessive hair growth and hair loss and um it's great for like acne as well for me I felt like that wasn't the right decision for me because I've used that in the past and I had quite a like intense reaction with just Having excess hormones in my body and it made it I it affected my mental health so that was like an option that I decided to or like an Avenue I decided to not go down one final thing that I do want to mention is about cortisol now cortisol is um basically the hormone that your body releases in response to stress lucky for us PCOS GES we are found to often have a lot more higher level of cortisol than people who do not have PCOS so what does this mean well cortisol can actually be responsible for quite a vast list of um symptoms these can include acne facial hair irregular menstrual cycles weight gain around the abdomen and the face digestive issues difficulty sleeping fatigue craving unhealthy foods low libido anxiety depression so it's like you're listening to this and thinking oh aren't those all the things that people with PCOS suffer from yes it is so it's really really crucial to try to minimize all of your like stress in your life because this does have a KnockOn effect on how you how your symptoms are manifesting themselves and at what intensity they're sort of coming through I do remember when I had my dermatologist appointment she was saying you know there's many factors for why you're having acne it could be your anren levels it could be like surface dirt or oil or whatever but it also could be stress and it could be diet or whatever and it's like I am a stress head by nature and I really try hard not to be and I think if I can say anything to like help for this video like I have really really tried to take um measures to slow down and to be mindful and to just really try to be present um even down to like just like being on my phone and like consuming things on my phone less like I really am trying I'm not saying I'm there but I'm trying because I do see that it does have a correlation like the stress that you are under has an effect on your body and especially as someone with PCOS it's really important that you actually are aware of that and you're mindful of that and you take no journaling or meditation or like even just a moment of like deep breathing uh making sure I'm getting another sleep this is really really important for me like there's I know everyone's been going crazy recently about like that new study that's come out saying that women actually need more than 8 hours which is like yeah um particularly even more when you're at certain phases of your cycle for me as well I was thinking about this the other day like I get so much happiness and so much peace from cooking like that's something that really like allows me to just like really slow down so I definitely would recommend that um and also just having an anti-inflammatory diet which is those things that we spoke about earlier yeah so I think that is everything I think I've really gone through everything now um I hope that was of some value for you and I hope that this kind of lessens the stigma if there is one or lack of sort of um conversation or narrative there is around PCOS um so that's what I'm doing and I hope you enjoyed it if you did get this far please could you give us a like comment and subscribe so many of you guys that are regular Watchers do not subscribe so um it would make my day if you could do that um and yeah have a lovely week and I will see you in the next one bye
#healed #PCOS #acne #managing #diet #exercise
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Joe Dispenza meditations
do you take creatine with spironolcatone? and did u find birth control helpful at all before? I am really struggling with gaining muscle while having pcos
I don’t know who needs to hear this but I cured my acne after 15yrs in 3 DAYS with KOMBUCHA.
I have PCOS so assumed it was my hormones – took a test and wasn’t the case. I went to a naturopath and healed all my allergies. Wasn’t the problem. Cured my gut problems, eat no diary or meat, and have a low sugar diet – NOTHING helped.
In pure desperation, I asked chatGPT what the hell else it could be and one thing I had never heard before – my skins microbiome. It suggested probiotics/prebiotics for the skin! Not the just the gut THE SKIN. TOPICAL.
I spray my face day and night with a mix of 50% Natural Kombucha and 50% water. Don’t wash it off.
Cured. No fucking pill. No fucking cream. AFTER 15 YEARS a fermented skanky tea fixed it 😅
I really hope this helps someone because I know how it feels to wake up and have your acne decide your mood for the day, to avoid eye contact and to not feel beautiful.
Love, a fellow Cyster 💕
do you take protein supplement ? I do strength exercises too but ı can't take enough protein so ı want to get supplements but I heard that it can couse acnes ( ı have a major acne problem because of PCOS )
what if i already do implement these habits but there’s not any change going on
Interesting sweatshirt
Thank you so much for this!🫶🏻🤍
Thank you for that video Syd. I'm brazilian and a lot of the doctors here, including women doctors says the ONLY thing we can do to "cure" is starting to take contraceptive pills, wich is something I really don't agree with based on a lot of research I made and how I felt taking it. Is like we really have to dig a lot to find information about it here. My major symptoms are hair loss and I recently been told I have diabetes too. So thank you for being a example of how fitness can help and to come here and talk about this!
This video has me cryinggg, you’ve made me feel more seen & understood than any of the doctors I’ve been to! I’ve struggled with my PCOS for almost 10 years and up until this year I’ve been dismissed and not listened to because of my weight. Thank you so much for sharing your story 🥹💗
I've followed you for so long on insta and recently had a similar interaction with a sonographer in the NHS who just casually mentioned I had enlarged ovaries that looked like PCOS. I didn't have any idea you had it! and it is so much better hearing a discussion about the condition from someone that is actually dealing with it.
Thank you SO much for posting this video – I've been going out of my mind stressing about it as Drs haven't been able to talk to me yet, keep on lowering the cortisol of us PCOS cysters💪❤
I’m 5 and a half minutes in and got so much more info than any doctor has ever given me. Thank you! I’ve been on a journey with this for the last 5/6 years and recently did a blood test for my hormones (that I paid for) and the main suggestions were food and exercise. I really struggle with my diet and I’m such a fussy eater – to the point it upsets me, I just crave sugar. But I’m trying and hope it helps. I do take medication but keen to explore different options. Sending loveeeee
I had no clue you have pcos, i was diagnosed a little while ago and knowing i followed someone who has it before i really knew about it is really comforting ❤thank you
Glucose Goddess's philosophy is to use "hacks" to minimize the damage your are doing to yourself from overeating carbs instead of just being healthy.
She's like those people you knew at university who were obsessed with finding "hacks" to minimize hangovers instead of just not drinking to excess in the first place.
In other words, her methods will make you less sick but they won't necessarily make you healthy.
So, just like how the solution to hangovers is to not drink too much in the first place, so to the solution to blood sugar problems is to not eat so many carbs in the first place.
And the people who absolutely hate to hear that alcohol is the problem are those that have a disordered relationship with alcohol ( AKA alcoholics.)
So too, the people who hate hearing that eating too many carbs is the problem are those that have a disordered relationship with carbohydrates (I was one of these people).
It's just one of those hard facts of life.
If you keep your total carbohydrate intake below 20 grams per day, you will reverse all negative health conditions that are the result of chronic high blood sugar — things like insulin resistance, PCOS, endometriosis, diabetes, etc.
Pcos really is a trial and error situation because it so different for all of us. It is soooo mentally draining to try figure out what works best sometimes. Thank you for sharing your story ❤️❤️❤️
It’s also worth noting that there are support groups on Facebook and I think potentially some good awareness on Instagram, although insta can be full of influencers trying to sell products to “cure” PCOS so I guess we just have to be careful 😅
Thank-you for sharing and spreading awareness💜
I had no clue you had PCOS
Such an important conversation, thank you Syd!🩷
i love ur content so much, thank u for this! it's so nice to be able to relate to an amazing athlete like u
thank u for posting this syd 🩵 so helpful
hi syd, thank you for this video. I’ve been struggling with my pcos diagnosis quite recently. I’m getting married in a few months and one of my goals is to manage everything regarding my body a lot better so thank you! ❤