Overcoming PCOS Naturally with Diet and Lifestyle (Episode 427)

Full Transcript: Episode 427

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Welcome to the Fertility Friday podcast, your source for information about the Fertility Awareness Method and all things fertility. I’m your host Lisa Hendrickson-Jack. I’m the author of the Fifth Vital Sign and the Fertility Awareness Mastery Charting Journal. I’m a certified fertility awareness educator and holistic reproductive health practitioner with nearly 20 years of experience teaching women to connect to their fifth vital sign through menstrual cycle charting, balancing hormonal health, and optimizing the menstrual cycle without hormones. I’m outspoken about hormonal birth control and its impact on fertility and overall health because you have the right to know how your body works and how artificial hormones disrupt that natural process. I teach women’s health professionals how to utilize the menstrual cycle as a vital sign in their practices, and I host live coaching programs to help you achieve optimal fertility and health because it’s important to have healthy menstrual cycles regardless of whether or not you want to have babies. I’m also a wife and mother of two beautiful boys. I know I’m a busy girl but I managed to fit it all in. This podcast is designed to empower you to take full control of your cycles, your fertility and your overall health and I’m so excited that you’re here with me today.

I’m sharing the second of three episodes that I will be sharing back to back about PCOS just to really get the conversation going. So last week I shared the episode with Dr. Fiona McCullough and again that episode is so informative and just really helps us to understand the condition better and how it relates to different conditions like thyroid, how it relates to inflammation and all the different aspects of PCOS that can affect the cycle and fertility and health. And today I’m sharing an episode with Amy Medling, author of Healing PCOS. And you know, in this episode Amy really breaks down some of the strategies that really work for women with PCOS to improve their insulin sensitivity, improve their menstrual cycles and improve their fertility. And it’s just a really great conversation that we have about PCOS. And I think one of the themes that came out was that we’re not all the same and I think that that’s a really important piece to remember. So although women with PCOS do have — obviously there is criteria, there’s specific symptoms — but there’s at least four different phenotypes of PCOS, how it can present in different women. And so certain strategies that might work for some women may not work for you and a big part of the challenge of sorting out menstrual cycle health when you have a condition like PCOS and or HA is to figure out what works for you. So with that said let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode with Amy Medling.

And today I’m very excited to welcome my guest Amy Medling to the show. Amy Medling, author of Healing PCOS and certified health coach, specializes in working with women with polycystic ovary syndrome who are frustrated and have lost all hope when the only solution their doctors offer is to lose weight, take a pill, and live with their symptoms. And in response Amy founded PCOS Diva and developed a proven protocol of supplements, diet and lifestyle programs that offer women tools to help gain control of their PCOS and regain their fertility, femininity, health, and happiness. For those of you who’ve been listening to the show for quite some time, Amy was one of my very first guests appearing on episode number 22 of the podcast. So if you haven’t listened to that episode you’ll definitely want to go back and take a listen because that episode was actually jam-packed with a ton of helpful information about PCOS. And in today’s show we’ll be talking about Amy’s new book, Healing PCOS. And so without further ado, welcome back to the show Amy.

Amy Medling: Oh thank you. I’m so thrilled to be back.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well thank you for coming back. I’ll tell the listeners the story — I think it’s really kind of serendipitous but I didn’t even know you had written a book and I was just kind of browsing, cruising on Amazon for something and then I thought — I was like, oh wow, Amy wrote a book. So really excited to have you on the show to talk about it. You know, I think the listeners can go back to our first episode if they want, you know, like the whole history of how everything kind of began. But I’d love to hear about what inspired you to write this book and why now?

Amy Medling: Yeah, so you know, I’ve had a lot of success working with women one-on-one in my private coaching practice and in my online group coaching program, and I’ve actually had over 5,000 women go through that program. And when you’ve had those numbers of women with PCOS and you’ve seen their successes and you’ve seen what works for them and what doesn’t — as well, I’m a woman with PCOS myself — so I started really seeing trends and underlying sort of factors in terms of how women think about their PCOS. And I just felt like I needed to get sort of these ahas and things that lead to true healing out in a bigger way. So that’s really what precipitated me writing the book. And you know, writing a book is just it’s such a labor of love. Because once you write the book, you know, and that seems like okay I’m done. But then the whole editing process is it takes just as long as writing the book. So it is a true labor of love and I’m just so happy it’s out in the world.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yes, yes. I know you mentioned you’re like I’m tired now — well that’s not exactly how you said it, that’s like a paraphrase. But thank you so much for sending me the book. So I’m actually holding it in my hands. I think you did a really great job. And what I really like about it as well is that it’s very practical. It gives a lot of information about PCOS so it definitely gives a woman a place to go. But I like how you structured it. So it’s a 21-day plan for reclaiming your health and your life with polycystic ovarian syndrome — you’re actually giving women very specific things to do, which I really think the readers will really appreciate. So as I was thinking about what questions to ask you for the interview, what came to mind was for the listener who was literally just diagnosed with PCOS, or for the listener who thinks that she might have PCOS based on her symptoms and what she’s read about it — what are some of the basic things that you want her to know, kind of like where do you start when you’re in that stage?

Amy Medling: Yeah, so the first thing that I would want a woman to know is that there is so much hope. No matter what your doctor says. And I can tell you that I’ve been told that they would have to jump through hoops one day to get me pregnant, that I would never get pregnant unless I had fertility treatments, that the only prescription for me was the birth control pill to manage my elevated androgens and Metformin — which is a diabetic drug used off-label to help women with insulin resistance — which made me so sick. And you know I felt like that was all that was available for me. And I think that a lot of women with PCOS when they’re just diagnosed they’re often receiving the same messages, although I do think that healthcare providers are becoming a little bit more educated in PCOS. Or you’re told to go on a low-carb diet and now the hot new diet is the keto diet — go on a keto diet and get to the gym — and that’s really all the information that you’re given, and there’s no cure. I just want a woman to sort of step away from that fear-based thinking, which is so incredibly hard to do, and to move into a place of hope and a mindset of abundant health.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well it’s beautifully said, and you took us through kind of like this great divide between standard medical treatment and some of the holistic kind of dietary and lifestyle alterations that you can make that make a big difference. So maybe share with us — you mentioned your coaching program and you mentioned how you’ve supported thousands of women to overcome PCOS in different ways. So maybe share with us kind of that divide, the divide between what your doctor is telling you is possible and what you have seen as possible through a different way of approaching it.

Amy Medling: Yeah, so as I mentioned, doctors are quick to give sort of this Band-Aid fix of the birth control pill and Metformin. And yes, for many women it can kind of mask symptoms but it doesn’t really get to the root of your PCOS. And in my book I talk about sort of three factors — inflammation, hormone imbalance, and insulin resistance. So you really want to get to the root of those three things and heal that and bring your body back into balance so you can have true healing. And I did mention there is no cure for PCOS, but I do think that we can be on this lifelong continuum of healing, and it’s something that we have to manage over the course of a lifetime. So I think the fact that there is no Band-Aid fix is really the number one thing to realize. And I write in the book that a lot of women are looking for the magic pill. And a big mindset shift for women with PCOS is to kind of realize that you are the magic pill — that is, you are the one that has to do the hard work to feel better. But it’s so worth it. So I start the book with a chapter called “Thinking Like a Diva” because I really believe that you have to shift your mindset and you have to shift out of that place of thinking and acting like a victim and sort of leaving your care in the hands of everyone else but you.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: It does. Yeah, I really liked how you explained that in the book. When you described what it means to be a diva I really like the story that you told when you and your husband were out for dinner and then you were kind of ordering a meal the way that you needed to order it. Maybe you could share that story and just really share with us like what does it mean to be a PCOS Diva and why is it necessary?

Amy Medling: Sure, yeah. I’ll share that story quick and then I can sort of read the definition of what is a PCOS Diva from the book if you’d like. Okay, so basically, you know, I wasn’t able to tolerate those pharmaceuticals and I was 30 at the time — well, I was 31 — and I had a little baby and a three-year-old and I could not get off of the couch in the afternoon. I was just so exhausted and I felt like I was way too young to feel so old and sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. And there had to be another way to manage this PCOS. And so I started experimenting with my diet and actually a naturopath doctor friend of mine suggested that I get a glucometer to see what food was doing to my blood sugar. And that was such a great tool for me and I really experimented with it and started to figure out what food worked best for me because I believe that food is medicine and it really has the power to heal us. So as I was playing with my diet and experimenting and figuring out what worked for me, I started to advocate for myself — especially in a very polite way. I mean, this kind of diva is not like Mariah Carey being carted off in a chaise lounge, you know, only eating green M&Ms — that’s not the kind of diva that I’m talking about. It’s really a woman that asks for what she needs. And you can still do that very nicely. But I was at a restaurant with my husband and I was ordering my steak and then they asked me if I wanted a potato and I said, “Well, can I get a sweet potato?” And they said, “Sure. Do you want that loaded?” And I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, what the heck is a loaded sweet potato?” — and it had marshmallow and cinnamon sugar. And I said, “Can I just get straight cinnamon?” And they didn’t have straight cinnamon, which boggled my mind. But after a little bit of back and forth making sure that I was getting exactly what I wanted, the waitress left the table, and my husband kind of sighed, exasperated, like, “Gosh, when have you become such a diva?” And I was definitely the type of person that put everybody else’s needs in front of mine and had a hard time saying no and advocating for myself. But when he said that I was a little taken aback, but then the more I thought about it I realized that I had to be a diva and I had to put my self-care first in order to be the best mom and wife that I could be. So I’d love to read the description of a PCOS Diva from my book.

A PCOS Diva is a woman with hope. She has taken charge of her health and happiness and takes steps every day to enhance both. She chooses to thrive with PCOS and is empowered by the knowledge she gathers as she educates herself about PCOS. As a result of her regimen, she is able to give her best to herself and others and be an example of the power of self-care. She is capable of advocating for herself and surrounds herself with a supportive healthcare team and community of friends and family she deserves. A PCOS Diva looks beyond the physical support required to manage symptoms and works to heal and enhance her whole person — mind, body, and spirit.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well I love that. It’s so important as women — you and I both work with women in different capacities. I teach women to chart their cycles and that’s basically kind of like a starting point in their relationship with their bodies. And so even the example that you gave of getting a glucometer and then starting to pay attention to how certain foods interacted with you, how much higher certain foods raised your blood sugar than others — that gives you an opportunity to also pay attention to how you feel when that happens. And this is the broader conversation here — a term I always refer to as body literacy — and just not only getting in your body and seeing how different things affect you, but then taking the next step and really having to advocate for yourself. Maybe share some of the challenges that you’ve seen working with women. It’s not easy to advocate for yourself, especially when you’re going against the kind of common standard model.

Amy Medling: Well I think a lot of it comes down to this mindset where a woman feels like she isn’t deserving and isn’t worth it. And for women with PCOS that is a major theme and I do think it kind of comes from this place of PCOS sort of robbing our femininity. You know we’re fertility challenged — PCOS is the leading cause of female infertility. We’re losing hair, we want hair and are gaining it where we don’t, and we’re struggling with acne and weight gain. So I do think that there’s this sense that we’re just not enough and we’re not deserving. So I think that when a woman can make that shift — that she is worth it and she is enough and she deserves to advocate for herself — then she becomes very empowered. But I will say that if there isn’t a medical study done on certain supplements or diets, it’s really hard to talk to your doctor because they speak the language of studies. And I’ve just found in my experience that if you just sort of experiment on yourself and you start feeling better, and you go to the doctor and your lab results improve, then the proof is in the pudding and it’s hard to refute. And you know you become part of the Gandhi quote — “Be the change you wish to see.” You become that change and you start enlightening doctors and it’s really an exciting thing.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well that and also that you can be healthy.

Amy Medling: Yes, yes. I think that’s huge. And I think especially in fertility, if somebody has told you that you can’t get pregnant — miracles happen every day. And I know that if I had taken what the doctor said when I was 18 about jumping through hoops one day to get me pregnant and thinking that that was my truth, I may never have kids. But I held out for hope and now I have three beautiful children.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well I just can’t help but think about the parallels to the menstrual cycle. So we haven’t really gone deep into PCOS and kind of what it is — maybe we should do that, maybe you should give us a bit of an overview just so that we have a basic understanding of what it is, what it looks like, what some of those common symptoms are. Because in my work we’re staring at the menstrual cycle all the time. So the central piece of every client consult that I do or in a group program is the woman’s chart — where ovulation is happening in the cycle, what cervical mucus looks like, how long the luteal phase is. And in PCOS, in the same way that you’ve been talking about experimenting on yourself and checking to see how the labs improve — with the menstrual cycle it’s also quite obvious. With PCOS, women stop ovulating, so the ovulation is often delayed quite a bit. And so when you start to see that improve, the proof is in the pudding there too. So maybe take us through some of the basics about PCOS so that we all have a sense of what it is, and then that would lend itself to us knowing how we would track those improvements.

Amy Medling: Sure. So interestingly, that’s how I was diagnosed. It took me 15 years to get a diagnosis of PCOS and I was using the Creighton model of natural family planning and my instructor was the one looking at my cervical mucus charting who suggested that I may have PCOS. So I think that tracking your cycle is just such an important part of really understanding your body and your PCOS, and exactly what you said — how it changes and improves over time.

But PCOS is one of the most common endocrine system disorders found in women. It’s the leading cause of female infertility. And when I first started working in the PCOS space as a health coach the statistic was one in ten women have PCOS, but now they’re suggesting the numbers may be as much as one in five women have PCOS symptoms. And I’ll just kind of go through some of the common symptoms. So irregular ovulation or absent ovulation, polycystic ovaries — so like 12 or more cysts, they sort of look like a string of pearls around your ovary and you would be diagnosed on an ultrasound. High levels of insulin resistance and insulin, easy weight gain or obesity, acne, 50% of women have type 2 diabetes by the time they’re 40 with PCOS. So blood sugar issues are a huge problem and are again one of those root causes of PCOS. Women with PCOS deal with depression, anxiety, poor body image, eating disorders. Thyroid disorders often go hand in hand — hypothyroidism or Hashimoto’s are the most common. High levels of androgen drive symptoms like hair loss and hair growth, sleep apnea, and darkening of the skin areas and skin tags, which also kind of go along with insulin resistance.

So if you’re listening to this and you’re checking off a lot of these symptoms and have not been diagnosed with PCOS, it’s really important that you talk to your practitioner because 50% of women that have PCOS are undiagnosed. And your practitioner may think that it’s just a reproductive age syndrome but it really goes beyond that into your perimenopause and post-menopause years, and it makes us more susceptible to cardiovascular issues, type 2 diabetes, and things like endometrial cancer, because a lot of women with PCOS aren’t shedding their lining every month. So it’s important to be diagnosed.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well it’s incredible. I was doing a bit of research on PCOS lately. I think because we have ovaries and a menstrual cycle, that is the disruption that happens as a result really of what you’ve called the root cause. So there’s obviously something else going on and the way that it seems to present in our bodies is this disrupted menstrual cycle and then all of those symptoms. Because we have ovaries and because we have a menstrual cycle and because PCOS disrupts the menstrual cycle, it is looked at as a disease of fertility when it really should be looked at as a disease of cardiovascular health and metabolic function.

Amy Medling: Yeah, yeah. And there is kind of this effort underway by some research scientists to change the name of PCOS to something like metabolic reproductive syndrome. I’m not sure if that’s the most helpful thing at this point. I’d much rather put our efforts into increasing funding for PCOS research than trying to change the name. But you’re right that it’s bigger than just reproduction.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah. Well I agree with you. I don’t think that it would make any sense to waste time and resources changing the name — more so deepening the understanding. And I suppose this came out in the interview that I did with Dr. Catherine Sharif, but when a young woman has these symptoms and she’s not trying to have babies, then obviously the common solution is the birth control pill, right? And that basically just puts a pause on the disrupted ovulation so you don’t really see the cycle disruption — you can kind of set it and forget it. But the woman has this underlying metabolic condition that is not being addressed. So for me it’s less about the name but more about — we have to start addressing this, because this is a serious health issue for women. 50% of women with PCOS go on to develop type 2 diabetes — that’s incredibly significant.

Amy Medling: Yeah, I mean, we’re at the point where it’s really a health crisis when you’re talking about 20% of the female population dealing with PCOS.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So let’s talk about how to address it. I’d love for you to take us through the 21-day plan that you present in the book. I think it’s really important to have these practical steps that women can do. But why did you design it that way? I’d love for you to kind of take us through that, and what are some of the benefits of actually going through the full 21 days as outlined in the book?

Amy Medling: Yeah, so I took so much of this idea of the 21-day plan from my one-on-one coaching. And I think that 21 days — of course my publisher thought that sounded like just the right amount of time — and then I do think it’s a nice amount of time to make a lifestyle jumpstart. And I actually, as we’re speaking, we’re on day 17 — I’m doing a live program I’m calling the Healing PCOS book club. So if you’re listening, you can go into the book club and read the book and get support from other women that are reading the book and going through the plan. But at day 17, women are really having some breakthroughs and a lot of it has to do with the mindset piece. But of course the 21-day program includes a meal plan — the book has 85 recipes, so everything in the meal plan I give you a recipe for those weeks. And I also include a daily protocol. And I think a big part of healing PCOS is finding more time for you to do these sort of self-care rituals.

So I ask you each week to wake up 15 minutes earlier. So by the time you finish — week one is Live, Discover week, week two is Live week, and week three is Thrive week — by the time you get to Thrive week you’re waking up about 45 minutes earlier. Now of course this is like perfect world scenario and I talk about in the book that we’re just looking for progress, not perfection. So if your lifestyle isn’t conducive, if you’re already getting up at 4am to go to work, I mean I don’t want you getting up at 3am. But you need to find, by the end of the 21 days, an extra 45 minutes in your day to take care of you. And then I give you a whole morning ritual and nighttime evening ritual because I think women with PCOS really tend to have disruptive circadian rhythms and cortisol cycles. They tend to be sort of tired but wired in the evening and their cortisol is high when it should be low — it’s sort of this inverse curve. So we’re doing some things to work on normalizing your sleeping patterns. I really try to help women work to manage their stress level because stress really wreaks havoc on PCOS. So I’ve integrated what I call meditation moments. We introduce more movement — and that’s kind of what I term exercise. I think there’s less of the feeling of “I should have, could have, would have exercised” — when you just sort of really focus on what type of movement brings you joy. And one of the women in the book club said, “You know, I hate to exercise but I love swimming” — and she really connects swimming with something she loved to do in her childhood. And that’s exactly what we’re looking for: some type of movement that can be really sustainable for you. So we incorporate the food piece, the mindset piece, the stress reduction, sleep, self-care, and it’s all contained in that 21-day program. And when you finish you’re really prepared to then kind of continue this journey and keep stepping forward. I love that quote by Lao Tzu — “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” But you just got to keep stepping. And I like to say that in addition to progress, not perfection — you’re always one choice away from getting back on track. And I really just hope that my book gives you a sort of toolbox and it’s a way for you to learn how to manage your PCOS so you can feel better.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I really liked how you took a fair amount of time in the book to talk about establishing those daily rituals and why it’s important. And I thought that was really interesting — it’s kind of like throughout the day, organizing yourself in the mornings and having a ritual, having certain things that you do, certain things that you say to yourself and starting your day off in a positive way. And then also towards the end — it’s all very practical, but it’s both from that practical “this is what I do” to also addressing the mindset aspect of it.

Amy Medling: Well, I think it’s because healing is so much more than going on a low-carb diet and going to the gym. You really have to address mind, body, spirit. And I think I’ve tried to do that in the book.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, and I wanted to hear a little bit more about the movement piece. In one of the sections you mentioned kind of like three different types of exercises — like high-intensity interval training, strength training, and then the mind-body movement. And I think it’s more than what we could cover in the podcast. But I thought it was really interesting that you’re encouraging women to move in different ways and to think about it in a different way. You may have seen this a lot in some of the women that you’re working with — but there’s often this tendency to just kind of go hard, right? Like to kind of do this seven-day run every day type of situation that ends up kind of burning out your adrenals and causing more problems than it solves. So maybe just share with us why you took this approach to exercise and movement.

Amy Medling: Yeah. And the book is very story-driven — I start each chapter with a story from my life, and so much of it is what I’ve learned along my journey. And I remember I tend to be one of those sort of type A people and I really just, whatever I do, I go all in. And I always felt like unless I was sweating and heart pounding and felt like I had literally run miles, that workout wasn’t enough. And in a lot of ways I think it was somewhat of a form of self-punishment — I was kind of trying to exercise out all the calories, that whole paradigm of calories in, calories out, which I hate now. But I got to a point in my early 20s where I had run so long and so hard, like every day without a break, that I had shin splints and I couldn’t run anymore. And the crazy thing was, I stop the intensity and I’m walking, and now I’m dropping pounds.

And I think that’s really typical for women with PCOS. Dr. Fiona McCulloch has a great book called Eight Steps to Reverse Your PCOS and she talks about adrenal androgen PCOS — it’s like a type of PCOS that she’s noticed in her patients. And it’s real. Women who have that type of PCOS — and I tend to think I have it — we have to be really careful with our adrenals. Hard exercise like really hard CrossFit or training for a half marathon or something like that can tend to be counterproductive, and we don’t understand why we’re gaining weight when all of our friends are losing weight doing the same type of exercise. So when you shift to things that are a little bit less intense, often you can see these health shifts even in your cycle, in your charting. But PCOS is a syndrome and it doesn’t affect everyone in the same way. So like experimenting with your diet, it’s important to experiment with exercise as well to see what works for you — experimenting in those three areas: the high-intensity interval training, strength training, and mind-body movement like yoga. There have been studies that show how beneficial yoga is for women with PCOS.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Oh, I feel like one of the points I just want to highlight about the way that you’re talking about exercise and movement is very much that every woman isn’t the same. And I thought of something I wanted to ask you. With all the women you’ve worked with over the years, how do you address that question of “Why is this happening to me?” when we’re talking about the different ways that — some women seem to be able to exercise like a ton and it doesn’t necessarily affect their cycles very much, whereas others are more sensitive. We all have our areas of sensitivity. And so we very much have to figure out what works for us, even if something is quote unquote healthy — it may not work for us.

Amy Medling: Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, I think that when you have a chronic illness that there is no cure for, I think you definitely go through those five stages of grief — the bargaining or the denial. And finally, I hope I can help women to work through to a place of acceptance. And I find that if you can focus on gratitude — yes, you might have PCOS, but focus on all the good things that you have. We were talking about really dressing so that you feel beautiful and it’s so easy to compare yourself to other people. But you have to focus on the good stuff, the gratitude, and the features that you want to play up. So you might not be able to run a marathon like your friend because it’s just too much, but you might be really strong and do really well in a strength training class. I think you have to get away from comparison to others. And I know that’s not always easy to do, but if you remember that quote — is it Theodore Roosevelt? — “Comparison is the thief of joy.” You have to just realize that is just the truth.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, and the more that I do this work with women, the more you see that we are all different. And yes, there are general tenets of health — of course there are. But for each woman, what really supports and helps one woman is another woman’s poison, and we each have to kind of be on this journey of really seeing what works for us and paying really close attention to how certain things affect our body. And so exercise is such a great example of how you can utilize your menstrual cycle as a diagnostic tool or as a vital sign. I’ll give you an example — I was working with a client and she added in some exercise, started exercising a lot more than she had been just to kind of try it out, and she ended up spotting pre-ovulatory where that never happened before. And then when she kind of cut back a little bit, the spotting went away. So it’s not always that dramatic, but we can all kind of pay attention to how we feel and our energy levels and all of those types of things — in addition to something like your menstrual cycle — to really get the sense of like, no, I have to really pay attention to what’s going to work for me, not just what so-and-so says works for everybody.

And in one of the sections of your book where you were talking a little bit about the supplement program and some of the supplements that support women with PCOS, what you said was, “There is no PCOS supplement — every woman is unique.” And so I would love to hear a little bit about that.

Amy Medling: Yeah, you know, I think there are a lot of charlatans out there selling the PCOS cure and they throw like the kitchen sink into a supplement package — and I just think that’s often a real waste of money because not everybody has the same symptoms. And I think for a lot of women, just making dietary changes and changes like exercise can often be enough where you don’t need a whole laundry list of supplements. But research shows that a lot of us are nutrient deficient. Women with PCOS tend to be deficient in vitamin D and omega-3s and minerals like zinc and chromium. So I do believe that most women with PCOS do well with what I call my essentials — a good multivitamin with methylated B vitamins, a good omega-3 oil, and a vitamin D supplement. And then see how you feel. And then from there I really suggest adding in one supplement at a time and waiting six weeks to see how that makes a difference. Because if you take everything at once, then you don’t really know what’s working and what’s not.

There are other supplements that can really help with fertility if that’s what you’re looking for. N-acetyl cysteine can really help with egg quality — there’s been some research done, especially with IVF cycles. It’s just a good supplement for your liver too, and a lot of women with PCOS tend to have non-alcoholic fatty liver disorder. And then there are things like inositols that help on so many different levels, and berberine can help with blood sugar and testosterone. There are just so many and I kind of have a nice little cheat sheet blueprint on my website that goes through the different symptoms that you have and then the different supplements you might want to try. But again — don’t throw everything at it. You want to do it incrementally and just kind of test and see how it makes you feel.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah, I think it’s really important to have that kind of balanced approach to anything. Because I’m sure you’ve found this as well — if you change nothing and take a bunch of supplements, you’re not going to get the results you want, right? Like if you kind of ignore all of the dietary stuff, if you never get enough sleep — if you just ignore all of the basically the reasons why this is worsening — yeah, I feel like it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. So I appreciate the way that you present them as part of what you do to resolve this issue.

Amy Medling: Yeah, it’s like a piece that works synergistically with everything else. And I remember seeing a quote in a magazine — like you can’t exercise away a McDonald’s Big Mac, shake, and fry. You can’t do that. And it’s the same with supplements — you can’t supplement away a bad diet and a bad lifestyle.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah, no, well said. Well, so as we kind of approach the end of our interview, I’d love to hear from you — we’ve talked about quite a bit. I feel like the listeners have learned a lot about PCOS and also have some tools, some very practical ways to start addressing it. And I think most importantly, some hope — knowing that there are many women who’ve had the same diagnosis and have gone on to resolve or at least manage the conditions such that their fertility returns and their cycles normalize. So I think it gives a lot of hope to women especially if their doctors haven’t given them a whole lot. But what do you think is the most important thing that you’d like the listeners to take away from our conversation today?

Amy Medling: So you know, I really want — it’s not your fault that you have PCOS or you’re struggling with fertility. That’s not your fault. But thinking and acting like a victim is. And being able to shift your mindset and, what you had said earlier Lisa, about opening yourself up to the possibility of being healthy and being fertile and knowing that you are enough and you deserve to have a healthy, happy life — I think that’s just such a huge shift. And holding onto the hope and staying in sort of this abundant, hope-based thinking rather than fear or lack-based thinking around your health is so important. And finally, I named this little section in my last chapter “Moving Forward With Gratitude.” And there’s one wonderful way to elevate your energy and your thinking about your health — focus on gratitude and all of the good things that are going on in your life. Gratitude, hope, abundance — rest on that rather than fear, victimhood, and lack thinking.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Beautiful words to end on. So where can our listeners go to learn more about what you do and also to pick up a copy of your new book, Healing PCOS?

Amy Medling: Yeah, thank you. So you can find me at pcosdiva.com and I’m on all the social media platforms — usually hashtag PCOS Diva. And my book is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bookstores — really anywhere books are sold.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here, Amy. It was a lot of fun to have you back on the show again.

Amy Medling: Oh thanks. Yeah, it was fun. I enjoyed it.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with a friend. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertilityfriday.com/427. I hope that you enjoyed today’s interview with Amy Medling. Again, her book is Healing PCOS and it’s an excellent resource for women with PCOS looking to really optimize their strategies to improve insulin sensitivity, reduce inflammation, improve menstrual cycle health, and make sure you’re nourished.

And one of the things I really appreciated about this interview is how Amy spoke about exercise and how it should be tailored to what’s best for you. It’s really interesting because for many women, when we try to do the things they tell us to do — restrict calories, exercise more — there’s this crazy thing that happens to a certain percentage of us, which is that it ends up helping us to put on weight instead of taking it off. Or initially the weight might come off and then you might start to put it back on. And so I think it’s a really great reminder that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. As much as it might sound great in theory to do certain things, we really have to take it back to our bodies, how we feel in our bodies — and I would of course argue the menstrual cycle. So I do feel that when you’re tracking your cycle and paying attention to your patterns, learning what’s normal for you and identifying what a normal healthy cycle looks like, it can be this incredible way to really learn to tailor your exercise routine, your diet, your practices, your lifestyle practices to what works best for you. And it’s kind of like the ultimate science experiment because the cycle in many ways is an objective marker. So you can try things, you can increase your activity levels, you can switch to a different type of exercise routine, and you can see in real time how those things affect your cycle — from your ovulation, as you approach ovulation in that pre-ovulatory phase, your mucus production, to your post-ovulatory phase, the number of days in your luteal phase, the quality of your luteal phase, if you start to see spotting or different signs that you might be overdoing it. It really can help you to tailor what you’re doing so that it works best for you, for your hormones, for your cycle, and of course track your progress as you work towards overcoming PCOS, if that is what you’re working on at this point. So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful week — weekend — whenever you’re tuning into the show. And of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting!