Treating PCOS Early w/ Dr. Pateguana & The PCOS Plan!

Hey Cysters. And welcome to the show. This episode is brought to you by pure spectrum CBD. And I have been taking CBD and we are loving. I’m holding the tincture right now. Pine, can you open your mouth please? Yeah, I’m going to give you a dosage now. Keep it there for 60 seconds while she does that. Let me tell you the great benefits of CBD for PCO is studies show.

It reduces cortisol, improves insulin sensitivity, reduces inflammation. You can go to pure spectrum cbd.com now to order and use the code. This sisterhood one word at checkout for 20% of Natale and hold her for 30 seconds longer. While the sisters enjoy the show. Welcome to a sister on her, mr. A podcast, where we show you the real behind the scenes of how we balance the PCs lifestyle in our marriage,

gluten and dairy free. I’m Tallene your fellow Cyster and registered dietitian, and I’m Sirak, Husband, engineer, and PCOS personal trainer. We’re going to make PCOS a little less overwhelming and a lot more fun. Welcome everybody to Cyster and her Mister. It is episode 30, the big three. Oh. And today we have the author of the PCs, or I’m sorry,

the coauthor of the PCOS plan on the episode, her name is dr. Nadia Brito Patagonia, and she is a naturopathic doctor with a focus on helping people with metabolic syndrome, including women with polycystic ovary syndrome PCOS, and she helps them overcome infertility through dietary modifications. She is a graduate of the Canadian college of naturopathic medicine and has been in clinical practice for more than 15 years.

Thank you, dr. Nadia for joining us. And we’re very happy to have you here. My pleasure. So, uh, what, what motivated you to write this book? The PCO is plan with dr. Jason Fung, uh, for those that don’t know, dr. Jason Fung has multiple books on, um, you know, obesity and many other related issues.

So, um, I think it’s, it’s great that you guys partnered up for this, for this book, the PTUs plan. Well, that’s a great question. It’s, uh, I hope to not, uh, talk too long, but I think that when Jason Fung invites you to write a book, you don’t say, no, you say,

yes, you jump on it. So that’s, um, the most obvious, um, yeah, he’s a best selling author. He’s a New York times bestselling author now. Um, and, and he has, I think, seven books. Uh, this was his, I think seventh, if I’m not mistaken, to be honest, I, I went through this with him a little while ago.

We did an interview together. Um, and so he invited me to write this book because we had already been working together for a few years. I worked for the fasting method program with Jason Fung and Meghan Ramos. I’m asking coaches for that program and have been for a few years. I actually started in the clinics with them. So I was, um,

uh, very grateful and honored to work in the clinics right next to Jason Fung and Meghan Ramos in, in Toronto and Scarborough, Ontario, um, in the clinics in the hospital. And so, um, I think in 2018 he invited me and he said, Hey, um, you still want to write about PCOS? And I said, yes,

he’d already written the obesity code, the diabetes called the complete guide to fasting, um, the longevity solution. So when he asked you what to write about PCs, obviously that means that he thinks he’s a nephrologist, a kidney specialist, uh, writing about women with PCLs. So obviously he thinks it’s enough. Uh, it’s a big deal. And so I was honored and I jumped on it.

Yeah. I mean, I think the, they say that in some countries is one out of five women could have peace us. I’ve heard it’s one out of 10 in other countries, but in America, it’s one out of 10. Yeah. But I think in England I have one out of five. So it’s a, it’s a, fortunately it’s an issue that’s being brought up to,

you know, popular culture now. But before it was really not talked about for a long time Or maybe one out of three, one out of three, that’s incredible. You like worldwide, or while here’s the thing with PCLs because it’s a syndrome and the diagnostic criteria keeps changing. You don’t have the same diagnostic criteria. We write up a little bit about that in the book,

but, well, we know it’s the most common condition in young women. So whether it’s 10%, 20%, 30% of women, it’s a lot of women. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And a lot of the symptoms a woman experienced through like teenager and through like college early years. So it’s just right around that early, early time. And if it goes overlooked all the time,

I know you had kind of a traumatizing experience when you were first diagnosed. I read in your book about how you felt like the doctor, um, just accepted that you were going to be obese and didn’t even offer any solution or hope for, um, change via lifestyle, you know, just medication. In fact, uh, I think it’s even goes further than that because at first he completely disregarded me for months.

You didn’t even want to look into what I was complaining about because I was thin I was the first issue. He completely disregarded me because I was thin. And it wasn’t until, and I’m obviously I’m a little bit more educated. I think I was older. Right. I was in my, uh, probably 30 at that point 29. No, there are definitely 30,

31. So I was more educated older and I persisted. And because it was private care at the time it was in South Africa, I could pay for it. And I insisted that I get tested for what I thought I had. And then it was like, Oh, I have all three diagnostic criteria. In fact, you’d have the Frank type of PCOS,

even though you’re thin. And I was very thin. I was actually under the BMI. And then after that, he basically walked me out the door. Well, you’ll likely be obese by the next time we speak then, Oh, it’s horrible to say, Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, there’s so much more to piece GOs than,

you know, being overweight. Obviously there’s people who are lean with PCs. And just because you’re lean doesn’t mean you don’t have the other issues such as like, you know, like acne and infertility and many of the other symptoms. So that sucks that the only focus that you are not overweight just yet in their eyes. Well, I think it’s what you said.

It’s, it’s the most common condition, uh, endocrine condition in women. Um, yet it’s this regarded and it’s misdiagnosed and it’s mistreated because once it is diagnosed, cause it is now as you, as you said, it’s much more often diagnosed. Doctors are very aware of it. And I, by no means, am I here to bash doctors?

I work with doctors. I have a great amount of respect and gratitude towards them for all that they’re doing to change a convention. But there are a lot of misinformation, a lot of myths, especially about well, about everything, but really about PCs. What is it, what it isn’t. And that’s why we wrote this book. What do you think is the most common myth that people are coming across when they go to the doctor’s office?

Um, the eat less move more, Oh, you’re overweight. Then you just have to reduce your calories and exercise more. And that’s all that you can do. Or that the solution then is depending on what your symptom is, let’s treat each symptom with a medication as opposed to trying to find the root cause and dealing with root cause. Right? Yeah.

I read that you have insulin resistance and that’s your root cause that you’re treating through a low carb diet? Well, I had, that was many, many years ago. So you asked me this before. Do I? Uh, I don’t remember which one of you asked me, do I still have, do I still think I have cos and, and I get asked this all the time and no,

I don’t have PCs. Why? Because TCOs is, as we said it a syndrome and in order for you to have PCLs, you have to have certain diagnostic criteria, which I had all of them. But if you reverse that, if you, if you no longer have any of these clinical and diagnostic expressions and you can no longer be diagnosed with a condition,

just like diabetes, we work with diabetics all the time, who then are no longer diabetic. Why? Because their, um, symptoms and labs, uh, show normal a levels and symptoms are normal. So then you can no longer diagnose that person is diabetic. So a long time ago I had PCOS. I do believe that insulin resistance is on a spectrum just like DCOS,

right. And reverse it, but I could build it up again. So I know better. I will, I will not go down that path again. And I know what to do to prevent that from happening. And I, luckily for me, was lucky enough to reverse it. Interesting. So basically, like, it’s not like there’s a cure,

that’s going to get rid of it forever. It’s just that you were able to manage it so successfully that the symptoms went away and you basically don’t have it at this point. But if maybe you went back to like, whatever it was was not right for your body, then it would come back slowly. I’m very aware of that, because again, this is TCOs,

uh, an insulin resistance is, well, insulin is basically, I always joke. It’s the grandmother of all these first cousins, right? Obesity, diabetes TCOs and all these other associated conditions. And they’re linked together by insulin hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance. So again, it’s up on a spectrum. We know as dr. Fung would say, I know how to make you fat.

I’ll just give you insulin. That’s it. And I know, and that’s it. If you, if you, if you know somebody, whether they’re a type one diabetic or type two diabetic who had to go on insulin or who was prescribed insulin, one of the first things that happens is they gain weight. And then as you help people get off insulin,

they lose weight right away. So that’s what happens with PCOM, with obesity, excuse me. And then when diabetes, it’s the blood sugar, right? And with ECS, it’s all of these emissions, all of these expressions that we know too well, it’s a male excessive male hormone expressions. It’s the cysts on ovaries. And then it’s the irregular periods or cycles of ovulation.

And again, some women have a period. I actually had a period, but I had no oscillation. What’s the point of a period if you’re not obviating. Um, right. And, and especially if you’re well, in every way, I know you work, you, you speak to a lot of young women, which I think is great. That’s the audience that we want to get this message out to,

right? Do you don’t want to work? You don’t want to be giving out this message to the women that I mostly work with, which are women in their late thirties and forties, trying to conceive after 10 years of trying to conceive and worse. I have many, a women that I work with because of obesity and diabetes in their fifties and sixties who were never able to conceive.

And didn’t have this information then, and then this is not just about conceiving. I know a lot of Pecos women that did concede, like I did. It’s all the complications, all the very serious pregnancy complications, all the very serious baby complications. And then all the associated conditions that come with this long term, I did have hypertension with it. I did have so high blood pressure.

I did have the diabetes. It did come, I have the cancer. It did come. And, and a lot of other things, including the mood disorders, um, as you said incorrectly. So, and if, and I know that you know this because although your audience is maybe a little bit younger, look at women, older women with PCOS,

they have the obesity, the diabetes, the hypertension, the cancer, and the mood disorders. So Jason Fung wrote this in our book. If PCLs was just about a little bit of acne in a few minutes periods, then it wouldn’t be such a big deal. Although a little bit of acne and a few missed periods is very serious. When you’re that age,

it was very serious for me. I love everything you’re saying it’s all very serious. And we’re maybe being not, maybe we were definitely being disregarded at my age at the younger women that you’re working with and then the postmenopausal women. So I’m, I’m nearly 43. So I’m right in the middle there. Um, luckily had my children, but if I didn’t do what I did,

I may not have had my children. And I today would definitely be, uh, an obese woman with all of these conditions. I I’ve been on diabetic medication. I’ve been on hypertension medication. I’ve again, I’ve had the cancer. So these are all associated. And this is, this is the links that we put together in the book. So I’m very happy that you were talking to these young women who maybe want to be thin and full of energy and have a good mood,

but for them that’s important. And that’s what we want to help with as well. Yeah. I mean, we couldn’t agree more like you’re totally right in reaching women at a young age so that when they go to the doctor, they are more knowledgeable about what to ask for and the advice they receive. You know, if a doctor tells you to take birth control and you don’t know anything about it,

you’re more likely to take it. But if you like, listen to the information about it, you know, the pros and cons, and at least you can make an information that’s educated for yourself instead of relying on somebody else. And then when it doesn’t go your way, then it’s like, Yes, 10 years later, it’s good to insist at a young age to understand what’s happening and why you have acne,

why your mood is like this, why your weight is uncontrollably going up? So that by the time you’re 40 or 50, you don’t have, you know, all of the things that you listed that PCs can snowball into. Yeah, it was great. I love it To terrify the audience, not to terrify the audience. And I was just about to say something very positive.

Again, like I said, because of my age, I’m right in the middle, I’m very thankful for DCOS. I’m very thankful that I had PCRs. So cause you were able to learn about your body and just overcome it is that why? Because of PCLs and my desire to have children, I was able to then get on this path of learning to reverse insulin resistance and reverse all of these conditions.

Had I not had PCLs and had I not been adamant about I’m going to have a baby and had I not had, luckily for me, I believe in karma, I always say this, I do not have the professional experience that I had with women in my, um, in my practice that had gotten pregnant miraculously, following a low carb diet for all those years that I didn’t,

I didn’t make the link. I didn’t care. I wasn’t trying to get them pregnant. I was trying to get them to lose weight. And I just so happen to believe in a low carb diet, even then. So, as I said to you, this is going back 17 years already. And in the course of those first few years, I chose to,

I personally didn’t follow a low carb diet. I didn’t feel like I needed to because I was so thin, but I found that that was the best dietary protocol for the, the, for my practice. And so long story short, I explained in the book sort of what the diets were, what I call, I had a base diet, which was very similar to what you guys were telling me about that you practice a gluten free dairy,

free diet. And then I had these thoughts is that I would throw in there, they were the low carb diets that I would call detox. So people would be willing to be thoughts as back then. I don’t know that it’s still like that, but I know back then, this was the thing. So this is how I got people to lower insulin at the time.

And so they would lose tons of weight and they would reverse all of these other health concerns. But then I was having people come to my office in their forties going, uh, I’m pregnant. And I’m like, so aren’t you supposed to get pregnant? They’re like, no, I had, I had tried to get pregnant for 10, 15 years.

I was never able to, I did IVF. I did whatever. And now I do this diet for three months and I’m pregnant. And I’m like, I have no idea what you’re talking about. There’s a sentence in the beginning of your book that says, be careful when you see dr. Nadia, she’ll get you pregnant. And it was such a small community,

tight knit community that, that became known, even though I, that, that wasn’t my intent. I wasn’t trying to help women get pregnant then, but it was happening enough that I think it was also my audience. It just so happened that the audience of people that wanted to come to see me were women in their thirties and forties. I had other people as well,

but there was an overwhelming number of people that age and, and who, I didn’t know, it had been trying to get the great majority of these women had had CCOs and they didn’t even know had never been diagnosed. Yeah. I mean, I feel like they’re, it’s sometimes they go through life and life is so busy. And then finally, when you’re in your late thirties to forties,

you finally have time to kind of focus on yourself and now like, Oh, what can I do to improve? It’s like, it’s almost like if you had started just maybe 10 years ago, it would have been a lot easier for that. I think that’s more what happens now. So this is why I’m saying it’s so great that your audience is these younger women who are maybe not trying to get pregnant yet.

And unlikely because of how life is right now. The likely not think about children until their late thirties, early forties, like the clients that I see now. Um, but back when I started that, wasn’t the case for the majority of people. It was people that had tried to get pregnant in their twenties and early thirties and didn’t conceive and then conceive much later because they,

uh, their metabolic health improved then their, their reproductive health improves insulin is a very powerful, metabolic hormone that we know, right. It’s behind diabetes and obesity. But now we know at insulin has a very powerful reproductive function in both men and women. Very powerful. Would you say that? So I read that 70% of women with PCOS have insulin resistance,

like to some degree. And then there is some women that, you know, comment sometimes they’re like, well, what if you don’t have insulin issues? And I’m, I’m hesitant to say, Oh, okay, then, then you don’t have insulin issues. Like, I feel like it goes under diagnose. Yeah. And just the slightest bit of insulin resistance can impact all these symptoms.

Maybe that, uh, someone who’s not aware or they’re on the, you know, middle line. They don’t, they’re not sure. Is there a test they can do? This is such a great question. And I knew you guys were gonna obviously ask me that question because I hear this a lot. There’s four types of PCs. I hear this is not me saying this.

This is what I hear. There’s four types of PCs. One is insulin resistance. One is adrenal. One is, I don’t know what, and one is, I don’t know what you guys probably know this better than me. Yeah. Inflammation and thyroid issues. This is how we like to break it up. Yes. And I’m going, I don’t think so.

I think there’s insulin resistance. And then it’s behind all of these things, because if you learn about insulin and the functions of insulin, then you understand how these are all connected. Right. I would agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I heard you say that. That’s why I, otherwise, I would’ve probably just let you let your audience read the book and judge for themselves,

but look at adrenals. For example, of course, I know adrenals are important, you know, I know, but what’s the biggest thing that maybe people don’t know about adrenals, right? The adrenals are the glands that produce your stress hormones, right? Your, um, et cetera, and stress hormones. Everyone understands what that means. So what happens when you produce stress,

hormones, overproduced, stress hormones, you have a higher insulin response to foods, insulin resistance. So again, the underlying issue might be adrenals. It might be whatever it is, but the, that, um, what’s it called when it’s the one just before the development CCOs, it’s insulin resistance, all roads lead to insulin. I completely agree that the different types are paired often with insulin issues.

Because if you have inflammation, then you’re insulin resistant. If you don’t have adrenal issues, then your blood sugar is high. If you have thyroid issues, your blood sugar is uncontrolled. And it’s like all hand in hand. But I mean, we could get into that. I feel like we could have this. I would love to have this conversation,

but I don’t want to derail, you know, the point, which is what’s the solution, right? If the problem, if we know, and here’s the thing that I also heard you ask me, which what’s the test for insulin resistance. You can go out and test it. You can do a home IRR. You can look that up, okay.

And you can test it. But then you run into the issue that fasting insulin, the hormone is very volatile. Like it goes up and down. So some days you’ll have a higher number, some days lower. And that happens with some people more and more prediabetics the blood sugar goes up and down. Most of the time, if you’re not pre-diabetic or diabetic,

your blood sugar is normal because insulin is just, you’re just pumping out tons of insulin to take care of that until the dam breaks and you’re pre diabetic or diabetic and it’s there, but it came from just too much insulin production, your body becoming insulin resistant. You know what that means? And I think we explained that well, in the book, what is hyperinsulinemia,

what’s too much insulin and what is insulin resistance? Why does one cause the other right. So I think that the important thing to be totally honest is to understand that that whether you have, or believe you have an adrenal type of DCOS or an inflammatory type of PCs, if you understand that hormones communicate with each other, right? Cause insulin is a hormone and all these other things are hormones that we’re talking about.

Then you know that by treating insulin, by reducing insulin, you’re going to resolve this issue. However, I do agree that in order to, and so these are my five pillars and in my five pillars. So these are the five major factors for lowering insulin. Okay. Eating less often eating earlier eating foods that produce less of an insulin response. And that’s a big conversation in and of itself,

but it’s in the book. Okay. And then stress and seek management, if you don’t sleep well. And if you don’t have your stress well controlled, which again is adrenals. Okay. That means that you’re going to have a higher insulin insulin response, and you’re going to develop insulin resistance. Okay. If you look at the three diagnostic criteria of PCOS and it’s in the book,

dr. Fung, Jason Fung in the book, he’s the one that wrote those chapters. He shows you it’s there point blank. How insulin is behind these three, the hyperandrogenism, the cysts and the irregular ovulation. It’s it’s there, the science, is there anyone that understands science can see that? So it’s not anything else it’s not cortisol. That’s causing it.

It’s insulin, that’s causing it a high cortisol causes high insulin, right? Yeah. And we, we always recommend that too. For any ladies that ask about acne or hair loss, any of those issues, we save first, try to see or try to improve your insulin resistance and see if that’s what’s causing the hyperandrogenism. That’s leading to your hair loss or acne or any of those issues.

So they were totally in agreement there With you. What are some of the ways in which you’ve helped your patients with treating insulin resistance? So are, are, well, these five major things, right? We look at how you eat. So how often do you eat and then diet, which is what you eat and then stress and sleep management. These are the five major things that we focus on,

but there’s many other things of course. And I think that maybe some of the things that you guys do as well, but these are the five major things I look at. So we recommend a real food, lower carb, diet, and intermittent fasting, intermittent fasting is the biggest thing, in my opinion, now that I know what I know, not just what you eat,

but how you eat because you eat that. When people start to categorize foods as a low carb, low, this gluten free dairy free, um, low-calorie, sugar-free when you start to categorize things, you start to lose the importance of how you eat. You think, Oh, it’s like this. So I can eat at 10 o’clock at night. Oh,

it’s low that. So I can eat 10 times a day. And ultimately how you eat is going to have a biggest, bigger impact on your insulin. Yep. I think we talked about this a little bit earlier about how, you know, going gluten and dairy free can help with insulin resistance. But if you’re replacing those foods with gluten free cookies and,

you know, gluten free Oreos, it’s not gonna really help with insulin resistance in general And eating 10 times a day is not going to help. And that’s ultimately what we’ve been told. Unfortunately, for the last 50 plus years, we’ve been told to eat lower fat foods and to eat more often to somehow that’s going to be great for our metabolism. And now we see what’s what,

what, what has actually happened right? 50 years down, 88% of adults have metabolic syndrome, which is caused by insulin resistance. And it’s, it’s really like, I feel like personally in the last 10, 15, 20 years, like the American diet especially is so revolved around sugar. And like, uh, we want to talk to you about this too.

And why, uh, you know, like we were talking about before the podcast, why eating low calories, a myth and many times, you know, um, you’re you were mentioning that like advertising has made us believe that calories are what’s important and that all, like you get 200 calories of cookies, but you know what, that’s not the same as eating 200 calories of salmon because,

you know, you’re getting protein, healthy fats and so many more nutrients, that 200 calories. So, um, and the same thing with soda, right? Like sorta can, has like 40 grams of sugar in it just ruins your insulin right there. And, um, yeah, maybe we should elaborate on that too. That’s a great topic. Absolutely.

So sugar, um, I think you said last 10, 15 years, it’s probably a lot. So for me, uh, as I said, I’m, I’m, I think I’m a little bit older, right. Then, then maybe you guys and maybe your audience it’s I grew up on sugar, tons of sugar. It was all over. Um,

and that was where he was okay. For kids to drink soda. It was okay to eat candy all day long. Um, and even the generation before me that started, you know, my mother’s generation. Um, and so I think McDonald’s Coca Cola. Um, whereas now I think it’s, I mean, I think for some it’s worse, but for others,

it’s better. People are more educated, right? I mean, I have children, uh, they’re nine and six, not to say that they have a perfect diet because they don’t. In fact, my kids have metabolic syndrome because of DCOS. So this is why I talk so much about it because my PCLs, my children have metabolic syndrome. It’s very obvious.

However, I’m much more cautious and conscientious. And so are my cousins and all my friends and all the people, my generation, we don’t, we’re a lot more cautious about what we give our kids. However, it’s all over. It’s a, it’s, um, it’s a battle because of the advertisement because of schools, because of parties, because of,

um, it’s just, it’s all over. It’s, it’s a battle. It’s a constant daily battle. Even if I don’t send my kids things to school, which is our big problem, they get all of this junk at school all day long from their friends, from their teachers, from there’s a party every day. It’s not in used to be like that.

Yeah, totally. I totally agree. It’s just like it’s everywhere. Fish, crackers and soda candy as a reward. Gator Gatorade Running. Yeah. Oh yeah. Definitely. I don’t know how you combat that Easy way. It’s a cheap and easy way to make anything taste delicious. Right? You don’t have to try it. You just add sugar,

add some processing, whatever ingredients in there, and then boom. You have something delicious, no ingredient, no nutrients at all from yeah. And starting from such a young age and then becoming a teenager where all of these symptoms start to show up. It just makes your PCs worse. Especially insulin resistance. Yeah. The addiction is, it’s a biggest issue,

right? Because by then, like you said, by the time they’re teenagers, they’re completely, my kids are completely, it’s hard to say because I mean, it’s a battle. Like I said, we spend the majority of our time trying to get them to eat real food. Um, but it’s, it’s all over. And they’re there. Even if they’re not physically addicted,

they’re psychologically addicted. They want it, they want it. They want it. And they’ll binge when they get it. Um, so again, it’s, it’s a challenging thing, but we’re seeing metabolic syndrome. As I said in little kids, not just teenagers anymore. We are seeing diabetes in little kids, not one of two. I don’t onset diabetes and little kids.

That is crazy. Yeah. And little kids too. Cause it, you usually don’t see that at a very young age. It usually happens later on. Well, no mutual has changed. It’s changed a lot in a lot of that. I’m a big, uh, this is it. There’s a big portion of my book talks about that, right?

Because I want the younger women that are going through this and I understand the audience is more about reproductive cycles and acne and all of that important stuff at that stage. But soon there’s going to be the trying to conceive stage when they’re done that. And then when that happens, the focus becomes get pregnant. How do I get pregnant? You can get pregnant very easily.

If you have fertility treatment, mental work very well. Even going on a little bit of a low carb diet, like I went on for a month or two words, beautiful. You get pregnant right away because you populate right away. However, even though they have an obviated up properly and everything is off for years, you go on a low carb diet and intermittent fasting and two or three months,

you get pregnant. It’s this is how we, this is why this is so successful. This is why we’re so successful. This is why we have all of these six. Now we call them the fasting methods, successes, or before used to be IDM success. And before that it was dr. Nattie, don’t go to her unless you want to get pregnant.

It’s because it’s that it is that, that quick, that easy. But I don’t want it to be that thick, that easy. I want this, as you said to be a journey that you go on and before you get pregnant, that you were healed, do not want to get pregnant with PCOM. Yeah. Cause you’re gonna have even more issues during pregnancy.

Possibly. If you don’t take care of those things, It’s there read it. It’s in. If you research this and we did the job for you, it’s in the book. Look at the studies, the percentage of women with PCOS, with pregnancy complications. It’s not just a little bit higher. It’s significantly higher. Miscarriages preeclampsia. Pregnancy-related hypertension, just national diabetes is probably the,

the mode. And then all the other postpartum. Um, I had postpartum depression, severe postpartum depression, I think it’s related. And then you have the kids and the kids, the children, two women with CCOs have metabolic syndrome as little kids and as adults. And again, you know, you might have someone say, Oh my kid didn’t or okay,

but we’re talking about a significant percentage. Just another reason why it’s so important To start as soon as you can with healing, your symptoms just make the rest of your life easier. Yeah. Yeah. Just easier but easier for sure. I mean, it’s not an easy journey. Let’s, let’s, let’s be honest, right? Those of us who have PCOS or had PCOS,

we know it’s not easy because the cravings, because the misinformation, the myths constantly trying this and trying that and nothing working. Right. So people lose hope. So it’s not an easy, Sorry. Yeah. A lot of, um, a lot of the things that can help with insulin resistance, like there is, there is fasting, there’s a low carb diet.

There’s supplements going gluten and dairy free. There are multiple ways to treat insulin resistance, but sometimes like one of them or two of them don’t work for you. And maybe another one will, but like you lose hope because it’s so discouraging to fast or to go on the, you know, low carb diet and not see results or, um, to go gluten and dairy free and not see results,

you know? And then you kind of give up and you say, nothing works. And then the symptoms snowball continually, and it’s, it’s such a psychological thing as well. Like you have to be really resilient and really research. You know, maybe a different type of fasting can work. Maybe a different cart brain can work or maybe you just need to be dairy free and not,

gluten-free like you have to investigate your health on your own and be really strong willed or else, you know, kind of takes over. You have to make sure that what you’re doing is actually lowering insulin. That’s the thing is that a lot of these things might be helping symptoms and making you feel better, or maybe they’re recommended for a good reason, but it’s actually not helping to lower insulin.

So the condition is not going to improve and then give up on everything. I often say, because I’m a, I’m a coach, right? I, at this point, this is what I do for a living. I talk to people all day, um, and coach them through this. And so I always go like this, keep your eye on the ball.

When you get people trying to do 10 things at once and asking me in the same 20 minute call, they want to know about 10. I go guys, it’s the insulin, it’s the insulin. It’s the insulin. It’s the insulin. How do we lower insulin? We less often we earlier we certain foods and the list is there. You guys have mentioned a few things,

manage your sleep and stress. There’s very important stress management techniques. I’m not saying stop working, stop all stress. That’s not what I’m saying. Manage stress, manage cortisol. Right? Sleep, better. Figure out how to sleep better, lower your stress levels. Okay. Lower insulin. Once you’ve done that, you can start talking about all these other things you want to talk to me about,

keep your eye on the ball. Okay. You don’t need to do 10 things. You need to focus on this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Focus on the fundamentals before you go on to the other things. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of insulin too, like I know a lot of doctors recommend like Metformin and we talk about on our platform that it’s not your only option to treat insulin.

And there are also, like you mentioned natural ways to kind of help resolve that. But also, um, there are natural supplements, like in also tall supplements. Uh, the one that we recommend is called tall, but do you believe that like inositol supplements can be just as effective as maybe Metformin for insulin resistance? This is a tough topic for me,

because again, I I’ll I’ll end up going like this. Um, because I took Metformin. So I’m not discrediting Metformin. Metformin is probably, uh, and we talk about it in the book, dr. Fung actually talks. He’s the one that talks about Metformin and why it’s recommended and why it makes sense that the conventional medical doctor would recommend Metformin.

He or she has nothing else to give you except Metformin. So then when you go outside of the conventional medicine and you go into the complimentary medicine, then you guys have a good alternative. All right. It might say that that’s not going to help women. No, that’s not what I’m saying, but what I’m saying is this, you gotta keep that interest.

You gotta dress your lifestyle. You gotta dress how you eat and what you eat. And I personally don’t take any supplements right now. Well, I took, I take vitamin D and you know, basic things. Uh, but it wasn’t the Metformin that, uh, helped me. Actually, the Metformin did help me get pregnant because it made my body more sensitive to insulin.

I obligated and I got into the very next month, but what was the problem? I got pregnant with DCOS. This is why I wrote this book. So yes, you can take that form. And if that’s what you choose to do, yes, you can take the supplements if that’s what you choose to do, because yes they do that. Make your body more sensitive to insulin.

But is it going to lower insulin? No, It’s your diet. Yeah. Diet and lifestyle is where you have That’s right. It’s how you eat and what you eat. You understand what I mean? The supplements and the medication make your cells more sensitive to insulin so that your cells function better, but it doesn’t lower insulin. It doesn’t take the insulin away.

It’s still there because of how you’re eating and what you’re eating. So if you’re taking this Avesta tol supplement, or if you’re taking Metformin and you’re still eating a whole bunch of carbs and a whole bunch of processed foods and causing this high insulin reaction in your body, then none of these supplements are going to do anything. Or aren’t going to have such a huge impact,

like getting you pregnant so on. If you’re continually bombarding yourselves with insulin. Well, and probably what you, you may notice in some of your young women might notice is that when they’re low enough on the spectrum, you, you, they probably do notice more of an impact using these supplements and the medication. But the further up you go on the spectrum.

And unfortunately that’s how it goes. You’re going to become, you’re going to produce more insulin. You’re going to become more insulin resistant. Then not only are these things not going to have such a big impact. Um, that’s when people give up, that’s when they say this doesn’t work or used to work and now it doesn’t work well. Unfortunately it worked for a period of time because you weren’t as insulin resistant,

but you will become more insulin resistant, unfortunately. Cause that’s the nature of the beast. That’s what this is. That’s why they say that diabetes is a chronic, progressive disease. It’s only a chronic progress in PCLs to say it’s only a chronic progressive disease because we’re not telling people what to do. Yeah. We’re just handing them out to take a pill or to take Metformin or to take all these other more symptomatic treatments.

You’re not treating the root cause. So it’s going to progress. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s really interesting. Hello. People do say like I took Metformin the first time I had a child and then the second time I couldn’t get pregnant, even though I took that form in and it’s like, like you said, it snowballed your insulin resistance got worse.

Okay. You can look at it as the magic pill. That’s what, God, there’s so much more behind it. Yeah. Keep your eye on the ball. Make sure your insulin is managed. Yeah. And then going away from like a diet for a moment. Um, could you also tell us the relationship between exercise and consumers? We have a,

I think paragraph in our book exercise, is it a paragraph? I don’t even know what two paragraphs, maybe three and again, two pages, let’s be very clear. And I say this and it’s it says in the book, exercise is one of the best things that you can do for you, everyone. And I would be in complete loony tune if I told you otherwise,

but it’s exercise going to directly lower insulin. It is not a keep your eye on the ball. This is so you’re just there to talk about how to lower insulin, but should you exercise 110%? You need exercise for proper stress management and sleep. No doubt. Exercise becomes complicated when people don’t know what to do with diet because they feel Oh, I’m hungrier or this and that.

And it’s perfectly fine to be hungry. Or if you’re exercising, eat more, just don’t eat more often. And that’s, if you understand this concept, and if you understand hydration around exercise, you can bring exercise into this beautifully and you should, but exercise is not in these five pillars that I talk about because it doesn’t directly impact insulin resistance. And we wrote about that in the book.

And I know people will argue, but go ahead and argue how, what is, how is exercise going to affect your liver and your ovaries, which are the two organs that are being most affected here. So I don’t need to say it again that I think exercise is probably one of the best things out there for overall health. All right. But we’re talking about lowering insulin to reverse PCOM.

Yeah. Right. I do know that when you work out and build muscle like doing squats and things like that, and as you build muscle, you become more insulin sensitive and your cells are better at picking up sugar from insulin. But just to clarify to the audience, that’s not going to stop your pancreas from pumping the insulin in the first place. And your diet is what’s going to stop your pancreas from pumping insulin in the first place.

And that’s, that’s an indirect effect to muscles, but not to your ovaries and liver. And that’s the issue. And so when we talk about the hormones that most effect women will piece, cos we’re talking about exactly the hormones that come from the pancreas, which is insulin, which then affects the hormones that your, you know, the liver and the ovaries.

And we talk about that, that sex hormone binding globulin. And then of course the male hormones in the ovaries, right. So exercise is not going to have an impact there. It will make your muscles more insulin sensitive and those other cells. Yes. But it won’t impact those two Oregon directly. Yeah. Yeah. And with our recommendation, for,

for women, with PCs, we recommend like doing more slow way to workouts as time mentioned, it helps with, um, insulin sensitivity. Cause we believe like when you do really intense workouts like kickboxing or like doing intense cardio, it can have an impact on the stress hormones and yeah. And you know what I’ve noticed that myself again, I cannot say this enough and how important exercise is in particular for women with PCOS because of the adrenals,

because of the things that you just talked about with the insulin sensitivity and all of that. Um, but I have, I myself have seen how certain exercises increase my stress levels, my stress hormones, cortisol, and others help the lower. So you do have to find the right one for you individually. And I’m not an exercise expert. So whenever people start asking me about exercise,

I refer because I think you need to find an expert. I think we all need a personal trainer in my opinion. Um, my PCs, personal trainer, your Mister. I know. And, and of course I do, because you need to find that individual thing that’s going to work for you. I know just inside here, I went to the gym,

decided September, 2019, it was going to be my muscle year and I was going to do this and that. And you know, all in my husband was like bad idea, bad idea. And then I hurt my back and he’s like, lady at the gym should have, you know, should’ve gotten a proper, you know what I mean? Like you need,

because it’s important. I know how important it is for me to build muscle at this age, um, to continue to build muscles. So these are all very important things. So when I go like this, keep your eye on the ball. I’m not disregarding these things. I’m just saying you have DCOS, you need the lower insulin and the best way to do that.

Or, you know, the two main ways to do that is to look at how you eat and what you mean. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I love it. I love these five pillars. Cause it’s so true. Like you do the five pillars and everything outside of this, it’s supplementary to that. I’ve read that if you have like five hours less sleep in a week,

you’re 30% more insulin resistant. And that just goes to show, if you get an insulin, um, this fasting insulin test to see if you’re insulin resistant or an insulin glucose tolerance test and you didn’t sleep well the night before, like it could, or if you slept well for one night before, but usually you don’t sleep well. You know, it could alter the results and you could think you do or don’t have insulin resistance just because this is go on a trip if you fly,

uh, from well now, but he flies anymore. When we fly again, you will. Um, I now had this happen to one of my clients. He went to do his fasting insulin the day after a trip from Australia to Canada and his insulin was through the roof and lowered over time again. And he was freaking out because he thought, Oh,

you know, it thought so much worse. And it’s like, no, it’s an, it’s a natural impact. So this is why I said that it’s very difficult to test for insulin resistance because insulin is so long. Um, but, but you’re right. Sleep is a major, major thing. Just like a stress. They’re really this team, they have the same lack of sleep and high stress has the same impact on your adrenals.

And that in turn will have an impact on your insulin production and insulin resistance. Sleep is a huge thing. Because for example, I sleep poorly. I have a terrible mood. My blood sugars go up. You know, this is because of my history. My husband sleeps poorly. He’s in a great mood, but he gains five pounds. It impacts your metabolic syndrome.

It impacts your insulin production. You might just express it differently. As much for years, my husband was go ahead. Sorry. I didn’t hear that. But when you have poor sleep, even lowers your metabolism. So yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. It, 100% does. And then you, you, you go into fight or flight response and your insulin production is higher when you go to eat.

Right. And so for years my husband was like, Oh, you know, sleep doesn’t affect me. It only affects me. Right. Like crazy one. But yet now we know, Oh, it does affect you. That’s why you tend to gain weight. That’s why he tends towards obesity. Whereas I don’t, I don’t tend towards obesity, but I see it in my blood sugars and my blood pressure.

He sees it on a scale. Yeah. It’s still, you know, the grandmother and the insulin. It’s still the same. Yeah. Yeah. We had like a episode about sleep and we did some research on it and it was really scary. Like hearing all the different impacts, bad sleep has on, not just repeat cos, but also like mentally,

like for like dementia and Alzheimer’s and like all these different mental illnesses that can happen over time. If you poor sleep forever, You should look up. If you’re interested in that topic, you should look up, um, how insulin resistance impacts dementia and Alzheimer’s Oh, he’s looked at up. Are you kidding me? Insulin resistance. Sorry. I thought you said sleep.

No instant resistance impacts dementia. I didn’t know that. Well, you have to look it up. They’re calling it type three diabetes. So you know how PCO S at least we wrote this in the book. If you don’t, if you, you can look it up, how it’s called, used to be called or is called or has been called diabetes of the ovaries.

So now they’re calling Alzheimers type three diabetes. Look it up. Oh, I have to look into this. Yeah. This is a great, yeah, It’s not my area. It’s not my expertise, but there were some amazing people looking into that and have written books and talk about it. If you look it up, you will, you’ll find,

uh, who I’m talking about. Okay. Okay. We’ll definitely look into that. This is, this is great. I open it right now. Alright. Um, I think we’ve kind of covered, uh, the book in itself, but, uh, dr. Nadia, would you like to kind of, um, tell us, uh, just like,

uh, tell us a little bit about yourself before we go and then where we can find the PCRs plan. So our readers can maybe buy it online or go to a physical store if there’s one open right now. Exactly. So right now, I feel like I’m not sure where you can get the book except online for sure. Um, Amazon, amazon.com

for you guys, amazon.ca in, in, I know it’s already in Europe as well. I’ve had people in Germany get the book and, um, so online for sure there is a paperback version. You guys, I think got an advanced reader’s copy from our, um, from, uh, McKenzie. And what’s the difference between advanced readers copy and regular.

I’m really happy about it. I was like, we’re, we’re the shit Exact same, but I think it’s free. It’s free came a significant, you know, you guys got the book before I did. I got the book less than a week ago, the first time. And my hand was on Sunday. My mother shifted from Canada. I live in Europe.

I live in Portugal. My mother shifted, uh, she had some, cause we couldn’t get things across, so they couldn’t get a book to me. Uh, but anyway, here we are, uh, you can get it on Amazon. You can get it. I think Barnes and noble and other online sites. And yes, I think a lot of bookstores.

Great. If you go to grave stones, uh, Greystone books, that’s our publishing company. If you go to their websites, I think that they’re really, um, pushing and encouraging people to go to black owned bookstores and, um, you know, indie bookstores and things like that. So you don’t have to get it on Amazon. You could definitely do a little bit of research and find some local businesses and help,

um, uh, communities. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. We’ll we’ll link. Yeah. And we’ll link them. Yeah. We’ll link them in the next several weeks. Especially when this episode comes out, we’ll link it so that the sisters listening, they can, you know, go ahead and purchase the book wherever they prefer from. And you know,

I think it’s a great book for a lot of a woman sisters out there to learn and to get more knowledgeable about PSUs and know the right as a doctor, Nadia mentioned the five pillars focusing on the right themes instead of the, the things are more supplementary. So great conversation with your doctor, Nadia, thank you for joining us. And we hope to have you back on very soon.

My pleasure guys, thank you so much. Of course. Thank you to everybody for listening. We’ll be back next week with another episode. Bye. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you have to come check out the sisterhood. It’s my monthly membership site, where sisters just like you are learning how to move through the stages of PCs from stage one,

cold and alone at the doctor’s office to stage five, nailing the PCs lifestyle, gluten and dairy free. Get ready to finally feel in control of your body. Again,