My Name is Devya. Not PCOS.

Do you ever walk around town and see people wearing name tags depicting the terms, “Diabetic”, “PCOS”, “Menopause”, “Old”, or “Endomorph”? 

Well.. no. That shit would be weird. 

If that’s the case, why do we keep telling ourselves that we can not meet our goals because “I’m diabetic”, “I’m an ectomorph”, “I have PCOS”, or “It’s the menopause”? 

What is so scary about a 1-3 word term? Why do we allow it to be a deciding factor to not carry out the habits that help our bodies run efficiently? 

It’s the weight of the diagnostic term you hear from someone in a white coat.

Think about it. You sit by the phone for days or for hours in a waiting room after getting a blood test done. During that time, you play a torturous game with yourself called “Name the Worst Case Scenario”. The phone finally rings or you get called into a private room where a practitioner goes over the results of your blood tests. The diagnostic term rings in your ears and echoes in the darkest corners of your mind. 

You brand that term into the back of your skull for the rest of your life. You treat it like an anchor holding you back rather than as a clue or a map to guide you.

We need to reframe our understanding as to what a lifestyle diagnosis truly means. 

The simplest way to define a diagnosis is merely to identify the nature / cause of a process occurring in the body. That’s it. It does not shape your entire identity, nor does it have to take over your entire life. You are the driver of the car that is your body.

The way I frame the term “diagnosis” in the lifestyle realm is simply your body’s way of showing you what part of the “User’s Guide To The Human Body” you may have overlooked. It simply means that there are lifestyle variables to manipulate in order to optimize the gears of the machine that need some attention.

Discovering My PCOS:

Since I could remember, I always felt different about myself compared to my peers.

I always felt that I carried heavier, looked stockier and struggled with attaining a lean physique. 

My initial pursuit into fitness stemmed from a combination of peer pressure from my siblings and vanity goals. 

I grew up idolizing the look of Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider and Cameron Diaz in Charlie’s Angels. I wanted what I didn’t have, a lean look / figure. 

At the age of 12-15, my fitness consisted of long distance runs and at-home workout programs like “P90-X”, Shaun-T’s “Insanity” and other Beachbody programs. 

I had no idea what I was doing with nutrition at the time. We didn’t have much junk food hanging around in the house. We were fortunate enough to be raised on whole food choices overall. Carbs and eating more than 2-3 times a day was discouraged. 

I thought I was doing everything right. I worked out hard, ate less, tried Keto, Isagenix, the whole nine yards. I still felt “fluffy”. 

I mentally programmed myself to “push through” when I felt tired. I did not enjoy training when I first started. There was no purpose nor intent other than my looks. 

I overlooked my lifelong period cycle irregularity, erratic hunger and satiety signalling, my tendency to pass out / fall asleep on command, as well as my constant water and fat retention. 

I was told “it’s ok, you’re just built big”.

I didn’t know that my progestin IUD would make matters worse in affecting my body’s internal hormone feedback loop; essentially shutting off my endogenous production of progesterone. 

I just wore the “endomorph” label for as long as I could remember. I made it a part of my identity for years on end. 

As a university student, I hired a few coaches and decided I wanted to walk on the bodybuilding stage, thinking that a coach would wave their magic wand and that I would look like the women on stage forever. 

All this did was worsen my relationship with my body and food.  

4 years of education and running my business later, I knew I needed to get blood tests to confirm my PCOS diagnosis. 

I will admit, western medicine was behind, but is starting to catch up on how we understand PCOS. 

The term “cystic” let alone POLY-cystic OVARIAN syndrome is a Red Herring. An ideal diagnostic term is supposed to inform you the CAUSE of an issue, not a symptom. 

The cysts manifest in a mere 50% of PCOS cases and the ROOT issue does not lie in your ovaries ladies. 

PCOS is a metabolic hormonal dysregulation that premenopausal women are genetically predisposed to. It is simply a genetic predisposition to insulin resistance with multiple ways it manifests in your body such as:

• Hair loss mixed with hirsutism (sometimes)

• Inability to build muscle or lose fat

• Mood swings

• Brain Fog

• Low Sleep Quality

• Slower thyroid function

• Adrenal gland dysregulation

• Elevated Hgb A1C levels, low progesterone, (estrogen and testosterone can vary) in your bloodwork.

The NUMBER one mistake PCOS women make? 

Running away from carbs, over-training, and under-recovering.

This worsens adrenal function, reduces your recoverability as well as your sleep quality and has you running on a low gas tank for years without you realizing it. 

How do I manage my PCOS? 

• Find your maintenance calories and stick to them for 6 months. 

• Cycle your training and recovery days responsibly. 

• Rather than running away from carbs, teach your body how to use glucose effectively in structuring your carb type, timing, and dosing. This does vary from woman to woman as there is individual variance of insulin sensitivity. How one woman responds to a certain dose of carbs compared to another will be different. Having a coach guide you through this is recommended.

• EAT YOUR PROTEIN AND FIBER. 0.8-1g/lb a day of protein. 25-45 grams of fiber a day. 

• HYDRATE. 

• Meet your potassium and magnesium needs. 

• Sleep cycle regularity is not negotiable with regulating your insulin sensitivity. 

In Conclusion

Reframe your view on a lifestyle diagnosis as instructions to care for your body rather than as a permanent setback to reaching your goals. 

Give your body the NOURISHMENT it needs to recover from the stress of life and your chosen training modality. The more you focus on how good your body feels on a given day, the more your physique will take care of itself. 

My name is Devya, not PCOS. 

If you are struggling with PCOS, I’m here for you. Let’s talk.