IVF Mama

One of my favorite bloggers, Carrie on Health, also has PCOS. I've followed her blog for quite some time (she used to be Carrie on Vegan) and I've always appreciated the holistic, food based approach she takes on tackling her health issues. One of the books she recommends for PCOS was Alisa Vitti's Woman Code.

I looked up the reviews on Amazon, and while a lot of people complained the author promoted her online program too much others who had followed the program detailed in her book, had good results. Her book isn't solely for PCOS. It covers a plethora of women's hormonal issues including PMS, irregular cycles, weight loss, etc.

In a nutshell, Alisa approaches hormonal healing by eating certain foods during each phase of our cycles to better support the hormonal reactions going on inside. She was able to heal her own PCOS and adrenal fatigue by doing so.

Her "Flo" program (which I get is clever, seems a little cheesy for me) is made up of the following steps:

Stabilize blood sugar (yes please!)

Coffee on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning stimulates cortisol which talks to our fat cells, which then convert into glucose, and indirectly increases the amount of blood sugar in our system. Whaaaaat? Heartbreaking.

Nurture adrenals (stress, sleep)
Support elimination (skin too!)
Hormonal synchronization (how do you live in cyclical harmony with the hormonal shifts during your cycle)

In addition to food, she emphasizes certain exercise at certain points of our cycle, for instance yoga during our period when our energy is most likely to be low. Save the run for our follicular or ovulatory phase. All these little changes end up supporting our body's natural physiological processes to better allow our bodies' endocrine system to do its job.

I checked the book out of the library just to see if it was something i wanted. I turned it in a few days late full of post it notes and pages dog eared (oops!). So this weekend, I went out and bought a paperback copy.

I've highlighted it, taken notes, and organized my plan of attack. Another woman who follows her program, shared her experience in her blog and on her Instagram and showed off her amazingly organized cupboard. This girl loves organization so of course I was off to Target to look for some cheap bins to get organizing.

Here's my final product:

I hope that by following her eating recommendations and what to eat when in order to stabilize my blood sugar, I'll find some improvement in my PCOS symptoms. One can hope. I'm much more happy using food as my medicine then artificial anything.