I get quite a few questions like the following, and I want to take the time to answer it on my blog!

Q: I was just diagnosed with polycystic ovaries, so my hormones are very imbalanced as well. Also, my insulin receptors on my red blood cells are bad, so I’m in a pre-diabetic state–which means that I can have very little carbs or sugar. This is disappointing to me, because I was just beginning to heal my relationship with food, especially sugar and carbs, and now I’m afraid ill to back to being afraid of them because they could potentially ruin my health….

Anyway, my question is, how did you deal with your hormone imbalance and insulin resistance? Do you think it could be the Result of restricting food intake for an extended period of time?Did your hormones ever level out and/or insulin levels go back to normal? And if so how? Thank you so much for taking the time to read this!

Answer

Edited to add: Julie Duffy Dillon is a dietitian who specializes in non-diet & PCOS and I highly recommend you listen to my episode with her here.

But here is my personal experience with PCOS:

I absolutely, 100% had problems with sugar/insulin resistance in my past, and now I do not. It left me feeling horrible and shaky and tired, among other things. I am convinced this is why: genetic predisposition + STRESS/CORTISOL and lifelong restriction/binge eating.

I then think it was numerous extreme low-carb diets, and ongoing disordered eating that kept my body in a state of “WTF!?”.

My hormones, relatedly, were WACKED. Notably, low progesterone. Which, while I think there are some genetic and environmental factors at play, the straw that broke the camel’s back was STRESS/CORTISOL and compounded by restriction/low-carb diets and the backlash: binge eating.

What does this mean? This means that yes, I am certain that our body’s ability to metabolize sugar greatly decreases the less of it we eat. And that sugar is helpful metabolically. I think that the most important thing in slowly healing this, is trusting that you are NOT actually diabetic, you CAN handle sugar, and to start to experiment with eating what you want and letting go of those food fears. There will be both a learning curve for you and for your body.

I did a few things at the same time last spring of 2012, I stopped restricting sugar/everything, AND I started taking natural progesterone because I am extremely low. When they did my blood panel after a few months of eating sugar liberally, my sugar was extremely normal. After they did a blood panel of my hormones after a few months on progesterone, my testosterone was lower (more normal), even though I was continuing to eat liberally.

This goes to show that eating more sugar does no equal insulin resistance/imbalanced hormones!

Also lastly for hormones, stress reduction is very important! But guess what one huge stressor tends to be in our lives? Thinking we are supposed to be on some ultra important life-saving, beauty restoring diet! And, that any deviation from it is utter failing.

Another big part of stress reduction is a good dose of spirituality and trusting and accepting of what this weird little crazy, little amazing life has to offer. And trusting that food is not your biggest enemy, no matter what they say.

I am not personally 100% healed of hormonal problems, but my health, energy, appetite, and life is without a doubt better since trusting that food and sugar were not my enemies.

Please take note that I am not a doctor, so with any medical advice, please use your own personal intuition about your body first, as well as consulting a (maybe, holistic or HAES) doctor or nutritionist as well.

We tend to think there are only a few “eating disorders”:

Anorexia (“very, very skinny, eats nothing”). and Bulimia: (“throws up food”). And sometimes there are people who have Exercise Bulimia, too, (“but what even is that? Exercise is always GOOD! Right? So that is probably like… a helpful disorder”).

Oh, and all those people with “no self-control” who have Compulsive Overeating Disorder, also be called Binge Eating disorder… Which I say is caused by restriction/shame.

Disordered Eating affects a hell of a lot of people, thanks to our cultural fixation on being thin, our “war on obesity”, and the messages we get on a daily basis that tell us “Dieting is GOOD” so “Diet MORE and BETTERER”.

 

Do you have disordered eating? Here are some markers:

• Any over-thinking or stress involved in choosing what to eat. Seriously, if you think about what you should eat today, or tomorrow, or for your upcoming meal, for any more than a few stress-free minutes, it is not healthy. ***If you are joyfully planning what to buy and cook for yourself or your family, that is absolutely wonderful! The stress and obsession and guilt is the issue. Not joy and nourishment.

 

• Fear of a specific food or food group. There are two times when this is not disordered: a legit allergy or genuine intolerance, or a general easy-going avoidance of a food because of a dislike or intuitive sense that it isn’t best for you at the time. But as soon as it becomes a fear, or something you think a lot or worry about, you have officially been brainwashed by “well-intentioned” diet gurus and a society that fears the moral failure of weight gain. If you are avoiding a food or food group because of an orthorexic-level desire to be pure and healthy, you are building your own cage. ***Sure, we should care about ourselves and want to eat well and treat ourselves like a temple, but when fear and fixation get involved, that is a manifestation of control issues. And it is not a normal, healthy, or sustainable way to live or eat.

 

• Any exercise that is in direct correlation to something eaten. Food is not burned off like gasoline in a car. Your body is more freaking complex than a car. And you can quote me on that. And, you can eat a rich, delicious meal without gaining any weight even if you don’t run it off “right afterward”. Also, on the flip side, and just for good measure: you can gain weight, for any reason, and still maintain your dignity, because you were not put on this earth to be as small as humanly possible. And you can quote me on that too. *** Exercise is SO GOOD FOR YOU. Do it for your soul, your lungs, your heart. Do it to feel good. Don’t do it to punish yourself, because it will backfire. And you deserve more love than that.

 

• Starving yourself now so you can eat a lot later. This is just bad practice. And there is a difference between saying: “nah, I’m not gonna eat that cookie now because I really want to enjoy my dinner” or “nah, I’m hungry but I really don’t feel like a cookie now, I’d rather wait for dinner” as opposed to: “Omg I’m starving, but I promised I woudn’t eat in between meals. I might pass out, but I will thank myself later when _________”… You know what I mean.

 

• Any preoccupation on what other peoples’ bodies look like and/or comparing them to your own. Technically this can be separate from eating, but I am adding it in here, because it also can be very linked with disordered eating. If you do that, then you are hyper-focusing on things that don’t really make life all that much better. Go out. Hang with your friends. Play. Dance. Sleep. Create Something. Go for a nature walk. Enjoy your life.

 

• Judging foods by their calories and/or counting up your calories as you go through the day. Maybe this is hard to unlearn for you, but unlearn as well as you can. Because, again, it is not healthy or joyful or life-affirming to a: eat according to calories. Because calories know nothing about your body’s hunger. Or b: Eat the Smallest Amount possible. It is just not logical. Think about appetite and life and family and eating through the ages, up until very recently. nobody would eat as little as you do, with as much stress as you do about it. They had other problems, and thank god we don’t have them! Don’t replace their real problems with thinking that you ate too many Weight Watchers Bars. Your ancestors would be very upset with you.

 

• Thinking and preaching that you have found “THE WAY TO EAT”. Whatever that may be, a diet plan, a “diet lifestyle”, a great cultish CSA, simple marathon training, goji berries and hoodia and green coffee extract, WHATEVER YOU THINK YOU HAVE FOUND… you probably haven’t. The closer your diet resembles a religion… or a cult, the more disordered it probably is.

 

• Fear or fixation or guilt after you eat something “Bad”. Never fear, people will experience this a lot for a while after they start intuitively or mindfully eating, and moving away from disordered eating. There is a learning curve, and the more times you eat said food without ill effect or the rapture happening, the easier it will be to eat it without fear or fixation or guilt. But, in general, if eating certain food causes guilt or constant thinking about it, or the need to talk about it constantly “guys I just ate a whole bag of chips”… it’s disordered! Fear, control, feelings of losing control, black and white, good and bad, all or nothing. Not. the. way. to. live.

 

• Bingeing. Often a reaction to periods of restricted eating, or a general restricted mindset, sometimes as an emotional pacifier. Sometimes strictly emotional… but rarer.

 

• Substituting Fake/Low/No calorie foods. 

 

• Believing “Without a diet I would __________”. Balloon up. Lose control. Have a breakdown. Lose my job. Eat the World. Never stop eating. It is not true.

We are all just doing the best we can do with the best information we have at the time.

But it is time to Fuck It.

 

There is none.

THERE IS NO “HEALTHY VERSION OF INTUITIVE EATING”. Don’t do it. It will backfire.

Wanna know why? Because what you are really saying is: I am going to try and, like, trust my body. But I, like, can’t ever really trust my body. Obviously, so I’m gonna like fake trust it and, like, listen to it but only let it eat, like…. healthy foods.

No!

Your body will know what you are doing. And the part of your mind that you think you are tricking will know what you are doing too!

You cannot do the healthy version of intuitive eating, because intuitive eating is the healthy version of eating.

And it is healthy, even if you are eating lots of brownies.

It is healthy because it is free and curious and pleasure based.

It is healthy because it takes your eating controls away from your mind, and gives them to your body.

It is healthy because even if you are craving foods that you decided before were “not healthy” (or that anyone would tell you are “not healthy”), letting go of fear of food is immensely important for mental health.

Mental health is immensely important for physical health.

Learning to trust your body is the healthiest thing you could do.

But not even that, the idea is to neutralize all foods. Cravings have less power when they are allowed. Irrational cravings do not exist when they are allowed. They become neutral.

Your body knows what it needs. Your body needs calories. And your body needs to know it can eat.

Intuitive Eating is not about eating the smallest amount possible. Or being “so in tune with your body” that you only need to eat celery and goat keifer and sunlight.

No, intuitive eating allows you to EAT. For God’s sake EAT. Eat the things that nourish you and please you. The things that make your mouth water and that you only let yourself eat in your dreams.

That is the food your body is asking for.

And anyway, you’re never gonna really crave Kale til your body and mind both believe that it can also eat cake for dinner whenever it wants.

Fuck. IT.