The Hemp Connection:
binge eating

I just helped a journalist friend out, who was writing an article about how to develop healthier summer eating habits for kids. Much of what I emphasized was being sure that the foods you WANT your kids to eat, are the foods you make it easy for them to eat. And the sodas, chips, ice cream, etc.? They just don't come home from the grocery store.

On that theme, here's my question I pose to you.

If you know that ice cream is your trigger food, and you bring it home, what you are essentially saying, to yourself, is that you intend to binge. You are planning to do it. I don't care what your rationale is in the moment--my husband wants it, this time I'm going to eat it without bingeing, etc…if you bring it home from the store, you intend to eat it yourself in counterproductive quantities.

That may feel uncomfortable to hear, but it needs to come into your consciousness and make you uncomfortable in order for you to think about how to handle your trigger food differently.

I love ice cream. And I eat it when I want it. But I don't keep it in the house. My reasoning is that if I'm willing to get off the sofa, put my shoes on, get in the car, and drive to the store, I've thought an awful lot about that choice and it's probably ok to have it. But if all I have to do is walk in the kitchen and grab the spoon and the container…well…we all know where that goes.

Several years ago I had a client who was pushed to tears during a session over a tub of cookies she'd purchased at Costco, then proceeded to binge completely through. As we processed the incident, she said,"But I should be able to bring that tub of cookies home and not binge on it."

I shared with her that I would never bring that tub home, because it would be too easy to indulge instead of making healthier choices. It was a set up, and Costco likely preferred it that way, because your buying into the belief that you can eat one or two and not eat the entire tub, drives the need for you to go back and buy more!

She looked at me, incredulous, and said,"You mean you don't bring that stuff home?" I said no, I have lots of fruits and vegetables and hummous, things I can eat more often that I enjoy but don't eat mindlessly or binge on.

She thought for a minute and said,"You know, my husband says the same thing. Just don't bring it home."

It never occurred to her that she was setting herself up to fail instead of to succeed. It wasn't just her behavior with food that was distorted, her expectations of her self were distorted to the point of being superhuman.

I encourage all of you to take a mindful moment before you stand in line at the grocery store, look at your cart, and ask yourself,"Why am I bringing these foods home?" Any food you cannot honestly say, is being purchased with intent to nourish, should be removed from the cart. Drive out to Dairy Queen if you must, but don't set yourself up by bringing it home.

If you cannot remember to do that, and I do believe women with food issues get into such a"zone" in the store that they may not remember, I encourage you to shop with an accountability buddy. Someone who will get in your face when you make counterproductive choices, who will keep you from letting those choices slide through checkout, into your bag, and into your kitchen. Not someone you can schmooze into allowing you to sabotage the outing, perhaps because she feels most connected to you when you're not succeeding with changing your behavior.

It's a simple question, but one well worth asking.

Why are you even bringing it home?

Sasha Ottey of PCOS Challenge posted this video on Facebook yesterday. It shows what happens to a man who accepted the challenge of trying to live without all of his electronic connections for a week. He didn't make it…and his reaction was pretty extreme.

I love how these techno tools, if used properly, can help to make life easier. I wouldn't be able to do what I do for a living without the Internet.

However…

…I have observed over time, that people seem to be more electronically connected than they are in real time.

I live near an intersection in Phoenix where a lot of law offices are clustered. It's not uncommon, on a sunny day, to see groups of attorneys on the corner, waiting for the green light to cross, all looking at their Blackberries and iPhones instead of up at the people next to them. They usually seem to be completely oblivious to their surroundings.

I am disturbed at the number of people I see on the canal (even the mountain trail) where I run, and at the gym where I lift, talking on their cell phones while they exercise. They cannot put their toys down for even a half hour to enjoy their workout.

I am learning to love the power of Twitter, as it is helping me to reach women I would not otherwise know, who can benefit from the wisdom of our network members.

However…

…I am noticing a troubling trend, that people seem to be more interested in telling people what they are doing, instead of just doing it! If you're sitting in a meeting, and you're telling people you're sitting in a meeting, you're not really paying attention to the speaker who has taken time to prepare the presentation you're supposed to be listening to. You're either participating in the meeting or you're Twittering/Facebooking about it…you cannot effectively simultaneously do both.

What does that have to do with PCOS, your weight, your health?

One of the most important tools you have to fight and manage PCOS…is your brain.

Your brain is an incredible tool. More powerful than any Internet service provider, communication tool, website. It receives and transmits billions and billions of pieces of information every day: the temperature outside, your mood, your fatigue level, your blood sugar, your hunger level, etc. 24/7, whether or not you consciously think about it.

When things are out of balance, your brain is programmed to let you know. It will tell you if you need to pee, eat, address a conflict, seek companionship, whatever it needs in order to stay in balance.

There is one important caveat. You have to be available to listen to what your brain is saying in order to take the action you need to. If you're jamming your life with toys that fill up your brain's time with information you don't really need (like what your Twitter buddy in Outer Mongolia had for lunch or what the results of your"where you should live" Facebook quiz are)…you're not making time to listen to the REALLY important messages--Are you tired? Hungry? Angry? Anxious? Lonely?

Those messages don't go away just because you ignore them. They pile up in your inbox and keep sending you message alerts until you open them. Kind of like that annoying little red box that pops up on Facebook until you check to see what it wants you to know.

The Perfect Storm often comes during the evening hours, when things finally start to quiet down, and all the messages we've put on the back burner all day long start popping up. If we've ignored hunger…we can binge. If we've ignored anger…we might not sleep well, which we pay the price for the next day. If we're lonely, and were too busy with electronic friends to do something social in real time…we can eat or drink alcohol to self-medicate.

We often don't like the messages that our brain sends us, so it's easy to fill our lives with Tweets and quizzes and status reports to ignore them. But it's only when we listen to them that we have a shot at being healthy.

I like to recommend yoga to clients as a stress management activity. Early into making that recommendation, my clients would routinely come back and complain that they hated it. I couldn't understand it, until I started asking why. Often they would complain that it made them feel"tired" (which I learned later was actually relaxed but it had been so long since they'd felt that way they couldn't recognize it).

What happens when you're new to yoga is that it tends to slow your body down very quickly. But if you're not working on the"head" part of yoga, you can find yourself in the corpse position, with a racing head, throwing all of your unpleasant thoughts and feelings back atcha, and you can't run away from them because your body is too relaxed to do its dysfunctional thang.

Many people give up on yoga at this stage because they simply cannot tolerate the reality of how they feel when they listen to their brain's truthful feedback.

I quickly learned to tell my clients experimenting with yoga there was a"Five Session Rule". They were not allowed to tell me they hated it until they'd been to five sessions. They don't tell me that anymore. They get hooked on the feeling.

If what comes up when you listen is too much to bear, a trained counselor (such as Stacy Korfist in our network) can be invaluable in helping you sort through the discomfort and figuring out what to do about it.

For those clients who are not at a point where an hour of direct communication with their brain is tolerable, I challenge them to start with five minutes of"disconnect". It's not really disconnecting, it's setting aside the barriers to TRULY connecting. Just long enough to think about how you're feeling. Away from the phone, the office, the Blackberry, the iPhone…just to see what comes up.

Once they've accomplished that, five becomes ten. Some people get into the challenge so much they…imagine this…don't read their e-mail or check their iPhone messages for an entire weekend!

Just think about it. Are you living a"virtual life", connected to"virtual friends" and"virtual activities"…or are you living a real-time life, with an occasional jaunt into the virtual world for a bit of fun?

I'll appreciate your feedback here, on Twitter, and on Facebook later on. But I've planned my day so I can quit work early and go for a long walk on the canal to enjoy the spring flowers. I hope you have some real-time connectivity planned in your day, too!

Lent is a time we tend to think of sacrifice. Typically we jump into thinking of vices we need to give up. On the theme of grief, perhaps this year Lent can be the time you work to adopt a healthy habit. Any change in behavior involves sacrifice, but real behavior change is hard if you’re only focusing on what you’re NOT going to do. If you haven’t decided what you ARE going to do when you don’t do what it is you DON’T want to do, you’re not very likely to succeed at changing the behavior.
Most women who diet make the mistake of focusing on what they aren’t going to eat. If a large majority of their diet is junk, and all they do is remove it, that leaves big voids of food that aren’t being filled. I’ve heard over and over through the years, how surprised clients are to find how much they genuinely can eat and still lose weight. They’d never thought of it as a journey of what TO eat. It’s always been about what NOT to eat. I like to keep them so busy eating everything they need to eat that they are too full to think of what they’re missing out on.
Adding exercise is going to mean giving up TV time. Going to bed a little earlier is going to mean giving up your nightly date with Jay Leno. Delegating more to someone else is going to mean giving up control of something.
Practicing better self-care truly does mean giving something up. It’s not an either/or thing. All of those are sacrifices, but instead of denying them to yourself, which often means setting yourself up for an indulgent binge come Easter, think of Lent as an opportunity to adopt a new behavior!
If you’re having a hard time giving up the chocolate, think of what you can add to your diet when you crave it. A packet of Justin’s Nut Butter? A handful of nuts? Greek yogurt? Some string cheese?
Not doing it for you to hear these suggestions? Then maybe it’s not the chocolate that’s the problem. Maybe it’s the dependence on binge eating to deal with stress. Try sacrificing an hour of Facebook time for an hour of yoga class.
Anytime you ADD a new behavior, it requires sacrifice of something else in order for you to make room for it. If you’re only focusing on the sacrifice, it’s going to suck.
Lent is a great time to change a behavior, provided your focus is on the newer, nurturing choice, rather than on viewing what you’re trying NOT to do as a punishment.
How can you succeed with what you’ve given up for Lent? What healthy choice can you use to fill in the void?

I actually came into working with PCOS through the back door, as someone who had specialized in eating disorders treatment first. I'd left my work at a treatment center, launched an eating disorder website, and women started calling me saying,"I used to have an eating disorder, now I have something called PCOS…do you know anything about it?"

It happened enough times that I started researching the syndrome, realized there was not a lot of good, standardized information about PCOS, saw the niche that needed filling…and there you have it, the Cliff's Notes version behind the inception of inCYST.

The correlation between the two conditions is so strong that I often wonder if it isn't the exact same problem being given a different name and treatment, depending on whether or not a physician or a mental health professional makes the initial diagnosis.

Because diagnosis and treatment can start in two completely different environments, there can be problems with outcome.

--Physicians accustomed to other diagnoses that respond to a simple medication or surgical procedure, may not have the interest in considering the emotional aspects of PCOS. A dermatologist actually said to me once,"I just want to take care of skin cancer. I really don't want to deal with all of those emotions."

--Even dietitians who work with diabetes and can assume they have expertise with PCOS, may not have the patience to delve through the layers of hormones and emotions and reactions to imbalances between the two, to help a client understand how all of these pieces fit together.

--Psychiatrists may be prescribing medications that exacerbate hormone imbalances and PCOS, and not consider that the weight gain and other side effects are a huge reason for medication noncompliance.

--Psychologists may not understand that anger, even rage, and depression, is very strongly affected by hormone imbalances, not entirely based on what's going on in a person's world. They also need to understand that a client can be absolutely, completely, 100% compliant with every single assignment they're given…and STILL have cravings and not lose weight. They need to not project that disappointment on the client, but take it as a cue that they may be missing an important part of what's going on.

--Eating disorder specialists I've worked with seem to be much more comfortable working with"thin" women with eating disorders. I remember when I worked in the treatment center, the women with binge eating disorder never seemed to get the same sort of attention. There seemed to be a size discrimination even coming from professionals who were supposed to be advocating for the opposite.

--Body image specialists may not completely understand that with PCOS, there are genuine and valid body image issues that are not distorted thoughts. There is facial hair. Acne scarring. Hair loss. And the cysts on the ovaries can create a feeling of bloating that is valid, not imagined.

My personal feeling is that you cannot effectively and successfully treat PCOS unless you are helping both mind and body.

If you're a physician, you need to be sure that your client has adequate emotional support rather and not just increase a medication dosage because you're not seeing progress on lab reports that you'd like to see.

If you're a dietitian, you need to have access to a size-neutral psychologist who understands the syndrome and not be afraid to refer and work together as a team.

If you're a mental health professional, you need to understand that just because your client has a disease with a physiological basis, your place in their treatment is not threatened…in fact, it is more important.

You just need to enhance the number and type of issues you can help them with.

All of us need to stop attaching symptoms and needs to a certain weight. To assume that if we get down to a certain weight the syndrome magically goes away. It's there no matter what. I just had an enlightening conversation with a dietitian who has gone through my training, is embarking on her PhD, is normal weight, and teaching at the university level. Even though she's doing all the right things, she says she STILL has times when her appetite is out of control and it completely frustrates her.

The link between eating disorders and PCOS is very, very strong. We need to embrace it and study it so we can help women tackle both and accomplish great things in their course of managing the syndrome. All of us are going to have to step outside of our personal comfort zones as professionals to be effective, and to stop thinking we can help women with PCOS all on our own outside of the structure of a team. inCYST would like to make that a rewarding risk for anyone who chooses to take it.

So 2011 has been designated inCYST's year of eating disorder outreach. We've got two learning opportunities for you who are interested in learning more.

This coming Monday, at 12:30 pm Eastern time, inCYST dietitian Janenie Wade and her business partner Ellen Shuman will be on our radio show sharing more about their collaboration with A Weigh Out, an online and phone coaching program specifically designed to help women with binge eating disorder and able to account for the presence of PCOS. Come tune in and get your toes wet, and see what they're doing! Maybe it will inspire you to want to do more as well.

This spring, in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Binge Eating Disorder Association is holding its annual conference. It's a great place to start learning more (in a beautiful climate, I have to add!).

Of course, we're always looking for mental health professionals to join us at inCYST as well. Our training is open to anyone who would like to take this on. Just let me know if you're interested.

Malnutrition is another cause of low progesterone. If you automatically assume that this can't apply to you, your loved one or a patient, because sitting in front of you they are"overweight", consider the many ways someone can be malnourished.

You can be malnourished if you eat a lot of calories without nutritional value. Eating a lot of junk food, and very few fruits and vegetables, for example, can deplete the body's supplies of important vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

You can be malnourished if you eat so much of one kind of food that in the process of metabolizing it, you burn through important nutrients. That can happen if you eat a lot of carbohydrates, for example, it uses up a lot of chromium.

You can be malnourished if the list of foods you eat is very narrow--even if all of them show up somewhere on the Internet as the"world's healthiest". You need variety in order to get all the nutrients that makes your hormones work.

You can be malnourished if you take certain medications. The list of nutrients that can be depleted on certain medications is long. If your physician or dietitian have never checked yours, maybe it's a good service to request on your next visit.

You can be malnourished if you only consider"nutrition" to be what you weigh and you starve yourself in order to change that number. That happens a lot with PCOS. It is an erroneous belief that overweight causes PCOS. PCOS is worse if your weight is too high, but your weight does not cause it. Eating healthfully will steer your weight down, if you need to lose some, but starving yourself may keep you stuck at a weight you'd rather not be at.

You can be malnourished if you yo-yo diet. That is what happens when you put all of the above together in one scenario. Eating disorders and PCOS go hand in hand. Most of the women I work with are soooooo afraid of food on our first visit. They don't eat anything because they're scared that one indiscretion will elevate their blood sugar, prevent that pregnancy, make the scale go up…and then when they can't take it anymore, they binge on all the foods they tried to avoid.

That is simply no way to live!

I had the most enjoyable visit with a client a few days ago who was exactly like that when we first met. I was so surprised when, in the middle of our visit, she took me into her kitchen and showed me her refrigerator, loaded with all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Then she cooked me some green beans in red chile that she'd created. We finished the visit over mango slices sprinkled with chile powder. (For another post!) It was such a turnaround, and I was so happy to see that the focus had become all of the wonderful things you can DO with food, instead of all of the sacrifices you have to make if you want to"eat healthy".

She's pregnant now. At one point she rubbed her belly and said,"Thank you, baby!" That little miracle we are all extremely excited to meet did her mama a huge favor by introducing her to food as something fun, and something to enjoy.

I am hoping that all of you enjoy your Thanksgiving dinners and think about what you eat as how you NOURISH, not what you DEPRIVE yourself of. It may prove to be an important part of pumping up your progesterone.

Hello everyone,

If you've been enjoying the PCOS Challenge Radio Show, you'll love Sasha's latest venture! Dr. Van Dyke, Ellen Goldfarb, Gretchen Kubacky, and myself will be presenting more in-depth seminars on our areas of specialty.

Topics to be covered include:

Nutrition Essentials for PCOS--Monika M. Woolsey, MS, RD
Tuesday, October 20

Eating Disorders and PCOS--Ellen Reiss Goldfarb, RD
Tuesday, October 27

Living Happier and Healthier with PCOS--Gretchen Kubacky, PsyD
Tuesday, November 3

Hair Removal Solutions for Women With PCOS--Susan Van Dyke, MD
Tuesday, November 10

The Natural Solution to Overcoming PCOS--Julie Walsh, ND
Tuesday, November 17

All webinars will be held from 8:00 — 9:00 Eastern Time.

Space is limited for the live sessions, but if you can't make any of the live sessions, they will all be recorded and made available on CD.

Please join us! We've all been working hard on this project and it's all been especially for YOU!

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.womensonlinemagazine.com/losangeles/category/health-fitness/ask-dr-gretchen/.

Hello,

I'm glad you stopped by the blog. I thought I would answer your question since it's likely one that others have. It's a little more complicated of an answer than you might have anticipated.

SCENARIO ONE: Empowered Use of Ice Cream

If you're eating well in general, and you'd like to have a little bit of ice cream once in awhile, good for you! It turns out that ice cream, because of its fat content, has a lower glycemic index than many people would anticipate. And…women who eat at least one fat-containing serving of dairy are more fertile than women who do not. The best way to capitalize on this, is to eat ice cream in conjunction with a meal, so that the protein and the fat from that meal further modulate blood glucose levels. The fewer ingredients, preservatives, additives, and stablizers your ice cream has, the better. Eat it at the table, not standing in the kitchen, not out of the carton, not sitting in front of the TV. Savor every delicious spoonful.

SCENARIO TWO: Ice Cream's Calling the Shots

The worst way you can ever eat ice cream, is by the bowlful, right before bedtime. Raising your blood sugar around bedtime increases the risk of precipitous drops in blood glucose during sleep. In response, your body will secrete cortisol to bring the blood sugar back up, so that when you wake up, you've got a high fasting blood sugar. It is why you may not be hungry for breakfast. Start to take notice — what was going on in your food world the 12 hours before you woke up not hungry? If you can identify either a long stretch of not eating, or eating something high in sugar, not balanced with protein…figure out a way to change it.

The most important question I might ask you here, is why you're looking for PCOS-friendly ice cream. If the answer is, you're not quite ready to make true PCOS-friendly changes, and hoping there is a way for you to continue along your path that, while comfortable, is heading you down a serious path of medical complications, you're in denial. It simply doesn't work that way.

There is no ice cream, no ice cream at all, that is PCOS-friendly when eaten as an emotional outlet for loneliness, stress, anger, frustration, or any other emotion you're struggling with. You're only fueling your PCOS fire and making it worse by using food to cope with the emotions the disease is intensifying. Perhaps your PCOS diagnosis is your invitation to learn to use other outlets for those emotions, rather than hiding from them or self-medicating. If that is what you want, you need to be honest with yourself. You're looking for binge-friendly foods, not PCOS friendly foods. That's NOT what we write about or support.

Last week I posted a quote on my Facebook page that came across my Twitterfeed:"Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die". I got more than a dozen"likes" for that one. If you're bingeing on ice cream because you're angry at your spouse, your doctor, me, your diagnosis, your body, whatever…all of us walk away unscathed. The only person you're hurting is you.

Make this the day that ice cream becomes something you have a little taste of after a satisfying meal, and stops being the thing you turn to when something is feeling out of control.

OK, so today really sucks. You woke up, you noticed a couple of new hairs on your chin, your pregnancy test was negative, you tried to put on your nicest skirt for that important business meeting and it was too tight to zip, a pregnant mom with a stroller passed in front of your car as you waited at the light, and your first phone call at work was from an angry customer demanding to speak to your manager. And you're exhausted because you slept so poorly last night.

Time for a donut?

Only if you choose.

Here are some facts about binge eating.

1. It is a form of self-medication.

2. It works in the short term…but over time, it actually changes your biochemistry in such a way that it increases, not decreases, your anxiety.

3. For most women with PCOS, it's the major source of excessive carbs that throw a low GI diet completely off track. You probably don't need an extreme diet if you can get a hold of your binge eating.

4. Throwing that diet off track with binge foods only throws your hormones off even more, making those hairs grow back with a vengeance, making the skirt fit even tighter, and making you even more frustrated with yourself than you were with stroller woman and angry customer.

What to do? Remember this:

NO ONE MAKES YOU EAT. NOT YOUR DOCTOR, YOUR MOTHER, YOUR HUSBAND, YOUR BOYFRIEND, YOUR COWORKER. YOUR PREGNANCY TEST RESULTS DIDN'T MAKE YOU EAT. YOUR SCALES DIDN'T MAKE YOU EAT. YOUR PERFORMANCE REVIEW DIDN'T MAKE YOU EAT. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO MADE YOU EAT.

In all the years of counseling, I have yet to know of a single situation where anyone was held down and forced to eat donuts. It's an entirely voluntary experience.

That's not to say when you're in the middle of an anxiety attack and your brain is screaming for Doritos and nothing else seems to matter that it can seem as if the world might be throwing everything in your path to make the easier choice eating the entire bag…but like it or not, if you ate the Doritos, you are responsible for all of the steps that led up to that incident.

--Did you push your cart down the chip aisle last time you shopped, rather than heading toward the fruits and vegetables?
--Did you stop in front of the Doritos?
--Did you pick the bag up?
--Did you place them in your cart?
--Did you bring them home?
--Did you place them in a section of your home in full view to tempt you?
--Did you choose not to eat breakfast, leaving yourself hungry at an inopportune time?

Eating those Doritos is not simply about eating those Doritos. It's about engaging in a collective series of habits that eventually led to your eating the Doritos. Which one of those habits can you change to move yourself in a new and different direction?

Just as it's easier to be positive if you surround yourself with positive people, it's easier to eat healthfully if you surround yourself with healthful foods.

What can you do to break the mindless cycle?
--Shop at a grocery store in a different neighborhood where foods are organized differently so you can't go into your"zone" while you're filling your cart.
--Bring along a shopping buddy for accountability.
--Make a list of ten healthy foods to put in your cart to bring home.
--Buy enough food for a week of healthy breakfasts. When you start to crave…eat a breakfast meal as a reminder that perhaps eating breakfast at the appropriate time may have helped you to avert the cravings.

I could give you a list of 100 things you could do instead of bingeing. Bottom line remains though…if you binged, you engaged in a voluntary activity. No one made you do it.

If you need help developing your own 100 Things I Can Do To Keep From Bingeing List…that's what inCYST is really good at! Find a provider or an event somewhere and ask for help. Now you only have 99 more things to think of for your list.: )

You know you’ve been there – reaching for the cookie jar again and again, or woefully looking into the bottom of a bag of chips. Feeling sick, disgusted, out of control, sad and angry. Cursing yourself for giving in to the urge again. If you’ve got a problem with binge eating, there’s no perfect way to avoid it forever, but the key is to stop and think before you act. Here are my favorite ways to put the brakes on a binge:

Triple wrap your treat in foil, plastic wrap, and a plastic bag. Shove it in the deepest, darkest corner of the freezer. I know chocolate chip cookies taste great frozen (and semi-stale, and raw, and even when you have to pick the raisins out of them), but this will slow you down.

Before going to a potluck (and I am not casting aspersions on your family, friends, or colleagues), remind yourself of all those studies documenting that one-third to one-half of people do not wash their hands after using the restroom. Did one of those people prepare that casserole full of fatty pasta you’re about to dig into? Just asking…

Make a public declaration, and allow your shame to come quickly to the forefront if you violate it. I know if I say I’m following a special diet that temporarily eliminates wheat and dairy, you can bet someone will question me if I start heading for the cheesecake. The only way out is to contain myself.

Eat dessert first. Your mother isn’t standing over your shoulder, telling you what to do anymore. If you want dessert more than anything, give yourself permission to eat it first, and know that you are allowed to have whatever you want.

Put a time limit on it. If you really can’t resist, set a timer for three minutes and eat what you will. Not a perfect remedy, but you will contain the damage.

Love your food. Really love it. The more you love something, the more difficult it is to abuse. Remember that about yourself as well.

Forgive yourself if none of the above works. Forgive yourself if nothing you’ve ever read or heard or been told by your dietician works to keep you from binge eating. There’s always another opportunity to do better.

Hello everyone,

I missed the live version of this interview but stayed up until midnight listening to it. I was going to just catch the first few minutes but Ellen and Sasha did such a wonderful job of talking about body image, eating disorders, and PCOS, I was hooked!

It's such a great, thorough, and compassionate look at a part of PCOS that is not easy to discuss. A lot of physicians who treat PCOS are more skilled at managing your lab values than your emotions…and it can be frustrating to feel that such an important part of your disorder is not being acknowledged.

I do not intend to criticize physicians with my comment. They are often under pressure to see their patients in a tightly scheduled day, and if they're good at managing your insulin level, they need to be respected for what they're best at.

One of the things PCOS Challenge AND inCYST are trying to do, is provide support that sometimes simply is not available in a medical office visit. A major goal at inCYST, as well, is to network with physicians and help them understand the importance of recognizing this very important aspect of PCOS, and knowing where to refer their patients if they can't or don't want to be the caregiver offering emotional support.

If you've been feeling like that support is what you need, then a good start might be to listen to this broadcast. I guarantee, at the very least, you will learn that you're not alone. www.pcoschallenge.com

Thanks, Sasha and Ellen, for taking the time to talk so compassionately about such a challenging topic!