So Why Choose PCOS Unlocked?

1) Because I Explain What Causes PCOS

In order to understand this syndrome, first we must understand what causes it. If we understand what causes it instead of putting a band aid on symptoms, we can understand how to prevent it from the get-go. The following items are all suspected culprits of causing PCOS.

Insulin resistance:

Insulin resistance is the state in the body that directly precedes diabetes. In diabetes, the body has been so flooded by blood sugar and insulin that the pancreas shuts down, and it needs insulin injections in order to keep the amount of sugar in the blood from becoming toxic.Insulin stimulates testosterone production, which will cause hormone imbalance when created in excess. This is the most common cause of PCOS in the world – though it is by no means the only one.

Being overweight:

Being overweight is another common trait of women who have PCOS. It affects about 60% of women who have PCOS. The relationship between being overweight and PCOS is not 100% clear. Many very smart people believe that insulin resistance is caused by being overweight, so it’s possible that being overweight is the primary problem for a lot of women with PCOS. Yet others believe that insulin resistance causes people to become overweight, which reverses the causality. I personally think it’s more complicated than both of these cases, and that insulin resistance and being overweight often occur together, though not always.Being overweight also causes inflammation, which can cause testosterone levels to rise and nutrient deficiencies to become more problematic, as well as thyroid hormone levels to fall.

Dramatic weight loss:

PCOS is all about hormone balance. Specifically, it involves elevating male sex hormones like testosterone over female sex hormones like estrogen and progesterone.Weight loss can trigger this kind of hormone imbalance if the body perceives the weight loss as a significant deprivation of energy from the body. There is a specific command center of the brain called the hypothalamus, and the hypothalamus receives signals from metabolic hormones and fat cells that tell it how well fed you are.It is important for a woman’s body to always feel fed. When it does not feel fed, it shuts down reproduction. This makes evolutionary sense. Back in the days when humans roamed the savannah, it was a very bad idea to become pregnant during a time of famine. To prevent against that sort of thing, the female body developed a very sensitive hormone system.Dramatic weight loss is one of the ways in which it may feel starved. This is of course not the case for everybody who loses weight, but it does happen to some women

Low body fat

Much like dramatic weight loss, having a very low body fat percentage is another signal to the body that it is being starved. Often for women with PCOS it is hard to tell if it is the rapidity of the weight loss that caused PCOS, or if it was the amount of weight loss that caused PCOS.In my practice, I find that it is the amount of weight loss that causes PCOS more often, but both do definitely happen.When body fat percentage is too low, pituitary hormone production shuts down, and often PCOS results.

Overexercising

Overexercising is yet another way to signal to the female body that it is being starved.You may not feel like you ‘starve’ yourself per se. But exercise requires a lot of calories. If you burn more calories than you eat on a regular basis and do not have ample fat stores to burn, then your body may interpret this as ‘starving.’What qualifies as overexercising varies from woman to woman. It’s detrimental effects also build up over time. The longer the female body is in a caloric deficit, the more hormone balance suffers.

Stress

Hormone production occurs via something called a ‘cascade.’ The body starts producing hormones with one substrate, and then produces more and more hormones in a series that branches out and multiplies. What happens at the beginning of the cascade is therefore crucial for the later outcomes.One of the very first ‘decisions’ the body has to make when it produces hormones via this cascade is whether it wants to make stress hormones or sex hormones. It cannot make high amounts of both for any extended period of time – it simply cannot.If under any sort of emotional or cognitive stress (physical stressors like overexercising, inflammation, or bingeing or restrictive eating count, too), the body interprets this as a need for stress rather than sex hormones. As a result, estrogen and progesterone levels fall. LH and FSH will most likely fall. Sometimes testosterone will, too. Cortisol, the main stress hormone, and DHEA-S, another important if less well-known stress hormone, increase. This is problematic especially for PCOS because DHEA-S is an androgen – a male sex hormone. PCOS occurs when male sex hormones are elevated over female sex hormones.

Hypothydroism

Healthy thyroid function is crucial for healthy reproductive function. The thyroid system is responsible for delivering energy to cells. If reproductive cells don’t get the amount of energy they need, they lose their ability to function properly. There is a very clear and strong link between hypothyroidism and PCOS. There are many different ways that the thyroid gland can malfunction. The two primary ways are 1) via the autoimmune conditions Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (see a great book on Hashimoto’s here), or 2) via the negative effects of stress on the liver’s ability to make the most important of the thyroid hormones, T3. A low carbohydrate diet can negatively impact T3, too.PCOS patients who present with subclinical levels of thyroid hormone often begin ovulating once regular thyroid functioning is achieved.  One of my favorite articles reports that thyroid hormone replacement therapy achieves a “significant reduction in total as well as free testosterone,” and also states that “ovarian volumes of patients with hypothyroidism were significantly great compared with controls, and their magnitudes diminished significantly during thyroid hormone replacement therapy.”

Environmental toxins

Almost all non-organic fruits and vegetables are covered in chemicals that act as phytoestrogens in the body. Over time, specifically when young, these can have a major impact on reproductive physiology.  Some foods are worse than others. A second endocrine disruptor, perhaps the most prevalent one in American lives today, is BPA. BPA is a polymer leached from plastics (though it is not the only one – thus why I recommend using glass tupperware) that disrupts endocrine function in a way not entirely yet understood, but appears to have negative effects on hormone balance.When rats are exposed to BPA, their male offspring have decreased fertility, and only after exposure to small doses.The BPA exposed males also had a significant amount of more more body fat than unexposed controls.Female rats are affected just as strongly, if not worse.  THEY GET PCOS. They present with cystic ovaries, increased estrogen and testosterone levels, and decreased progesterone.Similar results have been reported in human females. 

Women with PCOS, both lean and overweight women, have 40 percent higher levels of BPA in their blood than those without.  Notably, the levels are even more markedly increased in thin women with PCOS.  In thin women, PCOS patients had 1.6 times ordinary BPA levels, and in overweight women the ratio was just 1.3.  Some researchers speculate that this is because BPA is being stored in fat cells, while other posit that BPA causes brain-related hormone signaling dysfunction, which could explain why so many people end up having PCOS at all.Hard plastics, the polycarbonate plastics such as #7, are worse than soft plastics.  Plastics 1, 2, and 4 seem to be BPA free. Heated plastics leach at much higher rates than cold ones. Research has shown that BPA gets into bodies in even higher doses from eating out of aluminum cans than out of plastic.  Cans are lined with BPA on the inside, so virtually everything eaten out of a can is swimming in BPA.   Here’s a  list of consumer tips.Another source of environmental estrogens is body applications.  Parabens are phytoestrogens and are one of the most common elements in lotions and soaps. Receipts, oddly, are also very high in BPA and estrogenic supplements. Many cashiers wear gloves for this reason.

Birth control use

The birth control pill has a varied and complex effect on women’s reproductive health. Some women deal with it just fine. Others, not quite so much. Usually the problem happens when a woman stops taking BCPs: while on the BCP, women’s bodies often adjust to the exogenous hormone input. When coming off of BCP, the liver, hypothalamus, and pituitary gland all need to readjust to natural hormone production. This process can take a long time and will very often cause the symptoms of PCOS.For more on birth control and how to manage it’s physical effects, you can check out my small book on the topic, Birth Control Unlocked.

Tumors

If LH, FSH, TSH, or Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone levels are significantly impaired, and if all other causes have been ruled, this is an indicator that an MRI should be performed.

2) Because I Dive Deeper into the Symptoms of PCOS

PCOS is a disorder of the endocrine system.Testosterone is the primary hormone to be concerned about for most women, though a hormone produced by the adrenal glands called DHEA-S is also a major concern.

Sometimes female sex hormone levels are low, but that’s not always the case. The two hormones to be on the look out for here are estrogen and progesterone. They need to be in proper balance with testosterone in order for the menstrual cycle to function normally.

When the menstrual cycles stops functioning normally, here are any of the symptoms you may experience. Most women with PCOS suffer from some, but not all, of the symptoms:

• Unpredictable ovulation
• Irregular or absent menstruation
• Infertility
• Acne, which typically appears around the mouth, chin, and jawline
• Male pattern hair growth (hirsutism)
• Male pattern hair loss (alopecia)
• Weight gain and increased difficulty in losing weight
• Low libido
• Difficulty sleeping
• Mood swings or disruptions in regular mood

This is just a brief overview of symptoms of PCOS. I fully analyze and discuss each of these options in my program.

3) Because I Address Troubleshooting PCOS

I’ve been working with women who have PCOS now for more than 5 years. In this time, I’ve encountered hundreds if not thousands of specific cases. Iv’e read just about every blog, website, and article there is out there for PCOS. I’ve spent hours searching through online forums and facebook communities, learning about women’s experiences.

After all this time, I’ve learned a thing or two (or several hundred) about what’s right for PCOS, as well as what isn’t.

To help prevent you from making the same mistakes I see over and over again with women who have PCOS, I’ve put together a list of the 10 most common ones. Hopefully then you’ll be able to dodge the bullet, so to speak, and overcome PCOS quickly and painlessly.

Going on the Birth Control Pill

The birth control pill might be a good way to mask symptoms of PCOS, but it never fixes the underlying problem. In fact, many women who go on the pill find that their PCOS has worsens while on it, but don’t find out until they get off the pill, try to get pregnant, then can’t. Birth Control Pills are one of the most favored “solutions” for PCOS of doctors, but they are completely ineffective in terms of healing, fertility, or long-term freedom from PCOS.

Using Metformin

Due to its ability to increase insulin sensitivity, Metformin is one of the most commonly prescribed medications in the Western world. Metformin can help alleviate complications from diabetes, as well as help women who have PCOS, especially type 1 PCOS (more on which in video #2). Metformin is a problem, however, since much like birth control pills, in that it never solves the underlying problem causing hormone imbalance and PCOS. It only ever covers it up.

Taking estrogen blockers

Thousands of women take Estro block or other estrogen blockers in hopes of helping their PCOS. However, estrogen is generally not the main problem for women with PCOS. If you’re taking estrogen blockers, you may be targeting the wrong hormones. Instead, consider looking into ways to decrease testosterone and/or DHEA-S levels, especially if you are “type 1 PCOS”. If you are “type 2 PCOS,” more estrogen might actually be what you need.

Taking herbal supplements

Admittedly, some women find great relief from herbal supplements. But just like with Metformin and birth control pills, they don’t  provide permanent solutions. They only help to alleviate symptoms and cover up underlying issues. Also, they are not well studied by the scientific literature, so their effects are not well known. Most supposed “effects” of herbal supplements simply come from people’s stories. So it may be worthwhile to experiment with herbal supplements while addressing underlying issues, but this should be done carefully, and with due acknowledgement of the fact that it may not fix underlying issues.

Doing a lot of cardio

Is more always better? For exercise, the answer is no, especially if you’re spending all your time on a bike or a treadmill. The best way to exercise for PCOS is to shoot for efficiency: short, intense, effective exercises instead of long, grueling, stamina-demanding exercises are best. This is because short and intense work outs (such as lifting heavy weights) help improve insulin levels and hormone balance, while long-distances exercises can help, but not quite as much. Most women do well shooting for 3-4 weight lifting work outs a week.

Failing to investigate underlying causes

Trying to overcome PCOS without paying attention to its underlying causes is like shooting in the dark. Getting your hormone levels tested by a doctor, by a functional medicine practitioner, or with a home saliva test is a great way to get data on what’s going on in your body. If you don’t have access to that, learning about the potential causes and types of PCOS and their symptoms (which I’ll discuss some in video #2) may very well be enough. The more you know about what’s causing your PCOS, the more specifically you can treat it.

Low carb diets

Most women who have PCOS try a low carbohydrate diet. Is this effective? Sometimes. But not all women are helped by it. In fact, more than 20% of women who have PCOS may be hurt by it. If you try a low carb diet, pay close attention to your symptoms and see if they get better or worse. That way, you can stop yourself from doing damage if you are one of the 20% of women who really need those carbs.

Low fat, high protein diets

Common nutritional wisdom says that low fat, high protein diets are best. Nutritionists or magazines might tell you to eat salad with low fat dressing and lean chicken breast. But this is not necessarily best, and definitely not for women with hormone imbalance. Hormones (and other important parts of the body, such as brain matter) are made out of fat. Without it, as you heal from PCOS, your body won’t be able to produce the hormones it needs. Fat is a friend, for all women with PCOS.

Dining out

Unfortunately, dining out in the West is full of potential dangers for women with PCOS. One of the worst dangers is the fact that the vast majority of restaurants use vegetable oil for their cooking. Vegetable oil (including corn oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, canola oil, and more) is rich in omega 6 fatty acids, which cause inflammation. Inflammation is one of the most common underlying issues that women with PCOS suffer from. To help minimize your inflammation levels, consider dining out as little as possible, or specifically requesting olive oil or butter to be used for your meals. Additionally, adding a fermented cod liver oil supplement (fermentation prevents the fats from oxidizing and keeps them healthful) is one quick way to start reducing inflammation levels.

Ignoring potential red flags

Irregular or absent periods, acne, facial hair growth, and difficulty losing weight are all potential symptoms of PCOS. But it’s important when you’re looking for the underlying causes of PCOS to pay attention to other symptoms you experience. Do you have good digestive health? Are you chronically cold? Do you suffer from chronic headaches? Any symptom you experience in your body could help point to underlying causes.

4) Because I have PCOS

For the last five years I’ve run a women’s health blog that gets more than a million visits a year. I have also published a bestselling book on the topic of women’s health, and currently run a top-10 health and fitness podcast with more than a million downloads. This isn’t to say that these MEAN anything significant – but they do mean that I have experience.

I have personally been diagnosed with and overcome my own PCOS. I really did do so with the power of research in medical journals. After doing so I created this program which has now helped several thousand women on five continents. I also consulted women 1-on-1 for years before I became overwhelmed by balancing that practice with all of my writing demands and media appearances. In doing so I have taken part in and witnessed the success of several dozen clients following the PCOS Unlocked protocol.

I have a high honors BA in biogeochemistry from Dartmouth College. While there, I worked on projects for Mars rovers and studying meteorites under NASA grants. Afterwards I received a masters in philosophy at Boston University, and am currently a PhD candidate at the University of Oxford in the UK.

And, I want to help my clients by sharing my experiences and knowledge as a long term potential solution, not as a quick fix.

5) Because I Encourage and Provide Resources to Resolve, vs Providing Temporary Solutions

PCOS Unlocked: The Manual is a comprehensive program that gets results, fast. It works because it throws one-size-fits-all approaches out the window. No single case of PCOS is the same. You need personalized attention if you want to overcome PCOS quickly and for good. To make sure you get the personalized attention you need, I break PCOS down into different types. Simple diet and lifestyle changes are all it takes to heal PCOS… you just have to make sure you do the right ones.

PCOS Unlocked gives you the right tools for you. Your path to freedom with PCOS Unlocked is as fast and effortless as possible.

Most people aren’t aware that there are many different causes and types of PCOS – but there are.

Learn more about what type of PCOS you might have – so you can better treat your PCOS – with a short quiz I designed.

Take the 3 minute quiz –The quiz

So there you have it, love! PCOS Unlocked is different than typical solutions provideed by doctors because I help you determine what is causing or caused your PCOS in order to allow you to eliminate these factors from your biochemistry if possible. I also dive deeper into the symptoms behind PCOS and determining what kind of PCOS you have in order to understand your PCOS fully, because every case is different and unique to each individual. When troubleshooting becomes the primary hurdle, I walk you through each step to break down any confusion or accidental roadblocks in your PCOS treatment. And lastly, because I experienced it personally. Doctors have became very anti-personal, with face to face time with doctors decreasing by the minute each year. Doctors see so many patients it can be difficult to fully elaborate on any issues you may have with them.

I am hear to help. And as always, there is a 60 day money back, no questions asked, guarentee. Because for me, this is not about making all the money, this is about helping women that are going through what I went through. I never would want anyone to suffer through their PCOS, so I hope you find my program most helpful.

Let me know what you think in the comments below!