Have you just been diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and your doctor has advised you to lose weight? Do you strive to lose weight by depriving yourself and practicing sport every day despite significant fatigue?
In this article, we will advise you on the best techniques and sports activities to adopt in order to limit the risks that PCOS can cause!
First of all, it is essential to understand how our hormones work and the links that exist between sports activity and the hormonal system. Indeed, the more intense the physical effort, the more it leads to the release of cortisol, commonly known as the stress hormone. This can lead to a deficiency in progesterone, which is essential for the regulation of mood and menstrual cycles and can cause a disruption of thyroid hormones. However, women with PCOS tend to have elevated cortisol levels (albeit within the normal range) and are more prone to depression and anxiety.
As paradoxical as it may seem, our first recommendation is to limit your sporting activities with high intensity and instead adopt a training program adapted to your syndrome.
Activities to improve PCOS symptoms
Yoga, for example, is excellent for hormonal balance. It improves brain function, reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, provides anxiety relief, better sleep, blood sugar regulation and activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for slowing down our cardiac system. Practicing yoga three times a week helps in reversing PCOS symptoms.
It is also advisable to strengthen your muscles in order to make the body more enduring and resistant, which allows the strengthening of the joints and the cardiovascular system. This sporting activity is very useful for women suffering from PCOS because it may help reducing the risk of resistance to insulin, a hormone that may be present in abnormal quantities in these patients.
You can favour other gentle exercises such as walking in a park or forest. This exercise, which may seem futile at first, actually favours a hormonal rebalancing.
HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) also has the effect of improving insulin sensitivity and the cardiometabolic profile of women with PCOS. However, this training should be done moderately as it can increase cortisol levels in the blood.
Finally, do not hesitate to move and have fun by opting for any other sport, be it jogging, tennis, swimming, that you already practice or that you want to start. Do not hesitate to move and do something that make you feel good.
Before putting on your jogging gear and sneakers: listen to your body and don’t be too hard for yourself!
But above all, enjoy life, do what makes you happy, and have an active social life, do not hesitate to see your friends and go on outings (sports or otherwise) with them.
“This article is based on an interview of Laurence vanden Abeele from Make Mothers Matter with Emelyne Heluin,the vice-president from l’Association Esp’OPK in France”