I've always been a fairly active person. I enjoyed playing sports (poorly) through grade school, and excelled running cross country in high school (turns out running requires much less hand-eye coordination than most sports...who knew?). I partially trained for a few half-marathons in college but my allegiance to Natty Lite always outweighed my desire to run 8 miles on a Saturday...college! It wasn't until my first few years out of undergrad that I truly committed to distance running. Training for and running long races always left me feeling super accomplished, but I did so while ignoring some signs that I was negatively impacting my health.
What this looked like for me: first, I noticed joint pain, mainly in my knees. I threw some ice on 'em and ran through the pain, establishing a pattern for the way I'd handle future concerns. The next thing I noticed was a big drop in energy and a disruption in my sleep patterns. I was running a ton and was tired all day, but at night, I couldn't get myself to stay asleep. The insomnia was real, y'all. And finally, my period, which had always been super punctual, became about as regular as the 6 train on a Saturday (i.e. very unpredictable for all of my non-New Yorkers out there).
I continued running. In fact, I ran 3 half-marathons, multiple 5k's and a 10k in one year. I was training for something almost 100% of the time. It wasn't until my skin broke out in painful cystic acne that my vanity kicked in and
After some serious soul searching, I decided to take a break from distance running and put specific focus on healing my PCOS. For at least a year after my diagnosis, I was not only not running, I had eliminated all high intensity cardio from my regimen and focused on taking long, restorative walks. My typical walking route is about 2 miles and takes 40-50 minutes each day. Even though it is far from a SoulCycle class, it makes me feel active, and I often even work up a little sweat! For the year after my diagnosis, I worked to get a walk in most days but didn't stress at all if I didn't, which was super freeing.
In the last few months, I've started to feel stronger and ready to get some more strenuous exercise in again, but I didn't want to fall back into my old, denial-based patterns. In an effort to keep myself accountable to my health and body, I turned back to Woman Code, and started syncing my exercise up to where I am in my menstrual cycle. The basic idea behind cycle syncing when it comes to exercise is that as hormone levels change throughout a woman's cycle, so do energy levels. Since paying more attention to my cycle, I've certainly observed energy peaks and valleys through the different phases of my monthly cycle.
Alisa Vitti has guidelines around specific types of exercise that work best for each of the 4 phases of the cycle, but I've found sticking to two different exercise regimens to be a manageable way to approach it. I have one for the follicular and ovulatory phases and one for the luteal and menstrual phases. Here is what that looks like for me:
Follicular and Ovulatory Phases:
The follicular phase starts immediately after your last period ends and lasts until ovulation. It's the phase in which your body is growing and preparing to release an egg. The ovulatory phase is the few days before and after your body releases that eggo it had been cookin' up during the follicular phase. These two phases typically last between 10-15 days together, and are when your energy is at its peak.
This is the time when I focus on cardio, and high intensity class type workouts. Think spinning, intense yoga flows, and running. I still work to get walks in on "off" days, but also give myself leeway to take frequent rest days where I don't worry about exercise at all.
Luteal and Menstrual Phases:
The luteal phase occurs immediately after the ovulatory phase and lasts until the menstrual phase--typically between 10 and 12 days. Your bod is preparing to host a wee little bebe for the next 9 months. Once it's apparent that your egg wasn't fertilized and there will be no one taking up temporary residence in your uterus, menstruation begins and lasts 3-7 days. During these two phases, energy levels dip, so I work on ramping my exercise intensity down. I still get a bit of cardio in at the beginning of my luteal phase, but decrease the the effort expenditure as the phase progresses.
For me, what this typically looks like is an aerobics-based class, or some jogging on the first day or two of my luteal phase. Then I shift into a lower gear and focus more on restorative yoga, walking, and stretching for through the end of my period. During my period, I am especially forgiving about rest days, and often rest for many consecutive days. I might even sneak a nap in and call that my exercise for the day, haha!
So far, this has worked really well for me. I'm feeling strong, and active, but am not suffering from the severe symptoms I was experiencing while I over-exercised before my PCOS diagnosis. I'm enjoying exercising for the sake of being active, instead of pushing myself to a limit to achieve haphazardly set goals. It has definitely been a BIG OL' learning experience, but I'm working to love and appreciate all that my body can do every day.