If you’re living with PCOS, please understand that you are not broken and you are not alone. Healing may take time and it may look different for each of us, but it is possible. Hope grows every time we choose to nourish ourselves, rest when we need it, speak kindly to our bodies, and share our stories.

If you’re navigating PCOS, I want you to know you don’t have to overhaul everything overnight. Start small. Add one new nourishing habit at a time. Celebrate the wins such as choosing fruit over a pastry, or cooking a meal that makes you feel steady instead of sluggish. PCOS may be part of our lives, but it doesn’t have to define the way we live. Every time I choose foods that make me feel better, I’m choosing myself. And that, more than anything, is empowering.

PCOS is more than irregular periods. It’s a hormonal imbalance involving elevated androgens (like testosterone), often insulin resistance, sometimes many small ovarian follicles (often called “cysts”) that don’t mature properly. The hormonal imbalance affects so many levels of my life. It affects me physically, emotionally and mentally.

As some of you may or may not know, September is PCOS awareness month. It is a topic that needs more light shed upon it as it’s not often talked about as much. I personally suffer (and yes, suffering is the appropriate word) from PCOS and I would like to share just a bit of my personal experience with it.