PCOS's Rebrand to PMOS: Where to Begin | Ep. 158

We're I'm Hormonal--a functional nutrition practice for women, founded by Bridget Walton (NTP, RHP). On this podcast, we help women get to the root cause of their hormone and gut symptoms. Our goal is for you to understand why your health is manifesting the way that it is so you can start building a plan that's actually made for your body. In addition to the podcast, we work with clients virtually across the US, so wherever you're listening from, you're in the right place.

👉 Read our blog post about the PMOS rebrand and what it means for you at imhormonal.com/blog/
👉 Feel like you've tried everything for your hormones? Grab The I've Tried Everything Guide—our free audio series—at imhormonal.com/resources
👉 Ready to talk it through? Book a free 30-minute discovery call at imhormonal.com/book-a-call
👉 Connect with us on Instagram @im_hormonal

Whether you're trying to conceive and want your cycle working with you instead of against you, or you're in perimenopause trying to figure out why nothing feels predictable anymore, this show is for you. Each episode digs into the gut-hormone connection, blood sugar as the foundation of hormone health, and what your labs can tell you that a standard panel misses.

In today's episode, I walk you through the big takeaway of PMOS: you have more influence than you think. We get practical with five questions you can ask today to spot your highest-impact next steps, including how much sugar you’re eating, whether sleep is sabotaging your blood sugar, how stress and cortisol can drive glucose swings, and why protein and healthy fats help stabilize energy and cravings.

Transcript

Welcome And Quick Disclaimer

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the I'm Hormonal podcast. I'm your host, Bridget Walton, functional nutritionist and the founder of I'm Hormonal, and we are going to be talking about PMOS today. You may have seen that earlier this year, PCOS, polycystic ovary syndrome, got a rebrand, got a little zhuzhed up, and is now PMOS, which is polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. So I thought that would be, this would be good timing to do a little recap, understand what's the difference now, why did the change occur. And we'll talk a little bit about what are some of the key areas where you can start inspecting in your diet and your lifestyle habits if you have PMOS or suspect that you have PMOS and you want to start to restore balance to your hormones, see more regular cycles. I also wanted to share some of the questions that I see pop up on like Reddit or on Facebook the most often, and just run through some of those quick answers in case those are questions that are on your mind as well. We'll get into a little bit deeper than that, but that's the highlight for where we're headed today. Um, real quick before we get into it, thank you again for listening. Um, I've been on a little bit of a hiatus this year, but I'm we're back, we're here. So thanks for sticking with me. Thanks for finding me if this is your first time listening. Again, my name is Bridget Walton, and at I'm Hormonal in this nutrition practice, we offer you education and information here on the pod. And we also do one-on-one work with clients, um, mostly focusing on fertility, on hormone balance, on restoring your gut health, which is such an important component for hormone balance. Whether you are trying to conceive going through perimenopause, into menopause, wherever you're at, you're gonna hear me talk about that a lot. Um, if you are just getting into the podcast with me here. So those are, oh wait, no, I have one more disclaimer for you as always. Just a friendly reminder that the information I share with you on the podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. This is not meant to be a replacement for medical advice or diagnosis. So make sure that you are talking to the provider, the practitioner, the physician that knows you, knows your body. We're all different. And so you should seek medical advice if that's what you're in the market for from that, from that appropriate person. So, with that, let's jump into

Why PCOS Became PMOS

SPEAKER_00 2:48

it. Again, PMOS, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. Rebrand from PCOS because this new name just reflects the kind of system-wide, like body-wide nature of the syndrome as opposed to having the focus just be on the ovaries. Yes, having multiple cysts on the ovaries, that is one of the uh like keystone character characteristics of PCOS, but it's more helpful to know that this is really related to your metabolic health. And that's a good thing because you, my friend, you can do a lot through what you choose for your nutrition, for your meals, for how you're eating your meals, when you're eating your meals, for how much sleep you're getting, all of these things are so many easy, free nutrition and lifestyle changes that you can make in order to support more optimal metabolic health. So that is that is the good news, one of the pieces of good news for today.

Sugar Targets And Blood Sugar Basics

SPEAKER_00 3:59

I'm gonna walk you through five questions because you might be thinking, okay, great, my metabolic health, I can do things to influence this, but where specifically can I start to inspect what I'm doing in my life and where to make some changes? So one thing you can think about, this is pretty quintessential when we're thinking about metabolic health, which is right, you should then be thinking, okay, metabolic health, so that's my blood sugar, my insulin, what's happening with those numbers? And the first question I want you to ask yourself then is how much sugar am I consuming each day on average? So if you are able to just tally up what's on packages for the foods that you're eating, that's really helpful. You can pop this into Chat GPT to say, yo, girl, today this is what I ate, ABC XYZ, approximately how much sugar does this have. The range that I want you to shoot for, or the number that I want you to shoot for, is 25 grams or less. Um, because for adult women, uh, 25 grams of sugar is the recommended sealing amount. So do a little um, have a little chat with your favorite AI tool, figure out how much sugar you're consuming in a day. If you're well past 25 grams, um, that could be a good area to start dialing back in and just growing awareness of.

Sleep And Stress Change Insulin

SPEAKER_00 5:34

The second question I want you to ask yourself is are you getting enough sleep? So if you're not getting enough sleep, and that amount is different for everybody, but let's just call it eight hours. If you're not getting those eight hours that you need, the next day, your blood sugar, so your glucose and your insulin, which responds to your glucose levels or elevations in glucose, are going to be a bit more erratic, right? Haven't you noticed that before? Maybe you had to wake up really early for a flight one day, so you didn't get much sleep. And that next day, you're like, dang, I'm hungry today. My mood is not, you know, I'm not feeling like my normal self. Well, that's you can expect that to happen following a night of poor sleep because your blood sugar is going to be impacted by that. And of course, your blood sugar is designed to go up and down, right? You eat food, your blood sugar goes up. Great. Your body is going to use insulin as the tool to get the glucose into your cells so you can use it for energy. That's normal. We want that process to keep happening. We don't want to see big spikes and drops and all this fluctuation in your blood sugar levels. And so that's another thing I want you to keep in mind when we talk about metabolic health. Like, what is it? We want to have better metabolic health. Well, one way to put that in short is that if you're having fewer swings, that's going to help support how you're feeling. That's going to help mitigate inflammation in your body. And we know that inflammation in the body can absolutely lead to chaos with your hormones, right? It's going to cloud that communication between, for example, your pituitary gland, your hypothalamus in the brain and your ovaries. And that can preclude your ovaries then from producing the right amount of hormone A, B, or C as kind of the short bit on what does this actually mean? So, to recap the two questions we've covered so far, one, how much sugar are you actually consuming in a day? Are you around or under 25 grams? Number two, are you actually getting enough sleep? So important. Number three, I want you to ask yourself how well you're managing your stress. Because of course, we all have ups and downs in stress. That's natural. But when stress levels are higher, whether that's mental, emotional, physical, that's also going to result in more erratic um swings in your blood sugar. And that's because your stress hormone, cortisol, will trend up and it kind of pulls up insulin and glucose with it for lack of a more detailed explanation right now. But suffice it to say that higher levels of cortisol will result in less regulation in your blood sugar. Question number four.

Protein Meals And A Better Breakfast

SPEAKER_00 8:52

We're talking about food this time. You've probably received some beer pressure in the past to make sure that you're prioritizing protein in your meals. And so let's talk about that for a second here. Because this fourth question for you is are you eating enough protein and fat with your meals? Now, let's not neglect carbs. It's important to have a balanced meal, but more often than not, the protein piece is being neglected. It's really helpful, though, when you do have a well-balanced meal that's protein and fat four, because that's going to help A, keep you feeling satiated for the next handful of hours until your next meal. But B, it's going to keep your blood sugar levels more stable. Whereas if or when you have a meal that is primarily carbs, your blood sugar is going to go up higher than it would if it was a balanced meal, then it's going to crash lower than it would if it was a balanced meal. And that is what kind of gets you on the roller coaster. So take a beat to think about okay, what did you eat for breakfast today? What are you eating right now? If you're listening to this while you're eating, like, how could you make an easy tweak to get a little bit more protein, get a little bit more fat, and just find a better balance? This is another great option, uh a great way to use your favorite AI tool to say, hey, this is what I had for breakfast today. What are the approximate macros in here? How can I make easy changes that will meet my like better support my metabolic health and my blood sugar? If you want to get crazy, you can say, what are, you know, maybe you maybe you're focusing on budgeting and spending your money in a really effective way lately, and you want to say, what are the most cost-effective ways that I can do that? And whichever chat function you're using, right? Can give you some good ideas about how to do that. Okay, so that's question number four. The final question number five is similar but different because I want to ask you specifically about breakfast. And are you eating a really nourishing breakfast? When we were in elementary school, and mom said that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, she wasn't kidding. There's a lot of talk about fasting lately. That's for another episode. Suffice it for now to say that yes, uh, there are many people for whom fasting can be very beneficial. And sometimes that looks like skipping breakfast. But if you're listening to this, or if you have PMOS, PCOS, if you're somebody who's trying to get your hormones back in balance, I'm gonna assume, based on everything that I've seen in my practice, that adding in a well-rounded, like protein-forward breakfast is really going to serve you. This is an easy way to one, do a little experiment for yourself. This is something that it doesn't take, you're not gonna have to eat a breakfast every day for a month before you see results, right? Commit to doing it for maybe next week, all seven days next week. Plan out when you're gonna go grocery shopping and what you're actually going to eat. And then make a little note each day about how you're feeling and how you feeling different than you are this week. So I'm crossing my fingers for you. I'm not even crossing my fingers. Actually, you don't even need luck for this. You just need to commit to doing it. And I know that this will help you to have more energy, have more consistent energy throughout the day. And this will be supportive for more stable blood sugars, which why are we talking about blood sugar levels again, Bridget? I thought we were we're talking about hormones here. Yes. But your blood sugar, your insulin levels, these are very influential on your hormone levels, on your inflammation levels. And so that's why we're focusing on these habits and these nutritional changes. So you've got a couple ideas of where to start, what questions you can ask yourself. Don't forget about this, right? Save this podcast or make a note on your phone or something so that you can come back to this and um and let me know how it goes. Like have an accountability buddy, whatever is gonna work best for you. But now that you know this, don't sleep on it. Okay, don't

Inositol For Insulin Sensitivity

SPEAKER_00 13:44

sleep on it. Actually, figure this out. Okay, next I want to cover a couple of questions that I see pop up on, like I said, Reddit or um PCOS, PMOS Facebook groups a lot. And these are more focused around supplements because I'm always I'm always seeing questions that say, Hey, has anybody tried taking inocital? And did it work for you? That's a valid question, of course, right? You want to understand what inocital does. Why would somebody take that? Did it actually help anybody? Now, in short, what does inocitol do? Well, inocital, uh, one of the things that it can be helpful with is making you more sensitive to insulin, which is a good thing, right? You want to be a little bit more sensitive to insulin because then your body doesn't need as much insulin in order to absorb the glucose. We'll keep the description just at that level of um conciseness. Is conciseness a word? Regardless. Can an acetol support your metabolic health goals, your PMOS goals? It sure can. But I would caution you to, you know, don't put all your eggs in one basket, right? You taking a targeted supplement can be really helpful. But if you're not sleeping, if you're not eating balanced meals, if you are ignoring your like absolutely heinous gut health or any other number of things, taking one particular supplement is not necessarily going to be the fix that you need. Like I mentioned earlier in the episode, PMOS, PCOS, these are whole body, like system-wide uh challenges, let's call it. And so it needs a well-rounded response. Now, also you may not meet you may not need me to tell you that because you're listening to this podcast where we're talking about functional nutrition, right? Holistic, a holistic look at what's going on in your body. So um, if you're already on this bus with me, on this train with me, whatever, that making well-rounded changes in your nutrition, in your lifestyle, with your supplementation, like you are on the right path, my friend. I love this for you. So to actually answer this question or to say it concisely, will an ostetol, for example, restore regular periods? It can help. It certainly could help if it's able to make that big difference in your insulin sensitivity. And it'll it can support your metabolic health in that way. But it's not a magical pill. There aren't any. Um and so taking you need to take your whole lifestyle, all of your nutrition into context if you really want to see those changes. The next

Vitex Benefits And A Key Risk

SPEAKER_00 17:07

question that I see from time to time is similar, but asking about Vitex. So will Vitex fix my period. Has anybody taken Vitex? It's also called chaste tree berry. Um, and this is a really um, well, is it well known? Yeah, I would say so. Or it's it's common for folks to take Vitex when they are looking to conceive to support hormone balance. And it can be there are plenty of studies and trials that show the efficacy of this. I do want to mention one thing though. For some folks with PMOS, there is an imbalance between two hormones right now, specifically. One is glutenizing hormone and the other is follicle stimulating hormone. And so for some folks, taking vitex can actually push those two hormones further out of balance, which is further exacerbating um, well, it's further exacerbating the imbalance. And so that's not the direction you want to see it go in. So if you're somebody who, right, you're working with a practitioner or you've you've had labs run with your doctor and they've run LH and FSH, then that can be a helpful tool to decide, hey, do I want to take Vitex from here? Or if you look at it in reverse, if you maybe you're listening to this and you're like, dang, I've been, I've been taking Vitex for a little while, it hasn't been doing anything, I haven't seen any changes, then that could be why. So I think that's helpful to just know that that nuance exists. This won't apply to everybody. I've only seen this, gosh, one time in the last 18 months, I think, in my practice. And we were able to see that because we had run, or I guess actually she had run it with her doctor, regardless, um, because we had multiple data points for her luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone. So bioindividuality, right? Remember that something you know that your best friend supplements with, maybe that really did the trick for her right away, but your body is different. Your situation could be a little bit different, so it may not work exactly the same for you.

Movement Plus Next-Level Troubleshooting

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Now, the next thing I want to cover as we get ready to wrap up, this will be our final topic for today, but you've got these places to start, right? Focusing on your metabolic health, stabilizing blood sugar levels. There's there's so many good resources out there for you on that. There are a handful of other resources within the MHormonal Podcast feed, where we're talking about how to support your blood sugar, how you can do that through what you're eating, how you're moving your body, which is so important, right? Building more muscle, doing weight-bearing exercises, those are really helpful. Also, I mean, just getting out and moving your body. Maybe one time a day after your most carb-heavy meal of the day, you're gonna get out for a 10-minute walk. Or if you're at your desk at work after lunch, you're gonna do some like calf raises under the desk, something like that. There are so many options that you can um incorporate that will fit your schedule and your budget and your time budget. I'm going down a little rabbit hole here. But that was all to say. If you are just starting to get a handle on your PMOS, then those are some good areas to start focusing on. If you have refined those areas, you're like, I've got the habits down, I know what to do, I've read the books, but nothing is changing yet. Then a couple of things to focus on. Suggestion number one, get more serious about your gut health. And this is something that does take much more personalization, but it is it's not that PMOS causes uh like dysbiosis or imbalance within your gut microbiome. However, it is not uncommon for women with PMOS to have imbalances in their gut. And it's worth noting that your gut microbiome is also really influential on your metabolic health, right? Everything, everything influences everything. Your gut health is no exception. Your your gut healthier digestion is the root of you know it can spire um what's the word I want? Spindle spoke hub and spoke. Okay, stick with me. Sorry for that. Regardless, if there's something going on with your gut health that can have negative impacts on many other areas of your health and systems in the body. So if you feel like you've gone through all of these basics, but you haven't seen much change, you gotta get serious about your gut health. I had a client who was in this exact situation. We ran a GI map, which is a gut microbiome panel on her. We identified the imbalances that she had, inflammatory overgrowth, um, H. pylori infection. We put together a personalized plan for her to eradicate the overgrowth, to bring her back into balance, to establish a healthy colony, those good bacteria that you want in your gut. And so we did about a 12-week protocol for her there. And after going through the protocol, I think maybe we were five months in. Not everybody will be exactly the same. For some people, it might take a little bit longer, and that's okay. But that's just to say that for her, and for a handful of gals, uh, perhaps you, if you're having a lot of repeat, bloating, and digestive discomforts, um, addressing that, addressing the inflammation there, getting that under control and back in balance, that is what really moved the needle for her gut health. She already had those other foundations dialed in. Another thing that you could be considering is doing a bit

Gut Testing Labs Resources And Wrap

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more of a comprehensive panel, like a blood panel, to learn more about your metabolic health. You've heard me mention glucose, you've heard me mention insulin. There's a little bit more to the picture there to understand. Um, I would maybe do this in conjunction with gut health, I guess. You already know. I think this is about the fifth time I've said it now in this episode that gut health is the foundation. So you gotta start there. But getting more information, um, for example, fasting insulin. That's not a lab that many physicians will order automatically. But if you have an appointment coming up and you want to ask them to run your fasting insulin, that could be one that is um easy, like accessible. So fasting insulin, keep that in mind. Now, if you feel like you are at this point and you want a more personalized plan, right? Then that would be a great opportunity to work with a functional nutritionist, a functional practitioner like myself, who's gonna work with you to get the data personalized to you from that gut panel, from a hormone panel, from a blood panel, and put together a personalized plan, especially if you want to conceive, right? Because when you get your gut health in order before you conceive, that's going to set you up so much better for nutrient absorption that is so critical for your health and for baby's health. So a couple things to consider. Now, if you want to go a little bit deeper on the topic, learn a little bit more about PMOS, then I have a I have an article that I posted on my blog that goes into it a bit deeper. So you can either go to imhormonal.com slash blog and you will see it there. Also, if you follow me on Instagram at I'm underscore hormonal, you'll see our highlights. And I just recently added it to the highlights there. So you can just go ahead, click that link super easy and take a read. It's not a very long read, but it'll give you a little bit more takeaway. Um so in our next episode, um, I'm gonna be talking about ovulation signs. How can you confirm ovulation? Of course, you know this is important if you're trying to conceive, but this is also just really important as you right, as you're going through and making changes for those five questions that I asked you earlier, and you're seeing changes to your cycle, understanding when exactly you're ovulating, that's going to be a really, really, really strong piece of data to, well, one, support whether or not what you're doing is helping. But seeing that data is going to um really be helpful to understand what even is the impact of the changes that you're making, what else needs to happen. And so it'll help you to just to make better, like more relevant um tweaks to what you're doing and stay in tune with your body, of course. So that is just about it for today. Thank you, gang, for listening. I will see you on the next one. And thanks again.