Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Alright, so today we have Brooke who's that fat girl podcast and she is going to be discussing with us PCOS and regulating periods through diet and exercise modification. Thank you so much Brooke for joining me. How are you doing? Thank you so much for being here and…
00:05:00
Brooke Hoover: Hi, I'm good. Thanks for having me.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: sharing your knowledge and your presence with us. I feel like it's such a motivational inspirational story for us as women to get on and discuss our experience, with our menstruation and coming into Womanhood and just being unapologetically woman and I would love to start with your story. we know we're gonna discuss PCOS and regulating, our periods but how does this start for what age were you when you're Peri began? And what was your initial reaction and feelings around your period?
Brooke Hoover: Boy, I was 13 years old and I remember not wanting my period I guess I had Peter Pan syndrome at the age of 13. I didn't want to grow up and period and boobs meant Womanhood and I didn't want it and it was really funny because the day before I started my period I remember that as well. I was heading to dance class and I felt this horrible allergy like sinus infection. Come on, and I said to my mom and I never cut dance class was like I have to cut dance class. Let's go home. I feel horrible and the next day I started my period.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: So dance definitely can relate to that as a Dance artist. I feel like that is just so debilitating for us when something happens to our body because we're like our bodies everything, and so you're experiencing this discomfort. At the time What was the solution for you going through this and Did you just start to spot on the way home? Did you like what exactly happened?
Brooke Hoover: He So it was like this week feeling tired no I still don't get cramps like it like hell will freeze over and then I'll get a period cramp but I get everything else surrounded by it. So I just felt really tired feverish even though I didn't have a fever an achy and all my sinuses felt clogged go home and I skip school the next day too because of this feeling and then I just went to the bathroom and it wasn't like a gush of blood but it was a little bit enough not spotting but kind of in between if that makes any sense and this little pink Carefree pads like the panty liners.
Brooke Hoover: I kept using those I didn't want to tell my mom look we needed to whip out. do you have a big always pads? because I didn't use tampons for a while. yeah and my best friend came over after school. She lived across the street one of my best friends and I told her she's like look, you have to tell your mom somebody's got to go and get you some pads girl. you can't be living on these tiny little Carefree things forever, so that I had to break it to my mom.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: okay, this is very interesting because It sounds like a bit of You didn't want to grow up but it's a bit of denial, with the period and…
Brooke Hoover: How do I
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: then also a bit of shame, …
Brooke Hoover: totally
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: and it's interesting, how that correlates with our period as such a young age these feelings of Shame and denial.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: How did that play a role for you? as you continued, with that being the initial feeling, and once you told your mom finally, what was her reaction.
Brooke Hoover: Yeah, it's funny because the shaman denial I blame 80's movies for that. I remember a lot of movies growing up.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: mmm
Brooke Hoover: I was a big John Hughes fan and I think it was 16 Candles when the Grandma comes and she's got her boobies and she goes like that and I was worried that having a period my mom a big. my God and call everybody and tell everybody because it feels very personal right even though if she called my aunt or my grandma. Hello, they have a period too or at the time they had periods. What's the big deal? But I feel like movies put such this big thing on Womanhood and it was straight white men riding about our bodies. No offense to the late great job Hughes, but it was at least two or three movies that set with me that put that shame in there and my mom didn't react like that. She's just like, okay. let's get you a pad,
Brooke Hoover: And so she used the always pads and she's like now we're not going to tampons those hurt and those can give you TSH and I was like, gosh. So that's how that happens.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: It's very interesting because at that time though what Society is pumping through Perpetual programming right through these movies through these TV shows that we see and it has us feeling a certain way about our bodies too and A react differently to it. And so it's very interesting, because I do feel like a lot of us shaming and embarrassment does come from society. It comes through the movies it comes through even when men make jokes about it. Our health is not a joke, and…
00:10:00
Brooke Hoover: word
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: then getting upset with us when they make a joke about our bodies in our health and what we're going through and we're going through literally chemical changes in our bodies, in to be it's not a joke to disrespect my health.
Brooke Hoover: right
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: it's like and then you have to put it in context with them. you think it's funny to disrespect my health like, you have to hear
Brooke Hoover: Yeah, and we're supposed to laugh at their jokes, too. We're like what no.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: It's like I'm having a really grainy moment. Okay, it's like leave me alone.
Brooke Hoover: Yeah.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: and that's very interesting and even like the comedy that you put on about that movie, like going straight for and then it becomes normal to joke about what a woman's going through and…
Brooke Hoover: Really?
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: that's something I really feel a lot of women are stepping up especially now and days because I grew up I was
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Late eighties. So coming up in the 90s. I'm seeing all these powerful women Who you calling a b**** they are just straight up It was all about independent woman just rising up at that time and sticking up for themselves. And I really feel like that carried over, and just was also,…
Brooke Hoover: Great.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: a head butter, for our parent generation who are just like no, you're a woman you need to know your place kind of thing and…
Brooke Hoover: he
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: then it was like us coming up and we're being inspired or all these women. We're like, no I can do anything. So I'm glad that you brought up the 80s, in that time and how it will look at even portrayed through the movies. So as you know, you're going through your years, And you're dealing with this. What was the turning point for you where it was like, okay.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: We got to figure out What's Happening Here. What was the turning point for that for you?
Brooke Hoover: Yeah, it seems as before my period I was a very very skinny child and then I got the quote unquote baby fat and then after my period it's like I kept gaining a lot of weight without eating horribly and I was so physically active and I was starting to get facial hair, especially sideburns all the way not like mud and chops if you will and a lot of things just didn't feel right and then my period starting being disregulated around the age of 16, so I had a normal period for about three years and I said to my mom agreed something's not right. We tried to seek out help from endocrinologist and one endocrinologist said wait until you have a period then we'll run your blood work and go from there. I didn't have a normal period for a year. So it's kind of like wait we have to wait…
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: mmm
Brooke Hoover: until I get a normal period but I'm not getting normal periods. I'm not getting a period so I just went off.
Brooke Hoover: College because at the time Nobody was talking about it. It seems like everywhere. I turned someone has PCOS which oftentimes I think people might be misdiagnosing themselves with it. But that's just my humble opinion. So when I went to college, I did have periods and sometimes heavy Avalanches I would have to run we had those dormitory bathrooms. I'd have to run to the communal bathroom and I met an endocrinologist. My mom had moved to North Carolina female. so I thought much more comfortable going to female endocrinologist and my mom had done a lot of research on the World Wide Web the internet was just kind of becoming a thing and my mom said look, I think you have something called pieces to govarian syndrome and I found a good endocrinologist for you and the endocrinologist took one look at me. I was about 250 pounds like, facial hair irregular periods, and she's like before I even examine you or do blood work. I'm pretty sure you have PCOS and so that's
Brooke Hoover: kind of all of that happens
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Wow, and so what age were you when you met that endocrinologist?
00:15:00
Brooke Hoover: I believe I was going into my sophomore year. So I was about maybe 19 years old.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Okay, so I want this is women to understand, the time that it takes because also your experiencing the fact that you're not being really taken seriously, by the first endocrinologist and…
Brooke Hoover: right
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: that happens even to this day we will go to the doctor in our pain is put off
Brooke Hoover: Yeah.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Go ahead pop these prescription strength ibuprofen. You'll be fine, and we're just brushed to the side as if that's an answer and we're taking that we're spending. I just did a research paper about NASA and so that they got 30.92 billion dollars in funding and I'm like yo what and…
Brooke Hoover: What? Yeah.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: women's health is what I was just so I was so disgusted, and I'm like wow people are really valuing technology, over. Humans over not even just being a woman over humans,…
Brooke Hoover: Yeah.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: because even when you think about space and what they've really created for us, I'm like, we can filter our own water through charcoal here on the earth. We don't need …
Brooke Hoover: right
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: what you like the stuff that they owe camera phones.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: I remember not having a phone at all and frankly. It was a very good feeling, like we can live without it.
Brooke Hoover: exactly
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: So it's like what we're creating more job opportunities, even though the people who are living in poverty can't afford the job opportunities because they don't even qualify. So it's just interesting…
Brooke Hoover: right
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: how it's never really about the people,
Brooke Hoover: No, it's not.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: And you visiting the person endocrinologist who basically dismiss you for a year, that had to be disheartening and so gay Mom congratulations mom,…
Brooke Hoover: Yeah.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: for going through with that and I'm so honored. I don't know if you remember the doctor's name, but I mean if you could just throw her name out there.
Brooke Hoover: Yeah, Dr. Wendy Lane and I believe she's still practicing. I think one of my friends who lives down there still sees her for PCOS and I would always joke I think Windy Lane like the Penny Lane song
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: That's great. And big shout out to Dr. Wendy Lane because that is so important for women to be able to confide and Trust in their doctor and…
Brooke Hoover: Yeah.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: the fact that she looks at you and she's like Yep, and she can understand it because she is a woman. And I think we need to look that out…
Brooke Hoover: Thank you.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: because unfortunately the medical field It's still male dominated. And so we as women have to do that due diligence and we do have to find that doctor who they are gonna take what we say seriously and they're going to let us know. Hey, there's a solution for this don't worry. Hey so many women go into be involved in that type of way.
Brooke Hoover: right
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Thank you so much. That was awesome. So we're gonna take a quick short break and then
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: After our break we are going to go into Brooke's story on her journey with PCOS and how she learned to regulate her period through exercise and dieting so stay tuned
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: All So welcome back you guys to unapologetically woman. We are here with the Lovely Brooke who is going to continue her story. So she finds out okay just from a beautiful doctor looking at her and we're like, you got PCOS so actor, Dr. Wendy Lane, gives you your diagnosis. I'm pretty sure she did, other tests to confirm So what happened during this process?
00:20:00
Brooke Hoover: Yeah, so the exam it was a lot. She examined me full on naked everything and I never been to a gyno at this point nothing. So it felt like invasive I'll be honest but say it is what it is, right, blood work to measure like everything especially and including on testosterone levels which were off the chart meaning I had more testosterone than a quote unquote average female should which explained a lot about my facial hair growth and irregular periods. So she basically put me on that foreman and spironolactone and a birth control pill and that little cocktail is supposed to regulate your insulin resistance issues, right? Because that's like them endocrine components and it regulates, this bar on a lockdown AKA aldak tone helps with the facial hair growth and the birth control.
Brooke Hoover: All is to regulate your periods. So she put me on that and things started to regulate and I was told things meaning my period but I still felt like it was, very overweight. I was obese. I was 250 pounds and five foot eight. and weight loss was very very hard and the hair growth was still happening despite laser hair treatments and
Brooke Hoover: She just said just keep trying. So I tried the weight loss and my mom said what Brooke I looked up something very specific called the South Beach Diet and it's basically a Mediterranean way of eating and she said this should help people with PCOS lose weight because you can't just do low fats. You can't do low calorie because if you're still eating a lot of bread or treats that might be low calorie, but still higher in Sugar that's not going to help somebody with PCOS who has an insulin resistance issue. So basically the South Beach Diet which is a Mediterranean lifestyle, which is what I still adapt to this day is what really was helping me with everything else. Yes. What doctor Lane put me on help me regulate the period the timing And the flow if you will but not all the other junkies symptoms. That was my mom putting those pieces together.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: And that's amazing. So your mom was putting the pieces together. And this was targeting your weight gain because you were saying the cocktail wasn't really focused on you…
Brooke Hoover: Yes.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: the way it was more so about let's get you regulated. Let's get your hormones into place, and sometimes a lot of women, the experience that when it comes to their hair loss, …
Brooke Hoover: right
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: the dermatologists focuses so much on the scalp that they end up like Now you're scalp is nice and healthy, but you lost all your hair from the game,…
Brooke Hoover: Yeah. Yeah.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: so this way you were getting the whole approach which is what you want it because you wanted to lose that weight,…
Brooke Hoover: Yes.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: it was more than just about regulating that period so what's your mom? she put you in onto this Mediterranean diet. How did you start to incorporate this Mediterranean diet?
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: You eventually get to go off that medication, what started to happen?
Brooke Hoover: and Dr. Wendy Lane and my mom or still in North Carolina at this point, I'm in Brooklyn and I would go see Dr. Lane every six months, and there's no telemedicine. This was the early 2000s. So that was also the hard thing so a lot of my good friends in Brooklyn, we all live near each other and we would make healthy meals together. I was really grateful to my best friend's Josh and MSC jumped on that train with me and we would make stuffed bell peppers, but with no white rice things like that, so I did start to lose weight. Being in Brooklyn and having to walk a lot of places that helped as well and at one point Dr. Lane and I'm not making her the villain here. I'm just making the modern medical system the villain she put me on a different birth control pill. I believe that we switched from Ortho tricyclone low to Yas or something like that.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC:
Brooke Hoover: And about maybe a week or two after being on it. I was walking up the stairs in Brooklyn out of the subway and I just fainted in the street and I totally blamed the birth control because nothing else was different in my life. my blood sugar wasn't low. Nothing. it's not like I had that issue, so I called her and I explained to her what happened and I was like, what do you think? Maybe I should try something else like this is very hard, I just fainted in the middle of the street and she goes you're a woman you're just gonna have to deal with and maybe it was because I wasn't local to her at the time. So I was just flying home and I would see her when I would go home every couple months or so.
00:25:00
Brooke Hoover: And that's when screw it. I said enough with the metformin enough with these especially enough of the birth control pill because birth control, ended up creating heart conditions in my aunt. So I said definitely not with the birth control. and I eventually got off the aldak tones for an electron for the hair growth. I said, I'm gonna do it the natural way. So I added herbs such as Vitex into my diet. but this was all Looked at with the acupuncturist and a naturopath. So I said kind of peace out to a Dr. Lane, but I thanked her for where she got me to in that journey and I started seeking natural remedies because I learned if I have a chronic condition. I don't want to constantly be on meds for the rest of my life. I did the math I said, I can't be a number of control for the rest of my life and it has been gosh 20 years or so, and I've been regulating it ever since knock on wood naturally.
Brooke Hoover: Yeah, I have a great primary care physician who I follow up with who understands and respects that and also will call me out when we need to regulate but I'm on no prescription meds right now for PCOS or anything else.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: That is wonderful. And I also want to thank you for bringing up the point about when the relationship. Needed to end because I also think women need to understand that too, along our journey, there are people who have seasons in our lives,
Brooke Hoover: yeah.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: okay your season was up when you said to me deal with it. You're a woman because now you sound like every other person out there. So then you…
Brooke Hoover: right
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: it's gonna lead me to think it's like, did you put me on this? Yes because you got paid from this pharmaceutical why am I like, so it's gonna create this so it's like, what thanks for getting me to this point, but there's got to be a better way, there's got to be a better way and you decided
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: to want that better way for yourself, and how you want that better way for yourself, some women they'll be like, I'll just stick to the ibuprofen every month, they'll stick to it, but then there's some it's like no To do this. Naturally I choose to control this naturally and I think once you make that decision and all you do start make putting a little steps Alton all this information starts to come into you and that's when you get aligned with everyone that needs to be aligned with you because now you've changed your mentality about it. So now you're getting people who's aligned with your mentality and who can help you along this part of your journey, and I think that's beautiful that you are absolutely on no prescriptions. You guys did you hear that? She's not in your prescriptions. and she's regulating her period for the audience. Would you mind going through
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: How maybe you will start regulating your period through certain meals maybe an example, of a meal and what phase that you might be in maybe if you're ovulating and you're feeling something or what's going on.
Brooke Hoover: You So yes, I'll give you all an example yesterday. I am a week away from starting my period I track it on my homemade handwritten calendar. So I track it. I know you're big into the atmos Tanya. So I saw I'm supposed to start Tuesday the 9th and yesterday I woke up and I was in beast mode and I beasted and…
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: that
Brooke Hoover: I was eating I think granola can have a lot of sugar the kind I have has seven grams of added sugar. I was like, I don't care. I'm beasting on granola with peanut butter because at least the peanut butter the fat and the protein or regulating that sugar but I just kept eating it and then I just wanted to keep beasting and I saw my acupuncturist and I talked to her and I was like Britain I was like, why am I like wanting to be all the sugary stuff? I was like when my body really needs a piece of salmon, so I had salmon and salad last night.
Brooke Hoover: To kind of be more satiated because you can feed yourself and I'm telling myself this because I eat a lot of nuts and seeds all day and I was doing seed cycling for a while for my period but I didn't notice any difference with that. But sometimes you don't need nuts or seeds or cookies or chips or little sort of snacky things or protein powder for God's sakes. You don't need that. You just need whether you're vegetarian or not like salmon, obviously, if you eat meat eggs, maybe a few just eat eggs, or a stir fry tofu with a lot of vegetables you need protein of some sort beans legumes and fiber and that really helps me at least kind of calm the blood sugar because the blood sugar is what spikes and makes everything go crazy including mentally and physically so that's just one example, but it's like if I want to have something crazy, I'm gonna have something
00:30:00
Brooke Hoover: Crazy, I have a vegan peanut butter pie. I've made with a lot of coconut butter in it. I might have that later. It has no sugar added dark chocolate because that makes me feel full. Because I know if I go have a ton of cookies or sugar or chocolate cake. It's going to make me I don't care about the weight at this point. I've lost a hundred pounds and I want people not to focus on the weight focus on your mental health because if I eat a lot of sugar or carbs, it's going to make me even have more anxiety than I already do. And around your period it gets even worse. So I'm trying to normalize the mental component as well as the physical component with satiating foods like that.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: that's great because
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: You're allowing us to see how you satisfy that, through making a healthier choice because it's funny because during that time for me too, and I'm a week away. I start craving and it's specific types of desserts, it literally has to have a certain type of texture a crepe cake, or a moose, a Creme Brule it has to be that way and last month. It was all about pancakes and peanut butter for me. literally I took a jar of peanut butter and I just started spreading for my pigs because I was just craving like something thick but something sweet…
Brooke Hoover: Yeah.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: but I was also creating peanut butter and I'm like, man, let's put this together and I was So Satisfied and unapologetically and…
Brooke Hoover: Good.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: I love how you said, you satisfy that and was like you said no,
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: No worries about your weight, it's okay dude. It's okay and I think that's something very important for us as women to understand. It's It's okay if you want to eat that like it's okay.
Brooke Hoover: All right. You're bleed a lot or even if you're not on your period or even if you're menopausal approach menopausal, you're human you're hungry, stressed life takes a lot of energy eat. It's not going to why do we have to worry about staying in this Barbie box
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Yes, and I I love that for our audience because that's what it's about because I'm not gonna lie. I had no shame and…
Brooke Hoover: Good.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: eating that pancake and peanut butter. I was like nip. I'm gonna do it and it felt great too and it's okay. It's not like this is something you eat every single day, you…
Brooke Hoover: right right
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: this month is gonna be different, I'll probably be down at the Tea House, having my Purity and having my green tea cupcake, probably every single day for five days and I won't care, and it's okay and I love that and I love how you were able to honor your body and honor your feelings.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: and I love that and I hope that those who are listening can really gain and learn from your stories. You're off a prescription. You learned how to regulate, through diet and exercise and you sought out the appropriate professions to also do so based on what was going on with you. So you took all the necessary steps and you committed to having this type of Lifestyle for yourself and you made that decision and truly is very inspirational and thank you so much for letting us know about your story. Is there anything that you would like to share for anyone who is dealing with PCOS right now?
Brooke Hoover: First off, I wish you and your podcast and your teachings had existed when I was starting my period it would have made me feel like I had a community and would have made me feel a lot better. So I'm just saying that anyone out there whether you have PCOS or not, just take everything Moment by moment day by day try to not beat yourself up. Remember it's like I don't want to say anything that's so cliche but it really is true, find your team of healthcare practitioners.
00:35:00
Brooke Hoover: Take your knowledge, don't go down a WebMD search, too much to drive yourself crazy keep the mental health component and with the physical health you're exercising and eating right for your mental health as well as your physical health and listen to people like Ms. Tonya product. I thought of advice.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: No, no, it was great. No, that was great. I appreciate it. And I'm sure that our audience appreciates as well. Thank you so much Brooke for your Thai. This is truly an honor and a pleasure Brooke you guys with who's that fat girl? So make sure you check her out and listen to her podcast. Make sure that you follow subsribe. because she is all about that. she is here to help you along your journey because she's been there before. Okay, it's not like she just
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: In college just reading books and then just want to know she's experienced Okay, and it's not like something that's just all of a sudden, this is over a decade of understanding and learning, about the body and she is going to give you a shortcut, for you to learn more about how you can use, dieting to help not only with your physical but your mental health. So thank you so much Brooke for joining us.
Brooke Hoover: It was great. Thank you so much for everything. You're doing to help all the people out there.
Ms Tonya Productions, LLC: Thank you. And we're gonna go into our last portion of our unapologetically woman. So stay tuned.