In this eye-opening episode of PCOS Unfiltered, Lindsie sits down with Allison Cale, founder of The Confidence Clinic, to explore a side of PCOS that’s often overlooked—thin women struggling with the same hormonal and metabolic imbalances as those with higher BMIs. Together, they unpack how insulin resistance can quietly affect women who appear “healthy” on the outside and why new research is redefining PCOS beyond weight alone. Allison breaks down the evolving diagnostic criteria for PCOS, the myths surrounding insulin resistance, and the hidden signs many women miss—like fatigue, brain fog, and disrupted sleep. She also shares what functional labs can reveal long before symptoms escalate, and how lifestyle, stress, and nutrition play pivotal roles in restoring hormone balance. If you’ve ever been told “your labs look fine” or felt dismissed because you don’t fit the typical PCOS mold, this episode will help you understand what’s really going on beneath the surface—and how to start advocating for your own healing journey.
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(0:02 - 0:21) Welcome back to PCOS Unfiltered, the podcast where we cut through the noise and get real about what it takes to heal from the inside out. I'm your host, Lindsie, and today we're diving into a conversation that I know some of you have been waiting for. When most people think of PCOS, they picture weight struggles.
(0:22 - 0:59) In fact, you've probably heard the statistic that up to 80% of women with PCOS are overweight. But what about the women who aren't? What about the ones who are thin, yet still dealing with irregular cycles, fatigue, hair growth, and yes, insulin resistance? To unpack this often overlooked side of PCOS, I'm joined by Allison Cale, the founder of the Confidence Clinic. Allison specializes in helping women optimize hormones and blood sugar, and she brings a refreshing perspective on what's really happening beneath the surface when weight isn't the issue, but the symptoms are still very real.
(1:00 - 1:20) As always, the content shared on PCOS Unfiltered is for informational and educational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the host and guests are not intended to serve as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your diet, exercise, or treatment plan.
(1:20 - 1:35) The information shared is based on personal experience and expert interviews, and is not a substitute for professional medical guidance. If you've ever felt dismissed because you don't look like the typical PCOS patient, this episode is for you. Now let's get into it.
(1:43 - 1:54) Welcome! Super excited to have Alison here with us for the first time, maybe not the last, I don't know. She's super knowledgeable on this. I love it.
(1:56 - 2:27) So, for those of you who don't know you yet, probably everybody listening, can you share what inspired you to start the Confidence Clinic and why you focus so deeply on hormones and blood sugar optimization? Sure! So, thank you for having me on today. I'm super excited to talk all things blood sugar, hormones, and kind of deep dive into PCOS and some things for our female listeners. So, like Lindsie said, most of you probably don't know me.
(2:27 - 2:55) I'm Allison Cale, I'm the owner of the Confidence Clinic, and we specialize in hormone optimization for women, PCOS, PMDD, blood sugar dysfunction, among many other topics, and so I'm super excited and passionate about this. There were many reasons that encouraged me to start my own clinic, mostly because I was just kind of fed up with the way the traditional medicine system was working. I was only able to spend 15 minutes with a patient.
(2:55 - 3:25) I never was really able to get to the root cause of things for people. Kind of just felt like I was pushing, you know, prescriptions on people just to keep their symptoms at bay and never really optimize them or make them feel good. And so, kind of when COVID hit, I kind of took the chance to break off on my own and I wanted to create a safe space for women who, a place where they can feel valued, they feel heard, they feel seen, and that is what I have done with the Confidence Clinic.
(3:25 - 3:41) So that is kind of how we got here, I'm super excited about it. That's awesome. And so, for anybody in the Tampa Bay area, you can definitely go see her, but you do some stuff online, virtual as well, correct? We do, yeah.
(3:41 - 3:59) So we see anybody who lives in the state of Florida, we do everything virtually. If you don't want to come to the office, that's fine, we have people who live two blocks from us and literally do everything virtual. We draw all of our own labs in our clinic, however, we also have a contract with LabCorp, so for people who don't live local, we get all their blood work done at LabCorp.
(4:00 - 4:10) So it's super easy and convenient. Good, good, good. PCOS is often framed as a condition that primarily affects women who are overweight.
(4:10 - 4:26) I mean, I've heard a statistic, I think, of up to like 80% of women that have it are overweight. But a lot of times that's not the full story. So can you explain why insulin resistance can also show up in women who aren't struggling with their weight at all? Sure.
(4:27 - 5:07) So this is actually a really important concept because we're moving right into 2026, and PCOS is no longer going to be framed based on the diagnostic criteria that it has been for many years in the past. So a lot of physicians, traditional medicine providers, we were trained very much to recognize PCOS as a patient who meets three criteria. One of those being a BMI that is over a certain number, a metabolic change such as like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, things like that, and then also whether or not they have a round face and or excessive hair growth.
(5:08 - 5:38) But now that we have, you know, in 2025, moving to 2026, we've done so much more research and we understand that that is not the case and that PCOS goes so much deeper than just those metabolic criteria, it goes to the cellular level. And so now, according to the diagnostic criteria, they actually have developed something called a thin PCOS. And so this kind of takes away that whole weight component and focuses more on the actual root cause of what PCOS is.
(5:39 - 6:07) So when you think of weight, it is no longer just a classification for PCOS. Sure, weight gain can worsen insulin resistance, worsen PCOS, worsen metabolic dysfunction, but it is no longer a diagnostic criteria for that. So it's very important that we shed light on thinner women or thinner population who will be experiencing and struggling with PCOS-like symptoms, who will often get brushed under the rug and misdiagnosed because they don't meet that traditional criteria.
(6:08 - 6:21) Yeah. Yeah. So what's the danger of that oversight, you know, of these women that have it, that are thinner, that are just getting dismissed because they look fine? Right.
(6:21 - 6:37) So when you look at the short term, probably not much. But what matters is in the long run. So these women who are, you know, oftentimes having irregular cycles, irregular periods, their blood sugar is essentially on a roller coaster.
(6:37 - 6:51) So high highs, low lows, their cells become resistant to insulin over time, which we can kind of go into in a little bit. But insulin is basically what pulls the sugar inside the cell. So it's not floating in the bloodstream, causing cardiovascular damage.
(6:51 - 7:15) So over time, what's happening is they're increasing their risk for diabetes, for high blood pressure, for cardiovascular disease. So metabolically, all those things are setting them up for failure later on in life, regardless of their weight, because oftentimes their weight will not be affected by those things. The other thing is that lots of times women with PCOS, they have something called anovulatory cycle.
(7:16 - 7:30) So lots of times PCOS patients don't make enough of their own progesterone. And so with that, they will have anovulatory, meaning they're not ovulating. So they will struggle so incredibly difficult to get pregnant.
(7:30 - 7:58) They will end up going through infertility treatments, IVF, all sorts of things when in the long, you know, in the short term, had they corrected their PCOS, corrected their insulin resistance, and corrected their progesterone deficiency, the long term effects would never be there. So outside of just weight as a problem, there are many cellular and metabolic things. Now, they're actually doing a lot of research surrounding cancer.
(7:58 - 8:16) And one of the causes of cancer, they're saying is blood sugar dysregulation. So what they're finding is that blood sugar and or sugar, glucose, insulin is what fuels the cancer cells. And so they feed on that sugar, being outside in the bloodstream, instead of in a cell where it should be.
(8:16 - 8:39) So in the long run, it can definitely pose a lot of health risk for females when it's left untreated. Yeah, I mean, I talk so, so much about insulin resistance on this podcast. And I think part of it, yes, like we're starting to understand and like you said, you know, there's this shift, as I tell people, women that you don't even need the cysts on your ovaries anymore to be diagnosed, you know.
(8:40 - 9:10) But yeah, there's this shift towards really understanding now that insulin resistance is a huge driver, but it's also a huge driver of so many other things. So, you know, I don't know if all of my listeners have PCOS or, you know, maybe they might have it, but understanding that whether you have the diagnosis or not, and you're dealing with stuff like this, you could still be affecting a lot of the other systems of the body. I think that's super important.
(9:11 - 9:20) Yeah. And I think, you know, a big thing, too, is there's a lot of females who don't know they have PCOS. So they will find an actual good provider, get blood work done.
(9:20 - 9:39) And like for us, for example, in our clinic, oftentimes when I mention possible PCOS to patients based on something called an FSH and an LH flip, which we draw in their blood work, they're very blindsided by this diagnosis. They had no idea. And then we start to go back over their health history.
(9:39 - 9:44) They struggled with infertility. They struggled with irregular periods. They had skipped cycles.
(9:44 - 9:47) They have excessive hair growth. They have bloating. They struggle to lose weight.
(9:47 - 9:57) So then it all comes to a head and they finally get this diagnosis. But like you said, is oftentimes there it's missed. And there's so many females struggling with symptoms of PCOS.
(9:58 - 10:34) But traditional providers just overlook it because they're thin or because they don't fit that traditional criteria. Yeah. And I mean, the blood work can also our bodies can compensate, you know, for a while. Right. I mean, so like labs can be normal. And like you said, and then the physician looks at them and says, well, everything looks fine. You know, I'll see you back in a year or if something gets worse, let me know. But as I also I've talked a lot about it on this podcast and as I've talked to more women, I'm like, you know, your body, you know, if something's off. And even when I was an ER nurse, this is something I used to tell patients.
(10:34 - 10:55) And I don't know if I believed it as much then as I do now. But but but, you know, if something feels off, I feel like deep down. And and so, yeah, even if the labs, the labs that the traditional, you know, in the traditional health care sense, you know, that a physician would order might be normal.
(10:55 - 11:19) But there's usually a deeper layer to that that's getting missed. Yeah. And lots of providers, they're just not trained to remove that first onion peel to peel back the layers and to look at it, because I am, you know, traditionally trained. I'm a nurse practitioner. I've been a nurse practitioner for close to since 2015. So going close, well, 10 years now.
(11:19 - 11:29) And before I started doing this, before I went back and got certified in functional medicine, I didn't know any of this. I very much, you know, one track. OK, we check a hemoglobin A1C.
(11:30 - 11:48) OK, well, what does that tell us? That tells us an average blood sugar over three months. How long does it take an A1C to rise before someone is considered pre-diabetic or diabetic? Now that I know better and know more now, things like insulin levels, we can calculate HOMA-IRs. We can calculate C-peptides.
(11:48 - 12:00) Like there's so many markers that will show up in the bloodstream, you know, as an ER nurse, SED rate, CRP or inflammatory markers, they're going to rise long before your traditional A1C. Exactly. Yeah.
(12:00 - 12:05) Yeah. I can't stress that enough. I know, like I said, I've talked I've talked a lot about that on other episodes, too.
(12:05 - 12:31) So what are some of the common myths that you see about insulin resistance, you know, that it's only about weight or it's only linked to overeating, especially in the sense of carbs? But what are some of those myths that you think we need to clear up? Sure. So, yeah, I think you kind of nailed it on the head there. But most people, you know, well, first of all, a lot of people do not even know what insulin resistance is.
(12:32 - 12:48) Lots of people only will link sugars to diabetes. And that is so far from from it. Once you have diabetes, you have missed 5, 10, 15 years of your body struggling by the time you become a diabetic.
(12:48 - 13:09) And so I think that the number one myth is, like you said, it only happens if you eat too many sugars and carbs. And it's insulin resistance is so far from just that. There are so many things that impact your body at the cellular level in the way that your cells respond to insulin, chronic stress.
(13:09 - 13:17) I mean, we're all stressed. We live in a very fast paced world like it's very on demand. It's very stressed, high inflammation.
(13:17 - 13:41) Everything we do increases our inflammation. We have to work very hard to lower that poor sleep, medications, hormonal imbalances. When your cortisol is high, why does your cortisol get high back to that stress? I mean, so you can eat clean and you can still have insulin resistance because if you don't wear a continuous glucose monitor, you're not going to know how your body's responding to certain foods.
(13:41 - 14:05) You can eat an apple and it might spike your sugar to 180. That's going to increase your insulin resistance. So I think that's myth number one is that it only happens if you eat too many sugar and carbs. Myth number two, I think, is it's only a problem for people who are overweight. And so, again, back to like when you look at the picture of a diabetic patient or a patient who has a traditional PCOS, it goes back to that weight. And that is so far from the truth.
(14:05 - 14:36) I have plenty of thin women who now have got proper diagnosis who, yes, they have PCOS, but hand in hand with that, they have also been insulin resistant for a very long time. So insulin resistance is not just about the number on the scale. I think number three myth that's really important is I see in the diet culture a lot of times nutritional coaches and things like that will just say, well, just go on a keto diet, just eat way less carbs, don't eat any carbs.
(14:36 - 15:22) And that that is really far from the truth, because as you know, you know, being nutrition coach yourself, while cutting carbs can temporarily lower your blood glucose, it doesn't necessarily fix it because you need to repair the sensitivity to the cells. And so that's one thing that I see a lot of is people will work with nutrition coaches and they'll say, well, they have me on a no carb diet. OK, that's going to work, you know, for a couple of weeks and then you're going to burn out. And then I think the last myth that I think is really important for people to hear is that it's a permanent condition and that is also a myth. So there are many things that you can do to improve your insulin resistance and restore your cellular sensitivity. It takes time.
(15:23 - 16:04) You have to find a team to work with that can help you with the data, figure out a lifestyle that works for you, lower your stress, lower your inflammation, decrease your cortisol. It definitely takes time, but it is not a permanent condition. So I think those are some of the most common myths that I hear talking to women in the clinic. And I love that last one, of course, because, yeah, I mean, that's with most things. But but I always say this, like I hate to bash traditional medicine, but that's a great a great example right there, because most traditionally trained, you know, physicians will say, here's your diagnosis. This is a lifelong condition.
(16:04 - 16:31) This is what we'll do to manage it. You know, and so. People just think, OK, then I'm just stuck with this, this is permanent, there's no other way out, it's just something I have to deal with my entire life and and hopefully that the more they hear something like that, that it's not a permanent condition. And yes, you have to be patient with it. It's going to not it's not going to happen overnight, but it can can be fixed in the long term. Yeah.
(16:31 - 16:57) You know, I hear a lot of people talk about genetics and that's something that kind of bothers me sometimes, because while, yes, you are made with your genetic makeup, you can alter that makeup by living a healthier lifestyle. So oftentimes I will see people say, you know, when we do the health history with them, well, my parents were diabetics, so I'm going to be a diabetic, too. Like and that is so far from the truth.
(16:57 - 17:23) When you look at certain conditions, they really are lifestyle based conditions and you can alter your DNA pattern to outlive or outrun those conditions. And it doesn't have to be that hard and you don't have to live that way forever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You may have inherited the genes, but you might have also inherited the lifestyle, you know, and that's that's where you have to kind of break the cycle for sure.
(17:23 - 17:37) Yeah. Going back to the other one about carbs, I loved that one, too, because I do hear that a lot from a lot of women. All the doctor told me just to eat, you know, low carb and that's going to fix it all.
(17:38 - 18:11) But the other thing is, too, and this is a lot of what I talk about, like during my program and, you know, with clients and maybe even potential clients, is that all of that tracking, like going back to keto, because then you're you're probably more likely tracking all that stuff. Focusing on low carb, it's stressing you out more because you don't know what to eat anymore. You're probably tracking it's just it's adding to your cortisol, to your the rise in cortisol, which is just not it might temporarily fix something, but in the long term, it's not going to.
(18:12 - 18:48) I mean, and you probably see this, too, with your nutrition coaching patients. But when we look at an overall lifestyle of an average female patient who comes through the door, on average, females might be consuming 30 or 40 grams of protein a day. Yeah. And so we are so heavily protein deficient as a country, as a culture. So what are we replacing when we don't have protein? We're replacing it with fast carbs that give you fast energy, raises your serotonin, it makes you feel good. And so that creates this like very vicious cycle with food.
(18:48 - 19:09) And so you got to stop that cycle. And cutting carbs is not the answer for that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. For thinner women with PCOS, what are some of the hidden signs of insulin resistance resistance that may not be as obvious as someone dealing with PCOS that is overweight? Sure. So, yeah, we see this a lot.
(19:09 - 19:19) So I think that hidden symptoms, they kind of come in layers. So some hidden symptoms you might not see. So you might not feel it.
(19:19 - 19:33) You might not see it. And so these can be the early markers rising before your body gets to the point where it's like screaming for help. This is why we tend to do like a full blood workup panel on patients, because these numbers will rise long before a patient even gets symptoms.
(19:34 - 19:50) So, you know, people like to take notes. Things that they should be having their provider check would be things like insulin levels, C-peptide, a sed rate, a CRP, SHBG, a sex hormone binding globulin. Most providers don't even know what that is.
(19:51 - 20:05) SHBG will lower like less than 50 the more insulin resistant a patient comes. Well, what happens when the SHBG gets really low? It frees up a lot of testosterone. So then these PCOS patients have an increase in their free testosterone.
(20:05 - 20:15) Now they get these androgenic symptoms with the facial hair growth. So SHBG is a very early marker to catch insulin resistance. Uric acid can be really helpful.
(20:16 - 20:47) Calculating a HOMA-IR, those are all blood work that will typically rise before you have symptoms. I would say there are a few symptoms that I see frequently in the clinic. And I laugh because before I knew all of this, like I had all of these symptoms and I was just literally doing what the rest of America does, medicating these symptoms with caffeine because you're tired, right? So you see these people, female, male, it can literally be anyone.
(20:47 - 21:17) But for the purpose of this podcast, we'll use a female. These are the females who come through the door who are always craving something sweet in our carbohydrate base. They have this like mid-afternoon, 2 p.m. slump where they're like, I either need to take a nap, eat a cupcake or drink a cup of coffee. Why? Because your blood sugar has been high and crashing and high and crashing all day long. These people will also like feeling brain fog. I say brain fog is like one of the number one symptoms that comes through the door.
(21:18 - 21:29) Brain fog can be, you know, from many, many different things. But when we correct a patient's insulin resistance, guess what goes away? The brain fog. Your brain relies on fat.
(21:29 - 21:36) Your brain relies on protein. You can't be up and down and up and down. You got to be on a stable blood sugar track throughout the day.
(21:37 - 21:48) Also, sometimes symptoms that might get missed. These female patients are like tired, but wired so like they could sleep, but they could also go for days. There can be skin and hair clues.
(21:48 - 22:02) So if you find yourself getting skin tags, that is a sign of insulin resistance. So I will be standing in the grocery store behind someone and I will see the darkening on the back of their neck and their skin tags. And I'm like, they have raging insulin resistance.
(22:03 - 22:23) They probably very high salt diet, menstrual and hormonal imbalances, too. So like cycles that are longer than 35 days, PMS, bloating, mid-cycle spotting, obviously infertility. Those are hormonal imbalances that can be a red flag for PCOS and insulin resistance, fatigue and sleep dysregulation.
(22:24 - 22:32) So these are females who are coming who are saying, like, I could sleep all day long. I sleep eight, nine hours and I still don't feel rested. They have that afternoon slump.
(22:32 - 22:46) They don't feel well. Usually these women will chronically wake up between two and four o'clock in the morning. Usually that's either caused by a spike in your cortisol and or your blood sugar just crashed because you ate terribly all day.
(22:47 - 23:19) So a lot of times as Americans, like we're conditioned like, oh, I look, yeah, I wake up. I wake up to pee. You don't wake up to pee. Your bladder can hold what is it, like 900 milliliters or something and say, you know, as a bedside nurse, just like me, you can hold your bladder for hours if you need to. Yeah. So we really should be able to sleep through the night while we hold our bladder. So the bladder is not what waking people up. I would say the last red flag, like I said, is mood and brain fog. So a lot of women are experiencing anxiety, irritability.
(23:19 - 23:32) They're very affected by not eating, poor concentration. All of these symptoms can be red flags of glucose instability. And so it's not really, you know, back to like the PCOS thing as well.
(23:32 - 23:44) It's not really just one thing. It's a combination of many things that can be affecting patients. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think even, you know, bring it up, go into the bathroom in the middle of the night. I mean, I think it's a good one.
(23:46 - 24:07) And we're waking up because, yeah, a lot of people, like you said, don't associate that with something else going on. When your body feels safe, it's going to naturally shut everything down according to our normal circadian rhythm. And it's going to be like, OK, I can now get good sleep and I can sleep seven, eight hours and not not have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
(24:08 - 24:19) Yeah. I mean, I also hear from a lot of women that the late night eating, the late night craving and snacking, you know, after dinner, just indulging. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(24:19 - 24:45) Or sweets, the sweets that they really dive into, then it might seem like, OK, well, I had a stressful day and I deserve it, you know, and I'm that's just something I've always kind of done and I'm fine with my weight and all that. But no, there's probably something else to that going on. Yeah. And like you said, a lot of people link all of this to weight alone. And it is so much more than that. It really is about your metabolic and cellular activity.
(24:45 - 24:49) Yeah. And it's things you can't see. And it's not always things you can feel.
(24:50 - 24:57) So it's like, well, why do I need to fix it until in the long run? Now you have diabetes. Now you have high blood sugar. Now your blood pressure's high.
(24:57 - 25:10) Now you have cardiovascular disease. Then you go, well, I wish I would have listened to Allison and Lindsie 10 years ago when I was. I wish I would have met my now self like 10 years ago.
(25:11 - 25:34) Yeah, exactly. Like, yeah, how does unmanaged insulin resistance in lean women with PCOS affect hormone balance and symptoms like irregular cycles, hair growth, fatigue, all that good stuff? Sure. So even if you're thin, when you have elevated insulin, it basically amplifies the rest of your hormones.
(25:35 - 25:57) So what it does is it directly stimulates something called FICO cells. Those are in your ovaries. And what they do is they produce more androgens like testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, things like that. At the same time, when your insulin is really high, back to that SHBG marker. So SHBG is sex hormone binding globulin. It is basically a protein.
(25:57 - 26:02) It's made in your liver. It's the way I describe it to my patients. It's like a trolley for your hormones.
(26:02 - 26:14) So it comes in the liver. It's like to to hop on, delivers your hormones all throughout your body. But when your SHBG is too high, it binds to your testosterone, leaving you with very little free testosterone.
(26:14 - 26:26) But when you are insulin resistant, it lowers your SHBG. So it crushes your SHBG and that frees up a lot of testosterone. So this leads to more free testosterone in circulation.
(26:26 - 26:41) So I can usually point women out again back to the public scenario who have PCOS and they might not know it. They usually have very thinning hair. Testosterone works on DHT, dihydrotestosterone that's found in the hair follicles.
(26:41 - 27:01) They will usually keep the shaver in their purse because they're constantly shaving their excess facial hair growth. So, yeah, so hair growth, hair thinning, hair loss, all of those things as well, you know, can be affected by elevated androgen levels floating around in your body. Yeah, yeah.
(27:01 - 27:15) I know I appreciate the the more in-depth, but because it's great. Yeah, it's kind of great to hear that that physiology, you know, part of it for sure. It's hard to wrap your head around it when you don't do it all day.
(27:16 - 27:39) So I just kind of like spit these terms out like they're second nature. But really, it is very eye opening for females who are listening to like document these words down and go and research it, especially for a female who is having irregular cycles. I think if females having irregular cycles and they want to ultimately get pregnant, that that is a huge red flag.
(27:39 - 28:02) They need to really take that seriously in order to re-regulate that before it comes time to get to get pregnant. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that also, you know, whether you're seeing a traditional doctor, whoever it is, but you're educating yourself so you can advocate for yourself, too, so you can have a better conversation with your doctor instead of him just handing you a prescription for something to manage it.
(28:03 - 28:17) You can actually discuss things a little bit more and ask the right questions, too. So, yeah, that's a great point. I mean, and when you look at the traditional medical model, the way it stands today, it runs on an insurance based model.
(28:17 - 28:39) And this bothers a lot of people. So us, for example, the most common call we get is, do you take insurance? And they're really bothered when the answer is no. But what happens when you go to a traditional provider and they are slotted 15 minutes to spend with their patient, right? Because the insurance reimbursement is not high enough to pay the doctor for their time.
(28:39 - 28:49) And so this is how it looks time in and time out. Female goes, they're struggling with X, Y and Z. They only get 15 minutes with their provider. The provider has no idea.
(28:49 - 28:53) So they're like, we'll just draw some labs. They get some very basic labs. The labs come back.
(28:53 - 28:56) Everything is normal. We're really sorry. We don't know why you feel so bad.
(28:57 - 29:28) Versus you go to somewhere that doesn't accept the insurance and they spend 75 minutes with a patient and they get to know their whole entire history. So where I'm going with this is that should people be seeing a physician who is only and or nurse practitioner, PA, GYN, whoever it is, if they're only slotted 15 minutes for that patient, having your research and having the labs that you're looking to have drawn done on a piece of paper before you go, you got to advocate for yourself in that way. Yeah, yeah, the essence.
(29:29 - 29:46) Yeah. And then, I mean, understandably, you might have to really push, especially with the insurance, because because the physician may not want to order those because he thinks the insurance may not cover them or it might take a little extra step or two for them to actually get it covered. So you really.
(29:46 - 30:13) Yeah, that's that's I mean, I love how you put that because you might have to push back a little bit and really, again, advocate for yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And lots of times they don't know how to interpret the labs and not to any phone of their own. We as a traditional, you know, trained provider prior to getting certified in functional medicine, prior to deep diving in hormones, I also didn't know. So when female patients would come and say, like, can you draw an insulin level on me? I'm like, I'll never tell me that, you know.
(30:13 - 30:24) So then now what now I have to spend time at home researching what an insulin level is. That's not going to work for me, you know, so lots of times and it's no fault of their own. It really is.
(30:24 - 30:49) It's just the way the training is today. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I think even I've heard I recently did a podcast with somebody who specializes in papromyalgia, you know, and to her point was that it's not even being taught much. And I think PCOS is probably the same. I mean, and, you know, during medical school, I think some of these conditions are just not being taught to the extent that they should be.
(30:50 - 31:10) And maybe that's because in the past they weren't as prevalent. But now we are definitely heading in that direction, I think. Yeah. Definitely lack of knowledge. Yeah. Can you walk us through how insulin resistance develops in the body even when someone isn't overweight? Yeah, this is actually my favorite topic.
(31:12 - 31:35) So so much so that I created a glucose course because I'm like super passionate about this. So essentially what happens time and time again, everyone on the podcast will probably raise their hand, if not at least 90 percent of people will. What do you do? You wake up, you have an empty stomach, you drink your morning coffee, your morning coffee suppresses your appetite.
(31:35 - 31:45) You don't find yourself hungry until 11 o'clock in the morning. Come 11 o'clock, you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm starving. So then you're like ravenous.
(31:45 - 31:47) You're looking for whatever it is. You find the bagel. OK, great.
(31:48 - 31:53) I've got a bagel. So I eat the bagel. It spikes up your blood sugar because it's all carbohydrate based.
(31:53 - 31:57) There is no protein. There is no healthy fat with it. And then your blood sugar crashes. (31:57 - 32:02) Then it's lunchtime. And now you're ravenous again. So your blood sugar spikes and then it crashes.
(32:02 - 32:09) Now it's dinnertime and you eat a protein and a vegetable. OK, great. But then now it's snack time.
(32:09 - 32:20) Now you drink the red wine because like you said, you deserve it. You eat the cake, you eat whatever it is that's calling your name. So all day long, we are literally high highs, low lows, blood sugar rollercoaster.
(32:20 - 32:26) Like we need seatbelts. It's literally all over the place. So what happens over time is you have a cell.
(32:27 - 32:35) These little cells are like floating all around in your body. And what insulin does is insulin is like the key. So the key comes to the door and it opens the door.
(32:36 - 32:54) We flings light open and then it takes all the blood sugar that's floating around in your bloodstream. It shoves it inside the cell, closes the door, and then your body metabolizes or processes it. What happens with insulin resistance over time? And this is not weight dependent in any way, shape or form is your cells become resistant.
(32:54 - 33:11) So now what happens is you have a cell, the insulin comes and it goes to put the key in the door and it's like, oh, my gosh, Lindsay, change the lock like I can't open this the door. And so now the door is locked. And so what happens is now you have all of this glucose or blood sugar floating around in your bloodstream.
(33:11 - 33:32) When you look at what blood glucose actually is and when how it reacts in the bloodstream, it's like tiny shards of glass, basically. So now you have your bloodstream, you have your arteries, you have your veins and you have tiny shards of glass floating all around, nicking the sides of it. So like for a few months, it's going to probably be OK because your body is really incredible.
(33:32 - 33:38) It's going to repair itself. But for a few years, that's where you get that increased risk. You're going to get an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
(33:38 - 33:50) You're going to develop high blood pressure. This can lead to so many things on the back end. That's why you need to improve that cellular sensitivity so that that key can always fit into that cell to open it up.
(33:51 - 34:02) That's I love it so much. Really, I couldn't tell. No, I mean, that's that's great.
(34:03 - 34:13) Yes, I think I've used that key analogy before, but not not not like that. I love that. OK, you got this very, you know, you just got to break it down.
(34:14 - 34:42) And when you do, it's easier for people to understand and then they can go, wow. OK, yeah. In the long run, this is really affecting my body. Yeah. I hope today's conversation with Alison helps shine a light on a piece of PCOS that doesn't get talked about nearly enough that lean women can struggle just as much with insulin resistance and hormone imbalances, even when weight isn't part of the picture. If that's you, remember your symptoms are valid.
(34:42 - 34:48) You're not imagining things. And there are answers out there beyond the standard. Just lose weight advice.
(34:48 - 34:59) You can learn more about Allison and her work at The Confidence Clinic. I'll link her resources in the show notes so you can connect with her. And as always, thank you for tuning in to PCOS Unfiltered.
(35:00 - 35:12) If this episode resonates with you, be sure to share it with a friend who needs to hear it. Until next time, keep nourishing your body, healing from the inside out and thriving unfiltered and unstoppable.