I reached out to Motlekar to share my findings and ask her if she thought regular HIIT might have been behind my worsening symptoms. “I typically see clients who have a hectic and highly stressful lifestyle and don’t have proper stress management behaviour in place,” she explains. “Adding in HIIT does seem to make their symptoms worse.

“HIIT adds a temporary stressor on the body and cortisol does rise for a short period but comes back down naturally. But for someone whose cortisol is consistently high (as with PCOS), over-exercising or doing a lot of HIIT can make symptoms worse.”

But the question remained: why was my body reacting this way now? A decade ago, HIIT seemed to work for me and now, it felt like it was actively making things worse. Lauren Chiren has been a PT for 24 years and is founder of Women of a Certain Stage. She’s dedicated her life to educating the nation about women’s health and how hormonal changes affect women’s lives, and she explained to me that the way women’s bodies react to training types can change as we age. Our hormonal levels peak in our 20s and start to decline in our 30s, she explains. Chiren also flags that menopausal experiences differ according to ethnic background – with hormonal change happening earlier for some. That struck a chord, given my Middle Eastern heritage.

“We know that for South Asian women, the average age of menopause is around four or five years earlier than Western women, so their hormone levels may start to reduce in their late 30s rather than 40s,” she says. “While this area needs more research, it might have an impact on training.”

“I ‘reversed’ my PCOS symptoms in my 20s – has HIIT now made them worse than ever?”