Nothing seem to be working :'(

BudhiRooh

Hey MFP fellows,

I'm a 33 years old female with PCOS and my height is 5' 11. My highest weight was 242 lbs and now I'm at 207 lbs after a year. I've tried to eat clean and did not follow any gym routine with this weight loss.

But now it seems that nothing is working for me. It's been a month and a half that I've been gaining / losing 2 - 5 pounds and the same cycle is repeating. My weight seem to be fluctuating between 207 - 213 lbs and it is very frustrating.

Now, I've a few questions regarding this situation.

Eating:
What should I eat? Usually my routine is as follows:

Breakfast:
2 fried eggs with 4 slices of bread
1 cup tea with creamer

Lunch:
Egg salad sandwich
or
Beans salad with spring mix

Dinner:
2 pears
2 red apples

I've read somewhere that if you want to lose weight you should measure everything that you're eating? That might be a right thing to do because I think when I make salad, I eat a pretty large serving of salad and I do gain 1 or 2 pounds the next day. I'm thinking to get a digital scale but how to use it to measure food for weight loss?

What in your opinion is a good diet for losing weight? I'm more into meat and carbs. What would be your suggestion for diet based changes?

Exercise:
For the past one month I've been walking regularly at brisk pace for an hour daily but now as the cold is starting I'm unable to go out for my walk. What are the exercises that you can recommend me? I do have gym membership (golds gym) but just don't like going over there.

I'm looking to lose around 13 pounds by the end of December and want to get rid of being into 200's lbs. Please advice what should I do in order to lose these stubborn pounds?

LKArgh

You do not lose weight by eating specific things, you lose weight by limiting calories. What you eat does not matter for weight loss. So, try to build a balanced meal plan to protect your health, count calories to determine portions that will help you lose weight. At least when you are starting, use a food scale for everything, it is very easy to be very wrong when just estimating things.
As for exercise, especially with PCOS, it is definitely needed to control symptoms. Whatever you like, as long as you commit to it, it will work. So, either buy warmer clothes and underwear and keep walking, or find something else to do. If you already have a gym membership, you can just take your music with you and walk on the treadmill, even if you hate everything else at the gym. Or maybe try a class? Join a pool?

Yi5hedr3

Cut out fruits and bread. What do you fry eggs in.? Kerrygold butter or coconut butter ok. No Vega table or margerines or canola. Start counting carbs...keep below 120/day.

yarwell

PCOS often comes with insulin resistance, in which case the bread and fruit may not be doing you any favours. Try bacon and egg for breakfast instead.

Overall that looks light on protein too, dinner is just sugar.

Sued0nim

Get a digital scale, weigh everything and calorie count accurately

Your breakfast is roughly around 680 calories ...that's with dry toast ...add butter to your toast and you're probably at 800 to 900 calories

Dinner around 400 calories ...yes just 4 pieces of fruit - and size can vary that

Rachey1234

I agree weigh everything. It is very easy to be wrong. I would try 2 boiled eggs and two pieces of toast at breakfast and a protien shake. Then snack maybe 6 strawberries and one slice of paw paw. Lunch pita bread filled with spinach, beetroot, alfalfa sprouts and chicken. Apple for another snack, then dinner boiled egg, cup of green beans, afew baby carrots and a tomato. This is basically my staple of food for a day except I don't have the toast and eggs at breakfast and have two eggs for dinner. Also I don't have PCOS. But set yourself out a menu and stick to it for a week to see how it goes, that way you know exactly how many calories you are eating in a day.

Sued0nim

rabbitjb wrote: »

Get a digital scale, weigh everything and calorie count accurately

Your breakfast is roughly around 680 calories ...that's with dry toast ...add butter to your toast and you're probably at 800 to 900 calories

Dinner around 400 calories ...yes just 4 pieces of fruit - and size can vary that

By the way for 400 calories I could have a huge bowl of home made chicken cacciatore, rice and side salad and get a decent protein hit and great satiety

Your breakfast is an entire pizza worth of calories

RodaRose

b-fast: 2 Bacon and 2 eggs (with no bread), glass of soy or cow milk, 1 cup tea with creamer
lunch: Bean salad with spring mix OR bean soup along with some cut up cucumbers
dinner: Two baked chicken thighs. Stir fried zucchini

Pawsforme

I'm much shorter than you, so I may not have a good idea of the calories you need. But I would consider eliminating at least two slices of bread at breakfast (and preferably three). If two eggs and one or two pieces of toast aren't enough, I'd consider a small piece of fruit, a slice or two of bacon or a sausage instead of so much bread.

Your dinner is awful. Fruit is healthful for most people, but four pieces at once is a sugar overload. And my understanding is that people with PCOS tend to have blood sugar issues, so that's definitely a good reason to watch your sugar intake. Instead of all that fruit I'd eat some chicken/fish/lean red meat and a goodly amount of veggies or a green salad with just a bit of dressing.

crb426

Here is an example of what my day looks like, which I think might be right up your alley:

For breakfast:
One of my favorites is to build a breakfast sandwich with:
1 english muffin
1 scrambled egg
1 thin slice of ham (lunch meat)
a half slice of american cheese (The sandwich is very filling at only about 250 calories.)

For lunch:
3 cups spring mix or romaine lettuce
1 Tbsp. salad dressing (it's a very little drizzling, but does the job)
2 oz. grilled chicken or 1 packet of tuna
1 apple (about 250-300 calories all together)

For dinner:
1 cup of brown rice
2 cups steamed broccoli or canned green beans
1 tilapia filet, baked with teriyaki sauce (about 400 calories total)

*Notice that all 3 meals added together equals 950 calories, just a little more than the amount of calories of your breakfast listed above.*

Then I fill in any extra calories I need to reach my goal with healthy snacks: greek yogurt, celery and carrot sticks, granola bar (the 100 calorie kind), an apple, etc.

By filling in with lots of veggies and lean proteins, and holding back on things like butter, bread, and mayonnaise, I am able to have a pretty plentiful and satisfying day of food.

VintageFeline

Example meals above are good but I'm going to go more general because very few people eat the same thing for every meal every day.

6 slices of bread a day is really a lot of calories on one item, try switching it out with some protein (cheese, bacon, chicken, even lean steak) and veggies to get more bang for your calorie buck. I love adding some cheese and sauteeing some mushrooms to have with a slice of toast and scrambled egg. It makes it more satisfying without having to load up on more bread.

But the biggest thing is to weigh solids and measure liquids and track absolutely everything. Are you putting butter on that toast? Are you using an oily dressing on your salad? That's going to bump up your intake quite a lot. You had more calories to act as a buffer when you were bigger, it's time to tighten everything up and maybe start adjusting your choices so you are still satisfied.

sweetpea03b

VintageFeline wrote: »

Example meals above are good but I'm going to go more general because very few people eat the same thing for every meal every day.

6 slices of bread a day is really a lot of calories on one item, try switching it out with some protein (cheese, bacon, chicken, even lean steak) and veggies to get more bang for your calorie buck. I love adding some cheese and sauteeing some mushrooms to have with a slice of toast and scrambled egg. It makes it more satisfying without having to load up on more bread.

But the biggest thing is to weigh solids and measure liquids and track absolutely everything. Are you putting butter on that toast? Are you using an oily dressing on your salad? That's going to bump up your intake quite a lot. You had more calories to act as a buffer when you were bigger, it's time to tighten everything up and maybe start adjusting your choices so you are still satisfied.

Absolutely this. I have borderline PCOS and avoid bread like the plague. I also find the more "empty" carbs I eat, the less the scale moves. I stick to 1 piece of fruit/day and try to get at least 2 servings of veggies. I eat a carby snack before workout and that's it. I skip carbs at dinner altogether most days. The last few weeks I've been eating more carbs and haven't lost any weight so it seems to be the "magic formula" for me. Good luck!

kshama2001

BudhiRooh wrote: »

...What in your opinion is a good diet for losing weight? I'm more into meat and carbs. What would be your suggestion for diet based changes?

Exercise:
For the past one month I've been walking regularly at brisk pace for an hour daily but now as the cold is starting I'm unable to go out for my walk. What are the exercises that you can recommend me? I do have gym membership (golds gym) but just don't like going over there.

I'm looking to lose around 13 pounds by the end of December and want to get rid of being into 200's lbs. Please advice what should I do in order to lose these stubborn pounds?

1. I concur with the previous recommendations of more protein and less bread.

2. Regarding walking in the winter, my mother's neighbor, a tug boat captain in New York, says of winter weather "There is no bad weather, only bad gear."

I have mesh sneakers for the summer and leather sneakers for the winter, which are a little bigger, so I can wear heavier socks or two pairs of regular socks. I also have some options for wet ground and a bit of snow (I like to walk on a trail, which does not get shoveled.) I have knee issues and vastly prefer my sneakers, but I don't plan to be as housebound as I was last winter.

Regarding the rest of you - I layer so that I am a little cold when I start off and can unzip or take off a layer after I heat up.

3. What's your resistance to going to your gym? Do they have group exercise classes? Have you tried those? Do you know what you are doing on the weight machines? If not, have you had a session or two with a trainer to familiarize yourself with them?