I need some serious help!

smcclaycouffer

I need help. No matter what I do or what I eat I'm starving 2hrs later. I'm currently using Sensa to help curb my appetite but its not helping. I do have hypothyroidism and PCOS. Which I'm on meds for. I don't stress eat or emotional eat I eat because I'm hungry and it's all the time. I drink 2-16oz bottles thinking that might help with the hunger but it doesn't. I've been using MFP on and off for 2yrs but can't stick with it. The hunger takes over. The longest I've stuck with this is 4 months and lost 42lbs. I would like the same success and to take it even further. I really want this to work. Please help. TIA

CysterWigs

I have PCOS as well. Here's what I can tell you:

- Start logging your food every day. As in EVERY day, EVERY bite. Remember condiments, etc., because those can be full of sugar.

- Stop using Sensa and start eating right. (Sorry if that sounds mean, but your diet seems really nutrient deficient. Where are your veggies?)

- You have insulin resistance (it's part of the diagnostic criteria for PCOS). This means you should stop eating so much processed foods and switch to a plan that emphasizes vegetable sources of fiber (as opposed to grains) and lean proteins + healthy fats. Stop eating popcorn and carb-rich snack foods. Carbs are not anathema, but should be restricted because *you don't metabolize that stuff like everyone else does.* Insulin resistance is the end result of a chain of bodily events. Usually it starts in the liver as a response to what you eat - like processed foods high in carbs, refined or otherwise. The liver creates the glucose in response to food - but can actually create it in the absence of food as well. This mechanism works fine for regulating blood sugar in normal individuals. You have PCOS. Rest assured, you are not like them. In PCOS, women produce too much glucose in the liver and the muscle cells stop making effective use of it. *This* is what it means to be insulin resistant. You're actually glucose resistant. The insulin is just the chemical messenger that tells the muscles to use the glucose. The muscles don't use the glucose and the body stores it as fat. Eating foods with a high glucose payload (CARBS) exacerbates this process like whoa. Most doctors put women on low-carb, calorie restricted diets when they give the diagnosis, if they don't give you a handful of pills to go along with the lovely pre-diabetes.

- Exercise more. Get a decent HRM and use that as the barometer of how much you're burning per workout. You don't log your exercise or your food very regularly. Cardio is the key to turning the body back into a glucose burning machine. (In fact, the most commonly prescribed pill for PCOS - Metformin - mimics the effects of exercise on the body in order to make muscle tissue less metabolically glucose resistant at the cellular level and can even supply a proxy for insulin when insulin fails to do the trick of opening up the cells to receive glucose, again at the individual cellular level.) Weight training, even in small amounts, can go a long way to preventing injury. Walking is OK, but make sure you do a couple of decent HIIT sessions per week. IMHO, if you haven't broken a sweat, you're not working hard enough.

- Start making more of your own meals. You eat a lot of pre-packaged foods and it is so much more difficult to control your blood sugar when you eat frozen meals and meals prepared by someone else! You don't have to make your own food all the time (I don't) but doing it more times than not gives you control over every part of your diet.

Bottom line: You have crazy cravings because you have PCOS (which causes glucose fluctuations and cravings on its own) and the food you're eating is inducing MORE cravings. Switch your diet for a strict week - make your own food every day with no short cuts for a week - simple things like grilled meat and veg with a nice salad - and those cravings will go away. (No rice, pasta, potatoes, etc.) It works. I promise.