I'm new...I really need some motivation

imitation_deg

Hey there,
I have had PCOS pretty much when I got my period, but it wasn't until 21 when I was diagnosed with it. (thanks to my own personal research.) I'm a month away from turning 30, and it's really depressing me because pretty much, my entire youth has been spent with PCOS. Never had that smooth, flat belly, and now I really don't think I ever well. Just not in my cards, I guess.

As I'm getting older, my symptoms are getting worse. I have a weight problem, at one point I was up to 200lbs, but I generally stay around 175. (i'm 5'5') When I was 19, due to a ridiculous amount of stress/not eating/running 5miles a day, I had managed to go down to 145, but in two weeks, I gained 15 pounds, JUST LIKE THAT, and I just can't seem to keep the weight off.

I have been on birth control and it did help a lot. Helped with acne, helped with hair growth, and helped with me losing weight, but I just really don't want to be on birth control for the rest of my life, just so I can be "normal."

For the past two years, I have experimented with the Paleo Diet. I was REALLY committed. It was so hard at first, but man, did I see results. My skin cleared up drastically, and my belly was getting smaller, AND it wasn't pudging out like I was pregnant! But realistically, that was just so hard for me to maintain. Yes, it worked, but I love food, I love cooking, and I think I'd rather be "fat" than not be able to enjoy my food. Is that a bad thing, considering I have a health problem????

I even did P90X, and that worked wonders, too! Just a problem with committing to it!
I just don't have any motivation.

I don't have health insurance....can't register for Obamacare for a while (have to get some things squared away....) but I did want to try Metformin.
I moved and have no space at ALL to do P90X. Money is extremely tight so I don't get to buy all that expensive, organic food I was buying before when I was on the Paleo Diet.

Just feels like I've tried so many times and now I have just accepted the fact that I will never be skinny. That I will always have my belly, and I will always have hair all over my body, in places that shouldn't have hair. It's extremely frustrating. I just want motivation, but it's not coming for me. Everything just feels like a lost cause for me.

I know my PCOS could always be worse. For some reason, I have managed to control my insulin, to a point where I have no insulin problem, when at one point I was on the verge of being diabetic. (maybe because I have been using cinnamon everyday) and up until this month, at least, I have managed to get my period, five months in a row, NATURALLY.

Sorry to talk your ear off. Just extremely hopeless that things will improve for me. Trying to get myself back into the swing of things. Maybe participating in a forum would help.

Dragonwolf

It seems to me you could use a different mindset. You've named a number of things that worked for you, which is exponentially more fortunate than what some of us have dealt with. Both Paleo and P90X worked for you -- don't ever forget that.

Paleo doesn't require that you eat all organic food, nor does it need to be expensive. It also doesn't need to make you feel deprived (I'd venture to guess that if you're feeling "deprived," you're missing something). I'm curious, especially if you love cooking, how it was so difficult for you? And what do you mean by "experimented" with it?

But it's not necessarily about the food, itself. Ask yourself: is the state that you're in when you eat with no regard for how it affects you -- the pregnant belly, the acne, the excess weight -- really worth being "able" to eat that big plate of spaghetti (or whatever other food that you cut out that you feel you can't live without)? The fact of the matter is that you can't eat certain foods without consequence, so you have to make the decision -- eat the food and deal with the consequences, or decide that you don't want to deal with the consequences and not eat the food.

I completely understand where you're coming from with the challenges of discontinuing foods you love. I follow Paleo, as well (well, Primal, which may be something to try), and it can be hard saying "no" to pizza, or chocolate cake, or something else that I've chosen to stop eating for the sake of my health. In fact, for the month of March, I've committed to dropping dairy (to the point that if I use butter, I only use ghee and clarified butter). Why? Because I'm starting to develop arthritis in my hips (I'm 26, I shouldn't have to be worrying about arthritis), and dairy is one of the most (known) inflammatory foods I still consume on a regular basis. Even only two days in, it sucks, because I love dairy in nearly all of its forms, and it's often my go-to snack choice (cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, etc). But you know what? Even after two days, my hips aren't bothering me (the real test will start tomorrow, when I'm at work). I plan on reintroducing it again in April, to confirm it (and to find out what the threshold is), but if I have to give up milk entirely in order to stay pain-free, then by and large, I choose not dealing with such consequences.

The same goes for clear skin (vs acne) and weight loss (vs gain). They may not seem like they're related to what you eat, but they are. I used to have terrible acne, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it (I was on tetracycline for a while, and my stepdad threatened to make me wash my face three times a day, instead of the twice daily I was already doing, and nothing helped). It got to the point that once I moved out, I gave up altogether trying to actively fight it and just washed my face when I took a shower. I've found that a lot of the foods I used to eat -- especially if I eat them too frequently -- will cause my acne to flair up. As long as I keep them out of my diet (at least the vast majority of the time), then my skin clears up, even without the extra "help" of washing my face multiple times a day.

Keep in mind, too, that Paleo isn't a "diet" in the sense that you eat a certain food or selection of foods and nothing else (think Special K or Slimfast, where you replace your usual meals with their products), but rather a framework by which to make educated judgements on what to or to not eat (it explicitly says "no dairy, grains, or legumes," because the researchers found sufficient evidence to exclude these outright when writing about Paleo), both based on what research has found and what you can, personally, handle. As such, there are a number of different variations, based on different interpretations of the data -- some more strict than others.

Regarding my previous statement about not requiring organic food -- organic, pastured, and even wild are considered the "gold standard," certainly, but let's be real, here -- not everyone can afford all that right away. As Voltaire so eloquently put it - "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good." In other words, just because you can't do all of the gold standard right now, it doesn't mean you can't do it at all. This is where I love the Bulletproof Executive's interpretation of Paleo. He did a ton of research on the topic, and ultimately came up with a sliding scale of quality of various foods. So, even if you can't do the gold standard, you can use it as a reference to get the best you can at the time. You can find he guide here - http://www.bulletproofexec.com/the-complete-illustrated-one-page-bulletproof-diet/ If you want to give Paleo another try, I recommend joining the Primal/Paleo Support Group -- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/forums/show/54-primal-paleo-support-group

That said, money doesn't have to be (and arguably shouldn't be) your limiting factor. Most people live within an hour or so of farms, and so, can buy directly from them, which results in substantial savings. I even know a person who lives in the Arctic, among Inuit people, who actually calculated it out and found that she spends a good deal less on food since switching to a keto Paleo lifestyle (in part, because she was eating less food, overall), and has seen even bigger savings when healthcare costs are taken into account. My mother has been living on a job that pays less than $10/hr for the past decade (she just recently changed jobs and got a raise out of it -- to $12/hr), and she buys organic/pastured whenever she can. She can afford to do so, because she found a farm where she can get milk, eggs, and turkey (at Thanksgiving time), and has learned how to make a number of things, including her own laundry detergent. You just have to get creative, and think outside of the grocery store box. Buying organic or pastured does not require buying from Whole Foods.

As for the Metformin -- first of all, it sounds like you'd only get limited benefit from it. It's not a weight loss drug. It's sole purpose is to increase insulin sensitivity and ultimately lower the amount of insulin in your blood stream. People lose weight on it, because the insulin was originally keeping them from losing weight. If your insulin is under about 15, it very likely won't benefit you. That said, many doctors will provide cash discounts to patients who don't have health insurance. It would probably be worth finding someone who's affordable and understands PCOS, who's willing to get the blood tests done to see where you're at. From there, you can take a more targeted approach to treating it. If Metformin is a viable option for you, then it's a dirt cheap drug -- a whopping $4 (USD) at placed like Walmart or Kroger. I don't recommend getting it without blood tests, though. The side effects are hell, and it only works if your insulin runs high.

If you can get the bloodwork done, make sure to get your estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone checked, too. It sounds like you might be deficient in estrogen (which is why the birth control worked for you). If you can confirm that, then you can work to increase your levels (however you choose), and in a more controlled manner than how birth control does it.

With regard to exercising, I recommend checking out Convict Conditioning. Seriously, it was a routine written while the guy was in prison. If you have any amount of space, anywhere, that's at least the size of a 6'x8' prison cell (and really, just one large enough to fit you while doing pushups), then you have space to work out. Don't let space or money be an obstacle to obtaining the best health you can.

Of course, on a general level, a lot of this might sound like fluff and may or may not be actionable to you. So, feel free to ask specific questions, or pose specific problems you're having. Sometimes, identifying the specific problem you're having with something will, itself, lead you to an answer. If not, there are plenty of people around who have likely dealt with the same issues you're facing, and can offer specific pointers and help on the matter.