Help with PCOS and losing weight.

vivianeedna

Good morning.

I need help, please.

I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was 16, so I've had the syndrome for 10 years. I am on a low dose of the Oral Contraception Pill to help with the hormones. A recent blood test revealed regular hormone, insulin and thyroid levels, no pre-diabeties concerns or signs of metabolic syndrome.

I was binge eating daily up until 5 months ago, consuming up to 3000 calories a day. That has stopped, I sometimes go past the 1600 calories a day I have set but not but much (100/200 calories).

I am active at work and uni, but don't do much exercise apart from that during the week (2/3 times at the most - walking the dog, hiking - probably 1200 calories burnt all up for the week if I do do exercise).

I stay away from refined carbohydrates and try to adopt a Low GI diet - fruit and vegetables, protein, limiting my carbohydrate intake (although this doesn't always happen).

I'm also having really bad stomach upsets and have often bowel movements.

I am 168cm tall and 82kg - my weight will not budge. I realise that the biochemistry to weight loss is less in than out, BUT is this the case for PCOS? If I am in deficit each day - then why am I not losing weight. I've tried dropping my caloric intake (1200 calories) but this still did not make a difference.

Could I have IBS as well as a sensitivity to carbohydrates due to the PCOS thats giving me the stomach aches and stopping my weight loss efforts?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Viv.

susannamarie

Are you tracking your food somewhere else?

CoderGal

If you're digesting everything (and not purging) log everything that goes in, accurately. I highly recommend a food scale starting off.

Figure out your TDEE. Make sure you account for exercise calories. Because PCOS, it will likely be lower then calculated if you are being accurate. With that being said, I've had a few friends who have had PCOS and their metabolism were not nearly as suppressed as they thought. But with the purging you could be a different story. I've read a few books on PCOS last year, and my best advice to you is to avoid the low cal diets, it's a fast track way to supress an already suppressed metabolism. If you find this is already a problem and you're upping your calories, be prepared for TEMPORARY weight gain.

Talk to a mental health professional: From what you've mentioned there's obviously some non-food related things going on. And it's really hard to straighten out the rest without straightening out this first. I'd recommend taking this step first. You're going to set yourself up for success when you're ready to be successful. If you don't have a healthy relationship with food, that's going to be a hard thing to accomplish.