Vegetarian w/ PCOS considering a change (think: meat)

I'm bit confused on why you think going back to meat diet will help your issues? It's easy to reduce carbs on a vegetarian diet...or rather didn't you say in a later post you are actually pescatarian?

Most people don't know what a pescatarian is. I have asserted from my initial post (please re-read it if you don't believe me) that I do incorporate fish and occasionally some poultry into my current diet. I have been ovo-lacto/lacto-ovo, as well as vegan. Of the last 17 years, I have only been eating fish and foul for the last 5.

I kind of sense that you are a veg*n. The only people I know who get indignant about pescatarians calling themselves "vegetarians" are, themselves, vegetarians. (For the record, most pescatarians only associate themselves with veg*ns to make it easier to explain their diet to the mammal meat eating masses who tend to get perplexed by the label. In essence, we don't do it for people who already know the difference.)

Please do not be defensive of the lifestyle, as I agree that it is the ideal, most ecologically friendly, most compassionate way to eat.

I have been a vegetarian of one stripe or another for the better part of twenty years. I am not inexperienced about this subject. It is easy to reduce carbs on a veg*n diet, BUT it is damned near impossible to get carbs as low as I need to in order to get my blood sugar where I want it, AND eliminate wheat (which I'm sensitive to), AND eliminate soy (which has phytoestrogens that could also be messing with my PCOS). The problem is, with these last considerations, it becomes almost impossible to eat enough protein on my current diet. Even the protein sources in a veg*n diet are relatively higher in carbohydrates than meat.

Here is a list of popular veg*n protein sources and why I shouldn't eat them as the basis of my diet any longer. I know that these are incredibly healthy and they taste delicious. I have been living off of this stuff for years...but I am still fat and my blood sugar is all f'ed up because I don't metabolize sugar like the average person does. A little bit of carbs go a LONG way when you're a diabetic.

Tempeh (soy), Soybeans (soy), Seitan (wheat/gluten), Lentils (I love 'em, but they are high in carbs), Black beans (ditto; I these, but they're very high in carbs), Kidney beans (ditto), Chickpeas (ditto), Pinto beans - and let's just say all legumes (high fiber, but also high carb), Veggie burger (has almost a full serving of carbs according to the American Diabetes Association - a full serving is 15 grams), Tofu (soy), Quinoa (a 1/2 cup has 17g carbs), Peas (high carb), Textured Vegetable Protein - TVP (a 1/2 cup has 14 g of carbs, which is almost a full serving), Peanut butter (also high carb; even the unsweetened kind has about 6g carbs for 2 tbsp),
Veggie dog (again, these have sugar in them), and you probably get the point.

Now, I know a little bit of carbs - especially ones high in fiber like those listed above - aren't going to hurt me, and in fact, are quite good for me. The problem comes in when you start to build meals out of all of this stuff. If the veggies and fruit have sugar and even the proteins have carbs (which is not generally the case with meat protein) then before you know it - BOOM - I am eating too many carbs, my blood sugar spikes, I get really tired and pass out, and my whole day is shot.

I am trying to avoid becoming insulin dependent here. The reason why I am considering meat is because of this desperation. I am a 32 year old type two diabetic. This is no joke.

Do you also have PCOS or are you diabetic? If you are, and have specific advice on how to eliminate most of the carbs from my diet while maintaining this lifestyle, I would be absolutely thrilled to hear it. For real - no snarkiness intended in that statement at all. Otherwise, please keep your scrutiny to a minimum until you've walked a mile in these very frustrated, overweight, and morally vexed shoes.

Perhaps if you had been more truthful in your topic line you would not be getting the types of answers you consider smug. You are not even close to being vegetarian, so why is that even relevant.

I have not eaten a mammal in 17 years. Prior to 2007, I hadn't eaten anything with a face for a decade. The notion of eating another living, breathing creature DOES, in fact, continue to bother me.

The reason why I abhor the smugness is because I resent that the anonymity of the internet allow everyday folks the right to assume the people on the other end of the network are idiots. I am in a Master's Degree program for Robotics Engineering, own my own business, and have a research assistantship at a first-tier school. My nerd-ego gets her hackles up pretty easily. For that, I apologize.

I am not trying to say that being a vegetarian isn't good for most people. It would probably do most people a world of good to cut out the saturated fats and add more veggies to their diets. In my case, however, I am becoming increasingly convinced that some people are just not meant to have this diet. All bodies are different.

I was not deceptive. This all boils down to a rather telling difference in perception. There is no such thing as a universal truth, and the reason why I called responses like this one smug is because of the definition of the word. (<- The intentional irony is that I am being smug to illustrate the point.) Smug means having or showing an excessive pride in oneself or one's achievements. So, vegetarians get up in arms and almost universally take offense to me identifying that way when they go to great pains to avoid all meat in their diets. They are proud of their lifestyles, generally because they see it as morally superior, which does, indeed, result in a smug tone to their responses to my rather innocent inquiry. On the other hand, meat-eaters do not generally know - or care to know - the difference. I am in the middle, straddling both worlds, and frankly couldn't care less about the minute differentiations, and I assume most people who aren't "real" vegetarians feel similarly indifferent about this stupid pet peeve.

My understanding is that it's the other way around - you have higher amounts of free-floating androgen, precursor to testosterone, which causes the hair growth on the face, hair loss on the head....

Androgens are also the precursors of estrogens.