PCOS

What kind of medicine? I have had PCOS for years and struggled with my weight. However, I've been on here for 100 days, faithfully counting calories and working out, and am consisently dropping a pound per week. It will also be very important to know your basal metabolic rate and I like to know body composition too. BMI is not the greatest number to use for overall health.

Ever Cyster is different. What works for 1 may not work for the other (we all don't have IR) I eat complex carbs (grains and veggies) and lift weights. Have never felt better, no meds (Met/BC) just good old food and exersice (meds IMO only cover the symptoms and make them worse once you come off)

PCOS Diva and Better by Brooke have great info just google them

You'll have to trial and error until you find what works but you can lose the weight

Hi

I have had PCOS since I was a teenager.You absolutely can lose weight. Low carb is the best way to go - really just by cutting out refined white flour and sugar I lost about 40 pounds - with no real calorie counting and intermittent exercise. Once you hit the wall after the first wave of weight loss then you need to concentrate on calories in and calories out. I still try to stay off white food (bread,pasta, rice potatoes). It's a hormonal thing and the insulin resistance gets much better with that strategy. I was on metformin for several years - it wreaked a lot of havoc on my digestive system. I was able to get pregnant pretty easily after I got my weight and hormones under control. 8 years after the baby - my weight is still about the same and I am no longer on medication. It's a rough disease. If you need any advice or support feel free to add me.

S

Yes you can lose weight! It's hard and it sucks, but here is what works for me... I not only watch my calories but my carbs per meal and snack. I also work out 5-6 days a week. I NEVER lost weight that stayed off until I watched the carbs to control the insulin (which goes hand in hand with PCOS). Everyone is different, but those are my 2 cents. I was diagnosed with PCOD a good 15 years ago, I've tried a lot of crap and that's what worked for me The weight comes off slower, but it's steady and does stay off well.

I have PCOS as well. I can't eat a low carb diet very easily since I'm vegetarian. After 3 months, I'm finally starting to lose weight so it may just take awhile for you. The annoying thing is that the bigger you are, the worse your insulin resistance is and the harder it is to lose weight! I've found that eating 1500 calories a day and working out 4 days a week (make sure to do strength training) seems to work. Also, I've been taking fiber which really seems to have kicked up the weight loss a notch.

If you really need help with losing weight, talk to your doctor about taking Metformin. It really should be a last resort but it's helped a lot of women with PCOS lose weight.

I have PCOS, although I'm not on any medication - the doctor says that it isn't bad enough to need meds. (Good old English drug-averse medical system. Eyeroll.)

I absolutely agree about cutting down carbs and cutting out sugars as much as possible. Some people with PCOS can eat them and lose weight, but a lot can't. Fruit sugars seem to be okay for me as long as I don't eat more than two or three pieces a day, but not candies or desserts. Sugar lurks in an awful lot of things - prepacked foods especially, and things like packaged bread.

Buy fresh foods. Fruits, vegetables, meat if you eat it, seeds and grains. If you have to eat bread, make it fresh bread from a bakery, not the stuff that comes in a bag. (I don't know if this is a worldwide phenomenon, but in England prepacked bread has so much sugar and yeast that in the summer when the weather is warm and damp you open the bag and it reeks of alcohol.)

I tend to subscribe to the idea that if something has a nutrition label and a long ingredients list, it's probably not that good for you. That said, if you eat tinned or packaged food (which I do sometimes), read the labels. If sugar is in the top three or four places on that list, I try to avoid it.

And you might want to look into getting your BMR checked. I don't know exactly where you go to get this done, but I've seen it done on diet programmes on TV. Your myfitnesspal calorie goal is based on your estimated BMR, and with PCOS it can be significantly lower than it might be in a person without the condition. Myfitnesspal tells me that to lose a pound a week I should be eating 2030 calories a day, but I didn't start losing weight until I dropped (on the advice of my dietician and GP) to 1200. (Which was a painful change to implement overnight, but it's showing results.)

You can get an estimate of BMR using calculators online. Mine is about 1630. This is the number you should eat at a minimum as your body needs it to fuel for all activities you don't have control over, such as heart beat, brain function, etc. If you don't eat enough, your body starts to conserve energy (in the form of FAT) and starts to burn off your lean tissue which is the basis of metabolism.

I think 1200 calories is too low a goal for just about everyone, means that even to get up and do a desk job, you do burn some calories. Not only is knowing BMR important (though is doesn't take normal daily activity into account before exercise), it is just as important to know what your body composition is. Most gyms will offer a 3 point caliber test where they take a measurement of fat folds in three places. For women those three places are the tricep, suprailiac (hip), and thigh. Based on these numbers and your current weight, a computer program calculates your body fat % within a 3% margin of error. Usually takes about 5 minutes or so.

The more lean tissue you have (which is everything from muscle, to water, to organs), the higher your metabolism and the more you can eat. Average healthy body fat is 25-30% BF. A more fit woman would have 20-25%.