I had to just change my approach to food, which admittedly takes a little while.

Breakfast is always a protein shake. This week was 2-cups of spinach, 1-cup of unsweetened almond milk, 1/2 peach, protein powder and psyllium husk. That way I already have 2 servings of spinach, 1 serving of fruit, and a quarter of my protein in before I even get to work.

Lunch is usually leftovers, but this week I'm having 4-ounces of either chicken or salmon, and a spinach, walnut, mozzarella salad with raspberry vinaigrette.

Snacks this week are turkey pepperoni with string cheese, and then cheesecake fluff. If you haven't tried cheesecake fluff, I HIGHLY recommend it. It makes me feel like I'm having dessert, settles my sweet tooth, and makes me very happy. The variety I make is 8 ounces of cream cheese, 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, and sweetener/flavor to taste. Lime is a personal favorite, but this week I have sugar free s'mores syrup in it.

Dinner is generally a meat and a vegetable.

The hardest part is the reliance on a carb delivery system. You have to be creative with your meal plans. Instead of pasta, you can use spaghetti squash. Or my personal favorite is just meatballs and sauce. Instead of a sandwich, I wrap deli meat around string cheese, or just eat meat/cheese together like a sandwich. I like how subway lets you make a sandwich into a salad, you have to think like that. There are TONS of keto/low carb recipes out there, pinterest is a good place to start.

I have been doing it for 9 months now and I feel amazing. I lift as heavy as ever, I'm never tired, I'm never hungry, I don't have brain fog. It's great. You just have to get over the initial hump, and I think just going for it is the best bet. You get the carb flu over and done with, and you can focus on learning the low carb lifestyle.

That being said, I still allow myself one meal a week of whatever the heck I want. This has been VITAL to my mentality. I can always "just make it to saturday" if I'm having a bad week, and I can really plan out what I want. It's usually pizza or pasta, and I enjoy the heck out of it. It refills my glycogen for exercise, and gives me a chance to feel like it's a reward for a good week. It's good to give yourself a tiny break, but you have to be ready to get back to it in the morning.

Bacon and cheese are big saviors for me. If I need to snack and I'm grumpy about it, I'll have a chunk of cheese and feel decadent. Full-fat salad dressing, butter, whip cream in my coffee and cheese are AMAZING coming from a low-fat background, and that's what I choose to focus on. Instead of moaning about losing my pasta, I revel in my buttermilk ranch (mmmmm ranch).

For breakfast I usually have 2 eggs, made with a bit of butter, and then add something on top to hide the eggy taste which I am not a fan of. It's usually mustard or kajmak (I have no idea how to translate that, it's in the cream family). Total carbs 2 or 3.

The way I gave up on some of my carby foods: when I started I had a limit of 20 carbs a day. So I tried to modify what I wanted to eat in a way it would fit. The food in question was oatmeal. Once I realized that I would have to eat less than half of what I usually ate, with water instead of milk and without any additions, I decided eggs were a better choice :-)

Now my limit is 40ish, but the process is the same. If I really want something that is higher in carbs I try to see how much I need to modify it to make it fit. If it doesn't fit I don't eat it. The only exceptions to these are: a certain dish my MIL makes. It only happens once a year so eh, I'll survive. And if I just spent a couple of hours hiking up a mountain I'll have a piece of cake on top, my body will spend the carbs on the way down.

hii lucy !
reading your post i got all excited. 47 kgs! hats off to you !! iam also suffering from pcod ..and my weight is shooting up like anything..sice iam a vegeteriani dnt knw how to limit my carb.can you please help me with it??

Ugh, vegetarian low carb is a bit tricky. Go through your diary, look at the foods you eat (and I assume like) the most. Is there something that is lower carb than others? If you eat eggs and dairy that helps a bit get the fats up. Basically my advice would be to keep the vegetables up to around 100g per meal, and fill the rest in with eggs and cheese, a bit of nuts and seeds. Try to get used to the fact that meals will look small (compared to a leafy salad, an egg and a slice of cheese looks tiny).

I make a breakfast quesadilla each morning that keeps me full until lunch! It is soooo good! It's best made fresh, but I make them ahead and heat them in the microwave and they are still yummy!

First I sauté onions (1/2 cup chopped), mushrooms (3 oz. fresh) for 2 minutes or so with non-stick spray, then add spinach (3 oz fresh) and more nonstick spray and cook until the spinach is wilted but still vibrant green. Next, I add Jimmy Dean turkey sausage crumbles (about 3 oz) to warm them and blend the flavors. In a separate pan, I scramble/cook three eggs, then I add them to the meat/veggie mixture and remove from the pan. In a skillet that at least matches the diameter of the tortilla, spray with nonstick spray (this is key to getting a "crispy" tortilla), then place a multigrain tortilla in (around 120 calorie size, you could also use a low carb tortilla but I find them to be too expensive). Top that with 1-2 oz shredded cheese (I like to use pepper jack for a little kick!), then 1/2 cup of the egg/veggie/meat mixture and fold the tortilla in half. Using one tortilla and folding it in half makes it very easy to "flip" it to its other side. I can't tell you how many I made using two tortillas in true quesadilla fashion, losing half of the filling in my attempt to flip it from one side to the other before "discovering" the fold in half concept! Much easier! Brown both sides of the tortilla, remove from pan, and enjoy!

Here's at least one idea for breakfast!

Just a question, because I too have been looking for low carb alternatives for breakfast. I have been substituting a lot of meats and cheeses into my diet to give me energy and help me not crave the carbs, but since I've heard that women with PCOS are also at a higher risk for CVD isn't it important to watch cholesterol as well?

Thanks for the reply! I did read that! But most of the articles I read were short term cross-sectional studies. Thanks for including a link for some longer term studies for me to read up on! I DEFINITELY agree that if you cut carbs then you MUST add more fats to get energy! I learned the hard way! Lol!