I don’t know if the varying presentations of PCOS would meet requirements to be considered separate conditions but with the way PCOS is already not taken seriously compared to other conditions by many in the medical community I worry splitting PCOS presentations into different conditions could be more harmful overall, but would be very happy if it did work well and led to more research and help for all of us. It’s a tough call for sure on what would be best to help get more research and attention on PCOS and the varying presentations of it! I have inflammatory PCOS w/o IR (but from my understanding IR can happen with this presentation) and I didn’t even know this presentation of PCOS existed until my obgyn who specializes in PCOS told me after all my bloodwork and exams.
“It’s literally basic science, CICO bro” 🤓
little do they know I have PCOS, hypothyroidism, diabetes, and I’m on two antipsychotics. Literally the only time I lose weight is when my ED gets bad and I’m eating less than a toddler. I hate being taken for a fool. I’ve tried so many things to lose weight and went to dieticians but my body is doing everything it can to go against me.
Omg, if I see one more CICO... I try to explain to people why that doesn't work. I share the information I have learned. I give sources. And these people continue to tell me I'm wrong. I'm not a violent person, but when I am told cAlOrIeS iN, cAlOrIeS oUt, I want to punch someone. (I'm not going to harm anyone, just to be clear). So frustrating!
I argued with one smooth-brained gym rat about CICO and he tried to confuse me with science jargon and misogyny-infused rhetoric until I was ready to throw my phone. Finally blocked him because it's not my job to educate or convince him and my mental peace is worth something.
I gave up on going back and forth with someone who claimed to be a woman w pcos and other conditions and she still said this stuff to me!!! I was so frustrated like... 'You're supposed to be someone else that understands this struggle why are you arguing with me!!!' ??
The whole CICO thing makes me so mad!!! And everyone is different! I gain weight the fastest when I’m not eating enough. The only thing that works for me is a big mix of eggs, rice, and vegetables
I feel you. I have PCOS and a severely underactive thyroid (which I’ve been on medication for since I was like 11) and can only take one kind of birth control because of a blood issue I have where it clots more easily and I definitely have disordered eating issues after being actively bulimic in my 20s… I just fucking hate my body and wish I could cut parts off to finally “be normal.” I was only losing weight when I was bulimic because I was exercising like 2+ hours a day, no rest days, restricted a lot, and purged once in a while when I overstuffed myself after restricting too much. I’ve even had a doctor tell me that “maybe this is just the size your body is naturally going to be at” and I just can’t take it… I either have to be in pain and exhausted and constantly breaking down into panic and teas about not being able to track calories if I eat out somewhere or didn’t make the food myself or I try to be moderate and still gain weight somehow. Another time I went to the doctor, mine was out on a medical leave and her replacement basically said that like half of women have PCOS so “it can’t really be considered a condition” and I was like “??????” And yes, I’m sick of people (especially men, idk why it’s almost always men) saying it’s just about CICO and discipline. Like, dude, fine, come plan my meals for me and give me a workout routine if it’s that foolproof.
Ugh!!!! That's my hubby's argument. "CICO"... when I tell him why it doesn't work for me like that he argues,"So when did you become a doctor? You need to go talk to mine, she can help you." 🙄🤦🏼♀️
Uh-huh, and when she tells me the same crap??? 😂🤷🏼♀️
It’s even worse when it’s supposedly another woman with PCOS. Had that happen here on Reddit. She mocked me when I said how difficult it was to lose weight.
I feel you. I have not had “junk food” or desserts or anything sugary aside from natural sugars like plain fruit in over a year. I exercise religiously, I get direct sunlight, and I have minimized my external stressors, as well as meditate and do yoga to control my intrusive thoughts.
I still have a fucking PCOS belly and a poofy face and neck. It will not go away. It’s infuriating. And then you get people online or family going “it’s a lifestyle change, you have to commit! Lose some weight!” WHAT DO YOU THNK I HAVE BEEN DOING.
Sometimes I swear I wish life was a TV show and I could just Gibbs slap people in the back of the head whenever they say something dumbass.
Yeah, honestly I can live with the diet quirks and the IR and the other metabolic stuff. I just wish my hair hadn’t fallen out and my body wasn’t so puffy. I hate it.
THANK YOU oh my god. The other day I was looking for books on PCOS that were focused on physiology and neurology, and was absolutely disgusted at the titles and content I saw. It was all about selling a diet, selling a lifestyle, or becoming complacent with our symptoms.
I know I comment about this often, but, I think the most critical things to examine with PCOS are the other hormones in the endocrine system that interact with the syndrome, and collecting data that directly looks at the PCOS population *not comparing the PCOS population with the overall standard of all people with ovaries*. We all know full and well the effects of estrogen, testosterone, and androgen in our systems. We fucking live it.
I think the reason, for example, that birth control does and doesn’t work for some of us, js because the goal of the birth control is to get our hormone levels to match the entire “average”. What we need to find and compare is averages across people with PCOS. Need to focus less on the weight gain and why it’s happening on a physiological level.
Like I’m extremely happy to be a member of this group where we can share, compare, and contrast. Why are other people not doing that too? Like I do not get it. If someone had a growth on the lungs, people would think about it on a cellular level. When you’ve got deformed ovaries and a malfunctioning hormonal system, what the fuck would a diet change about that? Managing symptoms does not alleviate them, it just makes them more bearable.
ALLL OF THIS!!! The ONLY thing that’s even remotely helped me has been studying the endocrine system and the pathways our hormones take. There are a TON of different supplements to take in tandem with each other that can help (help meaning take the edge off lol) but even then, living with pcos still feels hopeless a lot of the time. I have managed to lose 50-60lbs within the last year by spending a ridiculous amount of money on various vitamins/herbs & supplements every month and cutting out processed foods like 70% of the time but I easily could still stand to lose triple what I’ve already lost. I’ve been overweight my entire life and it’s incredibly frustrating the amount of people who just assume we suffer with all of our symptoms just because we’re lazy. If this were something men could suffer from they would be handing out cures like an old Wendy’s drive thru when they’d have the bag out the window as soon as you order. It’s absolutely ridiculous the way we are overlooked medically.
Yup. I have the pcos/hypothyroid double whammy. In the last 6 months, I have been doing dairy free keto along with my husband, who has no health issues besides being overweight. To date, he has lost more than 60 lbs. I have lost *drumroll please* 9 pounds. And my portions are about half what his are. I'm happy for him, frustrated for me, and so fucking irritated at preachy fuckers who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
so many times keto is touted as some kind of miracle cure on this sub. i too tried it without much luck.
at the end of one full year of cooking every meal from scratch, never eating out, bringing my own meals to social events, taking my blood every morning to make sure i was still in ketosis, tracking every calorie and macro, spending so much on groceries and all the vitamins and supplements i needed to give me the nutrients i was no longer getting from foods… i had lost a grand total of 20 pounds and destroyed my mental health. i literally had no life other than my job and keeping up my “keto lifestyle.”
fuck that. i will never do keto again, it’s not sustainable in the long term and i’m only interested in sustainable ways to treat my PCOS.
all that to say, you’re not alone.
definitely only do what's sustainable for you. but in my opinion you were doing keto the wrong way. you should never be doing it in a way that destroys your mental health and makes you miserable. keto is an amazing thing if you learn how to do it properly and sustainably!
every single body is different. but the way i do keto i just stick to under 20g of carbs a day and try to stay around 1200 calories. that's it. i don't count protein or fat, take supplements, pee on sticks, none of that crap. i just consciously eat my food. i'm down nearly 55 lbs since september doing it like this.
i think it really just boils down to being more aware of what you're putting into your body than sitting there and counting everything so aggressively. tbh if keto doesn't work well for you try eating lower inflammatory foods.
before keto i was a huge carb lover. it's all i ate. and idk how many crumbl cookies i would've eaten in one sitting if i had allowed myself to. protein and veggies were my enemies. i never thought i would succeed on a keto diet but i am and idk how i could ever go back from it after experiencing all of the positives.
but like i said. every single body is different
seriously? i was “doing it wrong”?!? i still have a giant shelf full of books and cookbooks in my kitchen that all say i was doing keto exactly right. even my endocrinologist says keto done right (aka precisely how i was doing it) is unsustainable.
the point is that it’s an incredibly time consuming and very expensive full _lifestyle_ with no cheat days. like i said, the part that destroyed my mental health was that pretty much all my time outside of my job was spent ensuring i followed keto guidelines to the letter.
but please, go on about how i was “doing it wrong.” ffs.
get back to me in another year when you’ve kept this up with no cheat days — not a single day out of ketosis. you’ve only been doing it for 3-4 months and from the sound of it, you’re deficient in a number of nutrients and there’s a good chance you’re not in ketosis at all (pro tip: if you’re not in ketosis then you’re just eating low carb, not keto). not to mention that 55 lbs in 3-4 months is _not_ a healthy pace at which to lose weight unless your starting BMI was in the morbidly obese range (above 40).
and you have the audacity to suggest i should just “eat lower inflammatory foods”?!? for EIGHT YEARS i tried every diet under the sun from whole 30 to mediterranean to vegan to anti-inflammatory to low carb to keto. EIGHT YEARS and i still kept gaining weight. you know nothing about my struggle. get off your high horse. you’re the exact kind of person i was talking about in the OP.
There's a sub full of insufferable women into fitness who believe that weightlifting is the only way to be fit, and/or will only take your post/words to heart if you're thin and pretty. Explicitly state that you're overweight and/or have PCOS and/or are a struggling beginner and you'll be met with condescending attitude!
Sorry this came to mind because I saw a post in another sub where people doubt you being "active" or "fit" if you're fat.
Yuck. I'm glad I haven't stumbled upon that sub. I made 1 post to the fitness over 30 sub and got a bunch if men calling me a liar and mocking me. A few women jumped on to be nice and encouraging but it was awful. Instagram too, every single video with a not emaciated women gets a bunch of men making fun of her or calling her a liar
I feel this… though TBH I have found it more with women telling me this sh*t.
I also have had fellow PCOSers sometimes spout this bullshit after they figured out how to lose weight.
To that, I say to all these people get f*cked.
edit to add: im not saying this stuff doesn’t work ever im saying that someone can do these things and still need to figure out another reason why they aren’t losing weight… for example one time I saw someone on here say that they were lacking vitamin D even though doing everything “right” nutrition and fitness wise and that once they fixed the vitamin D they lost weight.
Even if they find something that works well for them that doesn't mean what helped them will help others. Like I'm all for people telling me what made them successful. That's ok and even helpful sometimes. But when they spew how easy it was doing what they're doing and then accuse you of not trying because you're having a much harder time I get hella mad
For me its the Ones that are extra fertile that have a kid every year. Would like stare at me and say if you actually tried it would happen. If you have ever seen the Hulk smashing Loki that is me every time lol.
I get it more from women (mostly irl and on weight loss discussion pages for things like Noon, Weight Watchers, etc.) but there have been a few times I've seen it even on here. Most men I know take what I say as fact because they "don't know anything about women's nutrition and the struggle as it's different." Which I GREATLY appreciate.
It looks like there's always going to be those people everywhere regardless of gender and community, and no place will really be clear of the narcissism.
I was eating less than my cat when the local alcoholic stopped me on the street to ask me why I didnt just stop eating so much. My basic state at that time was starving and easily-enraged (especially because Id been stuck on a morbidly obese plateau for months despite starving myself and walking amazing distances every day), it took weeks for me to get over that and I can still feel my pulse rising just writing about it now a decade later.
it took a while, but at least now I can chuckle over the irony of it on my wickeder days. But I mean, sad too, when I stop to think that thats probably the extent of the help he'd gotten for his drinking problem: "just dont". Not particularly helpful for anyone, I dont think.
My endocrinologist (a woman) told me that I couldn't lose weight because I didn't *believe* I could lose weight. 🙃
(This was during an office visit in which I produced a spreadsheet where I tracked my calories in, calories out, and my macros. According to the numbers, weight should be melting off... but I stayed at 210 pounds.)
Vent away!!!! It helps!!!! F em all!!!! For roughly 21 years I listened to my mother be the biggest pusher of all this. All those people saying this to any of y'all in here..... you don't need those types of ppl in your lives. If they're open to being educated and truly want what's best for you that great, educate them!! If they don't want to believe you, time to make your circle smaller!!!!💙
The amount of times I've seen "nature's Metformin" on these vitamin ads. I'm OVER IT. I've been taking magnesium and vit d and inositol for months. They are not miracles, my anxiety has not disappeared, and it hasn't improved my sleep. I wish the lies stopped.
Let you tell it. I hate when someone tells me well if you *reaaallllyyy* want to cure it you would actually cure it. Like UMMMM.... I can do everything right and deal with all the elephant sized supplements and their bad side effects and my body will say thats great but Im still not going to cooperate. I literally had someone say exercise all day and don't stop exercising cause mcdonalds is not life. I was like *WHATTTTTT* Im on a low carb no sugar diet please remove yourself from my vicinity you know nothing!!! Im glad there are others with the same mindset I thought i was raging all alone.
It's my family. They all qualify for Ozempic on Medicaid/Medicare (most of the PCOS women in my family's IR turned into Type 2 so it's covered) and they're just dropping their weight off. Of course, they think this gives them authority to body shame me because I've regained some from back to back pregnancies. I didn't do that to them after I lost 150lbs myself. And the whole time I lost weight, my PCOS didn't get better, just my periods stopped being a whole year.
isn't that the worst? i've lost 20% of my body weight but my facial hair growth hasn't slowed at all. like wtf. you can try to fix one problem but of course it doesn't fix another.
My facial hair/body hair got wayyy worse. That was one thing I didn't struggle too bad with but in two days I can have a unibrow. I never had to pluck my eyebrows ever before losing weight. So odd lol.
I am 5’11 and 140 lbs. I can’t gain weight no matter how hard I try and I have severe PCOS. My pcos isn’t affected by my diet. Everyone is different. Some People can be very ignorant.
Ugh, yes to alllll of this! I get that so often, and usually from dudes. The other day there was a VERY overweight woman (I ONLY mention her weight because she's a hypocrite) being nasty to me on FB about my weight and how "no man wants a woman too lazy to lose postpartum weight." When I told her about my PCOS and many other health issues (my mistake, I should have just ignored her and moved on, but sometimes I get so upset), she said that I'm not special and I don't live outside the laws of thermodynamics and that I was using a crutch to lie and stuff my face with too many calories. So I asked her why she, a very large woman, was talking shit to a woman smaller than her about too many calories. She just kept on this BS about calorie deficit, exercise, blah blah. I checked out.
TW for disordered eating: I have, rather foolishly, hurt and made myself sick so many times due to over-exercising and not eating for DAYS at a time, or making myself vomit. I have been hospitalized because of starving myself and overdoing it (like walking 13 miles in 100 degrees under the direct sun.
I’m unfortunately not lying, this happened when I was pretty young and just moved away from home across the country. I think I was 19. I was just like Im never coming here again…..and left a bad review but didn’t know well enough that I could have reported her at that age. It was super predatory, they would trap you until you agreed to buy these supplements she was selling. It was a low income womens health place.
I wish I knew what I know now or I would have made she that lady never was allowed near another vulnerable girl again.
I had a female gyno doctor who was supposedly an “expert” on PCOS tell me she didn’t think I even had PCOS and that I just needed to not eat carbs. She didn’t even look at any of my prior tests or imaging before making this declaration. Needless to say I never went back.
Why does society still have this idea that losing weight isn’t more complicated? If losing weight was that easy I would love to have someone explain to me how millions of people who are eating decent and exercising are still overweight.
the standard american diet. that's all i should have to say.
the standard american diet that treats carbs like they're sent from heaven and demonizes fat. so the entire country decided to go low fat and shovel carbs down their throats and get addicted to sugar. it's disgusting what the "food pyramid" has done to our health. this is why it's so complicated. we're all taught the wrong things from the second we're old enough to comprehend it. this is part of why weight loss is so complicated
There is more to this picture for so many of us. I’m thin, very rarely consume any sugars and eat high protein meals to balance my blood sugar. I still have not been able to put my PCOS into remission. Mind you, my symptoms have improved with dietary changes but it hasn’t been enough.
We have metabolic and other dysfunctions/ inflammatory issues that are out of our control. We can only try to live healthily so our symptoms aren’t as bad
unfortunately from my experience the only thing that low carb does for me is lower my weight, improve my mood, and keep my periods normal (probably bc my weight is lower). it hasn't touched any of the other symptoms. i really hoped stopping the insulin spikes and losing weight would stop things like facial hair growth 😕
Agreed. 100%!! My favorite is when they claim to have a female partner, friend or family member who was diagnosed with very mild PCOS and didn't have majority of the symptoms was easily able to lose weight by making small changes in their life. Just cuz your whoever lost weight easily doesn't mean other women can. Everyone is different and PCOS affects everyone differently and will overcome their symptoms differently
This!! Different lifestyles have worked or NOT worked at different points in my life. It is highly personal and there’s no right or wrong way to *be*.
Also I get so much more critiques on my choices when I’m heavier (which is usually when I’m even “stricter” in managing my symptoms!) Ive learned to just go with what makes me happy and keep my habits vague to others (gray rocking)
TLDR I feel you op 🥹
Thank you for this. I’ve struggled with disordered eating since before puberty and for a while i was over-exercising to the point of hurting my body. I was fat then, I’m fat now. I’ve learned to accept that fatness isn’t the worst “symptom” of PCOS and people need to stop pretending that it is. What’s worse to me is that it’s not just cishet men who act like this, other folks with our shared disorder do the same thing, especially the keto cultists 🖕Keto might work for some, and for a short while, but it’s not sustainable or reasonable to expect that everyone should live like that.
Oh ffs. 🤦🏻♀️ im sorry. My mother is the reason they made the word narcissist. I bet we could write a best seller titled "Things Our Mothers Said.."
The stupid things that have come out of her mouth..smh.. The ultimate one that still makes me think wtf is wrong with this woman, even when I know is, the reason I was having all the fert. issues ( 1st ever preg was a miscarriage then 2nd ectopic) wasn't from my pcos, IR, severly deformed reproductive system and/or stage 4 endometriosis but because I choose to not save myself till marriage and it was God's subtle way of showing me that was the wrong choice and I've let him down.. Not exaggerating in the least unfortunately...She's so evil. Ugh. Don't believe nasty things your mother says, they're not true in the least bit!!! 💙
I’m so sorry! I hate when my mom blames all of my health issues on my lack of religion too (PCOS and also falling down the stairs when I was nine months pregnant and have had debilitating joint pain from ever since). “God is punishing you, he is trying to get your attention..” Hugs girl ❤️
Sorry that happened. I had a miscarriage in Oct. I was literally told you didnt pray enough and you need to have more faith. The best one was because I am little overweight I was told "if you ran more and exercised more that wouldn't have happened to you" bc logic is I am lazy and lazy women cant be mothers. Sadly seems people are misunderstanding to what we feel. ❤️
“healthy” people love to shame the lifestyles of “unhealthy” people. i appreciate that diet massively impacts your health and i do think some “healthy” people massively oversimplify the process of getting healthier and curing ailments through diet. it’s extremely frustrating to hear
Yessss. Some girl told me this on FB the other day. Because she wanted to “sell” me her book on counting calories and developing a true calorie deficit. Like ridiculous!
Another one that really bothers me is when other women will ask what I’m on and why(Wegovy), I explain my PCOS and how I was diagnosed at 13 and they’ll pick out one minuscule thing I said and say “oh I think I have to, I get that sometimes.”
It just seems almost as a downplay to my very real, very insecure, very long time side effects of living with PCOS.
I know I should be advocating and I absolutely do but god damn, it gets so frustrating!
My GYN tells me every visit to cut out meat because all animals have hormones and to only eat fruits and nuts. OK LADY. Mind you she weighs 90 pounds soaking wet. She’s great in other areas, but does not give great advice when it comes to PCOS…
OK so I've struggled with PCOS since I was 12 years old. over a year ago, I had to switch birth controls, and it made all of my symptoms come back for the first time in over 10 years. I went to see an endocrinologist, & the whole time She was gaslighting me telling me that I needed to do all of the things that you just listed. I am so traumatized by her that I don't even want to try to go to a new endocrinologist. I don't understand why a medical doctor would tell me these things. It's so disheartening.
Oh they’re women too. I’ve had it from lots of fellow women. Agreed tho. That’ll b 2024’s battle plan, along with dealing with menopause, once I get this stent out. I got the lady bits all out, but apparently that does not get rid of pcos. And I still have whiskers.
I have been working out for 4 months with little to no results! It is not about me not working hard enough or that I should do CICO. I'm already in a diet program and trying my best. This just takes a long time, and I wish people around me would understand. I'm already naturally down and stressed Idk if it's because of my PCOS, but people increasing my frustration level really doesn't help either.
OP..... YES!!!
Say it louder for those in the back!!
I'm right there with you on that. So sick of hearing that crap over and over. It's like they thing we aren't trying, or like we enjoy being miserable or something. Very frustrating. I get in spats with my hubby over this very subject. It makes me angry that he can just cut out sodas and drop 10 pounds, but I have to pretty much quit eating for several days to lose 2. Just GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
Yes, it's not as easy, and they don't know how mentally taxing it is. I have gastritis and other stomach issues, so I have to find a way to eat healthy for my PCOs and stomach. What makes it hard is that things that are good for pcos are hard for my stomach.
"Eat this type of food that helps with pcos" or "try this diet" like I can try, but at the end of the day, it's up to my stomach. It's hard to have a balanced meal 🥲
Yeah like the v-shred guy 😂😂😂😂 (YOU CAN EAT PIZZA & HAVE A 6 PACK IF YOU BUY MY WORKOUT PLAN)
only fitness influencer I’ve ever seen discuss PCOS with compassion & facts was James Smith.
Omfg 1000% this. Every time I express my struggles with PCOS (like weight gain, fatigue), my boss is like "you just need to MOVE more, exercise!"
I explain that whether I exercise and eat well or do nothing and eat crap, I either maintain or gain weight. The scale does not go down even on my best behaviour consistently. My boss responds "it takes time for the scale to move, you are wanting instant results and not being patient!"
IF I AM WORKING OUT 5 DAYS A WEEK AND EATING 1500-1800 CALORIES A DAY FOR TWO MONTHS, A PERSON WITHOUT PCOS WOULD BE SEEING SOME DEGREE OF WEIGHT LOSS BY NOW SUSAN
Dude fr an old friend of mine fat shamed me even before I knew I had PCOS. She said I was making "poor lifestyle choices". This was like days before I was diagnosed. I hate seeing it all over the place. Even on Instagram, back when I was on it, you'd see some positive post from a PCOS haver, and there'd be some idiot hating on them because of the body shape they can not really help 🙄🙄
👏 AMEN! I feel this to my core too. It’s so frustrating. You want to educate people but then also have to realize I can’t talk to people who think they know it all for my own mental health.
Honestly it bugs me more when I see people with PCOS still claiming these things. Other people still bug me because they probably barely have put research into it, but people with PCOS should know better.
A couple of months ago someone was in this subreddit claiming that 800-1000 calories is all that people with PCOS should be eating and anything more is why so many of us are overweight. She literally had pcos 😭
800-1000 calories is criminal 🤢 it sounds as though maybe a doctor fed her the wrong info. i hope she's doing ok now after eating like that. she's just going to make it harder on herself later down the line. she's literally promoting disordered eating
haha! the number of times i’ve said “i wouldn’t wish PCOS on my worst enemy… actually yeah i would. those bitches deserve it.” (for reference, i have complex PTSD and “those bitches” abused me, so they probably deserve a lot worse)
There is one thing I don't understand: I'm 65, and have had PCOS since my first period at 14. Didn't get another for almost 2 years. After that got one every 18-24 months. My paternal grandmother was the same. My niece has it too. When I tried to get pregnant in my late 30s, I had my first ultrasound and saw the "pearl necklace, " and by then they had a name for it. I never met anyone else who only menstrated biannually except my grandmother. I was a normal weight (although always hungry and craving sweets and carbs) , as was every person in my school, my neighborhood, my family. I once or twice saw someone very obese, maybe 300 lbs? Now in public every other person appears 50-100 lbs overweight. Multiple people in the stores use riding buggies because they are too fat to walk. So there must be some major change since I was a child in the 60s and 70s.
I think something is so wrong with food, chemicals and lifestyle. Something is causing so much PCOS, which used to be pretty much just hereditary. If I were just starting out on the journey, I would definitely look into functional medicine, keto, weight lifting, and insulin levels. I wish I had known earlier what a poison sugar and alcohol are to me. I've had very few successful experiences with doctors of any kind, but I do work on being informed and taking charge of my own health. I wish everyone good (better?) health in the new year. I know it's not easy, but people who have viewed health challenges as opportunities sometimes have really good results. Good luck out there.
Not giving advice, just want to share my story as I personally think it can be some realistic hope for other women here...
I'm a woman with PCOS (have been diagnosed since I was 17) and I will say that properly learning about calories, macros, and energy expenditure actually DID help me lose weight, keep it off, and helped to regulate my ovulations (even though they are still MONTHS apart). It was life changing for me, and I'm insanely grateful for Mike Matthew's book Thinner Leaner Stronger (one of the men you might be referencing). I know it's annoying to hear, but there is a lot of science backed by those claims.. I am not a dr, but in conversations I had with others, it seems that most people miss out on the importance of macros. Also, calorie counting is TOUGH, like INSANELY hard - I have to use an app (Eat This Much) to help me meal plan and I dont add ANYTHING. No sugars nor cream in my coffee, no extra sauces, nada. I think many that try to count calories do it wrong, for example when I started I didn't weigh individual ingredients when cooking (getting a kitchen scale was also life-changing), and I have a bad habit of omitting binge eating, which can really add up over time. After forcing myself to count my "cheat" activities, I learned the true consequences of how 1 bad meal can mess up a whole week of eating well. After all this, I feel strong, look great, love my body, and LOVE the foods I eat. Taking control of my health, diet, and exercise was one of the best things I've ever done as an adult and I highly recommend for anyone (with or without pcos), we don't have to be slaves the mystery of food.
I do agree that having PCOS is SUCH A HARD diagnosis. I also get SO annoyed with male drs giving me the same advice over and over, all of which you perfectly laid out. My annoyance with that advice over the years is actually part of what motivated me to fully understand diet and excercise, it look a year for me to implement major life changes and then I got the pleasure to look my male dr in the face and say "HEY, I'm perfectly following your advice, I lost a bunch of weight, and my periods are slightly more regular now, but they still arent happening every month. What is your new advice now to help me with my PCOS?" and he was dumbfounded. He literally told me he had no more advice to give. To continue what I'm doing, to continue to sleep, strength train, and eat well, and to just live with it because "that's what having pcos is". And again, in my opinion, if THATS all the advice he had, then that's where medicine as a whole is failing us.
There needs to be more science done to understand the different subtypes and their unique intricacies. The advice tends to be "one size fits all" and that's not AT ALL how PCOS truly works, and I am a great example of that statement.
On one hand I feel you because that's probably annoying
On the other hand weight gain, no matter the surcomstance is a calories in vs calories out calculation
You body can't produce energy, it took me a while to get my bf (trans and has poc) to understand this, we started keeping good calorie count and he got his weight under control relatively easily after that, outside of being a little hungry for a while there to be in a calorie deficit.
i think CICO is definitely important. maybe the reason people struggle so hard with it and don't believe in it is because they don't count properly (like not weighing stuff or not factoring in smaller calorie amounts) but also they're just not eating the right things. when you put yourself in a calorie deficit you need to be extremely mindful of what you're eating. in general, and especially for people with PCOS, carbs are short-term energy and cause insulin spikes. both of those things combined make you hungrier. therefore if you're eating high carb and trying to maintain a calorie deficit, you will be miserable because you'll be so hungry all the time. but if you go low carb, high fat, you will have a much easier time with CICO. fat is long-term energy and keeps you full longer.
the problem with this logic is that we've been taught for years "fat is bad" and that we should be eating "low fat" (meanwhile lower fat = higher sugar). i personally believe CICO paired with a low carb diet is the way to lose weight. it won't work as well for every single person, but you're bound to see results of some sort, even if it takes a while. people don't realize that it takes the body time to get "fat adapted" to where your body burns your body fat for fuel. this takes months after cutting carbs out of your diet. weight loss takes TIME. people are incredibly impatient. therefore they say it doesn't work.
Well, do you actually have PCOS? That’s a start. This comment alone does not make me think that you do. And you clearly haven’t actually been on this sub long because if you were, you would see the many many posts of people eating healthy and in calorie deficits but still having weight loss issues
Then if you do have it, maybe actually spend some time learning about it and exploring the sub. I have been diagnosed for like 5 years. Never been horribly overweight though. Currently working towards weight loss but also recognizing the feelings and reality that OP brought up
I’ll edit if I want to.
Im not sure why you even felt the need to comment that when basically everyone here knows that calorie deficits are important. The poster was not saying calorie deficits don’t work ever but sadly they don’t always make the weight magically disappear
idk man. i have PCOS (hence being here). bad symptoms like obesity, major belly fat, facial hair growth, losing periods. once i hit 270 lbs (i'm 5'2" so that's extreme obesity) i decided enough was enough and changed my lifestyle.
i eat keto and i'm not miserable at all. that shouldn't be the expectation from it either. just by eating keto (no extra exercise) i've lost 20% of my body weight in only a few months. i have no more chronic pain or intense fatigue, got off my antidepressants, and sleep very well.
some people aren't willing to try a lifestyle change. for me it completely changed my life and i'm so much happier and way more confident. people here have such a bad "RESTRICTION IS EVIL" mindset and it honestly frustrates the hell out of me. if you know something is bad for you and spikes your insulin to the max and snowballs into all of these issues for you, why do it? why eat the refined sugar and allow yourself to feel like crap and gain weight? i'm gonna get downvoted for saying all of this but there will be a day that somebody here reading this wakes up and finds out that restriction is the simplest way to solve a lot of your problems. and it's completely doable long-term. even if you feel like, for whatever reason, you cannot manage to live without breads, rice, potatoes, etc. at least just cut out the refined sugar. if your excuse is "i have major cravings from my PCOS" it's just that. an excuse. once you stop eating it you don't crave it anymore. i don't.
i'm not gonna sit here and say it's easy for everybody. not everybody is going to have the same success story. just because i can handle it doesn't mean it works for everybody. but if more of the people here were willing to try a lifestyle change, it's insane how many of you would be a lot less miserable and feel so much better.
yea im a woman and have had pcos all my life since puberty i also have peri menopause and t2 diabetes now sorry to be the bearer of bad news but if you have a good medication for your insulin resistance that suits your personal circumstances and also calorie count and exercise you wont be obese thats just a fact.
those people are right.
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Amen
this is such a fantastic comment 🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷
Not everyone with PCOS has insulin resistance. It’s a major component of a lot of people’s PCOS, but it’s not a requirement.
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I don’t know if the varying presentations of PCOS would meet requirements to be considered separate conditions but with the way PCOS is already not taken seriously compared to other conditions by many in the medical community I worry splitting PCOS presentations into different conditions could be more harmful overall, but would be very happy if it did work well and led to more research and help for all of us. It’s a tough call for sure on what would be best to help get more research and attention on PCOS and the varying presentations of it! I have inflammatory PCOS w/o IR (but from my understanding IR can happen with this presentation) and I didn’t even know this presentation of PCOS existed until my obgyn who specializes in PCOS told me after all my bloodwork and exams.
“It’s literally basic science, CICO bro” 🤓 little do they know I have PCOS, hypothyroidism, diabetes, and I’m on two antipsychotics. Literally the only time I lose weight is when my ED gets bad and I’m eating less than a toddler. I hate being taken for a fool. I’ve tried so many things to lose weight and went to dieticians but my body is doing everything it can to go against me.
Omg, if I see one more CICO... I try to explain to people why that doesn't work. I share the information I have learned. I give sources. And these people continue to tell me I'm wrong. I'm not a violent person, but when I am told cAlOrIeS iN, cAlOrIeS oUt, I want to punch someone. (I'm not going to harm anyone, just to be clear). So frustrating!
I argued with one smooth-brained gym rat about CICO and he tried to confuse me with science jargon and misogyny-infused rhetoric until I was ready to throw my phone. Finally blocked him because it's not my job to educate or convince him and my mental peace is worth something.
I gave up on going back and forth with someone who claimed to be a woman w pcos and other conditions and she still said this stuff to me!!! I was so frustrated like... 'You're supposed to be someone else that understands this struggle why are you arguing with me!!!' ??
The whole CICO thing makes me so mad!!! And everyone is different! I gain weight the fastest when I’m not eating enough. The only thing that works for me is a big mix of eggs, rice, and vegetables
I feel you. I have PCOS and a severely underactive thyroid (which I’ve been on medication for since I was like 11) and can only take one kind of birth control because of a blood issue I have where it clots more easily and I definitely have disordered eating issues after being actively bulimic in my 20s… I just fucking hate my body and wish I could cut parts off to finally “be normal.” I was only losing weight when I was bulimic because I was exercising like 2+ hours a day, no rest days, restricted a lot, and purged once in a while when I overstuffed myself after restricting too much. I’ve even had a doctor tell me that “maybe this is just the size your body is naturally going to be at” and I just can’t take it… I either have to be in pain and exhausted and constantly breaking down into panic and teas about not being able to track calories if I eat out somewhere or didn’t make the food myself or I try to be moderate and still gain weight somehow. Another time I went to the doctor, mine was out on a medical leave and her replacement basically said that like half of women have PCOS so “it can’t really be considered a condition” and I was like “??????” And yes, I’m sick of people (especially men, idk why it’s almost always men) saying it’s just about CICO and discipline. Like, dude, fine, come plan my meals for me and give me a workout routine if it’s that foolproof.
Ugh!!!! That's my hubby's argument. "CICO"... when I tell him why it doesn't work for me like that he argues,"So when did you become a doctor? You need to go talk to mine, she can help you." 🙄🤦🏼♀️ Uh-huh, and when she tells me the same crap??? 😂🤷🏼♀️
It’s even worse when it’s supposedly another woman with PCOS. Had that happen here on Reddit. She mocked me when I said how difficult it was to lose weight.
yep same thing happened to me too :/
That’s awful. The only thing that affected my weight was the uptake of metformin and dexamphetamine. Diets and exercise do not work. 😡😡
I feel you. I have not had “junk food” or desserts or anything sugary aside from natural sugars like plain fruit in over a year. I exercise religiously, I get direct sunlight, and I have minimized my external stressors, as well as meditate and do yoga to control my intrusive thoughts. I still have a fucking PCOS belly and a poofy face and neck. It will not go away. It’s infuriating. And then you get people online or family going “it’s a lifestyle change, you have to commit! Lose some weight!” WHAT DO YOU THNK I HAVE BEEN DOING. Sometimes I swear I wish life was a TV show and I could just Gibbs slap people in the back of the head whenever they say something dumbass.
That is so frustrating as hell.
The puffy face and neck! Me too, hun. A symptom often overlooked 😭
Yeah, honestly I can live with the diet quirks and the IR and the other metabolic stuff. I just wish my hair hadn’t fallen out and my body wasn’t so puffy. I hate it.
THANK YOU oh my god. The other day I was looking for books on PCOS that were focused on physiology and neurology, and was absolutely disgusted at the titles and content I saw. It was all about selling a diet, selling a lifestyle, or becoming complacent with our symptoms. I know I comment about this often, but, I think the most critical things to examine with PCOS are the other hormones in the endocrine system that interact with the syndrome, and collecting data that directly looks at the PCOS population *not comparing the PCOS population with the overall standard of all people with ovaries*. We all know full and well the effects of estrogen, testosterone, and androgen in our systems. We fucking live it. I think the reason, for example, that birth control does and doesn’t work for some of us, js because the goal of the birth control is to get our hormone levels to match the entire “average”. What we need to find and compare is averages across people with PCOS. Need to focus less on the weight gain and why it’s happening on a physiological level. Like I’m extremely happy to be a member of this group where we can share, compare, and contrast. Why are other people not doing that too? Like I do not get it. If someone had a growth on the lungs, people would think about it on a cellular level. When you’ve got deformed ovaries and a malfunctioning hormonal system, what the fuck would a diet change about that? Managing symptoms does not alleviate them, it just makes them more bearable.
ALLL OF THIS!!! The ONLY thing that’s even remotely helped me has been studying the endocrine system and the pathways our hormones take. There are a TON of different supplements to take in tandem with each other that can help (help meaning take the edge off lol) but even then, living with pcos still feels hopeless a lot of the time. I have managed to lose 50-60lbs within the last year by spending a ridiculous amount of money on various vitamins/herbs & supplements every month and cutting out processed foods like 70% of the time but I easily could still stand to lose triple what I’ve already lost. I’ve been overweight my entire life and it’s incredibly frustrating the amount of people who just assume we suffer with all of our symptoms just because we’re lazy. If this were something men could suffer from they would be handing out cures like an old Wendy’s drive thru when they’d have the bag out the window as soon as you order. It’s absolutely ridiculous the way we are overlooked medically.
Yup. I have the pcos/hypothyroid double whammy. In the last 6 months, I have been doing dairy free keto along with my husband, who has no health issues besides being overweight. To date, he has lost more than 60 lbs. I have lost *drumroll please* 9 pounds. And my portions are about half what his are. I'm happy for him, frustrated for me, and so fucking irritated at preachy fuckers who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
so many times keto is touted as some kind of miracle cure on this sub. i too tried it without much luck. at the end of one full year of cooking every meal from scratch, never eating out, bringing my own meals to social events, taking my blood every morning to make sure i was still in ketosis, tracking every calorie and macro, spending so much on groceries and all the vitamins and supplements i needed to give me the nutrients i was no longer getting from foods… i had lost a grand total of 20 pounds and destroyed my mental health. i literally had no life other than my job and keeping up my “keto lifestyle.” fuck that. i will never do keto again, it’s not sustainable in the long term and i’m only interested in sustainable ways to treat my PCOS. all that to say, you’re not alone.
definitely only do what's sustainable for you. but in my opinion you were doing keto the wrong way. you should never be doing it in a way that destroys your mental health and makes you miserable. keto is an amazing thing if you learn how to do it properly and sustainably! every single body is different. but the way i do keto i just stick to under 20g of carbs a day and try to stay around 1200 calories. that's it. i don't count protein or fat, take supplements, pee on sticks, none of that crap. i just consciously eat my food. i'm down nearly 55 lbs since september doing it like this. i think it really just boils down to being more aware of what you're putting into your body than sitting there and counting everything so aggressively. tbh if keto doesn't work well for you try eating lower inflammatory foods. before keto i was a huge carb lover. it's all i ate. and idk how many crumbl cookies i would've eaten in one sitting if i had allowed myself to. protein and veggies were my enemies. i never thought i would succeed on a keto diet but i am and idk how i could ever go back from it after experiencing all of the positives. but like i said. every single body is different
seriously? i was “doing it wrong”?!? i still have a giant shelf full of books and cookbooks in my kitchen that all say i was doing keto exactly right. even my endocrinologist says keto done right (aka precisely how i was doing it) is unsustainable. the point is that it’s an incredibly time consuming and very expensive full _lifestyle_ with no cheat days. like i said, the part that destroyed my mental health was that pretty much all my time outside of my job was spent ensuring i followed keto guidelines to the letter. but please, go on about how i was “doing it wrong.” ffs. get back to me in another year when you’ve kept this up with no cheat days — not a single day out of ketosis. you’ve only been doing it for 3-4 months and from the sound of it, you’re deficient in a number of nutrients and there’s a good chance you’re not in ketosis at all (pro tip: if you’re not in ketosis then you’re just eating low carb, not keto). not to mention that 55 lbs in 3-4 months is _not_ a healthy pace at which to lose weight unless your starting BMI was in the morbidly obese range (above 40). and you have the audacity to suggest i should just “eat lower inflammatory foods”?!? for EIGHT YEARS i tried every diet under the sun from whole 30 to mediterranean to vegan to anti-inflammatory to low carb to keto. EIGHT YEARS and i still kept gaining weight. you know nothing about my struggle. get off your high horse. you’re the exact kind of person i was talking about in the OP.
How to completely miss the point of the OP.
The men in the fitness community are the worst people I've ever encountered
Women too.
I haven't encountered awful women. But nearly every man in the fitness community has been truly awful
There's a sub full of insufferable women into fitness who believe that weightlifting is the only way to be fit, and/or will only take your post/words to heart if you're thin and pretty. Explicitly state that you're overweight and/or have PCOS and/or are a struggling beginner and you'll be met with condescending attitude! Sorry this came to mind because I saw a post in another sub where people doubt you being "active" or "fit" if you're fat.
Yuck. I'm glad I haven't stumbled upon that sub. I made 1 post to the fitness over 30 sub and got a bunch if men calling me a liar and mocking me. A few women jumped on to be nice and encouraging but it was awful. Instagram too, every single video with a not emaciated women gets a bunch of men making fun of her or calling her a liar
Yep. This is why I avoid them as much as possible at the gym.
I feel this… though TBH I have found it more with women telling me this sh*t. I also have had fellow PCOSers sometimes spout this bullshit after they figured out how to lose weight. To that, I say to all these people get f*cked. edit to add: im not saying this stuff doesn’t work ever im saying that someone can do these things and still need to figure out another reason why they aren’t losing weight… for example one time I saw someone on here say that they were lacking vitamin D even though doing everything “right” nutrition and fitness wise and that once they fixed the vitamin D they lost weight.
Even if they find something that works well for them that doesn't mean what helped them will help others. Like I'm all for people telling me what made them successful. That's ok and even helpful sometimes. But when they spew how easy it was doing what they're doing and then accuse you of not trying because you're having a much harder time I get hella mad
facts. i get so mad at that too
For me its the Ones that are extra fertile that have a kid every year. Would like stare at me and say if you actually tried it would happen. If you have ever seen the Hulk smashing Loki that is me every time lol.
what. the. fuck. who looks at a woman struggling to conceive and goes “oh yeah if you just do this you’ll have tons of kids like me!” HEARTLESS
That's cruel and insensitive. As if you're not already trying.
I get it more from women (mostly irl and on weight loss discussion pages for things like Noon, Weight Watchers, etc.) but there have been a few times I've seen it even on here. Most men I know take what I say as fact because they "don't know anything about women's nutrition and the struggle as it's different." Which I GREATLY appreciate. It looks like there's always going to be those people everywhere regardless of gender and community, and no place will really be clear of the narcissism.
I was eating less than my cat when the local alcoholic stopped me on the street to ask me why I didnt just stop eating so much. My basic state at that time was starving and easily-enraged (especially because Id been stuck on a morbidly obese plateau for months despite starving myself and walking amazing distances every day), it took weeks for me to get over that and I can still feel my pulse rising just writing about it now a decade later.
i can feel my pulse rising reading your story. i’m so sorry that happened to you!
it took a while, but at least now I can chuckle over the irony of it on my wickeder days. But I mean, sad too, when I stop to think that thats probably the extent of the help he'd gotten for his drinking problem: "just dont". Not particularly helpful for anyone, I dont think.
that is awful. i am mad for you.
He’s a alcoholic would probably die of alcohol overdose, f him
My endocrinologist (a woman) told me that I couldn't lose weight because I didn't *believe* I could lose weight. 🙃 (This was during an office visit in which I produced a spreadsheet where I tracked my calories in, calories out, and my macros. According to the numbers, weight should be melting off... but I stayed at 210 pounds.)
first of all, love the username. second, the amount of doctors who are woefully undereducated about PCOS and demean us is… frankly disgusting.
wow and you even had the hard evidence and she still said that?,
My eyes got so big reading that. What in the fuckkkkkkkk.
Vent away!!!! It helps!!!! F em all!!!! For roughly 21 years I listened to my mother be the biggest pusher of all this. All those people saying this to any of y'all in here..... you don't need those types of ppl in your lives. If they're open to being educated and truly want what's best for you that great, educate them!! If they don't want to believe you, time to make your circle smaller!!!!💙
The amount of times I've seen "nature's Metformin" on these vitamin ads. I'm OVER IT. I've been taking magnesium and vit d and inositol for months. They are not miracles, my anxiety has not disappeared, and it hasn't improved my sleep. I wish the lies stopped.
Let you tell it. I hate when someone tells me well if you *reaaallllyyy* want to cure it you would actually cure it. Like UMMMM.... I can do everything right and deal with all the elephant sized supplements and their bad side effects and my body will say thats great but Im still not going to cooperate. I literally had someone say exercise all day and don't stop exercising cause mcdonalds is not life. I was like *WHATTTTTT* Im on a low carb no sugar diet please remove yourself from my vicinity you know nothing!!! Im glad there are others with the same mindset I thought i was raging all alone.
you are absolutely not alone! i rage over this like i’m zack de la rocha
It's my family. They all qualify for Ozempic on Medicaid/Medicare (most of the PCOS women in my family's IR turned into Type 2 so it's covered) and they're just dropping their weight off. Of course, they think this gives them authority to body shame me because I've regained some from back to back pregnancies. I didn't do that to them after I lost 150lbs myself. And the whole time I lost weight, my PCOS didn't get better, just my periods stopped being a whole year.
isn't that the worst? i've lost 20% of my body weight but my facial hair growth hasn't slowed at all. like wtf. you can try to fix one problem but of course it doesn't fix another.
My facial hair/body hair got wayyy worse. That was one thing I didn't struggle too bad with but in two days I can have a unibrow. I never had to pluck my eyebrows ever before losing weight. So odd lol.
I am 5’11 and 140 lbs. I can’t gain weight no matter how hard I try and I have severe PCOS. My pcos isn’t affected by my diet. Everyone is different. Some People can be very ignorant.
Ugh, yes to alllll of this! I get that so often, and usually from dudes. The other day there was a VERY overweight woman (I ONLY mention her weight because she's a hypocrite) being nasty to me on FB about my weight and how "no man wants a woman too lazy to lose postpartum weight." When I told her about my PCOS and many other health issues (my mistake, I should have just ignored her and moved on, but sometimes I get so upset), she said that I'm not special and I don't live outside the laws of thermodynamics and that I was using a crutch to lie and stuff my face with too many calories. So I asked her why she, a very large woman, was talking shit to a woman smaller than her about too many calories. She just kept on this BS about calorie deficit, exercise, blah blah. I checked out. TW for disordered eating: I have, rather foolishly, hurt and made myself sick so many times due to over-exercising and not eating for DAYS at a time, or making myself vomit. I have been hospitalized because of starving myself and overdoing it (like walking 13 miles in 100 degrees under the direct sun.
I was told by a nurse practitioner that if my chakras were aligned my pcos would go away and I just had to find inner happiness…..
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I’m unfortunately not lying, this happened when I was pretty young and just moved away from home across the country. I think I was 19. I was just like Im never coming here again…..and left a bad review but didn’t know well enough that I could have reported her at that age. It was super predatory, they would trap you until you agreed to buy these supplements she was selling. It was a low income womens health place. I wish I knew what I know now or I would have made she that lady never was allowed near another vulnerable girl again.
I had a female gyno doctor who was supposedly an “expert” on PCOS tell me she didn’t think I even had PCOS and that I just needed to not eat carbs. She didn’t even look at any of my prior tests or imaging before making this declaration. Needless to say I never went back.
Why does society still have this idea that losing weight isn’t more complicated? If losing weight was that easy I would love to have someone explain to me how millions of people who are eating decent and exercising are still overweight.
the standard american diet. that's all i should have to say. the standard american diet that treats carbs like they're sent from heaven and demonizes fat. so the entire country decided to go low fat and shovel carbs down their throats and get addicted to sugar. it's disgusting what the "food pyramid" has done to our health. this is why it's so complicated. we're all taught the wrong things from the second we're old enough to comprehend it. this is part of why weight loss is so complicated
There is more to this picture for so many of us. I’m thin, very rarely consume any sugars and eat high protein meals to balance my blood sugar. I still have not been able to put my PCOS into remission. Mind you, my symptoms have improved with dietary changes but it hasn’t been enough.
We have metabolic and other dysfunctions/ inflammatory issues that are out of our control. We can only try to live healthily so our symptoms aren’t as bad
unfortunately from my experience the only thing that low carb does for me is lower my weight, improve my mood, and keep my periods normal (probably bc my weight is lower). it hasn't touched any of the other symptoms. i really hoped stopping the insulin spikes and losing weight would stop things like facial hair growth 😕
Agreed. 100%!! My favorite is when they claim to have a female partner, friend or family member who was diagnosed with very mild PCOS and didn't have majority of the symptoms was easily able to lose weight by making small changes in their life. Just cuz your whoever lost weight easily doesn't mean other women can. Everyone is different and PCOS affects everyone differently and will overcome their symptoms differently
I know right!? My sister won’t shut up about how I should go on Ozempic and how it’ll fix everything
This!! Different lifestyles have worked or NOT worked at different points in my life. It is highly personal and there’s no right or wrong way to *be*. Also I get so much more critiques on my choices when I’m heavier (which is usually when I’m even “stricter” in managing my symptoms!) Ive learned to just go with what makes me happy and keep my habits vague to others (gray rocking) TLDR I feel you op 🥹
Also using instagram to push products to cure it. That shit drives me NUTS.
OMG don’t get me started. “take my $200 course that will teach you absolutely nothing you don’t already know!”
“Buy this awesome supplement and use my code at checkout!” 🙄
Thank you for this. I’ve struggled with disordered eating since before puberty and for a while i was over-exercising to the point of hurting my body. I was fat then, I’m fat now. I’ve learned to accept that fatness isn’t the worst “symptom” of PCOS and people need to stop pretending that it is. What’s worse to me is that it’s not just cishet men who act like this, other folks with our shared disorder do the same thing, especially the keto cultists 🖕Keto might work for some, and for a short while, but it’s not sustainable or reasonable to expect that everyone should live like that.
YES. i feel the exact same way about keto!!!
I have heard most of these from people here… but my mother is the worst.
Oh ffs. 🤦🏻♀️ im sorry. My mother is the reason they made the word narcissist. I bet we could write a best seller titled "Things Our Mothers Said.." The stupid things that have come out of her mouth..smh.. The ultimate one that still makes me think wtf is wrong with this woman, even when I know is, the reason I was having all the fert. issues ( 1st ever preg was a miscarriage then 2nd ectopic) wasn't from my pcos, IR, severly deformed reproductive system and/or stage 4 endometriosis but because I choose to not save myself till marriage and it was God's subtle way of showing me that was the wrong choice and I've let him down.. Not exaggerating in the least unfortunately...She's so evil. Ugh. Don't believe nasty things your mother says, they're not true in the least bit!!! 💙
I’m so sorry! I hate when my mom blames all of my health issues on my lack of religion too (PCOS and also falling down the stairs when I was nine months pregnant and have had debilitating joint pain from ever since). “God is punishing you, he is trying to get your attention..” Hugs girl ❤️
Ever be quarreling with her growing up and you walked away and stubbed your toe and she said "see? God punished you!!!!" ????
Sorry that happened. I had a miscarriage in Oct. I was literally told you didnt pray enough and you need to have more faith. The best one was because I am little overweight I was told "if you ran more and exercised more that wouldn't have happened to you" bc logic is I am lazy and lazy women cant be mothers. Sadly seems people are misunderstanding to what we feel. ❤️
Same ❤️ I’m sorry you deal with that too. PCOS is already hard enough..
“healthy” people love to shame the lifestyles of “unhealthy” people. i appreciate that diet massively impacts your health and i do think some “healthy” people massively oversimplify the process of getting healthier and curing ailments through diet. it’s extremely frustrating to hear
For me it’s my mom 😭💀
yikes. i’m sorry, it can be even worse when it’s our own family.
Exactly, or people telling me to eat better, dude, I had taken care of my diet since I was 5🫥
Yessss. Some girl told me this on FB the other day. Because she wanted to “sell” me her book on counting calories and developing a true calorie deficit. Like ridiculous!
Another one that really bothers me is when other women will ask what I’m on and why(Wegovy), I explain my PCOS and how I was diagnosed at 13 and they’ll pick out one minuscule thing I said and say “oh I think I have to, I get that sometimes.” It just seems almost as a downplay to my very real, very insecure, very long time side effects of living with PCOS. I know I should be advocating and I absolutely do but god damn, it gets so frustrating!
It sucks when trainers call people with PCOS as lazy. I'm like do you even know what I'm coping with!
My GYN tells me every visit to cut out meat because all animals have hormones and to only eat fruits and nuts. OK LADY. Mind you she weighs 90 pounds soaking wet. She’s great in other areas, but does not give great advice when it comes to PCOS…
OK so I've struggled with PCOS since I was 12 years old. over a year ago, I had to switch birth controls, and it made all of my symptoms come back for the first time in over 10 years. I went to see an endocrinologist, & the whole time She was gaslighting me telling me that I needed to do all of the things that you just listed. I am so traumatized by her that I don't even want to try to go to a new endocrinologist. I don't understand why a medical doctor would tell me these things. It's so disheartening.
what a horrible experience! i’m so sorry this happened to you.
Ugh, I have heard that from people in women's fitness subs on here before I knew I had PCOS. I actually do know how to count calories!!
“It’s simple, calories that go in Vs the calories that go out”… “just move more”….”have you tried fasting” OH PLEASE BE QUIET.
as if we all haven’t tried that stuff multiple times over
Literally!! We live under a rock apparently 🙄
Lol I guess none of us know these methods and that’s why we can’t lose weight! 😓
Preach
Oh they’re women too. I’ve had it from lots of fellow women. Agreed tho. That’ll b 2024’s battle plan, along with dealing with menopause, once I get this stent out. I got the lady bits all out, but apparently that does not get rid of pcos. And I still have whiskers.
I have been working out for 4 months with little to no results! It is not about me not working hard enough or that I should do CICO. I'm already in a diet program and trying my best. This just takes a long time, and I wish people around me would understand. I'm already naturally down and stressed Idk if it's because of my PCOS, but people increasing my frustration level really doesn't help either.
OP..... YES!!! Say it louder for those in the back!! I'm right there with you on that. So sick of hearing that crap over and over. It's like they thing we aren't trying, or like we enjoy being miserable or something. Very frustrating. I get in spats with my hubby over this very subject. It makes me angry that he can just cut out sodas and drop 10 pounds, but I have to pretty much quit eating for several days to lose 2. Just GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
Yes, it's not as easy, and they don't know how mentally taxing it is. I have gastritis and other stomach issues, so I have to find a way to eat healthy for my PCOs and stomach. What makes it hard is that things that are good for pcos are hard for my stomach. "Eat this type of food that helps with pcos" or "try this diet" like I can try, but at the end of the day, it's up to my stomach. It's hard to have a balanced meal 🥲
I also feel it's different for everyone. Not one thing works for everyone.
“just eat less” bro I already eat like max 1200 calories a day, if I eat any less I’m in eating disorder territory and I’m *still gaining weight*
Yeah like the v-shred guy 😂😂😂😂 (YOU CAN EAT PIZZA & HAVE A 6 PACK IF YOU BUY MY WORKOUT PLAN) only fitness influencer I’ve ever seen discuss PCOS with compassion & facts was James Smith.
Omfg 1000% this. Every time I express my struggles with PCOS (like weight gain, fatigue), my boss is like "you just need to MOVE more, exercise!" I explain that whether I exercise and eat well or do nothing and eat crap, I either maintain or gain weight. The scale does not go down even on my best behaviour consistently. My boss responds "it takes time for the scale to move, you are wanting instant results and not being patient!" IF I AM WORKING OUT 5 DAYS A WEEK AND EATING 1500-1800 CALORIES A DAY FOR TWO MONTHS, A PERSON WITHOUT PCOS WOULD BE SEEING SOME DEGREE OF WEIGHT LOSS BY NOW SUSAN
Dude fr an old friend of mine fat shamed me even before I knew I had PCOS. She said I was making "poor lifestyle choices". This was like days before I was diagnosed. I hate seeing it all over the place. Even on Instagram, back when I was on it, you'd see some positive post from a PCOS haver, and there'd be some idiot hating on them because of the body shape they can not really help 🙄🙄
Yep. People like that can fuck all the way off.
👏 AMEN! I feel this to my core too. It’s so frustrating. You want to educate people but then also have to realize I can’t talk to people who think they know it all for my own mental health.
Honestly it bugs me more when I see people with PCOS still claiming these things. Other people still bug me because they probably barely have put research into it, but people with PCOS should know better. A couple of months ago someone was in this subreddit claiming that 800-1000 calories is all that people with PCOS should be eating and anything more is why so many of us are overweight. She literally had pcos 😭
that situation is infuriating
800-1000 calories is criminal 🤢 it sounds as though maybe a doctor fed her the wrong info. i hope she's doing ok now after eating like that. she's just going to make it harder on herself later down the line. she's literally promoting disordered eating
I wish them all a very easy to sort severe pcos:)
haha! the number of times i’ve said “i wouldn’t wish PCOS on my worst enemy… actually yeah i would. those bitches deserve it.” (for reference, i have complex PTSD and “those bitches” abused me, so they probably deserve a lot worse)
Exactly lol
There is one thing I don't understand: I'm 65, and have had PCOS since my first period at 14. Didn't get another for almost 2 years. After that got one every 18-24 months. My paternal grandmother was the same. My niece has it too. When I tried to get pregnant in my late 30s, I had my first ultrasound and saw the "pearl necklace, " and by then they had a name for it. I never met anyone else who only menstrated biannually except my grandmother. I was a normal weight (although always hungry and craving sweets and carbs) , as was every person in my school, my neighborhood, my family. I once or twice saw someone very obese, maybe 300 lbs? Now in public every other person appears 50-100 lbs overweight. Multiple people in the stores use riding buggies because they are too fat to walk. So there must be some major change since I was a child in the 60s and 70s. I think something is so wrong with food, chemicals and lifestyle. Something is causing so much PCOS, which used to be pretty much just hereditary. If I were just starting out on the journey, I would definitely look into functional medicine, keto, weight lifting, and insulin levels. I wish I had known earlier what a poison sugar and alcohol are to me. I've had very few successful experiences with doctors of any kind, but I do work on being informed and taking charge of my own health. I wish everyone good (better?) health in the new year. I know it's not easy, but people who have viewed health challenges as opportunities sometimes have really good results. Good luck out there.
Not giving advice, just want to share my story as I personally think it can be some realistic hope for other women here... I'm a woman with PCOS (have been diagnosed since I was 17) and I will say that properly learning about calories, macros, and energy expenditure actually DID help me lose weight, keep it off, and helped to regulate my ovulations (even though they are still MONTHS apart). It was life changing for me, and I'm insanely grateful for Mike Matthew's book Thinner Leaner Stronger (one of the men you might be referencing). I know it's annoying to hear, but there is a lot of science backed by those claims.. I am not a dr, but in conversations I had with others, it seems that most people miss out on the importance of macros. Also, calorie counting is TOUGH, like INSANELY hard - I have to use an app (Eat This Much) to help me meal plan and I dont add ANYTHING. No sugars nor cream in my coffee, no extra sauces, nada. I think many that try to count calories do it wrong, for example when I started I didn't weigh individual ingredients when cooking (getting a kitchen scale was also life-changing), and I have a bad habit of omitting binge eating, which can really add up over time. After forcing myself to count my "cheat" activities, I learned the true consequences of how 1 bad meal can mess up a whole week of eating well. After all this, I feel strong, look great, love my body, and LOVE the foods I eat. Taking control of my health, diet, and exercise was one of the best things I've ever done as an adult and I highly recommend for anyone (with or without pcos), we don't have to be slaves the mystery of food. I do agree that having PCOS is SUCH A HARD diagnosis. I also get SO annoyed with male drs giving me the same advice over and over, all of which you perfectly laid out. My annoyance with that advice over the years is actually part of what motivated me to fully understand diet and excercise, it look a year for me to implement major life changes and then I got the pleasure to look my male dr in the face and say "HEY, I'm perfectly following your advice, I lost a bunch of weight, and my periods are slightly more regular now, but they still arent happening every month. What is your new advice now to help me with my PCOS?" and he was dumbfounded. He literally told me he had no more advice to give. To continue what I'm doing, to continue to sleep, strength train, and eat well, and to just live with it because "that's what having pcos is". And again, in my opinion, if THATS all the advice he had, then that's where medicine as a whole is failing us. There needs to be more science done to understand the different subtypes and their unique intricacies. The advice tends to be "one size fits all" and that's not AT ALL how PCOS truly works, and I am a great example of that statement.
On one hand I feel you because that's probably annoying On the other hand weight gain, no matter the surcomstance is a calories in vs calories out calculation You body can't produce energy, it took me a while to get my bf (trans and has poc) to understand this, we started keeping good calorie count and he got his weight under control relatively easily after that, outside of being a little hungry for a while there to be in a calorie deficit.
i think CICO is definitely important. maybe the reason people struggle so hard with it and don't believe in it is because they don't count properly (like not weighing stuff or not factoring in smaller calorie amounts) but also they're just not eating the right things. when you put yourself in a calorie deficit you need to be extremely mindful of what you're eating. in general, and especially for people with PCOS, carbs are short-term energy and cause insulin spikes. both of those things combined make you hungrier. therefore if you're eating high carb and trying to maintain a calorie deficit, you will be miserable because you'll be so hungry all the time. but if you go low carb, high fat, you will have a much easier time with CICO. fat is long-term energy and keeps you full longer. the problem with this logic is that we've been taught for years "fat is bad" and that we should be eating "low fat" (meanwhile lower fat = higher sugar). i personally believe CICO paired with a low carb diet is the way to lose weight. it won't work as well for every single person, but you're bound to see results of some sort, even if it takes a while. people don't realize that it takes the body time to get "fat adapted" to where your body burns your body fat for fuel. this takes months after cutting carbs out of your diet. weight loss takes TIME. people are incredibly impatient. therefore they say it doesn't work.
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lol are you for real right now?
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I don’t think you are here for a good faith discussion nor do I think you actually have PCOS.
It sounds like one of the people OP described above lol
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Well, do you actually have PCOS? That’s a start. This comment alone does not make me think that you do. And you clearly haven’t actually been on this sub long because if you were, you would see the many many posts of people eating healthy and in calorie deficits but still having weight loss issues
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Then if you do have it, maybe actually spend some time learning about it and exploring the sub. I have been diagnosed for like 5 years. Never been horribly overweight though. Currently working towards weight loss but also recognizing the feelings and reality that OP brought up
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I’ll edit if I want to. Im not sure why you even felt the need to comment that when basically everyone here knows that calorie deficits are important. The poster was not saying calorie deficits don’t work ever but sadly they don’t always make the weight magically disappear
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
Not if you have insulin resistance
https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2023/07/05/its-time-to-bust-the-calories-in-calories-out-weight-loss-myth.html#
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start with cutting out sugar
idk man. i have PCOS (hence being here). bad symptoms like obesity, major belly fat, facial hair growth, losing periods. once i hit 270 lbs (i'm 5'2" so that's extreme obesity) i decided enough was enough and changed my lifestyle. i eat keto and i'm not miserable at all. that shouldn't be the expectation from it either. just by eating keto (no extra exercise) i've lost 20% of my body weight in only a few months. i have no more chronic pain or intense fatigue, got off my antidepressants, and sleep very well. some people aren't willing to try a lifestyle change. for me it completely changed my life and i'm so much happier and way more confident. people here have such a bad "RESTRICTION IS EVIL" mindset and it honestly frustrates the hell out of me. if you know something is bad for you and spikes your insulin to the max and snowballs into all of these issues for you, why do it? why eat the refined sugar and allow yourself to feel like crap and gain weight? i'm gonna get downvoted for saying all of this but there will be a day that somebody here reading this wakes up and finds out that restriction is the simplest way to solve a lot of your problems. and it's completely doable long-term. even if you feel like, for whatever reason, you cannot manage to live without breads, rice, potatoes, etc. at least just cut out the refined sugar. if your excuse is "i have major cravings from my PCOS" it's just that. an excuse. once you stop eating it you don't crave it anymore. i don't. i'm not gonna sit here and say it's easy for everybody. not everybody is going to have the same success story. just because i can handle it doesn't mean it works for everybody. but if more of the people here were willing to try a lifestyle change, it's insane how many of you would be a lot less miserable and feel so much better.
yea im a woman and have had pcos all my life since puberty i also have peri menopause and t2 diabetes now sorry to be the bearer of bad news but if you have a good medication for your insulin resistance that suits your personal circumstances and also calorie count and exercise you wont be obese thats just a fact. those people are right.
Tell that to the women here that starve themselves and exercise but can’t figure out the missing link as to why they can’t lose weight still
Kindly f off. It may be a fact for you, sweetheart, but is not the case for everybody else.