hello friends its me again. and im vvv sorry but im just grumpy this time round. a little bit of background: im 18, i was recently diagnosed with PCOS, my weight is stuck at about 147-150 which is just barely overweight for my height, and i dont eat enough a day -- i was trying to work out how much i do eat, and i'm thinking about 1000-1200 calories a day when im not at college because i forget to eat a lot. so notably under the recommended intake. im tired of people telling me to eat less and exercise more, which they continue to tell me despite not actually eating that much. im so fucking tired of it. i know they mean well but i am so fucking tired of it. i eat relatively healthily compared to a lot of people i know -- it's not obsessively great, but it's alright. lots of fruit, try and eat my veggies, all that jazz. asked on a PCOS forum about possible medication to assist (basically thinking about going on the pill since that helps a lot of hormonal stuff) and what do i get -- from people i thought would understand the issue!!! -- but eat better, cut out all carbs, just eat meat and vegetables, check out the keto diet. im so fucking sick of this. i've had to avoid calorie counting as much as i can because every time ive done it ive seen myself slipping into a bad spiral of obsessive disordered habits. these are all 30-something women trying to get pregnant and championing their "lose 100 pounds with our keto diets!!!" routines-- and i feel out of place and wrong to be rejecting it all --- i don't know if im in denial, and maybe i am, but i asked for medication advice and got hit with the same shit i hear from people who don't understand. i like food. i really love pasta. i'd like to eat more of it, not less. i just want regular hormones and for people telling me to change my diet to get fucked. any thoughts on grumpy jian? vvvv sorry for all this
I know I actually started to lose weight when I started to consistently eat a more regular amount of food, if that helps. I've heard from a few other people that they also started to lose weight/gain weight more easily when they don't eat consistently regular meals or enough food as well. I'm a cis guy though, and can't really offer any advice for pcos.
I don't know about PCOS, myself, but I think above all keeping yourself out of disordered eating spirals and working on making sure you eat enough on a regular basis is an excellent thing to do for your overall health, regardless. A lot of advice on food restriction leads to a person's brain and body doing the I'M GONNA STARVE freak out, which has nothing to do with self-control and everything to do instinctual reactions that can't be controlled with willpower. Unfortunately, the health pests might be kind of right about high carb diets if my experiences are anything to go by (and boy I'm annoyed about that), but I think that's something worth thinking about once you're getting enough to eat on a regular or semi-regular basis and not before.
There are def birth control methods that can help w hormone levels, I don't have PCOS afaik but i have pretty bad periods and I'm working with my obgyn to find something. You may need to try a couple different pills to see what works and it usually takes about 3 months to figure out how your body will react to it. There's also a shot you can get every 3 months instead that can stop your period entirely in some cases. (YMMV) Re: the food stuff, what people said above: not eating regularly puts your body into starvation mode and it'll hold on to everything is possibly can. A lot of people don't realize this and equate overweight=overeating and then wonder why dieting doesn't make them lose weight, but it's really all about metabolism. It's probably hard with people pestering you but working on regular eating habits will help get your body back on track to not freaking out. I REALIZE THAT'S EASIER SAID THAN DONE THO as someone who also forgets to eat a lot. In my case I have severe executive dysfunction issues around cooking so i rely a lot on frozen or easy to make meals. It's still possible to find healthy stuff that way though. If you like pasta, adding stuff to the sauce can fill it in a lot (and make one bag of pasta last longer.) I find that depriving yourself of stuff you like flat out is just going to make you miserable. It's easier to just tweak it a little at a time. I guess my advice over all would be take it one thing at a time. Debug the frequency of meals first before worrying too much about the content of them. Edit: idk if this would work for you but...I'm really bad at getting protein because im picky about meat so I started adding protein powder to my pasta sauce instead. Some people really notice and hate the taste but if you can mask it and use it as a thickener instead of flour, it works. Or just dump some into pre-made jar sauce.
Witnessed. I almost had to double check if I had written this post because I am in a very similar situation. I'm sorry the PCOS forum wasn't more helpful. Diet culture is heavily entrenched and a lot of people bring it into conversations when it's not wanted and assume things about strangers because obviously if you were doing the "right" thing you wouldn't have a problem (/sarcasm). From my experience, as people have said here already, at this point all calories are good calories. If it contains macronutrients (fat, protein, carbs) it is giving your body energy. You can start switching to "quality" foods once you have "quantity" consistently down. And quality doesn't have to mean following anyone else's plan! A quality diet is one where you eat foods that make you feel good and energized and healthy. Pasta can be part of it! Consider taking a multivitamin perhaps. If you're not eating a wide variety of foods and not eating very much you're more likely to be deficient in one or more of those and they can have a big impact on how you feel health-wise. Also if it helps you, you can think of food as literal fuel so your body can do things. Don't work out really hard at the gym when you haven't eaten all day. (I've almost passed out a couple times and get really nauseous and woozy. Bad times all around) Even a granola bar or a spoonful of peanut butter before you do anything active is better than nothing. I find that eating something small like candy or chewing gum or drinking juice can make me feel hungry again when I've not eaten in long enough that I don't feel it any more. Phone alarms are also an option for remembering mealtimes. Remember that what you choose to put in your body, whether that is medication or food, is your decision and no one else's. It's your body, it belongs to you and only you.
