Posts by sarah_jayne

I love my Wii fit..if nothing else it is great for just getting you moving bits of your body you might not normally think about exercising.  I like the balance things because they are the most fun for me but the hula hoop and stepping things are great for getting the sweat going.  I even do the running things which is amazing because I spent most of my time in school trying to do anything in gym that involved running in any form.

I find that scale has me a bit higher than my own scale but then my own scale always has me higher than the 'official' scale at my weighin at the doctor's office.  So, I just use the wii one as a guide to how much I have lost vs what the actual weight is in reality.

I do it in the morning after going to the bathroom.  I also try not to weigh myself daily because those flucuations can really throw your confidence too.  If you try to do it once a week on the same day of the week at about the same time you will be getting a more solid picture of where you are at.

I have worried in the past that I might be going to low but then even at my highest weight if I went higher than 1800 I didn't lose weight.  Admitly, at my highest weight I wasn't doing much exercise other than walking because I actually had to drop enough weight to be within the safe weight range for my exercise bike.

I have had so many different answers from various online tools about what my calories should be that it does take my head for a whirl sometimes.  It has taken my nearly two years now to drop these 85 pounds so I am hoping going slowly will be the right path.  It just feels weird that after two years of eating mostly correctly (everybody has the odd off day) that I am getting a grumbling tummy now.

I haven't weighed this low since I was about 12 years old, which has to be a good thing for my body.  However, I have also probably had PCOS (though I didn't know it until later) since I was about 12 or 13 too and so my cycle has never been normal.  I started early and then around 15 I stopped having periods at all (sorry guys) and then barely ever had one at all until about four years ago and then suddenly I was having a non-stop one. I am on pills and a contraceptive coil that stop me having a period so it is hard to judge if I am having proper cycles.

So, one thing that has crossed my mind is maybe after all these years and going back to the weight I pretty much was at when my period started  if my cycles are kicking in again.  Do cycles make you more hungry at certain times of the month?  I was without one to speak of for SO many years that I don't even really know what goes with it?

I know that a lot of the other symptoms from PCOS have become under control for me recently.  I used to have hair growth and that has more or less stopped. So, the thought that perhaps my hormones were adjusting themselves has crossed my mind.  It is so weird (but a good weird) to have my body changing.

I have my monthly weighin at the nurse next week. I think I get a bit stressed the week before that too just on the chance that I won't drop much even though there is no reason for that stress as the nurse is very nice and encouraging.

It sounds like after my weighin I should experiment with going up with my calories a bit for the following month and see if it makes any difference to both my tummy and my rate of weight loss.

It also isn't that you can't have something like parsnips at all (which *are* good for you in other ways but just are high gi) but that you need to have them less often and balance them out with other low gi stuff.

It is amazing to me how quickly I simply adapted to making sure the bulk of the foods in my diet were low gi.  I think you just quickly get used to enjoying the feeling of being full most of the time.

Yes it can!  I am 31 years old and have known I have had PCOS for about 8 or more years now.  I have lost about 80lbs over the past two years with about 50 more to go.

The bad news is that yes,  weight loss with PCOS is slower than it is in other people.  This is the prime reason why I never set myself 'I will drop so many pounds in two weeks' type targets because I will only end up feeling rubbish about myself.

The good news is..that we absolutely can lose weight.  It took me years and years of not being able to get past losing the same 20 lbs and then , as mentioned above, I finally took controlling my insulin seriously (I am not diabetic but like many with PCOS I am insulin resistant) and it was only then that the weight started to come off at a good rate.  By good, I mean that I usually lose about a pound or so a week which is safe and steady.

For me, controlling my insulin has meant eating a Low GI sort of lifestyle.  I don't follow a particular diet because I have also learned that if I go on something like the South Beach diet or any 'diet' at all I will follow it for a bit and then gradually go off it.  By simply focusing on making pretty much everything that goes into my mouth Low Gi (slow burn foods that help to control your insulin levels) it has simply become the way that I eat rather than being a diet.

I agree with seeing a dietitian.  That is what I did at first and she has helped me set my daily calorie and fat grams intake.  I am currently (after my 80lbs loss) about 227 pounds and I eat between 1500 and 1800 calories a day and try to eat less than 40grams of fat a day.  I also exercise about 30 minutes a day. 

In all honesty, by following a low GI diet I usually get no where near 40 grams of fat a day but am usually more at 25 and it is all good fats.  I very rarely feel hungry when I am following low gi either.  The best thing for me aside from the weight loss is the when I eat low GI my PCOS symptoms are controlled.  Of course, as I have lost weight they have lessened too.

So, yes you can do it but don't judge yourself against the weight loss of others and particularly those that don't have PCOS.

I am more or less always cooking for two.  So, I weigh everything as raw ingredients as they are going in and then divide those weights by two and go by that.  Of course, I do my best to make the servings even once cooked.

Everything, even lettuce, has a calorie value and they still all count towards your calorie intake. So, I weigh and count everything.  So much of my diet is vegetarian these days that if I didn't count the calories of vegetables I would pretty much not be counting anything at all.

Glad you liked it. The one reason I don't make it is because I am afraid I will just eat it all and blow my portion control because it is so morish for me.

I love it ...in the years since I started dieting it has become my 'treat' food over chocolate.  I recently had a carmalized roasted garlic version which is just about the best thing I have tasted in years.

I too have PCOS and insulin resistance. I have known about it for about 8 years now. My weightgain started to really speed up at about the time puberty hit and after about two years of having periods they just stopped at about 15 years old and never picked up again until suddenly when I was about 26 I started having a non-stop period.  It was around then that I almost instantly went from very fat to very very fat and reached 309lbs and decided I had to really do something about it.

 I have been on metformin for a few years now and I have been on cyproterone for a bit over a year now in an attempt to control the hair side effects.  

I have lost 60lbs in a bit over a year after many failed attempts.  It takes me so much longer than other people but it is good to see it working.  What has worked for me is to eat whole foods..ie veggies, beans, etc rather than processed foods and by doing that most of what I eat is Low GI..that wasn't intentional but it worked out that way and I have found that it really agrees with my body.

Finally, in the last month or so I have started to see what I think are PCOS improvements.  I think I have much less hair growth, etc but I could be tricking myself.

What really bothers me is how hard it is to shift my belly weight.  I am the typical PCOS apple shape with most of my weight on my belly and despite a 60lb loss I have had barely any of it come off my belly. 

Original Post by brown_paper_bag:

Sorry to hijack your thread, but could anybody also tell me where in the UK I can get the low cal spray butter everybody on here seems to have? Thanks!

 You mean a cooking spray?  You can get that in nearly ever supermarket and it is called fry lite.  If you mean the stuff you spray on food to be a replacement that way then I haven't seen it in the 11 years I have lived here.  I would love to know too.

 I also haven't seen that cereal..my mom eats it back in the States but haven't seen it in the actual stores. 

If anybody ever sees fat free Cool Whip anywhere in the UK let me know and I will drive to buy it...lol 

I also have the Merina coil (IUD).  I have had it for about three years now.  I have PCOS and that was causing me to have suddenly (after years of having no periods) have very painful and heavy periods that never seemed to stop.  The IUD has taken that away and while my body feels like it is having a cycle each month (a fairly new thing for me over the past few years) I don't have the flow.

It doesn't hurt and I totally forget it is there unless I think about it.  Occasionally, I will get tender inside around where it is placed but that is usually around the time of the month so I am connecting that and not blaming the coil.