Hi guys! Ive been browsing the site a lot but never posted before. About a week and a half ago I started eating 1300 calories a day and walking on the treadmill for 25 minutes on an average of 3mph, which is good for me because im short and so out of shape. I also have PCOS and im on metformin for it. I weigh myself everyday and it just doesnt budge. Why is this happening? Am I doing something wrong? O_o

What are you eating?

With PCOS, it's what you eat rather than calories sometimes. Please post a detailed menu.

Ahh, interesting. Yesterday I had a bowl of cereal, 100 calorie yogurt, some pretzels, a tuna sandwhich, oh and tilapia. Today so far I had yogurt. I basically eat almost anything, except candy and pastries and fast food and soda o_o

I know that people with PCOS tend to respond very well to a low carb diet. Have you considered trying that -- maybe swapping cereal for eggs, etc. You might want to google PCOS and low carb and see if you can learn anything, but I think that may help.

Good luck!

With PCOS you should be eating a 30-40% carb diet to help lose weight, not a 55%-60% carb diet that most people do.

Here's a typical PCOS diet menu (my menu anyways):

Breakfast:
Scrambed Eggs with spinach and cheese

Lunch:
Large salad with turkey or chicken, tomatoes, onions, carrots, shredded cheese, ranch dressing

Snack: 1 cup cauliflower with dip OR celery with peanut butter OR veggies with hummus

Dinner:
Grilled fish with roasted vegetables (sometimes I'll have wild rice or brown rice which is better than white rice).

I try to get under 100 grams of carbs a day.

Yogurt and cereal and sandwiches have too many carbs. I saw hardly any protein or veggies in your daily consumption. I barely touch fruit anymore, I rarely eat bread, pasta, or anything else very carby.

I've also found carb-conscious dieting very helpful. I hate to call it low-carb dieting, because so many people misunderstand and either assume I'm eating nothing but eggs, bacon, sausage and maynaise, or they tell me my diet "isn't really low-carb" because I include 2-3 servings of starch and 3-4 servings of fruit.

I based by exchange plan on the high-protein plans on hillbillyhousewife website (with a few minor tweaks).

http://healthy.hillbillyhousewife.com/foodplans.htm


I have insulin resistance and some of the symptoms of PCOS and some symptoms that are opposites my periods are extremely heavy, long and painful, but on a very short cycle without bc, my periods ar on a 23-25 day cycle, and up to 9 days long. During a few years in highschool it seemed like I had my period more days than not, and I was actually prescribed a narcotic pain medication my cramps were so severe. I was prescribed 1-2 tablets of what I think was percocet. The doctor prescribed them because OTC products didn't work well enough to keep be from missing school every month. Two tablets knocked me out, and one tablet made me higher than a kite. It didn't seem to touch the pain, it just made me so high that I didn't care that I was in pain, but it dawned on me, that I also probably woudn't care if the house burned down around me. That frightened me and I wouldn't take them anymore).

At any rate, I've discovered that for me, metformin, birth control, and lower carb dieting really have been tremendous tools for weight loss.

Even on a very low carb/calorie diet, I don't lose rapidly. I have to look at weight loss by the month, not by the week. In the past, I would give up when weight loss was slow, now I just keep plodding along. I'm definitely a turtle, and I don't seem to be able to change that.

But it is what it is you know? Of course, I'd love to have the rabbit's speed(Even as a kid, I realized that a smart rabbit could have outrun the tortoise, and I wanted to be a smart rabbit, I just didn't understand that sometimes you don't get a choice).

In nutshell, you may be doing nothing wrong, or you may find that changing the percentage and types of carbs in your diet might really help.

Thanks so much guys! I'll definitely be going shopping for un-carby foods.
Kaplods, just curious, how much do you lose in a month?

"carb-conscious"
I like that phrase. That is how I would label my diet.

I don't really have a steady rate of loss. It can be anything from 0 - 5.

I also make a lot of mistakes, so I'm not sure what my "optimal" rate, if I met all of my food/exercise goals would be.

It's taken my 6 years to lose 88 lbs (that would be an average of only 1/3 lb per month).

But I've lost 68 of those pounds in the last 3 years (which would bring the average closer to a half pound).

This past year, I would guess I averaged about a pound a month, but I'm not sure.


I have though shattered the myth that weight loss inevitably slows. I've found that by doing weight loss backwards, my results are backwards too.

What I mean by backwards results is that my weight loss has snowballed. Instead of losing less and less (and being more and more frustrated) I have been losing faster and faster and find myself encouraged to do more and more.

I started with small to moderate changes, which yieleded small to modest results. The more I am able to do, the more I want to do.

With exercise, I had to start with small changes because I wasn't physically able to do more. With dietary changes I found small changes easier to stick with, so that's what I started with too.