Hi, My name is Patricia. I weigh more than I have ever weighed in my life- I think it's around 250, but I stopped getting on the scale a long time ago to save myself the heartache and remain in denial. Denial and avoidance is a comfortable place for me. My husband and I have been married for 6 years, and haven't been able to conceive a child. I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome after a 10cm cyst was discovered on my ovary during an ER visit. We are planning on doing IVF, but until I do I need to get my body down to a healthy weight. Problem is.... I have NO idea where to begin. I've never really "dieted" before, and I have heard that most forms of dieting are unhealthy anyway. I want to completely re-vamp my eating habits and relationship with food, but I don't know how. I can't afford to pay for a weight loss program, as every extra penny we have is going toward our IVF Fund. (It's $15,000!) When I did my grocery shopping this month I bumbled around the store, checking labels and buying everything high protein, low sugar...(PCOS thrives on sugar) but I just feel lost. Help!!!

Do think of it as a diet but a healthy change. That helps me from dreading my meals. Plus since your ready for a little one eating healthy is best for you and baby. You can do anything you put you mind to and good luck on your weight loss journey

Welcome, Patricia!

Two years ago, I hit my highest weight ever, just under 300 pounds. I had always wanted to be a mom, and my doctor told me that there was a possibility that I wouldn't be able to conceive naturally, if at all. This broke my heart, but I was so determined to do whatever I could. I cut waaaaay back on my junk food intake and started exercising (started slow, just walking, and worked my way up both in speed and distance), and lost 45 pounds in less than 6 months. And I got pregnant. My son is now almost 8 months old, and now I am set on losing more weight to be as healthy as I can be for his sake.

You CAN do this! Start with cutting back on your calorie intake. Join a calorie counting website that will help you track your food and exercise so that you aren't trying to remember/calculate all those numbers yourself. Increase your fibre intake (it'll help you feel fuller longer!). Try to be more active, even if that means just taking a walk a couple times a week to start. Use this website to find the support that will help you the most. There are different challenges, etc, that will give you a sense of accountability. Remember that you are doing this to be healthy for you and your future child, who will one day learn his or her eating habits from you.

Best of luck on your weight loss journey!

Welcome to the forum!

Pick a food plan that does not require membership or special foods to follow. There is a ton of information about many different food plans on this site. Pick a plan that fits in your lifestyle and you can follow long term. I chose calorie counting because it is free and flexible. It allows me to eat almost anything I wanted as long as it fits within my calorie range for the day and there are ton of free apps out there to help you track your food.
Give up the sugary drinks and drink lots and lots of water.
Incorporate some exercise into your daily/weekly routine. You do not have to join an expensive gym try to walk more, use the stairs more, download videos off of YouTube or Hulu.com to work out to. There are a lot of things you can to do with spending a ton of money.
Lastly, if you have a bad meal, a bad day, heck, a bad food week. Do NOT let this be a reason to throw in the towel. Get back on track at the next meal. You can do this!!!
Best of luck to you!

The advice and well wishes are much appreciated! Can you recommend for me some of the calorie counting websites and apps you ladies were referring to?
Oh, and do these sites/apps provide access to a food diary? (Or is that essentially what they are?)

I would recommend doing a web search for "Calorie Counting Apps" or "Food Diets". OR go to the Calorie Counting section of this forum and post a new question asking for apps you can use.

Sorry, I don't have a recommendation, I use pen and paper, not the most efficient way.

Lol, ok! Thanks again! I think I had a good lunch today. I had a string cheese, (80 calories) a black cherry Greek yogurt, (140 calories) and half of a small avocado. I don't know how many calories are in a small avocado though...hmmm....

I looked it up and there are 150 calories in a small avocado.

I also have PCOS and gave birth last year to my first child after trying for two years. It happened on our 6th and final round of clomid. Are you planning to pursue any other means of fertility treatments besides IVF? There are many other options before going that route.

Have you done any research on PCOS and the low G.I. diet? If not, I would encourage you to look into it. It helps with the insulin resistance, and in turn, can level out some of your other hormones and cause some of the symptoms to subside. For many, it restores ovulation! I've been following it for about a month and a half now, and I've lost 16 lbs. It was slow going at first, but once the weight started coming off, it kept on coming. I am hoping that my cycles come back and that I can start trying for #2 ASAP!

As far as a calorie counting app, I use myfitnesspal.com or the myfitnesspal app on my iPhone. It is free! And there are plenty of free resources online for following a low g.i. diet. I bought the books a few years back when we first started TTC, and they did nothing but confuse me. I try to use a little common sense. I may not be following the diet to a T, but I stick to the basic principles and try to make smart decisions about what I eat and stay away from white flour, sugar, and simple carbohydrates where I can. I eat whole grains, most fruits and veggies, lean meats, and I limit my fats.

Good luck to you. PCOS sucks, and infertility is a difficult thing to go through, but you will get there!

WannaBe - I have recently done a lot of reading about the Paleo diet. There are lots of testimonials out there about how that diet helped women with PCOS get pregnant. Look at the theprimalparent dot com and also the testimonials page on whole9life dot com.

If you aren't familiar, paleo is basically eating like people ate in the paleolithic period. So you eat fruit, veggies, meat, fish, nuts and seeds. No grains, no sugar, nothing processed. I followed that plan very strictly for two weeks. I lost about 10 pounds, felt great, and then fell off the wagon. Trying to climb back on!

I am also new like you and was told back in 2002 that I had PCOS by my fertility doctor. I got lucky and got pregnant on clomid on the highest dose that time but a year after my son's birth we decided to try again and have been doing so ever since. I tried one more time on clomid going to the highest dose but no luck ever since I've been basically on my own ( fertility treatments are very expensive we just don't have that kind of money). It is a long journey to go through and a tough one. But it is very worth it in the end, goodluck with the weight loss as well as winning the battle with PCOS.

I use Loseit.com to track my food and exercise, and yes, it's basically an online food journal that does all the calorie tracking for you.

@ErinT: Thanks! I am on a low-glyceimic diet right now...is that the same as a low GI diet? Also, when you say "simple carbohydrates" what exactly does that mean? Are all carbs the same? I have cut out breads and pastas and sugars, but everything seems to have carbs...even my protein shakes... Are there good carbs? Another thing that Im really struggling with is sugars. EVERYTHING has sugar in it, and I know that some of it is natural sugars, like whats in fruit. But since I am so clueless, I have cut out all forms of sugar as much as possible...and I am positively MISERABLE.
@LHop: Thanks for the advice! The Paleo Diet seems kinda like what I'm doing already, I just didn't have a name for it. Well, unless "the miserable diet" counts...
@Jinxy: Thanks for the support and well wishes!