A New Plan

So now that I know I've got PCOS, I've already starting taking some measures to clean up my act because now I really do realize the importance of eating healthy and exercising. I've also finally realized why all of my weight loss attempts in the past have been fruitless! Yeah I was eating less calories and exercising, but I wasn't eating the RIGHT things. I may have been eating only 1300-1500 calories a day, but my body was still storing everything as fat because I didn't have the right mix of carbs, proteins and fats.

Over the past 2 days I've stuck to a 25% carb diet with the remaining being protein and fat, mostly protein. I'm also down 2.5 lbs!! How incredible is that?!?! I've even noticed I'm feeling a lot better and I don't have that "brain fog" I used to have. I have tons more energy already and I survived my elliptical workout yesterday without getting shaky (damn those carbs!)

Here's the proof of my workout:

I actually ended up doing about 30 minutes on it total and burned almost 330 calories! Go me :) My heart rate always goes up pretty high when I'm on those tough settings...my heart rate can get up to 160 sometimes but that's just right before I'm into the "red" zone and then I back it down a bit to get it lower.  I love the elliptical cause it's so low impact and easy.

Here's a view of my new typical diet I'm going for these days. No cookies, chips, ice cream, bread, cereal, pasta, etc.  Now it's all veggies, chicken, fish, yogurt, eggs, cheese and more veggies! For now I'm ok with having less variety but I wonder when the cravings will kick in?

Today is salad and light greek yogurt for lunch. Salad has spinach, hard-boiled egg, tomatoss, peppers (yellow and orange), green onions, mushrooms, almonds, canned chicken and pomegranate vinegrette. Also, I always add in a wheat germ/flax mix to my yogurt for extra texture.

My snacks for the day consist of the cottage cheese below (with cayenne and green onions) and a Wonderslim protein shake in Chocomint. I can't wait for that shake because it will totally be like having dessert!!

I'm going out to a movie premier with a friend tonight and I've convinced her to go to Wendy's for dinner with me so that I can splurge on their small chili with cheese and onions - yummmm!

So far it's not that hard to eat this way, especially when I'm stepping on the scale and seeing it go down - that's so much motivation for me.  Plus the fact that seeing all of those cysts on my ovaries did not burn a good visual into my mind - every time I even think about wanting a cookie or chip I just have to remember that visual in my head!

Diagnosis

I'm essentially going to copy and paste this post from my family blog on to this one since it contains all of the info I wanted to share with you:

So my fears were confirmed at the specialist this week: I have PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome). I'm not going to go into massive amounts of detail about what it is because you can research on your own via Google if you want. But to say the least, a big part of the reason I'm fat is because I have PCOS and the reason I have PCOS is because I'm fat. It's a vicious cycle.

Nonetheless, I also had an ultrasound done of my ovaries. I've got about 15 cysts on EACH ovary - I saw it black and white for myself. Apparently the acne I've struggled with since I was a teenager is a major give away as well. Of course, the most definite indicator of PCOS is my irregular periods.

I'm not ovulating because of PCOS even though my eggs are trying so hard to grow and come out of the ovary. There's just too many receptor inhibitors - namely insulin - blocking my ovary's response to FSH (follicle stimulating hormone). So obviously I can't get pregnant if I'm not producing any eggs!!

The first step we're taking is to put me on Metformin (this was the same thing the mean endocronologist prescribed me in September) to help regulate my insulin levels. The second step is to take Provera - it contains progesterone. Basically I need to take that for 10 days and after that is up I should "bleed" and clear out everything that's old and been sitting for a while. Once the bleeding is done I'll start on Clomid to help me ovulate. During this time I'll be going back to the specialist so that they can monitor all of my progress.

I'm hopeful just to get my cycles regular again. From the reading I've done, all of the cysts should clear up on their own after a few cycles. So I shouldn't have to really worry about them.

The biggest thing I've got to worry about is my carb intake. Essentially I need to maintain a very low-carb diet in order to manage my PCOS. I'm REALLY sad about this because I love my pasta, ice cream and of course bread!! But I probably love them because I'm addicted to them. Ramin suggested I stick to around 100 carbs a day. I'm not too sure how hard this will be just yet but I'm definitely going to try it.

When I went to get my prescriptions today I also loaded up on eggs, yogurt, meat and veggies because those will be the staples of my diet for a while. I basically just need to reset my body and then I can slowly add in some carbs at that point.

So...we have the news. I'm relieved and excited to actually know what is wrong and to have a plan. It feels SO much better than not knowing!!