They say losing just 10% of your body weight can make a huge difference in reducing PCOS symptoms. That sounded easy enough to me when I set out to lose weight last year. I started by doing an internet deep-dive, furiously noting every single PCOS weight loss tip from tiktok, Instagram, and YouTube. I filled all my spare hours by researching tips on how to lose weight with this condition. I’m a very determined person so I lost that 10% in no time. The only problem was, my symptoms didn’t get better, they got worse.
I think I mostly really wanted to have normal periods again. I thought to myself if I just lose 10% and I’ll never have to bleed for a month again. Sadly, it didn’t go the way I planned. I was doing too much at the time and I think the way I was eating was a little disordered, it bordered on orthorexia. It’s crazy because the last time my eating was very disordered, it was because I was eating large meals multiple times a day till I got so full I could pass out, and that’s when I first started experiencing PCOS symptoms. But that time, my periods completely stopped for a few months and this time it just kept flowing.
When I started my little weight loss journey I’d already been on my period non-stop for a few weeks. It was okay, I thought. Insert picture of that cartoon dog sitting in a burning room saying, “this is fine’’. Well, it was not fine, my period lasted from October till about mid-February practically non-stop. As I continued to lose weight and get more restrictive with my eating, they got heavier, sapping all my energy. By December I’d lost more than the 10% but I was sicker than ever. There were foetus-sized blood clots coming out of me almost every day, I was so weak I couldn’t stand for more than a couple of minutes without getting dizzy. It was when my tongue started turning blue that I realised I’d taken it too far.
So, I went to the hospital, yet again, and I was told I was “profoundly anaemic.” In trying to fix one problem, I’d created another. I was so exhausted all the time and my symptoms had refused to go away. I was so dismayed; I did all that work and for what? I remember just sitting down with my boyfriend and telling him I wanted to stop being so restrictive. I felt like it was harming me a lot more than helping me. I felt like I had lost perspective.
The thing is, it’s PCOS. You go online and see so much advice but a lot of them are saying the same thing, low carb. If you have PCOS then eat low carb to help insulin resistance etc. etc. but my problem was I didn’t know how low was too low. I was (am) young, so I just wanted to see results immediately. Though at a point, I really do think I quickly lost sight of why I was even doing it and being with my family didn’t help at all. Between December and January, I was at home and was so stressed that I was barely eating and that’s when my tongue started turning blue. I just wish my parents had asked me if I was okay instead of raving about how much weight I’d lost
Eventually, I really had to take a long look at how things were going. I started all that just to feel normal again, instead I’d been bleeding for 5/6 months. Losing weight was tough and anytime I thought of stopping restricting, the thought that 80-95% of dieters gain back the weight haunted me. I did not want to be a statistic, but I didn’t want to diet for the rest of my life. It’s just so difficult to accept that something that you thought would work out really isn’t working, but I had to. I decided to stop hurting myself when I was about to head out for a short walk to see my sister and I couldn’t do more than 5 steps without panting and feeling faint. Fatigue, anxiety, stress; I was supposed to be trying to manage those symptoms along with the heavy bleeding, but I was worsening it
When I started my journey, I was very thorough in research. I saw that people with PCOS were over 5 times likely to develop eating disorders, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t let it get that bad, but I feared that is exactly what was happening. It’s just that knowing how difficult losing weight is with PCOS really made me want to do everything I could. I think a lot of people with it can relate to the confusion on what exactly to do to help yourself. The medical professionals don’t always make it easy for us too, I’ve heard horror stories of doctors prescribing such restrictive diets to lose weight. We’re always just told, “lose weight, that’ll help! But also, just so you know, weight loss will be really difficult, Goodluck!”
There needs to be a support group for people dealing with these things. I tried to find a community on Tiktok, but it was full of PCOS ‘experts’ throwing shade at each other, competing for who could give the best advice and confusing us all. Where can one even go to get the right kind of help for this? I’ve had bad experiences at the doctor and online so what next? I’ll keep trying to figure that out as I try to mend my relationship with PCOS, and my body and I’ll write about it once I have an answer.
PCOSTalk 