Working with a nutritionist: First week of a PCOS diet
I’m still about 15 pounds more than I was before I went off hormonal birth control and got my PCOS diagnosis. The doctor in January of 2022 suggested we try lowering my carb intake to 60 grams per day. This was HARD, but I did it and ate as clean as I knew how. Part of the issue with PCOS is all the MIXED MESSAGES!! There’s so much conflicting research on what works and what doesn’t. I started lifting weights again, took the month off from alcohol and was able to lose about 3 pounds over the month. A typical day looked like this:
Late breakfast: 2 eggs and a large salad (sometimes ezekiel bread), decaf coffee almond milk latte with collagen powder
Afternoon snack: Celery with peanut butter
Dinner: protein source and vegetables with some carbs.
Overall I thought it was effective, but really hard. I was pretty hungry all the time and it didn’t feel sustainable. A few months later of so much lapsing, I decided to seek out the assistance of a nutritionist. I want to show you how things progressed. So this is my week 1 update.
The first meeting my nutritionist and I went over my diet and exercise. We did an intake form over a zoom session. My goal for the week: record my weight and EVERYTHING I ate. Here are some of the things I recorded:
Breakfast: Kelly LeVeque’s “Oatmeal”, "Unbread” with peanut butter (make sure to read about my inflammatory oils post)
Lunch: Sweetgreen Guacamole Greens Salad
Dinner: Protein (usually chicken or fish) with very low carbs
I thought I was being healthy, but after the month of January, my weight no longer moved.
When the nutritionist and I finally met again. The big takeaway was: I needed to eat more fruit. What?? After reading all the blogs, Reddit, NIH research papers and books by Dr. Sara Gottfried and Dr. Aviva Romm, I thought fruit was too carby. It’s amazing any of us can figure out how to handle hormone imbalances given the breadth of information out there. None of it seems to align!
The nutritionist also told me that sugar, and even fake sugar was problematic. In fact, it turns out diet sugar increases blood sugar just like regular sugar! That’s right, let me say it again:
DIET SUGAR NEGATIVELY AFFECTS YOUR BLOOD SUGAR
I wish I had know that from the beginning. I thought by drinking a diet ginger-ale or having a lower carb ice cream was better for me.
Little did I know!
Starting weight from Week 1: 157-159.
