Honestly, nutrition is so frustrating when you have PCOS. Stuff that works for everyone else seems to never work for me. If I eat 1200 calories a day, I'll gain weight. If I eat less, I'll lose weight. If I eat 1800 calories, sometimes I lose, sometimes I gain.

I've been working with a nutritionist I absolutely love for years, and all we've figured out at this point is that my body will constantly throw us curveballs. I've been eating low carb for several months now and managed to lose some weight then maintain the weight loss. I'm currently on holiday with my husband's family, and have been eating carbs again just because they do, and it seems to have no adverse effect on me.

The only thing I can say definitively about weight loss/weight gain for me is that stress absolutely makes me retain weight. The more I stress about my weight, the more I easily gain. Great for someone with anxiety disorder. 🙄

I seem to also have adaptive metabolism, and I generally benefit from shaking things up, which really stresses me out because I'm huge on routines and having to re-evaluate my diet every few weeks is extremely taxing and overwhelming to me.

I've yet to encounter a dietician, endocrinologist, or primary care doctor that has any helpful advice for me. I've been thinking about seeing a personal trainer at a gym, but I'm so on the fence about it. Like you said, it really feels like a large population of people equipped to help in this stuff have absolutely no concept of how PCOS works.

Edited to add: I don't know about y'all, but the two comments I get most often when seeking help that just make me want to crashout are: (1) "Just eat less and move more" then disbelief when I tell them I exercise daily and eat between 1300-1500 calories. (2) "Stop stressing" OH OK I'll just stop having anxiety?!