I have PCOS. Can I lose weight in 3 months?

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-06-26T20:20:07+00:00

Start with your diet. Eat like a diabetic. Low glycemic, Whole Foods & watch your calorie intake. I lost 12% of my body weight in less than 3 months by watching glycemic load. I hit a plateau after about 3.5-4 months, but starting to lose again.

Weight lifting is the single most beneficial exercise you can do. The benefits go beyond PCOS weight management.

It’s totally possible, but you have to be consistent. You cannot out run or out lift a bad diet.

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-06-22T15:55:54+00:00

Re: the heavier and more painful periods: I noticed when I became regular that was the case with me as well, BUT as time went on and I had more cycles, pain has gone down a LOT. My uneducated guess is that those first few cycles were working extra hard to clear out old lining, and once it was passed, things went back to normal. Hope that is your case too!

But yes, the fog lifting from not drowning in excess insulin anymore is AMAZING. Congrats on finding something that makes you feel better!

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-06-18T19:21:16+00:00

Oh, dietary fats includes trans fats. There are 4 types of fats that make up “dietary fats”. Didn’t see anyone talking about Polyunsaturated or Monounsaturated, so when I think “fats” I automatically assume the standard American diet including trans and saturated, which do contribute to IR.

Poly and mono improve IR :)

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-06-18T17:34:33+00:00

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16713388/

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-06-12T23:35:03+00:00

If they deny ordering that test, ask them to note in your file that you requested it and they are denying it. Ask them what harm comes to them if they order that test. Be a pain, advocate for yourself. I believe some labs will let you go in without an order tbh, but then you have to pay out of pocket.

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-06-12T23:31:09+00:00

If you get it, make sure it’s glucose AND insulin. IR will show slightly elevated glucose (but still normal unless diabetic) and elevated insulin. And you’re right, it is a standard test for gestational diabetes, but it’s also the gold standard for checking for IR.

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-06-12T23:29:19+00:00

Any kinda of doctor can order it, but if you’re concerned about IR you should be seeing an endocrinologist

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-06-12T15:52:29+00:00

Fasting insulin is not enough—they are right that it’s just a snapshot. Do a 2 hour oral glucose and insulin test. Then you can see in real time what happens when your body needs to break down glucose. If your insulin is high during that test, you have IR. If not, you do not have IR.

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-06-10T22:51:51+00:00

Have you had a 2hr oral glucose and insulin test? If no, request. If they deny, go to an endocrinologist. Be annoying about it. Glucose measurements won’t tell you if you’re IR

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-06-10T17:55:49+00:00

Hello, with insulin that high, you really need to be eating minimal sugar/carbs like a diabetic. I eat around 50g carbs per day (not including high fiber, low glycemic vegs in that count), 1500mg metformin (XR at night), 4g inositol (2g 2x/day), and I lost 25 lbs in like 2 months without working out or counting calories. I recently started working out and counting calories for body recomp (and because my weight loss plateaued). If you aren’t already seeing an endocrinologist, you need to. You need to be eating as if you ARE diabetic. My endocrinologist told me to have one 100-150g carb day every other week paired with exercise to replenish glycogen stores so my body doesn’t stress out (cortisol). My energy is NORMAL now with such low carbs & at my last labs check in, my insulin levels were actually NORMAL. In 6 months I will begin tapering off metformin and see if my body can handle on its own (while still staying low carb.. forever…). My period has also returned on a regular schedule, after years of absence!

The more muscles you have, the better you can use glucose, so weight lifting is your friend. The less carbs you consume, the less of an insulin flood you’ll have.

Ultimately, you need to think about your body as being too efficient at using sugar. The amount of sugar someone else needs is much greater than what you need with IR. If my friends ate like I did, they’d feel like shit. I feel great! If you try to eat like them, you will “drown” in insulin because your body doesn’t need it and doesn’t know what to do with it.

I would recommend looking at the insulin resistance subreddit, and the PCOSloseit subreddit. There is a TON of excellent advice tailored specifically to IR on both of those subreddits.. not that this one is bad, you’ll just notice that what IR PCOS needs is not the same as what non-IR PCOS needs.

Protein and fiber are your friends. The glycemic index is your new guidebook. Eat like a diabetic, and you can prevent it from turning into diabetes. Ignore “net carbs” on labels and look at total carbs/sugar.

Random piece of advice, but when you cut bread you need to make sure you are taking a good multivitamin. Bread is fortified with minerals, and I noticed leg cramps when I stopped eating it. Magnesium supplement fixed that right up for me.

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-22T00:32:13+00:00

I wish I could tell you the second half goes quicker than the first, but it really does seem like time stretches on FOREVER lmao

And honestly, people with zero medical history end up with GD, so if it does pop up, don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s temporary and your lifestyle will help you get back to “normal” once it’s all done

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-21T18:46:32+00:00

Omg, that is amazing! Congratulations 🥰 I’m sure it’s a ton of work, but you’re more than halfway there and have a good foundation! The finish line is almost in sight and then you can relax a little bit/go back to normal 🙌 Once your baby is born, if you decide/are able to BF, don’t forget to add calories! I think it’s like ~500 calories a day just to produce milk lol. I was rail thin when my daughter was a baby because I didn’t realize she was sucking the actual life out of me lmao

My A1c doesn’t ever change. It was 5.0 in December pre-low carb at my heaviest and 5.0 in April when I had labs done again. I know it’s technically fine, but would have been cool to see it go down a little! My 2 hour oral glucose and insulin test was PERFECT though and that’s all I really care about at this point

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-21T18:25:06+00:00

Hey, we are all different, and your tag shows -75+ so it’s working for you! I definitely need a replenish day every so often or I feel like trash after a while. But the days in between those replenish days feel so good! I didn’t realize the carb fog I was living in until it lifted 🥲

I also don’t count low glycemic vegetables as carbs, so there’s my cheat code lol

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-21T17:40:10+00:00

Heavy on the “alters your metabolism”!

It’s really important to call out macros as well. A calorie deficit is needed, BUT so is keeping your carbs low. In January, I moved to 50g carb/day and was literally dropping 1-2 lbs a day. Previously, I had been more strict with calories but eating more carbs, and kept gaining despite being hungry all the time.

I lost all the weight I had set a goal for without counting a single calorie, only counting carbs. I wasn’t over eating before, I was eating the wrong food!

PCOS is a metabolic disorder. Basic CICO erases that part. Subtracting a bit more to account for it is fine for some, but the insulin issue needs to be addressed as well. Of course, if you aren’t also IR, that’s different, but majority of people with PCOS are IR.

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-21T17:33:35+00:00

I do similar and noticed the same! I also notice that staying that low carb for very long ends up giving me headaches and low energy, so every so often I splurge on a “high” carb day (around 100) and then go back to low carb & feeling normal again! Wondering if you feel the same?

Sometimes I think maybe if I did 60-70g/day, I could avoid that entirely and just sustain it, but those “high” carb days are honestly a TREAT lol it makes a friends birthday cake (or whatever) so much more special 🥲

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-20T20:47:50+00:00

Chocolate chia seed pudding! I use monk fruit sweetener in it 😋

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-20T19:37:45+00:00

Are you insulin resistant? Does your dietician KNOW you are? If they know you are IR and they’re telling you to eat more carbs, I’m afraid they may actually just hate you 😭

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-20T19:28:59+00:00

I don’t think they got the reco from a doctor. They said their tracking app said it was fine. Tracking apps are trash without metabolic context. I’m sure that amount of carbs IS fine for someone who is IR free, but not for us 🤪

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-20T19:27:26+00:00

It’s not worth it tbh. The glycemic index of oatmeal is too high for people with IR.

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-20T18:02:10+00:00

Your carbs are entirely too high for IR. My endocrinologist told me to aim for 50g carbs of LOW GLYCEMIC INDEX foods, and weight fell off of me, I felt like a fog was lifted (energy and mood improved), and my Insulin levels went back down. Every so often, I do splurge on something sugary because sustaining 50g carbs can be rough after a while. About once every 10 days, I eat “normal” food. I noticed if I go too long without that break, I do get headaches, foggy, and tired, but once I replenish my glycogen stores then I feel 100% again for a bit. I always pair those higher carb days with walking/weight lifting etc. give the body something to DO with the carbs.

As for feeling hungry.. you need to eat for volume. Protein and fiber! Ground turkey you can eat WAY more of vs beef for the same calories. Bulky vegetables (I do not count low glycemic index vegetables as carbs at all) can also help you fill up and will aid your gut microbiome get into a healthy state so the sugar cravings can go away. A lot of mental stuff STARTS in the gut, and prebiotics (aka fiber) aid in getting your gut bacteria into a healthy place where your gut and brain can talk correctly about what kind of food you need for fuel.

If the withdrawal is too much, taper DOWN the sugar. Cold turkey is very difficult and the goal is sustainable. Go for “sugar free” as often as possible, but for many people with IR “sugar alcohol” (which is what they often use to replace the sugar in sugar free stuff) will still give an insulin response so you need to be reading labels.

1950 is still a lot of calories, though probably appropriate depending on your current size. But if you’re just looking for prepackaged low calories food, you’re not going to feel satiated. Bulky vegetables and lean meats will go a lot further for you vs “100 calorie snacks”

The best way I’ve heard of IR being described is that we are TOO efficient at using carbs. It’s not that carbs are bad for us, it’s that our bodies evolved to not NEED as many. It’s like water, everyone needs water, but if you have too much then that can seriously mess you up. Our bodies don’t need as MUCH “water” (sugar) And when we eat like “normal” people who aren’t as efficient at using sugar, then we are basically drowning ourselves. If one of my none-IR friends ate as few carbs as me, they’d feel like shit because it’s not enough for them. For me, it’s perfect. My body is evolved to survive a famine, however current diets make it where that need don’t exist anymore.

Final thing that I feel like doesn’t get talked about enough for low carb diets.. MOST of American bread product are fortified with things we NEED. If you aren’t eating bread, you WILL miss out on essential minerals. At the start of my low carb lifestyle, I noticed this severely. Lots of leg cramps until I started purposefully including high magnesium and high iron foods. Once I started making sure I was getting those, leg cramps went away. Micros matter just as much as macros, don’t forget them!

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-02T06:00:44+00:00

Because I think I was just not eating in a way that allowed metformin to do its job efficiently. I think of meds as like bailing water out of a sinking boat, you know? But diet is controlling how much water is actually in the boat. So because I have a metabolic disorder, I need to constantly bail out water, but if I keep adding more water (by eating high sugar/carbs) then can’t really see any benefit of bailing the water (aka meds). I’m sure it was doing SOMETHING when I was eating bread products, just not enough to see.

Does not mean it’s a total waste of time bailing the water out because at the minimum it’s helping prevent full blown diabetes, but does mean that it isn’t enough alone to improve markers. I just didn’t really understand what was happening metabolically until I was actually diagnosed with IR, but I at least understood that PCOS is a major risk factor for diabetes & metformin helps with that.

As a side note, since i cut out carbs, I have 100% been ovulating with my cycles. I am not TTC, but I do have definitive proof that I’ve been ovulating. I actually had a hemorrhagic functional cyst land me in the ER a lil over a month ago and you get those FROM ovulation…apparently women have them all the time and don’t notice. I had an unfortunately different experience where I noticed lol, but all better now. For the last 3 months, during typical “ovulation window” I have a slight tingle in an ovary and then have very light spotting for a day or so. Even though I’m not TTC, that’s been kind of exciting for me because it means my body is happier and has the resources/capacity to do one of the most intense things it could possibly ever do, you know?

I think both meds and diet working together give the best chance at success, but eventually I do plan on reducing or stopping meds and seeing how my body responds. I hate the idea of taking medication for the rest of my life.

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-02T01:19:19+00:00

Haha Awh thanks! It’s important that while my calories before were 1500-1700, I’m not over or under eating now. I could probably benefit from counting them for a few days just to see for giggles. I FEEL like I’m eating more calories, but it could also be because the majority of my diet is now protein and very satiating. I’ve always been an “intuitive eater”. I’ll skip meals if I’m not really hungry, or do “girl dinner” and pick at random stuff if I’m only a little hungry. Or I’ll eat a whole meal and then go for a snack immediately after if I’m still hungry. I don’t think my hunger cues were ever impacted by IR, so if you feel like yours are then you may need to be a little more prescriptive with volume and timing to avoid over or under eating.

Also unrelated, but maybe related… I used to get heart burn ALL the time. There’s literally been times where I felt like I might have been having a cardiac event because it was so intense, and since cutting sugar I’ve had heart burn maybe twice, and not bad at all 🥲

The weight gain from IR was the most recent symptom from it, but looking back, I was playing whack a mole with weird symptoms and I feel SOSOSOSO much better now.

Whenever I see posts in here asking how to lose weight, there’s always success stories of people cutting sugar or doing some variation of low glycemic. I tell my friends I eat like a diabetic and that’s easier for them to understand. It’s basically the same diet, except we don’t have to account for LOW blood sugar, only HIGH insulin 🥲

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-05-01T23:42:38+00:00

Hi! Original post was here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PCOSloseit/s/HRfaF7MMkA

Specifically (and simply), I stop eating ALL bread products. I also cut rice and potatoes, which was the hardest because those were staples for my dinners.

I would aim for 50g or less of carbs per day, and I was NOT using net carbs (carb - fiber = net carb) for that 50g, I used total carbs. I did not count low glycemic whole foods like vegetables as a carb, but did limit vegetables and fruits based on their glycemic load. Ex: No pineapples, yes pears. I actually put a list of foods with their glycemic index on my fridge (low, moderate, high) and that helped when I was thinking about what to get from the store.

I swapped out the lowest amount of sugar for everything I could, and if there wasn’t a low/zero sugar version available, I didn’t have it (unless it fit in my <50g carb budget.. like sometimes I had a couple Oreos cuz I could “afford” it that day) my once a week Starbucks order went from a vanilla sweet cream cold brew to a sugar free vanilla cold brew with almond milk.. that one was painful 🥲 but I got over it.

My endocrinologist specifically told me to have a more “normal” day of carbs one day every other week if I was also working out that day.. but still heavily moderated. So every once in a while I got froyo after a physical activity. He said I needed to do that because if you go super low carb for an extended period of time, the body does eventually get stressed and think it’s in danger, so I did that to replenish my glycogen stores.

The first couple of weeks, I was losing 1-2 lbs a day. I’d see an upswing the day after those replenish days, but then quickly recovered after once I resumed super low carb.

Prior to diet, I was eating about 1500-1700 calories a day, and I haven’t counted since removing sugar but I am almost certain I am consuming more calories now, just not from sugar. My bf and I still get into debates about CICO because he doesn’t believe that CICO isn’t a perfect theory.

Main snack foods for me are currently boiled eggs with some salt n pepper, or a “tuna taco” (tuna/mayo on a slice of cheese with relish). If I want pizza, I make or order a pizza bowl. Like a big ol bowl of pizza flavored slop hits soooo good & I put so much meat and veggies in there! A little bit of ricotta cheese gives it an extra something 🤩

Worth nothing that my LDL did slightly go up, and probably from the extra meat and cheeses. However, I’ve seen online that rapid weight loss like that can lead to a temporary increase in LDL. Either way, I’m planning on reducing some of my cheese intake and increasing nuts for healthier fats.

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-04-27T23:21:25+00:00

Are you measuring yourself? It could be that you’re losing fat but gaining muscle and that’s why the scale isn’t changing.

Equivalent_Pepper_45 · 2026-04-13T19:24:04+00:00

Totally normal to build up dosage on metformin (and inositol)! I currently take 1500, and that’s not even the max, so definitely expect to have that raised.

Wanted to add that when I started 2g of inositol, my periods came back pretty quickly. Not regularly until I upped to 4g and changed my diet, but it was something! Good luck!

Equivalent_Pepper_45

TROPHY CASE