I know I have been on a hiatus for, what, a few years now? It has been a while. And in those years, life has been very interesting, to say the least and I feel like I owe everyone an explanation. Let’s start from where I left off (kind of).
November of 2015, I got foot and ankle surgery to help correct my stretched out ligament and my bunionette. I went back to work at my crazy busy job, only realizing that I couldn’t mentally take the stress anymore. I quit and decided to eat, pray, love in Napa with a wonderful internship working for four different wineries during the Summer of 2016. After four months, I embarked on a 3-week trip to Asia with my family. I returned being the heaviest I had ever been in my entire life, gaining probably 25 pounds in the span of 6 months. At this point, I noticed significant changes in my body. My periods became more painful than they had ever been in my life (to the point where I couldn’t talk at times for the first two days), and I had noticed a decrease in energy levels, despite being “healthy” in almost every other way (working out regularly, eating a balanced diet, etc) to name a couple. In December that year, I knew that I had to make a change, so I went to the doctor (thank goodness for Obamacare) and was diagnosed with PCOS. What did this mean? Well it meant that I had a bunch of cysts growing in my ovaries, which affect my hormone levels and, subsequently, all the functions that are regulated by my hormones, and can cause rampant weight gain. It also meant that I was insulin resistant. The solution? Take birth control to regulate the hormones and eat a low-carb diet. That was all that I was told. I had no idea the extent of how this was going to affect my life.
Retrospectively, this now all makes sense. I didn’t realize that I had been struggling with this for years. I had always wondered why the weight gap between my identical twin sister and myself kept growing bigger and bigger. I never understood why my menstrual cramps were debilitating (and borderline demonic). I never lost weight, no matter how hard I tried and even pushed myself to the point of starvation and overworking my body by eating 1200 calories a day, working out 2x a day while sleeping on average 4-5 hours a night. It was torture. I was in a prison of my own making because I had no idea what I was up against.
And you know, I am sure I am not the only one who has been in the dark this entire time. Did you know that PCOS is actually fairly common? 10 percent of of childbearing age in the US have PCOS — yet it is rarely talked about in the mainstream media and there is a LOT of misinformation out there. With this statistic, this makes PCOS the most common endocrine disorders in women, yet you barely hear a peep about it. More people should be talking about this.
Anyways, after finding out, I felt empowered. I decided to take charge and start the Ketogenic diet, a high-fat, low-carb diet that forces your body to rely on ketones as its main source of energy, rather than carbohydrates. I did this diet, coupled with a strict weight lifting / workout regiment, for 9 excruciating months. Everyone talks about how great the diet is because when you do it and are strict about it, because you will drop weight fast. But, no one really talks about the negatives, like irregular bowel movements (sorry, but it’s true). So after 9 months and a trip to Italy (I mean, this puts a new meaning to “When in Rome”, plus who can say no to all the pizza, pasta, and wine??), I decided to slowly incorporate a more “normal” diet in my life. I had thought that the low-carb diet was more of a suggestion than a necessary lifestyle adjustment. Well, I learned the hard way and that change back to “normal” eating habits had backfired. I quickly gained back all the weight that I had so meticulously lost. And after that, it slowly spiraled to the point where even the Keto diet wouldn’t work. I felt so sluggish to the point where I would crash and feel narcoleptic (I literally could not keep my eyes open and would feel an overwhelming wave of exhaustion hit me to the point where I almost fell asleep while driving). Which brings me back to present time.
Feeling defeated and at my wit’s end, I realized that I couldn’t do it by myself anymore. I then enlisted the help of a nutritionist and she gave me many suggestions on how to manage PCOS and the resulting insulin resistance. She told me that I had to eat a low-carb diet yes, but there is more to it than just that. It wasn’t as simple as eating under a certain amount per day; she had told me that I had to be mindful about how much I ate during each sitting — it was that granular. I am limited to 25 grams of carbs total per meal, not to exceed 100 grams of carbs per day. To put that into perspective, that is 1 slice of bread per sitting (and that is if I am not eating any veggies or anything else with carbohydrates in them, which I have found to be a lot of things you wouldn’t normally think of). I am currently incorporating her advice and seeing how my body will react to slight changes in my diet.
Anyways, you’re probably wondering why this matters? Well, my world has been turned upside down. Being a foodie who loves a good carb-fest of noodles, rice, sandwiches, desserts, BOBA, etc, the news devastated me. I kept thinking, what are the implications? Will I be able to be able to grab something quick while in a pinch? What about snacking on the go? Am I going to be one of THOSE people who have to modify every single dish while eating out? What is going to happen when I travel? Will I be able to enjoy the foods native to the places to where I am traveling? And the list goes on. I felt, and still feel, like I have to give up a huge part of what makes me, well, me. And frankly, I still feel like I am mourning. But, realizing that this is part of the bigger picture of making me feel better, I am determined to make it work. How? I don’t know, but I will make it work. I am literally and figuratively tired of feeling sluggish, lethargic, moody amongst a slew of other things. But most importantly, I am not going to let this affect the way that I live my life.
So join me in this journey as I navigate the challenges (opportunities!) that a foodie with PCOS/Insulin Resistance will face. Explore the different foods that we can enjoy. Experiment with me on attempting to modify “normal” dishes into insulin resistant-friendly ones. Celebrate the little wins. Let’s eat!
In good taste,
Shannon
Shannon the Foodie 