It's about time I updated this blog, eh?! Sorry it has taken me so long. I just started grad school yesterday... YEAH, scary business.
The first thing I would like to do, is re-post the plan that Kelli devised and posted in the PolycysticOvarianSyndrome facebook group.
I have been given permission from Kelli to re-post, word-for-word:
"
As discussed ladies here is a guideline to refer to, but PLEASE NOTE Now you ladies know I AM NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR, but I HAVE successfully lost and kept the PCOS weight off for over 3 years and I have done A LOT of research (everything I could get my hands on) about our disorder. And I am hearing that many doctors are prescribing metformin to be taken at bedtime for PCOS. I FIRMLY believe this will NOT work for PCOS. Because our pancreases do not function as a diabetic pancreas does. I also do not believe the XR version of metformin makes sense for PCOS....and here is why: A diabetic needs long term insulin sensitization because their pancreas is producing little if any insulin so the medication is used to maximize their body's use of what little bit of insulin they make on their own, but with PCOS, we MAKE plenty of insulin our cells simply refuse to use any of that insulin to let sugar in to be burned for energy rather than stored as fat. So a PCOS suffer needs the sensitization EXACTLY at mealtime. I do not even believe in a PCOSer taking the regular metformin only in the morning, or only at night, I recommend the metformin be taken BEFORE EACH AND EVERY MEAL THAT GOES IN YOUR BODY, regular metformin for us because we ONLY need the sensitizing to insulin when we take in food and our pancreas is really pumping.
After coming to these conclusions through much research, combined both off the internet and through books, yes ladies real actual BOOKS with hardbacks, and paper in them, believe it or not they are STILL made! Anyway I then headed to see my endocrinologist armed with a new "plan " I had developed that I thought made a lot of sense and I wanted to test it to see if it may help speed up the weight loss that metformin is known for helping SOME PCOSers with. I shared my new "plan" with my doctor and she agreed that it makes perfect sense, to try it and we would keep my blood sugar levels checked via glucometer daily and see what happened. I mean what could it really hurt at the time I weighed 283 pounds at 5' 3" tall and a heart attack was as likely as anything else so why not try this!
So here is my "plan" which over three years after successfully loosing the weight I am STILL on this plan because PCOS is not curable, certainly treatable, as I have proven, but I will ALWAYS be insulin resistant so I will always need the plan. Since PCOSers need the insulin sensitization exactly at meal time and my endocrinologist (Dr. Andrea Hayes) believes the "magic" dosage for PCOS to be 2000mg a day, I decided I needed this spread throughout my day to affect every morsel that went in my body, every calorie, every carb, every fat gram, anything digestible period.
So, here's how it goes:
Three main meals are eaten daily, breakfast lunch and dinner. WITH the first bite of each of these meals I took 500mg or regular (NOT XR) metformin. In between these 3 meals I rarely got hungry but if I did, a LOW carb or carb free snack was in order. Then at bedtime the last 500mg were taken. Why at bedtime? Well, I found that when meytformin is taken with high carb, very fatty, or heavy greasy and fried foods it is VERY hard on the tummy, diareahha became my worst enemy. I also found taking it on an empty stomach did the same thing. I also found that large doses too close together did the same thing. So that last 500 at bedtime was close enough to dinner for my tummy not to be completely empty and even if it was, I was asleep, so I basically outsmarted the diarrhea, lol.
Now there are several important things to note. I know many of us complain that we do not have time to eat all day Long or are not in the habit of eating more than twice a day, however if you are going to do this plan you have to commit to it like you would ANY diet. The word diet in and of itself does not necessarily mean low fat or low GI foods. Diet is just a word for the all inclusion of what we put in our bodies on a daily basis, modern society has simply adapted it to be used to refer to weight loss often. So back to committing. When you start this plan you are COMMITTING to several things:
1. You will take your metformin RELIGIOUSLY 4 times a day and ONLY with meals other than the dose right at bedtime.
2. If for some reason you cannot get your meal in, and you have normal blood sugar, skip that dose of metformin because you could cause a hypoglycemic blood sugar crash.
3. You will get a glucometer and keep track of your blood sugar at least 3 times a day, not for fear of diabetes, more to be sure you are not going into hypoglycemia and to be sure you are eating enough grams of sugar because if you are following this plan correctly you will notice your cravings for sweets cut down if not disappear after about two weeks.
4. You are also committing to portion control. On this plan you do NOT deny yourself anything you crave, however, if what you are craving is so high in fat , sugars, carbs, or calories, that the portion size looks like something you would feed your hamster, well those are your consequences for choosing that food item. You eat what you want but you DO NOT stray from portion control. Remember if you are a sugared soft drink person, this means that 20 oz bottle of soda is actually two and a half portions....not one. Aren't they clever with their packaging?
5. You do NOT weigh in more than once a week, and you weigh at the same time of day on the same day of the week. Weighing daily will only raise and dash your hopes sop repeatedly that you will give up.
6. You will live an active lifestyle......WHATEVER that means for you, if working out and exercising like a mad woman are your thing, hey go for it, but they were NOT my thing. However you also cannot sit like a bump on the couch watching the TV expecting pounds to fall off, take the dog out and play with it, take the stairs at work everyday vs. the elevator, park at the FURTHEST spot from Targets front door instead of fighting for the closest. If you are not into exercise simply make your life active in OTHER ways, that's all I did. I hit way too many gyms as a fat girl, when it started rolling off with my plan, I refused. I just made some lifestyle changes where I was no longer a plain old couch potato.
7. You are agreeing to patience. Everyone's body is different I have seen people see results with this in as little as the first month and as long as ten months, it all depends on your body chemistry, your food and activity choices, and how RELIGIOUSLY you stick to taking that medication YOU CANNOT forget PERIOD!
It did take 10 months before my weight really started rolling, but I didn't make huge food or lifestyle changes, just small ones, but the biggest thing was I STUCK TO THE PLAN. After month ten and the first 20 pounds came off, it literally rolled off my body, so quickly that sometimes I skipped entire sizes before we could get to the store to buy me smaller clothes.
PLEASE REMEMBER I AM NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR PLEASE RUN THIS AND ANY DIET AND LIFESTYLE CHANGES BY YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE YOU BEGIN THEM, I AM SIMPLY A PCOS GIRL THAT RESEARCHED, THOUGHT UP A PLAN, AND FOUND 170LBS WORTH OF SUCCESS.
Kelli Leah Wohlgemuth © 2011 - This "Plan" is the intellectual property of kelli Wohlgemuth. Any use of this plan is for members of any group she has allowed access and is not to be used in further publishing by book, internet, blog, TV, magazine, newspaper or any other way without express written consent from Kelli Leah Wohlgemuth."
