23 5ft SW: 175 CW: 109.8 GW: 100
So happy because I haven’t been this small in 8 years😊 Also met my quarantine weight loss goal, wanted to be 110 by mid-July or by the time my state fully reopened.
I started this journey to look and feel better but improving my health was also in the back of my mind. 5 years ago, I was diagnosed with insulin resistance and PCOS at 140lbs. I was advised to lose weight and the doctor (an endocrinologist) offered metformin and birth control to control these conditions because it would be “hard” to lose weight without medication. Personally, I felt that the doctor was a bit pushy about the medications and negative about the prospect of losing weight without going on any medications. But I decided to skip the medication because I didn’t feel it was necessary and told the doctor I would just lose weight on my own.
Well I left for college a few months after that appointment and the college lifestyle (combined with me just not caring about my weight) led to me putting on 35lbs by the middle of my senior year. At my highest weight, I was likely pre-diabetic. Being alone on campus for a winter class led me to eat out of boredom and I put on a few pounds. I had also been buying whatever I wanted and it was a bunch of junk food like ice cream and cheesecake.
Seeing myself in the mirror, I hated how fat I’d become and I knew I did not want to keep getting any bigger.
For the first time in my life, I made a serious effort to lose weight and I’m glad I did it on my own (through college, a semester of grad school and quarantine) because it showed me that even with insulin resistance and PCOS, the weight can still come off by cooking healthier foods at home, counting calories, working out and having discipline (you won’t always feel motivated). Anything is possible when you put your mind to it.
At first, my goal was to just “lose weight” because I’d never done it before. But as I started making lifestyle changes and saw the weight coming off, I started to believe I could do it. I still have PCOS and I ended up getting a hormonal IUD 3.5yrs ago to get rid of my heavy, irregular periods after I had one that that lasted for 2 months. Truly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
However, I’m 99% sure I no longer have insulin resistance since I’m 30lbs under my diagnosis weight and my Acanthosis nigricans aka. “dark neck” cleared up somewhere between 140-150lbs, approximately 6 or 7 months into my lifestyle change. All it took was making true lifestyle changes vs trying to “diet”. Though I can’t go to an endocrinologist to take an official test right now with covid going on.
Maybe it’s because I’m 5ft on top of my family history, but it doesn’t take much extra weight for me to develop insulin resistance so even though I was diagnosed at 140lbs, it is entirely possible that developed it at a smaller weight.
I share all this because I see a lot of women use PCOS as a reason they “can’t” lose weight. While it can definitely make it harder to lose weight, hard ≠ impossible. Anyone will lose weight if they are in a caloric deficit.
I’ve also heard of a lot of doctors being a bit eager to prescribe metformin to help with insulin resistance. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking it but please don’t feel like metformin is necessary for weight loss if you are insulin resistant. I know someone who has been on metformin for years for their pre-diabetes. He has only kept gaining weight because he doesn’t want to commit to a lifestyle change. Metformin can absolutely help you lose weight but *only\* if you put in the work.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/hicv02/65lbs_lost_insulin_resistance_reversed/
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