PCOS weight loss: lift a heavy thing. do it.
Today, I wanna make a quick (…) case for strength training as the exercise of choice for lasses attempting PCOS weight loss but ALSO like all women, probably.
Stacy London (What Not to Wear) just posted an Insta the other day in which she talked about how weight lifting / strength training’s really helped her out—and how she wishes she’d begun earlier. Basically, as we age, our bones get a lot weaker—which means that falls and other minor injuries that we can weather pretty easily in our 20s can DECK us when we’re in our 50s. Strength training not only makes ya bones healthier, but, like, it helps give you balance and ish (…like, strong muscles) to help make aging easier.
I’m turning 29 on Monday so CLEARLY I’m freaking out about the prospect of being ancient.
(This is extreme sarcasm, I can’t wait for my 30s) To me, the helpful-aging thing is a nice side benefit. Strength training has been really dang great in a lot of ways since I took it up in February, and I wanna talk a little about that…right now.
HOWEVER, I also recently wrote a super practical guide for Verily about how to get started with strength training, and I don’t wanna step on that. (I’ll link that and re-post when it goes live.) So, this piece is just gonna be a quick thing on why it’s good for PCOS lasses / me in particular AND the #1 thing that made consistent weight training really, really easy and enjoyable for me. (It’s underwhelming, don’t get excited.)
The four different types of PCOS and us
SO. PCOS is a multifactorial syndrome that hits women in their hormones, their metabolisms, their brain chemistry and their digestive systems. It’s a real blast. Our metabolism is completely backwards, which makes it a very Sisyphean kinda situation to lose weight or maintain in any kind of way. (I know that PCOS weight loss can be a triggering subject; I wrote a thing here about why *I’m* healthily making some weight loss a goal for me and my body.)
Now, there are several different types of PCOS: insulin-resistant, post-pill, inflammatory, adrenal. I’ll do a whole thing later about that, I’m sure—but by FAR the most common type of PCOS is insulin-resistant. This tends to manifest itself with symptoms of diabetes/obesity. Because this is the most common type of PCOS, insofar as doctors will do anything if they’re able to diagnose you, they’ll put you on an insulin-management drug pretty much no questions asked. (I’m currently on metformin for this reason, but will be transitioning to inositol this fall.)
The fourth type of PCOS I mentioned above was adrenal, and it’s way less common—but all women with PCOS likely struggle with some kind of adrenal mismanagement or fatigue to some extent. That’s the type I have. Let’s talk about what that means.
Exercising with PCOS
So, when women with PCOS try to lose weight, we can kinda go nuts eating really restrictive diets and super-punishing workouts in the attempt to move the needle on the scale at all. This does a number on our hormonal state, which - as you may remember from the last paragraph - is already under attack from our PCOS.
Your adrenal glands are a) located somewhere around your midsection, and b) pump out cortisol, the stress hormone.
Two fun facts:
One. If you have adrenal PCOS, your body *already* makes a million times more cortisol than necessary because reasons. (A subject of research by future me.) This puts you into a constant state of anxiety/depression/OCD/insomnia/FUN.
Two. MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF WORKOUTS INCREASE ADRENAL OUTPUT OF CORTISOL. So, like, for instance, if you already have PCOS or adrenal fatigue and you go on a run you’re actually … not doing something that’s great for yourself. HIIT is similarly not great.
Yet many PCOS lasses in an attempt to see any sort of progress with weight loss will run themselves ragged…perpetuating their adrenal fatigue and cortisol output…making themselves more stressed and sad and tired…which can spur unhealthy habits (um, me)…which can make us want to work out even more.
Vicious cycle, etc. Sisyphean.
Enter:
The benefits of strength training for PCOS
If you do it right it…doesn’t stress you out. The end.
I MEAN it’s a you-gotta-know-your-body thing, but, as a general rule, VERY slow and intentional weighted workouts don’t spike your heart rate and spur cortisol production in the same way that a HIIT workout would. Yet strength training gives you many of the weight loss and general health benefits that come with moving your body - and here I’m starting to Venn diagram my Verily piece, so, go read that when it goes live. (I’m aware I could be timing this in a way more strategic way but this is what I wanted to write about today so.)
Okay, here’s the hyped H2:
The thing that makes strength training easy+accessible for me
Don’t go to a gym.
Don’t watch a Youtube video of someone pumping iron.
Get a yoga mat and some weights (or heavy household items, or just work with your body weight) and research a few different moves and then put on a sitcom and slowly (SLOWLY) do bicep curls during the cold open, leg lifts during the theme song, and some rows during act one. Repeat for act two. (Or whatever works for you.)
I SAID this would be underwhelming, but it’s been a game-changer? See I used to think that to strength train properly you needed fancy gym equipment. Failing that, I needed to be watching a routine put together by a personal trainer the entire time, which, I’m sorry, my attention span won’t let me do that.
Putting an ep of how I met your mother on while I work out, though, makes it … something to look forward to? And the freedom to stretch and work out the muscles I wanna flex, make my ~workout flow~ a little more organic and personalized, that’s been kinda magic?
DISCLAIMER obvi it can be easy to pull something or hurt yourself while you lift heavy things, so, like, start with bodyweight exercises and watch a vid initially to figure out form, but, like, after that, find a way to make it enjoyable. The end. Come back tomorrow for more life-changing health tips!
PCOS weight loss update
I skipped posting for the past two days, which is fine. Work happened, hanging with friends happened, and watching my husband play video games last night took precedence. (I’m a professional.)
THAT SAID, here’s where we at after Tuesday’s update:
Wednesday 4/7: 71.6 kg
Thursday 4/8: 71.95 kg
Friday 4/9: 71.45 kg
To put these numbers in context, an initial get-back-to-pre-pandemic-status PCOS weight loss goal I have is to get to 68kg. We’re getting there. It’ll happen.
Quick other thing: Why am I doing this fun picture challenge? I’ll tell you. I’m feeling a little weird and subconscious about it because to me it screams influencer-wannabe, which, like, is cool if you wanna be an influencer. (I don’t want that.)
Fun anecdote: The other day Ted told me that he really wanted to do a family photo wall, and because he is a proactive angel from heaven he showed me a few pictures he’d already printed out and wanted to frame. I looked at them. My heart sank. “The thing is, honey, I look awful in all of these.” He went on to gently, accurately point out that that objectively wasn’t true—but I still don’t love how I look in those shots or in basically any pictures taken ever.
So. Aversion therapy, sorta: I’m taking a lot of pictures of myself. I want to know how to take good pictures I won’t hate, and get used to how I look in pictures. I ALSO am kinda done with wearing the one ratty sweatsuit I wore for 90% of 2020 and like putting my fun wardrobe to use. I ALSO ALSO know that blogs and instas that feature pictures of their authors tend to do better, so, three birds, one stone.
That’s all. HAPPY FRIDAY! Take it easy tonight, we’ll chat soon.