anyone with PCOS knows that losing weight is hard and while not all women who have PCOS are
overweight a lot of them are up to 80 percent of women with PCOS are classified as overweight
or obese and it can be extremely frustrating when you feel like you're doing everything right you're
counting calories you're exercising but you're still not losing weight but here's the thing
but when it comes to losing weight with PCOS simply focusing on eating less and
burning more calories is not the right approach
you need to focus on regulating your hormones specifically insulin and when you do this weight
loss will come and I'm going to be giving you four easy steps to do this in today's video [Music]
hey guys welcome back to my channel if you're new here my name is Kait I'm a certified health and
nutrition coach I post videos twice a week here on YouTube talking all things insulin resistance
weight loss sleep and more so if you're ready to take control of your metabolic Health make
sure to click that subscribe button and you can also find me on Tick Tock and Instagram or at
your new posts every single day losing weight with PCOS is difficult for one major reason that most
women don't realize most people focus on calories in versus calories out for weight loss but that
doesn't work for PCOS when you understand the reason why weight loss is difficult for women
with PCOS the steps I'm going to outline in this video are going to make a lot more sense so let's
get into it weight loss is difficult for women with PCOS because their insulin levels are much
higher than they should be over 90 percent of women with PCOS have hyperinsulinemia which is a
long word that just means High insulin and let me explain why this matters insulin is known as the
fat storage hormone and that alone should explain why it's difficult for women with PCOS to lose
weight High insulin means that your body is in fat storage mode and if your insulin is always high as
is the case for majority of women with PCOS you spend very little time in fat burning mode now
for someone who is metabolically healthy it makes sense that when their insulin bumps up that the
body switches to storing fat instead of burning it because insulin's main role in the body is to
transport extra glucose from the bloodstream which is energy to our cells when we eat blood sugar
goes up and insulin is released so if energy is already readily available from our food it makes
sense that our body is going to use that first and not tap into our stored body fat but when a
woman has PCOS her insulin is always elevated her metabolism is not working correctly which
is why she can seemingly be doing everything right and still not losing weight so what can you do to
lose weight if you have PCOS let's get into that now step number one is to be smart about carbs
the key to losing weight when you have PCOS is to bring your insulin down and keep it low as much as
possible because when insulin is low this is when your body switches to fat burning in step and one
of the most effective ways to do this is to be smart about your carbohydrates but what do I mean
by this carbohydrates are the macronutrient that requires the most insulin to process when we eat
carbohydrates they are literally broken down into sugar or glucose and they enter our bloodstream
and it's insulin's job to take this excess glucose from our bloodstream and deliver it to ourselves
so the more carbohydrates we eat the more our blood sugar goes up and the more insulin that is
needed fat and protein require much less insulin to process they're broken down differently and
did not increase blood sugar so when I say be smart about carbs there are a few different ways
to do this number one is to eat less of them low carb diets have been shown to be extremely
beneficial for women with PCOS less than 100 grams of carbohydrates in a day is a good starting point
number two is to not eat them in isolation when we eat carbs alone especially refined ones they
cause a bigger spike in blood sugar than when we eat them with protein fat and fiber so if you're
having fruit for example try pairing it with some meat with some cheese with some nuts all of this
is going to make the blood sugar response less dramatic and less insulin is going to be needed
and number three is to eat carbs last even more effective than pairing carbohydrates with protein
and fat is to eat them after protein and fat so if you're having roast potatoes with dinner try
eating the protein portion and the non-starchy vegetable portion of your meal first and then
have the potatoes now I will say you don't have to be perfect with this obviously you can't apply
these tips to every single meal you eat but do the best you can when you can and weight loss
will come step number two is to prioritize sleep sleep so often gets overlooked but even just one
night of poor sleep throws your hormones out of whack the entire next day and one of the main
ones for today's video being insulin when you don't sleep well your insulin is going to be
elevated the entire next day this even happens for someone who's metabolically healthy so if
you're already struggling with high insulin it's only going to make the problem worse now if you
are someone who struggles to fall asleep and to stay asleep I recommend taking so well Health's
GetSoCalm supplement before bed this supplement is not only good for improving your sleep but it also
helps with PCOS as well the main ingredients are Gaba which has been shown to promote relaxation
and sleep but also myoinositol which helps to improve insulin sensitivity and helps to reduce
PCOS symptoms when you're more insulin sensitive your cells can take in more glucose with less
insulin which of course is going to help to bring your insulin down and going to support weight loss
if you want to check out get so calm you can head to hccate.com forward slash GetSoCalm and
use code KAIT10 to save 10 percent I'm also going to put the link in the description box down below
number three is to eat 30 grams of protein at every meal now this tip is so so so important
for losing weight with PCOS for a few different reasons first off I'm going
to say that most women in general are not eating enough protein and this hurts our help for a bunch
of different reasons but I'm going to focus on how it affects PCOS for today's purposes
first off eating adequate protein helps us to maintain and build lean muscle mass
and this is important because the more muscle mass we have the more room we have to store glucose
because our liver and our muscles are primarily where glucose is stored in the body more room
for storing glucose and again less insulin is needed but also protein is important for creating
hormones not eating enough can lead to hormonal imbalances which of course is a big part of PCOS
and the associated symptoms but even beyond that protein is absolutely key for satiety when we
don't eat enough protein we are more likely to experience hunger and craving between meals I
tell all of my clients to eat a bare minimum of 30 grams of protein at every single meal if they are
hungry in between meals that is a huge indicator that they didn't eat enough at their last meal
and that they need to up it next time and when I talk about protein and quality protein I am mainly
referring to animal protein animal protein is a complete protein Source it is more bioavailable
and less inflammatory than plant protein is red meat especially is good for women with PCOS as are
eggs and wild caught salmon and step number four is to intermittent fast now this doesn't have to
be extreme but if you can incorporate some form of intermittent fasting into your routine this is
going to help your PCOS a lot even aiming to fast for 12 hours a day can be extremely beneficial and
that can look like finishing your last meal at 8 pm and not eating breakfast until 8 AM which is
very manageable for most people and the reason why this is beneficial is because when we don't eat
AKA when we're fasting insulin drops dramatically putting you into a fat burning State because if
there's no energy coming in if there's no energy available your body is going to turn to pulling
from your fat stores instead and that is literally why we have fat on our body it's stored energy and
it's there to be used now when you're first getting started with these steps intermittent
fasting might feel pretty difficult and this is because your body isn't used to burning fat
for energy but push through the first couple of days make sure you're supplementing electrolytes
during your fasting window and it's going to get a lot easier pretty quickly like I said your fast
schedule doesn't have to be extreme start with just 12 hours and increase from there if you feel
you need to a lot of women choose to fast for 16 to 18 hours a day and that works really well for
them and then they eat two big meals during their feeding window especially if you have a lot of
weight to lose then fasting longer might be more beneficial for you even if you only do slightly
longer fasts a couple days a week that's going to make a big difference and those are the four
steps you can take to lose weight with PCOS let me know in the comment section down below if you
have PCOS and if you've lost weight in the past if you're currently losing weight what's worked
for you what hasn't I love chatting with you guys in the comment section down below so even if you
just want to say hi I really appreciate the support and if you know anyone any friends or
family members with PCOS who might find this video helpful feel free to share with them if you did
enjoy this video you might also enjoy my video on symptoms of PCOS to watch out for you can find it
here if you want to catch up on my most recent upload you can find it here and if you want to
check out my coaching programs including my seven day insulin resistance master class which is also
beneficial for women with PCOS you can check that out here thanks guys I'll see you next time bye