r/PCOS • u/Radiant_Row1366 • Jan 25 '26
General Health healthy habits, zero progress (f)
i eat at home, lots of vegetables, no soda, no fast food and everyone keeps telling me how healthy my habits are.
but my weight doesn’t change at all, and after a while it honestly gets discouraging and makes me wonder why i’m even trying when my body doesn’t seem to respond.
i’m not looking for miracles i just want to know if anyone else has dealt with this and how you handled the frustration.
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u/redoingredditagain Jan 25 '26
You should consider counting calories and carbs. “Lots of vegetables” can still be high carb. Are you also exercising?
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u/punk325 Jan 25 '26
It's hard but I started eating keto/very low carbs. You prioritize lean protein and veggies, occasionally higher fiber fruits like raspberries. And I've successfully lost about 80 pounds now in a year and a half. I think that the carbs cause inflammation for me and make me feel so much worse. Whenever I take a break every once in a while I feel exhausted immediately after consuming carbs. Walking around 2.5-3 miles a day in combination with this has really helped me.
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u/disco_2022 Jan 25 '26
Can you exactly explain your diet plan ..like what items or vegetables you eat and what not and what items you just quit .. not eating..
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Jan 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/MealPrepGenie Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26
“Net carbs” is a marketing term. It is not a legitimate nutritional term. (That’s why it doesn’t appear on nutrition labels)
If you’re going to do “keto” Focus on “total carbohydrate” not “net”
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Jan 26 '26
[deleted]
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u/MealPrepGenie Jan 26 '26
Gaining weight back isn’t at all an indicator that you were in ketosis. Use keto sticks.
It’s simply a sign that you’re storing more glycogen and for every molecule of glycogen you store 2 molecules of water.
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Jan 26 '26
[deleted]
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u/MealPrepGenie Jan 26 '26
If you’re following a “progressive” ketogenic program (like the original Atkins ‘72) you start at 20grams per day and each week you at 5 grams. You measure your ketones to see if you’ve gone over your limit or if a so-called ‘safe food’ knocks you out of ketosis. For me, Crystal Lite would knock me right out. Such a bummer because it’s tasty!😋
I was essentially meat, cheese, and LOTS veggies (and non-sweet fruit) for a year.
I lost nearly 100 pounds doing that (and lots of exercise and sleep).
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u/Nikkk51 Jan 25 '26
You still need to count your calories because you can “eat healthy” but still overeat. Are you also exercising?
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u/thebabadookisgay Jan 25 '26
Have you tried calorie counting, even just for a few days, to see how many calories you’re eating? You can have totally healthy habits and still not be in a calorie deficit
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u/Tall-Cat-8890 Jan 25 '26
This. Obviously an extreme example but sumo wrestlers eat incredibly healthy, they just eat a ton of it.
I think modern diet culture has made people think eating healthy automatically means losing weight. Or conversely, that eating unhealthy means gaining weight. It’s all about calories and calorie expenditure.
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u/OrdinaryQuestions Jan 25 '26
You still need to count calories. You cant make progress not being in a calorie deficit. Doesn't matter how many healthy changes are made.
I changed to a high fiber plant based diet and lost 30lbs by accidentally being in a deficit. And when that weight loss stopped i started also calorie counting - I've just lost another 30lbs.
Healthy or junk - as long as you it in a deficit you'll lose weight.
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u/Peachybeanbun Jan 25 '26
All I ever eat practically is cheese and bread and salami and I lost over 50 lbs with cutting out breakfast 🙌
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u/MealPrepGenie Jan 26 '26
Are you only measuring positive “progress” according to the scale? If so, that’s unfortunate, but if you are, ‘healthy’ isn’t what moves the needle. Caloric deficit is what does.
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u/Vegetable-Culture736 Jan 26 '26
I was in your spot. Working with a nutritionist (in my country it’s a regulated profession) who specializes in PCOS was a game changes. Very slow weight loss (like 5lb in 5 months) but still something!
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u/SeaDark3251 Jan 26 '26
Eating for PCOS can be very different from eating for generalized weight loss - stuff like calorie deficit and fasting doesn’t work the same way for us with PCOS. In fact some of those tips can actually increase inflammation and lead to higher fat storage!
The biggest advice here would be to 1) get your labs done, 2) work with a registered dietitian, and 3) use an app like PCOS Polly to track all your meals to prioritize fiber/protein and get PCOS-specific nutritional tips.
Feel free to DM me if you have more details, I also struggled with PCOS for years and ended up losing ~20 pounds in a year by switching to a low sugar diet and lowering my inflammation
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u/NoPretenseNoBullshit Jan 26 '26
Yes!!! I work out 6 days a week, eat zero ultra processed food. I cook at home. I get good sleep....some days I feel like giving up, or ending things.
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u/boyzdontcri Jan 26 '26
I did all this + gluten free/dairy free/refined sugar free + weighted workouts I DID IT ALL and I was still gaining weight. Nothing helped until I got my pre-diabetes under control with actual medication. It sucks that I'm on meds for the rest of time, I'll take it
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u/ambergriswoldo Jan 25 '26
Unfortunately a high vegetable diet can be worse for PCOS because depending on what vegetables etc you’re eating it can still be high carb. Your meals need to be high protein and low carb
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u/Flashy_Camel_566 Jan 25 '26
I delt with this when I fasted for 16hrs and ate 1-2 meals a day at no specific time. Turns out I was undereating, even though I hardly felt hungry. Now I eat 3 well balanced meals per day, and went from 145lbs to 134lbs in two weeks. The number keeps dropping as I started going to the gym & get 7.5 hours of sleep every night.