pcos weight loss tips the big...

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“PCOS Weight Loss Tips – The

Big Picture...

By Dr. Beverly Yates,

Dr. of Naturopathic Medicine PCOS Weight Loss Expert

& Best-Selling Author

Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 2

What is PCOS? .......................................................................................................................... 3

Symptoms of PCOS ................................................................................................................... 4

Difficulty with Losing Weight ....................................................................................................... 5

Critical Tips for Weight Loss ....................................................................................................... 6

Weight Loss and Relief of PCOS Symptoms .............................................................................. 8

Herbs and Supplements ............................................................................................................10

PCOS Isn’t Hopeless ................................................................................................................12

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................14


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Introduction Question: Dr. Beverly Yates is an expert on weight loss and women’s health,

including PCOS weight loss. She has over two decades of clinical experience, is a caring doctor and lifelong athlete.

In her former career, as an MIT-educated electrical engineer, Dr. Beverly was a problem solver. Now, as a doctor, she continues to use her problem solving skills to help other women solve their weight loss problems


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What is PCOS?

Question: Dr. Beverly, what is PCOS, how many women are affected and is PCOS easy to diagnosis?

Dr. Beverly: PCOS, the letters stand for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. It’s quite a mouthful, but basically it is a cluster of symptoms that can lead to a poor quality of life and some specific health problems.

It’s not easy to diagnose and often is a diagnosis that’s missed because

it is a somewhat odd cluster of symptoms, and not all the symptoms have to be present for a woman to be experiencing Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.

At this point in time, we do think it’s a lifelong condition. The good

news is it can be managed and relief can be gotten. But women need to know specifically what to do that will be helpful for

them. It appears that five to eight percent of women worldwide are affected,

including in the United States. The numbers are consistent around the world.

But there isn’t just one test today to go and say, “Oh, this means you have

PCOS.” It’s not quite that simple.


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Symptoms of PCOS Question: What are some of the typical symptoms of PCOS? Dr. Beverly: Some of the typical symptoms can be that a woman has irregular

menstrual periods, and when I say irregular I mean irregular. I don’t mean it’s off by a day or two. It can be by weeks, sometimes months.

It might go missing all together or just be really erratic, where she

may have one or two periods close together and then none for a few months and then maybe a month or two where her cycles seem like they’re coming at regular interval.

The normal menstrual cycle should be right around 29 days, between

when the bleeding first starts. So day 1 is when the menstrual period starts, and then a menstrual period

can last for most women somewhere between 3 to 5 days and then it ends typically, and then it starts up again about 29 days later, roughly a month.

For some women, particularly with PCOS, that’s not what they

experience. So that’s one of the key symptoms. There are some others, though. They might have what’s called

Hirsutism, which is an easy growth, or overgrowth really, of hair in places where we don’t expect it on women.

So they’ll have hair on their face, they may have increased body hair. Hair

in ways that it might be visible and uncomfortable or just culturally feel a little awkward.

Some women experience increased acne well past the years of

puberty. For other women though, the biggest issue with PCOS is easy weight

gain and a really hard time with weight loss. Women with PCOS typically struggle with losing weight and keeping

their weight in a healthy weight range, managing their weight. That’s about 60 percent of women with PCOS have issues with their weight.

About 40 percent seem to be at a healthy weight and that’s not their

struggle, but for most ladies with PCOS this becomes a big deal.


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Difficulty with Losing Weight Question: That leads into my next question, and maybe if it’s possible to expand on it

a little bit further. Why do women with PCOS experience such an incredible level of frustration with losing weight?

Dr. Beverly: That’s a loaded question. There are a few things that really matter. The

frustration, just the emotional angst that can go with PCOS has a lot to do with the simple fact that when women have PCOS, they’ll find that they’ll do a lot of really smart stuff for their health and they don’t always get the benefit.

I’ll give you an example. It is certainly a truism that just because someone

eats a lot of junk, it may not mean they have a problem with their weight. If you look at somebody and they’re slender or even skinny, you can’t

necessarily say that they eat healthfully. But if someone has a problem with their weight, let’s face it, there’s issues with weight. They’re very visible. The world can look at you and see if you have a problem with your weight.

People will make an assumption that someone doesn’t care for

themselves well or they’re overeating and things like that, and that might not be true.

The frustration for women with PCOS around weight loss has to do that for

a lot of these women, by the time they realize that nutrition matters and they start eating well and exercising regularly, they might not experience weight loss.

It may not be that simple as eat less and move more, let’s say, a recipe

that can work so well for most men. Most of the time for women with PCOS, it’s just not that simple, and thus the frustration.

They don’t get the reward for the effort they’ve put it. Question: That sounds incredibly frustrating. Dr. Beverly: Yeah, not fair, not fair. Question: Exactly.


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Critical Tips for Weight Loss Question: For PCOS sufferers, are there two to three important things that really

matter for weight loss? And what does every woman who has PCOS and is struggling with weight loss need to know?

Dr. Beverly: There are two or three things that really are critical to know that matter for

weight loss, if you’re a woman who has PCOS and are suffering from the realities of the difficulty that goes with trying to lose that weight.

One is that it is critical to keep blood sugar as even as possible. To

be specific, giving your blood sugar a rocket ride by eating candy or having really blood sugar-impacting things like cake and ice cream and really sweet tea or lemonade will just be a disaster.

I can’t tell you over the years, how many patients I’ve had who have said,

“Oh, I thought it was really healthy for me to start my day with a cup of coffee, a few teaspoons of sugar in there and some pastries or Danish or bagels, toast and I thought that was a healthy thing to do. It was a whole wheat bagel.”

No, this is a disaster if you have PCOS. It’s just hitting your blood

sugar like a bomb. And like any bomb, it leaves a lot of damage. In this case, it’s relatively

invisible, but it compounds the problems. It makes it very hard to lose weight.

The body thinks, “We have lots of sugar coming in, we have calories

coming in. We don’t need to lose any weight. Let’s just store it as fat.” This cycle can be tough to break.

Also, for some women, PCOS can impact fertility. So keeping that

blood sugar even can make a difference for conception, for family planning, for lots of different things, in addition to PCOS symptoms, including that irregular menstrual cycle.

Question: Are there any other important things they should keep in mind? Dr. Beverly: If you’re trying to lose weight, and particularly in you have Polycystic

Ovarian Syndrome, we already know that hormonal balance is a factor. Clearly with PCOS, there’s hormone imbalance.


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That’s why the menstrual cycle can be so irregular, why sometimes women who have PCOS can also have pronounced PMS, or Pre-Menstrual Syndrome kinds of symptoms, too, just to add to the struggles. Getting quality sleep and having good stress management onboard really can make a difference. Sleep is about a third of our lives, as adults, and if you aren’t sleeping well you’re not going to lose weight. Some people’s sleep habits are not good. They don’t support a healthy kind of sleep cycle.

As a result, even though she might be eating well, she might be working on getting hormonal balance, she might be working on any number of things, she might be exercising regularly, she’s not going to lose the weight.


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Weight Loss and Relief of PCOS Symptoms Question: Why is having a healthy weight so important to managing PCOS, and

does weight loss and weight management make a difference in their overall health and does it bring relief from PCOS symptoms?

Dr. Beverly: Having a healthy weight, being a weight that makes sense for your height

and body density, is critical to managing PCOS. It makes it just a lot easier.

A lot of health parameters, it turns out, are tied to your weight, and as your

weight goes up then so do the risk of problems from having increased weight, whether you’re just overweight or if you become obese.

So high blood pressure is tied to this. Fertility and the ability to

conceive and carry a baby all the way to term and have a healthy baby is tied to that blood sugar and healthy weight balance.

Your heart status, how hard your heart has to work and how efficient

your heart is at pumping blood around, that makes a difference.

Excess weight also causes inflammation, it can add to joint pain, it can add to skin eruptions, it can add to problems with depression and anxiety, and not from body image issues. I’m not talking about how someone looks. I’m saying the chemicals from the inside that the extra fat makes poison the body, and so it just magnifies, if you will, the hormone imbalance that’s implicitly part of PCOS. And so women who are dealing with this can know that if they’re looking at a bulls eye sort of target, if they look at the very center circle, that blood sugar and healthy weight are smack center. If they get that handled, they should get relief from the other things that go with PCOS. Even a five percent drop in body weight can make a difference. It’s not like she has to be a superhero and get all the way to the end in like a month. Let’s say she’s obese and needs to lose 50 pounds, 100 pounds, if she loses 5 percent of the excess weight she’s on her way. I’ve seen people have huge differences and then not need as much medication, let’s say, for Type II Diabetes or for high blood pressure or not need it at all, depending on the details of their health.


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And that’s exciting. When a woman gets that kind of success after this sort of unfair, frustrating situation, this constant struggle and suffering, oh man is she psyched. She’s all for it. Finally, she feels like, “Oh my goodness, my body might actually be working normally. I might just be normal.” And as they get closer to that, people get excited and they do more positive things that support themselves. I’m not saying they have to be perfect. I’m just saying at least 80 percent of what they’re doing is what’s healthful for them.

Question: It’s good to know that just even a small change like that can make such a big difference.

Dr. Beverly: Isn’t that amazing? Question: Yes, it’s awesome.


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Herbs and Supplements Question: Can herbs and supplements make a difference to looking weight if

you have PCOS? Dr. Beverly: You bet you. I’ve been really pleased at how gentle and supporting

and effective herbs and supplements can be in making a difference to losing that weight, if you have PCOS.

I just got a survey in yesterday, a response from a lady who had come to

my website, and she had some really interesting things to say in her survey.

One of the things she was asking about was what to do to get rid of her

sugar monkey. In her case, she has a profound craving for sweets. One of the things that’s most unfair about PCOS is almost all the ladies who struggle with this have cravings for specific foods. Usually it’s sweets more so than fats.

As your weight goes up, believe it or not, your body craves sugar. It

takes about three weeks to really reverse that. The use of specific herbs and supplements can really make a

positive difference in as I say, getting that sugar monkey off your back and having those sugar cravings calm and diminish and hopefully go away.

For some women they go away completely. For other women they just

subside, they go down quite a bit and they feel like they can totally manage it because it’s just a little craving, as opposed to they can’t think about anything else kind of craving.

Question: Right. Are there any specific herbs or supplements that you would

suggest for at least the sugar cravings? Dr. Beverly: Yes, definitely. The one that comes first to mind is bitter melon. Bitter

melon is used in other parts of the world, including Southeast Asia and India.

There, it’s part of medicinal use for people who have problems with

blood sugar balance. It helps both with promoting, we think, a better blood sugar, according to the research that’s been done, and it also seems to change the tongue’s preference for sweets. It really calms it down so it’s not quite so pleasurable and can make a difference.


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That’s one example of an herb that’s been used for hundreds of years by people all over the world, as a positive partner for PCOS weight loss and also for just bringing better balance to that blood sugar.

It’s a central issue. For a lot of us in the U.S. and other parts of the world,

if we eat processed foods we’re getting way more starches and sugars and carbohydrates than we can benefit from, so of course we have a weight problem. It’s not a big secret how this gets going.


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PCOS Isn’t Hopeless Question: Exactly. Some women who have PCOS worry that their body just doesn’t

work right and that the situation may be hopeless. Is there a reason to be hopeful?

Dr. Beverly: There absolutely are a lot of reasons to be hopeful. Any woman who

has PCOS, it’s understandable if she feels like her body just doesn’t work right.

A lot of the times, like I said, she doesn’t get the reward for doing

things that seem to work for other women that she knows. It’s understandable people want to just throw their hands up in the air and say, “Oh man, this is just not working for me.”

The thing about Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is it’s really important to

figure out which of the set of symptoms under that umbrella of PCOS are the most problematic. What are the things underneath that are most likely to affect it?

For instance, if it’s weight loss, then specific management of aspects

of what they eat, certain kinds of exercise, along with the targeted use of herbs and supplements really would be a good partner, along with lifestyle balance, like eating regularly, eating your meals with the bulk of your calories in the earlier part of your day, making sure you are done eating at 6:00 at night if your typical bedtime is 10:00 so you have at least 4 hours between your last meal and bedtime so your gut isn’t overwhelmed.

All of those pieces of both lifestyle, of supplements and herbs, medication

if necessary, like say Metformin can be a friend for a woman with PCOS.

All of those put together, along with stress management, and herbs and

supplements might make a difference there, can really bring all of this together.

A woman with PCOS who is trying to lose weight has every reason to be

hopeful and to just be assured that at some point if all the pieces of the puzzle are put together, her body will indeed work right.

She needs to know it will take time. A lot of times in American culture,

honestly, we have this idea that everything will happen for our health in about 24 hours or less and that it’s a failure if it isn’t magically better by the next day.


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As I tell my patients, I’m like, “Look, I’m not a magical being. But if you

give it a long enough period of time,” and in this case I would say at least two to three months, more likely three to four months, you will see a difference.

Then as you get the pieces of the puzzle understood and put in place, so

things that are going to work and effective for you, you can now manage it and take it forward for the rest of your lifetime.

As far as we know, this Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, this cluster of

symptoms and its fundamental hormonal balance, goes forward in time and isn’t necessarily something we can “cure.”

But we can sure make a difference and an impact and make it a heck

of a lot better. Question: Exactly.


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Conclusion Question: Is there anything else you want to include about PCOS weight loss? Dr. Beverly: One other idea I would like to share is, when we say PCOS is affected by

hormonal imbalances, I want to make it clear to folks that one of the hormones I’m talking about is insulin.

Insulin is a partner with blood sugar management. When blood sugar

goes up, for whatever reason, insulin has to respond. If your body makes insulin, it’s coming out of your pancreas and insulin

goes and grabs your blood sugar, and hopefully puts it in your cells and makes it available as energy.

When the insulin doesn’t work as well or the insulin is overwhelmed, then

the extra energy produced by the blood sugar that’s available in the blood, the glucose, then gets turned into fat.

Once that fat storage machine gets turned on, it can be problematic

to slow it down and turn it off. It’s not impossible, but you need to know specifically what to do.

On the other side of that is, since insulin is a hormone, we need to treat it

with the same respect we would treat a hormone in our body like estrogen or progesterone or DHEA or testosterone.

I think if people can just keep that idea in mind, like this is your take home

message, insulin is a hormone and it absolutely has a balance point, just like every other hormone in your body.

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, PCOS, and weight loss really is about

hormonal balance, fundamentally, and blood sugar in particular, balance and regulation, that you’ll be at least halfway on your way to success.

Question: Perfect. Dr. Beverly, thank you so much for your very helpful

insights and for your time today. For more free PCOS weight loss tips and secrets, check out

www.PCOSWeightLossTips.com. There, you’ll discover what works, what’s nonsense and why getting the facts from a credible source can make the difference in getting PCOS weight loss results.

You don’t have to do this alone. Go to www.PCOSWeightLossTips.com

and get started now. Beverly, thank you so much.

http://www.pcosweightlosstips.com/

http://www.pcosweightlosstips.com/


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Dr. Beverly: You’re welcome, take care, thank you. Question: You, too, bye. Dr. Beverly: Bye-bye.

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