[Lillyan11]

Okay - here's the deal. I am absolutely embaressed of this. I am a Junior in college (nursing school, to get my BSN), 20 years old, 5'6" tall, and 240 pounds. Since starting college as a freshman I was 135 pounds, I have successfully gained over 100 pounds in 2 years. I don't know what happened. Since then I have also been diagnosed with PCOS (which I just found out and has motivated me even more to get back down to 135 pounds by my graduation date - May 2011. (I have had diabetes, thyroid tests, etc. all were negative).

I want to lose weight, I'm thinking about following a weight watchers type diet plan but not signing up for it as I do not have the money to afford it. However, every single time that I try to lose weight or eat less or diet, I always always always get symptoms of low blood sugar. Headaches, shakey, irritated feelings. Every time. Whenever this happens (I am never really at home, always at school or work mostly) I just grab anything I can, which is usually something that is not compatible with my diet. Okay so now I just ruined that day of the diet. So I just say I'll just start over tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, my headaches, shakeyness and irritation returns, and it's a deadly and frustrating cycle. I want to lose weight SUCCESSFULLY this time, but after trying so many times to do it, I don't see how this time will be any different :(.

Does anyone have any tips? Answers on why I get symptoms of low blood sugar? I'm honestly... desperate now. I am scared for my health. And I am too young to have to be worrying about these kinds of things. To anyone that can help, I really owe it to you.

Valerie

[justcurious55]

Well, when you diet, what do you eat? And how much?

Also, why not keep healthy snacks handy? I almost always have a luna bar, balance bar, or thinkthin bar in my purse and backpack. Compared to a bag of chips or cookies, they're not such an unhealthy snack to hold me over when I still have a couple hours before I'll be able to have a real meal.

I was also recently reading an article, I wish I could remember what magazine, but it talked about how one of the things not to do it beat yourself up for having something not diet approved. And they were talking about how it's OK if you slip and have a cookie or something in the afternoon. Just make up for it later by having a lighter dinner, or skipping a glass of wine or soda later on.

What are some examples of how you eat (or the plan) when you do diet?

[Eileen G]

If you are in general good health, I would go for much lower carbs. PCOS is often a sign that you've been on an insulin roller coaster, where you eat a meal high in refined carbs, get a flood of insulin, which hangs round after the food is digested and makes you feel sick and shaky until you eat more carbs. Sound familiar?

If so, you need to switch to a much lower carb diet, and very important, replace all the refined carbs and sugary food with very low gi carbs. For breakfast, eat eggs (something like a spinach and mushroom omlettes makes a great start to the day). If you must eat cereal, go for steel cut oatmeal, not any sort of boxed breakfast cereal, and definitely not things like Special K.

For lunch, have a good quality protein, (tuna or salmon is good) and a huge green salad. Not a sandwich. If you must have bread, make it a small amount of wholegrain bread or a rye cracker.

For dinner, avoid all the pasta meals, and eat meat or chicken and lots and lots of green veg. Fill gaps with a small amount of sweet potato or brown rice.

Snack on things like cottage cheese, raw unsalted nuts, small portions of cheese, whole fruit.

[Lillyan11]

Eileen G. - You really helped me a lot with this, relating it to my PCOS and how to eat a diet more compatible with it. What about yogurt and an apple or banana for breakfast? For lunch, could you suggest a food other than tuna or salmon? Maybe turkey lunchmeat? I am not a fish/seafood/tuna eater at all. I greatly appreciate your input, and I'm going to run with it! I had no idea about the carbs that you mentioned, and I am a HUGE bread eater :(. But good thing you pointed that out. Are granola bars okay?

Justcurious - thanks for your input as well. I always beat myself up every time I eat even one small thing and ruin my whole diet. I really need to take your advice. And keeping things handy with me seems obvious, but I usually don't do it. Thank you.

[Lillyan11]

Usually (when I diet) I eat things like yogurt for breakfast, and a banana (even though I HATE bananas, they make me sick but I feel like I just got to do it), 100 calorie snack mid way through the morning, maybe 1/2 a turkey sandwich on wheat bread with another yogurt or apple, sometimes a granola bar or (another) yogurt mid way through the afternoon, and like baked chicken with broccoli for dinner. Yuck yuck yuck

[Lillyan11]

By the way, I'm a very on-the-go girl, hence the 3 yogurts a day, (pre packaged, all I need is a spoon and I'm good to go). This repetitive food cycle gets me sick of my diet too, but I have to have things I can make or take with me easily

[justcurious55]

A few things to look out for that it seems a lot of people forget when dieting. Yogurt sounds really healthy. But make sure you're reading the label. If it's full fat, and filled with high fructose corn syrup, it's really not all that healthy. A better alternative is plain, non fat yogurt that you sweeten yourself using fresh fruit and maybe a little honey. If you can't find fresh fruits you like because they're out of season, you can usually find frozen fruits that work just as well. It's not quite as handy as pre-packaged, but you can put it into little tupperware type containers ahead of time and have it ready to go.

Also, granola bars. Make sure you're getting good ones there too. A lot of them have high fructose corn syrup, sugar, syrup, and the list of garbage just goes on and on. I consider them "dessert" for my dinner when I have them. Other good on the go snacks are fruit leathers. Not the over processed, sugary, garbage. But actual pressed fruit where it's just the fruit in the package not all that stuff added. Or even just dried fruit.

Bananas are great. But if you hate them, they are OK to skip :) pick I fruit you enjoy. Those little cuties are in season right now, what are they really, mandarins or clementines? I can never remember. I had one yesterday and it was like eating candy it was so good! :)

[Eileen G]

Eileen G. - You really helped me a lot with this, relating it to my PCOS and how to eat a diet more compatable with it. What about yogurt and an apple or banana for breakfast? For lunch, could you suggest a food other than tuna or salmon? Maybe turkey lunchmeat? I am not a fish/seafood/tuna eater at all. I greatly appreciate your input, and I'm going to run with it! I had no idea about the carbs that you mentioned, and I am a HUGE bread eater :(. But good thing you pointed that out. Are granola bars okay?

Natural yogurt is great, and full fat is fine as long as there isn't a pile of sugar and weird additives in it. You can add some berries or nuts or seeds if you like. Whole fruits like apples etc are great, just try to avoid fruit juice and dried fruit.

I'd try to avoid deli meat, but real turkey or chicken etc would be great. You can always cook extra at dinner, and use the leftovers for lunch the next day. Even cold steak is good.

Granola bars are a bit deceptive. They have some good ingredients, but they usually have a ton of sugar and other stuff which won't help you. I usually carry small packets of nuts or seeds for those snack meals.

If you are craving sugary stuff, try some very dark chocolate. Anything over 70% is a bona fide health food, and I personally like the 85% stuff. The darker the chocolate, the less is required to satisfy your chocolate addiction and the less likely you are to binge.

[justcurious55]

I love dark chocolate! Some stores even sell little circular containers with wedges of dark chocolate. I like to keep onein my purse to satisfy cravings.

[Eileen G]

I heard a theory that the best time to eat chocolate is at breakfast. It tastes nice, you enjoy it, but because it's early in the day, and you haven't had all the stress, it doesn't have the same effect on seratonin levels as in the evening, so you don't get the same urge to eat the whole bar.

And having had your chocolate fix already, you are less likely to obsess it during the day.

Anyone want to try it out?

[justcurious55]

Hm. I could go for that! Haha