Hello everyone,

I am one of those PCOS sufferers. I have had PCOS for about 5 years now and I'm struggling with weight loss.

I'm currently on 2000mg of Metformin a day combined with a low-carb (low-GI) diet and cardio/weight-lifting routine.

While I am not overweight, I have gained about 10 kg and my bodyfat percentage has increased by 5% despite the strict regime. I know that from those 10kg some of it is from muscles, however, I feel rather uncomfortable with myself. My PCOS symptoms started to get worse and I feel like I'm losing control.

My question is whether it is fine to take fat burners (such as Animal Cuts which contain caffeine) in my case? I have avoided all drink containing caffeine for about 9 months, however, I don't see any benefits. I have read that caffeine and stimulants might have adverse effects on PCOS patients.

I am not suffering from high blood pressure or anything related. My thyroid is also fine, thank G-d.

Any help would be appreciated.

Hi,

I can't answer your question about supplements, but I was diagnosed with PCOS 22 years ago and have kept up with developments on and off. The lastest I've heard is metformin is proving to not help women with PCOS to lose weight at all. It was thought it would help with the insulin resistence and losing weight but after a few years it's proving to not be effective at all for that, so maybe check back with your doctor on that?

As for caffeine, I've been a coffee drinker for over 30 years. I can't say it's been a huge issue for my weight, what has affected that more than anything is eating wheat products and potato. The best advice I can give you is to go back to when you first started noticing the excess weight coming on and what might have changed in your life/diet at that time? Is it just that you put extra weight on over winter? It's natural to put a bit extra weight on then and it usually goes again come summer, if nothing else changes.

You might also want to consider shaking things up a bit. Eat 5 or 6 smaller meals a day instead of the stand 3 larger ones. Eat heavier meals earlier in the day and lighter ones in the evening when we need the calories less. Also, think about making a metabolism boosting soup to sip on through the day. Use plenty of green veggies (celery, zucchini, broccoli) with some carrot and a bit of spice (chilli is good) to heat the body up and kick up the metabolism. Make sure you also have plenty of water with it.

hope this helps.

Metformin helps some women with PCOS and not others - probably dependant on the level of insulin resistance and what diet the person is following.

For instance, metformin won't help with weight loss if eating a higher carb diet. It also won't help if eating a low carb, dairy heavy diet - this is because dairy contains IGF-1, which exacerbates PCOS symptoms by increasing insulin levels.

My periods have returned and been regular since starting metformin. My weight has also been more stable and its been easier to lose when I'm on plan. So I know its actually helping - don't be so quick to tell someone their medication is useless - weight loss is not the only determinant of efficacy.

Fat burners seem pretty pointless to me. The best woe for PCOS is low carb paleo, and stay away from dairy.

If your weight is in lbs, its also worth mentioning, that you're at a healthy weight. Though you may want to look slimmer, your body may not want give up what it sees as essential fat reserves. You may want to concentrate on building muscle instead of burnng fat to get the physique you want.

Lee

I never said the metformin was useless. I said it was proving not to be as effective as first thought - two entirely different things.

You advised her to go back to her doctor because metformin may not be working for her weight loss. I was pointing out that weight loss is not the reason metformin in prescribed for women with PCOS, though sometimes it can help.

Metformin can help the primary cause of PCOS - insulin resitance and excess insulin production, which in turn can help weight loss, though weight loss doesn't happen for everyone, it does not mean that metformin isn't providing other benefits for PCOS.

Early prescibing of metformin to someone with PCOS can indeed help prevent the onset of diabetes which almost always occurs eventually with PCOS - particularly if not following a strict low carb diet. As I've already stated it can also help with other symptoms.

Your post implied returning to the doctor as metformin may not be working (due to poor weightloss) - I was providing an alternative opinion.

Lee

Firstly, I'd like to thank you, ladies, for your replies.

It has been very helpful to read your ideas. I thought that fatburners might not work in their classic sense. My fear behind the question is whether any of ingredients will make my situation worse e.g. caffeine.

As for Metformin: the first time I took it it seemed to do a good job in terms of weight loss or keeping weight off. Then I went off it for a year and then I started taking it again. It seemed to have more adverse effects in terms of nausea, etc.

Can you recommend any herbal supplement to help me fight the PCOS symptoms?

Were you on a different type of metformin the second time? (slow release has far less side effects, I had terrible side effects on standard metformin)

As for supplements, chromium can help some people (not me, unfortunately), and I've heard good things about d-chiro-inositol, though haven't tried it yet - its always out of stock on iherb when I look. I also take high dose evening primrose oil. I'm trying high dose iodine at the moment as the ovaries are the second biggest users of iodine after the thyroid, and most of us are deficient. I've also heard that saw palmetto can help with some symptoms such as hirsutism, but it didn't help me at all.

The biggest impact for me on symptoms has been metformin xr and a low carb paleo diet.

Lee

Lee, I have never heard of this before. Met decreased my FBG by 10 pnts only - so over time, I will become a diabetic anyway - Metformin or no Metformin - if I don't change the way I eat and start exercising (from what I've read, the most effective reducer of insulin resistance). Met alone is not going to stop a person from becoming diabetic. It didn't stop my BG from rising over time-so I kept marching right into diabetes while I took Met.

And Met did nothing for my weight either. Even when I low carbed. It is true that Met isn't helping weight loss as much as it was touted to. The only times I've seen that happen are when the person is so sick from the side effects that they can't eat.... or they recognize the wake up call and go on a strict low carb diet and start exercising. There is a time when Met will decrease the appetite, but it doesn't last forever. It's just a phase.

Met actually made me eat more because I had this strange "hunger void" that I tried to fill with food. I wanted to eat something, but didn't know what it was.

So I agree with other poster. Met isn't going to help with weight loss for most people.

Metformin doesn't help everyone with PCOS, and for some may only help with menstrual cycle and not with weight loss. There are some that metformin doesn't seem to help at all. I suspect that not everyone has the same type of PCOS, and that some women develop cysts on their ovaries for reasons other than insulin problems - for those people metformin wouldn't help at all. And some may just be resistant to its effects, as you probably are. Metformin has taken me to a lower weight than I could get to - even eating 600 calories a day. If only I could stay on plan, I'm confident I would continue to lose weight. But its true that no drug works for everyone, and no drug works in the same way. I know a few women with PCOS, and though metformin helped their periods return, they never experienced easier weight loss. I also know someone who really struggled with weight loss and once on met lost 120lbs. I also know someone from work with PCOS who took met when trying to conceive and it didn't even help with periods. Everyone's different.

If you already had a higher than normal FBG when you started taking metformin, then it may delay the onset of diabetes for a pre diabetic, but probably wouldn't prevent it.

When I talk about being prescribed metformin early enough, I was talking about really early. I was diagnosed with PCOS aged about 19 or 20. I had already had PCOS symptoms for more than 10 years. At this point I was making so much insulin that I had reactive hypoglycaemia - I was never told this of course - I found out by accident while practising taking blood sugars as a nursing student - it then became fascinating to my friends (fellow students) to take my blood sugar after meals to see how low it went - the lowest was 1.9 (34.2). My doctor's advice was to eat sugary food when my blood sugar was low - so I did - a lot.

Now as you can probably see, had I been prescribed metformin 17 years ago on diagnosis, it would have regulated insulin production, reduced insulin resistance, and if I had also been advised to eat low carb, then I wouldn't be pre diabetic now and probably wouldn't have put on 250lbs. But of course 17 years ago they didn't know about insulin being a factor in PCOS, and reactive hypoglycaemia wasn't taken seriously - my doctor didn't even do blood tests. (but he was a really bad doctor) Even better, had I been 9 years old right now, and had a caring parent who took me to the doctor when I first exhibited symptoms, then I could be given treatment and dietary advice right then, with careful management and good medical advice, today's 9 year old could grow up to not have a weight problem at all and never develop diabetes.

That's what I meant by early, and it only applies to PCOS. With normal type II pre diabetics, Met will also only delay diabetes, dietary changes are the most important factor.

Lee