Advanced insulin resistance, PCOS and ALA

[newgirl-chargeback]

Steel -- glad you are back home and with family. AND, I find it out that our past discussions have somewhat made a prophecy here. Did we not talk about you being able to coach and teach? HMMMM???? Perhaps not in the way that we were referring to!

Anyway, I was put on oral birth control to stop the symptoms...hirsuitisum, acne, periods that were highly erractic -- coming on every 11 days or so, lasting for a LONG TIME...absense of periods, cysts on the ovaries, etc. We tried several and then finally the one that worked as ortho cept and they added 25mgs of spirolactone 2 times a day.

And no, I was not overweight at all. I had always had this odd period thing.....and then about 1 year after the birth of my son, the symptoms were very heightened (the acne was so bad I needed accutane). I had gained 28 pounds while pregnant and lost all but 7 in the first 6 weeks. Took alittle while longer for the other 7 but I was no where overweight. While I way more now, I had less muscle then.

Thinking back, my diet was very hodge podge. Would miss meals all day, eat once a day, all day -- nothing discplined but I had not been eating enough protein for sure.

Again, I hope all is well with her..and your relocation. And I am glad MS gave you some great stuff here -- it helps me to understand as I never was told much other than "take these and we can run trial and error with others if they do not work".

 

[JJFigure]

Hey Steel! Nice to see you back on the boards. Good luck with training your sister and her partner. I set up a program for my youngest sister over the holidays - I've been trying to get all the women in my life weight training to help increase their bone density. It was an interesting experience - for one thing, I discovered she has incredible upper body strength for a newbie. She had no problems using dumbbells for pressing work - no jitters or balance issues - and could easily handle the OL bar for military presses. That's much better than I did when I started. We had problems with the squat though - I finally caved and moved her to the smith machine. She had a hard time balancing, and I wanted to make sure she learned how to sit back, not lean forward. At least with the smith, she could focus on sitting and not on balancing. It was a fun bonding experience for us.

 

[SteelWeaver]

Hey JJ - yeah, it's been rather fun so far. My sister was pretty resistant to the idea of resistance training for the longest time - she puts on muscle easily and was afraid she'd get "big". However, after our lower body session tonight, she said it was fun! I was so happy! And it wasn't an easy session - she worked quite hard for where she is. She was well-worked and tired after the session, but not wasted. Just right, I think.

She's doing quite well with squats. Her partner is working on balance issues, so I'm doing box (well, bench) squats with her - will slowly lower the box. This REALLY helped with the sitting back part. I think psychologically it makes a difference knowing there's something there to drop onto if you fall back.

MS, thank you for the reply. I'm not really in a position to offer much more than information and suggestions right now, since she is paying someone with lots of letters behind their name to give her qualified advice, and I'm hardly qualified! Nonetheless, I think she is open to any advice which can be reasonably substantiated. She is very motivated, as I said before, and realises that slow but steady changes will ultimately result in a rather big lifestyle change. She's totally OK with that.

I agree refeeds are more empowering than unscheduled cheats, but I remember how disempowered I felt when mine ran out of control (mostly because I hadn't planned them properly). In your opinion, would a simple "OK, have one cheat meal per week" be better than "have this number of carbs, low fat, this type/amount of protein" blah de blah? Is the macro breakdown in this type of case a big deal, all things considered? Cutting out sodas and stuff are still fairly recent dietary changes.

Will her periods normalise with improved diet and exercise? She said that's why she went to the doctor initially - almost constant spotting, long periods, etc etc.

Any other suggestions or info would be MOST welcome

 

[newgirl-chargeback]

Bump for update here too.