I'd started dieting at age 8. I just didn't lose weight like normal people. I'd tried countless diets, and though I did lose bits here and there, they were more to the tune of 1/2 lb the first week, maybe a pound the next, and nothing the next. I never experienced the large loss most diets produce, as others did. I thought that for some weird reason my body was resistant to dieting. I did struggle for many years with periodic fasting and dieting for short periods of time, getting bits off, eventually losing 60 lbs. Over time, I could not maintain those losses as my metabolism was at rock bottom. I finally conceded that I was destined to be fat until my dying day.
Near age 30, I attempted a stint with Optifast. At week 3, my doctor chewed me out in his office, accusing me of cheating. "I expected so much more out of you!" He literally yelled at me in his office.
Shortly after that, it had became obvious that we couldn't conceive. Didn't take long for my doctor to do an ultrasound and confirm I had PCOS. I'd had most of the symptoms much of my life, but I didn't have any idea that it was something far more serious.
Once we found out, my mother, dying to become a grandmother to my babies, began doing research on the subject. She discovered that one of the side-effects of PCOS is a difficulty to lose weight. You could've knocked me over with a feather! WOW! Made so much sense. It was NOT all my fault. Whew! Of course that didn't really change anything. It just gave me a little comfort to know that I wasn't going crazy.
Weight loss was something not even a dream for me anymore. I gave up. After all, I had no hope.
Decades later, at age 50, for my health's sake, I began increasing my protein. My sister encouraged me, telling me that if I increased it enough, I would lose weight. She suggested 100 g protein, which is what her weight loss surgeon recommended. Lo and behold, I started losing weight very very slowly, but I stuck with it not for the weight loss (that was too slow to be my motivation) but because it helped my depression/anxiety issues.
Encouraged by the scale, my eyes began to open to the possibility of losing some weight. I began searching out different patterns of eating. I stumbled upon Lowcarbfriends, where they have a slew of low carb type diet plans on there. I sifted through each one. The one that stood out to me like a diamond among the lot was the JUDDD group. The rest is history. My life was forever changed.
