What should I increase to gain weight?

[LA_Girl]

Hi!

I’ve been on the PCOS LE diet for over six months now and my weight has dropped so my BMI is 17.6. I need to gain around 5lbs to get back to a ‘normal’ BMI.

I’ve taken a month off Clomid (on Atomic’s advice) to get myself back to where I should be and was just making sure I was eating to the top end of the diet - 50g-60g fat and protein and around 1800 cals (usually around 1850) and I’m not gaining weight. Should I increase grains (which would increase carbs and cals)?

Thanks.

[MrsEnglish]

I think you should be increasing with healthy fats.

You're vegan, right? If so, avocado, olives, olive oil, nuts. If you drink milk, then whole milk too.

I don't think you should eat extra sugar and white carbs, while it might help you gain weight, I think sugar and simple carbs are bad news for ovulation for anyone.

[LA_Girl]

Thanks MrsEnglish.

That’s right, I am vegan. I was thinking more whole grains rather than white carbs. I just wasn’t sure if I should try to keep fat and protein at 50g-60g.

I exercise 5 days a week - brisk walk on a treadmill - and burn off 600+ cals each time. I don’t want to drop or lower that though if possible.

[atomic sagebrush]

You need more carbs, and even possibly more "empty" carbs. We have not found either fat or protein to be good at keeping weight on when swaying and certainly not regaining it. Plus, people on low carb diets have found their fertility plummets and menstrual cycles get very spotty and it appears we need at least a fair amount of carbs to get and stay pregnant.

So what we need you to do is keep fat and protein the same and increase carb intake. While it's ok to focus mainly on healthier carbs like whole grains, fruit, veg (including potatoes which I strongly recommend for everyone in this situation) and white rice - which is often very well tolerated by PCOSers and may be better for fertility than brown rice. Then, when you are in the mood for white refined carbs, have them. There are some with severe PCO who can't handle sugar or white carbs at all, but it's the minority of people (on this site anyway) and the lower your weight gets, the better your insulin response, so you end up much better able to tolerate white carbs even with PCOS.

[atomic sagebrush]

Thanks MrsEnglish.

That’s right, I am vegan. I was thinking more whole grains rather than white carbs. I just wasn’t sure if I should try to keep fat and protein at 50g-60g.

I exercise 5 days a week - brisk walk on a treadmill - and burn off 600+ cals each time. I don’t want to drop or lower that though if possible.

Keep exercise - which helps both egg quality and your sway - and eat more calories.

[LA_Girl]

Thanks for coming back to me so quickly Atomic. I’ll pick up on potatoes and white carbs, and keep protein, fat and exercise the same. That works for me.

[LA_Girl]

I tried to start a new thread - twice! - but it didn’t work for some reason.

I’ve found out why I’ve been struggling with losing weight despite eating 1800 cals+ per day. It turns out that I’ve been eating around 400cals LESS per day than I thought because the weight of the brown rice I entered on MyFitnessPal was uncooked, where it should have been cooked!!!!

Just thought I’d raise it in the very remote possibility that there’s anyone else out there as stupid as me!!!! I’ve never been on a calorie counted diet before so this is all new to me - although I’ve been on the diet for six months and made this mistake right at the start and not known!!!

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes we have this dumb glitch where if you put punctuation in your title, sometimes your post is not able to be opened by some computers (unfortunately, mine is one of them!) so that's what happened there.

Thanks so much for letting us know that!! Yes I find MFP to be weirdly unreliable at times, but hadn't come across that particular issue. I have added that to my notes and I will start asking people about how they're tracking from here on in, since I doubt you're the only person who has done that!