Hi, I'm 15 rn. I work out for three hours per day. And that's after reducing it. To lose weight, I overexercised and underate a year ago and got amenorrhea as a result. Told my folks. We have this cycling machine at our place. After telling my parents about my missing period, I was prohibited from touching it. I was somewhat relieved. It was like I was looking for an excuse to break out of that cycle. They took me to a doctor. Apparently, I had polycystic ovaries.
Didn't know the crap I got into then. So I stopped exercising, stopped dieting (for a while), gained weight back, and majorly freaked out. So I started decreasing my calorie intake. By a lot. Weight came off. Seemed fine. Looked better. Started exercising to reduce it. You know, it seems so long ago that I actually spent one day without exercising... That and the food is the only thing on my mind. I got over a guy I had a huuuge crush on, but can't get over this... Addiction. Either way. Back to the story.

Lost weight. Not crucial, to 120 lbs. Stopped dieting. Somehow, calculated my daily calorie norm. Then, came the Christmas holidays. I gained a couple of pounds. At first, I tried to restrict my calories and lose it, but then decided against it: I would never break out of my cycle if I just restricted and restricted. This "careless" attitude went on for weeks. Soon, I was chubby again. Meanwhile, my mother lost a lot of weight and just looked so... gorgeous. Flashback, a few years ago, my mother introduced me and my little sister to some old man. He looked at my sister, "Oh, wow, hello beautiful." Then, he looked at me, "Er..." That "er", that "er" is what makes me think that being fat means being ugly. And when I put on weight, I feel ugly. And others see it too....

Anyway, my period was back to normal. My weight was, what? 130 lbs? Those surplus ten pounds look worse than they sound, believe me. What didn't help? Sleeping six hours per night to fit in some basic, "light" exercise to burn that weight off. And to do my schoolwork and extracurriculars. BTW, perfectionist, A-student. Nice to meet you. After a lot of begging, my parents let me back to that cycling machine. Weight flew off. I lost a couple of pounds. Looked better, felt better. Guys were nicer to me. My exercise got worse. My diet was a wreck - I would somewhat binge and then run to the cycling machine to burn it all off. My period stopped. Weight loss stopped too.

Weight gain came. My face got rounder and I started feeling that excess fat rub against my thighs and store itself on my stomach. Then, I started running. I reached like 20 miles per week and then went down. I was prepping for a marathon. I lost a lot of weight. My bingeing would be burned by running, so I didn't worry that much. But something else appeared. Some little dots found their way to my breasts. And pretty soon, little hairs sprouted out of them. I was growing hair on my boobs. Just what a teenager living in warm, tropical climate wants.

I thought it would go away. I was and am scared of telling my parents. Hiding my period's absence gets harder each and every day. Especially since my mother and I moved out to a one-bedroom apartment. Balancing schoolwork, house chores, homework, extracurriculars, friends, and dealing with all this stress is getting so hard... And now the hair is getting worse. There are little hairs on my stomach! I know some of my classmates have the stomach hair. They shave it. However, I barely shave my legs (am lucky with fair hair and am not allowed to shave by my mom), let alone my whole body.

I have to solve this problem. Before facial hair appears. Before I get in the risk group of cancer and diabetes II and permanent infertility... But solving this problem - as I have researched on many medical websites - would require absence (or minimum) stress and low-glycemic diet. For both of these, I would have to get my mother's support. You might have inferred that she has a huge influence on my life. Perhaps, it is not a good thing. It's definitely not a good thing in this amount. Anyway. Lack of stress would mean getting rid of my cycling machine (we moved it out with us) and running. It would mean getting rid of caffeine. It would mean probably giving up on my dreams of becoming a CFO of some huge corporation one day... And those are the things that make up my life, and after so many changes by now, I just really want something to stay the same way. To be stable. Because I am overwhelmed. Because there is too much going on. It feels, like the constant battle against my weight is so familiar that I can just stick to it. And I will come out as a winner. In something, at least. Definitely not in the family matter.

I believe that if I am given a right push and proper support, I will be able to do it. I will be able to give up most of the unhealthy, processed or simply sugary carbohydrates; stick to light, strengthening exercise (less than 90 minutes per day); work on my future career and current studies; and be a good daughter. What does that take? Going to my mother and telling her all. Why am I not doing it? Because I am scared that she will be disappointed in me. That she will think I'm weak. That I can't even deal with weight loss without turning it into some high-level problem. Like, what teen starts losing weight to look good and then, in the process, possibly rids their mother of future grandkids? What if she thinks I am a freak, because I have hair on my breasts and stomach? What would others think? Chewbacca. I feel that's how they'd call me.

Over the last few months, I have indirectly asked her if she would still love me if I were ugly. Well, the response was, "Stop being a dumbass, of course. However, if you were to gain weight, I would bully you, And you would bully yourself. Because you know how it is when you have lost weight. You wouldn't be able to go back."

I am also afraid that if I abandon my current cycle of high-carb-cycle-much mania, I would gain weight. And be unattractive. See, this is the thing. For me, weight gain is so deeply associated with attractiveness and success that it just freaking kills me.

In the long run, coming out (sorry, LGBTQ+ people, but I can't find a better word for this) will be so much better, I would have higher chances of combatting excess hair, excess weight; decreasing my stress symptoms; having a baby...

What would you do?

Sorry for this venting. Gosh, this has been very theurapeutic! Thank you, actually. You really helped.

Best,

Chewie

Hey Chewie,

You do need to stay active and basically only eat meat and veggies. Stay away from sugar. Only drink water, nothing else. PCOS doesn't just go away, you just have to manage the symptoms. I've experienced so many up and down symptoms since I was about 19 and I am 27 now. I feel better when I walk usually 2-3 miles per day. I have abnormal. Bleeding I will bleed for like 3 months straight. I have a 5 year old son. I don't have facial hair so don't worry about getting all the symptoms.