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Karen Christensen

ALL POSTS BY: Karen Christensen

founding mother of We the PCOS, wife, mom, healthy-food-maker

Showing: 1 - 20 of 22 RESULTS
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PCOS Accountability

A great way to stay accountable losing fat with PCOS

When it comes to PCOS Accountability, it means paperwork. One of the biggest frustrations women have losing fat with PCOS is when their progress stalls. There are so many variables, it’s hard to know why nothing is happening. BUT, if you fill in progress reports weekly, you will have a record of how you’re eating, how you’re exercising, and if anything is getting in the way of your planned fat-loss activities. The human brain has an extraordinary ability to forget little snack treats you eat here and there, or a missed workout, or a shortened cardio session, or a few …

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PCOS Accountability

How to make PCOS Meal Planning super simple

To make things as simple as possible, we recommend only tracking two things: Don’t worry. You’ll get plenty of fats and carbs. You just won’t track them. We have created quite comprehensive food lists divided into the following categories: The 3 simple steps to meal planning for PCOS are: For the average height woman: we recommend 1500-1800 daily calories for PCOS fat loss. You can figure out your recommended calorie deficit & protein goals here. Our advice will serve the average woman, but please defer to your doctor or nutritionist’s advice above ours. Below is a quick reminder chart of …

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woman pulling resistance bands
PCOS Training

PCOS training is a powerful tool in the fat-loss fight.

When we say PCOS TRAINING, we’re referring to resistance training or ‘strength training.’ It’s the idea that you will use the muscles of your body to overcome a resistance and in doing so on a regular basis, your muscles become stronger. Bodyweight exercises, free weights, resistance bands, and gym machines all fall under the resistance training umbrella. Lifting weights helps you to burn calories and stored energy (fat) more efficiently, experts say. And strength training increases your lean muscle mass, which helps your body burn more of the energy you consume from food rather than storing it in fat cells. …

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PCOS Training: oats on glass container with wooden lid
PCOS Training

How eating the right carbs builds muscle and burns fat.

Carbs, just like every other macronutrient, have a place in improving your body composition. In the case of PCOS, more lean muscle mass supports insulin sensitivity, fat-burning, and lessening PCOS symptoms. So, we want lots of lean muscle mass. And how do you build it? You train and after training, you feed your muscles a mix of carbs and protein. But not just any carbs… Types of carbs Complex carbs are those that often have high fiber content and are larger molecules. Examples of these are vegetables, beans, oats, quinoa, sweet potatoes, and more. Complex carbs are our preferred carbs. …

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pcos training: woman doing exercise inside gym
PCOS Training

Want to improve your PCOS symptoms? Pump some iron.

We admittedly do not put much stock in the research and studies cited by most regarding PCOS in general and PCOS training specifically. Why? Because there isn’t a ton of great research on the subject in existence. It is expensive to do good research which is why there are a lot of conclusions from unreliable research floating around. With that caveat firmly in mind, many scientists seem to back up what we have experienced, which is that resistance training and the development of lean muscle mass seems to aid in the burning of fat in women with PCOS as well …

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pcos workout: woman holding exercise ropes
PCOS Education

Overcome Your Fear of Cortisol and Let’s Get Fit.

The best PCOS training is the training that actually helps you achieve your most audacious fitness goals. We submit that is ‘Progressive Overload’ resistance training, that is, lifting heavy to overload your muscles so you are training with as much weight as you can for maximum growth. But we can see some of you shrinking at the thought of pushing yourself out of fear of raising the dreaded, ‘cortisol.’ The first thing you should know is that cortisol is an anti-stress hormone. Yes, really. Without it, you would not be able to handle shocking and stressful situations. You’d keel over …

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pcos fat loss - woman wearing black bra and white tank top raising both hands on top
PCOS Education

PCOS fat loss: This is how we do it.

If you didn’t start singing a 1995 Montell Jordan song after reading that title, are you even old enough to have PCOS? Just kidding. PCOS fat loss: This is how we do it. We eat good food. There are a lot of “okay foods” we’re going to tell you not to eat. It’s not that the foods are bad and off limits forever. They just aren’t very good at delivering weight loss. Most people want to have their cake and eat it too. Stop that. You shouldn’t want every crappy pre-packaged, super-processed keto protein bar just because the label is …

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difficulty losing weight - fashion love people woman
PCOS Education

Top 10 Reasons Women with PCOS have difficulty losing weight.

There are certainly more than 10 reasons women with PCOS have difficulty losing weight. But here are the top 10 as we see it. Our over-arching conclusion: Not enough is known about the condition. There needs to be more high-quality research. For now, everyone is coming at it from all angles with lots of unique approaches, ourselves included. For all the differing opinions and approaches on treating PCOS, we are truly grateful. The more we’re all talking about it and trying things out, the better off we are as a group. We’ll figure it out! Reason #1 women with PCOS …

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sweet potatoes on top of black metal beam balance
PCOS Nutrition

How to swap ingredients in PCOS Recipes

Based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) data, we have created a list of PCOS-friendly foods and their calories per 100 grams. All numbers are based on a raw measure, not cooked. The idea is to make it easy for you to swap out main recipe ingredients in PCOS recipes for a bit of variety without blowing your calories for the day.  The more exact you can be, the better. It does involve math. We are sorry for that. You remember cross multiplication don’t you?  PCOS Recipes Food Swapping Example 1: Swapping from a LOWER calorie food to a …

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pcos-friendly ingredients people sharing seafood
PCOS Nutrition

PCOS-friendly ingredients you’re going to love.

There are some PCOS-friendly ingredients you may not currently have in your pantry. And some you may not realize should be at the center of your diet. We are always on the lookout for ingredients that deliver on the tastes and functions of foods we need to cut down on, namely carbs and sugar. It’s important to keep our sugar and insulin in check so calories don’t get stored as fat. You may need to change what you’re eating from the stuff that makes you gain weight and hold it, to the stuff that helps you lose weight. If you …

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pcos weight loss - selective photography of smiling woman
PCOS Accountability

How to Fail or Succeed Spectacularly at PCOS Weight Loss.

PCOS Weight Loss: How to fail spectacularly One thing we know about PCOS weight loss is that it is unforgiving. A ‘normal’ person can cheat a little on their diet and they’ll still probably lose weight. But not us, sister! Which means there are lots and lots of ways to fail. Let’s review a few so we know what to watch out for. Do the program Monday through Friday only. Plan out your meals and your workouts exercising and eating 100% on plan throughout the week, then on the weekend, loosen up a little. Have some ice cream with your …

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Chicky Salad Lettuce Boats
PCOS Nutrition

Try one of our daily PCOS Meal Plans FREE.

Now, while our food lists are helpful when deciding what to eat, how much of these foods you eat is just as important. In our PCOS Meal Plan we measure CALORIES & PROTEIN, and nothing else. It’s simpler and when you have a lot of fat to lose, you really don’t need to overcomplicate it. You just need to get the ball rolling. Below is our goal range for calories and protein. You can read more in-depth about that in our How to structure your meals for PCOS weight loss post. The short story is that we have a calorie …

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PCOS Nutrition

How to Structure your Meals for PCOS Weight Loss.

PCOS weight loss is hard on our best days. If you’re used to eating anything you want including sweets and breads and junk food, our plan could be a challenge for you. Most plans simply trade out high-GI (glycemic index) foods for lower-GI foods. This is a fine approach and it keeps breads and rice and other carbs in your life, albeit dark breads, brown rice, etc. Why some low-GI plans still don’t achieve PCOS weight loss. The problem is that fat loss with PCOS is slowwwww. Like snail slow, even if you’re eating ‘PCOS-friendly’ low-GI carbs along with lean …

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woman blowing kiss to mirror
Inspiration

We the PCOS is Nutrition, Training, & Accountability. But mostly Love.

A polycystic ovarian syndrome journey isn’t a few weeks of working out and eating better. No, No. PCOS is a lifelong affair. And if we’re going to spend most of our days on this Earth battling this frustrating condition, we have got to bring the love. Meaning, we have got to be good to ourselves, laughing at our failures, smiling at the small wins, keeping our head up and most of all ferociously continuing the pursuit. That’s what We the PCOS is all about: Love for the journey. It will seem all uphill and like we just can’t win sometimes. …

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PCOS Inspiration

Need a little PCOS inspiration? Download these posters.

Sometimes we forget that We the PCOS were born to be badass. But we are. We were born to take the challenges that come along with polycystic ovarian syndrome and throw them across the room. Then jump off the couch and make them pay with a really pointy elbow. We created this series of PCOS inspiration posters to help remind us that we are b-b-b-b-bad to the bone and our journey is, while often difficult, a beautiful one where we have the opportunity and responsibility to shine our light. We love our beautiful poster girls. Here are the downloadable versions. …

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Adorable graphic art of 5 women with PCOS exercising
PCOS Accountability Training Accountability

Special rewards help keep PCOS women committed to the gym.

Working out on a consistent basis can be hard until you start seeing results and get into a groove. Especially for ladies with PCOS, because our bodies are a little slower to show results. To keep ourselves committed, it can’t be all misery. We have to weave some fun into it. One way to practice PCOS accountability is to reward ourselves for each completed workout. No, we’re not talking about ice cream. Think of rewards that support your most audacious fitness goals. 🙂 You can buy a special body wash that you only use on days when you complete your …

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The We the PCOS 5-day No BS Clause agreement
PCOS Accountability

How to not quit when you want to quit fighting PCOS.

We have put a safeguard in place to help keep us from slacking or quitting our PCOS program. In many cases, it renews our dedication and expedites results in fighting PCOS.  We call it, ‘the 5-Day No BS Clause.’ It is a personal contract between you and yourself whereby you promise to yourself that you will give the program your utmost diligence for 5 complete days including all program portions, especially training and nutrition. If you still want to quit after those 5 days are up, you may. It looks something like this: Date: ___________________________________ I __________________________________________________ do solemnly swear …

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Daily Menu

Fill up on these Delicious PCOS-Friendly Menu Items

1560 calories / 136 calories Here is an example of a filling daily meal plan that fits beautifully within a calorie deficit appropriate for most average-height women. That means it’s between 1500-1800 calories with 120-230g protein. Enjoy! PCOS-Friendly Breakfast PCOS-Friendly Lunch PCOS-Friendly Dinner PCOS-Friendly Snack No snack on this day 🙂 You can add one as long as you don’t exceed your calorie allowance. More PCOS support: Have a look at how we use these ingredients our YouTube Channel. We have lots of cooking videos that demonstrate these staples. You’ll also get videos on PCOS Inspiration, PCOS Training, PCOS Mental …

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PCOS Nutrition

How many calories are best for PCOS fat loss?

For the average sized woman: we recommend 1500-1800 daily calories for PCOS fat loss.  This will be a good range for most women. Now, if you are significantly short or tall, you can adopt a lower or higher calorie range to ensure that you’re eating in a healthy deficit range for PCOS fat loss. 5’1 (155 cm) or below You won’t need as much energy to sustain your body and can go below the recommended calorie range to 1300-1700 to achieve a healthy deficit. We don’t recommend anyone go below 1200 calories. Ever. But if you are extraordinarily short or …

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