Fitness and Health

Raise your hand if you’ve spent years starting over every Monday, only to gain and lose the same 2,5 kilograms. Sound familiar? You commit. You meal prep. You exercise. You lose a little weight, then life happens, and by December you’ve gained back everything you lost, and sometimes more. January arrives and you’re back to square one. This was me. I say “was”, because I think I’ve been doing pretty well this year, I started over one last time in  February, and up until now, I haven’t needed to start again on another Monday. I have sort of figured out a system that works for me. I’m learning that our bodies communicate with us, and I’m slowly learning the language and that’s helping me with a lot of the issues I struggle with. Where it started The year 2020 changed a lot for most of us, and for me, weight loss was amongst the things I suddenly couldn’t manage. This was before I discovered I had fibroids and received a PMOS diagnosis. Our lives had changed. We worked from home and spent more time moving between the desk, couch and bed, all this whilst still having more takeaways, exercising less and having more wine. The weight kept going up and my normal “quick fixes” just weren’t cutting it anymore. I would commit to gym and eating healthy for a month or two, stop as soon as I see results and slowly slip back into my old habits, gain the weight back and repeat the cycle again. It was normal for me, and I didn’t see anything wrong with that. This went on until 2022 where I was diagnosed with PCOS (now officially renamed PMOS, known as polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, as of a global consensus published in May 2026) That was the same year I had fibroid surgery, and also the year I hit my biggest weight ever. My crash diets weren’t cutting it anymore. I also learnt that there’s medication to help with weight issues when diagnosed with PMOS, such as Metformin and GLP-1s. Both were recommended to me, by my gynae and my doctor. I tried Metformin for a month, and while I finally saw the scale move, the diarrhoea that came with it was so bad that I couldn’t continue. The diarrhoea lasted the entire month I was on it. I wasn’t ready for the GLP-1 route yet either because I didn’t fully understand the long-term side effects and I couldn’t really afford it, combined with  a fair amount of fear from what was being said about it online. Back then, I was also convinced that the weight gain and my general struggles that year, even though I was doing everything “correctly”, were down to the contraceptive I was on. My gynae believed otherwise. I still believe it contributed greatly, kodwa I just can’t prove it. In fact, it contributed to a lot of things in my life. I ended up joining a support group on Facebook, until one day I woke up and used my free will to put an end to it. With most things, you get to decide when you don’t want something to terrorise you anymore. The other reason I opted out of the birth control and metformin was that I was just tired of it all, and I felt like none of it was really fixing the root cause. There were so many issues I was uncovering, most confirmed medically by doctors and I felt like we were just treating symptoms and not addressing what was underneath them. The Dietitian enters the chat Now if you have medical aid or can afford it and your relationship with food is not the best, get help my sister. In fact, if there is any way to make your life better and you have the means to access it, do it. There is no honour in unnecessary suffering. I consulted a dietitian and her core advice was simple: eat smaller meals more regularly, and don’t let yourself get too hungry before you eat. For me specifically, waiting too long tends to spike my appetite and blood sugar at the same time, and I end up overeating in a way that undoes all my efforts of a calorie deficit (when you consume less calories than your body burns). Pre-Covid, I knew exactly how to starve myself and snap back, I needed two weeks and I would be back to factory settings. Now, your intermittent fasting, OMAD (one meal a day) and 2MAD (two meals a day) don’t work for me. I’ve tried all of them. Even NOMAD (No meal a day). I overeat, I get a million cravings I can’t seem to quench, and I always end up back where I started or worse. I want to be clear that this is my experience, not a universal rule. Meal timing affects everyone differently, and there isn’t one eating pattern that works for everybody. What matters is learning your own system that works for your body, what doesn’t, and how your body actually reacts, rather than following whatever plan is trending. Realising this reframed what my dietitian visits actually were: not just meal plans, but us building a system together. I’m overweight, there’s a weight range that’s healthier for my body, and we had to find a way to get there sustainably as someone who genuinely loves her food. Where I’m at now I am where the cool kids call “The messy middle”. The best part is that I don’t have to starve myself. I am finally losing weight, down two dress sizes. I look and feel good. Instead of constantly looking for another Monday to start over, I am building something that I can maintain even when life gets messy. I have learnt that a sustainable weight loss system isn’t about finding the perfect diet. A successful week can look like eating right 4/7 days a week. Finding a system I don’t constantly need to