'After Struggling With PCOS Weight Gain, Throwing Out My Scale Actually Helped Me Lose About 80 Lbs.'
My name is Michelle Demarco Amato (@girlwiththefakeredhair), and I'm 30 years old. I live in New Jersey, and I'm the founder of a company called Chronic Confidence Academy, dedicated to mentoring women who struggle with hormonal/metabolic illnesses (like PCOS and Hashimoto's disease, two that I have as well), food fear, and self confidence. When I started making good-for-me-foods and exercise fun (by baking my own low-carb, gluten-free bread and hula-hooping to workout), I was able to lose 80 pounds naturally.
When I was younger, I was always bigger than my classmates. I've had Type 1 diabetes since I was seven, and Hashimoto's disease and PCOS since I was nine (though I was formally diagnosed as a young teen). This made it really easy for me to gain weight and very difficult to lose it. I spent my life either restricting and barely eating or binging after a while. Every doctor who saw me assumed I lacked self control (they always told me “eat less and move more”), when sometimes I’d only be eating very few calories a day for weeks at a time.) I was so self conscious, so I would poke fun at myself and use humor as a defense. I figured if I acted like nothing bothered me and I was mean to myself, maybe others wouldn’t be so mean to my face. My mental health was deteriorating behind the scenes.
I also have a number of other diseases including colitis, mixed connective tissue disease, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, psoriasis, asthma, and Raynaud’s disease. I got to the point where I just wanted to be pain-free and not hate myself every day. The weight “was what it was” at that point. I wanted a life. I was my heaviest in 2015 at approximately 220 pounds. I remember thinking that I would focus on feeling better and being happy with myself, and if I lost weight, then that would just be an added bonus. I had also left a job I loved that had become toxic for my health. I didn’t want life to pass me by. I didn’t want to die a negative, lonely, bitter young person. So I formatted a plan to baby-step my way to progress.
I needed to make changes in foods that were affecting my hormones and inflammation, but I was determined to make it fun this time.
I wanted to replace anything I ever craved with hormone-friendly things. I wanted to love food again. So I pulled from my background as a trained pastry chef and started creating substitute breads, cakes, and all the other stuff I genuinely loved but never felt “allowed” to have. I eat low-carb for my particular type of PCOS (which is 30-50 grams per day), high-protein, gluten-free, and sugar-free. I really love veggies, so I willingly eat a lot of them.
Here’s what I typically eat in a day now.
Breakfast: I wait two hours after waking up to eat or drink anything besides my glass of water + 1 tsp apple cider vinegar + meds.
Lunch: A special low-carb, gluten-free bread I make stuffed with feta cheese, eggs, and avocado or an egg crepe with a big salad and a peach.
Snacks: Cucumber slices with olive oil, boiled eggs, homemade trail mix, stovetop caramelized walnuts.
Dinner: Pesto meatball sandwiches (on more of my low-carb, gluten-free bread), burrata mozzarella + tomato salad, string beans.
Dessert: There are so many great brands to choose from when looking for easy, gluten-free, sugar-free mixes or pre-made items…but if I don’t have any of those on hand, I love making sugar-free cocoa whip (heavy cream + powdered erythritol + cocoa powder whipped together) with sliced up strawberries!
Exercise was tricky. I was in pain and lacking energy most of the time. I also have had disc replacement surgery in my neck and have very sensitive joints. I started off just trying to stretch for 10 minutes a day. As I lost weight, balanced my hormones, and reduced inflammation, my energy increased and I was able to be more active. Now, I still modify activity. I use a weighted hula hoop every day between each of my client calls. It’s fun and doesn't feel like working out. Plus, it really does amazing things for the waist! I adore hula hooping and actually look forward to it.
These three changes have also made a huge impact on my overall weight loss.
Change 1: I understood that weight loss is not the same for everyone.
When I tried to lose weight like everyone else, I failed. When I tried to make my life enjoyable and healthy, the weight took care of itself. Just because someone else loses 1-2 pounds a week living on kale, doesn’t mean you should (or need to) as well.
Change 2: I stopped trying to be thin.
We need to stop teaching little girls that they need to be thin to be accepted. Even if you don’t say it, they pick up on it. I see it with my clients—their 6-year-old daughters will actually ask if they’re “too fat to wear this." My clients used to ask their mothers the same. It’s a cycle that needs to STOP, and that will only happen if we allow children to witness their mother LOVING her own body.
Change 3: I found ways to ENJOY my food.
No one will continue doing something that sucks forever. If you dread the way you live and eat, even if you do get results—they’re gonna be temporary. Invest time in learning how to make whatever you do enjoyable because then it’s a no brainer!
Overall, I have lost about 80 pounds.
When I first started this journey, I threw out my scale. I hate the scale. I’ve been up and down about 15 pounds within that 80 pound mark over the last 2.5 years, and I’m very casual about it.
I am an advocate for balance and not for living to stay thin—frankly, I don’t give a damn about the scale. There is so much BEAUTIFUL life available for you to live once you open up all the space taken up by hating your own body all these years. Make peace with yourself and start viewing your body like a complicated machine and less like an arch nemesis. Every day, we decide the threshold of our happiness. Don’t let that threshold be a pant size.
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