Breakout R&B pop star Victoria Monet opened up to her Instagram followers last month about how symptoms from Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) had her feeling down. The three-time Grammy winner and writer/performer of the award-sweeping single “On My Mama” was candid about her struggles with sudden weight gain as a result of the reproductive hormone imbalance. Monet wrote: “I usually am so critical and frustrated by it because PCOS has me really messed up, but optimistically at least now there’s two moons on the stage.”
The imbalance in question is an increase in the male androgen hormone. PCOS can develop as early as the start of puberty, but may not be detectable until age 20 or 30, and may be signaled by irregular menstrual periods. Navigating PCOS symptoms hasn’t diminished Monet’s ability to meet and exceed her professional goals, but there has always been stigma and shame surrounding the more visible symptoms, weight gain in particular.
While causes of PCOS are still not completely understood, weight gain caused by PCOS is most likely a result of insulin resistance, and decreased ability to regulate blood sugar levels. The job of insulin is to place sugar into cells, and any excess energy is stored as fat. Getting the sugar into the cells is tougher work with insulin resistance, and a lot more energy gets stored as fat.
For example, someone who is not insulin resistant can consume 600 calories for lunch and most of those will be turned into sugar. Someone who is insulin resistant can consume the same 600 calories for lunch and maybe half of those calories will stay stored as fat.
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Apart from monitoring sugar and salt intake, physicians suggest cutting down on processed food as much as possible. Most processed food has too much salt, sugar, empty calories, and little nutritional value. Overconsumption of alcohol is also to be avoided if the commitment to one’s health is serious enough. The good news is there is an increase in non-alcoholic, low-sugar beverages widely available, though water is still the go-to for your daily hydration quota.
Adding non-starchy vegetables, lean poultry or fish to your dinner routine, and low-GI carbohydrates like brown rice or whole grain bread absolutely carve a path toward maintaining a healthy PCOS diet. Low-GI, or low glycemic index, refers to a 1-100 scale that ranks food by how much it affects blood sugar. Any foods ranking between one and 55 are considered low-GI, which means they are digested more slowly to help regulate blood sugar levels.
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Another reason to keep PCOS symptoms in check is in case you’re planning a pregnancy, or are already pregnant. Victoria Monet was pregnant with her daughter Hazel while also facing an increased risk of complications because of her PCOS diagnosis.
Women with PCOS require increased monitoring during pregnancy, due to cysts forming on the outside of the ovaries. In cases where insemination is successful, pregnant women with PCOS are three times as likely to miscarry during the first two trimesters. Thankfully, Hazel Monet was born without complication and is now a Grammy winner alongside her mama, as well as the youngest Grammy winner in history.
The importance of Victoria’s openness about her journey with chronic illness should never be understated, especially if it leads to more open dialog, more clinical trials, and more comprehensive research. If a hard-working, hit-making mom can dominate the charts as well as PCOS, there’s definitely hope for anyone who’s newly diagnosed, or thinking they might be at risk.
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