Originally Posted by Mishee

Thanks for the replies. My question wasn't really directed at athletes or non-athletes just women with PCOS in general. I can see where what I'm asking about would be rare, but I was just wondering if it was possible. My thinking is that the whole weight thing is sorta like the chicken and the egg... someone who has PCOS and is obese might have worse symptoms because of their weight or they might not. I was wondering how much of the weight increasing symptoms is causation and how much is correlation. Of course I'm not advocating that anyone not try to get to a healthy weight because their symptoms might not get better. It's more of an observation that women with PCOS come in many shapes and sizes, so maybe weight isn't everything.

Katt_ -- I really appreciate your insights as an athlete. It's given me a lot to think about. I agree that there's not nearly enough investigation into how disorders like PCOS affect athletes. I've never been at the level of an elite athlete but I'm a fencer and I have in the past trained quite heavily. I found that PCOS hinders rather than helps me.

I know my original question asked about someone who is obese going to a healthy weight range and not seeing an improvement in symptoms. I would also be interested about the opposite, someone with PCOS who was healthy weight range and then became obese and hasn't seen an increase in symptoms. And again I understand that this would be rare, it's just curiousity on my part.