PCOS Diet Book: How you can use the nutritional approach to deal with polycystic ovary syndrome. Theresa Cheung
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be frustrating if you have PCOS, but by making specific changes in your diet and the way you eat it is possible to regain control of the situation, to maintain or lose weight and feel good about yourself. Hopefully this book will help you make weight-management problems a thing of the past.
SELF-HELP SATISFACTION
Another reason food is so important if you have PCOS is that it is something you can control. A feeling of powerlessness can be overwhelming if you are dealing with a long-term health condition which requires visits to health-care practitioners and involves dealing daily with unpleasant and disheartening symptoms. The symptoms of PCOS (see Appendix) can often strike at the heart of your femininity and batter your self-esteem. Many women have experienced unhelpful attitudes from health-care practitioners who have simply insisted that losing weight is the key to better health with PCOS, without understanding the difficulties this involves.
My doctor told me that if I wanted to improve my symptoms I would need to lose weight. As if I hadn’t been trying all those years! Did he think I wanted to look and feel like this? I can’t remember a day of my life when I haven’t been dieting, restricting calories or exercising to burn calories, but nobody believes me. They all think I don’t have enough will-power or discipline to lose weight.
Lucy, 34
Feeling powerless, hopeless and not listened to can be crushing psychologically and make you feel low and depressed. Changing your diet can transform your feelings of powerlessness into a more positive outlook, because it’s something you can take charge of every day.
I remember being showed the scan and seeing dark blobs around my ovaries. I was told that I had polycystic ovary syndrome and this was causing my irregular periods, acne and weight gain. ‘That’s it,’ I thought, ‘I’m going to be fat and spotty for the rest of my life.’ I felt completely hopeless until my doctor told me that I could, to a certain extent, control my symptoms through my diet. I wasn’t at the mercy of my hormones. There was something I could do to help myself.
Clare, 28
Since the age of 9 I started to gain weight uncontrollably. I became very depressed and lost a lot of confidence. I got my first period when I was 12, but after one or two more they stopped. I went to doctor after doctor and they all blamed my lack of periods on my weight. This made me feel even more depressed. It wasn’t until last year that a fertility specialist diagnosed me with PCOS. I have all the classic symptoms – high insulin, weight gain, rough dry skin, acne, excess body and facial hair and just about every other thing that can make me feel like a boy rather than a girl.
When I was diagnosed I was relieved, but I was also angry. Why was this happening to me? I asked my doctor what I could do and he said that I should visit a dietician with specialist knowledge of PCOS to design a diet which could control my insulin levels. That was the incentive I needed. The weight started to come off and it gave me the confidence to start exercising and make other lifestyle choices, like stopping smoking, drinking less and taking multivitamins, which ease my symptoms.
Looking back, I think PCOS has made me a stronger person. It has helped me understand that the most important thing in life is your health. A lot of people don’t realize how many risks they are taking with their health when they don’t eat well. But I do.
Bryony, 17
Eating well is something you can do every day to nourish your body and mind. The positive lift you get from feeling that every day you are doing something to alleviate your PCOS symptoms, boost your energy and enhance the power of any medication you may be taking is a great feeling to have when you’re battling with so many emotions. Having a daily dose of self-help on a plate is really energizing and motivating.
Eating healthily every day gives you the opportunity to re-invent yourself. With every breath you take, every meal you eat, every drink you swallow, you are literally building a new you by supplying your body with the raw materials it needs to repair your skin, generate new tissues, balance hormones and create more cells. Your food is the building block to better health.
So every day, as you feed your body with what it needs to work at its peak of health, remind yourself that you deserve the best. Many women with PCOS notice striking improvements when they take matters into their own hands and embark on the right diet and exercise plan.
Remember: If you have PCOS, what you eat or don’t eat is absolutely crucial and, more importantly, within your control.
GETTING WHAT YOU NEED
Food isn’t just important to women with PCOS because it helps with insulin resistance and gives you back a feeling of control over your health. Food is also vital because it contains essential nutrients which the human body needs in order to function properly.
Nutritional deficiencies – when you don’t get enough of all the essential vitamins, minerals and other nutrients you need to keep your body running efficiently – can be caused by diet or outside forces like stress and pollution, which make your body use up more nutrients in order to protect itself. Nutritional deficiencies can disturb the whole intricate system of your body.
As well as having a role in the struggle against diseases such as cancer, arthritis and heart disease, diet can also help combat infertility, stress, insomnia and conditions like PMS.
The aim of nutritional therapy tailored for PCOS, and the role of a nutritional therapist – someone trained to see food and nutritional supplements as medicine, and help you to use them to correct imbalances in the body – would be to reduce insulin levels by lowering blood-sugar and other triggers of insulin production, such as stimulants like coffee and stress. Eating the right kinds of food can provide the body with the proper nutrients so it can correct the underlying hormonal imbalances which lie at the root of PCOS, and tackle specific symptoms such as sugar cravings, acne, hair loss, irregular periods and depression.
For instance, avoiding saturated fat and high-sugar foods, and increasing fibre intake, can help to reduce androgen levels and ease the symptoms which are triggered when male hormones are out of balance.
Many women with PCOS also have to deal with ‘unopposed’ oestrogen, which occurs when no ovulation takes place in a menstrual cycle, so that there is no surge of progesterone in the second half of the cycle to balance out the normal levels of oestrogen. Unopposed oestrogen can cause symptoms such as hot sweats and dizziness. Dietary changes such as avoiding junk foods and unhealthy carbohydrates and ensuring an adequate intake of essential fatty acids and healthy carbohydrates would aim to restore the correct balance of oestrogen, progesterone and androgen. (See Chapter 2 for descriptions of healthy and unhealthy carbohydrates.)
According to clinical nutritionist Conner Middleman Whitney, who has studied and documented the effects of nutritional therapy on PCOS via a three-month internet study involving dietary changes and nutritional supplements, ‘More work needs to be done into the link between nutrition and PCOS. However, for women seeking to overcome the many symptoms associated with PCOS, I strongly believe that nutritional therapy can offer powerful support.’10
PROTECT YOUR FUTURE HEALTH
Making simple and beneficial changes to your diet and lifestyle are the first important steps towards balanced hormones and a state of good, natural health. But what about protecting your health in the years to come?
If you have PCOS, you are potentially at a higher risk of developing the following long-term health problems:
| Obesity |
Many women with PCOS find that their symptoms get worse when they put on weight. Being overweight has many long-term associated health problems. It reduces mobility, prolongs |