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Make sure that at least half the grains you eat are whole grains. When whole wheat is milled into white flour, 25 nutrients are lost and only 5 added back. Other good choices include wholewheat pasta, wholewheat bread, oatmeal and basmati rice.
There are lots of easy ways you can increase your intake of complex carbohydrates:
Try wholegrain bread and cereals with some vegetable dips, fruit toppings or low-fat cottage cheese. Bear in mind that brown bread doesn’t necessarily mean wholemeal. It could be white bread with added colourings. To be sure, read your food labels.
Try a different grain each week. Use oats, rye, barley, millet, rice, corn or buckwheat. Whole grains, like millet and quinoa, taste great and are simple to cook.
Add variety by eating rye bread or wholewheat biscuits with some low-fat spread and 100 per cent fruit jam (jelly).
Try some fruit bran or oatmeal cookies and muffins.
Fresh oatmeal porridge flavoured with chopped dried fruit is very satisfying.
Try a dish of brown rice with lean meat and vegetables in a curry sauce.
Eat Less Sugar
Try to limit your intake of sugary foods. Table sugar contains nothing but empty calories and goes right to your blood, where it raises blood-sugar and aggravates symptoms of PCOS. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that the average American consumes at least 64 pounds of sugar per year, and the UK is close behind. Most of the sugar doesn’t come from the sugar bowl on the table but is hidden in our foods.
The USDA also found that people who eat diets high in sugar also consume fewer fruits and vegetables, and therefore get less nutrients. If you need another reason to lay off the sugar – apart from tooth and gum decay – research shows it can reduce the ability of white blood cells to fight infection, therefore making you more prone to colds and other illness.
Tips for Avoiding Sugar
– Look for breakfast cereals that contain no more than 5 grams of sugar per serving. The best bets are wholegrain cereals like granola/muesli, wheat flakes or hot cereal.
– Fat-free items often replace the fat with sugar, which makes them worse than their fatty counterparts for women with PCOS.
– You may think of sugar just in terms of white or brown, but there are many more forms: cane sugar, raw cane sugar, honey, treacle, syrup, molasses, dextrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, corn syrup, concentrated fruit juice, glucose syrup and other industrial sugars which are added to processed foods. They are all sugars and it is best to limit them.
– Reading labels to avoid these hidden sugars is one way of cutting down. Check the labels of your favourite sauces, spreads, cereals, cookies and desserts for hidden sugars in the form of sucrose, glucose, dextrose, fructose, maltose, lactose, honey, corn syrup and so on.
– Limit your intake of sweets, cookies, cakes, pies, doughnuts, pastries and other sweet baked goods. Eat fresh or dried fruit instead, or choose muffins or wholemeal biscuits.
– Fruit drinks, beverages and cocktails are essentially noncarbonated soda pop. Most popular brands contain only 5 to 10 per cent juice. If you do choose them, go for high-juice brands, water them down with spring water or choose freshly pressed juice and add half water to it.
– Sugar substitutes aren’t really a good idea for women with PCOS. Many metabolically-challenged people find these cause problems like headaches and stomach upsets. Best to avoid. Honey and syrups sound healthier but unfortunately they aren’t. If your food really does need sweetening, a tiny bit of sugar is OK. Better still, add natural sweeteners like fruit juice or fresh fruits, or try the herbal alternative stevia, which is very sweet-tasting with no calories. You can buy this at your local health food store.
4) Eat a High-fibre Diet
Aim to eat 30 to 50 g of fibre daily. As a rough guide, an apple has around 2 g of fibre, and an orange 3 g. Eat your five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and you are halfway towards your fibre intake. You can get the rest of your fibre from complex carbohydrates. It’s best to avoid large portions of bran, which act too fast and prevent you from absorbing vital nutrients.
Why?
Fibre is important if you have PCOS because it slows the conversion of carbohydrates into blood-sugar, thus helping maintain blood-sugar balance. It ensures that digestion is healthy, fat absorption is controlled, toxins are removed from the body, energy is released, stools are well formed and waste can pass through at a steady rate, preventing the build-up of hormones and toxins in the gut, from where they can be reabsorbed into the bloodstream. Moreover, fibre binds to excess cholesterol and oestrogens and escorts them from the body. An adequate fibre intake also ensures that you get that full-up feeling after you have eaten – great to help you stop snacking and overeating.
If you don’t eat enough fibre, PCOS symptoms like weight gain, raised cholesterol, blood-sugar problems and excess testosterone and oestrogen are likely to get worse.
How?
You can get fibre in wholegrain cereals, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables or fibre supplements.
Only 30 to 50 g is needed; a diet rich in plant fibre easily supplies this. Drink plenty of fluid for the fibre to absorb to help it pass through your digestive system.
Fibre comes in two major sources, both essential for women with PCOS: soluble fibre, like oatmeal, dissolves in water and becomes soft and gel-like. This type of fibre slows down glucose absorption after a meal, keeping blood-sugar on an even keel. Soluble fibre also helps lower cholesterol. Insoluble fibre, like vegetables and bran, is dense and chewy, does not absorb water and stimulates movements in the intestines, thus preventing constipation. Insoluble fibre helps prevent diabetes, colon cancer and heart disease.
Research supports the idea of eating a high-fibre diet, especially for people with blood-sugar problems. Dr James Anderson at the University of Kentucky showed that diabetes control is greatly enhanced by eating a high-fibre diet. People with Type II diabetes in his study ate a diet composed of wholegrain cereal, vegetables and legumes in which not more than 25 per cent of the daily intake came from fat and 60 per cent came from carbohydrates. They also ate 50 g of fibre a day. After only a few weeks on the diet many people experienced better glucose control and were able to cut back on their medication.
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