health. It’s something simple I can do every day to help myself feel better – and after the long haul of trying to get a diagnosis for my symptoms, and trying to come to terms with having this lifelong condition, it was one of the most fantastic feelings to be able to take control again with the simple act of cooking myself nourishing meals.
It almost sounds too simple – and maybe some of you are thinking ‘Oh no, not another healthy eating plan, I’ve heard it all before.’ But what’s different about this book is that it’s tailored for PCOS and explains exactly why each step of the healthy eating programme we suggest is good for helping to deal with this condition.
What’s more, it’s not just a healthy eating plan. Just as there’s far more to PCOS than weight problems, there’s also far more to healthy eating than knowing why you should eat specific foods. Being a health journalist and a woman who uses diet and natural medicine to manage her own PCOS, I can truly understand that massive gap between knowing what’s good for you and actually getting round to doing it! Every day I read and write about why healthy living can boost energy, radiance and vitality – and yet sometimes all I want to do is crawl home and eat my way through a bath of melted chocolate.
This emotional relationship with food is at the core of any healthy eating plan. I’m really pleased at having got so far into eating well that it’s now a habit, not a chore, and I truly enjoy fresh, flavoursome food. But on those odd miserable, stressed or PMS nights there’s practically nothing that can stop me munching on chocolate or plum bread or malt loaf or soggy toast with raspberry jam – what I want is to feel treated and cozy and glad to be home where I can hibernate and forget the day. And I think the key to my ability to keep committed to healthy eating is as much to do with getting rid of guilt when I do pig out as with the knowledge that eating well will help me beat PCOS. If you’re eating well most of the time, the odd treat isn’t going to kill you, and it’s taken me a long time to get to feel so balanced about my food.
Like many women with PCOS, I went through a difficult time with food. At 19 and under 9 stone and 5 ft 10 inches tall, my doctor recommended I should get up to an ideal weight of 10 stone and a few pounds. The idea horrified me. I couldn’t bear to think of allowing my tight control over my body weight and food intake to diminish, because I instinctively felt that if I let it slip even a tiny bit I’d start eating all the chocolate, puddings and sweet foods I loved, and balloon into someone I just didn’t want to be.
When I discovered I had PCOS years later and began to understand why having a slower metabolism and insulin resistance can cause the easy weight gain that accompanies the condition, the pieces began to fall into place. Once I got my herbal medicine and nutritional supplements programme going, and started to really make an effort to eat more healthy organic food every day, deal with stress better and detox my lifestyle, my PCOS symptoms – and a lot of the extra weight I had put on – slowly melted away.
Ideas about what a healthy diet is and why you should eat it are all too often linked to starvation, denial and ludicrous ideas about what an ‘ideal body weight’ would be. As a woman in a world which all too often equates attractiveness and success with the size and shape of your body, I’m all too aware of those fad diets promising instant glamour, and as a woman with PCOS who struggles with her weight I’m also aware of how tempting it can be to try them.
But PCOS is about a lot more than controlling your weight. Losing weight – if you really do have weight to lose – can help, and your diet does have a part to play in that. But how many of us have complained about unsympathetic doctors telling us that our weight is the problem and if we lose it our symptoms and fertility will sort themselves out? Your PCOS diet can be about so much more than weight loss! I have been amazed to discover the healing power of the foods I’ve eaten over the five years since I was diagnosed, and to learn that food doesn’t have to be the enemy. Its active healing compounds can actually be a huge part of beating your symptoms, staying well and protecting your health well into the future.
Just to put the record straight, I can assure you that healthy, fresh foods are not always more expensive than ‘convenience’ foods – in fact, they’re often cheaper if you buy from markets and greengrocers. What they may cost you is a bit of extra time to prepare when you first start out.
What this book will show you is that eating a truly healthy diet for PCOS is about nourishing your body with all the vital vitamins, minerals and other nutrients it needs in order to create hormonal balance and normalize insulin reactions. This helps to beat symptoms now, boost fertility, protect you from diabetes and heart disease in the future and even helps whatever medical or natural health care you use for your PCOS to work more effectively.
In other words, eating a healthy diet – in conjunction with a basic exercise plan – is a win-win situation for women with PCOS. And the best thing about this is that you’re the person who can make it happen every day.
I truly hope that this book, which Theresa and I have written knowing what it is to have PCOS, will help you to start seeing food as an essential ally in the fight to manage this condition.
If we can do it, so can you!
Colette Harris
May 2002
1 Why Food is so Important for Women with PCOS
There’s no denying that food is important. It gives you the energy you need to get through the day, tantalizes you with enjoyable tastes and feeds your body with the essential goodness it needs to work properly.
Study after study proves that good nutrition is the foundation of good health, and the ideal way to stay healthy and fit – whether you have PCOS or not. Everyone should try to eat more fruit and vegetables, reduce their fat intake, eat less high-sugar and high-salt foods and steer clear of the dessert trolley in restaurants. But once you are diagnosed with PCOS and you enter the ‘no woman’s land’ where no one is quite sure what the condition is, what causes it and what is the right way to cure it (see Appendix), the one thing that has been proven time and time again is that a healthy diet is of enormous value.
Food can play an important medical role in helping to deal with PCOS. Many of the symptoms – from weight problems, skin condition and energy levels to menstrual patterns, acne and excess facial and body hair – can all be improved by eating the right foods and, more importantly, by avoiding those which aren’t going to be helpful. With this book you’ll learn how to design a diet that can help you restore blood-sugar levels, balance your hormones, improve energy levels, lose weight and address any PCOS symptoms you may have.
So why is food such a powerful tool when you have PCOS? Why is a healthy diet actually the first essential step – in combination with exercise – to managing the condition, keeping the symptoms at bay and enhancing the effects of any medication you decide to take?
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a condition caused by hormonal imbalance and insulin resistance which leads to symptoms such as weight gain, excess body hair, acne and irregular or absent periods. (For a fuller description of PCOS as a medical condition, read Appendix.)
THE INSULIN LINK
The first reason food is so important for PCOS is its direct impact on our hormonal
