you don’t drink enough you will start to feel dizzy, tired and could get headaches and stomach upsets. It’s very important that you drink pure, clean (filtered, if necessary) water throughout the day, even if you don’t feel thirsty. If you are feeling thirsty you are already dehydrated.
Should you have poor digestion, drink more water between meals and less during meals. When you’re sick or under extra physical or emotional stress, drink more. If you’re shorter or lighter than average you don’t need to force yourself to drink as much as a taller, larger person. If it’s hot or you are losing more fluids through perspiration, your fluid intake needs to be increased.
Don’t forget that when you exercise your need will increase dramatically. Athletes in heavy training can use as much as 10 litres a day. Becoming dehydrated during exercise will have a major impact on your performance or ability to continue and get the maximum benefit. Even small losses of 2–3 per cent result in a 10 per cent reduction in strength.
Limit your tea, coffee and alcohol intake. This is because coffee, tea and alcohol raise blood-sugar levels, and therefore insulin levels. Water is the best drink for quenching thirst and hydrating the body to help prevent dry skin, sore eyes and wrinkles. Fresh fruit juice or diluted juice are suitable. Watch out for fruit juice ‘drinks’ posing as fresh fruit juice but which are really just expensive fakes. Try some of the better-quality squashes and cordials. There are also a wide number of very good herb and fruit ‘teas’ available (they aren’t, strictly speaking, teas, but just use the name as they are infused with hot water).
Fruits and vegetables count towards your fluids because they consist of around 90 per cent water. They supply it in a form that is very easy for your body to use, at the same time as providing the body with a high percentage of vitamins and minerals.
One way to make sure you drink enough fluids is to fill a pitcher or a bottle with your targeted amount of water and drink it throughout the day. Take it with you in the car or to work, or keep it nearby when you’re reading or doing other activities. If the container is empty by bedtime, you’ve achieved your goal.
2) Eat Five Portions of Fruit and Vegetables Each Day
Ideally, aim to eat at least three pieces of fruit and five portions of vegetables a day – that way you’re bound to manage at least five. A vegetable portion is 1 to 2 cups of raw vegetables, 1 cup cooked. A fruit portion is 1 medium-sized apple, banana or orange.
Why?
For women with PCOS, all vegetables and most fruits are nutritional superstars. They are powerful sources of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals (plant-based hormones). The vegetables highest in phytochemicals, such as cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli, contain compounds which can help to lower androgen levels in the body (androgens are the male hormones responsible for PCOS symptoms such as acne and excess hair).
In addition to the newly discovered phytochemicals, orange, yellow and green fruits also provide the antioxidant beta-carotene, so helpful in boosting immune function. The dark green leafy vegetables such as broccoli are high in minerals that help make bones strong and can also calm the nervous system and help ease depression and anxiety. Fruit and vegetables also aid digestion because of their fibre content.
How?
Fruits are limited more than vegetables on the PCOS diet because many women have the tendency to eat them alone – particularly those like sugar-rich bananas and raisins which can give you an insulin rise if you don’t eat them with proteins like a handful of nuts. All-fruit meals can upset your blood-sugar levels, creating that familiar peak followed by a slump in mood.
It may seem hard to fit in so many portions of fruit and vegetables, but vegetable soups and frozen and tinned fruits and vegetables all count. A very good way of boosting your intake is to invest in a juicer and make your own freshly-pressed juices such as apple and carrot, banana and apple, apple and celery, mango and pear or whatever mixture takes your fancy. For the best benefit, drink the juice as soon as you have made it, as contact with the air destroys vital vitamins and minerals. The downside of juicers is that they extract the pulp so you don’t get the benefit of the fibre slowing down the release of sugar into your bloodstream. To get fibre, try using a blender to make smoothie-type drinks using berries and soft fruits such as pears, and soya milk or organic low-fat yogurt. You can also add in a teaspoon of Omega-3-rich oils such as hempseed or linseed (see page 40).
Eat whole fruits and whole vegetables wherever possible. These foods contain more fibre and generally have less of an effect on your blood-sugar than do refined, processed and juiced foods. A whole apple is better than apple juice, for instance, but fresh-pressed apple juice is better than juice from concentrate – and certainly better than nothing at all!
The way you prepare your fruits and vegetables will maximize their goodness. Heating, re-heating and storage often destroy nutrients, so try to eat as many as possible raw and fresh. Steaming or stir-frying are the best cooking methods to seal in the vital nutrients. If you do boil your vegetables, keep the water for a stock or a soup, as this is where all the nutrients will have gone.
Once a fruit or vegetable is picked or cut, it starts to lose nutrients. There is no telling how long fresh vegetables have lingered in the shop or warehouse (some are put in cold storage for as long as six months; others are picked long before they ripen to their most nutrient-rich state so that they can be flown across the world to another country before they go bad). Frozen vegetables are frozen immediately they are picked, so can sometimes be even better than fresh ones.
Ideally you should avoid peeling as much as possible, because vitamins often lie just beneath the skin of fruit and vegetables, but washing thoroughly or peeling is recommended for non-organic produce because of the potentially toxic effects of pesticides and fertilizers.
3) Eat Complex, Low-Glycemic Index (GI) Carbohydrates
Research is still ongoing about the optimal amount of carbohydrates for women with PCOS, but experts tend to agree that in general around 50 per cent of your total calories should come from carbohydrates, mostly in the complex form.
In addition to the carbohydrate in fruit and vegetables (see above) which counts towards this daily 50 per cent, try to eat four portions of wholegrains, such as brown rice, a day. One serving is one slice of bread or half a cup of cereal, cooked rice or pasta.
Why?
Carbohydrates are your body’s prime energy source. They enable your body to use protein for growth and repair. Your body also uses carbohydrates, or starches, to make blood-sugar (glucose), which provides fuel used by the brain and muscles, including the heart.
In a balanced state your bloodstream contains about 2 teaspoons of glucose. The carbohydrates that you eat easily supply this amount of glucose, and it’s all too easy to exceed the amount you need. The blood-sugar your body doesn’t use as fuel is stored as body fat, under control of the hormone insulin. With your body’s blood-sugar requirements so easily met, you don’t want to be eating foods which rapidly turn into glucose and cause sharp rises in your blood-sugar level, followed by a sharp rise in your insulin level, followed by storage of excess blood-sugar as fat – in other words, the familiar PCOS symptoms of insulin resistance and weight gain.
We aren’t telling you to eat fewer or more carbohydrates here. We’re saying eat the right kind of carbohydrates. That is, complex and with a low GI (glycemic index). The key is to get enough blood-sugar
