protein, fibre, healthy fat or acid (such as vinegar or lemon juice) to food will generally lower glycaemic values.
LOW GI AND PCOS – IN A NUTSHELL
What all this really tells you is that whole foods are your best food choice, and if you think a food has a high GI watch your portion size and eat some protein and fibre with it.
Rather than selecting foods solely based on their GI or GL, we’d far rather you concentrated on eating a balanced diet and enjoyed your food. Use your common sense and evaluate foods for their overall health value. If you do choose to plan your diet using the GI or GL as a guide, look at food values for an entire day rather than excluding a food because it has a high value, and aim to keep your GL to 80 per day. When you eat foods with a high GI, the smaller the serving size, the smaller the rise in your blood sugar and insulin response. Foods with a high GI but low GL can be included as part of a healthy diet. Foods with a low GI will always have a low GL.
Use the GI and GL by all means if you want to, but don’t get carried away with calculations for every meal you eat. If you can’t get your head around the GI and GL, it won’t spell disaster for your PCOS diet. Whether you work with the GI or not, the best way to make PCOS-friendly food choices is to follow the first three recommendations of our PCOS diet and replace processed and refined foods (sweets, cakes, white bread and sugar) with whole foods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds.
SAMPLE GI-/GL-FRIENDLY MENU
Breakfast: Oat porridge
Mid-morning snack: Smoothie – 10oz goat’s milk, I banana, 3oz berries
Lunch: Hummus or lean chicken with salad, tomato and onion on wholegrain bread; an apple; a few walnuts
Mid-afternoon snack: Low fat yoghurt; nuts and seeds
Dinner: Wholegrain rice with lean fish, vegetables, green bean salad; fruit salad
5) DRINK MORE WATER
Cutting down on sugar and working out the glycaemic factor of your diet are probably the hardest and most challenging changes we’ll be asking you to make. It really does get easier from now on. Change Number 5, for example, is simple: drink more water.
WHY?
Not only is your body two-thirds water, but water intake and distribution are essential for hormonal balance. Water also helps your body metabolize stored fat by maximizing muscle function, so is also crucial for weight management. Water regulates body temperature and provides the means for nutrients to travel to all your organs, as well as transporting oxygen to our cells, removing waste and protecting our joints and organs.
Water may also help reduce the increased risk of heart disease and high blood pressure associated with PCOS. Research8 suggests that people who drink five or more 8-ounce (225-ml) glasses of water a day have fewer heart attacks than those who drink two or fewer glasses. This is because dehydration seems to increase the tendency for blood to clot, and blood-clotting is a risk factor for heart disease.
SIGNS OF DEHYDRATION
We lose water through urination, respiration and by sweating. Diuretics such as caffeine and alcohol result in the need to drink more water because they trick our bodies into thinking we have more water than we need.
Symptoms of mild dehydration include chronic pains in joints and muscles, lower back pain, headaches and constipation. A strong odour to your urine, along with a yellow or amber colour, indicates that you’re not getting enough water. Thirst is an obvious sign of dehydration, though in fact you need water long before you feel thirsty.
HOW MUCH?
On average you should try to drink eight 8-ounce (225-ml) glasses of water a day. A good rule of thumb is to take your body weight in pounds and divide that number in half. That gives you the number of ounces of water per day that you need to drink. If you exercise you should drink another 8-ounce glass of water for every 20 minutes you are active. If you drink coffee or alcohol, you should drink at least an equal amount of water. When you’re travelling on an airplane, it’s good to drink 8 ounces of water for every hour you’re on board the plane. If you live in an arid climate or are always near central heating, you should add another two glasses per day.
As you can see, your daily need for water can add up to quite a lot.
The best source of water is plain, pure drinking water. Fizzy drinks have a lot of sugar in them and aren’t a good source, so if you drink them, they won’t count towards your daily amount. Herbal teas that aren’t diuretic are fine (steer clear of dandelion, parsley, nettle and fennel). Sports drinks contain electrolytes and may be beneficial, just look out for added sugar and calories that you don’t need.
If you aren’t sure you’re drinking enough, keep a record for a few days. Any non-caffeinated, non-fizzy drinks can be counted as fluid. If you aren’t drinking enough, here are some ideas for including more fluids:
Carry a water bottle. It may be difficult to drink enough water on a busy day. Be sure you have water handy at all times by keeping a bottle with you when you’re working, travelling or exercising.
Add some lemon. If you get bored with plain water, add a bit of lemon or lime for a touch of flavour. There are some brands of flavoured water available, but some of them have sugar or artificial sweeteners which you don’t need.
Experiment with herbal teas, watered-down fruit juices or diluted fresh-pressed juice – but watch out for juice drinks that are loaded with sugar.
Drink fluids at room temperature. You wouldn’t water your plants with freezing cold water or put icy water into your pet’s water bowl, would you? In Traditional Chinese Medicine, cold drinks disrupt the proper flow of energy in the body and ‘shock’ the body. Stick to warm or room-temperature fluids.
As a rule of thumb, filtered water is best. Tap water can be contaminated with heavy metals, micro-organisms, chlorine, fluoride and other impurities. Still, if bottled water proves too expensive, tap water will do just fine, especially if you use a water filter.
If you’re eating plenty of fruits and vegetables this will count towards your fluid intake, as they are 90 per cent water.
6) PASS ON THE SALT
The next stage on the PCOS diet is to cut down on salt. Instead of adding salt to your food, add herbs, spices or lemon juice for flavour.
WHY?
A diet high in salt can increase your already higher risk of high blood pressure and cause fluid retention.
HOW?
First of all, get out of the habit of adding salt to your food and your cooking and experiment with herbs, spices, lemon juice, mustard powder, lime juice, vinegar, red or wine white, onions, garlic, ginger, chillies, etc.
If
