healthy diet/lifestyle recommendations

[Chickenpie1]

Wise mumsnetters, please help me with all your healthy diet knowledge.

I am fed up with feeling bloated sluggish and tired, I often have headaches and can be uncomfortable in the bowel department! I have PCOS and I think this effects my blood sugar and I can get quite shakey if my blood sugar goes low (I have checked and I am not diabetic).

I am overweight and have recently started to increase my excercise habits. But my main motivation for changing my diet/lifestyle is that I just feel rubbish and irritable a lot of the time and I need to make some changes!

Please can you recommend anything that you have found helpful - changes you have made, books read or plans followed.

Thank you

[Chickenpie1]

Anyone?

[Thefitfatty]

I suppose it would depend on what you're eating normally? I'd recommend cleaning up your diet, fresh veg, lean meat, whole grains, fruit. etc, and stick with the exercise.

[Petradreaming]

Try to cut out processed foods. Increase the amount of veg you are eating - leafy green /dark green stuff like cabbage, kale, spinach etc is very good. Lots more water, less caffeine, less processed sugar. I am 2 weeks in and have lost 7lbs plus feel much better. I got a nutriblast ( very expensive but I think worth it) and have a green smoothy every morning. Gets things moving if you know what I mean

[TalkinPease]

No snacking.
Just that.

Have decent gaps between when you eat where you ingest nothing but water or tea / plain coffee

Especially if you have PCOS, decent gaps between meals makes a huge difference

increase your protein intake
try to cut down on sugar
both of which are by products of stopping snacks

[Chickenpie1]

Thank you, we do eat a lot of processed foods, I was brought up on jars of sauce etc and have just copied this! I don't suppose convenience food is particularly good for the kids either!
I was thinking cutting down on sugar was the way forward, just a bit scared of feeling rubbish if I do (and not being able to eat cake if I feel stressed!)
Thanks for the advice, will make myself a bit of a meal plan to try next week

[TalkinPease]

Get the kids this book and get them to do the cooking once a week each
www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Meals-Simple-Cooking-Tastes/dp/184775242X?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

My kids were given it when it came out and they have learned some good solid healthy suppers from it
and yummy
and they are good at kitchen skills, washing up and the rest

[MelanieCheeks]

The eating part is more important for weightloss than the exercise part. But the exercise part will make you feel good.

Oh, and drink lots of water.

[PurpleDaisies]

We get a veg box now and try to make our meals based around veg and lean protein. I try and batch cook healthy meals and freeze portions for nights when I can't be bothered to cook and am tempted by take away. I also don't keep crisps or crackers in the house (I'm ok with sweet stuff-savoury junk is my vice of choice!).

The BBC good food website is great for healthy meals with nutritional information. The thing that made the biggest difference for me was to start weighing carbs.