Husband looking for PCOS/Fertility advice for helping my wife

[RobS1]

Hi all,

Just signed up to engage with PCOS/fertility issue's people to seek support in helping my wife, & I, learn how to control/regulate diet and weight loss to enable us to progress with fertility treatment.

My wife was diagnosed with PCOS many years ago whilst in her teens. We have been to several consultations in relation to PCOS, weight loss (dietitian), and fertility over the years but never really had any detailed support and information about the condition and the effect it has on weight gain and infertility amongst other psychological issues. I'm now pushing 40 and the desire to have children of our own is really strong, yet this barrier of multiple issue's is preventing that from happening.

What I am hoping to gain from this (my wife does not know that I am doing this!) is an understanding into the nutritional side of aiding the weight loss for my wife to help her get to the next BMI stage where the medical system will support her further with fertility treatment. In a recent phone call with a fertility nurse a spanner was thrown in the works in relation to carbs and I think what I picked up from the information is that the sugar content (of natural ingredients) of the carbohydrates is the factor we need to consider e.g. sugar content in dry pasta is lower than that of rice but has a similar carbohydrate level per gram, therefore the carb percentage per gram is not necessarily the problem. Does that make sense to anyone or has anyone been told the same?

I am also hoping to find and structure a diet/meal plan if anyone has any suggestions on that please. My wife does not like cooking in the slightest so I do all the cooking but prefer to cook with raw ingredients over processed foods (labelled healthy or not). I usually go to BBC good food for recipe's etc as you can search for idea's with key words but when searching PCOS there is some generalised information item that mentions PCOS but is mainly about cravings during pregnancy - bit of a kick to the face! I've tried looking for PCOS diet plans etc with general web searches but as ever, everything is locked behind a subscription service or expensive one-off fee which I resent paying for as there are no guarantees.

Any help anyone can offer is greatly appreciated and thank you in advance!

Rob

I have PCOS and i used to never have a cycle (sorry for TMI). I cut out all unhealthy carbs and became fairly regular. I had 2 children that way without any fertility help.
I was never overweight before kids, but after DC 2 i put on quite a bit. When i was done breastfeeding i managed to loose it all by cutting out carbs.
I can actually manage my cycle with my diet. When i eat a lot of carbs for a month, i dont get my period. I also put on weight quickly that way, so for me i had to find a balance to eat the right amount of healthy carbs to keep my weight down and still have a normal cycle.
Its not always this easy with PCOS though, diet alone might not cut it, but you can achieve a lot with it.
Im sure there will be people with a bit more advice.

The first thing I'll say is that the impetus for change really needs to come from your wife - imposing dietary changes or 'controlling' her food will not necessarily be helpful. However, if your aim is supportive and as you're the cook you just want to make sensible choices then great.

I have/had PCOS which caused sub fertility and while I didn't myself ever get more than a bit overweight, I read quite a bit around the subject at the time. Perhaps fortuitously this was about 20 years ago when one of the popular concepts in weight control was Glycaemic Index (GI) I think this may be the sort of thing you might find helpful in assessing whether a carbohydrate is metabolised quickly or slowly.

The other thing is to adjust the ratio of carbs in your cooking. We've been altering our cooking of late as DH was prediabetic (not very different in a way to the aspect of pcos you're concerned with). We more or less ditched 'carbs' with our main meal, and instead ate loads more veg. A good mound of broccoli instead of pasta for instance. It's too easy to just assume a meal should have a portion of rice, pasta or potato ... unless you're doing a lot of physical exercise adults don't need that 'fuel'. This isn't the same sort of extreme restriction as 'low carbing'.

Although it might sound strange, you may get more response by posting this on the Infertility board or even Conception. I have PCOS and spoke to lots of other users about it over on Infertility - even though it doesn't make us infertile!

I've never heard about the sugar content of carbs being super important - more it's the way our body breaks them down into sugars so as the previous poster said, lower carb tends to be better for PCOS especially if your wife is also trying to lose weight. Look up the GI index - a lower number is better.

She is very lucky to have your support.

@ErrolTheDragon You explained that a lot better than me!

My consultant at the time recommended the South Beach diet as it is about reducing the glycemic load. It has structure but also choices so you aren't dictated to.

I was pregnant within 6 months after having maybe 1 or 2 periods a year before that.

Thank you very much for responding, I don't want to come across as someone who is "controlling", more a husband who sees his wife struggling with not only the physical aspects of this but now with the mental torment this is having on her. In terms of a low/no carb diet - what's the figure she should be aiming for per day? I've been reading up on diabetic dietary needs as I understand it to be similar but I'm yet to find a specific number to go with (no more than 100g a day etc etc)
I'll perhaps post this on the infertility board later.
Thanks again!

A ketogenic diet can sometimes help here. That's the more extreme end of low carb and is anything from 0 up to 50g carbs per day. With 0 being not very healthy or sustainable imo. I would start slowly reducing carbs generally. Exchange them with more vegetables. Drop them from one meal a day. Breakfast is probably the easiest. Low carb soups and salads are usually quite easy to start with without missing the carbyness.

There is a low carb boot camp starting on Monday on the weight loss board that will have links to lots or recipes and ideas.

Is your oh on board with going low carb?

A Keto diet may help.

For Pcos, best results are gained if she's able to restrict her carb intake to below 20g per day.

For those who don't suffer pcos, 50g net carbs is recommended.

Ofcourse. But is loosing hope with sifting through the conflicting advice/opinions. So i'd rather filter it for her and then have a discussion with how she feels going forward.

Perhaps it would help to see some of the advice as not so much 'conflicting' as that there may be approaches which are complementary, and also different ways of achieving the same end - one size doesn't fit all. Some people find it easier to stick with a prescriptive approach - so many grams of carbs a day and/or calories, others may find it more sustainable to think more about GI, or focussing on eating more veg and protein and hence less starchy carb/sugary fruit.

The diet I tried for fertility (not specifically losing weight) allowed for quite a lot more net carbs than some have mentioned, but perhaps for weight loss you do need to be stricter.

It was more about where they came from, so sweet potato, chickpeas and quinoa were good, regular potatoes and pasta, not so much.

I agree with others that it would be good to share this information with your partner, but best of luck to you both.