Advice please best diet for PCOS sufferer?

[angelcake99]

Well, the title says it all. Just been diagnosed. 5 stone to loose. But what diet to follow?

I'm on a budget and I'm veggie.

Tia

Hi, i suffer, suffered with PCO and i found the best diet for me was Fruit and yog for breakfast, Carbs for lunch and protein for your tea, with that and 3 x 20min excercise a week you should notice a difference.. have snacks between meals.. little and often, i know it sound rank, but it does work, and if you fancy a treat, have it, because i found if i didn't i'd just raid the cupboards later on in the week.. Best of luck.

Best diet is GI, basically all the normal healthy stuff you'd expect with as much of your carbs coming from low GI sources as possible. Generally that means unrefined.

Conventional wisdom would say don't snack between meals (sorry Tiddler) as it increases your insulin levels (bad!). But you will need to experiment with this and find what works for you - found found four meals ather than three and cut out the snacks - breakfast, lunch, tea (small) and dinner.

Exercise is a big YES with PCOS - has proportionately a bigger effect than non-PCOS people because it keeps your insulin levels under control. MOst PCOS'ers have insulin resistance (not all) which is what causes the weight gain. You should also talk to your GP about Metformin which may be appropriate for you but they may want to see if you can lose weight on your own first.

Good luck

low fat low sugar, low salt gi is the best plan I find keepong rivetta or raisens handy helps if I suffer dips in blood sugar levels again try what works best for regarding meals I'm also a four meal a day if I've been busy but not at other times

Thanks for the advice! Have seen a GI diet book that I will buy. Guess I really do have to get exercising then!

I know i will feel heaps better when i have lost some weight its just the getting into it that I find hard.

But im determind now as I was hoping to have another baby in the future and that will never happen if i don't start cutting back.

Gp did mention Metformin but said to loose a bit of weight first. What exactly does it do?

metformin is adrug for diabetes which makes your body more sensitive to insulin and therefore you don;t need to make so much insulin. If you are vey insulin resistant, your body has to produce lots of insulin to metabolise sugar.

Too much insulin is bad because:

a) eventually you run out and become diabetic
b) predisposes you to deposit fat rather than burn it.

I'm guessing your GP wants to assess your weight loss before trying it - obviously better off not going on any drugs if you can help it.