If you find yourself diagnosed with PCOS, you are not alone.
Close to 12% female clients have PCOS and need dietary and nutrition changes. This means that over 250 women diagnosed with PCOS come to Flexible Dieting every month looking to have their macros dialled in by an expert macro coach so that they can lose fat without the bloating, hunger and irritability that comes with regular dieting.
Be sure to discuss these issues with your Flexible Dieting coach so that the two of you can come up with a program that improves your waistline and your PCOS.
The Flexible Dieting system can help you lose weight and get your symptoms under control, but you'll need to approach the program with your PCOS in mind. Below is a PCOS Playbook for making progress with Flexible Dieting.
Losing just 5% of your body weight can reduce PCOS symptoms and complications. If you like working with numbers and appreciate a flexible diet, Flexible Dieting could be a great fit for you. Women living with PCOS tend to get better results when they take a well-rounded approach to their nutrition instead of just cutting out calories.
Your exact Flexible Dieting breakdown will depend on your unique health factors and goals but reducing carbs to 40% or less of your total calories and getting at least .8 grams of protein per a pound of body weight is a good place to start.
High levels of insulin cause an increase in testosterone production which in turn cause several troubling symptoms like acne and missed periods. To minimize the effects of insulin resistance, a PCOS Flexible Diet plan will reduce your daily percentage of carbohydrates.
Cutting carbs is a good first step. However, only cutting carbs might not be sufficient for women living with PCOS. To get the best results from Flexible Dieting, women should select slow-digesting carbohydrates.
Slow-digesting carbohydrates are whole foods and are high in fiber. For example, old-fashioned oats are a slow carb, and sugary breakfast cereals are not. You can stack your Flexible Diet with slow carbs by simply selecting whole, unprocessed foods and avoiding added sugars. If you're more of a numbers person, you should look at using the Glycemic Index to evaluate your carb sources.
One of the strengths of Flexible Dieting for PCOS is that it encourages women to eat plenty of protein. Women living with PCOS report experiencing frequent and strong sensations of hunger even after they've had a full meal.
PCOS Flexible Dieting includes plenty of fats, but not all fats are created equally. This is especially true for those of us who have PCOS.
What types of fats you include in your Flexible Dieting (IIFYM) diet plan can help correct this issues and reduce testosterone levels, a win-win for women with PCOS!
Fatty fish, sea vegetables/algae, flaxseeds and grass-fed meat are all good sources of Omega 3's. If you find it hard to include this food in your Flexible Dieting plan, consider taking a fish oil supplement. Just remember that fish oil capsules contain calories and fats so they should be factored into your daily macro totals.
There aren't any supplements that directly address weight loss in PCOS women, but supplementation should still be part of your PCOS Flexible Dieting (IIFYM) playbook. Symptoms like fatigue, cravings, dysregulated blood sugar, low vitamin D, and low B12 can make sticking to a diet difficult for women living with PCOS. Fortunately, supplementation can correct these issues.
Inositol supplementation has been shown to improve many aspects of PCOS including insulin sensitivity, an-ovulation, anxiety, and infertility (3). Although it has never been studied, many women also report reduced sugar cravings after consistently using inositol for several weeks.
Losing weight with PCOS is a challenging, but worthwhile journey. With some knowledge about how symptoms affect weight loss and a good Flexible (IIFYM) diet plan, you can see progress both on the scale, at the gym, and in your overall health.
Want to learn how to use flexible dieting to manage your PCOS and reach your fitness goals ?
With flexible dieting you still getting to eat your favourite foods (aka. filling your waffles with chocolate chips, peanut butter and bananas). All that matters is that you get the amount of fat, protein, and carbohydrates that YOUR body needs. For ladies with PCOS, it's just a matter of also keeping in mind the points in this article.