How I beat my sugar habit (almost)

Biscuit Plate (Photo credit: Caro Wallis)

One of the things I hear most about women with PCOS is we seem to be drawn towards all things sweet and sugary.  Seems to be part and parcel with all the other delightful things that come with this disorder.  Despite the fact I still indulge in treats from time to time,  I’d like to share how I tackled my sugar addiction.

1) Identify your weak spot.
There was always a time and place where my need for sugar was too easy to satisfy.  For me that was morning tea at work.  Even though I didn’t buy any biscuits or cakes for home,  there was daily temptation in the tearoom. I could easily have a couple of biscuits with a cup of tea and forget that I would suffer for it later when my blood sugar crashed or I was simply starving by midday. So this was one small area I felt I could work on.
2) Set a limit.
Rather than go cold turkey,  I decided to set myself a ration of one biscuit in the morning and one in the afternoon.  This worked to cut down my intake but my cravings weren’t curbed in the least. And I relapsed on more than one occasion.
3) Find a substitute.
Finally I decided that if I had something else to eat for morning tea that would keep me full till lunchtime and keep me away from the biscuits then maybe I can finally get some control over my biscuit habit. There are many Low GI cookbooks in my collection that have cakes and other tasty treats that substitute out flour or sugar with Low GI alternatives like oat bran and honey. So I made myself some lovely Banana and Sultana Bread and started bring a slice to work.

Well with my cake and tea, I still looked at the biscuits but didn’t NEED to eat them.  Saying ‘no’ became easier and I stopped being hungry so soon before lunch.

Today I still have the occasional treat and dessert now and then but don’t have cravings that make me head to the supermarket at 10pm in search of chocolate. So here are a few other tips others might find useful

:

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Czech Wikipedia for th week, 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• Don’t keep sweets in your house, out of sight out of mind right…..

• Be sure to have nice Low GI snacks available when the munchies attack. Some of my personal favorites include peaches with low fat yoghurt or a non-salted mix of seeds, dry fruit and nuts.
• Treat yourself occasionally. Have an ice-cream on the weekend once in a while but keep it small and special
• If you really need a chocolate hit, go dark. Chocolate with high cocoa content not only has a stronger flavour so it’s harder to over indulge but greater health benefits when compared to milk chocolate.

Hopefully these few tips help out. Now pass the Caramel Crowns ………… 😉

My journey – 30 days in

Can’t believe it’s been 30 days already since I started off this journey. I decided on monthly weigh-in/measurements since it takes forever to see any real changes and my weight can fluctuate week to week much more.

Here’s a summary of my weight-loss PCOS self-treatment to date:

• Low GI diet with some restriction of grain intake (no grains with evening meal)
• Crossfit 2-3 times a week (worked up to 3x week)
• Supplement with 4g myoinositol (will blog on this soon)
• At least 8 hours sleep a night, try not to sleep in too much

So here’s my numbers after 30 days –

Weight: 59.4kg (no change)

Bust: 98cm (no change)

Waist: 77.5cm (0.5cm loss)

Stomach: 88cm (1.5cm loss).

So as expected I didn’t lose any weight but I’m not too concerned with this. It would be rare for me to lose more than a kilo over a 6 month period so being stable is fine with me. Especially since I’ve lost some cm’s off my torso. So slowly but surely I’m losing fat but (hopefully) being replaced with muscle.

Pretty happy with this. Of course I would have loved to see a kilo come off the scales but I have to be realistic. Let’s see if I stick with this regime that I can see these results consistently 🙂

Can I eat that? What about that?

When I first discovered PCOS and it’s link to diet, I began looking into various dietary strategies to be used for weight loss and generally controlling the symptoms of PCOS. This next statement should come as no surprise to any of us cysters who have searched in vain for dietary advice:

Nobody can agree on what we can and can’t eat !!!

You would think for a condition that is affected so strongly by diet there should be a simple list of do’s and don’t as far as diet is concerned. Sadly for us, it appears that what works for one woman won’t work as well for another. I’ve seen in many other blog posts and websites that many people advocate certain dietary plans as THE plan that will work to treat PCOS. Low Carb seems to be the most popular from what I’ve seen. Then again from many of the books I’ve read, Low GI seems the way to go. These seem to be the two most popular dietary plans used for women with PCOS. For what it’s worth, here’s my two cents:

I’ve heard great things about Low Carb diets especially from the scientific perspective. Keeping your carbs low in theory should lower your body’s insulin response hence reduce many of the undesirable effects of high insulin levels. It also appears to be a great way to lose weight fast. When I tried it (twice) I found my blood sugar issues I’ve had for most of my life get WORSE on Low Carb diets. Even though I don’t crave sugar per say, it’s more that I get those lovely hypoglycemic attacks a few times a week when cutting out most carbs. And that’s looking at 120g carbs a day, forget the ultra low levels such as 40g per day some women get away with.

When I was first tested for PCOS, I purchased a book called “The Low GI Diet for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome” by Prof Jennie Brand-Miller. She’s been a long time advocate for Low GI dieting and as written a series of books for Low GI dieters as well as co-authoring a few Low GI cookbooks. Firstly there’s a heap of helpful information for women with PCOS in easy to read language and covers most of the basics on the disorder. She also lays out some basic tenants on eating Low GI for treaing PCOS.

For a year I followed her tips on switching high GI carbs to low GI carbs and, even though I lost no more than a kilo within a year, my measurements at the gym showed I’d lost about 9cm off my stomach and 12cm off my bust. And I hardly noticed.

Unfortnately I went back to study and switched to Lite n Easy meals since I had no cooking time. And that weight has gone straight back on. That’s not a dig at Lite n Easy at all, just that meals with mostly potato and pasta just aren’t good for my body.

So, for me Low GI is the way to go. For some of you, this might work too. For some Low Carb might be your silver bullet. Best (non-medical) advice I can give you, try it and see how your body reacts. And give it time, these are lifestyle changes and not going to make you a supermodel overnight.

For those who are tempted into a low GI diet, here are my basic guidelines:

• Choose low GI carbs, especially lots of fruit and veggies (avoid potato though)
• Use Basmati rice or grains such as pearl barley or quinoa.
• Eat lean meat, fish, legumes, nuts (as snacks) and low-fat dairy (more on this in a later post)
• Keep processed food to a minimum (my doc advised me to avoid pasta even though it’s technically Low GI)
• Sugar is okay in small amounts, but suggestions involve switching to floral honey, Low GI cane sugar or natural alternative sweeteners such as Steevia (can’t stand this stuff myself)

One more suggestion from my doc is to limit my carbs from grains to earlier in the day and keep my evening meal to a meat/fish and veggie/salad mixture. Again these are just guidelines for myself. If you’re interested in reading more on Low GI I again recommended Jennie Brand-Miller’s books (Available on Fishpond or Amazon). There’s also a lot of web information if you want to try it.

For those on the Low Carb bandwagon, I’m a frequent visitor to Anne Seccombe’s blog My PCOS Info http://www.mypcos.info/1/ . She has a huge variety of PCOS infomation and does advocate a Low Carb diet as treatment.

Happy Eating all 🙂

The journey begins

Hi all,

Welcome to the first post of my new blog 🙂 This blog is intended to be more a diary of my ongoing self-treatment of my PCOS but hopefully over time I’ll include more general information of diet, exercise, lifestyle modification and recent research around PCOS that might be more useful to some of you. So if you’re interested in my story, read on. Otherwise, stay posted.

First off a little about me. My name is Carlie, I’m a 32 year old Aussie (settled in Melbourne), a recently unemployed chemist (the one makes drugs in a lab, not the ones that work in a pharmacy) and part-time student.

I was diagnosed with PCOS a few months ago after a 2 year wait, 2 doctors, 3 sets of tests, 2 ultrasounds and lots of internet research. I’d always had irregular periods which didn’t really bother me until I’d settled down into a long term relationship with my current partner. Having no period for 3 months can be unsettling when you’re not wanting children any time soon.

My first port of call was my reliable GP. She was the first that suggested PCOS but, after normal bloodwork and no sign of polycystic ovaries (PCO’s) her comment was to ‘come back when I wanted to get pregnant’. I didn’t want to get pregnant, I wanted to get healthy.

Two years later, more weight gain (it had been creeping up on me by about 1-2kg per year) and another 3 month period absence, I went to a women’s health clinic near my work. Same tests but this time my ultrasound showed 25 follicles per ovary (the threshold for PCO’s is 12). So despite my normal hormone, insulin and blood sugar levels I finally got my diagnosis.

Unfortunately, I realised my journey back to health was just beginning. The advice from my doctor was to ‘lose weight, about 3-5 kg’. No medication was recommended, which I’m not disappointed with, and she had a few dietary tips for me but nothing I hadn’t found on the internet before, even some that conflicted with what I had read.

I’m sure many of the cysters out there can relate to this frustration. Telling someone with this condition to ‘just lose weight’ can feel like a kick in the guts. What the hell do you think we’ve been trying to do??? It’s VERY difficult for us PCOS girls to just lose weight. It hangs around no matter how hard we diet or work out.

Okay, rant mode off and back to the present day. Lucky for me I’m considered ‘lean PCOS,’ so I’m not obese but still have a desire to lose a little bit of weight, to regulate my periods and to feel better about myself. So like most things in life, I’m doing it myself. And it starts with this blog.

With my sister getting married in a year I certainly have a motivating factor and a timeframe to make some lifestyle changes. But I want to do this for me, not for my family, boyfriend or anyone else. And I don’t want to be thin, I want to be healthy.

So here’s the plan as I see it now:

Currently I weigh in at 59.4kg, bust at 98cm, waist at 78cm and belly at 89.5cm. These measurements need to come down. The weight may not budge much but getting to 55kg would be fantastic.

I’ve been eating a low GI diet for a few years now but had eliminated pasta on advice from my doctor, as well as keeping any low GI grain to lunch rather than later in the day.

I’ll be signing up for CrossFit to get my lazy arse into gear and get some fitness happening. With no job I have no excuses anymore.

So for those of you who have made it this far, stay tuned for updates on my progress, in between other more general posts.

Smile and stay beautiful all xoxo