Pcos and Raw Food Diet

This post was updated on July 25th, 2021

With medical science and the Internet being what they are today, you'd think it'd be easy to find out what the best diet for PCOS is. But when I first looked for answers all those years back, I found so much conflicting information that it became completely overwhelming. It was worse than the time I Googled "what should I buy my mother-in-law for Christmas."

Should I be eating a plant-based diet, or am I supposed to go keto? But how can a ketogenic diet be better when everyone tells me I need to avoid fat? And how the heck am I supposed to "just lose weight" when every diet I've tried in the past eventually made me heavier?

After years of research and having to learn everything the hard way, the goal of this article is to make the process as easy and simple as possible for you.

The following 13 steps are the governing principles that helped me beat PCOS and fall pregnant naturally. They come from a critical review of the scientific literature, and are supported by the real-life experiences of the tens of thousands of women that have taken part in my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge.

To accompany this article, I've also created a PCOS Diet Cheat Sheet that lists over 180 PCOS friendly foods and drinks as well as helpful nutritional notes to make things easy for you. This comprehensive document packs a lot of information onto a single page and is 100% compatible with all refrigerator doors.

Get Cheat Sheet >

If you're looking for evidence-based answers to what you should be eating, then look no further. This article will tell you exactly how to do a PCOS diet correctly, in 13 practical steps.

The Link Between Diet And Your Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome Symptoms

To understand how these 13 food principles work, there are just two things you need to know about PCOS.

While medical journals routinely state that the exact cause of PCOS is yet to be identified, from a practical, what-can-I-do-about-it perspective we know it's two main mechanisms: high androgen levels (testosterone being the most famous androgen), and chronic low-grade inflammation.

It doesn't matter if you have lean-type PCOS and you're relatively slim, or your PCOS is expressed with the more classical phenotype where you gain weight easily, these two things are responsible for all those awful symptoms we have to deal with every day.

Once you understand these two main mechanisms, the 13 steps outlined below make a lot more sense. It also becomes apparent why the same PCOS diet plan that works for women wanting to lose weight, also works just as well for someone with lean type PCOS who is struggling to fall pregnant.

Two previous participants from my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge illustrate this point perfectly. While Kendall and Hanna started with vastly different health goals, these two women both achieved remarkable outcomes by following the exact same dietary principles. Kendall joined the Challenge weighing 260 lbs with a goal to lose 90 lbs. By choosing foods like those included in this PCOS Diet Cheat Sheet she was able to blast past this goal, losing 100 lbs within a few short years.

Hanna by comparison was not overly concerned about her weight when she joined my free Challenge, but couldn't fall pregnant because she never got her period. Within months of making the dietary changes described below, Hanna managed to restart her natural cycle and fell pregnant naturally. She's now a very busy mom to a gorgeous little toddler.

You can read Hanna's full success story here.

Making dietary changes can be about as fun as having your bikini line waxed after six months in the wilderness, but if you're anything like me, then understanding the WHY behind what you're doing makes it a lot easier to get motivated.

This is a big reason why women who do my free Challenge achieve such consistently impressive results. By not just providing PCOS friendly recipes and saying "here, eat this," but instead also sharing the information behind why you'd want to make these food choices, women find the motivation to stick with the changes long term.

I'm also not a dogmatist.

While there are clearly foods that combat your PCOS and others that make it worse, I get that it's neither practical nor reasonable for anyone to have their food choices governed strictly by nutrition. Food is fun, it's our friend, and it's how we connect with others. So, while I think it's essential to have a working understanding of PCOS diet principles and to let these guide us at a strategic level, we should also continue to exercise our judgment and good sense when it comes to embracing or avoiding any particular food.

Women with PCOS are known to suffer from eating disorders at much higher rates than the general population especially if you already suffer from anxiety or depression (Lee et al. 2017⁵⁸). This seems to be related to the hormone dysregulation that's part and parcel of a PCOS diagnosis. There's a strong association between PCOS and increased appetite, impaired impulse control, and feelings of body dissatisfaction. These physiological effects commonly lead to binge eating, which in turn has been shown to make our PCOS symptoms worse (Paganini et al. 2018⁵⁹).

So, I think it's essential to be mindful when talking about diet principles to recognize that we need to thread this needle carefully. What may be good or better nutritionally, may be counter-productive in practice if respect isn't paid to our emotional relationship with food.

I don't want you to think of a PCOS diet as a rules-based system you need to stick to or else. Rather I'd prefer you to think of this way of eating as a long-term management plan that may take you years to become accustomed to.

Don't put so much pressure on yourself to implement all of the principles overnight as these changes take time and perseverance before they become second-nature.

There are no "good days" and "bad days" as ups and downs are a key part of the process. So long as your overall trajectory is in the direction of continual improvement you can expect to see results evolve over time.

With all that said, this article is primarily about nutrition.

It's the hard facts that describe a PCOS diet clinically rather than what it feels like when you're putting it into practice.

My intention with this article is to set you up for sustainable success by providing a foundational understanding of the core PCOS diet principles. As you're about to learn, despite the epigenetic and environmental causes of this disorder, it's what you eat that drives all of your symptoms. The flip side of course is that we can turn these same mechanisms around and use better food choices to create a long-term solution.

Let me explain how this kitchen jiu-jitsu works…

How The Right Diet Can Improve Androgen Levels

Androgens like testosterone are the puppeteers responsible for the majority of our PCOS symptoms. The higher our androgen levels, the worse our presenting symptoms are (Georgopoulos et al. 2014⁵²).

They interact with all our other hormones to impact our fertility, to cause unfair weight gain, to promote adult acne, and to give us not enough hair in the right places, while providing extra in the wrong places. High androgen levels are pretty much the bane of our existence.

Androgen levels work in unison with your insulin levels. When insulin goes up, so does testosterone (Sharp et al. 1991⁵¹).

Insulin also happens to be the hormone that makes our bodies store body fat, which is why a lot of women with PCOS find it nearly impossible to lose weight, while others often accumulate excess stomach fat despite being otherwise thin.

Putting two and two together here, since our insulin levels are controlled by what we eat, if we can implement the right diet for PCOS and eat in a way that keeps our insulin levels lower, our PCOS symptoms can improve.

I've been amazed by how quickly this effect can be seen when hearing from women who do my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge. It's not uncommon for people to see early results within just a few weeks of changing their diet, which is pretty remarkable.

While quick results are always welcome, what's even more impressive is the long-term benefits of a PCOS diet. After suffering for four years with infertility, Jamie Bietzell joined my free Challenge in November of 2017. She started applying the food principles I describe below and by January of 2018 she was getting a regular cycle for the first time in years. By April she had lost 50 pounds, by June she was pregnant, and by December she was a mom. What's more, Jamie did this all without nutritional supplements or any medications. Just herself, this diet, and a lot of determination.

Inflammation And PCOS

While I might get lucky once in a while, it's pretty safe to say that most people who find my blog aren't that interested in biochemistry. But it's still very important – especially if you want to understand how food affects PCOS.

In the hopes of finding a happy medium, here's the less boring, simplified explanation of the PCOS-inflammation connection:

Chronic low-grade inflammation is an inherent part of a PCOS diagnosis which means our immune systems are constantly on amber alert. Together with high androgen levels, insulin resistance, and poor diet, low-grade inflammation is viewed as a key component of the "deadly quartet" of metabolic risk factors associated with PCOS (Barrea et al. 2018⁵³). While inflammation is good if you happen to be injured, when it happens all the time it leads to many of the serious long-term health risks that are associated with PCOS. Things we don't want to think about normally like heart disease, liver disease and cancer etc. (Orio et al. 2006⁵⁴).

At a more everyday level, inflammation makes a major contribution to many of the daily health issues so common amongst our PCOS community. Things like bloating, sinus congestion, low energy, brain fog, sore joints, insomnia, anxiety, and depression.

Given this unfortunate starting point, it makes perfect sense that when choosing what to eat, women with PCOS need to avoid pro-inflammatory foods, and eat more of the things that are rich in natural antioxidants instead.

It's as simple as that.

As you'll see throughout the 13 steps below, managing insulin levels and avoiding inflammatory foods are the two foundational ideas behind each of these principles.

So, let's get into it!

1. Avoid Fad Diets

Almost without exception, all of the success stories from my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge come from women who have tried a lot of other diets before finally discovering that a PCOS diet is a unique beast.

While we can draw on the healthy influences of the Mediterranean Diet, Whole30, and Paleo recipes, none of these are perfectly synonymous with the type of diet that works best for PCOS.

Restriction Diets Don't Work For PCOS

The most important misconception I want you to forget is this seemingly universal belief that you need to restrict your calories if you want to lose weight.

It's simply not true for women with PCOS and avoiding restriction diets is both one of the most effective, yet radical elements of a sustainable PCOS friendly diet.

If you understand that body fat accumulates because of poor insulin regulation and NOT because of excess energy in your diet, then it should be pretty obvious that restriction dieting is a fool's errand.

Since PCOS is the cause of weight gain, reducing your calories is a bit like putting your dirty socks in the dishwasher. You're simply using the wrong tool for the job. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not keeping up with our current understanding of how PCOS works.

My biggest problem with restriction dieting though is the fact that they've been shown not to work time and time again, yet they continue to be the only way we're told we can lose weight.

The most famous study showing the ineffectiveness of restriction diets reviewed 31 long term weight loss studies and found that between one to two-thirds of dieters regained more weight after they finished their diet than what they lost while on it (Mann et al. 2007¹). Based on the hundreds of people I hear from at the start of my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge, I'd say the percentage is closer to 99%!

So, I'll say it again: The best diet for PCOS does not require caloric restriction. Traditional dieting techniques don't work over the long-term.

Why I Don't Recommend A Ketogenic Diet For Women With PCOS

While it'd be unfair to call it a "fad," the ketogenic diet seems to be a popular diet for women with PCOS that I don't think is optimal. This approach can certainly be effective, but I don't think it's the best diet for PCOS.

Ketogenic diets require that you consume very small amounts of carbohydrates – like 20 grams per day small. When you do this for several days, there's not enough glucose in your system to keep you functioning so your metabolism switches to consuming fats instead. This metabolic state mimics starvation and is known as ketosis.

Going into ketosis is a pretty amazing way to lose a lot of weight quickly, and this type of diet has been widely proven as an effective PCOS therapy (Paoli et al. 2013²). These health benefits, however, are largely a result of improvements in insulin regulation, and these same benefits can be achieved without "going keto" as I'll talk about more in Step 5.

If the keto diet is something that's piqued your curiosity before then this article on the keto diet for PCOS may be of interest. While you can find a lot of people promoting the ketogenic diet for women with PCOS, in this blog post you'll find a counter-narrative where I describe five reasons why I'm not a fan of this approach.

Why I Don't Recommend A Plant-Based Diet For Women With PCOS

I also get a lot of questions from the women who do my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge asking if a plant-based diet is best for PCOS. This is another legitimate approach that can certainly be effective, but after spending a lot of time looking into it further, I now think that vegetarianism is far less than optimal for women with PCOS.

I totally appreciate the appeal of a plant-based diet from an ethical standpoint. I used to be a vegetarian for this very reason which made it harder to accept that the best diet for PCOS includes eating animal protein.

So, it's in spite of my personal bias towards the wellbeing of animals that I reluctantly acknowledge these three important facts:

1. Eating fish, meat, and eggs is a guaranteed way to ensure you're getting adequate amounts of all nine essential amino acids. Sure, you can do this by eating a wide range of different plant-based foods every day, but you need to be exceptionally skilled at it to avoid an amino acid inadequacy while also keeping your carb intake low (see Step 5 below). Of the many vegetarians I know personally, none of them seem to succeed at this.



2. Animal sources of protein are all highly bioavailable and the same can't be said for most plant-derived alternatives. It's one thing for a food to contain an essential amino acid, it's quite another for that molecule to be readily absorbed and used in your body. Pea protein isolate may be a rare exception here.
3. There are some micronutrients you just can't get in adequate amounts from a plant-based diet. The most obvious example is vitamin B12, with even the Vegan Society recommending their members either take B12 supplements or consume B12 fortified foods instead. There are many other compelling examples of this such as the powerful antioxidant carnosine (Budzen and Rymaszewska 2013⁶), and the equally anti-inflammatory omega 3 fatty acids DHA and EPA. Studies have also implied that a creatine deficiency in vegetarians may adversely affect memory and intelligence (Benton and Donohoe 2011⁷; Rae et al. 2003⁸), and athletic performance (Burke et al. 2003⁹).

To be fair to all the women with PCOS who have achieved great results when switching to a plant-based diet, I'm not saying it can't be done. It's just that it's not optimal.

I've heard plenty of success stories from women who've switched to a plant-based diet and I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that they're swapping out pro-inflammatory processed foods for healthy whole foods and increasing their fiber intake. This is great as it's exactly what Step 2 is all about. It's just that a plant based-diet is even better when you also include fish, meat, and eggs while you're at it.

2. Swap Processed Foods For Nutrient-Dense Whole Foods

Principle 2 has to be the least surprising idea here, but there's more to this general public health recommendation when it comes to PCOS.

The problem with processed foods and PCOS is threefold. The first problem is that if you're eating processed foods, you're not eating all the good things that can help heal your PCOS. And as a general rule, processed foods contain pro-inflammatory ingredients that make your symptoms worse. The worst of these are vegetable oils, which I talk about more in Step 8, and sugar which happens to be the next step in your polycystic ovarian syndrome diet induction.

There are also a bunch of compounds in processed foods that people have good reason to be concerned about. These include suspected carcinogens like chemical food coloring, potassium bromate, butylated hydroxytoluene (E321), and its close cousin butylated hydroxyanisole (E320).

To me, processed foods are things made in factories, where engineers and food scientists collaborate to produce highly-marketable products that play on our evolutionary weak-points. The priorities in this process are cost and convenience rather than health and wellbeing which is kind of counterproductive to using food as medicine.

If it comes in a package and you don't recognize all of the ingredients then I'd call this a processed food.

Whole foods by comparison, like the ones included in this comprehensive PCOS Diet Cheat Sheet, are foods your granny and great-granny would recognize so these should be easy to identify.

Coming back to my goal of making a PCOS friendly diet a sustainable lifestyle, I just want to stress that you should use your good judgment when applying this principle. For the majority of people, it's not always going to be practical or even possible to avoid all food additives, especially in the beginning. So, don't make things too hard for yourself by setting unrealistic expectations when you first start out.

When you go hunting for PCOS friendly products, you can almost always find ones that have less nasty-sounding ingredients. There may still be some things in it you're unsure about but in most cases, small amounts of additives are not going to make a meaningful difference as you start breaking new ground with your PCOS diet.

I guess what I'm saying here, is that like all the other principles I describe in this article, common sense should always be an unwritten rule too.

3. Exclude Sugar From Your Diet

At the risk of becoming your least favorite person, the reality of polycystic ovarian syndrome is that quitting sugar is the most powerful step you can take to overcome your diagnosis.

When I first learned this, I freaked out. If there were sugar eating Olympics, I'd have taken the podium every year. If you've ever seen the Coney Island hot dog eating contest, that's how I used to plow through Reece's peanut butter cups and ice cream… Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration but the point is I get it if you think this sounds ghastly or impossible.

But there's just nothing good that can be said about sugar when it comes to PCOS. It causes your body to store rather than burn fat, promotes unwanted facial hair, PCOS acne, and male-pattern baldness, and it makes you feel like crap emotionally.

If you're trying to get pregnant, sugar consumption is really working against you as it's known to adversely affect egg quality, increase miscarriage rates, and reduce libido.

So, who wants sugar now??

Of course you still do…

It would be completely naive to presume that knowing something is bad for us is enough to stop us from eating it. After the long struggle I fought to break my own sugar addiction I'd never make this mistake and I certainly could never judge anyone for finding this step the hardest.

Research has clearly demonstrated a number of similarities between food addiction and drug use disorders (Pivarunas and Conner 2015¹⁰) with the latest reviews finding strong evidence of sugar addiction at a clinical level (Wiss et al. 2018⁴⁹). Other studies have found sugar to be more addictive than cocaine – at least in rats anyway (Ahmed et al. 2013¹¹). I guess that having study participants ingest pure sugar for the sake of science would never make it past the ethics review board…

Responding to the social, psychological, and biological challenges of quitting sugar really was a key driver for me when I developed my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge. During this immersive experience I seek to nourish and satisfy any potential cravings, ensuring participants are well supported during the first few weeks of this difficult step.

Karina, a previous Challenge participant, is proof that even the worst sugar addicts among us can be saved. When she started my free Challenge, Karina was so hooked on sugary foods that not only was she suffering from many of the typical PCOS symptoms, but it was making her feel like a monster around the house too. With the wellbeing of her family in mind she took the plunge and went sugar-free. While there's no doubt that she struggled through this process, she stuck with it and was able to lose over 60 pounds to reach her goal weight.

You can read Karina's full story here.

What's even cooler about Karina's experience, is that after "getting clean" she now no longer thinks about sweets anymore because she no longer gets cravings. What this shows us is that even if you're a raving sugar addict to start with, cravings are a short-term problem that go away over time. Another nice benefit of getting off sugar is that your taste buds become much more sensitive, which makes everything else taste sweeter.

While I could literally write about this all day (if only someone else would do the housework), the take-home point I want you to think about is this: If you really want to beat PCOS and overcome your symptoms then you're going to need to make a choice between your long term health goals and your relationship with sugar.

With that said, I'm not suggesting you think of this principle in black and white terms. In fact, I actively discourage doing so, as creating a "rule" that you can't eat sugar is the best way to trigger your inner rebel and/or set yourself up for emotionally charged "hate-eating."

Quitting sugar is the most diet-like aspect of adapting to a PCOS friendly diet so we need to apply a lot of wisdom when it comes to managing our attachment to sweet foods. Unless you're the kind of hard-headed individual that can quit something addictive and never go back, I suggest keeping a sugar-free lifestyle as a long-term objective. Give yourself many months, or even a year and either slowly wean yourself down, or at least give yourself some grace during inevitable events of sugar-relapse. So long as you keep coming back to your long-term goal, over time you'll find it gets easier and easier.

4. Be Smart About Fruit In Your PCOS Diet Plan

But what about fruit I hear you ask? A very good question…

I've always felt close to my primate roots, because besides the Lucky Charms and ice cream, I used to eat as much fruit as your average orangutan – the sweeter the better of course.

I realized after switching to a PCOS friendly diet that fruit can be a tricky food to navigate. While it contains plenty of fructose sugar – suggesting that it's best avoided, fruit can also be rich in both phytonutrients and fiber.

Here's where I landed on this one: as a general rule, fructose consumption tends to make your PCOS symptoms worse, which is why Step 3 is so important. For example, a comprehensive analysis has shown that even in people without diabetic-like health concerns, fructose promotes insulin resistance in the liver (ter Horst et al. 2016⁵⁵). While poor liver health by itself is a common concern for women with PCOS (Vassilatou 2014³⁷; Kelley et al. 2014³⁸) the inflammation caused by fructose consumption can result in a long list of health problems that includes weight gain, infertility, hirsutism, gut issues, anxiety, and depression.

But… and this is a big but…

The presence of fiber and other nutrients in fruit appears to offset the damage caused by this sugar. Even in people with type II diabetes, the fructose found in fruit doesn't appear to adversely affect liver health (Weber et al. 2018⁵⁶). The upshot of all this is that whole fruit is still healthy for women with PCOS, but it pays to be smart about how you include it in your diet if you want to optimize your health outcomes.

I recommend only having whole fresh fruit and avoiding ALL fruit juices, canned fruit, or processed fruit concentrates. Also make sure to choose fruits that lean towards a tart taste and avoid those that are super sweet.

You can find a comprehensive list of common lower sugar fruits in this Beat PCOS Diet Cheat Sheet.

While you can find published data sources for the fructose content of most fruit, the natural variation found between different species as well as how ripe the fruit is when you eat it means that the best way to tell is by using your taste buds. The sweeter the taste, the higher the sugar content. This means more currants, berries and melons, and fewer apples, grapes, and bananas.

Most importantly I suggest limiting your fruit intake to 1-2 servings per day and by "serving" I mean approximately 1 cup, or one medium-sized piece.

Just so there's no confusion here, being smart about fruit should not be a burden on your psyche.

If you're finding yourself wondering if the fruit you're eating isn't low enough in fructose, or your serving size is too large, then chances are you're over-thinking things. Provided you're sticking to whole fruit and you're not going crazy with your servings, you generally can't go wrong. Under these circumstances, fruit isn't going to be a big lever to pull when it comes to fixing your PCOS symptoms so don't let it become an unnecessary source of stress.

You've got enough of those as it is, right?

5. Eat Low Carb, & Slow Carb, From Whole Food Sources

While unlikely to take off as the next sexy diet fad anytime soon, the principles of low carb, slow carb, from whole food sources describe many of the important nuances of how best to eat carbs when you have PCOS.

In the recipes I prescribe during my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge and in my free 3-Day PCOS Meal Plan I aim to achieve around 20-30% of energy intake from carbohydrates. This is "low" compared to the ill-advised amounts recommended by the USDA, but is greater than that recommended for "very low carbohydrate" ketogenic diets.

Here's why I think "low carb" is the sweet spot for women with PCOS:

1. Keeping carbohydrate intake "low" reduces the amount of insulin our bodies need to produce. Since elevated insulin levels are a major driving force for almost ALL PCOS symptoms (even in women with lean type PCOS) this one's a bit of a no-brainer, right?
2. While there's little question that ketogenic diets can be highly effective in the short term, I've yet to meet someone that has found this highly restrictive protocol a happy, healthy, and sustainable lifestyle choice. Unless you're the kind of person that has a lot of self-control and is really into food and cooking, it's incredibly challenging to eat healthily while in a truly ketogenic state (see Step 1 for more details).
3. Having a little carbohydrate in your system all the time is the best way to stave off sugar and carb cravings. As I mentioned before, quitting sugar is one of the most powerful steps for beating PCOS, yet it's incredibly difficult because it's so darn addictive. Our bodies and brains are hard-wired to run on carbs and when we take these away, you can expect a rebellion. Eating a small amount of carbohydrates with every meal is a great strategy for making this essential step easier and more sustainable long term.

Going slow carb on the other hand means choosing carbohydrate food sources that are digested slowly over time. Often referred to as "low GI," slow carbs cause your blood glucose levels to rise in a controlled manner, which means demand for insulin, whose job it is to move the glucose out of your bloodstream and into your cells, is nice and manageable.

Now I have some major issues with the use of the glycemic index, but for the purposes of choosing carbohydrate food sources it does provide some moderately useful guidance when coupled with the third part of this principle.

Whole food carbohydrates are things you can grow and then harvest without any processing. This means starchy vegetables like sweet potato, yam, taro, and squash. Beans and lentils are another great whole food carbohydrate, while suitable grains include quinoa, buckwheat, or red, black or wild rice.

To put all this into context, as a practical guideline, I generally recommend eating either 3 oz (85 g) of grains, around 5 oz (140 g) of legumes, or approximately 3 – 8 oz (85 – 230 g) of starchy vegetables (depending on how starchy the vegetable is) with every meal.

I've found it valuable for people to weigh out their carb servings for a couple of weeks when starting to adapt to a PCOS friendly diet. Doing so helps you get a feel for appropriate quantities as often my recommended carb serving sizes may be less than what you're used to. The same thing can be said for macro-counting (if this is something you're already into).

Once you've reset your norms though, you should be fine to just eyeball your serving sizes the same as you do now.

It's not like there's an exact limit of daily carbs that determines if your PCOS is going to be terrible or completely go away. Rather it's what your average intake is like that really matters. Keeping this in mind allows you to be flexible on any given day or with any specific meal. To my way of thinking being a little flexible with your carbs allows you to eat in a way that's in tune with your natural intuition. This is a totally different mindset to your typical diet and it's absolutely essential for success over the long-term.

Bianca, a previous Challenge participant, embraced my carb-eating principles as a key part of her journey to beating PCOS. Eating low carb, and slow carb, from whole foods sources took Bianca from the brink of gastric surgery when she first joined the Challenge, to finally finding a way to control her weight naturally. While getting off metformin and losing 30 pounds was great, what I love the most about Bianca's success story is that when she was ready, she was able to conceive naturally and have a healthy happy pregnancy.

My Beat PCOS Diet Cheat Sheet, which is the accompanying download to this article, includes a comprehensive list of PCOS friendly, low GI carbohydrate foods if you want to get started on this principle right away.

6. The Best Diet For PCOS Includes Fish, Meat, & Eggs

Given what I've already said in Step 1 about plant-based diets being less than optimal, there's another important reason to eat plenty of fish, meat, and eggs.

If you're the kind of person that finds it hard not to snack, then there's a good chance you're not getting enough bioavailable protein (and fat) in your diet. This is because, our hunger and fullness hormones are cued by protein but not by sugar and carbohydrates. When we eat good sources of protein we not only support our wellbeing, but we feel full for a long time afterwards.

One of my favorite demonstrations of this fact can be seen in the second week of my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge, where I prescribe steak and eggs for one of the breakfast meals. Women who only days earlier had never been able to go without a sugary morning snack, rediscover a new satisfaction they haven't experienced in years.

This is one of the reasons why whole food sources of fish, meat and eggs are such powerful tools for supporting a good polycystic ovaries diet. Eating these hunger-satisfying foods makes it far less likely we'll want a bakery snack in-between meals.

When it comes to formulating PCOS friendly recipes, like those you'll find in my free 3-Day PCOS Meal Plan, I generally aim to include approximately 5.3 oz (150 g) of unprocessed meat, 6.3 oz (180 g) of seafood, or 2-3 eggs with every meal (weighed raw). Even breakfast where you can.

My intention is to have you achieve around 100 grams of highly bioavailable protein consumption per day which matches your body's amino acid demands.

I also generally recommend buying the most well-raised fish, meat, and eggs, you can afford. We're using food as our medicine after all so I tend to think of it more as a medical expense, rather than as a living expense to be minimized by all means. Ethical considerations aside, "happy meat" is the healthiest meat, with plenty of studies proving this point (Dhiman et al. 1999¹²; Daley et al. 2010¹³; Karsten et al. 2010¹⁴).

I'm always a little self-conscious when making this statement though as I realize that for many people food costs can be a major constraint and I don't want this to be a barrier to eating better. We can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good so to take a more balanced perspective here, you'll be far better off eating conventionally raised beef and vegetables than chowing down on a big bowl of free-range, grass-fed, organic, vegan pasta.

One of the biggest objections to eating more meat is the fear that it increases our risks of coronary disease. This is an understandable concern but not one I prescribe to.

As far as I can tell, what our currently inadequate state of science says is that increased meat consumption is sometimes, but not always, associated with poor health outcomes and shorter lifespans. Almost all of these findings come from epidemiological studies which are the weakest kind of scientific evidence. There are mechanistic arguments that can be made to support a causal relationship but these are far from compelling and are often contradicted by other studies.

What it comes down to is that association does not mean causation. Or in other words, people that eat a lot of meat may get sick and die younger than vegetarians, but there's no way of knowing if this was caused by their meat intake. It could be that meat-eaters drink and smoke more on average, they exercise less, or they eat highly-processed meats that contain all sorts of food additives in them. It could be these related factors that cause the relationship seen in epidemiological studies.

We just can't tell.

Eating a junk-food meat diet is a completely different beast to the wholefood recommendations I make for women with PCOS so I don't think it's scientifically credible to say that eating unprocessed meat isn't healthy.

The reality is that we don't have sufficient randomized controlled trials that accurately examine the risks and benefits of animal protein consumption in all its manifestations. Given all the confounding variables, and massive costs, there just hasn't been enough research conducted to provide the nuanced explanation for the observations that have been made to date.

If you want to hear one of the best discussions on the evidence both for and against an omnivorous diet then I highly recommend episode #1175 of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. In this nearly 4-hour long monster session, Chris Kresser and Dr. Joel Kahn discuss and debate the merits of meat-eating vs. veganism in a constructive collegial forum.

My biases are obviously with the omnivorous argument but I respectfully encourage everyone to decide for themselves.

7. Include Plenty Of Healthy Fats

Okay, so here's another point where I may be getting myself into trouble…

Thanks to the nonsense propaganda we've been bombarded with for the past half-century, eating more fat is by far the hardest thing for many women to get their heads around when switching to a PCOS friendly diet.

Through the far-reaching interests of the food and agriculture lobby, we've all been exposed to the government's view that a healthy diet is a low-fat diet. Despite government health guidelines appealing to "science" in support of their agenda, the real scientific community has been saying for decades that this is clearly not true.

In 2004, Dr Sylvan Lee Weinberg, MD, published a critique of the diet-heart hypothesis in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and summed things up nicely. She concluded that, "the low-fat-high-carbohydrate diet…may well have played an unintended role in the current epidemics of obesity, lipid abnormalities, type II diabetes, and metabolic syndromes." And that, "This diet can no longer be defended by appeal to the authority of prestigious medical organizations or by rejecting clinical experience and a growing medical literature…"

This sentiment is widely shared by many of her equally well-informed contemporaries with nutrition researchers like Adele Hite from the University of North Carolina publishing thorough criticisms of the recommendations made by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans Report (Hite et al. 2010¹⁵; Hite 2017¹⁶).

Breaking free from the ingrained idea that fat makes us fat is a major milestone towards real results for women wanting to switch to a PCOS diet. For people who've been told all their lives that fatty meat and butter are "bad for them" this can prove a cognitive challenge. I still see it daily within my own extended family!

But once we punch through the fear and doubt that's been brainwashed into us, we can use these foods as a skillful means to achieve our health goals.

When I learned that wholefood sources of fat were good for me, I have to admit, I went a wee bit crazy on the butter and pork belly. I started eating enough saturated fat to give a cardiac surgeon a heart attack but I also monitored my metabolic health markers like fasting glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides.

To my great surprise, all of them improved a lot!

Eating more fat is the other side of the low carbohydrate coin. Diet intervention studies reliably show that a decrease of dietary carbohydrates along with an increase in fat consumption promotes weight loss, testosterone reduction and improved insulin sensitivity in women with PCOS (Goss et. al 2014¹⁷; Gower et. al 2013¹⁹). This is useful beyond just weight loss and the management of insulin resistance though, as these are the kinds of metabolic changes that can help restore ovulation, and reduce the effects of PCOS acne and hirsutism.

And while in Step 6 I talk about the benefits of protein to help satiate hunger, our fullness hormones are also perfectly designed to be triggered by fats. This is exactly why foods like coconuts, olives and avocado are so incredibly filling, making them great for staving off sugar cravings.

Previous participants from my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge have seen these exact same results. Katrina for example, had gained 50 pounds since the birth of her daughter, was suffering from secondary infertility, and was upset by the fact that she could grow a full beard. Within months of making these dietary changes, which included eating a lot more fat, she'd lost 19 pounds of body fat and her unwanted hair was gone. But best of all, Katrina was able to fall pregnant naturally and had a "wonderful, energetic pregnancy" unlike her first where she suffered from gestational diabetes.

For anyone looking for an inspirational example, then Katrina's full story is well worth a read.

So, the best diet for PCOS should include lots of fat. You don't need to worry about eating too much because your fullness hormones will stop you. I even feel comfortable recommending you get 60% of your total caloric intake from fats. This is kind of the natural point you'll get to anyway if you follow my recommendations for carbs and protein and don't restrict your calories. You need more fat to make up for the reduction in carbs.

My definition of "healthy fats" is any fats that are sourced from whole foods with minimal prior processing (for a full list of healthy fats make sure to download this PCOS Diet Cheat Sheet). This includes saturated fats which despite what everyone else believes, are actually really good for you. While I know this might sound completely loopy if this is the first time you've heard it, belief in the idea that dietary cholesterol has an adverse effect on your health puts you at odds with the growing body of evidence suggesting this outdated theory has run its course. Even as far back as 1991, one of the original proponents of the diet-heart hypothesis, described the effect of dietary cholesterol on blood cholesterol levels as "minimal" (Keys 1991⁵⁷).

For more information on this topic you can read my 6 reasons to add saturated fat to your PCOS diet here.

All the meal plans in both my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge and my free 3-Day PCOS Meal Plan follow this high-fat diet principle.

I especially like to use a lot of coconut oil in my recipes as this healthy fat has been shown to help with fat loss – particularly from around the stomach and thighs (Mumme and Stonehouse 2015²⁴). And I also include plenty of beef and butter since these fats are the richest source of conjugated linoleic acids (CLA).

If you haven't heard of CLA before, this family of fats is known to:

• Be good for your arteries (Mooney and McCarthy 2012²⁵).
• Help with glucose tolerance and insulin action (Ryder et al. 2001²⁶; Castro-Webb et al. 2012²⁷).
• Help reduce body fat (Blankson et al. 2000²⁸; Kennedy et al. 2010²⁹).

This is saying nothing for how much better everything tastes with a good serving of butter on top!

Of course, all the usual, more widely-accepted "healthy fats" apply too. Things like nuts, seeds, and avocado feature heavily in all my recipes with oily fish making a regular cameo also.

So, if you want to beat PCOS then eat more fat. You'll be amazed at how much difference this step will make.

You won't "get fat" provided you're following the other 12 steps. And if you have some surplus body fat, then this is one of the easiest ways to lose it.

8. Replace Vegetable Oils With Healthy Fats

If you got the bit about inflammation being a problem for PCOS, then Step 8 is another no brainer. Vegetable oils are straight out pro-inflammatory so eliminating these from your PCOS diet is a fairly easy win.

Despite the name, vegetable oils are not really from vegetables at all, but rather are processed seed oils coming from soybeans, sunflower, corn, canola, cottonseed, and safflower etc. The reason these oils are inflammatory is because they have high ratios of omega-6 fatty acids.

They can also contain industrial trans fats as a result of how they're made, with an older study finding as much as 4.2% trans fats in consumer soybean and canola oils (O'Keefe et al. 1994³⁰).

Industrial trans fats are really bad for us. They're highly toxic and are linked to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. Trans fats are another great reason to avoid highly processed foods because the FDA only requires these to be included on the nutritional facts label if there is more than 0.5 grams per serving.

This is a changing regulatory environment however, and it seems that trans fats that get intentionally added to food products will be completely phased out by 2021. In the meantime, I recommend avoiding any food products that include "hydrogenated," or "partially hydrogenated" vegetable oils in the ingredients list as these are trans fats, just by another name.

During my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge and in my free 3-Day PCOS Meal Plan I have women switch out vegetable oils for more PCOS friendly alternatives. I recommend using coconut oil, lard, or ghee for high-temperature cooking (deep frying/baking); and using butter, olive oil, avocado oil, or macadamia nut oil for low-temperature cooking (stir-frying), or to have cold in a dressing.

9. Eat Foods That Cultivate Your Gut Microbiome

Understanding the influence of the gut microbiome on our health and wellbeing is by far one of the most exciting fields in medical research at the moment.

In just the last decade, studies have shown that the microbiome affects how much we eat (Fetissov et al. 2008³¹), our metabolism (Backhed 2011³²; Ramakrishna 2013³³), and even the way in which we absorb nutrients (Jumpertz et al. 2011³⁴). Beyond just an associative relationship, a causal link has now been established between the bacteria in our guts and insulin resistance and obesity (Saad et al. 2016³⁵; Rabot et al. 2010⁴⁰).

One of the main ways in which sugar is "bad" for us is that the fructose component of sugar changes our microbiome for the worse. This has been shown to negatively affect liver health (Vos 2015⁴²; Neuschwander-Tetri 2013⁴³), while studies on mice suggest alterations of the microbiome may also reduce cognitive capacity (Magnusson et al. 2015⁴¹)

Making positive changes to our gut flora is one of the biggest reasons why a PCOS diet works so well.

Some of the most valuable research that's been done in this space shows that women with PCOS have a lower diversity of healthy gut bacteria and that these differences matter (Torres et al. 2018⁴⁴; Liu et al. 2017⁴⁵). Rodent studies have even suggested that dysbiosis of the gut microbiome may play a causal role in PCOS and that improvements to the microbiome may be a potential treatment option (Torres et al. 2019⁵⁰). While this might sound exceptionally complicated, we also now know that if we want to make positive changes to the makeup of our microbiome, we need only change the foods we eat (Prince et al. 2016⁴⁶).

While quitting sugar can reduce the kinds of microbes that work against your health goals, eating both probiotic and prebiotic foods help support the good guys.

Probiotic foods contain live strains of healthy gut bacteria, while prebiotic foods contain a specific kind of soluble fiber that enables these microorganisms to thrive. It's like probiotics are the seed, while prebiotics are the water and sunshine.

During my Beat PCOS 10 Week Program I invite participants to try probiotic foods as one of their weekly challenges. I normally suggest starting with either coconut yogurt, pickles, kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, or tempeh. These are all fantastic snacks that slide easily into a PCOS friendly diet, which is why I include them in my PCOS Diet Cheat Sheet.

Prebiotics on the other hand are something that come fairly automatically when following the best diet for PCOS. I say this because the best sources of these compounds are found in certain fruits and vegetables as I discuss in more detail below.

10. Eat Plenty Of Non-Starchy Vegetables With Every Meal

Before I started the health transformation that eventually led to me falling pregnant naturally despite years of failed fertility treatments, vegetables were something I knew were good for me, but rarely featured as a high priority at mealtimes.

I'm sure most people reading this will be far more sensible about food than I used to be, but for the few who like me need reminding, non-starchy vegetables are an essential part of any good PCOS diet plan. While carbs, protein, and fats are the major components of any PCOS friendly meal, eating a wide range of non-starchy vegetables is also essential for good health.

Without wanting to bore you with an unnecessary rant about why vegetables are good for you, let me explain the three biggest reasons that motivated me to improve my delinquent vegetable habits.

The first reason is phytonutrients. Phytonutrients are micronutrients that can only be found in plants and science is just beginning to understand some of their amazing health-promoting properties.

Let me use turmeric as an example. Many people are aware that turmeric is anti-inflammatory, but this is because it's a rich source of the carotenoid phytonutrient curcumin. This leads many people to take turmeric supplements. But as I explain in my Beat PCOS Supplements Guide, the low bioavailability of curcumin means that most (but not all) commercially available turmeric supplements pass straight through you. Now if you get your curcumin from eating plenty of fresh ginger, or enjoying regular curry dishes on the other hand, you're consuming this phytonutrient (as well as many others) as nature intended and a lot more of it is absorbed by your gut.

Tens of thousands of phytonutrients have been discovered so far, and if you wanted to get scientific about it you could find some of these in almost every vegetable you look at. Carrots, tomato, bell peppers, spinach, kale, and broccoli. Seriously. Pick a vegetable and it's likely to be rich in some special nutrient.

But if you're like me and you just want to get on with your life knowing you're doing yourself some good, the take-home point is that more vegetables mean more phytonutrients, and more phytonutrients means better health all around.

The second big discovery which really changed my attitude towards vegetables was the knowledge that this is where many prebiotic foods come from (see Step 9 above). Prebiotic foods are high in certain kinds of fiber or resistant starch which provide the energy and carbon source needed for our microbiome to flourish. A diet low in these substances has been shown to reduce bacterial abundance (Halmos et al. 2015⁴⁷), while a high intake of these non-digestible carbohydrates can improve their composition (Cotillard et al. 2013⁴⁸).

While this is far from an exhaustive list, some of the vegetables that are known to be high in prebiotics include Jerusalem artichokes, garlic, onion, leek, shallots, spring onion, asparagus, beetroot, fennel bulb, green peas, snow peas, sweet corn, and savoy cabbage (Monash University 2016³⁶).

The third good reason I decided to get my rabbit on, was the knowledge of how fiber affects our gut health. While we can't digest fiber, it plays an important role in aiding the passage of food through our intestines.

One of the risks of eating a low carb diet that includes plenty of fish, meat, and eggs is that you can become constipated from inadequate fiber intake. The answer of course, is to make sure you're eating lots of high fiber vegetables like garlic, artichokes, Brussels sprouts, spinach, carrots, broccoli, beetroot, and cabbage.

When it comes to the question of how many vegetables is enough, all the recipes included in my free 3-Day PCOS Meal Plan and free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge seek to include two cups of non-starchy vegetables with every meal, with a particular focus on leafy greens.

This can be a lot more than what people are used to, but trust me when I say your body will thank you for it.

11. Cut Out Gluten And Dairy From Your PCOS Diet

Found in just about anything made from wheat, gluten is a protein that for some reason is particularly problematic for women with PCOS. Whether you're aware of the effects or not, foods containing gluten can wreak havoc on your digestive system and are a primary cause of inflammation.

In terms of the priorities of my PCOS diet principles, I think eliminating as many sources of gluten in your diet as possible should be right near the top of the list. Besides quitting sugar, going gluten-free is one of the fastest and most effective means to reduce the impacts of PCOS on your wellbeing.

I get that this can be a difficult step for people from a practical perspective and I still encourage people to give themselves some grace when adapting to a gluten-free diet. But as far as the health and nutrition benefits go, it's likely well worth your while to make a concerted effort with this principle.

As I explain in this article about how gut health and inflammation affect PCOS it's super common for women with PCOS to be intolerant to gluten without actually knowing it. The common term for this kind of intolerance is non-celiac gluten sensitivity which is a condition that can't be diagnosed by the normal celiac blood tests or even an intestinal biopsy.

Rather than messing around with costly and potentially inaccurate immunoglobulin blood tests, the best way to find out how gluten affects your health is to do your own experiment. It's really easy and it costs you nothing.

Here's how you do it:

1. Avoid gluten for several months and see how you feel. You can download a copy of this Foods to Avoid Checklist to see many of the most common gluten-containing foods. Assuming gluten is a problem for you, you'll need to clean it out of your diet entirely to let your gut heal properly. If you begin to feel better during this time like the majority of women who take this trial seriously do, then that should be your first clue.
2. You can then spend a day gorging yourself on all your favorite wheat-laden foods and then see how you feel. If you feel like rubbish, then that's your second big clue!
3. Lastly, you want to pay attention over the coming month to see if you have a regression in your symptoms. Assuming your health and cycle improve on a gluten-free diet, if things start to go backward when you start re-introducing again then you'll know for sure that gluten's not for you.

I'm all about self-experimentation like this because there's nothing more motivating or compelling than seeing real results. The reality is that the majority of women with PCOS do better without gluten, but sometimes we need to see this for ourselves before making the long-term commitment.

For me personally, while I had an amazing improvement in my PCOS symptoms when I significantly reduced my gluten intake, but it wasn't until I went 100% gluten free that my periods starting consistently sticking to a 32-day cycle.

It can be a little overwhelming trying to go 100% gluten-free at first, so don't put too much pressure on yourself if it's only early days for you. I still see a lot of women get great results just by reducing their gluten intake as much as is reasonably practical. Like most of these women, my guess is that once you start feeling more energized than you have done in years or you manage to achieve a healthy cycle like I did, it's easier to decide for yourself to go all-in on this principle.

Nellsy Martinez is a perfect example of what can be achieved when going gluten-free as part of a PCOS friendly diet. While taking part in my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge, Nellsy eliminated both gluten and dairy from her diet as well as following the rest of the principles laid out in this article. Not only did she start feeling great, but she lost weight and started getting her periods again for the first time in years. After about 8 months, Nellsy managed to fall pregnant naturally with her beautiful baby, Vivianna.

She gave me permission to include this touching message she posted in my PCOS Support Facebook Group soon after her daughter was born.

The key to success is finding alternatives to bread, pasta, breakfast cereals, and other gluten-containing food products, which is not as hard as it sounds with the right information and support.

If you're following Steps 2, 3, and 5 from above, you're most of the way there already.

In my 3-Day PCOS Meal Plan for example, I swap out pasta for zucchini noodles (zoodles), I use lettuce leaves instead of burger buns, and I suggest a flaxseed and almond meal porridge that's 100 times more PCOS friendly than any gluten-filled breakfast cereal you'll find in most "health food' aisles.

While possibly not quite as prevalent as gluten sensitivity, it's also really common for women with PCOS to suffer from a subclinical dairy intolerance. While lactose is often the culprit, many people don't realize that both the casein and whey proteins in dairy can also cause inflammation.

If you have oily skin, or problems with acne, then that's a big indicator that dairy is a problem for you. Of course, sinus congestion and acid reflux are other tell-tails signs and it's worth keeping in mind that if you're sensitive to gluten then chances are, you're also unlikely to be tolerating dairy well – even if it's not quite so obvious.

An important nuance to this PCOS diet principle is that butter and ghee are generally well tolerated (you'll see both of these dairy-derived foods in the PCOS Cheat Sheet that accompanies this article). Ghee is essentially perfectly purified milk fat so it doesn't contain any lactose, whey, or casein, while butter contains less than 2% of these compounds in total. This amount is hardly worth worrying about given how healthy milk fat is (see Step 7 if this sounds like crazy-talk).

Again, I recommend a little self-experimentation here to discover your personal sensitivity to dairy as finding this out for yourself is always the best way to make an informed decision about your food choices. It sure beats the heck out of following a diet rule that someone else created for you.

Many women use my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge as a starting point for this process as all the recipes I provide are completely gluten and dairy-free (apart from butter of course).

12. Know Your Personal Food Intolerances

Since women with PCOS are so sensitive to inflammation, it's also worth going the extra mile to discover and then eliminate any other foods that trigger your immune system.

If after eliminating vegetable oils, gluten, and dairy you still have residual gut issues, it's worth considering extending your investigation to other potential subclinical food sensitivities. Common culprits include eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish.

If you're especially unlucky and have a lot of persistent gut problems, there's an outside chance that you may also have sensitivities to the group of foods known as FODMAPS (fermentable ogliosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols). If you find you get stomach discomfort after eating a lot of garlic, onions, peas, beans, asparagus, or Brussels sprouts, then that's an indication that you have an issue with FODMAPS.

FODMAPS are small carbohydrates found in many common foods including some fruit and vegetables that are otherwise perfectly healthy. FODMAP sensitivity is synonymous with a condition rightly named irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and you'll definitely want to see a functional medicine practitioner or naturopathic doctor to help you navigate your way through this challenging health issue. My brother has IBS, so I've seen firsthand what it takes to get on top of this.

While the cheapest and easiest way to investigate your personal food intolerances is to do a medically supervised elimination diet, there're a few lab tests out there that can make the process a lot less painful.

13. Reconsider Caffeine And Alcohol

Without wanting to sound like the Food Grinch, it's fair to say that caffeine and alcohol don't mix well with a PCOS diagnosis.

I think caffeine is best avoided because it increases your stress hormones which in turn increases your insulin levels. Regular consumption can also decrease your insulin sensitivity making it more difficult to regulate your blood sugar levels across the day. Caffeine can disrupt sleep and promote anxiety while the acidity of coffee in particular can cause digestive discomfort, indigestion, heartburn and imbalances in our gut microbiome.

Alcohol on the other hand has been shown to be a particularly problematic substance for women with PCOS. We have higher rates of liver disease because of this disorder (Vassilatou 2014³⁷; Kelley et al. 2014³⁸) and even small amounts of alcohol consumption increase these risks (Noreen et al. 2011³⁹).

Moving away from caffeine and alcohol also makes it easier to avoid sugar and empty carbohydrates, which are often found in these drinks.

I'm not saying never, but these two particular beverage ingredients are well worth reconsidering. Perhaps they don't need to be at the top of the to-do list especially when you're first starting out, but for anyone that wants to go all-in on a PCOS friendly diet, chances are you'll do better without them.

To make the move away from alcohol and caffeine easier, it's important to find suitable alternatives that meet your needs and I share several of my personal favorites in my PCOS Diet Cheat Sheet. Ground roasted cocoa in particular can totally transform your belief that you must have coffee in the mornings.

Most Importantly Be Kind To Yourself

If you've gotten this far, then you're obviously serious about beating PCOS and I take my hat off to you. There's a lot to digest with these 13 steps, and I know I've risked overwhelming you despite my intention not to.

This is exactly why I created my free 30-Day PCOS Diet Challenge and if you're ready to begin, this is a great place to start. The goal of this free program is to make it both fun and easy for people like you to put these 13 food principles into practice. As well as the weekly meal plans, recipes, and shopping lists I've already mentioned, the 30-Day Challenge includes video lessons, and daily mindset exercises, all within a vibrant and supportive community environment.

I run the Challenge four times a year as a live event, but if you're feeling especially inspired and want to get started right now then I recommend downloading my 3-Day PCOS Diet Meal Plan also. This 15-page free ebook includes a collection of some of my most popular PCOS recipes with an accompanying shopping list and further information about how to use food to beat PCOS.

I also have another blog article where I describe the 6 best foods for PCOS. Between this article and the one you've just read, you'll know more than most professionals about a PCOS friendly diet.

Here's the most important thing to keep in mind though when starting your journey towards a PCOS friendly diet:

Be realistic with your expectations.

While it drives me crazy whenever my mom says it to me, there's a lot of truth in the cliché that Rome wasn't built in a day.

Beating PCOS is not a race, and if it were, it'd only be with yourself.

To be entirely honest with you, it took me years to fully incorporate these 13 principles into my everyday life so I'm certainly not going to tell you this process is easy. Having the right information and support can definitely make it "easier," but even the best dietary changes can feel like a drag at times.

It's totally fine if it ever feels unfair. Because it freakin' is!

Given my previously terrible relationship with food, I can assure you there was ample cognitive dissonance as I went about implementing a PCOS friendly diet. It's only because I know how hopeless I used to be, and all the short cuts I tried to take, that I'm 100% confident that anyone can get there eventually.

So, take your time, and be good to yourself.

Be honest about your weaknesses, leaving your negative self-judgment at the door. Focus on your health goals, and set yourself up for success.

Learn and experiment until you find what works for you, and when you slip-up, shake it off, and keep on going. Channel your inner TayTay if that's what it takes.

You can do it!

xo Kym

Author

Kym Campbell

Kym Campbell is a Health Coach and PCOS expert with a strong passion for using evidence-based lifestyle interventions to manage this disorder. Kym combines rigorous scientific analysis with the advice from leading clinicians to disseminate the most helpful PCOS patient-centric information you can find online. You can read more about Kym and her team here.

Co-Authors

Dr. Jessica A McCoy, Ph.D

This blog post has been critically reviewed to ensure accurate interpretation and presentation of the scientific literature by Dr. Jessica A McCoy, Ph.D. Dr McCoy has a master's degree in cellular and molecular biology, and a doctorate in reproductive biology and environmental health. She currently serves as a University professor at the College of Charleston, South Carolina.

LinkedIn | Google Scholar | Researchgate

Dr. Sarah Lee, M.D

This blog post has also been medically reviewed and approved by Dr. Sarah Lee, M.D. Dr. Lee is a board-certified Physician practicing with Intermountain Healthcare in Utah. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin before earning her Doctor of Medicine from UT Health San Antonio.

LinkedIn

Back to Top

References

¹Mann T, Tomiyama A. J, Westling E, Lew A.M, Samuels B, and Chatman J. Medicare's search for effective obesity treatments: diets are not the answer. American Psychologist, 2007.

²Paoli, A.; Rubini, A.; Volek, J. S.; et al. Beyond weight loss: a review of the therapeutic uses of very-low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diets. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NUTRITION, 2013.

³Czyzewska-Majchrzak L, Grzelak T, Kramkowska M, Czyzewska K, Witmanowski H. The use of low-carbohydrate diet in type 2 diabetes – benefits and risks. ANNALS OF AGRICULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE, 2014.

⁴Kulak D, Plotosky A.J. Should the ketogenic diet be considered for enhancing fertility? MATURITAS, 2013.

⁵Kose, Engin; Guzel, Orkide; Demir, Korcan; et al. Changes of thyroid hormonal status in patients receiving ketogenic diet due to intractable epilepsy. JOURNAL OF PEDIATRIC ENDOCRINOLOGY & METABOLISM, 2017.

⁶Budzen, Sandra; Rymaszewska, Joanna. The Biological Role of Carnosine and Its Possible Applications in Medicine. ADVANCES IN CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE, 2013.

⁷Benton, David; Donohoe, Rachel. The influence of creatine supplementation on the cognitive functioning of vegetarians and omnivores. BRITISH JOURNAL OF NUTRITION, 2011.

⁸Rae, C; Digney, AL; McEwan, SR; et al. Oral creatine monohydrate supplementation improves brain performance: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial. PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, 2003.

⁹Burke, DG; Chilibeck, PD; Parise, G; et al. Effect of creatine and weight training on muscle creatine and performance in vegetarians. MEDICINE AND SCIENCE IN SPORTS AND EXERCISE, 2003.

¹⁰Pivarunas, Bernadette; Conner, Bradley T. Impulsivity and emotion dysregulation as predictors of food addiction. EATING BEHAVIORS, 2015.

¹¹Ahmed, Serge H.; Guillem, Karine; Vandaele, Youna. Sugar addiction: pushing the drug-sugar analogy to the limit. CURRENT OPINION IN CLINICAL NUTRITION AND METABOLIC CARE, 2013.

¹²Dhiman, TR; Anand, GR; Satter, LD; et al. Conjugated linoleic acid content of milk from cows fed different diets. JOURNAL OF DAIRY SCIENCE, 1999.

¹³Daley, Cynthia A.; Abbott, Amber; Doyle, Patrick S.; et al. A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef. NUTRITION JOURNAL, 2010.

¹⁴Karsten, H. D.; Patterson, P. H.; Stout, R.; et al. Vitamins A, E and fatty acid composition of the eggs of caged hens and pastured hens. RENEWABLE AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SYSTEMS, 2010.

¹⁵Hite, Adele H.; Feinman, Richard David; Guzman, Gabriel E.; et al In the face of contradictory evidence: Report of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans Committee.. NUTRITION, 2010.

¹⁶Hite, Adele H. The 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans: Irrelevant or Alarming? or Both? JOURNAL OF EVOLUTION AND HEALTH, 2017.

¹⁷Goss, Amy M.; Chandler-Laney, Paula C.; Ovalle, Fernando; et al. Effects of a eucaloric reduced-carbohydrate diet on body composition and fat distribution in women with PCOS. METABOLISM-CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL, 2014.

¹⁹Gower, Barbara A.; Chandler-Laney, Paula C.; Ovalle, Fernando; et al. Favourable metabolic effects of a eucaloric lower-carbohydrate diet in women with PCOS. CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY, 2013.

²⁴Effects of Medium-Chain Triglycerides on Weight Loss and Body Composition: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Mumme, Karen; Stonehouse, Welma. JOURNAL OF THE ACADEMY OF NUTRITION AND DIETETICS, 2015.

²⁵Effects of conjugated linoleic acid isomers on monocyte, macrophage and foam cell phenotype in atherosclerosis
By: Mooney, Declan; McCarthy, Cathal; Belton, Orina. PROSTAGLANDINS & OTHER LIPID MEDIATORS, 2012.

²⁶Isomer-specific antidiabetic properties of conjugated linoleic acid – Improved glucose tolerance, skeletal muscle insulin action, and UCP-2 gene expression. Ryder, JW; Portocarrero, CP; Song, XM; et al. DIABETES, 2001.

²⁷Cross-sectional study of conjugated linoleic acid in adipose tissue and risk of diabetes. Castro-Webb, Nelsy; Ruiz-Narvaez, Edward A.; Campos, Hannia. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NUTRITION, 2012.

²⁸Conjugated linoleic acid reduces body fat mass in overweight and obese humans. Blankson, H; Stakkestad, JA; Fagertun, H; et al. JOURNAL OF NUTRITION, 2000.

²⁹Antiobesity mechanisms of action of conjugated linoleic acid. Kennedy, Arion; Martinez, Kristina; Schmidt, Soren; et al. JOURNAL OF NUTRITIONAL BIOCHEMISTRY, 2010.

³⁰O'Keefe S, Gaskins-Wright S, Wiley V, and Chen I-Chen. Levels of Trans geometrical isomers of essential fatty acids in some unhydrogenated U.S vegetable oils. JOURNAL OF FOOD LIPIDS, 1994.

³¹Fetissov, Serguei O.; Sinno, Maria Hamze; Coeeffier, Moise; et al. Autoantibodies against appetite-regulating peptide hormones and neuropeptides: Putative modulation by gut microflora. NUTRITION, 2008.

³²Backhed, Fredrik. Programming of Host Metabolism by the Gut Microbiota. ANNALS OF NUTRITION AND METABOLISM, 2011.

³³Role of the gut microbiota in human nutrition and metabolism. Ramakrishna, Balakrishnan S. JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY AND HEPATOLOGY, 2013.

³⁴Jumpertz, Reiner; Duc Son Le; Turnbaugh, Peter J.; et al. Energy-balance studies reveal associations between gut microbes, caloric load, and nutrient absorption in humans. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NUTRITION, 2011.

³⁵Saad, M. J. A.; Santos, A.; Prada, P. O. Linking Gut Microbiota and Inflammation to Obesity and Insulin Resistance. PHYSIOLOGY, 2016.

³⁶http://www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/gastro/prebiotic/faq/

³⁷Vassilatou, Evangeline. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and polycystic ovary syndrome. WORLD JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY, 2014.

³⁸Kelley, Carly E.; Brown, Ann J.; Diehl, Anna Mae; et al. Review of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. WORLD JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY, 2014.

³⁹Hossain, Noreen; Stepanova, Maria; Afendy, Arian; et al. Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in patients with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY, 2011.

⁴⁰Rabot, Sylvie; Membrez, Mathieu; Bruneau, Aurelia; et al. Germ-free C57BL/6J mice are resistant to high-fat-diet-induced insulin resistance and have altered cholesterol metabolism. FASEB JOURNAL, 2010.

⁴¹Magnusson, K. R.; Hauck, L.; Jeffrey, B. M.; et al. Relationships between diet-related changes in the gut microbiome and cognitive flexibility. NEUROSCIENCE, 2015.

⁴²Vos, Miriam B. Nutrition, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and the microbiome: recent progress in the field. CURRENT OPINION IN LIPIDOLOGY, 2014.

⁴³Neuschwander-Tetri, Brent A. Carbohydrate intake and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. CURRENT OPINION IN CLINICAL NUTRITION AND METABOLIC CARE, 2013.

⁴⁴Torres, Pedro J.; Siakowska, Martyna; Banaszewska, Beata; et al. Gut Microbial Diversity in Women With Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Correlates With Hyperandrogenism. JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY & METABOLISM, 2018.

⁴⁵Liu, Rui; Zhang, Chenhong; Shi, Yu; et al. Dysbiosis of Gut Microbiota Associated with Clinical Parameters in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY, 2017.

⁴⁶Prince, Amanda; Ma, Jun; Megli, Christina; et al. The intestinal microbiome is regulated by diet in a novel primate model of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). AMERICAN JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY, 2016.

⁴⁷Halmos, Emma P.; Christophersen, Claus T.; Bird, Anthony R.; et al. Diets that differ in their FODMAP content alter the colonic luminal microenvironment. GUT, 2015.

⁴⁸Cotillard, Aurelie; Kennedy, Sean P.; Kong, Ling Chun; et al. Dietary intervention impact on gut microbial gene richness. NATURE, 2013.

⁴⁹Wiss, David A.; Avena, Nicole; Rada, Pedro. Sugar Addiction: From Evolution to Revolution, FRONTIERS IN PSYCHIATRY, 2018.

⁵⁰Torres PJ, Ho BS, Arroyo P, Sau L, Chen A, Kelley ST, Thackray VG. Exposure to a Healthy Gut Microbiome Protects Against Reproductive and Metabolic Dysregulation in a PCOS Mouse Model. ENDOCRINOLOGY, 2019.

⁵¹Sharp, PS; Kiddy, DS; Reed, MJ et al. Correlation of Plasma-Insulin and Insulin-Like Growth Factor-I with Indexes of Androgen Transport and Metabolism in Women with Polycystic-Ovary-Syndrome. CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY, 1991.

⁵²Georgopoulos, Neoklis A.; Papadakis, Efstathios; Armeni, Anastasia K.; et al. Elevated serum androstenedione is associated with a more severe phenotype in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). HORMONES-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENDOCRINOLOGY AND METABOLISM, 2014.

⁵³Barrea, Luigi; Marzullo, Paolo; Muscogiuri, Giovanna; et al. Source and amount of carbohydrate in the diet and inflammation in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. NUTRITION RESEARCH REVIEWS, 2018.

⁵⁴Orio, Francesco; Palomba, Stefano; Colao, Annamaria. Cardiovascular risk in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. FERTILITY AND STERILITY, 2006.

⁵⁵ter Horst, Kasper W.; Schene, Merle R.; Holman, Rebecca; et al. Effect of fructose consumption on insulin sensitivity in nondiabetic subjects: a systematic review and meta-analysis of diet-intervention trials. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NUTRITION, 2016.

⁵⁶Weber, Katharina S.; Simon, Marie-Christine; Strassburger, Klaus; et al. Habitual Fructose Intake Relates to Insulin Sensitivity and Fatty Liver Index in Recent-Onset Type 2 Diabetes Patients and Individuals without Diabetes, NUTRIENTS, 2018.

⁵⁷Keys, A. Normal Plasma-Cholesterol in a Man Who Eats 25 Eggs as Day, NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE, 1991.

⁵⁸Lee, Iris; Cooney, Laura G.; Saini, Shailly; et al. Increased risk of disordered eating in polycystic ovary syndrome. FERTILITY AND STERILITY, 2017.

⁵⁹Paganini, Chiara; Peterson, Gregory; Stavropoulos, Vasilis; et al. The Overlap between Binge Eating Behaviors and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome: An Etiological Integrative Model. CURRENT PHARMACEUTICAL DESIGN, 2018.

Pcos and Raw Food Diet

Source: https://smartfertilitychoices.com/pcos-diet/

Share this post