PCOD is also known as Polycystic Ovary Disorder, is a type of hormonal disorder. PCOD Diet could be proved helpful for sturdy treatment in many cases. A lot of girls and women face this condition. It is mostly seen in women who are of childbearing age. PCOD Diet can help women of all ages to do better.
PCOD doesn’t have any visible symptoms, so it remains in disguised form for many years. Though there are no life-threatening consequences associated with this condition, it impacts the reproductive system and the metabolic health of a woman considerably.
In addition to medication and regular exercise, the PCOD diet is one of the key ways to manage this problem. In this guide, we will tell you how to design a PCOD diet to treat this condition.
Importance of PCOD Diet
PCOD is a condition that severely impacts the reproductive system of a woman. It reduces the chances of getting conceived. Furthermore, it impacts the functioning of various vital organs in the body. This happens due to excess levels of the male hormone “testosterone” in the body.
The reason behind it is the high secretion of insulin hormone that causes ovaries to secrete more amount of androgen hormone as “testosterone” in the body. Due to this reason, reproductive functionality gets impaired. Due to high levels of testosterone hormone in the body, a woman will start to notice various symptoms such as irregularities in menstruation, rapid weight gain, increased growth of hair on the body, acne, and a few more. (1)
How to manage PCOD?
For the proper treatment of any curable ailment, it is very important that you detect the problem at the early stages and get timely treatment. Being aware of the changes happening to your body is the first step towards the treatment of PCOD. Identify the symptoms and consult the doctor about it.
It could be that you notice unwanted growth in facial hair, irregularity in menstruation, etc. It could be due to an imbalance in hormones in your body. We will be talking here about how you can manage your PCOD condition by diet. (4)
PCOD Sturdy Treatment – PCOD Diet
One of the main reasons for PCOD is obesity. This makes it very important to keep a check on the diet to control PCOD. Women who suffer from PCOD are mostly advised to take the hormonal tablets that impact their health. It also leads to a gain in body weight. Both these reasons contribute to weight gain, and that requires you to manage this problem effectively.
7 Days PCOD Diet Chart
Here is a sample PCOD Diet Chart for seven day healthy diet to get rid of PDOD Pain. This PCOD diet is selected carefully for Indian weather and staple diet. Following this 7 Days PCOD Diet chart will surely get you treated from any type of PCOD/ PCOS.
7 Day PCOS/ PCOD Diet Plan for Indians
| MEAL | BREAKFAST | LUNCH | DINNER |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 - Monday | Muesli With Berries | Eggs Omelet | Whole Grain bread or Chapati with Mushroom Curry |
| Day 2 - Tuesday | Eggs Omelet with fortified milk | Salmon or Tuna with Bread | Whole Grain bread or Chapati with Eggplant |
| Day 3 - Wednesday | Spinach Salad with Lemon and Cheese | Whole Grain bread or Chapati with Lentils | Brown Rice With Lentils |
| Day 4 - Thursday | Cheese Sandwiches with Milk | Spinach Curry with Chapati | Salmon or Tuna with Brown Rice |
| Day 5 - Friday | Oats With Berries | Brown Rice with lentils (dal) | Bananas, Oranges, and Berries |
| Day 6 - Saturday | Oranges, Strawberries and Yogurt | Whole Grain bread or Chapati with Lentils | Boiled Spinach sprinkled with Crushed Basil, Garlic and Mint |
| Day 7 - Sunday | Greek Yogurt With Oats | Fried Mushrooms | Whole Grain bread or Chapati with Lentils |
9 PCOD Diet Rules
Keeping PCOD under control through pills is never going to be an easier option in the long term. Many times, it poses adverse side effects too. So, to avoid such discomforts, you will need to look for a healthier and manageable long-term solution. Proper eating habits are one of the natural and healthier ways to manage to PCOD Diet.
Certain foods are healthy and unhealthy in the PCOD condition. So, with this knowledge, you should design your diet. Top it with a healthy lifestyle and regular exercise is the ultimate recipe to manage PCOD Diet for life.
PCOD Diet chart plays an important role in the effective management of PCOD. This diet chart will let you know that you are overweight and help you shed some extra pounds. If your BMI reads more than 25, then it confirms that you are overweight, and you need to lose bodyweight. You also get an idea of how much weight do you need to lose to bring your PCOS under control. It is important to remember that a slight change in body weight can easily assist you in managing this disorder.
Here are some of the important dietary and lifestyle tips that you should follow when on a PCOD diet.
1. Do not skip your meals
You need to know that skipping meals will worsen your condition and cause you problems. When you skip meals, it causes the glucose levels to abnormally increase in the bloodstream. This, in turn, imbalances insulin levels and aggravate PCOD Diet. Due to this reason, you should not skip meals. (6)
2. Exercise Regularly
A sedentary lifestyle and lack of body movement is a key sign of PCOD. In addition to having a well-balanced diet, you need to perform thirty minutes of exercise on a daily basis. The combination of diet and exercise will give you healthy body weight.
3. Do not smoke
Smoking is not just injurious to your lungs and the entire respiratory system, but it can also contribute to PCOD Diet. It is, therefore, very important to stay away from smoking and other unhealthy habits.
4. Nutrition rich diet
The diet that you design to combat PCOD should provide you different types of nutrition in the right amounts. It should include a small four to five meals at different times a day. Your PCOD diet should provide you all the nutrition that your needs while staying low on calories.
Fruits, vegetables, oats, complex carbs, lean protein sources, healthy fats should be part of the diet. Oats, green veggies, pineapples, grapefruit, lemon, lime, avocados, blueberries, fish, chicken breast, eggs, nuts, seeds, olive oil are some of the good choices to consider. Once the diet is designed, you need to control portion size. (5)
5. Avoid junk foods
Weight control is very important when it comes to managing PCOD. This makes it important to ditch the fast food and look for healthier alternatives to it. Replace your refined flour, oily foods, processed foods, and sugar-rich dishes by green salad bowls, brown rice, oatmeal, freshly pressed fruit juices, roasted nuts, and more. Avoid and ready to eat meals and foods that contain several artificial ingredients.
6. Protein is Important
To boost your metabolic rate and weight loss, it is required that you include protein with every meal. Consider high-quality and lean protein sources in your diet.
7. Take Small Meals
Eating a lot of food at once can slow down the metabolism in the body. Small-sized and regular meals not just keep the metabolism active throughout the day but also aids in controlling the blood glucose levels in the body.
You can design your meal by starting your day with a smoothie, a vegetable sandwich by mid-morning, and low carb and protein-rich diet in lunch, roasted nuts, and a piece of fruit in mid-evening, and vegetable soup with grilled chicken in the dinner. There are plenty of ways by which you can make your meals delicious in a healthy way.
8. Include healthy fats
Fats have a bad reputation among people. This is a wrong notion. Our body needs fats for performing several vital processes in the body. This fat should come from healthy sources. Good fats assist the body to absorb vitamins that include Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, and Vitamin K.
Choose food sources that provide healthy monosaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Refrain from saturated fats and trans fats. Some of the foods that have omega 3 fatty acids/good fats are avocados, fatty fishes such as mackerel, and salmon, and nuts, seeds, olive oil, etc.
9. Cheat Meals
Cheat days and cheat meals are trending these days. The main objective of these meals is that it breaks the monotony of eating healthy foods that may become boring after some time. It also serves as a reward for a person who has followed the PCOD diet for the entire week. They can eat their choice of food in a calorie-restricted manner on one day.
Dieticians and nutritionists have found that when you incorporate a cheat meal day in your diet, then it encourages people to passionately follow the diet. They do not eat calorie-dense food during the week as they know that they will get an opportunity to eat their choice of food once a week. Decide on one type of food that you like to include in your cheat meal day per week.
In this way, you can easily plan how much you can eat to stay within the calorie relaxation. Another important thing you need to note is that the day after your cheat meal day, you need to shed the excess calorie that you ate. It is important to do exercise after the cheat meal day to prevent weight gain in the body.
PCOD Diet Exercise
Now that we have seen how we should eat to manage PCOD using PCOD Diet let us now look at how we should exercise to shed excess weight from the body. Exercise is very important to lead a better life. It is good for our mental, physical, and emotional health.
It keeps us healthy and fit. Regular exercise helps burn the accumulated visceral fat, improves insulin sensitivity, reduces excess LDL and total cholesterol, manages stress, alleviates mood, improves energy levels, releases the feel-good hormone, and more.
With these benefits, it is necessary to devote thirty minutes of our day to workout. Within two months of time, you will notice significant improvements in internal as well as external levels. So, start working on your body today.
A combination of strength training and cardio
For weight loss, you need to do two things: burn excess calories and increase your metabolic rate. Cardio will help you burn unwanted fat and weight from the body. By lifting weights, or doing strength training, you can increase your BMR (basal metabolic rate). It will help you burn calories throughout the day, i.e., even after your workout session. In this way, strength training increases your resting metabolic rate (RMR) too. This combination will be effective in managing the PCOD condition.
Keep Changing Exercises
Over a period of time, our body gets used to those exercises and does not lead to constant weight reduction. Due to this reason, you need to surprise your body by engaging it in challenging moves such as skipping, Pilates, power yoga, swimming, cycling, aerobics, Zumba, etc.
What are the symptoms of PCOD?
The symptoms of PCOD may not be the same for two women. It can be observed differently by different women. As the symptoms are very common, they are mostly ignored by women. As prevention is beneficial than cure, you need to be watchful of the commonest symptoms linked to PCOD. If you notice any of the symptoms mentioned below, then it is required that you take quick medical assistance.
Acne
Occasional acne breakouts are common. However, if you notice uncontrollable and excess acne issues, then it could be due to PCOD. A consultation with a doctor would be helpful in this case. (2)
Obesity
Obesity is also a key sign of PCOD. Such women are seen to put on weight easily on their bodies. That is the reason it becomes important to pay attention to what you eat. Regular exercise is equally helpful in managing PCOD to a great extent.
Absent or Irregular period
This is the commonest symptom linked to PCOS. A woman who suffers from this condition may experience irregularities in her periods. Sometimes she may miss her periods too. In addition to it, PCOS can lead to issues such as discoloration of period blood, spotting, and more.
Infertility
The second main symptom of PCOD is Infertility. This happens due to untimely, and difficult ovulation due to an unbalanced menstrual cycle.
Excess growth of hair on the body and face
Testosterone is a male sex hormone. Its level is high in women who suffer from PCOD. The excess production of testosterone hormone in the body is responsible for this symptom.
Baldness
This may be quite contrary to the above point, but women with PCOD will experience hair growth on all the areas of the body and hair thinning on the scalp. In extreme conditions, it can even lead to baldness.
Resistance towards Insulin hormone
In women who suffer from PCOD, the levels of insulin hormone are quite high. In such a condition, the cells are not able to effectively use secreted insulin. This gives a signal to the body to enhance the production of the hormone and leads to high insulin in the body. Over secretion of insulin, in turn, leads to an increase in testosterone hormone that causes problematic symptoms in the body.
Anxiety
There is an indirect connection between anxiety and PCOD. Anxiety causes stress and impairs the secretion of hormones in the body. This, in turn, gives rise to the PCOD. Due to this reason, it is important to manage anxiety in life. Stress is inevitable in this busy life with plenty of goals and responsibilities to accomplish. All it is required is to give your body some rest.
Strive to make a work-life balance in life. Few things that can help you manage stress are exercise, meditation, yoga, and reduced exposure to social media. If it doesn’t get controlled, then you may get the assistance of the doctor. He may prescribe you some anti-anxiety medicines. (3)
PCOD Diet Review
A woman who suffers from PCOD needs to deal with plenty of emotional, physical, and mental changes in the body. It is possible to manage PCOD by bringing simple positive changes in your diet and lifestyle.
By strictly following the above tips, you can easily control PCOD and improve your health manifolds. A good diet and a disciplined lifestyle will not just control PCOD but will lead you to a better life. All you would need is to be emotionally strong and stick to your health goals to deal with PCOD.
Reference Links
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3752890/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6893689/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16115348/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23420000/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18097891/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516387/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28416368/
