Feel like my usual diet is so blue that it's so hard to change! Anyone else struggling?

[EnglishDame]

Hi, suppose I'm just looking to get it off my chest but I'm really struggling with the pink diet! My usual diet is so blue I'd almost be guaranteed another son so in the hope of us having a daughter I know I need to make huge changes. I normally snack a lot, drink a lot of fizzy pop (I have PCOS so the caffeine in this wasn't making it a pink thing), I eat ALOT of meat, red meat a few times a week and potatoes with nearly every meal. Which was always an oversized portion. Then afterwards I would snack until bedtime, normally on chocolate and biscuits.
I just feel like the change is so hard!
Anyone else feel this way?

[EnglishDame]

I was also just looking into getting some saw palmetto. I did a quick search on here because I didn't know which one to buy, holland and Barrett have the extract of saw palmetto which is the only one that seems to be 320g? I'm worried about the supps incase they have hidden nutrients!
When I searched on here though I seen on one of the threads someone said that vitex and sp don't really sway much. It wasn't by atomic though. Wondering if I should take them at all. Although as I have PCOS I need to lower testosterone so maybe in cases such as mine it's better to take them?

[foxtrotmama]

Are you doing the PCOS diet?

It took me a few weeks to really get into the swing of things, and I'm still finding I'm struggling the last week of every cycle. Craving fortified foods and just wanting to eat constantly. :/

[EnglishDame]

Yes I am trying to do the pcos diet, and probably failing miserably! I'm really food fussy so the diet examples on here I just would struggle to follow. I'm trying to follow the same principles though,basically LE without lots of empty carbs and trying to only raise my blood sugar levels with eating (or drinking anything that would do so) just twice or three times a day. I really hope I'm doing ok.
What supps are you taking if you don't mind me asking? I have vitex which I'm starting this cycle coming up and I've been thinking about sp but I read you can't take it with peppermint tea and I think I'd rather drink that 3 times a day than take another supp. Unless the sp is a better tactic of course!

[lucyandboys]

I'm struggling too!

I've had to do a more PCOS version, despite not having it, because the normal girl diet was how I used to eat & probably the start of many of my & my son's allergies/autoimmune conditions. There's no way I could go back to white carbs, sugary stuff or alcohol.

What I've done is stopped the snacking and just kept going with coffee all morning, vegetarian lunch with some sort of carb - brown rice or wholemeal pasta, peppermint tea all afternoon and then normal dinner, just smaller portion of meat (although have guiltily had seconds sometimes). I still have pudding and chocolate after, I literally can't cope without! I'm still struggling, though, have a few good days & then binge & regret it. I feel constantly hungry without my legumes/salmon at lunch. I hope what I'm doing is enough (& can stick it out for another couple of months!).

Re supplements, I have been doing vitex for ages to regulate cycles after breastfeeding my son. It worked like a dream, from all over the place to 29 days exactly & without the pain I was getting. However, I now wonder whether I should stop - reading previous posts about delaying Ov/messing with fertility if taken too long. Otherwise slowly weaning myself off all the others I take!

Good luck, lots of hand holding, we're in this together!

[EnglishDame]

Oh I'm glad I'm not the only one, it always seems like everyone is on top of their game on here! I'm starting fibre tonight too. Finding exercise hard to fit in but I feel like it's an easier tactic for me to do than the diet.
Nothing worth having comes easy, trying to remind myself of that!

[kc15880]

After 40 weeks on the vegetarian LE diet & having previously been a meat lover & all day snacker & would say my best advice would be to start slowly. I started by just having 3 meals a day only & no snacks at all. Next I dropped breakfast - this was much harder & it took a whole month to adjust. I just ate lunch earlier around 10am initially &then slowly stretched it each day by 15min or so until I was eating lunch around 1130/12. To be honest I dont even get hungry now until lunchtime. I am so used to eating twice a day I dont really think about it anymore. You can do this. I totally agree that the LE isnt just possible - I have hardly felt on a "diet" as such. Yes Im not eating meat but I still get to include chips, lollies. chocolate etc within my daily limits. just go slow at the beginning & it will be easier.

[Beau82]

It's a constant struggle for sure! The snacking is the worst for me. I'll do really well with it for a few days but then I find myself wandering into the kitchen an hour after having lunch for something or other. It's been bad lately with all the dang Halloween treats lying around.
It does help though to have a bottle of water with me at all times. It will stave off the snacking a bit.
Have you tried replacing ground beef with ground chicken or turkey? With the exception of hamburgers, I now sub ground chicken for everything else. Chicken tacos are delicious! I've never been a big steak eater so I don't miss that.
I saw a great suggestion once for people who can't help but go for seconds (me!). This person said to plate the food and then clean everything up and put away leftovers. You'd be less likely to go for more if you have to take everything out of the fridge and reheat it in order to have more. I know it's not always easy to do that but it's worth a shot. Serve yourself a small portion and then put everything away before you sit down to eat.

[Debahlgrim]

Yeah it's so hard!! I'm hungry all the time! I'm hitting the cardio really hard which makes me even more hungry! I am always great skipping breakfast and then lunch around 12 and then lately I have an early dinner around 4 or 5 and then by 8 I'm starving and have to eat otherwise I can't sleep! I try to hold off to eat a later dinner but shoot it's difficult!


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[atomic sagebrush]

You have to make some changes though for the sake of the PCO too. Try to keep focused on how much better it's going to be for your overall health to stop the snacking on sugary stuff and also how it's going to help you get pregnant!!

I think you're going to be better off, instead of focusing on how huge the changes you need to make, going the opposite route and starting off with small, easy to make changes that don't feel so overwhelming. Ease yourself into it instead of diving in headfirst and forgive yourself when you fall a little short. Remember, even if you only change a handful of things, that is STILL a pink sway. I had to make a diet and guidelines because people wanted them, but really the key is eating different than when you got your boy(s)!

[EnglishDame]

Thanks everyone. Nice to know I'm not the only one finding it tough. I thought the girl diet would be hard, I expected that but now I know I have PCOS it's a million times harder. I could live solely on pasta, rice and potatoes. Without those I'm struggling to give up meat though!
The sweet stuff is just a hard task, I have a real sweet tooth. But I've definitely made some changes this week so going to take your advice and keep going with making smaller changes until I get there! We've put our first attempt back to January instead of December as planned but I really don't want to put it back anymore!
It's going to be a huge struggle over Christmas with all the food too. Eek!

[atomic sagebrush]

What you have to do is approach it as "I'm going to do the best I can and ANY changes I make will only be beneficial". Sometimes we set ourselves up for failure but both with swaying and overall healthy changes (because eating better will be healthier for you as well) the 80-20 rule is in full effect...you get 80% of the benefits form 20% of the changes and in order to get that teeny 20% leftover benefits, you have to expend 80% of the effort to get there. So even if you're only doing a few things, you are still going to be seeing changes and probably very large ones!! Don't get so focused on that 80% of effort that you don't want to shell out (because really - who does???) that you give up totally!!

[EnglishDame]

Thanks Atomic, excellent advice as always. I think that's what I've been doing and so thinking to myself at the slightest fail that it's all or nothing. What you've said makes great sense so I think I'll focus on making the changes that I am able to and not letting any little slip up affect how I go forward for the rest of the day/week.
I felt like I did really well yesterday on the diet but on checking my macros on mfp I'm not sure. I had 59g protein, 31g fat, 123g carbs. That's not good is it?
For pcos diet I mean.
I know I shouldn't be taking in a lot of carbs but I didn't feel like I did at the time. The carbs I had was a wholemeal pita bread and 2 wholemeal sandwich thins. Oh and a pear?
Any issues with this do you think?
Would appreciate anyone's responses greatly!

[EnglishDame]

Anyone help? Pretty please :)

[skillet04]

Wow EnglishDame that is a perfect macros. would you care to share a glimpse of your food diary from that day?


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[EnglishDame]

Of course I don't mind but I didn't eat enough calories so I need to find in a way to add more without upsetting these proportions. It may be that the food I'm eating is bad for a pcos sway too but any opinions greatly appreciated!

Ok so I wouldn't eat or drink before 10, if I do it's Diet Coke caffeine free (I drink a lot of this!), at 10 I have a cup of tea with a bit of semi skimmed milk and 2 sweeteners, at 11 I had a cadburys highlights chocolate drink made with water and some milk added too. Then at 1.30 I had a fruit gluten free sandwich thin with some flora light then a pear. At around 7 I had a wholemeal pitta bread spread it with a tomato pizza topper and low fat cheese on top (mozzarella and red) and some small chicken chunks on a top, then another gluten free fruit thin with flora light. All I drank all day was the caffeine free Diet Coke apart from the hot drinks in the morning.
What do you think? Apart from I need to add in a few more cals!

[skillet04]

Well, not knowing if there is a reason you drink tea and not coffee in the AM....also the chocolate drink seems from what i saw of the ingredients to be akin to our nesquick here "across the pond" ;) so it probably has real sugar in it but says per serving it is only 3grams sugar....each person really has to know if they can or can not tolerate sugar and if they can what their thresh-hold limit is....i think the pcos thread recommends full fat dairy over skim so that might help with upping cals from a good source... i was not sure what gluten free fruit thins were (english muffin?) If it is the newburn type i was able to internet search they also have sugar ... but according to the pcos style pick and choose it does say 2 to 3 servings of a grain so if you know your own personal tolerance that should be ok....(time will tell if those 2 plus the pita were the right amount or if need to cut back and go for rice or something other than bread type items sometimes...cycle regularity will be a big indicator)...and the only other things i would recommend would be to make sure you are also drinking water and not just soda during the day and remember the veggies.... many can be eaten in unlimited quantity....so look over that list. HTH (hope that helps).
Oh and no need to white knuckle it on 2 meals a day....can be 3 meals.

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[EnglishDame]

Thank you so so much that is so kind of you to give me a rundown like that!
Yes the thins are the newburn ones and I think you're right about it being maybe too much bread type foods. I may take those out and replace with something else!
I really don't like coffee, I wish I did as I'd love to incorporate it when it gets such good results. The chocolate drink is like nesquik but it's a low calorie one and the semi skimmed milk is only because I'm at work and it would raise everyone's eyebrows if I started drinking full fat milk especially when I'm on a 'diet'. It semi skimmed bad for pcos diet or is full fat just better?
The number of meals I'm wary of because I figure the tea and chocolate drink would maybe raise my blood sugar in the morning so therefore it's being raised 3/4 times a day? Any thoughts?

Honestly can't thank you enough for your comments, I've done so much reading on here and still feeling lost in it all!

[skillet04]

Sorry for the delay in response....to address the full fat low fat or skim milk question, i think the swaying under special circumstance part 3 thread addressed this so i dont want to misguide anyone. I was just trying to find ways for you to sneak in a few more cals without resorting to candy etc... so the full fat milk would have a few more cals (not much really) and not from a source that would raise blood sugar/insulin .... and of course the free unlimited veggies more quilt free cals :) everyone with pco or pco tendencies responds to food differently so the milk choice may be a preference too...and well i only put 1 to 2 Tablespoons of a "dairy" in my coffee so which type for me is probably a minor detail ;)
HTH

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[atomic sagebrush]

Anyone help? Pretty please :)

Agh sorry please give me several days to reply before bumping since I answer posts oldest to newest, it sends the post up to the top of rotation and makes it take that much longer to reply. I just want you guys to get your reply as quick as I can and I can only answer a certain number of questions in a day.

Most people with PCOS aim at 100-150 g carbs a day (from good sources). Stricter people go lower (under 100) but as long as you're getting good carbs, I would not sweat that. REmember the 80-20 rule - if you can stick to 123 grams and not want to kill and or die LOL, then that is going to be an improvement and trying to go any lower would only make you miserable and unable to stick with it. I would like to see you actually eating more fat, believe it or not - you should be in 50-60 g range and this may make it possible to eat fewer carbs. (not saying you should, just that it may end up that way)

[atomic sagebrush]

Full fat is superior for everyone with blood sugar issues. It's actually been shown to help with weight loss over skim. Skim and even semi-skim milk has been shown to aggravate blood sugar issues. I think most people are familiar with the idea of cutting carbs for a diet so I can't imagine anyone saying anything about that.

It is fine that you're eating 3 times a day. 3 meals a day is totally fine on LE Diet, you just push back your first meal a while.

[babygirl]

Is it low carb? I thought fat would throw boy ?

[atomic sagebrush]

You have up to 60 g of fat in LE Diet and especially in the PCOS type LE Diet (you need to eat 50-60 g fat in PCO type diet). You can eat some fat. Try to get more of your fat from vegetable sources, but you can still have some fat from dairy foods. In fact it can help keep people ovulating to do that.

full fat milk has less carbs than skim milk, and skim milk has something about the type of sugar/carbs in it that is really bad for PCOS-tendencies. Everyone with PCOS or tendencies that way need to be doing full fat dairy ONLY