A few years ago I stumbled on a website that is a great resource for people wanting to learn about the relative health benefits of individual foods.
This website, www.nutritiondata.com, provides some PCOS-pertinent information in addition to the the traditional calories/carbs/vitamin content most other websites provide:
1. Fullness Factor: An indication of how physiologically full a food is likely to leave you feeling. For those of you who are trying to lose weight, the closer to the upper right hand corner you get, the more supportive of your weight loss goal that food is likely to be.
2. Caloric Ratio Pyramid: If you've been advised to eat a certain percentage of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, this section will tell you how closely you are meeting that goal.
3. Estimated Glycemic Load: Gives you an idea how your food choices are promoting…or discouraging…good insulin function.
4. Inflammation Factor: Since PCOS is a disease of inflammation, your goal is to have as anti-inflammatory of an eating pattern as possible.
You can keep your food diary here and see how a daily total adds up.
It's important to remember when using a tool such as this, there is no perfect way of eating, and no good or bad food. A food that is more inflammatory or less filling isn't bad, it's just one that needs to be eaten in smaller quantities in order to not throw your daily nutritional value in the pro-inflammatory direction.
I italicized the word physiological above because this tool does not work with emotional hunger. If you're using food to cope with depression, in response to negative pregnancy tests, or as an outlet for feelings you may have about PCOS-induced appearance issues…it's important to ask for help in learning outlets with less potential to be self-destructive.
Our"Food of the Week" feature is designed to help encourage a variety of foods, since many women dealing with PCOS have been on so many restrictive diets and yo-yoed back to an even higher weight, they often find themselves in a place where they don't even know how to get started on truly healthy eating. We can't possibly tell you every single food that will work, but we can trigger some ideas. With a tool such as this website, you can hopefully take the information you've learned here and apply it to your entire daily intake.
Have a great week!