The Hemp Connection:
carbohydrates

Lots of responses to part one of this, which confirmed that this topic really hit home and the carbo-loading phenomenon is common amongst people who bounce back and forth between low carb eating and carbohydrate bingeing.

The second thing that happens when most people get to the point where they are so carbohydrate depleted, is that they tend to look for foods that are processed carbohydrates. In all the years I have been doing this work…I have yet to hear someone tell me they binged on asparagus, or on brown rice, or on quinoa! It's always the packaged foods, or it's something from some sort of restaurant.

And the worst binges always seem to happen over the weekend, when people are out of their weekly routine, they're tired, they're with friends…all their defenses are down and it's easy to go for the tortilla chips in the basket or to say,"Yes, I'd like fries with that!"

The important thing to remember about processed food, is that it is higher in sodium compared to the"clean" eating you're trying to pursue the rest of the week. And it can take some time for your kidneys to process and eliminate all of that sodium. While all those molecules are waiting in line to get out of your system, they're hanging around with water molecules. That's just how it works…where there is sodium, there is water.

Think about the head game you set yourself up for if this is what you've done and you're a little obsessive with the scales.

Your weight looks pretty good on Friday morning, and about 3 pm on Friday your co-workers talk you into joining them for Mexican food at the joint down the street from the office. Saturday morning, one margarita, two baskets of chips, and a chimichanga later, you wake up feeling a little bloated. You get on the scale…and it's 4 pounds heavier than it was the morning before!

Talk about demoralizing! It's enough to throw you into a weekend-long"what's the use" binge.

Here's a little tip that can really help get you out of that obsessive cycle.

Remember, we are creatures of habit. Our Mondays are more like Mondays than they are like Wednesdays or Fridays. What we eat on Mondays…doesn't really vary that much. So it makes no sense to compare a Monday weight to a Wednesday weight.

If you tend to go out on Fridays, you are likely going to carry some water weight related to the sodium intake, for a couple of days. Even if you eat the amount of food you intended to.

It's best, if you're someone who is obsessive with the scales, to compare Monday weights to Monday weights, and Friday weights to Friday weights. Comparing Monday morning's weight to the past Friday morning's weight…is sure to set you up for head games and unnecessary bingeing.

Part 3, later this week…will be about hormones and weighing in.

I've had this conversation with two different clients recently and it occurred to me it's a phenomenon likely to be more common in women with PCOS, because of their focus on carbohydrates, than even the average dieter. Figured a blog post would be helpful to others.

Both of these clients shared with me that they went on low carbohydrate diets and did very well on them, until a few weeks into it, when, for whatever reason, they"fell off" the plan and started eating carbohydrates. And within a few days they'd gained a few pounds and felt more than a little discouraged…not to mention bloated.

Here's a little fact you don't often hear in weight loss advice or discussions. Not all weight that you gain, or lose, is fat. Some of it is water. Some of it can even be bone, if you severely restrict your intake for long periods of time, as with an eating disorder.

And some of that weight…can be your own body's carbohydrate stores.

When you are eating enough food to meet your daily needs, your body stores some of it as carbohydrate, in liver and in muscles. The function of this stored carbohydrate, is to help keep your blood sugar levels high at times when no food is directly coming into the system. Your brain relies almost entirely on carbohydrates to function, and the body has evolved with this"storage tank", so to speak, to be sure the brain never, ever runs out of energy.

Carbohydrate that is stored for this purpose is called glycogen. The body uses water to help store glycogen. And for every gram of carbohydrate you store, there are 3 grams of water alongside of it.

So what do you think happens when you suddenly switch to a low-to-non carbohydrate diet? All of the carbohydrate you've stored in your liver and muscles has to break down in order to keep your brain running. The weight loss is rapid, because you're losing 3 times as much water as you are other weight. It feels good when you look on the scales, because we're so cultured to believe that all weight shifts are coming from fat.

And what do you think happens when you eat carbohydrate again? The weight shift moves in the opposite direction, and 3/4 of what you gain is actually water. But again, because you're likely focused on fat if you're dieting…you visualize that what you've gained is more of that stuff.

Have you ever heard of carbohydrate loading, that athletes do before an endurance event? When you diet and bounce back with a high carb binge, that's exactly what you're doing! Here's a description off of the Internet that describes a carbohydrate loading protocol, from the Mayo Clinic website:
■Step 1. About a week before the event, reduce or maintain your carbohydrate intake at about 50 to 55 percent of your total calories. Increase protein and fat intake to compensate for any decrease in carbohydrates. Continue training at your normal level. This helps deplete your carbohydrate stores and make room for the loading that comes next.

■Step 2. Three to four days before the event, increase your carbohydrate intake to 70 percent of your daily calories — or about 4.5 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight. Cut back on foods higher in fat to compensate for the extra carbohydrate-rich foods. Also scale back your training to avoid depleting your glycogen stores. Rest completely for a day before the event. And…no big surprise…here, farther down the page, are the potential risks associated with this protocol:

■Weight gain. Much of this weight is extra water — but if it hampers your performance, you're probably better off skipping the extra carbs.

■Digestive discomfort. You may need to avoid or limit some high-fiber foods one or two days before your event. Beans, bran and broccoli can cause gassy cramps, bloating and loose stools when you're loading up on carbohydrates.

■Blood sugar changes. Carbohydrate loading can affect your blood sugar levels. It's a good idea to consult your doctor or a registered dietitian before you start carbohydrate loading, especially if you have diabetes I remember when I was working on my master's degree in exercise science, we were taught that the bloating and weight gain from carbohydrate loading could be so extreme and uncomfortable, that athletes should not even attempt to use it for a crucial race if they had not tested it out prior to know how their body would react.

So see, it's not your body, your PCOS, or anything weird about YOU that causes you to gain weight when you eat after restricting. It's exactly how ANYONE's body will react when pushed to extremes.

Try living somewhere in the middle, with a moderate, healthy carbohydrate intake…and see what it does for your weight, your body, and the bloating.

The Mediterranean Diet is healthy, it’s true, but it’s not the only healthy way to eat. It just happens to be one that is heavily researched… and therefore marketed by the commodity boards representing foods that grow well in the Mediterranean. It so happens that California, the world’s eighth largest economy, and Chile, a country with a large agricultural tradition, have climates similar to the Mediterranean. Both economies depend on our love of the Mediterranean diet to thrive, and they therefore are a big part of the reason why so much research money has been invested into this way of eating.
I love the Mediterranean diet myself, but I sure don’t want anyone out there from other cultures abandoning their way of eating because it’s Northern European… or African… or Tasmanian. Mother Nature doesn’t play favorites—she makes sure she takes care of her Eskimos just as she nurtures her Italians. I thought it would be fun to survey varieties of cuisines around the world so that no matter what your origin, there’s something out there that is good for you.

I’ll start with German food, which is part of my personal heritage and what I was enjoying for lunch today. I made a salad with vegetables that likely would show up on a German summer salad, including two different types of radishes.

We got rutabagas and potatoes in our box this week, and I made the rutabaga-potato salad recipe our chef created. I had some lowfat chicken-apple bratwurst in the freezer, so thawed and cooked them up to have ready for the rest of the week’s lunches.

And… for dessert, I had some plain yogurt that I ground some Trader Joe’s coffee/chocolate/sugar mix on top of.
Let’s break that down for closer inspection.
Salad My salad had two different kinds of radishes, carrots, onions, celery, and a variety of lettuces. I sprinkled some German dill salad mix on top, then added apple cider vinegar and canola oil before tossing. Radishes: Great for cancer prevention. See my colleague Dr. Chris Wharton’s article on why radishes are so nutritious for more information. That beautiful red color? Comes from antioxidants similar to the ones blueberries get all the credit for. Onions: Very important to German cooking. And they are part of the __________family of vegetables, famous for __________________________-- Lettuce: I mixed several varieties to get more red color, again, to get more antioxidants.
Bratwurst The traditional version is a little bit fatty, but these days there are so many varieties chicken, turkey, and low-fat sausage, it’s easy to make a high-protein, low fat choice. This lunch, I had the green apple/cinnamon chicken variety from Fresh and Easy. Each link only had 110 calories.
Potatoes Potatoes? Yes, potatoes! How many of you stay away from them because you’ve been told they are high glycemic? Well, they are, if you don’t eat them wisely, such as eating them, super-sized, as French fries dripping in pro-inflammatory omega-6 oil.
The poor potato in this situation is not the culprit here, it’s the messenger. If you eat a small baked potato in a balanced meal, you’re doing ok. The potato salad I made has two benefits. Baked and then cooled potatoes contain resistant starch, a form of carbohydrate that is not immediately absorbed into your bloodstream. It passes into your large intestine where it ferments and becomes food for healthy bacteria (food that feeds those bacteria is also called prebiotic). Secondly, the dressing for this salad was vinegar. And as you’ve heard here many times before, vinegar helps to keep your blood sugar stable after meals, potentially as well as metformin. So a little bit of potato salad, without the mayo, holds potential to be PCOS-friendly.
Vinegar One of the strong points of the German diet is the vinegar. In addition to the salad, it’s used in pickled vegetables, sauerkraut, and sauerbraten. If it's sour, it's likely ok to eat!
Cheese Though I didn’t have any with this meal, cheese is something Germans love! A common breakfast is a piece of thinly sliced cheese on a slice of whole kernel rye bread, topped with a tomato. Cheese, remember, in moderation, has been found to be associated with increased fertility. The reason it works in the German diet is because, unlike Americans, Germans don’t shred, smother, and melt it on anything and everything they eat. It’s eaten in small portions and used to accent the rest of the food on the plate.
Berries Germany is pretty far north, meaning in the summer it is a fruit basket of flavor. Currants, strawberries, cherries, apples, peaches, grapes… you name it, someone is growing it. Mit sahne (with cream) is a popular way to serve fruit, and if it’s real cream and it’s minimally sweetened, it’s wonderful treat!
I have to tell you, the German meal I described above left me feeling so full and satisfied I wasn’t hungry until long after sundown. It really reinforced for me the power of eating balanced. Talk to people of German heritage, and they’ll often tell you about a grandparent or great-grandparent who lived, relatively disease-free, into their 90’s. They certainly didn’t get there on 800 calorie diets… perhaps we should be taking this diet a little more seriously instead of discounting it because of its potatoes.

Most people, by the time they find this blog, have been introduced to the idea that carbs are"bad".

I propose a new way of thinking.

Carbs, when eaten to satisfy insatiable carbohydrate cravings, are being used to feed a potentially destructive biochemical imbalance.

Carbs, when eaten as part of a balanced diet, and when chosen from unrefined foods that also provide fiber, vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants, can be incredibly important in overall health and recovery from PCOS.

By now this blog has quite a bit of information on what you can do to help your carbohydrate cravings. So today I wanted to talk about a carbohydrate that can be helpful to include.

Ezekiel bread gets its name from the fact that its ingredients are all mentioned in the Bible verse Ezekiel 4:9.

"But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt, put them in one vessel and make them into bread for yourself; you shall eat it according to the number of the days that you lie on your side, three hundred and ninety days."

The bread is supposedly nutritionally complete. I'm not so sure about that, but I do know because it contains bean flour it is much higher in protein than your average bread. And, Biblical scholar or not…it can be a great food to add to your diet so that sandwiches, a handy convenience food, don't have to be eliminated from your"things I can pack for lunch" list.

I like to call our PCOS diet an"aggressive Mediterranean" diet. And because this recipe originates from the Bible, it falls in that category.

These days, Ezekiel bread is pretty easily found in most healthy food stores. The folks at Food for Life have trademarked the name"Ezekiel 4:9", and they've ventured into other products such as pasta, that you may be interested in trying.

If you cannot find Ezekiel bread in your local store, I found the recipe online for you to make it yourself.

Turkey sandwich piled with veggies…here I come!

Not long ago a woman with PCOS handed me a diet diary for analysis. She had eaten a burger without the bun and a sweetened ice tea for breakfast. Lunch didn't happen until 2 pm, and it was a brownie with ice cream. And finally, she recorded a bowl of cereal for dinner.

One of the things that jumped out at me was that there were no fruits or vegetables in her meal plan. When I asked her about it…she told me she was avoiding carbs!

Fruits have somehow gotten a bad rap because of their carbohydrate content. But they're not the culprit in an unhealthy diet. In fact, fruits are very high in antioxidants, which can help to repair the damage that life stress and the stress of having a chronic disease can create. In my opinion, you can't afford NOT to have fruit.

I chose oranges this week, because I live in Arizona and I have an orange tree off of my patio. It is the most wonderful treat to wake up, pick a few oranges, and have a glass of fresh squeezed juice. Or, when I need a break in the afternoon, to pick a fresh snack for myself. Nothing tastes better than fruit right from the source. I recently made a great salad vinaigrette using orange juice and olive oil as the base. Even with all these oranges, I'm not making a dent in my supply!

If your diet diary mimicks the one I described above, challenge yourself to try the following. Be sure to have a serving of fruit the size of a tennis ball at each meal, or the total equivalent of 3 servings that size of fruit in the course of a day. Challenge yourself to not eat any sources of refined sugar until you've met your daily quota of fruit. See if, when you focus on fruit, your appetite for other sugars diminishes. And in the process, if changing the kind of sugar you eat doesn't help stabilize your energy levels and help you to feel better.

I went to graduate school in Boulder, Colorado. I loved it there, but I have to admit, it was a place where people seemed to more easily grab onto esoteric, off-the-beaten-path ideas than they did good, solid, evidence based concepts. So when someone introduced me to quinoa, I politely listened and figured it was something I'd only find in a local vegetarian eatery.

But the grain has stayed around, and I've grown to love it. If you have PCOS, quinoa can be a nice carbohydrate to eat because it's very high in protein; one half cup serving has about 12 grams of it! It's also a decent source of manganese, magnesium, iron, tryptophan, and copper, which from time to time appear as potential players in the PCOS picture.

As you can see in the picture, quinoa looks (and it also tastes) a lot like cous-cous. It's very easy to prepare, you simply have to pour boiling water over it and let it sit for a few minutes until it's cooked.

Yesterday I was at Whole Foods and tried one of the pilaf-style salads they often had with quinoa. I also love their quinoa cake, kind of like a veggie burger. It's one of my favorite treats. I have even seen it cooked as a breakfast cereal, with toppings much like you'd put on oatmeal.

Recently, pasta made with quinoa has become available in stores like Whole Foods. I discovered while looking for a photo of the product for this blog post, that you can buy this brand (Ancient Harvest) online at amazon.com.

It's quite convenient and something anyone who's trying to eat more protein and less carbohydrate, but who just doesn't feel satisfied without some kind of starch to round out the dinner plate.

Quinoa is available in most grocery stores…but if you're not finding it, it is also available online. Click here to buy quinoa online

Disclaimer: inCYST does have an associate relationship with amazon.com.

If cutting carbs was the only dietary strategy needed to help PCOS, this blog wouldn't exist. There are clearly thousands of women, based on the traffic statistics for this blog, who've tried that approach without success.

One of the food groups that gets cut out of the diet when we worry too much about carbohydrates, is fruit. And fruits are just loaded with antioxidants that are showing potential to help balance our biochemistry.

Resveratrol is one of those anti-oxidants. It is a compound well recognized for its benefits in reducing cancer risk, inflammation, cardiovascular disease, blood clotting, and other aging-related issues. It is actually a compound that some plants have the ability to produce to fight off pathogens that threaten their own health, that turns out to have the same ability in humans.

A recent study specifically done with PCOS suggests that it has potential for women with this syndrome.

In rats, resveratrol was shown to reduce the excess growth of ovarian tissue. It also inhibited the tendency for insulin to promote this type of excess tissue growth.

Where do you get this great stuff?

1. Red grapes, blueberries, bilberries, and cranberries. Bilberry extract is most commonly found in supplement form. The other fruits are often taken out of a low-carbohydrate diet. Don't make this mistake!

2. Red wine. For those of you who are trying to conceive, please exercise caution with this choice. It's best to pursue the nonalcoholic options provided here. But if you are not in that category, consider enjoying a glass of red wine with dinner tonight! Spanish red wines and New York pinot noirs are your best option, they've been found to have the highest resveratrol concentrations.

3. Peanuts and peanut butter. I love this one. Sometimes we think nutrition has to be complicated…but a PB and grape J sandwich is a perfect PCOS-friendly lunch!

4. Resveratrol supplements. These are primarily made from extracts of the kojo-kon root. Not that supplementation is bad, but I've been around long enough to see that when you isolate a compound from its natural source, you often miss out on other factors and compounds that either help make that compound more effective, or that may be the really important compound in the first place. So I'd encourage the other choices over supplementing. Another consideration that is important is potential conception. I just don't like to recommend supplements to anyone who might become pregnant when I don't know for sure if they have more potential to be helpful or harmful.

5. Dark chocolate and non-dutched cocoa powder. So now if anyone, anyone at all, questions why that really, really high-cacao bittersweet chocolate jumped from the shelf in the Trader Joe's checkout line into your grocery bag…just tell them "the inCYST blog made me do it".

Just a note, in addition to pure chocolate squares, think hot chocolate and mole sauce!

One important point I need to make here is that when resveratrol-containing foods are included in a balanced diet, they can have benefit. It's important to not eliminate entire categories of food. Resveratrol, however, has the ability to affect estrogen levels, in both directions. It's best not to overdose on the supplement because it's"good". Balance is always the goal in PCOS.

Wong DH, Villanueva JA, Cress AB, Duleba AJ. Effects of resveratrol on proliferation and apoptosis in rat ovarian theca-interstitial cells. Mol Hum Reprod. 2010 Jan 12. [Epub ahead of print]

The voice of one who knows…is far more powerful than any study or statistic we pontificate about here.

This was posted as a comment, but I've pulled it out to make a separate post because of its potential to motivate others who pass through our blog.

Thank you for taking the time to write!

I used to live my life in a perpetual brain fog. I just thought I was a space cadet and that was it.

I was diagnosed with PCOS at 17 and have gone on to do many things I set my mind to (have a masters in music) but the fog was always there.

What fixed the fog for me was what you always preach-NUTRITION!

I switched my diet to a more Paleo approach, cutting out all refined carbohydrates and getting the majority of my carbs from fruit and vegetables. Basing every meal on a good protein source was another huge shift for me. I've been eating this way for two years and the brain fog is gone. I get so much more done in a day and I can make it through late night rehearsals with a focus I never knew I had. When I slip up and have bread or a cookie, I feel the brain fog come on right away. It's not worth it and that makes it easy for me to continue eating clean!

One of the most frequent questions I have gotten over the years, is whether or not a person should eat 3 square meals a day, or whether they should break that into 5 or 6 small meals.

The answer is…it depends.

If you are asking if I think you should make room in your diet for the top 10 foods people are likely to think of when they hear the word,"snack," the answer is no.

Unfortunately, we've let the food industry define"snack" for us, and if you look at the average snack machine in the break room, airport, or hotel, it is more likely to contain Pop Tarts, candy bars, and corn chips than it is apples, string cheese, or anything containing protein.

If you are asking if you should add more eating moments to your day without making your normal meals smaller…the answer is no. This is one of the issues I see with people switching to more meals. Their definition of meal is preset, and the switch adds unnecessary calories. If you want to eat more meals, each meal needs to be smaller so that the total adds up to be the same at day's end.

One of the biggest issues with PCOS is that large amounts of calories, especially when they are carbohydrate calories, are not handled well by the hormones that digest and absorb those calories. It may be easier for your body to process the food you eat if you do eat smaller amounts of food, more frequently.

All of your"eating incidents" should include some type of protein and a healthy fat. I almost don't like to use the words"meals" and"snacks", because each one conjures up images of what is and is not ok for each. I encourage you to redefine, and to eat what works best for you. When we use those words, it is almost as if one kind of eating is when we're doing healthy,"good" stuff, and the other is when we try to sneak in the other stuff. Every time you eat is an opportunity to be good to yourself, so be sure you choose wisely.

If an energy bar is an easier breakfast for you than a traditional breakfast, then do it!

If a half sandwich before bedtime is more reasonable than something that feels like a sweet and may trigger binge eating, then do it!

It can be challenging to figure out what plan works best for you. Here are some scenarios that would tell you a smaller, more frequent eating pattern might work better for you:

--you wake up not feeling hungry. If you didn't binge the night before, this may mean your blood sugar bottomed out overnight and your stress hormones released sugar to compensate while you were sleeping. A high protein meal/snack shortly before bed might help prevent this from happening.

--you eat a healthy meal, and just as you're finishing up, you start to feel ravenous. In this case, your blood sugar levels are telling you there was a dip prior to dinner, and the food you just ate has not had a chance to fix the problem. The answer is not to eat more food in the moment (as it is tempting to do), but to add a protein/carb combination a few hours before dinner to stablize your blood sugar.

--you participate in physical activity. You're simply going to need more food, more often, since you are using more energy.

--your schedule is not 9 to 5. If you work hours that interfere with our culturally standard mealtimes, you may do better with smaller meals that do not interfere with sleep. This is a situation where prepackaged foods that you can throw in a backpack or briefcase could be the answer.

A PCOS-trained dietitian can help you to analyze your food preferences, your lifestyle, and your own personal blood glucose response to certain types of foods. Whatever approach you determine is best for you. As I said, every time you eat is an opportunity to treat yourself well. Don't miss out!

I demo'd these noodles in my last Whole Foods class and they were such a hit I wanted to share with the rest of you.

Shirataki noodles are noodles made from the root of the Konjac plant. They are gelatinous and high in fiber, and have very little carbohydrate. Here is more information about them on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirataki_noodles

These noodles are fairly easy to find in my city, and we found them last week in Los Angeles. They are packaged cooked, and are in a plastic bag in the refrigerator case. You do need some type of cooking to heat them up, but that can be microwave, skillet, whatever you choose. Here is a picture of them so you know what you are looking for.

One of my clients likes to eat them with a little bit of salmon and olives. Another one shared this recipe:

Ingredients- Package of frozen mixed vegetables, olive oil, garlic, shirataki angel hair noodles, soy sauce, sesame seeds, pepper to taste
1. In a large skillet, sautee frozen mixed vegetables in olive oil
2. Microwave the noodles for 2 minutes
3. Add noodles to vegetables
4. sprinkle soy sauce and seeds and ENJOY!

For more information and ideas, visit www.shiratakinoodles.net.

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!

We just received a question about carbohydrates, how much is enough, and how much is too little.

Personally, I like to aim for about 30% of calories as carbohydrates, with as many as possible being whole grains, vegetables, and whole fruits. Remember, the brain and nervous system run primarly on carbs and you can't completely eliminate them.

Doing the math, the amount of carbohydrates corresponding to common calorie levels are as follows:

Calories Grams of carbohydrate
1500 113
1600 120
1700 128
1800 135
1900 143
2000 150

BTW, just how important is your brain in the big scheme of metabolism?
--A pound of fat burns 2 calories per day.
--A pound of muscle burns 6 calories per day.
--A pound of brain/nervous system tissue burns 109 calories per day!

Could be that this explains why we always want to eat when we're stressed…it's ramping up the metabolism.

Manage the stress, manage the appetite, lessen the carbohydrate need.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I write a lot about how not sleeping well can affect how you eat.

Have you considered that maybe the other may also be true? How you eat can affect the quality of your sleep?

Binge eating is often a night time activity. It is recognized for its ability to self-medicate, and many of you may even consciously seek out the behavior because you are aware of its sedating effects. But did you know…after the soothing effect of the binge wears off, you may actually feel more anxious? CCK, the chemical that is released to help digest protein and fat, is released in proportion to the amount of protein and fat that you eat. So if you binge, you release more CCK.

CCK is an anxiogenic agent. That is, it causes anxiety. So if you've binged, your temporary respite from your anxiety is likely to elevate not long afterward. If you don't make the association, you might turn to another binge for relief.

CCK is also a nociceptic agent. That is, it causes pain. So if, in addition to your PCOS, you have fibromyalgia or some sort of chronic pain, you might find that your bingeing is the behavior that, in the big scheme of things, is worsening, not helping your pain.

A sleep researcher once asked me about an interesting observation in one of his studies, with men who experienced excessive limb movement while sleeping. The movements seemed to get worse if they ate a large bowl of ice cream just before bedtime. We had an interesting discussion about how the CCK mechanism could have been part of the explanation for this phenomenon.

Time to connect different dots in your brain.

Carbs don't help anxiety, they worsen it.
Carbs don't medicate pain, they intensify it.