5 Foods I Try to Eat Daily to Manage My PCOS Symptoms

What I Try to Eat Everyday to Manage My PCOS Symptoms

For me, PCOS is all about management and building a normal life around the symptoms.  Each day I try to help my body by providing a little caffeine to beat brain fog, complete proteins, fiber, whole-food iron sources, and clean water.  In my life, this looks like either green tea or coffee depending on the point in the cycle, eggs, broccoli or Brussels sprouts, and beef or spinach.  These foods help my body cope with PCOS symptoms and offer relief to some common symptoms like brain fog, constipation, and cravings or unjustified hunger.

Why do I focus on 5 foods?

Life seems to be increasingly complex in recent years.  The number of inputs we face on a daily basis if we’re living in a developed part of the world is overwhelming.  Advertisements are literally everywhere we look.  In the US, fast food chains with PCOS-enemy options are on every corner, often in multiples.  While I do succumb to an occasional craving (probably more often than I realize I need to admit), I do my best to have a solid foundation to my nutrition during the day.

I find that checklists of things we need to accomplish during the day (outside of work) can often become quite lengthy and almost demotivating if they don’t seem attainable.  So, for this list, I keep it to 5 items that I find both delicious and doable.

  1. Caffeine

    1. I use caffeine to help break brain fog and encourage metabolism.  It’s not for everyone.  Obviously consider the health and strength of your heart or how it may increase the severity of stress or anxiety in your body.  I drink green tea from the start of my period to ovulation; I switch to coffee from the day of ovulation to the day before my period starts.  Traditional Chinese Medicine categorizes green tea as “cooling”, which is opposite of what your body needs as your cycle begins.  I first learned of this cooling situation in this beautiful video about matcha combinations from Rowena Tsai.

  2. Eggs

    1. Eggs are a complete protein and insanely versatile.  Poached, fried in butter, or boiled and turned into egg curry are some of my favorites.  The protein and fat combination is particularly satiating for the brain, helping me to avoid some cravings and distractions of fake hunger while I plow through the first part of the day’s work.  If you haven’t ever fried eggs in ghee, give it a shot.  It’s delightful.

  3. Cruciferous veggies

    1. I am oddly addicted to broccoli.  Brussel sprouts can act as the base of a glorious winter bowl meal.  Cruciferous veggies provide fiber which keeps me feeling fuller and keeps the GI tract moving at its proper speed.  I don’t want food from past days rotting in my gut and causing an imbalance in bacteria, so I use these crunchy veggies as a broom to sweep it all to the exit.  Additionally, broccoli is loaded with Vitamin C and contains the precursor to sulforaphane, a powerful antioxidant that helps with oxidative stress and blood sugar management.

  4. Beef or Spinach

    1. A whole food source of iron is a key part of my diet.  I do supplement with Thorne’s Ferrasorb during my period to offset heavy bleeding, but find prioritizing iron is helpful to me feeling overall a bit better.  Especially if you’re struggling with obesity from the hormone fluctuations of PCOS, iron should be something your testing and considering regularly.  In the case of obesity, iron may not be absorbed well and may elevate levels in the blood from abnormalities in cytokines resulting in more hepcidin.  This one a is a delicate balance that definitely involves bloodwork and preferably a doctor you trust.

  5. Clean, Filtered Water

    1. We all know water is essential to life.  For those of us with PCOS, it has to be prioritized.  Water helps with temperature regulation, proper function of the digestive system, and providing cells with shape and stability.  Certainly, I wouldn’t encourage you to mindlessly chug water all day.  This risks damage to the body and overworking the kidney, but being mindful that you are getting enough hydration to keep your body happy is a good thing.