PCOS diet: Understanding the weight loss challenges associated with PCOS

PCOS is a medical condition that causes significant hormonal shifts, which frequently result in weight gain. Roughly 38% to 88% of females diagnosed with this condition are struggling with overweight and obesity. Moreover, many of them find it hard to lose excess pounds and maintain a healthy weight in the long run.

Luckily, a well-balanced PCOS diet that embraces low glycemic index, anti-inflammatory, and insulin-sensitizing foods can help. Such a diet can aid your weight loss process and help manage other PCOS symptoms. Some specific diets to try include:

• Low-GI diet
• Keto diet
• Mediterranean diet
• DASH diet

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a medical condition that affects the ovaries in reproductive-age females and typically, messes up their hormonal balance. According to the World Health Organization, this disorder affects about 6-13% of women, though many cases remain undiagnosed, which makes it hard to tell how prevalent it really is. Although this condition doesn’t necessarily cause weight gain on its own, the hormonal fluctuations and insulin issues associated with it often make excess weight a big problem for women with PCOS.

In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into PCOS weight loss to understand the challenges and possible solutions.

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How Does PCOS Cause Weight Gain?

PCOS is a chronic condition that triggers the development of a large number of fluid-filled cysts on the outer edge of your ovaries. The cysts form on follicles that are supposed to grow and release eggs. Respectively, PCOS hinders regular ovulation, as well as the normal hormone production in your ovaries.

Over time, untreated PCOS can cause the following imbalances, which can stimulate weight gain:

• Estrogen levels drop, undermining the metabolic function and glucose levels in your body.
• Androgen (male hormones) levels rise, often affecting your typical fat storage and distribution patterns and leading to overweight and obesity.
• The changed rate of insulin, ghrelin, and growth hormones can lead to deeper issues, such as lipolysis and insulin resistance, which further worsen weight gain and can make it harder to lose weight.

Why Is PCOS Weight Loss Important?

PCOS weight gain may not affect all patients or may not be very significant. Nevertheless, understanding how to lose weight with PCOS is crucial for every woman diagnosed with this condition. This is important because there is a direct link between your body mass index and PCOS symptoms.

Let’s look at this from a science-backed perspective.

Insulin resistance is a common side effect of PCOS, which contributes to weight gain. At the same time, when not addressed accordingly, insulin resistance can lead to type 2 diabetes and obesity, which further worsen PCOS symptoms.

While hormonal imbalance is one of the primary causes of PCOS weight gain, insulin resistance and obesity that result from it often further undermine your hormonal balance and thus, can also worsen PCOS symptoms.

Based on these and other factors, weight gain is considered to have a rather negative impact on PCOS. Studies reveal that even a 5% loss of body weight can tangibly improve symptoms and reduce the risks of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and other issues.

Best Diet for PCOS Weight Loss

A perfect PCOS diet should be targeted not only toward weight loss. Instead, it should address the entire range of associated issues, including insulin resistance and hormonal balance.

To make sure that your diet improves PCOS symptoms, while also helping you lose weight, you need to integrate the following key principles into it:

• Focus on balance. Your diet needs to include a healthy combination of macronutrients, including protein, healthy fats, fiber, and others.
• Embrace low glycemic index (GI) carbohydrates. High GI carbs cause sudden spikes in insulin levels, causing a negative effect on your insulin resistance and preventing you from losing weight. Low-GI carbs, like brown rice, bran flakes, whole-grain pasta, bulgur, and others help you regulate your insulin sensitivity.
• Reduce inflammation with the right products. PCOS is associated with long-term, low-grade inflammation, which causes your ovaries to produce excessive androgens. To minimize inflammation and balance your hormones, include anti-inflammatory products like fatty fish, leafy greens, berries, olive oil, nuts, and turmeric in your daily diet.
• Integrate insulin-sensitizing foods. Another way to improve your insulin response is by including insulin-sensitizing foods in your menu. Some of such foods include berries, lean protein, nuts, whole grains, non-starchy vegetables, etc.

Overview of Popular Diets

Now that you know the baseline principles of an effective PCOS diet plan, you can develop your own eating approach that works for you. However, unless you are a nutritionist, doing so can be rather hard as you may not know how to balance your diet well.

To overcome this challenge, it makes pretty good sense to opt for existing diets. Here is an overview of popular options that are PCOS-friendly:

Low-Glycemic Index Diet

The low-GI diet is an eating approach that focuses on the glycemic index of the products you consume. Its core goal is to help you control blood glucose levels and improve insulin response. It’s a rather flexible and less restrictive approach that can help you maintain a healthy weight and improve (or lower your risk of) diabetes. Respectively, it can also have a positive impact on your PCOS symptoms by helping balance insulin.

The concept of the diet is simple–the glycemic index of a product is rated from 1 to 100, your goal is to build your diet mostly of low-GI products with an index between 1 to 55.

Keto Diet

The keto (ketogenic) diet is a low-carb, high-fat eating plan that aims to get the body into a state of ketosis- when it uses stored fat for energy instead of glucose. This disease might be a good choice for PCOS weight loss for a number of reasons:

• It helps lose weight and manage it effectively in the long run;
• It improves insulin sensitivity by limiting the amount of carbs you consume;
• It can reduce inflammation.

Additionally, some studies reveal that following a keto diet can reduce testosterone levels in women with PCOS, which makes it a good eating plan for balancing your hormones and managing symptoms.

Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean diet is a plant-based diet rich in healthy fats, antioxidants, and whole foods. The idea behind this diet is to eat foods that were typical for our ancestors living in the countries of the Mediterranean region. Given the fact that this area consists of many countries with different cultures and traditions, the approaches to the Mediterranean diet can greatly vary, yet the main concepts remain the same:

• Plenty of vegetables, fruits, lentils, beans, and nuts are included in your everyday diet.
• A sufficient amount of whole grains.
• Olive oil is the primary source of healthy fat.
• A focus on fish, seafood, and poultry but limited or no red meat.
• Natural yogurt and cheese can be consumed in moderate amounts.
• Red wine with meals (in moderation).
• Restricted consumption of sugar, sugary drinks, sweets, and butter.

DASH Diet

DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. This is a medical diet geared toward heart health. Although it may not focus on weight loss as much, the DASH diet is known for a variety of tangible health benefits. Namely, it lowers blood pressure, improves the lipid panel, supports heart health, and helps manage (or reduce the risk of) diabetes, which also makes it a good PCOS diet plan.

For added weight loss and other benefits, you can consider using a hybrid dietary approach that blends the DASH and Mediterranean diet.

FAQ

Does PCOS cause weight gain?

Yes, it might. Also, this condition doesn’t cause weight gain on its own, it affects your hormonal balance and insulin sensitivity, which can potentially result in uncontrolled weight gain and challenges with losing or maintaining your weight.

How to lose weight with PCOS?

First and foremost, you need to rethink your dietary approach and create new, healthier eating habits. However, you need more than just a diet that’s geared toward weight loss. You need a holistic approach that addresses your hormones and insulin levels to be able to drop excess pounds, while also improving your PCOS symptoms.

What is the best diet for PCOS weight loss?

The perfect PCOS diet plan is one that focuses on balanced and healthy foods, doesn’t cause sudden insulin spikes, and reduces inflammation. Some popular dietary approaches that are considered to have benefits for women with PCOS include the low-glycemic index diet, keto diet, Mediterranean diet, and DASH diet. A combination of the Mediterranean and DASH diet is also a good option worth considering.

Conclusion

Although PCOS doesn’t cause weight gain in all women, a significant part of females diagnosed with this condition are struggling with maintaining a healthy weight due to hormonal imbalances and insulin resistance. PCOS weight loss is typically associated with numerous challenges. However, with the right diet, you can achieve your body goals, while also improving the symptoms of your condition.

After reading this article, you know about the key principles applicable to a solid PCOS diet that takes a holistic approach to your weight and health. Use this knowledge to develop an optimal eating plan for you or pick one of the PCOS-friendly diets we shared with you here to lose weight and feel healthier.

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