Nutritionist Cooks Healthy Recipes for People with PCOS and Diabetes

Hey guys, my name is Jo Sebastian. I'm a registered nutritionist and dietitian, and welcome to the very first episode of Nutrition Eats, where we break down nutrition information and eat. Our goal for this episode and this series is to educate you on nutrition recommendations for any of your health concerns and translate that into your everyday meal. I hope you guys are excited. Let's talk about PCOS and diabetes. What is PCOS? PCOS stands for polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is common among women of reproductive age. This is characterized by high male or androgen hormones, which often impacts ovulation, which is why irregular periods and infertility are often symptoms of PCOS. Another characteristic is small cysts in the ovaries. Okay, sis. When it comes to management of PCOS, we have to understand the symptoms first. Number one symptom is usually inflammation. Symptoms are fatigue, headache, bloating, acne, and major energy crashes. So this is often linked with adrenal fatigue or constant stress hormone being up. Another symptom of PCOS is usually weight gain, specifically in the abdominal area. So if you notice, a lot of individuals and females with PCOS have a tendency to store most of their fat in the abdomen belly area. Nothing wrong with that by the way, that's okay. Now one of the more overarching concerns when it comes to PCOS is insulin resistance. This is also common with those with diabetes. What is insulin resistance? First, insulin is a hormone that helps you decrease your blood sugar levels. Every time you eat a food item, specifically carbohydrates, this will increase your blood sugar or add glucose to your bloodstream. Insulin is very good at bringing that down and bringing glucose to the cells that need it for energy and life. But when we have insulin resistance, the body has a little bit of a hard time bringing down your glucose levels. So now our concern is how to manage those, which is often what we think when we hear of PCOS and diabetes. So there are two main nutrition concerns when it comes to PCOS and diabetes, and that is insulin resistance and inflammation. How do we tackle insulin resistance? We want to focus on low glycemic index foods. What is the glycemic index? It's basically ranking food items and how it impacts your blood sugar. High glycemic index foods means that that food item will increase your blood sugar fast and decrease it really fast as well, which isn't great when you're trying to manage your blood sugar levels. Low glycemic index foods tend to increase your blood sugar much slower and decrease it much slower as well. You can definitely check out the glycemic index. That will be your rolled oats, you have your red black brown rice, quinoa, adlai, you also have wholemeal bread as other options, and most of your fruits and vegetables. Just because it's high glycemic index, does that mean that I am not allowed to eat it? Absolutely not. Instead of focusing on just the glycemic index, we also focus on what is called the glycemic load. Glycemic load is the actual impact of this food item to your blood sugar. For example, a high glycemic food item will be your watermelon, but it depends on the amount of watermelon as to what that actual impact to your blood sugar would be. So instead of thinking, I can't have watermelon, I'm never gonna eat it, let's focus on the amount of watermelon and other nutrients that can help lessen your glycemic load. So add more fiber-rich food items, add some lean sources of protein, and space out your intake throughout the day so that your body has time to regularize your blood sugar levels. So again, low GI, high fiber, space out your meals. Now let's talk about chronic inflammation. There is some things you can do around food and inflammation, but also take note that stress management is very important. So be sure to set your boundaries when it comes to stress. On the nutrition side of inflammation, we can focus on food items that will help decrease inflammation, and those are nutrients such as vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin E, omega-3s. I hope you guys are still there after that crash course on PCOS and a little bit on diabetes. If you are, I hope you're ready to cook. We will also be answering some of your major concerns. Let's get into it. Let's cook, and then eat. So let's cut up our fruits so that we have nice biteable sizes. You don't have to use all of the fruits, but we're using three for more color and fun. So our first concern is about weight loss, gluten-free, and dairy-free diet along PCOS. So you don't actually have to be dairy-free or gluten-free. There are studies that show that it is better when you don't consume a lot of dairy, but that depends on the person. So feel it out as you want to. Let's go with the kiwi. Our question is, how can you do intermittent fasting if you're hypoglycemic? I honestly wouldn't recommend it for multiple reasons. Usually when you're fasting, you have low energy availability for a long period of time, which often leads to hypoglycemia, which is when your blood sugar levels are too low. That could be fatigue, headaches, dizziness, all of those things. And then when you have your meal, it's going to spike up your blood sugar. So I'd recommend instead to have more frequent meals throughout the day, maybe every three to four hours. One of the main treatments that is usually suggested for those with PCOS is to lose weight. But if weight gain is a symptom, how do we go around that? Especially if we are losing our energy and having a hard time to get through our day. Instead of restricting your food items, focus on making more satisfying meals by having more balanced meals and spreading out your meals and snacks throughout the day. And the common thing that happens when we are not having our meals and our snacks is we're going to get hungrier. So try to eat when you're not super hungry and try to make sure you are not getting too overly full when you're eating. And there you go, a fiber loaded snack for you that you can eat and have. It's got some protein, it's got some carbs, got a lot of fiber and anti-inflammatory nutrients. Perfect for PCOS and diabetes. Just manage your portion and make sure you are satisfied at the end of it. Let's head on to our dish. We are making fried rice and tofu. So we are going to be using some white rice to help lower the glycemic load of white rice. We are using our protein source, which is our egg, and some more protein from our tofu. So our first question is about rice. Should we substitute it? What can we substitute it with? Do we need to live without rice as a Filipino? Personally, I believe that rice is not necessarily the biggest concern. It's more of the amount per meal as well as what you pair with your meal. However, if you do want to substitute your rice, you can opt for brown rice, red rice, black rice. But one of the major things I find, especially for those with PCOS, you already have major cravings because of your insulin resistance. So cutting out your favorite foods just makes it so much harder to stick to your nutrition. Now we're gonna chop some garlic. This is literally the one thing I hate chopping the most. But garlic is a really great prebiotic source for your gut. It's also great for flavor. This is the technique used if you don't know how to chop garlic but you want to look like a professional. Yeah. Okay. We are in for the biggest task of the day. We are gonna make our fried rice. Grabbing my pan, let's start. Our next question is, how do we still eat our favorite Filipino dishes even if we have PCOS? It's usually because when we search PCOS dishes, there's a lot of western culture involved. We forget that we are Asian and a lot of those food items are not for our palate or our budget or our availability. So remember you can still eat your local Filipino food items if you want to. Our main goal is to have balance. Remember, your meals don't have to taste boring and unseasoned. Oh we should season this. Okay so I'm gonna add a little bit of salt. I feel exposed that I am not good at cooking. Not all dieticians know how to cook. Look! They're all getting colorful. Oh my gosh. We're gonna set this aside and we're gonna do our rice. All right, I think that looks good. There we go. And we are gonna add our tofu on top. This is the perfect base for PCOS or diabetes because it's nice and high protein with your carbohydrates. Portion sizes, what about that? It really depends on the person. For me personally, I will just fill up my bowl and then see how I feel after that. So listen to your body, take time while you eat, don't rush, and let your body really digest and enjoy the food items. And then from there you can see if you need a little bit more for extra satiation. The big reveal. Let's taste it. Let's see how it goes. Definitely need salt. But if you want to mix it up to your preference, that is definitely okay. And we do want to add some more fiber here so make sure you put your broccoli, maybe a lettuce wrap into this fried rice because this is our protein carb base. Now let's tap into our dessert now. This is the one I've been waiting for. This is the reason why I'm here. Okay let's get this nice little parfait. So I'm gonna mix it up first. Okay and let's try it. Something a lot of those with PCOS and diabetes are looking and missing is that sweet flavor. So definitely have that from the fruit, the granola, and we have that nice tartness from the kiwi and the yogurt. So this is a perfect balanced snack for those with PCOS or diabetes. That was our dishes for the very first installment of Nutrition Eats. I hope you guys like this episode. Don't forget when it comes to PCOS and diabetes, it's not about restricting yourself but focusing on balance. Add more fiber, add more protein, and space out your carbohydrates through the day. And make sure you are choosing low glycemic index carbs when possible. If you have any more nutrition concerns, leave them in the comments below and maybe we'll do another episode about it. I hope you guys are excited for more because I am excited too and I always love to say you always deserve to eat. So we'll see you next time. Bye!