What is the ketogenic diet? On this episode, we discuss the pros and cons of going on the ketogenic diet for PCOS!
You’ll learn the benefits of keto including its impact on weight loss, insulin resistance, as well as studies of women with PCOS who went on the ketogenic diet.
We explain the downsides of keto for women with PCOS and its impact on long term sustainability for insulin resistance and other PCOS symptoms.
You’ll also learn how it’s not always necessary to cut out all your carbs and how you can find a level that’s right for you!
Mentioned study: (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1334192/)
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All right, babe. Let’s take a moment to correct our posture. Take a deep breath and have some pure spectrum CBD. Sure. Hey sisters CBD can help with acne inflammation, anxiety asleep, and so many other PCs symptoms. I personally take it throughout the day to help keep my stress hormones nice and low. Not to mention I sleep like a baby every night and I don’t wake up fatigued at all.
Now open your mouth, please. So I can give you a serving. Now, hold it for 60 seconds. Head over to pure spectrum cbd.com and use the code. The sisterhood one word for 10% off. Can I stop now? Nope. You got 30 more seconds. Welcome to a sister on your Mr. A podcast where we show you the real behind the scenes of how we bounced the PCOS lifestyle in our marriage,
gluten and dairy free. I’m Tallene your fellow sister and registered dietician, and I’m Sirak, husband, engineer, and PCOS personal trainer. We’re going to make you as a little less overwhelming and a lot more fun Sisters to another episode of the podcast. Welcome ladies. Just want us, everybody place your bets. At what point of the podcast am I going to start sweating today?
Cause it’s already stuffy in our living room right now. We have all the windows closed because you know, we don’t want sound coming from the outside because we live in a very loud community and we can’t turn the AC on because the AC sounds like some sort of monsters. You have some sort of spaceship that’s going to suck us in. And it’s like 90 degrees outside.
Yeah. Hopefully our plants don’t burn. I see. So yeah, everybody plays her bets. Let’s see. At what point, see, I starts sweating. Speaking of the plants, just a quick, quick little update. I feel like every week I’m giving a little update on the plants, quarantine life, but I just want to say I won the battle against the Caterpillar’s.
They were destroyed the kale, the lettuce, all good. But now we have another issue. What’s that? Babe mother loving aphids. Oh God, they are these tiny little things all over the kale. They’re destroying it day by day and only thing. Yeah. Like the only thing you can actually do about it. The funny thing is use lady bugs,
which I would have never thought thought is that you put ladybugs in there and it eats the aphids. And like, it keeps the whole thing safe and stuff. And it’s good for the plants because it doesn’t eat the plants. However, Pauline found out that there is a lady book Shortage of lady bugs. You guys. I went to three different places and they didn’t have them because of the fires happening in California or that happened in California.
And so they couldn’t harvest lady bugs and it’s just so outrageous. Now our Cale’s being eaten by aphids. Who’d a thunk that lady bugs, we’re going to save the day. And we came here. It’s like Batman, you’re on that one Batman movie where Batman has disappeared. And the whole city of Gotham is just being overtaken by, by criminals and such.
That’s what’s happening right now. The lady bugs are nowhere to be found. And the city of Boston, the kale town is being overtaken by criminals. So many do. So Somebody do something, give us an answer. You guys send us a DM, drop a message, let us know. All right. So this is a PCs podcast. It’s not a planting podcast,
so everybody let’s make it about PCs now. So today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about the keto diet is keto good for PCs and weight loss and managing symptoms and so forth. If you guys listened to our previous, one of our previous episodes with Dr. NAAJA potty Guana, Nadia party Guana, she actually we’re on the keto diet to get pregnant herself.
And she talked about it a little bit on that episode. However we like to highlight, obviously that not every single diet is for everyone, but just talk about the pros and the cons of the keto diet, how it can help you and things like that. Yes. So with the ketogenic diet, we get a lot of questions about this, especially during our lives,
when we’re answering questions, a lot of people ask like, you know, should I go on the ketogenic diet? And it seems like kind of a quick fix to insulin resistance because it really tackles that. So what is the ketogenic diet? What is a keto diabetes? I’d love to hear that this Diet drastically lowers your carb intake less than 50 grams of carbs a day.
And that gets you in a state of ketosis. And ketosis is when your body becomes incredibly inf efficient at burning fat for energy. And so you start losing weight quickly on the ketogenic diet. And you know, it helps with PCLs at times because it lowers your insulin levels a lot. And that’s ideal because then insulin doesn’t trigger testosterone. It doesn’t sugar,
all of these symptoms of PCOS in your ovaries specifically. And also aren’t true increasing the amount of fat you’re having day to day, Right? You’re increasing your fat intake so that you’re not lowering your calories. Yeah. And your protein intake. So you have like a very large amount of protein, large amount of fat with very low amount of carbs. That’s like basically is what basically what the keto diet is.
Right? Yeah. And that’s one of the benefits of keto to being on a high fat diet. That’s not low calorie, so you’re not intentionally restricting your calories, which can be often miserable for people who are trying to lose weight. So instead of cutting calories, you’re just cutting out carbs with the ketogenic diet. That’s correct. Yeah. So that’s one of the benefits of it before we get into like any of the details on the research studies.
We want to talk about how this can help women with PCOS. Yes, exactly. So let’s just start, let’s start with it. Let’s start with the benefits of keto. So one of the first benefits that people see with keto is that there’s weight loss without intentional calorie restriction. As Tom mentioned, if you’re not really cutting out calories, but you’re cutting out the carbs,
the high carbs, which helps with insulin resistance a lot at first. And then, you know, by doing that, you’re, you’re helping with the weight loss and th the fat really helps you to really burn energy better because you know, that’s a good way for burning burning for energy, basically burning, burning fuel for energy fat is so that’s one of the benefits right there,
Right? And then the next benefit that I’ve read about was that ketogenic diets can cause massive reductions in blood sugar and insulin. And along with this, it increases ketone bodies in your, in your body. And that has a lot of health benefits, including helping with a variety of conditions like heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and PCOS keto can help reduce insulin levels.
And that plays a huge role in PCOS. So that’s why it’s a very popular diet. When you Google PCOS, what do I eat? Keto pops up first thing on Google. And oftentimes if you have symptoms like acne and things like that, by lowering your insulin levels, you’re actually lowering your testosterone levels as well. And that’s going to help with acne and hair loss and fertility issues.
Yep. And we just had an episode about fertility Yeah. With Dr. Nadia potty Guana herself. And she mentioned she really broke it down, which was really helpful to understand how insulin directly impacts your testosterone and impacts your fertility. And like, all of these are related with these other symptoms like acne and hair loss, her growth, things like this.
So I think her explanation was beautiful, but just to kind of recap it, I believe what she said was, you know, insulin, when you have insulin resistance, it’s creating testosterone, which is a male hormone, right. But like a lot of women with PCs, but a lot of women have testosterone in their body that they’re able to regulate.
But she said that there was a reason why it’s not being able to regulate because of the sexual hormone, globulin Sex hormone, binding globulin is being overproduced. And because we have high insulin levels, it’s also triggering sex hormone binding globulin to, to be less produced, actually, sorry. I said, overproduced, it’s being less produced because we have so much insulin that binding globulin is like a sponge.
That’s going to clean up the extra testosterone in your body. And when you have a lot of insulin in your body, you don’t have that sponge to clean up the testosterone and then you have high testosterone and all these PCs symptoms. So it all comes down to insulin and getting that under control. Correct. So just to clear that up, cause I know,
yeah, it was a little confusing at first. So just to clear it up because of the insulin issues, your liver is producing less of the globulin, which is like clients said, it pairs the testosterone to kind of balance it out. So when they’re globulin is less, it, there’s not enough to compensate for the overproduced testosterone leading to more issues with symptoms like hair loss and infertility and things like that.
So for all this reason, it’s very important to kind of like focus on the instant part of PCs and make sure that like the diet and lifestyle, lifestyle changes there have been accommodated. And honestly it doesn’t mean that keto is the only thing or like a low carb diet is the only way to balance her instantly. We’ve talked about it before on previous episodes.
And even we have an episode, episode, number 30 with Dr. Nadia Patagonia specifically about insulin resistance and there’s whole like a whole different methods that you can try, you know, finding a carp tolerance and stuff like that. So just understand that keto is not the only way to control your insulin, but it is a, it’s a great way to like start with it.
Totally. And oftentimes we jumped taquito. I feel like because it’s less complicated than other ways to treat insulin resistance. And so that’s why keto is so popular amongst the PSUs community. There have been some studies on keto linking Hito and PCO S together. Yeah. Let’s talk about them. Sure. Okay. So it says here, 11 women with PCs who had a BMI greater than 27 overweight or obese were chosen and they limited their carb intake to 20 grams or less per day for 24 weeks,
five of the women completed this study and their body weight reduced by 12%, their free testosterone reduced by 22% and fasting fasting insulin reduced by 54%. Two of the women became pregnant despite fertility problems before conclusion of the study was that taquito led to significant improvements in women with pizzerias over a 24 week period. And we have the link to the study, we’ll link it in the podcast description.
So you can click on it yourself and read it and really get down to the details. This is a really interesting study. I mean, at first of all, it’s interesting that five women completed the study of the 11 choice. Okay. That’s fine. It kinda goes to show a little bit that keto can be hard to get accustomed to because you’re really drastically cutting your carbs.
And then this can have a shock to your system. And of course, like you’re going through so many issues with the PCO. So it may be difficult for some people to continue it for a long period of time. Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. It’s restricted. Yeah. So, but then two women got pregnant. So, you know, I remember a doctor pedagogy had mentioned like lowering carbs and that really,
really affects your ability to get pregnant because it’s quickly lowering your hormone, your insulin hormone. Like if you want to get pregnant yesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I can see That, but of course, like this was one sec, there was another study that found the ketogenic diet to improve insulin sensitivity by a whopping 75%.
But it also stated that the long-term effects of keto on women with PCOS is still uncertain. Yeah. So it’s, it’s important to remember that these studies are done over a certain amount of time. You know what this was other one was 24 weeks. The other one, I’m not sure what the time period was. So we don’t know the long-term effects of ketosis on just on people in general,
not just with PSUs. So it’s important to consider that this is, this is a diet that’s fairly, still new to the, to the common world. So just be it just be aware that, you know, just because some studies show, we don’t know the long-term effects of it, but you know, there are promising results showing that it really helps with the body weight helps with the testosterone helping with the fasting insulin.
So there are some great benefits and you don’t just take a look at that study. That’s, we’ll put in the podcast description notes. And if you want to just read it for yourself and gather some more information. Yeah. You know, that being said like insulin sensitivity is something that should be managed throughout your life. Like not just the 24 weeks that you’re on the ketogenic diet.
Like you need to manage insulin day after day throughout the day. Like everything you do, you know what I mean? You’re thinking of insulin and what’s going on. It’s what time you eat? How many times you eat, how you’re pairing your food and so on, it really affects your insulin levels. So just ketogenic diet for 24 weeks, like it’s not a long-term solution for an issue.
Like PCLs, that’s a long-term issue that you’re going to have for the rest of your life that you want to manage and do in a way that’s, what’s the word sustainable. Yeah. And there are also people who like, well, who would modify this diet, for example, like less than 50 grams of carbs a day. Maybe we’ll try it for you as like 75 grams of carbs a day,
or, or what have you, you know, like you don’t have to kind of like find this really low restrictive number. If you want to try a lower carb diet, you know, there are different ranges that you can try. And that’s why like, in the sisterhood, and when we talk about carp tolerance, we, that we talk about discovering the carp tolerance that’s right for you.
So like, we help teach you this in a sisterhood and we go, you go through a series of videos to learn, but the whole point is to kind of like figure out what your range is. You know, like you may start with like 125 grams a day, and then you lower until you find like a level that’s right for you. I mean,
in the sister here, we have like a tracker that helps you track these and like help you see how you’re feeling. So, but like finding that range that works for you, it may be 90 grams or 75 or whatever that really helps through then continue with that card range. And then you just like, like, you start to healing yourself because instant resistance is being controlled.
Right. Because you feel good in your carb tolerance range, you know what I mean? And oftentimes with keto, when you go on this ketogenic diet, there’s like, it’s very restrictive and it can be miserable. You know, you get the keto flu and stuff. Haven’t you tried keto Bay. Well, I did it for like a month and it was,
I actually had great results. I had like two, like my six six-pack never show as much as it did back then. Cause I was like, basically not having a lot of carbs, but it was really difficult for me to do it because I’m a mom. Cause I was still living with my parents and my mom, like, I’m sure many of you have moms like this,
like when you have a specific culture, like we’re Armenian. And like, my mom would make us, you know, like a lot of it like a heavy carb foods, like rice and like, like bird eggs, which is basically these things made out of like bread and cheese. Yeah. So like I would come home, you know, after work and I’d be like,
Oh, what’s for dinner. And like, it’s like freaking, you know, beans and rice or something. That’s just basically all carbs and like little protein or like medium protein. And like for like a month I was arguing with my mom or like kind of like asking her to do this. And it was like becoming way too difficult to like, you know,
to, to have her cook me certain foods. I was like, I just gave up on it. I was like, you know what, mom, forget it. I’ll just eat your food without questions as let’s just go with it. Did you Ever get into ketosis? I think so. Like, I’ll be honest. I actually woke up feeling more energized than I’ve ever felt in my life.
Like I would wake up without having a cup of coffee. I had so much energy and I, this was because of the fat, like all that fat, like I was talking about earlier was how, because you’re having high amount of fat. Your body starts to get better at burning fuel for energy because fat is like, has so much in it.
Yeah. So I was waking up feeling super energized. I would be at work just like, like ripping through and, and also like my crave. I had no cravings. I, to be honest, I didn’t have issues with like, I wasn’t really trying to lose weight or anything. I was just trying to like, you know, do something different.
But like I had like no cravings. I could go like 10 hours without eating. And it was very interesting. It was very interesting. I will. All right. Okay. I just have a warning. Oh God. I see his face. I know something I saw like, one of the things when you’re on a keto diet is they say like,
Oh, take MCT oil. Cause it’s like, it’s like a very high in healthy fats and they warn you. Like, don’t take too much at a time because you can have, let’s just say bowel issues. Like something can make through the Gates that wasn’t supposed to get through. If you know what I mean? Oh my God. A Trojan horse.
And the Roman times, What does that, what are you saying? No, I just, you know, I just want to run to the bathroom. Yeah. Because you know, when you have too much fat, too much MCT oil, it makes you want to like run to the bathroom. Right. Let’s just see my body. Yeah. I get it.
I get it. Oh God. My sister has tried the ketogenic diet and she has PCs as well. I haven’t personally tried, but she, this was before she went gluten and dairy free and it did help her with losing weight after getting into ketosis, you know, she felt light and of course it’s because their insulin levels were low and eventually it just wasn’t sustainable.
And having all, you know, you know, low carb and things like it’s just not sustainable. And then she had to slowly add back carbs back into her diet and then it just wasn’t. And then the weight like didn’t stay off. You know what I mean? Like it’s, again, insulin is a constant thing for women with PCOS. It constantly impacts our,
our symptoms and our weight and so on more than other people. And so keto was just like too short term for her. Yep. And would that being said, that’s going to the downsides of keto. So we talked about benefits. We kind of talked about, you know, how people may feel doing it, just going into the downsides of keto for women with pizzeria.
So the first thing to just mention we mentioned earlier is that many women with peace, us struggle with binge eating and eating disorders as well. You know, it’s a, it’s a common thing to have because many women are told to just lose weight when they go to the doctor’s office, cut calories, cut carbs, or like basically a lot of things that doctors just say without doing any other proper diagnosis.
So for that reason, we just want to mention that keto can be super restrictive, right. You’re having less than sometimes 50 grams of carbs per day, sometimes less. So like, you’re going to have a lot of cravings you’re going to have, you know, you’re to want to eat things like this. So just be aware that it can be super restrictive.
And if you have any history of like eating disorders or like anything like that, we just, we wouldn’t really recommend it. We would recommend working one-on-one with a dietician first to kind of see how to target that. Yeah. I mean, when we get diagnosed and we’re not given a lot of information and then told, you know, just lose weight,
try keto, okay. Then you’re like scared of carbs altogether, because now you think carbs are the enemy and carbs. Aren’t the enemy. It’s just that insulin resistance is the beast that we’re trying to tame here And the fastest And the fastest quickest way is the ketogenic diet. Of course it’s not sustainable. Well, and I think a lot of reasons,
the reasons why is because people just don’t know how to pair carbs with protein and fats. And so when you do a keto diet, you’re immediately doing, you’re immediately learning how to balance them. Not that it’s the right way to balance. It’s just, it’s such a restrictive way to do it. That immediately the protein, the protein to carb ratio is like very high.
Right. Whereas they, it may not, it may not, it may not need to be that high, right? Like you don’t need to have a lot less carbs and this is just like tequila diet just helps you get there immediately. Right. And I mean, I just think of that. It’s to restrict. That’s why I haven’t tried it because I just feel like for me,
that doesn’t sound like something I’m interested in doing, because I just feel like I’ll be miserable the whole way through, like I’m not into that super super restrict. I find an oftentimes people message us saying that going gluten and dairy free is not super restrictive. Like it’s not that terrible because you find replacements and you’re not completely cutting out like carbs, for example,
you know what I mean? So, Yeah. That’s one of the reasons I really like the gluten dairy free option is just that it’s not really restricted because you’re not focusing on cutting out calories or carbs or specific food groups related to like, you know, those mat, those three macros, you’re not cutting out fats. You’re really just cutting out the gluten and the dairy of course,
which, which may seem restrictive. But then you find out that there are so many foods without gluten dairy free, almost everything like potatoes, rice meats, all kinds of meats, chicken, you know, pork like vegetables, right. They’re all naturally occurring. Gluten and dairy free. Not to mention there are obviously good. And there are few alternatives,
although we don’t really recommend them as much because they can have like all these added ingredients and you know, things in them. So like there’s so many like naturally occurring gluten dairy foods. In fact, our ancestors were built there. Their entire diet was based on gluten and dairy free until, you know, obviously the whole, you know, like the,
like the farming of animals like cows and all that came into place, then milk was a huge part of our diet. But before all that, we weren’t really having done much gluten and dairy. And, you know, the dairy that we had now is a lot different than, than the dairy they were having. Like, I dunno like 500 years ago because that dairy didn’t have all the hormones and all the different,
different levels of casein and things like that that we have now. And the wheat strain wasn’t as didn’t have as many proteins in it, as it has now, like the genetically modified that too. Yeah. The wheat strain has been joking modified, and no testing has been done on humans or animals to see how the new, to see how this new we is,
because they don’t have to, it’s not part of the regulations like Dr. Davis explained this on our, on our, one of our previous episodes, you know, how the gluten found in gluten has such an impact. So just not to go on to gluten or dairy, But you know, say, check into gluten and Dairy. Yeah. I always like to think,
like, what did our ancestors eat? Right. Like obviously there was a lot of like farming and stuff that happened. I’m not sure, I don’t know the history of farming and when like grazing of cows and stuff came into place. But like before all that thousands of years ago, like they were, yeah. What were they eating? You know,
like gathering. Yeah. Like more like a paleo diet, I guess Also has worked for women with PCOM. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, of course it’s different for everybody and everybody has a, everybody kind of should try and see what’s going to work for them. Yeah. It’s about Finding what’s sustainable for you. Yep. So continuing about the downsides of keto for women with PSUs,
the second point we want to mention is that you could gain all the way back once you incorporate carbs again. So it could be temporary. So let’s say you did the keto diet and it really worked. And you know, maybe you’re just like, okay, I can’t do this anymore. Like, I’m not happy with it. Let’s just say Which eventually happens because it’s not something that you do forever.
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So then, you know, you might just bring back all the carbs because you haven’t discovered your carp tolerance level. So maybe you bring back all the carbs you were eating before, and then the insulin resistance happens again to insulin spikes. And then it’s kind of like the cycle, the cycle that you unfortunately get back into,
Right? Yes. I was trying To keep it, keep it to myself Part where you take over babe, and like, let me catch my breath and just So yeah, if you don’t, if you’re not fully tackling the beast of insulin and then you stop this ketogenic diet, well, what’s going to happen. All of that insulin is going to come back up.
Once you start eating carbs again, you know what I’m saying? So if you want to sustain, and if you want to sustainably keep the weight off, then you have to create a lifestyle that’s insulin resistant for you for whatever insulin sensitive lifestyle. So one thing that also helps with insulin sensitivity and maintenance is working out. So of course like eating and the way that you eat and,
you know, day after day, it builds up and it affects your insulin levels, but working out and building muscle can improve insulin sensitivity. And that’s so important. And it lasts a lot longer than going on the short term ketogenic diet. Yeah. And the really good thing about the working out Porsche portion that time mentioned is like, like for example,
thigh workouts, the biggest muscles in your body, you make your legs. When you do these workouts, it actually helps to pick up the sugars in your blood stream there for helping with insulin resistance. So there’s a lot of like direct impact that you’re gonna, you’re gonna see from just doing slow way to workouts. Right? Yeah. So that’s huh?
Yeah. Just like to close that portion off, is that overall, it’s not a long-term treatment for insulin resistance. Like she was saying everything perfectly, just like focusing on your insulin sensitivity and getting that, you know, like understanding that is, it can do a lot more long-term Right. So I came across a study that was done in 2013 and they found that even a very modest reduction in carbs for like just modest.
So that’s 41% of your calories are carbs. Imagine that can lead to significant improvements in weight, hormones, and risk factors for women with PCOS. And so this goes back to our method in the sisterhood of how we start having people eat between 120 and 150 grams to see if that works for them before lowering it any more, because it could be unnecessary.
And so 41% of your calories, if you’re on a 1500 calorie diet is 150 grams of carbs. So that means, you know, a lot of people are in a 1500 calorie diet. Everyone’s different. I’m not saying 1800 or 2000, obviously 1500 is not the norm. Right. But 41% is 150 grams. And that’s pretty good. Yeah. And you’re saying,
but you would replace that with carbs or I’m sorry, you would replace that carbs with protein or fat, right? Yeah. You don’t just cut it out from your diet. Like, Oh, you have 41% less calories. Wait, what you do is instead you replaced those 41% of carbs calories with protein or fat. Yeah. Like imagine you have a hundred percent of your calories.
41% is going to come from carbs. And then, you know, however you want to split it up. Like 30% can come from protein and 30% can come from fat, whatever works for you. But 41% instead of 50% is going to come from carbs. And then when you do the math and you convert it to grams and everything, then that’s 150 grams of carbs in a 1500 calories.
Okay. I see, I know I misunderstood. That’s my mistake, Math before this episode figured this out. So yeah. So starting at 150 grams, I mean, are you curious, like how many grams of carbs you’re eating right now? You can track it on my fitness pal and yeah. And you can see like daily, how many carbs you gravitate towards.
And then, you know, if it’s around 200, then you’re like, Oh, you know what? I can lower it to 150. Let me see how I feel like that. And then you’ll lower it to 150 and then, Oh, did that work for you? You don’t have to Florida anymore. You know, you don’t have to go all the way to Quito.
And the way that you know that it’s working for you is because you feel nourished after a meal, you’re not fatigued after your meal, you feel like your blood sugar, isn’t on a roller coaster. And at the next meal, you’re not dying of hunger because you know, you didn’t have like a crash in blood sugar because you ate too many carbs,
let’s say at the previous meal. Cause that could happen too. There are so many ways to figure out if it’s right for you. And then, you know, in the system, we have a download that you can use to like track how you feel before, during, and after your meal or before and after your meal, not during. And then that can help you evaluate if this is right for you,
because you want to feel good during this process, you don’t want to feel restricted and you don’t want to feel miserable. Maybe the beginning, it’s a little bit miserable because you’re lowering your carbs a little bit. And maybe you got used to having a lot of carbs if that’s the case. But oftentimes that’s not the case. Often times we’re just eating pretty regularly.
And our bodies don’t respond to the average person’s amount of carbs and we have to lower it a little, not a lot, just a little maybe, and then layer in the other things that help with insulin resistance. I feel like I’m yelling into the mic that good. You should. I told Tom, I told Talia, you need to talk louder into the mic because for some reason my voice comes out louder than yours always.
It’s because you’re a guy, look how close I am to them. I’m literally kissing them. Yeah. You kissing the mic, but you’re whispering to it. You’re making love gestures to it. You’re not talking to us. I’m talking to Got it. Okay. So, so just to summarize sisters with the keto diet, we talked about the positives,
you know, the benefits, we talked about studies linking keto and PC was directly together and improvements there. And then we talked about the cons or the downsides of keto and how, you know, it can be restrictive and it might not be a long-term approach, especially when you’re talking about insulin resistance and the impacts it has. So, I mean, with that being said,
we hope that we kind of like covered all around and you can kind of make a decision for yourself because we hope everybody understands that, you know, there’s not one diet for everybody, especially when it comes to the keto diet. It works for a lot of people, especially for a lot of people with PCOS. And we had, you know, Dr.
Nadia, Patty guarana on the podcast just a few weeks ago. And she said that it worked for her to get pregnant. You know, we’re just mentioning this too. So you know, of others, of other people and their own approach. So this is just to kind of highlight again, both sides of both sides of keto and help you make a decision.
Exactly. It, you make a decision on how to manage PCs throughout your life rather than temporarily. Yes, that is right. That’s right. All right. So we actually asked on Instagram a sticker question. What was your experience on keto? Like rape, right? We’re going to get to that, but first we’re going to answer a question from the as hotline.
So just an FYI to the Schwab. If you don’t know, if you’re new to the podcast, we have a hotline called the peace shows hotline. You can call at one eight, three, three ask PCLs a S K P S U S, and you can leave your question or testimonial. And we like to play it on the podcast. You can actually even leave a text message.
And today we’re actually going to do that. So we got a text message from a fellow sister, and she asked, I saw on your Instagram, you recommend low sugar. How do you track something like that? Great quiz. That’s a great question. So with tracking sugar, you always want to look at added sugars and that’s found in typically products.
So when you get like a sauce, you know, if you get a marinade, if you get married, Nate, pre-marinated chicken, even bread, they add sugar to that. So that’s what you want to track the added sugars. Yeah. So that’s of course, by looking at the nutrition facts on the back, and what I recommend is staying,
you know, at least within 25 grams of added sugar a day. And even that like, make it as low as possible because that’s ideal for PCO S so, but of course, it’s going to add up, like, when you have a slice of bread or you’re going to put tomato sauce, like on your meal at night or whatever, it’s going to have like three grams,
four grams, whatever. So these are what you want to track. Yeah. And I think that one thing time mentioned that’s really important is like, you don’t have to be like, like crazy strict with like, like throughout the day, counting your sugars and stuff every single day. Like when you’re using an app, for example, like the app,
my fitness pal really cool app, because you basically input the, like, exactly. You take a picture of the food you ate and it already knows the nutritional content and just adds it up for you. And like, you don’t have to do this every day. If you just do it for like a week, it’s a way to help you learn about what you’re eating and how much macros that’s giving you.
Even with like your carb levels. Like if you just track it for a week and that week you’ll learn day to day, what’s impacting your carb levels. And what’s not. So probably like, after that week, you don’t need to use app anymore because you’ve already learned in your mind, like, what’s, what’s giving you what? So with the sugar,
like avoiding those added sugars, I can like a lot of protein bars. They literally had like 20 grams of sugar. Like, it’s crazy. Like, am I eating a cookie? Or am I eating protein bar here? And like, a lot of other foods are like this, like snacks and things like that. So we’re really looking out for those.
And just like throughout your day, just like, you know, tracking it through the app. And then, you know, after one week you’ll just know that, okay, like if I avoid this, if I avoid that or like, you just know, Oh, I had a great week. I know what I’m eating is. Right. Great.
I feel better. You know, it’s just a great way to make sure everything’s good. Yeah. It’s a great tool for self-awareness. And like you said, it’s really important to not get addicted, to tracking and start tracking everything all the time and making sure that you’re always trying, you have to be perfect. Cause PCLs no, like that’s not sustainable either.
It’s just being more aware of what you’re putting in your mouth and realizing that, you know, maybe this snack or that snack isn’t ideal for you because it’s really bumping up your sugar intake. So maybe avoiding that, you know what I’m saying? Yeah. And like, if you’re thinking, Oh, I have to track at the, add up these numbers and like take notes.
You really don’t like these apps, like my fitness pal, I keep on mentioning that. Cause it’s like the best one. It’s crazy how good they work. You literally just take a picture of the barcode and it just populates the item for you with all the macros and nutritional and content. And at the end of your day, it tells you everything,
like all the macros, all the nutrients, like stuff that’s in the label added up for you really cool stuff. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that I do to keep my sugar down is make my own trail mix because a lot of added sugar comes in that they put in the chocolate and they put in all this dried fruit and it’s just like,
what the heck is going on? Am I eating nuts or fruit? Yeah. And then I also check the labels as I buy a pasta sauce. I literally check every single one and find which one has the least amount of sugar added. Or I find one that says no sugar added because they put literally sugar, like white table sugar in pasta sauce.
And then another thing, barbecue sauce. You guys see me make a lot of things on Instagram story with barbecue sauce specifically last week was chicken wings. It was so good, but primal kitchen has an unsweetened version of barbecue sauce where they don’t add sugar into it. So that’s a great choice. It’s just, you have to do a little bit of research and like put yourself out there and try to find something,
some type of great PCs, friendly, alternative. Nice, cool, cool, cool. So I hope that was a great answer for you sister. So check out or call us at the peace us hotline. One eight, three, three, ask PCO S it’s toll free. So it’s totally free to call and leave us your voicemail. We’ll play on the podcast.
Sometimes we played testimonials right at the beginning. So it’s, it’s so great to hear other sisters and we love to play the questions live on the podcast and answer them. So according to give us a call, all right. So moving on to the DMS or the question that we asked on Instagram, what was your experience like being on the ketogenic diet?
We got some responses from those sisters time, what would they say? Okay. So we got some responses and they don’t look very bright. Oh really? Yeah. The first response is overall. It wasn’t bad, but it was too much fat for me. I can see that. I personally wouldn’t like, Yeah, it’s not used to having a lot of fat.
It can, it can be like, it can feel like you’re eating wrong. Like almost like poses healthy or like, but then you actually, over time, you kind of like see the benefits. Yeah, Exactly. And then the next answer, the worst blank. Really? That’s what you said. Yeah. It can be kind of gross. It can be really restrict oil in your drinks and stuff.
Also. It’s really restrictive. And like I’m Shang, it’s the worst. It’s very possible that when you start, like a lot of people don’t know really how to start properly too. So like, you start off on this horrible experience of like, Oh my God, what? Like, I can’t eat this. I can’t eat that. I feel like,
you know, it’s like this very, it’s a hard thing to start a hundred percent. It’s true. And also like the keto protein bars that I’ve tried are so gross really? Cause I was like, Oh, low sugar. Let me try it. I’ve never tried them. Okay. And then someone says, first time was awesome. Didn’t do anything the second time though,
getting into ketosis. Isn’t fun. Yeah. If You’re wondering, can you explain what we didn’t really talk about what ketosis is? So the whole point of the keto diet, we should have mentioned this earlier. The whole point of the keto diet is to make your body run on fat instead of carbs. We didn’t mention that. But like going into ketosis is basically like when you’re like at the prime level of like you’re running on ketones and stuff,
I think, right? Yeah. Yeah. You’re burning ketones instead of the carbs that you’re eating. So every time you eat your first you burn carbs and then you start burning fat. Every time you work out and stuff like that, sorry, every time you eat, you eat carbs. And then that’s the first thing that you burn when you exercise.
That’s what I’m saying. So when you’re in ketosis, instead of burning those carbs, you’re burning ketones. You’re constantly burning ketones for energy instead of carbs for fuel. So you’re just in constant fat burning mode. We mentioned this. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Just want to reiterate, But getting into ketosis, isn’t fun because you lose a lot of water because you’re not eating carbs and carbs,
help your body retain water, which isn’t like necessarily a bad thing unless you’re eating a lot of carbs, but retaining water is important. So you’re losing water, you’re losing fluid and you get the keto flu and that makes you feel miserable when you’re getting into ketosis. Yes. You also lose electrolytes doing that. So you have to like replenish. I mean,
it’s a whole mess, like getting into it. You have to really know what you’re doing and like knowing what to replace and what to do. So yeah, The next answer she says I lost weight, but my cycle didn’t regulate probably because I was eating more dairy than ever, that could have an impact, Can have an impact on your insulin levels.
So, yeah. And what sh, and the thing is like with the loo you lose weight and you also want to make sure your insulin levels are also being controlled. Like we talked about earlier, we really went into it. So I won’t go too much again into it, but the insulin levels are impacting testosterone. That’s impacting the sexual hormone, globulin and hormone binding gloves,
sex, hormone, binding globulin. So when you have less globulin and more testosterone to testosterone goes on, goes under controlled. So now it’s affecting your symptoms with, you know, fertility with weight gain. I mean, sorry with sorry, acne hair loss or hair growth, things like that. You know? So, and obviously your weight gain too,
because of the incident levels. Yeah, exactly. So I can’t, I mean, that sucks though. You know, like when it just doesn’t work for you and your cycle doesn’t regulate and stuff like that. Yeah. Well of course it’s not for everyone, but it is for this Instagram fellow follower, who’s PCs, keto queen. She says it was really positive.
She felt great. She got a period and a baby, It works for some people. And I think that is a great way to summarize, like all these responses is that it’s going to work for some people it’s going to, it’s not going to work for others. So it’s really about finding out, we’ll try for you. Sorry. I thought you were choking on your spit again.
You didn’t respond that. That’s why I looked at you, right? I think that about summarizes the DMS that we got or the responses that we got for those questions for that question. And we hope that this episode really summarize it. Don’t go yet. We’re going to do the wind of the week, but we just hope this episode really helped summarize the keto diet for everybody here.
Know the pros and the cons, as I mentioned earlier, really helped you to make a decision on your own, to know what’s right for you. Cool. Cool. Cool. All right. So the winds, we have several. Yeah. So every week we announced a winner of the week, which is a sister who was managing her piece, us losing weight and just doing her best,
or even like just starting with taking the right steps with our TCS, or it doesn’t have to be you’re losing weight or, or anything. It just, it could just be that you’re taking the first steps to manage your PCs. Yeah. And that is a win in and of itself is such a big one. You don’t have to lose a single pound.
The fact that you’re trying, you should Pat yourself on the back 100%. All right. So this is from Instagram handle the Vogue label. And she says, Hey, you lovely sister and her amazing Mister you’ve helped me a lot in losing weight and embracing my S my gyno always told me to repeat three month cycle of birth control pills and Metformin. But when I met you,
I learned that PCs can be reversed naturally with gluten and dairy-free diet and stress management. Slow workouts has helped me a lot in managing my stress and energy levels. And I got my period naturally after so many months of pain, all thanks to you. Your podcasts are a way by which we get to know you better. And also that we’re not alone in,
in there in the PCs journey. Also like you, I have a very supportive partner. We both love how you guys keep motivating everyone. And as I always say, let’s not fight PSUs, but get stronger with it. That’s so great. And honestly, that’s such a great quote, gets stronger with peace. Just not fight it. You know,
we’ve had so many people say, you know, PCRs is actually helped me to learn how to manage my body, to know what impacts my body, to know how I can better my body without, you know, feeling stressed. It’s really a blessing in disguise. Yeah. It gets you on a great self care routine and diet and everything to feel the best you can and prevent lots of things from happening to you.
Yeah. And you’re really getting down. You’re getting in tune with your body at such an earlier age. Doesn’t matter what age, but you’re getting in tune with your body at an earlier time compared to another person who might deal with similar issues when they’re a lot older, you know? So like you’re doing a great service to your body by learning now.
Okay, babe, do you want to read the next one? Yes. All right. The next one of the week, her name is Zale Bob. She says, or Zale babe, whichever one Oh Z, babe. I think Tallinn exclamation point exclamation point exclamation point. I also started just over a month ago. I’m so pleased to announce I lost a full stone.
Thanks to your advice. I’ve also started taking Avastin at all. It’s really helped with my cravings. I am now starting to incorporate slowly workouts to add to my now gluten dairy free diet. I love your podcasts so much. She says, Oh, it’s so nice. So sweet. So sweet. And you know, she’s doing like these diet and lifestyle changes or Vassar tall,
you know, finding a diet that’s right for her gluten dairy free. And it’s just so, so positive. Love that great job. One stone is 14 pounds. I just Googled it. That’s great. It doesn’t matter how many pounds it is or whatever. It’s just great that you’re finding the results that you’re looking for. So that’s great to hear exactly.
Cool. All right. Thank you everybody for listening, please, please, please let us know always how we can make this podcast better for you. Feel free to send us a DM or message to talk about topics that you want to hear about. We always want to, you know, make this topic about whatever the community wants to hear about. And if you’re looking to listen to more calories,
sorry, if you’re looking, I don’t know why a more calories, if you’re, if you’re looking to listen to more episodes, check out our previous episodes. We just had a great one with Dr. Nadia. Paragonah talking about peace USA. We had a great episode with Dr. Davis talked to talk about the book wheat belly, and basically how we can impact piece us.
That’s right. And so much more that’s right, sisters. Thank you so much for tuning in. And we hope that we brought some positive light to your PCRs journey. Yes. Talk to you guys next week. Bye. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you have to come check out the sisterhood. It’s my monthly membership site, where sisters just like you are learning how to move through the stages of PCOS from stage one,
cold and alone at the doctor’s office to stage five, nailing the PCs lifestyle, gluten and dairy free. Get ready to finally feel in control of your body. Again,
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