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Eating For Your Hormones [Fixing PCOS]

Several weeks ago I posted about a new eating plan. Here were the key points:

  1. Ditch the scale
  2. Give away clothes that don’t look good or don’t fit
  3. Eat consistently, real meals, every day. Make time for true sit-down meals.
  4. Eat whatever you want to eat. Nothing is off limits. 🙂
  5. Mantra: “I will have good days and bad days but my value is not determined by my weight and I intend to nourish myself at the start of each day.”

So – i have to say – it has been so good! I’ve had lingering hormone issues (PCOS) from some nutritional deficiencies in the past (several years ago) and this plan has really helped my health improve.

Here are some resources that I found helpful. They are articles about thin PCOS-ers (women who have PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome but are not overweight), about restrictive eating habits, and recovery from disordered eating / eating disorders.

*I had trouble getting in this much food each day at first but I got used to it and my body has adjusted. I did not gain weight (actually lost 1-2 pounds).

**This article raises a few good points such as – 1) thin PCOS-ers should not fast and 2) they should eat higher carb. To be honest I don’t know how much I buy into the rest of her recommendations (such as cutting out entire food groups) but I do think that it’s important to be eating regularly and enough carbohydrates so your body knows it can rely on you to give it fuel.

One more note is that eating this way seems to have helped my stomach calm down. My IBS is having a period of remission and I couldn’t be happier.

What are your thoughts? Do you have PCOS or IBS and how have you dealt with either?

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Vegan Tomato Peanut Stew [Recipe]

I tooootally forgot I meant to post this last week. Enjoy! I sure did.

Vegan Tomato Peanut Stew Recipe

Inspired by this peanut stew.

Ingredients

  • 1/3 large red onion
  • 1/4 cup peanut butter
  • 1/4 cup sunflower seed butter (or more peanut butter – I ran out)
  • 3 medium, verging on too-ripe tomatoes
  • 2 small satoimo (taro) potatoes
  • large handful of cilantro, chopped
  • 1/2 can of garbanzo beans (drained)
  • salt

Method

  1. Put onions in a pan and cook on high-ish heat.
  2. Chop the tomatoes and add them, along with the nut butters. Reduce heat to low-medium.
  3. Add the potatoes (satoimo).
  4. Add the cilantro.
  5. Add the garbanzos.
  6. Cook for about 30 minutes, covered. Add salt, to taste.
  7. Serve with homemade bread (me) or rice (Bobby).

This is what satoimo look like:

Feel free to sub in a regular potato – I just didn’t have any on hand.

Before serving, I un-veganized it by adding parmesan (duh). I had this with my own homemade bread from the new breadmaker.

***

Do you eat stew? What is your favorite kind?

***

P.S. Please check out Natalie’s Hormone Survey! I might do a hormone post in the near future as well because I finally went to the doctor (I *finally* found a good one) and figured out what my dealio is.

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Acupuncture Treatment: Stress and Hormones

This is an overview of the treatment for hormonal imbalance and treatment for stress. Acupuncture treatment can be very helpful for both. It’s an effective natural treatment for stress.

I’ve had a few people emailing me asking for recommendations that my acupuncturist told me. So I will just put them out here for you all to see. A lot of the mindfulness exercises can be good for anyone.

Acupuncture is great for: stress, digestion, hormonal problems, and more. I mainly went because of my digestion and a hormone thing!

Eating recommendations:

07-veggie-coconut-oil-lamb 08-eggs-and-bacon1 feb152010006_thumb feb152010007_thumb

  • Eat: lamb and bison, lightly spiced. (Cinnamon and chili are good.) (This is for the hormone thing.) (I made lamb here and here. Used spices here.)
  • Eat: Eggs and bacon. Alternate between turkey and regular bacon so I don’t get bored. (Reasoning: animal fats are good for hormone regulation as long as they are from free-range/organic animals.) (Also for hormones.) (I made bacon here. Eggs and bacon breakfast here.)
  • Eat: black beans with some coconut oil. (For hormones.) (Ate them here.) (Coconut oil here.)
  • Eat: lemon rind/zest in cooking; oranges. Something about the rid of these citrus fruits is good for digestion.
  • Eat: ginger and garlic. Good for digestion. Also very warming.
  • Snack idea: rice cakes with coconut oil.

It is good to keep a balance – meat and carbs are acidic in nature, so to balance them out, we need alkaline green leafy veggies. Lots of them!

Other recommendations:

  • Soak feet in hot water with lavender and epsom salts. Don’t let the water get cold! Do this for 20-30 minutes.
  • Take a hot bath after dinner with lavender and epsom salts.

Meditations to try:

  • Lie on your back (savasana). Breath in and out with your chest. Imagine your heart is expanding and making your chest rise. Keep focusing on the strength and power of your heart. (5-15 minutes.)
  • Sitting or savasana. Focus on an area of your body that may feel neglected or needing love. Imagine a tiny light the size of a dime radiating from the center of that place. Now imagine it growing and radiating out from that body part until it is big enough to envelop your whole body. Now take all that energy and begin to compress it back into a smaller and smaller light. Eventually the light goes back to the size of a dime (still in the same location). Repeat if necessary. (5-10 minutes.) I got this one from an intenSati class with Lindsay.

Books:

  • Feeling Good by David D. Burns. Cognitive therapy isn’t just for depression!

Have you tried acupuncture? What about other Traditional Chinese Medicine? (Coco has a good series on this stuff too.)

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The Great Fat Animal Experiment

Nope, I’m not talking about these lazy boys (cats… or as we call them: fats).

I’m talking about some new dietary things I’ve been trying. The changes involve fat and animals. Like steel-cut oats cooked in water and almond milk, then topped with organic butter and maple syrup:

I take food to work in these containers. Here is another, better picture of steel cut oats from the other day (this is after the butter had been stirred in).

I cooked (makes ~3 servings):

  • 4.5 cups of water and almond milk (I did half and half)
  • 1 cup steel-cut oats (the “serving size” is 1/4 cup)
  • few dashes of salt
  • cinnamon optional
  • …in my rice cooker.

Just be careful as it cooks – unless you have a very large rice cooker it will overflow. What I like to do is let it start to boil (on the “cook” button), and then turn it to “warm” and let it sit overnight. In the morning you have creamy, chewy, luscious steel-cut oats. They’re just as good as Jamba Juice‘s.

Or how about this guy…

Veggies cooked in 1-2 tablespoons of organic butter, topped with whipped full-fat cream cheese. I actually didn’t have this yet because my boss bought us lunch today (snow day!) – so I saved it in the fridge for tomorrow.

What are your thoughts on diet and healing? Do you think that food can really have that much of an impact on your well-being?