A PCOS Miracle & Meal Plan for 5/17 to 5/24

Okay, so the PCOS miracle I'm really looking for is pregnancy, obviously. But today my period started and that's pretty amazing. It is day 30 of my cycle!

A 30 day cycle is just incredible. Absolutely perfect. Just what I need. Once I keep this up I just need to figure out if I'm ovulating. Plus a shorter cycle makes it a lot easier to time sex effectively.

This is great news and I'm excited that the diet is really working. (And you can tell from my last post that I really am going dramatically up and down between hope and despair each day!)

I have been struggling to keep up with my meal plans. I wanted to use up the food I had to not waste but trying to work from leftovers and what I had on hand is tricky when I can't depend on my usual go-to meals (grilled cheese and tuna fish sandwiches). I need some new go-tos! But I also need new go-tos for each cycle phase. That should be a post soon.

But I'm going to try to get back to having a plan for each day so I know what to make for myself and my husband and I'm not struggling to get him enough food.

Sunday (today)
Snack: kale chips
Dinner: yam and black bean soup with orange (afr)

Monday
Breakfast: chocolate peanut butter chia seed parfait
Lunch: wild rice with cranberries and mushrooms
Snack: cranberry DIY larabar
Dinner: black bean soup

Tuesday
Breakfast: parfait
Lunch: stir fry with kale, mushrooms, carrots, onion over brown and wild rice blend
Snack: watermelon pieces
Dinner: miso soup and  almond butter banana popsicles

Wednesday
Breakfast: graham cracker with nut butter and cranberries
Lunch: rajma with brown and wild rice
Snack: lara bar
Dinner: miso soup and sticky rice cakes with red bean paste

Follicular Phase Switch
Thursday
Breakfast: graham crackers with nut butter and clementine
Lunch: sweet potato and avocado onigiri
Snack: avocado wontons
Dinner: Going out with father-in-law

Friday
Breakfast:
Lunch: creamy mushroom fettuccine (afr)
Snack: cashew cookie dough lara bar
Dinner: boca burger with lots of toppings

Saturday (Husband out on boat)
leftovers

Grocery List:
(for monday)
bananas
wild rice
cranberries
mushrooms
dates
almonds

(for rest of week)
miso
peanut butter
clementines or orange
wonton wrappers
avocado
cachews
chocolate chips
whole wheat flour
portabello soup
nori

Asian market:
red bean paste
glutinous/sweet rice flour from long grain

Meals Last Week

I've been mostly cooking leftovers this week. I made this amazing stir fry and I had forgotten how much I love mushrooms. Sweet carrots, flavorful mushrooms, singed broccoli...it was perfection. I ate it with some brown rice.

This is a pumpkin and coconut cream parfait. Yes, it is as amazing as it looks. I'm not the biggest fan of pumpkin taste but this is good. Would have been better if I had done two things better. One, I didn't freeze the pumpkin ahead of time as the recipe recommends. Two, I didn't realize I had Coconut Milk and not Coconut Cream as the recipe calls for. So I was using my hand mixer on it for about twenty minutes before I realized that it was never going to thicken up and turn into whipped cream. Such a shame! But it was still good as a liquidy mess :)

The graham cracker with toppings has become such a great go-to meal for me whether for breakfast or lunch. I spread peanut butter on it and then add things like applesauce, fruit, granola, and nuts. Delicious!

I also made some nacho spinach chips for my lunchbox here. They didn't stay crispy in with the other stuff so next time I need to put a lid on their compartment, I think.

I tried the vegan crepes with asparagus and mushrooms but my asparagus had gone bad so it was just mushrooms. And I tried to substitute Urad flour for the all purpose white and it tasted kind of weird. The crepes were easy to make, though, and I think with normal flour they would taste great.

Today is day 28 of my cycle. My temperature is still high. I'm waiting anxiously to see what news the next week or so might bring me.

My weight is down another couple of pounds. I'm at 144.5 now, which is 28.5 lbs below my heaviest weight.

Cycle Day 27

Well, here we are at last. Poised on the day before the end of a two week wait. Tomorrow will be day 28 of the cycle that started when I began this diet.

Of course not all women have a normal cycle of 28 days, so it could still be fine if I don't get my period for another week.

I'm trying so hard not to get my hopes up, but it's not working. I'm super anxious and hopeful that I'll see my period tomorrow. (Or that if I don't it means I'm pregnant!)

My temperatures have remained high (for me) and I've never seen that before. Every other time I've tracked my temp would go up about the right time and then a few days later crash back down. This is a good sign. Although now I'm worried about the batteries in the thermometer and if it is giving me an accurate reading. I guess it's just another example of me being afraid to be too hopeful.

In terms of eating I've been saving money this week and mostly making things from what I have on hand. I thought I had asparagus because it was in the freezer but when I went to make my asparagus meals I discovered that it had gone bad (I'd probably had those bags for a couple of years!)

So I haven't been eating the proper foods for this cycle, though I have still been eating healthy. I do have a pile of sweet potatoes in the pantry and that is a food for this cycle so I think I'll see what I can make with those for today.

Meal Plan & Progress

So we ended up not even getting to the meals Wednesday to Friday of last week. Even though I should be doing Luteal phase meals now I'm going to still do those plans from last week.

I think that I might have a totally normal cycle this time! I'm on day 22 and yesterday I felt deeply sad for no reason plus I have a little tiny bit of acne developing. These things suggest to me that I'm in PMS, which would be just about right for a "normal" 28 day cycle!

This cycle I tried to use ovulation sticks but I can never seem to get a clear understanding of what's happening with those things. I really need to go back to taking my temperature. I did it this morning so that's a start. I just feel frustrated that I can't instantly have the temperature history to know what this morning's number means but that's entirely my own fault.

I still feel my hope and my fear swinging wildly back and forth. One moment I feel full of hope that we're are finally close to getting pregnant and I'm fixing all our issues. Another moment I feel the familiar despair that it's never going to happen and it's too late for me. (It's not. I'm 33, which is old but not too old).

It's Mother's Day tomorrow and it feels like a punch in the gut. My customers want to wish me a happy Mother's Day and so are more likely to ask if I have children.

But anyway, if I do get a period next week that will be pretty amazing and a great sign that I am probably ovulating.

From last week:
Wednesday  Sunday
Breakfast: graham cracker
Lunch: rajma and brown rice
Snack: lara bar
Dinner: grilled asparagus

Thursday Monday
Breakfast: graham cracker with nut butter, applesauce, and strawberries
Lunch: quinoa kale bowl with mushroom and asparagus
Snack: trail mix
Dinner: asparagus leek and green onion soup

Friday Tuesday
Breakfast: graham cracker
Lunch: breakfast for lunch: sweet potato hash browns and coconut "bacon" flakes, vegan pancakes topped with strawberries
Snack: lara bar
Dinner: Savory Asparagus Crepes with Easy Vegan Hollandaise Sauce

New meals (Luteal)

Wednesday

Breakfast: pumpkin pie parfait

Lunch: orange cauliflower and brown rice

Snack: oven baked onion rings with chia seed breading 

Dinner: Sanctuary Salad (ranch style) (afr book)

Thursday

Breakfast:

Lunch: lettuce wrap tacos with fake beef crumbles

Snack: girl scout cookie lara bar

Dinner: carrot soup

Friday 

Breakfast:

Lunch: stir fry with whatever veggies are left and brown rice

Snack: vegan cookie dough blizzard

Dinner: yam and blackbean soup with orange (afr book)

Grocery List:

pumpkin puree

walnuts

molasses?

romaine lettuce

boca crumbles

peanuts

vegan chocolate chips?

cauliflower

radishes

sunflower sprouts

cherry tomatoes

extra firm silken tofu

dill

vegetable broth powder

onion flakes

orange juice

A nice short grocery list means I have the chance to buy some extras that I have good deals for. Like claritin and nature valley bars. Maybe I can even buy that raspberry bush this week!

Also with a few more pet purchases I should get the $7 back coupon that's advertised at Weis this month.

Meals 5/5/15

The eggplant "bacon" was...okay. It was flavorful. But it didn't get crispy like you want in a blt. It was my first time trying eggplant and I wasn't thrilled with it but I did think that I'd be willing to try it in other applications. 

For the sandwich I decided to do half with the eggplant bacon and half with the coconut bacon flakes and see which I liked better. I thought the bacon flakes would get a better crunch but I didn't end up liking either side. I didn't eat very much of this sandwich.

I added "shaved brussle sprouts" from the Appetite for Reduction book. I've made four recipes from it so far this week and they've all been good. No surprise I liked these. I don't know if they were meant to get quite this black but that's how I like my veggies: pan fried until blackened!

I want to start keeping an eye on whether I'm getting enough fruits and veggies every day. With eating reduced carbs and sugars plus no meat or dairy you would think the only thing left to eat would be fruits and veggies yet I still seem to manage to avoid getting enough. I've been eating a lot of nuts.

Did I get five servings of fruits and veggies?

1. Apricot in breakfast and snack
2. Eggplant in "b"lt
3. Brussle Sprouts in lunch side
4. Red Bell Pepper in soup at dinner
5. Spinach in "b"lt
6. Tomatoes in "b"lt
7. Spinach and strawberries in dinner salad

I didn't exactly eat much of my lunch but I did well in serving myself enough varieties of fruits and veggies!

Medication

I am currently not on any medication for my PCOS.

Nor am I on any medication for my close-to-pre-diabetes symptoms.

I'm kind of a natural hippy chick type and I absolutely hate being on medication for anything. I try to avoid it as much as possible and accomplish health with food and lifestyle. However, I am on one medication right now.

I am taking medicine for my thyroid. I'm on a small dose. It took about six months of blood tests and experimenting to get the right dose but now my thyroid levels are normal and I'm capable of losing weight for the first time in about five years.

A lot of people with PCOS and/or Diabetes are on Metformin. I may eventually get on it too. But I'm trying to heal myself with diet first and see how far I can get.

If diet is not enough to get me ovulating then I will look into hormone injections and fertility procedures like IUI and maybe the new one IVM that is supposed to be particularly good for people with PCOS.

So I'm not opposed to getting onto medication eventually for PCOS but I'm not there right now.

(Another complication to that is that we lost our health insurance and so I'm not seeing the fertility doctor right now and the endocrinologist was only for getting my thryoid functioning correctly. He was not a reproductive endro).

Meals this Weekend and Mood Changes

My Sunday meals did not get done at all since I didn't get all my grocery shopping done in time and we had a friend in town visiting. I ended up making the sweet potato hash browns with coconut bacon and vegan pancakes. I threw in an egg because we still have some to use up.

The pancakes were phenomenal. Very light and fluffy. Super easy to cook. I like them better than my standard pancake recipe.

The coconut bacon also turned out great. My husband says they taste like a mixture of coconut and bacon and he likes both those things.

The hashbrowns were not as much of a success. The idea of cooking them in a waffle iron sounded so awesome. But it did not work at all for me. Despite using up all the rest of my paper towels (I usually use cloth paper towels), I couldn't get enough moisture out.

This morning I woke up at 5:00 am to get lunch finished before my husband left at 7:15. I just barely made it! I'm really glad I got a new food processor because I used it for four different things this morning: bread dough, pesto, mousse, and diy lara bar.

This is portabello mushroom burger (marinated in balsamic) on whole wheat bun (actually mixed flours because I ran out part way through!) with a home roasted red pepper and homemade pesto. Avocado chocolate mousse (I forgot to add the strawberries for hubby's lunch!). And a homemade version of an apricot almond Lara bar.

I'm on day 17 of my cycle and my mood has been really bad. It feels like nothing is going right the last couple of days. I feel like sleeping until it's over. It's PMSy feelings but it's far too early to be getting PMS, I think. 

I'm recording it on my fertility tracking app and waiting to see what it might mean.

Paying Attention to Poop

Gross out alert! I hate talking about poop. I hate thinking about poop. I don't want to know those details about anyone's life, even my own!

However.

It is an important way that we can know how our bodies are functioning. I have learned from WomanCode that higher levels of fiber are necessary for women with PCOS because when we don't eliminate often enough waste estrogen gets reabsorbed into our bodies (and I've seen that information confirmed with several PCOS experts). That makes our imbalance of hormones worse.

Since I don't like to think about these things, I haven't been paying any attention to how often I poop. I read somewhere once that everyone has their own schedule and there is no normal so not to worry if you go twice a day or once every other day.

But WomanCode explains that you should be using the bathroom within twenty minutes of getting out of bed in the morning with only the help of water (not coffee). You should go again in the afternoon.

Once I started paying attention for it I discovered that I was definitely constipated. I hadn't noticed because I didn't have any pain associated with it (I did when I was a pre-teen and had to go on suppositories for a while. Yuck!)

Even now that I've increased the amount of fiber I'm eating and taking Metamucil pills most days I still struggle to use the bathroom twice a day.

This is another way I'll be able to tell if the diet is working. It's one of the few daily signs that can be observed.

Just The Essentials

From reading message boards and watching videos of other people with PCOS I see lots of people talking about diet and its effect on PCOS symptoms.

There's different books and different websites and different programs that we can get on but they all have two things in common. These are the essential basic foundation of using diet to heal PCOS.

1) No simple carbs
2) No simple sugars

(and those two things are related).

So regardless of the other details, I think if you have PCOS: going for complex carbs and natural sugars will go a long way towards balancing your hormones and getting you back onto a proper cycle.

That's what all the PCOS diets have in common, what they all recommend.

It may not matter which of these diets you follow as long as you're doing low carb (basically the food that is good for people with diabetes).

Another element that's very common in these diets is lessening dairy intake.

Increasing fiber matters because that can clear excess estrogen out of our systems.

These are the basics that can go a long way towards healing us and erasing our symptoms!