Managing PCOS Through a Non-Diet Approach

Every woman who has PCOS knows the struggle. Imbalances in hormones and metabolism present daily challenges with blood sugar regulation and chronic low-grade inflammation. PCOS is not a lonely struggle either, for it affects 1 in 10 women of childbearing age.  

For someone who is frustrated with her PCOS, trendy diets may offer a glimmer of hope: perhaps the carb-free keto diet or grain-free paleo diet will alleviate these symptoms and help me lose weight? Though these approaches seem attractive, there is little evidence that prohibitive diets work, particularly over time. Completely cutting out carbs or fats doesn’t have immense health benefits, and indeed, restricting intake can actually lead to a stress response from the body.  

When it comes to dieting, the bottom line is that the diets fail, not the individual. Their restrictive nature makes it inherently impossible to maintain in the long-term. It’s natural for the body to desire the types and levels of food it normally receives. Furthermore, a uniform, prescribed diet approach to health for everyone is simply unrealistic, nor feasible. Rather than cut and restrict intake to improve health, it’s far more important to diversify food sources and get sufficient levels of nutrients. 

This mantra is echoed in the principles of non-diet frameworks, which are significantly better for our physical and mental health. Both Intuitive Eating (IE) and the Health At Every Size (HAES) approach advocate for rejecting the diet mentality and embracing self care health promoting behaviors instead of restriction. With these frameworks, people are empowered to listen to the signals the body sends, and learn how to properly address those signals. 

IE shows potential for people with PCOS. In one web-based study, a representative sample of 120 women with PCOS completed a survey about dietary behaviors and self-efficacy. Results indicated that 89% of respondents had previously tried traditional diets. But the most interesting result was that a significant, positive relationship existed between high adherence to IE and confidence in maintaining healthy habits, like trusting hunger and satiety signals. The authors suggested that more sustainable, beneficial changes in diet are possible when people follow the IE framework.  

Like IE, the HAES approach can be tailored to women with PCOS too. It condemns the idea that weight status is synonymous with health and encourages followers to focus more on what works for them. This means freely eating the foods that help manage PCOS symptoms, and paying more attention to ovulation changes, blood sugar levels, and mood than the number on the scale. 

IE and HAES offer real, achievable solutions to living with PCOS. Unlike diets, these frameworks celebrate individuality and value body knowledge. Learning to be aware of the signals the body sends, the foods that taste good, as well as the movements that ease symptoms is a sustainable and effective way to live with PCOS. If you’re interested in learning more about identifying these things for yourself, get in touch with a HAES dietitian specializing in PCOS and discuss how to apply non-diet frameworks to your lifestyle.

How Working With a Dietitian Can Help You With Intuitive Eating

Intuitive Eating, by its very concept, seems to be relatively self-explanatory. After all, the very premise of Intuitive Eating is based on the idea of listening to your internal bodily cues instead of going on diets and following various food rules in order to achieve a healthy lifestyle. So, you may be wondering, how can a Registered Dietitian help me as an Intuitive Eating? Shouldn't I be just able to figure out on my own? Well, the answer is that Intuitive Eating, while simple in concept, can actually be quite a challenge, especially in the beginning, and a Registered Dietitian can help you at any point in your Intuitive Eating journey. A Registered Dietitian can help you navigate many areas related to recognizing hunger and satiety cues, can help you make better decisions and change your behaviors, and can help to clarify common misconceptions you may have about health and wellness. 

While Intuitive Eating can be simply summed up as “eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full” it isn't actually that simple in practice. Intuitive Eating actually encompasses a set of ten principles that each need to be worked on. If you’ve been a yo-yo dieter for years, it can be extremely challenging to get in touch with your body and its internal cues. It can be difficult to pinpoint true feelings of hunger and satiety especially when you’ve been suppressing these natural cues over a long period of time. A Registered Dietitian will help you to differentiate between hunger and appetite, and can help you to learn to recognize when you are actually physically hungry, as opposed to when you are driven to eat out of habit or impulse. These distinctions are key, as recognizing and responding properly to your body’s cues are a crucial part of learning to eat intuitively. 

Another way that a Registered Dietitian can help you on your Intuitive Eating journey is through behavior modification. For a lot of us, our eating habits are closely tied to our emotional states. When we are not in tune with our body’s physical and emotional states, it becomes all too easy to overeat or under eat in response to certain emotions we might be experiencing. A key part of Intuitive Eating is learning to cope with your emotions with kindness. A qualified Registered Dietitian can help you to develop coping mechanisms and to implement behavior modification so that food no longer serves as the main coping tool. 

A Registered Dietitian can also be instrumental in clearing up common misconceptions about Intuitive Eating. Many people falsely believe that Intuitive Eating means just eating whatever you want. Many are hesitant to embrace Intuitive Eating because they don’t feel that they can trust themselves to have freedom to eat any and all foods, and still live a healthy lifestyle. However, working with a Registered Dietitian, you will quickly come to learn that Intuitive Eating is not simply eating whatever you want, but rather eating in a thoughtful and mindful way, which honors your body, and prioritizes your overall health. 

Working with a Registered Dietitian at any point in your Intuitive Eating journey can be hugely beneficial, as Registered Dietitians are trained to work and respond to your unique health concerns.

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Rejecting the Diet Mentality

The very first thing you need to do when learning to embrace intuitive eating is to reject the diet mentality. It is a mentality that we are all familiar with. It is a mentality that keeps us trapped in a cycle of mistrusting ourselves, and mistrusting our bodies. It is a desperate and never ending endeavor to control our cravings and appetite, depriving ourselves of your favorite foods, and the flavor and zest of life. Healthful, joyful living comes from a mindset that embraces abundance and nourishment over restrictive diets. Learning to reject the diet mentality is key to cultivating the joyful, healthy lifestyle you deserve. 

The dictionary definition of diet is, “a special course of food to which one restricts oneself” while the dictionary definition of nourish is “provide with the food or other substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition”. These starkly different definitions really highlight how toxic and destructive the diet mentality can be. The diet mentality puts self-control over self-care. When we diet, we are constantly at war with ourselves, trying to conform our appetite and cravings to fit arbitrary sets of rules. The diet mentality is an approach based on deprivation and restriction, and it is hard to live a full and happy life when we are constantly concerned over food rules and trying to stay in control. Nourishment on the other hand is all about living a full and healthy life. Nourishment is about honoring and respecting our bodies, eating in a way that promotes growth, health and vitality. 

In order to reject the diet mentality, it's important to be able to embrace the gray areas in life. What does this mean? It means realizing that we are human, and that we don't have to be perfect in order to be happy, successful and fulfilled in life. The diet mentality is an all-or-nothing approach that leaves little room for spontaneity or flexibility. When we go on diets we make harsh and unrealistic demands on ourselves, setting ourselves up for misery and failure. Embrace the gray. There can be room in a healthy lifestyle for any and all foods, all in the right amounts. Embrace moderation and flexibility, and stop falling for the all-or-nothing trap. Remember: diets are hardwired to fail. It's not about a lack of self-control or discipline. When we restrict and are undernourished, our bodies naturally strive to come back into balance. Diets are not designed to be sustainable long-term. Cultivating a mindset focused on nourishment and balance is key to creating a long-term, sustainable, healthy lifestyle. 

Practicing Gentle Nutrition

I’m sure most of us have experienced the terrible feelings of shame and guilt that result from falling off a diet bandwagon. Dieting often seems like a never ending cycle of restriction and deprivation followed by overwhelming feelings of self-loathing. We berate ourselves, trying to control our cravings and appetites and agonizing over every single food choice, but healthy eating doesn't have to be so complicated and difficult! Gentle nutrition, the tenth principle of intuitive eating, is about approaching health and nutrition from a relaxed and flexible perspective. With this approach, we don’t cut out any food groups, and we don’t moralize food. When we practice gentle nutrition, all types of food can be a part of a healthy and balanced diet.

Gentle nutrition can be a difficult concept to accept, especially if you’ve been influenced by years of diet culture. Diet culture is constantly sending us messages about how food is harmful, and that we need to cut out foods and restrict our diets. This over emphasis on restriction creates a sense of urgency in our brains. Urgency is what motivates us to act: when we feel like something might not be available to us, we are more motivated to act to get it. The more we feel like we can’t have something or we won't have access to it, the more we want it, and the more urgently we pursue it. When we go on a diet, we are in effect, telling ourselves that certain foods are limited to us. In doing so, we are creating a sense of urgency around these foods, causing our brains to more actively pursue and desire these foods. Gentle nutrition throws all of these mind games out the window. Gentle nutrition is about giving ourselves unconditional permission to eat any and all foods. Once we genuinely stop thinking of certain foods as “off-limits” or as “good” or “bad” we can come to a place where we are more capable of making rational and sound decisions in order to best nourish and sustain our bodies. Gentle nutrition is a practice of self-care, not self-control. It is about eating without restriction and anxiety, allowing us to feel happy, satisfied, and relaxed about eating. 

Feel the Difference With Joyful Movement

Just as intuitive eating is about healing our relationship with food, joyful movement is about healing our relationship with exercise, and reclaiming the joy in physical activity.  Joyful movement is about shifting our perspective - it’s about viewing exercise as a pleasurable way to be active on our bodies rather than a chore. Too often, we get swept up by the idea that exercising has to be painful or tortuous in order for it to be effective. We approach exercise feeling like we have to burn calories in order to “earn” our food. This mindset is toxic to our physical and mental health, and ultimately backfires. When we view exercise as something that we have to suffer through, we begin to dread it and try to get away with not doing it. We hit the snooze on our alarm in the morning, skip out on going to the gym, and inevitably fall out of our exercise routine because it is just too taxing and exhausting to keep up. Ultimately we try to force ourselves to do something we hate day in and day out, and we come to resent it and avoid it.

The foundation for a healthy and active lifestyle cannot be built on guilt. Joyful movement is a radically different mindset, one that centers around pleasure in movement and honoring our bodies. Exercise should be a celebration of us and our bodies, not a guilt trip. Joyful movement is about finding ways to be active that are mentally and physically pleasurable for each person. Each person is unique and we each will find different activities enjoyable. There is no one “right” way to be active. It’s important that we listen to our bodies, and that we are present in our movement. When we approach exercise and physical activity from an intuitive and joyful perspective, we are able to be more in tune with our bodies, and will reap the benefits of physical activity that much more.

Ways to Measure Progress Other Than the Scale

Weight is just one measurement of many that can be taken to indicate health. Weight is not the sole indicator of health, and measuring progress solely based on the number on the scale is not only counterproductive, but can also be mentally harmful. Too often, we become fixated on our weight, foolishly believing that this number is an accurate measure of our progress and health, and react to small fluctuations in weight that really don’t mean much. Becoming fixated on the number on the scale often leads to obsessive patterns of eating and exercising that are damaging and unhealthy.  The number we see on the scale measures one thing: our weight. It doesn’t tell us how much of our weight is made up of body fat, muscle mass, or bone destiny, and doesn’t account for changes in weight due to hormone levels or water retention. Because of this, we can't accurately assess small fluctuations we see in our weight. We don’t know if a small increase on the scale is actually a weight gain, or if it can actually be attributed to muscle gain, water retention, or hormone fluctuations. Because of this, it is important not to get too fixated on the number on the scale because it is only one of many important indicators of health. Here are some other ideas for measuring progress other than the scale. 

1. Track healthy habits: there are many other ways to set, track, and achieve health goals that don’t relate to weight. For example, you can set a goal to drink more water, eat more fruit, or get in more joyful movement. You can then measure and track your progress in these goals on a weekly and monthly basis. This is a great way to take concrete steps towards measuring and tracking progress that don’t involve the number on the scale.

2. Energy levels: By using intuitive eating, we get in touch with how certain food makes our bodies feel. When we eat certain foods, we may feel sluggish and tired. Our minds feel fuzzy, and our bodies feel weak and slow. Alternatively, when we consume more foods that make our bodies feel good through gentle nutrition, we feel more energized. When our brains and bodies are given proper nourishment and fuel, our energy levels soar. Paying attention to energy levels, and how our bodies respond to different patterns of eating, can be a great way to measure progress in living a healthier lifestyle. 

3. Stress levels and mood: Mood and stress levels are another major area that are impacted by healthier lifestyle. When we are undernourished and under fueled, our neurotransmitters aren't firing optimally, which can leave us feeling irritable and low. When we begin to live a healthier lifestyle that isn’t dictated by the scale, our mood and stress levels often improve dramatically. Being aware of mood and stress can also be a great way to measure progress. 

When we are striving to live a healthier lifestyle it can be easy sometimes to get fixated on the number on the scale, and to attribute meaning to the number we see. However it is important to remember that the scale is not always accurate, and certainly does not give us an accurate picture of our overall health. It is important to focus less on the scale and more on how you feel. There are many other ways to measure progress other than the scale. The scale does not define you. 

How to Navigate Emotional Eating As It Relates to Intuitive Eating

Emotional eating is a challenge that many people face, and there are many reasons why a person may struggle with emotional eating. Restriction, both physical and mental, plays a huge role in emotional eating. On a physical and biological level restrictive diets that are low in calories and nutrients throw our hunger cues and appetites out of whack. This is because when we diet and severely restrict our intake, we force our bodies to operate in a state of deprivation. Our bodies naturally respond to this deprivation by increasing our hunger signals and appetite, causing us to intensely crave foods that tend to be higher in fat, salt, and sugar. It becomes harder and harder to resist these foods, until we finally give in to the temptation, and go all out - consuming large quantities of the very foods we are restricting. 

Mentally, the more we deprive ourselves of something the more we want it. We see this concept all the time with children - the more we tell a child they can't do something or have something, the more they want it. It works just the same for us as adults. The more we tell ourselves that we can't have chocolate, or we can't have ice cream, the more we want it. Our brains tend to hyperfixate on the things we mentally emphasize. The more we emphasize what we can’t have, the more our brains will fixate on it, reminding us of what we are missing out on, making it nearly impossible to resist every temptation we face. Instead, it is much more effective to approach eating from an “all foods fit” model, giving ourselves unconditional permission to eat any and all foods. Doing this takes the emphasis off of food, and removes the moral virtue we attach to food. Once the emphasis is taken off food, it becomes much easier to enjoy it, and to make healthy rational choices about what and how to eat. 

Principle #7 of intuitive eating states that in order to make peace with food, we must learn to cope with our emotions with kindness. Using food in any way to cope with emotions, whether it's loneliness, anxiety, or depression, is a significant hindrance to practicing true intuitive eating. Getting down to the source of the problem and the core of the emotions that we are experiencing is key to resolving emotional eating. There are many ways to learn to cope with emotions. Journaling is one very powerful tool for gaining self-knowledge and a sense of control over our emotions. Journaling can help us to get in touch with ourselves and to understand where our thoughts and feelings are coming from. Additionally, consulting with a mental health professional is always beneficial. Mental health professionals provide guidance, compassion, and a safe space to discuss thoughts and feelings. They are also trained to identify and resolve any problems we may be facing. Registered Dietitian Nutritionists who operate from an intuitive eating model are also a key resource for healing our relationship with food and for developing positive coping mechanisms. 

What is "Diet Culture"?

It’s always important to prioritize living a healthy lifestyle, and making choices that are good for your overall health and wellbeing. We all want to do our best to eat right and feel good. However, dieting isn't, and never will be, equivalent to living a healthy lifestyle. In fact, dieting is just about the worst thing you can do for your health. The extreme calorie restriction and nutrient deprivation that we put our bodies through when we go on a diet puts the body into a state of stress, which actually sets us up to gain weight rather than lose it. The stress caused by dieting is also bad for the immune system and for maintaining stable moods. In our culture today, diets go in and out of fashion the same way clothes and hairstyles do. It seems that there is always a new trendy diet to try. This is diet culture. Diet culture has completely warped our sense of what it really means to live a healthy lifestyle, by prioritizing weight and shape over health and wellness. Diet culture convinces us that we need to resort to drastic actions, such as cutting out entire food groups, or adhering to rigid ways of eating, in order to be healthy. Diet culture promotes fad diets as legitimate options for achieving optimal health and nutrition. Diet culture teaches us to fear food, and to distrust our bodies. 

It is easy to spot the influence of diet culture around us when we know what to look for. Any person, brand, or company attaching any kind of moral virtue to food is promoting diet culture. When we look at food through the lens of diet culture, we are only able to see “good” and “bad” foods, and as a result, start to see ourselves as “good” or “bad” for eating them. This is where the concept of “cheating” comes from. You can “cheat” on a diet, and the outcome is feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness. However, when you are living a life of true health that is balanced and focused on overall wellness, foods no longer have a moral virtue attached. There is only food, and how your body responds to the food you put into it. You are not a failure or a “cheater” for eating cake, cake is not “bad”. You are simply a human being, listening to and honoring your body, and choosing to nourish your soul as well as your body. It is about time we reject the influence of diet culture, and stop attaching morals to the food we eat. Food just simply doesn’t have that much power!

Diet culture can be extremely toxic, but you can choose to consciously reject diets and diet culture, and live a healthy and balanced life. The mixed messages coming from diet culture can make it very difficult to make decisions about food and nutrition, so it’s always advisable to consult a qualified Registered Dietitian Nutritionist about implementing good eating habits. Registered Dietitian Nutritionists use evidence based nutrition principles, and are trained to give expert health advice.

Benefits of Intuitive Eating

Whether you are new to intuitive eating or have been an intuitive eater for many years, getting in touch with your body and your internal cues is perhaps the most beneficial thing you can do for both your physical and mental health. We all know how mentally and physically draining dieting can be. Meal planning exact portions, weighing food, and counting calories. Feeling like you can’t enjoy your favorite foods, or have fun in social settings because your diet is so limited. Dieting is a mental mind game that nobody enjoys playing. On top of that, dieting is also physically exhausting! Trying to live and thrive on a calorie deficit just leaves us feeling irritable, moody, and tired all the time. Intuitive eating introduces a whole new perspective on health and wellness that is energizing, refreshing, and sustainable long-term. Intuitive eating is one of the best things you can do for both your physical and mental health. 

Dieting doesn't only drain your energy, it drains your wallet as well! Think about how much money you could end up spending on various diet plans and weight loss products. The health and fitness industry is currently valued at over 2.3 billion dollars. These companies prey on our insecurities in order to target us with overpriced, gimmicky weight loss products that aren’t sustainable and aren't focused on our health as a whole. When you embrace intuitive eating, you reject the mindset that you need to rely on some kind of rigid diet plan to achieve optimal health and reach your goals. Trust yourself, and your body, not the companies making false promises in order to sell their product. 

Perhaps the biggest benefit of intuitive eating is that it is flexible, it works for you and your lifestyle. You don't need to worry about points or calories, counting grams of carbs or proteins, or buying special diet foods. When you learn to eat intuitively, you get to truly live your life to the absolute fullest; never feeling like you have to deprive yourself or miss out on social settings because you are limited from your diet. When you approach food from a dieting perspective, food becomes an enemy and every meal is a battle zone. Dieting sucks the enjoyment out of food and eating. But eating should not be so complicated and frustrating. When you approach food from an intuitive eating perspective, meals become an enjoyable way of honoring and taking care of yourself and your body. Instead of trying to force yourself to not desire certain foods, or trying to limit yourself to tiny portions, you get to truly enjoy the food and the atmosphere around you. 

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How to Respond to Diet Talk as an Intuitive Eater

We live in a culture that is obsessed with diets. From celery juice cleanses, to the ketogenic diet, to intermittent fasting, it seems there is no shortage of new diets out there. There always seems to be a new trendy diet to try, and if you are an intuitive eater, you are probably all too happy to spare yourself the headache of jumping onto new diet bandwagons every other week. However, it can get tricky when well-meaning friends, family members, or colleagues bring their diets into social conversations. As an intuitive eater, handling diet talk can be very difficult. Hearing about the results of a new diet can make it very tempting to give the diet a try. However, it’s important to remember that just because a friend is experiencing certain results from a certain diet, that doesn't mean the diet is good for you, or is sustainable for long-term health. These kinds of fad diets that promise dramatic results are not usually backed by evidence-based nutrition practice, and usually backfire. One out of every three people who go on a diet and lose weight, will gain the weight back within three to five years. When tempted to try a new diet, it can be helpful to remind yourself of the true reality of diets: they don’t work long term, and they aren’t sustainable!

If you are an intuitive eater, and you have people in your life who are chronic dieters, it may be helpful to explain intuitive eating to them. It can be difficult at first, but explaining how intuitive eating works, and clearing up some common misconceptions can go a long way. Firstly, it’s important to explain that intuitive eating is not a diet; it's a long term lifestyle change that focuses on a balanced and sound approach to food and nutrition. It’s also important to clarify that intuitive eating diets do not have “rules” and “meal plans” ; rather, intuitive eating is a skill developed over time, bringing people back to being in tune with their bodies and their internal hunger and satiety cues. One of the biggest misconceptions that people have about intuitive eating is that it means eating whatever you want. It can be helpful to explain that intuitive eating doesn’t mean eating “junk” food all day. Rather, it’s about eating in a way that optimizes both physical and mental health. Explaining intuitive eating clearly and simply to your friends, family members, or colleagues can make a huge difference in their lives. Intuitive eating is how we are meant to eat, we were never meant to try and conform our lives and appetites to fit rigid diet plans. Explaining intuitive eating clearly and simply can help the people in your life to finally break free from the misery of endless diet cycles. And, of course, if you or someone in your life has more questions or concerns about intuitive eating, reach out to a non-diet Registered Dietitian who can help guide you on your intuitive eating journey.