Lessons in Eating

Strong cravings for unhealthy foods is a common problem for women living with PCOS. However, cravings do not have to rule your life or derail your fitness goals. Once you understand what causes a craving you can take steps to overcome these urges and make healthier choices. In this video, you will learn about the physiological, psychological, and environmental factors that can trigger a craving and how to address these issues so that you are less likely to indulge cravings.

Women who become fit and stay fit learn on crucial skill: the art of getting back on track quickly. In this video, we will go over the four steps to getting back on track when you have fallen behind on your fitness goal.

Step 1: Don’t beat yourself up. Negative self-talk will make it difficult for you to take action.

Step 2: Go back to what was working. Falling off track is not an indication that you need to change what you were doing. Instead go back to the routine that was working for you previously.

Step 3: Start with a small positive action. Focus on taking one small step in the right direction. Do not wait for perfect circumstances instead take action today. Even 5 minutes of exercise will make a difference.

Step 4: Identify what got in your way and seek out creative solutions.

Did you know that plateaus are a natural part of the weight loss process? The next time your weight loss stalls, do not panic or give up. As you lose weight, your body will go through periods where weight loss slows down. If a plateau lasts longer than a couple of weeks there are two likely culprits:

1. You have become more fit and you need to make your workouts more challenging so that your body has the stimulus it needs to keep changing.

2. You may have become less consistent with your nutrition. Food journaling for a few days can help you spot slip-ups in your diet that you might be overlooking.

Most PCOS women have no problem eating healthy from 9-5 Monday through Friday. Unfortunately, they struggle to make good choices after dinner and on the weekends. There are some PCOS symptoms (like insulin resistance, leptin resistance, and anxiety) that make it hard to resist binge eating. However, your thought processes have a lot of influence over your choices too! Here are two unhealthy thoughts pattern that could be making your weekendits worse:

1. Trying to eat perfectly. The stress of trying to eat perfectly 100% of the time can cause you to lose motivation and completely abandon your diet. Instead, try to eat PCOS-friendly meals 80% of the time so that you have a little freedom and less stress.

2. Using junk foods or “cheat days” to reward yourself. Junk food is a pretty lame reward for making healthy choices. First of all, it is counterproductive but more importantly, there are plenty of nonfood ways to celebrate your progress that are much more rewarding.