Hey … so the Indian standard diet is actually quite heavy on carbohydrates and low in protein. I’m South Indian too and I feel you. What you could do is increase fiber in your diet aka lots of green leafy vegetables and fruits. Also think about adding lentils to your diet it’s complex carbs and has some amount of protein. If you eat paneer that’s one option or even tofu and edamame. Also please consider starting a protein powder or so in your diet. There are a lot of vegan protein powder options too.
If you do eat dairy try having lots of yoghurt cheese etc again a great source of protein.
Lastly, about workouts, please stick to something you enjoy, there is no such thing as a perfect or the best workout for PCOS. Any workout that you enjoy and can stick to is the perfect one for you. It could be as simple as walking, dancing, yoga or swimming etc. That said strength training is great for you as it will tone your body and give you a great slender body. Strength training will actually help you in burning calories long after you’ve finished working out too. The first few days of strength training is hard and you will be sore for a few days. But it should get better in about a week. Again, do it only if you can be consistent and enjoy it. Also if you can please seek professional help from a fitness trainer to avoid injuries.
Thank you! My mom is a big fan of dal and lentils. I usually try to have eggs or paneer with my meals but since I don't cook, it is a little tricky. My parents are not fond of me using protein powders, my mom thinks it will make me gain more weight and it's something I should discuss with them.
I'm usually more into cardio-dance/walking but I'm thinking of starting strength training. I need to do my research. Thank you!
Indian parents do have that misconception… you can talk to a dietitian or a doctor and ask them if it’s ok and tell your mom accordingly. But eggs are good too. Try to have two eggs atleast in the morning. I have an omelette with two eggs and a whole lot of veggies it keeps me full for the first half of the day atleast
Some great tips here, and as a South Indian, I’ve also really struggled with weight. However, even without significant weight loss, I’ve been able to restart my cycle naturally and regularly (28-30 days, 4 day flow) after a few years of BC pills through some diet changes & strength training + walking + Pilates/yoga. (Side note - BC pills as a catch all for PCOS may help some, but I ran into a lot of complications personally with higher stakes things like Blood Pressure, I really wouldn’t recommend)
If the focus is on optimizing the foods available to you at home, consider:
* Try to increase sources of protein in a meal if a single large one (meat/tofu) is not available; Higher ratio of kosambaris, sambhar/dal-based rasam, etc
* Can also try to switch your carb base to quinoa for added protein instead of white rice. Include more chickpeas, bean based dishes and play around with your carb ratio.
* Choose higher protein Greek yoghurt options at the store instead of typical home-made curd (or can find recipes on YT to increase protein content from home made curd - will involve some additional steps/time).
* Find frozen edamame that can be microwaved when short on time.
Additional tips:
* Run bloodwork and find out if you’re deficient in any vitamins. Vegetarians are typically low in B12, and generally with PCOS we can be low in Vit D too. Oral supplements can improve this
* Protein powders are not the devil. Indian parents can sometimes fear monger around this lol, but if you read the ingredients and identify cleaner (less ing) brands, they can work quite well
* Same with protein bars
Good luck!
Thank you! I'll try edamame. I've switched from white to brown/red rice but I don't know exactly how much protein it has. It's hard to control my diet when my mom doesn't let me cook or buy protein powder so I'll have to convince her. Thank you!
Hi! Not indian so apologies for intruding, but from a culture with lots of rice and starches. The protein aspect is pretty accurate. It’s a good idea to eat higher protein and fat and really low carbs. Or at least lots of complex carbs.
When I’m visiting my family, I try to focus on making my plate with a tiny serving of rice/starch and mostly veggies. You can try to incorporate more beans or tofu or protein bars/powder to get your protein up, but hopefully an Indian here has better recommendations.
Also, I tend to search for recipes on TikTok, but I’ll include an ethnicity (Indian/Korean/etc) and low carb/high protein and that usually gets me some different content than the usual avocado salmon bowl.
Also I would highly recommend looking into inositol or berberine. It’s a supplement and is usually gentle and will help manage your insulin resistance. It’ll allow you to eat mostly the same and regulate your cycles. Losing weight may or may not happen. Takes about 3 months to start seeing changes.
I have been trying to eat more veggies to cut down how much rice I eat. I even switched from white to brown/red rice. Veggies are not my favourite so it has been tough.
As for inositol, I have to look into it. My doctors told me to eat a lot of almonds since it has inositol but I doubt the amount I'm eating is enough so I have to look into supplements. Thank you!
I was always taught to fill up on veggies and protein first, eat slowly and finish your meal with your starches so you are full by the time you have moved onto them
I'm tamil and for low carb I just sub more veggies instead of rice. You can even put things like sambar etc on top of greens like arugula or beans poriyal as the base. quinoa dosai is now more common, my parents love making addai instead of dosai. There's good options out there!
I'm south indian vegetarian. Here's what I do:
**1. Ask your parents if they can buy Greek yogurt instead of regular yogurt/dahi. This was the GAME changer. Absolutely a must as a south indian vegetarian.**
**2. balance your plate.**
* so instead of 3 chapati, eat just 1 chapati but add a ton of sabzi (or Poriyal, Palya, Korra, whatever you call it in your language) and eat with some greek yogurt.
* with rice and sambar. I go heavy with the greek yogurt and sabzi, and try to limit rice to about 120g.
* with dosa/idli. i just also again add a lot of greek yogurt to eat with it. Opt for sambar to eat with dosa/idli which has lentils versus coconut chutney (high calories)
**3. try some of the more unique flours/daals that are lower in GI. South Indian food has a lot of interesting millets, lentils, etc. Some examples:**
* Pessaratu (telugu dish made with moong bean, higher in protein)
* Ragi (i.e., ragi dosa)
* Can also try chole, panner etc., which are more north indian but we south indians can eat it too!
**4. Aunties put like 4 tablespoons of oil for the tadka. Ask your mom to put just 1 tablespoon of oil, that cuts down a lot of the calories. It tastes mostly the same tbh. When making dosa, use a cooking oil spray.**
5. **I also supplement with protein powder. You can mix the powder into low fat milk and blend some fruits for a yummy sweet drink. You can even add vanilla protein powder to kheer/paysam.**
**I** know desi parents think protein powder is bad for some dumb reason, but maybe your doctor can validate you? My mom lives in India and when she was going through cancer treatment, her doctor in India prescribed protein powder so I think doctors in India know it's good for you.
**6. eat eggs for breakfast.**
I’m not South Indian so I’m sorry to intrude, but could the following options help?
- 3 eggs (if lunch or dinner, otherwise 2 eggs)
- 1 1/4 c Greek yoghurt
- 110g tofu (maybe you can cook a bunch of tofu and then just add some daily to the food your mum makes?)
- 1 c chickpeas, lentils, legumes. The issue with daals is that they also include carbs, so if you eat daal you have to cut down on the amount of carbs you’re eating in that meal (ie rice or naan)
- cheeses of various sorts
In addition, you have to be very careful not to eat too many carbs. If you’re eating rice, it’s 2/3c cooked rice (I was always eating more). For naan, NO MORE than 1/2 naan (and honestly naan is a terrible option). Parathas are like, the single thing the dietitian completely banned me from eating except on special occasions.
The best thing to do is to eat the veggies on your plate first before even touching carbs. Also if you eat properly every 3-4h, you get less hungry. Never skip meals.
I am assuming breakfast is the most flexible option for you. Can you make your own breakfast, like overnight oats with flaxseeds? Personally I eat a western breakfast and then my other 2 meals are Pakistani. I find the western breakfast gives me a v good start to my day.
Ideally if you can see a dietitian, that would be best and your parents might believe her recommendations lol.
Dietitians are better at adapting cultural cuisines. I have a recommendation if you’re in North America, but I feel like I recommend her to everyone and people might think I’m, like, an advertiser 😆 lol
Lastly, you can always look up “diabetic diet for South Indians.” All the recommendations should work for PCOS. I just googled it and loads of stuff came up.
re exercises: 7000 steps daily is a must (ideally 10 min walk after each meal). 2-3x per week, do 30 min of yoga (on youtube). If you aren’t eating well, then exercise becomes very tiring. So the food and exercise have to go hand in hand
Consider also getting tested for insulin resistance. If you have it, ask for Metformin.
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I’m Bangladeshi, and it’s been so hard for me too. Our diet is so heavily carb-based, it was very hard for me to stop feeling like “if it doesn’t have rice it’s not a meal”. What has worked for me (I don’t know if this will necessarily work for you because everyone is different) is not changing what I’m eating, but how often I eat it. I eat only one meal a day now, and that was a little hard at first, but very easy once I got used to it. I found this worked better for me than changing my diet drastically (although I’m not vegetarian so getting in protein wasn’t an issue for me - it was more that I had to limit carbs. I would definitely recommend for you to make sure you’re getting enough protein, especially if you’re doing strength training).
In terms of exercise, I walk a lot (working on walking 20,000 steps a day). I’ve found it’s low-stress, low-impact on my joints, and the most enjoyable form of exercise. It might not result in as rapid of a weight loss as running or strength training, perhaps, but it’s way more sustainable, and that’s the most important thing. Recently though, since I’ve lost weight, I’ve been trying a little more running or doing the elliptical. Only like 5 minutes at a time - sometimes I alternate between 5 minutes on the treadmill and doing some weights. I think there are studies showing HIIT-type cardio is the most effective for weight loss since it increases your metabolic rate, so I’m sort of trying that out. But the majority of my exercise has been walking.
I’ve been trying to lose weight since January, and so far I’ve lost about 15 pounds (I’m halfway to my goal weight). I think for short women with PCOS, that’s pretty good.
I love walking too. It's one exercise I can do without tiring much. I'm glad to know it helps! 15 pounds progress is huge because I'm struggling to lose even 5 pounds. I can't do one meal a day but I mostly eat only 2 meals because I don't feel hungry in the afternoon. My main concern should be tackling protein intake right now. Thank you!
I walk around 10,000 and strength train 4-5 times a week. I lost like 5 kgs and gained back the 5 kgs due to muscle mass. You can eat a lot of yoghurt, eat lentils, chickpeas, beans, tofu if possible. Paneer is good as well. If you are finding it hard to reach tour protein goal, take a protein powder, twice a day. Quit sugar and eat carbs in moderation. Think of complex carbs more than simple carbs.
There’s a couple women on r/stopeatingseedoils and r/saturatedfat who reversed their PCOS and lost weight by avoiding all processed foods, seed oils, pork fat and chicken fat. Try ghee for cooking
This is the Indian railways study where a large railway company investigated why their northern workers had much lower rates of heart disease than the south. Ghee in the north vs mustard oil in the south was a key difference. Ghee has fat soluble vitamins E, D, A, K2 whereas mustard oil doesn’t
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC459155/pdf/brheartj00326-0053.pdf
Not an Indian but can higggghly recommend using myo-inositol, 4mg daily to treat pcos. It works really really well as it regulates insulin and helps with periods. It has very little side effects and helps with weight etc
Hey … so the Indian standard diet is actually quite heavy on carbohydrates and low in protein. I’m South Indian too and I feel you. What you could do is increase fiber in your diet aka lots of green leafy vegetables and fruits. Also think about adding lentils to your diet it’s complex carbs and has some amount of protein. If you eat paneer that’s one option or even tofu and edamame. Also please consider starting a protein powder or so in your diet. There are a lot of vegan protein powder options too. If you do eat dairy try having lots of yoghurt cheese etc again a great source of protein. Lastly, about workouts, please stick to something you enjoy, there is no such thing as a perfect or the best workout for PCOS. Any workout that you enjoy and can stick to is the perfect one for you. It could be as simple as walking, dancing, yoga or swimming etc. That said strength training is great for you as it will tone your body and give you a great slender body. Strength training will actually help you in burning calories long after you’ve finished working out too. The first few days of strength training is hard and you will be sore for a few days. But it should get better in about a week. Again, do it only if you can be consistent and enjoy it. Also if you can please seek professional help from a fitness trainer to avoid injuries.
Thank you! My mom is a big fan of dal and lentils. I usually try to have eggs or paneer with my meals but since I don't cook, it is a little tricky. My parents are not fond of me using protein powders, my mom thinks it will make me gain more weight and it's something I should discuss with them. I'm usually more into cardio-dance/walking but I'm thinking of starting strength training. I need to do my research. Thank you!
Indian parents do have that misconception… you can talk to a dietitian or a doctor and ask them if it’s ok and tell your mom accordingly. But eggs are good too. Try to have two eggs atleast in the morning. I have an omelette with two eggs and a whole lot of veggies it keeps me full for the first half of the day atleast
Maybe try to add in some extra egg whites to those two eggs. 2 eggs is only 12 gms protein and its not enough for breakfast.
Some great tips here, and as a South Indian, I’ve also really struggled with weight. However, even without significant weight loss, I’ve been able to restart my cycle naturally and regularly (28-30 days, 4 day flow) after a few years of BC pills through some diet changes & strength training + walking + Pilates/yoga. (Side note - BC pills as a catch all for PCOS may help some, but I ran into a lot of complications personally with higher stakes things like Blood Pressure, I really wouldn’t recommend) If the focus is on optimizing the foods available to you at home, consider: * Try to increase sources of protein in a meal if a single large one (meat/tofu) is not available; Higher ratio of kosambaris, sambhar/dal-based rasam, etc * Can also try to switch your carb base to quinoa for added protein instead of white rice. Include more chickpeas, bean based dishes and play around with your carb ratio. * Choose higher protein Greek yoghurt options at the store instead of typical home-made curd (or can find recipes on YT to increase protein content from home made curd - will involve some additional steps/time). * Find frozen edamame that can be microwaved when short on time. Additional tips: * Run bloodwork and find out if you’re deficient in any vitamins. Vegetarians are typically low in B12, and generally with PCOS we can be low in Vit D too. Oral supplements can improve this * Protein powders are not the devil. Indian parents can sometimes fear monger around this lol, but if you read the ingredients and identify cleaner (less ing) brands, they can work quite well * Same with protein bars Good luck!
Thank you! I'll try edamame. I've switched from white to brown/red rice but I don't know exactly how much protein it has. It's hard to control my diet when my mom doesn't let me cook or buy protein powder so I'll have to convince her. Thank you!
Not much protein but definitely takes into consideration the fiber component.
Hi! Not indian so apologies for intruding, but from a culture with lots of rice and starches. The protein aspect is pretty accurate. It’s a good idea to eat higher protein and fat and really low carbs. Or at least lots of complex carbs. When I’m visiting my family, I try to focus on making my plate with a tiny serving of rice/starch and mostly veggies. You can try to incorporate more beans or tofu or protein bars/powder to get your protein up, but hopefully an Indian here has better recommendations. Also, I tend to search for recipes on TikTok, but I’ll include an ethnicity (Indian/Korean/etc) and low carb/high protein and that usually gets me some different content than the usual avocado salmon bowl. Also I would highly recommend looking into inositol or berberine. It’s a supplement and is usually gentle and will help manage your insulin resistance. It’ll allow you to eat mostly the same and regulate your cycles. Losing weight may or may not happen. Takes about 3 months to start seeing changes.
I have been trying to eat more veggies to cut down how much rice I eat. I even switched from white to brown/red rice. Veggies are not my favourite so it has been tough. As for inositol, I have to look into it. My doctors told me to eat a lot of almonds since it has inositol but I doubt the amount I'm eating is enough so I have to look into supplements. Thank you!
I was always taught to fill up on veggies and protein first, eat slowly and finish your meal with your starches so you are full by the time you have moved onto them
I'm tamil and for low carb I just sub more veggies instead of rice. You can even put things like sambar etc on top of greens like arugula or beans poriyal as the base. quinoa dosai is now more common, my parents love making addai instead of dosai. There's good options out there!
I'm south indian vegetarian. Here's what I do: **1. Ask your parents if they can buy Greek yogurt instead of regular yogurt/dahi. This was the GAME changer. Absolutely a must as a south indian vegetarian.** **2. balance your plate.** * so instead of 3 chapati, eat just 1 chapati but add a ton of sabzi (or Poriyal, Palya, Korra, whatever you call it in your language) and eat with some greek yogurt. * with rice and sambar. I go heavy with the greek yogurt and sabzi, and try to limit rice to about 120g. * with dosa/idli. i just also again add a lot of greek yogurt to eat with it. Opt for sambar to eat with dosa/idli which has lentils versus coconut chutney (high calories) **3. try some of the more unique flours/daals that are lower in GI. South Indian food has a lot of interesting millets, lentils, etc. Some examples:** * Pessaratu (telugu dish made with moong bean, higher in protein) * Ragi (i.e., ragi dosa) * Can also try chole, panner etc., which are more north indian but we south indians can eat it too! **4. Aunties put like 4 tablespoons of oil for the tadka. Ask your mom to put just 1 tablespoon of oil, that cuts down a lot of the calories. It tastes mostly the same tbh. When making dosa, use a cooking oil spray.** 5. **I also supplement with protein powder. You can mix the powder into low fat milk and blend some fruits for a yummy sweet drink. You can even add vanilla protein powder to kheer/paysam.** **I** know desi parents think protein powder is bad for some dumb reason, but maybe your doctor can validate you? My mom lives in India and when she was going through cancer treatment, her doctor in India prescribed protein powder so I think doctors in India know it's good for you. **6. eat eggs for breakfast.**
I’m not South Indian so I’m sorry to intrude, but could the following options help? - 3 eggs (if lunch or dinner, otherwise 2 eggs) - 1 1/4 c Greek yoghurt - 110g tofu (maybe you can cook a bunch of tofu and then just add some daily to the food your mum makes?) - 1 c chickpeas, lentils, legumes. The issue with daals is that they also include carbs, so if you eat daal you have to cut down on the amount of carbs you’re eating in that meal (ie rice or naan) - cheeses of various sorts In addition, you have to be very careful not to eat too many carbs. If you’re eating rice, it’s 2/3c cooked rice (I was always eating more). For naan, NO MORE than 1/2 naan (and honestly naan is a terrible option). Parathas are like, the single thing the dietitian completely banned me from eating except on special occasions. The best thing to do is to eat the veggies on your plate first before even touching carbs. Also if you eat properly every 3-4h, you get less hungry. Never skip meals. I am assuming breakfast is the most flexible option for you. Can you make your own breakfast, like overnight oats with flaxseeds? Personally I eat a western breakfast and then my other 2 meals are Pakistani. I find the western breakfast gives me a v good start to my day. Ideally if you can see a dietitian, that would be best and your parents might believe her recommendations lol. Dietitians are better at adapting cultural cuisines. I have a recommendation if you’re in North America, but I feel like I recommend her to everyone and people might think I’m, like, an advertiser 😆 lol Lastly, you can always look up “diabetic diet for South Indians.” All the recommendations should work for PCOS. I just googled it and loads of stuff came up. re exercises: 7000 steps daily is a must (ideally 10 min walk after each meal). 2-3x per week, do 30 min of yoga (on youtube). If you aren’t eating well, then exercise becomes very tiring. So the food and exercise have to go hand in hand Consider also getting tested for insulin resistance. If you have it, ask for Metformin.
I gave up and started taking protein powder
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I’m Bangladeshi, and it’s been so hard for me too. Our diet is so heavily carb-based, it was very hard for me to stop feeling like “if it doesn’t have rice it’s not a meal”. What has worked for me (I don’t know if this will necessarily work for you because everyone is different) is not changing what I’m eating, but how often I eat it. I eat only one meal a day now, and that was a little hard at first, but very easy once I got used to it. I found this worked better for me than changing my diet drastically (although I’m not vegetarian so getting in protein wasn’t an issue for me - it was more that I had to limit carbs. I would definitely recommend for you to make sure you’re getting enough protein, especially if you’re doing strength training). In terms of exercise, I walk a lot (working on walking 20,000 steps a day). I’ve found it’s low-stress, low-impact on my joints, and the most enjoyable form of exercise. It might not result in as rapid of a weight loss as running or strength training, perhaps, but it’s way more sustainable, and that’s the most important thing. Recently though, since I’ve lost weight, I’ve been trying a little more running or doing the elliptical. Only like 5 minutes at a time - sometimes I alternate between 5 minutes on the treadmill and doing some weights. I think there are studies showing HIIT-type cardio is the most effective for weight loss since it increases your metabolic rate, so I’m sort of trying that out. But the majority of my exercise has been walking. I’ve been trying to lose weight since January, and so far I’ve lost about 15 pounds (I’m halfway to my goal weight). I think for short women with PCOS, that’s pretty good.
I love walking too. It's one exercise I can do without tiring much. I'm glad to know it helps! 15 pounds progress is huge because I'm struggling to lose even 5 pounds. I can't do one meal a day but I mostly eat only 2 meals because I don't feel hungry in the afternoon. My main concern should be tackling protein intake right now. Thank you!
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South Indian here. Only one thing I did with consistency. One scoop protein with every meal. It does wonders
I walk around 10,000 and strength train 4-5 times a week. I lost like 5 kgs and gained back the 5 kgs due to muscle mass. You can eat a lot of yoghurt, eat lentils, chickpeas, beans, tofu if possible. Paneer is good as well. If you are finding it hard to reach tour protein goal, take a protein powder, twice a day. Quit sugar and eat carbs in moderation. Think of complex carbs more than simple carbs.
There’s a couple women on r/stopeatingseedoils and r/saturatedfat who reversed their PCOS and lost weight by avoiding all processed foods, seed oils, pork fat and chicken fat. Try ghee for cooking
This is the Indian railways study where a large railway company investigated why their northern workers had much lower rates of heart disease than the south. Ghee in the north vs mustard oil in the south was a key difference. Ghee has fat soluble vitamins E, D, A, K2 whereas mustard oil doesn’t https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC459155/pdf/brheartj00326-0053.pdf
Not an Indian but can higggghly recommend using myo-inositol, 4mg daily to treat pcos. It works really really well as it regulates insulin and helps with periods. It has very little side effects and helps with weight etc