Can You Reduce PCOS Symptoms by Adding Air to Your Diet?

I love the research that comes out of Penn State University. Their food research is always interesting. Here's an example. Maybe you could use this technique to lose weight and better manage PCOS.

The researchers gave a group of people one of three strawberry smoothies 30 minutes before they had a lunch. The ingredients of all the smoothies were identical. The only difference was how they were mixed.

• Smoothie #1 was gently hand mixed.
• Smoothie #2 was whipped in a blender for two and a half minutes.
• Smoothie #3 was whipped in a blender for five minutes.

Can you guess which one of these smoothies did the best job at controlling appetite?

When the participants consumed Smoothie #3, they consumed 100 fewer calories at lunch than when they drank Smoothie #1.

The magic ingredient was air. Smoothie #1 had less air, so when poured into a glass, it only filled the glass half full. In contrast, Smoothie #3 filled the glass all the way up.

So the participants perceived they were consuming a larger smoothie with Smoothie #3, even though its contents were identical to Smoothie #1.

This study illustrates that increasing the volume of food without increasing the calories offers you one of the most effective ways to control weight and manage your other symptoms. This tactic is especially effective if the nutrient quality of the high-volume foods is high.

Nutritious high-volume foods give you the best of both worlds: greater satisfaction and feeling of fullness, and better control over the insulin dysfunction that is contributing to your PCOS woes.

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There's a ton of research showing that if you want to better manage polycystic ovarian syndrome, you'll need to get rid of excess calories, especially those calories that provide no nutrition. Calories that provide no nutrition are called "empty calories". An example is sugar. Consuming empty calories is like pouring gasoline on your PCOS fire.

But, if you get rid of the empty calories and increase the highly nutritious high-volume foods, you are on the right track, especially if you have a weight issue.

OK, so besides blending smoothies for a longer time, what else can you do?

Nutritious, high volume foods include homemade soups, salads and whole vegetable dishes.

The concept of managing polycystic ovary syndrome by controlling food volume is reviewed extensively in The Natural Diet Solution for PCOS and Infertility ebook. It also contains recipes for these types of foods.

Source:
Rolls BJ et al. Increasing the volume of a food by incorporating air affects satiety in men. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000;72(2):361-368.

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