Is Carb Cycling Good for PCOS?

How to solve your PCOS for good

Around 7% of pre-menopausal women experience PCOS. 

PCOS is a condition where the ovaries don’t produce enough androgen (male) hormones. 

However, a lot of people don’t know that the root cause of PCOS is insulin resistance. 

But if you’ve been reading about how to cure PCOS, you may have heard about keto & intermittent fasting. 

However, would carb cycling help your PCOS? 

In this article we’ll discuss if keto or intermittent fasting is good for your PCOS, & if carb cycling is good for your PCOS.

What Is PCOS?

PCOS is a condition where you have a higher than normal amount of testosterone in your body. This can lead to problems like acne, excess hair growth, excess body hair, and excess weight. 

It’s estimated that around 6%–12% of pre-menopausal women experience PCOS. 

The cause of PCOS is usually insulin resistance. 

Insulin resistance is when your body doesn’t respond well to insulin. The pancreas produces hormones that allow your cells to receive glucose from your blood. 

In insulin resistance & thus PCOS, the cells don’t respond to insulin properly. So the glucose remains in your blood and causes insulin resistance & problems like PCOS.

What Is the Cause of PCOS?

The cause of PCOS is insulin resistance. If you have insulin resistance then your body doesn’t respond well to insulin. This is caused by eating too many carbs or snacking too often.

Research indicates that insulin resistance alters the function of the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland, increasing the production of androgenic hormones, which leads to PCOS.

Is Carb Cycling Good for PCOS?

No, carb cycling isn’t good for PCOS. This is because the cause of PCOS is insulin resistance, not the imbalance of hormones itself.

There’s a lot of contradictory information about carb cycling in relation to PCOS. Some people say carb cycling is good for PCOS, but other people say it’s bad for PCOS. 

However, since the root cause of PCOS is insulin resistance, doing a high-carb diet would make it even worse.

It would be much better to just do a strict ketogenic diet & intermittent fasting until your insulin resistance is fixed.

Once your insulin resistance & PCOS fixes, you can then carb cycle.

Is Carb Cycling Good for Menopause?

No, carb cycling is not good for menopause because it raises your insulin. With menopause, most women gain weight. However, to lower insulin & lose weight, you should do a strict keto diet & intermittent fasting, not carb cycling.

The reason women experience menopause is that your body stops making estrogen. 

Estrogen is the female reproductive hormone that your body makes when you’re in your reproductive years. 

However, when you become older & you stop reproducing, your body stops producing estrogen as much.

Estrogen helps to keep your bones and muscles strong, so when you go through menopause, you will become tired & fatigued.

You may also gain weight when you enter menopause.

However, to make sure you lose the weight, you must do a strict keto diet & intermittent fasting.

This would help lower insulin & help you to eat less with ease, helping you to lose weight.

However, if you carb cycled, you would stop losing weight since the carbs would raise your insulin. 

That’s why it’s better to do strict keto & intermittent fasting to lose the weight you gain on menopause.

How to Solve PCOS?

You can solve your PCOS by solving the root cause of PCOS — insulin resistance. To cure your insulin resistance, you must do a strict ketogenic diet & intermittent fasting. These two things would lower your insulin & would solve your PCOS.

Since carbs secrete insulin, eating a strict ketogenic diet would lower your insulin. 

Intermittent fasting would also lower your insulin. 

This is because every time you eat, you secrete insulin. 

However, if you do not eat as much, like with intermittent fasting, then you would secrete much less insulin. 

This would help solve your PCOS because PCOS is caused by an excess of insulin.

Conclusion

PCOS is caused by insulin resistance because insulin resistance causes hormone imbalances. That’s why carb cycling doesn’t fix PCOS. To fix insulin resistance & PCOS, it would be much better to just do a strict ketogenic diet & intermittent fasting.

If you’re interested in learning more about how keto is good for you, then you can read my article here detailing the benefits of keto & how to start.