Cartoon & Cereal Day

The break rooms at my work are usually stocked with fairly nutritiously mindful cereals: Kashi whole grain varieties, other whole grain and bran flakes, and... the highly coveted... Honey Nut Cheerios. Seriously, people hoard the Honey Nut Cheerios on their desks and in their drawers.

What you see on the left is a for realz whiteboard announcement. My work is always coming up with fun-filled themed days to boost morale and reinforce our culture. Cartoon & Cereal Day? All of our favorite childhood cereals?? People loved it! They were going bonkers for it! Random people were walking around shouting at each other, Hey! Did you see all the "good stuff," "sugary stuff," "real cereal," etc. over there?

What was music to most of my coworkers' ears was like nails on a chalkboard for me. There I was... days into my new No Fun Food Life and all the crème de la crème of crunchy breakfast goodness were on full display, pushed by the excited masses, and free for the endless taking. Lucky enough for me, I have been weaned off of my childhood addiction to commercial cereals for years now.

The refined, simple carbs saturated with sugar or high fructose corn syrup that we dutifully shoveled into our faces as children has no place in the diet of a woman afflicted with PCOS.

Simple carbs are easy carbs - easily processed and absorbed into your bloodstream, that is. All of the energy is absorbed immediately - turning into a quick and temporary rush - causing your blood sugar to spike and then crash. Adding sugar into the mix will just increase the intensity exponentially. It'll send your blood glucose and insulin levels on a wild swing within a very short amount of time.

Whenever I take the simple carbs + sugar roller coaster ride, this is how I feel: Delighted, Jazzed, Satiated, Full, Guilty, Thirsty, Tired, Hungry, Grumpy (listed in the order of their appearance). Think about the times when you were hungry and you ate a glazed doughnut, a fruity danish, a chocolate muffin, some pancakes and syrup - and nothing else - did you feel the effects of the roller coaster? Take that roller coaster frequently and long enough... your brain and pancreas will stop communicating correctly.

Women with PCOS already experience communication problems between their brains, pancreas, and ovaries. We don't need to contribute to the problem. There were many who were ready to call me a hater because I didn't embrace Cartoon & Cereal Day - "... but cereal is part of a complete breakfast!" "... they're fortified with vitamins and stuff!" "... you're supposed to eat the most calories at breakfast anyway so you have all day to burn it off!" But as my doc had pointed out - I don't have a nutrition problem, I don't have an eating problem... I have PCOS.

Don't get me wrong. I know we all need carbohydrates and sugars to live and, in their many forms, they are in everything. They're in fruits, vegetables, and even dairy products. The glucose/insulin swing can be moderated by the presence of the fiber and protein found in a balanced meal - it'll soften the blow and provide your body a longer-sustained and more stable energy.

Whole fruits and vegetables have the natural carbohydrates, sugars, and starches that we want and need to eat, and they are neatly prepackaged with fiber intact. So, add a handful of nuts, a glass of soy/almond milk, or a hard boiled egg, and there goes your complete meal for breakfast.