A Busy Girl’s Crash Course On Seed Cycling For PCOD

Seed cycling for PCOD is NOT just a fleeting trend but a war against your physical and mental agony.

1 in every 5 women suffer from PCOD which makes either you (definitely me) or immediate people you know, this article’s target audience. When the pandemic hit, I hit the sofa instead and slowly rang every PCOD symptom bell. The trend of seed cycling essentially saved me. Yes, you can tell your mum social media is useful at times and No, I didn’t tell mine.

The pandemic surely brought a lot to light. We as a society now understand that medicines are cures without a solid plan for prevention. This brought various superfoods for healing from the dark, Rediscovering seed cycling, its benefits and its war against infertility was one of them.

PCOD and What It Entails

PCOD or Polycystic Ovarian Disease is a condition where hormone disruptors cause ovaries to produce immature eggs that eventually collect over the outer edges, forming cysts. The causes can range from lifestyle choices, genetic or environmental factors. It manifests itself in the forms of – Hair loss (or hair growth in some particular areas), Insulin resistance, obesity, acne and menstrual irregularity. While these being only physical, mental challenges are many – ranging from frequent bouts of headaches, fatigue, depression and anxiety.

While the research on PCOD only began by 1935 and natural therapy like seed cycling being on the lookout only recently, Sorry for sounding like an Indian parent but –  Ayurvedic medicines had already linked the importance of certain seeds for female health and wellness.

What really is seed cycling?

It is mainly a mix and match of 4 main seeds – Pumpkin, Sunflower, Flax and Sesame seeds. When included in diet (https://www.womensweb.in/2020/05/how-to-plan-a-pcod-diet-may20wk1sr/), rotation with your cycle,  these seeds become the superfood to maintain hormone levels and fight insulin resistance. What seed cycling is, its benefits, its role in fighting infertility, is a quickly developing research question as the world is realising how the wellness industry’s antibiotics bring harm to your internal organs and in longer duration fail to even work.

Seed Cycling For PCOD- A Study

PCOD depends itself on overproduction of hormones (estrogen, LH, progesterone ). So, as a part of efficacy studies, 90 women with PCOD  were split into 3 groups. Group 1 was asked to maintain the same diet while group 2 was made to go on a portion control diet with medicines. Group 3 had a diet plan that included seed cycling. In the course of 12 weeks, blood samples and body weight were measured. While Group 1 had increased levels of highest follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) levels and body weight, the latter two groups significantly dropped in numbers. Slowly having group 3 with more sustainable and steady results.

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Seed Cycling Benefits

Seed cycling that depends on your cycle syncing is what works best for most menstruating individuals.

Pumpkin seeds – contains phytoestrogen, which mimics estrogen functions. The zinc promotes progesterone level. The high fibre content helps with fighting obesity and heart diseases.

Flax seeds- The lignans present in flax helps in reducing pms pain, improves fertility, helps with  menstrual irregularity.

Sunflower seeds – With  Selenium, vit E, these seeds are crucial for menstrual health.

Sesame seeds – zinc and lignans –  which improves hormonal and follicle function. The zinc concentration helps with progesterone production which prepares the uterus for improved fertility.

Efficient Seed Cycling for PCOD

While the alternate medicines often categorise a menstruating person’s cycle through moon phases, the more adept way is to divide them in 4 phases – Follicular, Ovulatory, Luteal and Menstrual phase. While ideally these phases should be the background picture of your diet plan, Let me atleast plant the seed here.

Follicular phase – The phase after the menstrual days where the body is in essential need for recuperating. Flax seeds and pumpkin seeds help in the hormone levelling here.

Ovulatory Phase – The peak fertility phase with hike in estrogen, progesterone and luteinizing hormone (LH). The time when the body is handling high hormone release, incorporating sesame and sunflower seeds could ease out the spike.

Luteal Phase – Or the PMS phase. Depression and anxiety reign in the body and sesame seeds and sunflower seeds work here to deter estrogen dominance.

Menstrual phase – An ideal time for pumpkin and flax seeds to maintain the hormone balance.

This method of seed cycling helps in increasing and decreasing certain hormones depending on the body’s needs. They help in hormonal homeostasis and liver detoxification.

Seed Cycling for Infertility

A run-of-the-mill symptom for PCOD is its war with fertility. The hormonal imbalance makes it hard for the release of eggs from ovaries and stops production of well formed eggs, essentially resulting in infertility.

Pumpkin and Flax seeds for follicular phase helps with the required nutrients for ovulation, while sunflower seeds and sesame helps level the progesterone spike during luteal. The pumpkin seeds help with the mood fluctuations and inflammation.

Furthermore, The fibre and lignans in flax seeds help with binding the estrogen levels and kick starting the ovulatory phase.

Recipes to Incorporate Seed Cycling

As I’m never trusted with knives in the kitchen, my hack was to mix all the seeds and nuts with soft dates or honey and freeze them. Was it chikki? Bars, because laddoo shape was too hard for me ? I guess we’ll never know.

But  here are a few recipes for you pandemic turned home-chefs  –

Tahini

Energy Laddoo

Seed mix – For amping up your salads, sprinkle on your dal, smoothie bowls and mostly anything you create from foodgram.

Sunflower seed cookies

Pumpkin seed Chutney – For savoury needs.

These small but mighty superfoods are a natural way to fight this rampant PCOD problem. Fighting lifestyle diseases with better lifestyle choices. In a kinder world, PCOD never occurs, but having natural reversal techniques might be our  next best bet.

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