I have PCOS myself, and the vega diet was the WORST i've ever done for my skin. Soy has atend to mess up you're hormons more, and it will be impossible to keep a vegan diet low GI. There is simply to manycarbohydrates in that diet.

I'll drop in my 2 cents since I have pretty extensive experience with this...

First off I would avoid soy as much as possible, it's not very good for you in general and no less for your skin like you said.

If you feel more comfortable eating protein, then you can eat eggs and fish or anything you'd like really, just keep it low and as infrequent as possible. Their main con is that they tend to be much harder and slower to digest than plant based foods. Any kind of digestion stagnation will cause the food to putrefy in your gut and fill your blood with toxic material as it's broken down (dirty blood causes acne). If you've ever had bad breath, this typically is why you get it. Food is literally rotting inside of you!

The best stuff for minimal acne tends to be fruits and veg. Fruit has never caused me any problems, ever. You can eat a kilo of broccoli and cauliflower and it's only about 300 calories. Steam it in a steaming basket and add coconut oil and salt (or herbamare is what I use, which is a blend of garlic, italian spices, and salt). It's absolutely amazing how good it tastes. Remember. Steamed! Not Boiled! Boiling will suck out absolutely all of the flavor.

You can stir fry almost any veggie you can think of like this. Your tastes might be different than mine, but I love broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, asparagus, corn, any kind of beans (mung, adzuki, navy, etc.). Sometimes potatoes, although they are a bit harder to digest. There are also countless recipes out there that you can make. I love my mushroom burgers for one (barley, mushrooms, potatoes mashed together with spices, formed into patties, and cooked)

Pre-packaged foods are fine too. Just be mindful, they're much easier to overeat (and stick to soy-free, mostly ingredients you know are good, or at the very least recognize)

Absolutely 100% organic as much as you can possibly afford. Pesticides will aggrevate acne, so will GMO foods. Avoid them as much as possible.

Lastly I would also recommend a zapper (electric device you can attach to your leg) for your acne, they're amazing and pretty cheap since it's a one time purchase ($35~ for a basic one). Cleared me up completely combined with a vegan diet. I just posted about them here: http://www.acne.org/messageboard/topic/359067-zappers-they-kill-parasites-purify-your-blood-etc/

If you need any more advice, please let me know. I've been experimenting with this stuff for eons!

Ty

I thought a vegan diet would be easier to keep low GI because of all the nuts and pulses, brown rice, etc. I'm not going to be eating any refined sugar so surely that will mean it's mostly low GI?

I'm so annoyed about soy! I will try to eat as little as possible but it does seem to be in everything! My main concern with meat and dairy is the hormones that are put into it, I didn't want to be adding any extra to my body when I already have an imbalance. So organic eggs and fish should surely be okay?

For sure! Just keep tabs on it and make sure it's not causing breakouts for you. I know soy is hard as heck to avoid in packaged foods... But it is possible to find things without it if you don't have the time to make your own. The worst soy is the non-organic GMO variety, which is pretty much all non organic soy. If soy is fermented properly for several years like is done in Japan, it can be edible. But ours isn't, and it wasn't in the food supply so prevalently until a huge marketing campaign was launched to push it as a health food a few decades ago. (If you want to learn more: http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org/articles2/billion.htm)

You're right about the natural foods you mentioned RE: GI. Honestly even fruit sugar has never really been a cause for acne with me or anybody I know. The wai diet is even based heavily on fruit and it's an effective (although impossible to maintain) acne clearing diet. Just trust your feelings and notice if you feel tired after a meal.

2 hours ago, Peaceful said:

Absolutely 100% organic as much as you can possibly afford. Pesticides will aggrevate acne, so will GMO foods. Avoid them as much as possible.

Any citation for this? (Btw pesticides are used on organic crops as well as conventionally grown ones)

I wouldn't say organic food is perfect, but it's the best most people have access to. Generally speaking the known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors are not used on organic crops, although contamination can happen unfortunately. But in genreal non-harmful or less harmful pest control is used.

As an example, Apples: http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/food.jsp?food=AP

On Apples: Most Common Pesticide: Conventional vs. Organic: http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/level.jsp?food=AP&pesticide=125

I'm not sure an official study has been done on that very specific topic, but it's not hard to find boatloads of anecdotes on poisons causing acne, dirty blood being a prime cause after all.

Here's a general source about external pesticide toxicity and skin reactions though: http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/TIB/cutaneous-tox.html

Oh jeez... I have so many responses to this weirdness and this-is-not-actually-a-thing-ness but getting involved in discussions with people on the woo train generally makes me feel like yelling at my computer screen which is clearly silly.
@cherrybomb eat what you want! And I hope your acne improves. I would encourage you to skip the organic stuff - nutritionally there is no difference, and the level of pesticide (both organic and conventional) that you find on your 'end-product' food is way too low to cause you harm. And you will end up with more money to be able to buy a wider variety of foods for whatever diet you decide on.. win-win! 🙂 Good luck with it

I think everyone is different...I see people going vegan and clearing. Others already vegan and breaking out. My story is very similar to yours...it started out being cystic now it's just a mix of everything....I've been eating whole rolled oats oatmeal with a lil honey n cinnamon for breakfast, fruits n veggies for lunch, and beans and brown rice for supper for 3 days and have not had one single spot pop up. Also all I drink is unsweetened green tea and water, although the first day I drank some juice but stopped bc I read an article that said dont. Anyways, the point is that u may just have to get basic for a while then slowly introduce your favorite foods again. Trial and error but start basic.

So I had a bit of an "eat whatever you want" diet for a couple of weeks as I was on holiday. Was intending to go vegan next week. But for three days my skin has been absolutely fine. It's much smoother, no new breakouts. I don't know what to do now!

I know what u mean! Mine has been doing well although I been eating clean but I splurged yesterday and ate some baked pork roast and crayfish today...I'm now getting 2 deep pimples on my chin but I'm also expecting my period so I don't know wth!!!