Womens Health Blog

Aug 4, Simple Healthy Eating Guidelines

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:44:58 GMT

If you are looking for simple healthy eating guidelines then these easy to follow tips will do just the trick!

Aug 4, Healthy Balanced Diet

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:27:22 GMT

The wealth of information on healthy eating can be daunting, but a healthy balanced diet doesn't

Aug 4, healthy balanced diet information on proteins

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:31:28 GMT

The wealth of information on achieving a healthy balanced diet can be daunting. If you are looking for simple healthy eating guidelines then you'll find this easy to digest (excuse the pun!)

Jul 18, Top 30 healthy eating habits

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:53:31 GMT

Use these Top 30 Healthy Eating Habits to develop a healthy eating lifestyle at your own pace!

Jul 18, Love Your Time of the Month

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:33:29 GMT

What!? I hear you cry incredulously. How could I possibly love my time of the month when I am in pain, bleeding and feeling exhausted? Ah, well you see I am talking about a different time of the month. Today when I awoke my period had finished. My headache had disappeared, the bleeding had stopped and my abdomen was flatter and completely pain free. Yippee! I raced to the bathroom and weighed myself. 3 lbs lighter. Double yippee! I felt good and I knew it was going to be a great day. This is my time of the month. The period after the period if you get my drift. I feel fit, energetic and motivated. It is absolutely blissful and I love to revel in it! Today I decided to go out and celebrate by buying a nice sticky cake at the local patisserie. It was easily enough for two, but as my husband is away on a business trip I decided to rise to the challenge of eating the entire thing all by myself. I am happy to report that I achieved this feat in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed every minute! Now I am not advocating a diet full of sugar and saturated fats as this could play havoc with your hormones. A healthy, balanced diet is definitely the way to go the majority of the time, however I believe treating yourself once in a while with a little bit of what you fancy is good for you. The key is to do it when you are feeling good about yourself and your body and you can just luxuriate in the decadent pleasure of it all without one ounce of guilt. Otherwise, what is the point? This is easiest when you are in your time of the month. So, when is your time of the month? Is it just after your period? A week later? A week before? Take time to notice when you feel fitter, healthier, more energetic and use it to your advantage. Plan to do things during these times that you know you will look forward to. If your periods are irregular and unpredictable, learn to be spontaneous and take advantage of your best times of the month when they happen. Why is this important? Well I have calculated that I get mild to severe pain relating to my periods/endometriosis around 30 of the time. It would be very easy to fall into the trap of focusing on that so it becomes a problem for me 100 of the time! The reality is that 70 of the time my body is just dandy and if I notice that and match my mindset to it then I can really make the most of those good periods. So here is my advice: start noticing when you feel good. Notice when your body is more comfortable, when things just seem easier for you. Use these times, be thankful and learn to love your time of the month.

Jul 17, Telling Someone Could Change Your World for the Better

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:34:00 GMT

Two days ago, something happened that started all of this (the blog I mean). I was chatting on the phone to my husband's grandmother. After discussing her slow recovery from her hip operation 5 months ago she said, "enough of all that, how are you?". My usual response would be a bright and cheerful, "Yeah, great!" and then to talk about all the positive/exciting things going on in my life of which I can always find a few. But I didn't do that. My period had started that morning and it was a shocker - heavy bleeding, painful contractions, bloated belly, accompanied by head ache (hormones?), stomach ache (pain killers?), constipation (due to the endometriosis in my colon which swells up and gets blocked sometimes) and fatigue (is it any wonder with that lot?). I didn't provide her with that much detail over the phone (after all, she might have been having a biscuit with her cup of tea!). However my normal jovial self just didn't kick in. Instead I said, "I feel awful, I've got horrible period pains. I've had them all my life and to be honest, I'm thinking of having a hysterectomy". (Where did that come from?!) It had crossed my mind of course, but I'd always discounted it as a last and final resort, thinking it is 'such a big thing to do' and that the recovery period would be long and difficult. "Oh" she said, "I had the same problem so I had a hysterectomy when I was 39 - it was wonderful." "What was?" I asked. "Well not having any more periods of course!"

In that moment my world started to change.

I asked for more info. She'd spent a couple of days in bed after surgery, then was up and walking about. She wasn't allowed to drive or work for the next 6 weeks which she found very frustrating because she had so much energy. By the time the doctor had given her the all clear at her 6 week check up she was, in her words "raring to go!". Phrases like "changed my life", "never looked back", "best thing I ever did" were still ringing in my ears hours after our telephone call had finished. She used the word 'wonderful' at least 3 times - I would love to use that adjective to describe my reproductive system and mean it! Isn't it amazing how just speaking to the right person at the right time can change your outlook on things. I don't know yet if a hysterectomy is the best solution for me, but I'm certainly a lot more enthusiastic about exploring the possibility than I was a week ago. And I got to thinking...what if I start to share my story with others as Dee had shared hers with me? Could I help change someone else's world for the better? And the idea was born...welcome to Women's Health Blog.

Jul 16, Need Something to Make You Smile? Read How I Learned About Periods

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:30:54 GMT

I remember my Mum sitting me down when I was 9 years old and telling me about periods. I think her decision to do this was sparked off by a little incident that happened a few days earlier. I was accompanying my friend to the corner shops who was on an errand to pick up something from the chemist for her Mum. I didn't question what it was until I saw her coming out with a huge pack of what, to my untrained eye, looked like babies disposable nappies. As my friend was 11 years old and her only other sibling was 8, I presumed they weren't for either of them. I enquired as to why her mother had asked her to buy nappies to which she giggled and said,'they're not nappies, they're sanitary towels'. I was none the wiser! My friend briefly explained that women bleed between their legs every month and needed the towels to soak up the blood. Yeuch! The discussion ended there and I was quite sure that MY mother would never do such a thing and neither would I. If only! I guess my friend told her Mum about my ignorance and then her Mum had a friendly word in my Mum's ear. Hence a couple of days later a very embarrassing situation took place where Mum did her best to explain to me about periods and how this was all to do with women having babies. Meanwhile I sat on the end of the bed, staring at the floor red-faced and wishing she would hurry up and finish so I could go out and play, read a book or do anything that didn't involve talking with my mother about our nether regions. Hmmmmm, I'm beginning to see where my old reluctance to discuss the topic in detail stemmed from!