Healthy Eating: An Essential Part of Well Woman Care

Well woman care is a burgeoning field, and one that emphasizes prevention over treatment. The philosophy is that it is easier to maintain your health than it is to repair it, and that early detection always improves your chances of a positive outcome.
The field of well woman care emphasizes regular checkups for women, and also healthy lifestyle choices that can help women live longer and feel good while doing so. You may think that the only well woman care issue you need to worry about is attending regular medical check-ups, but you can take control of certain aspects of your own health and ensure that those checkups go smoothly. Healthy eating is an essential component of this approach.
It's not about what's on the surface
In a society that can sometimes be obsessed with image, it's important to realize that healthy eating and dieting are two very different things. From a well woman care perspective, it's not about looking good in a bathing suit, but making sure the organs underneath that bathing suit are functioning at their peak ability.
Of course, excess weight can have its own drawbacks when it comes to strain on bones, muscles and organs, but weight itself is a secondary concern.
Your body is a machine, and machines need good fuel
Food is the fuel that keeps your body running, and just like with any machine, the cleaner the fuel, the less chance you have to clog up the works. That's why foods that are high in fat and cholesterol cause such problems. They gum up the inner workings of your human machine.
For proper well woman care, then, pay attention to the levels of these substances in your food. Splurging on a greasy fast food meal every once in a while won't do lasting harm, but the more often you indulge, the more risks you are taking.
It's all about the fiber and vegetables
To keep your eating focused on well woman care and your health rather than the superficial aspects, pay less attention to avoiding the bad and more attention to bringing in the good, and this means vegetables and fiber.
Multiple studies have shown that a high-fiber diet can help you maintain the health of every organ in your body, your heart and your digestive system specifically. Fiber helps you better digest and process the nutrients in your food, so that you are getting the full benefit of healthy eating choices.
Next you have to pay attention to what it is that the fiber is helping you process, and your choices in that area should offer as many nutrients as possible. That means lots and lots of green veggies.
Foods like spinach and broccoli are full of vitamins and nutrients that can keep your body functioning at peak efficiency. Nuts and seeds are great options, too, because they offer tons of protein, which can provide you with great amounts of energy.
Eat what you like, in healthy versions
Only have time for a sandwich at lunch? Make it with wheat bread and spinach leaves. Craving a big plate of spaghetti? Pasta comes in wheat versions, as well, and green bell peppers in your spaghetti sauce enhance both the flavor and the health benefits of your meal.
Well woman care may mean regular visits to your OB/GYN or Nurse Midwife, but it also means doing what you can on your end to maintain your health, which starts with good eating habits.

Pregnant Women - What Should You Do Or Avoid For a Healthy Baby?

In the lifetime of a woman, the best moments are when she becomes a mother. It's a feeling that only a mother can explain. When women conceive and are due to deliver in 9 months there are a number of worries and anticipations along with excitement and delight cropping in one's mind and heart. Every pregnant woman would want to have a healthy baby first and then would desire for either of the sex, colour, or appearance. Health comes first and should be the most primary concern of any expecting mother. Taking care of yourself and for your expected child during pregnancy is the most important focus during that period.
Pregnant women must follow a certain diet and lifestyle and avoid a few things to have a healthy baby. She must first and foremost stay healthy by eating the right food items. She must not only eat for herself but should eat for her baby as well. A good nutritious diet consisting of bread, vegetables, fruits, milk and milk products, meat and protein food should be consumed on a daily basis. Pregnant women must also drink lots of water and have lots of calcium content food items. Some of the good sources of calcium are almonds, dried beans; vegetable those are dark green in colour, like spinach and broccoli, milk and milk products, sardines, peas and brussel sprouts.
Around 30 mg's of iron is required for pregnant women to build up their haemoglobin level. Iron can be found in food products of red meat, eggs, dry fruits, salmon, dried beans and peas among others. Pregnant women should have a healthy diet and along with this must also have a healthy lifestyle to have a safe delivery and a healthy baby. They must sleep well, be in good spirits, should be surrounded with bliss and a stress free environment. They should further exercise regularly, and have a daily routine walk to flex their muscles and bones. This helps pregnant women have a smooth and easy delivery.
Pregnant women must also avoid a few things in order to have a health baby. They must first let go of all their bad habits, if any, of abuse, namely, alcohol or drug abuse. They should avoid taking any stress upon themselves mentally or physically. OTC or over the counter medicines must also be avoided. Consuming a lot of hot or spicy food items, tea, caffeine, and vitamin a supplements, effect the proper development of the fetus.
Women who are pregnant tend to feel over heated because of hormonal changes and thus must avoid any additional heating from outside. By this we mean Jacuzzi's, Sauna or sun bathing must be avoided, as it has been found that women with over heated bodes tend to deliver baby's with neural defects.
Thus all the above points must be kept in mind by a pregnant woman. Things that need to be avoided must be taken seriously as they have a direct or indirect effect at the normal growth and development of the baby in the womb.
To Your Health!

Oceans 3 Healthy Hormones For Women

It can be tough being a woman. Dealing with menopause and monthly menstrual cycles are just two examples of things that every woman has to deal with. Menopause and menstrual cycles cause serious changes in hormone levels. As we all know, when it comes to the topic of women and changes in hormones, you can also expect an array of mood swinging side effects. There are ways to help balance the mood swings and stop hot flashes. Supplements like Oceans 3 Healthy Hormones are created to help women naturally find and keep that balance.
Oceans 3 Healthy Hormones is designed by a company called Gardens of Life to help women of all ages. This is true whether they haven't reached menopause, are just reaching it or are postmenopausal. The idea behind this supplement is to help all women that struggle with dealing with hormone side effects. The product targets treating hot flashes, depression, anxiety, poor skin, weight gain, and stress. Some women go through a full spectrum of side effects each month because of their menstrual cycle. Others experience those side effects and more when going through menopause. For this reason Oceans 3 Healthy Hormones has made itself safe for women of all ages and stages in their life.
The formula takes advantage of a strong trio of ingredients to help deliver its cause. Lifenol, Ashwagandha, and Amla Berry are the main components of Oceans 3 Healthy Hormones. Each ingredient has a unique positive effect on the emotional and hormonal health of a female.
Lifenol is an extract that has a distinct nature to help relieve and prevent hot flashes.
Ashwagandha has a few advantages if taken regularly by women. Ashwagandha is said to help relieve stress and calm down or sooth the mind. It helps control overeating and other side effects that go along with stress.
The Amla Berry is meant to help promote healthy skin. Often times hormone changes can cause breakouts and the Alma Berry can help avoid these problems. It is also great for the improvement of overall tone and elasticity of the skin as it helps stop the breakdown of skin collagen.
The Ocean 3 Healthy Hormones formula for women comes in the form of a soft gel tablet. Basic users should take 3 tablets a day and pair it with a meal and a full glass of water.
The goal of this formula is to help women achieve a healthy and natural balance in their everyday life. Its focused formula is designed to make women feel and look healthy from the inside out.

Healthy Nutrition For Women

Today is a great time for women as more scientific evidence based information is evolving from nutrition research to dispel myths and present facts.
Women's Confusion about Diets
Diets abound from anti-heart disease diet to the PMS diet to the hundreds of weight loss diets.
Solution:Women want to simplify the nutrition puzzle and have one diet. The one diet is the Healthy Woman's Diet Plan.
Healthy Woman's diet plan takes into account how the dietary guidelines help to prevent one illness such as heart disease and how it might interact with advice for another disorder, such as cancer, food cravings, osteoporosis and diabetes.
Previous Trends- It's Not "All in your Head"
Women's health complaints have been dismissed as "all in the head."
"Insecurity, depression, irritability the week before menstruation, signaled emotionalism, a craving for sweets, lack of will-power. When these symptoms were reported to a physician, a husband or friend. Their complaint, met with a smile or recommendation "to take it easy."Vague symptoms of lethargy, depression, mood swings, headaches, and fluid retention were all conditions that were poorly understood by the medical community.
Changing Times
Undiagnosed emotional and physical symptoms are now recognized as specific metabolic processes, many of which are affected by diet. Mood swings; food cravings and anxiety are symptoms many women experience before their periods and now have a name called Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS). PMS can be partially alleviated by changes in diet and exercise. Poor concentration, memory problems and fatigue could be a result of something as simple as iron deficiency and caffeine consumption.
Until recently, many diseases were considered the inevitable condition of growing old: The frail, stooped old lady, with protruding abdomen was a woman's destiny. Researchers acknowledge this condition - Osteoporosis - can be prevented or at least dramatically slowed by exercise and increasing dietary intake of calcium.
Numerous age related conditions from cataracts and skin aging to bowel disorders, heart disease and many of the emotional and physical changes related to menopause might be prevented by, or the symptoms reduced by a few changes to diet. With regular exercise, there is every reason to feel vibrant, radiant and youthful in your sixties, seventies and beyond.
What you can do to Re-program the aging Process!
Getting old is a natural process but you don't have to succumb to it. Many conditions associated with aging and ill health result from in action defenses that could be strengthened by a low-fat, nutrient dense diet with the combination of exercise. For example, consuming ample amounts of anti-oxidant nutrients, including beta-carotene, vitamin C, Vitamin E, and selenium, strengthen one of the body's basic defense systems against aging.
Optimal intake of the trace minerals, iron, zinc and copper and many of the vitamins builds the body's immune system and protects against colds, infections, premature aging, and many diseases, including cancer and arthritis.
Fitness
Staying fit that is by eating a low-fat nutrient dense diet and moving daily; you can re-program your body's aging process. Basically what you eat and how much you move can make the difference between feeling and looking great or, at best, just getting by while the aging process advances toward disease and disability.
Room for Improvement
Your diet must work for you rather than against you to enhance your health potential. It is not too late to improve your diet. Today the consensus for a healthy "balanced diet" for women is changing and might not be good to prevent certain degenerative diseases or emotional problems.
Research has shown that women's diets have a long way to go. Women are eating less whole milk and beef that lessened saturated fat and cholesterol than women did years ago. There is 29% decrease in heart disease. On the other hand, polyunsaturated fats, such as vegetable oils and margarine have skyrocketed and average intake of fiber is less than one-third the recommended amount (that is, 10 grams versus 30 + grams).
Women are eating more chicken than beef, but the chicken is fried. (One serving of chicken Nuggets is equivalent of five pats of butter.)
Salad intake is on the rise due to the quest for weight loss and that is good. However, high fat salad dressings are poured on them diluting the benefits.The recommendations to increase complex carbohydrates such as brown rice, pasta, bread, and cereals are not met. Women still consume less than one-half the amount of these foods that their fore-parents ate in the l900s. Women consume more French fries, sugar, cake and doughnuts than pasta. These food choices increase the intake of fat and sugar and jeopardize the nutritional adequacy of the diet.
Jeopardy - Not meeting the Requirements
Women's diets are low in many essential nutrients because they are not eating enough of the dietary recommendations. A woman's physiology makes her more vulnerable than a man's to nutrient deficiencies during different stages of her life, such as puberty, pregnancy, and menopause.
One out of every two women consumes less than two-third the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDI) for folic acid, vitamin E, iron, zinc, calcium, magnesium, copper, vitamin, and many of the B vitamins. Many of these deficiencies are caused by eating too many of these processed foods, fast foods, and convenience items that are high in fat and sugar and low in nutrients. Its shown that the average women consumes 13 teaspoons of sugar daily or 265 calories from foods that supply little or no nutritional value.
Women like to diet. The average diet range for women in the United States start at 1,400 to 1,800 calories. Compare this to men, who usually consume more than 2,500 calories per day, it is very impossible to meet the requirement values of all vitamins and minerals when food intake is restricted to these amounts.
Clinical deficiencies are not met when women do not consume the minimal amount recommended. It compounds the problem further as they are not getting the amounts needed to prevent cancer, heart disease, premature aging and other conditions such as PMS and osteoporosis. Other nutrients such as beta-carotene and vitamin C are needed in greater amounts than previously recognized. It can be obtained from the diet if a woman consumes at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. In short, women are not consuming enough of the right foods.
What You Can Do
Women wear many hats and live very busy life-styles, with careers, family and social responsibilities. Despite busy lifestyle, women must take time to care of themselves. Good health does not happen. The body is complex and it will automatically deteriorate at an increasing speed unless you take a pro-active role in keeping it well maintained.
Form good habits to support a healthy body and in most cases require only minor adjustments in a healthful life-style. These habits are not instinctive. You will have to choose nutritious foods. You have to make a conscious effort to treat it well by eating nutritious food and put movements to complement your health and fitness goals.
One of the most important dietary changes you can make for your health, waistline, and appearance is to eat less fat and more minimally processed, fiber rich foods. Less fat means more nutrients consumed for each spoonful of food. Less fat means a longer and healthier life. Noticeable, as the population ages, women are becoming more serious about eating for health and sorting through the conflicting noises to find diets they can live with. Know this, at best, diets don't work, and at worst they may compromise health, disease, resistance, and life spans.

It is left up to you to become your own nutrition advocate and remember that the symptoms you feel are not totally all in your head, and that there physical and possibly nutritional bases for many of these conditions. However you are still responsible for taking care of your health and nutritional status in an effort to achieve and maintain your healthiest body.

Sexual Health for Men and Women: An Excellent Supplement for Consideration

There are a myriad of notions nowadays relative to what constitutes vibrant Sexual Health for men and women. An accurate understanding can only be gained through a fundamental understanding of biochemistry. While there are obvious differences in hormone makeup, every man and every woman requires proper daily nutrition to maintain the delicate balance of all biological functions.
In our modern society, there exist very serious deterrents to health in general. For example, an unprecedented incidence of free radical damage to the cells of our body. Also, contemporary farming techniques produce food seriously lacking in the trace elements necessary for proper daily nutrition (not only for humans, but also the animals we consume in our diet). These farming techniques also employ pesticides in their processes. The use of hormones and antibiotics in livestock processed for human consumption is another devastating factor for careful consideration.
There are locations in the world where cancer and ED (Erectile Dysfunction) are virtually unheard of and one of these places is the high mountain valley of Hunza, which is situated north of the Hunza River in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. The primary reason the people of Hunza routinely live to be centurions, is a properly functioning immune system. Several factors contribute to such robust stability; the anomalous properties of the water (alkaline and ionized glacier water), pure air, lack of free radical damage, little or no stress, proper nutrition and hard work.
The substantial incidence of diseases such as cancer and ED is an alarming reality for those members of Industrialized Societies. I believe the proliferation of these diseases results from free radical damage and the breakdown in immune system function. This weakness is caused, not only by the deterrents to overall health mentioned previously, but also the absence of those factors existent in environments such as Hunza.
There is no shortcut to good health. It is achieved and maintained through a process widely know as Diet and Exercise. To succeed, proper diet must become as much a way of life as sufficient exercise. A diet which will provide the desired results must include high quality nutritional supplements. There are several to choose from, so be careful! Fake Vitamins (those manufactured in a laboratory) actually do more harm than good. These so-called vitamins are incomplete forms and when ingested, are recognized by the body almost as if they were poison. Consequently, the body leaches minerals from bones and amino acids from muscles to complete these foreign elements. Vitamin and mineral supplements produced from natural sources are essential to good health.
In your quest to become properly nourished, your supplemental regimen should consist of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, probiotics, protein (for athletes and those involved in strength training), and herbs. It is easy to get carried-away once you begin supplementing, yet there are a few nutrients which must supplement our diet daily if we are to maintain a properly nourished condition. Since this article is about Sexual Health, we will start with some of those supplements which have passed my scientific tests for effectiveness and quality. My next article will include a more comprehensive breakdown of the basic supplements necessary to maintain a healthy diet.
For men, testosterone is the hormone of greatest concern as we age. From the time a man is in his mid to late 20's, his natural production of testosterone begins to diminish. Testosterone is systemically essential and not simply the force behind a man's sexual power. Free testosterone is necessary for several other biological functions such as, protecting your brain against memory loss, enhancing immune system function, maintaining strong bones and muscles, mood, heart health and more. Since testosterone is so significant, we will discuss it more comprehensively next time.
The supplementation of zinc is an excellent starting point and one which produces almost immediate results. Caution is necessary though, as excessive zinc intake interferes with the assimilation of copper. The trace element zinc plays a big part in normal growth and wound healing, development of the reproductive organs and proper functioning of the prostate. The building blocks of DNA and RNA are proteins and nucleic acids. Zinc is essential to the manufacturing of proteins and nucleic acids.
Natural sources of high quality zinc are always the most effective and one of least known, yet most studied is the little oyster. Yes that's right; oysters have been consumed for centuries, because of their ability to produce increased libido, bigger and stronger erections and better sexual health. Oyster consumption is equally effective for both men and women, so enhance your sex life even more by sharing with your partner to increase and develop both of your sexual desire, vitality and endurance!
The forgoing statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.