Beat the Bloat: 5 Simple Steps for Women

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Feeling bloated isn’t nice. It’s especially inconvenient when you’re getting ready to go to an event, you slip on that beautiful dress you bought for the occasion and your stomach sticks out a mile. It doesn’t matter if you avoid gorging on a huge pizza every Friday night. For women, bloating can be part of our natural cycles. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things you can do to avoid it. Here are simple remedies for beating the bloat.

Avoid Sugar Free Candy

You may think you’re doing yourself a favor by avoiding sugar. After all, sugar does cause us to put on weight. However, a lot of sugar-free candy or gums are filled with artificial sweeteners, like aspartame or sorbitol. These ingredients aren’t easy for the body to digest, so they just sit there, right in the center of your stomach. This causes you to bloat. So, when you want to avoid bloating, you’re actually better off sticking to the sugary stuff, or better yet, switch to natural sugars in fruit instead.

Take Your Time

It’s possibly down to the limited time most of us have to take a break, but many of us are eating faster than we ever have before. When you eat quickly, you tend to swallow a lot of gas at the same time. Eating quickly means your body isn’t given as much time to digest your food and the gas sits in your stomach along with it. Both cause bloating. Try taking more time with your food, or if you really can’t afford a longer break, drink a Skinny Tea along with your meal. The organic ingredients will help aid digestion and avoid bloating.

Avoid Stress

Easier said than done, right? However, it’s especially important for women to avoid as much stress as possible. Stress can cause hormonal imbalances which can lead to constipation or diarrhea, both of which can cause bloating. If you feel like you’re becoming overwhelmed, it’s always best to take time out. You could go for a walk while at work, ask your partner to watch the kids while you take a long bath or even go to an exercise class. Taking time out regularly will help to improve stress levels and mental health.

Exercise

Many women believe that bloating can be solved by losing weight. It can’t. Bloating isn’t necessarily weight gain. In fact, it’s often linked to anything but your weight. However, exercise can help you to deal with bloating. It can help you to regulate your meal times and meal portions, it can regulate your bowel movements and help you to stay hydrated.

See Your Doctor

There are times when bloating could mean something more sinister than last night’s big meal. If you’re persistently bloated, it’s important to visit your doctor and have a check-up. It could be that you have a gluten or lactose intolerance and some professional advice on dietary changes, or bloating has also been linked to ovarian cysts and ovarian cancer.

 

Living with bloating can really make you miserable, so give these tips a try and see if they can improve your quality of life.

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Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself: Preventing Health Problems As You Get Older

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It’s very important as you get older to make sure you have all the relevant health checks. With things like diseases becoming more and more common as you get older, you need to be sure that you are keeping on top of everything when it comes to your health. Going to the doctor is never a good thing, even if you are feeling 100% well, so why don't you try and prevent this by giving yourself a health MOT. Regardless of how old you are, we need to always be keeping an eye on our health, whether you are 19 or 90, and especially if you are in your mid-20s, it's now time to start thinking seriously about how healthy you actually are. Have you noticed your hangovers getting a bit worse these days? It is all part of getting older! But not to worry, here are some basics you need to think about.

 

Your Eyes and Ears

While we may wear glasses already, it doesn't hurt to check if your eyes are functioning properly, and it is worth having an eye test on a regular basis, preferably once a year. Going to your local eye doctors on a regular basis can make sure that you prevent certain eye ailments like glaucoma or any other inflammation. It is also worth having a hearing test, especially if you go to many gigs in the meantime! There is a lot of research into the devastating effect of earphones on hearing loss at a young age, which can bring on hearing problems like tinnitus before the age of 30. So, if you see Metallica on a regular basis, or go to many silent discos, start to shield your ears from the loud noise!

 

Your Skin

Keeping an eye on your skin as you get older is something that we tend to overlook for the most part. For example, if you have cracks at the corner of your mouth this may indicate a lack of vitamin B2, and any bruising may be a sign of a lack of Vitamin C or any other nutrients that can affect your blood’s ability to clot. It is also worth keeping an eye out for any changes in your skin tags or moles that do not disappear after a few weeks. Also, as we get older, we may find ourselves intolerant to more foods such as gluten. Have you noticed that your skin is a lot itchier than normal? This could be a sign of a gluten intolerance.

 

Your Digestion

Back onto gluten intolerance, if you find that you bloat very easily, this could be another sign. Other symptoms that could be digestive issues can be tiredness, weight loss that is unexplained or pains in your stomach. If you have any of these, it may be worth checking with a dietitian, especially if the symptoms persist.

 

While these are only a handful of issues that can occur, it is better to be aware of what they are before they become incredibly serious. Prevention is better than cure, so start to prevent them now so you can become a better you.

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