Cure menstrual cramps the natural way

For all you women out there who have yet to find a way around your monthly set of menstrual cramps, these tips should help you find pain relief.

Daily aerobics - Exercising daily helps to strengthen your body's muscles and keeps them flexible. Asides from strengthening your body, it helps to reduce the pain of the cramps.

Back stretches - This helps guard against the pain of the back muscles contracting during menses.

Stomach crunches - Doing tummy exercises helps to toughen you up for those painful cramps you experience when your uterus muscles contract.

Eat a high protein/ calcium diet.

Avoid taking iron supplements during your period.

Try eating chocolate to help ease the cramps. This is no old wives tale. It actually works :).

Sleep extra.

Drink plenty of water and liquids to help restock your body with fluids.

Avoid doing exercise during the first one or two days of your bleeding. The above mentioned exercises should be done throughout the month and on a regular basis, although not on the first one or two days of the actual period.

Be positive. It sure helps!

Lose weight in two weeks with 8 meals a day!

It’s the next big thing happening in Hollywood, Bollywood and among those in the fashion industry. Our very own Kareena Kapoor was said to have taken this route to her trim and slim size-zero figure!

But how does one make the change from eating 3 meals a day to being able to fit in EIGHT? That’s exactly what I asked myself when I began to plan for a healthy way to losing weight. It takes time, and most of all, discipline.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not fat, I am not thin, I am a normal individual. I am 5.6 ft and I weigh a healthy 53-55 kgs on any given day. I do not go on diets to loose weight, but to feel good about myself and to feel confident and convinced that I look good.

You may wonder why I’m telling you this. Well, I have to say that it’d be to encourage those of you who are like me – rarely able to find the time/ space for a good workout, but who are still appearance-conscious, that this diet is for you too! Us and the folk like us, look for an easy alternative that can be incorporated into our everyday routines and schedules, without feeling the strain of it.

The concept behind eating 8 meals in a day is that the body feels reassured in the constance of available food that it begins to shed the extra fat that it was hanging on to for those ‘just incase’ times that you weren’t able to eat up well.

I’m going to add my tried and proven daily diet plan here. With this diet plan, I lost more weight than I intended to, but the result was the same - I lost weight. You may like to try this diet plan for two weeks and then reevaluate how you feel after that. Different people’s bodies are different and we can’t all look like an Angelina Jolie or Madonna!

Take care that at every step you are faithful to watch your body for any signs it may be giving you. Listen to your body when it speaks to you. If something doesn’t feel right – don’t do it.

The most important thing to keep in mind when you attempt my diet plan is that I am giving you this advice because I saw it work for me. Within two weeks I was able to lose 5 kgs. I have seen it work and I’d feel selfish to keep it all to myself!

Remember to consult your doctor, listen to your body and for heaven’s sake, if you know your body can’t take something – don't even go there.

Without further ado, here is my diet plan. Don't forget that this is just a sample diet plan. See what's best for your body and plan accordingly.

Meal 1 (7 am) – Glass of fruit juice or milk or lassi
Meal 2 (9 am) – Bread and cheese or bread and egg (if you take out the yolk, make sure you compensate your iron intake in the rest of your diet plan)
Meal 3 (11 am) – Piece of fruit
Meal 4 (1 pm) – 1 roti, 1 serving of proteins, 1 serving of cooked vegetable, 1 serving of salads, 1 serving of curd
Meal 5 (3 pm) – Green/ herbal tea, 2 biscuits or other light snack
Meal 6 (5 pm) – Piece of fruit
Meal 7 (7 pm) – 1 serving cooked vegetable, 1 serving salads, 1 serving of non-veg (if you’re a non-veggie) or paneer, dhal, etc (if you’re a veggie)
Meal 8 (9 pm) – Glass of milk or lassi

You’ll notice that I’ve spaced each of my meals to be two hours apart. The diet will ONLY work if you are regular and consistent with feeding your body at a routine time daily. At 7 am in the morning you may not be hungry, but I guarantee you that after a week of drinking/ eating something at that time, your body will whine for it when it’s not been given.

If you find yourself getting too full by the time the next meal comes around, shrink your meal size. This worked for me, but it may not do so for you. Evaluate and plan your own dietary plan.

Remember that each meal need not be big. You may start off being able to eat an entire pizza for a meal, but with time, you’ll find that your stomach has shrunk and you can fit no more than a piece or two per meal.

I hope it works for you, and if it does, do let the rest of us know!

Note: This is not a girl’s diet. Anyone can do it.

Important diet tip

The most important asset you can make use of when trying to maintain a healthy weight is self-control. You can go through various rigorous diets, multiple eating plans, dieticians, health experts, yoga, therapy, liposuction, etc, but without self-discipline, it will all come to naught. 

I came to find this out when I began my diet-conscious outlook on life. I found it was much easier to just skip a meal, rather than to ensure that my meals were healthy, balanced and regular. 

In my next post, I'm going to be including a 8 meal a day diet plan that I made for myself a while back. I found it to be extremely helpful, and after just two short weeks, I found I had already lost 5 kgs! But more on that later!

If you want your diet to yield good results, remember that regularity and self-discipline is a must. Without this you will find itextremely difficult and possibly even impossible to attain your healthy-you goal. 

Stay focued and maintain your self-discipline!