healthy diet for women

Adjust according to your own menstrual cycle, respect individual differences in body constitution, and stay away from any extreme programs that require you to completely abstain from certain types of food.

Recently, I have a bad friend who is a 28-year-old Internet operator. Last year, I followed the trend and ate a certain blogger’s "Women’s Anti-Aging Universal Meal", which consisted of boiled vegetables and low-GI fruits. She did not touch sugar or refined rice and noodles. She lost 12 pounds in three months and was very happy. However, my aunt did not come for two months in a row. I went to the hospital to check that the estrogen had lost almost half. It was diagnosed as hypothalamic amenorrhea caused by dieting. After three months of hormone supplementation, the hormone was slowly adjusted back. In fact, there are quite a few such examples. Most of them are trapped by various gimmicks on the Internet such as "X foods that girls must eat" and "Eating them will make you ten years younger", completely ignoring your own physical feelings. Those recipes that are often labeled "All girls should eat like this" are essentially one-size-fits-all clothes. They are too big for a 90-pound person and cannot fit a 130-pound person. There is no universal truth.

The popular food schools on the market now actually have their own applicable scenarios, so there is no need to praise them all. For example, the low-GI diet that has been popular for several years is indeed friendly to girls who have unstable insulin, are prone to acne, and have polycystic cysts. However, if you have low blood pressure, often squat down and stand up, and your eyes are black, and you eat brown rice and quinoa, it will easily aggravate hypoglycemia and make you so dizzy that you can't even go to work. This is completely unnecessary. There is also the anti-inflammatory diet that has become very popular in recent years, which requires quitting dairy and gluten. However, if you drink milk and are not lactose intolerant or allergic to wheat, you cannot commit hard quitting. There is a girl around me who stopped drinking milk for half a year to fight inflammation. Her bone density dropped by 0.2 in her last physical examination. The doctor said that she should have taken calcium supplements at her age, so she quit the most convenient calcium source for no reason. It was purely a loss outweighing the gain. There are also traditional Chinese medicine dietary prescriptions that many people believe in, such as brown sugar ginger tea to treat dysmenorrhea. If you have a damp-heat constitution and often get angry and develop acne and oral ulcers, drinking it will aggravate the inflammation and make the pain worse. It is not as effective as taking a piece of ibuprofen.

Speaking of which, I kept a food diary for eight months in the past two years, and learned a lot about my own patterns corresponding to the four stages of the menstrual cycle. Let’s just say that during the week of ovulation, my craving for sweets was three times as high as usual. I used to resist eating it, but on weekends I would overeat two boxes of tiramisu, which had too many calories. After eating, I felt emotionally drained and felt that I had poor self-control. I adjusted it later. During those few days, I added a small piece of 70% black chocolate (about 10g) every afternoon, or half a piece of sweet-scented osmanthus cake bought at the entrance of the community. Instead, I stopped thinking about eating sweets. My weight was very stable, and my aunt has not had any pain in the past six months.

When it comes to the most controversial question, "Can girls eat ice cream?", in fact, different schools have completely different opinions, and there is no absolute right or wrong. The view of Western medicine is that as long as your gastrointestinal tolerance is tolerated and you have no history of dysmenorrhea, you can eat it cold. If you drink a glass of iced Americano on a 38-degree day in the summer, as long as you don’t have diarrhea or stomachache, there will be no problem at all, and you don’t have to feel guilty. However, the view of traditional Chinese medicine is that women are yin, and the pelvic cavity is in a state of congestion during menstruation. Ice can stimulate vasoconstriction, which can easily lead to blocked menstrual blood and aggravate dysmenorrhea. My own experience is to look at the body's reaction: every time I eat ice before visiting my aunt, I will break out in cold sweats from pain, so I will drink warm water honestly during those days. Normally, I should eat popsicles in the summer, and I don't want to drink 40-degree warm water all year round for the so-called "health preservation". It's extremely aggrieved.

The needs of different age groups vary greatly, so there’s really no need to follow other people’s templates. Many girls in their early twenties follow the trend of vegetarianism in order to lose weight. However, at this stage, the aunt loses 20-30mg of iron every month. If she does not eat red meat at all, she will easily suffer from iron deficiency anemia, her face will become sallow and her hair will fall out. The intern I took last year was vegetarian for half a year. She was out of breath even after climbing the third floor. The hemoglobin test was only 90. Later, she ate braised beef twice a week and made up for it in two months. The metabolism of girls over 30 years old gradually decreases, so there is no need to go on a diet to starve. All you need to do is replace the white rice and steamed buns you usually eat with one-third of mixed beans or sweet potatoes and corn. For perimenopausal women in their forties, pay more attention to calcium and soy isoflavone supplements. Drinking a glass of milk and eating some tofu and soy milk every day is much more effective than eating a bunch of health products that cost thousands of dollars.

Last month, when I was helping to sort out cases in the nutrition department, I met a 42-year-old sister who ate bird's nest, fish maw, and snow clam every day in order to fight aging. The result was that her estrogen was high and her breast nodules reached grade three. The doctor said that she already had breast hyperplasia and did not need to supplement these animal estrogen supplements. Instead, the supplement caused problems.

In fact, when it comes down to it, there really aren’t that many rules and regulations for a healthy diet for women. You don’t need to count calories every time, and you don’t need to stock up on what others say is good. If you feel comfortable eating, your aunt is normal, your complexion is good, and you have enough energy, then that is the diet that is suitable for you, and it is more reliable than any recipe given by experts. After all, eating is a joyful thing. It would be boring to eat every meal with trepidation.