The Problem With Being a Woman - Don't Keep It To Yourself!

Warning - the following post contains graphic details about women's bits!

As a woman, we have to put up with an awful lot from our bodies. It all starts with the joyous arrival of our monthly bleed (slang terms I remember include "on the blob", "the painters are in" but there are others - what one's did you use?)
On the plus side, we are now deemed "women" and feel all mature and grown-up. However, I started early at 9 years old, so now I have been bleeding monthly for 31 years, which is approximately 370 periods (apart from the four times I was pregnant, except you then bleed heavily for 6 weeks or more after having the baby so you don't really escape!), and laugh at my young naive self! I have read many posts on Pinterest recently describing the hell we go through every month with our periods and although amusing, are actually very accurate.
The one I like the most is here (See Pin) where a male friend asks what it is like having a period.

It begins with cramps. Many of us suffer from cramps at the beginning, which are aptly described as "shoot me I want to curl up into a ball and die" cramps. One of my friends literally could not move when she was suffering and always had to use a combination of a hot water bottle and high dose painkillers to ease the pain, and going to school was impossible.

Back pains are another favourite at our time of the month - very uncomfortable, a constant nagging pain in the background, not the worst but not pleasant.

Then there's the blood loss. It literally pours from our bodies. The Pinterest post likens it to Niagara Falls and I have to admit they're not wrong! I quote "Stand up, Niagara Falls, Cough, Niagara Falls, Sneeze, Niagara Falls, Breathe, Niagara Falls".

Niagara Falls (Photo credit: Kevin Timothy)

We have a few choices to catch this waterfall but none of them are great. The main two are either stuffing your knickers with a nappy-like pad, or shoving something inside you with a string dangling from you like a fuse attached to a dynamite stick. How many of you have worried about the string detaching and needing a visit to the doctor to remove the tampon?!

(Photo credit: Laurie Pink)

The sanitary towel has improved over the years and no longer resembles the thick wadding of a maternity pad, and the introduction of wings (no boys, we cannot fly!) makes me less paranoid about any leakages, but it's still a nuisance changing them and they're not cheap!

Mooncup (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A relatively new option is the menstrual cup - another friend tried the Mooncup for a while and raved about it as she had particularly heavy periods which no sanitary towel was thick enough to prevent leaks, and she was constantly worrying about showing all and sundry that she was on her period! I personally have not tried it, never being terribly keen on shoving things up my doobry-wotsits. I only use tampons when I want to swim, and used a diaphragm for an alternative to the pill for a while until I lost my grip trying to remove it mid-period and left the bathroom resembling a murder scene. It kind of put me off after that!
The worry of leakages is still there, however, and why do we always start our periods when wearing white, or in the middle of the night, waking up to find you've soaked the bed?! When I was a teenager, I remember coming home to find that I had been strutting about town with my friends in my much-loved white, on-trend pencil skirt, not knowing that I had started my period and everyone must have seen. I still cringe now!

The post then goes onto our mood swings. Somehow we are angry, horny, depressed, hungry and emotional all at the same time.

 (Photo credit: brain_blogger)

I started using an app several years ago to track my cycle but it also allows you to enter how you're feeling and any symptoms you can identify. This has really helped me to see a pattern emerging every month, not that DH believes it!
One minute I want to eat everything in sight (this is usually about two weeks before I am due on), the next everyone annoys me so much I want to kill them (about a week before), next I'm crying over an episode of Home and Away or some random thought that pops into my head (a few days before), then I suddenly find DH immensely attractive (weird, I know!), and then my period starts and I'm transported into some Zen-like state where nothing fazes me and I can deal with life in a calm, rational manner, apart from the delights of actually being on, as described above! It's exhausting! I also get nights just before my period when I'm having a hot flush and other nights where I'm having the most strange, vivid dreams. What patterns have you noticed?

So that's what we have to go through every month until we decide it's time to make babies.

Firstly, there is the bonus that our periods stop whilst we're pregnant. What I didn't appreciate is that after giving birth I bled about the equivalent of 9 months worth of periods in the space of 6-9 weeks! Even three maternity pads stuffed in my pants didn't hold the flow, it was ridiculous!

When I fell pregnant with DS1, my boobs got so sore I thought something was wrong with me. When I was getting undressed at nightime, I had to take off my bra one cup at a time whilst holding that breast, gently lowering it until I could release the other side! If I whipped off my bra normally I was in agony!

Whilst carrying a baby inside you is one of the most amazing things I have ever done, our bodies go through so many changes to accommodate the new life, and we do not come out unscathed.

Woman pregnancy month by month. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As baby grows, all our internal organs are squished up to make room, and I found going to the loo quite difficult. And I'm not talking about wee, as baby bouncing on bladder make wee stops very frequent!
I imagine that the transport of waste through the intestine is quite slow when the tubes have been squashed into a corner, thus making many of us suffer from pregnancy constipation!
Unfortunately, I discovered that not being able to "go" put pressure elsewhere in my body, causing me to have near fainting episodes, sometimes at home where I had to lie down flat on the bathroom floor,  but once at Tesco and Toys R Us - embarrassing and not pleasant!
I got very big in the last trimester, apparently DS1 was "all in front", which put a massive strain on my back and, although I was lucky not to suffer from the many ailments coming from pregnancy such as swollen feet, itchy skin, pre-eclampsia or SPD, I did get a groin injury from trying to steer uncooperative trollies round at the supermarket! Every subsequent baby stretched my belly the same way so that now I have been left with a huge, highly attractive (not) flap of skin which I unsuccessfully try to tuck into my knickers, only for it to poke out the bottom, and no amount of adjusting hides it away. I know, it's a testament to what my body went through to give new life, blah, blah, blah, but seriously, don't ever catch me naked!

Then, after all that, we have the wonder of giving birth! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not using this post to have a moan, I simply wish to share my experiences with you and perhaps enlighten the opposite sex about what being a woman is like. If they're anything like my DH, I don't think they have a clue!
Actually, I think the "giving birth" part is the only bit he does know what we go through as he was an active part in each of our four children's births, so I won't dwell on the ins and outs of the process.
The only part he probably didn't understand was the emotional side when our hormonal levels are all over the place again and we switch from one mood to the other at the speed of light!

So, I gave birth to four children, all naturally (albeit given a push by being induced for DS1 and 2). I had episiotomies with each one but they healed without too much problem (tea tree oil baths were a godsend), and I was particularly proud that I was able to sneeze or jump on a trampoline without wetting myself (go pelvic floor exercises!).

Then, a couple of years ago, I started to notice that my regular pattern of symptoms leading up to a period had started changing, as did my moods.
The first thing I started to notice was I was horny. Not at one point in the month but all the time! I felt like a teenage boy, or randy dog short of rubbing myself on someone's leg, I couldn't get enough! I googled it and it appears I was not alone. Peri-menopause was mentioned. I looked that up, and it's the period of time leading up to the menopause, which can be years, but can also cause hot flushes and your periods may lengthen or shorten. Most people suffer from vaginal dryness but I appeared to have gone the other way. Lucky DH!
Then I became irrationally upset and paranoid, mainly with regards to DH, becoming ridiculously dependent on him. The only time I felt like this was when I suffered from antenatal depression whilst pregnant with DD, but at least this time I recognised it and just waited and hoped it would pass. It did improve and a year later I was back to my normal self thank goodness, but it must have been due to another flux in my hormone levels - we are so driven by our hormones!

I am lucky that I have a friend a few years older than me who is going through the peri-menopause as well so I am getting a heads up on what to expect and what action to take.
We are very close and not shy about talking through private issues or things that are bothering us. She's like me, we tell it like it is, and she is a fountain of knowledge which is very handy!
A few weeks ago she mentioned that she really ought to make an appointment with her doctor about something that had been bothering her since before Christmas. She then went on to tell me that lately sex with her DH had been less than enjoyable. Not from a "I don't find him desirable anymore" point of view, but that it was actually hurting. She said it felt like he was banging against something "in there" and at first it was a mildly uncomfortable sensation but now it was hurting so much she had to ask him to stop. I was sympathetic but said that I had noticed a similar sensation sometimes with my DH but dismissed it as it didn't happen every time.
Being an internet junkie like myself, she had already googled it and it had mentioned "prolapse" but she didn't want to read further until being checked by her doctor. I was surprised as we'd both had several children without any major problems afterwards but I sometimes have this awful pressure down there when I'm having a heavy period and I would often jokingly say it felt like my womb was falling out. My friend advised me to get checked out, especially when her doctor did diagnose a prolapse and she is on a course of oestrogen tablets to help improve it. If that doesn't work then the next course of action is surgery, ugh!
So, taking the opportunity when my smear test was due (or cervical screening as they call it now!), I asked if my doc could check me out down there. After a quick rummage she said she could feel "something" and has referred me to the gynae department at my nearest hospital for an appointment in April (as ever, the not-so speedy NHS!)
If it hadn't had been for my friend being frank about her bits with me, I would have never got myself checked out until it had got much worse, so I thank her for her honesty.

And this brings me to why I wanted to write this post - by sharing in my experience of what we go through I hope to empathise with my readers, and by being honest about my ins and outs perhaps someone will recognise similar issues and seek help if needed. Girl power!

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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• Mooncup
• Things I wish Men Understand

Living With Fibromayalgia - a third party perspective

I am writing this post in support of my lovely friend, madmumof7, who suffers from this horrible invisible illness and is hosting a linky with the above badge every month for anyone out there suffering from a similar invisible illness.

When she first told me about it I admit I had never heard of Fibromayalgia. She described it as a mix of symptoms like arthritis and ME, with the addition of brain fog to boot. At the time she wasn't having a flare up so seemed completely fine to me, when in actual fact she is never fully pain-free. It's hard to imagine she's ever suffering to be honest, as she's one of the most active, enthusiastic people I know!

I remember, when the children first joined the village school, seeing this poor mum being pushed to school in a wheelchair and wondered what was wrong with her. It wasn't until a few months later when we became friends that she explained she was having a particularly bad flare-up at that point, and that it was very confusing for people who didn't know about it as they would see her a few days later appearing perfectly fine!

Over the last six years that we have been friends, I have seen her at her best and her worst. When she felt comfortable enough to ask for help on the bad days, I have happily offered to pick up the children to take them to school and, if she was no better later, bring them home. I hope I have never made her feel embarrassed when she greets me at her house in her pyjamas because she can't make her fingers work to get dressed or has wet hair because, although she has managed to shower, her arms will not hold the hairdryer. I am happy to visit when she is home bound, to keep her company or just make her a cup of tea!

On her good days, I have seen her rush about like a whirlwind, getting things done super fast as she never knows when she will be down again!

She has never wanted to be a victim to her illness, never wanted people to pity her, and never wanted to miss out on life. She never passes up an opportunity to try something new and gives me the courage to do the same.

She showed her determination not to let this affliction stop her by going ahead with our local leg of the Team Honk Relay we had volunteered for months ago. Originally we were going to cycle our route, but, as the day got closer, it became apparent that she was on the verge of a massive flare-up. With a quick rethink, we still took part by walking a shorter route instead, with two American style wagons, one to carry our necessary refreshments and one to put madmumof7 in when it became too much!

Anyone else would have dropped out, but not this fm sufferer! We managed to meet the next group in time to hand over the baton and had such a good time doing it with fellow bloggers that I hope the laughter and camaraderie we shared made up for the pain she must have been in.

Personally, I am very bad at being ill - I get very frustrated when I am suffering from a cold, and if I have pain from an injury I take as many drugs as I can so that I can carry on as normal. Medication is not an option for Fibromayalgia as the pain comes from mixed up signals from the brain to your nerves so, although the feeling of pain is very real, painkillers don't work. Afra told me that when she realised that carrying on through the pain did not do her any damage or make it worse, like arthritis, she decided to battle through and try to ignore it. I am in awe that she manages to carry on, I think I would stay in bed and give up, but not Afra! She told me that having children actually helped to give her the motivation to carry on as normal - young children don't understand that mummy is having a bad day and demand food, help with getting dressed and going to the toilet! It literally gave her a reason to get out of bed.

Sometimes, the only clue I have that she is suffering is when she is not her usual articulate self, thanks to brain fog where she cannot think of a word mid sentence and turns to her friends to help her out. She will forget names and, instead of being her normal multi-tasking queen, will ask for any plans we are to share for the week to be texted to her so she can refer back to it later.

So, that is my perspective on having a friend with Fibromayalgia. I wish her every success with her linky and hope the more these invisible illnesses are talked about, the more the rest of us will understand and believe in the sufferers' symptoms.

Winning the best dressed prize at
the Mama Mia film together

Please click on the badge at the top to view or join in with madmumof7's linky

Food Obsession vs Keeping Fit - an ongoing battle!

I love food. I love the taste, the smell, the look of it (I post a lot of food porn on social networks!), I even love reading the description of dishes regardless of whether I am actually going to eat it. 

There are not many things I dislike and am always willing to give new foods a go.
 I love fast food, homemade, cordon bleu, starters, mains and pudding, vegetables, meats, pasta and rice dishes. 
In fact, I would say the only thing I don't fancy is sushi, I love seafood but raw fish doesn't wet my whistle, but having said that I have never tried it so may be I would like it!

Cake I made for the
Queen's Jubilee

When I started having children I discovered I really enjoyed cooking meals from scratch, with the added satisfaction that they were getting healthy meals (cue smug housewife look), and I found an undiscovered talent in making cakes and desserts which the kids wolfed down!
Although the savoury dishes were reasonably healthy with lots of vegetables in and low fat, the puddings of course most certainly were not!  And, as the chef, it obligatory that you taste the raw mix as well as the finished product and perhaps also the odd ingredient as you go along, just to check it's ok of course! So, adding all those calories to my post-baby weight I began to resemble a small house.

Homemade chocolate cheesecake
for an Easter dinner party

Throughout my pregnancies I yo-yoed with my weight, gaining about three stone each time, losing a bit only to fall pregnant again. I would try to only eat when hungry and foods that were high in nutrients, but boy did I get hungry! I didn't stress too much about how heavy I was getting but I wish that I had been a bit more careful as I am still suffering from injuries caused by carrying the extra weight. I suffered from sciatica and lower back problems, and strained my groin pushing uncooperative trolleys round at the supermarket! The arrival of home deliveries for your shopping was a godsend and I used it all the time when I was pregnant with DD.

A bumper harvest from the garden

The boys were all born 18 months apart so there was never enough time in between to lose the extra weight before I fell pregnant again so, by the time I had DS3, I was about 4 stone overweight! I personally found it impossible to think about myself or look after myself with three young children so I didn't put myself under any pressure to lose the weight, and I had a husband who loved me no matter what size I was. Some of it dropped off naturally, but it wasn't until DS3 was two that I really had time

Imaginatively presented starter served
 in Cancun - crab and avocado 

to take care in what I was eating and tried to get active with the boys. We had recently moved house which had a large field at the back so we took full advantage, using it to ride bikes, play football and other ball games with the boys. I managed to get down to under 11 stone, only to discover that I was pregnant again! Not wanting to undo all the hard work, I was more careful with what I ate in the first three months and also took up a pregnancy yoga class with a friend and went swimming every week. However, despite all my good intentions, when I was in the last trimester I still blew up like a huge balloon and my appetite was ferocious so by the time I gave birth to DD I was back to 13 stone! Again, I was not unduly hard on myself - making sure my baby and boys were happy and healthy was far more important, and losing weight was the last thing on my mind.

When DD was around 3 years old, I finally wanted to do

Pâté starter - my favourite!

something about my weight and, as I had done WeightWatchers before and had all the books, I decided to try it at home. Big disaster! Whether it was because I had stretched my stomach and was used to eating larger portions, but by lunchtime I had eaten all my points allowance and was still hungry!

Then a mummy friend at school said she wanted to go back to Slimming World and another friend knew where the local group met, so the three of us joined up. I had never tried Slimming World so it took a while to get my head around the rules, but after a few weeks I got into the swing of things. I was amazed you could eat such large portions of free food and it really worked for me as if I was full I was satisfied and didn't feel the need to snack on biscuits! I also realised that the plan would work for the whole family as it encouraged cooking hearty meals from scratch, and I discovered a love of preparing and cooking wholesome, healthy meals, knowing I could fill my plate. It opened up a

A balanced breakfast in Mexico

world of possibilities with using herbs and spices for flavouring and I bought myself a slow cooker so I could have SW friendly meals ready at the end of the day. I used my syns for homemade cakes and biscuits I baked with the kids, figuring that I would rather spend them on homemade goodies than tasteless cakes at the shop!

I lost two stone but did it slowly, losing about a pound a week, and didn't worry too much if some weeks I maintained or gained a little - the group was very supporting and helped me see that a bad week wasn't the end of the world, just put it behind you and try again the next week. Writing down what I ate really did help, just like they advise, and the release of a syn counter app for your smart phone made it very easy to keep track. I soon got to know what meals to go for in restaurants (grilled steak and jacket potato was my favourite) or at dinner parties - fill up on veg, rice, pasta and hope for a fruit pudding!

Homemade Christmas goodies -
not diet friendly!

After going for two years, I plateaued around the 10 1/2 - 11 stone mark, but kept attending the meetings as my goal was 10 stone. However, my enthusiasm for the plan was waning and I wasn't trying as hard as I should have, so I maintained a pattern of losing a little one week to gaining a little the next and never really getting anywhere! I kept reminding myself how well I had done to lose the 2 stone and that three years later I hadn't put it all back on, but I really wanted to lose that extra stone.

Finally, a change in leader of the group gave me an excuse to give myself a break and see how I would fare at going alone at home, and it seemed the years of advice from SW stuck in my head as I was fine. I would automatically count up syns in my head, know what foods to fill up on, give myself encouragement when I had a bad week by reminding myself no matter how much I had put on it was not 2 stone! 

Burger anyone?

By the following year I had lost a few more pounds, but at 5ft 4 I knew I should be nearer the 9 stone mark for a healthier BMI so I decided to switch to a calorie counting plan.

This never worked when the kids were younger as I just didn't have the time to work out calories and write it all down, but now they were older and more independent I found I could do it. The My Fitness Pal app was brilliant as it has a huge database of foods and was really easy to track my meals. It also helpfully gave an option to show your average calorie consumption for the week so you could offset bad days against good, useful if you knew a busy social weekend was coming up! 

It was similar to Weight Watchers as you can gain extra calorie allowance from exercise, which again

Cooked breakfast with champagne?
Don't mind if I do!

was very easy to log on the app. It also gave me a push to exercise more and get fitter, something I enjoyed before having kids but hadn't found the time to fit it in until they were older. 

Last year, we had booked a once in a lifetime holiday to Cancun and DH wanted to slim down too, so we started running through my fitness DVD's in the evenings. We started doing them three times a week with a cardio routine followed by a strengthening option, and then we changed to just doing one routine five times a week instead so it only took half an hour at a time (I wanted some
time to chill out in the evening!).
Over the past year we have purchased three new DVDs, as doing the same routine every week gets a bit boring, and at Christmas I won a 3 month membership to a local gym and pool so I go there twice a week instead which mixes it up a bit. When I get bored of that then I'll try out some of the classes available!

After following my new plan for 6 months, I was thrilled to break the 10 1/2 stone barrier, and 6 months later I got down to 10 stone which is where I've settled comfortably for the last few months.

I have a routine of always logging my meals on My Fitness Pal through the day and completing the entry at the end, and if I know what meals will be the next day then I can plan the others around it.

Homemade pizza

Sometimes I am very busy in the morning and miss breakfast, and although I don't condone this as breakfast is an important start to the day, it can help if I'm having a bigger lunch or dinner than usual that day! However, sometimes I have breakfast later which in turn makes lunch later so I then don't get hungry mid afternoon which is a bonus. On the days I do lunch duty at school this really helps, otherwise I find myself coveting the kids' lunch as I'm starving by then!

Over the years I have learnt to factor in a mid afternoon snack on normal eating days to my daily allowance, because if I don't eat something filling I start feeling ill and more likely to grab something quick and high in calories.

I've also discovered that having a breakfast type meal at lunchtime is usually less in calories than a normal lunch and filling, such as a bowl of cereal or egg and toast.

Most weeks, I know what type of evening meal we're having so I can almost plan the whole week, much to DH's amusement when he finds me hunched over my ipad! However, this helps me keep to

Cake I made for DS3

my goal if I'm out at the weekend.

So now my goal is to shift that last stone before we go in holiday in July, but it's not easy! Some weeks I'll maintain or gain a little without knowing why, which is very demotivating, and some weeks we are so busy socially that it is really hard to keep to my allowance (my social life always involves food!).

But keeping track makes sure I don't wildly over eat, and calorie counting is easy as everything nowadays has to have the calorie amount on the packaging. I still enjoy meals out, the odd glass of wine and snacks at the weekend as it's important not to deny yourself all the time, but I am able to enjoy these things because of the exercise I do during the week, otherwise I don't think I could eat any less! The most important thing is to not worry too much if I have a bad week, keep reminding myself that I have done really well to get back to a healthy BMI, and to carry on enjoying food!

My all time favourite - seafood platter

Disclaimer: I was not sponsored for this post and all my views expressed are my own