Periods can be quite tricky and sensitive to diet. You must watch your diet keenly. Remember, you’re what you eat. Even though some foods are right for your period and can make the process a walk in the park, other foods can make your menstruation a nightmare, and you must avoid them during your period.
Maintaining a healthy diet during your period eases the experience and helps with menstrual insomnia, a terrible experience. Just like consuming some foods during your period will alleviate your PMS symptoms, eating the wrong food can spike your PMS symptoms. Women lose many nutrients and minerals during menstruation, so health experts advise women to eat nutritious food during their periods.
Foods to avoid
Caffeine
Amongst all caffeine drinks, coffee is the most celebrated because of its high caffeine content. Drinking caffeine during your periods is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Why? Because caffeine facilitates hormonal imbalance in the body in turn leading to mood swings.
Coffee is also a stimulant, and its consumption during menstruation is likely to cause menstrual insomnia.
Alcohol
Even though women who have menstrual insomnia can sip alcoholic drinks like wine to induce sleep, this is just a short-term solution. Consuming alcohol with high percentages is not recommended for women during their periods. It exacerbates your mood swings.
Fatty and meaty foods
To have regular periods, dietitians and nutritionists advise menstruating women to reduce at least their fat and meat consumption. If you adore meat and find it impossible to let go, flip the switch and replace it with fish.
How do meat and fatty foods affect menstruation?
They directly influence your hormone production. For a woman to have a regular menstruation cycle, her estrogen, progesterone, and luteinizing hormones need to be consistent. Consumption of fatty cuts of beef and pork disorient the female hormones, leading to irregular periods, which is why women should avoid fatty and meaty foods during their periods.
Salty foods
Reducing your salt intake during your periods improves the whole experience. Did you know that the availability of excessive salt in the body increases the rate at which your body retains water, leading to bloating and gassiness?
Women should avoid salt consumption during their periods to maintain a regular period.
Processed foods and refined grains
Like meat and fatty foods, processed foods have unhealthy fats that are likely to imbalance your hormones and negatively affect your periods.
Refined grains lack enough nutrients to supplement the number of nutrients women lose on their menstrual cycle. Refining messes up the vitamins and nutritional composition of foods. Consuming refined grains also leads to bloating. Women should therefore choose whole grains over refined grains. Whole grains are a great source of Vitamins B and E, which help you tackle your anxiety, fatigue, stress, worry, and depression.
Fries
Instead of eating fries and chips during your periods, consume vegetables like carrots and cucumbers. Fries can ruin most women’s hormonal balance during their periods because they have fats and oils which accumulate and eventually cause irregular periods.
Dairy products
Lastly, on our list of foods to avoid during menstruation is dairy products. Women should avoid dairy products like milk and cream because they promote menstrual cramps.
Bottom line
Maintaining a healthy diet is vital for a woman to have regular periods. And even though it seems complicated, you have to make up your mind and beat all the temptations and cravings that tag along with menstruation. Checking your diet during menstruation is, therefore, a once in a month opportunity for you to eat well and improve your nutrition game. You never know. Maybe this is an opportunity to turn good diets into a habit.