By Leslie Gaillard for LiveConfidently.com
Maintaining a healthy weight is essential for total body health, as well as the health of each of your body systems. Excess body weight adds unnecessary strain and stress on your individual organs, joints, and ligaments. Consider that for every extra pound of weight you carry, the stress on the knee joint is increased by 4%, which can contribute to pain and limited mobility.
The bladder is another organ that is impacted by excess weight. In particular, excess body weight carried around the midsection can stress and stretch the muscles and ligaments that support the bladder. Not surprisingly, this can contribute to bladder leakage and more frequent trips to the bathroom, due to urgency. Furthermore, excess abdominal fat, known as visceral fat, raises an individual’s risk for heart disease and diabetes.
Here are some of my favorite tips to help you stay healthy and maintain a healthy body weight to help control incontinence:
Avoid caloric beverages like sugar sweetened sodas, sports drinks, lemonades, and fruit drinks. 100% juice should be limited to 1 cup daily. Liquid calories don’t register with the satiety center in your brain like food does.
Limit your intake of processed foods, especially foods made with refined white flour or added sugars. If the first or second ingredient is a sugar or refined flour (such as enriched wheat flour), it’s not an ideal food to be eating regularly. Instead, choose whole grains like oats, barley, whole wheat, brown rice, and quinoa.
Strive for five servings of fruits and vegetables daily. When fresh produce is not in season, try frozen fruits and vegetables that contain no added sugars or sodium. Research shows that people who increase their fruit and vegetable intake lose as much as those restricting calories.
Limit unhealthy fats. This can include fatty cuts of red meat, fried foods, cheeses, and other whole milk dairy products. Also, avoid any products containing trans fats, also known as “partially hydrogenated oils.” Choose healthy fats like nuts and seeds, avocados, and olive oil.
Consume adequate fluids. At a minimum, most individuals need 64 ounces of fluid per day. Ideally, most fluids should come from water and other non-caffeinated beverages. Note that caffeinated and carbonated beverages increase bladder urgency. Urine that is the color of pale straw or diluted lemonade is indicative of being properly hydrated.
Get moving. Strive to get regular aerobic exercise at least three times a week for 30 minutes. Alternatively you can break up your exercise routine into shorter intervals, such as 10 minutes three times per day. Incorporate resistance or strength training two times per week for total body conditioning.
Do you have any healthy tips of your own? Head to our incontinence forum and share your thoughts with people just like you!