How Can Modifying My Diet Help Interstitial Cystitis/Painful Bladder Syndrome?

One thing that 98% of interstitial cystitis/bladder pain patients agree on is that following an IC Diet does help, and it is one of the things we have in our control. Sometimes we ask, "Why me?" But think about it, almost everyone gets "something" eventually. Some people have arthritis, some have diabetes and some have even worse diseases like cancer. Having interstitial cystitis is our “thing”. Also, if you asked ten people on the street if they are supposed to be watching their diet in some way, nine out of ten would say yes....and the last one is lying.

The good news is that an individual's IC diet usually doesn't have to be as strict as you may think. Most IC patients find that they can have a substantial and healthy diet if they do a little detective work to identify their personal trigger foods. That is the idea of the elimination diet. Most people do not have to be on the most restrictive diet forever. And, although other IC patients are great counsel, your diet is probably not going to look like anyone else's.

One thing to keep in mind is that diet is rarely a treatment that is successful all alone. Most IC patients will take some medications, and some may need medical treatments like bladder instillations or pelvic physical therapy in addition to making lifestyle changes such as diet modification and stress management. BUT....my observations tell me that an IC diet can ALWAYS help other treatments work better.

Let's look at an IC bladder in a bit different way. Think about when you were a kid and got a skinned knee. What happened next? Most likely, you or someone else washed it then put a bandage and maybe some antibiotic cream on it. You would give it some time to heal.

But what if, three times a day, you took off the bandage and scrapped some sand paper across the wound on your knee? It would take MUCH longer to heal, right?

If we eat IC trigger foods, we are compromising and possible undoing all of the good our medications are working so hard to do for us. In fact, I am willing to bet that if people watch what they eat while they take Elmiron, that the medication will have a much higher success rate...just an educated guess!

Why wouldn't you want to give your poor bladder every chance to rebuild its lining?

Remember, treatments for interstitial cystitis, including the IC diet, take time to work. It may seem depressing now, but it can take months or even years to feel better. If you are suffering now, it is important to keep that hope alive. You WILL eventually feel better; thousands of interstitial cystitis patients are living proof of that, but you have to be patient and really take some time to help yourself. If you need support, visit a local support group or connect with other patients online in groups such as the IC Diet facebook page.

So, if you are a new IC patient....hang in there........ask questions........be your own best health care provider. Keep a diary or a calendar. Write down what you eat, what is going on in your life, the medications you are trying, and how you are feeling. If you can't figure it out, share your diary with a trusted friend or your doctor. Sometimes we are too close to a situation to see what may be hurting us.

I wish I could hug each of you who are still hurting and trying to figure it out. You CAN do it, you CAN get better, you CAN begin to heal.....it just takes some time and patience.

Sweet Drinks and Weight Loss - What You Should Know

Truly serious about getting rid of those love handles? Then make sure you clean your refrigerator of sweetened beverages. They might seem like harmless little bottles and cans that provide you with ultimate and that much-needed quench when you feel thirsty, but they're not something you should be consuming on a regular basis, particularly if you're trying to lose weight. How come? Read on to find out.

Soda, cola, diet cola, beer, coffee and processed fruit juices fall under the category of sweetened and diuretic drinks. They don't contribute to your weight loss efforts since they contain ingredients that do not work towards helping you lose weight but rather contribute towards helping you gain it. These ingredients include sugar, sugar substitutes and caffeine.

Sugar impedes your weight loss efforts because it contains empty calories. Apart from the unnecessary calories that it adds to your waist line, sugar contains no active ingredients that are beneficial for the body. Sugar that is refined has undergone a lot of processing and as a result has been stripped of all the vitamins and minerals it originally contained in its unprocessed state. It also releases energy too quickly for it to be of any use for the body. High-fructose corn syrup, a sugar that is commonly used to prepare soda, is particularly guilty of causing weight gain. In fact, it has been blamed as the culprit behind the continued rise of obesity in the nation today.

Some manufacturers try to make their sweetened beverages more acceptable to the health conscious public by boasting that they use sugar substitutes like aspartame that will supposedly lessen your sugar intake. The problem is, because our taste buds will expect to taste the sweetness of sugar, it will stop glucose production on cue since it will assume to get it from the sugar. But the sugar substitute will only give way less of what the tongue expects to get from it, so naturally, you will add more. This causes you to overeat sugars and carbohydrates, further taking you away from your weight loss goal. This is the reason why substituting your soda with its diet versions is not the solution to your soda craving. On the contrary, it will cause you to consume more soda than what you would normally take with a regular soda!

Caffeine, meanwhile, is a substance that is also used in some sweetened beverages that serves to impede your efforts to lose all fat. When you drink caffeine, your body will drain the fluid equivalent from the coffee plus an extra one third. This might seem good at first since you will lose water weight, but in the long run, the constant diuretic action of caffeine will signal your body to conserve water and retain it. This causes you to gain all the water weight, making you look more rotund than ever before. Beer is a diuretic drink even if it has no caffeine and follows the same mode of action, further explaining the infamous "beer belly" beer drinkers are known for.

How To Deal With Test Anxiety

Going through examination anxiety? This piece shows simple and effective information on how to defeat the problem. You are not on your own in this trouble. Simply utilize the suggestions in this commentary and bid examination apprehension goodbye. A lot of pupils are always anxious when tests approaches. Inability to triumph over this problem has made countless pupils to fail their tests. It is not that they are not brilliant or don't recognize the answer to the questions, the issue is that they permitted their worry to dominate their mind and accordingly, they performed woefully in the test.

One of the numerous methods to get over the problem of exam anxiety is for you to plan well in advance before the date of the examination. It is not helpful for you to leave your studying to few days to the exam. You are only opening the door for worry if you do. Ensure you read well before the exam and you won't have any anxiety.

There is time for everything. You need to have time for studying your books. Schedule time for eating, sleeping as well as relaxing. Allot more time and concentration to reading as soon as you finish a particular lecture. Consult the library or the web for additional suggestions to what you have been taught in the class.

The need for adequate relaxation can not be overstated. If you create enough time for relaxing prior to the exam, you will not be vulnerable to anxiety. Relaxation makes your brain to cool and make you calm also. If you have read well ahead of time, it is highly recommended to rest well before going for a specific examination. Depriving yourself of enough sleep or leisure will make you anxious and perform woefully in the examination.

Also, the need to have an adequate amount of sleep a night before the exam cannot be overstated. This will make your body and mind to relax well and you will wake up refreshed and equipped to face the test. Reading into the early hours of the test day is not advisable. It will only make you vulnerable to worry as you head into the test hall.

Furthermore, it is very important for you to get to the exam hall early. Actually, it is recommended to get there at least one hour before the commencement of the exam. This will give you sufficient opportunity to slow down and revise your work before starting the examination. On the other hand, arriving behind schedule for the test will bring in worry and lead to poor performance. Equally, you will not be able to determine in advance if there is alteration in the time or location for the test.

5 Essential Weight Loss Facts - What You Should Know

Information is power. This is an important concept that you need to keep in mind if you want to be successful in your quest to lose the fat. In the area of fitness and weight loss, myths and misconceptions abound. Many times, what has popularly been believed turns out to be the exact opposite of what is really true and often runs counterproductive to your weight loss efforts. Thus, it is important that you educate yourself thoroughly before embarking on any fat loss regimen so you don't waste precious time doing things that do not work or put yourself in dangerous situations that can often cause injury and pain.

To help you in this regard, here are five weight loss facts to keep in mind:

1. Severe calorie restriction won't make you lose weight. In fact, it does just the opposite. When you are constantly hungry, your body will switch to "survival mode" and conserve calories and fat in order to be able to help the body cope. To do this, it will deliberately slow down metabolism and as a result, your body will also burn calories more slowly. When you can't sustain your severely restrictive diet, you will have to go back to your previous meal intake, but since your metabolic rate has already slowed in response to your prior mistaken attempt at starving yourself thin, most of what you eat will be converted as stored fat. This makes you gain more weight instead of losing fat.

2. The healthiest weight loss goal that you should strive for is one to two pounds a week. There are so many diets that promise a weight loss of ten pounds in a week's time. While this is possible, it comes at the expense of your health and is never sustainable. That is why there is no such thing as a healthy and sustainable quick weight loss program. For weight loss to occur for the long-term, it has to be gradual and should involve no overly restrictive diets that can wreck your body systems out of whack.

3. Muscle weighs more than fat. Dieters sometimes wonder why they don't register any significant change in the weighing scale after a period of faithful adherence to an exercise program. That's simply because your fat has been converted to muscle and muscle weighs more than fat. So instead of buying a new bathroom scale, check yourself in the mirror or try putting on your baggy pants and you'll notice that it has wonderfully grown way too large for you.

4. Making lifestyle changes is the only way to a sustainable weight loss program. What does a lifestyle change mean? It means committing to healthier eating habits and working out regularly. It means managing your stress, keeping yourself hydrated and getting enough sleep. Simply cutting down on your favorite foods won't let you lose weight. Rather, it will only make you crave for them. So eat healthy balanced meals and give in to the occasional calls for chocolate. However, make sure that you do not binge on them and do work off the excess calories afterwards.

5. You can speed up your metabolism. Eat more frequent meals and foods that naturally burn fat. Exercise. All these will help speed up your metabolic rate so you can lose more weight.