Straight talk on STDs

Worried about the repercussions of an unsafe sex escapade? Well, there’s more than just pregnancy and HIV to worry about. There are chances that you might contract STDs as well which may be very harmful to your health.

STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) are on the rise. Western countries have a good knowledge of the term and its consequences but many developing countries are still far behind when it comes to adequate knowledge about unsafe sex and STDs.
STDs can be quite fatal to the body in the long run and can cause several health and reproductive related issues. Here are a few ‘need to know’ facts about STDs.

Sexual Contact: It doesn’t necessarily require sexual contact between two individuals for STDs to be transmitted. Even an oral act of KISSING can put an individual at risk of contracting STDs.

Oral sex: You can get infected from oral sex of all sorts. Penetration isnt the only act that gives you a first class trip to STD heaven. Open sores in the private areas can easily spread STDs if they come in contact with the mouth or any other part of the body for that matter. For example, STDs like herpes can spread even when the infected area comes in contact with other parts of the body. It is best to refrain from all kinds of sexual contact and activities, including foreplay until the infection is cured.

No physical signs: STDs DO NOT show on peoples faces (well, unless a herpes sore on the lips). So Guys/Ladies, when next you are checking out that HOT Girl/Guy in a bar/club..or wherever..remember..you just might be taking home free trial samples of STDs..No return policy here mate!

Virgins: Like mentioned before, intercourse is not the only way STDs can be transmitted. Oral and physical contact with the infected areas can result in the infection spreading to the other person and if you think you won’t be able to contract any such symptoms just because you have not engaged in intercourse then you are terribly wrong. Also having sex just ONCE with an infected person is all it takes.

Using Condoms: Condoms can prevent the transmission of sexual diseases like HIV and STDs to a great extent. However, they are not 100% safe and can cause unfortunate accidents (for example, the condom breaks when inside the body of the partner). Nevertheless, it is always considered better to use a condom for sexual intercourse, be it physical or oral.

Catching Symptoms: Many individuals feel that they have less chances of contracting STDs if they fail to notice the symptoms immediately. In contrast to this popular belief, there are certain STDs that show no signs or symptoms until they reach an advanced stage or not at all. In some of these cases, the disease can be incurable. Some STD’s have been known to cause infertility.
The best way to clear your doubts about having contracted an STD would be to get tested immediately. By being ignorant you could cause serious harm to your body and to your partner’s body as well. The saying “ignorance is bliss” certainly doesn’t apply here.

Curable STDs: While most STDs are curable, you need to make sure to treat them in time to avoid complications at a later stage. Some STDs like herpes cannot be cured though, therefore, it is completely necessary that you take the issue seriously and get yourself checked for infections if you have previously indulged in unsafe sex.

Recurring STDs: There are strong chances for STDs to recur. This may be attributed to several reasons, the most common being neglect and callous attitude towards the necessary treatment.
Accordingly, some individuals start to skip their medications or treatment sessions once they notice the symptoms disappearing. However, what one needs to know in these cases is that the medication needs to be completed properly in order to avoid relapses.

Post Diagnosis Stage: If you have been diagnosed with a STD or see symptoms of the same appearing on your body, consult a doctor or a medical specialist immediately. Refrain from all kinds of sexual contact at all costs until you get cured.
On the other hand, if you suspect your partner is infected, advice him/her to seek medical help immediately before he/she risks the chance of passing the infection on to you.

STDs can have temporary and permanent affects on the body. The only way to stay away from them is to practice safe sex. It is better to indulge in sex with one trusted partner rather than enjoying sexual escapades with multiple partners —> Players and Playettes take note

Remember to play safe and use condoms. Never wait for the infections to disappear on their own, should you get infected. Get medical help as soon as possible to avoid complications later in life.

Must have vitamins for women

Poor nutrition increases a woman’s risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Healthy eating is the most important thing a woman can do to meet the minimum daily vitamin requirements essential for good health.Some women go on diet so there are often gaping holes in their nutrition while some others work very long hours and might not be able to eat 3 square(balanced) meals a day. whatever the case, supplements can help you get the required daily nutrients. Here are a list of essential vitamins every woman in the menstruating age needs.

• Calcium: A woman typically needs 1,000 to 1,500 milligrams of calcium daily, depending on her age. You can reach this daily requirement by eating or drinking dairy and soy products (preferably fat-free) or pure orange juice that’s been fortified with calcium, or by taking calcium supplements. As women age, their bone mass decreases. At this point, women need to be at the upper end of the daily calcium requirement to lower their risk of osteoporosis.

• Vitamin D:Sunlight triggers the development of vitamin D in your body, but as women get older they lose some of their ability to convert sunlight into vitamin D; without vitamin D your body can’t use calcium. Also, protecting yourself from skin cancer with sunscreen means shutting out the vitamin D you’d get from the sun. To compensate for this loss, women should consider taking a multivitamin containing both vitamin D and calcium.

• Iron:If you’re still menstruating, you need to be sure you’re getting an adequate amount of iron in order to prevent anaemia. You’ll find iron in meat, poultry, beans, eggs, and tofu. It’s important to pair your iron-rich meals with foods that contain vitamin C, like orange juice or citrus fruits, because vitamin C helps increase iron absorption.

• Folic acid: Women who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant need to get more folic acid. it has been shown that low levels of this B vitamin can lead to birth defects in the baby affecting the brain and spinal cord. In addition to supplements, folic acid can be found in orange juice, beans, and green vegetables, and in foods such as breads and flour that have been fortified with it.

• Beta-carotene: antioxidants — cancer-fighting substances like beta-carotene and vitamin C — help defend your body against cell damage. Food sources best for beta-carotene include carrots, apricots, papaya, cantaloupe, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and mangoes.

• B6 and B12: Vitamin B6 helps with red-blood cell formation and vitamin B12 helps with nerve-cell and red-blood cell development. For example, you can get a day’s supply of vitamin B12 by eating one chicken breast, one hard-boiled egg, a cup of plain low-fat yogurt or one cup of milk, plus one cup of raisin bran.

• Omega-3 fatty acids: These acids have been shown to act like natural anti-inflammatory substances in the body. They may also be important in helping to keep your heart healthy. As a woman gets older, her levels of estrogen decline, and that puts her at greater risk for heart disease. Fatty fish, like salmon and tuna, is a great source of omega-3 fats, and pure orange juice is often fortified with omega-3. alternatively you can take fish oil capsules.

In general experts believe taking multivitamins is a good idea. Clearly when it comes to calcium and vitamin D we all need additional supplementation. We can only eat so much dairy or fortified foods in a day. For the rest, a multivitamin may help to fill in the gaps when your diet cant.

THE SOUTH BEACH DIET FOR AFRICANS

THE SOUTH BEACH DIET FOR AFRICANS
The south beach diet is in three Phases, and we are talking about the stage one first of all.
In my experience with different diets, I would have to say the SOUTH BEACH DIET is the best. The south beach diet was discovered by Dr Agaston. It is not a low carb or low fat diet, rather it educates you on how to eat the right carbohydrates, the right fats, and lose weight without any form of starvation!
The South Beach diet often promises to help individuals lose about 8-13 pounds in the first two weeks, even though it varies from person to person. The great thing about this diet is that you would enjoy yourself while losing weight!

For the next two weeks, you are going to be eating normal portions of different meals such as:

Salad
Goat meat pepper soup
Chicken pepper soup
Fish pepper soup
Shrimps
Fish
Chicken
Goat meat
Cow meat
Vegetable soup
Low fat milk

YOU MUST EAT TILL YOU DON BELLEFUL (are satisfied) EVERYDAY! NO STARVATION.
YOU MUSTDRINK NOTHING LESS THAN TEN CUPS OF WATER A DAY!

But you MUST NOT eat any of these in the next two weeks:

Bread
Rice
Potato
Yam
Pasta
Fruit

However, know that all this restriction is for just two weeks!
No fizzy drinks, no alcohol, nothing except water.

This might seem hard when you start. For some people it would be so hard to go without rice, but trust me, once you start, you would acclimatize.
Once you start this, you would start to see results immediately. The first weight loss starts from your tummy area. You would watch your tummy shrink right before your eyes.
Doing the first two weeks of the SOUTH BEACH DIET helps you to stabilize your blood sugars, and that would help you to continue losing weight, after you end the first phase of the diet.
After phase one, we would slowly start to introduce those banned foods in a particular sequence, but that would be for another post. Within the week, I am going to write more posts on the south beach diet, so that you would understand what it is all about.

However, here is a small/ WEIGHT LOSS TIMETABLE FOR NIGERIANS TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT ON THIS DIET

Day 1
Breakfast
Salad with low fat mayonnaise (1 serving)
Decaffeinated coffee with low fat milk. No Sugar.
Midmorning snack
1 part of low fat cheese
Lunch
Boiled Chicken breast
Tomato Sauce (Stew) Pls use pure olive oil or corn oil to make your stew.
Midafternoon snack
1 serving of Low fat cheese
Dinner
Grilled fish with Green and red pepper and tomato
Small serving of Vegetable.

Day 2

Breakfast:
2 hard boiled eggs with low fat milk and decaffeinated tea.

Midmorning snack
1-2 Turkey Roll-Ups

Lunch
Fish pepper soup with salad

Midafternoon snack
1 Low fat cheese

Dinner
Baked chicken breast
Tomato Juice

Day 3
Breakfast
Vegetable soup with fried egg (with olive oil)
Decaffeinated tea with low fat milk

Midmorning snack
1 part-skim mozzarella cheese stick
Lunch
Salad with mayonnaise (1tbsp)
Midafternoon snack
1-2 Ham Roll-Ups

Tomato juice with goat meat pepper soup
Day 4
Breakfast
Tomato juice
2 hard boiled eggs
2 slices Canadian bacon
Decaffeinated coffee or decaffeinated tea with non-fat milk
Midmorning snack
Low fat cheese
Lunch
Salad with ham

Midafternoon snack
Up to 10 cherry tomatoes stuffed with % cup low-fat cottage cheese

Dinner
Shredded cabbage sautéed in olive oil
Fried Fish

Day 5
Breakfast
2 hard boiled eggs
Decaffeinated coffee or decaffeinated tea with non-fat milk and sugar substitute
Midmorning snack
1-2 Turkey Roll-Ups

Lunch
Boiled Goat meat with Tomato Juice

Midafternoon snack
Cucumber rounds with salmon spread
Dinner

Vegetable soup with Chicken Stewed Tomatoes and Onions
Day 6

Breakfast
Salad with low fat mayonnaise (1 serving)
Decaffeinated coffee with low fat milk. No Sugar.
Midmorning snack
1 part of low fat cheese
Lunch
Boiled Chicken breast
Tomato Sauce (Stew) Pls use pure olive oil or corn oil to make your stew.
Midafternoon snack
1 serving of Low fat cheese
Dinner
Grilled fish with Green and red pepper and tomato
Small serving of Vegetable.

Day 7

Breakfast
Tomato juice
2 hard boiled eggs
2 slices Canadian bacon
Decaffeinated coffee or decaffeinated tea with non-fat milk
Midmorning snack
Low fat cheese
Lunch
Salad with ham

Midafternoon snack
Up to 10 cherry tomatoes stuffed with % cup low-fat cottage cheese

Dinner
Shredded cabbage sautéed in olive oil
Fried Fish

However, above is a list of foods allowed in Phase one of the south beach diet. You can replace them with any of the foods listed above!

By the African weightloss Diva
http://www.africanweightloss.com/

A GUIDE FOR LOSING WEIGHT AFTER PREGNANCY

A GUIDE FOR LOSING WEIGHT AFTER PREGNANCY
By The African Weight Loss Diva
http://www.africanweightloss.com/

Pregnancy changes us. The change most times is drastic, and especially for us here in Africa, with our culture (the whole pumping you with food after childbirth and all that). 70 percent of women never get back to their former size after childbirth, and of the remaining 30 percent, 15 percent don’t lose the big tummy.

After childbirth, you might notice that you still look pregnant despite the fact that you have already given birth, this is absolutely normal. It takes between four and six weeks for your uterus to fully contract back to its normal size. Remember; please do not make the work harder on yourself. Do not over it during the pregnancy, the more you overeat, the harder it is to lose. Ensure you eat healthy during the pregnancy, but please please please do not overeat.

Diet
With no intent to criticise our culture, I would say that the habit of pumping women with tins of milk after childbirth and daily pounded yam is totally uncalled for. A lot of women add more weight after pregnancy than they did during pregnancy. Don’t get me wrong, you really need to eat well, but not over eat. You should eat healthy, lots of Vegetables, Fruits and Salads, drink lots of water and continue with the routine drugs given to you at the hospital. The myth that if you don’t drink multiple tins of breast milk after childbirth your milk would dry up is fallacy. What happens to the poor women who can’t afford milk? Does their breast dry up? How many market women have you heard that complained that their breast milk dried up because they could not get powdered milk to drink? Please avoid daily pounded yam and the likes after childbirth.

Breastfeeding is one of the easiest ways to lose pregnancy weight. I always remember the episode of desperate housewives, where a mother was feeding her fully grown up son with breast milk, because she wanted to stay slim. However, I am not saying we should breastfeed till they are ten or eleven, but at least one year. Remember the WHO guideline says two years. Breast milk contains calories, and the more you breastfeed the more you lose calories.

Exercising
According the American college of Obstetrics and gynecology, if you were active before the deliver, and you had a normal delivery with no complication, you can start walking and doing minor strengthening exercises for your abdomen as soon as you feel strong enough. However if you had a Cesarean section, you should wait several weeks before starting any exercising.

For the exercises, we shall focus on three parts:

a. Cardio: Initially, after childbirth you should not do any strenuous cardio exercises. Start slow and steady: while some of us may be so eager to jump on the treadmill and start working out day and night, this might be dangerous. New mothers need to start slow and steady, start about 15 to 20 minutes every day, 3 days a week. The best form of cardio I advise for new moms is walking. Walking is a great exercise for women who just gave birth, please do not waste your maternity leave watching Nigerian movies all day and drinking milk. WALK! Walking can be done anywhere, any day and any time. For the first few weeks, you can walk 15 to 20 minutes every day, and then you increase both the time and the intensity as time goes by. A good form of walking is using the stroller, for those who live in areas where they can move around with the stroller. Taking your baby out in the stroller would help you burn some calories.

b. Strength Training
Please for those that had a Cesarean section, I would advice that you stay away from this until your doctor says it’s okay for you to do this Pregnancy weakens some parts of the abdomen, While it isn’t possible to reduce only one spot, i.e. reduce only the tummy, you can however strengthen your abdominal muscles, so that after you lose the fat overlying them, you won’t have that flabby tummy that you see on some women. Sit-ups are useful, back exercises and tummy exercises. If it’s possible, get a tummy bench, and while you are watching African magic or Movie magic, you could be working on your tummy and losing weight. I am placing a link here to the video for abdominal exercises should you be interested in doing them. : http://africanweightloss.blogspot.com/2009/06/easy-do-at-home-tummy-exercises.html

c. Toning of your arms to prevent the popular ‘Christian mother arm’ could be done with dumbbells, you can carry 5kg dumbbells daily, this would help greatly.
Things that prevent us from exercising:
1. Fatigue: this is a common complaint, most women are very tired or often complain of fatigue after childbirth
2. Busy Schedule: some women jump back to work after childbirth, while some who are at home get overwhelmed with taking care of the baby and feeding him or her
3. Time constraints –Most women complain of Lack of time, they claim that there is never enough time to wake up an exercise.
My usual reply to this is: HOW BAD DO YOU WANT IT
I believe this all depends on how bad you want it. IF you were promised 1million naira at the end of the month just to wake up at 4 am every day, most of us will not even go to bed at all to ensure we are still awake at that 4am. There is never enough time in the world. If it’s important to you, you shall make out time. If you normally wake up at 5 am, try waking up at 4 thirty instead. Begin with the end in mind. I suggest you picture two things in your head. One of them is you being slim and shapely at the end of the next three months, and the other is you being fat and shapeless, lying down at home and your husband comes home and rushes straight to the bed so you won’t ask him for sex. Picture that several times in your head; I am sure no one would need to urge you to wake up by 4 and exercise. Also try splitting your workouts, there is no need to do a 2 hour work out at once, split it, 30 mins daily or 30 mins twice daily. Be consistent, watch your diet. Heidi Klum is no magician, even after her house of kids; she still looks like a 20 year old. It takes hard work and dedication.

Hope this was useful. If you have any questions what so ever, please mail me at trimandtrendy@gmail.com