A Woman’s Diet

women's dietWomen and men both have a responsibility to eat healthy in order to maintain a good personal health standard. However, women’s optimal diets look different than men’s. Women have a different biochemical make-up that requires a particular balance of vitamins and nutrients in order to keep it healthy and balanced. Below are some basic guidelines for constructing a women’s healthy diet.

  • Two particular elements that women need present in their diet more than men are calcium and iron. Women are prone to bone density issues as they age, and ensuring a lifetime of good calcium intake will prevent bone density loss. Women need iron in order to properly metabolize, but they lose a great deal of iron from their bodies due to menstruation. Calcium can be found in dairy items and dark leafy greens such as kale, and iron can be found in spinach and lean red meat.
  • Achieving a proper amount of other nutrients in the diet, such as protein, antioxidants, a full range of vitamins, omegas and natural sugars and carbohydrates is good for the female body as well. Nutritional charts can offer excellent guidance on a recommended distribution of these food benefits for a woman’s diet. A great deal depends on the individual woman’s chemical make up and whether or not she has any preexisting conditions. Women should use food medicinally to balance their body chemistry.
  • Women have unique hormonal considerations when it comes to their diets. Women’s hormones are in flux regularly more than men’s are. A women’s hormones go through cycles and changes constantly, while men’s hormones are much more consistent. This means that women need to consider what their diets are doing to their hormones. Synthetic estrogen and other hormones are found in many foods, particularly meats. A number of other food substances can either aid or hinder the natural hormonal cycle and should be considered carefully before ingesting.

A Woman’s Personal Fitness

fitness for womenWomen are a diverse group of people and no blanket statement generalizations apply to all of them, however, on the whole, women tend to be conscious of their physical fitness and strive to improve on their personal physical fitness as best they can. It is important for women to know that the ideal exercise routine for women looks different than the ideal exercise routine for men. It is good for women to be conscious of how their bodies exercise differently from men’s so that they can optimize and ensure safety in their workout routines. Below are some pointers for effective women’s workouts.

  • Many women think that they should be running or jogging in order to have a strong cardiovascular system and muscle toning. This is a misconception. Walking is actually better for women than running. This is because running is very high impact on women’s joints, bones and bodily systems. A woman’s body simply responds better to walking than it does to running. Nearly the same amount of calories are burned and the same amount of muscle toning is achieved without the damaging side effects of running.
  • Women naturally have stronger lower bodies than upper bodies. This is the opposite of men, who have stronger upper bodies than lower bodies. This means that it is very important for women not to neglect their upper bodies in their workouts. In order to be physically fit, all extremities must be active. Women need to make a point to exercise their arms by lifting weights, doing push-ups or engaging in a number of other arm exercises.
  • It is good for women to find an equal balance of cardiovascular exercise and muscle toning in their workouts. For cardio, many women enjoy aerobics, Zhumba, dance or a number of other group workouts. For muscle tonight, gym equipment is highly effective.

A Woman’s Mental Health

women and mental healthA woman’s mental health is one of the most important things she looks after. Unlike physical health, mental health cannot be monitored scientifically or medically. It can, however, be detected through psychology, counseling, self-examination and intuition. Mental health is every bit as real as physical health. Women and men both have an equal responsibility to manage their mental health, but men and women also tend to have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to mental health. Several mental health characteristics that women tend to give a great deal of thought to are independence, relationships and personal betterment.

Independence is a large consideration to women because it is a relatively new trend in womanhood. Through much of human history, women deferred to men as authority figures and depended on them for provision. The modern woman is no longer a product of this type of patriarchal society, but the transition away from this thinking has been complicated, to say the least. Issues of dependency and co-dependency are still found in many women when it comes to their relationships with men. There is still a tendency in some subcultures and regions for women to rely on a man for provision rather than gaining an education and providing for themselves. And many women still struggle immensely with self esteem issues that are tied to approval from others rather than cultivating it within themselves.

Women largely take a different mental health approach on the subject of relationships than men do. Women are more likely to prioritize relationships over their vocations and other life obligations. This gives women a particular method of finding mental health within relationships. Women achieve good mental health in relationships by treating the relationship like anything else in life that requires work, discipline, memory, critical thinking and energy.

Lastly, women consider personal betterment to be a very important aspect of their mental health. Mental health self-improvement is a priority to women in ways that it is not a priority to men. In other words, women are more likely to examine their own thinking than men are.