What is the best product to sort premenstral water retention?

[Holymoly321]

Have been working really hard to lose weight / get toned etc, but every month, I have huge stomach bloat and weight gain from water retention before my period. ARgh! Isn't it enough that i've ruined my figure from having two kids?! What is the best product to help prevent it?

Me too, my trousers are hideously tight for three or four days of the month - have you tried nettle teabags? Tastes surprisingly nice and is meant to help. Bizarrely I think the general advice is to keep drinking water, not to cut back.

My suggestion would not be a 'product' but rather to radically cut the amount of salt, sugar and refined starch in your diet. Increase the proportion of your diet coming from 'clean', natural wholefoods intead. Drink a lot more fluids... 2 litres of plain water a day.

Salt causes fluid retention because it dehydrates the body. Most of the salt we get comes from processed/packaged/ready-made foods. So if you cook fresh foods from scratch adding very little on the stove and none at the table your salt intake will be next to nothing

Sugar and refined/processed starch (white flour, white pasta, white rice, potato starch etc.) also tend to cause fluid retention. Sugary foods are pretty easy to eliminate and refined starches can be swapped for less processed carbohydrates with more fibre. A simple example would be to swap white bread for wholemeal in moderate amounts.

Other products that can cause fluid retention ..... large amounts of caffeine, alcohol, artificial sweetners. Give all those a miss and knock bloating on the head.

Hope that helps.

thanks, but I don't really eat refined foods - no white bread, pasta etc. Don't have salt either and don't really eat much sugar at all, but will try drinking more water