July | 2012 | bepreparedperiod.com

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My Top 3 Foods to Beat PMS Symptoms!

I used to be that girl who dreaded my period AND the week before my period. It would begin with the ridiculous sugar cravings (yes the kind where eating a whole chocolate cake would be just fine), then the bloating would start (probably because of the whole chocolate cake), and it would culminate in the worst cramps ever (think the kind of cramps that make you throw up and want to pass out). And then I’d get my period! That was my life for many years and I felt like I had no control over my body or what was happening to it every month. Approximately 75% of women struggle with similar issues every single month so I’m sure you can relate.

Eventually I figured out that I do have control – I have control over the food that I eat and how I live my life. Who knew!? I have learned over the years that every bite you take counts when it comes to how your body functions and how you want to feel physically and emotionally. I have also learned that the main cause of PMS is an underlying hormonal imbalance in which your estrogen levels increase while your progesterone levels decrease. This is known as estrogen dominance.

So with that said, here are my top three foods for combatting those dreaded PMS symptoms.
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Posted by The Be Prepared Period Team

Thursday, July 26th, 2012

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TOTM Giveaways: Essential Planner for Girls & Women + TOTM T-Shirt

Our favorite “time of the month” happens to be the 2nd Friday of every month when we get to join forces with You ARE Loved to offer Twitter fans the opportunity to participate in our monthly #PeriodTalk tweet chats. August brings a special guest, Valarie Carey, Founder of TOTM (Time Of The Month), author and menstrual educator.

Not only has Valarie agreed to be our special guest, but she has generously given us two prize packs (Planner + T-Shirt) to giveaway to encourage participation.

Prize #1: TOTM! Time Of The Month! The Essential Planner for Girls and Women of All Ages (3rd Edition: October 2012 – December 2013) The book offers tips and advice for girls and women of all ages who are cycling. With easy to document pages, one can measure and track the flow of her menstrual cycle.

“This journal is a MUST have for every menstruating age female. No matter young and beginning the journey or older about to end.

TOTM is more than simple a book to track your cycle, it is full of tips and advice to help you deal with the issues and stress, a woman deals with during her cycle. It’s especially a great tool for the young girls to help her learn how to track and to track her symptoms for talking to her doc. Single fathers, i totally recommend that you grab this, read through it and give it to your daughters.

Even if you’re not a single dad, you definitely should grab one of these for your daughter. Ladies far too many of us women really don’t know and understand this part of our bodies. Don’t continue to be one of the masses, and PLEASE don’t let your your daughter be one.” – A.W. Stutts

Prize #2: TOTM! Irritable T-Shirt

*With this giveaway being designed to promote our upcoming TweetChat, Friday, August 10, 2012 the winner must be present to win. (Present, being defined by posting at least one #PeriodTalk tweet between 1:40 and 2:40pm Eastern on August 10th, 2012.)

Want to stay updated on our giveaway opportunities? Sign up for our giveaway notifications and be notified the next time we are giving away more FREE stuff!

“Click Here” for more details about the chat. To Enter the giveaway: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by The Be Prepared Period Team

Wednesday, July 25th, 2012

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Camping With DivaCup

Camping with a menstrual cup, scary or sensible?

Expecting to start my period the day we were scheduled to leave for our camping trip I was “prepared” and decided to bring my DivaCup with me. I’ve never enjoyed the inconvenience my period has caused during a camping trip, the extra concern of being somewhere I could change my tampon or the early morning wake up calls from aunt flo. There’s nothing like waking up with that startling feeling of needing to rush to the bathroom, to be challenged with crawling out of the sleeping bag, bundling up in warm clothes, climbing out of the tent, to only have to walk who knows how far to the nearest bathroom in fear of a LEAK!

Camping for our family is meant to be a chance to “get away from it all,” not a time to worry about more. And this weekend was packed full of fun, camping, fishing, horseback riding, hiking, and swimming. Any one of these activities can present period challenges in normal everyday life without the conveniences of home, never mind all of them in the same day. But of all these activities horseback riding had me the most concerned. Something about straddling a horse, bouncing up and down while trekking through the forest just screamed possible opportunity for a leak. I’m proud to report four people may have fallen off their horses but the DivaCup stayed put, no leaks!

I truly feel this little cup has been put to the test with all these activities, and with limited bathroom access it was wonderful to only have to worry about emptying it every 12 hours! After this weekend it is hard to imagine an event the DivaCup wouldn’t be a perfect fit for!

Camping with DivaCup = a Better Period!

Posted by The Be Prepared Period Team

Thursday, July 19th, 2012

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Relay for Life Recap

As many of you know, Be Prepared Period sponsored a team in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life event last month in Arlington, Washington. Since we wrote about our “Why do we Relay” in our post, Be Prepared Period Supports Relay for Life we thought it only fitting that we share some of our favorite moments from the event.

Realizing words are simply not enough to express this year’s Relay for Life experience, we figured it would be better to share some pictures from Relay. As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words!”

Make a free picture slideshow

Posted by The Be Prepared Period Team

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

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Celebrating With a Lunette Giveaway!

To help us celebrate this month’s chat and encourage participation our awesome friends over at Lunette have generously donated a Lunette cup for us to give away to one very lucky participant. And even better, the winner gets to choose their size and color!

What’s Lunette?

“Over the past 70 years, a woman’s choice for internal menstrual care has pretty much been limited to tampons. Wouldn’t you like something better, something . . . nicer?

Now there is an alternative that is healthier for our bodies, our environment and our pocketbook — the Lunette menstrual cup.

Made in Finland, the Lunette menstrual cup is an easy-to-use, safe, and clean alternative to pads and tampons. Using a Lunette is similar to using a tampon but requires less changing. Made of medical-grade silicone, a non-friendly environment for bacteria, menstrual cups are simply washed and reused. Not to mention, menstrual cups create zero waste. That’s nice!”

Check out 13 Reasons Women Want to Try Lunette

For more information or to purchase your own Lunette Cup, “Click Here.”

Want to stay updated on our giveaway opportunities? Sign up for our giveaway notifications and be notified the next time we are giving away more FREE stuff!

“Click Here” for more details about the chat. To Enter the giveaway: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by The Be Prepared Period Team

Monday, July 16th, 2012

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Keeping an Open Mind When it Comes to Menstrual Alternatives

Women today have more feminine hygiene options than ever before. So why is it that most have never heard of alternative products than the traditional tampon or pad choices?

We believe it is the lack of PeriodTalk. So many girls and women feel this subject is “taboo.” But we are here to put a stop to that! And so are our friends at Lunette as they discuss PeriodTalk in their most recent post.

“There are options besides disposables. It may seem foreign if you’ve never heard about the option I’m about to talk about. There is a stigma, promoted over the decades, that menstruation is an unclean affair. This idea has kept women focused on throw-away options, as if seeing your own flow or making contact with your own body is somehow a bad thing. Think about what that implies. It has the potential to breed body shame and compromise one’s view of her own womanhood.” To read the full blog post, click here.

Posted by The Be Prepared Period Team

Thursday, July 12th, 2012

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Happy Anniversary to #PeriodTalk

Upon hearing it for the first time, many people wonder, “What is #PeriodTalk and why should I attend?” Our friends at Feby.com answer this question beautifully in a post about their #PeriodTalk experiences.

“#PeriodTalk is significant on many levels. It provides a place for girls, parents, educators, small businesses and organizations and the general public to discuss anything related to menstrual health and wellbeing. Unlike almost all other forums #PeriodTalk is just that – talk about periods. The focus is not sexual education but specifically menstrual education and that is important when you consider how young girls are getting their first periods now, some as early as 7 or 8 years old. They are too young to need to know about such things as birth control options but rather should be taught about their changing bodies and how to care for it in the best possible manner and to approach it with a positive attitude without embarrassment.” To read the full blog post, click here.

Posted by The Be Prepared Period Team

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

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Celebrating Menstrual Visibility

Ruby's Red Wash Founder Menstrual advocate and friend are just a couple names to describe the founder of Ruby’s Red Wash. We are honored to have had her support as both a guest and participant in our tweet chats with You ARE Loved over the last year.

In a special post about #PeriodTalk, she writes, “As someone who thinks and talks about menstruation and tries to bring to light the imbedded cultural shame of it every single day, the significance of these regular, public talks on periods has not gone unappreciated by me. Though I am regularly immersed in the topic of periods, the experience of talking openly about menstrual bleeding on a public forum was a bit surreal at first. One does not normally talk about such things, right? And, especially in such great detail and with such candor. (Gee, I get to type the word “blood!”) The rules of the culture say that you are supposed to work out the details of bleeding on your own, maybe have a brief conversation with girlfriends every now and then, and then rapidly just move on. So, it has been refreshing and utterly liberating to actually speak ‘out loud’ (as best as one can on Twitter) about what it means to menstruate—lightly or heavily – with a pad or with a cup –as a pre-teen girl or a peri-menopausal woman—to have survived Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS)—or to tragically know someone who has not. All of this storytelling, talking, divulging, inquiring, confessing, and “chatting” amount to real, human ideas and experiences and are part of what it means to be female.” To read the full blog post, click here.

Posted by The Be Prepared Period Team

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

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It’s Time to Throw a Menstrual Party!

Our friends at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research say, “It’s time to throw a menstrual party!” And we couldn’t agree more!

For more PeriodTalk Party buzz, check out their blog post. We are so grateful to have so many wonderful individuals and organizations helping us celebrate a year of PeriodTalk tweet chats with You ARE Loved. Thank you all!

Posted by The Be Prepared Period Team

Monday, July 9th, 2012

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