Healthy Lifestyle & Incontinence

Being overweight or obese increases your chances of developing health related complications enormously. Along with diabetes, one of the major conditions that affects overweight women is stress incontinence. This can be an inconvenient and embarrassing condition, and one that will be improved by losing weight.

Help yourself

Although surgical methods are an option to reduce incontinence in dangerously obese women (urinary sling and gastric bypass surgery respectively), adopting a healthy lifestyle and increasing exercise is still the ideal for most people.

US studies found that overweight and obese women who experienced more than four incidents of incontinence per week were reduced by an average of 60%
following a 3-month weight reduction program where they lost at least 5-10% of their body weight.

Exercise

Exercise does not need to be strenuous to remove excess weight. If you are overweight, it can seem daunting to begin an exercise programme. The important thing is to start. Just 30 minutes a day (broken into 120 minute intervals if necessary), three times per week, will make a difference.

Choose an activity that is enjoyable and achievable. Walking, golf, yoga, swimming or pilates are good choices. If you have incontinence problems, make sure the exercise you choose is low impact, to minimise the impact on your bladder and pelvic floor.

Eat healthily

Combine a sensible diet with exercise, to optimise your healthy lifestyle. Neither diet nor exercise will work alone; they must be combined to be most effective. Fill your diet with unprocessed food where possible and incorporate plenty of fruit and vegetables and water.

Along with general exercise, it is essential to remember to practice pelvic floor (Kegel) exercises to strengthen the entire area.

Added benefits of weight loss

Other benefits of adopting a healthy eating and exercise programme also include better sleep, improved energy, lower blood pressure, less pressure on joints, stress reduction and improved moods.