My Period + Green Smoothies

I know I've talked a little bit here and there about my period.  But here's the low down on it: I've always gotten a heavy period (I need both a pad - I use overnights - and a tampon - a heavier one - to get through the heavy days comfortably).  I've also gotten cramps on the first day or two for as long as I've had my period.  To deal with the cramps, I originally had to take Midol (otherwise I was miserable and it was hard to get through the day), but I didn't like the idea of being on medication every month.  After trying a few things out, I discovered that drinking raspberry tea helped me deal with the cramps.  So that's been my period for years: down raspberry tea during the first few days, and use lots of pads and tampons to get through everything.

After doing the 30 Day Challenge the second time, I finally decided to give green smoothies a try.  Betty Rocker is a huge advocate for drinking green smoothies because they're full of lots of great nutrients.  I was a bit hesitant to start drinking them because I wasn't sure what a good liquid base would be for someone with diabetes - milk didn't sound good to me with spinach, and I definitely wasn't going to use any juices.  I ended up finding coconut water, and thought that would be a good thing to try it with.  I've since found that regular plain water works just as good (but you might need a sweeter fruit like mangoes or raspberries with plain water because the resulting smoothie isn't as sweet otherwise).

Now, green smoothies can look really gross, especially depending on what you put in them.  I've found that throwing raspberries in turns the smoothie into a weird brown colour that doesn't look at all appealing (but still tastes really good!) I've been making my green smoothies with spinach because I really like the taste.  I've also tried romaine (which was weird), and kale (which was okay but not as good as spinach in my opinion).

After eating a ton of green smoothies (last month I bought a huge bag of spinach and ended up having to have a green smoothie daily to use it all up), the weirdest thing happened: when my period started, I had no cramps!!!  It was honestly such a weird sensation that I didn't know what was going on at first because I always have cramps!  The first time I thought it was a weird fluke, but nope: this is now the third period I've had in a row that was cramp free!  And the only thing that I've changed diet-wise is that I'm eating more spinach thanks to green smoothies! :)