Sugar. Sugar is considered by nutritional experts to be a 'nonessential' food. This means that we can do perfectly well without it.

Sugar is not bad in itself as it does provide the body with calories, but that is all. There are no vitamins or minerals in sugar so we would be far better off eating foods with natural sugar such as fruit and vegetables rather than filling up with sweets and cakes.

Of course sugar is fine on occasions but it should not -be a staple part of the diet. Look out, too, for hidden sugars in soft drinks. Some cans of drink contain five teaspoons of sugar each!

PMS sufferers often crave sugary foods and it can be hard to resist those cravings. But if you are eating a healthy well-balanced diet, and you follow the advice given later in this chapter on eating little and often, you should be able to overcome, or at least reduce, those cravings.

Fats. We need small amounts of fat in our diet but most of us eat too much fat and what's more we eat the wrong kind of fat Western diets are high in the saturated fats that have been linked to heart disease and other illnesses. If you choose your foods from the four groups listed and in the amounts given you will be getting all the fat you need from your diet.

Salt. Salt is vital to our normal body function but as with sugar and fat the Western diet contains far too much for our needs.

The main problem for women with PMS is that salt attracts water, as anyone who has left their table salt in a damp room will know. In the body excess salt leads to water retention and the familiar PMS symptoms of bloat

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Women's health