NUTRITION + HEALTH BLOG

The peri-menopause can be one of the trickiest times for women to get their head around. One minute you’re 30, full of energy to do all the things you want in your life. Yes, there may be challenges but none of them seem unmanageable. Life – especially when you look back – seemed pretty great. All of a sudden it seems life and age have snuck up on you. You’re just not quite the same person you used to be. You notice you get tired more easily, some days you’re literally dragging yourself through the day, you’ve lost your get up and go for no reason, the weight you used to be able to lose in the run-up to an important event stays stubbornly in place no matter what you try, and you can’t seem to shift that foggy feeling in your brain. But it can’t be the menopause, right? You’re too young…

The menopause actually refers to a time when you haven’t had a single period for at least a year. The run-up to it can last for...

Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a problem I see so often in clinic and it is problematic on many different levels. If you have been diagnosed with this condition, you may well have been suffering with it for years and, while a diagnosis can – at first– offer comfort in finally having a recognised problem, the satisfaction is short-lived because often that’s where all support ends, and you’re left no further forward in actually fixing what the problem is.The difficulty begins because IBS is essentially meaningless; it’s a catch-all term used to encompass a huge variety of digestive issues. If you’re serious about getting to the bottom of the problem (no pun intended), I’m happy to discuss your symptoms and help find a way forward. You can book a free IBS health check with me by clicking here.

In my experience, it’s likely to be one of the following five conditions.

1 SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth)

Around 60% of people with IBS...

There are many different reasons you get hungry, some of them habit, some hedonistic and others hormonal. There's something you can do about all of these but right now, let's get into the business of hormonal hunger.

If I said to you ‘hormones’, you'll probably think first of your lady hormones - oestrogen and progesterone – but your body produces a whole host of other hormones which play a role in health and how you function every day.  The one I'm focussing on today is ghrelin - the  ‘growth hormone releasing peptide’ that controls hunger, food intake and combined with growth hormone, fat storage. Keep a handle on that and you have solved a bit part of the hunger problem.

It's not an official statistic, but I'd say that, after years of working with women who want to lose weight, the hormonal drive for food accounts for 75% of feelings of hunger. 

Ready? Ok, hold on tight because here it comes...

The science bit... Stimulated by the...

Have you ever felt compelled to eat a chocolate bar or 'heard' the cake whispering your name? Ever wondered what cravings really reveal about your health? Perhaps your body is trying to tell you something...

Some might dismiss a ‘wisdom of the body’ theory as quackery.  However, if you think about the biological processes happening within your body and the factors affecting these, the argument to substantiate a link becomes more compelling. Here’s why.

Food is so much more than just calories.  It’s information.  The body is a wonderful machine, constantly sending you signs and signals about the information (or nutrients) it needs to function at its best.  The trouble is, when you fall into unhealthy patterns, you unwittingly train your brain and body to think and crave certain foods.  Really. Often these foods give you a quick fix. You feel great for 30 minutes, yet an hour later your energy levels are on the floor and you need...

How are you feeling about Easter?  I love this time of year, especially when the weather is good but, like Christmas, this is the time of year my clients fear most. Chocolate is all around; in every shop and TV commercial. It’s enough to melt away your good intentions and, with this much pressure, binging feels almost inevitable.  

Of course, chocolate is available all year round. The trouble seems to come when there’s too much chocolate as is the case at this time of year, which leads to too much temptation, eating too much in one go, then feeling miserable because you over indulged. The worst parts of a binge are the feelings of guilt and failure that you feel afterwards. So let’s fix that.

Let’s accept that, Easter will mean chocolate indulgence on one level of another. 

Make the best diet choices over Easter

1 Try to discourage family and friends from buying chocolate for you. This puts you back in control of how much you have.

2...

So it turns out not even my mother really understands what I do all day...

Most people get – on a conceptual level at least – that they should probably eat a bit better than they do, they should probably move more and take the time for more ‘me time’ to live a long and happy life.

‘Life’ seems to get in the way of achieving that. Many of us are juggling jobs and the complexities of modern relationships, leaving little time to dedicate to the business of ‘being healthy’. Convenience often wins. It’s not that that’s wrong per se, but here’s the thing: all the time we are not eating or moving or living as well as we know to do, we are silently getting sicker. That may actually be going-to-hospital sick or it may just mean having health niggles that bother us greatly but that we have learned to cope with. I’m talking here about things like IBS or other tummy troubles, PMT, arthritis, stress or anxiety, haywire...

Itchy, watery eyes? Constantly sneezing? Hello hay fever! Now I really know it’s spring and you’re here to stay – like an uninvited guest – for the next six months. But while Mother Nature can be cruel, she is also kind. It might surprise you to know that changing what you eat can have a big impact on the severity of your symptoms.

According to Allergy UK, as many as 30% of adults and 40% of children suffer from allergic rhinitis (the medical term for the condition), an allergic reaction to pollen. You might start noticing symptoms in March when the tree pollen season starts. Then there’s the grass pollen season, followed by the weed pollen season, which can go on into September.

If this is you, I sympathise: itchy, red or watery eyes; runny or blocked nose; sneezing and coughing; itchy throat, mouth, nose and ears; loss of smell; earache; headache; and feeling exhausted.

There are some foods will make the symptoms of hay fever worse, so try to cut...

I’m delighted to announce the introduction to my practice of the Protefine Diet, which is proving hugely successful in clinic. The clients who tend to do best on a plan like this are those people who feel they need a really simple protocol to follow because they are short on time and have struggled before to fit healthy eating into their busy lives. It’s just one of the options I offer clients who come to work with me on a weight loss coaching programme, and I am one of only a very few nutrition practitioners across the country who are able to offer this product. Here are a few commonly asked questions about the diet.

What is the Proteifine Diet?

The Proteifine Diet has been in the UK since 2010 and is hugely popular in Europe and South America, and I have been trialling it with clients recently with fantastic results. I can confidently say that I have never come across a more effective approach to weight loss. 

The Proteifine Diet is a protein-based, low...

How is it that some people are so damn lucky? And happy. Nothing seems to go wrong for them. In fact, everything seems to go so right. All. The. Time. They’re never stressed by the ‘life stuff’ around them and just seem to be having a better time of it. Annoying, right? You could be that person – yes, REALLY – in a few weeks. Seriously. Science is absolutely behind me on this one; you really can change how happy you are.

All it takes is a bit of a gamble on something you might think is a bit 'woo woo' and 5-10 minutes of your time every single day. ‘What is it?’ I hear you cry. Gratitude. Stay with me here. Stop the eye rolling. Please keep reading. If you don’t think this simple practice is going to turn your life around, then you haven’t tried it. But, if there is anything you are not happy with in your life, if you’re always feeling stressed and are generally overwhelmed with life (even if it all looks great on...

There is an argument that all foods are OK in moderation, and this is largely based on not having ‘being healthy’ become something that feels a chore or that has you missing out on some of the things you really enjoy. But as a nutrition professional, there are a number of things that I NEVER eat.

1 Low fat/ reduced fat foods/ diet foods

These foods are, by definition, very highly processed. Where fat is taken out of a food, what nearly always goes in instead is either sugar or artificial sweeteners. The idea that fat is bad or leads to weight gain has now been acknowledged as being entirely wrong. We now know that sugars (and excess starchy carbs) are what mostly leads to weight gain and keep you craving sweet things. Many artificial sweeteners aren’t great for gut health either. I’d far rather stick to the natural, full fat version.

2 Margarine and butter substitutes

Margarine and vegetable spreads are the nutritionally poorer relations of real butter,...