Category: Health

Easy Steps No. 2 – Pace Yourself

This is my second post in the “7 easy steps to start your whole-food plant-based journey’. In the first post I covered step 1 – know your ‘why’. This time, step 2 is one more thing you need to think about before you start making positive changes that last. And it’s a simple but profoundly difficult one to stick to – go at your own pace. Continue reading “Easy Steps No. 2 – Pace Yourself” →

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Brain food

Have you ever thought about how the food you eat directly affects your brain? As its Brain Awareness Week, it’s worth sparing a minute or two to do just that. Do you give your brain what it needs?

The brain is the hungriest organ in the body. Mind you that’s not surprising really as it’s always on the go, managing and controlling everything else in the body, even (and particularly) when we’re asleep. 25% of the body’s energy supply (in the form of glucose, its fuel of choice), is used in the brain Continue reading “Brain food” →

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Fabulous fibre

Have you noticed how fibre has suddenly appeared in the news again? That’s food-related fibre, not the high-speed broad band type! A large meta-analysis of research studies published in The Lancet last week concluded that a diet high in complex fibre and whole-foods could prevent the development of many chronic health problems. It concluded their study provided a ‘causal link’ between a low fibre diet and poor health (read more here).

The world of food and health is complex and fickle. The fact that fibre is good for health has been known for a long time, but gets conveniently forgotten when more popular diets come along, like low-carb/high fat, or ketogenic programmes. There’s a lot of confusion about the carbohydrate element of foods with many people automatically associating ‘carbs’ with sugar. And it’s true, refined sugar isn’t good for us, but complex, unadulterated carbohydrates are.

As anyone who has participated in my Eat Well Live Well course will know, I’m a big fan of fibre. And one of the benefits of eating a whole-food plant-based diet is that it is packed full of lovely complex fibres that the body just loves. And rather than worrying about how much you should consume, it’s just part and parcel of every meal – as long as you eat a wide range of whole plant foods that is.

So why might you not get enough fibre in your diet?

  1. Only food from plants contain fibre, so if you eat mainly meat, dairy and eggs you’ll be missing out on fibre.
  2. Refined cereals and grains loose their healthy complex fibre, so if you eat white bread, pasta or rice, processed breakfast cereals or ready meals, you’ll be losing all the lovely complex fibre.
  3. Fresh fruit and vegetables contain fibre too, so if you don’t hit your 5 portions a day (like 70% of the UK population), you’ll be missing out on fibre.

So what does fibre do for us? Lots, as it turns out. I go into more details in my new book Eat Well Live Well with The Sensitive Foodie (out next month!), but in a nutshell it:

  1. Improves gut motility – ie: make you poo!
  2. Removes excess bile, fats and toxic waste
  3. Fills you up
  4. Releases nutrients slowly
  5. Looks after the friendly bacteria living in your gut.

As more is learnt about the importance of gut health, this last one is really key. Bacteria living deep down in the large intestine dine out on the insoluble fibre found in complex carbohydrates that we can’t digest ourselves, and then puts it to good use, carrying out functions we have outsourced and can no longer do ourselves. Gut health is connected to many health challenges, including food sensitivities and autoimmune conditions, hence my personal love of all things fibre!

So how do you get more fibre in your diet? It’s easy – eat more plants! And a wide variety of them too. Add beans to soups and stews, more veggies to dishes. Ditch the processed breakfast cereals and opt for wholegrain or oats. Swap to wholegrain pasta, rice and bread. Or just focus on eating amazing plant foods throughout the day and then you don’t have to worry where your fibre is coming from.

A word of warning though, if you’re not used to eating lots of lovely fibre, or have IBS or something similar, take care! Fibre makes you fart. And if your gut is not happy, a sudden overload of high fibre foods could find you trumpeting at inappropriate moments or doubled up in pain. So think about gradually increasing the amount of whole foods over a few days rather than all at once – you, and anyone around you, will appreciate it!

If you’re not sure how to start eating more fibre, check out the recipes on my blog. Made with whole plant foods, they’re all packed with fibre in various forms. And if you’re interested in finding out more, my book is a good place to start. Look out for more information about publication date, or sign up to my book mailing list. You’ll get the lowdown before anyone else, plus special launch information and offers. Just click here.

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Simple New Year changes that have a big impact

Wow, it’s the last day of 2018! What a busy year it’s been. How’s it been for you? For me, there’s been some amazing experiences, incredible changes and smattering of challenges and obstacles. A pretty standard year all in all!

So now it’s time to start thinking about the new year ahead. Have you thought about your New Year’s resolutions, or what you would like to achieve over the next 12 months? For many, January is a time for ‘going on a diet’ and ‘getting fit’. Both great goals to have, but more often than not the enthusiasm starts to wane after just a couple of weeks. Or it might be that you are planning on going plant-based, either by joining a campaign like Veganuary or following your own ideas. This works really well for anyone who is an ‘all-or-nothing’ kind of person. But it’s not for everyone.

I actually think that early January is not a good time of year to make major changes. For a start, the weather is cold and the whole month can seem rather dull and miserable after the colourful build up to Christmas. Going on a diet has connotations of missing out or deprivation. The cold weather outside naturally drives us towards warming comfort foods rather than salad. Plus the ‘hang-over’ from all the Christmas and New Year excitement and celebrations takes a while to pass.

It’s because of this that I never run my Eat Well Live Well course until the end of January or beginning of February – that’s the time when you’re fully recovered from the festive fun and truly ready to make some positive, lasting changes.

Now that’s not to say that being a bingeing coach potato is a good idea! If you want to ease yourself into a positive health change or just want to make some easy changes, here are 5 simple changes to make that will have a big impact.

  1. Eat more. Ha, bet you didn’t expect that one first! If you’ve pigged out over the last week, this might not sound like a good thing. But I don’t mean eat more of everything. Just eat more fresh fruit and vegetables every day, some raw, some cooked. An incredible 75% of the UK population still don’t hit the 5-a-day target (click here for statistics) so if you are one of them, now’s your chance to go for it. But don’t stop at 5. As fresh fruit and vegetables are packed full of amazing nutrients and phytonutrients that support our bodies right at cellular level, 10 portions a day is much nearer to what we should be aiming for. Your body will love you for it and you’ll soon start feeling the benefits. Plus if you fill up on the fresh stuff, there’s less room for the junk!

2) Go brown. White flour, pasta and rice have all their wonderful nutrients stripped away and all you’re left with is the starchy endosperm that rapidly gets broken down into simple sugars. It’s calories and not much else. Wholegrains on the other hand retain their fabulous fibre, essential oils and protein as well as other nutrients. They’re more filling and your helpful friendly bacteria love them. If you want to give it a try but don’t think your family will be on board with it, don’t tell them! Just change one at a time and see if they notice (sneaky but effective 😉 )

3) Eat real. Have you explored the label on processed foods recently, even ‘healthy’, and specifically ‘free-from’ items? Do you recognise half the ingredients? Many of the common items bought contain a cacophony of refined ingredients or lab-made chemicals. Even ‘natural’ ones are not quite as natural as you might think. Hundreds of new chemicals are passed as safe for human consumption every year, but most have not been tested over long periods of time (for accumulation) or in combination with other chemicals. A report last year highlighted that 51% of the food consumed in the UK is now ‘ultra-processed‘. That’s far away from the original ingredient, if it even had one. Our bodies take time to recognise and respond to these chemicals. They much prefer things simple and natural. So next time you go to buy something, ask yourself “Is this real?”. If not, put it back on the shelf and find something else to put in your basket.

4) Eat a rainbow. I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about this before, but it’s so important, I’m saying it again! Plant foods all contain magical tiny chemicals that help support the body in a multitude of ways. We evolved foraging off the land and consumed whatever the land provided, much of which was colourful and attractive to the eye. Try to make a conscience decision to eat red, orange, yellow, green, blue/purple, brown and white produce every day.

5) Eat variety. As well as eating different colours, we evolved eating a wide variety of food items – basically whatever was found. Variety is key to our gut health, to look after our magical microbiome. The modern western diet tends to offer four main food sources – meat, dairy, soya and wheat – as 90% of the food eaten. Our ancestors are known to have eaten about 130 sources. Whilst that may be hard to achieve, try to avoid eating the same things day in, day out. Make a conscience effort to try new things too. Your gut will love you for it!

That’s it – more, brown, real, rainbow variety and you’re set for a healthy 2019! If you need any recipe ideas, then have a browse through the recipe index on the menu above. There’s loads to try, all of which will help you achieve these 5 easy steps. If you haven’t already subscribed to the blog, why not do that now and get new recipes directly to your inbox?

Wishing you a very happy and healthy New Year.

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Empower yourself

I’m in the process of fulfilling one of my life’s ambitions – writing a book. It’s a huge and often overwhelming project – it’s certainly tested my commitment and drive on many occasions as I go on the emotional rollercoaster of self-doubt and belief. I’ve abandoned it at times, and yet still get pulled back in and over 100,000 words later, I’m still going!

The book – The Sensitive Foodie (of course!) explores the connection between food and health based on my experiences of dealing with food intolerances and autoimmune disease followed by a whole range of (mainly new) delicious whole-food plant-based recipes that I can’t wait for people to try. The recipes section was the easy part, and is all wrapped up. The first half has been more of a challenge as I’ve had to work out how to get all the ‘stuff’ in my head out into words that form some kind of sense. It’s made my brain work hard, which it doesn’t like to do!

What’s interesting is that the more I write, the more I realise the power of eating a whole-food plant-based diet. And the thing is, it’s not that difficult! Up until now, this way of eating has been on the fringe, but fortunately the tide is changing; a body of independent research is finally coming up with extensive proof and health professionals are beginning to open their mind to the power of plants. Excitingly, the first plant-based conference in London for doctors and other health professionals in March this year sold out, and reports suggest it was a great success. New evidence continues to support using a whole-food plant-based diet (often alongside existing medication) to help manage and improve a whole host of chronic health problems ranging from diabetes to heart disease to cancer to autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

One fabulous example of this is Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis, the evidence-based diet and lifestyle programme that I follow that helps keep my MS under control. It’s a plan than can be applied to many health problems – super healthy and tasty food, adequate amounts of vitamin D, exercise, stress reduction through mindfulness or meditation and medication if needed. It’s premise is to do whatever it takes to stay well – that’s something that’s surprisingly hard for some people to get on board with! We’re so used to relying on medical professionals to be able to give a pill that will solve the problem. It’s so easy to become a ‘patient’ or a ‘sufferer’.

A change in mindset makes a huge difference; one way to persuade people is through their pocket. Companies like Kaiser Permente, a pre-paid health insurance provider in the US, are encouraging and supporting people to make life-style changes that will reduce the amount of health care services they will need to use, rewarding them with lower premiums.

Even without such financial incentives, it’s worth taking a look at how you feel about your health, whether you have a problem or not. It’s all about empowerment. Programmes like OMS pass the power back to you, the person with the problem. MS is my problem, and it’s up to me to do something about it; I refuse to be a victim but chose to empower myself to make the most of the situation. And get to eat fab food in the process – that can’t be bad! Today (30th May) is World MS Day, designed to raise awareness of the condition and the research being undertaken to find a cure for this currently incurable condition. It’s also a day to celebrate programmes like OMS that may not be a cure, but can go a long way to keep it under control. Check out www.overcomingms.org if you want to find out more.

There are many things in the modern world that conspire to make us feel pretty crap. But crap can be useful – lotus flowers feed off the crap at the bottom of the pond. The most beautiful blooms flourish from the dirtiest silt. If you have a health challenge, don’t let that overwhelm you, use it as a spur to make amazing changes to the way you eat and live, and you will flourish beautifully.

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Not all calories are equal

In a quest to fight against the continual growth (literally!) of obesity in both children and adults, Public Health England have altered their healthy eating advice. Action to help improve long term health is a good thing, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, I don’t believe they are focusing on the right issue to create the level of change that’s required.

The new guidelines focus on the amount of calories consumed at each meal, broken down into a 400-600-600 parameter for breakfast, lunch and dinner. To anyone who has spent any modicum of time on a diet, this might seem a reasonable guide. But if calorie counting actually worked, would there still be such a huge problem with obesity and other weight-related issues?

I believe Public Health England are missing the point. For it’s not just the amount of calories consumed during a day that’s the issue, but the quality of the food itself that’s causing the problem. Anyone who eats processed and refined products are just not getting the nutrients they need to keep their weight under control, their digestive tract happy and their body healthy. Low calorie processed foods are bereft of the very nutrients the body needs to function well – essentially they’re full of empty calories.

One of the things I share with people who come along to my Eat Well Live Well course is that all calories are not equal. For what is a calorie in the first place? Simply put, its a unit of energy, fuel for the body to function effectively. We use different sources of energy to fuel our metabolic functions. Diet gurus will tell you that you need a certain balance of fat, protein and carbohydrate to do this, and then argue about what that balance it. Food packaging details the amount of each group, and how many calories there are contained within. But what they miss out is all the other important nutrients contained in the food, all of which are equally essential for the body to function. Micronutrients, phytonutrients and fibre all have massively important jobs to do – and many of these are lost as soon as you start processing a food source. This leads to an imbalance in the nutrient profile, which has led many people to the current state of being overfed and undernourished.

When you follow a mainly whole-food plant-based way of eating, the focus is not on calories. It’s on the whole-food! When you eat the whole product, you consume more fibre, more nutrients and – very importantly – more vitality. All of these things benefit your body. Let’s have a look how:

  • You feel full up more readily because of the high fibre content
  • You don’t experience sudden sugar lows that make you ‘hangry’ and head for the biscuit tin
  • You consume wonderful amounts of nutrients found in fresh fruit and vegetables than benefit your skin, hair and nails, as well as your health, and give you more energy and vitality
  • You naturally lose weight as your body is flooded with the right nutrient combination
  • Your body stops being under attack from toxic, highly processed chemicals and fats
  • You look after your telomeres, the key to slowing ageing, and minimise chronic health problems
  • You can reverse and even cure some chronic health problems
  • Lastly, and most importantly, you can eat loads of food!

Some health insurance companies in the US are beginning to recognise the value of using a whole-food plant-based diet as their first line treatment for ‘lifestyle’ health conditions. Here in the UK, we’re a little behind. It can be hard finding how to eat the right way, but with the right help, knowledge and support, it can be a real journey of food love.

As someone who spent many years ‘on a diet’ to lose weight, I love that I no longer have to  count calories. It’s a shame that Public Health England still think that’s the way to go. Hopefully they’ll change soon. But you don’t have to wait for them, just start making your own changes. And if you need some support, I’m always here to help.

 

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