If I could only make 5 changes to benefit your health what would they be?

What could help you lose weight, resolve acid reflux and manage your diarrhoea, constipation and bloating?

Sometimes its the easy things that really work

Are you a hay fever sufferer? Do you suffer from skin issues such as rosacea and psoriasis? Do you suffer from IBS symptoms?

What is the link? It could be that you have a histamine intolerance

Knowledge is power and in this case, knowing the histamine-producing foods and those foods that naturally lower histamine you may find your hayfever is more manageable this year and your skin and IBS improve with some simple swaps.

Are you too busy to be sick? do you have too many people relying on you?

It can be easy for a while to ignore IBS type symptoms

Diarrhoea, take Imodium

Constipation take fibogel

Acid reflux take omeprazole or anti acids or Gaviston

Headache take a paracetamol

Skin brake-outs rub on some cream

Low energy drink coffee

These are all temporary fixes that get you on the school run, into the care home and into work

Have you been considering an elimination diet to manage your IBS symptoms?

For most people, it might be enough to remove ultra-processed foods (UPF’s)

Other people may need to consider FODMAP’s, nightshade vegetables, gluten, and wheat, one or more of the top allergens, there are of course other things people can be reacting to.

The decision for most people when they follow an elimination diet is when to start to re-introduce the foods.

As humans, we need to eat a varied diet, we need this to encourage and support a vibrant and diverse microbiome. When you learn to love your microbiome you feel better.

The more variety of protein, vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains and nuts in your day and your week the healthier you will feel

So where to start?

You can start with me. I will hold your hand through the process, guide you, and help you to make decisions.

Food is miraculous, it is so much more than satisfying our hunger.

Are you an IBS sufferer, do you ever suffer from heartburn, acid reflux, or diarrhea after you eat too much? Christmas day is a wonderful family celebration that can be spoiled by unpleasant symptoms. If you can follow the tips on my blog, then you can reduce the risk.

Merry Christmas

My 8 top tips for surviving the party season and not a Grinch in sight

Is fasting for everyone?

What are the benefits ?

How do I start fasting without feeling terrible?

What switches off fasting?

Read my post to answer these questions

The thing about IBS is if you don’t do something positive about your IBS then you do keep ‘getting’ other symptoms and other diagnosis.

I know I am simplifying a complicated condition by saying if you look after your microbiome then your beautiful gut bugs will look after you.

Do you remember the men in black film where the cat has the universe around its neck? That is how I think about the microbiome. My own universe that I must nurture.

My IBS improved when I learnt about how to nurture my microbiome. When I learnt the importance of not suppressing my stomach acid. When I learnt to cut out pointless sugar. When I learnt to cook. When I learnt about kefir and probiotics.

Are the benefits of probiotics and prebiotics real? According to 2023 guidelines produced by the world gastroenterology organisation, the answer is yes. When your gut microbiome is being supported your health can improve. Research suggests that improvements can be seen in IBS symptoms, cholesterol, immune function, and much more.

Is chocolate a sweet treat or a health food?

The quality of some of the research may be mixed but benefits are reported to include

Improvements in heart health, the immune system and brain function and reduction in stress.

There is some evidence that the antioxidants in dark chocolate lower bad cholesterol and the flavonoids lower blood pressure.

Theobromine a compound in dark chocolate has similar effects to caffeine and boosts energy levels without the addictive quality and is associated with being beneficial for your heart, blood pressure and general mood.

Chocolate includes nutrients such as fibre, iron, magnesium, potassium and zinc.

Is high cholesterol bad?

What are the root causes?

Can diet and lifestyle reduce cholesterol levels

Are you a hayfever sufferer like me?

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.

Spring and summer can be exhausting

Do you know the root cause of your IBS symptoms?

When you work on the root causes you can significantly reduce your symptoms. But it might be more than one thing.

You don’t always have to suffer, your symptom can improve when you know your trigger

Are you someone who knows what is going to cause the burning of indigestion and heartburn? or does it creep up on you?

Firstly what can be the root causes of indigestion?

A food allergy or intolerance, possibly to dairy, wheat, soy or eggs (3)

Not making enough bile; to digest fatty foods (4)

Dysbiosis, More non-beneficial than beneficial bacteria, possibly moving into the small intestines (5)

A H-pylori infection; causes the stomach to become less acidic and research now associates H-pylori with stomach ulcers. (6)

Not enough stomach acid; The food you eat ferments in the stomach causing the lower oesophageal sphincter to flap releasing acid into the oesophagus and throat (7)

Eating when stressed; You are not digesting food properly, again leading to fermentation in the stomach.

Not chewing; Larger particles of food can be left undigested, causing fermentation

Eating a high sugar, High processed food diet; Disrupts the microbiome

What can you do to help yourself?

Reducing the amount of processed foods and high-carb foods being consumed will help to balance the microbiome and to lose weight.

A low carb lifestyle encourages more over-the-ground vegetables that promote bile production helping to break down the fat, and as an additional benefit promoting the absorption of fat-dependent nutrients.

Taking your time to eat, sitting somewhere quiet, and chewing, promotes your parasympathetic ( rest and digest) nervous system to work properly.

You produce enough stomach acid to digest the thoroughly chewed food, so that instead of sitting in your stomach fermenting, it is slowly released into your intestines to slowly provide you with energy

Try incorporating time restrictive eating into your daily routine. When we eat within an 8-10 hour window we give our bodies time to properly digest food before we go to bed

There any many food intolerance tests on the market. Which one do I recommend?

It might be you suddenly have an allergic reaction to one of the top allergens.

It might be that you develop food intolerance to food that is supposedly healthy for you, ginger, cabbage, eggs for example.

It can be baffling and frustrating, it can be up to 72 hours before a reaction occurs with food intolerances making it hard to pinpoint the culprit.

Work with me, we will go through the food intolerance report I recommend slowly, I will look for cross-reactivities and we will decide whether to eliminate these foods as well.

I will ask you to complete a detailed food and symptom journal so I can check if you are reacting.

I can provide you with recipes that exclude the food you want to eliminate so that you don’t feel overwhelmed.

Alongside we will work to heal the gut and strengthen your immune system.

In an ideal world, what do you want from your future? Don’t worry about how you are going to get there right now, just picture yourself.

What would you like your health to be like?

What do you look like?

What is your lifestyle,

what are you top 5 top reasons for wanting this vision of you in the future.

September feels like a new start, the summer is starting to fade, we start looking towards darker evenings where we can snuggle under a blanket on the sofa wearing our comfy clothes, and if you are like me look forward to the joy of soups, stews and slow cooked casseroles filling the house with evocative smells.

But September can also be a stressful time, with children going to school for the first time, and older children going to university. Whatever age your children are at, starting to loosen the apron strings is hard, getting your child ready for independence can be stressful

Here is a fact that you may not know.

Your body’s reaction to stress is an ancient evolutionary response to give you the energy to make quick decisions so you can RUN AWAY…… Now in today's daily life we rarely have to run away from things that want to eat us… I'm assuming that's true for most of us!

Our body reacts the same whether we are sitting in traffic worried about being late or having argued with our husband/boss/ child, you can pick, or the internet has gone down again losing a morning's work.

So while I can’t change life's ups and downs for you, I can’t make the M25 easier to drive around..Imagine if I could? I can give you some tips and advice for learning how to lower your stress

Who doesn’t love a good holiday? Whether it’s a beach escape, a trip to the slopes or a city break, it’s a chance to rest, reset and de-stress. Taking time off to relax is an important part of wellness, almost as much as all the other things that contribute to a healthy, happy life like eating well and moving your body.

What can YOU do, to have a great holiday that doesn’t negatively impact you, not only while you're away, has anyone not suffered from a holiday tum? But also when you get home.

Do you suffer from IBS symptoms? Would a low FODMAP diet benefit you? This blog investigates why a low FODMAP diet might be good for you, what to include and what to avoid and there are suggestion for tests a GP or a nutritional therapist can order.

How we look affects how we feel. So it’s important to look after our outermost covering! Skin is amazing.

Not only does it keep our insides in, but also it protects us from infection, radiation and dehydration, keeps us warm and makes us look good. While we are most aware of our ‘outside skin’, the ‘inside skin’ of the lungs and digestive tract covers a much larger area.

This entire surface is replaced every 20 days, and the degree to which the condition of your skin is influenced by what you eat and drink, as well as other factors such as your environment and, more obviously, cosmetics, is quite remarkable...