Nutritionist in the City

30 rocks

2013-06-24T13:51:00.001-07:00

Hurrah it's wimbledon time again!! Sadly the sun isn't out yet in support, but the start of the tournament is making me feel more summary.

I know very little about tennis but that doesn't stop me avidly watching this one tournament every year and getting caught up in the excitement.

Interestingly this year there are more over 30s in the tournament than ever despite the fact that over time the tournament seemed to be dominated by russian teenagers! When asked why this had happened Federer said that athletes these days took much better care of their bodies these days, specifically eating more carefully, and therefore they were prolonging the amount of time they could keep themselves at this supreme level of fitness.

For those of us who aren't competitive athletes we may not feel like we need to pay so much attention to keeping our bodies in peak condition, but even though we don't face the rigours of lengthy tennis matches, we do all face the regular rigours of life which can be stressful both physically and mentally. Also if our bodies breakdown or can't cope it can affect our livelihoods just as it can for athletes.

This is why we need to actually consider the importance of keeping ourselves in top physical condition and plan for this so we can go the distance in life, rather than just in a tennis match.

So what does it take to still be playing top level tennis in your thirties? Well I'm afraid the answer isn't particularly exciting, the answer is a diet rich in whole fibre-rich carbohydrates, lean proteins and loads of veggies combined with an absence of alcohol, confectionary and high-fat foods, although Roger Federer has admitted to enjoying the odd glass of wine and piece of swiss chocolate.

So when you're planning your meals or choosing from a menu, for a second imagine you're an ATP pro and think what they might choose, you might not win wimbledon but you'll still be top of your game in your thirties.

Programming your pancreas

2013-06-09T12:58:00.002-07:00

Following a low GI diet has great benefits in terms of weight loss and balanced energy levels but there are also some longer term gains to be made. If you consistently eat higher GI foods such as sugar, white bread, white pasta, long grained rice including most refined foods (biscuits, cakes, pre-prepared foods) then your pancreas will be continually stimulated to produce insulin, but if you avoid these foods for a good period of time (4-6 weeks) your pancreas will start to rebalance and get used to producing alot less insulin.

This means less fat storage (insulin is the hormone produced to cause sugars in the bloodstream to be stored as fat in your fat cells), but also in the long run it means your pancreas is less likely to over-react to the stimulus of sugary foods and therefore overproduce insulin. What this means in practice is that if you consistently follow a low GI diet then on the odd occasion when you do have a splurge it will do less damage to your waistline than for someone who is following a low GI diet.

As a very unscientific sample I can say that having followed a reasonably strict low GI diet for the month leading up to my wedding definitely limited the damage from my honeymoon. Two weeks of delicious three course meals and limitless cocktails would be sure to do alot of damage, but instead I gained a meagre pound for all my indulgences.

This isn't down to some freak genetics, I once quite impressively put on a whole 6 lbs of weight in 10 days on a trip to barcelona in my pre-low GI life! This was clear evidence of the benefit of my month of low GI eating.

This also doesn't mean I'm now free to continue eating the same way now that I'm back home. It's very easy over-time to undo the good work by regularly eating high GI foods, making your pancreas produce more and more insulin and then gradually finding it easier and easier to gain weight. The only way to keep reaping the benefits is to consistently eat low GI and keep high GI treats for special occasions.

A four week low GI strict phase is a good idea to get you started, The montignac method is a good place start.

Once you've got your blood sugar balanced you'll know it because your appetite will reduce, you'll be able to go 4-6 hours between meals without feeling grumpy or weak and you won't crave sugary foods as much, you should also have lost a couple of pounds without going hungry. At this point you can start making high GI exceptions to your diet, but try and limit these to one meal a week (a good allowance for date night or a friends birthday or other special occasion).

So if you have a trip coming up where you plan to indulge for a more than a couple of meals, lay the ground work with a couple of weeks of strict low GI eating, and then you'll be able to enjoy your indulgences without piling on the pounds.

The good, the bad and the barbecue

2013-06-04T12:50:00.001-07:00

The sun has finally got his hat on ... hip hip hip hurray!

Not only will this cheer us up and give our vitamin D levels a boost but it also means we have a good excuse for lots of picnics and barbecues.

I love both - there's something wonderful about the combination of informal outdoor eating, finger food and getting friends together.

I'm also a fan of any social gathering where you can choose from a range of foods rather than having to eat whatever you are served. Depending on your choices a picnic or barbecue can be either very healthy or very unhealthy! So here are some pointers to stay on the right side of the tracks!

Picnics:
Bad: mayo and creamy sauces are an easy way to add on the saturated fat and calories so go for mayo free. For sarnies cucumber and smoked salmon is always a good choice and go for mayo-free pasta or potato salads with tomato based sauces. The same applies to dips - thousand island and cheese and chive are best avoided, go for hummous, salsa and guacamole.

Good: salads and crudites usually get served so make sure you have half a plate of veg dishes. Go for easy to eat cherry tomatoes, cucumber sticks and veggie crudites. Venture beyond carrot sticks and include strips of peppers and babycorn. Iceberg leaves can also be used as wraps for make on the day sandwich alternatives - take a large lettuce leaf, fill with a few salad bits (grated carrot, pepper strips, potato salad) and some protein: smoked salmon/parma ham/boiled egg/falafel. Rollup like a tortilla wrap and tuck in. New potatoes dressed in olive oil and lemon juice or a dressed couscous salad are best for the carb side options.

Barbecues:
Bad: I hate to break it to you but any charred meat is bad for you. Ultimately it's cancerous which is why bbqs aren't for everyday cooking, and bbq cuts are also usually the most laden with unsaturated fats. Pork is unfortunately the least healthy (bye bye sausages), whilst chicken and fish are the better options.
If you really want to go all out on the meat then keep the rest of your meal low carb. This will keep your insulin levels down so you'll store a lot less of the fat you're eating. This does mean no ketchup - it's 60per cent sugar - have some tomato puree instead.

Good:
If you want to be really good avoid meat altogether and have a tuna steak or a veggie burger/sausage in a wholemeal roll. I honestly don't miss the meat at a bbq, the bbq taste still comes across with veggie food and I always loved all the salad bits on the side more than a burnt burger!
Just as with picnics you'll usually have a good selection of salads and possibly a table to sit at making them easier to eat. Fill your plate with grilled corn on the cob, salad, vegetable kebab and half a jacket potato - you'll easily get your 5 a day in one meal.

Drinks:
Good: water (yes boring I know) or diluted fruit juice. If champagne's going have a bucks fizz (the vitamin c from the orange juice helps minimize your hangover) or if there are spirits have a gin and slimline or a vodka-cranberry.

Bad: Fizzy drinks (pure chemicals), but especially the full sugar variety. If you really want some fizz have an appletizer or some shloer. Beer and cider are bbq staples but can mean you easily put away an extra 1000 calories. If you do fancy either, match them pint for pint with water, which will significantly slow you down and keep you safe from sun stroke.

Desserts:
Strawberries are the obvious and delicious healthy choice. If they're good they don't need the cream. To be honest any fruit salad is going to. Be the healthiest option. If you need to dress it up add a dollop of greek yoghurt and a drizzle of honey.
For a bbq baked bananas are great - wait til the bbq has cooled a bit, take bananas and slit them down one side. Push a few squares of dark chocolate into them and then put on the bbq til the chocolate has melted. Eat out of their skins with a a spoon - yummo!
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Healthy additives

2013-05-28T13:11:00.002-07:00

Ever since GOOP pointed me to thug kitchen I've been annoyed with myself for not writing anything as genius!! Who knew that gratuitous swearing was the secret to making nutrition engaging!

The latest entry is the great suggestion to add quinoa to your porridge to crank up the fibre and protein. I actually make gluten free porridge out of quinoa flakes, but they have a fairly distinctive taste so a full bowl of quinoa is not for everyone. Infact know that my diet can be a bit extreme, but eating well doesn't have to involve totally changing your diet - make little additions like this one as you cook and eat can really ramp up the nutritional content of your diet.

So as well as this great suggestion of adding quinoa to your porridge at home here are a few other little healthy additives to try out.

Add berries to your breakfast - they go with everything and are antioxidant power houses - add them to porridge, cereal, pancakes, smoothies, yoghurt, even slice them and eat them on toast with some natural nut butter.

Sprinkle chopped nuts or seeds over your salad for some crunch and some superfats.

Add cinnamon to your coffee ... it should cut the sugar you need if you like it sweet and reduce the blood sugar impact of the caffeine.

Whatever sandwich you are making always add an extra vegetable when you've finished, whether it's some grated carrot, some spinach leaves or some slice raddish.

Add grated ginger and minced garlic to any stir fry for some blood pressure lowering and antimicrobial power.

Use nut butter on toast instead of regular toast, every time - to keep your fats in check.

Just beet it

2013-05-27T09:25:00.001-07:00

Greeting readers! Apologies for the extended absence - I was busy getting married to hot doc!

Anyone's who's organized a wedding will know how crazy it is, but thankfully I'm back in the normal non-wedding world again which has also given me a chance to catch-up on some nutrition reading.

There's always lots of research on individual nutrients, but there is also increasingly research on using whole foods to treat disease. This is partly in recognition of the fact that whole foods contain a variety of nutrients that work together in synergy. The great thing about this kind of research is that unlike the usual high science, this research can translate into changes you can make day to day that will have an impact on your health.

So on that theme I want to talk about beetroot, which has been shown in a recent study to lower blood pressure. The research by the University of Reading showed that drinking a small amount of beetroot juice, equivalent to eating two small beetroots, lowered blood pressure in people with elevated levels.

The problem with alot of widespread conditions such as blood pressure, is that GPs have targets to treat these as quickly as possible so will have you on blood pressure lowering drugs before you even have a chance to ask about any alternatives. But if you can treat yourself with food then this would always be preferable to using synthetic drugs which have numerous side effects and don't address the underlying reason that you got your condition in the first place.

If you or someone you know has high blood pressure, they should start eating some beetroot pronto (or even better if you have a juicer add it raw to your morning fruit juice), but more importantly if you have any health condition you should be finding out what you can do about it with food rather than just relying on medication to get you back to top health. Food Is Better Medicine Than Drugs is a great place to start - Patrick Holford is the authority on this subject and brilliant at making the information accessible to the non-scientist - it might save you a few trips to the GP!

Traffic light salad

2013-04-23T10:30:00.001-07:00

What a difference the sun makes - I find myself instantly in a happier mood and with a strong desire to start wearing my more colourful clothes (and buy myself a new spring wardrobe!)

It's not just my clothes that are more colourful - I finally feel like eating salad again. Salad to me means a bowl full of colour - the more the better - no boring Iceberg for me. Making your salad colourful makes it more visually appealing, means it will have more flavour and be more nutritious.

The pigments in fruit and veg are what protect them from damage, including sun damage, so infact the more we're exposed to sunlight the more we benefit from eating colourful fruit and veg.

I always think of a traffic light when building a salad and try and use green, orange and red veg in addition to the leaves.

Here are my favourites:
Spinach, grated carrot, sliced beetroot and green pepper drizzled with sesame seed oil and topped with sesame seeds

Babyleaf salad, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, black olives, orange pepper with olive oil and balsamic dressing and a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds

Shredded Iceberg topped with the following mixed with some began mayonnaise: walnuts, chopped celery, sliced pear, grated carrot and tomato

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What's your cuppa count?

2013-04-22T10:02:00.001-07:00

Despite the marathon runners outside my window displaying amazing energy levels sunday was very much a sofa day for me after a late night out on the town!

The film I was watching was sponsored by Tetley tea and so I ended up seeing a fair few tea adverts. In one of them two girls sit on a sofa and try and work out how many cups of tea they drink in a day. They laugh as one suggests it's more than 10.

To me this isn't funny, it's worrying. Worrying because there are people out there drinking 10 cups of tea a day and not realising how bad this is for them. Worrying because a lot of people aren't alarmed by the fact they can't function without a cup of coffee.

I gave up caffeine 8 years ago and have never looked back. I have a ridiculous amount more energy, my gut is way less sensitive and I don't have a tendancy to glaze over after lunch that is only curable by having a latte.

I'm not totally caffeine free, on the odd day that I really need it I'll have a white or green tea, plus there's caffeine in the dark chocolate I occasionally enjoy, but that's one cup and a couple of squares a week max.

Caffeine, refined sugar and alcohol are all addictive and all things that you should definitely not be consuming on a daily basis. If you are then you need to do something about it - don't necessarily go cold turkey, that can backfire massively, but have some plan to cut down.

If you need some motivation on the caffeine front read this blog which nicely lays out the health implications:
http://citygirlbites.com/blog/archives/9489
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Hairy and healthy

2013-04-14T12:22:00.001-07:00

I went round a friends house for dinner over the weekend and she served up a delicious lamb curry. I don't normally choose to cook red meat at home for health reasons and also to keep control of my waistline. But then I found out she got her recipe from the Hairy bikers new diet book The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight
so I was intrigued.

Having pawed over her copy I can tell you i'll be buying this book asap! It's full of simple and yummy looking recipes with clean ingredients lists and I need a new source of foodie inspiration.

I generally prefer healthy recipe books from proper chefs than diet books from unknowns - the professional chefs just won't compromise on flavour so not only will you enjoy your new healthy food, but you can also serve it up to your friends.

The healthy mash

2013-04-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

In my previous job I used to sit on a trading desk ... that was a quick learning curve for a naive graduate straight out of uni!! But a fun one! I had to get used to some colourful language pretty quickly, but these days trading floors seem a much politer place, I certainly don't hear anything like the language I used to.

One place I definitely wouldn't expect to see that kind of language is on Gwyneth Paltrow's blog! The picture of cleaner than clean, I was taken aback by this expletive filled find of hers. If you don't like swearing I should tell you not to read this - but you should read it, it's totally a brilliant - a site that can get you motivated to eat healthiliy and laugh out loud, it's not to be missed.

READ IT!
http://thugkitchen.com/

Some proper staples

2013-04-01T13:03:00.004-07:00

I come from a family of cheese lovers so I generally find it's best to keep my thoughts on dairy to myself when I'm at home, but over Easter the subject got brought up by somebody else and my opinion sought so I gave it.

My family seemed surprised to hear hat dairy was not an essential element of a 'healthy diet' and more over that cheese shouldn't be categorized as a 'staple' food but rather a treat food to be saved for our 20% treat food allowance along with sugar, confectionary, cakes, unhealthy cuts of meat, any processed foods and drinks and alcohol.

I'm not a fan of the 'staple' food label, particularly because it's been used as a brain washing tool by the dairy marketing board and other food lobbies to convince people we all need to have milk and bread every day to be healthy!! Let's be clear once and for all, for an average adult (children and athletes have different nutritional needs that may require more fats), dairy food is not a healthy food and does not need to be eaten to stay healthy and the same applies for refined wheat products (wholewheat does have a place in the diets of the non-wheat intolerant).

However if you want some 'staples' to base your diet on here's my list of staple foods that you should be eating on a regular basis as a foundation of a healthy diet:

brown rice - the ultimate slow burn, B vitamin rich carbohydrate, a million times better for you than white bread or quick cook rice

pulses - often these get overlooked, but pulses are an amazing source of protein, vitamins, minerals and fibre and should be a staple in all our diets, if you eat these every day your heart and gut will thank you later in life

green leafy veg - kings of the vegetables and in the top ten for anti-cancer foods, have a couple of portions every day to live a long and healthy life

berries and cherries - the lowest sugar, highest anti-oxidant fruit out there, berries are the best

fish - especially the oily variety, low in saturated fats, high in protein and rich in essential fats that protect your brain and keep you sane into old age

nuts and seeds - another great source of essential fats, proteins and minerals. Have a sprinkling every day.

Attack of the killer carb cravings

2013-03-27T12:37:00.000-07:00

The busier I get at work the more I crave a really carby dinner like a big plate of pesto pasta.

This is a pretty normal phenomenon in times of stress - when you're stressed you produce more of the stress hormone cortisol. When cortisol levels spike your blood sugar levels rise through releasing glycogen from the muscles and breaking down fat cells. However these spikes are followed by blood sugar lows when your body tries to reduce the blood sugar high by producing insulin. This sugar low is what causes you to crave carbs to get blood sugar levels up again. Eating a large serving of carbs also causes serotonin production making you feel better.

Unfortunately this means people tend to eat sugary and more refined foods when they are stressed when they need more nutritious foods such as veggies + wholegrains. Combined with the increased insulin production this generally leads to weight gain.

When I find myself falling into this trap I enforce these dinner rules to limit the damage and keep my diet balanced.

- firstly I always eat my veggies first either as a salad, soup or a veg juice before my main meal. If you've got a juicer you can easily get your five a day into a glass of juice in 2 minutes and drink it whilst you cook the rest of your dinner. Or instead of a juice have a fruit smoothie but blend in a handful of spinach leaves to increase your greens.

- secondly I make sure my meal includes a portion of protein the size of the palm of my hand. This is really important to regulate blood sugar levels and also to support your thyroid which can become suppressed in times of stress. I then alternate forkfulls of carbs for forkfulls of protein until all the protein is gone. If I really crave pure carbs then I have a protein shake first to tick this off the list.

- only once I've finished my protein can I then eat the rest of my pasta, by which time my appetite has usually regulated.

It takes some discipline not to just go straight to the carbs but this strategy really works making me feel more balanced and alert than when I just go full on carb monster, so it's worth the effort.
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Keeping it clean

2013-03-25T11:45:00.000-07:00

I'm firmly against conventional dieting - calorie counting, weighing portions and having to consult a list before being able to eat anything are not for me. But I am totally for having a food philosophy and following quality based diets where it's all about what you eat rather than how much.

In that vein this lovefood challenge caught my eye as a great way to clean up your diet and shed spare pounds if you have any.

The challenge is to only eat un-processed foods, or do any necessary processing yourself. So no ready meals, biscuits, cakes, bread, pasta, processed meats. Just raw unrefined ingredients - white rice is out, brown or wild rice is in, jars of sauces are out, homemade sauces like last weeks instant marinara are in.

The benefits are two fold, firstly eating this way cuts out so much rubbish from your diet - no sugar, no refined carbs, no fatty processed meats, biscuits, desserts etc. - which will massively improve the nutritional composition of your diet.

Secondly the foods you're left with haven't had all the goodness stripped out of them by processing - the grains are whole with all the fibre and B vitamins that come with their husks, meals are homemade with fresh fruit, veg, meat and fish
so have higher nutrient levels.

It's a tough challenge and whilst it would be amazing for your health to eat like this all the time it's fairly time consuming/impractical. But even if you just think about this for a week when you make your food choices you'll make much better choices and realise how much of our day to day foods are processed.

http://www.lovefood.com/journal/features/20302/not-eating-processed-foods

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A bit of reverse psyhcology

2013-03-21T14:24:00.001-07:00

I went to the gym this evening only to find I'd left my trainers at home! With no yoga class to go to I had to leave without doing any exercise feeling pretty disappointed.

Although this was altogether an annoying experience it did remind me how much I like the gym and made me appreciative of the fact that I can workout.

I think exercise and eating healthily can all too often be seen as a chore giving them a negative connotation. If you see them in this way you're bound to be less motivated and have an inner resistance to them.

But what if you imagined a world where you couldn't exercise and you could only eat processed junk food?

Ok some people may think this is heaven but I'm sure most people can think of some activities and foods they'd miss. I can think of loads - I'd be totally gutted if I couldn't run, cycle, swim, play tennis, go snowboarding. I'd even miss doing weights (I know this as I once had to totally stop exercising for six months and found it very demoralizing).

As for food there are some fruit and veg I could easily live without but loads of healthy food I'd miss terribly - all berries, limes, lemons, tomatoes, new and sweet potatoes, carrots, aubergines, delicious corn on the cob, avocado ... on reflection I'd even miss spinach.

Just making the list and imagining not having these foods is creating a craving for these foods in me just in the same way as you crave chocolate when you go on a diet.

Just take two minutes to jot down everything you'd miss and then turn the list of foods into your next shopping list, you'll find you enjoy your healthy foods with a new enthusiasm.
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A fruity issue

2013-03-19T14:46:00.001-07:00

Fruit is mother natures candy, delicious, sweet and full of good for you nutrients, so it's a bitter pill to swallow if you find out that you can't eat it.

Can't eat fruit? Why wouldn't you be able to?

Well if you have IBS symptoms then there's a chance you may have fructose malabsorption, this is a digestive disorder where your small intestine can't absorb as much fructose as an average person. In not absorbing the fructose it leaves it to pass undigested into the large intestine where it is metabolized by colonic bacteria into short chain fatty acids, producing hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane gases, causing bloating, gas and commonly diarrhoea or urgently.

So how do you know if you have fructose malabsorption?
Well firstly you'll have these symptoms when you eat fruit, but you might be getting these symptoms on and off all the time so it might be hard to isolate. Even if you know it's happening with fruit this is also a common symptom with small intestine overgrowths such as candida. The only conclusive test is a hydrogen breath test using fructose, but you can always just eliminate fruit from your diet for a couple of weeks and seeing if your symptoms improve.

What can you do it if you have it?
Well unfortunately there is no known cure if you have genuine malabsorption other than to avoid fructose. If your symptoms are due to small intestine bacterial overgrowth including candida, you can treat this with antimicrobials, probiotics and a low sugar diet to rebalance your gut flora at which point you should be able to tolerate fructose again.

Apples and pears are the highest in fructose content so most likely to cause symptoms in those with fructose malabsorption, however berries, citrus and ripe bananas are the lowest so may be tolerated. I generally limit my fruit intake to berries, lemons, limes and the odd grapefruit and find that I tolerate these pretty well.

Fructose and fructans are both part of the group of carbohydrates called FODMAPs (Fermentable Oligo-, Di- and Mono-saccharides and Polyols). Therefore if you have an issue with fructose you may also benefit from trying a diet excluding all the FODMAP foods including wheat, pulses, lactose and certain vegetables.

Pasta pronto

2013-03-17T13:06:00.001-07:00

Apologies for the sporadic blogging at the moment, work and life are getting in the way!! I am still here and still blogging, but maybe not every day for the time being!

If you need some daily motivation to keep you on track I really do recommend printing off Hailies monthly day by day health calendar from her excellent blog. Stick it to your fridge or desk and read it every day - her suggestions are super easy and just enough to keep you conscious of what you're eating, drinking and whether you are moving or not.

Anyway back to my blog and some good wholesome food. I was reading up on some research this week and read a summary of some research into ways of lowering unhealthy LDL cholesterol. The study gave participants either an apple, a supplement containing an equivalent level of apple polyphenols or a placebo. What they found was that both those on the supplement and eating the apples had significantly lowered levels whilst those on the placebo had no benefit. What was interesting was that there was a significant benefit above the supplement for those eating the whole apple.

This just provides more evidence as to why we should always look to food first as our primary source of nutrition. Supplements are a great addition to our diets and I honestly wouldn't want to try living without my supplements! But the foundation of health is to be found in whole and healthy foods, which gets me to today's recipe.

I learnt this recipe on the raw food course I did a couple of months back but today I got to try it out on hot doc, my official taste tester, and it passed! I'm happy to admit that I'm pretty lazy in the kitchen and when I'm tired the temptation of reaching for a jar of sacla pasta sauce is strong, but this Marinara sauce recipe is so ridiculously quick and easy (and according to hot doc tastier than the Jamie Oliver version that actually requires some effort) that you just don't have an excuse to ever use sauce out of the jar ever again! It's also full of fresh and nutritious raw herbs and veggies.

For a true raw version put some courgettes through a spiraliser to make some raw veg pasta and stir the sauce through. But it was a cold wintery evening so I stirred this into hot spaghetti (gluten-free for me) and added kidney beans to mine and topped hot docs with the easiest chicken recipe i know.

Raw Marinara sauce:

Put the following in a glass bowl or jar and blend with a hand blender or food processor until it's almost smooth ... that's it!

1 red pepper
1 stalk celery
1/2 cup soaked dried tomatoes (I use Merchant Gourmet as they don't add sugar)
1 cup cherry tomatoes
1 clove garlic (I lightly fried mine first as I can't eat raw garlic)
1/2 a handful of fresh basil leaves
spring fresh rosemary
small bunch of fresh parsley
a sprinkle of sea salt
1-2tbsp olive oil

Intolerant ignorance!

2013-03-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

London is such a great city for many reasons, one being the amazing range and high standard of food available. Fortunately most restaurants are now much more clued in on allergies and intolerances so I can eat out without worrying that I can't be accommodated. However this isn't universal...

Last weekend in a trip to the alps I found myself in an argument with a restaurant manager as to whether rice contained gluten in it! Apparently 'the customer is always right' doesn't apply in France!

Fortunately rice, potatoes, corn quinoa, buckwheat and millet are all gluten free carb choices. Whilst it's rare for a restaurant to stock gluten-free bread, some have gluten-free pasta and it's hard to think of anywhere that couldn't serve you a side of either rice or potatoes if you suggested it.

Clearly I could have saved myself an argument by just asking for rice rather than pasta! But in the end I got my rice (the manager checked with the chef who backed me up!). It did remind me though not to assume that everyone knows what does or doesn't contain gluten and if in doubt to always ask exactly what is included in a dish, this is especially important for anyone with a true allergy. Hopefully over time it will become more normal overseas as well as at home, so anyone trying to eat 'free from' won't have to face an angry restauranteur!

But rice is a grain!

2013-03-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

London is such a great city for many reasons, one of which is the amazing range and high standard of food available.

Fortunately restaurants are also so much more clued in on allergies and intolerances that I rarely have any issues with them accommodating me. However this isn't universal everywhere you go.

Last weekend in a trip across the channel I found myself in an argument with a restaurant manager as to whether rice contained gluten in it! Apparently 'The customer is always right' doesn't apply in France!

Fortunately rice, potatoes, corn, quinoa, buckwheat and millet are all gluten free so there are plenty of carb choices for the gluten intolerant. It is rare for a restaurant to stock gluten-free bread, some have gluten-free pasta, but it's hard to think of a type of restaurant that couldn't serve you a side of rice or potatoes.

Clearly I could have saved myself an argument by just saying that I wanted rice rather than pasta! In the end I got my rice (he checked I was right with the chef!) but it's certainly taught me not to assume that everyone know what does or doesn't contain gluten and if in doubt to check with the chef!
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Super skin

2013-03-07T14:40:00.000-08:00

Birthdays tend to focus the mind on the ageing process and how it's going! Some people like my cousin, have got such naturally fine and soft skin that they never seem to age, but sadly I'm not so lucky and this birthday has definitely brought a couple of extra wrinkles with it!

Luckily for those of us without porcelain skin there is a lot you can do to keep your skin baby soft rather than old and weathered.

Externally it's the usual list, wear spf everyday to stop sun damage, exfoliate and moisturize religiously and don't just take care of your face (a wrinkly neck or hands tend to give your age away!)

Internally it's all about fat and water - your skin is made up of water held in a balloon made of fat. So you need to drink plenty of water and eat healthy fats everyday - oily fish, nuts, seeds, olives and olive oil, avocados etc. If you don't like these or can't manage to eat them regularly get a good EFA supplement and take it every day.

Anything that dehydrates you is therefore the enemy, so caffeine of any form, alcohol and salt should both be avoided to get your skin in top condition.

Also anything that hardens fats will harden your skin cells so to keep it baby soft you need to avoid alcohol and refined sugar. Remember hard skin = wrinkles.

Any exposure to toxins also damages fats and hardens them so smoking, drugs (legal or illegal), food additives and burnt or fried foods are all extremely ageing. I'm sure we all have seen or known people who've aged prematurely from too many cigarettes and glasses of wine.

This is why antioxidants are also so key as they can minimize the damage of toxins on our cells. All fruit and veg are therefore skin friendly, but particularly those with red, orange, purple and blue skins.

For a daily skin checklist have one portion of each (eg a plum, red pepper, sweet potato and blueberries) plus a serving of oily fish or a palmful of seeds, nuts or their oils plus 1.5 litres of water.

This may all sound super vain and respect to those of you who can ignore the endless pressures to look eternally young. But remember that anything that keeps your skin young from the inside is also keeping every other cell young - your heart, your brain, your lungs, liver, kidneys etc will all age slower which means a longer, healthier and happier life - now that isn't so superficial is it?!
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Miss Haribo looks fantastic!

2013-03-06T11:57:00.001-08:00

Miss Haribo here again

I enjoyed Monday's run so much that I decided to go back for more of the Nike flyknit experience. This time it was an event organised by Elle Magazine. As you can imagine all the girls looked fabulous in some pretty fantastic kit. I guess I wasn't alone in wanting to look nice for Paula Radcliffe!

One thing I've noticed in the last few years is a growing availability of gym kit that actually looks nice and doesn't make you look like some hideous 80's lycra addict. I think we have a lot to thank Sweaty Betty and Stella McCartney for Addidas for.

But why does this matter? One thing that got mentioned last night is that often women don't exercise because they are worried about what they look like; other people mentioned that new kit was often the thing that motivated them when they were feeling low. Looking the part gives me confidence. I often go to races looking totally made up for this very reason (ok this is partly because it gives me something to do between paranoid peeing).

Sanya Richards-Ross's mantra is "look good, feel good, run good". And if it's good enough for an Olympic gold medal winner it's good enough for me.

Miss Haribo

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Miss Haribo raves it up

2013-03-05T15:09:00.001-08:00

Miss Haribo here again

Yesterday I went on an absolutely amazing run. It was part of the Nike Flyknit experience at Somerset House (sadly I did not get to keep the fantastic trainers).

As soon as I turned up and found it was being led by rundemcrew, the people responsible for my murder mile sessions, I knew that I was in for a treat. But what a treat! We ran around Somerset house, the South Bank and through the Old Vic tunnels. The route was great enough but we got given giant glow sticks to run with, ?there were DJs at various sports (where we all stopped and had a dance), we sprinted to a man holding a giant flare and as we ran over millennium bridge a huge amount of balloons got released.

Obviously part of this brilliance was aimed at us feeling good about Nike. But, as explained in the Q and A session beforehand, there was another purpose too.......creating happy memories. Training isn't just about training your body. When we are tired during a race or a training session sometimes the thing that gets us through is to bring up a happy memory. In other words you are no longer at mile 17 running through the Isle of Dogs in the rain but running through the park in the sunshine.

So take a break from getting harder, better, faster, stronger and, sometimes, work on creating a happy memory.

Miss Haribo.
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Proper pilates

2013-03-04T13:13:00.002-08:00

Someone stole my trainers in the gym today .... seriously! This is not a cheap gym, anyone who can afford membership there does not need my old, almost worn out, trainers.

Still the outcome, other than having to fork out for a new pair, is that I found myself in a pilates class (the only thing I could think to do sans trainers). I do occasionally do the odd pilates dvd but always find I get bored quite easily - however when you have a very strict teacher standing over you, making sure you don't use lazy technique, it is not only not boring but also really hard!

My stomach muscles didn't know what had hit them and I was way more sweaty than seemed warranted given the tiny muscle movements I was making. It made me super aware that our bodies are not some simple construct, we have so many muscles we're not even aware of and most of us don't know how to hold them properly when we sit, stand or move.

Despite my remedial class, I still find myself slouched on the sofa right now, but it has made me resolved to be more conscious of my posture and how I'm holding myself instead of just being so caught up in my own thoughts that I lose awareness of my body.

Good posture isn't just good for your bones and muscles, it is also good for overall health creating space for you to breathe properly and encouraging proper circulation, rather than limiting the flow of blood and lymph to and from certain areas. Just try sitting tall and taking a few deep breaths when you feel tired at work and you'll instantly feel more awake. Therefore if you slouch you're impairing your immunity, cardiovascular system, metabolism and detoxification amongst other things. It's time to start sitting tall ... and going to pilates classes more often!

Food fatigue

2013-03-03T13:35:00.004-08:00

Waiting for spring to arrive is always a painful experience. This is most obviously due to waiting for the weather to warm up (and for me getting bored of my winter clothes!) but there's another food related reason this period of year is a bit of a drag and that is that there's very little food in season so most of our fruit and veg isn't as flavoursome as it should be, having travelled thousands of miles to our supermarkets.

Love Food have put together some brilliant seasonal fruit and veg calendars (link at the end of the article below) to help you eat in season, which are worth printing out and putting in your kitchen. You'll see from them that February and March have the least number of food options for any time of ear.
http://www.lovefood.com/journal/opinions/14771/foods-in-season-in-march.

Eating locally grown food is the most environmentally friendly choice and usually the shorter the distance your food has travelled the higher the nutrient content, but when your only options are cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower (ok there are a few more than that!) you can be forgiven for not being inspired in the kitchen.

Boredom is a healthy diets worst enemy, leading to eating convenience or comfort foods. So whilst the end of winter is dragging on I actually positively encourage you go out and buy some fruit and veg that you haven't had for the last couple of months without concern for where it's come from - the changing flavours will wake up your taste buds and inspire a new interest in using healthy fresh ingredients.

Ban the baristas!

2013-02-28T12:23:00.004-08:00

Apologies for the lack of blogs this week ... it was my birthday on Tuesday so I've been busy celebrating!
The party isn't quite over ... but I just wanted to blog about this article I spotted in the daily mail - obviously the source of all reputable health advice ;-)

It's about whether caffeine should be banned or not - which might sound crazy to you, but if you consume enough caffeine it could hypothetically kill you and it is an addictive drug for which some people have had to have professional rehab treatment - seriously!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2285854/Caffeine-dangerous-regulated-like-alcohol-cigarettes-warns-leading-expert.html

If we all wanted to live as healthily as possible we would never have any caffeine, alcohol or refined sugar. But for alot of people that would take alot of fun out of life too!! I'm also pretty liberal at heart so I'm not hugely in favour of banning things, but I do think there isn't enough awareness around the fact that alcohol and caffeine are both drugs and with that comes some significant health implications. Certainly if you find it hard to go a day without one of these it should be a warning that your body has adapted to the drug and it's time to take a break.

Early birds

2013-02-25T13:52:00.001-08:00

I was asked a good question over the weekend, something I'm sure most of us have suffered with at one point or another so I thought I'd answer it on the blog.

The question was what can be done to avoid early waking. This is where you wake up in the small hours, say 4-6am and can't get back to sleep, even though you need to. So if you went to bed at 8pm and woke up at 6am that doesn't count!

Firstly are you being woken up by noise or temperature or light? A change in any of these can easily wake you up. I have blackout blinds and usually sleep with earplugs for this very reason.

Next question is did you / do you eat your dinner late? Eating less then 3hours before bed will mean you go to sleep without completing digestion which can cause sleep disturbances. If you have to eat late then avoid meat and cheese and you'll probably sleep better.

Did you have any caffeine during the day? This is probably super obvious to all of you but I am still surprised by how many people don't realise that taking a drug designed to make you feel more alert would disrupt your sleep patterns. If you have any sleep problems I'd recommend cutting out coffee altogether as a minimum, but in general avoid caffeine after midday.

Were you dehydrated? Your body will wake you up if it needs anything so make sure you're hydrated. But don't make the mistake I sometimes make of forgetting to drink all afternoon, drinking lots in the evening and then waking up in the night to use the bathroom! Make sure you drink throughout the day so your pee is only the faintest yellow colour before you go to bed.

Did you have any alcohol? This really affects me. I rarely drink these days but whether I have 1 drink or 3 I always wake up early the next day instead of being able to sleep it off.

One of the reasons alcohol can cause early waking is that alcohol is a fast burning sugar, so can give you a sugar high but be followed by a blood sugar crash. If you're blood sugar drops too low your body produces adrenaline and cortisol to raise them to a safe level, but unfortunately their production also wakes you up.

This is why stress and poor food choices can also lead to disturbed sleep. Stress can mess up your pattern of producing cortisol, making you tired at night and alert during the day, whilst also disregulating your blood sugar.

Eating a dinner that isn't big enough or has a high glycemic index and/or insufficient protein can lead to blood sugar drops during the night. That's why choosing wholegrains such as brown rice, quinoa or bulgar wheat is so important in the evening, along with fibre rich vegetables to slow digestion even more add in some fish, tofu or pulses for some healthy protein, leave a couple of hours to digest before you go to bed and you should sleep through.

For anyone who has to eat early for work, childcare or other reasons then a tactical snack 90 minutes before bedtime should do the trick, have a protein shake or natural yoghurt with a banana + some seeds, or some oatcakes with hummous or no sugar peanut butter and you should be sustained through til morning.
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A tale of two evenings

2013-02-21T14:40:00.001-08:00

Last night I had a late one, out with work colleagues til gone midnight. Today I bumped into a friend of mine had a similarly late night with clients and we compared notes.

Despite not going to bed til 1am I felt surprisingly alert today and was pretty productive, whilst my friend was having one of those days you have to drag yourself through, counting down the minutes to home time. So what was the difference?

The first and most obvious one is that I didn't drink any alcohol. I appreciate that for some of you the idea of a sober night out is too hideous for words, but if you've ever been forced to do it for any length of time due to medication, pregnancy or illness you'll know that it is possible to have just as much fun sober and sometimes even have a better time than if you drank (alcohol is a depressive drug).

Infact I wasn't the only one, a couple of other colleagues were on the soft drinks and no one batted an eyelid so I think the sober stigma is disappearing.

The absence of alcohol does make you sleep better and not be hungover, but also if you are matching your drinking partners drink for drink with water, as I was, you'll end the evening thoroughly hydrated so will wake less dehydrated than usual and therefore with more energy.

Obviously with an evening that long you have to eat. Fortunately we ordered food early on, but the mains were way too stodgy for my tastes so instead I ordered a couple lighter of appetiser dishes to snack on.

My friend unfortunately had to eat a three course dinner at 10pm which is less than ideal and meant he didn't sleep well. Eating that much rich food that late means you'll go to bed with a half full stomach and won't detox properly overnight. If you do have to eat late go for a vegetarian non-cheese option, as meat and cheese takes the most time to digest.

As per yesterdays blog, staying healthy whilst maintaining an active social life is totally doable, you don't have to become an anti-social hermit to keep to a healthy regime.

It just takes a bit of adapting and being mindful of the effect of your choices on your body. You also have to accept your limitations. Now I'm in my thirties I know I can't party like I used to - one 1am bed time a week is fine, but two nights in a row and I'd feel as rough as my friend did!
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