We all vary in the foods we like, how much we need to eat, and when we like to eat. It is also normal for us to experiment with different eating habits, for example trying a vegetarian diet or maybe cutting out wheat for a period to see the effect on our health and how it makes us feel. However, when food is used to help us cope with painful situations or feelings, then eating patterns can become damaging. For example, food may be used to help someone cope during a time of feeling depressed, lonely, ashamed or as a way to control their environment and manage external pressures and expectations. Whilst we can all relate to the idea of comfort eating and restrictive eating, for people with an eating disorder, thoughts of food, eating, weight and shape encompass every aspect of their life.

Having an eating disorder is a lonely existence and is associated with many health problems. There is no single cause as to why eating disorders develop, but they are associated with a combination of many factors, events, feelings and pressures which lead to the individual feeling unable to cope. Controlling food intake therefore becomes a coping strategy, but as the disorder develops it takes control of the individual’s life. The media often glamorises eating disorders with dramatic weight loss, size zero and speculation of ‘near anorexic’ celebrities making the front pages of glossy magazines. The reality, however, is that anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and other eating disorders are complex mental illnesses caused by psychological distress. A person does not choose to develop an eating disorder, just like someone does not choose depression.

1.6 million people in the UK are estimated to have an eating disorder, and anorexia has the highest mortality rate for any psychiatric condition. People with eating disorders, but who do not have enough of the features common in anorexia or bulimia, are termed as having an Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS), and EDNOS make up the largest group of eating disorder sufferers. Other eating disorders include binge eating disorder and compulsive overeating. You cannot tell if someone has an eating disorder by their shape and size alone, as many are of normal weight – the real pain of an eating disorder is on the inside.

Research shows that eating disorders are becoming more and more common. It is therefore particularly important that people are aware of the facts about eating disorders and what help is available to them and their loved ones. At The Nutrition Coach we work with those suffering with eating disorders to improve their relationship with food and to help them to find their way out of the cycles of disordered eating. Taking the first steps to get help can be extremely difficult, but seeking help is the first step to recovery. Food plays an important part in all our lives and we are here to help people develop a balanced, happy relationship with food, so that they can live life to the full.

BEAT (http://www.b-eat.co.uk/Home) is the UK leading charity on eating disorders and initiator or eating disorder awareness week.

Kate Cook helps people deal with their diet, digestion and stress.
Contact 0845 0502442 or kate@thenutritioncoach.co.uk

Dim Sum: Literally meaning ‘to touch your heart’ dim sum, the ’small eats’ are originally a Cantonese custom and are inextricably linked to the Chinese tradition of “yum cha” or drinking tea (and that’s not PG tips I’m talking but plenty of healthy antioxidant rich green tea). Teahouses sprung up to accommodate weary travellers journeying along the famous Silk Road. Rural farmers, exhausted after long hours working in the fields, would also head to the local teahouse for an afternoon of tea and relaxing conversation. And if you go for the steamed and not the deep fried version you can enjoy some tantalizing healthy ’small eats’ and you should know by now that I always encourage eating ’small’ and if you do it while sipping a cup of green tea to relax instead of coffee you might dream of being in China instead of stuck in front of your computer.

Ginger and Garlic: These two ingredients are integral to Asian cooking. The unique tang of fresh ginger is used in everything from stews to stir-fried dishes, while the pungent flavour of garlic is featured in meals throughout China. If you are not using these two ingredients in your kitchen yet, it is time to start experimenting and some more flavour to your foods and dish up a nice ginger chicken or Chinese stir fry. Adding these to your diet will also mean you are adding some health promoting properties, as both of these two foods are thought to have medicinal properties and garlic provides you with anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties.

Tea: Brits are tea drinkers but unfortunately that’s mostly stimulating black tea and not relaxing herbal tea. I think it’s time to swap the black tea for some of the health promoting tea and tea drinking customs derived from the Chinese culture e.g. consuming tea as a sign of respect, to apologise or to connect large families on wedding days (I wonder how this would go down with the in-laws).

Kate Cook helps people deal with their diet, digestion and stress
Contact us
kate@thenutritioncoach.co.uk

Our bodies have natural cleansing cycles when they want a lighter diet and more liquid intake. This occurs on a daily basis, and also in tune with the yearly cycle and seasonal change. This makes spring a particularly good time for a detox, as it is a time associated with renewal and freshness before the summer months. A spring detox is therefore an ideal way to rejuvenate the body and mind, and improves energy and mood, aids weight loss, clears the skin and improves digestion.
So, why do we need to detox? Put simply, toxins that we’re exposed to damage the normal functioning of our cells, and therefore prevent us from reaching optimal health. We are exposed to an array of toxins on a day to day basis, and with approximately 4000 chemicals used in food production our food can be a major source.
Toxins we consume include preservatives, artificial colourings and flavourings, pesticides, fertilisers, antibiotics, growth enhancers, caffeine and alcohol. As the majority of these are relatively new man-made substances it’s not surprising that our body isn’t designed to process them, and overtime can leave us with fatigue, headaches, skin problems, cellulite, digestive problems and weakened immunity.
If this sounds familiar, give your body a well deserved spring cleanse. Experience the benefits of increased health, energy and vitality by following our top ten tips:

1. Start the day with a cleansing mug of hot water with ¼ squeezed lemon, slice of root ginger and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
2. Eat a fruit-based breakfast, such as stewed or fresh fruit salad with natural yoghurt and ground seeds, or a freshly made protein smoothie.
3. Avoid black tea, coffee and alcohol and replace with herbal tea, such as nettle to support the kidneys, or dandelion root coffee to aid liver function. It’s important to stay well hydrated, so drink at least 1.5 litre of water daily. Fresh juices, such as carrot, beetroot, apple and cucumber are also fantastically nourishing and cleansing so aim to drink one fresh juice daily – ideally on an empty stomach for maximum benefit.
4. Avoid all processed and prepared foods – this really means anything that has been manufactured and comes in a packet e.g. ready meals, savoury snacks, biscuits. Instead eat food in its natural unprocessed state and cook by steaming, lightly boiling or poaching rather than frying.
5. Chose organic food over non-organic food to minimise your intake of toxic pesticides.
6. Eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables per day, aiming for more (ideally nine!). For lunch and dinner, cover at least 60% of your plate with vegetables and eat as much variety of colours as possible, aiming to cover the whole spectrum of the rainbow.
7. Avoid wheat (e.g. in bread, pasta, pastries and biscuits) and replace with wheat-free alternatives such as brown rice, buckwheat noodles, quinoa, rye bread and oat cakes.
8. Eat snacks, but replace sugary treats such as chocolate and cake with supportive foods such as fresh fruit, vegetable sticks with houmous , half an avocado or mixed seeds.
9. Reduce consumption of animal products. Avoid dairy products, except natural live yoghurt, and replace milk with soya or nut milks. Avoid processed and fatty meats and replace with fish, eggs, lentils, beans, tempeh (fermented tofu), quinoa, seeds and nuts as good protein alternatives.
10. Incorporate lifestyle factors into your regime to support the process: get a good nights sleep, take a yoga class, treat yourself to a massage or sauna, try dry skin brushing before showering and use natural organic skin products.

Contact The Nutrition Coach for more info 0845 050 2442

1. Low levels of iron

2. Poor diet – low in nutrients, including essential fats

3. Not enough water

4. Not enough sleep or poor quality sleep

5. Infections – or recovery from infections

6. Thyroid function

7. Too much exercise/not enough exercise

8. Recovery from infection/virus

One other area nutritional therapist might consider is adrenal function – The adrenals glands are where your stress hormones come from and allow you to cope with stress. Medically low adrenal function is not recognised only a complete lack of hormone is recognised as a medical condition and is really rare (Addison’s disease) – although President Kennedy suffered and managed to cover it up successfully.

It is possible that your adrenal glands can get tired, if you have been under stress for a number of years without respite. It means that the production of cortisol (flight and fight hormone) is reduced – you do need stress hormones to feel energetic and to cope with the stress that is thrown at us. There are many ways to look after the adrenal glands:

1. Get to bed early – 10.00pm would be ideal

2. Eat a diet that balances your energy across the day (low GI diet would be ideal)

3. Take time for relaxation – breathing is important

4. Take time for exercise – but make sure that you don’t over do it if you are tired. Try yoga/pilates too

5. Make sure you are taking your holidays

6. Draw your boundaries at work – make sure that you get home at a decent time

How do you know if you have adrenal fatigue? Come and talk to a nutritional therapist at The Nutrition Coach to find out more – 0845 0502442

Contact us

Find out more about our Dump The Diet (Weight Loss) Course – Ring 0845 050 2442

Londonnutritionist

There is so much in the media about food intolerance. Is it myth or reality?

What is food intolerance? Food intolerance is when it seems that the very food we are eating is not agreeing with our system. It could be that syptoms of bloating, gas, wind and pain appear when eating certain food groups. It can be that the food is almost giving the symptoms of a hangover where you feel rough for a few day. Many people get aching joints or syptoms of a foggy head.

Certainly our diets have changed to an unrecognisable degree from around the 1960’s onwards – our ancient selves would not be familiar with a lot of what we eat now-a-days, from bagels, to crisps to ice-cream to smoothies! The most stunning difference in the diet from even when I was a child is the amount of wheat products we eat. Our first meal of the day is often a sugar loaded breakfast cereal (wheat) then a snack of a biscuit (wheat) and then lunch of a sandwich (wheat) and then a dinner of pasta (wheat). If we eat the same thing over and over without variation it is possible that we set up food intolerances. The trick is to keep the diet really varied – rye, kamut (!), brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat are just a few of the hundreds of different grains that are available.

Generally I find that rather than the food intolerance being something that has caused symptoms the food intolerance is the symptom of something else that is going on in the bowel. Bacterial, yeast or parasitic activity in the bowel can make it more likely that you will react to certain foods. These types of organisms can make the gut “leaky” where larger than nomal semi-digested food molecules escape through the gut wall and directly into the system. Thus it is not just about the foods you are eating (although if you are reacting it does seem sensible not to eat it!) but about what might be exacerbating the symptoms.

I find it fascinating how the bowel can be so linked up to how you are dealing with stress for example. Being more stressed can make you seem like you are reacting to foods as the relationship between the gut and cortisol (stress hormones) can lower your inherent gut immunity.

In summary for sure, identifying what might be causing is the key – but that might be a combination of the foods you are eating and making sure your digestive tract is working optimally to digest and absorp that food.

Contact us for a free 15 minute chat on the phone about how we might help your digestive issues.

Sometimes, the diet can be contrubing to the symptoms.  One of my bete noirs is our horrible British bread.  I am on a mission to change our bread eating habits.  Our bread is generally packaged bread and full of other ingredients than you would expect to find in a loaf of bread.  This squishy, yeasty, substance often does not help people with already a lot of fermentation going on in their guts.

Often the cause can be down to parasitic/bacterial/or yeast infection (for which we conduct lab tests).  The medical profession do not recognise this more functional idea of health.  Doctors are only diagnosing pathology (ie when there is something seriously wrong with the bowel)

Stress can contribute to the lowering of gut function and inflammation in the bowel (due to the nature of stress hormones on “gut immunity”) – so often solving IBS is more down to a holistic approach, where a bunch of contributing factors are considered.

IBS should be looked at in context of  each and every person – not just assuming that everyone’s symptoms are the same or come from the same cause.  Look at the person, do the necessary tests, and then make recommendations on the basis of that person’s unique case-history.

Contact us IBS clinic

In a “real diet” all the time you are thinking about how much weight you are NOT losing and how you are failing.  The Dump The Diet course is not letting you off the hook – far from it there are Rules to follow (just like everything in life that works.  You have to follow rules to make anything a success) but unlike diets in Dump The Diet there is enough flexibility for the regime to be for life and not just a short spurt.

Normal diets don’t work for just this reason – ie it is a short spurt.  You can do anything for a short enough space of time – so you “stick” to it for a week, a month or even a year but sooner or later you have got to crack and when you do it opens up the possibility of instead of being totally strict to go totally bonkers and eat everything in sight.  You can get all the special food in but what happens the first time you go on a business trip and you don’t have the “special foods” prescribed in the diet – oh no..crash and burn and “failure”

Diets encourage you to be “good” (ie not to get off the sacred dieting path)  but remember if we can be good – boy oh boy can we be BAD and when we do it is spectacular.  We say to ourselves that we will start again on Monday but Monday never seems to be the right day to start.  If we are not being bad we are rewarding ourselves with little “treats” – once we have had the treat we feel bad.  “Oh Well” we say,  if I have had one Jaffa cake – I might as well finish the packet to neaten it up and so I don’t have to have them in the house!

Another diet deception is the weighing scale.  We are encouraged to set ourselves Weight Loss Goals in normal diets – this is madness!  Once you get to your weight loss goal you stop applying the diet and of course the weight piles back on and you are back to where you were before.   Weighing yourself is OK if the weight is going down, but of course it can’t go down forever or you would fade away.  So one fateful day the scales start to go up a pound or two.  At this point there is a major panic that “you are losing the ability to lose weight”  and that it is not working anymore.  Of course weight will fluctuate but you can’t really accept this if you are in “dieting mentality”  – you only want it to go down.  So you get back on the scales just to make sure that you haven’t made some horrible mistake but the scales still seem to say that you are 2 pounds heavier.  You fiddle with the dial.  You get off and undress.  You take off your jewellery including your wedding ring.  You take a trip to the loo.  Well that got one pound off..phew.

A major theme is self-esteem.  We have to learn to live with ourselves just the way we are NOW.   We are were we are at in this moment (a bit philosophical this bit!)  – but so often we are only going to be happy WHEN.  When we are thin…we will buy that new dress, get that new relationship off the ground,  get the new job.  I would encourage you all to look in the mirror and only look for the good bits don’t focus on the future you by criticising ourselves constantly.  We wouldn’t talk to our worst enemy the way we talk to ourselves.

Be good to yourself this coming year and learn how to eat for life and in the process learn how to relax and see food as a wonderful friend!

With the reduced daylight hours and the sun setting by mid-
afternoon, November can be a mellow month.

It’s tempting to want to warm ourselves up and boost our spirits by reaching for traditional comfort foods.  Unfortunately these tend to be stodgy, high-fat foods that do little for boosting our mood and actually make us feel worse in the long run.  If this sounds familiar and you suffer from the winter blues or Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), it’s all the more important to eat well to ensure that you’re getting enough mood-boosting nutrients.  Try following our top mood food tips to keep you feel merry in the run-up to Christmas:

1. Aim to include oily fish, such as salmon, sardines and mackerel into your diet two to three times per week, and have a handful of seeds or nuts (walnuts and hemp seeds are ideal) per day.  These foods are rich in omega 3 fats which help build receptor sites for ‘the happy hormone’, serotonin.
2. Include foods that are rich in the amino acid tryptophan in the diet, such as fish, chicken, turkey, oats, eggs, cheese and beans.  This is because tryptophan is needed to produce serotonin.
3. Eat complex carbohydrates such as oats, brown rice, rye bread, pulses and vegetables.  These help to stabilise blood sugar level fluctuations which can cause mood swings and depression.  They are also rich in brain boosting nutrients such as B vitamins, zinc and magnesium.
4. Always start the day with a good breakfast.  Ideal options include eggs on rye toast, sugar-free muesli with seeds and berries, porridge or sourdough toast with nut butter.
5. Eat three meals a day and a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack.  Eating little and often helps prevent large dips in blood sugar levels and can leave you feeling low.  Ideal snacks included a Satsuma with a palm of walnuts, a handful of cranberries and almonds and vegetable crudités with bean dip.
6. Aim to eat some protein with every meal, such as eggs, fish, chicken, pulses, nuts, seeds and red meat but in moderation.  Protein is vital for good brain health and for maintaining blood sugar levels.
7. Avoid artificial stimulants including sugar, refined carbohydrates and caffeine as these play havoc with blood sugar levels and lead to low mood.  This includes white bread, pasta, cakes, many breakfast cereals, chocolate, coffee, alcohol and fizzy drinks.  Diets based on refined foods can reduce your levels of nutrients such as zinc, magnesium and the B vitamins which are vital for good brain health.
8. Avoid food additives, such as artificial sweeteners, preservatives, flavourings and eat organic food where possible.  Artificial additives and heavy metals can act as brain toxins and affect brain health.
9. Food intolerances can play a part in depression and therefore it may be worth seeking advice from a nutritional therapist to identify the culprit foods.
10. Get outside in the natural daylight as much as possible, aiming to spend at least 30 minutes outside daily.  It may is also worth investing in some ‘full spectrum’ lighting.  These light bulbs have the same quality of light as the sun and have been shown to be helpful in overcoming SAD.

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The first thing we did was improve her diet – she had got into the habit of grabbing a muffin and a coffee on the way into work, and sometimes not eating again until 4.00pm!  I get her to eat breakfast!  I do this a lot with patients and in over 10 years of practice – I think I have seen just a handful of patients having a really proper start to the day.

She told me a bit about her life – she had recently been made redundant but had found another job quickly but had gone through a period of real worry and stress – she was trying to compensate in her new job by being extra diligent and putting in loads of extra hours of hard work.

I got her to do 2 biochemical tests – An adrenal stress index (which tells us how her stress hormones are affecting her gut) and a gut test to see what the function of her gut was like.

When she came back after a month – her IBS (irritable bowel) was a lot better but still giving her problems – but as we had her test results back I was really expecting to find what the problems was from them.  We found that the gut test showed that she had a very common parasite called Blastocystis hominis, and a bacterial infection called Klebsiella, very low gut immunity and an inherent problem with gluten.  Her friendly bacteria were also very low. Her adrenal profile showed that her stress hormones were very low (exhausted) and she was unable to cope with the amount of stress in her life.

The test we use showed that gluten was a problem and so before dealing with the parasite or bacterial infections – I got her to slowly change her diet.  I gave her a course of probiotics too.  Then we dealt with the infections with herbal intervention.  We only have about a 60% chance of getting rid of the Blasto but luckily she responded well to the herbs and when we retested it showed that this tricky customer had gone.

More importantly Sarah is feeling a lot better – no pain and better energy.  As the Blasto can cause constipation, getting rid of it has made her whole digestion function better.