The Nutrition Coach Blog London Nutritionist The Nutrition Coach offers advice on healthy living, nutrition and diet issues such as IBS, bloating, gluten intolerance and more.

DISCIPLINE

The price of excellence is discipline.
The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.

• Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
• We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.
• All disciplines affect each other. Mistakenly the man says, “This is the only area where I let down.” Not true. Every let down affects the rest. Not to think so is naive.
• Discipline is the foundation upon which all success is built. Lack of discipline inevitably leads to failure.
• Discipline has within it the potential for creating future miracles.
• The best time to set up a new discipline is when the idea is strong.
• One discipline always leads to another discipline.
• Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.
• You don’t have to change that much for it to make a great deal of difference. A few simple disciplines can have a major impact on how your life works out in the next 90 days, let alone in the next 12 months or the next 3 years.
• The least lack of discipline starts to erode our self-esteem.

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Active Listening

Hearing and listening are not the same thing. Hearing is the act of perceiving sound. It is involuntary and simply refers to the reception of aural stimuli. Listening is a selective activity which involves the reception and the interpretation of aural stimuli. It involves decoding the sound into meaning.Listening is divided into two main categories: passive and active. Passive listening is little more that hearing. It occurs when the receiver or the message has little motivation to listen carefully, such as music, story telling, television, or being polite.

People speak at 100 to 175 words per minute, but they can listen intelligently at 600 to 800 words per minute (WPM). Since only a part of our mind is paying attention, it is easy to go into mind drift – thinking about other things while listening to someone. The cure for this is active listening – which involves listening with a purpose.

It may be to gain information, obtain directions, understand others, solve problems, share interest, see how another person feels, show support, etc. It requires that the listener attends to the words and the feelings of the sender for understanding.

It actually takes the same amount or more energy than speaking. It requires the receiver to hear the various messages, understand the meaning, and then verify the meaning by offering feedback. The following are a few traits of active listeners:

• Spends more time listening than talking.
• Do not finish the sentence of others.
• Do not answer questions with questions.
• Are aware of biases. We all have them…we need to control them.
• Never daydreams or become preoccupied with their own thoughts when others talk.
• Lets the other speaker talk. Does not dominate the conversation.
• Plans responses after the other person has finished speaking…NOT while they are speaking.
• Provides feedback, but does not interrupt incessantly.
• Analyzes by looking at all the relevant factors and asking open-ended questions. Walks the person through your analysis (summarize).
• Keeps the conversation on what the speaker says…NOT on what interests them.
• Takes brief notes. This forces them to concentrate on what is being said.

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An essential step in balancing female hormones is avoiding exposure to xenoestrogens.  Xenoestrogens are oestrogen-like chemicals found in plastics, some chemicals and pesticides and have an effect on hormonal balance.  In the wild this has been clearly demonstrated with some fish, for example, now growing both male and female sex organs.  A number of steps can be taken to avoid additional exposure to xenoestrogens, and a detox programme can help to eliminate those already stored in the body that may be contributing to your health problems (e.g. PMS, endometriosis, fibroids). 

To avoid exposure to xenoestrogens try to:

1. Eat organic food wherever possible to avoid consuming pesticides

2. Avoid heating food in plastic containers

3. Avoid storing food wrapped in plastic, especially fatty food such as cheese, meat or oily fish

4. Use natural organic skincare products

5. Use natural cleaning products

It’s also important to make sure have enough fibre in your diet and cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli and cabbage to help eliminate xenoestrogens.

Find out more about how a detox diet can help balance hormones, or contact us to make an appointment at one of our London nutrition clinics.

Julia

Part of your brain is known as the Reticular Activating System or RAS. Your RAS plays a vital part in your ability to achieve goals.

Imagine that you’re walking through a busy noise airport passenger terminal. Think of all the noise – hundreds of people talking, music, announcements, luggage carriers. How much of this noise is brought to your attention? Not a lot. True, you can hear a general background noise, but not many of us bother to listen to each individual sound.

But then a new announcement comes over the public address system – saying your name or maybe your flight. Suddenly your attention is full on. Your RAS is the automatic mechanism inside your brain that brings relevant information to your attention.

Your reticular activating system is like a filter between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. It takes instructions from your conscious mind and passes them on to your subconscious. For example, the instruction might be, “listen out for anyone saying my name“.
There are some interesting points about your reticular activating system that make it an essential tool for achieving goals.

First, you can deliberately program the reticular activating system by choosing the exact messages you send from your conscious mind. For example, you can set goals, or say affirmations, or visualize your goals. Napoleon Hill said that we can achieve any realistic goal if we keep on thinking of that goal, and stop thinking any negative thoughts about it. Of course, if we keep thinking that we can’t achieve a goal, our subconscious will help us – not achieve it.

Second, your reticular activating system cannot distinguish between ‘real events’ and ’synthetic’ reality. In other words it tends to believe whatever message you give it. Imagine that you’re going to be giving a speech. You can practice giving that speech by visualizing it in your mind. This ‘pretend’ practice should improve your ability to give the speech.

What we need to do is to create a very specific picture of our goal in our conscious mind. The RAS will then pass this on to our subconscious – which will then help us achieve the goal. It does this by bringing to our attention all the relevant information which otherwise might have remained as ‘background noise’.

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There have been new weight loss programmes for as long as I can remember.  However, I’m really excited to be telling you about one that I think will stand apart from many of the rest.

The programme has been developed by nutritionists and doctors in Germany, and is now being brought over to the UK. It’s all about stabilising your insulin metabolism and getting you to burn fat instead of storing it. All well and good, but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before!

So what’s the difference? I have been trialling the diet on some of my clients, friends and myself with great results. The weight is coming off, and it’s staying off, and no one is going hungry. And it’s all happening pretty quickly too – a colleague of mine lost a stone in about 3 weeks, and a client of mine lost 2 stones in less than 2 months.

It is based on an individual programme that is constructed based on a set of measurements and blood test results.  It aims to re-set your metabolism, making you burn fat instead of storing it.  Unlike simple calorie restriction diets, this one really works on re-booting your metabolism, and therefore the results last, rather than getting you yet another yo-yo diet band-wagon.

So watch this space for further announcements, and if you are interested, get in touch with me!

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY

Four simple truths about memory:

1. It is normal to forget.
2. You can remember more and retain more for a longer period of time than you probably think you can.
3. A few memory aids that many people have found useful may work for you.
4. The best memory technique may be one you create for yourself, one that corresponds to your learning style.

Top 10 tips

The following is a list of strategies that have worked for many people:

1. Decide to remember. Resist passivity. Become an active learner by making a conscious, deliberate decision to remember. Follow through on this decision.
2. Combine memorizing with a physical activity. Each sense that you use while reviewing provides another pathway for information to reach your brain. Recite either silently or aloud, while riding a bicycle, while doing aerobics or calisthenics (floor exercises like sit-ups and jumping jacks), and while walking or running. Feel good about yourself for keeping fit and for exercising your mind.
3. Use mnemonics. Mnemonics are tricks, games, or rhymes that help you remember things. You learned some as a child—“In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”
4. Use acronyms. An acronym is a word formed by the first letters of other words or items that you want to remember. For example, “TEAM” is an acronym for –
   “Together Everyone Achieves More”.
5. Associate to remember. Association is the process of connecting new information that you want to remember to something that you already know. An association is often
   personal. For example, use something personal to you to remember something unrelated. A friends name or a place you know can be used to trigger the association.
6. Visualize. Form an image, or picture, in your mind of something that you want to remember. Visualization is an especially good way to link names with places or parts with locations. Draw things on a board or in a book that will remind you of the thing you need to remember rather than listing in words what needs to be remembered.
7. Use an organizational technique. Organize information in a meaningful pattern that shows how each item relates to the others. List steps in a process. Outline complex
   materials. Make charts, diagrams, and information maps that show the relationships of parts to a whole or one part to another.
8. Sleep on it. Reviewing before sleep helps you retain information. Because you are relaxed, concentration is focused. The information stays in your mind while you sleep. When you awaken, try to recall what you reviewed the night before. Chances are good that you will remember.
9. Remember key words. Sometimes you have to remember a series of connected ideas and explanations. To recall items stated in phrases or sentences, select a key word to two in each item that sums up the whole phrase. Recalling key words will help you recall the whole item.
10. Memorize. Useful for recalling certain kinds of information, memorization can be an effective tool if it is combined with other memory techniques. Memorization works best when recalling spelling, definitions, maths and facts about historical events, life cycles, etc.

Remember: A flexible memory system is best. The basic elements of successful memory work also include the following:

• Be organized. Information that is organized is easier to find.
• Be physical. Learning is an active process. Get all of your senses involved.
• Be clear. You can reduce the background noise that may interfere with recall.
• Be smart. Intelligent application of memory techniques can save work.

Your memory is a muscle.. if you exercise it, it will become bigger and stronger… Exercise your memory daily…

By improving your memory, you can find greater success in your career and in your personal life.

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