Nutrition is such an important pillar of our overall health and wellbeing, and yet we don’t always mindfully think about the food we put in our bodies. If we put substandard, processed, toxic fuel in our cars, could we reasonably expect the engine to run optimally? In the same way, if we put highly refined, processed food, laden with additives, preservatives, toxic pesticides and chemicals, into our body, why should we expect it to function at its best?
There is so much contradictory information on what we should, and shouldn’t be eating, and so the confusion is totally justified and understandable. As a nutritional therapist and health coach, my aim is to empower and educate my clients, to give them to knowledge about good nutrition so that can make informed choices themselves.
The Power of Food
Food is not just a source of energy – food is INFORMATION, containing instructions that affect every biological function in the body.
The food on our plate has the power to fight disease, prevent disease and even affect genetic expression. The food we eat affects the expression of our genes, which ones get triggered to cause or prevent disease. Which genes become active and which remain latent. Food influences our hormones, our brain chemistry, our immune system, our gut bacteria and our metabolism. It is one of the most powerful choices we can make every day in order to influence our health.
We may not be able to choose our genes, but we can choose what passes our lips
However, it’s not as simple as just eating the right foods. It’s also about being mindful of how we eat it, who we eat it with, when we eat it, what we think, who we surround ourselves with and how we speak to ourselves. This is the emotional and mental side of nutrition which links to the physical. We aren’t separated into mind and body. We are a whole being and both sides need to be taken into account. We don’t “have” a soul. We “are” a soul and we have a body. The magic happens when we listen to both!
Our Relationship with Food
We all have a relationship with food – and the ideal its to make this a healthy relationship that is balanced on a physical and emotional level.
My experience with clients is that much of what we eat has little to do with actually nourishing our body. Instead it can be to reward ourselves after a great achievement in our day, or to punish ourselves for something we haven’t done well, even from feelings of guilt. We use food in an emotional way, or we eat when we’re bored, when we are lonely, or to fill an emptiness inside.
On top of this we have food available to us that is highly processed, extremely addictive, and hyper palatable. It’s designed to be addictive, to hit that sweet spot and contain the perfect combination of salt, sugar and fat to get our taste buds excited and hit the reward centres in our brain that are usually associated with heroine. So it’s no surprise that willpower isn’t always enough to divert us away from this highly addictive processed, convenient food – and towards the whole foods packed with nutrients, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that our body absolutely needs. All this needs to be taken into account when working out food and lifestyle plans.
Bespoke approach as we are all biochemically individual
We then need to consider ourselves physically. Food behaves differently in everyone’s body, and this is known as biochemical individuality. We all react differently to drugs, foods and toxins for example, and this will depend on many factors. For example, the health of our digestive system to absorb and assimilate food, the health of our pancreas to release digestive enzymes, the health of our gall bladder to release bile, the health of our liver to eliminate toxins and release hormones, as well as of course – our gut health. This is the fabulous ecosystem of bacteria that resides in our gut called the Microbiome and it regulates so much of our overall health, including our immune system. More information on this here
As such, a nutrition session with me will take all the above in to account and be truly personalised to you and what your body needs in order to function optimally and for you to feel the best you can be. You don’t need another diet or another miracle supplement programme, you just need to heal your body and let it do its thing.
Please be in touch if you would like to book an appointment or have any questions.