Nutrition

This week, I received a food diary from Camilla who was keen to take me up on my offer of a food diary review via the newsletter. I'd like to do another one or two of these, so please do ask me if you would like yours to be reviewed. This is what Camilla ate over two days: Day One Breakfast: porridge made with milk and water, topped with a little honey Lunch: half carton of pre-prepared chicken and sweetcorn soup, and a small mango Dinner: homemade chilli with rice and peas Snack: 7pm corn cake with goats cheese Day Two Breakfast: none Lunch: two egg omelette with bacon, peppers, mushrooms and onions Dinner: harissa chicken thighs with peppers, carrots and onions. 2 glasses of wine Snack: 10am carrot sticks with humus. 3pm pear. And here are my thoughts, based on the knowledge that Camilla wants to lose weight. The first thing I look at in a food diary is how many snacks someone is eating, it gives me a really good clue as to whether they are eating in the right way for them. Someone who is hungry all the time is not eating the right meals. Day ones snack at 7pm is an hour before dinner, which makes me think it would be better to have just eaten dinner a little earlier and saved the calories from the snack. My hunch is that Camilla had probably just burst through the door after being at work all day and was too hungry to wait for dinner, so had a snack while waiting for her meal to be ready. This makes me look further up the food diary to see what was for lunch and whether there is anything we could have done differently earlier in the day to reduce…

With so many bugs around at the minute, I thought it a good moment to give you some pointers on boosting your immune system. The two biggest tips I can give you for boosting your immune system are relating to gut health and stress. Over 70% of your immune system is located in your gut, which is where our first two tips lie. If you're eating stuff which either doesn't agree with you or which takes a lot of effort for your body to deal with (this means too frequent naughty treats!), then your immune system won't be able to function so well. You get the same effect if you're constantly over or under eating. If you're eating too much, your gut is constantly trying to digest food, and doesn't have much time to do anything else. And if you're not eating enough, fairly obviously, your gut won't have all the things it needs in order to keep you protected. People who take daily probiotics get less colds than people who don't - regardless of whatever else they're taking. Keeping the gut populated with lots of good bacteria is key to a well functioning immune system. You can achieve this through a good diet packed with veggies, probiotics, and fermented food. Stress is the other major influencer on your immune system. Just as with gut health, if your body is too busy dealing with stress, then it isn't focussing fully on keeping bugs at bay. Remember stress can come from internal sources too; external sources like emotional stress or not taking enough downtime are still important - just don't forget internal stressors like poor sleep, poor diet, dehydration, too much exercise, injuries etc all play a big part too, and are too often overlooked. Other, perhaps quicker to action, tips…