Throughout our female lives, there exists an intricate and delicate dance between the various hormones at play at any given time. Whether it’s at puberty, when oestrogen makes her presence known, not yet balanced out by the presence of soothing progesterone. Or at menopause, as the ovaries retire and oestrogen slips away, leaving the ebbs and flows of the sex hormone cycle behind. Much of our female physiology is governed by the intricate balance between oestrogen and progesterone. As the levels of these two major sex hormones change at early perimenopause, we can begin to experience some emotional and physical changes associated with these shifts. 

Understanding the relationship between oestrogen and progesterone, what influences this relationship, the consequence of the shifts in our hormones how to maintain as much hormonal balance through diet and behaviour as we transition through perimenopause to menopause is important in order to maintain optimal physical and mental wellbeing. 

Eating a healthy balanced diet packed with fruit and veg and exercise is key to achieving this but sometimes consuming the 30 plants per week we are encouraged to do might be a little daunting.  This is where supplements can help. I recommend using Sevenhills Wholefoods supplements which are all organic and ethically sourced, pure and simple, they are what they say on the pack.

The liver is the workhorse of the body… with many different functions, including the arduous task of detoxification.

At perimenopause, opening up the detoxification pathways becomes increasingly important. The liver is responsible for breaking down and removing used hormones from the body. When the liver becomes over-burdened, elimination of used hormones and environmental toxins, can result in a sluggish detoxification system and hormonal imbalance. 

Supplements to support detoxification

Giving the liver a little help during a time when oestrogen can be particularly chaotic, with levels reaching highs and erratic lows, allows the liver to work optimally.   Here are some top supplements to help do that available from Sevenhills:

1. Chlorella is a supplement that can support the liver through binding to heavy metals and pesticides, and other harmful chemicals sometimes found in food. One such harmful chemical is dioxin, a persistent environmental pollutant and is a known hormone disruptor.   A teaspoon of chlorella stirred into water and consumed 3-4 times per week could support the liver through eliminating some of the toxic burden at a time when the liver is already working overtime! Or try the delicious Smoothie Bowl below.
2. Beetroot helps in the detoxification process because of the betaine it contains, which helps prevent and/or reduce fatty deposits in the liver.  On the same note, beetroot helps in whole body detoxification. It’s a great purifier and does so by pulling toxins into the colon where they can then be evacuated. 

Chlorella Smoothie Bowl

Ready in 5 minutes

Serves 1

Ingredients

● 1 tbsp Green Origins Chlorella Powder

● 75g Frozen banana

● 50ml Almond milk

● 1 Kiwi

● 1 Strawberry

● 1tsp desiccated coconut

Method

1. In a blender, add all base ingredients (Chlorella powder, frozen banana and Almond milk)
2. Blend all the base ingredients together until smooth
3. Pour into a bowl and decorate with fruit and coconut

Creating a strong foundation for hormonal health is important at any age… it is never too early or too late to think about how we can support and protect our brain, bones, muscles and long-term wellbeing. Blood sugar balance, Optimal Detoxification Pathways, Soothing a Stressed Nervous System, Restorative Sleep and Movement are all fundamental pillars of hormonal health. Small, consistent steps in the right direction will take you a long way towards optimal health!

To explore the full range of Sevenhills products visit www.sevenhillswholefoods.com or the Sevenhills store on Amazon.   All varieties come in resealable, recyclable LDPE food pouches that can be recycled with bags at the supermarket. 

The post Detox with Sevenhills appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Additionally UK and American politics have further destabilised some of us because what we thought would never happen has happened and we have had to shift awareness quickly which has been fairly shocking. Personally I don’t do new year’s resolutions or support new diet regimes, I do however write a list of  ten achievable goals which I only look back on at the end of the year. This year I made my ten out of ten, but the tenth slid in right at the last minute! As I write this, the week before Christmas I am reflecting how lucky we have been in East Sussex with the weather so far this winter. I don’t know about you but I’ve never seen such fantastic sunrises and sunsets, the blue skies have certainly lifted people and it can serve as a reminder as to how dependant we can be on the weather to cheer the soul. Hopefully this will continue into 2017 but we are all too familiar with the dark wet days that seem to drag on forever.

In the last few years I’ve been practicing mindfulness, a slight tweak on past efforts at meditation which my monkey brain couldn’t get to grips with for long enough to warrant any effect. It’s helped hugely in the fact that I utilise these learned skills in minute doses, about 5-10 a day rather than sitting in a corner with my legs crossed for two hours  which in my world is just not achievable. What mindfulness has helped me realise is that most of us just gallop through life and do not stop and notice very much. My dog walker and runner friends are an exception as they are up with the lark either walking or running and noticing much more than I do lying in bed neither walking dogs nor training for the latest half marathon. To just stop for a minute and be aware of your surroundings is a joyous thing to do. It’s so simple as well and doesn’t cost anything. I think it says a huge amount that the sale of adult colouring books has suddenly gone through the roof. In a frantic world we are certainly in need of peace. Being mindful can also have a huge affect on how we consume food and what we choose to eat. Many of us are guilty of grabbing any food item, seeing it merely as fuel and bolting it down whilst doing several other things at the same time. Many of my patients have had a marked shift in their awareness if they practice mindful eating.

To a certain extent being more mindful can start in the supermarket. Rushing around grabbing the first item with nagging children around can make for one unhealthy mindless food shopping experience. Questions that you could ask are, do we really need this? Is this going to make me feel better? Do I really want to give this company my money? Where has my food come from? Is this something I want to invest in once a week? I have suggested where possible that people do a recce food shop when changing diets. Take a pen and paper and mobile phone camera and walk down the aisles not as a mindless consumer but as an informed and mindful purchaser of the best fuel for your car, although your car.. is you. One of the worst things you can do whilst food shopping is to make assumptions. Assuming something is good for you because a manufacturer tells you won’t necessarily be true. You make the decisions about what’s good for you and your family, and yes this does mean reading the ingredients. You know instinctively if it’s a good product or not by turning the packets over, ignoring the nutritional labels which are quite frankly a joke and making your own decisions. I have also advocated over the years using smaller glasses for alcohol, smaller plates and eating more slowly. I’m certainly guilty of bolting my food down as I’m always in a rush, but it’s really essential to slow down and chew your food and we know how important it is to sit down as a family round a table with TV and phones switched off.

As you go into January there is no need to have a dry month. If you need a dry month then perhaps look at how much you are drinking overall in the entire year, that you would need to stop for a month. If you are being sponsored to go dry, again without sounding sanctimonious that’s really saying you are drinking too much that you have to be sponsored. If you can moderate drinking through the year then January will be no different and in one of the darkest most depressing months you can at least have a bit of wine. The same goes for overindulging at Christmas which may force you to feel you have to starve in January. It’s not the time to do it, it’s wet, it’s cold, there’s little sunlight and you’ve just made it a whole lot worse for yourself! Why not wait until the summer when it’s far easier to eat “light”? Your body is crying out for stews, casseroles, soups and roasts not raw spinach.

New Years resolutions tend to be focused a lot around weight. If you are finding that you do this every year and nothing has happened in the weight loss department then why not stop. You can make lifestyle changes at any time of the year, it doesn’t have to be January. What I’m really saying here is slow down, take your time, have a think about things, don’t rush, there is no hurry. Continue eating as you have done but be more mindful of amount, quality and ingredients of the food you are eating. A food diary is a really good place to start so you can really see what you are eating and add in any physical or emotional triggers as well and how you feel after you have eaten certain foods.

As some of you know I grit my teeth when I’m asked to write top ten tips for a new you in the new year, it’s all nonsense. It’s as though  on 1st January you can push the reset button and everything springs into the place, but you know you can push the reset button if you want any time and any day of the year.

And on the that last point I wish you a great 2017 full of good health and positive outcomes.

My alternative top ten tips for the new year:

1. Start keeping a food diary to see exactly what you eat, and if you have any emotional or physical triggers.
2. Invest in smaller wine glasses – put the flagons in the back of a cupboard somewhere or drink wine from champagne glasses.
3. Keep asking yourself am I actually hungry?
4. Try keeping a gratitude or make it happen journal – things tend to stick more if you write them down
5. Consider slowing down and noticing your surroundings more.
6. Try a mindfulness app on your phone or even joining a course locally
7. Be grateful for what you have – we all tend to focus on what we don’t have
8. Concentrate some of your time on others that need help
9. Start buying the best food you can afford and know exactly what it is that you are eating and where it’s come from
10. Avoid all diets and detoxes at this time of year – it will just depress you.

Throughout January 2017 Kate has 10% off her two hour MOT consultation. If you would like more information on this please mention this article and contact 01323 737814/310532

The post More awareness less detox appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Juice cleanse retreat in Ibiza

38 Degrees North’s Juice Cleanse Retreat carefully balances a program that includes nutritional advice, hikes along the beautiful Ibizan coastline and supportive reiki treatments to align and reset your energy. On top of that we include mindfulness meditation classes, along with rejuvenating yoga so you will feel so ready to accomplish your dreams. You will leave with the best ever feeling of being clean, clear and ready to go!

Increased energy, expanded levels of concentration and improved sleep are but a small number of benefits to expect from these retreats. Along with the internal benefits, come the external ones; staying in the luxurious 5-star Aguas de Ibiza Hotel and enjoying the sun, sea and culture Ibiza has to offer, this retreat really isn’t one to miss.

Detox Juices

As part of the detox plan, visitors enjoy 5 juices every day, freshly made using local produce, to be taken every 3 hours during their stay. 38 Degrees North’s alkalising juices include superfoods such as spirulina, probiotic, milk thistle and wheatgrass which will help cleanse and rebalance visitors’ PH levels making it easier to metabolise fat, release energy and absorb nutrients.

An Example Itinerary

38 Degrees North offer a morning yoga practice to help the detox process and soothe the mind, the programme also includes 2 gentle hikes to enjoy the island’s natural splendour. There are talks and workshops, a mindfulness practice, one on one Reiki, freshly prepared juices, and of course a luxurious spa to relax and recharge. Optional extras include Spa treatments, Chiropractor or Osteopath consultation, Life Coaching with NLP practitioner, personal training and state of the art slimming treatments including cavitation.

The Juice cleanse runs from Sunday Oct 16th to Sunday 23rd and prices start at £1783. Please book by contacting them on +44 (0)20 36 9999 33 or emailing info@thirtyeightdegreesnorth.com.

www.thiryeightdegreesnorth.com

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Excuse my cynicism but having done my job for the best part of eighteen years, I’ve read this just as many times. Most of these articles have no scientific basis and are at best ludicrous and worst dangerous.

Raw, detox, cleanse, alkaline, juice. These words whispered their way round the health farms and spas of the 1980‘s, now they have crept their way into our daily food phrases as something to aspire to on a weekly basis. Added to this the notion that we now have to be sponsored to give up alcohol for a month! I’m sorry but we may have all got slightly mad! The whole point of health in my mind, and how I work with my clients is to set them on a path that they can continue for the rest of their lives. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I have very fine athlete friends who will Nutri bullet (I believe that’s a verb now!) I’m sure for the rest of the their lives quite happily, but for the 90% of us that’s left it’s not going to happen. We dip into these fads for a few weeks, kid ourselves we have done our bodies good and back we go to where we were before, possibly full of failure and self loathing.

Let’s start with DETOX. A very powerful word. Ironically the most healthy people I see whose diet is great feel they need a detox. Why? What are they are detoxing from – a plate of alfalfa sprouts and mashed yeast (thanks to Woody Allen for that one). I have seen people “detoxing” from a diet of primarily herbal tea, no alcohol and no processed food.

Detox worshippers will tell you that detoxing will rid your body of toxins that have accumulated and are leading to all sorts of health problems from fatigue to weight gain etc. However the liver has evolved to process a stack of toxins and excrete these through sweat, urine and stool quite well. The liver is incredibly efficient and hard working. So unless you have serious liver issues, green liquids and potions will do little to enhance its action. If you “detox” you tend to drink more liquid and eat less, so you may very well lose weight and feel a bit perkier, but the whole aspect of this is sold on quacky science.

A few years ago we had detox socks – do you remember those? it’s laughable. If you want to detox, let’s change the wording slightly. Your body needs consistency not shock treatment. Removing sugar for one month, alcohol for one month, whilst I salute you, is just trying to prove to yourself that you can actually survive without it. You know I’m right really! Anything you can’t stick to long term I wouldn’t even attempt to start in the first place. Essentially we have become bad at balance.

If you wish to cut down your alcohol from seven bottles a week to a more manageable one or two glasses a night, remove processed foods from your diet and drink enough liquid until your urine is pale, that’s great, just don’t call it a detox. Many of my patients who are eating really well take milk thistle – “Why?” I ask them, “because it’s good for my liver”, they say. “But you’re not doing anything to harm your liver”, I reply.

I know by writing this some of you will say “but Kate I feel fabulous and I juice and live on smoothies”. Well that’s great but I’m telling you unless you are an athlete or have no health issues at all at best this will be a very quick fix. A lovely lady recently came to see me and she was carrying four huge pots, (they were like beer barrels they were so large) of super greens. Her diet was better than mine. We get sold into concepts and lifestyles that often we need to ignore.
Ok let’s get onto to RAW diets. I feel I may start losing some readers here, but onwards I must. The theory behind this is that heating and cooking food depletes nutrient levels and can lessen their potency. This is nonsense and not even scientifically correct. Cooking saved man from extinction, and changes the nature of some proteins to make them edible and kills bacteria that quite frankly might kill us. If you are interested in this subject more I would suggest reading Michael Pollen’s great book Cooked. Look at Chinese cuisine – food cooked on extreme heats for seconds – and you are telling me they are unhealthy? What we are not talking about here is cooking sprouts for hours until yes there is little nutrient value left, but we don’t do that anymore, we’ve learned now that al dente is better when it comes to cooking vegetables. In freezing temperatures it is crazy to eat raw food, the body needs to be warmed. I have a client who has “cured” herself of ulcerative colitis by eating only raw foods and it’s fantastic, and I have another client who did the same who ended up in hospital as it made them very ill.

‘If you look at the true health leaders and inspirers, they do not use these faddy terms. Sadly, in the last ten years, no matter how pretty and lovely, and how clever the food photography, there are a host of so called health gurus with no qualifications who are teaching us how to eat raw carob balls in coconut! As delicious as these are, and that the books sell well, and are often linked with celebrities, I am still concerned that deep down the unwell patient does not really know what they are doing. Not everyone can eat the same foods and get away with it – everyone is so different.’I’m not saying the occasional smoothie, juice or raw food is bad for you – far from it, what I’m saying is buying into faddy terms needs to be taken with a pinch of salt! Raw foods in summer – gorgeous lovely salads fantastic, but do you want them now in freezing temperatures, possibly not? Methinks time for root vegetables, roasts and casseroles. Oh darling lets go out for a five mile ramble with the dogs and come back to a raw salad. Most people want to come back to soup, roast chicken, foods that for want of a better expression feed the soul.

I’ve noticed that all the new health gurus, (mostly very young pretty women by the way) have similar books, almost using the same photographer and format. Jamie Oliver does not come into this category, nor does Hugh Fernley Whittingstall or Michael Pollen or lets go back a bit to Keith Floyd. This may well be a wave of young pretty things seducing potentially unhealthy young girls to get a bit cultish in their food choices.

I may have to reintroduce my pet hate phrase ‘moderation in all things’. I shudder as I type this – a term which I find so annoying as you cannot calculate one persons moderation, and in my mind some foods should not be eaten at all. Being mindful about what you eat is so important, and a good food diary really is an eye opener and there are many apps that will calculate your intake to the last calorie.

If you want to “detox” I would start with awareness; ten coffees a day, perhaps cut down to two, not drinking enough water, try a bit harder, read labels to try and reduce your added sugar intake, drinking a bottle of wine a night, try for 1-2 glasses. That might not be a detox to you, but its more manageable longer term, rather than engaging in a shock tactic month of deprivation. The long term goal is what we want, think of yourself as a marathon runner not a sprinter. So when you next see a celebrity usually a woman, usually in Hollywood and usually leaving their yoga/gym class drinking their liquidised Kermit coloured juice, they are hardly doing this because they are short in greens, they have nutritionists and trainers and chefs on hand to teach them and cook for them. It’s a trend, and next year there will be new one like the iphone 7 or is it iphone 8 I forget?

One final point, another lady came to see me recently with her new fancy blender, and she was fainting mid morning. I asked her to take her blood sugar just before she felt wobbly and it was 3.0 mg/dl. She had low blood sugar on blending grapes, bananas, maple syrup and goji berries. Now I know that most of you aren’t doing that; you’ll spin up some avocado and kale, but you get the point I’m sure. Now on scrambled eggs on toast, she is back to normal, blender firmly in the back of the cupboard.

If you want to overhaul your diet and lifestyle Kate offers a two hour consultation that reviews every part of your health. Perfect for those with multiple symptoms like headaches, fatigue, bowel issues etc. Kate will work closely with your GP and may suggest further tests if necessary. Markers like homocysteine, salivary cortisol, female hormone panels as well as stool testing can also be used. For more information regarding this please call 01323 737814/310532 www.katearnoldnutrition.co.uk

The post Faddy trends including detox appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Improve the quality of the water you drink by ‘magnetising’ it and help bring it back to its natural state. Magnetised water changes the properties including density, viscosity and the Ph levels increase. Drinking a glass of warm magnetically ionised water first thing in the morning and last thing at night can help detox the system and flush out the kidneys. As well as keeping your body hydrated, the benefits of magnetism help prevent degenerative diseases and it passes into every internal biological system in the body.

 Magnetised water:

• tastes better
• may help reduce heartburn
• can help regulate the body’s Ph levels
• may help the digestive system
• can reduce the acidity and bile in the digestive system, helping expel toxins
• can be used for bathing – great for eczema and psoriasis sufferers

How can I magnetise my water?

Insert an Energetix MagnetStick into your glass (choose one of several designs – there is also a shorter version for tea/coffee cups). This will turn your water into a drink to be savoured. Alternatively place your glass, cup or bottle on a MagnetCoaster. Or the MagnetAnimal Steel Pebble can be used in several ways:

• place if in your animal’s drinking bowl for them to achieve the optimum benefit
• use in a jug of water for all the family to benefit
• use the water from the jug in the kettle or iron – no more furring!
• use the water from the jug to water your plants – magnetised water has less surface tension and may dissolve more nutrients than harder water. These extra nutrients flow to and are more readily absorbed by the roots, stimulating their growth. In addition to faster growth, the extra nutrients allow a higher proportion of plants to thrive, increasing crop production from 15-20% or more.

To learn more about the use of magnetised water phone 07989 566197 or visit www.mutchhealthier.co.uk

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