For all you lovely ladies struggling with your weight or food, I feel that now is the time to share my full weight loss story with you. I hope it instills hope and inspiration for you in your life! Enjoy...
For most of my life I have been interested in health. Sport ran in the family, I played since a young age and we grew all our veggies at home on the farm. I played netball since I was 8 years old, I played cricket in my local country home town, I swam in swimming club every Friday night, played basketball, touch football and I did all of this with love. Sport was all around me but my food choices and my self-image let me down.
In my teenage years, a family friend died of cancer and I remember thinking then that I wanted to have a full body scan every year to check my health and ensure that I was ‘ok’. The idea that our life could be taken away from us so quickly scared the heck out of me and I have until this day, always valued the gift of life. And from that point, my health would play on my mind.
Read MoreDo you use food as a means to feel better when you’ve had a hard day at work? Do you choose fatty greasy foods the next day after you’ve had too many drinks on a Saturday night? Do you look for an extra piece of chocolate or another coffee because you are tired and stressed? Or counted calories but the weight won’t shift?
Nutrition can be one of the most beautiful forms of medicine for the mind and body. When you pair this with a positive eating practice, you have a powerful combination of self-love and nourishment, that will support healthy weight, healthy body and a healthy mind.
Read MoreMovement and exercise is a powerful and crucial element of health in our everyday life. Why? We are born to move! And to move regularly! Movement and exercise is beneficial to our mind, muscles, joints, heart, brain, digestive system, immune system, stress response and so on. Ancestrally speaking, we were on our feet most of the day, collecting food, preparing food, looking after family members and 'surviving'.
Whereas nowadays the average person spends most of their time sitting at a desk, on the couch, in a car and repeat. And some days, I'm absolutely guilty of this too! This sedentary lifestyle puts so much physical stress on our body and this is when aches and pains, along with many dis-eases begin to appear.
Read MoreI bet you can relate when you start the day full of energy, rush off to work and complete a heap of tasks before midday and then as the afternoon rolls in, your energy comes crashing down. This is all too common and so is looking for that quick energy boost that the beloved coffee and chocolate provide. But what if you didn't have to rely on stimulants for energy, instead you could generate your own energy and avoid the 3pm slump? I'm here to tell you how with these easy and nurturing steps...
A lunch-time walk
We spend so much of our time sitting, our body becomes lethargic and our blood flow slows down. Take a walk outside at lunch time or mid afternoon and get the blood flow moving to wake up your body. This will also give your mind a rest from the days tasks and give you a chance to focus on your self-care.
Read MoreDid you know that the food you eat plays a significant role in how fertile you are? There are many factors that contribute to how healthy your body and reproductive system are and nutrition is one crucial component that is completely within your control. Not only is nutrition powerful for a fertile body but it also plays a big role in supporting a healthy pregnancy from pre-conception to birth.
Many people think that their eating habits are healthy but it is good to know that eating for fertility can be somewhat different to what you may expect. The reason for this is that foods for fertility have specific purposes and benefits, for example, some support hormonal health, fetal development, egg health, sperm quality and many more.
Read MoreYou've probably seen the increasing interest and publicity that green juicing has had lately and for very good reason. There is growing scientific studies and research on the benefits of a fresh fruit and vegetable juice each day. Here's my experience and the benefits to expect.
Prior to beginning my daily juicing habit, I was experiencing a constant level of low energy that I just couldn't seem to kick, which was mostly in relation to long-standing adrenal fatigue that is on ongoing process of recovery. My nutrition was perfect, my lifestyle habits and other health factors were mostly excellent but yet some days I would wake up feeling more tired than others. It was the perfect time to give this a go, to give my health that extra boost.
Read MoreThis is a common question and I too had this same query many years ago. We all intuitively know that drinking alcohol can be a barrier to losing weight and it can be a large contributor to weight gain. Many wonder why this is exactly and how much they can drink while trying to lose weight.
Alcoholic drinks contain empty calories and have no benefit to your body. They contain zero nutrition, therefore your body cannot store it and it must be metabolised straight away. Your body goes through a process of oxidation, detoxification and prioritises metabolising alcohol, over other metabolic processes.
After your first alcoholic drink, your body starts to process and send the alcohol to your liver. The body recognises these by-products as toxins and will try to burn and eliminate them out of your system. While doing so, fat-burning is switched off.
Read MoreIn today’s society, we are bombarded with the newest, quickest and ‘healthiest’ diet that claims to give us the body and the wellbeing that we desire. Unfortunately, the diet dogmas can leave you with a myriad of problems and actually cause you to be sick! Not the outcome you were hoping for I bet.
I have tried many diets in the past...You name it, I’ve most likely tried it for a short or long period of time. It was so easy to get caught up in the ‘new best thing’ when they claim to give results within 24 hours and give you the beautiful skinny body that you think you desire, but little did I know that I was doing my body more harm than good. I was so focussed on what I wanted to achieve, that I was essentially disconnected from my body. I purely fed my body what I was told I should eat by external sources, rather than listening to what I actually needed. Many years ago, this mindless eating was the reason I had excess kg’s to begin with, and not once was I taught while following these diets to listen to my body and fuel it according to my individual needs.
Read MoreWhen we are born, we enter a world full of expectations, ideas and beliefs. We are raised in a fast-paced world, where we are continually striving to achieve and succeed.
With this, we can miss the highest virtues that make up love, compassion and empathy, to ourselves and others. Our spiritual link can become weakened and we can lose touch of who we truly are. We focus our attention, energy and time on external things and forget how to self-manage our internal environment. It is no wonder anxiety and depression is on the rise and that we look to things and people to make us happy. We forget (or have not been taught) that the answer to our own peace and happiness lies within us all and is completely within our grasp, if we choose to look there.
Read MoreCoconut oil pulling has gained momentum recently and is becoming a well discussed topic amongst the health industry. It is one of the most effective ways of removing bacteria and toxins from the oral cavity and promotes healthy teeth and gums.
History shows up that we evolved with strong teeth that would last us for a lifetime. Nowadays, we rely on dentists and techniques to improve and maintain our dental hygiene.
In the early 1930’s, Dr Weston A Price travelled the world to populations that were untouched by western civilisation. He found that crooked teeth and dental abnormalities were a result of nutrient deficiencies and those with aligned healthy teeth were a result of traditional nutrient-rich diet.
A nutrient-rich traditional diet includes foods from fertile soil, unlike much of our depleted soil today.
Read MoreWith challenges, we grow and evolve - (I'm feeling many emotions writing this)
I woke up this morning at 4:30am wide awake, hoping that I would get back to sleep but it was not meant to be. So I lay in bed meditating and thinking, while occasionally dozing off for a few minutes here and there. I always take notice of where my mind goes as soon as I wake up in the mornings, as most often my mind focuses on something I’ve been worrying about or something important. This morning at 4:30am, my mind began thinking about my health and wellness journey, of how far I have come, and what I am still yet to achieve.
Like everyone, I have my challenges and for me they are a result of having lived an unhealthy and stressful lifestyle for quite a number of years. So this morning, I lay there thinking about what my life was like when I drank til 3am every weekend, how I bought my lunch every day, only exercised twice a week, had two double shot lattes before lunch and felt completely confused about health. How I studied full time and worked full time at once, while having a long distance relationship and spent most weekends away. To some, this may sound like the norm and for me at the time, it was.
Read MoreDo you drink your delicious coffee but feel the jittery caffeine hit afterwards? Or worry that you're drinking too many cups a day? Have you been told that caffeine can mess with your hormones and add stress to your body? Take a read and learn about the new coffee revolution that's already hit many of your beloved coffee shops and how you can make your very own...
My fellow coffee lovers, I'm sitting here remembering the days where I would have two double shot lattes, while out for break with friends and then two hours later I would be looking for the couch needing a midday nap. I'm sure you've experienced this before, if you're an avid coffee fan like myself, but most people don't realise what this energy slump is all about.
Read MoreToo many drinks last night? Feeling dehydrated and in need of a cure?
We all know that drinking with friends and celebrating the end of a stressful week, can not only be fun but good for the soul. However, this all comes at a cost to our body and for some, our minds once the hangover effects kick in. We wake up feeling sluggish, bloated, our head throbs, we try to sleep all day but the awful feeling in our body keeps us awake and we wish the day away.
So I'm all about prevention rather than cure and there's one sure way to avoid the dreaded hangover - don't drink! But realistically, this is not an option many of us look at. Despite living a clean healthy lifestyle 99% of the time, I also thoroughly enjoy a few sneaky vodka lime and sodas or an occasional night out dancing with my favourite people.
Read MoreWho doesn't love a good night's sleep, right!...
Do you spend your time before bed watching TV or scrolling through Instagram? Are you up late each night working or studying and then sleep in the next day? Do you lay awake at night, trying to sleep and wishing your mind would just stop?! I hear you and i've been there before.
I chose to write this post because I see how common it is for people nowadays (and have been a culprit myself) to practice poor sleep hygiene and suffer from insomnia and disrupted sleep. With modern day demands and stress, our sleep if affected and our overall health. In saying that, we do have the power and the ability to reclaim our much needed and well deserved eight hours of quality Zzz’s each night.
Read MoreRemember that feeling of "butterflies" in your stomach? The brain and the gut have more to do with each other than we have ever before realised and the science and research on this topic is constantly on the rise.
The health of our gut (our second brain) has a direct correlation with the way we think, the way we feel, how we sleep, our weight and even our stress levels. By just thinking about food, our brain can signal to our digestive system that food is on the way and our body prepares accordingly by releasing digestive juices. But...our incredibly intelligent Gut does so much more than just digesting our food and this is why it is imperative that we optimise gut health by nurturing and nourishing our bodies, to look and feel our best.
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