and the benefits of eating at regular times. Many women I see are caught in fairly chaotic eating patterns, from trying to live on 1200 calories a day, to skipping meals, to not eating with the family such as making wonderful nutritious meals for the kids and not eating them themselves.

Some women are very in tune with themselves and can navigate eating at irregular times quite well, eating nutritious food when they feel true hunger signals. But generally speaking, I find its very common for women to try and manipulate their eating to lose weight, often starving themselves in the morning when willpower is the strongest, which often backfires later in the day.

Intermittent fasting (IF) is very popular at the moment. And it can be useful, and there is some good evidence behind it.

Most of the studies are done on men, and few are done long term on menstruating or menopausal women, who are more sensitive to stress hormones than men.

When you don’t eat in the morning, when your cortisol is naturally high anyway- which is what wakes you up- it can send your cortisol sky high (which gives you a high!). The body produces stress hormones (such as cortisol) so as to release glycogen (glucose) stores in your liver so you don’t starve. In particular it needs to protect the brain.

There are so many ways to eat nowadays and so many healing diets…..nature in the form of humans seems to be experimenting with what works and what doesn’t, in our current context. As humans we are already primed to eat, even thrive on, quite a variety of foods, as we are a highly adaptable species. We now have access to so many types of foods, that we are only partially limited by the environment we live in.

Are any of them wrong? Are they all right? I mean, can both vegans and carnivores be right? Can both keto and high carb be right?

I have been a gulper and fast eater as long as I can remember. I love eating, have a hearty appetite and good digestion, but I have fallen into the habit of having my meals reading something on my ipad, sitting opposite my husband doing the same.

Recently I had a dream where I was reminded to savour my food, to enjoy and appreciate it, to slow down, and I came out of that dream realising that while what I eat is generally pretty high quality, the way I have been eating for a while now, is hardly best practice!

What I realised is……

Prunes have been found to be surprisingly beneficial for bone density…

I have always liked vegetables, and enjoyed eating a wide range of colourful ones, knowing they were also good for me…but not everyone enjoys eating veggies. It’s not your fault if you don’t like eating vegetables. The world of ultra-processed and takeaway foods corrupts and overstimulates our palate. Excess salt, MSG and both natural and artificial flavours are scientifically designed to be addictive, and to make normal food less appealing. So it is a process of learning to love the simpler flavours again - retraining the tastebuds. It is possible! …….

Green leafy vegetables (eg lettuces, kale, spnach, rocket, boo choy, dandelion, collard, rainbow chard, micro greens etc) are some of the planet's best foods, and for good health, we need to be eating them every day. In fact, I recommend eating 1-2 cups or 100g of them daily! Do you want to lose weight, have more energy, have a clear mind, live to 100? Eat more greens! They are full of minerals, Vit C, Vit K, fibre, calcium, disease-fighting phytochemicals, and good for your liver, your eyes, your colon, your blood.

Here are 10 ways to add more greens to your life. You will thank yourself for it- once you start, they get a bit addictive because you feel so good.

There seems to be an obsession with protein in many health circles and I have probably overemphasised it myself. But what most people really don’t eat enough of in our calorie-rich and nutrient-poor culture, is fruit and vegetables. According to studies, about 50% of people don’t eat 2 pieces of fruit a day and a whopping 93% don’t eat the recommended 5 servings of vegetables daily.

That means most of my clients and most of my readers need to catch up on basic nutritional needs. Fundamental needs, for the body to thrive.

The short to medium-term consequences for not getting basic building blocks of nutrients are symptoms such as fatigue, dragging yourself through your day, and being prone to frequent illnesses. The longer-term consequences are well documented to include diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

It’s not so difficult…

Nowadays there is a large body of information related to healthy longevity. One of the most underrated foods that is associated with longevity, and eaten by all the Blue Zones communities (communities with a high proportion of centenarians and people living longer), is beans. Beans are also known as legumes or pulses (which are the dried forms), and include kidney beans, black beans borlotti beans, mung beans, chickpeas, all the different types of lentils, green peas, green beans, broad beans, soybeans and even peanuts.

Beans are one of the most important foundations of a Blue Zone, or longevity diet…

Does the body detox normally anyway? Yes of course, it is built to. The lungs, skin, bowels, liver kidneys, lymphatic system, are built to get rid of a build up of toxins just from normal bodily functioning. But looking at the state of many people’s health, their bodies are struggling under the load of toxins (environmental, in food, and also what the body itself produces), lack of exercise and poor food choices, not to mention stress. The body loves to get a break from all that and be given a chance to offload toxins. ……

Do you wonder how anyone can possibly stop drinking coffee, chocolate, chips, soft drinks, or other addictive foods, because they are how you get through the day? This is very common and probably why most people dont eat well. Most people dont eat enough vegetables for good health. When you walk into a supermarket, you can see what people eat, because if they didnt eat it, they wouldnt sell it. Whole isles are devoted to food like substances that do not privde nourishment to the body.

So how come some people can enjoy eating “healthy” and others can’t? They either grew up that way, or, they trained themselves.

In the last year I have been juicing virtually every day, and I have experienced so many benefits that I thought it was time to share. A year ago I started juicing celery every morning,1 bunch between my husband and I, and within days we both experienced a radical remission of chronic pain in our joints and muscles, and a sense of brain fog clearing. ….

If you want to eat well, and heal health issues or age well, one of the best things you can do is prepare most of your meals yourself, and avoid or limit takeaways and restaurant foods. Depending on where you live, it can be very difficult to eat good quality food, when eating out. I find it’s always a compromise. 

Dave and I eat out once a week- we have a date night on Wednesdays. And most of the time, I am disappointed! Not in Dave- he is awesome- but in what we eat. I live between Fremantle and Cockburn, in Perth, and while you would think healthy dining out food would be in abundance in this part of the world- it isn’t. 

Veganism has been around for a while, but I prefer another term- whole food plant based eating, because it refers to a sustainable, high quality way of eating which has good evidence for longevity. There are so many processed vegan foods around nowadays, that you can eat a high junk, high processed, high convenience food, and high poor quality fat vegan diet, and for this, there are poor outcomes. 

Whole Food Plant Based eating is a term given to eating a diet of mainly plant foods, but it is a high quality diet with foods that mainly look like the original plant i.e. whole foods. It is a way of eating that has plenty of fruits and vegetables, often a large amount of them raw- and wholegrains, legumes, and small amounts of nuts and seeds. Generally it is much lower in overall fat that an omnivorous, or poor quality vegan diet. 

What is a healing diet?

Over the years I have experimented with many different ways of eating. Most had something to offer at the time. I have had a chronic condition- Hashimoto’s, a thyroid autoimmune condition- so have experimented with different ways to feel better. My condition has been mild compared to many, but perhaps that’s because I have managed it ok.

One factor common to many diets which have been called “healing diets” by many people looking for a way to resolve and reverse their chronic disease, is reducing or eliminating processed foods. What we call junk foods, but also most packaged foods with multiple ingredients. And returning to an unprocessed food diet- the original nuts and bolts of food- fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and for some, meat, seafood and/or dairy. So the paleo and keto diets do this, and this may be a large part of their success for some people.

For others, eliminating or reducing meat, seafood and/or dairy has been a significant part of their healing journey.

A low carb diet, which is very popular, is generally a high meat diet. We know there are issues with this, but yes, it can help you lose weight. However it’s generally not sustainable and not very healthy overall. It is a recipe for heart disease and other issues, and some of these low carb diets, like Atkins, are linked to a lower life expectancy. So you can be skinny and dead. 

High carbohydrate foods cover a wide range of foods. From ice cream to pizza to a serve of brown rice or a sweet potato. Obviously, all carbs are not the same, yet they tend to get lobbed into the same evil category in the current war against carbs and sugar. (This war is an inevitable backlash against a culture that eats a lot of poor quality carb foods, but it is still a fad). 

Canola oil is in most processed foods you buy, including many ‘health foods’, and is the 3rd largest oil used by volume worldwide (after palm and soybean oils). It is promoted as having similar benefits and fatty acid profile to olive oil (it is high in monounsaturated fatty acids), and is cheaper. Since the benefits of olive oil have been well studied and accepted, there has been a worldwide push to promote canola oil as a less expensive substitute with similar benefits. 

But is it true? Online you can find a lot of conflicting evidence and opinions around this. However, there is no such conflict around olive oil- it is only associated with positive health benefits. 

There are studies which show that canola can lower your cholesterol, increase Vit E and improve insulin sensitivity. However many studies around canola are industry-funded, which can reduce their validity. There are also studies which show it is not beneficial for the heart. 

Canola oil is a highly processed oil, highly refined, which significantly reduces its nutrient content. It goes through an extensive process to give the apparently natural oil we see on the supermarket shelves. Wheras olive oil can be purchased minimally processed- just cold pressed. 

According to the latest Australian census information.....6.1% of Australians met the daily minimum recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake. Which is 2 pieces of fruit, and at least 5 servings of vegetables.

A serving is 1 cup tightly packed raw, or 1/2 cup cooked.

6.1%.

Those 2&5 recommendations aren't the optimal that I would recommend for healing from chronic disease- they are fundamental for basic health. They provide enough fibre, and colourful plant nutrients to help prevent cancer, and many other chronic diseases.

I get why it’s confusing, if you have insulin resistance, are prediabetic, and looking for a way to make your numbers better. I had a client today who was exasperated. She reads the low carb ‘experts’, and they say to eat plenty of good fats and hardly any carbs (sugar is the devil incarnate) and definitely avoid fruit (except for a small serving of berries). You read other ‘experts’ and they talk about low-fat, plant-based being the way to go. And plenty of variations on these themes, such as the Mediterranean Diet. 

Everyone is looking at one piece of the puzzle, one possible approach, one part of the science, and then investing their career and marketing the hell out of it. So be careful when you go with someone who has an investment, has written a book, and built their career around a particular approach. They immediately have a bias. It may have worked for them. At least when they wrote the book. But is it right for you?