Latest articles on Nutrition

The festive season is here, and there are fewer things we hate more than adding a few pounds over the festive season. We all know how December is all about celebrating with rich foods and what seems to be unlimited drinks, but do you really believe you have to indulge in every opportunity?!  Let me tell you a true story. Last year I only had one client wanting to start their weight loss journey in December? All my other enquiries wanted to wait for the new year to start looking...

As a nutritionist, I’ve looked at many so-called natural diet pills to see if they could really help people shed the pounds. The bad news is there really is no one magic bullet, but certain nutrients can help you lose weight. Here are my top five:1. Vitamin D3 Taking vitamin D could help to offset the appetite-stimulating effect of low sunlight. Be sure by buy D3 as this is the active form, and aim for a maintenance dose of between 400 and 1000 micrograms p/day. Choose any brand of D3,...

New research has found that encouraging children to complete a mile of activity every day can help boost fitness levels, improve concentration and combat early signs of obesity.

The ‘Daily Mile’ is a physical activity programme initially promoted by the Scottish Government, but is growing in popularity both nationally and internationally.

The initiative was born in February 2012, when Elaine Wylie, headteacher of St Ninians primary school in Stirling, sent a PE class outside to see if...

A few months ago, I was at a seminar where one of the speakers was discussing his own genetics and how he has overcome his “faulty” genes to recover his previously poor health. He pointed out that there aren’t really good or bad genes – we all have adaptations that made sense perhaps in a different context but with a modern lifestyle, maybe not so much. One of these is the MC4R variation (also known as the “death by buffet” gene) which has been associated...

How many times have you heard people say that they don't understand why they're not loosing weight? They're following a strict diet and they're exercising religiously yet the pounds aren't shifting?  Quite often in these situations one of the the most overlooked barriers to weight loss is stress. Here are some reasons why stress could be influencing the size of your waistline: Stress causes the release of cortisol, a hormone that stimulates fat storage (especially the storage of fat...

Do you find yourself reaching for food and eating it without even thinking about it, or eating when you aren’t really hungry? We don’t always eat because of genuine hunger - our food cravings are often linked to things that have nothing to do with whether we are actually hungry. This means that a lot of us don’t know when we are really hungry or completely full, mostly because this encourages us to engage in mindless eating rather than listening to our body.  This...

The humble egg has had good press and bad press over the years, but it has emerged as a modern-day superhero, because of its nutritional makeup. If we take into consideration that the egg is going to become a chick, it brings into perspective how amazing they really are. As a result of this, in recent years limits on the number of eggs we eat in a week have been lifted, unless there are health conditions which prevent this.  Egg protein (the white) is of a better quality with a better...

If you would like to know how to maintain a healthy weight or lose weight, then please read on. You may have been as shocked as me last week, when Cancer UK published some sobering statistics that predicted that nearly 7 in 10 millennials (70%) will be overweight or obese by the age of 35 to 45.  So, if you were born in the early 1980s to mid-1990s, this is likely to be you… Did you know that some experts now think that obesity may now contribute to more ill-health than...

Good news for those who are interested in protecting their heart, as the right diet and lifestyle can substantially reduce your risk of developing the disease. Listed below are probably the five main things that you can do to protect your heart.  1.      Eat the right diet This means eating lots of vegetables each day to obtain your plant sterols (which may help lower cholesterol) and fibre, which can also lower cholesterol, as well as folic acid and magnesium....