Metabolic Balance Diet and PCOS

Did you know that the Metabolic Balance programme is great for any women suffering from PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome)?

One of the main problems of PCOS is a disordered insulin metabolism, which makes it easier to gain weight and more difficult to lose it.  Other issues include hirsutism (increase facial hair) and sometimes poor skin condition or acne.  Becaue the Metabolic Balance programme helps balance the biochemistry behind your metabolism, it can be a great help for many of these not so pleasant side effects of having PCOS.  So not only will you find it much easier to control your weight, but you could also get support for the excess facial hair and get a better looking skin.

If you suffer from PCOS and would like to improve your hormonal health, perhaps to conceive, or the feel better and lose weight, do get in touch with us and book in for a free initial consultation.

Metabolic Balance Diet Recipes

One of my clients suggest that I should start collecting recipe ideas for Metabolic Balance, so here's the first one.  Feel free to add any of your own, and I'll also be adding new ones regularly.

The quantities in this recipe would vary slightly according to your personal details, and you may not have all of the items listed on your personal plan, but for those of you who are wondering what sorts of meals you might be having on the plan I hope this gives you some inspiration and ideas!

Serves 1

Salad base
90g of baby spinach leaves
20g of cucumber, cubed into small pieces
20g of green olives

On the top
130g of cooked prawns
2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp of grated ginger
1 clove of crushed garlic
1/2-1 finely chopped red chilli (according to taste!)
Dash of fish sauce

Mix the oil, ginger, garlic, chilli and fish sauce in a bowl. Add the prawns and coat them in the marinade.

Assemble the salad in the meantime, and add the prawns together with the marinade on top. Enjoy!

Metabolic Balance Diet for Weight Loss

I believe dieting isn’t just about weight loss. It’s also about creating changes in your eating habits that increase your general wellbeing, both body and mind. Weight loss should lead to healthier improved physical and mental performance as well as emotional balance.

To achieve this you need a weight loss programme that gives your body all the nutrients it needs. Metabolic Balance diet programme is exactly that. It’s a personalised nutrition programme created uniquely for you, using an extensive set of laboratory value from your blood analysis.

The plan includes meals that contain foods that promote a regulated insulin response, which in turn re-balances hormones and subsequently results in a more healthy and balanced metabolism. The balanced metabolism means that you have less cravings, have steadier energy levels and generally feel better in addition to losing weight.

If you’d like to find out more and get some spring in your step, book in for your free initial consultation!

Skin problems may not be life threatening, but because they are very visible they can make a serious dent to your confidence and impact your quality of life. Eczema is one of the most common chronic skin complaints. Did you know that the name eczema is derived form a Greek word meaning 'to boil'? It seems to perfectly describe the inflamed, red skin which is often intensely itchy.

The conventional treatment involves use of topical creams - in other words dealing with the outward symptoms. However, the safety of the long term use of some of the steroid creams is questionable - corticosteroids are known to affect growth, weaken bones, suppress the adrenal glands and cause many other problems.

The good news is that there is another way to deal with eczema. Nutritional therapy can help eczema by correcting underlying imbalances for a more sustained solution. I find that most of the clients who come to see me for support for eczema have some physiological 'weak spots'. They tend to have more allergies and an immune system which is creating higher levels of inflammation in the body. The other problem area is a disordered fat metabolism which makes their skin dryer and less able to hold moisture.

One eczema client I saw recently also complaint about frequent bloating and digestive disturbances, and suffered from hay fever during the summer months. Well functioning immune system can be the key to controlling eczema symptoms, and as up 80% of your immunity is gut related, the first step we took was to start working on improving the health of her digestion and gut bacterial balance.

We also supplemented with some targeted essential fatty acids, and supported her fat digestion through enzymes that help break down fats. The improvements in her digestive symptoms correlated with the reduced severity of her eczema. We are now able to control her symptoms through balanced diet and regular fatty acid supplementation.

We also identified that stress was one of the triggers for increased eczema symptoms. Stress tends to reduce the digestive capacity and disturb the beneficial bacterial balance in the gut. Knowing this link, we decided that during stressful periods my client should take extra digestive support and supplemental friendly bacteria to counteract these effects.

If you are suffering from skin problems (or just the stress part!), do get in touch to see if nutrition could offer you some solutions!

As my previous post shows, stress is not just confined to the head, it has an impact on the entire body and can make a real dent to your physical well-being. Having said that, not many people come to me with the direct intention of getting support for stress-related symptoms. They may come with digestive complaints, or feel very low in energy. What often transpires during the consultation is that they have a number of different on-going sources of stress in their lives.

I recently saw a woman in her mid-thirties who complained about constantly feeling tired and run down and was finding it hard to lose weight. She had three year old toddler and had recently returned back to work. Juggling being a good mum and still having a career - not stressful at all! She also complained that she was beginning to get some IBS-like digestive symptoms and wasn't sure what was behind them. She was regularly propping herself up with cups of coffee, and often felt too tired after work to spend any quality time with her toddler.

We decided to check the current status of her stress hormone production through a saliva test. In long-term stress what tends to happen is that initially the stress hormone production increases, but if the sources of stress don't go away (which they often don't!) then the production will eventually decrease as the adrenal glands secreting the hormones get gradually more depleted. As you will also need these same hormones for daily energy production, having exhausted adrenal glands will also lead to generally feeling tired and lethargic. It can also lead to sleep disturbances, and make it harder for you to lose weight.

The test results showed that her adrenals had indeed entered the exhaustion stage, and were in desperate need of support. We modified her diet to ensure that she was getting more sustainable energy, and gave her specific nutrients to boost the functioning of her adrenal glands. Just three weeks into her programme she was already feeling far less croggy in the mornings, and had energy left in the evenings to spend some time with her toddler after work.

If you suspect you have stress-related symptoms such as tiredness or digestive disturbances, give me a call to have a chat about how nutrition could help move you from 'barely existing' to 'full of beans'.

Stress, energy and nutrition

How are your energy levels doing? Most of are trying to find balance between juggling work, family, social life, hobbies... When asked, most people think their energy levels are less now than they used to be, and many wouldn’t say no to a bit of an energy boost.

Does all that sound a bit too familiar? The start of the year is always a good time to focus on health and wellbeing, and the aim of this post is to give you some quick and easy ways of boosting your energy and improving your over all wellbeing.

One of the most noticeable effects of the fluctuating energy levels tend to be the mid-morning and afternoon dips when all you want to do is to either close your eyes for a sneaky nap or, more realistically, grab a coffee or a chocolate bar to get you out of that slump.

The problem with coffee (or any caffeinated drink) and sweets is that they give you an energy boost that is very short lived. So before you know it, you’ll need another cup of coffee to keep you going.

The reason this happens is that both coffee and sweets make the amount of sugar circulating in your blood stream rise very quickly to high levels. Sweets do that because of their high sugar content, and the caffeine in coffees and teas causes your body to release sugar from storage back into circulation, so the end result is the same.

Ideally your body wants you to only have about two teaspoons of sugar in the blood stream at any one time. As an average chocolate bar contains at least four or five teaspoons of sugar, some corrective action is required to keep the balance. This means that the rapid high - which gives you the initial energy boost - is quickly followed by a low. Low blood sugar levels go hand in hand with feeling irritable, sleepy, finding it hard to concentrate, and worst of all, craving for something sugary to get you going again.

Apart from the ever fluctuating energy levels, the blood sugar fluctuations also make it harder for you to control your weight. Unless you are planning on going for a run or having a good session at the gym, your body doesn’t really need all the energy provided by your ‘pick me up’ snack or drink. So if it’s not immediately required, the energy has to be stored. And guess what – your body is an expert at converting excess sugar into fat! The more energy fluctuations you have, the more storage activity there is likely to be going on in your body.

To give you lasting energy – and help stop any extra pounds piling on – all you need to do is choose to eat foods that release their energy more slowly. So here are some simple rules for the new more energetic you:

• The quick burn foods tend to be either sweet, white or fluffy (such as sweets, biscuits, fluffy cakes, white refined grains like white rice and pasta). Avoid those, and instead choose foods that are thick, fibrous or protein (vegetables, whole grains, beans, lentils, lean meat, fish etc).
• In practice, ditch your fluffy and sweet breakfast cereals, and instead choose porridge (fibrous), rye bread (thick and fibrous) or live yoghurt (protein) with berries or fruit. Eggs are also great for breakfast, but might be more convenient at weekends when you don’t need to rush so much.
• Whatever you choose, don’t skip breakfast. It sets your energy levels for the day and will help you avoid the sugary snacks later on.
• Good slow burn snacks to replace the biscuits and chocolates include nuts and seeds. Make a mixture from your favourite nuts and seeds and carry some in your handbag.
• Avoid the dried fruit trap – they seem like a healthier option to sweets and biscuits, but are just as sugary. Choose fresh fruit instead, which still has all the fibre and vitamins intact.
• Make sure your lunch includes some protein. Have some fish or chicken in your sandwich or cottage cheese or beans with your jacket potato. Avoid soups made only of vegetables. Protein digests more slowly and gives you a slower and steadier release of energy.
• The simplest trick of all is to keep well hydrated by drinking enough plain water. Dehydration can make you feel really tired and irritable, so aim to drink at least 1.5 litres every day. The easiest way to achieve this is to fill a large bottle of water in the morning (most offices have a water fountain) and sip from it throughout the day.

There is more information about nutrition, stress and health on my web-site at www.sannahealth.com

Nutrition and skin health

Did you know that skin is the largest organ in your body? Like any organ, it needs nutrients to keep it healthy and in good condition. It is also the external indicator of how your body is doing on the inside. Although important, taking care of it purely from the outside isn’t going to be enough if you want a glowing healthy looking skin.

What you eat and how you digest your foods matter when it comes to keeping your skin radiant. Nutrition is fundamentally involved at every stage of skin development. Just think of the fact that every single cell in the body is made of the raw materials it gets from the foods you eat.

Vitamin C for example is required for the production of collagen, the mesh that keeps the skin together and gives it its strength and structure. No vitamin C, no new collagen produced.

Low levels of zinc in the diet can result in stretch marks and poor healing. Your skin is continuously renewing itself and old skin cells are being replaced. Zinc is needed for efficient production of the new cells.

What about wrinkles then – are there any magic nutrients to combat the laughter lines? The skin’s suppleness is mainly down to two components, collagen and elastin. They can both get damaged over time from pollution, radiation from the sun and from lack of nutrients.

Elastin is a bit like rubber band that helps your skin bounce back when you stretch it. If the rubber wears off, the skin can start sagging and wrinkles will form. The best nutrients that help protect collagen and elastin are vitamins A, C and E and selenium.

So what are the simple steps to healthier and younger looking skin?

Drink more water. Moisturising your skin from the inside is just as important as looking after it from the outside. Aim for at leat 1.5 litres a day.

Increase oily fish (salmon, mackerel, sardines, trout, tuna) in your diet. Your skin also needs good fats to keep it supple.

Snack on nuts and seeds, another source of good fats. They are also rish in zinc, a mineral which is often low in people who suffer from acne.

Fresh vegetables - the more the better, in a variety of colours. They will give you an abundance of nutrients that protect your skin from ageing.

Enjoy fresh berries. They are an amazingly rich source of vitamins and minerals relative to their size. Have them as snacks, or mix into yoghurt or porridge to give a real boost to your breakfast.

Avoid excess sugar. Refined sugar can damage the structure of the skin, making it less flexible and more prone to wrinkling. Don't add sugar to drinks and cereals, and avoid or limit sugary foods like soft drinks, sweets, jams, cakes and biscuits.

Nutrition can also help with more serious skin complaints such as eczema, adult acne, and psoriasis. This is where the healthy diet is just the start – often more specific support of different body processes are needed for a sustained solution. In one case of severe adult acne that wasn’t responding to antibiotics we needed to support fat digestion, liver detox and adrenal function. After just a month on the programme there was a visible improvement in the condition of the skin. You can find out more about nutritional therapy on my web-site on www.sannahealth.com.