What you eat is only half of the equation to nourishment. You could eat the healthiest diet in the world, but if you aren’t eating those foods in a way that promotes healthy digestion, those nutrients you consume from all those healthy foods will not be able to nourish your body.
The complete food picture for wellness has to be about WHAT you eat and HOW you eat. Eating fast, eating in a hurry, eating while stressed, eating without paying attention to your meal, eating with negative emotions and eating with little to no preparation of foods all encourage your digestive system to slow or shut down, resulting in an inability to actually assimilate those nutrients. This means, even if what you are eating is healthy you will struggle to receive the goodness from the foods. We are now living in a world where there isn’t actually time to eat, so instead we fit it in while doing our other tasks, chores and jobs for the day. Indirectly we are creating a society of people who are unable to digest their foods all because we are ‘too busy’. When was the last time you sat down and spent an hour or more enjoying your meal without having to be somewhere else? When did you last deep breath and relax through every mouthful? When was your last meal that you spent laughing, happy, and fully present within your eating environment? The issue with this whole obesity and weight loss thing does not start with eating better foods and cutting out unhealthy treats. It begins with eating in a relaxed and happy state that promotes healthy digestion and love and nourishment of the food you eat. Relax, deep breath, and be present – every time you eat! Kerri x
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Unfortunately in the last several decades there has been incorrect fear instilled in us that fat is bad, fat is responsible for making us ‘fat’, and it is the leading cause for heart disease. It is now realised, and proven through science, that this information is far from the truth and in fact is creating almost the very thing it is trying to prevent. The issue is that your body needs fat, it needs it for survival, it needs it to burn fat, it needs it for energy, it needs it for healthy skin and hair, it needs it for nourishment, and it needs it for protection. If you limit or restrict your intake of fat then it must be replaced with something, and that is being done in the form of sugar or processed/refined carbohydrates. Your body doesn’t need refined sugar and refined carbohydrates for health, but it does need fat. To really be healthy, to manage sugar cravings, to lose weight and to have a healthy digestive system, healthy fats must be a part of your daily diet. If you restrict fat intake too much, your body’s energy and calorie burning ability slows right down in a means to hold on to the stored body fat you have, in case enough is not received through diet. So if you restrict fat intake through fear of gaining weight or as a mean to reduce body fat, you are actually training your body to hold on to stored body fat. There are many different types of fats, and it can be a somewhat complex topic to understand, but to keep it simple, aim to increase your intake of natural plant-based fats. Some valuable food sources of this are:
Also try including moderate amounts of oily fish such as salmon and unprocessed chicken. Raw Health Slice I think of this slice as a powerhouse of nutrients, nourishment and healthy fats. If you struggle with sugar cravings or not being able to eat enough healthy plant-based fats, this slice is perfect – and super easy to make!
The nuts and seeds supply your body with loads of nutrients, including magnesium and zinc, as well as a great source of monounsaturated fats, and the coconut oil is great for a plant-based saturated fat to help manage sugar cravings, as well as being high in anti-inflammatory, antifungal and antibacterial properties. Try it – it’s delicious! Ingredients: 1 ½ cup almonds (or any nuts work) 1 cup pumpkin seeds ½ cup sunflower seeds ½ cup ground Linseeds 1 ½ cup dates (soaked for 5 min in hot water) ½ cup cacao powder 6 tablespoons coconut oil (melted) Directions: Blend seeds and nuts in blender until fine and tip into a large mixing bowl. Blend dates and cacao powder together until finely chopped and add to the bowl with seeds and nuts. Add coconut oil and mix well. Line a cake tin with baking paper and pour mixture in, pressing down firmly with the back of a spoon or finger tips. Set in fridge for several hours before cutting. Tips: make double and freeze. It freezes well and tastes great straight from the freezer. Enjoy! Kerri x The trouble with dieting is that many diets are more often than not based around restrictions, removal, banning and deprivation. A diet is designed to make a person lose weight by removing the foods that are contributing to weight gain.
The thing is though, they are just never successful. Or maybe, they are incredibly successful but only for a little while. There are many reasons why diets don’t work long term, but more than anything, it is to do with our mind, our thought processes, our beliefs, and how much or little we love. Sounds crazy, I know, but it’s not. It is our minds that create the ability to lose or gain weight, not the diet itself. If your mind is positive, positive things happen. If your mind is negative, negative things happen. It’s simple. The best diet approach you can do is this:
Because you are worth it! Kerri x Everybody needs carbohydrates. In fact carbohydrates are the only source of energy the brain and the central nervous system can use for fuel meaning they are vital for life. This food group, however, has been given a terrible rap in recent times through being associated with weight gain and poor health. There is varying degrees when it comes to the type and quality of carbohydrates, and it is the unhealthy options that have given all carbohydrates a poor reputation. There is a big difference when it comes to the types of carbohydrates – on one end of the scale are healthy, nourishing complex carbohydrates and on the other end are processed and refined simple sugars. They both play a similar role in your body but with an entirely different outcome. Complex carbs fuel you with stable energy, make you feel good and nourish your body, whereas simple sugars spike your energy levels, make you tired and lethargic, alter your moods, damage your gut, make you store fat, prevent you burning fat, and have a drug-like effect on your brain – to name just a few. When it comes to poor digestion and gut health, as well as weight gain and general health, the refined and processed carbohydrates often made with wheat and/or sugar are where the damage is being created, along with some of the other heavily refined grains. Refined carbohydrates (simple sugars) enter your blood stream extremely quickly sending your pancreas into overdrive to produce enough insulin to deal with it, resulting in huge spikes of insulin in your blood. Whereas, complex carbohydrates enter your blood stream steadily and gradually keeping insulin levels regulated and stable, so the fuel and nutrients from the carbohydrates can be sent around your body to your body cells. The extremely healthy and nourishing carbohydrates such as vegetables, fruit and wholesome carbohydrates offer your body substantial goodness and nutrients and mustn’t be left out of your diet. Some people, especially active people, run better off a higher quantity of carbohydrates in their diet, but a generalised recommendation is to have around 50% of your diet carbohydrates. This sounds a lot when we are encouraged to believe they are bad, but within this 50% I suggest 40% comes from vegetables and fruit. This leaves around 10% intake throughout your day from alternative carbohydrates, but preferably not wheat or refined gluten-free flours. Aim to include carbohydrate-rich starchy vegetables in your daily diet as they are full of nutrients but also supply your body with lots of energy. Try including:
And top up your carbohydrate intake with a small amount of alternative options each day, such as:
Roast Beetroot and Chickpea Salad Ingredients
3 large raw beetroot 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed 1 red onion 1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped 1-2 teaspoon dried rosemary Sea salt and cracked pepper to taste 1 handful of baby spinach Directions Preheat oven to 180°C. Wash and cut off tops and tails of beetroot but don’t peel. Cut into small cubes and add to a large mixing bowl. Rinse and drain chickpeas and add to the bowl with the beetroot. Cut the red onion into 8ths and add to the beetroot, along with the garlic, rosemary and salt and pepper. Melt the coconut oil and mix through the vegetables well. Line a large baking dish with baking paper and spread ingredients out in a single layer on the paper and roast in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until cooked and slightly browned. Remove from oven. Place the handful of baby spinach on a plate, and pile beetroot, onion and chickpeas on top. Enjoy! Kerri x If you suffer from anxiety or have times in your life when anxiety takes a hold on you, just know that more people than you realise are fighting your same battle. It can be one of the most loneliest things to have because those with it often suffer in silence but can appear so completely normal to others.
I want to share with you five tips that I know to be proven to help combat the feelings of anxiety. Far too many people are fighting this battle but don’t realise they can do anything to improve it. Remove gluten from your diet I cannot stress this enough. Anxiety is strongly linked to gut health and gluten is one of the biggest destroyers of your gut lining and for many people it causes huge digestive stress which leads directly to feelings of anxiety. Learn to meditate A big part of anxiety is the emotional and mental turmoil and constant chatter in your mind. It becomes overwhelming, especially when those thoughts are negative, and it sends your entire body into overdrive. Mediation is about stilling the mind and stopping that turmoil. Improve your gut health With the strong link to gut health and anxiety being now known, it is vital that your gut starts being looked after. Gluten, sugar and refined carbohydrates are your guts least wanted foods, and probiotics and fermented foods are your guts most wanted. Try having kombucha or kefir daily (start small and gradually build it up), along with fermented foods such as sauerkraut and pickles (in a salt brine not vinegar). Aim to have at least one, preferably two options each day. Magnesium This is a mineral that a huge number of people are severely deficient in. It is suspected to contribute to a lot of health issues, and none more than anxiety. Stress and magnesium are intrinsically linked – stress stops us being able to absorb nutrients properly, but magnesium is critical for stress management too. Because anxiety is a stress on your body, often people with anxiety are chronically deficient in magnesium. Add in as many of these foods every single day as you can:
Vitamin D There is new evidence out now showing a strong link between Vitamin D and the management of depression and anxiety. Fresh air and a healthy amount of sunshine makes a huge difference in managing anxiety. We need sunshine to be able to absorb Vitamin D properly, and with the amount of sun safe promoting out now, some people are actually not getting enough. There is a fine line between too much and not enough, but a healthy amount of sun exposure regularly is recommended, as well as having the following foods which contain Vitamin D (you need to combine these foods with sunshine however to ensure you get their benefits):
If your anxiety levels are still significant and are having a detrimental affect on your health and life, then please consult a professional for further advice and help, however for many people I know who suffer with anxiety, these five points have made a huge difference. Other points to consider are also to ensure you are getting enough exercise to boost your ‘feel-good’ hormones, learn to love yourself so you aren’t fighting a constant battle of not being good enough, ensure you get at least 7 hours of restful sleep each night, and create a peaceful living environment with no clutter and disorganisation. 15 signs your gut isn't as healthy as it would like to be:
If you tick off more than one of these signs then there is a likelihood your gut isn’t as healthy and happy as it would like to be. Lifestyles high in mental and emotional stress, toxic environments, diets centred around refined and processed foods, everyday foods laden in artificial additives and chemicals, and consumption’s of phenomenal amounts of sugar, are leaving people fighting an unseen and unrealised battle with their gut and the health of their entire digestive system. There is a centuries old quote by Hippocrates that states “All disease begins in the gut”. 5 Ways You Can Encourage a Healthy Gut Starting Today
The health of your gut really dictates so much about how you feel, how you think, and the way your body functions. Start loving your gut today! Kerri x There is one critical step to the digestive process of eating that many people are indirectly sabotaging, all the while being entirely unaware of it.
You can have the healthiest eating plan in the world, but unless you eat in a way that supports a healthy digestive system, those healthy foods will contribute very little to your health, wellbeing or body weight. So many people today have huge digestive upsets, problems digesting foods, and they suffer from bloating and feeling uncomfortable. Some of the reason for this is how you prepare your food (or lack of) and the way you eat your food, rather than the actual food choices you are making. If, for a moment, you reflect back several generations ago, the way food was prepared varies significantly from the way it is today. Meals were made from scratch, hours were spent in the kitchen creating meals from whole foods, and very little of the ingredients that went into meals were from packets or food-like products. The nutritional value of whole foods is huge, as well as the negative side-effects of ‘food-like’ (artificial foods) products. But further to that is the lack of preparation the digestive system now has for meals. That time spent preparing your meal is sending a huge amount of signals and signs around your body prepping everything from the saliva in your mouth, to your digestive tract, to your blood stream and to your chemical pathways. Your brain receives these signals the moment you think about food, and starts preparing it for digesting the food that will soon be entering the body. The sight of food, the smell of food, the thoughts of food, and the pleasure you will receive from the food all is activating so much within your body already, well before the first mouthful of food is actually taken. This stage is critical, but unfortunately due to eating in a rush, having negative feelings towards your food, being distracted while preparing food, eating convenience foods, eating fast, being unaware of your food, and little to no preparation of meals, this stage is not being allowed to function properly. As a result, food is entering the second phase of digestion without the first stage even being activated properly. The result? A stress-induced shut down of your digestive system causing indigestion, reflux, bloating, gas and an uncomfortable tummy. Instead try spending more time calmly preparing your meals, feel relaxed and happy while eating your meals, remove all distractions such as TV or phones, enjoy eating in a happy environment with friends or family, eat slowly and chew food well before swallowing, and most importantly just simply be ‘present’ in your meal. Too often we rush around while eating and thinking about the next thing on our agenda – instead stop, sit, and be in the moment. Enjoy your meal! Bring on happy digestion! Kerri x Movement and exercise is a vital component for wellbeing, with the benefits it brings to our emotional, mental and physical health being huge. It has been used as one of the most common ways people attempt to ‘lose weight’ or ‘burn fat’. Exercise and movement is a necessity for healthy and successful weight loss, but no one component will solve weight issues. Exercise needs to be included for many reasons, and all of these are only because they create a healthy body. It is only once you have created a healthy body, your body can then release unnecessary body fat. While your body isn’t living in optimum health, any weight loss that takes place won’t be a long term successful reduction – extra body fat is only a message telling you something is not functioning to your body’s preference. It is important for exercise to be an important part of everybody's lifestyle, regardless of weight loss goals, and it is even more important to realise there are so many different ways you can exercise that don't include pounding treadmills or going to gyms. Exercise really is just a name given to moving in a way that brings health benefits. As a culture we are doing more set exercise (such as gym sessions) now than we ever have, but we aren't moving incidentally nearly anywhere near we should. This is leading us to de-evolve in our health and wellbeing, rather than evolve. Daily movement and being active is so important, and it doesn't need to be intense and prolonged - it's just about moving your body! In fact, light to moderate exercise brings about many more health benefits than intense and prolonged exercise does. Here are six reasons why exercise will make you feel healthier and/or help with weight loss goals...
There is one massively hidden weight loss secret. It’s about fear. About our need for protection.
I talk about this a lot. A lot of my writing on here is about the mind set of people who believe they are overweight. And it's because it breaks my heart. This diet world we live in is being run by a billion dollar industry that makes its money from peoples insecurities. It has been estimated our subconscious mind is being directly targeted over a thousand times a day with messages reminding us we are not good enough through media, through advertising, through social media – everywhere we look. This phenomenally wealthy industry is leading us all to believe we must pay ridiculous amounts of money to ‘fix’ ourselves and to be better, because we are not okay as we are. Now, here is why this breaks my heart. All this invasive belief programming from society teaching us to never be okay with our body’s, especially if we are overweight, is creating a mind-consuming fear deep inside us that we are not good enough and need to improve. The very moment you harbour fear within yourself, and before you even consciously realise it, you are setting your body up for protection. Even a small amount of fear, the moment that becomes sensed inside you, you release stress hormones to deal with the threat. These hormones, adrenalin and cortisol, are your protection. Logically it makes sense: when we are afraid, we need protection. We are wired so precisely perfect that unfortunately in this modern world it has become a flaw. When our body is releasing cortisol – a stress response hormone – we cannot release body fat. We cannot burn it, it cannot use it for energy, it physiologically cannot come out of our fat stores. On top of that, cortisol is telling your body to slow down body mechanisms to encourage fat storage. You are literally training yourself to become a perfectly designed fat-storer. So this brings me to fear and protection. If you are being run daily on the fear you are not good enough, the only response to take place is your body needing protection – and it does that through fat storage. If you are working so incredibly hard to be better, look better or lose weight, but can’t budge any body fat…ask yourself what you are afraid of. Ask yourself why you want to lose weight. When you stop the fear, you stop the need for protection, and you no longer need to store body fat. Look inside yourself for the truth and stop your mind being programmed by these companies that need you to hate yourself to make money. You are worth so much more than being run by fear. Watching people try to out run fear is a hard thing to see. You can never out run fear. Fear will never, ever let you win. And I promise you this because I tried out running it for a very long time. You don’t ever beat it, you cant. You keep running and the fear keeps growing. The more fear you harbour, the more protection you need, so the more body fat you store. So please stop running aware from yourself. The moment you stop and look inside yourself to figure out who you really are, that is when you can truly start to fall in love with yourself. And love cancels out fear. You’ve got this, even when you don’t believe you have. Here’s to loving away the fear! Kerri van de Loo x For me to understand how I could love myself when there were parts of my body I simply didn’t like, meant I had to change my perspective. To do this I began looking at myself with what I call The Self-Love Scale. This is one of the strategies I used to learn to love and accept myself, and I hope it will help you too.
There are different areas of a person when we speak of self-love, and they can include your physical appearance and your body image, and also your self-worth, the way you behave, the way you treat others and personality. Let’s make up an example here based on only physical traits. Imagine you have a scale and on one end of this scale is the one thing you love most about yourself physically, and on the other end of this scale is the one thing you dislike most about yourself. Every other part of you falls somewhere on this scale in order, depending on how much or little you like those parts. Here’s a fictitious example of what a self-love scale for someone might look like with number 1 as your favourite thing, and number 10 as your least favourite:
But how you look at this part of you that comes in last on your scale is what matters. If you can learn to accept that something must take up this place, much like the last runner in a running race, and see it for what it is and realise it is not as bad as you think, then life becomes that much easier and happier. When you live in a fear-based mind set then naturally all your focus goes on everything you fear – the things you don’t like, the things you wish were different, and the things that are on the bottom of your self-love scale. But when you live with a love-based mind set then you spend more time focusing on all the wonderful things about yourself, and you pay attention to the things on the top of your scale – your favourite parts. Once this happens you no longer feel the need and desire to strive to be something else. You can recognise that the best parts on your scale are much more important than the worst parts. If you can start to see this Self-Love Scale for yourself, ask yourself what would happen if you were to fix the thing you least liked about yourself? If you were to change it to something better, another part must then take up the end spot on your scale. You will never ever get to a point where you are happy, because you will continue forever trying to perfect yourself, when in fact you can’t because something must always take that last place on your scale. If you had 10 runners in a running race, and worked really hard on improving the slowest runner and made him faster, then it doesn’t change the fact that there is still going to be the last place runner, it will just be a different runner – number nine will be bumped back to number 10. If you spend most of your time focusing on the last place thing on your scale, it loses its perspective and in your mind it becomes a lot worse than how others see it. Like a running race again, everyone else sees all 10 runners – the fastest right through to the slowest. Chances are their focus is on who is winning the race. But when your focus becomes fear-based within your own self you lose sight of the whole race and who is winning, simply because you spent the whole race watching the person coming last. It’s not about fixing your least favourite part. It becomes more about perspective when you can understand and grasp the idea of the Self-Love Scale, because when you are living in a fear-based mind set all you focus on are the things you know aren’t good enough – the last place runner in your running race. But when you flip that perspective to a love-based mind set, then instead you focus on the things you love about yourself – the first and second place runners in your running race. Look at your flaws and be grateful for them, because they are the things that make your best bits stand out. Be proud of your flaws because without being proud of them you will never be perfect, because you will always be trying too hard to be something else, trying too hard to be someone who is less perfect than the real you. Go and love your best bits! Kerri van de Loo xx “Current guidelines suggest that overweight and obese individuals lose weight through engaging in lifestyle modifications that involve diet, exercise and behaviour changes”.
The standard way of approaching weight loss to date in the wider and more commonly known parts of society is through using this above method. You don’t need to go far to be confronted with the knowledge that for weight loss to happen you must alter your way of eating and exercising to create a deficit within your body’s energy system to result in a reduction of weight – energy in versus energy out. Alongside this simple method of how weight loss is recommended is the social and emotional pressures placed on any individual to believe that to be healthy you must lose weight, and to look good you must be skinny. This energy deficit theory may in some cases result in successful weight loss, but it is proven only to be short term. 98% of people who lose weight regain that weight, often within a year, and furthermore they gain back more than they actually began with. When you can look at these statistics for what they are, you can recognise that the common theories to date for weight loss are insufficient, unsuccessful and potentially detrimental in the long run to, not only your body, but your emotional and mental wellbeing. If you look deeper into the most common method people choose to adopt when attempting weight loss of diet and exercise, it is full of multiple contradictions, and the long term effects can range from increased food and body preoccupation or obsessions, the damaging effects of cycling through weight loss and weight gain, a distorted view of your body, poor self-esteem and self-respect, the potential of eating disorders, and an overall level of ill-health on many of your body systems and functions. The contradiction in this lies in that people are using this idea for losing weight in a belief it will make them ‘healthier and they will look better’, but unfortunately the long term effects are almost entirely opposite. The idea that only a slim person can be healthy is not true in any sense, and in fact, many overweight people have a much higher rate of essential nutrient consumption, meaning that they often eat better choices of food. Likewise, many overweight people actually exercise much more often and more frequently than their slimmer counterparts. Both of these reasons are because we are taught that if you eat better and exercise more you will lose weight, so a large number of people who believe they are overweight do both of these principals well to try and achieve that desired effect. However, because the reality falls very short on this assumption on how to lose weight, more and more people are developing severely distorted views of their body’s, other people’s body’s, and what they think they should look like. It is incredibly sad that the cultural way of many people is to place the value of a person on the size and shape they are. The size and shape of a person has absolutely no indication of who that person is, the worthiness and attractiveness of that person, how that person lives their life, and further more shows very little idea about their health and wellbeing. Overtime there has become this stream-lined view of the ideal body, and along with this ideal is a huge percentage of the population fighting emotional, mental and physical battles to fit within this narrow margin of idealism. Unfortunately though, the method majority of people are using in an attempt to reach this ideal body shape and size is through purely diet and exercise, and as explained above, this contradicts the very thing you are attempting to achieve. Relying solely on diet and exercise to achieve this desired body shape and size will always leave a person falling short of their goal, and it is not because they may never be able to achieve it, it is because within their mind they will never be able to achieve it. In too many overweight people a distortion of their body has been created through many failed attempts at previously trying to lose weight that they can no longer appreciate the real version of their body. Quite simply, the will continue to believe their body isn’t good enough, regardless of what size and shape they reach. When a person goes through multiple attempts at trying to lose weight, it is not because they need to eat better or exercise more. Please don’t misinterpret what I mean here – food and exercise is hugely valuable to the health of a person. But it is not what must change when a person wishes to achieve the body shape and size that society has instructed to be the ideal version. If you break food and exercise down into why they are important for your body, the links to weight loss are always secondary, or even further removed. For example, to have a healthy diet one key point is to eat lots of fresh and raw vegetables, and the reason for this is so you can receive the essential nutrients your body needs to supply every cell in your body with optimum nourishment. Another point for a healthy diet is to reduce processed and refined carbohydrates, and a couple of the reasons being that these foods can damage the health of your gut resulting in inflammation through your body, they can spike insulin levels too much, and they offer very little nutrients for your body. When you exercise you build muscle which increases your metabolic rate, it also helps to increase blood flow and this, along with sweating and puffing, helps to remove toxins from your body. Exercise also is responsible for producing feel-good hormones, such as endorphins and serotonin, which help you feel happy and positive. So the reasons for eating lots of vegetables, reducing refined and processed carbohydrates and exercising are not directly linked to losing weight. In fact, there isn’t much of a direct relevance at all. The reason you do them is to help your body become healthy. As a result of lining up all the healthy necessities for your body, such as these mentioned, your body then can have the ability to let go of any unneeded body fat because it is in optimal health. When people strive so hard to eat and exercise for weight loss they skip the essential health necessities needed, such as a healthy gut, optimum nourishment, and feel-good hormones, to name only a few. Once you can look at the idea of weight loss with this understanding you will realise that following diets that promise quick weight loss, or restricting calories in and increasing energy out, can’t sustain a healthy body and mind, and the result must inevitably always be regaining of the lost weight. For lifelong weight loss, or to be that small 2% that succeed at losing weight, you need to remove all focus off weight and put it all on to health. Within health it encompasses the full wellbeing of both your mind and your body, because without a healthy mind, you will never be able to appreciate or accept when your body really is in a place of being healthy and ‘okay’, therefore still continue to fight for that ‘ideal’ body (that actually doesn’t exist!). Eating healthy foods and exercising regularly is important for a healthy body, but it is only a small part of the weight loss picture. Weight loss is a society and cultural issue, wherein the idea of the ideal body and the need to be skinny to be healthy is so programmed into most people’s minds that there seems to be this inability to see that it is an inaccurate and insufficient truth to the real cause of obesity. Start beginning with your self-worth and naturally your body will follow with the desire to want to be healthy. Nothing else matters. Size, shape and body proportions is not the issue. Only the health of your mind and body matter. Please break free from the current mind set on how to lose weight. If it was entirely accurate then there really would be very little people struggling to lose weight in this world. Furthermore, the fact that 98% of people regain weight shows that something is not right, and that something significantly important is missing from this weight loss mentality. Here’s to a healthy mind and body! Kerri x We are all programmed to receive pleasure on a regular basis, even more so, we actually need to make sure we receive enough pleasure regularly. Our brains are programmed to make one of two decisions – receive pleasure or avoid pain. We are reward-driven and we are extremely motivated by pleasure and ‘feel-good’ experiences. Four of the most natural pleasure’s for humans are food, water, exercise and sex, and if we allow these to be utilised properly in our lives then we receive all the pleasure we need to be happy on a regular basis. When we deny ourselves enough pleasure our need for more increases, and we crave and search for ways to get that pleasure. Some turn to unhealthy methods such as drugs or alcohol, others find obsessive behaviours, or others binge on these natural pleasures in unhealthy ways – such as food, sex or exercise. If we look at food as an example, the ability to enjoy food and gain ample pleasure from it has been destroyed in so many people by this diet-obsessed world full of restrictions, banning and guilt. Too many people won’t allow themselves to gain pleasure from the food they eat because they are so wrapped up in feeling guilty about every wrong mouthful they have. We are made to feel worthless or not good enough if we overindulge in unhealthy foods, which in turn destroys the ability to draw pleasure from it. It’s rather ironic that we are now so obsessed about eating healthy, but it’s that obsession that is creating the inability to gain the pleasure. We are all emotional eaters to some degree, that is how we are programmed, but the emotional eating is not the issue. Everyone can emotionally eat from time to time and there need be no negative side effects. The issue doesn’t lie in the emotional eating, it lies in the way you perceive your food and the way you choose to eat your food. If you know you struggle with control over food and use food emotionally more than you would like just allow yourself the ability to gain pleasure from your food. I always say to people, if you are going to make the choice to eat it, then eat it with the utmost pleasure and enjoyment you can, because if you don’t, then you really won’t satisfy your pleasure needs and will continue to crave and binge on more in this desperate need to get that pleasure. Regardless of whether it is healthy and going to compliment your body or not, if you are going to eat it then I really encourage you to, firstly, sit down with the food at a place you associate with eating, remove any distractions such as phones and TV, then wholly focus on the food you are eating, savour every mouthful you are having and feel how good it tastes and how much you enjoy it. Eat slowly, letting the food digest, letting your brain absorb the pleasure and realise that you are actually allowed to enjoy nice food, and that you are actually good enough the way you are. Don’t make excuses for why you are eating, and don’t feel the need to justify it to anybody, yourself included. The next step to the emotional eating picture is to focus more on areas outside of just the food to gain your pleasure requirements. Some people require more pleasure than others, and this is a whole new topic on its own, however just look at your life and find ways that you can enhance as much pleasure as you can, aside from food. Exercise is great as it really triggers the pleasure centres within your brain, but again don’t do it because it’s a chore, find ways to move that you love (conventional exercise or not, doesn’t matter), and when you do exercise, focus on how much your body is receiving the ‘feel-good’ feelings from it. Breathe deeply through your exercise, admire how it makes you feel strong and love the feeling of sweating because it detoxifies your body. Look always at the good it does to your body. Don’t focus on how you have to do it to lose weight, focus on why your body loves it. Emotional eating is a huge topic on its own, but just begin by knowing everyone is an emotional eater – you are not in this on your own. It is one of the only ways you can fill unhappy voids within you without people noticing. Those voids within you are created through many reasons, but one being that of lack of pleasure. Fill yourself with as much pleasure as you can, completely guilt-free, and you will find your attachment to food will be easier on you. Always, and always, be kind to yourself though, because you are good enough, regardless of how much you eat. Have a great day and deep breath! Kerri x It has long been suggested a lack of sleep can have a negative impact on a person's health, and can contribute significantly to being over weight, but often people are unsure why. There are many reasons that this association between sleep duration (less than five hours or more than nine hours), sleep quality and weight gain are connected, and for everyone the reasons may vary.
Some common connections between lack of sleep and weight gain:
Tips for improving your quality of sleep and feelings of tiredness:
Kerri x THE EFFECTS OF STRESS High stressful lifestyles have become so normal for a vast number of people in today’s society, to the point where they are continually living in a state of stress. With the degree of physical, mental and psychological stress people place on themselves, it is no wonder many people are simply not coping. Unfortunately the world we live in has become one where stress is normal, expected and you are almost made to feel guilty if you are not carrying enough of a workload. There is a mind-set that it’s almost fashionable to work long hours, to be ‘too busy’, and always under pressure. Unfortunately, this way of being is destroying the wellbeing of people, it is self-destructive in every sense, and it will always sabotage your ability to lose weight. While under stress you simply will not lose weight. To make this even worse, so many people overweight have a belief that the outside world judges an overweight person as ‘lazy’, thus in turn making them want to prove they aren’t. I know so many people overweight wanting to prove they aren’t lazy by working so hard and running their body to the ground to stop that judgement from others. If this is you, firstly, nobody thinks you are lazy and if they do, then you know what, who cares. You know you aren’t and that is all that matters. Secondly, you are sabotaging the one thing you are trying to prove against – your weight. Weight loss won’t ever happen while you are under stress. THE STRESS RESPONSE The saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is very aptly suited to stress. Stress is necessary for survival because it induces adaptations, makes you improve and it is what triggers your fight or flight response; however your body isn’t designed, nor can it cope, with being under continuous stress day in and day out. THE GOOD STRESS When your body is placed under any level of stress or pressure from either physical, emotional or mental stimuli you will enter into what is called a ‘stress response state’. This state is also known as the ‘flight or fight’ response and it is critical for your body to be able to do this. This is a body response that was designed as a survival mechanism back in earlier times which was the body’s ability to kick into a survival instinct to either fight or flight, so to speak. When a threat to your wellbeing occurs, which prehistorically may have been being chased by a predator or surviving a natural disaster, your body will rapidly produce two important hormones – adrenalin and cortisol. These two hormones are what would save your life and give you the ability to flee the disaster, or fight the predictor. WHAT HAPPENS IN A STRESS RESPONSE A gland in your brain called the hypothalamus triggers an alarm in your body that lets you know you are in danger. When this happens signals are sent to your adrenal glands to release a surge of adrenalin and cortisol, the two stress hormones. The increase in adrenalin provides an instant boost of energy, increases your heart rate and blood pressure, and ultimately gives you the power to either ‘fight or flight’ the danger. The main stress hormone, cortisol, is released to help improve your brains ability to use glucose, as well as minimising all the unnecessary functions taking place in your body that are not needed while directly in the stress response. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? In today’s world with very little threats to your wellbeing, this primal instinct is not needed nearly as much; however, the body’s ability to keep entering this stress response state has not changed. This response will still always take place when needed, just as it always has. You may not need to fight off a wild animal as our ancestors did, but there are still always accidents and life threats that need a sudden response – when your child runs on to the road, when you’re driving your car and need to avoid an accident, or in a natural disaster. The problem doesn’t lie in the fact that you enter a flight or fight response for survival; the problem is that your body does not distinguish real life threats to every day ‘busy-ness’. Any thought processes, work-related incidences, life-work balance, life management, illnesses, financial strains – anything that makes you feel anxious, worried, stressed, tense – they all enter your body into a degree of this same stress response. This means that every time you experience any type of stress – physical, mental or emotional – your body sends signals to your adrenal glands to produce adrenalin and cortisol. HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR BODY LONG TERM? While adrenalin and cortisol are being produced at such large amounts, your body shuts down any of the unnecessary bodily functions. One in particular being your digestive system, meaning if you eat while in this stress state your ability to absorb nutrients and goodness from the foods you eat are reduced right down resulting in poor health from lack of nutrients. Your digestive system will struggle to pass the food through meaning gas, bloating, irregular bowels or heart burn will occur, and you will struggle to receive a stable and consistent amount of energy from the foods you eat causing tiredness, lethargy, moodiness and irritability. The next step to occur is your adrenal glands will begin to down-regulate, meaning they will need to produce more cortisol and adrenalin, and more often, to meet the stress response needed for the ‘perceived threat’ to your wellbeing. Once this happens, it becomes much harder to get out of the stress response, but also you line your body up for adrenalin fatigue, caused by your adrenal glands just not being able to cope with the production of these hormones for such an extensive period of time. Even further being the effects that cortisol has on insulin production (insulin is the hormone that, in turn, allows fat to be used for energy). When cortisol is continually released it keeps your insulin levels too high which will only allow carbohydrates to be used for energy – this can be partly responsible for sugar cravings but will also stop fat from being released from fat stores to be used for energy production. HOW TO BRING YOUR BODY OUT OF A STATE OF STRESS The quickest and most effective way is through deep breathing. If you imagine yourself being chased by a wild animal your breathing becomes fast and rapid – this is a mechanism deliberately created through the stress response. So if you stop, relax your entire body and begin deep diaphragmatic breathing to the very bottom of your tummy then you bring yourself in to a relaxed state. This is a very effective tool to use, and I encourage everyone to do this at least once a day and spend as long as you can in this state. When you feel your stress levels are up, then stop and start deep breathing, close your eyes and just feel your body relax. Don’t underestimate the degree that stress can play havoc on your body. Take care, and remember relaxation is the new fashion. Kerri x My biggest advice to everyone is self-acceptance. So I ask you: Do you love yourself? Here is my definition of unconditional self-love and acceptance...
And the best part?! All you need to change about yourself to believe these 10 things is your PERCEPTION. Love yourself already, because you are worth it! Kerri van de Loo x As a Personal Trainer and nutrition coach it’s my job and my challenge to my clients to make sure they lead healthy lifestyles with lots of exercise, positive mind-sets and healthy foods. Yet more often than not I actually ask my clients to have a couple of rest days or enjoy a treat of something completely unhealthy rather than having to motivate them to do more exercise or find a bit more willpower with food control. One of the hardest mind-sets for me to break in people I work with is to get them to understand they don’t have to tick every box and strive for a perfect day every day. You do not have to tick all the right boxes for health and wellbeing, especially those with weight loss goals, every day. You do not have to get it all right 100% of the time. It’s about making sure each of the boxes at some point get ticked across a relatively regular basis, for the rest of your life. As soon as you can understand this and release the feelings of having to reach perfection on every aspect and factor, the sooner you will fall into a healthier place and your journey with a healthy lifestyle will be easier, happier and more successful. Food, exercise and wellbeing isn’t a ‘criteria’, it’s not a ‘challenge’ you must achieve. It’s not a destination to reach. It’s just one aspect that makes up your life. It’s just part of your continual journey through your life. You just do it. Don’t try and validate it, don’t judge it, don’t critique it, don’t analyse it. Just eat – where possible, healthy foods. Just exercise – regularly but when you feel like it. Promote wellbeing – when you have the time and energy to do so. But by all means, if you slip off your perfect track record occasionally, if you miss a few days of exercise, or overindulge on unnecessary foods for several days, then keep moving along on your journey of life. It is not a call for reproach on your recent ‘failings’. It is not something that you should ever feel guilty or ashamed of. Just keep moving along. One of the biggest things stopping people living a healthy lifestyle is their constant analysis of how well they are doing, if they have done everything right for the day. And if they believe they have but don’t see any dramatic results they get angry, depressed, resentful, or want to give up. Let go of the belief that this is a short term challenge until you reach your goal. Realise that for the rest of your life you just need to make exercise, healthy foods and wellbeing a part of who you are. There is no way that anybody can withstand absolute perfect outcomes every day of their life. The need and obsession within people created by this huge diet-obsessed world we live in is making people feel like a failure, like they aren’t good enough, simply because they can’t seem to get it all right all day, every day. Well, you just aren’t meant to. You aren’t meant to always get it right, just as long as you get some of it right most of the time, then you are doing better than you realise! Love yourself and be proud of the small steps you make regularly toward being healthy! Kerri x The last article I posted explained about how weight loss is always the by-product to something else, something within our body that isn’t healthy, happy or just quite right. I want to further that, take it to the next step, because there’s another piece in the puzzle to weight loss that so many people ultimately are left feeling like a failure through. Once you have analysed your lifestyle, your health, your body and your emotional wellbeing to see what may be the ‘products’ that are causing the ‘by-product’ of weight gain, then the way you choose to go about changing these is so important, in fact more important than the actual changes themselves. The human mind is of such a vast complexity that it’s impossible to ever really understand everything about what it is capable of. This said, it has been proven beyond doubt that what we focus on is what we create. Our mind will analyse, want and crave what our thoughts are made up of. This little insignificant piece of science is what needs to create our path for achieving anything we want in life. Focus on something, bring it into the forefront of your mind, keep it there and that’s the direction you will take in life, for as long as those thoughts are your focus – be it career, fitness, sport, family or lifestyle. On top of this, we are driven by reward, and make one of two subconscious decisions – to gain pleasure or avoid pain. In decision making we are always drawn to the option that will give us pleasure or avoid us pain. If we apply this to weight loss, why then do we make the decision to lose weight by focusing on cutting out sugar, reducing saturated fats, halving our portion sizes, banning all takeaways and desserts, and all in the attempt to perfect our eating plan so we can lose weight? Through the way I have just explained the human mind, firstly we are drawn to what we focus on, and secondly we want to gain pleasure or avoid pain – all through rewards. Let’s say you make a choice to remove all refined and unnecessary sugar from your diet, which is a great idea for optimum health yes, but if every time you prepare food you are focusing on having no sugar in that meal, then your cravings and desire to have sugar are going to continually build until it becomes impossible to avoid. On top of this, where is the reward? You have removed the part from your diet that you associated as the reward and haven’t replaced it with anything. Remember we are driven by rewards and pleasure, if there is no reward or no pleasure gained then it makes it incredibly tough to stick with it, and no matter how strong your willpower is you will eventually at some point not be able to maintain that strict plan for long. This will lead to you consuming an excessive amount of sugar laden foods and then leave you with feelings of being a failure and not being good enough. What do I recommend? Create the changes so you focus on what you WANT, make sure it gains you PLEASURE, it AVOIDS pain, and is driven by a REWARD. It really is simple. Work with the human mind and you will always succeed. Work against the human mind and your will power to succeed will be pushed beyond its limits. It is impossible for me write here what these changes are you need to make for weight loss, because everybody is on a different journey in life, everybody has different factors that are making them gain weight or stopping them losing weight. There is no one box fits all. There never is, there never has been and there never will be. It is impossible for me to go into much more detail without making this article a novel. In my online nutrition and exercise programme I do take you through steps of changing your eating patterns and making your lifestyle healthy by working on the principals I have outlined – I never ask you to ban foods, I simple show you how to increase the goodness in your diet. Fill your body with healthy foods and fuel your body in a healthy way, rather than remove the unhealthy foods. Focusing on health and goodness gains you pleasure, avoids you pain and rewards your body. You will be surprised at how much difference this makes to you. That’s all from me today, all I want from writing this is to know I may have directed someone on to a healthier and happier path to achieving their goals. If that is you, than I thank you for reading this! If you want some more direction and guidance on how to go about a healthy eating plan in a positive way then feel free to check out my 6 week programme. You can download it through my website www.bodyessence.co.nz/6-week-programme Take care, live life and love lots! Kerri x I was explaining eating for specifically losing weight to a client the other day and felt as though what I was explaining to her in fact is something not many people actually understand. If you are on a personal journey to ‘weight loss’ then please remember this when you are choosing the methods, plans, diets, and decisions that will form your weight loss journey.
The most important fact to remember is that being ‘overweight’, ‘fat’ or whichever description you choose to use,... is that your body carrying extra body fat is only the by-product. It is never just carrying too much body fat for no reason. The reason ALWAYS lies within your health and wellbeing. For true, healthy and successful weight loss (my definition of successful weight loss is long term maintenance of your new weight) you must always put your focus on health. Always. Why? Because excessive fat is a by-product, never the cause. It is a by-product of an unhealthy body. It is a by-product of a body that isn’t happy. It is a by-product of a body that may be consuming foods it doesn’t want, may have hormonal imbalances, may be producing too much adrenalin and cortisol from stress, may not be getting enough sleep, may have emotional distress, may be insulin or leptin resistant. It could be the by-product of a body not active enough. Carrying too much body fat is always a by-product of something else going on in your health, your body or your lifestyle. To lose this excess body fat you need to focus on sorting out the health, wellbeing or lifestyle issues that are causing your body to be carrying extra body fat. Sort out the ‘product’ that is creating the ‘by-product’ of excessive body fat. Diets that cut out foods, tell you to eat in a strict unmaintainable fashion, take pills or drinks, or ask you to follow an unnatural eating approach – they are all focused on ‘weight loss’ not the reason behind the weight. This unfortunately will take your body through a vicious and unhealthy cycle time and time again. The diet will succeed in you losing the kilos perhaps, but unless you cure the underlying cause of why you were overweight in the first place, that weight will inevitably come back. First step for weight loss? Forget about losing weight. Focus all your attention on getting a healthy and happy body. Once this is achieved, the by-product will no longer be that your body wants to carry excess body fat. This is the direct link to why so many people try and try again with unsuccessful attempts at weight loss. Remember successful weight loss is long term maintenance of your new body weight. Losing weight for a few weeks or months only is not success. So quit the diets and start making a healthy body on the inside and out! Have a great day. Kerri x Hi all, Thank you for taking the time to read through the December Body Essence Newsletter! I hope you can find something of value in here. Wishing you all a safe and happy Christmas period, and rather than feeling stressed and overwhelmed leading up to Christmas, try and see the joy of this time instead. It's never about the cost of the presents and the extravagance of the day, its about enjoying family and friends. Let love, gratitude and enjoyment replace the burdens and stress. But above all else, where you can choose healthy options then do so, but I encourage everyone to be human and to enjoy treats and overindulge now and again. There is no time and place for feeling guilty for having a chocolate Santa or a piece of Christmas cake. Eat it, enjoy it and never give it another thought! Inspiration of the Month It has long been suggested a lack of sleep can have a negative impact on weight, but often people are unsure why. There are many reasons that this association between sleep duration (less than five hours or more than nine hours), sleep quality and weight gain are connected, and for everyone the reasons may vary. Some common connections between lack of sleep and weight gain
Tips for improving your quality of sleep and feelings of tiredness
Oats are a great alternative to wheat-based products for adding in variety or people with gluten/wheat intolerances. They are very high in Dietary Fibre, a good wholesome source of complex carbohydrates, high in healthy protein, and are a rich source of magnesium for people who suffer from muscle cramps, heart problems, anxiety and low moods. Oats can be added to your diet in many ways – check out this month’s homemade muesli recipe! Ingredients
Directions Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Melt the coconut oil and honey together in a saucepan over a low heat. Spread the oats in a large oven dish and drizzle the oil and honey over the top, and mix to combine. Place oats in oven and cook for 15 minutes, or until slightly golden. Check oats half way and mix with a spoon. Once cooked, and partially cooled, tip the oats into a large mixing bowl. When completely cooled, add all remaining ingredients and stir well. Transfer into a Tupperware container with a sealed lid and store in a cool and dark place. That's all from me today! Have a great December, keep being grateful for everything you have in your life, smile everyday, frown less and love life! Warmest regards, Kerri van de Loo Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach Thank you for taking the time to read this months newsletter and I hope you find some helpful tips or useful pieces of information to help you with your health and wellbeing. Have a great month and enjoy life! Inspiration for your Month: "Actually, I just woke up one day and decided I didn't want to feel like that anymore, or ever again. So I changed. Just like that." There are many on-going concerns about the safety of these products, but unfortunately they are marketed as the healthy, low-calorie ‘diet’ option leaving people believing they are making a healthy choice. There is now a lot of research showing the massive misconception about artificial sweeteners and how damaging they really are to your body. Artificial sweeteners significantly increase the sweetness of foods and drinks, as well as significantly decreasing the calorie intake compared to other options with sugar, however, is your body designed to ingest ‘chemicals’? Although high sugar diets are dangerous for your health too, sugar is in fact a natural product and your body knows what to do with it and how to digest it. There is a lot of research suggesting that your body doesn’t understand what a chemical is, and although they are low in calories, your body treats artificial sweeteners the same as sugar, meaning the ‘low-calorie’ bonus of them is actually irrelevant. They have been shown to stimulate fat storage, stimulate your appetite, and increase cravings for carbohydrates – all things that contribute significantly to obesity and weight gain. Artificial sweeteners trick your brain in to believing you have consumed sugar, but because no sugar has actually arrived, your brain receives signals it needs carbohydrates (or sugar) meaning you get ‘sugar-cravings’. Artificial sweeteners and food additives can be responsible for:
These little guys are a powerhouse when it comes to getting maximum nutrients.
All the recipes I include in here are healthy and quick – I enjoy eating healthy foods but don’t love spending hours in the kitchen so I like quick and easy recipes with foods that are easily accessible. I like to make healthy eating easy, rather than a time consuming and expensive process. This following recipe is such a quick and simple way of using chickpeas as an addition to a meal. It makes a great alternative for those who are trying to reduce wheat-based products such as bread and pasta. Chickpeas are a great source of protein, complex carbohydrates and dietary fibre – all essential nutrients for a healthy diet. Roasted Chickpeas 1 can of chickpeas – rinsed and drained 2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil or melted Coconut Oil 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika 6 grinds of cracked pepper 3 grinds of Sea Salt Place chickpeas in a bowl, drizzle over oil and shake until all chickpeas are fully coated. Sprinkle over paprika, salt and pepper and shake again until fully coated. Tip chickpeas into a large baking dish so they are well spread out. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 20-25 minutes. They taste great hot or cold, as a snack on their own or an addition to a meal. Personal Training and Boot Camp: These options are both pretty close to being fully booked but if you are interested in either feel free to contact me (through my website) and I can see what I have available. I will help out in any way I can or if I don't have any free spaces then I can pop you on my waiting list.
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Kerri van de Loo - Mindfulness coach, Personal Trainer, Nutrition Coach & SELF-LOVE COACH:Join our Online Wellness Club here: https://www.bodyessence.co.nz/wellness-club.html Categories
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