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Monthly Archives

September 2020

Sep 14
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3 Simple Gut Loving Lunches

By | Gut Health, Recipes

3 simple gut loving lunches

Without a plan, your day can become an all day snack fest…which is actually really bad for your gut health!
Now I love healthy wholefoods but I definitely have a criteria when it comes to lunches – it needs to be delicious, quick and do-able! I don’t have the luxury of spending hours in the kitchen everyday. I wish I could channel Nigella at times, but I’m a working mum and it’s just not realistic!

The key is to choose meals where you can batch cook, make large amounts and freeze them. Meals that have infinite variety so you never get bored, and that bulk up your veg intake which is super important for fibre and gut health.

So there are three cheap, tasty and easy lunch meals that I make a lot. And I actually love them so much I could rotate these everyday for the rest of my life and still be satisfied!

  • Soups.
    Enhance them with anti-inflammatory foods such as ginger, turmeric and herbs, plus add in gut-loving polyphenols, onions, garlic, legumes – the potential here is endless. Take it a step further and add in 1tsp of bone broth concentrate to your bowl too, which will help with tissue repair. Or potatoes, where once the soup is cooled & reheated it becomes resistant starch which your gut bugs love.
    TIP: try sprinkling some dried seaweed on top for an extra mineral boost.
  • Frittata.
    The perfect family-friendly, tummy-filling meal. Serve with a side of leafy greens drizzled with olive oil or apple cider vinegar. Pack it full of prebiotic foods like sweet potato, onion & garlic and add some coriander for an amazing taste combo.
  • Roast veggie leftover bowl.
    Step 1: roast a big batch of seasonal veggies to last a few days.
    Step 2: come lunch time, throw together said veggies into a bowl with anything you have in your fridge or pantry. Some ideas are: leafy greens, feta, halloumi, avocado, hummus, tahini, quinoa, rice, chicken, tinned tuna or salmon, falafels, boiled eggs. These veggies literally pair with just about anything! Finish off your roast veggie bowl with a sprinkle of toasted seeds.

So if you’re struggling to know what to eat for lunch or how to prepare meals for work that won’t sabotage all your gut health efforts at home, ask yourself, what soup or frittata can I make on Monday to have in the fridge to go all week?

Please share your creations and tag me, I’d love to see!

Sep 08
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Your health is seasonal, too

By | Lifestyle, Mindset

Your health is seasonal, too

Spring has sprung, and it’s been a very welcome seasonal change as myself along with many others are still in lockdown here in Victoria, Australia. Many of whom are suffering from chronic health conditions – including those involving the gut – and stress is at an all-time high. There is an overwhelming sense of loss of hope and many of us are feeling the Groundhog Day effects.

Seasons provide rhythm and a sense of change. But it’s also got me thinking about the seasonal changes in other cultures and how they may be interpreted.
According to Indigenous Australians, we are currently in Djilba – the season of conception – a period where it’s less wet, with warmer days and cool evenings. Then in October we move into Kambarang – the season of birth. How fitting is this right now!

I invite you to lean in to this new season, not just welcoming the change but adjusting your diet to eat seasonally, too.

We need to stop being so compartmentalised and rigid with our understanding of health in 24 hours time periods and look at how far we’ve come, especially during such a difficult year. Expecting so much each day can be defeating.
So what I suggest is to take a trip back in time with your health and review where you’re at now compared to where you were a year ago. What changed? How did it change with the seasons? Celebrate the little wins. Remember, small changes compound. Often we see smaller changes on the outside but there’s been some huge physiological shifts on a cellular level.

So what small bite-sized steps can you take today that will impact your future? What does you future self need and how will it feel to succeed? If you need some guidance, please feel free to book in for your free health chat here.

Sep 01
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Probiotics – are they the be-all and end-all of gut health?

By | Gut Health

Probiotics – are they the be-all and end-all of gut health?

You may be surprised to learn that I don’t prescribe probiotics for everyone. Now, they can be extremely helpful for some conditions and symptoms, but I generally advise against anyone and everyone taking a daily broad-spectrum probiotic, usually found at the chemist, often poor quality and commonly quite expensive. Why? Because sometimes probiotics can have the opposite effect if they’re not prescribed correctly.

For example, the majority of IBS sufferers also have SIBO, and if you take a general probiotic when you have this condition it may actually make you feel worse. Some probiotics are not suitable if you have constipation or an inflammatory bowel disease and some probiotics can exacerbate candida overgrowths.

Often when we take a general, broad-spectrum probiotic in the hope that it will improve our microbiome and/or resolve our IBS symptoms we are expecting them to recolonise our gut bacteria and be a magic cure for our gut issues.

Due to misleading marketing most assume that the more strains and the higher count you throw at your microbiome, the better. But in fact, probiotics only stick around in your intestines for about two weeks and thanks to more recent research we now know they don’t actually recolonise your gut. Further, research seems to suggest that our bodies can’t even hold or use the higher counts found in these probiotics so you could be pooping out half of your expensive probiotics.

So, what does regrow beneficial bacteria?
A fresh, whole food diet rich in pr-E-biotic foods! Eating a diet rich in a variety of whole foods can have positive effects on your microbiome within hours. And this combined with practitioner prescribed, strain-specific probiotics for your individual condition and symptoms is what will work to modify your microbiome for the better and get you long lasting results.

If you’re unsure whether you need a probiotic at all, why not book in for your free 15 minute chat here and we can discuss a treatment plan to guide you to gut health success.