How do you go about changing your life?

Do you do it overnight?

The answer, hopefully, is obviously a resounding “no!”

Changing even a single aspect of your life takes time, dedication, and effort. Humans are creatures of habit, and once those habits have become deeply ingrained into our psyche, it takes time and consistency to retrain.

And yet despite many of us knowing all this intuitively, we still seem to think that we can make huge changes to our lives on a whim.

7 Reasons Why You Should Be Using Coconut Oil

It is a common misconception that coconut oil is bad for you. People all over the world are experiencing the healthy benefits of using coconut oil. It is actually one of the healthiest oils you can consume.

Here are the top seven reasons why you should use coconut oil as an alternative to other common cooking oils.

1. Coconut oil doesn't turn into fat in your body.

So I set about learning about my 50-year-old body & how best I could look after it, nutrition, exercise, and mentally. And results don’t happen overnight, it takes hard work - but as older women, we have amazing strength & resilience - in fact, if we put our minds to it - it’s scary what we can achieve!

We all know by now that we should be eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day. But knowing and doing are two different things, aren’t they? Sometimes it is just not easy to get them all in there.

When you’re turning to unhealthy foods you can feel better temporarily, but in the long run, you will feel worse. When your body isn’t getting the right nutrition, you can begin to feel less energetic, more lethargic, and in some cases less able to concentrate and focus. All of this can lead to even more stress.

During the transition to menopause and beyond, the hormone estrogen begins to decline, disrupting your normal cyclical patterns of estrogen and progesterone.

Declining estrogen levels negatively impact your metabolism, potentially leading to weight gain.

These changes may also affect your cholesterol levels and how your body digests carbs.

Many women experience symptoms like hot flashes and difficulty sleeping during this transition period.

My own experience lasted nearly 10 years, and I still get the occasional hot flush - I personally found exercise & change of diet helped me enormously - both mentally & physically. I think the mental & physical changes go hand in hand - I found myself feeling depressed with the sudden weight gain around the middle my ”Buddha belly” the last thing you need in addition to sweating buckets & poor sleep is piling on the pounds.

50 is the “new” 40, & 60 is the “new” 50 - we are luckily all living longer and our quality of life can be greatly enhanced by being as active as possible, It's good for your body as well as your mind,

If you want to be as healthy and as strong as you can possibly be later in life, adding strength training to your exercise routine is the way to go. This is because strength training offers a lot of benefits, and it is safe to do as long as you stay within a few guidelines

But, our human minds are almost conditioned to make excuses, take the easy options - I guess it’s a kind of self-preservation, it’s a lot easier to convince yourself of an excuse than face reality and be honest with yourself.

I used to sit on the couch and watch the London Marathon, the excuse side of my brain would be thinking “silly buggers killing themselves” whilst I lit another fag (the irony was lost) but the wishful side of my brain would be thinking “imagine being able to run a marathon - wow I could never do that”

You wake up one morning after age 40 and there are an extra 10 or 15 pounds that seem to have materialized overnight. While it may feel sudden, this weight gain is actually a gradual process.

What you may also notice is that much of that weight seems to settle right around your belly *the Buddha Belly” as I used to call mine. This mysterious fat not only seems to appear without warning it also seems like it's completely immune to both diet and exercise.

Working out, in general, is a challenge for many people, exercise is often uncomfortable when you first start a new routine, it takes up precious time and it can feel frustrating when you feel like you aren’t making progress. Going through all that in your own home—where you already eat, sleep, relax and maybe work—can be even more challenging. 

Following a crash diet may help you lose weight quickly, but keeping it off is the biggest challenge.

Most crash diets help you reach your goal by restricting food groups or drastically reducing calories.

Unfortunately, if their style of eating is something you can’t maintain long-term, then keeping weight off can be a struggle.

This Low Carb Recipe pack forms a 4-week meal plan - as always you should check with your GP prior to dramatically changing your diet.

Meal plans restricting calories or a major food group should only be followed for a 4/6 week period and should be used as part of a long-term balanced approach to your nutritional needs.

Would you like great breakfast recipes delivered to your email?

Vegan Lemon & Coconut Cake Recipe

When we are stressed our body releases Cortisol

Cortisol is a hormone naturally produced by your body, produced by the adrenal glands located on your kidneys, cortisol is released when you’re under stress, it sends your body into fight-or-flight mode, temporarily pausing regular bodily functions and slowing your metabolism. While this hormone is essential to survival, it can become harmful in excess amounts.

If you have put on a few pounds in lock down or you are a long term yo-yo “dieter” - sustainable weight loss can only be achieved by looking at your lifestyle as a whole and dealing with your emotional issues hand in hand with physical ones.

I remember talking to a good friend & client at the beginning of the first lockdown, the one where we all suddenly started to take covid seriously - we both agreed that the best course of action was to endeavor to look after our body and mind, to keep both as healthy as possible - so that if we did catch this virus, our immune system was at optimum health to give the best chance of full recovery.

Trying to get to the bottom of food allergy triggers - takes time & patience, but perseverance does pay off in the relief you feel by eliminating the offending/trigger foods.

And unfortunately, you need to go through an elimination process to identify your individual triggers - this is referred to as an elimination diet, where over a period of time you eliminate the likely suspects, then gradually introduce one at a time, recording the body’s response.

What’s your favorite weekend tipple?

Check out this guide for more information & fun facts