You have certain emotions. We all do. People feel things all day long and while they dream. Sometimes, the feelings are great; sometimes, they are not. Part of life is learning how to deal with unpleasant emotions. However, I believe that most people have been poorly, if at all, taught how to handle their emotions.
[continue reading...]

The biggest problem people seem to face when attempting weight loss is staying the course — in other words, sticking to the diet plan. If you have read my previous articles, you will know that I do not approve of diet plans, because they are next-to-impossible to stick to for important reasons. However, even those
[continue reading...]

Is Irritable Bowel Syndrome ruining your life? Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a functional bowel disorder. Symptoms include painful cramping, bloating, gas, bleeding, diarrhoea and constipation. Wider ranging symptoms include chronic fatigue syndrome, migraines, cystitis, sexual dysfunction and depression. Each person experiences IBS differently but most report a marked reduction in quality of life. Symptoms
[continue reading...]

Suppose you do something well. You have been working hard; you did something special for someone; you just stopped smoking, or something. How will you reward yourself? Isn’t it funny how most people wanting to lose weight immediately pick on something food related? How many people decide to give up chocolate for Lent? Why chocolate?
[continue reading...]

A recent report by the Soil Association showed that shoppers spend more than £33 million per week on all things organic and 86% of households now buy organic products, with dairy and fresh fruit and veg making up over half of these figures. But with conflicting information being thrown at us as to whether organic
[continue reading...]

I have been thinking a lot recently about human contact and specifically cuddling or hugging. A few years back I read a book called Remotely Controlled by a chap called Aric Sigman. I don’t really remember much about the book, but I do remember the interview that I saw on TV with Sigman promoting his
[continue reading...]

Stress is a fact of life, and what with our modern day lifestyles, it seems to only be getting worse. None of us really like to admit to being stressed, but if we were really truthful, we’d notice that we are nearly always worrying about something. ‘Did i turn the cooker off’, ‘Have I got
[continue reading...]

Food plays an important role several times every day in everyone’s life. However, most people think about food only when hungry; in our society, we tend to think about food three times a day at mealtimes, with three or four extra times thrown in for snacks. But a dieter tends to think about food all
[continue reading...]

Mary’s hands shook in her pockets as she waited in the queue inside the petrol station. To anyone watching she was just a well dressed business woman waiting to pay for her fuel. She felt a surge of adrenalin as she got nearer to the tills. Would she do it? And if she did then
[continue reading...]

The word exercise strikes a dread chord in many people’s hearts. Visions of being forced to run around a track at school, struggling through another 30 minutes on the treadmill, or jogging until your knees give up… Dan Buettner studied various long-lived cultures around the world. He discovered that these people did not “exercise.” Well,
[continue reading...]

When you go on a strict diet, coupled with a new exercise plan, you will be forgiven for thinking you are doing great when you lose weight rapidly. However, I caution you against this. Why? When you exercise and diet at the same time, the idea is that you starve your body of energy while
[continue reading...]

var vaunit_unit_type=0; var vaunit_width=300; var vaunit_height=250; var vaunit_id=1176; In the previous article I focused on how exercise and positive emotions can have a positive effect on heart health. We’re now going to have a brief look at a couple of other lifestyle factors that affect the heart and some of the ways nutrition can keep
[continue reading...]

February is here and brings with it Valentine’s Day and National Heart Month. The perfect time then to talk a little bit about the heart and what you can do to keep it healthy. In this article I’m going to focus on how positivity and love really can make your heart healthier, as well as
[continue reading...]

Note: This article was originally posted to my blog on the 17th September 2010. I thought that I would share it with you guys this morning. I hope that it helps and inspires you… The past couple of weeks I have been attending an exercise class with a bit of a difference. I have long
[continue reading...]

When you want to lose weight, you know that the methods you’ve tried haven’t worked. Therefore, you turn to outside help to decide what you must and mustn’t eat, when you must and mustn’t eat, and how much you must and mustn’t eat. It’s exhausting, I find, for a simple reason. You see, you need
[continue reading...]

I wanted to write a few short articles about my own fight in the past with depression and anxiety in the hope that it will encourage and inspire others to tackle their own demons. After suffering from severe depression and anxiety in the form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) for around 3 years and arriving
[continue reading...]

Most of us think a good image is all on the outside, but the power of positivity can go a long way in making you feel good about who you are, not what others think you should be. While dieting & exercise is often a good way to lose weight for health reasons and of
[continue reading...]

Okay, probably not the most popular topic of conversation to come up but it’s an important one. If you’re a man, you have a prostate gland and looking after it is just one more reason to get out there and get healthy, start exercising, cut down on the booze and give up those ciggies! Think
[continue reading...]

“I’m sleepy, it’s cold outside and I’m so warm and snuggled up in bed” Those were my excuses for staying in bed this week and not getting out there for the early morning walks I’d promised myself. How about you? Are you keeping on track with any New Year fitness goals? Or are you finding
[continue reading...]

The most common cause of excess weight is overeating. Most people who aren’t overweight (and a number of people who are) will instantly judge overweight people and say, “Just eat less!” Unfortunately, that judgement and that comment completely ignore the cause behind overeating. Most overeaters can “just eat less” as easily as you can “just
[continue reading...]

Psoriasis is a skin disorder, characterised by red and silvery white scaly patches on the skin which can be itchy and be painful at times. Despite intensive research the mechanism of psoriasis and the process by which a flare-up is triggered is not fully known. However there is evidence showing that diet can help control
[continue reading...]

Christmas is over but winter drags on. In the evenings we just want a bit of comfort and getting out of the house can seem like a major expedition. We get up before it’s light and by the time we leave work it’s dark. Maybe we hardly see any daylight at all apart from a
[continue reading...]

One of the most common complaints I hear this time of year from some of my clients is about winter being depressing or suffering the ‘winter blues’. Perhaps it feels ‘too cold’ to exercise comfortably outdoors or it is ‘too wet’. The days are shorter; we go to and return from work in the dark.
[continue reading...]

Many of us take time to reflect on ourselves at the end of a calendar year. We look at areas in our lives we would like to see change and health and wellbeing often come into our considerations. It can seem a daunting task to begin to chip away at old lifestyle habits; enjoying a
[continue reading...]

When you have been struggling lose weight for some time, it can be tempting to find some sort of “magic cure” such as a herb potion, diet pills or similar. I often see on weight loss forums on the Internet adverts for such things. For example, there is a specific herb advertised as “all natural,”
[continue reading...]

After the festive period most people have weight on the brain, usually it is about losing it. What tends to go un-noticed is the serious eating disorders that affect Men and Women all across the globe. Eating Disorders are serious psychiatric illnesses and with the latest research from the national institute of clinical excellence it
[continue reading...]

If you are finding that you are gaining weight unexpectedly, you may be tempted to start a new diet. Well, that would be fine if a diet is the answer. But it’s best to be sure. What causes could there be for weight gain? Here, I list the possible causes, and discuss what to do
[continue reading...]

If everyone in the UK ate their ‘five a day’ and kept to recommended levels of salt and unhealthy fats, 33,000 deaths could be prevented or delayed every year, an Oxford University study has found. The research, co-funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), highlights the difference getting your five a day could make to
[continue reading...]

The aim of these quick challenges is to encourage you to make small changes that could have a big impact on your health and happiness. Today’s challenge is to see just how you measure up, with regards to your ‘steps per day’ that is. Its time to get a pedometer and see how you measure
[continue reading...]

The aim of these quick challenges is to encourage you to make small changes that could have a big impact on your health and happiness. Today’s challenge is to stick the stereo on. A small study* has shown that participants who listened to music 37% of their time over a two week period had more
[continue reading...]

Nutritionists in Oxfordshire Check Our Directory Nutrition is a topic that I up until recently I thought was just about making sure that you had your 5-a-day and maybe a multi-vitamin now and again. That was until I started to search around for some more information on the subject to help me with some health
[continue reading...]

The aim of these quick challenges is to encourage you to make small changes that could have a big impact on your health and happiness. Today’s challenge is to sit down and have a cuppa. Research* has shown that drinking green tea could help to reduce belly fat when drunk alongside exercise. Over just twelve
[continue reading...]

This morning, with the ground frozen, I did a random act of kindness. Not a big thing by any sense and I received no thanks, not even a smile. But, as I felt the warm afterglow, it reminded me of ways to lift depression; especially vital at this time of year. With the long dark
[continue reading...]

If you were unable to manage your finances, and often found yourself in debt, would you ask your friend who is also in debt for advice? If you were struggling in your relationship, would you look to someone who had been twice divorced and was about to divorce again for ideas? I am a strong
[continue reading...]

I just saw this video on-line and thought that some of you may find it interesting. It is from a report on processed foods by American news channel CBN. It discusses monosodium glutamate (MSG), trans fats, high fructose corn syrup and white flour and why we should maybe start thinking about avoiding them. How to
[continue reading...]

The aim of these quick challenges are to encourage you to make small changes that could have a big impact on your health and happiness. Today’s challenge is to get some vitamins, especially B-6 and B-12. Research* done recently on a group of more than 3500 older adults over 7 years showed that the more
[continue reading...]

The aims of these quick challenges are to encourage you to make small changes that could have a big impact on your health and happiness. Today’s challenge is to do something pleasurable. Recent research* suggests that eating pleasurable foods (even healthy ones!) or having sex could reduce stress by inhibiting anxiety responses in the brain.
[continue reading...]

The aims of these quick challenges are to encourage you to make small changes that could have a big impact on your health and happiness. Today’s challenge is to take a little walkie. You could be saving your life – honest! Recent research* suggests that just walking for 30 minutes, 5 times a week could
[continue reading...]

Weight Loss & Slimming Consultants in Oxfordshire Check Our Directory For this first article in the series Meet The Professionals, I caught up with Oxfordshire Weight Loss Coach Paddy Landau who is based in Kennington, just on the outskirts of Oxford. I was armed with 8 questions that hopefully would help me to understand just
[continue reading...]