Medicinal Chef Dale will reveal which foods make us healthier https://t.co/ZrWzUmTCEn #Slimmer

Medicinal Chef Dale will reveal which foods make us healthier https://t.co/ZrWzUmTCEn #Slimmer

— Cathy Fernie (@Cracenduch39) November 12, 2018

from Twitter https://twitter.com/Cracenduch39

Medicinal Chef Dale will reveal which foods make us healthier https://t.co/ZrWzUmTCEn

Medicinal Chef Dale will reveal which foods make us healthier https://t.co/ZrWzUmTCEn

— Cathy Fernie (@Cracenduch39) November 12, 2018

from Twitter https://twitter.com/Cracenduch39

Medicinal Chef Dale will reveal which foods make us healthier

YOU’VE probably seen Dale Pinnock, the Medicinal Chef, on TV or read one of his 14 books. He’s been on Lorraine, the Alan Titchmarsh Show and the series Eat, Shop and Save explaining the science of how food can make us healthier. Well, here’s the exciting news: Dale is teaming up with me to give Slimpodders expert advice on how to eat for good health and what to eat to lose weight more effectively.

He’ll be joining us on Facebook for a live session in a week or so, and today in this blog he’s giving you an introductory insight into the invaluable guidance he’s going to be sharing with you. I’m SO excited!

Over the next four weeks Medicinal Chef Dale will be showing you that if you just change one thing in your diet it can make a big difference to your weight and your health.

He’ll be showing you how you can give your favourite food a facelift and also how you can eat to help underlying medical conditions, like under-active thyroids, and other health related issues that might be preventing you from losing weight so far.

He’ll even be helping you to make healthy comfort food during the winter months and sharing some great recipes! Dale and I met in October at a conference in California and I knew right away that he’d be just the man to give podders expert help with nutrition and health.

Dale has degrees in human nutrition and herbal medicine and is completing a master’s degree in nutritional medicine. Don’t worry that he’ll be baffling you with science – Dale has a remarkable knack of putting everything in a down to earth way that’s great fun.

His book The Medicinal Chef is packed with recipes that prove how easy it is to use seemingly humble ingredients which have been shown to have beneficial effects on a range of medical conditions – as well as helping you to shed pounds.

You can find out more at Dale’s website. Today the Medicinal Chef has this advice for you to set the scene for the amazing stuff he’ll be sharing:

“How many of you were on the diet hamster wheel for years and were involved counting or recording something? A lot of you, I would guess. For decades we’ve been taught the concept of diet that revolves around counting calories, counting points, or syns, or all manner of different things.

“Yet the more of us that do this, the more of us that fail. We focus on all of the things we shouldn’t do, and arbitrary numbers that in theory, if the maths add up, take us to health and fitness Utopia.

“However, the health of the nation is in crisis. That is undeniable now. Here in the UK between 2005 and 2015 the percentage of adults that were overweight or obese rose from 60.5% to 62.9%. We are WAY over the halfway mark!!

“We are in an age where we know so much about the way that our bodies work, and there is so much information at our fingertips, yet the scales keep going up. I believe there are two things responsible for this. Environment and misinformation.

“The first, we cannot easily control. The second, well that very much influences our choices. If we tackle that, we can determine how we respond to the first.

“So what is this misinformation? Well, I’m going to tease you with it here, and make a very controversial statement…

“The biggest piece of misinformation is that weight management is simply a “calories in” versus “calories out” equation. Burn more calories than you consume, and you will lose weight.

“OH IS THAT IT?? That’s all I need to do then…if only!!! Millions of people have been doing this and just continue to pile on weight or struggle to lose a pound. In my clinical practice I have worked with thousands of patients over the years and I have NEVER met ONE single patient that strictly adhered to a calorie counting diet and managed to maintain it and to successfully keep the weight off for more than two years.

The Medicinal Chef says you’re not to blame

“This is the norm. We are taught this, we put it into action, and we fail. Then, even worse we believe that it’s US that’s to blame. We feel like a failure and we beat ourselves up. We get disheartened and we give up and stop our efforts to live a healthier life.

“Our bodies are not a mechanical engine that runs at a set rate on a single standardised fuel. We are biological systems. We break down, absorb, metabolise, respond, react, adapt.

“We are an incredibly complex and beautifully orchestrated sea of interconnected biochemical processes and interactions. We are regulated by hormones, by cross-system communication and it is understanding this, our very nature that holds the key to getting free from the dieting trap for ever.

“Understand exactly how your body works, how the food that you eat influences the myriad of control systems, hormonal responses and biochemical interactions, and how to put this knowledge into action when you eat, then you will finally have the map out of the woods.”

And I’m delighted and excited that’s what Dale the Medicinal Chef is going to be showing us all! So look out for my blogs in the weeks ahead. Please leave a comment below with your food questions and to give Dale a warm welcome to the Slimpod community.

The post Medicinal Chef Dale will reveal which foods make us healthier appeared first on Slimpod.

Quit sugar and this is why you’ll look younger and feel better

WANT to look younger, feel more energetic, lose some belly fat and improve your health? Of course you do! But you don’t have to buy any expensive “magic” potions or book into a swanky health farm – just give up sugar for a month and you’ll notice some great changes to the way you feel and the way you look.

As this is Sugar Awareness Week I thought you might like to find out the benefits to you if you quit sugar. I don’t just mean the spoonful you add to your tea or coffee, by the way.

I mean being totally aware of the hidden sugar in everyday food and drink and steering clear of it.

You can find out more about hidden sugar in some of my earlier blog posts.

More sugar in ready meals than in Coke

Think you’re eating healthily? Think again 

Jamie Oliver’s shock food video 

But just take a look at some of the scientifically-proven benefits of a life without sugar.

Quit sugar for younger-looking skin

Research suggests that high blood sugar hinders the repair of your skin’s collagen. So a poor diet can make your skin less elastic and bring on premature wrinkles. Studies show that if you quit it can help reduce visible signs of ageing.

Quit sugar and lose that belly fat

Cakes, biscuits and fizzy drinks pile on the pounds around your middle. This is because high blood sugar levels release a flood of insulin through your body and over time make fat build up around your belly. This is especially dangerous because these abdominal fat cells release hormones that bring on the kind of inflammation that can cause heart disease and cancer.

Quit sugar and keep diabetes at bay

For greater protection against type 2 diabetes, you should quit sugar (or at the very least cut down on it). When you eat a lot of sweet carbohydrate the pancreas releases huge amounts of sugar to cope. Repeat this day after day at every mean – and between meals with snacks – and the cells which produce insulin can get tired and stop working, eventually leading to diabetes.

Quit sugar and protect your heart

A research project shows that people who get between 17 and 21 per cent of their daily calories from food packed with sugar had a 38 per cent higher risk of dying from heart disease than those who kept their added sugar intake to below eight per cent. So stay away from ready meals, junk food, pizza, sauces and all processed food in tins and jars. Their sugar content is huge.

One man in Holland who quit sugar and alcohol for a month for a TV documentary lost 8lbs, saw his blood pressure fall from 135 to 125 and got his cholesterol level to drop by eight per cent.

But going “cold turkey” wasn’t easy. He felt “cranky” and was constantly hungry. This is because sugar is like alcohol – it makes you feel tired, dehydrates you and sucks the vitamins out of your body.

The Dutch guinea pig said he felt much fitter at the end of his month being forced to live on fruit, yoghurt and salads. But it took three weeks for the sugar cravings to finally disappear.

What really grabbed my attention was when I discovered what happened when he started eating sugar again. “I got arrhythmia [irregular heartbeat] twice,” he said. “I also had trouble sleeping. I couldn’t fall asleep before 3am or 4am. My body wasn’t used to sugar any more and it came in like a drug.”

That’s precisely the problem we face in our sugar-laden world today. Sugar is like an addictive drug – and it’s hugely powerful.

Is sugar a problem in your life? Could you challenge yourself to quit sugar for 21 days? Please leave a comment below – I read them all with great interest and they really help me to help others.

The post Quit sugar and this is why you’ll look younger and feel better appeared first on Slimpod.

Quit sugar and this is why you’ll look younger and feel better https://t.co/Bo6Lh03SH5 #Slimmer

Quit sugar and this is why you’ll look younger and feel better https://t.co/Bo6Lh03SH5 #Slimmer

— Cathy Fernie (@Cracenduch39) November 11, 2018

from Twitter https://twitter.com/Cracenduch39

Quit sugar and this is why you’ll look younger and feel better https://t.co/Bo6Lh03SH5

Quit sugar and this is why you’ll look younger and feel better https://t.co/Bo6Lh03SH5

— Cathy Fernie (@Cracenduch39) November 11, 2018

from Twitter https://twitter.com/Cracenduch39

Quit sugar and this is why you’ll look younger and feel better

WANT to look younger, feel more energetic, lose some belly fat and improve your health? Of course you do! But you don’t have to buy any expensive “magic” potions or book into a swanky health farm – just give up sugar for a month and you’ll notice some great changes to the way you feel and the way you look.

As this is Sugar Awareness Week I thought you might like to find out the benefits to you if you quit sugar. I don’t just mean the spoonful you add to your tea or coffee, by the way.

I mean being totally aware of the hidden sugar in everyday food and drink and steering clear of it.

You can find out more about hidden sugar in some of my earlier blog posts.

More sugar in ready meals than in Coke

Think you’re eating healthily? Think again 

Jamie Oliver’s shock food video 

But just take a look at some of the scientifically-proven benefits of a life without sugar.

Quit sugar for younger-looking skin

Research suggests that high blood sugar hinders the repair of your skin’s collagen. So a poor diet can make your skin less elastic and bring on premature wrinkles. Studies show that if you quit it can help reduce visible signs of ageing.

Quit sugar and lose that belly fat

Cakes, biscuits and fizzy drinks pile on the pounds around your middle. This is because high blood sugar levels release a flood of insulin through your body and over time make fat build up around your belly. This is especially dangerous because these abdominal fat cells release hormones that bring on the kind of inflammation that can cause heart disease and cancer.

Quit sugar and keep diabetes at bay

For greater protection against type 2 diabetes, you should quit sugar (or at the very least cut down on it). When you eat a lot of sweet carbohydrate the pancreas releases huge amounts of sugar to cope. Repeat this day after day at every mean – and between meals with snacks – and the cells which produce insulin can get tired and stop working, eventually leading to diabetes.

Quit sugar and protect your heart

A research project shows that people who get between 17 and 21 per cent of their daily calories from food packed with sugar had a 38 per cent higher risk of dying from heart disease than those who kept their added sugar intake to below eight per cent. So stay away from ready meals, junk food, pizza, sauces and all processed food in tins and jars. Their sugar content is huge.

One man in Holland who quit sugar and alcohol for a month for a TV documentary lost 8lbs, saw his blood pressure fall from 135 to 125 and got his cholesterol level to drop by eight per cent.

But going “cold turkey” wasn’t easy. He felt “cranky” and was constantly hungry. This is because sugar is like alcohol – it makes you feel tired, dehydrates you and sucks the vitamins out of your body.

The Dutch guinea pig said he felt much fitter at the end of his month being forced to live on fruit, yoghurt and salads. But it took three weeks for the sugar cravings to finally disappear.

What really grabbed my attention was when I discovered what happened when he started eating sugar again. “I got arrhythmia [irregular heartbeat] twice,” he said. “I also had trouble sleeping. I couldn’t fall asleep before 3am or 4am. My body wasn’t used to sugar any more and it came in like a drug.”

That’s precisely the problem we face in our sugar-laden world today. Sugar is like an addictive drug – and it’s hugely powerful.

Is sugar a problem in your life? Could you challenge yourself to quit sugar for 21 days? Please leave a comment below – I read them all with great interest and they really help me to help others.

The post Quit sugar and this is why you’ll look younger and feel better appeared first on Slimpod.