Want to live a longer, healthier life? Don’t restrict entire food groups. Be balanced.

The Mediterranean approach to eating puts emphasis on small portions and freshness, as well as the pleasure of eating. This is one of my key food guidelines: have fun — eat with enjoyment and gratitude in order to feel nourished.

Adopt a Mediterranean eating style without moving to the French or Spanish Riviera;

1. Have generous amounts of fresh vegetables daily.
2. Eat healthier fats such as olives, olive oil, nuts, and avocado.
3. Include legumes such as chickpeas (whole or as hummus), lentils, and borlotti beans on a regular basis.
4. Include more fish and eat less red meat.
5. Enjoy fresh foods prepared at home.
6. If you choose to drink, choose red wine (just one glass, two at most).
7. Get moving — be more active.
8. Take time to relax and de-stress, as well as enjoying meals with others.

A typical Mediterranean-diet day would look like this:

• Breakfast: a bowl of fresh fruit topped with Greek...

This month I really felt the urge to share more about energy and what it means to us, in all its forms.

Many of us, myself included, have had up and down relationships with our energy levels, and right now, given the current pandemic that we are living through, as a society everyone just seems to feel drained and the words ‘exhausted’ or ‘dead tired’ appear in many more of my conversations these days.

Energy levels are the foundation of our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, and that concept seems so simple - yet it is incredibly powerful.

When our energy is high, we can move mountains. When it is low, we become demotivated, sick, and tired. Without energy our body is so much less productive or resilient, and it can even influence the way we think, our health, our mood, and our overall happiness. Low energy is bad news for us as human beings and it affects every part of our life.

Our ability to lead and succeed is directly proportional to the energy...

A little of what you fancy – the French way of eating

When did you last eat with enjoyment, for pure pleasure? When last did you eat something without obsessing about every calorie and micro-nutrient going into your body? There’s so much nutritional information in circulation, and often such a judgmental culture around what everyone’s eating, that most people struggle to eat without some element of guilt or anxiety.

Most people struggle to eat without some element of guilt or anxiety. But eating for pleasure is entirely possible.

And then there’s the phenomenon of comfort eating – which, as Nigella Lawson has pointed out in one of her cookbooks, is really discomfort eating. We use food as a form of self-medication, to swallow our feelings, often binging on foods that we mindlessly gulp down without pausing to check whether we’re really enjoying them.

Food is fuel, of course, but it’s also one of life’s greatest pleasures!

Can you even...

When life is uncertain, and we’re stressed and anxious, often we drive ourselves crazy with ‘what if’ scenarios. This proves us living in the past with worry and possible regret or in the future causing more concern. There’s another way to question our situations that is positive, and which can help us to find solutions instead of fueling our anxiety even further.

How? Through staying calm, and asking questions from a point of curiosity. It’s about asking the right questions, and controlling the controllables.

Control the controllables

To begin this process, we need to adopt a stance of what psychologists call radical self-acceptance. It works like this: we have never been through what we’re going through at the moment, so there is no right and wrong, there’s no roadmap. That’s good news, because it means that actually, you can’t get this wrong. 

Do what you can with where you are and what you have.

Next, tapping into the...

Correlation between gut health and mental health

Our everyday language has been telling us for decades that our brains and stomachs are connected – we digest difficult news, or talk about butterflies in our stomachs when we’re nervous. We go with our gut when making a decision.

But now scientists know that there’s a strong biological tie between gut and brain – so much so that they’re now calling the gut the ‘second brain’. And it’s not just your stress that has an impact on your digestive system – your digestive system can also affect your mental state.

It all comes down to the microbiome each of us carries around with us – a system of millions of bacteria, some good and some bad, that live in our digestive systems. And it’s all about keeping those in balance.

Gut problems and mental health

When things get too out of balance for too long, then you have a problem – with links to a plethora of conditions...

Well-being isn’t just about physical health. Eating well, exercising and getting enough sleep are vital, of course, but it’s also about managing our emotions. Your emotional diet, so to speak.  And in these times of great upheaval, where we’re suddenly confronted with a host of new demands, many people are struggling with their emotional well-being.

There are simple ways to make living and working less remote ‒ and more remarkable ‒ which I’d like to share. I use them in my work with a range of business owners, entrepreneurs, and leaders, and they are tried and tested.

It’s important to remember that there’s a very strong mind-body link, so your emotional health can have an impact on your physical health, and vice versa. For instance, generally, when we’re feeling stressed, we can spend a lot of time in our heads and get quite anxious. That sets off a chain reaction in your body and brain: your blood pressure...

Want to feel fab, not constantly tired?

Chronic Fatigue

Are you feeling down in the dumps? Are you battling to bounce out of bed in the morning? Don’t have the get-up-and-go to get to the office, the gym or, worst of all, a new client meeting? What you may need is a quick boost, something that can raise your energy and help adjust your motivation in an instant.

Mood booster: Breathing Boost

Time till mood boost: Immediate to several minutes

Feeling down? Take a breath. A deep one! Deep breathing is one of the fastest tension busters around, lowering levels of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. Try the 4-7-8 technique. Inhale deeply through your nose for a count of four, hold your breath for a count of seven, and exhale through your mouth for a count of eight. Repeat five times.

Mood booster: Eat a Balanced Breakfast

Time till mood boost: 15 minutes.

Starting your day with a balanced breakfast will not only boost your energy, it will most definitely lift your mood too,...