I have a question for you.

Which one factor is absolutely fundamental to women having a healthy sex drive?

Is it having "the ideal body", which we're convinced will make us the desire of every man?
Is it owning and wearing the most exquisite lingerie you can buy?
Is it being a yogi - gymnast so you can act out the entire Kamasutra without breaking a sweat?
Is it re-training your brain to think, breathe and live sex by mulling over your sexual fantasies and doing libido-boosting visualisations daily?
Is it having a sexually adventurous, Samantha Jones-esque personality and not being afraid to search sex shops far and wide for the latest and greatest toys?
Is it being comfortable with and well-practised at masturbation so you're familiar with what your body likes?
Is it being assertive and vocal in bed, and being able to confidently ask for what you want?

It's NONE of these. Whilst some of these are important ingredients to a healthy sex life, there's a HUGELY fundamental sex drive-promoting necessity that's glaringly absent from this list.

The most important thing you can do as far as your desire for sex goes?

It's having enough fat on your body.

Yep, having enough or ample fat, not as little fat as possible.

​If, like most women, you're weight loss dieting... if you're partly starving and/or overexercising your body to get down to or maintain the levels of body fat approaching that of fitness and fashion models (the official body type desired by the average woman in our culture because we think it will buy sexuality)... 

... then your fertility, your sexual desire, your fitness, your energy levels, and of course your overall health, will actually suffer.

​And without these things, even the most dedicated Kamasutra practitioner, sex toy aficionada, "perfect" figured gym-bunny, or modern woman with sex communication skills of steel will not be able to get it on... let alone get off.

First, understand that some cravings are normal.

Food cravings are a normal and necessary part of life. In the pre-industrialised world, cravings for certain tastes such as salty, fatty or sweet directed us to eating foods that would help us balance out our diets with little more than the basic technology of our instincts and hunter, gatherer and/or farming abilities. 

For instance, salty foods such as seaweed or rock salt straight from the earth contain many other minerals, including iron, selenium and iodine. 

Fatty foods help us to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins in fruits and vegetables. Back when famines and long winters were commonplace, fat kept us satiated (and alive) for long periods of time. 

Sweet foods are intrinsically rewarding and highly pleasurable because they contain the body’s primary fuel, glucose. 

When we are clear on what our cravings are telling us and can follow them wisely, we can use them to our advantage. This is the premise behind intuitive eating.

Intuitive eating as a non-diet approach to eating says, in a nutshell, that pleasure, satisfaction, mindful eating, and getting a handle on emotional eating, are all pathways to becoming a more intuitive eater and therefore never needing to follow strict diet plans. Intuitive eating experts explain that humans are wired to maintain a healthy set point weight, and that if we just listen to and trust our bodies’ natural tastes and cravings, we will effortlessly maintain that weight.
 

But I crave ‘bad’ foods – so how can I trust my body?

What if your body is regularly telling you to consume ice cream in not-very-intuitive amounts? 

What if you already know how to feel satisfied but that requires a large packet of chips? 

What if you have food cravings that seem uncontrollable? Cravings that are so strong, they thwart your intuitive eating efforts? Do chocolate, cheese, wine, chips, coffee, greasy Chinese food, and biscuits come to mind? 

Uncontrollable cravings for unhealthy (or as I prefer to call them, “sometimes” foods) are an issue many of my patients encounter when they decide to ditch diets and instead listen to their body’s natural tastes and cravings. 

It freaks them out and often stops their intuitive eating efforts in their freshly trodden tracks, prompting them to run to the next diet or nutritionist to tell them “what to eat”.

There are genetic reasons you like the food you do, with certain genes more receptive to sweet, salty and fatty tastes. In addition, modern food industry has manipulated our taste buds into preferring high fat, high-salt, high-sugar foods with added artificial flavourings, and without the nutrients found in naturally salty and sweet foods.

What if you could manipulate your taste buds into desiring fruits and vegetables, and improve your health? What if you craved broccoli in the same way you crave milk chocolate? What if a bag of chips appealed to you about as much as a piece of shoe leather? It’s not that far-fetched. 

We can retrain and revitalise our taste buds to prefer fresh, quality foods, most of the time. But first we need to understand why we crave the foods we do.


Genes affect your taste preferences

There is a genetic tendency towards food taste preference. A chemical called 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP for short) is a bitter-tasting substance, but only those with a certain genetic makeup can taste it. PROP is frequently used in scientific experiments because it’s a strong marker for taste sensitivity in general.

PROP super-tasters (who have a double copy of a PROP sensitive gene from their parents) perceive a strong bitterness to certain foods, as do PROP tasters (who carry one copy of the gene). 

Then there are PROP non-tasters, who are insensitive to the taste of certain strong flavoured foods. So how do you know which you are?
 

What’s your taste profile?

Do you: 

·      Prefer coffee black (no milk or sugar)?

·      Like grapefruit, cabbage and Brussels sprouts?

·      Enjoy a good, aged red wine?

If you answered a resounding YES to all of the above, you’re likely a non-taster. Strong blue vein cheeses, heavy salad dressings, and aged vintage go down with no trouble. 

The positive side of being a non-taster is that you enjoy a broad range of tastes, and so you probably enjoy many nutritious foods such as cruciferous vegetables. On the flip side, you may need more flavour intensity in your foods and can be drawn to processed foods and sweets as a result.

If your answer was a definitive NO, you’re probably a super-taster, and very sensitive to flavour. You can be finicky eater, and a little goes a long way. 

The great thing is you can detect sweetness and bitterness in alcohol, which may curb your appetite for the drink. Unfortunately, you may also snub nutrient-rich foods because you detect their bitterness. 

None of these profiles are good or bad. Rather, knowing your taste profile can help you develop a strategic approach to healthy eating.

For example, if you’re a taster or a super taster, make an effort to experiment with a wide range of vegetables, rather than writing them all off. Cook them in different ways, add lemon juice to cut through any bitterness, or roast them to bring out their natural sweetness. Even Brussels sprouts can taste amazing with the right amount of butter, sea salt, herbs, roasting and lemon juice.

Non-tasters are vulnerable to overeating because they’re less discriminatory in general. Develop your sensitivity to negative alliaesthesia: the decline in our preference for specific tastes as we consume more of them over a short period of time. Try slowly, mindfully eating a chocolate bar, savouring every bite. If you’re like most people, after the fourth or fifth bite you won’t be experiencing the same degree of pleasure you did with the first bite (and you may detect some displeasure!)

I’m a super-taster. I can’t stand coffee even with milk and several teaspoons of sugar. The one time I tried a flat white I actually vomited. Red wine and beer are revolting to me, which is just sad because it makes me a social outcast! It took me a long time to figure out how to enjoy Brussels sprouts – roasting them in butter, lemon juice, nutmeg, garlic, and thyme does the trick now. Mainstream lollies and chocolate are sickeningly sweet and give me a sore jaw immediately, and a headache within minutes. 

But I can’t simply blame my genes for these antisocial taste preferences. Growing up, my Chinese mum seemed to thoroughly enjoy cooking with shrimp paste, a foul culinary peculiarity that would stink the house down with the stench of fermented fish and crabs. Bringing friends over was embarrassing. Dad loves his full strength lager, and raw onion on sandwiches. 

I decided that taste preferences don’t just boil down to genes. So what else influences them?

 
Experience shapes your taste preferences

Your past experience with food plays an even larger role in directing your desires than your genes. Eat the same flavours over and over and you generate more cells that convey the same receptivity to those flavours, while generating fewer cells sensitive to tastes you encounter less often. 

That’s how cultures all over the world adapt to harsh environments and weird foods. One experiment involved Thais who regularly enjoy such delicacies as 100-year old duck eggs or khai yiao ma (literally “horse urine eggs”) and English gourmet cheese lovers with a penchant for extremely strong Stilton cheese, which has a smell not to everyone's taste and has been likened to that of feet.

Despite both groups having the same penchant for strong adventurous flavours, when the eggs were offered to the English group and the cheese offered to the Thais, the foods nauseated participants in both groups.

Fat

Like sugar, we are genetically programmed to seek out fat. It provides more calories with less food. It’s not the taste of fat we seek, but the texture and mouth-feel. Fats increase the availability of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, which is why it’s so important (and much yummier) to have a salad with a drizzle of olive oil, some goats cheese or chopped avocado, than with no fat at all. Fat carries flavour molecules, making food tastier and more satisfying.  

Dietary fat also acts as a mild sedative and reduces stress hormones. We feel calmer when we eat foods containing fat, which explains the appeal of comfort foods like lasagne or a creamy potato dish. 

In short, fat is something we need in moderation. There is very little research to support strong links between eating dietary fat (including saturated fat and cholesterol) and developing heart disease, cancer, and even putting on additional body fat. The low-fat campaign of yesteryear was based on little scientific evidence, something we are starting to uncover now.


Fat + sugar = heaven

If our predisposition for sugar combined with our predisposition for fat weren’t enough, the sum of the two is greater than its parts! A 50:50 ratio of fat to sugar stimulates the greatest rush of feel-good endorphins - the exact proportion found in high quality chocolate!

To cut down on naturally occurring sugars or healthy fats indefinitely is asking for trouble, because as you can see, we are wired towards seeking them out. The focus ought to be on reducing nutritionally poor forms of these, such as refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and trans fats such as those found in confectionary and some potato chips. 


How to change your taste preferences

You can change your tastes if you deem that doing so will help you to improve your health. As an example, someone who needs excessive amounts of added salt and who also has high blood pressure would be a good advocate for changing his taste buds. The more salty foods you eat, the more salt you’ll need to enjoy food due to your taste buds adapting to a higher salt content, then needing it for stimulation. 

Our taste buds have a three-week lifespan. Switch to low sodium foods or resist the temptation to coat your meals in a salt and after three weeks, you won’t reach for salt at every meal, and very salty food will no longer appeal to you. Try it and see! 

This method also works with sweet and high-fat foods, but only if those are things you already have too much of in your diet. This approach will not work if you feel like unnecessarily restricting a whole nutrient group to lose weight beyond your healthiest, most comfortable body weight. Your body is smarter than that.
 

Gut bacteria may affect your food cravings

So we have our biology, genetics, upbringing, environment and emotions as potential drivers for various food cravings. But did you know the bacteria in your gut can also determine your food cravings?

The average person has approximately 1.5 kilograms of bacteria in their gut. These bacteria send signals to the brain via the brain-gut axis and can impact our behaviour and health. There is growing evidence to support the role of these important bacteria in influencing our cravings for certain foods.

Research has shown that mice bred in germ-free environments prefer more sweets and have greater number of sweet taste receptors in their gut compared to normal mice. Additionally, many gut bacteria can produce proteins that are very similar to hormones such as peptide YY and ghrelin that regulate hunger. This suggests that our gut bacteria (or “gut microbiota”) may influence our eating behaviour through peptides that mimic hunger-regulating hormones.

The use of targeted probiotic and prebiotic use is likely to become more common as we better understand how gut microbiota influence our bodily functions, including food cravings. 

Want to make sure you're covered? Include fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, kombucha tea, natural yoghurt (dairy or non-dairy forms available), and probiotic and prebiotic supplements if necessary. Always refer to your health practitioner if you think you've got a gut bug imbalance going on.

7 ways to reclaim your taste for nutritious foods

It’s important for us to to relearn how to enjoy food and eating without being constantly dogged by the need for more. Here are seven hints to realign your taste buds and enjoy eating nutritious foods again.


1.     Pump up your self-care skills. Look for other things you can do that are just as if not more effective at giving you the comfort or high you seek. Cultivate other avenues of pleasure besides food, without necessarily cutting food out as an avenue altogether. Friends, sports, concerts, museums, outings, nature, volunteering, and family all count.

2.     Explore alternatives that provide taste you love. Adore sugar? Try a nearly-too-ripe peach, apples dipped in honey, hot cacao sweetened with stevia, or use spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg in foods. For a savoury fix, try miso, seaweed, umeboshi plums, mushroom stock, and spices with bite: black pepper, dill, basil, onion, ginger, coriander, and cumin. Go for full fat organic milk rather than skim milk full of anti-caking agents and synthetic antioxidants.

3.     Eat mindfully, especially for those first few bites. That way you can see if the food is delivering on its promise. As you become more attentive, you may find the next few bites less and less rewarding. This knowledge can help you tone down your cravings and better understand what your body really feels like at any one time. And if that happens to be a Snickers bar, you’ll probably enjoy it more and need to eat less if you eat mindfully.

4.     Pay attention to the whole experience of food rather than focussing on the in-the-moment pleasure of taste alone. Whether you’re at a family brunch or a movie outing, take notice of the scenery, sounds, smells, company and ambience. Eat with all your senses, not just your tongue.

5.     Check for deficiencies. A blood test may reveal that you’re low in protein, Vitamin B12, cholesterol, or iron. Chromium supplementation is often indicated in severe sugar cravings. Hormonal or neurotransmitter imbalances can explain sugar cravings. See your health professional if you suspect a nutritional deficiency or imbalance.

6.     Be patient. Many of us have lost the ability to sense the wonderful range of flavours in whole foods. We can learn to love the taste of almost anything given time. Remember, it takes 10 to 20 exposures for a child or an adult to accept a new food. Be open-minded and patient with yourself, and treat it as a sensory adventure into new unchartered and rewarding territory.

7.     Consciously choose your value system. The more people learn about whole foods and show concern for the other reasons for choosing natural foods – besides the presumed effect on weight as second to taste – the more motivated they tend to be to include real, healthy foods. Other values to consider include cost, social justice, animal welfare, and environmental concerns. Increase your knowledge about where your food comes from and its larger impact. People who are very familiar with food-producing animal systems often eat less meat and enjoy plant foods more as their knowledge increases their social and environmental consciousness. Good for the planet, good for you! 

A helpful overall goal may be to re-educate your palate to appreciate a wider range of flavour sensations and tone down the cravings that may be causing you harm.

Finally, keep in mind that the best approach toward eating is not one of denial and restriction. The best approach is one that cultivates pleasures and honours food and the act of nourishing yourself. 

By becoming more attentive to and respectful of your food and the eating process, you will be drawn to more wholesome choices, learn to better appreciate the flavourful nuances of nutritious foods, and be able to better hear your body’s signals of hunger and fullness. All of which, in turn, help you to maintain the healthiest, most sustainable, and most comfortable weight for you.

If you enjoyed this article, have something to add, or learnt something new that you're excited to put into practice, I'd love to hear your comments in the section below!

Eat in peace,
Casey

The macrocosm lies within the microcosm. All is connected. Have you ever pondered on the true meaning of these words?

As a dietitian, connectedness is a concept that helps me to understand the dynamic and changing nature of the body and reveal how our relationship to food can teach us about our relationship to life.

The missing ingredient in most dietary systems is a spiritual context, an appreciation of the sacredness and interconnectedness of all things. The nutritional systems developed by numerous traditional cultures were deeply embedded with their spiritual beliefs and rituals, whether it was holy food preparation (the sadhanas in traditional Ayurvedic medicine), blessing of food before eating it (all traditional cultures), or eating with the seasons, a natural consequence of living close to nature.

In westernised countries, we seem to have lost our reverence for food, where it comes from and our gratitude for it. This has occurred at the same time we’ve lost many traditional methods of preparing foods and traditional foods.

For example, we’ve lost a great deal of valuable fermented foods that in the past kept our immune and digestive systems strong, such as raising sourdough bread, pickling vegetables, and home-brewing beer. Only recently have these foods started coming back into “vogue”, which is cause for celebration!

Suppose we look at food from a spiritual, truly holistic perspective. The ultimate goal of any dietary philosophy ought to be “to take us fully into the body, and beyond the body,” as degrowth activist Charles Eisenstein puts it (2).

By taking us fully into the body, our diet must allow us to experience vibrant health, the joy of intuitive eating, and of course the fulfillment of nutritional requirements.

By taking us beyond the body, our diet must serve to remind us that we are feeding more than just a body.

That nourishing the body well keeps it healthy, and also maintains it as a vehicle in the service of that higher power many of us know to be real, whether we call it the divine, nature, or God.

Many ancient traditions consider the body sacred, not because they view the body as God, but as a vehicle for God (2). Yogis and Taoists went to great measures to ensure the health and longevity of the body. Yogis developed an amazing system for maintaining and developing the body through diet (ayurveda), exercise, postures (yoga asana), herbal medicines, methods of breathing (pranayama), meditation and other lifestyle practices.

The Taoists also developed unique methods combining martial arts, visualisation, sound, subtle energy cultivation, energy manipulation (e.g. acupuncture), meditation, healing food and herbs. Despite such strong emphasis on health and longevity, both of these traditions understood that there is a deeper form of nourishment that sustains heart and soul.

The body is sacred, and therefore the nutrition of the body is also sacred. True nourishment grown, prepared and eaten consciously and respectfully, was believed to open the energy conduits of the body, helping the individual to be in service of the divine – whatever you perceive that to be.

In the west we have swapped this around – the body is emulated, manipulated, and morphed at a surface level, as a means to an end of creating a “good body”. Diets centered on making us feel good and look better sell the most books. The body is worshipped as if its perfection and health were the highest goal we could possibly attain.

Any die hard yogi, health coach, or budding nutritionist will tell you that your smoothie just isn't complete without acai berries, maca, or chia seeds. But did you know that far many flung "superfoods" carry a heavy environmental and social footprint?

In many cultures and religions, there is a tradition of offering thanks before eating. We recognise the blessing of having food, acknowledge that other living things die so that we may eat, and that while we eat others go hungry.

Many traditional cultures also eat a much simpler, more natural diet than we do in the west. However there is a tendency for indigenous peoples to be content with what they have, and offering thanks is one way of expressing this.

A respect for food and contentment with what we have, both develop a healthy attitude towards what we eat. Giving thanks and eating simply are ways we can experience greater health and vitality, as well as a deeper connection with the earth from where our food came.

Contentment and simplicity go hand in hand. If we always require complicated, exotic and expensive food items in order to be content, we are missing the point (although these things can be a wonderful celebration on special occasions).

Eating a humble yet delicious diet of fresh, seasonal, and regional foods whenever possible, brings an element of joy and lightness to eating. Such simple eating means stepping away from the Standard Australian Diet (S.A.D) of dense yet nutritionally empty processed foods, unnecessary supplements and complicated “health food” products.

By offering thanks, we recognise the miracle of life that produced our food, the macrocosm in the microcosm, the big in the little. In simplifying our diets, we reduce the environmental costs of production as well as our own intake of preservatives. And by understanding the beauty of simplicity, we can experience true contentment with not only our food, but with our bodies and with the force that created the foods that nourish our bodies and souls.

When done mindfully, eating can become more than just a way to nourish our physical bodies or to fill an emotional void. It can become a form of meditation. Every meal is an opportunity for you to practice the yoga of eating.

Mindful eating means being present whilst preparing, blessing and eating our meals. It means fully enjoying and experiencing each bite of food. Notice the aromas of your food before and after it enters your mouth.

Notice its textures and temperatures. Taste the combinations of flavours on your tongue, which can change as you chew. Feel the food moving down your oesophagus, and the response of your entire being to this act of nourishment.

You will find that eating mindfully is more pleasurable, not less.  As a time-poor culture with a 3-second attention span, we overeat not because we enjoy food too much, but because we do not enjoy it enough!

When you make even one minute of your meal an eating meditation, you are more likely to digest efficiently, notice when you’re reaching your stomach’s capacity, and stop when you are full. But do not practice mindful or meditative eating solely as a means to eat less, or lose weight, as you will be missing the bigger picture.

Eat mindfully not as a form of willpower with an ulterior goal, but to delight in food, and to listen to the body so that you can give it what it needs. Try it next time you're eating alone, and once you've practised a few times by yourself, do it when you're with friends. Taking just a few moments to really enjoy your food can contribute to greater satisfaction and in the long run, greater health.

The "perfect" diet...
In an ideal world, there would be no need for someone to tell us what and how to eat. Like animals in the wild, prehistoric humans, and some traditional peoples who are very in touch with their bodies, we would naturally be drawn to eating a vibrant, constantly changing, delicious, satisfying diet, free of deprivation; a diet perfect for our individual needs.

We would also know when we are comfortably full, and when not to eat. Without fad diets and "what she eats" pieces on actresses and models in terrible women's magazines influencing us.

We would eat intuitively, based on the naturally fluctuating needs of our bodies through our changing external and internal environments – weather, season, our physical and mental state, demands put on our bodies, and so on. Our bodies would be highly sensitive to even the smallest changes in our environment.

As a result of our being in touch with the Earth’s natural cycles, our digestion would work pretty harmoniously. As a result of eating intuitively and in harmony with the cycles of nature, our energy levels would be optimal, our libidos healthy, our minds sharp.


Get your nose out of Anastacia, we’re in the 21st century!
Does this sound like a fantasy? If you’ve read the book Anastacia by Vladimir Megre describing a reportedly true encounter with a woman brought up in the Russian woods, you’ll know the lifestyle I’m describing! In our modern world, living this way seems like a far-off fairy tale.

From the day we are born and even before then, we are over-fed a steady stream of chronic stress, environmental pollutants, questionable diets and diet trends leading to binges on easily sourced fast food, and chemical stimulants. We have been taught not to trust our innate cravings and tastes, instead turning to coworkers, scientists, celebrities, the media and fad diets to tell us what and what not to eat, never mind how, when and why we are eating.

If there is a perfect diet for humans, an "intuitive diet" would be it. Deep down, we know what’s best for us, just as a bird, a wolf or a child does. But it’s hard to eat intuitively when we’re mentally fatigued by our stressful lifestyles, and we’re confused by the enormous amount of often conflicting information about food that lies out there.


Over-stuffed on dietary information
Be careful about reading health books – you may die of a misprint! – Mark Twain

For anyone who has decided to improve their diet, it soon becomes apparent that healthy eating is not as straightforward as first imagined.

There are diets based on religion, ethics, medical systems, anthropology, the seasons, blood types. You can choose to be vegetarian, vegan, even a fruitarian; you can adopt a macrobiotic diet, a raw foods diet, a Paleo diet, a ketogenic diet; you can minimise fats, or carbohydrates, or proteins; you can base your diet on Chinese medicine or Ayurvedic medicine.

The problem is most of these systems contradict each other. One book might tout the wonders of soy, another will warn us of its dangers. One book might advocate a diet consisting primarily of raw foods, rich in enzyme vitality; another advises to limit intake of raw foods, so as not to dampen the digestive fire. One book will champion honey as a super-food; another says honey is just as harmful as any other sugar.

Most mainstream books on nutrition advise us to limit intake of fat, especially saturated fat; an increasingly prominent minority contends that actually, traditional animal fats are good for you, or that coconut oil, a saturated plant fat, is a cleansing weight-loss food. Some authorities say that supplements are essential; others say they just give you “expensive urine.”

The examples are endless. We ask ourselves, how do we find the diet that’s right for us, if there is one? Maybe they all have elements of truth, despite their blatant contradictions. Or maybe none of them are right.

To our detriment, we have confused ourselves with mountains of conflicting dietary information. Despite our persistent focus on diet and all the research that goes into it, we have ended up more sick, depressed and confused than ever. We have lost our natural way of eating and knowing.

Return to intuitive eating
Eat when you are hungry, drink when you are thirsty, sleep when you are tired. - Taoist adage.

The only reliable authority, in the end, is your own body. We need to learn how to trust our bodies again, and how to listen to the messages it is sending us about diet. The simple tools of tuning into our bodies and fully experiencing each bite of food have the power to resolve any questions about food choices and diet.

This doesn’t mean we should go out and fully experience every bite of a large bucket of KFC if you don;t actually you feel like it! After a life time of ignoring your body, getting back in touch with it can take a little bit of work and a lot of patience.

It’s hard to listen to the body when a symphony of opposing authorities on diet are shouting their new findings and guaranteed weight loss methods from the rooftops. 

Somehow, we need to restore our sense of body trust if we are to start feeding ourselves properly. This is where it can be helpful to have a nutritional therapist with an understanding of non-diet approaches such as Health at Every Size or Mindful Eating. Someone who can balance healthy eating with sane eating!

What I do
As a non-diet dietitian, I empower people to start eating in the way that’s most beneficial and intuitive to them. I show them how to get back to basics and re-learn how - not necessarily what - they really need to eat for optimal health.

To qualify me to help you, I’ve spent the last decade developing my philosophy within every area of the food and nutrition field – from working as a veterinarian in our modern food systems, and researching the eating habits of animals, to working as a nutritionist consulting with chronically ill and hospitalised patients, to working as a non-diet dietitian with people suffering from eating disorders and in the throes of "clean eating" and fitness junkie recovery.

I’ve done the work for you in sifting through and integrating into my practice evidence-based dietetic and naturopathic science, and wisdom from more traditional schools of thought such as Chinese Nutritional Medicine, Ayurveda and Yoga. My goal is to provide a truly holistic, deeply personal and highly effective service for people with health, eating and body image problems, people who just want to maintain their health, and people who struggle with dietary fads and conventional dieting.

In a one-on-one consultation, we explore simple new ways of eating that will markedly increase your enjoyment of food without disease, BUT ALSO without guilt. We investigate your behaviours and conditioning around food and how we ignore vital messages from our bodies.

We address habits like food "addiction", under- and over-eating. We discuss the role of yoga, meditation and other mind-body practices that have been scientifically proven to help us get in touch with our intuitive way of eating and being.

Want to find out more? Check out what a private consultation with me looks like.