Archive: Dec 2009

  1. Happy New Year

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    Wishing you all a healthy, less stressful year ahead full of joy, love and hope for the future. x

  2. Go easy Nigella…

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    I was watching a bit of nigella’s christmas show last night. I have to say as lovely as she is I’m more of a jamie oliver fan and now I know why. As I watched the programme I became more and more queasy and eventually went a pale shade of green as I watched her cooking the following (ingredients may vary slightly!).

    A sort of rocky road brownie: ingredients – loads of butter, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, maple syrup, marshmallows, ammerti biscuits and nuts (hello diabetes – this is seriously sweet). Then no break from the sugar-fest, straight on to chocolate biscuits covered in more sugar icing and coloured baubles.

    Then she went on to cover beef with port and stilton gravy, followed by dried fruits in rum, chilli spiced vodka, and then at last she talked about a salad. I got very excited and thought ok a bit of green but no, it was the cold beef, covered in a spicey dressing and the green was… coriander. We then faded out to see her eating a steak and french fries in Paris, and bringing out one of her rocky roads to eat with her black coffee. Most of my patients and I have to say myself would be really ill if we ate like that.

    This is clearly not the way to eat if you want to stay slim, and not get ill. I know Nigella’s selling point is being sexy but to be honest I was finding the whole thing bordering on… gluttony.

    Although jamie has been caught short with the salt content in his pasta sauces his cooking programmes are a joy. Particularly his farm house programme, full of organic salads from the garden, loads of garlic and olive oil, and proper healthy food.

    Just because you have a celebrity show, dont assume its healthy cooking. In fact today, the mail has covered this and given Nigella a 3.5/10 heart rating for her food and jamie and 8.5/10!!!

  3. Dear Mr Ball…..

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    This has nothing to do with nutrition I know but every now and then I use my blog for a bit of a rant!! When I was growing up I loved Johnny “Think of a number” Ball. Those of you between 35 and 45 – I suspect you too remember him with fondness as an amazing teacher of numbers and science – but in a fun way. It was with sadness that I recently read that he had been booed and slow hand clapped off stage for daring to give an opinion on climate change. This opinion did not concur with what many people believe to be true – and he has now been labelled a climate denier.

    After being ridiculed a well known stand up comedian weighed in with a lovely quote about feeling discombobulated over his hero’s obviously deluded mind. This stand up comedian who I have seen three times, also doesnt believe in nutritionists.

    I felt so strongly about this that I wrote to Mr Ball to express my sympathy for how he was treated. It doesnt matter what you believe as this is a democratic country and there are many people who do not completely believe the full story or figures of climate change, and there are those that do. I don’t care what people choose to believe – what I do care about is that we are free to express our opinions without being ridiculed or labelled as deluded because we don’t believe what “the state” (ouch) tell us to believe. Rant over.

  4. Health screening for 2010

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    If you are concerned about your overall health and would like to find out more check out my health screen. It includes:
    blood pressure, height, weight, BMI, oxygen levels, pulse rate, full diet analysis,
    full blood count, cholesterol inc hdl/ldl, vitamin B12 and folate and thyroid function.
    Any particular concerns you have about your health can be covered in the one and half hours consultation. Blood is taken at the BMI Esperence Hospital and sent to London. Results usually take four days. For more details please call me on 01323 737814.

  5. Merry christmas!

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    Although I’m working frantically until christmas eve, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a healthy and peaceful christmas and new year. Will be back blogging very soon!

  6. Say No to the ‘d’ word

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    It will soon be the time of year when people love to start afresh with new intentions and new beginnings – one of those is to diet. If you’d like to lose weight this year, take some time and thought and a little effort and try my weight loss programme. It’s not something that is done for a few weeks or for a few months, its done hopefully for the rest of your life. You will learn how to eat well for you. Often I take people shopping and re-teach them everything they thought was right but is in fact not right for them. The ‘D’ word is never used as its not about dieting but getting really healthy and understanding your body and your metabolism, and tailoring everything to you – getting your digestion right, getting your allergies sorted, sorting your thyroid out, listening to the issues you may have with food, stopping you shopping for fat free sugar free food that you believe to be healthy and getting you to fall in love with eating well again.

    Please contact me for further details of my weight loss programme. It includes an initial consultation and 3 follow ups used when you like – this can include weigh in’s, food shopping, support by email or anything else that makes your life easier!.

  7. Flu ridden

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    I’m writing this blog from my sick bed. I have swine flu. I’ve been well all year but the mad socialising I’ve done in the last few weeks had left me tired and then….. bang… down I went -between 2 and 4pm on sunday i went from well to really sick, really fast.

    I have to tell you its really really awful – at least it is for me, pounding headache and pains so bad in your body you dont want to live, vomiting and high fever. Yesterday afternoon i thought i was dying and called the doctor who reluctantly came out and gloved up. She told me if my temperature went any higher I’d be admitted to hospital. I have to say being on my own i got scared. Last night i found myself on the bathroom floor vomiting and sleeping in turn. I heard strange animal sounds and to my horror realised they were coming from me. When you’re too ill to look after yourself you need someone to tell you what to do. I texted a girlfriend and she said get in a cold bath – which I did. I think this bought my temperature down quite a bit. I’ve lost a stone in two days which is quite worrying.

    I’ve been told to stay off work for five days, which for the first time I will do. Despite all this, I’m in bed this morning, my temperature is normal. I feel shattered and exhausted like a tsunami has powered through my body, but I seem to be on the mend. Luckily my immune system seems to be fighting it off, and no I didnt take tamiflu nor would i have had the vaccine.

  8. Men losing weight in the media

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    Have you noticed how may comedians, particularly men in the media have lost weight recently. I just have to switch on the TV and there is another thinner version of someone! Those i’ve noticed include

    Stephen Fry – 6 stone weight loss and still going….
    Jimmy Carr
    Michael Mcintyre
    David Mitchell
    Jason Manford
    Dara O’Briain
    Johnny Vegas

    Stephen Fry has said it has helped his manic depression and the others as far as I’m aware suddenly got to that age where either they had young children or a sort of wake up call that they were entering into their 40’s!! Good luck to them all.