I’m thrilled to announce the upcoming launch of my podcast Mind Body Wise! It will be launching in Summer 2022.
If you’re a driven individual and you’d love more energy or better health to fuel your life ...or you simply want to feel your best more consistently, you’re in the right place!
The podcast is designed to help you step into your full potential at work, home and play without sacrificing what’s truly important to you or burning out along the way.
This video was recorded in support of World Menopause Awareness Day 2021, I think it's a really important topic for all to understand. Yet in my personal and professional experience, it’s a really confusing and misunderstood one.
Peri-menopause was a topic that in my mid thirties would not have captured my attention.
It’s a bit of a joke in our family that I like the interviews in TV sport as much as the events themselves! As in life, the process is invariably where most learnings occur. The medals are simply the outcome of days, weeks, months and years of doing certain things in certain ways. Having listened closely to the journeys behind these incredible human performances, here are 8 learnings that many of us could take and apply to our own aspirations and projects.
If you’ve ever believed that you or your body aren’t good enough in any way then rest assured you are not alone. Remember it’s a multi billion dollar industry constantly at work in our magazines, websites and social media feeds depending on these beliefs that we need to be any different to who we already are.
If you haven’t yet tried plunging into cold water, maybe you’ve wondered what the fuss is all about. No doubt you’ve seen the enthusiasts rave about it, but you aren’t quite convinced. Or you recognise the benefits, but just aren’t quite feeling it for yourself quite yet.
There are things in life that no one really teaches you. Like how your body can suddenly feel like it’s letting you down. Like how you can feel like your brain is working at half speed much of the time by the time you hit your mid thirties. There are many things my wiser self wishes my younger self had known about perimenopause. Here’s 3 things I wish I’d know to look out for as I headed into my thirties.
I have deep conversations with super smart women most days and here's what I hear:
We want to feel valued, not taken for granted.
We want to feel confident, not unworthy.
We want to feel healthy, fit and ALIVE.
So...
Just a few short weeks ago the idea of working from home, with a few less commitments, may have sounded like an ideal solution to restoring the elusive work / life balance for many. No commute, freedom to exercise and eat when you want, see the kids more. More TIME.
With so many questions from worried patients, clients, those in our community, friends and family this week I ran a content packed free training about the absolute priorities to breathe well and stay well through this chaos and uncertain time and I thought you might like to see it too.
Here's what the video training covered…
How quickly life can change. As both France and Switzerland closed their schools this week for the foreseeable future, many of us in Europe entered the world of working from home and homeschooling.
I'm thankful they've decided to take these measures.
So Spring is officially here! With the 20th March marking the Spring Equinox, the time when the hours of daylight and dark are equally balanced. Overall marking a time of Balance and Wholeness.
So I recorded a Spring Equinox Energy Release audio that you can enjoy right here, right now!
SLEEP. We all obviously need it. But really how important is it? In my experience it’s SUPER important. Whether my patients and clients come with the goal of reducing anxiety or pain, losing weight or feeling more energetic through a challenging phase, how much and how well they are sleeping is of HUGE importance.
Friday 8th March brings International Women's Day 2019. An opportunity to consider how women are treated and our roles in the modern world. Despite the amazing opportunities we have as women, certainly in the western world, there is clearly still much balancing to be done.
And what's advent got to do with it?
One thing I've noticed over my many years of practice, is that many of my clients (particularly the driven female ones) are often completely and utterly frazzled by Christmas. So 3 years ago I thought it apt to commence a movement of self-care for smart women, during this super busy period.
It's not so easy to enjoy a time of celebration when we're well and truly exhausted. To top it all, as the year draws to the end we can focus on feeling inadequate with all the things that we haven't achieved this year and our mood can quickly start to lower as the hours of sunlight fade. No wonder we get ill or over indulge! It can be enough to tip the most unlikely emotional eater to well, guess what ... emotionally eat!
I know as I’m sure you do, it’s deeper than self-care, because it's not just about having sitting down with a cuppa or taking a bath. You can take a rather lovely bath with a really destructive mindset.
It’s about being mindful about how you operate. Knowing who you really are so you can move through the month with the wisdom required to stay both healthy and happy. I simply share bite-sized strategies to fit into your busy month. No extra ‘challenges’, none of us need that when we’re maxed out! That way you can hopefully feel fulfilled, fit and fabulous by Christmas and enjoy the special season without falling ill or disgruntled before, during or shortly after.
One of my more indulgent self-love strategies is a December mini retreat, a night away solo, in my favourite chic spa hotel in the mountains. I catch up with my coach and wrap up the years' accomplishments. I start to set clear intentions for the year ahead. I don't like to hit Jan 1st without a clue where I'm heading! What would be your ideal way to wrap up your year? It can feel somewhat chaotic when there's simply too many loose ends in the air.
So is it true you can't love someone else until you love yourself? Only you can answer that. However, I do believe that life flows with much greater ease when you have the awareness to know and love yourself deeply. You look and relate to others differently. You feel fulfilled. And you usually discover you really are rather amazing.
Spend any time in France and you quickly notice that they seem to break every single food ‘rule’ we hear about how to stay slim, fit and healthy. Bread accompanies breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack. Wine most days. Dairy galore with cheese and croissants.
Spend a little longer in France and you start to realise that whilst the average French person is far from gluten, dairy, alcohol and sugar free, they do one thing incredibly well, consistently. They take what seems like a frustratingly long time, to enjoy a healthy lunch.
When we moved to France over 10 years ago, one of the first differences we were struck by was the insistence on at least 1 hour for the epic lunch occasion. Longer for children at school. A time when literally everything closed and there was nothing else to do but eat!!
It took us a while to adapt, before we accepted that whilst this may not have been the exact reason we moved, overall it was part of it. There was something about this country’s culture that embraced the joy of food and eating ‘en famille’ that was far healthier than the hurried sandwich version we’d grabbed back in the UK.
So we embraced it too. Our children came home to eat lunch until they were about 10 years old. Whilst I grumbled many a time about how it interfered with my busy day, I’ve no doubt it contributed towards their healthy relationship with food.
I first fell in love with France when I spent my gap year here in a ski resort and reflected the other day around how French food had affected my 17 year old self.
Interestingly it is the only time in my life (other than being pregnant) that I’d put on weight. Despite having skied, ran or exercised almost every day (that’s another definitely in their favour, the French do move!) the weight had crept on.
The one habit I hadn’t embraced as a cash short student, was, once again, the long healthy lunch. I opted for the good old cheap cheese baguette as I rushed out to the ski slopes during the sacred lunch hour to enjoy the empty slopes. It’s also highly possible that I may have gone a little over board with the croissants at breakfast and the beer for après ski (without food) most evenings!
I wasn’t particularly food conscious at the time and didn’t noticed that the locals simply didn’t eat this way. Oh hindsight is a wonderful thing. Thankfully I wasn’t advising anyone on health, weight loss or lifestyle at that point in my life!
To this day I rarely have a sandwich lunch - it clearly doesn’t suit my body. Having worked with hundreds of women to help them lose weight over the years, lunch time habits are clearly far from the only solution or consideration. However it’s one of those primary examples on our quest for body balance and maintaining an ideal weight, that it’s far more complex an equation than pure calories consumed.
With teens who are now at school all day (with time cut out in their school day for a 3 course lunch, bien sûr), these days I do often take a quicker lunch. However, having a wholesome lunch, with the lighter meal in the evening, has literally become second nature.
I only recently learned that UNESCO features the French gastronomic meal in it’s World Intangible Heritage list. With good reason I believe. A healthy, joyful relationship with food seems to be very precious in our time short and quickly distracted world.
