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Better Sleep For a Better You!

Today, I am so excited to talk to you about SLEEP! It has been an interest of mine ever since I did my PhD research concerning human circadian rhythms and clock genes. I have always known how important it is for all of us to have good quality sleep and how everything in our smart body depends on our internal clock and cyclic pattern. But only recently, with all the new research findings available and my personal as my clients’ experiences from life style changes, I have realised HOW VITAL SMART sleep is for all of us! So, I cannot wait to share my thoughts with you!

Somehow, in our busy, crazy life style with a 24-hour activity pattern and travel across different time zones, we have started to think of sleep as a luxury. We need to study, work, take care of other people and then later on life, we may have an opportunity to catch up on our sleep. We have lost the ritual to get ready for our night rest, to take some time to relax, meditate, have a bath, read a book, talk to a spouse or simply have a nice calming herbal tea before we go to bed. Very often we keep working or checking our emails or social media pages in bed and only when we are completely exhausted, do we collapse into a short, non-deep, non-restoring and low-quality sleep. We sometimes even feel guilty that we sleep too much. And even though we understand that this is not the right way to do it, we still keep doing it! Does this sound familiar?

Meanwhile, statistics show that sleep deficiency directly relates to cancer, AD, depression, heart disease and the ability to loose weight. According to WHO, men with poor sleep record are twice as likely to have a heart attack and up to 4 times more likely to have a stroke. We know that shift work can have a devastating effect on health. People who are regularly working during night have a higher incidence of cancer, depression and overall chronical illnesses, in general. We should not forget that the human body has not been designed to sleep during the day and work during the night! The human body is driven by a solar cycle, even though we all have our own internal clock that can differ between people to some degree.

Often we do not realise how quickly sleep deprivation starts to affect our ability to think and perform. Research shows that even 24 hrs of sleep deficiency causes a 6% reduction of glucose that reaches our brain. So, the less we sleep, the dafter we become! And this is why, when we work very late because an important deadline or a project that needs to be finished, and when we try hard to focus, we start to crave sugary food. We need this extra sugar in our blood and brain to compensate for the reduced amount of it due to the lack of sleep. Our body is trying to survive and asking for glucose! We are becoming an easy victim of this survival mechanism and keep compensating for the shutting down of our brain by boosting our body with lots of sugar from junk food and drinks. I like Shawn Stevenson’s (the author of the book that I recommend to read in this newsletter) opinion who describes this particular situation as: “Your brain is hijacked by a dumber version of yourself”.

Research shows that poor sleepers are more likely to have worse marks during their studies, achieve less in their professional life and of course, much more often develop chronic illnesses. So, what happens during our sleep that makes our success in life so strongly dependent on it? I hope you are intrigued and ready to revaluate your relationships with sleep.

During sleep our body is actively restoring itself and detoxifying. Nowadays we know that our brain undergoes lots of “cleaning” during night. Scientists have discovered that the glymphatic system in the brain, like the lymphatic system in our body, is able to remove and recycle dead cells, toxins and debris from the brain during our sleep. Our brain even gets smaller in size during sleep in order for this process to be more effective. Scientists from the University of Rochester have shown that this mechanism of the brain’s clearance system is linked to the development of different neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntingdon’s diseases. Using powerful imaging technique, scientists have been able to visualise that during natural sleep, the human brain increases the size of the cavities through which cerebrospinal fluid (CFS) can easily drain toxins from the brain tissues. This is simply amazing! SO, THE RESTORATIVE POWER OF SLEEP CANNOT BE UNDERESTIMATED!

Furthermore, our internal circadian timing system, which is built into the body and controls the cyclic pattern of releasing and activating of all our hormones, neurotransmitters, body temperature and level of metabolism, is designed to support our day-night activities. This means, if we work during the night, when by nature our body needs to rest and is not ready to work, we stress our body a lot and accumulate many future health issues. For example, during the morning and day we need to have sufficient exposure to sunlight. Light gives our body a “wake up call” and hormones and other important substances begin to be produced, including the well-known hormone and neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin is our “happy” hormone and natural antidepressant. You may have noticed that if we have enough sleep, we are in a better mood. Interestingly, about 90% of serotonin is produced in the human gut and is heavily influenced by our gut flora, the food we eat, by how active we are and the amount of sunlight we receive. Moreover, if we have enough serotonin, we will have a sufficient amount of melatonin which is produced by our body from serotonin. Melatonin sends “sleep” signals to our cells. It is an important sleep regulator. Melatonin is naturally secreted when it gets darker outside and that can very often be ignored by us. When was the last time you went to bed when it was getting dark outside? So, this is a very clear example of how the serotonin-melatonin hormones cycles depend on the amount of sunlight and the natural day-night pattern. It is the same case with other hormones in our body like cortisol, oxytocin, norepinephrine, vasopressin, prolactin. If we do not respect their natural pattern of expression, we can end up with serious health disturbances.

Scientists have established the connection between our sleep and our microbiome. Yes, again microbiome! We know that sleep has a direct effect on the diversity of human bacteria and therefore, as by now we all know, our health. And it also works the other way around, the microbiome has a big influence on the human ability to relax and sleep. Our microbiome also has its’ own daily rhythm that depends on the time we eat and the type and quality of the food we consume. It has been shown that irregular sleep, disruptions of circadian rhythms caused by shift work or jet lag, disrupts microbial rhythms, bacterial diversity and balance. In one study, scientists found that people with prolonged jet-lag demonstrate a significant increase of a certain type of bacteria known to be more prevalent in people with obesity and diabetes.

Therefore, a good quality sleep, that doesn’t actually have to be that long, has an amazingly beneficial effect on many areas of our lives, including weight loss, improving memory and focus, reducing levels of stress and anxiety, boosting productivity and raising our energy level. It is like with anything – quality is more valuable that quantity. Dr Breus, the famous sleep doctor, actually recommends finding out how much sleep each of us personally needs. In fact, everybody has an individual sleep requirement. According to Dr Breus, we need to count sleep cycles that are 90 min each and our night sleep should ideally include 4-5 sleep cycles. The best way to go about this, is to monitor the time when you wake up in the morning and count backwards to find out when you have to go to bed. For example, if you normally get up at 6.30 am, you may need to go to bed at 11 pm (5 cycles of 90 min or in total 7.5 hrs). Some people only need 4 cycles to have a good sleep. I think it is a good starting point to see how much each of us needs to sleep and how we can figure out the best bed time for yourselves.

Once we have found out how long we should sleep and when we should go to bed, next we need to pay attention to the following points in order to have a better quality sleep and invest in our health:

Get the maximum exposure to sunlight you can during the day.
Avoid any electronic screens for 2 hrs before your bedtime. Blue light from any electronic devise stimulates the production of cortisol (daytime hormone) and messes up your natural sleep pattern.
If you absolutely must use a computer before your bedtime, use a blue light blocker. I am going to install a free application called f.lux (https://justgetflux.com) that automatically eliminates the blue light from the device at a certain time each day.
Do not keep any electronic devices in your bedroom. Even it is very hard to part with your smart phone, it is a very good idea to do so and you will get used to it very soon.
Make sure that temperature in your bedroom is cool, about 18- 20⁰ This temperature correlates best with our body temperature during the rest stage. If you feel more comfortable, you can wear warm pajama and socks, but keep the room temperature down.
Make sure that your bedroom is dark enough as any amount of light can disturb the quality of sleep.
Have a certain ritual for going to bed that will help you to unwind and start to relax. For example, read a book, have a bath, meditate, listen to nice music or simply reflect on your achievements ofthe day.
Do not exercise in the evening as our body needs a few hours to calm down after training.
Do not drink coffee after 4 pm as caffeine has a half-life of 5-8 hrs. Caffeine affects our nervous and hormonal systems and prevents us from having a good sleep.
And of course do not eat very late. Dinner should be light and easily digestible. Try to avoid eating combinations of meat and carbohydrates during dinner as they take longer for the body to process. A protein with non-starchy vegetables based dinner is a much smarter choice.

So, now you are ready for your smart sleep! I really hope that you find this article useful and start to implement some changes into your life that will bring you more health and happiness.

Have a good sleep and have a great healthy life!

As usual, I look forward to receiving your ever valuable questions, comments and feedback: irina@liveright.eu

Boost Your Unlimited “Girl Power” and Energy Level!

Dear ladies,

Today I want to talk about us and our “girl power”!

March is the month of love, spring, new beginnings and hope. Through this time, we are more open to new projects and new ideas; we want to achieve great professional results and wish to look stunningly beautiful! At the same time, we are preoccupied worrying about everybody around us and trying to “save the world”! Does this sound familiar to you?

The question is WHERE TO FIND THE ENERGY FOR ALL OF THESE THINGS? How do you cope with nurturing others, managing everything on time and not wearing yourself out? What is your secrete to “unlimited girl power”? Please, let me know! Meanwhile, I want to share with you my opinion to the phenomenon that is a woman’s energy.

Many of us do not take the logical route of taking enough care of ourselves. Because very often our female upbringing tells us that self-care is wrong and selfish. Nevertheless, it is the most important thing we can do for ourselves, even if it is the easiest things to forget about. Therefore, practising self-love and self-care is essential to boosting our self-esteem and the physical resources of our body.

So, let’s see how we can actually boost our energy level to be that effective and healthy!

We can restore our strength through different ways and means. Our energy can be effected on physical, emotional and spiritual levels. These are all very important and deeply interconnected! However, I would like to focus on nutrition, which affects us directly on a physical level by supplying energy via food to our body, as well as emotionally via the esthetical presentation of our food and the surrounding atmosphere when we consume it; and even spiritually via mindful eating, appreciation and a loving consciousness.

Before we focus on food I would like to share with you a few useful, general tips which definitely help me to control my energy and therefore my happiness level:

Be wise and sleep enough to allow your body time to detox and restore itself during quality night rest.
Give yourself a break, breath deeply, stand and stretch. Practice a moment of peace or meditation on a regular basis.
Find time to indulge yourself once a week: a hot bath, a sauna, a manicure, a massage or something else that works for you.
Lower your standards and expectations. Who cares if you do not clean the floor in your apartment every other day? Find a way to cut down on the time you take doing routine boring, “necessary” things.
Read a good book!
Meet interesting and inspiring people!

Now, let’s focus more on food related points and pay attention to what we eat, when we eat and how we eat!

All living creatures, including humans, draw their energy from the sun. We do it by eating “live” plant-based foods that are able to accumulate “sun energy” within them. In other words, eating fruits, seeds, nuts and vegetables is essential for us to top up our energy level!

Another thing that we need to be aware of is the quality of food! It has dramatically dropped during recent years and this has become an incredibly crucial factor for our energy and health level in our modern lives! The way our foods are grown and produced has changed so much during the last 50 years that our body struggles to recognise it as a nourishing substance rather than as a big stressor. We chronically experience a lack of trace elements and micronutrients, but, at the same time, we are overdosed with macronutrients such as unhealthy modified fats, sugar and easy carbohydrates. The closer a product is to its natural state, the higher its nutritional value! Therefore, consider eating more organic food and less processed products as much as possible!

We also constantly abandon our natural rhythm of eating. Previously, when people did not have any fridges and freezers, some days they would eat some days a lot and hardly anything. Humans also used to experience seasonal changes in food intake. So, we used to experience natural fasting periods and we did not eat lots of sugary foods all year around. Research shows that people who follow their individual natural eating pattern, have a more balanced level of metabolism and optimal weight. Or, alternatively, you could have a fasting day every 3-4 month, for example, every last day of a season. But never forget to drink water!

In some cases, we may spend too much energy on the digestion of certain food or its combinations. Do you ever feel tired after eating your dinner or lunch? Thus could be due to a few reasons, such as a lack of enzymes, a lack of certain bacteria in your gut or simply, too much food in the wrong combination. If, for instance, we eat meat or fish with vegetables, this combination will be digested faster then the same portion of meat in combination with pasta. Eating raw vegetables with each meal helps to bring enzymes in your system alive and therefore improve your digestion cycle.

We need to make sure that our digestive system is working properly! Consuming fermented foods that are full of probiotics essential for our health is vital! Natural yogurt, kefir, kombucha, miso, sauerkraut, fermented vegetables and fish, all these products will diversify and enrich your diet!

So, to sum up, here are some key points worth considering including in your every day life to enhance your feminine radiance, vitality and wellbeing:

Drink more water! Start your day with a glass of not cold lemon water that will activate the nervous and hormonal reactions in your liver and stimulate digestion.
Carefully choose your foods, read labels, avoid artificial additives. Bio products are much better value for your money as they contain less toxic chemicals and much more nutrients.
Eat more “live” foods, raw plant-based products that bring “sun energy” to your body and micronutrients and enzymes that are vital for your health.
Use spices, diversify the taste of your meals. Include curcuma, ginger, cumin and curry that will help reduce inflammation and improve digestion.
Eat foods that are essential for a healthy gut, foods enriched with fibres and fermented foods.
Listen to your body carefully and find your own optimal rhythm for consuming food.
Remember that no one diet works for everyone! If you want to change the way you eat, then carefully try a new approach and listen to your body, introduce any changes step by step and watch your body’s response. You will feel whether it works for you or not. Consult a specialist.

Let me finish by saying – NOURISH YOURSELF PROPERLY AND YOU WILL HAVE MORE ENERGY TO GIVE TO YOURSELF AND TO OTHERS!

As usual, I look forward to receiving your ever valuable questions, comments and feedback: irina@liveright.eu

Never to Late to Improve Your Resolutions!

Hello friends!

I can not believe that it is already February 2016! Have you noticed that when you are doing something you like, time flies by as fast as the speed of a light!

In any case, today I want to draw your attention to your New Year Resolutions (NYRs) as it is still the right moment to address this topic! Have you set up any NYRs this year related to healthier eating habits and healthier life style? The majority of us do every year and the majority of us actually fail to complete them every year! May be you have already stopped pursuing your resolution?! However, there is still time to do something about this! Let’s see if we can achieve better results together!

You may ask do NYRs work at all? Interestingly, research has been conducted about this and has shoes that NYRs actually have ten times more chance to be successful in comparison with any other resolutions you may make during a year. It seems there is some psychological and cultural link with analysing our life over the last year and thinking about what we can do differently in the new year to come, how we can be better, healthier, happier and so on. So, we still have a pretty good chance to stick to our NYRs! Let’s see how we can use this magic momentum to achieve your personal goal!

First of all, I want to bring your attention to four main areas of your well-being that you need to consider when you want to improve any life style habits. It doesn’t really matter if you want to quit smoking or loose some weight, improve your skin condition or get less stressed. What ever you do, please, consider a holistic approach of achieving your goal! Only this approach will bring the long lasting, effective results! Here are the four main pillars of your complete guide for well-being related improvements.

Detox your body!

If you want your body to be responsive to any changes you want to implement, you need to help your detoxification system to work properly and get rid of the extra toxins that we all accumulate very quickly due to our hectic life styles. Very often we do not realise how much we load ourselves with toxins from food, our environment, cosmetics, cleaning agents, computers and so on on a daily base. So, consider the following, very simple, detox steps that can easily be implemented into your busy life:

Start your mornings with a glass of lemon water and prepare your digestive system for the day ahead.
Drink plenty of water during the day.
Eat plenty of leafy green vegetables and fermented food.
Drink ginger and lemon tea.
Every day have fresh juices and smoothies from fruits and vegetables.
Take a little bit of apple cider vinegar before each meal and help your digestive system to process the food better.
Consider taking certain supplements such as Chlorella, probiotics, Milk Thistle and Juice Plus products.

And of course, a huge part of detox is eliminating junk food, processed food, soft drinks and ready-made juices as much as possible!

Activate “your own pharmacy”!

I really like this expression that I learned from Dr Sears. Yes, we do have our internal pharmacy inside of us that works 24×7. Found in the largest endocrine organ in our body – endothelium, the lining of our blood vessels. This lining contains metabolically active cells that function like microscopic medicinal bottles, releasing hormones and many other active molecules and medicines. The amount of these released substances is auto-regulated by your body and depends on what you eat and how you move! As you searching for your “fountain of youth”? It is inside your blood vessels! So, physical activity, especially when it takes place outside, is very important for activating your internal pharmacy which takes control of your blood pressure, blood clotting, cholesterol level, inflammation and self healing process.

Give yourself best nutritional support!

We are what we eat, digest and absorb! To achieve anything in this life you need to give your body the best possible quality, real food and make sure that it is actually digested and utilised by your body. So, I would encourage you to:

Buy organic food as much as possible.
Cook yourself meal from raw ingredients and avoid any ready-made sauces, dressings, soups and so on.
Regularly eat food that is full of probiotics (fermented food).
Never eat low-fat or fat-free products. Go for organic, full fat real products.
Do not use any oils from big plastic bottles. In fact, use as little food and drink in plastic packaging as possible.
Diversify your food as much as possible by adding different fruits and vegetables, seed, nuts and berries to your meals.
Avoid eating products with added vitamins and minerals within them.

Have the right attitude!

If mentally you are not ready for change, if you are stressed too often and do not have any time for yourself, you can forget about your NYRs. So, start to implement the following into your routine:

Stress management activities like listening to your favourite music or audio book while you are stuck in the traffic, meditation, taking a hot relaxing bath, meeting with friends and so on.
Smile to yourself in the mirror every day! This really helps even to people with cancer – according to one study, the survival rate of people with cancer was much greater if they smiled every day, in spite of everything they were going through. How cool is this!
Do not forget to have quality sleep! This is an important time for our body detox and recover. So, we need good sleep every day.
Bring some satisfaction to your life! Find a way for yourself to feel the great power of appreciation. May be you can find a great new hobby, or perhaps do some voluntary work or something else.

Let’s summarise! The four main pillars of your guide for well-being related improvements are detoxification, nutrition, physical exercise and attitude. You have to work on all of them at the same time, as they are very much related to each other!

The second important thing, is to have a very clear strategy and vision of how you are going to achieve your resolution step by step. Once you are very clear about what your goal is, you can set up an action plan considering the four main pillars we just discussed. You need to understand why you want to achieve this goal and what would happen if you do not do it. You need to feel desperate to complete this task as for whatever reason, you know it is a very important step in your life! Then, find out how you can actually do it: get some information, find a coach, sign up at a gym, get yourself a recipe book you like or find a suitable course, workshop, etc. Split your big task into small, and very realistic, mini-tasks and find somebody for you to be accountable to: a friend, a Facebook community, your family and so on. If you do not prioritize correctly, you will never find the time for your task. So, think about how to get your priorities right. Practice self-love and find time for yourself! And of course, do not forget to celebrate every one of your small successes! Find a way to treat yourself for your self-power and to boost your energy level to continue to the next level.

I am sure that with all of these things in place you will be a WINNER!

Please, share with me you NYRs! I am so keen to hear your story! Do you want more information on any of topics we have discussed today? Let me know!

Love you all.

Irina Schurov

irina@liveright.eu

www.liveright.eu

Healthy Festive Fun!

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year and my favourite holiday! There is a certain kind of magic in this season that we carry on through our lives, something from our childhood when we still believed in Santa Clause and spent every December waiting for a miracle. Don’t you just feel it? I really do remember the smell of fresh Christmas tree, mandarins and the delicious aroma from the kitchen where lots of wonderful foods were constantly being prepared during this festive season. It is so nice to spend some time in the kitchen with a mother or a grandmother to prepare all sorts of delicious things! I have always loved to be in the kitchen. This place has a certain magic in it, really!

You can combine different ingredients and create something very different and, if you lucky, very yummy at the end of this process. It is like making a magical potion, if you will. I am sure that many children really like to cook and always demonstrate some interest to participate in the process of preparing food. My daughters have always wanted to help around the kitchen! However, sometimes parents do not have time or the patience to spend that time with their kids and cook something together. We rush too much nowadays. Do you not agree? It is much faster to prepare a dinner by yourself and just serve it to your family rather than do it with children and teach them how to peel and cut, mix ingredients, use various kitchen gadgets and how to decorate plates and the table. Time is required for this which we often do not have. We quickly cook, or even stick something in the oven or microwave, and it is done in a few minutes, out of way! Yet, cooking together is much more then just preparing a meal to satisfy our hunger. It is a great educational moment, it is an opportunity to talk to your children about their day, school or something special; it is a process of building an understanding and developing deep connections between generations; it is a possibility to keep your family’s cultural traditions alive! And it just so happens that Christmas is perfect time for this!

I really would like to encourage you to spend some time with your loved ones in the kitchen during this festive period. Do something together every day and have lots of fun! Explain to your kids what you cook and which ingredients you use and why. Teach them to think about what they actually put in their mouth and how important it is for their health, why certain products are better than others and how some food makes them run and dance well, while others make them weak and sick. Ask them to help to do simple tasks and actively reward them for assisting you. Be creative together, invent new recipes, experiment with flavours and colours! Be enthusiastic about healthy products you use as an alternative to less healthy ones (for example, honey rather than sugar) and bring their attention to the fact that home-made food tastes so much better than ready-made meals. These lessons about importance of real food – the only food we can actually digest properly and benefit from the most. This is truly the most important message you can give your children as this knowledge leads them to make the right food choices, lead the right life style and be healthy! Isn’t this the best Christmas gift we can give our children?

Well, that is enough theory from me! I would now like to share with you one very simple recipe that you can use with your children and cook something delicious! I call it “Gluten Free Fruit Cake”. And the beauty of this recipe is that you can easily change the ingredients by replacing one type of fruit with another, or with dry fruits or berries. You also can add some other spices, tailor it to your personal taste. You can even choose between making either one big cake or lots of small cup cakes and be very creative with decorating!

You will need:

4 eggs

150g of butter

3 table spoons of honey

3 table spoons of grated coconut

1 cup of almond flour

1/2 cup of buckwheat flour

¼ tea spoon of bicarbonate soda

1 cup of blueberries

Spices: 1/2 tea spoon of nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, ginger (all in powder form)

Cranberries and coconut for decoration

Method:

Beat the eggs with the honey with an electric whisk until the mixture is smooth and fluffy. Add the grated coconut, all of the flour and spices. Mix well. In small cup cake cases put several blueberries and then cover them with your cake mix, leaving some space at the top.

Bake it at 180⁰C for about 20 min till your cakes are ready.

When they have cooled down, put a tiny bit of honey on top of each, add one cranberry on the top and a little bit of grated coconut for decoration.

Bon appétit!

Please, try the recipe and let me know if you liked it and which modifications you introduced into the recipe. Take a picture and send it to me! How about photo on Instagram (#liverightxmas). This will be a great Christmas present for me!

I wish you and your families A Merry, Healthy, Delicious Christmas!

Do Not Blame Your Genes!

Have you ever realised that in our hands we have the power over our and our children’s destiny? Let me explain what I mean.

How often do we hear excuses such as – “I am overweight but it is genetic and I cannot do anything about it” or “Heart disease runs in my family, so I am sure I will develop heart problems as well at some point” or something similar? This cannot go on any longer! Modern research clearly demonstrates that the health concerns we often blame on our parents and grandparents are actually within OUR control! In fact, only approximately 1% of all diseases are caused by “imperfect” genes. So, although we may have a predisposition for obesity or other conditions, we still have full control over our destiny!

Of course, we do partly inherit certain features from our parents. Whether we are tall or short, blonde or brunette depends on parental input. However, many other factors around us have a huge impact on us and our health. For example, how we have been looked after during our time in the womb and early childhood, what type of food our mother was ate during her pregnancy, how much stress she experienced and many other factors.

It has been shown that a complex interaction between genes, diet, and other environmental factors play a huge role in our life. In fact, our genes have “switches” and they allow for genes to be activated and deactivated. These switches can be affected by many factors, including our food, stress, exercise, sleep, environmental factors and state of our own microbiome.

This simply means that by introducing positive changes in our life style and avoiding unnecessary toxicity around us, we can achieve optimal health. It means that we can take some degree of control over our life and life of our children. For example, omega-3 fatty acids found in oily fish affect more than 100 genes, while a diet high in carbohydrates turns on genes linked to inflammation and so on. Furthermore, our lifestyle has a big impact on genes linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

Autism has been intensively studied recently. Because Autism tends to run in families, researches have identified vast amounts of genes linked to this disorder. However, more and more evidence suggests that genetic “master switches”, that can turn many genes involved in critical pathways on and off, have been shown to be disrupted in Autism. Therefore, Autism as many other disorders appear to have an epigenetic mechanism where environmental and lifestyle factors play big roles in gene regulation and expression. Thus, we can most certainly do our best to reduce the chance of the development of these diseases. We have been empowered so that the lifestyle we lead can directly alter the expression of our genes. This is a remarkable opportunity indeed! Just imagine that by choosing food of better quality appropriate for you and providing your body with a better set of essential nutrients you can directly effect your genes in a positive way!

And of course, nature gets it best. We need to focus more on eating real and whole foods that contain nutrients which, in optimal combination, are necessary for life and the health. If our digestive system is functioning efficiently and our microbiome is in good condition, we have all the right tools to break down and utilise nutrients from these foods and nourish ourselves in the best possible way.

I really hope you can use this information to empower yourself and start to introduce positive changes in to your diet and life style! New Year is almost here and this is the perfect time to implement some changes into your life that will bring you the long lasting gift of health!

Thank you very much and, as usual, if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you!

How to Diversify the Diet of Picky Eaters With Autism!

Do you have a picky eater with autism at home? Do you sometimes struggle to understand why and how your child only eats a very limited selection of food and how to deal with their extremely “ritualistic” eating behaviour? Here I will try to give you some tips regarding this topic. Recently I have recorded 7 tips about “How to expand the diet of picky eaters with autism” that you can find on my blog or Face Book page and my YouTube channel. Hovewer, I have come to the realisation that sometimes you want to see and read the same information and keep a short list of tips handy somewhere. So, here I am summarising my video tips and I hope you will find it useful.

Tip 1 – EXCLUDE ANY MEDICAL REASONS FOR FUSSY BEHAVIOUR AT THE TABLE

If your child is clamping their lips shut when offered certain food, it may be that they know it will make their stomach hurt. Gastrointestinal distress is very common among children with autism, many of whom can’t easily describe their distress. If your child experiences diarrhea or constipation, bloating and even pain, it means their diet needs to be changed! Please, discuss this issue with a specialist. Individual nutritional support for your child will help to fix this problem and lead to further improvements in behaviour!

Tip 2 – STAY CALM, BE PATIENT AND BE CREATIVE

Any child can take time to taste a new food before they really accept it and start to like it. But in the case of children with autism this process can be much longer and more dramatic. You have to be patient as your child explores and samples new foods. If they continue to reject a food even after many attempts, perhaps they just don’t like it. Move to another new ingredient. Either way, on no condition should you let mealtime become a family battleground. Instead, get creative! You can hide a new food inside of something that your child already likes. For example, if they like burgers, next time when you make them, you can add a small amount of the new food you want to introduce into their diet to meat mince, such as finely chopped onion, zucchini, some spices like curcuma and so on. The idea is, to slowly change an appetite on a cellular level! So, if your child eats a new food little by little, finally he will accept it.

Tip 3 – TAKE STEPS TOWARD TASTING

Many children with autism are afraid to try new things, especially new food. This means we need to think of ways to manage this anxiety. For instance, instead of asking the child to taste the new food straight away and even insisting them do it, try a stepwise approach. First, you can simply look at the new food together. Then you can suggest that both of you can smell it and then touch it. When you think your child is ready for a taste, they can try giving the food “a kiss” or licking it before putting a small bite into their mouth. Sometimes, mixing a new food with a favorite one can really help. This is actually something your child can do by themselves as a game to add new food to the one they already know. This gradual approach decreases anxiety about new foods by increasing familiarity.

Tip 4 – IDENTIFY SPECIFIC TEXTURE DESIRES AND THEN BE INNOVATIVE

Some kids have sensory difficulties with food. So, it may be how a particular food feels in the mouth, rather than its flavor, that produces the dislike. For example, a child may dislike the way a cherry tomato turns from solid to mushy in their mouth, even though they like the flavor. It can be difficult for children to separate the good taste from the disturbing texture. Therefore, identify the texture that your child likes and dislikes and then be innovative. If a child only likes only crispy textures, serve food crispy. If they only like smooth textures, serve puree. That tomato, for example, can be chopped into salsa or blended and cooked into sauce. Also, you may consider to look into sensory integration therapies as this can be a crucial key in improvement.

Tip 5 – INVOLVE CHILDREN IN FOOD PREPARATION AND ALLOW THEM TO PLAY WITH NEW FOOD

In order to help your child build familiarity with new food and therefore decrease anxiety about new food, you can involve your child as much as possible in the food preparation process. For instance, ask your child to count cherry tomatoes or carrot sticks for everyone around the table, mix the fruit salad or press the button on a blender when you prepare a sauce. And, please, allow your child to play with new food. Or even better, do it together! How about painting with tomato sauce or creating smiley faces from different vegetables and berries, maybe you can cut stars or hearts from watermelon or kiwi. While you’re playing, let your child see how you taste the new food — and enjoy it! Build positive emotions about new food which will in turn help to reduce your child’s anxiety for that food.

Tip 6 – REMOVE FOODS THAT CAUSE ADDICTION AND OFFER CHOICES OF OTHER FOODS

Picky eating can be due to being addicted to certain foods. This happens because the opiate-like compounds from the improperly digested wheat and dairy proteins cause cravings for wheat and dairy foods. If your child’s diet is made up of high amounts of only a few products like pizza, pasta, bread, milk, cheese, biscuits and similar products, it’s very possible that their picky eating is due to gluten and dairy cravings as well as some additives which can be found in processed food (MSG, artificial colors and flavors). After removing these foods that are causing addiction, food choice often increases significantly. Also, when you offer foods to your child, try to offer a broad variety and allow choice within the categories you care about. So, this way your child has a choice and a sense of control over what he puts into his mouth.

Tip 7 – BE CAREFUL WITH REWARDS AND INVOLVE THE WHOE FAMILY IN THE PROCESS

Unfortunately, the age-old rule of: “if you eat your broccoli, you can have an ice cream” doesn’t work. It may work in the short term, but it won’t work in the long term, it doesn’t help to achieve the desired results. Your child may quickly swallow the broccoli to get their reward, but they won’t learn to enjoy it or understand why it is important to eat a well-balanced diet, which is the goal. So, choose different rewards not associated with food. Such as, playing a game together, watching a film together, reading a book together and so on. At the same time make sure that the whole family participates in the process! If dad is a picky eater and he is not willing to eat the new foods, you will never convince the child to do so. Only complete family effort can be productive. And, please, remember, if you don’t succeed straight away, try, try again! You sometimes need to to introduce new food 15 times before a child start to eat it.

I hope you have managed to read thus all and have found it useful and informative. Please, try these tips at home if you have not applied them already. Let me know if they help you. Do you maybe have any other great ideas and tips on how to help picky eaters to diversify their diet? Please, share them with me and others! I look forward to hearing your stories!