The Don's Meddle

I put a post on Facebook asking "margarine or butter", it seems I hang around pretty switched on people, or are friends with online smarties ... being smart that we know (and have known for a wee while) that saturated fat is good for us, butter is way better than margarine because it is a natural product.  For years we have been told to reduce saturated fat to control or lower cholesterol and for years I have been thinking surely it is processed food related (after reading numerous blogs on paleo, listening to podcasts from scientists, doctors around the world).  And starting to see a pattern of what is actually healthy nutrition for us (no processed foods, sugars) good fats are well good.  For years I didn't want to further my nutritional studies to become a dietician/nutritionist because I don't believe in the Dietary Guidelines and  I am a big believer of practice what you preach.  I don't believe we need 5-6 servings of carbohydr...

  Taking note of  the simple things that make you smile or feel good can reflect on your overall happiness. Your bus arriving early with a friendly bus driver greeting you,  a smile from a stranger, a hug from your children, your favourite gym class moved to a time that suits you, helping someone with their pram when people have just walked past, talking to the lady at Woolies scanning your groceries or remembering your to your favourite program returning on TV on Monday nights! (zombie zombie zombie... oi oi oi).  The feelings that you receive daily from these little experiences truly help make you feel in a good mood, releasing serotonin into the body and making you feel less stressed, anxious. Try and focus on what made you smile at the end of each day before you go to sleep, not the things that made you frown.   Concentrating on the small things that make you feel alive each day and less on the things you ...

Fear.  We all have it,  fear is really a coping mechanism,  the flight or fight mentality to protect the body (keep us safe), but I think we also have more fear installed or conditioned in us than we have ever before, we are more stressed, which means producing more stress hormones in our body. To produce the fight-or-flight response, the hypothalamus gland activates two systems: the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system which initiates adrenaline into the blood stream. Adrenaline increases your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure and boosts energy supplies. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, increases sugars (glucose) in the bloodstream, enhances your brain's use of glucose and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues. You don't want too much cortisol in your body. We all are creatures of habit.  If we haven't stepped far out of our comfort zone the likely chance of us actually doing so is s...