This week I listened to an audiobook about near death experiences, called After, and I’d like to tell you about it, because in these times of stress, uncertainty, great changes in the world, and what seems to me as a year of disempowerment, this book gives one hope.

As a health coach, I have been implementing changes in my daily life, adhering to a healthy diet, walking daily, strengthening my body through Pilates and always looking for those moments in which I can appreciate the life’s small wonders.

I used to be a good sleeper. When I say a good sleeper, I mean that sleep came easily to me, and I could stay asleep all night long. That was until I hit menopause. Then things changed. I found that I could not fall asleep easily, and that I also woke more often in the night. Some nights I still struggle to get a good, restorative deep sleep. I have come to realise that worrying about not sleeping is definitely counteractive, so in this article I hope to shed some light on a few important facts.

There is a lot of talk these days about intermittent fasting, and like most things diet and lifestyle related, definitions and interpretations abound.

After listening to an interview with Wim Hof “the iceman”, I decided to try cold showers. For the last two weeks, I have been increasing my cold shower time from about 10 seconds to 2 whole minutes. I admit that those first few seconds when the water changes from pleasantly warm to ice cold are shocking, but by the time you have counted to 10, you will start to feel a strange warmth from within. The true effect of these showers is felt only after you come out and dry yourself. Your body will be glowing, your mind super-alert, better than the best cup of coffee (not that I am giving up my morning espresso any time soon…)

Do you sometimes feel that you are misunderstood? Do people get the wrong end of the stick with you? A wrong word here, a tone of voice there, a look, or a sense of being judged can upset the applecart and create friction and miscommunication.

Cooking for one person can be challenging for various reasons. On the one hand there is the cost of the ingredients, time invested in shopping, prepping, and cooking, and on the other hand there is the question of quantities, do you go to all the effort for one portion or do you cook in bulk only to have to eat the same meal over and over. Then there are those recipes, most of which are designed for 4-6 portions. Do you halve the ingredients? How to go about it?

When I had not yet become a regular meditator, I used to enjoy my yoga teacher’s guided meditations. Sitting or lying down and listening to a calm and gentle voice guide me into relaxing different body parts, breathing, visualising a ray of light entering through the top of my skull and travelling down my body, penetrating every cell and filling me with bright, life-giving light or imagining a beach or a forest, where I feel calm and completely at one with nature and the universe.

My three months on a low-FODMAP diet to combat SIBO taught me that it is possible to live without onions and garlic, but only just!

A while ago, a client of mine told me that one minute she had a plate with four slices of toast on it and in the next - there was an empty plate. She had no recollection of actually eating it. That is a perfect example of how many of us consume our food, we are preoccupied, busy, stressed, hungry, bothered, in a hurry, and the food is just grabbed and eaten mindlessly. We are not paying attention to the quality or quantity of the food.

You only have to look at the face of a baby who is introduced to a bitter food to know that it is an acquired taste!

As we grow and mature, we lose taste buds and are able to tolerate bitter plants safely in small quantities. Yet in today’s industrialised food scene, even adults baulk at bitter flavours and prefer the ubiquitous sweet and salty foods that have been designed to stimulate our palettes and make us eat more. We put sugar and milk in our coffee, we eat low cacao, high sugar and milk chocolate, we eschew grapefruit and citrus peel, and hate radicchio, radish and endive. Many even dislike the bitterness of olive oil. Somehow beer, although bitter, seems to be well tolerated, possibly because of its alcoholic side effects.

I’ve already written about my love affair with knives and good chopping boards, but in addition to a set of the best knives you can afford, here are my recommendations for tools that make for fun in the kitchen.

A while ago I was talking with a medical doctor friend of mine about my approach to food. He admitted that he had a weakness for ice-cream and cake. He also mentioned that he is always hungry. I said that I wasn’t surprised, given that he was eating a great deal of sugar. He retorted that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie! In other words, the body is a kind of combustion engine. Put fuel in (i.e. calories - any calories), expend enough energy (calories out) and voilà - you reach the perfect equilibrium.

If you want to be healthy and have fun in the kitchen, look no further than this modern creation! Blenders have been around for a very long time, but this workhorse is no ordinary blender…adjectives that come to mind are superb, amazing, mind-blowing and nothing short of miraculous.

Many people shy away from meditation because they think that it is complicated, requires sitting in difficult positions, has to be done for an hour at a time, or means that you need to clear all thoughts from your mind.

Have you been told to breathe through your nose not through your mouth? Whether you have or not, you may be wondering how this simple piece of advice can help you improve your health and change many other habits.

One Friday night dinner my daughter-in-law told me that she had terrible stomach pains when she last ate quinoa. I asked her whether she had soaked it before cooking, as I too had suffered when I ate unsoaked quinoa. As she had not, she was willing to give it another try. The happy face that greeted me the next morning meant that she did not suffer stabbing pains this time round.

Have you ever pondered that question? I have! And I know without a doubt that my answer is the former… I live to eat. Eating is one of the greatest passions of my life.

Using a professional, sharp knife makes all the difference to your cooking, it actually changes the flavour of your food, not to mention the aesthetic appeal of it. Have you ever gone out to a restaurant, ordered a salad only to be presented with big unwieldy chunks of cucumber, tomato and onion?