The Optimise Health Blog

 Here in the UK many still practise the Christian tradition of Lent: the discipline of giving something up to consider living simply, frequently a food item and for health benefit. The idea is to mimic the 40 day fast undertaken by Jesus in the wilderness, when he was tested by the devil and tempted to prove he was ready to start his mission. In England we start by making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday - to use up the sweet stuff in the larder so we are not tempted to eat it again for the duration of lent and to fuel the fast. Today the focus may be more about the challenge of reining in appetite or curbing bad habits like smoking or eating treats to excess and less about Christs' 40 days and nights in the desert being stalked by satan. Interestingly most ancient traditions held in them the concept of feasts: I.E. celebrating a particular event or time of year with a party and food. This meant eating special luxuries or taking pleasure in rarer foods or harvest time...

I was brought up to finish my plate. Like many of the little chef generation I wanted the prized lolly for finishing my dinner. Where did this rule of "finish the plate" come from? I would hazard guess that it comes from my parents who growing up in post-war Britain when rationing was still in force and my father saw his first Banana when he was ten years old. At that stage food was scarce, high energy food was prized, expensive and considered a luxury treat; in fact any tasty food you got was worth eating, while anything else you got was probably just eaten because you were hungry. So if you didn't finish your plate something was seriously wrong or you were at the very least disrespecting the cook and provider of the meal. When I was at Uni we did a nutritional survey using ourselves as the guinea pigs. I found that I was eating 3x the recommended energy requirement per day (even finishing friends leftovers!) for a man of my age and size; at that time I coul...

Something I always look at with men who want to lose weight is backup planning for situations in which the good intentions fall down. You might have the best diet in the world at home with the support of your partner and family. Your daily routine might be fantastically healthy including cycling to work, eating healthy snacks, 5 a day and drinking plenty of water, going to the gym on the way home and eating a healthy dinner. However when men hit the road this lifestyle plan is sucked out of the window on take-off. Why is travel so hard and how can we rein in this area of our lifestyle? Many of us travel for work, some for leisure. How can we maintain a good lifestyle in this complex challenging and fluid arena? There are so many threats to your usual lifestyle when on the road - your timetable will change, your timezone may alter, your sleep habits may be affected, you need to be productive and alert while travelling, boredom and stress kick in when on the road and guess wh...