Étiquette : habits

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Preventing eating disorders in children and teens

While discussing our teenage daughters with a friend, the topic of eating disorders came up. Both of us were a bit puzzled by how much sweets they were having, because we never liked them at all (the sweets, we love our daughters!). We were unsure of how to tackle the subject of sweets, and more generally of food choices, missed meals, and what can appear as « poor eating habits ». Any discussion with a teen is such a minefield! What we absolutely want to avoid though, is that our children develop an eating disorder. How to can we prevent that and help our children have a healthy relationship with food?

All food is food.
When you have a child, you want to teach them that food is just food. Milk, nuts, fruit, veg, fish, biscuits are just food. It is that simple. The problem arises when we classify foods as « healthy/unhealthy », « good/bad », « clean/dirty » and attach emotional labels to it. Food is food, it has no moral value.

Don’t use food as a reward or a punishment.
Don’t take it away for a bad mark or bad behaviour. Using food as a treat encourages them to eat when they may not be hungry, potentially creating detrimental habits (for example regulating emotions with food). It can also make them assume that food is scarce, which can lead to overeating.

Listen to you body.
Teach your children to tune into their bodily sensations and notice when they are hungry and full, and to listen to these satiety signals. This goes with teaching them to trust their bodies, more than the messages about food we are bombarded with. Support your children by not forcing them to finish a meal.

Doing this can be difficult sometimes, because as parents we worry our children don’t eat enough of this or consume too much of that, consequently not getting the nutrients they need. Supporting our children and teens, offering them nutritious meals, and showing them we have a healthy relationship with our body and with food is the best we can do to prevent eating disorders.

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No, you don’t need a detox

Happy New Year my dear readers! I wish you all the best in 2024, and in particular good health and love.

This is January, many wellness influencers and magazines are rubbing their hands. They tell you that you had too much food, too many drinks, not enough exercise in the past couple weeks and that you need to fix that. And to fix that you need to buy their super quick and miraculous diet, on sale at the moment, how convenient is that? Detox diets and cleanses are another gimmick sold to you by the wellness industry. You don’t need them, you don’t need a detox, you don’t need expensive juices, supplements or monitoring devices.

Your beautiful body has a full set of organs that work together to clear itself of harmful substances and maintain a balanced internal environment:

  • Your liver is the primary organ responsible for detoxification. It filters toxins from the blood, metabolises drugs and chemicals, producing bile to eliminate waste products.
  • Your kidneys filter the blood, removing waste products and excess substances to form urine. They help eliminate toxins and maintain electrolyte balance.
  • Your skin acts as a detoxification organ by excreting toxins through sweat.
  • Your lungs eliminate toxins by exhaling carbon dioxide and expelling airborne pollutants when breathing.
  • Your colon removes waste and toxins from the body through bowel movements.

All super effective (unless disease), available 24/7 and FREE.

How can you support these wonderful bodily functions? Super easy: sufficient hydration, balanced diet and active lifestyle. Don’t waste your money and go for a walk.

If you want personalised no BS nutrition advice, contact me +447554787218.

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Building habits (part 4): the joyful path to lasting change

When it comes to personal development, there’s a common misconception that building habits requires an iron will and unyielding discipline. While discipline can be helpful, it’s not the sole or even the most effective method for creating lasting habits. Forcing yourself to do something is not the recipe for success.

In fact, building habits that stick often requires a healthy dose of enjoyment. When we find something enjoyable, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released in our brain. Dopamine plays a crucial role in building habits and, more broadly, in the process of habit formation.

Here’s how dopamine is involved in the habit-building process.

  1. Reward system activation: Dopamine is closely associated with the brain’s reward system. When you engage in a behaviour that your brain perceives as rewarding or pleasurable, such as eating a delicious meal, completing a task, or achieving a goal, dopamine is released. This release of dopamine creates a positive feeling and reinforces the behaviour, making you more likely to repeat it in the future.
  2. Associative learning: Dopamine helps establish associations between a specific cue or trigger and the reward associated with a behavior. When you engage in a behaviour that is followed by a dopamine release, your brain begins to link the cue or context with the positive feeling of reward. Over time, this association becomes stronger, making it more likely that you will engage in the behaviour when exposed to the same cue or context.
  3. Motivation and desire: Dopamine is involved in motivation and desire. It can increase your drive to pursue goals and engage in activities that you find rewarding. This motivation can be especially helpful when you’re trying to establish new habits, as it can make you more inclined to initiate and stick with them.
  4. Habit loop reinforcement: As a habit forms, it becomes a part of a habit loop, which consists of a cue, a routine, and a reward. Dopamine plays a central role in this loop by reinforcing the connection between the routine (habit) and the reward. The anticipation of the reward, driven by dopamine, motivates you to perform the habit consistently.
  5. Craving and anticipation: Dopamine is involved in the anticipation of rewards. This means that even before you engage in a habit, your brain may release dopamine in response to the expectation of the reward associated with that habit. This anticipation can drive you to perform the habit to experience the reward, further solidifying the habit.
  6. Habit formation: Over time, as you repeatedly engage in a habit, the release of dopamine becomes increasingly associated with that habit. This makes the habit more ingrained and automatic because your brain has learned to associate the behaviour with a positive outcome (the dopamine release).

To conclude, instead of forcing yourself into doing something that you don’t want to do, find a way to make this change enjoyable. Listen to a podcast while you run or do the dishes, brew your favourite tea while you calculate your taxes, set up a nice table for your meal…

Find the rest of the « building habits » series here.

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Why am I writing about habits on a nutrition blog?

In March I started to write a series of articles about habits:

As I was about to publish a fourth article, I realised I had never fully explained why habits are important when it comes to nutrition.

Habits play a crucial role in nutrition because they are the foundation upon which our dietary and lifestyle choices are built. Forming healthy habits is essential for long-term well-being as it influences our ability to maintain a balanced diet and an active lifestyle.

When we establish positive dietary routines, such as eating regular, nutrient-rich meals and snacks, staying hydrated, and incorporating a variety of fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains into our diets, simultaneously engaging in regular physical exercise, these habits become second nature. Over time, they reduce the reliance on willpower and make it easier to make consistently nutritious choices and to stay physically active.

On the other hand, lack of movement and unhealthy eating habits, like excessive consumption of sugary snacks or processed foods, can lead to excessive weight, chronic health issues, and nutritional deficiencies. Therefore, cultivating good eating and lifestyle habits is fundamental to achieving and sustaining a healthy life, as they help us make better choices effortlessly and ensure that our nutritional needs are met over the long term.

As always in nutrition (as in life!), perfection is not the goal, small and consistent efforts are the key to lasting change.

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Building habits (part 3): essential rules

In the first article, I explained how habits rely on our brain autopilot and support our executive functions. Whatever is your goal, there are key rules when implementing your habits.

1 – Something is better than nothing

To form a new habit, you need to activate your neural networks. It means you need to stimulate them: doing something will, doing nothing won’t. Start small and build on.

2 – Consistency matters the most

When you start working on new habits, your executive brain is still activated and actions are very deliberate. As the new routine is implemented, the autopilot is activated. The more often you repeat the new action, no matter how small, the stronger and the more efficient the autopilot becomes. Eventually the autopilot takes over: the habit is formed.

This has to do with synaptic plasticity, which is as Wikipedia simply puts it « the ability of synapses to strengthen or weaken over time, in response to increases or decreases in their activity ». Repeated actions, over time, become habits. Random actions don’t.

3 – Repeated, « good enough » actions

When trying to form new habits, we sometimes set the bar too high, feel discouraged and can’t be consistent. Reduce your threshold of what is « good enough » to focus on small, achievable and sustainable actions that you can do consistently. This will activate the autopilot and embed the new habit.

In a few words, regular small steps will take you to your objective.

As I started a new job, one of my objectives is to build a routine around publishing articles here. I am aiming for one per week but need to find the right cues (time, place etc).

And you, are you trying to implement a new habit in your life?

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Building habits (part 2): key steps

In the first article I explained how habits support the executive functions of the brain. It is estimated that 40% of our actions rely on habits, this is why building habits that serve your goals is essential. Here are a few tips for that.

Tip 1: Identify the habit

The new habit or routine is the behaviour you want to start or change. This can be exercising, stop adding salt, walking more. I will take the example of my Saturday 8.30am yoga class.

Tip 2: Set reminders

One of the key aspects to forming a new habit is remembering everything you need to remember in order to follow through on your aspiration. Forgetting is easy, as our brains always take the easy way, the way of current habits 😉

In my case, I have 2 reminders for this yoga class: one to remember to book the class, and one popping on my phone 30mins before the class.

Tip 3: Start small

This means being specific, and to think of the when, where, how. My aim was not to go to yoga everyday, but to commit to this one, every Saturday. If you can’t proceed to your chosen habit (class cancelled, preferred food not available etc) , have an alternative so that your brain does not associate the reminder to nothing. My alternative to yoga is running. Anything is better than nothing.

Small actions are the seeds for the habit to grow, they activate your neuronal networks.

Tip 4: Reward yourself

We are wired to seek pleasure. Our brain releases « happiness » chemicals during reward, which help the remodelling of neuronal circuits and new habits to stick. We usually think of extrinsic rewards (money, food, objects) but intrinsic rewards work just as well: this feeling once you finish your run, the calm after yoga, learning a new skill, being more energised etc. Remember that the reward comes from the smallest action towards your goal, so the smallest step towards changing or building a habit is rewarding.

After my yoga class, I feel both relaxed and energised, I am (usually!) satisfied with the progress made, and seeing my teacher is a pleasure in itself.

Tip 5: Repetition

As you repeat an action, the new neuronal circuits reinforce and it starts to require less effort. With time, the action is transferred from executive brain, that requires a lot of mental energy, to the autopilot brain and it becomes easier and almost automatic.

And you, what habit would you like to build to achieve your goals?

My current challenge is to eat less salted butter to decrease my overall salt consumption 🙂

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Building habits (part 1) : why habits matter

Today’s post will be the first of a series about habits (and change). The objective is to give you an explanation of why we have habits, and how we can change them to make them literally work for us. Why do I write about habits here? Because a lot of our lifestyle choices (diet, exercise, alcohol consumption, smoking…) consist in habits, and if we want to make a lifestyle change last, having some basic knowledge in psychology and neuroscience can help. Let’s start by having a look at our brain.

Isaac Tobin/Dan Harris/ABC News

As human we have a uniquely large executive brain that support executive functions such as working memory, flexible thinking, impulse control, self monitoring, motivation, emotional control, willpower, planning, prioritisation and task management. These functions are future-oriented and enable us to make decisions according to our objectives.

Executive functions require a lot of mental energy, which can be drained by the demands of our busy, modern lives, leaving us feeling low.

This is where the autopilot, that sits deep within our brain, comes handy. The autopilot does not interact with motivation, it is made of habits. Habits are stimulus-response behavioural task, they are automatic. Brushing your teeth, going to the gym every Monday lunchtime, eating porridge at breakfast, adding salt to your food….

If our habits support our goals, we rely on autopilot more and have more mental energy available for our executive brain. We are more motivated, we perform better. When our habits don’t align with our objectives, our executive brain uses extra mental energy to suppress them, eventually we risk feel drained. The problem is that we cannot always replenish our mental energy enough, or reduce the demands of our executive brain.

Therefore, to cope with the demands of our busy lives, we can build habits that support our goals, while changing the habits that go in their way.