Wellbeing

Get some tips this Dry July!


Managing Sugar Cravings This Dry July

By Peter Rule on

We all seek the taste of sweet foods naturally in our diet, however it can be easy to crave excess high sugar foods for many varied reasons.

We have 5 basic recognised tastes – sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami (savoury) however we can become imbalanced in our food choices due to stress, low energy, eating on the run, looking for psychological reward or treat or nutritional deficiencies, just to name a few.

Refined sugar is addictive due to the release of dopamine from the brain. Dopamine is one of the principal neurotransmitters involved in creating substance dependence on things like alcohol. The excess dopamine that is produced gives rise to powerful feelings of pleasure; however these excess levels also take a long-term toll on brain chemistry and promote substance dependency (like sugar cravings) which can contribute to obesity, type two diabetes and nutritional deficiencies.


When assessing a person’s current eating plan, it is not uncommon to discover the following habits which can cause imbalances and sugar cravings to occur:

  • Missing breakfast
  • Added sugar in breakfast cereals
  • Lack of protein and/or excessive complex carbohydrates during meals
  • Dependence on alcohol, consuming 1-3 units per night
  • Coffee and tea with sugar or chocolate (45-50% refined sugar) mid-afternoon or after dinner

If some (or all!) of these eating practices sound like yours, keep reading for 10 tips to help regain your balance.

Top 10 healthy tips to manage sugar cravings –

  1. Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner more slowly, with small healthy snacks in between if hungry
  2. For breakfast, enjoy protein rich foods such as eggs, yogurt, chia seeds or muesli with nuts
  3. For lunch and dinner, fill your plate with healthy foods, low in carbohydrates (vegetables and salads) along with a palm sized portion of lean protein (fish, chicken, lean meat, eggs, tempeh or legumes)
  4. Before reaching for chocolate when you need a pick me up snack, try a small handful of raw nuts and seeds with a few raisins for sweetness, hummus with vegie sticks or a small tub of yogurt

A couple of deliciously popular Golden Door snacks you should try are;

  1. Eat a variety of whole real foods with good fibre to increase consumption of nutrients, the feeling of fullness and to improve metabolism
  2. Cravings can sometimes be caused by slight dehydration so make sure to drink plenty of water throughout your day
  3. Add some cinnamon to your cooking or tea. Cinnamon is excellent for insulin efficiency and used for treatment of Diabetes, metabolic syndrome X and insulin resistance
  4. Try Licorice tea, as it has a sweet taste and is an adrenal tonic which is helpful for low energy levels
  5. Eat fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, kefir or probiotic foods which provide beneficial bacteria to the gut and can assist in reducing sugar cravings
  6. If stressed – practice deep abdominal breathing, become mindful of stress related eating habits and distract self with a walk, get out into fresh air, drink water, talk to someone or book a Golden Door Retreat and come and do all of above!

Superfoods on Supermarket Shelves

By Jacqueline Alwill on

It’s easy to feel confused by the labeling on foods these days. And especially with products in organic grocery stores. They bring up more questions than they answer. Are they really worth the money? Are they actually a wonder ingredient? Will this overhyped product solve all my problems, make me super healthy and save me from Friday night’s alcohol binge? With this in mind, let’s step away from the bright lights and clever packaging, and look at some of the basic foods found in regular supermarkets, and how they can supercharge our health. Here’s some you’ll find in my basket:

Cauliflower

A member of the brassica family, cauliflower is rich in sulfur containing nutrients and glucosinates, to reduce inflammation and support liver detox...

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Foods For Cleansing This Dry July

By Peter Rule on

Cleansing is something that our body is doing all the time through the organs that manage detoxification and elimination. These vital organs are the liver, kidneys, lungs and skin which work very hard to eliminate harmful toxins and wastes from the body. Toxins can come from a variety of sources such as heavily processed foods, food additives and preservatives, chemicals like herbicides and pesticides, environmental pollutants and excess alcohol, processed sugar and caffeine.

Luckily, nature has a natural pharmacy of foods which can assist these vital organs to cleanse toxins from the body and these foods can be obtained at most fruit and vege outlets.

Here are seven of my favourite “foods for cleansing” and I have been recommending...

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Is #CleanEating ruining your health?

By Courtenay Turner on

It’s 8am and the sun is peeping through your blinds. Before you’ve even got up out of bed, your fingers find the familiar edges of your iPhone. Passcode entered, screen brightness down, Instagram open: let the onslaught of healthy #foodporn begin.

Paleo pancake stacks, raw vegan bliss balls, dairy-free ice cream, grain-free waffles with superfood sauce… it all sounds too good to be true and it’s all right there, just waiting to be visually devoured.

Without a doubt, the “clean eating” trend currently sweeping social-media sites is an abundant source of inspiration for those looking to take control of their health. It encourages us to experiment with more nourishing recipes and try a more varied range of whole foods. It motivates us eat...

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