Can't seem to warm up - is it my thyroid? Walk into any gym in October and you will see it. People halfway through a session, working hard, still in their jackets. Hands that do not warm up. Someone saying they cannot seem to get warm this year. The usual explanation is the weather, and often that is exactly what it is. But there is a second possibility, and it has nothing to do with the temperature of the room. First, a term worth knowing Energy availability is a simple idea

It was a glorious summer! Summer is nearly over and from October until March, your skin stops making vitamin D. For most people, that comes as a surprise. Part of the reason is a piece of advice that is everywhere at the moment, which is to get ten minutes of daylight first thing in the morning. It is good advice, and I give it myself. The problem is where most of it comes from. Many of the podcasts that repeat this advice record in California, where the midwinter sun still c

What helps motivate you? I have lost count of the number of people who have sat in front of me and explained, quite matter-of-factly, that the problem is their willpower, and quite firmly, that it is not up for debate. "I have never been able to stick at anything, I start well and then I fall off, I just do not have the discipline." And the best part, "my mum was the same." The problem is they have plenty of evidence, because they have started and stopped so many times that n

Some things have to come down before you can see what was holding them up. I drove past a building in St Albans this week that stopped me. It burned some weeks ago, I found out afterwards, and what is left of it is still standing there with the metal peeled away from the frame and hanging down in long torn sheets. The sky was clear and blue behind it and the whole thing looked strangely beautiful, which felt like an odd thing to think about somebody's business. I took a photo

The Headline vs The Paper Just 5 minutes, really? Earlier this year, the news told you that five minutes a day could add a year to your life. It was an extremely catchy headline that promised a simple action would provide a massive return. Five minutes of walking, an extra year - who wouldn't take that trade? But it sent my spidey senses off, as it's the kind of message that can spread without a clear audit trail. So I want to show you where it came from, because the real sto

A visit to my butcher looks a little different to most. Working with nature to build a sustainable future I want to tell you about where I buy my meat. By no means am I telling you to do exactly what I do or I have any direct relationship with the farm. It's because I genuinely believe that one of the most under-rated conversations in nutrition is not what we eat, but where it comes from. And for me, that conversation starts with Knepp. Knepp Estate in West Sussex is one of t

The mighty power of the micro. The role of micronutrients is often underestimated in performance There's a conversation that happens in my clinic more often than any other. Someone sits down and tells me they're doing everything right. They're training three or four times a week, they've got their protein up, they've cut the ultra-processed stuff and they are chuffed to report they're eating more vegetables! But they still feel flat. They are recovery takes days and the 3pm c

What Recent Research Tells Us About AI, Nutrition, and Why Clinical Oversight Still Matters The wonders of AI There's something fascinating happening in nutrition right now. You can open an AI chat box, describe what you eat, list your symptoms, and within seconds receive a meal plan, supplement suggestions, and your macros calculated to 0.1 of a gram. It all appears genuinely personalised. So, where does that leave us nutritional therapists? More importantly, what happens wh

For the parents, coaches and young people who want the truth — not the marketing. Fuelling the next generation - what they put in their bodies now matters more than they know Walk into any Holland & Barrett, scroll through any athlete's Instagram feed, or stand on the sidelines of a Sunday league match, and you will not have to look hard to find supplements. Protein powders, creatine, energy drinks - all being consumed as casually as a bottle of water. Supplement use among yo

Can something with virtually no calories still influence our biology? Guilt-free pleasure? Walk down any supermarket aisle and you'll quickly notice a common theme. Drinks labelled zero sugar, diet or no added sugar (and heavily dicounted may I add!) have become the norm rather than the exception. Whether it's an energy drink before the gym, a diet cola with lunch or a flavoured water on the commute home, many of us choose these products believing they are a healthier alterna

Whether you're chasing a personal best or just love moving your body, real progress isn't only about how hard you train. It's about the whole picture, your training, rest, recovery, nutrition and stress all working together. Your body is a beautifully connected system, and when one part is under strain, the rest feels it too. 1 in 3 male and 1 in 2 female athletes suffer from gastrointestinal (GI) issues, with endurance and ultra-distance competitors experiencing the highest

Let me paint you a picture that I think is going to feel very familiar. You smashed it at 6am, now what's the plan for the rest of the day? The alarm goes off at six. You drag yourself out of bed, get to the gym, put in a hard session at the gym or the box. You smashed it!. You shower, you're at your desk by half eight, and you spend the next eight hours pretty much in the same position, at the screen or in a meeting sitting on a chair. Commute home, driving or on the train,

We're told to eat more protein. Many of us think we already are. But 80 years of data and research tells a different story. So let's dig in, I'm about to raise the steaks. Are we actually eating more of this stuff? Protein is having a moment. We're told to eat more of it everywhere we look, it's on every label, in every shake and now in yogurts and even fortified in other protein sources. And with all that noise, most of us have assumed we're now eating more protein than ever

...you can shower first, but there is one timing rule that does hold up. Look familiar? For about twenty years, gym culture swore by a rule that turned out to be wrong. You finished your session, you had 30 minutes to guzzle your protein shake or stuff you mouth with steak and eggs. If you missed that window, your training was wasted. It's one of those rules where its origins cannot be fully traced. When it was finally tested properly, it didn't hold up. What was found was fa

Do you hit the wall more often than not? You train consistently and eat what most people would describe as a healthy diet. You take your recovery seriously. And yet something feels off, your energy levels don't quite match your effort. You feel like its slower for you to recover and your performance has plateaued despite putting your all in. Before you add another training session or cut another food group, I want to ask you a different question. "What if the problem isn't ho

What a fascinating study on elite athletes can teach the rest of us about fuelling, restriction, and the food-culture myths we've all absorbed. Is it the carbs or eating too little overall? Low-carb. Keto. "Carbs are the enemy." If you've spent any time trying to get healthier, you've almost certainly been told, especially by the endless churn of social media, that cutting carbohydrates is the shortcut to getting lean, balancing your energy, or fixing your health. I want to g

What if I told you to spit it out? Have we been thinking about sports nutrition backwards? For most of its history, the field has operated on a simple assumption: you eat something, it gets digested, absorbed into the bloodstream, transported to working muscles, and then performance follows. The sequence matters. The message has always been "fuel in the tank before the engine can run". But I've been digging deeper and seeing a growing body of research that is quietly dismantl

Not just a gym-bro supplement Ask most women what they know about creatine and you'll hear one of two things. Either "isn't that what bodybuilders take?" or "I don't want to bulk up." Both responses are understandable, because for decades creatine research was conducted almost exclusively on men, in gym settings, with muscle mass as the primary outcome. That framing stuck. But the science has moved on, and the picture it's painting of creatine in women's health is far more in

Wearables have become a "second skin" There's something quietly radical about a piece of technology that knows your heart rate, your sleep cycles, your stress levels and your activity before you've even had your morning coffee. Wearable technology has gone from novelty to mainstream in less than two decades, and for many people it's become as natural as a second skin. But as these devices grow more sophisticated and their data more persuasive, it's worth asking a simple quest

The research says it's complicated... Walk into any gym, CrossFit box or even café these days and you'll likely spot one: a small sensor worn on the back of the arm, quietly reading glucose levels around the clock. Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) were designed originally for people managing diabetes, but they've exploded in popularity among athletes, biohackers and health-conscious people who have never had a blood sugar problem in their lives. The promise is compelling: r