Growing up in Ireland in the 1980’s and 90’s, the catholic church was the most powerful institution in the country. It had a vice like grip on it’s people with thousands flocking to the monolithic churches each and every Sunday morning for the weekly installment of Catholicism. Fast forward to today and the picture is very different.
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The doorbell rang aloud twice before I managed to get to it. Upon opening the door, I met a delivery guy and we began chatting. Half way through our conversation, he casts a look over to the right hand side where the usual pile of mucky football boots reside outside my front door. In the mix there was a pair of my own mucky runners, fresh from the morning run through the woods.
Are you a runner? He asks in an enquiring tone. My answer surprised me.
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Deciding to run 26.2 miles continuously is an act of sheer madness to most people. This year, a record 25,000 tickets have been sold for the 1st in person Dublin City Marathon since 2019, which makes this the biggest Dublin Marathon yet. I have completed this marathon on three different occasions, so here are my top tips for making it through what could be one of the best/worst days of your life.
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Does the dread of the working week ahead ever sneak up on you on a Sunday and ruin your last evening off work? Welcome to the Sunday Night Rats.
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These two terms are often used interchangeably but they are subtly different, so here’s the bottom line on the difference between being plant based vs vegan.
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Deciding to switch your diet is one of the hardest things to do in the long term but can also be one of the strongest levers you can pull to improve your health. I am not talking crash diets for a few weeks here just to drop a few pounds for that big night out coming up. Anyway I digress here, back to your decision to go vegan. I was vegan / plant based for a number of years, and these are my top 3 things to watch out for.
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Life in 2022 can be very stressful and if left unchecked, can run riot over your health, causing and contributing to a wonderful array of bodily disorders and chronic diseases. So what can be done to keep stress in check?
These are the best techniques I have found.
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As a lot of countries begin to reopen everything post covid, we find ourselves in the midst of the inevitable return to the office conundrum. For many, a covid enforced working from home policy was a gift from the gods (I’m looking at you introverts) and for others it was a jail sentence.
Which side of the fence are you?
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I’ve adapted this recipe from Daniel Davey’s book “Eat up and Raise your game”. I have been having this for breakfast for the last 6 or 7 months, often with little twists to freshen it up but here I will go through the basics. This breakfast takes your ordinary breakfast cereal oats to the next level of nutrition with a balanced protein, fat, carbohydrate and fiber profile for just under 300 calories. A good spend that will keep you going right up until lunchtime with steady blood glucose levels.
This recipe serves 2 but I always double it to get 4 beautiful brekkies, all ready to go with minimal work. There is no cooking here, just assembling the ingredients together and leaving them to get to know each other overnight, ready to be devoured the next morning. It could not be simpler. Let’s go!
Ever wonder why you go to the gym? Or why you get up early to write another few crappy pages for that book you want to publish? Or why you bother to cook a healthy meal? Or why you continue to make sales calls when you never get a response? Or wonder why the weight scales is not moving? Or maybe you do none of those things and you are fine with that?
Whichever side of the fence you find yourself, you are likely experiencing what I call the compounding effect.
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When it comes to a weekly staple in my diet, look no further than this mixed bean chilli. It features on my food plan most weeks and the weeks when it’s not on there, some variation of it usually shows up.
This takes about 30 minutes all in, serves 5 and delivering a nutrient dense punch of protein and fibre for only 252 calories per portion, this one should be on your to cook list.
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Christmas is a tricky time for weight management, that’s for sure. It follows hot on the heels from Halloween at the end of October, which is itself often a sugar-fest. So by the time December 1st comes around, we could start compounding any weight gain experienced from Halloween. On top of that, in Ireland, the darker wintry months start to kick in around November and this can often be a trigger for many people to consume more food than is necessary, in an almost hibernating fashion.
So this year I tracked my own experience of the holiday season for Christmas 2021 and here’s what I learnt.
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Tonight I’m going to discuss a concept that has helped me a lot over the last number of years. It’s a simple concept which helps you identify what builds and what destroys your health and wellbeing. It takes a little time to complete the exercise but it is well worth it. So let’s dive in.
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When you are starting out on the alcohol free journey, every social occasion is hard. It is a battle of will versus temptation and if you are not committed, it is likely you will cave on your promise to yourself. For a few short hours, even minutes of indulging in alcohol, the next day will be full of guilt, shame and negative self-talk which could well lead you to drink again.
Starting out going alcohol free at Christmas time is just a bad idea, end of. You are stacking the deck in favour of failure as your mental resolve is not calloused yet and social invites are everywhere. That being said, this Christmas could be different…
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Time is the ultimate gift
But in a world that is so full
So loud and so fast
Time alone is often last
It is only when we stop
The volume of life
Is allowed to drop
When we strip away the noise
The everyday commitments
The responsibilities
The endless to do lists
That we make space just to be
To listen to the little voice inside
And what he has to say to me
Some call this intuition
Others call it your gut
Whatever name you want to use
It’s time to listen and muse
But too often we spend our days
Looking outward
Rushing around in a haze
That we forget to listen
To what he has to say
Until all is quiet
At the end of another busy day
Much love x
JP
To give up alcohol for any length of time is admirable in my opinion, whether it is for 10 days, 100 days or even 1 day depending on where your relationship with alcohol is at. When I started a challenge with oneyearnobeer back in June 2019, I had reached a point of just being so fed up of the booze and the impact it was having on my life – the hangovers, the excuses, the irritability, the poor food choices, the impact on my body (beer gut, liver damage) and brain (the fog), the “fear” the following day, that awful feeling of not being in control of what you said or did on a night out and the general feeling of being dragged backwards in life instead of forwards.
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How often do you find yourself saying I Am <blank>.
For example, for myself, “I am” could look like:
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The GI Effects Comprehensive Stool test from Genova Diagnostics is one of the best tests out there for assessing the health of your gut. It uses PCR analysis and culturing from the samples you provide to give you deep insights into the current state of your gut health.
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Gut health is a hot topic out there right now. Since Covid-19 has made PCR testing a household phrase, it seems gut health testing might be a little easier to understand now for some. But what do we actually mean by “gut health” and how do we test it?
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The Health Project 