Health blogger and nutritionist jessica sepel is on a mission to educate the public about nutritional meals, self care and healthy habits. Jessica details in this book her own challenge with an eating disorder and why and how she got herself out of it. I love her honesty and the the design of the book is fantastic, lots of pictures and easy to follow advice.

Jessica has a questionnaire she asked you to fill in at the start of the book, I’m going to write a few into this blog post so you can see my answers.

How do you feel right now, emotionally and physically ? Feel so tired most of the time, my energy levels are so low and my sleep is so bad. I’m physically weak and need to get more muscle. Emotionally I’m up and down.

What is your greatest health challenge ? I have low red blood cells and swollen lymph nodes, I have 2 growths on my lymph nodes one in my neck and one in my groin which I’m having monitored. My digestion is also slow.

At what point in your life did you feel your best ? Probably when I was a child.

What are your main health goals ? To reduce swelling in my lymph nodes, improve my sleep pattern. Get more energy and feel better mentally !

I love how she also adds in a declaration that we should make to ourselves and to our health. Like ” I relive myself from the need to and desire to look and be perfect ” with daily pressures this is a big one for young woman. I will be repeating this daily. Also another is “ I commend myself daily for putting in the effort to better my health ” as sometimes I am so hard on myself and forget to commend myself for the work I already put in.. If you are also like this please take a moment to think about how important that is, I might need to write it on a post it note and add to my mirror!

What are your most typical cravings ? Chocolate

What feeling do you associate with these cravings ? Feel safe.

I learned from this book that Iodine deficiency is very common and contributes to thyroid disorders. Modern diets lack the nutrients such as iodine, selenium and iron so for optimal thyroid function you should be adding this to your diet. A healthy thyroid can be changed with high oestrogen levels and cortisol levels !

Cortisol of course is the long term stress hormone and too much of it can cause some big problems, there’s no doubt I have high cortisol and I hope to look into this further. There is also a link between high oestrogen and endometriosis which I have suffered great pain with over the years, Really wasn’t expecting to find that gem of information while trying to eat a better diet. The idea was just to give up sugars and eat more fruit and veg, maybe get better at cooking but books like Jessica’s have really opened my eyes about how very important it is that I get my diet right and maybe all my other issues can go away.

People with digestive issues will experience low moods as our serotine ( feel good hormone ) is made in our gut ! Also leaky gut syndrome which is caused my gaps in the gut lining can make food escape into our bloodstream activating an immune response, such as gas, bloating, general unwell feeling. Our gut needs to be detoxed and cleaned out to function optimally. Thinking of this I better get a plan in place… its going to be really hard to go through a detox process but reading books like this motivate me further and I hope you reading this become inspired to change also.