PURPOSE

I’ve popped the process I use with my Wheel of Health into a FREE downloadable workbook to help you cut through the noise of all this health stuff and set yourself actionable goals. It’s a simple but effective way to give yourself a nudge whenever you want to identify what you should be focusing your attention on.

When first begin any sort of health caper you think it’s all about the food. But the foundation of any health caper isn’t about that. It doesn’t start with food. Rather, it’s about changing the paradigm in your head about what’s most important to you.

I moved to the country. In New Zealand. After 52 years of being a complete urbanite, I now live on 3 1/2 acres of green near Matakana village, about an hour’s drive north of Auckland.

It was a pretty big change….

A health update – what eight years of following this AIP way of life has done for my health (and what I’m still working on.) It’s always interesting to stop and take stock. A big thanks to Sara for motivating me to write this post!

Have you identified a word of the year for 2021? It’s a great little tool to help you to remove some of the overwhelm that inevitably comes when you consider ALL the things you want to achieve at the beginning of a new year. Especially after the year we’ve just had…

You’d think the things living with a chronic and painful skin disease like Hidradenitis suppurativa would have been all bad. But they’re not. Some are good. Some are even very good…

Action precedes motivation – One life-changing perspective. Really!
Might you have had it wrong all these years? Have you been thinking that motivation drives action?

Are you a people-pleaser like me? Do you experience an emotional need to please others even at the expense of your own needs? I get it. And I get that it isn’t easy to stop being one, too. This is for you.

After a tough year for so many of us – one that isn’t yet over – here’s a juicy suggestion for you, what if you made kindness part of your purpose?

Creating rituals is all about making choices that serve you. Which sounds easy, but really isn’t. If it were, everyone would be doing it. Here’s how I do it…

Something a little different for you! ‘How to speak down under’ is my receptacle for my Aussie and Kiwi words and phrases – a central point for storing them so that you need only check in here if I ever say something you don’t quite understand.

Why you should share your health goals – all the reasons for sharing your health goals with others who get it and how it helps you on this health caper you’re on. And believe me, it really does.

The AIP. One thing at a time. If you had to pick the ONE most important thing your AIP experience has taught you so far, what would it be? I asked around and it turns out the AIP means different things to everyone!

This is turning out to be a shizzle of a year, isn’t it? Today, how to find your mojo when you need some help getting out of your own way in these challenging times. Practical tips to help you when it gets to be a bit much. They work for me!

When it comes to trying things out for size on the AIP, not everything will fit. Not by a long shot. But there are a few strategies you can employ to help and today we’re taking a look at some of these as well as a few tips on what to do when you trip up

If a skill is defined as the ability to do something well; then making your health a skill is both important and something you can learn. Toda, the first in a new series of ‘bite-sized’ tools for your health toolbox…

One of the things I love most about living an AIP way of life is that it gives you a roadmap to make intentional choices. Choices that serve you. The AIP is predicated on making good choices within a framework of options.

Once upon a time, I had terrible periodontal issues. Adding oil pulling tto my oral hygiene protocol is arguably one of the best things I have done for developing healthy, pink gums. And since good gut health starts in the mouth, it’s a very AIP-friendly technique to add to your health toolbox!

I want to share a very special and potentially even paradigm-shifting little book with you – The Four Agreements. It’s one of my personal favourites, and I’ve been revisiting it during this time of COVID-19. It’s quite helpful for getting your head in the game…

Did you know that most of my clients come to me in the maintenance phase of their AIP caper? By the time you reach the third stage of the AIP, you have a very good understanding of what your AIP way of life should look like, but bizarrely – this is also the phase that is most likely to trip you up!

AIP Creepage is my name for the very human phenomenon of the lowering of your performance baseline on your personal Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) way of life.

In simple terms, it’s when you’ve been following your personalised version of the template – both the elimination diet and the lifestyle factors, but for any given reason your performance in terms of sticking to the letter of the protocol starts to slide.

My AIP way of life looks very different now to when I started this health caper six years ago, Today I’m sharing how it looks and my health goals for this year, too.

It’s hugely counter-intuitive, I know, but the very first thing we can do when we’re feeling overwhelmed is STOP. And, by stop, I mean stop the feeling of your terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
There are a number of ways you can achieve this.

Our new decade has started with a massive bang. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been feeling all the feels that accompany catastrophic events like the bushfires currently raging here in Australia. I’ve had a number of people reach out to ask what they can do… Here are some suggestions.

No matter where you are in your health caper – just starting out or a seasoned AIPer – having a strong sense of purpose can be the difference between staying the course in the face of adversity, or taking a tumble.

This is what 50 looks like (on me)! “Carry with you maps and string, flashlights…

One of my habits is to set a daily intention. A word or two to…

Have you ever given any thought to why you should develop your internal locus of control?
If you are a person with a strong internal locus of control, you tend to believe that you can influence your life events and their outcomes. If, on the other hand, you believe you are at the mercy of outside forces, you are more likely to have an external locus. of control; one where life happens to you.
It’s all about perspective – but an important one.

Reintroducing foods on the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) can be tricky. It pays to be very systematic about this stage of your AIP caper.
Today, I’m talking about the updated suggested order of reintroducing food AND I have a handy-dandy (free) downloadable cheat sheet…

You don’t have to (re)start your diet and lifestyle changes on a Monday!

Here’s the thing – you can start your new health protocol on ANY day of the week. Even a Wednesday! And, I’ve got some tips to help you in today’s post.

I’ve been following an AIP way of life for over five years, now. I’ve learnt a thing or two about how to turn your diet into a lifestyle.
Like many, I started out thinking it was a temporary measure – I thought I’d give the elimination phase of the protocol a red, hot go for a while and see what happened. Then, I could go back to living my life. My way.

Little did I know that my initial foray into changing my diet would turn into a lifestyle…

Last week I talked a little about what I call AIP Creepage. This week, in a…

Setting boundaries is a form of self-care.

The further you dig into this health caper, the more you realise that it’s all about you…

And, that can be counter-intuitive for most of us. It’s very likely you’ve grown up in an environment where you’ve been taught to be selfless; to worry about others before you do your self. This is especially true if you are of the female persuasion.

So, today I’m sharing my tips on creating boundaries for the sake of your health.

It happens to the absolute best of us; that moment where it all just seems too damn hard and you’re so overwhelmed that you want to give up on all those big health goals you set yourself in a moment of optimism at the very beginning of the year.

That Japanese proverb – “Fall down seven times, get up eight” could have been written for those of us following an AIP framework. Because life has a habit of tripping us up; causing us to stray from our health goals. But, that just makes us human. Everybody trips up.

The important thing to consider is how often you get back up again…

When we are vulnerable; when we suffer from a chronic disease; it can be to slip into patterns of comparing ourselves with others in the AIP community (and further afield) …and to find ourselves lacking

Today I have have some tips on how to stop comparing yourself.

The idea of ‘just say no’ is not one that comes easily to me… Shonda…

Have you heard of the halo effect?

The halo effect describes a form of confirmation bias. It’s when you evaluate something based on one quality, and then make judgments based on that one quality. It’s a particularly human trait and it can affect us on the Autoimmune Protocol…

In this video-cast, I talk more about the halo effect and what we can do about it while navigating the Autoimmune Protocol.

Today we’re talking things ‘personal responsibility’. Specifically, you taking personal responsibility for the choices you make in regard to your diet and lifestyle choices.

Personal responsibility is the idea that individuals choose, instigate, or otherwise cause their own actions.

…and small confession – for the longest time, I didn’t do this.

I’ve got a few easy-peasy tips for just how to start taking personal responsibility…

Anecdotally, there appears to be a pretty high correlation between perfectionism and AIP… “Why would…

I credit my morning ritual as one of the most important additions to my health toolbox. Most people love the idea of a morning ritual but they just don’t know how to fit it into their day. Today I bring you the speedy morning ritual.

In my second video we tackle My Top 5 Tips for Improved Health. In my…

The phrase ‘slow down to go fast’ relates to the somewhat counter-intuitive notion that stopping or slowing down at the beginning of a process to consider what – and, how – you plan to accomplish your goals will enable you to go much faster in the end. Ultimately, by implementing this simple step, you are likely to be far more successful, and in the same amount of time, too

“It isn’t the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to…

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct…

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  Women and Weight on the Autoimmune Protocol – An Overview Welcome to the first…

This post is for all those people out there thinking about going grey… I have…

The very best thing about understanding your personal values is that they provide you with your very own road map with which to navigate your way through life

Today I want to tell you a story. A story about how one of my…

There was an article in the Viva section of the NZ Herald on Wednesday warning…

  Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of…

I’m currently on the Autoimmune Protocol, a nutrient-rich elimination diet that removes foods that irritate…

I’m currently on the Autoimmune Protocol, a nutrient-rich elimination diet that removes foods that irritate the…

One quarter of what you eat keeps you alive. The other three-quarters keeps your doctor…