part0022

So far we’ve focused on food in our explanation for the mad fat epidemic. Specifically, how the modern Western diet is significantly deficient in micronutrients for various reasons and it is that lack of micronutrients that is having a profound knock-on effect on our physical and mental health. I’ve sought not to bamboozle you with too much science, but at the same time include enough so that you realise that what I’m saying is not just the idle ramblings of a crazy Scottish woman! I’m standing on the shoulders of scientific giants. I’ve also listed mountains of research, articles and links to additional information at the back of the book that substantiates all I’ve put forward in this book. To be honest, I don’t expect you will read much – if any – of it, but I wanted to include it so you have the option to do further independent research if you want to.

I genuinely hope that you give it a go…Seriously, what have you got to lose? If you are currently fat, miserable and mad, then isn’t it worth a shot?

Although we’ve focused on food it’s also worth noting that healing yourself is not just about what you eat and the micronutrients you consume. It’s also about the environment you live in. It’s important to reduce the negative influences and increase the positive influences so you can support yourself as you make the transition from sick to healthier, miserable to happier, and fat to thinner.

As you prepare for change, stop looking outside for all the answers and instead start listening to your body. We have to stop worshipping youth and instead enjoy whatever stage we are at in life – whether 19 or 90! Stop wishing you looked like the stars you see in your favourite magazines – even the celebrities don’t actually look like that in real life! Most have been tucked, plucked, sucked and Photoshopped to within an inch of their life! Learn to see through the fake world presented to us in women’s magazines, TV shows and the cinema. It’s not real and we have to come to terms with being ourselves instead of a poor imitation of the celebrities we see on screen and read about in the papers.

Look at some of the most powerful women in the world. Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton, even Nicola Sturgeon who featured in Vogue in 2015 – these are not skinny women. Even the Spice Girls (the 1990s symbol of ‘girl power’) were voluptuous before becoming fashionistas with figures a mere shadow of their former, more healthy, ‘normal’-looking selves. It amazes me why we always want to look like the supermodels instead of the ‘real women’ who are usually far better role models than the skeletal girls who starve themselves on a daily basis, or are born with unusually high metabolism or – worse – endure the trauma of cosmetic surgery to look the way they do. Also, most of the stars we gaze at with envy are incredibly wealthy and have an army of people looking after them. The women plastered over magazine covers all over the world are preened and pampered on a regular basis – they are not racing about in the morning, dropping the kids at school, sitting in the office all day, rushing home to make dinner and catching up on housework before collapsing into bed. No – they have their own chefs, personal trainers, regular facials, massage, aromatherapy, reflexology, manicures, pedicures and a whole host of other treatments which help to make them look the way they do . . . not to mention the odd tummy tuck, boob job and facelift.

Easy Step: Stop reading fashion and gossip magazines; just like food marketing, they are designed to fool you – creating the illusion that if you buy certain clothes or get your boobs done then you will look like your favourite celebrity. It’s utter rubbish – especially as the celebrities they say we should aspire to don’t even look like that in real life. Many of these already beautiful and slim women are even airbrushed and, to their credit, many will often come out and say so on social media. Not only is it a flat-out lie, but it sets an impossibly high standard that no one can reach. Why not use the money you spend on these magazines every month to buy supplements instead, or save the money and enjoy a spa session with your mad fat girlfriends as a treat. Trust me, it is far more rewarding than wasting your money looking at pictures of other people.

R. D. Laing was a famous Scottish psychiatrist and philosopher working in the psychiatric hospitals of Glasgow during the 1950s. Through his work Laing noticed the psychiatrists hardly ever spoke to the patients they treated, and as an experiment he took 12 women and spent time talking to them about themselves and their lives. The women shared their experiences in a group forum, forging loving bonds with each other during the experiment, as well as receiving the attention of one-on-one therapy talking sessions with Laing. After just a few months all 12 women were well enough to leave hospital, as their symptoms of mental illness had completely disappeared. However, within 12 months Laing discovered all of them had returned to the hospital, suffering from the same symptoms they had been admitted with in the first place. Laing was curious as to why this had happened and began to investigate the relationships of these women. He studied how they and their families interacted with each other in private. Laing found that the roots of the women’s madness originated in the home – it was the hostile and abusive relationships at home that were creating their madness. Of course, this meant that the doctors and nurses treating patients with ECT and other horrific treatments in order to make them well enough for them to return to their families were making a terrible mistake. As R. D. Laing so poignantly stated, ‘Whether life is worth living depends on whether there is love in life.’

In 2010 neuroscientists at New York University’s Langone Medical Center published a study in Nature backing up Laing’s findings. They showed that oxytocin has a profound impact on how the brain processes social information. Oxytocin, often called the ‘love hormone’, is produced in the pituitary gland and stimulates feelings of love and satisfaction. Leading researcher Dr Froemke said, ‘Our findings redefine oxytocin as something completely different from a “love drug” but more as an amplifier and suppressor of neural signals in the brain. We found that oxytocin turns up the volume of social information processed in the brain. This suggests it could be used to treat social anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, speech and language disorders, and even psychological issues stemming from child abuse.’ Other researchers have linked increased secretion of oxytocin to less cardiovascular stress and stronger immune systems.

So what does this all mean? Basically, it means that even if you juice every morning, hit the gym before work, eat an all-organic diet and take supplements to keep your brain and body in tip-top condition, if you live in a toxic home environment or are constantly exposed to hostile relationships and never experience love, support and companionship, all the willpower and healthy eating in the world won’t cure you. Love really is the best medicine.

There are many great ways to increase oxytocin levels in the body. Orgasms are high on the list, although if you have a toxic relationship they are probably few and far between. Of course, we don’t always need someone else to help in that regard!

You can also boost your oxytocin levels by sharing a meal, talking to a friend, giving a gift, cuddling your pet, or giving and receiving hugs . . . lots and lots of hugs! Seriously, scientists have been studying this love hormone for years and have proven the more we produce the better we feel. So, get hugging! Take time to foster and maintain your friendships, and if a few of your friends are also mad and fat take the journey to health together, so you can support each other and bolster your supply of the love hormone. We are often conditioned to think of love in the context of a significant relationship or life partner, but we can experience love from a variety of sources – from family, friends or even pets. Of course, it’s always wise to learn to love yourself too.

Learning to love yourself, or even accept yourself, is difficult – especially if you are mad and fat! But if you do not love yourself how on earth can you expect others to love you? I’m not talking about vanity, that superficial love of self when all you do is stand in front of a mirror preening or taking selfies. I’m talking about loving who you are on the inside, the sentient being who observes your body, listens to the chatter in your brain, and sees the world from a unique standpoint. We are not our bodies or our brains and many pioneering consciousness researchers, like Professor William Tiller at Stanford University, are making huge advances in this field of study. So if you don’t like your body or the chatter inside your brain, you can change that – by taking your power back, following the nutritional guidelines in this book, and clearing out the clutter in your life.

‘Clutter’ can take many forms, from cheating partners, violent spouses, toxic friends, controlling family members and bad bosses through to actual physical clutter and stuff in your home. Of course, this isn’t always easy and we often hang on to the things that hurt us the most – not just crap food and antidepressants! But if you truly want to heal yourself you have to take a stand and refuse to tolerate abuse or hostility in your life. If you have toxic friendships or family members that make you feel bad, limit the time you spend with them. You don’t need to cut them out of your life completely, at least not straight away. Make the transition easier on you by simply avoiding their company for a while. When they phone or text for your help or want to meet up, just say you have other plans. You can easily limit contact without making a big deal out of it and causing a drama. This is likely to be easier on you – especially early on in your journey to reclaim your health. ?

Once you clear out the clutter and sort out your diet, life becomes easier and your health and happiness will improve considerably, which in turn will make it easier to really love who you are as a human being. Plus, it will give you more strength and courage to rid yourself of any other toxic influences in your life. Trust me, I’ve done it . . . and I haven’t looked back.

The truth is, we all have a story to tell and most of us have experienced some sort of trauma in our lives, whether the death of a loved one, a failed marriage, family friction, redundancy or poor health. None of us are immune to the ups and downs of life – bad things still happen to good people. But when those challenges arise we stand a much better chance of riding the storm if our brain and body are functioning properly and are fully equipped to deal with whatever comes our way. This is why micronutrients are so important – they give us the strength to face whatever life decides to throw at us.

That said, it’s important that you take the time to understand who or what kick-starts your emotional disturbances and do what you can to avoid those events or people. Of course, some of life’s challenges, such as bereavement, can’t be avoided and we simply have to cope the best way we can, but often – if we pay attention – we will see that certain people trigger our emotional decline. Think of yourself like an energy bank – and do an energy or mood audit against the people in your life. If you pay attention you may soon discover that you always end up leaving certain people feeling worse about the world and with less energy than you had when you met up with that person. Seek to minimise your time with people who drain you of energy and rob you of optimism about the future.

In situations where you really can’t change what’s occurred, you always have the choice regarding how you respond to those challenges and what you decide to make them mean. Changing our attitude towards problems and past events can make all the difference. And there’s no point worrying about things we can’t change either. As the serenity prayer reminds us:

Most of what we worry about never happens and yet that worrying can so easily kick-start a chain of chemical reactions inside your body that can seriously impact your health. My granny always used to say ‘Worry gives a small thing a big shadow’ and once again she was right. So let it go, and focus on the stuff you can change – including your physical and mental well-being.

One of the most positive changes we can make to support our long-term success is to cook our meals from scratch ourselves. Before you panic and throw the book across the room, I know the biggest reason we give for not cooking is time. This is especially true for mums who have to juggle a job while raising their children. As a result, we often resort to convenience foods because we don’t have the time or inclination after a long day at work to cook from scratch. And as a single working mother myself I totally understand and relate to that. Grabbing a takeaway, a ready meal or just opening a jar of tomato sauce to heat and serve with pasta is a no-brainer sometimes. Nowadays almost everyone in the West eats prepared foods every day – from the quick cereal or granola bar at breakfast, shop-bought sandwiches and snack pots at lunch, and heat and serve tins, jars and plastic trays for dinner.

It’s easy. But after everything you’ve read in this book I hope you realise that easy is not always good – and sometimes easy is contributing to the decline of our physical and mental health. So just hear me out…

It’s true that in my granny’s day women spent far more time cooking. Apparently in the 1960s women spent 100 minutes preparing the evening meal. In the 1980s that had dropped to 60 minutes, and today we spend just over 30 minutes making dinner. For single 20-somethings it can be far less – often a couple of minutes zapping something in the microwave. The reason for this is almost always time. I don’t know about you, but my granny didn’t work so it’s easy to assume she had the time to cook. But is that really true?

Sure she didn’t work in paid employment like many of us do today but she also didn’t have a washer-dryer, a super-efficient vacuum cleaner, a fan-assisted electric oven, dishwasher, electric whisk, food processor, microwave, gas central heating, electric shower, disposable nappies or even quick and easy hair styling gadgets like curling tongs and straighteners. She had to beat the carpets and sweep the floor, wash the clothes in a twin-tub or by hand and hang them out on a line. There were no stain removers, so really dirty clothes, like terry-towelling nappies, needed to steep and she had to scrub the stains with a nailbrush. There was no tumble dryer or central heating radiators to dry clothes in her day. She had to clean the ashes from the fire, reset it, light it and keep it going all day. Dishes had to be washed and dried by hand. There was no non-stick convenience, so pots and baking trays with burnt-on food had to be cleaned three times a day after each meal. Shirts had to be starched and pressed with irons nowhere near as efficient as the ones we have today. Many natural fabrics had to be treated with special care; hand washed and dried flat. No chance of throwing on a pair of Lycra leggings and no-iron top for my granny. Clothes had to be mended, and she often made them herself on her old Singer sewing machine. Then of course she had to go shopping each day for food – cooking three square meals from scratch without the convenience of all the gadgets we have today. She didn’t have easy wipe-down IKEA-style furniture so had to dust and polish all the wooden surfaces. Then there were the brass handles and knobs that needed buffing up with Brasso. Every day there was a long list of chores to do – which amounted to about the same time we now spend at work.

So, when we say we are too busy to cook – are we really that short on time, or are we just busy doing other things?

A recent Ofcom study showed that UK adults spend an average of eight hours and 41 minutes each day on media devices and almost four hours each day watching TV. Adults in the US spend an average of five hours and 31 minutes watching dvds each day and four hours 35 minutes watching TV. The average person has five social media accounts and spends one hour 40 minutes each day browsing these networks, scrolling on Facebook to see what everyone else is up to, sharing memes, looking at pictures of kittens and posting selfies!

Then there’s the allure of gaming, like online bingo and Candy Crush – with over 45 million of us playing that game alone. While most of us assume video games are mainly played by spotty teenage boys in their bedrooms, a recent study published by the Internet Advertising Bureau showed that the majority of gamers are now women – not kids, not teenagers – us women!

We might all be working more but we spend countless hours each day frittering away our time on electronic gadgets. Now I’m not suggesting we all go on a Facebook-free diet, wean ourselves off television and stop watching videos so we have time to cook. What I am suggesting is that we can do both at the same time – I’ve been doing it for years without any withdrawal symptoms or sacrificing my favourite television shows.

Women are brilliant multitaskers. We can quickly move from one task to another and back again with ease. Being able to watch our favourite shows and chat with our friends on FaceTime or Skype while making quick and easy meals in the kitchen really is child’s play.

Like millions of women I’m a sucker for soaps and I love EastEnders and Coronation Street . The thought of missing out on what Phil Mitchell is up to, or the next scheme Tracy Barlow is concocting, doesn’t sit well with me. Working long hours and often travelling abroad on business can be challenging as up-to-date episodes are often not available in other countries. But with online catch-up, Netflix, TiVo and modern Sky boxes we can watch our favourite shows whenever we like and can also skip the adverts.

Because of my hectic work schedule Sundays are usually my preferred cooking day. And it really is therapy – I love it. I catch up on my soaps and other ‘must-see’ shows while pottering away in the kitchen making batches of nutritious food to add to the freezer. And I usually have a wee glass of wine while doing it!

All while snapchatting what I was cooking, chatting to friends on Skype, and posting about how good Breaking Bad is on Facebook! Everything I make is then frozen in ‘one meal’ portion sizes by reusing the plastic trays from supermarkets and takeout meals. In fact, I have a cupboard full of plastic trays which I’ve reused time and time again – no need to go out and buy new fancy Tupperware sets.

It really is amazing how much food you can prepare in one day, or even one afternoon, which can then provide quick, easy and nutritious meals for the coming week or two. Just like shop-bought frozen meals, you simply take it out of the freezer the night before or in the morning before heading off to work, and when you get home all you need to do is heat and eat. A sprinkle of fresh herbs on top and voilà, a delicious, home-made, nutritious meal in the same time it takes to open a tin or jar!

Easy Step: Set aside an afternoon at the weekend and give this a go. Put on your favourite show and get cooking. You don’t need to be a celebrity chef to cook. It’s almost impossible to make a bad curry for example, and anyone can make soup. Often you don’t even need a recipe – just put all the vegetables that are sitting in the bottom of your fridge in a pan with some stock, salt and pepper and simmer for a few hours to bring out the flavour. Experiment to see what you like. If you feel more comfortable with a recipe then you can find thousands of free recipes online.

Easy Step: Another time-saving tip is to start buying your groceries online or order from local companies that deliver. Making a list and buying only what you need helps you to save money and you will be less likely to succumb to the special offers and marketing tricks used to promote the foods we shouldn’t be buying. The average person spends almost three hours shopping for food each week – this time could be better spent in the kitchen rather than walking around a store which is designed to tempt us. Home delivery from local vendors also saves carrying heavy shopping bags too!

Cooking is actually really relaxing and rewarding, especially if you cook Lockhart-style! Combine cooking with other things you love, TV, Facebook or chatting with friends and a nice glass of wine, and you’ll soon find you look forward to your cooking day. Freezing meals frees you up from the ‘I can’t be bothered to cook’ syndrome that pushes many of us to the ready meal aisle. It’s cheaper and much, much more nutritious.

Of course, the cost of cooking will depend on what you currently have in your store cupboard. If you rarely cook then you may not have the herbs, spices and staple ingredients in your kitchen. The good news is that many of these ingredients are pretty cheap to buy, but consider spreading the cost and buy a couple of extra items each week – like spices, oils, vinegars etc. Growing your own herbs is super easy and will also save money.

Also, cook in large batches, as this always works out far cheaper than buying pre-prepared food. When I cook a large pot of soup, which provides many meals, the ingredients only cost a few pounds and home-made bread costs pennies. Similarly, a large pot of home-made Napoli sauce made from fresh and tinned tomatoes costs a fraction of the price of shop-bought pasta sauce. Consider buying cheaper cuts of meat for slow cooking – make tasty stews and cook whole chickens to portion up instead of buying expensive chicken breasts or steaks in the supermarket. Plus you can use the chicken bones to boil up and make delicious stock for your soups and other dishes.

A couple of years ago one of my friends took a keen interest in what I was writing about, and as an experiment we took one of her supermarket receipts and I bet her a bottle of wine she could save money by cooking from scratch with better-quality or organic ingredients. With a family of five to feed she had to buy several jars of sauce and packs of chicken breasts just to make one meal, umpteen boxes of cereal, loaves of bread etc. We went shopping together and bought lots of fresh and raw ingredients instead and got busy in the kitchen. Needless to say, at the end of the experiment I received a nice bottle of wine which we shared together. As I’d predicted, she saved around 20 per cent on her usual shopping bill and she was buying better-quality food. Today, she bakes her own bread, makes large pots of home-made soup, and a variety of sauces to feed her family – all while saving money. So much money in fact that after a year she was able to treat the whole family to a surprise holiday!

Like so many of us, my friend wasn’t confident in the kitchen, hence her reliance on shop-bought sauces and packet mixes, but after seeing what she could save and how easy it was to increase the quality of the food she fed to her family she gave it a go. Her confidence has grown as she’s realised that cooking isn’t actually that complicated and she’s never looked back.

The fact is that most of us eat pretty much the same collection of meals over and over again – family favourites. This means that you only really have to learn how to cook a handful of dishes and you are well on your way to better-quality food and better health. Home-made always tastes better, even when you’re a novice cook. Plus you know what’s in the food; there is no hidden fat, sugar, additives or preservatives to worry about.

Long before I had the privilege of picking up tips from Gordon Ramsay and his executive chefs in a fancy London restaurant I knew very little, if anything, about cooking. Sure, I knew how to make pancakes, French toast and had my granny’s favourite soup recipe but I hardly learned anything in school. But as US celebrity chef Julia Child once said, ‘Cooking well doesn’t mean cooking fancy.’

Unless your mum or granny cooked and you saw them cooking it’s unlikely you will know where to start. School may have covered the basics but most people’s experience of school cooking was a waste of time. As a result, most adults in the UK today don’t know how to make a basic roux and I read a Sainsbury’s survey of 934 people in 2013 which showed that one in three university students don’t know how to boil an egg and 57 per cent can’t cook vegetables.

Like most young women, my cooking skills didn’t amount to very much. As a student I lived on tinned soup, beans on toast, instant noodles and cheese on toast. Then, I got my first serious boyfriend in my 20s and I knew I had to up my game. His friends were quite posh and dinner parties became the norm every other weekend as we all pretended to be grown-up and sophisticated. I knew it would be my turn soon but I made my excuses and desperately tried to figure out how to cook. I did this by watching Ready Steady Cook – a popular British TV show where guests and chefs had just 20 minutes to prepare a meal from scratch from a bunch of everyday ingredients. I would record it and then attempt to recreate it in the kitchen. I had to pause and rewind a lot but, surprisingly, with a bit of practice I got to understand what ingredients worked well together and basic flavour profiles. Within a matter of weeks I felt confident enough to take my turn with the dinner party – and to my surprise it was a roaring success. Little did they know I had just newly figured out how to cook from watching daytime TV, although I did top up their wine glasses regularly as a backup plan – so even if they thought the food wasn’t great they had a good time anyway!

Seriously, if I can do it – anyone can do it. Even my teenage son can rustle up a few tasty dishes, so there really is no excuse. Most of us will never cook like the celebrity chefs but it doesn’t matter. More often than not the same meal doesn’t taste the same twice – but that doesn’t matter either, so long as all the right healthy ingredients are in there, your mind and body will benefit from it and you will learn from the ongoing process of cooking. The best cooks improvise – and you should too.

There are literally millions of recipe videos on YouTube you can watch and rewatch over and over again. There are also countless cookery shows and even cookery channels on TV. Why is it that millions of people watch cooking shows every week yet hardly anyone actually tries to make the food? Come on – give it a try.

The bottom line is if you want to heal yourself then you need some basic cooking skills. If you want to beat the mad fat epidemic and regain your mind and your waistline then you need to start cooking, at least some of your food, from scratch. And I promise you it’s much easier than you might think. Today we have Internet access to find recipes and watch how it’s done and we have all the modern kitchen gadgets at our disposal. It doesn’t need to be fancy, it just needs to have the right nutritious ingredients so you can ensure you are getting the right micronutrients to heal yourself once and for all.

I can honestly say I’ve come to love cooking. I love cooking for my son and our friends and family. It makes me feel happy. I know that every leaf of basil, clove of garlic, splash of apple cider vinegar, chopped onion and peeled carrot is feeding far more than our bellies. It is nourishing body, mind and spirit. The time spent and mindfulness of cooking is just another way of showing love. Cooking a meal is a sign of love to your partner, your family or to yourself. Good food really is the best medicine, and when we take the time to cook we nourish our body, mind and spirit.

Interestingly, cooking and baking classes are now being adopted by psychologists in the US for treating depressed and anxious patients. And a study published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy in 2004 found that baking classes boosted confidence, increased concentration, and provided a sense of achievement for patients being treated in mental health clinics.

Cooking is a great way of boosting positive activity and it’s personally rewarding when we see other people enjoying our food. It takes our mind off our problems and is a big step forward in the healing process. Once you understand the health benefits of the ingredients you use, it’s almost as if you are making a pot of medicine rather than a pot of soup – a tonic or special potion you know is going to help heal your mind and lose weight.

Music is a sure-fire, fast-track mood changer for just about everyone. A certain song can take you back 20 years in the blink of an eye. A sad song can make you cry, a happy song can make you glad to be alive. Music affects us in a myriad of ways, far more than we could ever imagine. It helps us work through our problems, inspires creativity, affects our breathing, can reduce blood pressure, pain and alleviate stress. A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2011 showed that listening to music was cathartic and reduced symptoms of depression. Another study published in JAMA Pediatrics in 2013 found that music can help soothe emergency-room patients.

Music is sound and sound is rooted in vibration. Various vibroacoustic studies have been conducted over the years which show that music not only reduces depression but can ease the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and other debilitating disorders. Dr Lee Bartel, a music professor at the University of Toronto, is working with scientists around the world on new music therapy techniques to treat depression, fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and he says, ‘Since the rhythmic pulses of music can drive and stabilise disorientation, we believe that low-frequency sound can help with these conditions.’

Studies show music can also help us to lose weight! Not only by motivating us to get more active but music can also distract us from what we might otherwise consider to be unpleasant – like going for a run, going to the gym or even for a walk. A study conducted at the Fairleigh Dickinson University’s School of Psychology showed that women who walked while listening to music lost an average of 16 pounds, whereas those who did not listen to music while they walked only lost 8 pounds.

Have you ever wondered why you tend to drive faster when listening to a song you love? Or why you want to get up and dance when your favourite song comes on? This is because music releases dopamine in the brain (a mood-enhancing chemical) and studies show it increases by 9 per cent when we listen to music we enjoy. So get the tunes on! It doesn’t matter if it’s Lady Gaga, The Rolling Stones or Justin Bieber; so long as you enjoy what you are listening to then the music will elevate your mood and encourage you to be more active.

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem conducted a study into the healing power of frankincense and why it has psychoactive effects on the brain. Frankincense has been used since ancient times in religious ceremonies and as a powerful medicine – from Egyptian pharaohs to the three wise men in the Christian Nativity. The researchers discovered that incensole acetate – a resin from the plant that produces frankincense – influences the areas of the brain which regulate emotions. It activates the TRPV3 protein, a gene in human and animal brains which has an antidepressant and anti-anxiety effect. It effectively calms the brain and makes us feel more relaxed. Another great essential oil for mental health is rosemary. In fact, as mentioned before, studies show that smelling rosemary can increase memory by up to 75 per cent.

Peppermint oil relieves symptoms of depression and anxiety and can even help with weight loss. Dr Hirsch, a neurologist at the Smell and Taste Foundation in Chicago, conducted an experiment with 3,193 overweight volunteers. Each was given an inhaler containing scents and was asked to inhale three times into each nostril when they felt hungry. During the six-month study they didn’t diet and ate two to four regular meals per day. On average they lost nearly five pounds per month – some people lost much more. Dr Hirsch reported, ‘Some people lost so much weight we had to drop them from the programme.’ The most effective scent used in the inhaler was peppermint oil.

I hate going to the gym. Running on a treadmill is boring and working up a sweat in an oversized T-shirt surrounded by skinny girls in Lycra makes me feel more like Bridget Jones than Kelly Holmes. Even at school, I was the kid hiding behind the hill waiting to join the group on their last lap of the cross-country course. But even if you are like me and often try to avoid exercise, there is just no denying how good it is for us and recent studies show it is particularly good for our mental health.

Exercise is a powerful way to combat feelings of stress because it increases the level of key neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine and endorphins that often get depleted by anxiety, depression and a crap diet. That’s why short bouts of exercise can boost our mood immediately – combating the negative feelings we experience when we’re mad, fat or both. Neuroscientists have also discovered that exercise improves memory by encouraging the long-term growth of cells in the hippocampus – the part of our brains critical for long-term memory.

But what do we do if we hate exercising, don’t have the cash for a health club membership, are too body conscious to go swimming and can’t play tennis to save our life? We vibrate! No, I’m not talking about the battery-operated devices sold in adult sex shops; I’m talking about vibration plates, sometimes called ‘power plates’. As the name would suggest, the vibration plate tones and defines muscle faster by using vibration rather than personal effort (always nice).

Research shows that vibration plates aid with weight loss and trim abdominal fat – harmful visceral fat between the organs. A study of obese women was conducted at the University of Antwerp in Belgium over a 12-month period. The women were split into four groups:

Over the year only the conventional fitness and vibration plate groups managed to lose weight and keep it off for the full year. The vibration group lost far more visceral fat than all the other groups, despite sessions only lasting for a maximum of 15 minutes. Another study at Holos University in Kansas showed that vibration plates reduced symptoms of depression and raised DHEA levels – a hormone produced in the adrenal gland which decreases with ageing. Low levels have been linked to depression, increased risk of cancer and many other degenerative disorders. The study showed that vibration plate therapy had a positive effect on the production of hormones and neurotransmitters and the massaging effect of vibration initiates an increase in dopamine and serotonin levels.

Vibration plates are inexpensive to buy, or can be hired on a weekly basis for less than the price of a bottle of wine. Unlike bulky treadmills and exercise bikes, they are relatively small, discreet, easy to use and you don’t need to be on them for a long time to gain the benefit. Fifteen minutes is enough and they work! Plus vibration plates seem to be particularly effective at getting rid of visceral fat which has been linked to a whole host of health problems including metabolic disturbances, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and breast cancer. You can even vibrate while watching your favourite TV show.

Easy Step: Whatever you decide to do you need to move your body. Invest in a second-hand vibration plate, rent one to try it out, or simply get up and go for a short walk. If you currently do nothing, then start with a gentle few minutes and work your way up from there. Even a tiny amount of exercise, such as five to ten minutes, can make a huge difference to the way you look and feel.

I first experienced reiki when I visited India many years ago – although in India it’s known as pranic healing. I had visited a spa hoping a massage would ease my menstrual cramps but the girl performed pranic healing instead. I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening when the girl lay me down and hovered her hands over my body but, despite her never touching me, I felt sensations in my legs and a warm feeling (as if I had a hot-water bottle attached to my belly). Amazingly, I felt really good after the treatment and was well enough to continue with our planned sightseeing excursions for the day. When I returned home I looked into this form of energy healing and it seems it has been used in medical practice since ancient times.

I discovered reference to ‘laying on of hands’ 24 times in the Bible. This type of intervention was used as medicine in ancient Egypt, Greece and China. There is even evidence from cave drawings that this type of healing was used in the Stone Age. Suffice to say this treatment has been around for a long time, and it certainly worked on me. I was so impressed by the results that I tried to find a teacher in Scotland – no easy task, as this was well before it became popular.

Eventually I found a lady who agreed to teach me, so I went on a course to learn how to do it. She had been taught reiki by a guy called William Lee Rand, the founder of The International Center for Reiki Training, and was one of the first people to bring reiki to the UK. To be honest, I found some of what she said a bit ‘out there’ and initially I thought she’d been having a wee puff of something before I had arrived! However, this woman really knew her stuff and what she taught me was invaluable and I have been using the technique to reduce stress and boost my energy levels ever since.

Another great thing about reiki is that you don’t need to go to a fancy spa or salon and pay someone else – you can actually treat yourself by laying hands over different parts of your body. I know it sounds bonkers, but there’s a whole bunch of studies on reiki which shows it really does work – especially for relief of anxiety, depression and stress.

Reiki means universal (rei) energy (ki), a form of vibrating energy – and while it may be more subtle than using the vibration plate or listening to music, it has a similar effect on our physical and mental health. Like the diet and nutrition, reiki has literally changed my life – it is safe and easy to learn, so why not give it a try?

For anyone who has seen the movie Eat Pray Love , based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s book of the same name, you may remember Julia Roberts’s struggle to meditate when her character visited an ashram in India. It’s tricky to master and takes some getting used to. When I first tried meditation the chatter inside my brain just wouldn’t stop. ‘Have I done this, oh I forgot to do that, I must remember to pick up my dry cleaning, I’ve got a hole in my sock.’ Seriously, you’d be amazed at the amount of nonsense that goes through your head every second of every minute of every day and you only notice it when you stop and try to meditate.

Sitting still and doing nothing while trying to empty your mind and not fall asleep is challenging for most people, but studies show that managing just a few minutes of mindfulness each day boasts a whole host of health benefits including reducing anxiety, mental stress and even weight loss! There are literally thousands of studies showing how good meditation is for us, yet in the West so few of us take the time to do it.

A study conducted in Belgium involving 400 students who followed an in-class mindfulness programme reported reduced indications of depression, anxiety and stress up to six months after their mindfulness training had stopped. Another study conducted by researchers at Oxford University showed that meditation is as good as antidepressants for tackling depression. The study followed 492 severely depressed adults over two years – half of them received mindfulness training and the other half stayed on antidepressants. The study findings showed that 44 per cent of people practising meditation slipped back into major depression compared with 47 per cent of people taking antidepressants. A Harvard MRI study proved that meditation literally rebuilds the brain’s grey matter in eight weeks.

The secret to meditation is focusing on the present. Most of the thoughts flying through our minds are about the future or the past – thinking about what we want to do or remembering things we’ve already done. The easiest way to stay in the now is to simply focus your attention on your breath. Become aware of your chest breathing in and breathing out. Finding a quiet spot is also a good idea – so no TV, mobile phone buzzing, or radio playing in the background. You don’t have to sit in the lotus position either, although it is very good for your posture. I’ve been known to meditate in the car or anywhere else I grab a bit of peace and quiet.

Easy Step: As always, start small – just a minute or two then build it up as you get better at quietening your mind. When your mind starts to wander, acknowledge the thought and just let it go. I sometimes picture the thoughts floating out of my head in a bubble until they pop. It takes a bit of getting used to but people who regularly meditate report they are happier, healthier and their relationships are stronger. It costs nothing and only takes a few minutes of your time each day. And when you get really good at it you can meditate anywhere. If a butterfly brain like me can do it – anyone can!