Want to improve your health and boost your gut microbiome? Eat more plants! People who eat over 30 plants a week have greater gut microbiome diversity than those who only eat 10 a week. Stuck for ideas on what plants to eat? Here’s over 30 fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts and seeds to get you started!

Periodically tracking your food intake can be a useful way to identify areas where there is room for improvement in your daily habitual diet. Cronometer and MyFitnessPal are two of the most popular apps to track your food intake. In this blog post I review what I like and dislike about them both!

While most people know they should cut back on their salt intake, understanding what to look for can cause some confusion. Is a food label high or low in salt and how does sodium convert to salt?

Whether the nutrition label happens to be something you regularly look at (or generally ignore) there’s bound to be at least one time when you look at all those numbers or nutrition claims and think what the heck does that mean? This list is to help you through that moment and understand those food nutrition labels.

Are you underestimating your portion sizes? Most people do. In my experience as an advanced sports dietitian, the average person underestimates what they eat each day by 500-1000kcal! Take the piece of bread I ate for breakfast yesterday...

With little individually wrapped chocolates it's easy to eat them mindlessly not paying attention to how quickly they add up over time. It’s far better to incorporate a piece or two or one individual chocolate on daily basis as part of your every day nutrition plan, rather than to eat the whole block in one day on top of your normal food intake.

In recent years I've seen a huge rise in the number of people choosing to adopt plant based diets. A common concern for people transitioning into a plant based lifestyle is how to ensure you get enough protein from plants. This post shares some of the best plant based sources of protein when following a plant based, vegetarian or vegan diet.

If you don't like meat or prefer to follow a plant based or vegetarian diet, getting enough iron from plant based sources can be difficult to achieve. Difficult, but not impossible. With some careful planning it is possible for vegetarians to use plant based foods to achieve their iron needs.

The average person is estimated to eat around 6,000 calories on Christmas day. Eating or drinking an extra 500 calories per day in the run up to Christmas means that some people find themselves with a few unwanted kilos by the time New Year’s Day arrives.

What does a mars bar and protein bar have in common? Both are small volume weighing around 50g a serve and on average provide 200-250kcal.

How hungry and full are you before, during and after meals? Often I see peoples delaying eating to the point that their hunger levels drop to a ZERO. Leaving them so hungry they'll eat anything and everything and end up at a TEN where they are painfully full and feeling sick.

Low carb it may be, but every gram of alcohol in your wine provides 7 calories. Meaning if you drink a bottle of wine on the regular you’re adding an extra 500kcal to your energy intake. Thats the same as 100g or chocolate or 2kg broccoli.

Do you use cheese as a source of protein? While a standard serve of cheese is approximately 30g, to get at least 20g of protein you need to eat over 80g providing more than 300kcal in energy.

Day one or one day? There's no perfect time to start. You don't have to be 'doing it perfectly' right from the get go. You just have to start.

Whether due to a dairy intolerance, cows milk allergy or personal choice to follow a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, getting enough calcium from plant based sources alone can be difficult to achieve. Difficult, but not impossible.

With some careful planning it is possible for vegetarians to use plant based sources of calcium to achieve their calcium needs.

You don't have to be an elite or professional athlete to benefit from nutrition support and advice. Here's 10 reasons why you should see a Sports Dietitian to get the most out of your cycling and triathlon training.

How many things are you currently trying to overhaul in your life?

Maybe it’s getting more sleep, stretching, strength, exercise or nutrition habits you want to work on. How many are you trying to change all at once?

All too often I see people trying to make too many changes at the same time and not being able to stick with them in the long term when life gets crazy.

Spot the portion difference between the halloumi salad on the left (1/2 a pack) and the right (full pack). It may not look it, but there’s almost a 350kcal difference between the two!

With COVID-19 shaking our lives up, we are all having to find new routines or create our own routine when working from home. Here’s some of the ways that I use (and am currently reminding myself about) to find and maintain routine amongst chaos.

Some say you should always eat before a training session, others praise the benefits of fasted cardio. Is there a best approach and should you eat before training?