Eat Right For Your Shape is a beautiful and easy to read, Ayurvedic food and lifestyle guide by Supercharged Food author Lee Holmes. I have spent a lot of time pouring over this book, and have cooked several recipes from it – loving every one. My favourites so far are the Green Bean Subji and Sweet Potato Hash. Below you will find my review and details on how to win a copy of this book for yourself.

“Even if you only follow Ayurvedic recipes one day a week, see this as a positive change.”

Lee recommends implementing changes at your own pace which is a suggestion I agree with – whenever faced with the idea of a radical diet overhaul I immediately think of all the foods I can’t have, then proceed to stick my head in the sand. Instead of coming at these diet principles from the approach of what you can’t have, think about it more like something that you can do in bits and pieces to suit you.

Lee makes it easy for you to get an idea of your Dosha (constitution/body type) and then choose the right recipes for you with colour coded symbols and helpful summaries. To start with, there is a quiz where you can find your dosha, and then a chapter describing the characteristics of each dosha so you can get to know it, and then a handy graph listing the best foods to eat for each type for easy reference. Not only that, there are meal plans as well.

The meals are also split into seasons and tagged for their appropriate dosha, with suggestions given on how to adjust the recipe for other doshas. I think that one of Lee’s aims is not to provide you a strict list of meals to eat (although there is meal plan for each dosha included), but rather to provide you with guide of what foods will boost your health, and then encourages you to incorporate this as much as is possible for you.

There is also a section explaining intermittent fasting – you might know this as the 5:2 diet – and the practice of this in a traditional Ayurvedic diet. While commonly recommended as a tool for weight loss, Lee also recommends this method of eating as a way to give your digestive system a ‘rest’.

One of the things I love about the way Lee writes is how laid back she is – she suggests just taking on as much as you would like to from her recommendations, and if you have a moment of eating some less health promoting foods, to absolutely NOT feel guilty about it.

But wait, there’s more.

Not only do you get a beautiful guide to eating for your dosha, recipes and meal plans, there’s also a section on incorporating Ayurvedic lifestyle techniques, including yoga, mindful eating and breathing techniques. This book is much more than a recipe book, it is a complete Ayurvedic lifestyle guide. And while there are several Ayurvedic books already published, many could be considered overwhelming, and I am yet to find one quite as pretty as this.

In case you missed it, check out my interview with Lee where we chatted about her trip to India which inspired her recipes for this book and how her eating style has changed over the years. We also chatted about intermittent fasting, some Ayurvedic principles and Lee explains Doshas and how we can balance our health by eating to suit our type.

Eat Right for Your Shape GIVEAWAY

Want to win a copy of Eat Right for Your Shape? Just comment below in 25 words and tell me what your favorite food memory is.

Share the Facebook or Instagram post for extra brownie points.

Competition guidelines

Competition ends Saturday 21st May 2016.

Winners will be announced in my newsletter on Monday 23nd May 2016

Only open to Australian residents.

The winning entry must be subscribed to my newsletter.

The post Book Review – Eat Right for your Shape by Lee Holmes + a GIVEAWAY! appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

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Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway for the Health & Wellbeing Podcast, the winners have now been drawn.

In case you missed the original video where Laura from Burton Health and I chatted about our favourite healthy food items, you can watch it again here:

Want to subscribe to get podcasts automatically? You can do that here: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/health-wellbeing-podcast/id1006574743

The post Winners announced. appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

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This is a bit of a different style to the previous podcast/videos I’ve done which talk about conditions and naturopathy. In this episode Laura Burton and I talk about our favourite ‘health food’ items and discuss how we use them and what their benefits are. There are links to the items we mentioned in the podcast breakdown below.

But the most exciting bit about this video is that there’s a GIVEAWAY! The good folks at Loving Earth and the Gingerbread Folk have been particularly generous in donating some items for the giveaway, and Laura and I have chipped in a few goodies as well. Find the link to enter below.

Want to subscribe to get podcasts automatically? You can do that here: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/health-wellbeing-podcast/id1006574743

Laura is a clinical naturopath practicing in St Leonards and Dural. Her key areas of interest are female hormone disorders, digestive health, stress & adrenal fatigue. Through her clinical experience Laura has identified the prevalence of stress in our everyday lives and sees it as the most common cause or exacerbating factor of her patients health conditions. Laura believes that we need to get back to basics and work on our ability to release and manage stress in order to prevent and treat disease.

Last year Laura set herself the mission to reach beyond the walls of her clinics and send her de-stress message out to Australian and New Zealand households through the Burton Health Tea Club. Each month she sends love letters and tea packages to her members to inject joy and excitement into their days and to remind them to slow down, relax and reconnect while sipping on a cup of organic herbal tea.

You can connect with Laura via her website www.burtonhealth.com.au, on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.

If you’ve got something nice to say about the podcasts please leave a review on iTunes, but I’m also keen for any constructive feedback if you want to comment below!

Podcast Breakdown

2.00 Our favourite snacks

2.10 Nut Butter on brown rice crackers (Deli Grains with black sesame)

4.00 Pic’s Really Good Peanut Butter

4.20 Seaweed – Sea Shanti Sea Crisps and Sea Flakes

5.46 Bounce Balls

6.55 Miso Soup

8.07 Gluten free ginger bread – Gingerbread Folk

9.00 Crudites and dip (here are my recipes for guacamole and Baba Hummus)

9.25 Condiments

9.32 Ghee

10.22 Seaweed Salt 

11.23 Savoury Yeast Flakes

12.15 Honey

13.10 Maca Powder

14.11 Apple Cider Vinegar – try to get a brand that contains the ‘mother’ for probiotic content such as Melrose and/or Bragg

16.05 Saurkraut – Peace Love Vegetables or Kehoe’s

17.20 Coconut Oil – Melrose, Loving Earth, Coconut Magic

18.30 Great Lakes Gelatin (read more about gelatin here) Aussies can buy it here, but it’s also available on iherb here.

20.00 Jarred tomatoes – Blis, and BPA free tinned tomatoes from Global Organics

22.00 Achieving balance with the more expensive but ‘healthier’ options

23.53 Caramelised Buckinis – Loving Earth

24.35 Chia Seeds – The Chia Co

27.18 Sardines – Fish 4 Ever and Wild Planet

29.27 Raw cacao – Power Super Foods, Loving Earth

29.54 Cacao nibs – Loving Earth

31.06 Coconut sugar – Loving Earth

32.30 Our favourite drinks

32.40 Kombucha – Mojo, Tonicka, Remedy or make your own! (recipe coming soon)

35.08 Burton Health Tea – Shop Here

35.40 Coconut Water – Pure Natural Raw C

37.10 Keep Cup

38.10 Burton Health Tea Club –  Click here to learn more

40.34 GIVEAWAY!!! – Click here to learn more and to enter

The post Our Favourite Health Foods (PLUS A GIVEAWAY) – with guest Laura Burton appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

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Chocolate in the right forms can actually be very good for you.

Raw cacao is host to a heap of benefits:

• Mood booster
• Anti-oxidant
• Rich in the calming mineral magnesium
• Helpful for heart and nerve health

Yesterday I shared one of the recipes from this book, Molten Peanut Butter and Jelly Brownies.

I have 3 copies to giveaway, so if you would like to win then all you need to do is ‘like’ my page on Facebook and/or follow on Instagram at @alisonm_naturopath, and comment below in 25 words or less why you want to win this cookbook.

Read more about the cookbook here, and check out one of recipes from the book here.

*I am an affiliate of IQS and receive a small commission for every sale made through this page. Do know that I choose to align myself only with those products I feel are of benefit to my readers.

The post GIVEAWAY: I Quit Sugar Chocolate Cookbook Volume II appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.