Last week was my second week in Marrakech and while I really enjoyed the food there, there is no doubt that sticking to healthy eating habits in a foreign country is always a bit more challenging (at least it is for me!). For those who asked me if I had any gluten-free places to recommend in Marrakech, I’m afraid I don’t but to be honest, moroccan food is very vegetables based so if you stay away from those delicious pancakes, bread and pastry, you can have some deliciously tasty tajines and salads. I’m not big on pastry so I stayed away from those and Morocco being a muslim country, drinking wine was a very rare occasion. However, sugar was a bit of an issue… At first, I really enjoyed drinking mint tea in the souk with the various vendors I was chatting to, then I realised that they were adding quite a lot of sugars in it. By the second week, my body was really struggling to process all this sugar and I finish the week …

WEEK 2 Last week, I forgot to mention that the reason why I had basmati rice most days is because I make a big batch on Monday for the whole week. This saves me a lot of time. Same with eggs… if I boil 2 poached eggs (3 min), I will add 2 extra eggs to hard boil (10 min) to have later on as snack. I had a massive headache on Monday afternoon from 3pm until 7pm when I eventually took a pain killer. I looked again at what I ate that day and it was just unprocessed, whole foods, fruits & vegetable and proteins. I also drank my daily 1.5Lt water so the headache could not have come from dehydration. However, it’s interesting to know that signs and symptoms of food intolerance can occur up to 72 hours after a trigger food. Here are a few signs and symptoms of food intolerance I found in the book I’m currently reading “Reverse the signs of ageing”: The revolutionary inside-out plan to glowing, youthful skin by Dr Nigma Talib …

I have decided to reduce my consumption of refined sugars* (biscuits, brown/white sugar, cakes, sweets) and gluten and will share my food plan for a month. However, I’m not cutting sugars or carbs out of my diet. I will get sugar from natural sources like fruits and I will replace pasta and bread by rice, quinoa and occasionally gluten-free pasta. I’m not eating sugar-free, low-calorie food either which are packed with chemicals and salt. Why? As you may know, I have made several lifestyle changes over the years. I stopped eating ready meals packed with hidden sugars years ago, given up drinking my daily coke zero in 2013 and replaced processed food by whole foods (80% being organic). All these changes had a positive impact on my skin and well-being. Refined sugar are known to cause inflammation in our body which in turn leads to depression. Reducing my refined sugar intake means that I haven’t suffered from seasonal affective disorder for the past three years and I have moved on from the depression that hit me in 2013. …