I previously worked as a police officer and loved the unpredictable challenge of such a unique job.

But long hours and shift work takes its toll on your health – I witnessed chronic poor health amongst a number of colleagues. We regularly lived off ready-made, processed meals, fast food and caffeine to fight tiredness and to cope with the topsy-turvy wake/sleep shift pattern. Shift work puts you at greater risk of chronic health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, IBS, high blood pressure, heart disease and fatigue.

But all is not lost. Poor health is not an inevitability. Many of these conditions can be addressed and reversed with nourishing food and good lifestyle choices. I am living proof of that! I addressed issues with asthma, digestive issues/sensitivities and monthly mood swings, all by tweaking my diet. That was it. Oh, and I did stop shift work, but that is not a necessity! You can continue shift work and better manage your health, with some understanding of Chrono-nutrition – the relationship between food timing, your body’s biological rhythms and hormone cycles and the impact that all has on your health.

How, when and what you eat can keep your body’s wake/sleep cycle better in alignment with your metabolism, and this impacts your health.

Chrono-Nutrition – Feed Your Body Clock!

Our body clocks are designed to release certain hormones over a 24-hour period, known as our circadian rhythm. Our digestive hormones are triggered during the day

• prompting an appetite to eat to maintain energy and fuel our activities
• releasing digestive juices and stomach acid to properly breakdown the food we eat
• absorbing our nutrients for energy production
• telling us when we are full.

This all happens most efficiently during the day.

Sleep hormones respond to sunset – it’s getting dark, so our digestive hormones slow down, assuming we will soon be going to sleep, not needing to make fuel from food for night shifts.

At night, our body is programmed to detoxify, particularly our brains and digestive system. Toxins, hormones, dead cells, and chemicals are flushed out of the body, cleansing and protecting it from the brain down. This is a key function for protecting our health when we are asleep.

The impact of eating against our natural circadian rhythm can be

• Sluggish digestion. Food sits around in the gut for longer and can cause symptoms of painful bloating, indigestion and wind.
• The lining of our gut is repaired and replaced when given a break from digesting. A break of 10-12 hours is ideal to restore and heal a gut lining that can easily become inflamed from the daily assault from processed foods, bacteria, viruses, high sugar intake, alcohol and stress.
• Energy peaks and troughs – insulin production drops at night. Insulin helps to take sugar, or glucose, out of our blood and into our cells to produce energy. As our metabolism (all our bodily functions) also slows at night to encourage rest, excess fuel from food is more likely to be stored as fat. That can be the case if you typically eat late at night. Weight management can be an issue, and shift workers are more likely than non-shift workers to be obese.

Why do we crave the wrong foods?

When tired, we tend to crave simple carbohydrate foods that have a high ‘glycaemic value’, giving us a quick sugar hit – biscuits, cakes, pastries, chips, crisps, chocolate, sweets, carbonated and energy drinks. They also release dopamine that gives us a little ‘high.’ But two things happen. We crave more. That’s the role of dopamine. And we experience an energy crash. So the rollercoaster energy ride begins, meeting each crash with more sugar and caffeine throughout the day/night to power through.

A Healthier Plate

I use this insightful template in my practice to illustrate how to balance every meal with

• good sources of protein (eggs, chicken, fish, nuts, some red meat, oats),
• healthy fats (eggs, oily fish, nuts, seeds, avocado, natural, organic yoghurt)
• an abundant colourful variety of vegetables and fruit.

Including these at every meal, infact filling half your plate with these increases your fibre, vitamin and mineral intake, which is a great way of keeping your body and mind nourished and energy consistent. You stay fuller for longer than choosing higher glycaemic foods – foods that release sugar quickly. You are less likely to have peaks and troughs of energy, and less likely to crave sugary snacks and caffeine to stimulate energy.

Top night shift tips

• Plan your meals and food shop in advance to make healthy meal planning and prep easier.
• Eat a meal before your shift starts, including a good source of protein to keep you full. Make leftovers for tomorrow! 
• Take plant-based dishes, homemade soups and smoothies with you, which are gentler on your digestive system, and reduce the temptation of fast food and snack machines.
• Drink water and herbal teas instead of caffeine and carbonated drinks. This reduces the impact of caffeine on your stress and sleep hormones.
• Protein & fibre with breakfast balance your blood sugar and appetite whilst you sleep. Going more savoury for breakfast can be helpful with regulating your appetite and keeping you full until your next meal.

Supporting your body’s natural body clock is a simple and effective way to help with focus, performance, mood. To revive your vitality.

Help

I can support you in different ways:-

1. 1:1 – if you need individual support to address ongoing health symptoms, concerns and goals, my range of 1 to 1 programmes could be for you.
2. I deliver my programmes Feed Your Body Clock and Eat Well 24/7 to support you and colleagues in your workplace either face to face in groups or online.
3. Pop-up clinic – I can see you for bookable 1-2-1 sessions in the workplace and arrange a follow up to track your progress.
4. Nutrition consultancy – working with managers to evaluate catering facilities, staff breaks, eating habits and challenges, and make tailored recommendations to promote healthier eating, and staff who feel well.

Over the past year, GLP-1 weight loss injections have become increasingly popular across the UK, with many people accessing them privately to support weight loss. For some, these medications have been genuinely life-changing; quietening appetite, reducing cravings, and helping them finally feel in control around food.

But as their use grows, so does an important conversation

What happens when the injections stop?’

We are starting to see more reports of rapid weight regain once GLP-1 medication is discontinued. There is also an increased risk of nutrient deficiencies. Not because people have failed, but because many have never been given the support needed to turn short-term weight loss into long-term success.

This is where nutritional therapy and behaviour change support become essential.

What GLP-1 does well

GLP-1 medications work by mimicking a natural hormone involved in appetite regulation. For many people, this leads to:

• Reduced hunger
• Quieter ‘food noise’
• Smaller, more comfortable portions
• Fewer cravings
• A greater sense of control around eating

For the first time in years, food can feel calmer and more manageable. This can be incredibly empowering, especially for those who have struggled with weight for a long time.

In many cases, GLP-1 provides the breathing space people need to get started.

What else are we learning

While GLP-1 can support weight loss, it does not teach the skills needed to maintain that weight loss. It does not teach:

• How to eat when appetite returns
• How to manage emotional or stress eating
• How to fuel your body consistently
• How to regulate hunger naturally
• How to build routines that fit real life

Weight loss and weight maintenance are two very different skill sets.

Medication can quieten appetite, but it doesn’t change habits, beliefs, routines, or coping strategies. When the medication is stopped and appetite returns, people often find themselves back in familiar patterns, but with less confidence than before.

This isn’t a failure. It’s a lack of support.

The golden window for change

One of the most important and often overlooked aspects of GLP-1 is that it creates a powerful opportunity for habit change. When appetite is quieter:

• Portion control feels easier
• Food choices feel less emotionally charged
• Cravings are more manageable
• Eating becomes more of an intentional choice

This is a golden window to build the foundations that protect your results long-term.

Instead of fighting hunger and willpower, you finally have the mental space to learn how to structure balanced meals, to stabilise your blood sugar, to eat for energy and fullness, to recognise real hunger vs habit and to build sustainable routines.

Lifestyle factors matter too

No medication can override the effects of:

• poor sleep
• chronic stress
• blood sugar instability
• inconsistent eating
• long working hours
• disrupted routines

Medication creates the opportunity. Skills create sustainability.

These factors affect appetite hormones, cravings, energy levels and fat storage, whether someone is using GLP-1 or not.

For people with demanding jobs, irregular schedules, or disrupted sleep (including shift workers), these challenges can be even more pronounced. But the foundations of sustainable weight loss are the same for everyone:

• Protein-rich meals
• Balanced blood sugar
• Regular nourishment
• Realistic routines
• Stress support
• Behaviour change strategies

Where nutritional therapy fits in

Nutritional therapy bridges the gap between medication and long-term success. It provides:

• Personalised nutrition guidance
• Appetite regulation strategies
• Blood sugar support
• Realistic meal planning
• Behaviour change coaching
• Emotional eating support
• An exit strategy for when medication ends

Rather than relying on appetite suppression alone, nutritional therapy helps you build a relationship with food that feels calm, confident and sustainable. It looks at your lifestyle and support network to build a strong foundation for successful weight loss. It Makes S.E.N.S.E. ©

This is not about restriction, perfection, or rigid rules. It’s about understanding your body, your lifestyle, and your unique challenges, and building habits that work for you.

A smarter way forward

GLP-1 can be a powerful tool. But tools need a strategy.

The real success story is not just losing weight. It’s keeping it off, feeling in control around food, and building a healthier relationship with your body – for life.

If you are using GLP-1 (or considering it) and want to protect your results, nutritional therapy can provide the structure, education and support that medication alone cannot.

Contact Anna for more information on filling that missing piece with nutritional therapy.

Last week marked Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Week, and I took the opportunity to trial a Lingo | Abbott glucose biosensor for two weeks—particularly focusing on how food, drink, stress, and lifestyle affect blood sugar, especially at night, when insulin production naturally drops.

Reducing our intensity and regularity of blood sugar spikes can reduce the risk of insulin resistance / prediabetes, and the accompanying cardiovascular conditions. We are also likely to have energy slumps following a glucose spike, which can affect focus and performance.

What I found

1. Sweet drinks and alcohol caused a rapid spike in blood sugar. This can be reduced by –

• Eating them with a balanced meal.
• Replacing or reducing them altogether.

2. Refined carbs (like white pasta and rice, bread, crisps, biscuits) also spiked my glucose. The impact was gentler when:-

• I paired them with protein and/ or healthy fats. Eg full fat yoghurt / unsalted nuts / nut butter with breakfast granola, fruit or the occasional sweet treat.
• Swapped them for complex carbs (like lentils or whole grains).
• Bread was the exception—it caused a spike every time, regardless of pairing. A reminder that not all carbs behave equally – but also that this is my individual response.

3. Stress alone spiked my glucose. This highlights how important mental health is for physical wellbeing. Take time to create stress management strategies that work for you (again, v individual) and be aware of your rising stress levels, triggers and situations.

4. Exercise consistently reduced glucose levels—but I acknowledge this is a real challenge for drivers, whose opportunities to move can be limited by their job. Can this be a priority on rest days if not able to incorporate movement during a working shift?

As someone who supports professional drivers and shift workers, this has deepened my understanding of the unique risks you face and the simple strategies that can make a real difference to prevent Type 2 diabetes and support road safety and long-term health.

The Lingo device provided an insightful opportunity to see my personal response to food and drinks. It was easy to fit, and I was generally unaware of its presence throughout the two-week trial. For those motivated by data, this could be a helpful and engaging way to manage your own health and energy through diet and lifestyle.

Let me know if you’d like to learn more, as we can incorporate the use of a biosensor into a personalised nutrition and lifestyle programme.

Could you or your shift-working colleagues be sleep-walking into ill health?

Do you work for a 24/7 organisation? If so, you’re not alone. And if you, your team or your company has staff working outside of regular daytime hours, there are potential health implications that may be relevant to your / their health, wellbeing and productivity.

UK Shift Worker Stats:-

• 27% of the UK workforce (approx. 8.7 million people) work in some form of night-time work¹
• Shift work is linked with an increased risk of sleep problems, occupational and driving accidents, and long-term health conditions²
• A survey in 2017 of NHS junior doctors found that 57% reported an accident or near-miss on the drive home after a night shift
• Long-term effects – shift work is associated with increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease²

So how is the data looking for retention, staff sickness and morale amongst your shift workers? Are they feeling valued? Is the wellbeing of this largely unseen workforce a priority?

A common question regarding employee health is whether the main responsibility lies with the individual or the organisation? Shift workers are often aware of the increased risks to their health of ‘circadian desynchrony;’ the effect of living and sleeping contrary to our natural biological rhythms and resulting health conditions, such as chronic sleep deprivation. Yet individual choices are ‘too often frustrated by unfavourable environmental and organizational structures.³

Common Challenges

Canteens are often open for regular daytime workers but closed to those working irregular hours, such as lates and night shifts.

Healthy eating options are usually more limited for shift workers, meal breaks can be ad hoc, depending on the job role, and cooking facilities scarce. Yet we demand so much of our shift workers – responding to emergencies, saving lives, protecting the public, caring for the vulnerable, maintaining our utilities, keeping our streets and workspaces clean, flying or driving us from A to B, delivering our essential supplies, preparing and serving us food and drink…

Once it gets dark, our digestive function is reduced, as our body and mind prepare to sleep. We are in rest mode, not digest mode. So how to fuel our night shift workers to perform well at 3am? How to focus the mind to perform surgery, make informed, wise and calculated decisions in the face of adversity, and on all manner of scales, when the key message from the brain is, ‘I should be asleep’?

Chrono-Nutrition

Chrono-nutrition is the fascinating and emerging area of nutrition science that studies the relationship between our natural 24-hour body clock – our circadian rhythm – our food timings and choices, and the impact on our health. It seems that eating in rest mode without digest mode can drive a number of conditions, including uncomfortable gut symptoms commonly experienced by shift workers, issues with insulin and blood sugar regulation that can be the precursor to type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and challenge with managing weight.

Many popular food options available from 24/7 outlets are the very foods that drive fatigue, blood sugar dysregulation and weight gain. There are both dietary and lifestyle interventions that can reduce these health risks. But many shift workers report feeling too tired to regularly cook fresh healthy food from scratch after curtailed sleep.

And so many rely on convenient ultra processed foods, offerings from vending machines, foods to fill, but with little nutritional value. We can struggle to register ‘fullness’ effectively when we eat these foods, which can lead many people to being overfed and undernourished.

Solutions

Feed Your Body Clock ® is a programme that seeks to address these unique challenges, offering individuals and organisations chrono-nutrition learning and practical recommendations to invest in the long-term health and wellbeing of those 8.7 million, frequently unseen night workers.

Nutrivival is by no means the only organisation championing and campaigning for the wellbeing of shift workers through nutrition and lifestyle interventions, both at home and in the workplace. But I wish to thank the following organisations who have, to date, used and promoted our services, raising awareness and sharing our programmes with staff to support those individuals willing to crawl out of bed at unearthly hours, in order to keep us and our economy going:-

• Oscar Kilo
• College of Policing
• NARPO
• Metropolitan Police
• Surrey Police
• Social Change UK
• Mid Point 4 Women
• Institute for Optimum Nutrition
• Bleepkind
• British Association of Women in Policing
• Devon and Cornwall Police
• 1 Team Active – Team Police
• optashift
• Emergency Services Show
• Humberside Police 
• Durham Police
• Heathrow Airport
• Gwent Police
• Gloucestershire Police
• Stagecoach Buses
• Policing Insight Magazine
• The Police Burnout Coach
• West Yorkshire Police
• Derbyshire Police
• Leeds Trinity University
• Security Industry Federation
• British Association of Nutritional Therapy and Lifestyle Medicine

1. Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 24 January 2023, ONS website, article, The night-time economy, UK: 2022. Available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/articles/thenighttimeeconomyuk/2022
2. Houses of Parliament Postnote. Shift Work, Sleep and Health. Number 586, Sept 2018. Available at POST-PN-0586.pdf (parliament.uk).
3. Rapid Response: Is individual responsibility the answer to optimising sleep at work to improve safety? Cappuccio, F, (2018) https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.j5637/rr-2

Anna’s Granola Recipe

This sugar-free granola recipe is bursting with nourishing ingredients, which keep you fuller for longer than lots of high-sugar boxed cereals. It combines protein and fibre-rich foods which release energy more slowly, preventing the energy highs and lows you can experience with simple carbohydrates.

Topping this with fruit provides you with immune-boosting plant chemicals containing anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

This is ideal to bake spread over a lined grill tray whilst you have the oven on for other dishes. 

 

Ingredients

1 kg whole oats

200ml good quality coconut oil

300g raw mixed nuts, chopped (or briefly pulsed in a food processor, but still in pieces, not powdered!)

200g mixed seeds (flax/linseeds, hemp, chia, pumpkin, sesame, sunflower…)

150g coconut flakes or unsweetened desiccated coconut

75g flaked almonds

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

150g sultanas

Olive oil

 

Method

Heat oven to 160^o centigrade.

Remove the grill from a grill pan or use a large baking tray. Line with non-stick paper.

Place coconut oil and oats onto the lined tray and into the oven for 10 minutes.

Remove from oven and coat the oats well in the melted oil with a tablespoon.

Add chopped nuts and seeds and return to oven for 10 minutes.

Remove and stir well so all layers are coated and cooking.

Add coconut, flaked almonds and sprinkle with cinnamon and ginger.

Return to the oven for 5 minutes.

Remove and sprinkle with generous amount of olive oil. Toss to coat. Leave to cool.

Add sultanas and store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

When eating, soak in milk or your non-dairy replacement for 10 minutes to allow oats to soften.

Add berries and / or a dollop of natural live yoghurt / kefir.

 

Optional extras

Chopped (fresh or dried) apple, cranberries, pear, apricots or figs.

Fresh / frozen berries (add when preparing to eat. Frozen berries are ideal when our of season, they can be defrosted quickly in the microwave or taken out of the freezer and refrigerated overnight.

You can see in this picture, I sometimes pour my frozen raspberry, banana and oat milk smoothie over it instead of plain milk, combining both as a nourishing 2-in-1 breakfast. So delicious, and definitely keeps the hunger hormones at bay until lunchtime!