Blog Posts by Rachael Anne Hill

The average woman needs to eat approximately 2000 calories a day but do you really know what 2000 calories of food actually looks like?  Try our quiz to find out.

Meet Mrs Average

Mrs Average is watching her weight, so on this day she skipped breakfast, had half a small quiche and salad with a drizzle of Caesar salad dressing for lunch, a latte mid afternoon, enjoyed some luxury fish pie and peas for supper and managed to avoid the temptation to have any dessert or wine in the evening.

Mrs Average's food intake for the day.

Meet Mrs Appetite
Mrs Appetite loves to eat.  She starts the day with a bowl of shredded wheat bite-size and milk topped with blueberries, a banana and a small glass of fresh orange juice topped up with sparkling water.  On the way to work she has a cup of hot chocolate and a little later in the morning an orange followed by  couple of oatcakes topped with reduced fat cream cheese and ham.

[See also: Is coffee the real cause for raised cholesterol and heart disease?

Never have we been more knowledgeable about the foods that we eat and yet year on year we collectively become fatter and fatter. Why? Who knows?

Maybe it's the increased mechanisation of our day to day world, slowly robbing us of all those opportunities to burn off excess calories or (according to statistics from Ofcom) the 3.8 hours we spend watching TV each day.

It could be the sheer amount of food available to us at every turn or the confusing labels that most of it is packaged up in. Or, is it because so many of us have simply lost the innate ability to eat a normal, sensible balanced diet?

That's the belief of Ian Marber, founder of the Food Doctor Clinic which is why in his latest book 'How Not to Get Fat' he outlines how to make simple food choices that will help you manage your weight, reduce your likelihood of health conditions and never have to diet again. Rocket science or ground breakingly new it may not be but nevertheless, well worth reminding yourself of, in

Only three years ago a mum-of-two won £810,000 in damages after claiming an extreme detox diet left her suffering with brain damage and epilepsy. Yet the popularity of these diets, abounds as advocates they claim to boost energy levels, shed pounds and roll back the years.

So just how effective and safe are they?

What are detox diets?
Detox diets are eating plans that are designed to help rid your body of excess toxins.  Advocates of detox diets say our bodies are continually overloaded with toxins from pollution, cigarette smoke, pesticides, a poor diet, food additives, alcohol and caffeine.

As these toxins build up in our system it is reported that any number of health problems can occur, including weight gain, cellulite, headaches, dull skin, bloating, fatigue, lowered immunity, aches and pains and a general lack of wellbeing. The process of detoxing is said to remove these toxins from the body with the result that you lose weight, feel healthier and recover from a

Red meat causes cancer, coffee raises cholesterol and fish oils don't protect against heart disease.  Hardly a week goes by without some food scare appearing in the media.  That's why we've asked Yahoo's registered nutritionist, Rachael Anne Hill to sort fact from fiction and reveal the truth behind some of the recent headlines……

Headline: Coffee raises cholesterol and causes heart disease
Coffee has been blamed for a whole host of health problems over recent years including heart disease, diabetes and even cancer.  However, experts now believe that this link may be more to do with the fact that coffee drinkers tend to smoke more and consume more alcohol than the coffee itself.

In fact, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that far from causing these diseases the antioxidants present in coffee may actually help to prevent them.  However, this doesn't mean that coffee should be used as a replacement for fruit and vegetables or even that non-coffee drinkers should think about

If you've ever tried losing weight with your partner, you probably already know that men tend to shed excess pounds faster than women.  Our nutrition expert Rachael Anne Hill explains why.

Reason #1
Women naturally store more fat on their bodies than men. A healthy body fat percentage for a woman is between 20%-30%, while the recommended healthy range for a man is between 12%-20%. The reason women store more fat is because a certain amount is necessary to ensure normal ovulation and menstruation.  If a woman's fat percentage drops too low, menstruation will stop and she will become temporarily infertile, so nature puts systems in place (namely hormones) to safeguard against this happening.

Reason #2
Men tend to be bigger than women and therefore have a larger body surface area through which they can lose heat. This loss of body heat results in a slight increase in metabolism as men's bodies have to work harder than a woman's to regulate body temperature.

Reason #3
Men tend