The Live Lightly Centre

03/06/2026

I saw a little reminder the other day that if you suffer from reflux at night, sleeping on your left side is the best position to sleep in.

It keeps the stomach below the oesophagus, helping to prevent stomach acid from creeping up and it also happens to be the best position to relieve snoring too (although not specifically the left side, just on your side).

This is because when lying on the left side, the oesophagus and its muscle ring are positioned higher than the stomach, allowing acid to exit the oesophagus more quickly than with other sleep positions.

Though the frequency of reflux might not differ greatly across positions, reducing time spent lying on the back or right side can help reduce GERD symptoms at night and improve sleep quality. 😴

Other tips are slightly raising your bed at the head end, not eating big meals late at night, avoiding foods/drinks that trigger it and managing your stress!

I also tell my people to chew their food properly, your poor old stomach has enough to deal with without a Looney Tunes sized whole steak going down your gullet in one piece. 🥩

There are lots of beautiful treatments naturopathically as well with gut healing/soothing herbs like aloe vera, slippery elm and marshmallow root and adaptogens to help the body deal with stress.

Reflux is nearly always a lifestyle driven disorder but it is so prevalent now making the use of stomach acid inhibitors such as Nexium one of the biggest over the counter drugs sold in Australia, and do I need to remind you about the class action at the moment linking long term PPI use with stomach cancer and chronic kidney disease? No? Good. 👍

After doing this gut course (nearly finished!!) I can also confirm that PPI’s are one of the leading causes of medically induced SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) – in some studies inducing the condition in only 7 days!!!

If you are having trouble with reflux or want to safely come off proton pump inhibitors and you can’t do it, I have my own little protocol that seems to work a treat. 🙏💕

Call now to connect with business.

02/06/2026

In my consults I talk to my people a lot about “body literacy” and what that means.

To me it means understanding the signs that your body is not happy, or when it is. It means knowing when a certain food, activity, drink, exercise or even person doesn’t sit well with you.

It means you know what makes you feel better at a more micro level than macro and it means being a little bit more intuitive than you were before. It even means listening to your conscience and what feels right or wrong morally to you.

In short, it means PAYING ATTENTION to what your body is telling you. That old saying, you’d better listen to your body’s whispers before it screams comes to mind here.

Some people are hugely body literate, sensitive and aware to anything and everything that affects them, down to a frequency level! Others are so dissociated they couldn’t tell you if their arm had just been chopped off.

As a naturopath it is really important that people are in touch with how they feel and how for example my treatment may be working for them.

Even such a simple switch as changing a supplement from early morning to mid can make a huge difference in how someone may respond.

Also, appreciating that someone may be that exception (according to every single blood sugar managing guru on social media) that an overnight oat brekky may make them feel a hundred times better during the day than a savoury one.

My job is all about helping people feel better first of all (that is ALWAYS my primary goal) and then helping them work towards long term healing.

It helps a lot if you can pay attention to what works for you and what doesn’t so we can talk about it (and I’m not just talking about supplements!) so we can pinpoint the best most personalised plan we can for YOU.

Pay attention to your body and mind.

Sit with it a while. Really notice how it (you) feels when someone happens to it, when you take something new or eat something new or try a new sleep routine or hang out with different people.

I’ve always said you are your own best test. You are an experiment of “one”, and it is the only “one” that matters.

Listen to what your body is trying to tell you! 🙏💕

01/06/2026

Final dish, home made prawn, cauliflower and broccolini curry! 🍛 👍

01/06/2026

What to do with those weird leftover bits of capsicum and slightly soft cherry tomatoes at the end of the week? Chuck ‘em in a curry sauce!!!

I love making a curry sauce from scratch and it doesn’t have to be hundreds of little jars of quarter tsp this, half a teaspoon of that, ain’t nobody got time for that!!! My bare bones basic for a quick blitzed curry sauce are a whole onion, about 5 cloves of garlic, about an inch of fresh ginger if you have it, salt and chilli. You can add whatever else you want after that. I usually have capsicum, tomatoes, parsley stalks (any herbs are great), a variety of different dried herbs - this one has turmeric, cumin and smoked paprika, then maybe some oil or lemon juice.

I blitz it, taste it to see if its sort of balanced, then cook it off in a pot til the rawness is taken out of it. The additions are also endless, this one will be a cauliflower, broccolini (I was going to use frozen spinach but realised there was a baby brocc in the back of the fridge needing using) and prawns.

I will dry fry the cauli and stalks of the broccolini before chucking in the sauce and I will dust the prawns with sumac and fry them in some olive oil before putting them in too. They will basically just need a quick warm through then. Not sure whether I will add coconut cream or not yet, will see how it pans out.

The term “curry” just means a spicy gravy or sauce so don’t get stuck thinking if yours doesn’t have curry powder or similar in it that its not a curry. You can do whatever the hell you want, it’s your kitchen! That’s what I love about it, there are basically no rules as long as you like the flavours and ingredients.

Looking forward to dinner tonight! 🍛

01/06/2026

Another, and hopefully final (for you!) update on our Bridgetown move til we actually move! 😂

Well we have had our offer accepted late last week so we are officially owners of a beautiful home in Bridgey!!! The settlement date is not til December 10 so we couldn’t move if we wanted to til then but we have to stay home until the eldest is out of uni, has a reliable job and the boys are set up in their own home. 🙏

The good news for that is we have locked in a Bridgey home at a good price (for this market, it is bloody CRAZY down there at the moment!) and we have another 6 months or so to save and think about how we will manage the next year with two homes.

We are thinking we’ll spend a week a month in our new home and 3 weeks in the current one. The youngest, in his ever thoughtful way, asks “will you pre-cook our meals for us before you go?” You can probably imagine my answer….. 😏

So for those of you who are interested, I have copied and pasted what I sent to the family/friends of some of the highlights of the property:

• Many sheds for Stephen!

• He gets a ride on mower and wood splitter in the deal!

• All of the gardens are all set up and immaculate

• The espaliered fruit trees are fully fenced off so no need for netting and they have a chook run that opens right into it so the little blighters can get the fruit that falls on the floor before we get it. They will be the fattest chooks in Bridgetown with the tastiest eggs! 🐔

• The fruits they’ve planted are brilliant! They’ve got oranges, mandarins, lemons, limes, raspberries, blueberries, black berries, cherries, passionfruit, plums, apricots and even a small avo tree! There are also already planted veggie beds too. Basically all we have to do is move in and not kill anything. There’s the challenge.

• The water tank has never run dry since they’ve been there so basically never had to use scheme water

• Beautiful heritage bathrooms

• Extremely solid build – crushed limestone and stays warm with a wood fire heater plus reverse cycle A/C which they say they never have to use because of the design. Oh and ceiling fans in every room. I love ceiling fans!

• Views to die for, and we don’t have to look after them! They come with the “posh property” area which includes sheep grazing in the back paddock.

• Room outside the main bedroom so I should be able to bring my sauna down with me hopefully.

• 5 minutes from town for “real coffee” as Stephen said. He started complaining about it being too far away to get a coffee when I reminded him it is about the same distance as ours from Muzz Buzz! You just feel like you’re miles away.

• Loooong settlement date. They want to move back to Victoria and they want a December 10 settlement date which is fine by us. Our money stays in the bank earning interest for another 6/7 months and then we will just have to juggle two homes for a year. We are thinking of spending a week there a month to make sure all good with the place and the plants don’t die!

Not a bad outcome for an ad I half-jokingly put up on the Bridgetown page asking anyone if they wanted to sell us their beautiful home. Looks like someone did and she’s a lovely person too, we just clicked! It was truly meant to be.

I looked back and the timeline was March 30th we decided this was what we wanted to do and June 30th the contract was signed. We don’t muck around once we make up our minds!

Anyway just so people know, NOTHING HAS CHANGED WORK-WISE!

I know people tend to read things into things, but it is business as usual until I announce otherwise. I am still in Ellenbrook, I am still taking new clients and seeing my beautiful current ones, I am still taking phone consults if/when required and this won’t change for the near future.

I will still be working in Bridgetown too but obviously will only be able to do phone/zoom consults for my current clients which will not suit a lot of people I know. 😞

I will not bore you with any more big posts, but seriously, this is the biggest most exciting thing to happen in our lives for a long time and it’s the beginning of a new and completely different future, so forgive me if I’m a little over-sharey with you all. 😆

Regular daytime viewing will resume tomorrow! 📺

28/05/2026

🌼 Saturday Appointment Available! 🌼

An appointment has become availabe for Saturday 30th May if anyone needs one. If it is just a follow up you can book online, if its a new appt you will need to contact the page as I will have to slot you in manually!

Cheers and have a fab weekend! 🙏💕

28/05/2026

This post might be a bit raw, a bit too honest and a bit too personal for some, but I’m sharing it anyway!!!

Its so weird but I’ve had about 4 people mention to me about the move and my kids and how to deal with the kids growing up and us moving away etc and one lass even said I was “inspirational” for sharing.

I’m like, "thanks but I don’t feel too inspirational!" I feel scared, worried we’re making the right choice, a pit in the stomach every time I think of leaving everything we’ve built in Ellenbrook and those we love behind and then I slap myself around the chops and come back to reality. My reality.

Many many years ago I wrote a post on this page about how I pictured my retirement. I can’t find it now but it was along the lines of living down south (or out bush, wherever) in my beautiful kitchen with a pot of soup on the stove bubbling away and being surrounded by pets, animals, my veggie patch and nature basically. This is why we have always gone down south for holidays, I feel it is my “safe space” where I can breathe and just be at one with the world.

There are a few big things about leaving that I had to get my head around. Number one of course is and always will be, the kids. Number two my parents who are getting on a bit. Number three of course family and friends and number four my job.

The job was the easy one, I can transfer what I do down there in this day and age, not a problem. Plus I will be semi-retired anyway so working less days a week. That’s a no brainer.

The friends. Well that’s tricky as we have a beautiful group made over the years that we will still keep in touch with, and when we come back to Perth we can stay with them (haven’t told them that yet haha) and come up for special occasions. They can of course come and stay with us too for holidays.

We will make new friends in Bridgey I’m sure but they will never replace my “rocks” up here. Plus my best friend from high school and I have survived many long distance relationships and are strong to this day, so we’re used to it! 😂

My parents. This is a tough one as they are getting on a bit and to be honest, looking at it logically, this is the worst time for me to leave (and possibly most selfish in some people’s eyes?)

They are in good health at the moment, living independently for now, but I know there will come a time when they will need further support. There is also the thought that, as a parent myself I can appreciate, that they may be sad I am moving away. Or they may not 😂 but that is on my mind a lot.

I have reconciled that by thinking I am only 3 hours away, and if/when the time comes, I can come down to Perth and stay for however long to help them and my brother if that’s the way things go. I will have ultimate freedom to do that, it will just have to be in chunks of time rather than regular visits! Plus there’s this annoying thing I’ve heard of called “the telephone”. Perhaps I might try to use that every now and then too. 😏

Now the biggie (although I think the parentals were more of a concern for me) – the kids. Well. What do I say here?

These boys have been the absolute centre of our lives even before conception. Every single thing we have done, every life choice we have made, every dollar we have spent, every plan we have made, has been for them. We have fully immersed ourselves in their lives, we haven’t missed one game day, one theatre recital, one “big” moment – relationship beginnings and ends, illnesses, important achievements and announcements, graduations, etc – since they were a bean in my belly.

We have fully welcomed and loved every friend, every partner and everyone who has crossed their paths into our home and hearth. We have fed them, clothed them, loved and accepted them for the exact bloody WONDERFUL humans they have grown into and we are watching them now make adult choices for themselves. In fact, in my view, we have done so much for them, almost to the detriment of ourselves.

I believe we had fallen into the trap many parents do in not putting our relationship first, or caring for it enough outside of being parents, and when the kids get to the stage where they become independent we’re left looking at each other scratching our heads thinking “who the hell are you again???”.

Not gonna lie, its been a bit hairy for us of late and we had to make a decision to try and get everything back on track. I find that when the time is right life has always given me a gentle nudge. As with the business when Ali had to retire and it forced me change my ways, Stephen’s retirement came looming and gave us a wonderful opportunity to recalibrate. Looking back on it now, the business change will allow me to make this transition more smoothly too. Everything happens for a reason so they say.

When we told the kids we were leaving (funny, its usually the other way around!) the youngest looked like someone had smashed his favourite Christmas present (I think he was worried about dinner 😂) but the oldest was like “yeah cool, go for it, you do what you gotta do”.

And once we came up with a plan for them, we are giving them an “advance” on their inheritance so they can get a loan and move out together, all of a sudden things got REAL exciting for them as they pictured an inner city life for themselves! 🍻🥂

Our view is, if we can give them a head start, get them into the property market in the beginning of their lives and leave them with a legacy and an asset, why wouldn’t we do that? Why would we make them wait til we die to get what’s coming to them?

They get on great together, they are mature, hardworking, ethical, responsible kids and apart from a few domestic squabbles, and I know exactly what they will be about 😂 they will love their new lives I just know it. We will come down and visit them often too, and they are always welcome to come and stay with us but when I told the youngest there were no takeaway joints in Bridgey all of a sudden he lost a bit of interest. 😂

So, I will miss everybody like a big punch in the guts. Especially my boys who I have carried in my body and heart not for nine months, but for nearly 22 years, it is time for us.

Time to do what WE want to do. Time for us to start thinking only about ourselves and what we want for the next 20 or 30 years. We have done enough for everyone else. We have given to the point that we are exhausted, and to be honest, nearly lost each other in the process, even though we gave freely, honestly and with no hesitation. There is no regret there, but its only when you look back that you see it more clearly.

THAT is why we are moving.

We feel that retirement in Ellenbrook would be weird, it would be difficult for us. It would be an extension of a life that no longer exists for us because basically it revolved around the boys and we just fit stuff in around it.

I will sorely miss our round table discussions, our drinks together by the pool, the laughs, their mates/partners coming over, chatting to two people whom I love more than life itself but almost as importantly, I just really like as people, but we will still have that through the year. Those times were (are) getting fewer and farther between anyway as they pursue their own lives.

I will now have chooks to take care of, a garden to tend, hopefully Acey boy will still be alive to come down and have a new garden to sniff around and rabbits to chase and I will have my permaculture dream to try and attain.

Stephen will have to find “blokes” to talk sport and politics with (coz that ain't gonna be me! 😂) and play with and I’m sure there will be PLENTY of those in Bridgetown so its an exciting, if not slightly nerve wracking time.

If you’ve made it this far maybe you were one of the ones who were wondering how we are going to manage without the kids etc, and if so I hope its helped.

We all have our paths to follow and mine was always going to lead me down south, or more rural, so here we are! Please feel free to add your own retirement stories or concerns or whatever, I just felt I needed to get all this stuff OUTTA my head!!! Have a fab weekend! 🙏💕

26/05/2026

Hi all, a quick update on my goings on and an apology for my complete lack of attention on this page at the moment! 🫤

In short news, we have found a beautiful home in Bridgetown and put in an offer which has been accepted but until the paperwork is all signed sealed and delivered, I won’t be happy. I will share more when that happens. 🤞

I’m also nearly at the end of my big gut health course, a couple of weeks to go, and that has been taking up a bit of brain space too so between the future move, dusting off the ol grey cells, work and family/friends, I’ve got a bit going on! All good, but a lot nonetheless!

So all you need to know for now from a business perspective is that nothing has changed!

I am still working from my office in Ellenbrook, I am still taking new clients, I am still doing face to face consults (and phone ones, please make sure you pick that option when you book in if you want one!) and you can still pick up supplements from me if you need them if you don’t like/can’t work MyScript.

At the end of 2027 though, we will be outta here so there will be a few changes, but I will still be working! 🤓

Thanks for your patience, I hope you are all keeping well and things should settle down (in my head at least!) in a few weeks’ time! 🙏💕

P.S. If you are a current client, or want to be a new one, and have any questions please feel free to ask. 😊

20/05/2026

Saw this gorgeous new client yesterday and we had a blast in our consult, funny how sometimes you just “click” with someone.

She particularly loved my analogies as I was rolling them out left right and centre. I’m an analogy girl as I think they make complicated concepts fun.

One I use a LOT lately, as I am seeing so many underfed, undernourished and under caloried (yes there is such a thing in this day and age!) women is the petrol in the tank one. Not overly clever to be honest, but works a treat.

I see people eating bu**er all in the first half of the day and then wolfing down big, usually bad-for you meals at night coz they are ravenous and I tell them its like heading out to Geraldton in the car and filling up when you get there not before you leave.

If you’re lucky, the car will struggle its way through the trip til it uses every single last drop of petrol and it will either conk out (hello 3.30 chocolate slump) or if you do it long enough, the whole damn engine burns out as you are slamming your foot down on that accelerator trying to limp on in to town (hello “adrenal fatigue”).

If all we did as a nation is get our food right, and I don’t even mean perfect, just better than what it is, energy rates would soar, blood sugar crashes would stop, mental health would even out, tempers would stop fraying and life would just be a whole lot nicer I reckon.

We are asking waaaaay too much of our bodies and not giving them the fuel, the building blocks, the lego pieces, to actually comply.

We need our energy up front of the day where we are going to spend it, not at the end of the day when you’re gonna crash on the couch watching telly for a few hours where it will most likely distrupt our sleep and store as fat.

You’ve heard of the old “breakfast like a King, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper”? Well that still stands in my book.

And breakfast is still by far the most important meal of the day to me as well, whether you eat it at 4am for you early birds or 10am for you late starters, breakfast just means to break the fast, and you need to do it properly to set yourself up for the day in my opinion.

I may be old fashioned in these views, but they just make sense to me. 🤷‍♀️

20/05/2026

No wonder people think naturopaths are a little bit weird, this is breakfast for the week!

The cottage cheese/egg thing I did, some re-heated roast sweet potato and kimchi. Unless you are vegan or have dairy/egg allergies/sensitivities this is about the perfect brekky.

👉 High protein – great for satiety, blood sugar cravings, low insulin spike and weight management

👉 Savoury – as above!

👉 High fibre – as above plus prebiotics (food) for your gut bacteria

👉 A wide variety of antioxidants, polyphenols and other plant-based nutrients

👉 Resistant starch from the cooled and re-heated sweet potato

👉 Low calorie

👉 Extremely filling and nutrient dense

👉 Would cover off more than half of your “30 plant foods a week” in nearly one meal – remember it had mixed veg from Sunday roast, mixed herbs, trail mix which has about 8 ingredients, parsley, garlic, tomatoes, kimchi etc)

👉 GREAT for your gut bacteria - prebiotics and probiotics in the one meal

👉 Easy to prepare – just plop it on a plate, re-heat and eat (remember don’t heat your fermented foods as it may kill the good bacteria)

👉 Delicious.

Call me weird, I wear the badge with honour. 😆

This is a great way to start your day and will keep me full and happy for hours. That’s all I care about. 🙏 ❤️