Susan Alsembach

With many people looking to participate in the Canadian Cancer Society’s Dry Feb campaign, this might also be an excellent time to start thinking about a “No Scales February.” When you decide to make a lifestyle change, whether it’s improving your nutrition or increasing your [...]

The holiday season, with its parties, buffets, and family dinners, is synonymous with rich and indulgent food. As you do the Christmas rounds of dinner with friends to family get-togethers, you end up feeling a little more like a stuffed turkey in need of a holiday to recover from the holidays! The [...]

When considering making a lifestyle change, especially with nutrition, it's crucial to understand what healthy means to you. Food is often seen as bad or good. My clients echo this sentiment, and these feelings can lead to emotions of guilt and shame when it comes to everyday nutrition. A healthy [...]

With cooler temperatures and shorter days, clients turn to food to comfort them after a busy day, lack of sleep, or stressful day. However, instead of these foods bringing comfort and security, I hear stories of guilt and shame about having eaten them. It is sad that people feel this way about the [...]

Online, you can find a lot of information about nutrition and wellness, including apps that track calories and others that promote weight loss—it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed. However wonderful and interesting these apps might be, they create a disconnect between us and food. They often [...]

As we head into summer with barbecues ready to cook up amazing steaks and burgers, I thought it would be interesting to delve into the world of protein, what it is, how it works, how much you really need, and how to balance it out. Protein is a macronutrient, meaning it is one of the three main food [...]

When considering changing your nutrition, you will likely think of specific diets like ketogenic, paleo, or vegetarian. So, this week I am outlining the four key factors that I discuss with clients when they are looking to make changes to their nutrition and lifestyle. 1. Be aware of how much time [...]

At this time of year, change is all around us. With every sunny day, flowers are blooming, and the leaves are gently opening, announcing the arrival of spring. As we go through life, constant modifications happen within our bodies too. I find that you only notice the change when you look at photos, meet [...]

It might not yet feel like spring is here, but looking at the buds pushing through the ground, we can rest assured that warmth will be upon us. At this time of year, as we prepare our gardens and back yards for a summer barbecue with friends and families, I use this opportunity to go through my kitchen [...]

The last two years have made us all acutely aware that helping and supporting each other is so important to our collective wellbeing. I have worked as a nurse for many years, and more recently as a registered holistic nutritionist whose healthy eating and lifestyle columns appear regularly on ottawalife.com. [...]