Nutritional biochemist and best-selling author Dr Libby Weaver shares her wellness journey and how she keeps herself healthy.
For years you have empowered and inspired people to take charge of their health through your books. Can you choose just one thing everyone can do to improve their health?
Look after your liver because it’s responsible for how we feel and function, and how we regenerate. Our liver sends nutrients where they need to go in the body. For example, it is the storage house of iron and iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency in New Zealand. Iron is not only needed for energy, it also contributes to the oxygenation of the body and it’s needed for detoxification. A lot of people either knowingly or unknowingly overconsume alcohol. I think it’s really healthy to sometimes pause and take stock of how much we’re having or how often we’re having it, and consider if it’s having a lousy impact either on our health, our relationships, our energy or our motivation. Fatty liver used to only be seen in chronic alcoholics, but now it is becoming a problem mainly because of excessive sugar. The World Health Organisation says that six teaspoons a day is okay, but at the moment we’re having 37 teaspoons of added sugar per person per day. We are seeing fatty liver in teenagers who have never touched alcohol. The good news is the liver will regenerate, so it’s not too late to start taking care of it.
What are the three things you prioritise for your own health?
I endlessly observe light. I’m obsessed with light and what sunlight is doing, and I really appreciate the first morning light. I love trees and have planted lots of them. I get that from my dad. He used to get me to pick up seed pods when I’d walk to the shops, and on our kitchen window he would dry them out and I don’t know how many trees he germinated from those seeds. I also read, whether it’s to relax or get my imagination juiced again. I’m an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction. I have a fourth one, which might sound boring, but I eat nutritiously. That doesn’t mean that I don’t ever eat hot chips. Because if I feel like hot chips, I just have them. But there’s a massive difference between having hot chips three times a week versus 10 times a year. Nourishment for me is mostly lots of whole real food, meat and vegetables in some form.
What do you do for exercise?
I walk and do some Pilates. I do a thing called Gyrotonic, which is more stretching. As a baby, I couldn’t put my big toe in my mouth and was never flexible. I work outside a lot because I garden and I’m conscious of when I use a wheelbarrow. I think I’m just being lazy using a wheelbarrow. I should carry that. Carrying a big bag of mulch is just as good as lifting weights at the gym and you’re outside in nature.
When it comes to your mental health, how do you keep yourself centred when you lead such a busy life?
I go outside even if it’s just for five minutes to look at the sky – it makes me smile. I remember that it’s all okay, and then come back in and start again. I’ve also trained myself to be very aware of how I breathe, so I do that without thinking these days. It’s basically what people would know as yoga-type breathing. It’s diaphragmatic breathing, but it’s very slow. So you breathe maybe four to five times per minute. Whereas in most of our lives, we’re running around and breathing 14 to 20 times per minute. One of the ways we communicate with our autonomic nervous system is through how we breathe. And so, when it gets rapid, the body thinks our life’s in danger, so I have trained myself to slow it down.
What is your best advice on how stressed, busy women can slow down a bit?
To know what you value. There’s only 24 hours in a day and we will do whatever we prioritise. And so sometimes we prioritise other people’s to-do lists over our own. I always say my vegetable garden is a great reflection of my work-life balance. When it gets a bit out of control, I’m not out there enough. I’m at my computer too much. It’s a little sign to me when we say we don’t have time for something, we’re just saying that’s just not a priority for me right now. If you have an inherent set of values, it helps you to say yes or no to things, so our life has a lot more meaning.
Over the years, you’ve talked about healthy ways to lose weight. What is your thinking around how we should look after our bodies today?
Don’t focus on weight, focus on health. That’s always been my message. When I was seeing patients, I didn’t ever have a set of scales in my office, I didn’t ever weigh them. I would then set about correcting the things that needed the help, whether it was sleep, period pains or digestive problems. In my first book Accidentally Overweight, I wrote about how the dieting mentality is so destructive and no good ever comes from it. It’s focusing on our health and what we need to have a highly functional body for as long as possible because we get the privilege of living longer now. But I think a lot of people live too short and die too long. The size acceptance movement has done so much good. I also think we need to continue to have conversations around health, because fat is metabolically active. And so it can get to a point where it’s producing all sorts of inflammatory compounds that can be producing an excessive amount of oestrogen. There can be health consequences that are harmful.
Do you have a diet that you follow for your health?
I eat mainly vegetables, so I’m a flexitarian. If I have to name it, that’s what I call it. I have the privilege of growing some of my own food and I feel like it nourishes my soul as well. I think once you start thinking of food as a source of nutrition, it becomes a natural thing to eat well. I feel so lucky that I get to be on Earth and have this experience. I want to look after my earth suit so I get to be here in a functional way as long as possible.
You’ve published some recipe books. What is your favourite dish to cook for friends?
I cook lamb shanks. I have a recipe from the ’80s that I love and it takes all afternoon, then I serve it with bucket loads of green vegetables and a big pile of mashed potato.
To thrive, Dr Libby says focus on yourself. “Sometimes we prioritise other people’s to-do lists.”
What are you most grateful for in your life?
I feel grateful that I get to be here and have this experience. I’m grateful for life itself. I’m a bit in awe of it. I just have to think about the structure of the human eye and how we take information through that. Then I get really teary watching an animation of what happens in just one cell in our body. Our bodies are amazing, that is my truth.
What is the best thing you’ve been given, bought, created or found that keeps you well and happy?
When I was eight years old, my mum could see that I was a bit of a worrier and she gave me a little copy of the Serenity Prayer. It changed a lot for me – it makes me teary just thinking about it. I was such a worrier, and the message in the Serenity Prayer is to have the courage to change things we can and to accept the things we can’t change, but to have wisdom to know the difference. And that message of acceptance has helped me so much in a gazillion different situations in my life.
What do you owe your parents regarding your health?
Growing up, we only had a fairly small backyard but we had chickens, fruit trees and we grew vegetables. My father wasn’t a farmer but he thought like a farmer. They raised me with consideration of where food came from and we had conversations around eating an orange in winter gives you vitamin C. My mum thinks it’s hilarious how she knew she needed lots of calcium when she was pregnant with me. She put on lots of weight and her GP was wagging his finger at her about that. She was supposed to stop eating ice cream and have yoghurt. But she’d be a bit sneaky, and she’d get a yoghurt container and fill it with ice cream after dinner and sit there having that. But I’ll be 50 next year and I don’t have a filling in my head, and my mum reckons it’s because she just did what she wanted.
Tell us something we don’t know about you.
I think about the soil a lot. I’m a bit of a farmer in my heart, so I’m obsessed with soil and I do endless courses about it. I went on a course at a farm in March and it was one of the best days I’ve had.
