Elly Smith - Nutritionist

Elly Smith - Nutritionist Gut & Psychology/ Physiology Syndrome Practitioner - ADHD - Autism - Methylation - Gut & Mental Health - Anxiety - Depression - Food Intolerances.

11/06/2026

Your motivation, focus and stress response are all supported by the food you eat… because your body has to MAKE dopamine, and it uses dietary protein as the key ingredient. 🥩 But protein alone isn't enough, as each step in dopamine production depends on specific enzymes and nutrient cofactors, with iron and vitamin B6 being essential.

A diet low in protein, or a deficiency in either of these nutrients, can impair dopamine production. The body can only make dopamine when all the ingredients are present, so if any ingredient is missing, sufficient dopamine cannot be produced. Leaving you with low motivation, poor focus, a flat mood, or a reduced ability to handle stress. 🫠

Real, whole foods, eaten consistently, are one of the most powerful things you can do for your mental clarity. ✨

This dessert/breakfast/snack bowl is on high rotation in our house… in fact, the kids now just make it up themselves. 👌 ...
09/06/2026

This dessert/breakfast/snack bowl is on high rotation in our house… in fact, the kids now just make it up themselves. 👌

Homemade (GAPS) yoghurt and cultured cream with organic berries, linseed meal and raw honey. 🤩

Every single ingredient offers a nutritional benefit…

GAPS yoghurt & cultured cream 🥛 —> this longer fermented dairy pre-digests casein and lactose, making it far more tolerable for sensitive systems. It is a natural powerhouse of Lactobacillus strains that have been shown to restore gut barrier integrity, reduce intestinal permeability and support immune function. The extended fermentation time also produces significantly more lactic acid, which further enhances gut health. If you haven't made any GAPS yoghurt and cultured cream, you can swap them for some organic natural yoghurt and crème fraîche, which will still deliver beneficial effects. 💛

Organic mixed berries 🫐 —> rich in anthocyanins and polyphenols, which reduce oxidative stress, nourish the immune system and reduce inflammation. Frozen organic berries retain virtually identical antioxidant capacity to fresh. ✨

Raw honey 🍯 —> unlike processed honey, raw honey retains its full enzyme activity and antimicrobial effects, along with prebiotic oligosaccharides that feed beneficial gut bacteria.

Linseed meal 🌾 —> one of the richest plant sources of ALA omega-3 fatty acids and lignans, which have potent anti-inflammatory and hormone-balancing effects. It is also rich in fibre and acts as a prebiotic, feeding the very bacteria your cultured dairy is delivering.

Every meal and snack can be a supplement for the body. 🥰 Real whole food ingredients, each have their own therapeutic effect. 🫶

Constant carb cravings are not aways a willpower problem… they can be a physiological problem. 🧠 Here are 3 scientifical...
04/06/2026

Constant carb cravings are not aways a willpower problem… they can be a physiological problem. 🧠 Here are 3 scientifically-backed reasons why your body keeps asking for carbs and sugar…

🦠 Your Gut Microbiome —> An overgrowth of “bad” gut bacteria can literally hijack your appetite. Research shows that certain bacterial strains release metabolites and signalling molecules that travel via the gut-brain axis, directly influencing your food cravings. Bad bugs thrive on sugar and carbohydrates, so they send the signals that keep you feeding them. 🍩🥤

😰 Chronic Stress —> When you’re chronically stressed, elevated cortisol shifts your body’s primary fuel source from fat to glucose/carb burning. This is known as a metabolic shift. Your body starts requiring faster-burning carbohydrates to sustain energy, making sugar cravings almost inevitable. 🧁🍬

😴 Poor Quality Sleep —> Even one night of disrupted sleep has been shown to increase ghrelin (your hunger hormone) and decrease leptin (your fullness hormone). Add dysregulated cortisol and impaired insulin sensitivity into the mix, and your body defaults to craving quick-release carbohydrates for energy. 🍞🍫

If you’re constantly reaching for carbs, look deeper… 🧐 look at your gut health, your stress load, and your sleep quality. Address the ROOT CAUSE, and the cravings often resolve on their own! 🌱✨

02/06/2026

Healthy eating doesn't have to be boring and it doesn't have to be complicated. 🙌

This was last night’s dinner… slow-cooked pork belly with crackling, duck fat roasted veggies, a simple 3 ingredient salad dressing, and nori wraps the kids threw together themselves.

Save this and make it on a weekend when you have a bit of time up your sleeve. 📌 It was delicious! 💛

For the longest time, I believed the gut was where all healing began… 🌱 and in many ways, it still is. But the gut canno...
27/05/2026

For the longest time, I believed the gut was where all healing began… 🌱 and in many ways, it still is. But the gut cannot thrive if the nervous system is living in fear. When our bodies are caught in a constant storm of stress, anxiety, and overwhelm, our ancient survival systems take over. And in that state, one of the first things to suffer is our ability to digest, absorb, and nourish ourselves.🌿

🍃 The vagus nerve, our body's messenger between the brain and the gut, can no longer do its job

🍃 Stomach acid drops, and without it, protein can’t fully break down into the amino acids your body needs

🍃 Bile and digestive enzymes from the liver and pancreas fall short, and the essential fats, vitamins, and nutrients our body needs simply pass through us, unused and unabsorbed

🍃 Gut motility slows, the rhythmic movement of food through the digestive tract becomes sluggish, creating the perfect environment for bloating, constipation, and bacterial imbalance

What many people don’t realise is that without adequate protein breakdown, there are no amino acids. And without amino acids…

🌸 Reduced serotonin or dopamine - the neurotransmitters that shape your mood, motivation, and sense of joy

🌸 Reduced GABA - the calming messenger that helps your nervous system finally feel safe

🌸 Reduced thyroid hormones, cortisol, and insulin - the hormones that govern your energy, metabolism, and stress response

🌸 Reduced antibodies - leaving your immune system without its most essential line of defence

🌸 Reduced collagen - the structural protein holding your skin, joints, bones, and gut lining together

🌸 Reduced glutathione - your body's most powerful antioxidant and detoxification molecule

🌸 No digestive enzymes - the very tools needed to break down the next meal

It becomes a cycle. Stress shuts down digestion. Poor digestion starves the body of amino acids. Without amino acids, the body cannot make the hormones and neurotransmitters needed to regulate stress. And so the cycle deepens. 🔄

We can take every supplement on the shelf. But if the nervous system is still sounding the alarm, the body cannot truly heal.

This is homemade beet kvass… the perfect pre-dinner drink. 🥰No alcohol, just a humble little fermented drink/tonic that'...
24/05/2026

This is homemade beet kvass… the perfect pre-dinner drink. 🥰

No alcohol, just a humble little fermented drink/tonic that's been supporting livers for centuries! 💜

Your liver is one of the hardest working organs in your body. It's constantly filtering, detoxifying, and processing, and the evening is when your body wants to shift into rest-and-repair mode. Alcohol adds load to those detox pathways right at the moment your body is trying to cleanse and heal. Beet kvass does the opposite. 🫶

The betalains in beetroot (those beautiful pigments you can see) actively support liver function and reduce inflammation in the liver. Because it's fermented, it's teeming with living probiotics to support your gut lining, too. 🫜

Beet kvass is a gentle and healing tonic, even for the most sensitive tummies. It offers probiotic diversity, enhances bile flow, supports liver detox, and stimulates digestive enzyme activity. Being lacto-fermented, it's also high in bioavailable vitamin C, B vitamins, live enzymes, gut-soothing lactic acid, and beneficial lactobacilli.

Real, food-based medicine, the way nature intended. 🙌💛

Let me know in the comments if you'd like me to send you the recipe. 🌿💜

Chronic iron deficiency should not be a permanent state. When levels keep falling despite adequate dietary intake or sup...
20/05/2026

Chronic iron deficiency should not be a permanent state. When levels keep falling despite adequate dietary intake or supplementation, the body is signalling that something more specific needs to be addressed…

Stomach acid → Iron conversion. Iron from food & supplements must be converted from its insoluble form into its absorbable form, & this conversion depends on an acidic stomach environment. Without adequate stomach acid, this process is significantly impaired, & much of the iron you consume, whether from food or a supplement, passes through without being absorbed. Research has found that low stomach acid was present in 44% of people with unexplained iron-deficiency anaemia, compared with fewer than 2% of healthy controls. Yet it is rarely investigated as a contributing factor!

The gut → Downstream effects on absorption. Low stomach acid doesn't just affect iron directly, it alters the entire gut environment. Without adequate acid acting as a natural barrier, undesirable bacteria are more likely to overgrow in the small intestine, a condition known as small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). This compromises the gut lining, drives inflammation, & impairs the absorption of not just iron, but a broad range of other nutrients.

The liver → The piece that almost never comes up. The liver produces a hormone called hepcidin, which acts as the body's master regulator of iron. Hepcidin controls how much iron is absorbed from the gut & how much is released from storage into circulation. When hepcidin levels are elevated, which occurs in response to chronic inflammation & liver stress, iron gets locked inside cells rather than circulating where it is actually needed. This is well documented in research. Studies have also shown that taking high-dose iron supplements can itself raise hepcidin levels, potentially blunting absorption on subsequent days, which may partly explain why supplementation so often produces only temporary improvements.

If iron levels keep falling despite supplementation, investigating stomach acid production, gut microbiome health, inflammatory markers, & liver function is a far more targeted and evidence-based place to start. 🌱

15/05/2026

Breakfast is the meal worth getting right. 🌱☀️

Many people start the day with a blood sugar spike and wonder why they’re crashing by 10am. 😵‍💫

This is what I made this morning and it took less than 15 minutes…. Eggs poached in homemade meat stock with spinach, on buckwheat toast with grassfed organic butter. Stock drunk from a mug at the end.

Here’s why each part earns its place:

🥚 Eggs are one of the most complete proteins you can eat, and the yolk is loaded with choline, a nutrient most people have never heard of that your brain depends on to function well.

🍗 Homemade meat stock is rich in collagen, gelatine, glycine and minerals. It supports gut lining integrity and your gut health has a direct link to your overall health.

🌿 Spinach brings iron, folate and magnesium, three nutrients women are commonly low in, particularly if you’re in your reproductive years.

🧈 Grassfed butter, rich in fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2, and short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, which support gut health.

Protein, good fats, fibre, vitamins and minerals. Stable energy, no crash, a brain that can actually focus and it tasted DELICIOUS! 🤤🙌

Apologies for the quiet spell on my free community workshops… I’ve had a lot on. 🫠 But now the workshops are back on, an...
14/05/2026

Apologies for the quiet spell on my free community workshops… I’ve had a lot on. 🫠 But now the workshops are back on, and I’m really looking forward to meeting with everyone again! 🙌 These workshops are small, practical sessions hosted by me (clinical nutritionist and certified GAPS practitioner) at Holixir Womens Wellness in Balgowlah.

No products to buy, no memberships to sign up for, no agenda other than giving our community access to good, honest health information. 🌿

Our next workshop will be on… Breaking Through the Social Media Noise Around Health. If you’ve ever felt completely confused by the amount of conflicting health information online, then this one is for you. 🤯

We will be cutting through and talking about the following:
→ How much protein do you actually need each day, and when should you eat it?
→ Are carbohydrates really the enemy, or is it more complicated than that?
→ The healthiest ways to sweeten your food
→ Why fibre matters well beyond just keeping you regular
→ Natural ways to support your body through perimenopause and menopause

Everyone who comes along will leave with a written summary of all the key takeaways.

Date: Friday 29th May
Time: 1:00–2:00pm
Location: Holixir, Balgowlah
Booking: Follow the link in my bio 💛

🌱🌿💚🌱🌿💚🌱🌿💚🌱🌿💚

Using FOOD as my MEDICINE… lunch is served! 🤩 🌿💚🌿
06/05/2026

Using FOOD as my MEDICINE… lunch is served! 🤩

🌿💚🌿

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