Eating healthily when working from home: Interview with Katherine Caris-Harris of KCH Nutrition

The Homeworker magazine interviewed Katherine Caris-Harris, founder of KCH Nutrition, about eating healthily when working from home. She explains how she helps people improve their health and productivity and re-energise by getting to the root cause of their symptoms.

Unlike most nutritionists, Katherine Caris-Harris didn’t enter the profession through having her own health condition. In fact, she launched her business as a fit, healthy woman in her 40s, who has competed in triathlon for Great Britain in her age group and entered several Iron Man competitions.

Raised seeing her parents produce food from a kitchen garden, she says, “It was something ingrained in me growing up that food is important.”

After a career break, she retrained, taking a degree in nutritional science alongside a coaching and NLP qualification. Her passion and interest in science, sport and health means she brings a huge amount of knowledge and experience to her clients.

She describes her work as functional nutrition, the cornerstone of which involves working with individuals to create bespoke nutrition plans supported by blood testing and other scientifically validated tests where appropriate. 

Her passion lies in educating people to make better choices and helping people to understand their individual needs as there is no one-size-fits-all nutrition plan. Key to knowing what you need to function optimally is understanding your unique stresses and loads, genetics, function of all key body systems along with your individual metabolic requirements.

Supporting your immunity as a homeworker

Eating healthily when working from home can be a challenge. As homeworkers, we can experience a lot of stress from work, being alone, and having little separation between work and home life. We might also be prone to grabbing food from the kitchen to graze at the desk, having a quick lunch while still hunched over the laptop or rushing through our food without taking a proper lunch break.

Think before you eat and ask: What type of hunger is this?  What else could I actually be needing? Are you, perhaps, dehydrated or bored?

Katherine Caris-Harris, KCH Nutrition

“If you’re busy at your desk, worrying about what the markets are doing, blood sugar imbalanced by poor food choices, eating at the desk while stressed, digestion can become compromised which can result in not getting what you should from your food,” Katherine says.

Importantly, she looks at immunity and educating people on how stress affects the gut and immune system. “If you come to me with a skin condition, headaches, food intolerances, hormone or mood imbalances, somewhere these are likely to be connected,” she says.

Katherine says the best defences to protect your immunity include:

• Balancing your blood sugar
• Making sure you’re not deficient in key vitamins and minerals
• A colourful and diversified diet
• Quality sleep and rest

She says, unfortunately, most of us don’t get the nutrition we need from diet alone. “Not only is the soil deficient in key minerals and bacteria that we need nowadays, but we need to adequately breakdown and eliminate pesticides and toxins found commonly in the food chain.  This all requires supporting key body systems.”  

Eating healthily when you work from home

Here are Katherine’s top tips to help us stay well and optimise our nutritional wellbeing when we work from home:

• Avoid mindless snacking: constant grazing on high-carbohydrate snacks can overload the body with simple sugars, which can lead to insulin resistance, a precursor to type 2 diabetes. Think before you eat and ask: What type of hunger is this?  What else could I actually be needing? Are you, perhaps, dehydrated or bored?

• Avoid eating standing up or at the computer: If you’re always eating in a rush, you’re not taking time to sit and think about what you’re eating, which means you may not be allowing the body’s natural digestive enzymes to be produced. 

• Exercise snacking: Look at adding a few quick workouts throughout the day by ‘snacking’ on exercises such as a few quick burpees or skips to help boost your metabolic rate. Exercise before grabbing for a snack and you might find you don’t feel as if you need anything to eat when you’ve finished.

Work with Katherine

Corporate wellbeing webinars and workshops 

Examining the mind, body connection she provides a holistic approach alongside an expert in behavioural change. They explore how what we think impacts our gut and what we eat impacts how we think along with practical strategies and tips you can put into place at home. 

One-to-One consultations 

A nutritional therapy journey educating you to make the right choices for you. Tailored support, scientific testing, supplement protocols and personalised health plans are included. 

Web: KCHNutrition.co.uk
Facebook: @kchnutrition
Twitter: @katherinech2

In collaboration with KCH Nutrition

This profile first appeared in the Breathe issue of The Homeworker magazine.
Would you like a profile written up about you and your business?
We offer full-page profiles in The Homeworker magazine and on the blog.
Find out more here.