Hi! My name is Bilal Bham, I am self-employed and come from Preston, England. I am heavily into health and fitness, have some big fitness goals and attend the gym every day Monday to Friday, take part in gym classes, such as Zumba, Dance, Body Attack, Body Pump, Spinning and Yoga! I also cycle everywhere local and enjoy dancing salsa (and other Latin dances!), so require a lot of energy! I have a healthy, balanced and varied diet, and take supplements from a natural health and wellness business I run.

As you may have noticed from my skin, I am not ethnically English, my background is Indian. Specifically my family come from the state of Gujarat, home of the best food in India! Coming from an Indian family, tasty spicy food has always been a daily staple! I can handle spicy and mildly hot but not fiery hot! Since I can remember, I have suffered from indigestion, bloating, stomach cramps and pain, and going to the bathroom had never been an easy experience!

Whilst living in Germany, I met someone who drank lactose-free milk, which I used to call “funny milk” because of its slightly different colour, taste and use for a particular dietary requirement! I began drinking this milk too and many of issues, namely diarrhoea after drinking milk, stopped! A couple of years later after moving back to England, I decided to cut back on all refined carbs such as chapatti, bread, rice and pasta, and my stomach cramps stopped! I went back to a “normal” diet with milk and carbs but everything came back and worse!

I finally decided to get myself checked out and I was told that I had acid reflux, mild irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and lactose intolerance! So, I cut out all dairy and refined carbs to help my digestive system, and it worked! I looked around for foods that I could enjoy but I found them bland and boring! My food had to be tasty, healthy, and allow me to continue seeing gains in the gym so I decided to restructure my mainly Indian diet by adding vegetables and even fruit to some of the dishes to increase their nutritional value.

I do hope you enjoy my upcoming blogs! I have a lot of fun material to share with you such as recipes, my successes AND failures in the kitchen, health and fitness tips and other lifestyle-based topics! I am new to blogging so please do feel free to provide me with feedback because my aim is to make this blog the best it can be by connecting with an audience who are like me, have certain health-related dietary restrictions but still want to live an active lifestyle whilst enjoying tasty, healthy and spicy food!