Sex, Food and Chronic Illness: Feed Your Libido is Sadoya Peynado’s latest book. Thanks in no small part to the provocative title, it has garnered significant attention and will be honoured at the 30th Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Portugal next year.

Ms Peynado, a full-time educator who is also a certified health coach, naturopath and herbalist, is thrilled to have the opportunity to once again represent Bermuda on an international stage.

Her book, Eat For A Stronger Libido: Sex, You and Food, was awarded for its “interesting, original and entertaining” photography at the Gourmand Awards in Sweden last year.

This latest book is to be honoured in the “Food, Health” category.

Like all of Ms Peynado’s offerings, it is “designed to enhance sexual health and overall wellbeing through diet”.

“I'm a health coach so the main idea behind the book is to encourage people to eat healthier, with a purpose,” she said, explaining that while people diet for many reasons they often overlook how food impacts their libido.

Sex, Food and Chronic Illness is full of recipes for smoothies, meals, desserts and juices, and gives dietary recommendations “aimed at enhancing stamina and promoting longevity for optimal sexual wellbeing”.

Ms Peynado said: “This book is about helping people who are already chronically ill, helping to keep them eating healthy and encourage them and cheer them on to still embrace their sexuality despite their health.”

It is information that has been well received by people who have joined her workshops here and abroad and clients who hire her as a coach.

She targets 13 illnesses in her book including diabetes, cancer, kidney disease and high blood pressure. For diabetics, she offers chicken veggie packets, strawberry smoothies and berry chia pudding on her list of recipes; for cancer patients, turkey cabbage stew.

“There are several reasons why patients can lose interest in having sex ― misconceptions about their ability to have sex, grief over their diagnosis and problems with body image are a few of the various reasons for the shift in desire,” she wrote in the book’s introduction.

“This is not intended to downplay what patients are going through, rather it is meant to help them feel less alone, helpless and isolated. The goal of this book is to highlight diets that help patients to sustain sexual health as they adjust to the ‘new normal’ with chronic illness.”

Not everyone who is ill will be interested in sex, Ms Peynado acknowledged; the book is for those who are.

“What about the few who still want to? Because they’re not in an environment where people embrace this confidence, they end up feeling depressed, with no one to support or engage in this conversation with them,” she said.

“There are many people who are chronically ill who still want to be active. I did a series of interviews for each of the illnesses, and I found a wealth of people who were too timid to say that they still had a sex drive during the course of their illness because, naturally, the crowd expects them to forget that and just focus on just their illness.”

She continued: “But while they're eating better for the illness, they're feeding their libido. The libido is still functioning. So yes, there are people who are still very much focused on their sexual appetite. They're not always invalid, constantly, day to day. There are times when they feel better and want to feel normal again.”

Sex, Food and Chronic Illness is Ms Peynado’s fourth book. Although busy with her full-time job and businesses, her passion keeps her going.

“While everyone else is sleeping, I’m up writing. I make time because it drives me. I’m passionate about this, so I budget the time. In the same time that I could go to a club or do something else, I do this,” she said.

“I think if I were to narrow it down, I think it’s self-love. People are very active sexually, but are you taking care of the body that you are using for the sex? People are ill and they still want to be sexual but are you applying the principles that you learnt to take care of yourself? Self-love drives me.”

Ms Peynado credits Amazon with much of the recognition she has received as an author.

“The first two books that I put up I got nominated within two months; this one, I got nominated within three weeks. Amazon did it for me. Thank you to Amazon,” she said.

The “brave photographs” that she put in Eat For A Stronger Libido got Gourmand’s attention, Ms Peynado believes.

“I think they search for books ― I never really applied. They just searched last year, and they found my book. If my memory is correct they said it was a very unique approach, an erotic approach, but informative,” she said.

“And it's the same for this one. This time their e-mail referenced choosing books as very hard. There were hundreds of books in the category, but they chose, I think it was like ten of us.”

While there are other books on Amazon with similar titles, Ms Peynado feels hers stands out because of her unique approach.

“This is more erotic and more [interesting] in the sense that I break it down with a little humour, so that you're not feeling like you're reading a whole encyclopaedia. I write it the way I would read, because I really don't indulge in reading that much. But I wrote the book so that I would want to read it, [hoping] that someone thinks like me.”

Despite all the attention she has received, Ms Peynado insists that marketing isn’t her thing.

“I know I'm not really good at it but I guess because it’s sex, it gets attention on its own,” she said. “It really opened up my eyes and humbled me.”

• Sex, Food and Chronic Illness: Feed Your Libido is available onAmazon.comand at Brown & Co. Author Sadoya Peynado is planning to host a book signing on December 16. For more information, call or WhatsApp 735-1979, look for Ms Peynado on Facebook, or visitsexyouandfood.com