10 Tips for Eating Out
By Olivia Horvat-Benson on
It can sometimes be a bit “too hard basket” to eat out when you’re on a “diet” or a specific health/food plan that limits what you can eat/drink, not to mention socially isolating; But it need not be like this. Firstly you need to remember that if you are on a “diet” or a specific plan, whether you’ve done it yourself or a healthcare practitioner has advised you of it, the intention for it was clearly to maximise optimal health, so it was a choice and when you make a choice you can’t say that you are missing out, because you’re not. All this means is that you’ll need to think outside the box a little from what you would normally opt for.
Here are some tips to help you.
1) Read the menu thoroughly & ASK questions.
Fancy words and...
Cherry Burst
By The Mindful Mocktail on
Ingredients
- 5 cherries roughly chopped
- 1 lime, quartered
- 6-8 mint leaves
- 1 cup soda water
- Sweetener of your choice to taste, optional (see notes)
Method
- Place chopped cherries and lime in a glass. Add a little sweetener if using. Muddle together for about 1 minute. If you don't have a muddler, use the back end of a wooden spoon. The idea is to get it small enough to fit though a straw.
- Clap mint together in your hands a few times to release the scent and add to the glass. Give the mint a gentle press with the muddler.
- Add ice and top with soda water.
- Garnish with lime wheels, mint and/or extra cherries.
For more recipes like this, follow @themindfulmocktail on Instagram
Junk food cravings? We’ve got your back
By Anne Finch on
Cravings are pretty common when we make changes to our diet. It’s a classic response to telling ourselves we can’t have something! Here’s our top tips for dealing with cravings.
1. Investigate your craving
Cravings can make us uncomfortable, so our instinct is to fulfill them at once. Next time, try taking a minute to think about what you really want. Are you tired and looking for a pick-me-up? Are you genuinely hungry? Or bored? Try and meet the underlying need of the craving, rather than a using a Band-Aid solution. If you’re tired, a brisk walk is invigorating (especially in the cold weather!). If you’re hungry, eat something satisfying rather than junk food that will leave you peckish again in half an hour.
2. Distract...
Kickstart Yourself Back Into Movement
By Leanne Hall on
We’ve all been there. Hitting the gym regularly, eating really well and feeling fabulous. Then it happens. Maybe we over eat at a work function, or take a week off the gym because we’ve been feeling unwell. Or maybe we just feel bored with our current fitness routine. Whatever the trigger, the result is the same. Motivation takes a drastic nose-dive and we find ourselves frustrated, and perhaps even depressed at the fact that we just can’t seem to pull ourselves together and get back on track.
So how can you get back on the health and fitness wagon? Well, here are my tips to help get you back to your healthy self again!
Identify Obstacles
When motivation disappears, the first question you need to ask yourself is this: “Why?”
...
Who Needs A Healthy Liver?
By Dr Cris Beer on
For the first few years that I worked as a general practitioner I had underestimated the liver's significant role in the general wellbeing of my patients. I had learnt that the liver was important from a physiological point of view and that it helped keep us alive, but I hadn't fully considered how it keeps us feeling well on a day-to-day basis.
I had been taught how to detect liver-function abnormalities in blood testing and how to feel for an enlarged or tender liver - all signs of obvious and severe liver damage. But as for understanding liver damage well before any obvious clinical signs begin to show, I was completely in the dark. I had seen severe liver damage from chronic alcoholism and from liver disease such as hepatitis, but the...
How To Be Happy - 10 Routine Changes Scientifically Proven
By Juice Daily on
Nothing spells a bad day more than spilling coffee on a crisp white shirt come Monday morning, but trivial as it may seem, it can be an instant downer on your mood.
While it’s only natural to get in a funk every now and again – according to a British survey, we have at least 10 grumpy days a year (five hours a week) – it can play an unhealthy part in our overall sense of wellbeing.
The biggest mood booster for women, according to the Healthspan survey is ‘me time.’ So while you can’t out run a bad day, you can shape and mould your routine a little bit each day to care of yourself and make the overall outcome that bit brighter.
Here, scientifically proven tweaks to make life happier.
1. Do exercise you like
With music you like. A...
Three ways to achieve your New Year’s resolutions by building ‘goal infrastructure’
By Peter A. Heslin on
Every year most of us make New Year’s resolutions. Eat healthier. Exercise regularly. Invest more in valued relationships. Learn a language. And so on. Often they are the same resolutions as last year.
Why do our resolutions often so swiftly wither away?
A prime culprit in this annual rollercoaster of optimism and disappointment is overconfidence in the power of our intentions.
The excitement of a new year (and perhaps the fruit of celebrating a little too hard) cloud remembering a hard fact of life: good intentions readily evaporate without a trace in the face of everyday experiences such as exhaustion, temptation and long-standing habits.
Fortunately, academic research on goal-setting can help. Studies over several decades have...
A Beginner's Guide to Fitness
By Kirsty Welsh on
I’ve worked in the health industry for long enough to know the biggest goal when an individual joins a gym is, ‘I want to get fit!’
What does this even mean?
If you want to ‘get fit’ you need to start with a good definition of what fitness means to you, otherwise where do you even begin? It can be overwhelming!
Here’s a little bit of help to get you going. Physical fitness can be defined as the ability of the body to perform with energy and alertness. (Yes please, where do I sign up!)
Fitness to me is not just physical; although we normally focus on the physical, I prefer to look at fitness as a blend of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. The beauty of physical activity is that movement allows us to think clearer,...
Want to exercise more? Try setting an open goal for your New Year’s Resolution
By Christian Swann on
It’s that time of year when many of us are setting goals for the year ahead. The most common New Year’s resolution – set by 59% of us - is to exercise more.
But our research suggests the way we typically set goals in exercise often doesn’t work. So, what should we do instead?
Our research interviewing elite athletes suggests one possibility is to set open goals instead.
Specific goals can actually put us off
Generally we’re advised to set specific, or SMART, goals (where SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound). Aiming to walk 10,000 steps per day is a common example.
This advice is typically based on goal-setting theory from the 1990s. However, that theory has now evolved, with research now suggesting...