Eat well to make the most of Dry July
By Anne Finch on
Taking a break from booze is absolutely one of the best things you can do for your health. Not only are you giving your liver (and other organs!) a break, but you can expect these benefits:
- Better sleep – alcohol might help us fall asleep, but it leads to poorer quality sleep
- Less bar snacks – drinking stirs hunger, and can also lead to sub-optimal food choices (I’m looking at you late-night doner kebab)
- Less hangover remedies – greasy bacon and eggs, sugary drinks and fast food are pretty common on Sunday morning, meaning the effects of your weekend drag on
- More movement – not being glued to the couch recovering means more opportunities to get out and about
If you’re looking for even more ways to treat your body right, we’ve got...
Managing Sugar Cravings
By Peter Rule on
We all seek the taste of sweet foods naturally in our diet, however it can be easy to crave excess high sugar foods for many varied reasons.
We have 5 basic recognised tastes – sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami (savoury) however we can become imbalanced in our food choices due to stress, low energy, eating on the run, looking for psychological reward or treat or nutritional deficiencies, just to name a few.
We have 5 basic recognised tastes – sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami (savoury) however we can become imbalanced in our food choices due to stress, low energy, eating on the run, looking for psychological reward or treat or nutritional deficiencies, just to name a few.
When assessing a person’s current eating plan, it is not...
Beer before wine and you’ll feel fine? No you won’t says new study
By Kai Hensel on
Plenty of us have been there: waking up after a night out with a thumping headache, feeling sick and swearing never to touch alcohol again. If only there were a way to prevent these terrible hangovers.
It isn’t uncommon for us to mix our drinks, maybe a beer in the pub before moving on to wine. Folk wisdom has something to say about this: “Beer before wine and you’ll feel fine; wine before beer and you’ll feel queer.” This idea is very prevalent and versions of it occur in many languages. In my native country, Germany, for example, we say: “Wein auf Bier, das rat’ ich Dir—Bier auf Wein, das lass’ sein.” This translates as: “Wine on beer, I’ll advise you to drink beer on wine.”
But it turns out that there is no truth to these...
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...