For children and the young at heart Easter can be a very special time. A time of making a virtue of gluttony and eating maybe one or too chocolate eggs too many. If this has left you feeling less than top rate, perhaps it is time to make a few lifestyle tweaks?
Get Active Outside
With the weather improving and the days getting longer, this is the ideal time of year to take your workout outside. It can be tough making the switch from exercising in the gym to getting up a sweat in the great outdoors – but it is definitely worth it.
Swapping the boring grind of the treadmill and the exercise bike for running and cycling outdoors could be the best thing to keep your motivation high. The added benefit of the time spent outside in the sunlight is definitely there too.
As with all changes to your exercise plan, it is important to start gently, and to be properly prepared. Running outside in the real world is a little different to running on a machine, so you should keep it slow and keep it short to start with to allow your body time to adjust. Equally for cycling there are the hazards of the road to contend with, so you have to get used to wearing the gear and paying attention to the rules of the road.
Perhaps you are not taking much exercise at all as things stands. If this is the case then just getting out and walking could be a good idea. You don’t have to plan some epic hike – if you take just an hour a day to take a wander you will feel the benefit after two weeks, or your money back!
Juice Loosening
There is a lot of hype around the supposed health benefits of juicing. You don’t have to buy into all of this to recognise that this is actually a great way to increase the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables that you can get into your diet.
We all know that eating plenty of vegetables is good for us. Typically though, breakfast (the most important meal of the day) is a vegetable free zone. Laying your hands on a juicer is a way to fix this.
Its amazing what you juice – broccoli and green vegetables included. These are considered some of the best juices nutrition wise, but can taste nasty. Mix with apple, and more palatable juices such as carrot for a more pleasant flavour. Although it tastes strong, juicing a few cloves of garlic and adding it to the mix has proven health benefits.
Spring Clean Your Recipe Book
The way we eat is often dictated by what we feel comfortable cooking. You might well do a mean fry-up, but eating this kind of high fat food too often can put you on a fast track to an early grave.
Sprucing up your recipe repertoire is a great way to improve how you are eating over the long term. Remember, this is not about some kind of diet to punish yourself, but getting an upgrade to your meals.
If you are looking for a new recipe to try out, you could do a lot worse than this one for wild salmon fondant with baby carrots, turmeric and ginger. The video is from individual health insurance provider Bupa International and the dish top French chef Eric Briffard.
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April 10, 2012
Health and Fitness