Spring into Spring, Sexy

Remember when last Spring arrived a bit faster than you anticipated and before you knew it you were facing wearing shorts and strappy tops and exposing legs and flabby arms … ouch… before you were ready for it? Here are some tips to help you to spring into Spring without needing an emergency make over. This Spring remember to give yourself the best shot at success, make one change at a time. Be specific about what you want to change. Developing a habit of eating more fruit may seem daunting, whereas merely eating two pieces of fruit per day seems simpler!


Spring tip 1: Eat light, eat often 
If you refuel with healthy snacks every two to three hours you need not eat a big midday meal. In fact, by eating at regular intervals, you will keep your blood sugar levels steady and balanced. This will increase your energy levels, manage your appetite, prevent food cravings and speed up your metabolism.  All great things if your goal is to lose a little unwanted extra kilos! A smart snack  should provide about 500 kJ for women and 750 kJ for men.  


Spring tip 2: The Power of Protein 
Protein can help you to feel fuller for longer by stabilizing your blood sugar levels. Include controlled amounts (one fistful or size of the palm of your hand) at each meal and as occasional snacks. 
Some protein-smart snacks:
- A handful of sultanas or chopped dried apricots mixed with a few tablespoons of chunky cottage cheese 
- Low fat cheese on two oat cakes or ryvitas 
- Peanut butter, 1 tablespoon with fresh apple wedges, pear or any other piece of fruit
- A medium fresh fruit with a small handful of lean biltong 
- A boiled egg  with 3-4 whole wheat crackers


Spring tip 3: Colour-me-healthy 
Eating 5 or more servings of a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables every day can help you to manage your weight as these foods are low in kilojoules but high in nutrients. Ensure that each meal you have has at least one to two fistfuls of colour coming from fresh fruit, salads or vegetables. This Spring, eat more vegetable-based meals such as stir-fries, salads, roasted vegetables or vegetable soup. Visit www.fiveaday.co.za for more ideas on how to easily meet the 5-a-day challenge. 


Spring tip 4: Lose Weight with Weights
It isn’t easy to find the time to exercise so when you do, make it worthwhile by doing resistance type exercise.  As opposed to cardiovascular exercise that builds your fitness, resistance type exercises will help you spring into shape faster because these exercises build lean muscle. And lean muscle raises your basal metabolism...which causes you to burn more kilojoules. You'll even burn more energy while you're sleeping or sitting making sales calls! No access to a gym? No sweat. You can easily do resistance exercises by using stretch bands, stability balls and even your own body weight. Pop into your closest sports store for ideas and visit You tube for watching fun exercise videos.


 “A healthy body tomorrow, begins with a healthy diet today.” Suzanne Havala

Football feeding frenzy

Are your healthy eating plans likely to be kicked to one side during the World Cup? Whether you are a football fan or not, the few weeks of the World Cup games will most certainly impact on your life - and possibly your health too! Perhaps you are one of the fortunate ones who will go and watch live games, or maybe you`ll be roped into watching the games at one of the fan parks or another vibey venue or perhaps you`ll choose to invite friends and enjoy watching the games from the comfort of your couch.

Here are some quick and easy tips to make sure your passion and energy levels remain high during the games - and that you stay as fit and healthy as the stars you will be watching!

Watching live games away from home:

• Stay hydrated. It’s easy to experience the effects of dehydration (low energy; headache, false hunger) when you are cheering outdoors.

• Before the festivities begin, have a small snack that contains protein and fiber (like fruit with yoghurt or a handful of nuts or biltong). This way you’ll avoid blood sugar lows, especially if you start drinking on an empty stomach.

• If you eat correctly such as having a healthy breakfast and snacking regularly you will also be less inclined to over indulge on the not-so-good-for-you fast foods served at the sporting venues.

• Order only grilled items on the menus. Avoid the fried stuff.
• “White flour’ rolls, pastry, wraps provide many fast releasing kilojoules. If possible, eliminate the bread and order a salad in its place.
• If ordering pizza, eliminate the high-fat meats and go light on the cheese.

• Avoid too much of a booze bonanza. Remember that alcohol has plenty of kilojoules. One tactic is to alternate alcoholic drinks with sugar-free beverages or better yet, with water. Remember that too much alcohol can lead to increased hunger and dehydration.

Score points with guests at home.

Do your fellow fans a favour by making sure you offer plenty of healthy offerings such as:

• Keep a fruit bowl in sight or have dried fruit in small bowls (apricots, raisins, apple rings)
• Popcorn- an inexpensive healthy snack!
• Pretzels and whole wheat crackers
• Assorted vegetables with low-fat dips such as cottage cheese and salsas
• Platters of assorted lean cold meat, seafood, boiled eggs or low fat cheese
• Mini savoury muffins
• Lean biltong
• Sugar free cold drinks (and keep large water jugs close at hand too!

So don`t get caught offside over the next few weeks...do your preparation, have your game plan in place, and you will be in tip top form. When you`re equipped with a plan for healthy eating, your celebrations can be a success all the way to the final whistle.

Score your own goal!

With the World Cup happening right on our doorstep, why not score your own goal and be more physically active over the next few weeks? You know you should be making a move off the couch, and you also know it will do you the power of good!

 1. Exercise will improve your mood! Everyone knows just how contagious a happy outlook can be...Get moving and watch those fabulous feel-good endorphins come out and play!

2. Look better, Feel better. Regular exercise will boost your confidence and improve your self-esteem.

3. Exercise will raise those energy levels! In fact, regular physical activity makes your entire cardiovascular system work more efficiently. Big deal? You bet! When your heart and lungs do more work, they deliver oxygen rich blood and nutrients to your tissues – giving you way more energy to tackle the day!

4. Exercise wards off illnesses. Concerned about heart disease or diabetes? Hoping to prevent osteoporosis or even cancer? Exercise might be just the ticket! What’s more, people who are active are known to live longer.

5. Exercise helps you manage your weight. This one's a no-brainer. When you are physically active, you burn kilojoules. The more intense the activity, the more kilojoules you burn...and the easier it is to keep your weight under control. Exercise also regulates your appetite and sneaky food cravings.

Now that I’ve given you the WHY, here’s the HOW to exercise without the sweat or schlep...

We all know that it’s not easy to find the time to exercise before or after work. So why not move your body more throughout the day while at your desk or in your car? You probably know a few tricks already...taking the stairs, parking further away from the entrance and walking around the office are all good places to start. Here are a few more options to keep up that activity during the day:

• Trade your office chair for a fitness ball. A firmly inflated fitness or stability ball will improve your balance and tone your core muscles, giving you a six-pack without you even realising it!
• Keep some fun fit tools close at hand. Keep fun fit tools in your office such as resistance bands. Jump on line or pop into your closest sports store and you will be surprised at the choice of funky and affordable fun fit tools such as downloadable pedometers, exercise DVDs, compact weights, stress balls, skipping ropes or mini trampolines.
• Go for a'walkie talkie'. Need to have a meeting or discuss something? Grab your colleague and go for a walk, as you talk.
• Use a pedometer and aim to take on average 8,000-10,000 steps a day. Think of ways to take more steps - Always use the restroom on another floor and take the stairs. Leave something important in your car (your lunch, briefcase, etc.) so you have to run out to get it - and avoid the elevator!
• Use your chair or desk as resistance and support equipment e.g. Lower Back Stretch: Sit tall and place your left hand on your left hip. Gently twist to the left, using your right hand (on your desk) to deepen the stretch, holding for 20-30 seconds. Repeat on the other side. Chair Squat: While sitting, lift yourself up until your hips are just hovering over your chair. Hold for 10 seconds while breathing deeply.

Remember: a healthy lifestyle is similar to dribbling towards the goal in a football match – it’s easy to learn but difficult to master. But with a little finesse, practice and commitment you will soon become a top scorer!

Is your mouth writing checks that your body can`t cash?

So, you`d love to shed a few kilos but it seems so much easier said than done, right? Not necessarily!

Weight loss is simply about understanding the basic energy dynamics of the food we eat. I am constantly amazed at how little people understand about kilojoules, what we do and don`t need, what we eat and how to burn it off.

In short, you are the sum total of the kilojoules you have consumed and expended up to now!

1 kilocalorie or calorie = 4.2 kilojoules. Both measure the same thing, which is the energy we get from the food that we eat.

It comes down to a basic law of physics … expend more energy than you consume and you will create a deficit. And believe me, unlike your bank account, creating a deficit in this case is a very good thing. This is the one area in your life where personal growth can lead to shrinkage! If you would like to lose weight, you need to create debt. Kilojoule debt. In order to lose 0.5 kg of fat in a week, you need to create a 1800 kJ deficit every day…

So what’s 1800 kJ?

The average not-so-active adult needs the following on a daily basis: 6500 kJ (women) 8500kJ (men). Considering that one large movie combo or a burger, chips and cold drink combo contains almost 6500 kJ, it becomes clear that consuming a surplus of kilojoules is easier than we might think.

‘Can`t I just burn the surplus off at the gym?’ I hear you ask…

Not really, is the (unfortunate) answer. Most of us expend about 1000 kJ for every 1 hour of moderate exercise. You would probably need to run a half marathon to ‘burn off’ that combo you had last night.

Moral of the story? Prevention and planning is definitely far easier than cure.

Here are some tips to guide you:

- Eat mindfully. Chew each mouthful well. It takes about 15 minutes for your stomach to let your appetite centre know that you’ve had enough to eat.

- Become an energy guru – read labels and be aware of how much energy is in the servings, snacks or beverages that you eat and drink.

- Keep in mind that a snack should provide 500-750 kJ and a meal about 1500-2000 kJ.

Strategic refueling

It`s easy to fall into the pattern of skipping breakfast, siphoning down numerous cups of coffee, and snacking on high sugar, high fat snacks throughout the day. Problem is, you probably end up so famished by the time you get home that you end up over indulging at dinner and spending the rest of the evening as an award-winning couch potato.

The trick is to eat strategically. This means having small meals and healthy snacks every few hours. By eating at regular intervals, you will keep your blood sugar levels steady and balanced. This in turn will increase your energy levels and your capacity to get things done.

What's in a smart snack? Ideally, a snack should meet the following criteria:
• A smart snack should fit into your hand. After all it is a snack and not a meal.
• Each snack should contain about 500 kJ for women; 750 kJ for men.
• The carbohydrate content should be no more than 25 g for women; 35 g for men.
• The fat content should be about 10 g per snack (although for weight loss closer to 5 g is better)
• The fibre content should preferably be at least 2 g fibre per snack.

Smart snack ideas:
• Fresh fruit is best. Single pieces or fruit salad - no more than two tennis balls in size.
• Dried fruit - small handful or dried fruit bars – one dried fruit bar.
• Health bars - to meet the criteria above.
• Lean biltong, boiled egg, protein shake.
• Mini crudités (cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, baby corn, sugar snap peas) with a low fat dip.

So don’t ignore your hunger! Going for long periods without food can compromise energy and performance. It may also decrease your metabolism, cause muscle loss and lead to overeating and weight gain.
In short, be a grazer…not a gorger.

Is fast food making you slow?

It's been a long day. You`ve had back to back meetings. You`re running late and you`re stuck in traffic. You`re starving. At this point, the idea of preparing dinner is about as exciting as heading off for a 10km run. You decide to take the main road home and pick up dinner from one of the many fast food take away outlets that you'll drive past...

Sound familiar?

Fast food has unfortunately become an integral part of our time-strapped lifestyles. It's cheap, convenient, predictable and…surprise, fast!

Yet fast food can be food terrorism in little cardboard boxes. It’s packed with artery-clogging, heart-attack-causing amounts of kilojoules (kJ), fat and sodium.

And it’s not just the quality but the quantity we eat when eating fast food. The fact is that your fat intake for one fast food meal alone - whatever it is - will usually far exceed your fat allowance for an entire day!

In today’s ‘more is better’ consumer culture, we’re constantly encouraged to supersize. Sure, you may be getting value for money. But you’ll be getting value for waistline as well.

Check this out … 1 slice of margarita pizza contains 616 kJ and 1 teaspoon of fat. Upsize that to a triple decker pizza and one slice now contains 1738 kJ and 3 teaspoons of fat. So one slice of the latter is what an entire light meal should provide!

It’s all about moderation…having the occasional fast food type meal is okay. It’s when you're on a first name basis with the local drive through checkout lady that it’s time to get back to those wholesome, home-cooked meals.

Same circus, different tent.

When I asked a colleague how they were feeling recently I received the following response ... "Ah you know, same circus, different tent."

When asking people how they are doing, do you stop and listen, I mean, really listen? You may realise that many responses are not so chirpy...'Ag, surviving' ; 'Can't wait for the weekend'; 'So so' ; 'Cant complain' ; 'Ag you know'.

Pretty dismal since we are still at the start of a new year! Should we not all be bright eyed and bushy tailed, not tired and overwhelmed?

Just eight weeks ago many of us were making resolutions to be more balanced, to exercise a bit more, to eat better, to lose some weight and so on. So how can we stick to our wellness goals despite the fact that we live and work at a frantic pace approaching 24/7?

Do you start off each day with the best of intentions, only to have them derailed?

The challenge, as always, is execution.

Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru, knows all about execution. He is famous for handcuffing himself and then swimming a kilometre or more while towing large boats filled with people. But he is not just a showman. He also invented several exercise machines including the ones with pulleys and weight selectors that are still used in health clubs throughout the world. He continues to reach prodigious acts of strength and endurance.

What is it that makes Jack Lalanne achieve what he does? His power comes not from physical strenth or mental ability. It comes in the form of RITUAL.

At the age of 95, he still spends the first two hours of his day exercising. Ninety minutes lifting weights and 30 minutes swimming or walking. So he works, consistently and deliberately, toward his goals. He does the same things day in and day out. He cares enough about his fitness and to build it into his schedule.

Managing our health and energy needs to become a ritual too. Not simply something that has a vague sense of our attention or focus. That's not consistent or deliberate. It needs to be an ongoing process we follow no matter what.

The power of RITUALS is their predictability. You do the same thing in the same way over and over again and you get the same results.

- Graze on smart snacks rather than gorge and you will sustain your energy levels.
- Drink enough water each day and you will avoid headaches and unnecessary snacking.
- Breathe deeply and you will calm your mind.

These small rituals may not help you swim a kilometer while towing a cruise ship with your hands tied together. But it may just help you make it through each day with energy and leave you feeling productive and healthy.