Wake Up and Enjoy Life

4 Ways to Wake Up and Enjoy Life

Last week I wrote a blog called wake up and change your life.

Witnessing people living a very different kind of life had got me thinking about those who make big changes, but what about the majority of people who are reasonably happy with most aspects of their life, but for some reason have lost their sparkle.

I seem to have come across a number of people in this situation in the last week and I think maybe it has a lot to do with the time of year.  It's cold outside and days are short.  It's near the end of the year and there's pressure to get everything done before the rest of 2009 disappears.

It seems as though many people are struggling to find the energy they need to get through each day and enjoy their lives.  So I thought it would be worth a reminder of some previous blogs all geared towards helping you experience great energy throughout the day from start to finish.

1. Get some daylight, breathe some fresh air, get active and energise your body

Try some of these exercises / activities every day and aim to do them outside to make sure you benefit from natural light

2. Eat for energy in two easy steps: the first half of the day & the second half of the day

3. Sleep like a baby

You're never too old to learn some good sleep habits

4. Bonus tip: How to stop feeling tired all the time

Easy.  Now Wake Up and Enjoy Life.  Every Day

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Best weight loss diet part 1: the no stress diet

The best way to lose weight

Last time I talked about managing stress to help you live longer: Live Longer: Manage Stress

One easy way to manage your stress levels every day is with the food and drink that you consume.

Here's how.

1. Make sure you eat

Sounds obvious but so many people are just too busy or they don't make food a priority.  Then they suddenly realise that it's 6pm and they haven't had any food all day.  If you don't fuel your body with food, you'll need regular bursts of adrenalin to keep going.  Too much adrenalin in your system, for too long, with stress your system and raise your blood pressure.  

A steady intake of food throughout the day means your body works with good energy rather than adrenalin and you keep your blood pressure steady.

2. Watch your caffeine intake

Drinking caffeine is like taking a quick hit of adrenalin into your system.  Do this too often and your system becomes stressed trying to rebalance the amount of adrenalin in your bloodstream.  

Too much caffeine can also impair your ability to focus and get things done which means physical stress can also become mental stress.  Stick with a maximum of two cups of coffee or tea or two sodas a day.

3. Avoid processed foods and sugary snacks

Meals and snacks containing lots of sugar cause your blood sugar levels to rise rapidly.  If your blood sugar levels rise too high, too often, your system has to continually produce insulin to counteract this.  Too much of this each day stresses your body.  

Instead eat natural products, wholemeal carbohydrates and make sure you always have a bit of protein with every meal or snack.  Eating this way releases energy into the system slowly and helps maintain a stable environment.

So how does this make up the best weight loss diet?

Simple.  A body under stress will not use food effectively or burn calories efficiently.  This will lead to weight gain or difficulty in losing unwanted pounds.  

No stress / Best weight loss diet tips:

1. Eating regularly means you won't suffer from a slow metabolism or hang on to unnecessary body fat.  

2. Minimising caffeine creates stable fat burning conditions in your body.  

3. Avoiding too much sugar means you won't consume too many calories each day.  

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Photo by ~*Leah*~ (Flickr)

Live Longer: Manage Stress

3 ways to manage stress better and live longer

Most people appreciate that living with stress can take years off your life but what's really frightening is that so many people don't know they're living with unsafe stress levels every single day.

I recently conducted a survey of over 300 people and found that more than 75% of them had high blood pressure, a real danger sign for the state of their physical health.

I was shocked.

Here's what I told them, and what I'd tell anyone who regularly encounters stressful situations and who could be risking high blood pressure or even more serious consequences to their health.

1. Get tested.
Even if you don't feel particularly stressed, our bodies are quite often under stress when we're busy with many things at once, rushing around and eating on the go. The only way you'll know if your lifestyle is taking a toll on your long-term health is to get your blood pressure checked.

2. Get tested regularly.
Some stress, at some times can be a good thing. It can bring out the best in us. However, too much stress for too long can cause health issues. You must monitor what's going on with your body at regular intervals and never let abnormal readings persist for too long.

3. Get some perspective.
High blood pressure is an early warning for possible major health implications. It may feel good to live on stress and nervous energy for now, but it won't help you in the long run. And who says living this way is actually getting the best out of you anyway? How do you know you won't be more effective if you manage your stress better on a day-to-day basis?

Could you be doing things differently, living happier and feeling better every day?

There's only one way to find out and that's to experiment with some new approaches and see what results you get. So, in the next post I'm going to show you a really simple way to manage daily stress and lose weight into the bargain...

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Drop a Dress Size for the Holidays

When was the last time you went on a diet in November?

There's something about this time of year that makes us want to hibernate, slow the pace down and put off all good intentions to the New Year.

But why put so much pressure on January when you've got 40 glorious days left to change the way you look and feel for the Christmas Holidays. It's time to ditch those resolutions and see this year out with a bang. Want to know how to drop a dress size or trouser size before this year is out? Here's how.This year, take this new approach. Rather than biding your time until the end of the year, get ahead of the game and decide now to see how much of a difference you can make to your fitness and your body shape by the time you get to Christmas.

Here's how you'll do it.

• Break your 40 days into blocks of 4 days.

• For each 4 days, plan three days of focused healthy food, drink, activity and lifestyle that you know will ensure you reach your target

• Plan 1 'free' day of eating and drinking what you want and, if you like, taking the option to not exercise without guilt.

• Use each 'free' day to assess your approach for the other three days, make sure you are definitely on track for the right result and plan any adjustments to your routine for the following 3 days.

There may be some challenges along the way - many of you will have thanksgiving to contend with for example - but say focused on your target every day, follow the cycle of doing what works, reviewing your progress and updating where necessary, and you'll be amazed at what you're capable of achieving.

If you do have to get through Thanksgiving along the way, here's some handy advice:

How to avoid Thanksgiving weight gain

4 Tips for a Healthy Thanksgiving

Photo by Christi Nielsen (Flickr)

Feel Great Every Day

Sounds fantastic doesn't it?  If only we could all feel great every day.  Surely it's possible isn't it?

Something I notice as I speak to people about health, fitness and feeling great, is just how many people don't seem to think that it is possible.  They seem all too happy to limit their potential feel good factor by making excuses as to why it can't happen.  They say things like, 'I'd love to feel great every day but I just don't have the time', 'I'm too tired' or 'I'm too busy'.  

Too busy to feel great?!

So what happens is they end up adopting survival mode, doing what they can to get through each day just hoping and praying that tomorrow will be better.

Well here's a thought.  What if you can guarantee that tomorrow would be better than today?  And that every day after that you would feel great.  Well here's how you can achieve this.

The way you will feel tomorrow will be largely dictated by what you do today so don't just aim to survive today and make tomorrow better.  Think about what you can do today that will guarantee tomorrow is better.  Begin with these 3 steps:

1) Get active.  Even if you don't feel like it, squeeze in a workout today.  It will energise you right now and you'll wake up feeling glad you did it.

2) Eat regularly.  If your blood sugar levels are low all day today, you'll wake up feeling sluggish.  Make sure you eat every 3-4 hours today and you'll wake up feeling sharp tomorrow.

3) Get to bed.  There is a temptation to stay up late and enjoy a bit of time to yourself in the evening but the cost is you feel tired and sluggish tomorrow.  Decide early in the day what time you need to be in bed for a great night's sleep and then plan your evening around sticking to this bed time.

Don't hope for a better day tomorrow, act today to make sure it happens

Photo by fishbowl_fish

Team Training

At the beginning of the month I ran a half marathon.  Not much to note there - I've run the same race for the last few years, but this time is the first time as a new Dad.  I knew with the recent weeks of missing sleep and squeezing in quick training sessions where possible it was going to be more difficult than usual to stay motivated and probably very easy to say I'm not up to my usual fitness so I'll just give it a miss this year. 


But in 2000 I vowed I would complete the run every year so I decided this year I needed some extra motivation.  I recruited a couple of friends to come along with me and I've got to say it made all the difference.  Knowing that we had entered together together and that if I didn't make the start line I'd be letting them down after getting them involved kept my mind focused and ensured that I managed to do at least a bit of training, even when I didn't feel like it.

The day of the race was horrific weather and had we not all been travelling to the start line together, staying in bed looked like a much better option.  But we got there and we got round in spite of heavy rain and gusty winds.  And it was all worth the effort.

So my tip for today is, if you've set yourself a fitness goal or challenge and you're worried that you might not make it happen, get some friends involved and you'll be sure to stay on track.  Share the responsibility to make the challenge happen and you can share the sense of achievement when you've done it.

Wake Up and Change Your Life

I've come out of town for a few days to get a break from the hustle and bustle of London and down here by the ocean things look very different.

Today I saw surfers out before breakfast, at lunchtime and then through the afternoon until it got dark.  I suspected that many of them might be 'new locals' who relocated here from cities around the UK to benefit from a different routine so I checked with a few of them as they came out of the water.  Sure enough there was a graphic designer, a financial adviser and a journalist who had all quit the rat race and set themselves up with a schedule where they work around the tides and no longer feel the stresses and strains of city life.  

It got me thinking.  It may not be practical for you to completely move your life to a new location, but what can you do today, tomorrow and for the rest of this week and this month that will help you feel that things are a bit more balanced?  The people I saw today, all work hard, but balance this hard work with surfing, cycling, walking, running, swimming or just looking at the sea when the mood takes them.  They wake up knowing they changed their life for the better.

So what's your equivalent of hitting the surf?  And when can you do it next?

Photograph by G a r r y (Flickr)

Don't Panic!

Last week I came across 3 people who all claimed they suffer from panic attacks. The episodes they described, while cause for concern for each of the individuals, didn't actually sound like full on panic attacks and it got me thinking that everyone needs to be quite careful about how they label some of the things that happen to them each day.

If you begin to think of any slight feelings of anxiety as panic attacks, there's a danger that you won't be able to keep daily challenges that we all face in perspective. So what are panic attacks?

Panic attacks are an extreme version of the natural physiological response - the stress response or 'fight or flight' response. This response is designed to protect us. In times of danger our bodies immediately equip us to either run from a situation or fight our way out of it. The response is sudden and you'll know it's happening if you feel a bit sick, your heart starts to beat faster and you feel a bit sweaty or clammy.

This is normal and a certain level of stress does not do us harm, in fact it helps us to stretch ourselves, challenge ourselves and grow. The response only becomes a problem if the symptoms persist for too long or occur too frequently. If this happens then you may be unable to calm down as each stressful situation aggravates your body and your mind.

At this point it's time to read the blog entry on reducing stress levels

Even at this point though you may not be experiencing panic attacks. A full panic attack is more serious and could make you feel as though you're having a heart attack or a nervous breakdown so be wary of mistaking stressful situations for panic attacks.

If you're concerned that you are in danger of experiencing panic attacks, here's what to do.

• Keep a pen and paper with you at all times and note down situations that make you anxious. This includes thoughts of forthcoming situations that make you feel edgy, and a review of anything that happened today or this week that made you feel panicked. Build up a picture of how you respond to stress. Do you see stressful situations as a challenge or as something to run away from? Isolate the triggers that cause you to feel stressed or panic. Write down how you cope with these.

• Analyse how you currently manage stressful situations. Do you resort to caffeine or comfort food? Do you find a quiet place to work through things in your head? Do you use exercise or activity to dissipate feelings of anxiety? Can you think of other ways to deal with stressful situations?

• Reframe how you think about stress. Stress appears to have become the bad guy but in the right proportions and managed correctly it can help you grow and develop. Work out what level of stress is right in your life and begin to embrace this as a friend. Tell yourself, 'This situation could be called stressful but I chose this path and these feelings are part of my progress through life'. This will help you to recognise more clearly when you are experiencing an unacceptable level of stress and you can then take the appropriate action to reclaim balance.

As you come to understand your personality and how you deal with events that stretch you, you'll be able to create strategies for coping with stress at the right level for you. If you're concerned that your pattern of stress and anxiety is beyond what you are able to cope with, this is the time to seek advice from a medical expert.

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Three Top Tips to Reduce Stress

November 4th sees Stress Awareness Day in the UK. We all know what it's like when you feel stressed - heart rate increases, you might feel a bit sick - but how about when your body is under stress but you don't even know it. This is when stress can be dangerous. So what are the best ways to reduce stress in all areas of your life?

1. Get your blood pressure checked. High Blood Pressure is known as the silent killer because hypertension and coronary heart disease can go unnoticed until something drastic happens. Monitoring your blood pressure regularly will guarantee that you're never entering a zone of risk. Visit the doctor to get checked or invest in your own home monitoring kit. 120 over 80 is 'normal' and if you find that your numbers are high there are plenty of changes you can make to your diet and your exercise routine that will fix the situation quickly.

2. Take regular time outs during the day. A sequence of stressful events during a day can mount up and leave you feeling frazzled by bedtime. Stress isn't always bad and sometimes we need it to really get us motivated but just make sure you balance stressful events with time to nourish your mind and body and refocus. Change your scene, get some fresh air, eat a healthy snack or do something fun.

3. Get organised. Stress creeps in when we feel out of control. Look at everything you need to do each day and prioritise carefully. Tackle the big projects first and tick off your daily successes. Keep track of the way you organise yourself every day that brings you the best results and leaves you feeling stress free. Then aim to run each day in the same way.

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Photograph by BrittneyBush (Flickr)

Stop throwing your money in the bin

As the recession continues, we're all pretty much resigned to watching what we spend and not over indulging in any particular area so we can save the pennies.

But did you know that you are spending a lot of money on food that goes straight from the supermarket trolley, into your fridge and then into the bin a week later without ever passing your lips. You may as well throw the cash straight into the rubbish.

In the UK, we throw away around one third of the food we buy. Yes 33% of what we spend is wasted...read on for some shocking stats and what you can do to start saving today.

Here are some highlights from the new report on Food Waste by Wrap.

• In the UK, we throw away nearly half the salad we buy

• seven million slices of bread

• We also cook and prepare too much, resulting in an additional 1.6 million tonnes of food waste a year.

• 330,000 chicken portions (worth £70 million a year)

• 4.4 million whole apples; (worth £300 million a year)

• 1.3 million yoghurts and yoghurt drinks

• Every year, 20,000 tonnes, or £66 million worth, of breakfast cereals are thrown away by people too much in a rush to finish them.

Not a good list to see and we're probably all guilty of some of the above statements. So what can you do.

1. Think French - they still shop daily on the whole rather than go to the supermarket weekly to have enough food for the week. This way, you shop when you need stuff rather than have a full fridge.
2. If that's not practical for you, try buying a couple of good cookbooks aimed at quick healthy meals that make it so easy for you to use the food you have in and gain more confidence to cook more meals from scratch and use up all your ingredients.
3. Plan your menu for the week and take it to the supermarket. This way, you can guarantee you'll be using what you buy. Stop buying extras just because you fancy them or more gherkins because you think you may be running out. They're not essentials.
4. Don't overcook. Buy smaller portions of meat and count out your potatoes and measure your pasta and rice before cooking.
5. Use your freezer. Not for convenience food but for left overs and clearly date every container and use it within 2 weeks for the best tasting food.

These all sound like very basic lessons but maybe we all have to go back to the beginning to get it right because what these stats show is that we're overbuying, overcooking and throwing valuable cash away everyday.


To see the full article.