End This Lockdown Period Fitter, Healthier and More Positive!

Make Your Home A Haven for Health and Activity: Let’s face it, staying at home for several weeks with not a lot to do provides us with the perfect opportunity to make some life-affirming changes

In this newsletter let’s look at exercise and diet, 2 areas of our lives that we have plenty of time to focus on!

Exercise: You may be frustrated that you can’t currently enjoy the exercise and sport you been enjoying for years, whether that be the gym, racket sports, field sports, circuit training, golf or whatever it might be. 

Try something new: If you have been sticking to the same regime for years, then now’s an opportunity to try something new. Apart from anything else, if you play the same sport week-in, week-out, then your body will benefit from trying something completely new, especially if you’ve been nursing an injury for years that doesn’t seem to get better

HIIT training: HIIT stands for high intensity interval training and is a very effective way to improve fitness, muscle tone and lose calories in a much shorter time than other forms of exercise. You can use a static bike, cross-trainer or rowing machine, but can also do it with a skipping rope or by doing exercises indoors. What are the benefits of HIIT?

• It’s time efficient: A complete workout can take between 10 and 30 minutes

• Burn calories: HIIT can help burn more calories than most traditional forms of exercise and in a shorter amount of time

• Higher metabolism: It can elevate your metabolic rate for hours after exercise, encouraging you to burn more calories

• Fat loss: You can achieve equivalent fat loss is a much shorter time compared to endurance exercise

• Gain muscle: You will gain muscle especially if you are not a regular exerciser

• Oxygen consumption: HIIT can improve oxygen consumption, as much as endurance exercise but in a much shorter time

• Heart rate and blood pressure: You can improve your heart rate and reduce your blood pressure, especially if you are overweight

• Blood sugar: HIIT can help reduce blood sugar and insulin resistance, important for everyone especially diabetics

There are many online programs to follow. Here is a good one that doesn’t require any home equipment 

Pilates Yoga and Meditation: These can all be enjoyed at home with plenty of online programs to follow. If you are a bit of a stress bucket then try meditation, it can really help, and let’s face it, many of us have plenty of time at the moment!

Walk, Cycle and get Fresh Air: If training isn’t for you, then try to get outside and enjoy the fresh air. Government guidelines are recommending 1 form of outdoor exercise daily on your own or with members of your household, whilst adopting social distancing. A cycle, run or brisk walk is good for mind body and soul!

Food: 

It’s a great time to adopt some new, healthy eating habits. What a great objective to end this lockdown period fitter, healthier, slimmer and with a more positive mental attitude. Below you will see some dietary “Do’s and Don’ts”, but for fantastic, healthy recipes I will leave you to the expert, Mandy Bonhomme who says:

If ever there was a time to teach yourself to cook or to find new inspiration in your kitchen ..... now is THE time !

Firstly you need to find out what rocks your boat recipe wise. Some good books to start with are Jamie Oliver’s SIMPLE, The Mindful Chef and any books by Madeleine Shaw or The Medicinal Chef. These guys beautifully merge health and taste with simplicity - and don’t place too much pressure on your cooking skills!!!

Alternatively - great online resources include Deliciously Ella and any of the above. Check out their websites and social media pages for tonnes of recipe inspiration

Soups and lentil dahls are a great place to start as any shortcomings in your cooking skills will be hidden in the blender or the Dahl consistency. These two are also packed with immune boosting ingredients that will help ramp up your bodies own defences and stack the cards in your favour at this crucial time

Mandy Bonhomme

Food Coach and Nutritional Therapist

www.bonhealth.co.uk

Martin, Mandy and Laura have had to close their gym but fear not - look out for Bonhealth’s new online workout program launching 6th April. Search @bonhealthjersey on Facebook

Here are some dietary “Do’s and Don’ts”:

 “Do’s”: 

1. Consume as much raw and ripe foods as comfortable on a daily basis, preferably eat 20% of your total daily intake in raw form

2. Apples, cherries, apricots, pineapple (eat the core, the enzymes help the heart), ripe bananas, grapes, figs (fresh or dried) raspberries and cranberries are all beneficial, preferably organic 

3. Only use cold pressed organic or extra virgin cooking oils in dark bottles, and store them somewhere dark

4. Consume daily freshly prepared ripe fruit and vegetable juices preferably on an empty stomach** See below

5. Add Shiitake, maitake and reishi mushrooms to the diet once or twice a month, and more often if possible, raw or very lightly boiled. They boost the immune system

6. Eat whole organic brown rice to reduce the incidence of several disease processes

7. Soybean products such as Tofu and Miso are also known to be very  beneficial

8. All green leafy vegetables boost the immune system particularly broccoli, cabbage (green), watercress and Brussels sprouts. Consume either raw, lightly cooked or in a juice

9. Beetroot is a great addition to the diet, ideally eaten raw and grated. It provides energy and supports healthy kidney function

10. Cauliflower, cabbage, kale, broccoli and tofu contain chemicals known as isothiocyanates that are potent healing substances

“Don’ts”

1. Avoid plastic containers, they contain chemical residues that can compromise the immune system, and never put plastic in the oven or microwave

2. Eliminate from the diet all margarines and other health spreads. Goat’s milk and cow’s milk butter is available in most supermarkets. Organic cow’s milk butter may be taken very sparingly while other cow’s milk products are excluded

3. Essentially, reduce animal protein as much as possible

4. Reduce stimulant and refined foods, try to only eat food in its natural form

5. Avoid all fizzy carbonated drinks (including water) manufactured with refined sugars ending in “ose” such as sucrose, glucose, fructose and maltose. Sweeteners are even worse

6. Reduce alcohol consumption and try to quit smoking. Try not to let these bad habits fill in the gaps just because you are bored!

** Fresh Juices: We have some smoothie recipes here on the website which include Organic Pea Protein, the richest form of vegetable protein available