They say bad habits die hard, and I would certainly agree with that. Even when you know something is bad for you, it’s hard to give it up if it has some benefits. Take binge eating for instance. I know how bad constant nachos are for me but when someone says Mexican Night I can’t say no! So, what are the best ways to beat the bad habits in your life?
5 Tips For Improving Your Life
I think it’s important to look for ways to enrich and improve life, you only get one after all! Here are a few suggestions for changes you could make that can help you on the way to transforming your life for the better.
I’ve just picked up ‘I Know How She Does It – How Successful Women Make The Most Of Their Time’ by Laura Vanderkam and I’m reading ‘Zero Waste Home’ by Bea Johnson again. Both books are designed to inspire you to improve your life by managing your time more efficiently and de-cluttering your surroundings.
Get Active with ParkLives Nottingham!
Who’s seen those big green and red Coca-Cola ParkLives banners in and around Nottingham and the activities in Victoria Centre recently? They’re seriously hard to miss! Nottingham ParkLives offers hundreds of free activity sessions in local parks, with residents and families encouraged to try their hand at everything from Zumba to Tai Chi. This is amazing for getting people moving that perhaps think that they can’t afford to go to a fancy gym, or wouldn’t use it enough to warrant a membership. It’s also a great opportunity for trying out a new activity such as Yoga or Ultimate Frisbee! Sessions are currently held between 10am and 7pm every day across 20 community parks. All sessions are around an hour long and are led by a trained ‘activity leader’. Families are encouraged to come and try something new and there is no charge for any activities, how wicked is that?
Calorie Counting? Is It All Bad?
When someone says ‘calorie counting’ people almost always conjure up negative images of poor health, being over weight or even, unfortunately, being under-weight. But really, a little calorie counting or just a basic knowledge of them can really help your overall wellbeing, weight and health, in my opinion. I use MyFitnessPal on my iPhone to give me little help but I’ve also had my macronutrients worked out by my super clever boyfriend! Macros aren’t hard to work out though, all you need to do is go to IIFYM.com and pop some easy details into the calculator to see how much you should be eating in terms of protein, carbs and fats to maintain, lose or gain weight. It’s really a lot easier than it seems.
Sleep; The Key For Fitness
We all know that getting enough sleep is important for our health and wellbeing in general, but have you ever thought about how your nocturnal habits might impact on your fitness regime? You may not realise it, but the amount and quality of shuteye you get can have a big impact on your ability to stay in shape. Here are just some of the ways that getting enough kip can help you to keep to your exercise plan.
Budget Crayfish & Prawn Salad
Ok, I know what you’re thinking. How can crayfish and prawns be budget? Someone remarked the other day that my lunch looked ‘so expensive’ in a fairly judgemental ‘why are you spending so much money on food, you’re irresponsible’ way. This kind of annoyed me because I know that I don’t overspend, I like to think I’m pretty good with money and love to eat good food but don’t want to spend the earth on it. In my teeny household we spend max £40 a week on food for two people and we eat this kind of ‘fancy’ salad at least once a week. This is one of my favourite lunches that I’m having at the moment and it’s well within our budget. I shop at Lidl so these are the roundabout prices for there, they occasionally chop and change though, so take them with a pinch of salt.
Quest Bar Review #Prednutrition
Here’s another little fitness post, despite my dwindling love of the gym I’m really trying to eat well to compensate for not trying as hard in my training. If anyone has any ideas for switching up training routines and for something new and fresh to try, let me know!
In my daily diet I aim for around 90-100g of protein, so a protein bar or a shake are great additions to the usual amount of eggs, nuts, meat etc that I eat on a day to day basis. As far as protein bars go, these Quest bars can be quite confusing as they advertise on the front that they’re only 3g of ‘net carbs’ which means carbs from not fibre. This might confuse people because they do actually have over 20g of carbs but the majority are from fibre. So, if you’re a macro-counter like me, that’s 20g of my carbs gone in a ‘protein’ bar. The protein is obviously really high being over 20g in each bar which is a great little boost to hitting targets.
Top Tips For Sticking To Your Exercise Regime
When it comes to health and fitness, we all know that we should be exercising on a regular basis. This isn’t just so that we can fit into our favourite pair of jeans, but also for our health. Many of us make the mistake of linking exercise exclusively to weight when your weight is not the only reason to exercise. Even if you are a healthy weight, you fit into your desired size of jeans and eat healthily, you should still be exercising.
10 Minute Protein Flapjacks
I stole this recipe of one of my friends from work and decided to share because it’s super yummy (thanks Becki)! The macros are around 8g of protein, 18g of carbs & 4g with around 150 calories which is pretty good for a clean eating kinda snack. Check out the recipe below if you like the look of these.
How's Your Work/Life Balance?
Work/life balance is a crazy thing. Everyone will always have a different opinion on it and it’s interesting to see where you naturally fall. This quick quiz is the perfect way to find out whether you’re a separator, integrator or volleyer and how it affects you. I gave it a go!
Work – according to my Instagram revolves around coffee runs…