Bringing home a new baby can be overwhelming and without a doubt, exhausting. If it’s a couple’s first child or even fourth, the first few months following a new arrival are always hectic and tiring, yet somehow magical.
It can be difficult for new parents to think about food prep or recipes, let alone to prioritise healthy eating at all. While trying to recover from the most physically and emotionally exhausting event that is childbirth, they have their hands full (literally), they are tired and they are hungry. That’s why healthy, wholesome and delicious prepared meals can be an absolute lifesaver during that precious and all-consuming time.
We are absolutely certain that new parents will appreciate our lovingly prepared meals delivered to their doorstep, with no prep of any kind required – no chopping, no mixing, simply heat and eat. The perfect gift to cut out the stress of shopping, cooking and washing up.
Our hand-prepared frozen meals are packed full of nutritious fresh ingredients (locally sourced where possible) to support the postpartum healing period and allow more time for care and rest for the new parents. Each Wholesomeness meal comes labelled with nutritional information and microwave and oven heating instructions.
A Wholesomeness gift voucher would make the perfect gift for new parents. Alternatively, if you would prefer to just purchase and send the new parents a box once the little one has arrived, you can do that as well.
For a couple who have only just become parents, we would recommend our pack of 14 x one-portion meals. This would provide the new parents with 7 nights of dinners. For an extra treat, add on a pack of our yummy guilt-free vegan cakes (a huge customer favourite) for the couple to enjoy together once the baby is (finally!) asleep.
For families who already have children, our family meal pack would be perfect. Our family meal pack includes 5 x 1.2kg kid-friendly meals (each meal is designed to feed two adults + two children).
Too busy to hit the gym or schedule a structured workout into your day? Don’t sweat, because there’s lots of easy things you can do during the day to boost your movement and activity levels, without even realising it!
GO FOR A WALK WITH A FRIEND. Instead of meeting at a coffee shop to sit down and catch up, get your coffees to go and hit the local neighbourhood for a walk. If you have a beach nearby, taking a walk with a friend along the beach boardwalk is a nice thing to do as well.
WEEKEND FAMILY BIKE RIDE. Dust off the bikes, lace up your shoes and head outside for a weekend bike ride with the family! You’ll be getting active, getting some sunshine and keeping your family connected all at the same time.
RUN UP THE STAIRS INSTEAD OF WALK. Running up a flight of stairs is an awesome way to burn calories (ever seen those stair climbing machines at the gym?).
JUMP ON THE TRAMPOLINE WITH YOUR KIDS. You may not believe it, but trampoline jumping actually works out your entire body. A 2019 study on the effectiveness of a mini-trampoline jumping program for people with osteopenia (low bone density) found that trampoline jumping helps to improve balance, strength and functional mobility. Jumping is for everyone!
HAVE A DANCE PARTY. Make exercising fun again! Make sure to include moves that get you down low, jumping up high and moving your arms.
PARK IN THE FURTHEST PARKING LOT AWAY FROM THE SHOPS. Okay, so this might not be the most fun idea to do all the time, but have you ever tried to steer a full shopping trolley full of groceries around the parking lot, while attempting not to smash your trolley into someone or get yourself run over? It requires a lot of muscle strength and body movements!
GIVE YOUR KIDS PIGGY BACK RIDES. If your kids are young, they most likely love to get piggy back rides. If you start thinking about it as a way to get some more exercise into your day, you might enjoy it and want to do it a lot more!
LET YOUR DOG MOTIVATE YOU. Grab the leash and your dog and head outside. Your body and your pooch will thank you later!
BE CREATIVE ABOUT ADDING MOVEMENT INTO YOUR DAILY ACTIVITIES. For example, you could do hand and wrist stretches while waiting at stop lights, squats while you watch your kiddies bath, or even star jumps while you wait for the microwave to ding.
Getting movement into your day doesn’t have to involve intense HIIT sessions or specific “scheduled” workout time. Remember that every step counts!
Author: Lisa Cutforth B.Sc Nutrition with Psychology (Dual Degree) Consulting Clinical Nutritionist to The Banyans Wellness Retreat Owner and Managing Director of Wholesomeness and Wholesomeness-on-Roma
When it comes to making decisions about what’s best for your health, and for your lifestyle, it can be a little overwhelming. That’s why we created our gourmet home delivered meals, because we know (from firsthand experience!) that people are busier than ever, often juggling multiple balls at once.
Sometimes there’s just not enough time in the day to plan healthy meals, go out to buy the ingredients (and not forget anything!), then spend the time cooking and doing the dishes each night. Perhaps you are doing all of the above, and are feeling a little rundown. Well we’re here to let you know exactly why our meals are better for you, for your health and for your lifestyle…
SUPERFOOD PACKED MEALS DESIGNED BY CHEF’S & NUTRITIONISTS
We know that food tastes better when it’s cooked from scratch, that’s why all of our dishes are cooked on site in our small kitchen in Brisbane. Our team of chef’s and nutritionists personally plan each meal (ensuring that it’s nutritionally dense and calorie controlled), shop locally for fresh quality produce, and cook each meal with extreme love, care and attention. Our nutritionist is onsite to ensure that every single meal is packed with superfood benefits, looks beautiful and tastes just as good as it looks!
OUR FOOD IS FRESHER THAN FRESH
Did you know that food starts to deteriorate right after it has been cooked? That’s why we use the benchmark method of blast-chilling and freezing which basically snap freezes the meals before they have any chance of spoilage or growth of microorganisms. Freezing also helps to maintain top nutritional quality of the food, by retaining the vitamins and minerals present in the food. In some ways, frozen food is actually nutritionally better than fresh, because fresh food loses micronutrients over time (that’s why we say fresher than fresh!).
GREAT VALUE FOR MONEY
Fact: 2.5 million tonnes of edible food is thrown out by Australian households every year (that’s 300kgs per person!).
At some point, we’ve all opened our fridge to find soggy lettuce that we just didn’t get around to using that week. If you find yourself throwing out lots of unused produce each week, we can help. Our meals are only around $13-14 each, including delivery. With this price comes lots of time saving (no long grocery shops, meal planning, cooking, cleaning up), plus no wasted ingredients and no wasted money spent on those ingredients! We full support the idea that healthy eating doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive.
WE SUPPORT YOU
We’re here to answer any question you might have, and to support you on your health journey. Whether you want to free up time, lose weight or simply just start eating healthier, as soon as you join us you become a part of the friendly and supporting community that is Wholesomeness!
Click here to check out our nutritious, healthy, delivered meals.
Author:
Lisa Cutforth B.Sc Nutrition with Psychology (Dual Degree) Consulting Clinical Nutritionist to The Banyans Wellness Retreat Owner and Managing Director of Wholesomeness and Wholesomeness-on-Roma
The New Year is officially here, the festive season binging has now come to an end… and it’s time to awaken the inner warrior, be empowered and confident with your lifestyle choices.
Let’s face it; eating healthy is just downright hard to do these days. We have fast food at every glance, conveniently located and we tend to forget just how bad highly processed food is for our bodies. If you want to reach your weight loss goals or just continue on the healthy straight and narrow, these are some great everyday tips to incorporate into your daily routine.
Step 1: Give yourself some motivational encouragement! Set reminders in your phone, write things on your mirror, change your screensaver to something that gets you pumped, maybe even change your morning alarm tone! Don’t underestimate the power of your mind.
Step 2: Time to do a clean out, get rid of your rubbish food so it isn’t staring at you in the face saying ‘EAT ME… EAT ME NOW’. These are generally your trigger foods after a long hard day and you’ve just lost all interest in cooking or making good decisions.
Step 3: PREP. YOUR. MEALS. If you haven’t been doing this, chances are you are going to get super busy, tired and hangry… leading to again, regretful choices. Make the most of our super healthy, freshly prepared meals.
Step 5: Squeeze in somewhere each day to get your 30 minutes of exercise. Whether it’s a brisk walk after dinner, an intense gym sesh or calming light stretches, just do it! No excuses! This is your time to appreciate yourself. It’s worth every single minute.
Waking up and doing exercise on an empty stomach or a small light snack such a banana or some nuts can improve weight loss. Try high interval training to increase your mitochondria (the bodies energy powerhouse).
Drink a glass of lemon water upon waking, this stimulates your digestive organs producing bile, digestive enzymes and getting things moving.
Try to avoid eating after 7 pm, this should be your time of healing not digesting, a 10 – 12 hour nightly fast is excellent for metabolic processes.
Don’t starve yourself. Your body actually goes into starvation mode and starts storing your energy into fats as a protective mechanism.
Drink your 2L of water. A given I know, however, your body can confuse being hungry with being thirsty. Find it hard to drink so much? Why not diffuse it with fruit or make some iced herbal tea – delicious!
Green tea increases your digestive system functionality, increases detoxification processes and when iced is perfect on a hot summer’s day!
Don’t eat bland food. Add fresh herbs and spices to your dishes so your taste buds are satisfied! Eating healthy is actually really delicious.
Set realistic goals. This is really important, as you don’t want to feel like a failure and give up completely; small weekly goals based on changes instead of weight are a great start.
Invest in a health coach, it can be a great way to really succeed and have consistent support on your health journey. Talk to our nutrition or naturapath to personalise a program just for you!
Remember you may have some setbacks, that’s okay! Get right back up again and figure out what your main triggers are. Take note and put practices in place to avoid that temptation.
Live your life! Don’t forget to live, don’t drown yourself in saying no to everything… life is just too short to appreciate the good things, just do it in small doses. Sooner than later the positive changes you’ve made become a habit and you’ll find you won’t want it anyway.
The main thing is to change your perspective and frame of mind when it comes to diet and lifestyle. Believe that you can and you really will. You can achieve results, you can be confident and you can succeed. Be honest with yourself and accept that changing habits doesn’t happen overnight but it sure doesn’t take as long as you think once you truly commit. It’s one of the toughest, most challenging yet rewarding experiences. You can do it!
Are you coming home from work totally exhausted? Waking up more exhausted than the day before? We have all had that feeling where we think it is impossible to keep going; knowing that we need to go home, cook dinner, clean, get the kids ready for bed, oh and somewhere in-between have a life!
Is it just the way life is? Busy days, little sleep and no time for ourselves to relax? No! There needs to be balance and you truly can make a huge difference with good nutrition and easy tricks to get you there.
(Beyond Good Health Clinics) [image] of chronic fatigue
What are signs and symptoms of fatigue?
Constant feeling of tiredness
Shortness of breath or muscle weakness
Lack of motivation
Concentration and memory recall difficulties
(Wedro, 2015)
Why does your body feel so depleted?
Our bodies can be feeling exhausted for many various reasons, you may have a serious or chronic current health issue, a newborn baby or going through a really stressful time at the moment. Whatever it may be, good nutrition will always optimize health by nourishing and supporting the fundamental biochemical pathways that lead us to be the marvelous walking, talking, living, breathing organism we are!
These pathways require sufficient nutrient intake to ensure synthesis and balance of enzymes, proteins, hormones, neurons, cells, EVERYTHING! Without adequate intakes, you can be tipping over a domino and starting a destructive cascade of physiological events inside your body without even realizing. Every single thingin your body will be rebuilt by what you eat.
If you’re eating unhealthy foods, not getting enough exercise, sleep or relaxation your health will eventually mentally and physically suffer, acutely or chronically - period.
We have over 100 trillion cells working fiercely to keep us going, even more amazing you can times that number by 10 and you get the amount of live bacteria in the human body (Rettener, 2016) – pretty amazing right? You have to give them nourishment to thrive and do their jobs effectively – they will do everything in their power to make sure you, the host, can survive.
Watch this amazing video on immune cells in action –
(Healing, 2014)
Potential causes of fatigue:
Prolonged sympathetic nervous system stimulation (stress and anxiety) subsequently causing insufficient absorption and digestion of food increasing malnutrition
Excessive amounts of high carb and sugar foods
Damage to GIT and dysbiosis of the microbiome
Nutritional deficiencies including insufficient water intake
Toxic build-up in your body (see article here on how to detoxify naturally)
Insufficient sleep (recommended 6 – 8 hours)
Side effects from medications
Here’s the exciting part! You can change your life for the better! Don’t let this overwhelm you, let it inspire you; let it take your breath away at just how wonderful, intricate and purely amazing your body is. Believe in yourself enough that you deserve to be healthy; you deserve to love your body and nourish it and feel good again!
Top 10 Ways To Boost Your Energy!
I really am a huge advocate of this – try your best to cut out the processed foods. Anything that comes in a packet, stay clear. Aim to fill your fridge with a rainbow of local fresh fruit, veg, nuts and meats. Nature has us covered, every whole-food contains an array of nourishing vitamins and minerals that you need to thrive on, aiming to help all of those beautiful pathways work at optimum levels. Don’t have time to cook? Check out our AMAZING healthy meals here.
Aim to eat foods high in your B-Vitamins; they all play an integral part in energy synthesis and metabolism. Great food sources include eggs, salmon, nuts, seeds, dark-leafy greens and organic well-sourced animal liver. (Whitney, 2014) If you are really struggling it might be beneficial to opt for a well-sourced B-vitamin complex.
Increase your magnesium (Mg+) intake; most of us are deficient in Mg+. (Here’s a tester-poke out your tongue in a mirror, if it is shaking chances are you may be Mg+ deficient). Mg+ is Crucial for energy, heart, lung, and immune functionality along with being essential for synthesizing glucose, proteins, fats and structures. It is also vital for neural communication. High in seeds, grains and green-leafy veg.
Antioxidants help detoxify harmful substances, repair and nourish your cells along with promoting damaged cell apoptosis (cell death). Great sources of antioxidants: fresh berries, green tea, turmeric, raw organic cacao and nuts. (Mercola, 2016)
Choose complex carbohydrates and lower your sugars, this includes overindulging in fruits – aim for no more than 2 – 3 serves per day max. Complex carbs are sourced from whole fruits, whole grains, green and starchy vegetables e.g. sweet potato, pumpkin and beetroot. Eat them with a bit of protein and good fats to increase satiety and avoid a high spike in blood glucose.
Cut back on stimulants; caffeine, alcohol, black teas and cigarettes. Over-stimulation of the nervous system can eventually cause our body to burn out. Try an alternative dandelion root coffee, mix it up with herbal teas and if you’re a huge coffee and chocolate person aim for a new goal each week to slowly reduce your intake.
Ensure you are getting enough iron (Fe+) in your diet. Fe+ is essential for transporting oxygen around your body through your blood and absolutely vital for many catalyst enzymatic reactions. Nuts, green-leafy vegetables and red meat are all high in Fe+.
Try our amazing PondWater Mix – I am officially in LOVE with this mix! It has all organic ingredients; chlorella, spirulina, wheat grass, aloe vera and spelt grass. Perfect for alkalizing the body, high in glutathione for repairing gut endothelial lining, rich in nutrients and a great 3 o’clock pick me up.
Probiotic rich foods: Once you have started to take a more clean eating approach it’s time to look into probiotic-rich foods or even a supplement. These gut microbes play an integral role in our body and the immune system, it is absolutely essential we have the right bacteria. Try adding sauerkraut, kimchi, miso or low sugar Kombucha into your diet once daily.
Sleep, rest and relaxation: yes, you know this one – we all do, just DO IT! Find a way to take 10 – 20 minutes each day to just be, ground yourself and appreciate your life. What’s the point of working so hard for it to ruin you? There’s no point. I love deep breathing in the car, shower or right now while I am typing. You are just too important to let stress control you. P.S. if you haven’t already, give meditation a go – it’s a win.
Coconut turmeric chicken with vegetable stir-fry – check it out here
References
Asif, M. (2014, February 21). The prevention and control the type-2 diabetes by changing lifestyle and dietary pattern. PubMed. doi:10.4103/2277-9531.127541
Beyond Good Health Clinics. (n.d.). [image] of chronic fatigue. Retrieved August 03, 2016, from https://www.google.com.au/search?q=fatigue&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCl4Cv8aTOAhUJFZQKHaAxCKAQ_AUICCgB#imgrc=eHYfnUSvUhJwVM%3A
Food Standards, Australian and New Zealand. (2010). Retrieved from NUTTAB: http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/science/monitoringnutrients/nutrientables/nuttab/Pages/default.aspx
Healing, S. C. (Director). (2014). Your Immune System under a microscope. [Motion Picture]. Retrieved August 03, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPIzIznmAO0
Mercola, D. (2016). The Ultimate Guide to Antioxidants. Retrieved August 3, 2016, from http://articles.mercola.com/antioxidants.aspx
Rettener, R. (2016, March 10). The Human Body: Anatomy, Facts & Functions. Live Science. Retrieved July 27, 2016, from http://www.livescience.com/37009-human-body.html
Wedro, B. M. (2015, March 02). Fatigue. Retrieved July 27, 2016, from http://www.medicinenet.com/fatigue/article.htm
Whitney, E. R.-S. (2014). Understanding Nutrition, Australian and New Zealand, 2nd Edition. South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3205: CENGAGE Learning.
