News — Productivity

Author:
Lisa Cutforth
B.Sc Nutrition with Psychology (Dual Degree)
Consulting Clinical Nutritionist to The Banyans Wellness Retreat
Owner and Managing Director of Wholesomeness

Did you know that our meal containers are recyclable and reusable? We know that recycling is great, but reusing is even better. Reusing is a great way to repurpose something that otherwise would have just been sent to the recycling bin…simply reusing an item can help reduce energy, prevent pollution, and reduce waste all at the same time.

So, why not preserve the life of your Wholesomeness containers a little bit longer by finding some creative uses to reuse them around your house…we’ve put together a few different ideas below. We hope this list helps to inspire your own repurposing efforts at home!

1. Start your own seeds

Our meal containers could make great seed starting containers. Simply drill a few holes in the bottom for drainage, add some soil and some seedlings (e.g. tomatoes) and watch your mini garden grow.

2. For the artist inside

Use your Wholesomeness container lids as paint trays to blend colours, or use the containers to keep colours separate. Simply snap on the lid to keep the paint from drying out.

3. Kids organisation

If you have kids, you know that simple food containers are soo handy for keeping things organised, contained and out of arms reach. Use them to store the kiddies craft supplies, board game pieces, or electrical cords and chargers. Plus, they’re stackable, lightweight and portable, making organising a breeze.

4. Ask your local kindergarten, primary school or arts centre

If you are still in surplus, ask your local community if they need any donations. There are high chances that they do!

5. Fridge organisation

Use your Wholesomeness meal containers to hold and organise bits and bobs in your fridge, for example bunches of herbs, blocks of cheese, or small individually wrapped packaged snacks that you need a place to stash them. You could use them to help you plan food rotations, by labelling day 1 to 4. Stick labels on them and stack them up for that Instagram-worthy, organised fridge look! 

There are lots of other ways to put our containers to good reuse around the house. We hope these clever repurposing ideas have inspired you, or maybe you have some other ideas we have forgotten about! Be sure to let us know 🙂

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

You may know of vitamin D as the “sunshine vitamin”, and for good reason. When we are exposed to the suns (UV) ultraviolet rays, our skin creates its own vitamin D, which then travels to the liver and then to your kidneys to be turned into active vitamin D.

While Vitamin D is also naturally found in some foods such as fatty fish (salmon, sardines, tuna, herring, cod liver oil), eggs yolks, mushrooms and some fortified foods (cow’s milk, soy milk, orange juice, cereals), the sun remains to be the best and most efficient source of this vitamin.

Even though it can be quite easy to get your daily Vitamin D intake from sunlight (especially here in sunny Queensland, Australia), figures from Osteoporosis Australia state that over 30% of Australian adults have a mild, moderate or severe Vitamin D deficiency, which is about 1 in 4!

There are a number of factors that can contribute to a deficiency in Vitamin D, including those who are housebound, the elderly, darker skinned people, medical conditions that can affect your ability to absorb/process vitamin D, and the issue of being able to be sun smart while also getting enough daily sunshine on exposed skin. Many of us have also been in isolation for the past few months, which has made it even more difficult to get our daily sunshine vitamin.

A brand new systematic review by Blumfield et al., has found that eating just five UV exposed mushrooms can give you your daily required dose of vitamin D.

According to the review, in order to boost the vitamin D levels in your mushrooms, you need to have them sitting in direct sunlight for 15-60 minutes. After exposing them to sunlight, you can store them in the refrigerator where they will remain vitamin D boosted for up to 8 days. Blumfield et al., states that “UVB-exposed mushrooms increase and maintain serum 25(OH)D levels to a similar degree as vitamin D supplements.” This was tested on individuals with and without a vitamin D deficiency.

The study also highlights the other health benefits of mushrooms, including the ability to improve markers of metabolic syndrome, improve gastrointestinal health, and reduce risk of ovarian and prostate cancers.

Now with the potential to provide us with our daily dose of vitamin D, there’s just so many reasons to love mushrooms! They are so nutritionally unique and can make such a powerful addition to your diet. Grill them, roast them, stuff them, add them to pizzas or risottos, soups or pastas. Get creative with them on #MeatlessMondays by using grilled portabella mushrooms on burgers, or making grilled shiitake skewers. There are so many ways to spice up your cooking with mushrooms! How do you like to eat mushrooms? 

Reference: Blumfield et al. (2020). Examining the health effects and bioactive components in Agarius bisporus mushrooms: a scoping review. The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, 84.

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

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 4: Plan your snacks. Snacks are a killer when it comes to weight management. Check out our 7 healthy snack ideas to help improve mood and productivity!

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.

                         [image] retrieved from: http://www.theearthdiet.org/uploads/3/4/8/4/3484401/__7818460_orig.jpg

Success tips: 

• 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!

 
                                      [image] retrieved from:  http://quotesmag.tumblr.com/page/8 

Want some guidance? Talk to our experienced nutritionists here or why not look at our life changing detox plans.