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The number one reason that people workout is to lose weight or to look good, but the truth is that there are so many other benefits of moving your body and being physically active. Once you start to shift your mindset to one that’s more focussed on feeling good rather than looking good, you’ll start to see exercise as more fun and enjoyable which will help you get into a healthy cycle of motivation, energy and accomplishment.

 1. Improves your mental health

Exercise releases endorphins which are neurochemicals that affect our brain and our mood. Regular movement helps to regulate our moods, relieve anxiety and depression, boost our energy and improve our focus.

 2. Improves your sleep

Better sleep helps with stress management, boosts our mood and gives our brain quality time to reset, which helps with learning and memory.

 3. Self-esteem

Regular movement that you love doing helps to release all those happy chemicals. Getting stronger and fitter helps us to feel proud, accomplished and empowered.

 4. Improves your long term health

Regular physical activity gives us a healthier heart (reduces our risk of cardiovascular diseases), stronger lungs (reduces our risk of cardiorespiratory diseases), improves our posture (which improves our confidence), improves our bone health (reduces our risk of injury) and gives us a better quality of life.

 5. Boosts your lymphatic system

The lymphatic system is a network of tissues, vessels and organs that help to rid the body of toxins and unwanted materials. Movement and contractions of the muscles stimulate the lymphatic system to pump fluid around your body, which helps to cleanse, detox and boost your immune system. A healthier immune system means less colds and illnesses and a reduced risk of cancer and other diseases.

So find your groove with the type of movement that you love doing and you will see how wonderfully beneficial moving your body can be!

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

It’s true, taking care of yourself is the kindest thing you can do. Nurturing your body, mind and soul with self-care activities helps to add a sense of calm to your life, recharges your mental batteries and helps to create joy within yourself.

There are four different types of self-care:

Physical: taking care of your physical body (e.g. physical movement, stretching, healthy food).

Emotional: activities that help you connect, process and reflect on your emotions (e.g. kindness, stress management, journaling).

Social: activities that nurture your relationships with the people you love (e.g. time together, having strong support systems)

Spiritual: activities that revolve around your values (doesn’t have to be religious, can also be activities that nurture your internal thinking or your sense of perspective). For example: time alone, meditation, time in nature).

You may find it easier to look after certain aspects of your self-care than others, but it is important to create a balance by working on them all.

Do you allow yourself “me” time each day? Indulging in just 15 minutes of self-care a day can make a huge difference. We’ve put together a list of different self-care activities you can do – for when you have 5, 15 or 30 minutes of spare time.

Self-care for when you only have 5 minutes:

• Take a few deep "self regulating" breaths...with a longer exhale than inhale..like a long slow sigh
• Self check in - check in with yourself - “how are you feeling?”  - label a feeling. 

• Listen to your favourite song
• Stretch your body
• Sit in the sun
• Smile!
• Compliment someone
• If you need to, have a good cry (and use the expensive tissues!)
• Give a loved one a hug
• Forgive yourself for what you couldn’t do today

Self-care for when you only have 15 minutes:

• Sit down, and have a tea, coffee, water and chillax

• Read a chapter of your book
• Organise your desk
• Pat a furry friend

• Pamper yourself (shower/bath with candles, give yourself a mani/pedi, wash and blow dry your hair) 

• Call someone you love
• Watch a funny YouTube clip
• Make your bed – fresh sheets!

Self-care for when you have 30 minutes:

• Take a walk outside - or a run or a swim
• Cook a new recipe - find one that can be prepared in a short time

• Take a nap
• Do a guided meditation
• Do a gentle yoga class
• Unplug from technology and do an activity that involves repetition to promote calm (e.g. folding laundry).
• Make something without caring if it’s “good” or not (e.g. knitting, baking, painting)

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

For anyone working on health or weight loss goals, the beginning of a new holiday season can sometimes feel a little bit stressful. There’s usually lots of parties and socialising with friends and family, and decadent holiday foods play a huge part in the festivities.

The thought of the approaching holiday season can sometimes spark fear of overindulging or gaining weight, so we thought it would be beneficial to put together 3 healthy mindset changes that you can make this festive period, so that you can enjoy holiday eating, and have more time for celebration, family and friends.

One: Be flexible

Be flexible, aim for improvement, not perfection (especially during the holidays). Striving for perfection with the “all or nothing” mentality with no middle ground or compromise will let you down. Goals and intentions are amazing to set up, but make sure that they’re realistic and achievable. If you have made a plan for yourself for the holidays, make sure that it’s not going to make you feel restricted and deprived. Having realistic goals in place will make you feel more empowered around your food choices and you’ll be less likely to overindulge, compared to if you had set up rigid goals that were unattainable.

Take home: Create goals that you know you can achieve  

Two: Enjoy what you love (and leave the rest)

The holidays always involve amazing selections of delicious foods, from appetizers and cocktails to beautiful roasts, cookies and desserts. You know yourself better than anyone, so you know what foods you absolutely love and have been looking forward to all year. When you arrive at your holiday party, ask yourself “what would I enjoy here?” and then fill your plate with those things, and leave the rest. This will help to avoid the mindless “eat everything in the room” mentality, which is often prompted by strict expectations that you may have first put on yourself (not always, but often).

Take home: Take the time to choose the foods you want to enjoy

Three: Give yourself permission to enjoy

Holiday foods are known to be super indulgent and yummy, and are usually “special” unhealthy foods that we only eat on celebratory occasions. These foods have the purpose of bringing us pleasure, because they taste amazing and someone we love usually made the food for us. When we are eating food that is meant to bring us pleasure, it’s hard to receive that pleasure if we have feelings of guilt, or we’re checking ourselves out from the eating experience. Being present while eating and using our senses to smell, taste, chew and enjoy the food allows us to really receive the pleasure that the food is giving us. When we make pleasure the priority during eating, it becomes harder to overeat because we’re more in check with ourselves during the eating process (and overeating is also not very pleasurable!).

Take home: stay present with your food choices throughout the holiday season

We hope that you found this short list of holiday mindset-change tips helpful. As December creeps up on us remember to keep your health goals in mind, but stay mindful and stay open…maybe even let the holidays guide you a little bit! 

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

It’s September, which means spring and we can certainly feel the change in climate in sunny Queensland already! After a couple of months of warm, cosy winter stews and soups we’re ready to dive into some of our favourite lighter dishes again.

Spring means warmer weather, leaves on the trees, flowering plants, and the appearance of fresh, light spring veggies. Spring is all about detoxifying foods that are refreshing and regenerating. They’re light and fresh, like crisp asparagus (a classic spring veggie), beets and green leafy veggies.

We know that certain fruits and vegetables flourish at certain times of the year, and it’s a good idea to buy seasonal produce however because grocery stores stock just about everything all year round, it’s sometimes easy to forget what’s in season and what’s not. 

A good tip is to take a walk around your local farmer’s market and see what kinds of produce are available – these will usually be the ones that are in season.

There are many benefits to eating seasonally.  The food is at its freshest, tastes the best, is best for you, is more sustainable, and is usually cheaper. It also allows us to get back to the roots of local and sustainable eating, by supporting local businesses and our local community as a whole.  

Seasonal fruits and veggies that have been allowed to fully ripen on the plant and picked at the peak of freshness are better quality and higher in nutrition compared to produce that is picked unripe and then transported to different areas or countries.

Foods that are harvested in your local area at a certain time are also dealing with the same environmental factors that you are. For example, summer fruits and veggies are often higher in water content (e.g. tomatoes or watermelons), which makes sense given that during summer we are often hot and sweaty and need more hydration from our diet.

Tomatoes also contain an antioxidant called lycopene which research has shown to be helpful in protecting our skin against the sun’s rays…so it does make sense why tomatoes thrive in warmer weather. Eating local sustainable produce allows for maximum nutrition that is tailored to your local environment.

Eating foods that are in season gives you the opportunity to appreciate the foods that are available, and allows for more variety in your diet as seasonal foods are constantly shifting – a wonderful cycle that allows you to experience each food.

We’ve been cooking dishes that feature lots of Spring seasonal veggies the past few weeks, like our one-pot Greek Chicken with Zucchini and Potatoes, and our Roast Fennel with Chickpea Skordalia, Grilled Zucchini and Cherry Tomatoes. 

What veggies are in season this spring? Print out our handy list of spring seasonal veggies and hang it on your fridge!