Early to Bed, Early to Rise

You all know the old saying that Early to Bed, Early to Rise makes a person healthy, wealthy and wise - but how true is it? - and it’s so warm in bed at this time of year who would want to get up early?

Well for any of you that have read any self development literature from Business and/or Life Coach gurus you will have noticed one thing that most of them have in common. They ALL get up early!

There are numerous benefits to getting up early including, missing the traffic, making time to exercise, avoiding crowded gyms in peak workout times, getting work done with less interruptions and your powers of concentration are generally stronger first thing in the morning. All these things add up to a much more efficient and productive usage of your valuable time.

Metabolically it can also assist with weight control to get up early and kick start your metabolism with an early healthy breakfast followed by smaller more regular meals throughout the day.

There is no magic solution to getting up early, you just have to DO IT! Program your body clock so it’s used to going to bed a little earlier and waking up earlier. It’s still vitally important to get your 6-8 hours of rest so if you currently go to bed around 11pm and get up at 7am, why not try going to bed at 9-30pm and getting up at 5-30am instead? You really won’t miss that hour and a half each evening that is probably spent on the couch in front of mindless TV shows. If you MUST watch your favourite program(s), tape them and watch them on the weekend during your leisure time.

If you need help getting out of bed, a couple of tips would include – placing your alarm clock away from the bed so you actually have to get up to switch it off, avoiding the snooze button at all costs or switching the light on straight away when the alarm goes off.

How many times when you ask someone to do something or help you with something is their response ‘I don’t have time?’ Just think if you had an extra hour and a half each day how much more you could achieve?

To see how a few simple adjustments to your lifestyle could help you find those extra hours a week you seem to be short of why not go and fill out your very own lifestyle check .

Rediscover How Time Out can help you

If we were to turn the clock back twenty years, generally, Dad would finish work at 5pm, Mum would have spent the day cooking, looking after the kids and cleaning the house and families would be home together by 5-30pm. The evening would be spent eating a home cooked meal together at the table, then relaxing in front of the television or spending time on some other personal interest or family pursuit. Weekends would be filled with 1-2 social engagements, playing with the kids, watching them play sport and enjoying plenty of down time.

Fast forward to 2010 – families are lucky to be home together by 8pm, Mum and Dad generally both work, fast food in front of the TV becomes a regular habit and the kids are either in their room or detached from society with their i-Pod headphones on! Many people also do more work on their computers when they get home and also work at least some of the weekend. Social engagements are crammed in wherever possible and as long as everyone’s schedules allow for it!

In order to optimally balance such an intense existence, allowing you time to switch off regularly and have the opportunity to escape an often harsh reality is absolutely crucial. Whether this translates into a night or two each week reserved only to sacred self or family time, some time for exercise or regular trips away we all need time to think, reflect and relax. When was the last time you had such sacred time for both you and your family? If you had to think about it, perhaps it is worth scheduling some into your frantic life on a more regular basis. Not only will your mood benefit, but your stress hormone levels will reduce and your health will benefit as a result.

How to avoid post-workout tiredness

Do you ever finish a workout feeling great and then a couple of hours later feel like you’ve hit a wall and could fall asleep straight away?

In order to maintain peak energy levels throughout the day, you need to re-fuel with the right food immediately after you train. That means eating snacks containing carbohydrates to replenish lost glycogen stores and protein to aid in muscle repair and recovery. Ideally aim for 200-300 calories for every hour of exercise and a two to one ratio of carbs to protein. These snacks should be easily digestible as your body will still be working on repair and recovery of your muscles and not so much on digestion.

Some easy suggestions are as follows ;

Sliced Turkey, Cheese and Apple or Banana slices – the turkey provides your protein and the fruit provides your carbohydrates.

Natural Juice and Nuts – the nuts provide an excellent source of protein (but you should only need a handful) and the natural fruit juice will provide the carbs.

A Tuna and Salad Wholegrain Sandwich – the tuna provides the protein and the bread provides the carbohydrates.

Yoghurt and Muesli – grab your favourite yoghurt and add half a cup of muesli to cover your protein and carb requirements.

On the flip side, there are some foods to definitely avoid post workout such as Chocolate Bars, Processed Muesli Bars, Protein Bars, Chips, Pretzels, Muffins, Pastries, Lollies, Ice Cream, Hamburgers, Cappuccino’s and Latte’s.

These foods tend to be laden with sugar and/or fat and are sure to sap your energy in no time and destroy all the good work you achieved during your workout.

If you want to have your lifestyle checked out all online why not fill out one of our Health Check’s. Here at Lifestyle Improvers we recommend the Metabolic Jumpstart eating plan which would back up the above information and provide excellent nutrition solutions to cover your entire day.

Happy snacking!

How to make your workouts more effective without increasing effort

Sounds crazy right?! But I can assure you this is proven and can be backed up by researchers from Harvard University.

During a recent study, on Hotel room cleaning attendants, the Harvard University researchers studied over 80 Hotel cleaning staff from 7 different Hotels. It was agreed that Hotel cleaning staff are physically active in their daily jobs and on average clean 15 rooms a day at an average time of 25 minutes per room. The cleaning involves changing bedding, vacuuming, scrubbing and lifting things.

Now this particular study questioned whether most of the cleaning staff actually realised that the work they were doing was in fact good for their health? So the researchers split the workers into two groups with the first group being informed about the benefits of exercise and how many calories they were burning while doing their cleaning work each day, and the second group were simply told the benefits of exercise but were not told how many calories they were burning or that their work constituted a good form of exercise.

The researchers ensured they studied the existing lifestyles of the workers as well as giving them various health tests including weigh-ins. The study was conducted over 4 weeks and the researchers ensured none of the workers had changed their lifestyle habits during the study (such as commenced an exercise program, become a smoker or given up smoking etc etc). In addition to this the Hotel managers ensured each worker received similar workloads over the 4 week period.

The results were very interesting with the group that had been informed daily, about the benefits of the exercise they were doing in their daily work routines and how many calories they were burning, showing a significant reduction in body weight, Body Mass Index, Waist to Hip ratio and Blood Pressure. The other group that were not told of the calories they were burning or the benefits of the exercise they were doing in their normal day to day jobs, showed none of these improvements.

This is a classic case of the Placebo Effect and reinforces the power of our brains in relation to the results we get from our exercise, diets etc. There is a great lesson to be learned here that if you strongly believe in your own mind that the exercise you are doing is going to improve your body, chances are it will!! This can be applied to other aspects of your life as well – the power of visualisation and the brain should NOT be underestimated.

To see if you have enough activity in your daily routine already why not fill out your own online health and lifestyle check