Sitting at my desk, nibbling on some nuts. A bag of Tesco's mixed nuts, no less. Now, I know Tesco are a responsible retailer, and feel strongly that they have a commitment to the health of their customers, and as such label all their food with advice about potential ingredients to which people may have allergies. Nut allergies are nasty, and can affect people badly. However, how many people with serious nut allergies are likely to buy a bag of mixed nuts? See the back of the packet: Note, the description of the contents of the packet being "A selection of Brazil nuts, almonds, hazlenuts, walnuts andpecan nut kernels.". Then see the Allergy Advice: contains Almonds, Brazil nuts, hazlenuts, pecans and walnuts. Amusingly, I've just noticed, the ingredients are listed again, in the ingredients section! Surely a big panel just saying "NUTS!" for all three would suffice?
Sometimes I wonder why I'm dragging myself out of bed in the morning.
Sometimes it's an effort to get going.
Then you get a morning like the picture above, and it's worth being up and about, regardless of what you're doing, just to see the morning! It just so happened I was out running, so I got to see the sunrise from a variety of angles (and through a sheen of sweat eventually too), and revel in the sight. It's set me up for the day. Everything's ace.
Run itself was only two and a half miles, but it was quite quick, which was nice. Tiring, but nice.
Well, this is all getting a bit boring, isn't it? Still running, still enjoying it, still feeling good for it. No tales of woe, of injuries or disaffection, just a ongoing record of my continuing adventures in getting fitter! Ho hum. Karate's all good, running's good, weight training good. I'm feeling good! Had a minor case of conjunctivitis last weekend, but that was dealt with swiftly by antibiotics from the chemist and I'm feeling 100% again. I have to confess it was difficult to get up this morning - the curse of the snooze button, I'm afraid - but get up I did. The delay meant that I didn't have enough time for a long run like last Thursday (shame....) but twenty minutes was eminently doable. So which route? I know, let's run a hill route and make the most of it. Aaargh! What was I thinking? How much hard work was that? I enjoyed it, sure, but maaaaan it was hard work!
I went hydrozorbing last year, and shot a video from inside the zorb on the way down. I had to pull it from my website due to bandwidth constraints, but thanks to YouTube it's back:
It's available on the main website at minshaw.co.uk. Zorb South used to link to it too, but I probably broke their link when I moved the video.
Twenty up! Another drag yourself out of bed morning, another rewarding trek around the Whitwick countryside. Finally got up early enough to give myself time to break the shackles of the three mile barrier, and tacked on another mile. So, four miles, and then home to a perfect cooked breakfast. What a way to start the day! A new route too. Well, a new addition to the route. I headed out up the Leicester Road - a steep hill I've driven up plenty of times (particularly when Sarah was pregnant with Sam, heading into Leicester for hospital appointments and so on), but never run up. The aim was to get to the footpath accessing the "Forest Rock Hill", an even steeper hill to the top of the quarry, with a standing stone in a clearing at the top. The location affords spectacular views of Whitwick and Coalville, and affords anyone stupid enough to run up it some very tired legs! I have to admit I paused at the top by the stone - taking in the view, not catching my breath, honest! Leaving the views behind I cruised down the hills again, and then instead of heading straight for home I swung left into Silver Street, and cut across the playing field behind the leisure centre. I was still undecided which route to take: whether to cut through to Church Lane, past the park and home (the short route), or along the path to the Bridle Road, along that and back up Thornborough Road. The latter won, the desire to do more than three miles driving me on! The run back was pleasant, the hills paling into insignificance compared to what I'd tackled earlier - even the final push up Hervey Woods didn't seem as hellish as normal. Perhaps I should have been running harder then! Still, I made it count.
Recently, I've found myself reading more and more "lifehack" type blogs - you know, tips and tricks for productivity, mental happiness, fitness and so on. One of the most well known of these is, in fact, lifehack, but it's not one I read a lot. My favourite is Leo Babuta's Zen Habits, and I enjoy reading his daily posts from the other side of the world, on topics that are relevant to my hectic life. I highly recommend it, particularly if you're trying to juggle life, children and work!
Talking of work, I spend most of my day sat on my backside at my desk. Generally speaking, this isn't the healthiest way to spend your day. There are, however, ways to make the most of this time - or at the very least to mitigate against it's harmful effects!
So, in the spirit of Zen Habits and Lifehack, here are my 10 tips for a healthier office life:
Breakfast. Having a healthier office lifestyle starts early enough to set you up for the day. You need to make time for breakfast. Having something to digest starts you metabolism working for the day. The higher your resting metabolic rate the more calories you burn just existing. Whether it's a full English (grilled, not fried), a bowl of cereal and some fruit, or a protein shake, make sure you get something early doors!
Swap coffee for green tea. Some people drink a lot of coffee. I used to be one of them! The benefits of tea, particularly the green variety, over coffee make this an easy win on the health front. What's that? You need your caffeine? Okay, but green tea has caffeine. It also has lots of phytochemical antioxidants which is excellent news for your body if you have lots of free radicals due to, oooh, drinking alcohol? The caffeine and antioxidants mean that green tea excels at promoting fat loss, as it elevates body heat production. Okay, you won't win slimmer of the year just from a change of drink, but it's a health tip!
Turn the air conditioning down a couple of degrees. What? But it's nice like this! Well, you can burn more calories by turning the thermostat down a notch. I'm not advocating turning it down to freezing, and you should turn it back up if you feel the onset of hypothermia! However, the body will use more calories keeping your temperature normalised a couple of degrees below "comfy" than it will at your normal temperature. Ally this tip with the one above - green tea excels at raising the body's temperature!
Eating at your desk. Grazing. Yep, you might be surprised to hear me advocate this, but hear me out. There are one or two conditions: you need to be grazing on healthy food, not chocolate and crisps, and too much of anything is a bad thing! Nuts, seeds and fruit are the best things. Pumpkin seeds are a favourite here, as are pine nuts.
Walking. Obvious one! Sorry to waste your time with this one, but it is a big one. Make yourself walk a bit - rather than emailing or phoning, get off your arse and walk across the office. The building. The street! Take the stairs, not the lift. It all adds up. There's a good reason for all the "get exercise" advice.
Take a packed lunch. Save money, and eat healthier. Win / win. Okay, so you might miss your chip and egg butty (cob / batch / barm... ), but you can choose your meals in advance, and make sure you bring in plenty. Make your packed lunch the night before, to leave time in the morning for a big, healthy breakfast too!
Stretching and twisting. Not the chair gymnastics shown on some guides - no-one in their right mind is going to make themselves look a pillock in the middle of an office doing those. However - standing up and stretching periodically will aid your posture, your joints and your sanity! You should be getting ten minutes every hour away from your pc anyway (yeah, right), why not use this time for a good stretch?
Fidgeting. While you're sat at your desk you can fidget. I am constantly bouncing my knees up and down - I do it at home too and it annoys the hell out of the family. Minor, but constant, fidgeting can burn up to 800 calories a day, over the course of the day. That's a lot for sitting down!
Pacing. While you're on the phone to a cow-orker, pace around the office. This aids circulation, which in turn pumps more blood to your brain. More blood to the brain equals more oxygen to the brain, which in turn aids your concentration and wakefulness.
A good night's sleep. Yes, the final tip is to get a good night's sleep. This can aid your concentration the following day - obviously. A poor night's sleep leads to low cortisol levels in the morning, which leads to cravings for carbohydrates and quick energy, even when the body is well fed.
So there you have it. Ten top tips for a healthier sedentary office existence!
Up and at 'em! Well, here we go again. Glorious morning! Absolutely fantastic. Mist on the lake, dew on the grass, and the blazing orb in the sky. Out the door at half past six - having already logged in to work and taken care of a couple of things my phone alerted me to! Still, I made it out the door, which was the main thing. It really is a treat in weather like this. Regular readers will have noticed that my month and a half hiatus from running coincided nicely with the monsoon season we've so recently endured, and that my return to action has heralded the onset of the Summer! So, how far? How fast? Well, not too far, and not too fast. The pain in my heel / ankle returned, and despite modifying my running style to accommodate the discomfort it still cause me to slow, and grind to a halt grimacing at one point. I'm going to do a bit of research on it (read: google it) this afternoon to see what might be causing it (apart from running!). Distance wise - two and a quarter miles or so. Still trolling between the two and three mile markers - maybe I'll try a longer one over the weekend!
Social networking comes to the Minshaws! Well, I finally checked out Facebook, having heard people at work go on about it. It's Mike's fault, primarily - if one can apportion blame for discovering a website - for sending me an invite. I think I might have registered a while back, but done nothing with it (as I am wont to do, I have accounts on many, many systems that I don't use, have forgotten, or have expired) until now, and now I've got a proper profile and everything. It's working too - people crawling out of the woodwork, replying to tentative enquiries, and catching up with old friends. All good, really. I wonder how long I'll keep interested, though, before I slip back to checking it once a month or so, then less. Errr... like blog posts.... Anyway, if you're on Facebook, look me up:
It's back! This is Jog Blog #18. Yup, I'm injury free, motivated and back out pounding the tarmac, grass and general underfoot rubbish as of this morning. First time I've been out running since June the nineteenth! Bloody hell, where did all that time go? No wonder it was hard work running for my grading. So, it was a case of roll out of bed, pull the trainers on, and get going. To be honest I've been meaning to go for the last couple of mornings, but the snooze button has been my nemesis. One to ponder - the snooze button: heaven sent, or the devil's tool? A brilliant and glorious way of snatching another nine minutes in bed (why nine minutes? Nine?), or a quick way of staying in bed for another forty-five minutes and consequently missing whatever you had planned. So I only gave in its lure once this morning, and then it was up and off! Ran for nineteen minutes, and covered two and a half miles (see pic). Not bad. Glorious morning - seeing the world at that time has given me the incentive to keep doing it! No problems while running, and feel bloody brilliant this morning now for having got myself up and doing it. Return of the Jog Blog? Not 'alf!
