Health and Well Being

Just a quick mention of my successfully kept resolution from the start of 2012. I was terrible for cooking too much pasta and was determined to downsize the portions and prevent food waste. I’m happy to say this one has been a success and I’ve managed to cook the right amount each time using this handy tool – my spaghetti portion measurer. I’d highly recommend using portion measures, especially for things like pasta and rice.

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Happy 2013 to you all! I’ve always loved New Years Day. I’m not sure why, but it just seems to have an exciting feel to it- like you can start afresh and all things are possible for the year ahead. I guess for a lot of people, this means resolutions. Quite often, resolutions include those around health and diet and making positive changes to lifestyles.

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This year, the theme for World Diabetes Day, (November 14), is “Diabetes: protect our future”. Considering how many people both worldwide and in the United Kingdom have or are predicted to have Type 2 diabetes over the next decade, working on prevention should be a major health priority. There are 2.9 million people in the UK diagnosed with diabetes, and this could rise to 5 million people by 2025.
The Diabetes UK “state of the nation” report 2012 (England) has it in a nutshell when it says “Diabetes is big, it is growing, it is serious and it is expensive. But, it is fixable. After 10 years of knowing what to do, the time for action is now”.

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Having just eaten a small red apple for my mid-morning snack, I’m wondering why more people don’t eat apples.

Apples are plentiful here at the moment, I love seeing trees full of them and an abundance of fallen apples on footpaths and in some of the local parks here. Apples are the perfect snack, easy to throw into your bag for an emergency. They are the perfect “fast food”, contained in their own fabulously coloured packaging.

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Ok, you’ve tried the method in “are you really hungry?“ to tell if you are really hungry or not and find that yes, at certain times of the day you are just darned hungry before time! What do you do? If you are trying to cut down, it makes it very difficult to avoid eating over your requirements.

There are a few strategies to ward off hunger between meals. Firstly you need to consider if you are getting enough exercise, water and sleep as these will all have an impact on hunger. In fact, a paper recently published suggested that early morning exercise can reduce hunger cravings during the day. Sleep has a big impact on hunger and satiety hormones.

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