Wednesday 23 February 2022
How Do You Eat Healthy on a Low Budget?
Being on a tight budget can be frustrating, but even more so if you are also trying to improve the nutrition of your food and stick to a healthy diet. It can be done, but it does take a bit more strategy and planning. Here are some tips for eating healthy no matter what your food budget is.
Shop your kitchen first
Always start with your own kitchen first when you are
looking to stick to a tight food budget, but still want to eat a healthier
diet. You probably have some ingredients you can use up in your refrigerator,
freezer, or pantry. Start with ingredients that are going to expire soon so
that they don’t go to waste. You can then consider any pantry staples that
would work for healthy meals, like beans or rice, canned vegetables, or meat in
the freezer.
Track your food expenses
Have a plan for everything you buy
Always have a meal plan and a list
Know how to store your food
Did you know that some produce releases ethylene and others are sensitive to it? If you store ethylene-producing food with ethylene-sensitive food, it’s going to go bad faster.
For example, don’t store your potatoes with your avocados. Potatoes are sensitive to as, and avocados release a lot of ethylene gas.
Buy produce in season
Fruits and vegetables are an important part of a healthy,
balanced diet, but it is easy to spend more than necessary. To avoid this,
start by buying produce that is currently in season. This might vary based on
where you live, but for example, summer produce often includes watermelon, carrots, and tomatoes. You can also buy produce in season and preserve it to use all year round.
You can look for year-round produce that tends to be cheaper for most of the year than other produce. This includes lemons and limes, apples, oranges, potatoes, and lettuce.
Buy and cook in bulk
A great option for saving money on food while also eating a healthy diet is to buy in bulk. This does take a little more planning, but can ultimately help you afford more nutritious foods and not stray from your food budget.
People often think this is only a good option when you have
a big family, but that isn’t true at all. Everyone can benefit from buying and
cooking in bulk. An obvious benefit of cooking this way is by saving on the
individual ingredients you buy. You tend to get the best deals when buying
something in bulk.
Another great benefit is that you can cook more of whatever
meal you are cooking, saving you more time later. The same amount of preparing
goes into it to make for example two casseroles instead of one, then you have
an entire casserole to put in the freezer and have it ready for a night when
you don’t have as much time for cooking.
Track how much you spend on food
All money you spend on food should be tracked. In
fact, if you haven’t created your food budget yet, this is a good place to
start. It is really easy to spend more than you intended to on food, especially
with impulse purchases while shopping for other things. It is important to keep
track of everything you buy as far as food and groceries go, and tweak your
budget if you need to based on this information.
Consider food that stretches farther
Some foods tend to stretch a little farther than others,
being used for multiple meals. These are the foods to consider adding to the
rotation. For example, a bag of potatoes, rice, or beans goes a long way.
Potatoes can be cooked dozens of different ways and used for so many meals.
Plus, they last a few weeks before going bad, so it is a great ingredient to
purchase for healthy, inexpensive meals.
Shop around for the best prices
It might seem tedious, but it helps a lot to compare prices
at different stores in order to get the best deal. This doesn’t mean you go to
5 different grocery stores every week, but you decide which stores have more of
what you need with the best deal.
You will probably figure out which stores have the best
deals on foods you buy the most often, so that makes it much easier down the
line.
Build up food inventory slowly
Since you still need to stick to your current food budget,
it does take a little more planning ahead for buying in bulk. For this reason,
you want to build up your inventory slowly, instead of getting everything at
once. Maybe the next time you are at the store, there is a good sale on chicken
breasts, so you purchase two or three packs instead of one. Do this slowly and
only within your regular food budget.
Keep it simple
You don’t need to use fancy ingredients or expensive
organic foods for a healthy diet. Keep your meals and snacks simple and
well-balanced, going for affordable ingredients to put together nutritious
meals.
Find creative ways to use leftovers
When it comes to leftovers, people often make the mistake
of leaving the meal as it was originally served. While this does help
sometimes, it can quickly become unexciting, which increases the chances of it
just sitting in the fridge until it goes bad.
Instead, think about other ways you can use those meals or
side dishes in other meals. For example, leftover roasted chicken can be used
for so many different meals. Put it in a casserole, make chicken wraps, or shred it up for chicken salad.
Keep everything organized
To prevent food from going bad before you get the chance to use it, make sure your refrigerator, freezer, and food pantries are all well organized. Always keep the older food items upfront and the newer items in the back. That way, nothing expires before it gets used. Keep as many food items in your vision as you can so you remember they are there and will use them for your meals.
Don’t Worry About Food That is Trendy
When it comes to clean eating or diets in general, companies come out with a lot of trendy products and claim they are the next best thing with a healthy diet. But most of the time, they are completely unnecessary. While nice to have occasionally as a treat, they aren’t required for a healthy diet. You don’t need to add turmeric to your smoothies or get truffles for your meals. You can have clean, healthy meals without these types of food.
Tuesday 15 February 2022
The Benefits of Practicing Mindfulness
Mindfulness is about paying attention to what you are feeling and sensing in the moment. Think of it as taking the time to stop and smell the roses. It’s about cutting out the distractions and noise in your mind and choosing to focus on what is happening around you.
Benefits of Meditation
There are some big benefits to practicing mindfulness. Top among them is of course feeling less stressed. One of the reasons we feel stressed is because we are pulled in many different directions and are constantly bombarded by new information, media, and demands.
Practicing mindfulness allows you to tune out the noise and give your mind a break. This in turn will help you relieve stress. Making mindfulness part of your daily routine can help you start to permanently reduce stress.
Practicing mindfulness can also help with anxiety, depression, and insomnia.
Mindfulness meditation has also been shown to help with improving attention span and reducing work burnout.
Simple Ways of Practicing Mindfulness
Practicing mindfulness doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. You don’t have to get into any long mindfulness meditations unless you want to. You can start with some very easy and simple things.
Let’s take mindful eating
for example. Instead of eating in front of the TV or looking at your phone
while eating a meal or munching on a snack, try this instead. Get out a plate
and put your food on it. Arrange the food or snack. Sit down at the table
and put your phone away. Focus on the food. What does it look like? What does
it smell like? How does it taste? Savor each bite and pay attention to how your
body is starting to react. Not only is it a great way to destress, but you’ll also find
you’ll get a lot more out of each meal and this type of eating tends to keep
you from overindulging.
Another great way to practice mindfulness is with mindfulness
meditation. Focus on your breathing and notice how the air rushes in and out of
your lungs, what it feels like to have it move in through your nose and out
through your mouth. Pay attention to the rise and fall of your abdomen.
You can practice mindfulness anytime, anywhere. The hardest part is remembering to do it. Create one or two small habits for yourself that focus on mindfulness. Maybe it’s a simple meditation in the morning, or really paying attention to that first cup of coffee. Maybe it’s going for a stroll after dinner by yourself where you can practice being mindful of your surroundings and the beauty you encounter.
Give it a try and start to reap the
many short and long-term benefits of practicing mindfulness.
Monday 7 February 2022
How To Reduce Stress in Your Daily Life
Are you feeling stressed? I’d be surprised if you weren’t. Between the growing demands of our jobs, raising a family while working full-time, and the increasing need to stay connected all day every day, most of us feel stressed out more often than we like to admit. Add to it a chronic lack of sleep and exercise and you have a recipe for disaster. Stress kills and that’s no joke. Let’s look at some of the worst negative side effects of stress and what you can do to stress less and relax more.
Stress will cause your blood pressure to rise. You’ve experienced this when you found yourself hot and with a raging headache when you were in a particularly stressful situation. Feeling that way from time to time is no big deal. The real danger is in the lower-level stress we all feel on a daily basis. It can lead to hypertension and a higher risk of suffering from a heart attack or stroke.
Are you ready to actively do something to reduce stress on a daily basis? If not, I would like to encourage you to pick up and develop a daily habit that helps you accomplish just that. Stress not only reduces your quality of life; it can also negatively affect your health. There’s a reason why they say stress kills. Start doing something about it and embrace life to the fullest with some of these simple techniques that help you stress less.
Review and
Release - Stop Trying to Do All the Things
One of the main reasons why we are so much more stressed than
let’s say our grandparents were, is because we are taking on a lot more. We
have families where each partner is working a full-time job and possibly a side
hustle as well to make ends meet financially. That leaves all the hard work of
keeping house and raising a family, which needs to be done during “off” hours.
Most of us no longer mentally clock out at the end of the workday. Instead, we
take our work home and are reachable at all hours via text message or email.
Add to that the stress constant connectivity and social media create and it’s
no wonder we’re more stressed than ever.
It’s time to stop trying to do
all the things all the time and focus on reducing stress in your life. Start by
reviewing everything you do on a given day. A great tool for this is a time
log. Keep a simple piece of paper or a small notebook with you at all times.
Set an alert on your phone to go off every 30 minutes (during waking hours),
and quickly jot down what you’re doing. Be brutally honest. No one else needs
to see this log and you can burn it after you’re done. After a week of logging,
you get a pretty good idea of where you spend your time and mental energy.
Now comes the fun part. Look through your data and decide what you
can let go of. What can you stop doing? Open up some time for yourself to
exercise, meditate, or take a nap so you can catch up on much-needed sleep.
Next, it’s time to review and release all those worries, questions, and “should-dos” that are stressing you out. Get out another sheet of paper or two and start to write down anything and everything on your mind. All the stuff you’ve been thinking about doing. All the stuff that’s been worrying you. Get it all out. Walk away for a few hours and then come back to your list.
Cross out
as much as you can. Things that are out of your control and you decide to
mentally release. Tasks that you feel like you should do, that you really don’t
need to do. Then rewrite what’s left on two different lists. One will be things
you can do, or have someone else do for you. This will become your master to-do
list for the next few months. The other is a list of worries or concerns.
Notice how much smaller and shorter those lists are and how much lighter you
feel just getting it all out of your head.
Start Meditating
One of the best tools for reducing stress is meditation. You can
start with a simple breathing meditation by getting comfortable in a quiet spot
and focusing on relaxing and thinking about nothing but your breath. From
there, give some of the free guided meditations a try. There are even some
wonderful apps out there that turn your smartphone into your favorite new
meditation device. Set aside a few minutes each day to meditate and watch the
stress melt away.
Keep a Journal
This one may surprise you. A journal is an effective tool to help
you worry and stress less. The simple act of writing about what’s on your mind
can be incredibly freeing. A journal is also a great tool to help you look back
and figure out what’s triggering or causing periods of high stress. This is valuable
information to have since you can’t work towards reducing or eliminating a
trigger if you don’t know what it is.
Go for A Walk
Another simple, but very powerful technique is to go for a walk.
Get outside if possible, but if that’s not a good option, hop on a treadmill or
pace around your house. It doesn’t take a lot of walking before you start to
see the benefits. If you only have ten minutes, walk. If you have an hour lunch
break, walk for 20 minutes and spend the rest of the time relaxing and eating.
Make it work and get in the habit of walking regularly.
Sleep
Do you know what one of the most effective ways to de-stress is? It’s sleeping. Yes, exercise is great and meditation is a wonderful tool, but the best thing you can do to stress less on a regular basis is to get a goodnight's sleep.
You already know this is true. Think about how much harder your
job and your life, in general, feel after a night when you were up with the kids,
or working until four in the morning to finish an important project. You get
grumpy, it’s harder to focus, and every little problem suddenly becomes
insurmountable. You feel a lot more stressed throughout the day and it only
gets worse if you end up sleeping poorly for several days in a row.
Thankfully there are a lot of things you can do to improve both
the quantity and quality of sleep you get. Before you tell yourself that you
can’t afford to sleep more, realize that not focusing on sleep will cause you
to be less focused and productive. You’ll actually get more done by investing
time into a good-night sleep.
Start by establishing a bedtime routine. Try to go to bed at the same time every night, even on the weekends. It helps your body get into a rhythm that makes falling asleep and staying asleep easier. Cut distractions from your bedroom. That means leaving your phone in the living room if possible or silent.
Turn off the lights and have a good look around your bedroom. Are there
any small indicator lights or blinking lights? Try to remove them if possible.
Listen for any sounds from electronics and the likes. Make your bedroom a calm,
quiet, and dark place of rest.
Last but not least, watch your screen time at night. Our eyes and
the way they process light, including the light waves from our screens have a
big impact on how alert the body is. One of the worst habits we’ve all
developed is to look at our phones while trying to go to sleep. Instead, focus on calming
activities like reading, talking with your partner, or meditating for an hour
before going to sleep. Reduce screen time for a few hours before bed or at the
least invest in blue light filtered glasses or install an app that changes your
display at night.
Read 3 apps that can help you sleep better at night.
Hug
That’s right. Something as simple as a hug can help you relax and
fight stress. Make sure the hug is genuine on both sides and for best results,
hold the embrace for at least twenty seconds. You’ll start to feel calm and those endorphins will flood your system. Don’t have anyone around to
hug at the moment? Laughing out loud is pretty powerful too. Turn on a fun
comedy that leaves you in stitches.
Clean Up Your Diet
Last but not least, take a look at what you’re putting into your
mouth. A clean diet of mostly whole foods that’s low in sugars and
preservatives will nourish your body and fight much of the damage stress
causes. It will also help you feel calmer and more in control. Start making
some small changes and see if you don’t start to feel better.
