I love the beginning of a new year. It's a chance to put the past behind you and start fresh. Yes, I know, it's corny – but I'm holding high hopes for the year ahead. And I hope you are, too.
Whether you're hoping to revamp your exercise routine or add a few new dishes to your diet, I hope you'll find at least a little inspiration here...
I might have been MIA from this blog the last few weeks (thanks to a sudden bout of sickness and a work overload), but I want to reassure you, I'm not gone. I'll be back to posting regularly... just as soon as I dig myself out from under this pile of post-its!
Check out these nifty lunchbox tips from the Wholesome Cook.
What I learned this week at work (well, apart from how to avoid the office feeder, which I really only did with a mediocre success rate) – bring your snacks to work only in the portions you intend to eat them. AND LEAVE THE REST AT HOME.
Because sitting for eight hours next to a giant box of dry Nutri-Grain will see your hand dip into the box for more than one serve. It's inevitable. So exercise your portion control at home and you wont have to worry about your self-control in the office.
Why? Lunges are great for getting burn in the legs and butt. The decline version goes a step further.
How? With a bench about a metre behind you, stand on your right leg and reach back with your left leg. Place the toes of your left foot on the bench and position your foot so it's vertical. Jump your right foot forward a bit if you feel cramped. Bend your front knee and lower your back knee directly down towards the ground. Aim to get your front thigh horizontal. Don't let your front knee pass in front of your toe. Do all reps on one leg, then switch.
Sets and reps: Do 3 sets of as many reps as you can.
There's nothing I love more than an underdog-come-good senario and Brad Pitt's latest offering promises to be just that. The story? Brad stars as the general manager of an Oakland baseball club, who gets his team around a very limited payroll by recruiting using a new, mathematically-based strategy. The result? A bunch of misfits that will (hopefully) come up trumps.
We Need To Talk About Kevin(out November 17)
This adaptation of Lionel Shriver's bestselling novel promises to be just as haunting as the book. Tilda Swinton stars as the mother who lives through every parent's worst nightmare when her teenage boy does the unthinkable – commits mass-murder at his high school. How much of it was her fault? If you haven't read the book yet – do it, now.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (out November 17)
You'd have to be living under a rock to miss all the promotional hoopla for this flick – the first part of the final Twilight instalment. It's got everything – a wedding, a vampire-hybrid baby and Taylor Lautner with his shirt off. It's a must-see, if only so you never have to endure the humiliation of asking your eleven-year-old niece who R-Patz is...
The Ides Of March (out November 24)
Regular readers of this blog will know I've got a (slightly unhealthy) love for Ryan Gosling – but for good reason. The man's not just very easy on the eye, he's got some mad acting skills too. And in this political drama, he's teaming up everyone's favourite silver fox, George Clooney (who also directs). Who wouldn't want to see these two playing dirty?
Something alarmed me in the Sunday papers this weekend – an article that condemned fruit as a dietary evil. Now I know there's been a backlash against sugar recently, but fruit – seriously? My mum has a rockin' bod for her 52 years. And she eats fruit. A lot of fruit. She's living, breathing proof that fruit alone won't make you fat. So I was so glad to read that nutritionist Dr Joanna McMillan was equally alarmed....
First up it’s nonsense to talk about sugar as being the root of all our health problems. We cannot talk about sugar as a singular compound in the same way that we can’t lump fat together, or carbs for that matter. Sugars are simply the single or double saccharides that are found in foods, mostly plant foods.
One sugar, glucose, is also what runs in our bloodstream as a key fuel for the body. The brain in particular uses about a quarter of the total body’s glucose use, despite being only two percent of the total body weight.
Glucose in the blood is vital… if it drops too low you would pass out and eventually die if glucose could not be ‘found’. It’s worth remembering that when we talk about sugar. We need it as a prime fuel in the body, along with fat. So what about sugar in foods?
Well there is no doubt that excess added sugars are contributing to obesity and many chronic health problems we face in this country. But added refined sugars are not the same as sugars naturally present in foods. In interpreting them as so we are making all the same mistakes we made when we entered the low fat era. We opted for low fat foods and forgot about healthy fats and whole foods.
With the proposition that fruits are bad because they contain sugar, we are doing the same thing. Sugars in fruit are bound up in cell walls along with fibre, nutrients and phytochemicals including antioxidants. Our bodies have to work fairly hard to break these cells down, release the nutrients and sugars and then absorb them. This is a very different scenario to eating a lolly or drinking a soft drink – a dose of sugar without any nutrients or fibre whatsoever. To put them in the same basket is quite frankly ludicrous.
Fruit juice is not the same as fruit – it's all the sugar with none of the fibre-y good stuff. Dried fruit is not the same as fruit – it's shrivelled up, sweet and easy to overconsume. But a full green apple? That's not responsible for this country's obesity epidemic.
