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5 tips to help teens find their groove with exercise

5 tips to help teens find their groove with exercise

Val Simpson
Blog

My number one rule will always be to only cultivate a mindset of positive association with exercise and avoid any negative connection to physical activity being a way to “burn calories” or “compensate” for that weekend pizza and ice cream!

Teens and exercise is a very wide subject, but for now , as I write during our third period of lockdown in the UK, I thought I’d give you a few tips particularly applicable to support your teens right now.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙃𝙔 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙃𝙊𝙒 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙪𝙨:

5 nutritious winter warming salads

5 nutritious winter warming salads

Kat Bright
Blog, Soups and salads

A salad is normally associated with spring and summer, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We enjoy a salad all year round - it’s a great way to pack in your vegetables at lunch. However, the key to a winter salad is to incorporate some warm elements. This could be some warm roasted vegetables, just cooked lentils or quinoa or some heat with a spice such as harissa.

Top tips for staying healthy at Christmas

Top tips for staying healthy at Christmas

Kat Bright
Blog

Christmas time is often a time of excess and it’s been shown that many people manage to put on over 5 pounds in weight during the festivities. So how do you remain healthy and not sabotage all the good you have done over the past year, while still enjoying yourself?

Top tips for breaking bad eating habits

Top tips for breaking bad eating habits

Kat Bright
Blog

I often find that it’s the habits we have formed along the way that derail us in our health journey. Whether it’s a snack mid afternoon as a pick me up – that’s eaten out of habit not hunger. Or the glass of wine poured while cooking that’s not necessarily wanted, but has become habitual. This month I am going to take the most common habits that I find with clients in clinic and come up with some simple suggestions that you can use to break these habits.

6 quick and easy breakfasts on the go

6 quick and easy breakfasts on the go

Kat Bright
Blog, Breakfast and brunch

With busy lives and early starts breakfast can sometimes fall by the way side. We are great fans of breakfast - as we feel that if you start your day with a decent meal - then you are more likely to keep on track. If you skip breakfast and then reach for a sugary snack mid morning - then this makes it much harder to eat healthily for the rest of the day as your blood sugars start to become unbalanced. However we understand that not everyone wants to eat breakfast as soon as they wake up. So here are some solutions for breakfast on the go. Ideas that you can take with you into the office or work that can be eaten at leisure.

Top tips for getting ahead with meal prep

Top tips for getting ahead with meal prep

Kat Bright
Blog

Making life easier in the kitchen is what we are all about. There are several items that we make on a regular basis so that we always have something tasty to snack on or reach for to pull a meal together. They are a bit like the backbone to our cooking. Helping us to speed things up in the kitchen when we are busy. You could set aside some time each week to make these, say a Sunday afternoon when things are less busy. Or make them throughout the week, whatever suits you. If you want to make sure you always have a well stocked kitchen to assist with getting ahead then do check out our blog post stocking a healthy kitchen.

Tips to stocking your healthy kitchen

Tips to stocking your healthy kitchen

Kat Bright
Blog

Changing your habits can be hard and making healthy choices when your kitchen isn’t stocked can be very hard. If your kitchen is well stocked with healthy ingredients then you will find is much easier to rustle up healthy dishes. Our tips below will make sure that your kitchen is stocked with all you need.

6 real everyday superfoods

6 real everyday superfoods

Kat Bright
Blog

As the health industry continues to boom, there are more and more products claiming to make you healthier and it’s easy to be seduced into thinking that taking a daily ‘superfood’ will help to make you healthier. However if you are sedentary and consume a typical Western diet that is high in saturated fat and low in fibre and phytonutrients then a glass of wheatgrass a day will not protect you from cancer or cardiovascular problems. 

Are you riding the blood sugar rollercoaster?

Are you riding the blood sugar rollercoaster?

Kat Bright
Blog, Nutrition, Health

We all know that sugar is bad for us and does us no favours in our quest to being healthy. However it’s not just sugar in tea and coffee or fizzy drinks that is affecting our blood sugar levels. White bread, pasta, cakes, biscuits and fruit juice all convert to sugar within a few minutes of being eaten. Now you might think this is not a problem and you exercise loads so you’ll burn it off right? Unfortunately it’s not as easy as this. If you suffer from mood swings or find yourself becoming ‘hangry’, have low energy or weight that gathers around your belly then you might feel much better by cutting back on the sugar and white refined carbohydrates.

Boosting your immunity

Boosting your immunity

Kat Bright
Blog, Nutrition, Health

As the seasons change and the nights draw in it’s the return of the coughs and colds. I always find it’s when the children go back to school after the summer holidays that colds start to make a reappearance. It always amazes me just how quickly someone in the class gets a cold and passes the germs around.

a week of healthy snacks

a week of healthy snacks

Val Simpson
Blog, Recipes, Snacks

Kat and I are not really snackers, but with 5 children between us and busy schedules we know that they are often a necessity to keep us all going, mums and children alike. However, with so many supermarkets and health shops increasing their range of so called "healthier option" snacks, it is easy to get confused with the often misleading claim on the front of the packets.The nutritional labels at the back are so often just as confusing. The solution to ensure you know exactly what you eat? Make your own snacks and get the kids involved with flavours. Many of the snack bars sold in the supermarkets or health shops as "healthy" are often still very high in sugar due to the dried fruit content or sugar alternatives used. We have so many great options on the website, baked snacks, raw options, all gluten free and mostly nut-free for a school policy compliant lunch box. We believe that a good nourishing snack should always include protein.

fat soluble vitamins

fat soluble vitamins

Kat Bright
Blog, Nutrition, Health

If you follow us on Instagram you will know that we recently posted a series called Nutrient Spotlight, where we took each vitamin and mineral in turn and spoke of how it is used in our body, why we need it and any symptoms of deficiency - also most importantly how you can find these nutrients in your food. The series was so popular that we have added them to our blog so you'll be able to access them easily. This week we spotlight the fat soluble vitamins – Vitamins A, D, E and K. It's very important to remember that these vitamins are stored in our body (in the liver) and so it's very easy to reach high and potentially toxic levels.

Let's talk about fat

Let's talk about fat

Kat Bright
Blog, Nutrition, Health

For those of us growing up in the 70s, 80s and 90s we were told that eating a low fat diet was healthy and we switched from high fat butter to margarine, full fat milk to skimmed milk and we stopped drizzling oil and butter on our salads and vegetables. Thankfully those days are now behind us and finally the message that eating low fat is healthy is starting to be replaced by the message that eating healthy fats is good for you. However, I still find there are many people that cling onto eating a low fat diet and have a fear of eating any fat. The idea that eating fat makes us fat was first touted in the 1950s and since this low fat message we have seen a rise in obesity, a rise in dementia-related illnesses and a rise in heart conditions.​​​​​​​ 

making sure your holiday is healthy

making sure your holiday is healthy

Kat Bright
Blog, Nutrition, Health

With holidays looming now is the time to start preparing your body for its annual holiday. We all need some sunlight on our body to help provide our bodies with vitamin D. This important mineral helps to maintain calcium levels in the body and ensure we have healthy bones and teeth. However it doesn’t take too much time to increase our levels and sunscreen is essential to avoid sunburn. When our skin cells are exposed to too much sunlight, UVA and UVB wavelengths, our skin cells experience stress and shut down. This stress can overload our antioxidant nutrient supplies and so it’s important to make sure these are topped up before we head off on our summer holidays. 

is gluten free healthier?

is gluten free healthier?

Kat Bright
Blog, Nutrition, Health

The gluten free aisle in the supermarket is huge, and is growing larger every month. In 2016 the global gluten free market was worth $14.95 billion and is expected to grow at an annual rate of just over 9% every year. This rise in the gluten free market has also seen a rise in people claiming they are eating gluten free without being diagnosed as coeliac or intolerant to gluten. So is eating gluten free healthier for you?

It's exam season - help!

It's exam season - help!

Kat Bright
Blog, Nutrition, Health

All over the country, teenagers and adults are preparing for a summer of exams, whether it’s finals, A levels, GCSEs or end of year exams. Make sure your brain is in tip top condition by following our simple tips below to boost your brain and give yourself the best chance for success.

Ready for a challenge?

Ready for a challenge?

Val Simpson
Health, Blog

I started writing this post back in January, and decided to leave it until now, early April, as days are longer and brighter. Why? because this is NOT a story of January resolutions forgottenand abandoned come February. At the Health Boost, we don't believe in quick fixes, we are passionate about making small changes for long term, long lasting benefits. Personally, I am not a big fan of the word resolution. I prefer stronger, more positive and upbeat words like goals and challenges and changing the mindset. Like strategy and tactics, goals and challenges work hand in hand: they range from a daily challenge to a milestone goal or never attempted before challenge. They can be very personal or shared with family and friends.

Looking after your heart

Looking after your heart

Kat Bright
Blog, Nutrition, Health

Heart disease is unfortunately still on the rise and is still the leading cause of death for both men and women in the world. Nutritionally there is much that you can do to protect yourself and since prevention is invariably better than cure it’s time to protect your heart.

a week of healthy breakfasts

a week of healthy breakfasts

Kat Bright
Blog, Nutrition, Health, Breakfast and brunch, Recipes

You've all heard the saying "breakfast like a king". However the typical Western diet breakfast of cereal with skimmed milk or a piece of toast grabbed on the way out of the door is not eating like a king. I understand that time is a particular worry when you're trying to get to work and ferry children to school. However I often find that cooking a breakfast for the children results in cleaner plates much quicker and we are usually out of the door earlier. The key is to get the children involved. Get them to stir the eggs, while you unload the dishwasher or do their hair! My husband leaves the house at a ridiculous hour of the morning so he takes his breakfast in, which he eats after his 8am meeting. Many of the breakfasts below are easily portable in a container and carried into work.

are you eating enough vegetables?

are you eating enough vegetables?

Kat Bright
Blog, Nutrition, Health

Whatever diet you are on... paleo, vegan, vegetarian, nordic, LCHF or a typical Western diet there's no doubt that increasing your vegetable intake is something that will benefit you. The benefits for our cardiovascular system, immune system, brain health and weight are huge and we should be aiming at hitting at least 10 portions of different vegetables a day into our diet. Ten I hear you say, that’s impossible! But actually it’s much easier than you think, as I will outline later. Eating an abundant rainbow of vegetables really will leave you feeling so much better.

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