Category Archives: Good health

Coping with a summer heatwave

I have spent more summers sweltering in a Seville heatwave than I can remember. Many of them as a student when air con was not an affordable option – and latterly, working through the baking heat of a southern Spanish summer. Thankfully with the benefit of in-house air conditioning.

Add to that a string of holiday trips to Ibiza staying when family lived on the island, and I feel well qualified to advise on coping with the most extreme summer conditions.

Andalucia – south west Spain – has long suffered summer heatwaves, but it is clear that climate change is magnifying the problem. Temperatures are rising earlier in the season and staying high for longer. Residents flee to the beach if they can. If you’re planning a summer trip to the heatwave zone, what coping measures can you take to beat the heat?

Read on for my tips on coping with a summer heatwave…

Tiles beat wood

When booking, if possible choose accommodation with chill ceramic tiled floors rather than wooden flooring, which retains and radiates heat. Spanish people traditionally use rugs rather than fitted carpets, rolling them out during the winter then stashing them away during the hotter summer months.

The temperature difference between one year when we rented an apartment in central Seville with tiled floors, and the following year when we had parquet underfoot, was immense.

Furnishings absorb heat, so think minimalistic if you are fitting out your own place.

Air con and ceiling fans

Air conditioning is a must-have. Temperatures regularly top 40 degC during the day in Seville in the summer, dropping to low to mid 20s at night – if you’re lucky. Without air con you will get nothing done and will find sleeping difficult.

Some rental agencies cap power costs, so in a seriously hot spell, be warned that you may be charged extra if you over-use the air conditioning. Always switch it off or turn it down low when you go out. See below for more tips on staying cool with minimal air con.

Ceiling fans in bedrooms are a genius way to reduce your reliance on the a/c unit. A sweep of moving air from a ceiling fan is surprisingly refreshing in a heatwave and will mean you can either turn the air con right down or switch it off completely at night. Good for your pocket and the environment.

Aim high

An apartment or room on a higher floor will catch more breeze, as will outside windows or balconies. In southern Spain, especially in cities like Seville, many properties are built to the traditional central patio layout. Access to external and internal airways gives access to a through breeze, helping suck cooler air into your living space at night when lower temperatures allow you to open windows. On which note…

Close and shutter windows during the day

Keep a close watch on the temperature and make sure you do not open windows until the heat drops outside (ie at night – and often not until very late at night). Equally, close all windows and shutters / curtains / blinds as soon as the sun comes round and it starts to feel warmer outside than in.

The aim is to keep the ambient interior temperature low. Hot sun shining on floors and furniture will turn your inside space into a radiator. Keep it out to prevent your living space from heating up and don’t open up until the external temperature feels equal to or cooler than the air indoors.

Swerve the stove

My Spanish friends use their ovens for storage rather than cooking during the summer months. Fancy a roast chicken? Buy it from the ‘asador’ rotisserie shop on the corner (very common in Spain).

Eat salads, buy ready cooked food rather than cooking it yourself. Even better, eat out. Away from tourist spots, bar food is pretty low-cost in Spain compared with the UK. Tapas and a cold beer or a glass of tinto de verano (chilled red wine with soda water and ice) are a wonderful way to cool down.

Live like a local

Get up early and do your exercise / chores / tourist stuff first thing. Retire to the shade during the hottest part of the day : from 1pm until late afternoon. Emerge once things start to cool down and, in the city, don’t even start start thinking about dinner until around 9.30pm. Spanish people tend to socialise until late and rest up during the heat of the afternoon when (almost) everything shuts down. It works!

get up early to avoid the heat — Getting up early to avoid the heat doesn’t always work: Seville, 8/9am.

Sleeping tips

Got a rooftop terrace in your property? Consider sleeping up there in the open air on the hottest nights, bugs and noise permitting. I have spent many nights sleeping al fresco during Seville’s summer season. Being so far south, the sun rises later than in the UK so daybreak does not come too soon.

If you have air con, switch it on before you go to bed to cool down the room before you enter, turn it up a couple of degrees once you’re in bed then set the timer for it to go off once you’re asleep. If you wake up hot, you can always re-set it then.

Take a cool shower before you go to bed and wet your hair. A cold, damp face cloth or hand towel on your tummy, chest or forehead is also extremely effective if you’re feeling hot and bothered in bed.

If you need a duvet, you’ve got the air con set too low.

Keep your cool

Slow down your pace, don’t over-face yourself with ambitious plans to get too much done and schedule in trips to air-conditioned locations like a department store, destination hotel, supermarket or museum. Pit-stops in the cool will help you cope with the heat.

Finally, however hot it gets, away from resorts, dress appropriately. Cool loose clothing will keep the sun off your skin and help air circulate around your body. In the summer months, you will not need a cardi / hoodie or jacket – save space in your luggage and don’t even bother packing one. Instead, take a light shawl or pashmina which packs away to almost nothing and is perfect to drape round your shoulders if you need to enter a church or fiercely air-conditioned environment.

Tomato glut salmorejo

Fresh back from a workation summer in southern Spain (more of that to come in a future blogpost), I am missing A LOT about being away – including salmorejo. Turns out it is super-easy to make at home. Perfect if you’ve got a glut of homegrown tomatoes, Here’s how.

This recipe is a translated (and very slightly amended) version of a salmorejo from an awesomely enthusiastic Spanish chef who runs an organisation called Gastronomia y Fitness (@gastronomiayfit on Twitter, where I discovered him). He is 100% committed to wellbeing through food, fitness and eating well.

Super-delicious recipe

His salmorejo recipe is here. It is super-easy and super-delicious. Much simpler than gazpacho, and used in Spain not just as a soup but also as a sauce. Numerous dishes came with either a small dipping bowl of salmorejo on the side, or a thick smear of this delicious tomato-based puree on the base of the plate, when we were in Sevilla this summer.

Perfect for hot weather, I made some tomato glut salmorejo for lunch today and it took less than 10 minutes. Here’s how (serves two):

Throw 500g of ripe tomatoes and 75g of stale bread cubes in a powerful blender along with a small clove of garlic, 75ml of good olive oil and a tablespoon of white wine vinegar. Blitz until smooth. Thin down with cold water to get the consistency you want (depends on whether you are eating as soup or using as a sauce / puree). Salt to taste (go easy!). Chill until needed.

Serve either as it comes, or throw on some healthy toppings such as hard boiled egg, herbs, or feta.

TIPS: I used the blender rather than the food processor for a more powerful chop, as I was using tomatoes from the freezer (from my homegrown glut) and tough sourdough bread cubes from the end of a stale homemade loaf. I didn’t bother peeling the tomatoes. It is easy to thin down further with ice cold water if it has thickened up in the fridge.

Thanks, Gastronomia y Fitness for your salmorejo inspo – keep up the good work!

Best buys at Singapore’s Changi Airport

Just enjoyed a wonderful few days in one of my favourite Far East cities, but with no plans to return any day soon, wanted to use up those excess Singapore dollars.

Yes, we could have blown our wad on a pre-journey meal. But I travel best on an empty stomach. Time to hit the shops.

And wow, what a phenomenal deal: a smidgeon over Sing$12 for a pack of 10 Tony Moly sheet face masks. That’s around 60p per mask for a burst of complexion-boosting vits from one of South Korea’s most popular facialist brands.

South Korean face mask sheets — Branded face mask sheets at incredible prices: thanks, Changi!

Look out too for the well-respected It’s Skin brand. There’s a wide range of moisture mask sheets available, including vitamin C and hyaluronic acid: perfect for mature skin.

I bought two packs, plus one for my daughter, and have briefed my husband on where to drop his spare currency next time he’s passing through Changi on business.

Gin’s cheap too: less than 10 quid for a bottle of Gordon’s. Changi: you can see why it’s the world’s favourite airport.

South Korean skincare mask sheets — Singapore skincare treats

Stand up for your workplace health

Whose job is it to improve the health credentials of our workplaces? The state, in a bid to ease the strain on our overstretched NHS? Employers, who reap the commercial benefits of healthier, more productive staff? Or should we the workers, for reasons of self-interest, stand up for our own workplace health?

Perhaps because no one can actually decide how to tackle the health time-bomb of sedentary working habits – or has the energy to do so? – we are sleep-sitting our way into a crisis of (literally) crippling proportions.

Inactivity: the cause of 20% of premature deaths

The extent of the problem was laid bare at this week’s Active Working Summit 2017. Expert speaker after speaker ran through the evidence:

nearly a fifth of premature deaths in the UK are due to physical inactivity;
more than 50% of staff working for the NHS (the nation’s biggest employer) are overweight;
the cost to the UK of poor workplace health is equal to the GDP of Portugal;
fewer than half of us are disability-free by age 50;
by spending seven hours plus a day seated we are suffering from muscle and joint issues that leave us frail and incapacitated.

The evidential case against workplace sedentary behaviour is clear. What researchers are focusing on too is how reducing those sedentary habits positively improves wellness and productivity. Early signs are good, and enlightened employers (and office design) encourage workers to stand up from their desks and get active around the office.

Move often, use mobile tech

The way to create active working is move often and carry mobile tech, ergonomics guru Prof Alan Hedge of Cornell University told the Active Working Summit. Younger workers get it, when their workplaces make it possible (take a walk through tech-co intensive Old Street and you’ll see this in action).

As Mayo Clinic Professor James Levine put it: “Active working is the coolest way to work. Barack Obama, the boss of Nike does it, Google, Facebook. These are cool places to work and they don’t want staff to be in their seats in one place all day long.”

‘We are being failed by the HSE’

So why aren’t corporate health and safety, occupational health departments in the vanguard of the active working movement? Gavin Bradley, the evangelical founding director of Active Working CIC, believes we are being failed by the HSE with its lack of recommendations for the use of adjustable desks. Workplace OH specialists generally only get involved once an employee has complained of a condition such as back or shoulder ache rather than taking the preventative approach.

We’ve got it the wrong way round, agreed Dr Nicola Eccles of Halifax-headquartered CP Active: “We shouldn’t be asking why aren’t you at your desk, but why are you always at your desk?”

So is it time for statutory guidance on active working? In Denmark, employers are legally obliged to provide sit-stand desks. It’s the law. The desks are there. Few workers use them. Gitte Toft, Danish inventor of the Steppie balance board blamed it on the lack of training, explanation and encouragement. Push rather than nudge just doesn’t seem to work.

Embed health in your business

Public Health England advisor Dame Carol Black agreed that legislation was not the answer, preferring options such as a voluntary register for employers. “Legislative policy follows the population,” she said. “Health and wellbeing at work cannot be an add-on: it needs to be embedded in a company.”

My take on this message – and one that I pass on to staff at companies I work with on healthy workplace practices: you work here, you deserve better, the ball is in your court. If you want a healthier working environment (and who wouldn’t?), you’ve got to demand it. Ask for the sit-stand desk riser, take regular breaks, become your department’s healthy workplace champion, put up posters, challenge your manager, stop eating lunch at your desk.

As Peter Brogan of the BIFM suggested at the Active Working Summit, the question that needs to get answered is: “Does your board even have a workplace strategy?”

Kickstart your healthy workplace campaign by signing up your team/department/company for On Your Feet Britain Day April 28, 2017: thousands are already signed up for a day of activity in the workplace in a bid to encourage the nation to #sitless #movemore, organised by Active Working CIC.

Join a running group to boost your training

I love running but when I go out on my own, I’m a plodder, grinding out the miles while listening to podcasts. Good for the mileage but does little to enhance my run performance.

Hill reps, intervals, power moves would all, I know, help build my speed and endurance, but they hurt. So if I’m going to incorporate them effectively into my running regime, I really need to have someone there making me do them – and making me do them properly. No cheating when it gets tough.

Run Together

The answer? Get a PT (costly solo solution) or join a running group (less expensive, more sociable). I opted for the latter, a new RunTogether group led by Wimbledon’s enthusiastic and inspirational health coach Anna Desogus, who I already know from my work on the @HealthyMerton healthy workplace programme. The group was set up in association with central Wimbledon yoga studio Jiva Health, so keep an eye out, as there may be some useful run + gait therapy + yoga sessions scheduled soon…

Find out more about Healthy Workplace services here

Runners' feet — Raring to RunTogether: high vis recommended on a frosty Wimbledon night

The first session took place last night. Anna kicked our training off with a 7pm safety briefing, then we took a slow jog to a safe cul de sac where we performed a series of power/strength moves: exactly the kind of thing I would never do when running alone. Duly warmed up, we head for a secluded residential area just off Wimbledon Hill for a hill reps session that challenged every one of us.

It was perfect: better runners could aim for more reps, while the less experienced/ambitious among us could go at our own pace, performing fewer circuits yet still pushing ourselves. No one was left behind, and Anna was super-effective in instruction and motivation. An hour later, we were all back in central Wimbledon for a final stretching session then home in time for supper. Brilliant.

Fancy joining Anna’s weekly Monday night RunTogether session? It caters for all levels of running (you must be able to run for at least 10 minutes), with a varied programme incorporating a dynamic workout as well as pure running, making it the perfect complement to your usual run sessions. Thoroughly recommend.

Find out more (and book your place): Anna’s Raramuri running group
Personalised nutrition, health, coaching services: Anna Desogus Health Coaching

Business taking steps towards a more active workforce

Staff at the Sit-Stand.com standing desk company are contractually obliged to take a 15-minute walk during office hours every working day.

It costs the company precisely nothing, but it is a healthy workplaces commitment to the principles of a business run by the founder of Active Working: to reduce the amount of time we spend sitting down at work.

And as CEO Gavin Bradley points out, once you’ve started your 15-minute walk-out, it will probably turn into more. Activity logged: job done.

Sitting leads to health problems

Evidence is constantly growing that staff who spend most of their working day seated are both less productive and more inclined to suffer health problems. Office workers sit on average 10 hours each day, and 70% of this sitting time is at work. The solution is simple: stand up and move around more. It’s not complicated, it’s not expensive, just good business sense.

No surprise, then, that during a 90-minute meeting with Sit-Stand.com‘s director Gavin Bradley, we were on our feet the whole time. A standing meeting with the offer of a freshly-blitzed smoothie: I love a company that practises what it preaches, and this one certainly does.

It’s all part of a growing recognition of the fact that employers who take measures to enhance the health of staff benefit from people who are more motivated and productive, less likely to suffer stress and absenteeism and act as positive advocates for the business.

So why don’t more bosses take simple steps such as encouraging staff to move around more, step away from their work stations at regular intervals and pay more attention to their personal health outcomes?

Is business culture changing?

It’s a business culture issue, but one that is certainly starting to change, as is evidenced by the increasing number of companies I work with who are recognising that supporting their workforce in making healthy choices does not have to be costly or time-consuming.

Workplace health-boosting measures can include steps as simple as moving bins away from desks so that staff are forced to stand and walk a short distance to dispose of rubbish, or encouraging greater use of stairs by posting inspirational Step Jockey style stickers beside the lifts.

The standing desk solution

Installing adjustable standing desks is becoming popular among employees, and is another relatively low-cost investment, with the entry level Sit-Stand.com Yo-Yo workstation costing well below £200.

In Denmark, 90% of employees have an adjustable standing desk. Health and wellbeing at work evangelist Gavin Bradley would love to see similar in the UK, and with his value range of adjustable sit-stand desks, PLUS his Active Working and Get Britain Standing campaigns, he is taking massive steps in helping move the world’s workforce towards a more active future. I’m in.

Find out more about how I can help YOUR business enhance its healthy workplace credentials

4 best ways to rock veggie January

a rainbow of vegetables for veggie January — Rainbow vegetables: among the joys of vegetarian January

Another vegetarian January is over, and this has been the least troublesome one ever. So much so that, come Feb 1, I couldn’t think of a meat-based recipe I actually wanted to cook.

So here is my four-point guide to enjoying a delicious, healthful, inspiring month of veggie cooking.

Yotam Ottolenghi: The year we discovered the joys of this genius chef’s cookbook Plenty was the year our vegetarian January became both seriously enjoyable and sustainable. The way he combines ingredients to create mouthwatering dishes is pure genius. I now own the full set of his books, having received a copy of his new Nopi for Christmas, and am itching to try out some of the meaty recipes now veggie Jan is over.
Raw slaw: Hell, I LOVE raw slaw, so in my household it is certainly not just for vegetarian January. I combine any mixture of shredded uncooked beetroot, red cabbage, green or white cabbage, carrot, radish and celeriac with toasted walnut pieces, dried cranberries or sour cherries, and a shredded apple, then dress it with sesame and olive oil, mirin, pomegranate molasses, vinegar and a sprinkle of rock salt. It keeps well in the fridge, so I always make a huge batch and it tides me over for a few days. Delicious alongside griddled halloumi and roasted aubergine (see Ottolenghi for The Best Ever aubergine recipes).
South East Asia: Thai red chicken curry – without the chicken – is now a Feelgood family favourite. I have a tub of homemade red curry paste in the fridge on a permanent basis, meaning it’s a matter of moments to chop up a load of vegetables for this non-meat version that is in fact as tasty as the carnivorous alternative. Just make sure you throw in the veg in order of how long they each take to cook ie green beans, chopped celeriac first and sliced onion first, followed by diced butternut squash, and courgette last.
The wok. Fuchsia Dunlop is another favourite chef, and she includes some brilliant vegetarian versions of her Szechuan meat-based recipes in her inspiring cookbook Every Grain of Rice. Who knew that Ma Po Dofu could be as good without minced beef as with it? Stir-fried greens with garlic and soy sauce were a staple of my student days, and I still love them as much as ever: near raw and therefore bursting with vitamins, they give my veggie January a real healthy zing.

Nourish your digestion

And that’s the key to a successful meat-free start to the year: rather than seeing it as a time of restricted eating, think of it as a time to extend your cooking repertoire, try out new recipes and cooking styles, and a chance to nourish your digestion with more raw foods, unprocessed foodstuffs and lower fat options. It’s easier – and tastier – than you might think.

Why cutting your sugar intake is about more than obesity

UK health experts want to see less sugar in the foods we eat, fruit juice and fizzy drinks banned from the dinner table, and possibly even a sugar tax.

In an instant, the current recommended sugar intake has been halved, so that an adult woman should now aim to consume no more than 25g of added sugar (5-6 teaspoons) per day; 35g (7-8 teaspoons) for a man.

About time too. If as a nation we don’t take action on improving our diets, there is no chance of beating the obesity crisis whereby in the UK, 67% of men and 57% of women are either overweight or obese, according to a recent Global Burden of Disease study. More than a quarter of children are also overweight or obese.

But cutting your sugar intake is about more than obesity. Being overweight increases your likelihood of suffering from a whole raft of unpleasant conditions, with type-2 diabetes sitting right there at the top of the danger list. That’s right, you won’t just be fat. You will also be seriously unwell.

One in three adults in the UK are at risk of developing type-2 diabetes, and sufferers are getting younger. What used to be a later life condition is turning onto a middle age problem – and younger. But despite these warning signs, new research from ShARP (the Simply Health Advisory Research Panel) reveals that more than 60% of us are unconcerned about it, and 40% admit to general ignorance about Type-2 diabetes.

Maybe it’s time to start getting worried: if you’re overweight, inactive and have a family history of diabetes, the bad news is: You Are Likely To Get Diabetes. Fact.

Which means …
1. You’re FIVE TIMES more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke, because diabetes damages your vascular system.
2. Painful foot ulcers caused by nerve damage as a result of diabetes are likely to reduce your mobility.
3. You’re 20 TIMES more likely to require a foot or lower leg amputation.
4. You’ll suffer more infections, because diabetes means high sugar levels in your body – and bacteria and fungi thrive on sugar!
5. You’ll be low on energy and suffer from extreme tiredness.
6. You may suffer renal disease because of the damage caused by high blood sugar to the small blood vessels within your kidneys. Kidney disease kills one in 10 people with type-2 diabetes.
7. You’re at increased risk of glaucoma and cataracts, which occur 10-15 years earlier in people with diabetes.
8. You are also more at risk from blindness as a result of retinopathy, because fluctuating blood sugars – especially high blood sugar, as in diabetes – damage the blood vessels at the back of your eye.
9. People with diabetes are 10-20 times more likely to lose their sight than a person with normal blood sugar levels.
10. Getting diabetes in middle age increases your likelihood of a form of brain damage associated with dementia.
11. In fact, blood sugar problems can actually shrink your brain: diabetics have an average of 2.9% less brain volume than non-sufferers, scans at the world-famous Mayo Clinic have shown.
12. Your long- and short-term memory will deteriorate as a result of diabetes: a condition known as vascular dementia.
13. You are at high risk of suffering from depression.

Well, wouldn’t you be depressed on realising that you’ve contracted a preventable disease that entails serious life changes (ongoing medication to control your diabetes and related conditions, taking more exercise, avoiding foods that contain glucose – that’s sugar, folks) – for the rest of your life?

Go easy on the sugar and do your whole body a favour.

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