Super Slow Cooker

 

 

Wouldn’t it be great to return from work to a delicious home-cooked healthy meal without having to spend hours in the kitchen? Well thanks to slow cookers, you can. These traditional kitchen gadgets are currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity as people are realising how convenient they are for making cheap, healthy family meals.

 

A slow cooker is an electrical appliance that sits on a kitchen worktop. It usually consists of a large ceramic cooking pot with a lid and uses electricity and water vapour to cook food gently over a period of several hours. Some models need to be switched on before you head off for the day, whilst others can be programmed to come on at a particular time. Some can even be set to change from cook mode to keep warm mode after a certain length of time.

 

The principle of a slow cooker is that you simply throw your chopped raw ingredients, for example meat and vegetables, into the cooker along with a liquid such as water or stock and then leave the slow cooker to cook the food at a low temperature over several hours. The result is a perfectly cooked dish ready to eat at the end of the day.

 

Slow cookers are ideal for cooking many different types of stews and casseroles as well as soups, chillies and curries. You can even use them to cook traditional desserts such as sponges or rice puddings. They are also great for cooking large cuts of meat such as gammon. And because a slow cooker keeps food moist, it is a particularly good method for cooking cheaper cuts of meat which might not fare so well with other cooking methods.

 

Some people worry about leaving a meal to cook all day but because of the low temperatures, it’s almost impossible to burn a slow cooked meal. And as an added bonus, the slow cooking method results in very little washing-up – making it ideal for busy families or those working long hours.

 

If your family regularly needs to eat at different times, slow cookers make it easy to feed everyone at the time that suits them. The slow cooker keeps the food hot, meaning that individual family members can simply serve themselves when they are ready for something to eat.

 

So if you’d like a change from ready meals or take-aways when looking for a convenient after-work meal, why not invest in a slow cooker. You will find them in electrical stores, department stores and some larger supermarkets. Alternatively take a look online for a wide selection ranging from cheap and cheerful basic models to more expensive versions with a range of various settings.

 

For more information and recipes to try in your slow cooker, visit: www.bbcgoodfood.com

Categories: cook, cooker, cooking, hours, nbsp

Get Off Your Backside: Is Sitting at Work Killing You?

What are you doing right now? If I were to put money on it, I’d say you were sitting down. You sit a lot. Whether you’re in front of the TV, at your desk or in the car, you sit down practically all day, every day, and that’s not good for your wellbeing. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) physical inactivity is fourth in the list of major risk factors for chronic disease after high blood pressure, tobacco use and high cholesterol – bad company, indeed. How does this impact your corporate wellness? You spend most of your waking hours in the workplace – which, yes, is a pretty depressing thought. However, what’s even more depressing is the fact that you spend most of these hours sitting down, and that may literally be killing you.

 

In 2012, a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that if you sit for more than 11 hours a day, your risk of dying within three years is 40% higher than people who sit for less than 4 hours per day. If you sit for eight to 11 hours per day, your risk for dying within the next three years is 15% higher than those less-frequent sitters. You may be thinking, “Well, I still run marathons or go to Zumba three times a week” but that doesn’t get you off the hook; your risks are just as high if you sit for extended periods during the day.

 

Basically, you need to just get off your backside and move more often. Dr. James Levine, Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic and an expert on the dangers of sitting, comments, ‘We know that as soon as somebody gets out of their chair, their blood sugar improves, their blood cholesterol and triglycerides improve, and that’s very consistent. Every time you get up it gets better. Every time you sit down it gets worse.’ But where do you come in as an employer? You need to get your employees moving regularly throughout the day, but how do you do that in a way that doesn’t impact productivity or negatively change the environment?

 

Kim Snider, President of Health Systems Group, details, ‘Health Systems Group works with our clients to recommend small changes on both the physical and cultural environments. These changes don’t take employees away from their work but help them to do it more actively. For example, making stairwells brighter and more appealing helps encourage people to take the stairs. Encouraging walking meetings or providing headsets so people can move around when they are on the phone, are small things that can make a big difference.’ However, even though these small changes are helpful, Snider points out you need something to motivate employees to choose the stairs.

 

‘Our search for a highly engaging resource led us to Tractivity,’ Snider recalls. ‘It’s a very simple but powerful tool that we combined with our own communications and programme strategies to create amazing results. Tractivity is a simple, reliable, sensor-based activity monitoring system combined with a web application called Tractivity Online that tracks and displays activity in a motivational and very engaging way.  Using this system we were able to easily implement a number of activity challenges. Tractivity allows administrators to create Challenges—like walking Route 66 or The Appalachian Trail—or individuals can design their very own and invite their friends to join. These Challenges motivate employees to increase their activity levels to support their team, reach a shared goal or win an individual race.’ Snider adds, ‘We realise that in order for our data to be meaningful and fully represent the success of our programs we’ll need more time. But the anecdotal evidence is in and tells a very good story.’

Categories: activity, employees, health systems, hours, motivate employees, nbsp, sitting down, Small Changes, systems group, Tractivity

Sleep Yourself Slim: How to Lose Weight Whilst Sleeping

It sounds ideal, doesn’t it? Sleeping your way to reduced weight and better wellness and wellbeing? You may be laughing, but the truth is that sleep is very important if you are trying to lose weight – possibly even more important than fitness.

 

A new study has shown that getting a good night’s sleep is a very important factor when it comes to weight loss. Researchers discovered that both men and women who were able to get at least six hours of sleep per night coped better with the normal stresses and strains of everyday life, and were also twice as likely to lose weight when they were on a diet as those who were getting less sleep than this.

 

Scientists believe that if you get between six and eight hours of sleep per night, your hormones are likely to be more balanced especially the hormones that govern how hungry or full you feel. Stress hormones are also likely to be balanced, and this, in turn, means that you are likely to feel happier and are less likely to binge on unhealthy food or comfort eat.

 

The study was carried out with 500 overweight Americans, and they had to cut back their daily calorie intake by about 500 calories, as well as increasing the amount of exercise that they did until they were exercising for three hours per week. They were also advised to eat a diet that was low in fat and rich in fruits and vegetables. Researchers provided weekly group meetings for help and support, and during this they asked dieters about their sleep habits, time spent in front of a screen and how stressed they felt. It was found that those who had between six and eight hours of sleep were likely to have lost the most weight.

Categories: hours, Lose weight, loss, nbsp, night, sleep, weight

Why Sleep is So Important to Your Health and Weight

While everyone is different when it comes to health and wellbeing, and different amounts of sleep work for different people, wellness experts assert that you need roughly seven to nine hours of sleep every night. According to researchers at the Sleep Disorder Clinic at Stanford University, any less sleep than this can lead to serious health concerns, such as heart disease. In fact, wellness experts believe that sleep deprivation is worse for your health than drinking or even smoking. If you have fewer than six hours of sleep a night, studies show that your risk of having a heart attack increases by 18% compared to those who get a regular seven to nine hours. However, that’s nothing compared to people who get fewer than five hours of sleep a night, as their heart attack risk is raised to 40%. Surely, it’s time to stand up and take notice of the importance of sleep.

 

During sleep, your body uses this time to repair itself. This is also when your stress levels drop, thus making it possible for your brain to become focused again. In fact, your sleeping habits have even been linked to your ability to maintain or lose weight, with regular, restful sleep correlating to better results. Plus, in the deepest stages of sleep, your body is better able to fight disease from the inside – much like some sort of health concern secret agent – and repair tissue damage and more. From all this, you can see that your body is a complex machine that needs constant care, with sleep acting as its own version of a reboot or self-overhaul. While you wouldn’t rush your mechanic when he or she is checking and fixing your vehicle, you do it to the “little mechanics” inside your own body.

 

Let’s unpack some of the more interesting and pleasant side effects of a good night’s sleep; weight loss. Research has shown that sleep deprivation causes your levels of ghrelin to rise and your levels of leptin to drop. In English? Leptin is a hormone produced by your body to make you feel satisfied or full after you eat. The less sleep you get, the lower your level of leptin which, in turn, means you feel less satisfied when you eat the next day and will end up eating more. The other sleep-food hormone your body produces is ghrelin, which is designed to stimulate your appetite. Therefore, not getting enough sleep packs a one-two punch to your waistline, with low leptin levels making you feel less full when you eat, and high ghrelin levels causing your body to get hungry, and consequently eat, more often.

 

Now we’ve covered the importance of sleep – although I could go on – it’s now time to look at how you go about getting enough sleep. If you have deadlines or an overly busy schedule, sometimes it’s not possible to get your seven to nine hours. When this occurs, try to remove any unnecessary obligations until you get your sleep routine back on track and, failing a seven- to nine-hour stretch, try to take naps when you can. If getting to sleep is difficult for you, you might find it easier to nod off if you’ve exercised during the day (as long as you avoid doing this less than three hours before bedtime). A bedtime ritual, such as having warm milk with honey, a warm bath or reading for a little bit before bed, can also help you get your body ready for sleep. Finally, make sure your room is the right temperature and well ventilated. Sweet dreams!

Categories: body, health, Heart Attack, hours, levels, Repairs, sleep, sleep deprivation, weight, wellness experts

Could Obesity be Causing the Problems With Your Sleep?

When you are obese, you will know that it is very important for your health to lose weight and improve your fitness. You will most likely be able to reel of a list of reasons why being overweight is damaging for your wellness and wellbeing, but what you may not know is that being obese can have a devastating effect on your body’s ability to sleep. Lack of sleep and obesity are actually linked, and researchers have been finding more and more evidence that proves this in recent months.

Most people today lead very stressful lives, where they are always on the go. People work long hours, do numerous chores in their spare time, try to spend time with their families and do household duties and also try to incorporate their friends into their lives. In this kind of lifestyle, sleep is very important but research has shown that the average person only gets around six and a half hours of sleep every night.

A study that took place at the University of Chicago looked at 12 men who were in their early 20s, and the study spanned several nights. For the first two nights they were only allowed to sleep for four hours per night and after that, for the next two nights, they were allowed to sleep for 10 hours a time.

What the researchers discovered was quite remarkable. The tests showed that a lack of sleep disrupts two hormones in the human body which regulate your appetite. Leptin is the first hormone, and it is the one that tells the brain when it is time to eat. Ghrelin is the other one and this hormone triggers the hunger reflex in the body. The study showed quite clearly that when the subjects of the study had a reduced amount of sleep, the hormones in their body were reduced significantly, meaning that they ate too often.

 

Categories: body, hormone, hours, obesity, sleep, study, time

Sleep More, Do More: How to Break that Sleepless Cycle

Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything you need to, and so you create more by staying up late until you drop, and getting up early the next day to get a head start. However, sleep is not an enemy, it’s absolutely essential to your wellbeing and, if you’re still concerned about time management, getting enough sleep will actually make you more productive.

According to a new study from researchers at the University of California-San Francisco, women who slept less than six hours per night had far more inflammation than men who slept that amount. While this doesn’t prove the lack of sleep caused increased inflammation, it does raise questions about how important sleep is to your wellness. Inflammation is seen as an important factor in heart attacks and strokes, and so it’s best to avoid it by getting plenty of sleep.

Aside from this, when you get more sleep you’re more focused and effective the next day. It’s important to embrace a lifestyle that will make you happier and healthier in the short-term, as it may extend your life. What’s the point of utilising a few more hours now, when you’ll end up missing out on years later on. All it takes is getting more than six hours of sleep every night (the recommended amount is seven to nine hours). It’s a small change, but it can make a huge difference to your health and happiness.

Charles Duhigg writes in The Power of Habit that you have the ability to reshape your routine and, thus, your life. You may think you’ve been burning the midnight oil for too long to change anything now, but extinguishing that flame might be easier than you think. According to Duhigg, routines begin with a cue; in this case, wanting to get things done. However, for the routine to develop it also needs to be justified with a reward; the satisfaction of checking something else off the to-do list. This is how you get into a sleepless cycle, but you can use this knowledge to create a better routine. Change your mindset to a new cue; wanting to feel more focused and alert. Then, the reward will be that new feeling, and you’ll get the sleep you need.

Categories: change, hours, Inflammation, productivity, Routine, sleep, sleepless cycle

How to Deal With an Unexpected Reduction in Work Hours

These are difficult economic times, and however hard you work, you may find that your company is no longer able to afford to employ you full time. This can be a devastating blow, and can affect your mental wellbeing, as well as your sense of corporate fulfillment.

This can be even more distressing when you have worked for a company for a long time and look on them as family. It is only natural to be concerned about your financial wellness in this scenario, especially in a time when most of us are living from paycheque to paycheque. There are a few different ways to respond to the news that your hours have been cut, however, that help you to remain in control of the situation and to make as many positives out of the situation as possible.

The first thing to ascertain is whether this cut is temporary or permanent. Sometimes a reduction in hours can be a temporary measure to help the company recover from some sort of financial blip or change in schedules. You must ask your boss whether or not these reduced hours are expected to be an ongoing thing, or whether they foresee being able to restore your initial hours, and within what kind of time period.

When you hear of a reduction in your hours, it is also natural to blame yourself, and so it’s vital to find out whether your boss feels that your performance has dropped in recent months. It is natural to become more casual about a job after working there for a period of time, so check with your employer that no bad habits have crept in that could have caused your employer to decide they need less of your services.

On the other hand, in order to convince your employer that they really need your services, you could offer to take on additional responsibilities. This will prove your work ethic and also your value to the company.

 

Categories: hours, reduction, work