Spring into life

Spring is the season of renewal and revitalisation. After long months of winter the promise of warm sunny days is the perfect motivation to rejuvenate a jaded body with some simple lifestyle modifications.

Spring clean

The time for stodgy comfort foods is over. To help spring clean your body forego starchy, fatty or sugar laden foods such as cakes, chips, white bread and pizza.  These foods offer empty calories, and contribute to weight gain, low energy, moodiness and long term poor health.

Instead, enjoy regular fresh meals based on vegetables and fruit, lean protein from fish, eggs, chicken or lean meats, legumes and wholegrains, and healthy fats from flaxseed oil, olive oil and unroasted nuts and seeds.  These wholesome natural foods provide essential nutrients for liver detoxification and healthy bowel function, and are packed with enzymes, vitamins and minerals to boost energy and vitality.  If plagued by poor digestion try taking supplementary digestive enzymes with meals to ease bloating and obtain full nutritional benefit from your food.

If you are feeling particularly sluggish the herbal remedies Milk Thistle, Schisandra and Dandelion provide more powerful detoxification support, and Spirulina boasts an impressive nutritional profile to enhance energy levels.

Exercise – the essential energiser

If there existed a fun social activity that costs nothing, improves energy levels, tones up your body, balances your mood, clears your mind, and helps prevent illnesses such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, how could you resist?  Exercise offers all these benefits and more, and yet many of us do not take advantage of this simple health solution.

Human beings have evolved from caveman times when physical activity was necessary for survival, to increasingly sedentary lifestyles that often involve little more than moving between the car, the couch and the office chair.  The human body is designed to move, and health and wellbeing are directly related to the amount of physical activity we get.  Medical research into serious health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, depression and obesity, identifies lack of exercise as a common, and avoidable, risk factor. 

The good news is even small amounts of regular exercise make a difference, and any activity is beneficial.  So make housework a health practice and vacuum with vigour, take the stairs, misplace the TV remote, park further away or walk instead of drive and enjoy the fresh air.  Simply keep your body busy and reap the benefits.