Tag: Healthy Habits

Healthy Heart Tip: Healthy Habits for Summer Holidays

Heart Research UK Healthy Heart Tip, written by the Health Promotion and Education Team at Heart Research UK

Healthy Heart Tip: Healthy Habits for Summer Holidays

The summer holidays can be a stressful time for many families. Whilst they are a lovely opportunity to enjoy the summer together as a family, parents and carers can find it hard to juggle having the children at home with work, household and general life commitments. Naturally, during busy periods one of the first things to be pushed aside is healthy eating and taking time for ourselves to recoup and recharge.

We’ve put together some tips to help you get through the summer holidays and keep providing nourishing meals for the family – without going crazy:

Consider an early start

  • If you have older children who sleep well, you could try getting up an hour before they rise. This gives you an hour of calm before the hustle and bustle of the day begins, you can use this time to get on top of the household chores, get ahead of the day’s work commitments, do some meditation to set you up for the day or just have your breakfast in peace! Of course, this means going to bed an hour earlier to make sure you are getting enough sleep (seven to nine hours per night is ideal).

Meal plan

  • If you don’t already meal plan, now is the time to start. Having a comprehensive meal plan over the summer holidays will really take the stress out of eating well. We recommend planning for every single meal, including snacks, and have the plan pinned on the fridge for all to see. To make it easier still, use the same meal plan for every week of the holidays, as long as you have varied meals throughout the week, there’s no reason why you can’t eat the same and it makes shopping easier, as it’s the same list each week.

Write a diary/plan

  • Writing a diary or a day planner the night before each day can really help lessen those feelings of overwhelm we can experience when life is busy. It can also help calm and quieten your mind before going to sleep. You could group things into ‘urgent’ – those things that are priority and can’t wait and ‘can wait’ – those things you want to get done at some point, but if they don’t happen tomorrow that’s ok.

Above all, remember to not take on too much, and try to let the small things go as children can be demanding and take up lots of our energy.

There is plenty of information available online about free and local things to do during the holidays, so be sure to have a look and get out and about in nature everyday where possible.

For more tips on how to stay healthy, sign up for our weekly healthy tips at www.heartresearch.org.uk/healthy-tips.

To help keep your heart healthy, why not try out some of our Healthy Heart recipes from our website: https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-recipes-2/.

Or have a look through our Healthy Heart cookbook filled with recipes from top chefs, celebrities and food bloggers:

https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-cookbook/.

Healthy Heart Tip: Forming good habits

As we enter this third week of the new year, many of us will be considering how we can maintain the heart-healthy habits we started at the beginning of 2022.

Staying motivated can be particularly challenging, especially during the winter months, however research indicates that if we are able to maintain a habit for around 66 days, it can turn from a short-term to a long-term habit.

To help you reach your goals over the coming months, here are some tips for increasing success:

Set a Goal

One of the most important things we can do for our motivation is set a goal. It helps us to focus on the future and gives us something to aim for. Remember to make your goals Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART).

Challenge Your Thinking

Next time you find yourself shying away from a positive habit such as exercising or cooking a healthy meal, consider if the thoughts you are having about the task are logical or helpful.

For example, instead of saying “I don’t have time to cook”, you may say to yourself “I don’t have as much time as I would like, but I can still make something quick and healthy”.

Set Cues

Setting reminders or cues for ourselves can increase our chances of success.

Try taking out your sports kit the night before a run or setting an alarm to move once per hour.

Track your Progress

Tracking progress can be a great way to see the improvements we make, which can increase our motivation to continue.

You can use apps such as MyFitnessPal, or even a simple spreadsheet to track weight loss, running times or the number of vegetables you eat per day!

Pair Up

Forming a habit with a friend or family member can be a great way to increase accountability and share success!

For more tips on how to stay healthy, sign up for our weekly healthy tips at www.heartresearch.org.uk/healthy-tips

To help keep your heart healthy, why not try out some of our Healthy Heart recipes from our website: https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-recipes-2/

Or have a look through our Healthy Heart cookbook filled with recipes from top chefs, celebrities and food bloggers: https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-cookbook/

Healthy Heart Tips: Maintaining Healthy Habits

Heart Research UK Healthy Heart Tip, written by Dr Helen Flaherty, Head of Health Promotion and Education at Heart Research UK

Maintaining Healthy Habits

New Year’s resolutions can be a good starting point for making longer term health and lifestyle improvements, but most people who set New Year’s resolutions do not stick to them.

Reasons for quitting include a lack of time, a lack of support from other people and feeling daunted by unrealistic targets. This tip is aimed at helping you to succeed in maintaining your healthy goals in 2021:

Setting achievable goals

The first thing to consider is whether your New Year’s resolutions is achievable and realistic. Often, goals are unachievable because they are too difficult, or they do not allow enough time for you to make gradual changes.  There is nothing wrong with aiming high and being ambitious, but it is important that your goal is not too difficult or time-consuming as this could leave you feeling daunted.

When setting a goal, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Is the goal too ambitious?
  • Is the timeframe for the goal realistic?
  • What specific changes do I need to make to achieve my goal?
  • Can I fit my new healthy behaviour around my other commitments?

Break down your goal

Breaking large goals down into smaller goals can make them feel more achievable and less daunting. For example, if you are aiming to lose weight, the NHS recommends that you aim to lose around 1 to 2lbs (0.5 to 1kg) a week. You should be able to achieve this by cutting down your calorie intake by about 500 to 600 calories each day. It might take you longer than you originally planned to lose the weight, but you are more likely to stick to it and not give up.

Plan for success

Make a plan of how you will achieve your goal and what changes you will make to ensure you stick to it. There are online resources available to help you plan your healthy activities, such as the NHS’ couch to 5km programme or the NHS’ programmes for stopping smoking, cutting down alcohol and losing weight:

Don’t expect immediate results

The effects of your New Year’s resolution may take time to appear. Try to be patient and don’t expect the results from just one or two weeks of dieting to show on the weighing scales, as it may take longer.

Involving other people

A really good way to motivate you to stick to your goal is to involve other people. If you know someone who has a similar goal to yours, try to involve them as a “buddy” to provide mutual support for each other. They may even be able to push you a little bit harder, helping you to achieve your goals and resolutions sooner. You can also look for groups on social media who share your goal.

Do not beat yourself up

If you miss a fitness session, have an alcoholic drink, cigarette or bar of chocolate, try not to feel guilty about it. Think about what might have triggered the deviation from your goal and try to avoid it in future. Forgive yourself and aim to get back to achieving your goal as soon as possible.

Make changes that will last long term

On average, it takes between 21 and 28 days for something to become a long-term habit. Make goals that you want to be able to stick to long term, such as improving your overall fitness, stopping smoking or maintaining your weight.

If you can make it through these first few weeks, you will notice that things will become much easier. drinking you can get support by visiting: 

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/

Heart Research UK

Proud to stand out from the crowd, Heart Research UK is the charity dedicated to your heart. They inspire and invest in pioneering medical research, ground-breaking training and education, and in communities to improve their heart health for themselves. For over 50 years they have driven advancements in the prevention, treatment and cure of heart disease to benefit patients as soon as possible.

In the last 10 years, Heart Research UK has funded over £10.2m in medical research in hospitals and universities across the UK, as well as £2.2m on innovative community-based lifestyle projects to improve the heart health of the nation.

They like a personal approach, so if they want to contact you they do it themselves, and certainly don’t pay anyone to do it. They treat people how they would like to be treated themselves.

If you’d like to support Heart Research UK’s vital work into the prevention, treatment and cure of heart disease, please visit www.heartresearch.org.uk for inspiration on how you could help.