Lets Go Nuts!.......About Nuts!
That light at the end of this ever depressing tunnel is getting nearer and nearer. We’re all getting excited about the possibilities of being set free and where it can take us. Lets go here, lets book that, lets eat here, lets have a drink there! We, at GymPro are doing exactly the same.
However it wouldn’t sit right with us unless we kept bringing to you important information that can have profound affects on our health. Little changes to our habits at home can be the difference between spending lockdown productively or destructively to our health and wellbeing.
This week we want you to go nuts!... about nuts!
Snacking at home has been the dark lure for many people and choosing that healthy option as been almost harder than ever. The shift in supermarket sales and increase in fast food demand has been clearly documented and with queues wrapped around almost every fast food restaurant its been also clear to see. Depressing weather, depressing news, screaming kids, we get it! Add to that the need to be in comfortable clothes, is there any wonder we’re all dreading the first work wardrobe re fitting!
But it doesn’t have to be that way. We first highlighted to you Blue Zone areas of the world where people are living the longest and the reasons why. They popped up then in their common diets. We then highlighted in a more recent blog about gut health and the importance of maintaining our healthy gut bacteria. They popped up then aswell. We also recently blogged about sleep and how you can improve the quality of our sleep and guess what? They popped up then.
So now we feel they need their own inclusion. Mounting evidence suggests that eating nuts and seeds daily can lower your risk of diabetes and heart disease and may even lengthen your life!
We can all now safely put to bed the scare mongerers who told us the high calorie and sat fat content made them bad for us. It has now been proven that this is more than balanced out with the majority of plant based food but more obviously in nuts by the higher levels of healthy fats.
Nuts and seeds contain mixtures of fats including monounsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids and omega 3 fatty acids. It is these essential fats that reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. The FDA now allows nut producers to claim that a diet that includes 1 ounce of nuts daily can reduce your risk of heart disease. Evidence from the studies actually showed that the effects from nuts were actually ‘dose related’ so the more you ate the lower your risk!
They have also been shown to do the following,
- Improve cholesterol profiles
- Prevent arrhythmias
- Reduce blood clotting
- Relax blood vessels
- Raise levels of glucagon like peptide 1.
- Contribute to satiety.
So what does all this mean and how can we make a change and have a positive impact on our families? Well the good news is they’re relatively cheap compared to your average chocolate bar or pack of biscuits or other evil household snack we have calling us from the kitchen cupboards. Fill some bowels and have them in and around the seating areas of your home as an easy reach tactic to try and encourage snacking on them. Sprinkle nuts and flaxseeds on cereals and desserts to try and increase the intake of them. They can be delicious as part of yoghurts, ice creams and smoothies aswell as on their own. But once you start we can all experiment with them and utilise them in different dishes.
But most importantly we can all start now to try and encourage healthy habits that we can carry forward at work or on holidays that can truly make a difference on ourselves, but more importantly, on the people we hold most dear in our lives. If this crisis and lockdown has taught us one thing, its been the importance of our family and of human health.
#gymprofamily #staysafe #gonuts