In Equilibrium 30
Dear subscribername, here is your latest copy of our newsletter
In Equilibrium 30
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THIS MONTH
1. In Equilibrium News: Have you seen our online survey?
Click here to go to our online survey and work out how well your organisation is tackling stress.
2. Stress Tip: You can't listen with your mouth open!
Your colleagues, your employees, your suppliers, your customers all have something of value in what they have to say. Listen to the people around you. You will never learn from them if you drown them out by talking all the time. Remember the only thing that can come out of your mouth is something you already know.
John Reh
"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."
Joseph Chilton Pearce, International author and lecturer, renowned futurist in Child, Family and Human Development, (1926 - )
The Holford Diet
Patrick Holford.
ISBN 0-7499-2543-4
Published by Piatkus.
Patrick Holford is a highly respected British nutritionist who is also a leading spokesman on nutrition, food, environmental and health issues. He originally trained as a psychologist before becoming interested in diet and founded the Institute of Optimum Nutrition in 1984.
This ‘diet’ book is based on the latest medical and nutritional research and replaces Holford’s previous book ‘The Fat Burner Diet’. According to Holford both the Atkins Diet and the Glycemic Index diet hold part of the story for weight loss. Both can lead to weight loss and help stabilise your blood sugar, however the Holford Diet approach is to look at the Glycemic Load (GL) of the food. Foods can have the same calorie count but different GL and this can affect how your body breaks down and uses those foods.
On the Holford Diet you can have 40GLs a day. Usually split between 3 meals of 10 GLs and 2 Snacks of 5GLs each. A large bowl of porridge (75grams) is 5GLs, whereas 5 GLs of Special K is 11 grams. Both these foods have the same Glycemic Load but eating the porridge will fill you up and stabilise your blood sugar for longer; if you choose the Special K breakfast you are likely to find yourself wanting a snack long before lunch time.
Following the Holford Diet means you can control your blood sugar, and controlling your blood sugar is the secret to controlling your eating and maintaining your energy levels.
I consider this an excellent book which gives good information about how our bodies work, how important balancing our blood sugar is to maintain our energy levels and to stop us feeling hungry all the time, what supplements do and how to choose the ones you personally need. I like the way Patrick Holford ties together all the latest medical and nutritional research in a way that is easily understood.
More information about the diet, including an excellent list of the GL of many foods, can be found on www.holforddiet.com
Alastair Taylor
Do you have any thoughts/opinions on this or any other book review you have read in In Equilibrium?
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5. Al's Column: Christmas and Divorce
It became a ritual. Around October the nagging would begin. Alan, we must have a real tree. Alan would resist, remembering the trauma of last year's real tree. She would wear me down. I would yield to the pressure and eventually give up, my pleas for plastic ('they're very realistic now, dear') unheaded. Early in December, usually a Saturday, the ritual would begin. Me, my wife, her mother and her mother's dog, would set off. Some considerable time later (it was always a long way) we would lurch into some remote Forestry Commission plantation car park in the Scottish Borders. It would be raining and always a quagmire, requiring wellies. Because it is difficult to drive in wellies, I would have to change on-site. At some point, getting the wellies on or off, would put my back out.
I would share knowing glances with other men, who, like me, would rather be sitting in front of the telly watching football focus. The trudging would begin. Within the several acres of quagmire, were several thousand assorted Christmas trees killed in the prime of life. My role as the 'big man' would be to drag the dead conifer from under several others to a point where I could hold it up for inspection by wife and mother in law. What do you think, Alan, they would ask. 'Fine', I would say. Then off we would trudge, Alan ignored. 25 'fine' trees later, a glimmer of optimism would stir in my soul. The latest 'held up' sitka spruce would be getting affirmative noises. Then, typically, hopes would be dashed as my wife realised that we had 'completely missed' a virgin field of newly felled trees.
Somehow eventually, a decision would be reached, and off we would trudge for wrapping and payment. My thought was always the same, 'It'll never get in the car'. But somehow it would, although I would only be able to see out of a small area of windscreen. Inevitably, the tree would be too big for the house. My wife would have to saw four feet off the top, and we would lose half of the living room for several weeks. I'd call the effect created 'coniferous forest'. I'd head off to find another telly, grumpy, having now missed the football results and a whole day of television sport.
We separated in 1994 and divorced two years later. I should point out that the annual Christmas tree purchasathon was not the only reason for our divorce but was certainly a contributory factor. The phrase 'mental cruelty' springs to mind.
Best Wishes
Alan Bradshaw.
6. Web Resources: BBC online Fitness
To continue where we left off in the last newsletter, there is more on the health section of the BBC's website. As new year resolutions are shortly to be made, what better way to turn dreams into plans by reading a bit about getting fitter. It could seriously help your motivation!
Sections include
- Get motivated
- Eating for energy
- Fitness for over 50's
- Get active (benefits of particular types of exercises such as cycling, dancing, football)
- Injuries
- Pregnancy fitness
- Daily fitness (do you have time?)
- Medical problems (what can you do if you have back pain etc)
7. Stress Technique: Learning from Stressful Experiences
Every stressful experience we encounter extracts an emotional and physical price. If the event is extremely stressful then the cost to our health and well-being can be considerable.
Because stress is costly it is to your advantage to learn from each experience. Stressful experiences have a bad habit of overtaking us and consequently we are frequently caught out by their pace of the assault.
After the event has passed and our emotional levels have subsided we are then in a position to objectively review the situation. An objective appraisal is desirable because the emotions aroused in stressful experiences often fog our judgement causing us to be irrational. By initiating a hindsight review we are able to gain fresh insights.
Follow these steps when you are reviewing a stressful event:
- Define the event factually
- Review the event negatively
- Review the event positively
- Review the event from the other person's perspective.
- Determine future strategies.
Please let us know what you think of this newsletter and our website. We are always keen to receive constructive feedback. Perhaps you have an opinion on a point raised at one of our workshops,or you wish to ask other readers what they think about a particular issue. Keep in touch with us!!
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