Eating Healthy and Physical Wellbeing
Welcome to the May 2019 edition of TotalWellbeing, your guide to the 8 dimensions of wellbeing. This month we will look at two topics that are very closely related and while the importance of them may seem obvious, they can still be a bit tricky. We are talking of course about eating healthy and your physical wellbeing. Again, these topics may seem easy, but it can actually be very difficult to keep up your good wellbeing habits up around healthy eating especially in times of stress, when you’re at work, on the go like on vacation, and around holidays, even though these are some of the most important times to keep up the hard work. To help you stay mindful of your healthy eating habits take a look at these helpful articles, free webinars, and the information below. If you missed us last month, last year, or you are new to TotalWellbeing, you can catch up on our newsletters page. Remember, this newsletter is aimed at providing helpful information about various aspects of your wellbeing and then connecting it all back to important and relevant parts of everyday life. We will continue to focus on looking at each facet of wellbeing from a small, personal, level and then look at how it connects to the bigger community level as we explore how our wellbeing is tied to the world around us in often surprising ways. To your total wellbeing, The MINES Team
Sustainable habits, for lifelong health We have said it before on this newsletter and we will say it again because it warrants repeating: Lifelong wellbeing is about creating healthy sustainable habits while working to eliminate the bad ones. Healthy eating is no different. You should strive to build healthy eating habits that will support you for your entire life. Short-term diets yield short-term results, but if you want to be able to maintain your health in the long-term, you must build eating habits that you do every day. Of course, we aren’t saying that you can’t splurge occasionally, but you should always strive to be mindful of what you are eating and what impact it may have on your health. Limit fast food, build your arsenal of healthy recipes, and set yourself up for success by filling your fridge and cupboards with good nutritious food and toss away the junk. By building this healthy and nutritious foundation we promise you will feel better, have more energy, get sick less often, and the benefits will continue to spread throughout your life. And if you’re already doing these things, GREAT! KEEP IT UP! If you would like to talk to a counselor or wellness coach about eating better, exercising, or other ways you can work on your physical wellbeing, please call us at 1-800-873-7138 to get connected right away. Also, PersonalAdvantage has a ton of great resources and FREE webinars this month to help you focus on your wellbeing while also being productive at work and home.
Question of the Month When is your healthy eating habits the most vulnerable? What are your junk food triggers, and what can you do to counter them?
Quote of the Month “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” – Jim Rohn
Community and Global Perspective One of the best and easiest ways to connect to other cultures around the world is through food. So, while you are exploring ways to enhance your healthy eating habits, take time to look at cultures and cuisines from around the world that you are interested in and borrow dishes, cooking methods, and ingredients from the stuff you find in your research. This sort of world tour of foods is a great way to expose yourself to new foods, new ideas, and new habits that will help inspire you in the kitchen and is a great way to connect with other people as well.
If you or a member of your household needs assistance or guidance on any of these wellbeing topics, please call MINES & Associates, your EAP, today for free, confidential, 24/7 assistance at 800.873.7138.
This Month’s Focus Check out this month’s webinar: Letting Your Emotions Interfere with Eating MINESblog: Stress Infographic #1: Workplace Stress Stress Infographic #2: Stress/Health Connection New to TW? Check out our past Blogs! Important Links Visit our BLOG MINES and Associates 2019 Training Catalog Balanced Living Magazine LinkedIn MINEs Archives Contact Us Email MINES
		MINES does not warrant the materials (Audio, Video, Text, Applications, or any other form of media or links) included in this communication have any connection to MINES & Associates, nor does MINES seek to endorse any entity by including these materials in this communication.  MINES accepts no liability for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided herein, nor any additional content that may be made available through any third-party site. We found them helpful, and hope you do too!

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This is going to be a mish/mash of topics because not only is this whole month National Nutrition Month, but National Sleep Awareness Week is also going on (March 13^th – 19^th). What I hope to accomplish here is show how sleep and nutrition work together to impact your wellbeing in a positive or negative way depending on your habits and to provide resources to help improve your sleeping and eating habits. First up, nutrition.

Nutrition, back to basics

Its common knowledge that nutrition plays a key role in your wellbeing. So why is it that good nutrition habits seem to be so hard to maintain? The answer is mostly about cost and convenience. Good, healthy, nutritious food can be pricey, can take time to prepare, and is rarely found when dining out unless you go to places where healthy food is “their thing” and even then, the results can be sketchy. That said there are some basic food principals that you can keep in mind that can help guide you and assist in building healthy, and most importantly, sustainable eating habits. I use the term “habits” intentionally because just like with exercise, breaking bad habits and creating and nurturing good habits is key. Simply put, short-term diets accomplish short-term goals. For life-long wellbeing, you need to create good eating habits that you do all the time while also working to get rid of bad habits like eating a donut with your coffee every morning or drinking energy drinks in lieu of getting enough sleep. Here are some goals to strive for.

Calories. While I am not telling you to start counting every calorie you intake during a day it is important to understand that every day you need a certain amount of calories for your body to function. Variables such as age, gender, activity level, and weight goals, will affect how many calories you should aim to consume in a 24-hour period. There are various calculators online and other tools out there that can help you come up with a rough number. However, it may be best to talk with a doctor or nutritionist to develop a plan that truly fits your body and your goals. Once you know how many calories to shoot for you can begin to approach meal time in a more objective way.

Eat more fruits and veggies. Fruits and vegetables are very nutritious and are often the best, and sometimes only, source for certain vitamins and minerals. Supplements exist but data suggests that when we take things like daily multi-vitamins our bodies may not actually be able to absorb a lot of it. This is why it is important to make sure you are eating a balanced intake of plant-based foods to ensure you don’t become deficient in any vitamins or minerals which can cause mild to severe health issues down the line. Plus, studies show that a diet high in nutrient-rich vegetables can help prevent certain types of diseases such as certain cancers and diabetes. Here are some tips for increasing your intake:

• Have a daily fruit snack.
• Try to eat at least 5 ½ cups a day of fruits and vegetables, especially those with the most color, which is an indication of high nutrient content.
• Tuck a banana, apple, orange, some raisins or other dried fruit in your bag for a mid-afternoon snack.
• Use sliced fresh fruit as a topping for pancakes, waffles, and fresh yogurt.
• Substitute chopped vegetables for some of the meat in your recipes. For example: Add carrots, celery, and green and red peppers to meatloaf; mushrooms and spinach to lasagna; and celery, zucchini and yellow squash to spaghetti sauce.
• Drink a glass of 100 percent fruit juice with your meals. Make sure it is 100% juice as many juice brands contain added sugar and other fillers.
• Top hot or cold cereal with sliced bananas, fresh berries, raisins, or other fruit.
• Top lettuce-leaf salads with generous amounts of tomato, cucumber, celery, mushroom slices, onions, beets, radishes, green peppers, broccoli, shredded carrots, bean sprouts, or fresh fruit.
• Add chopped green, yellow, or red peppers, broccoli, celery, onions, and cherry tomatoes to rice and pasta salads.

Eat a variety of foods. It’s easy to find yourself eating the same stuff every week or even every day sometimes. But if you’re not shaking things up you could be limiting the variety of nutrients you’re getting and could find yourself becoming deficient in many important micro (vitamins/minerals) and macro (fat/protein/carbs) nutrients. This is why it’s important to be mindful about eating a good variety of food.

• Mix up the types of protein you eat. While it’s important to limit the amount of red or processed meat you consume for all sorts of reasons, try to make sure you are balancing your lean protein between all types of meat including chicken, fish, turkey, and plant-based proteins like tofu and beans.
• Add color to your diet. Even if you’re getting a lot of fruits and veggies, make sure there is plenty of variety in those as well. Strive to eat veggies of different colors as a simplistic guide. Get plenty of green, red, yellow, orange, brown, purple, etc. into your diet. The colors of fruits and veggies represent the chemical content in them meaning different color, different nutrients. The more color on your plate the better!
• Try recipes from new cookbooks or search the internet for sites with healthful recipes you can download. Check out a new restaurant or recipe each week or pick one night a week to create a meal you’ve never tried.

Limit the “bad” types of carbs you eat and eat more of the “good” carbohydrates. Eighty percent of your total carbohydrate intake should come from nutrient-dense carbohydrates, such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole-grain products (breads, cereals, pasta), barley, couscous, oatmeal, and potatoes. Stay away from the processed sugars in soda, candy, white rice, white bread, white pasta, in fact, as a friend and colleague of mine says, “if it’s white, don’t bite!”

Sleep, it does the body (and mind) good

I think it’s fair to say that we all have nights when we don’t sleep very well. While it’s fine to be a little tired every now and then, chronic sleeplessness can have drastic effects on your wellbeing far beyond simply being a little tired in the morning and can increase your risk of many physical and mental health issues that no can of energy drink is going to be able to fix. Sleep is when our body carries out important tasks such as resting, repair of the body, processing of short- and long-term memories, and hormonal regulation to name a few. To give ourselves time to carry out these tasks when we sleep, adults need to get 7-10 hours of sleep per night consistently. Being tired can even be dangerous. Driving, operating machinery, dosing out medication, and other tasks we may encounter on the job or in daily life can be risky or even deadly. In fact, the data shows that driving while tired can be just as dangerous or more so than driving under the influence of alcohol.

Unfortunately, our busy lives can prevent us from having the time to get enough sleep, too much anxiety to sleep at all, or secretly sabotage our quality sleep without our awareness through things like blue light from our mobile phone, TV, and computer screens which can impact our sleeping patterns drastically. But don’t despair, there are lots of actions we can take to help support our sleep and remove distractions and disruptors from our sleepy time.

Tips for sleep

Getting good sleep is all about setting up a good routine, being mindful of when and what you eat, and avoiding distractions around bedtime. Here are some tips to help you set yourself up for a good night’s rest:

• Stick to a sleep schedule. I know this one is hard for me too, especially on the weekends, but strive to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day.
• Don’t exercise 2-3 hours before bedtime. The activity combined with the chemicals released during exercise can wake you up when you should be winding down.
• Avoid nicotine and caffeine. Both chemicals are stimulants and can cause sleep issues.
• Avoid late night snacks or beverages before sleep. Indigestion can cause sleep issues as can frequent trips to the bathroom.
• If possible, take medications that can disrupt sleep in the morning. Of course, if you have a strict medication schedule this may not be possible. Ask your doctor about this one if you have any medication caused sleep issues.
• Limit napping to early in the day. A 5 o’clock nap may sound good, but it may make it hard to relax come bedtime.
• Relax before bed. Read, listen to calm music, meditate, take a hot bath, or do whatever relaxes you and gets you ready for sleep. Stay away from screens though, the light coming from them can disrupt our body’s sleep cycles.
• Maintain a good sleep environment. Make your bedroom dark, comfortable, and distraction free. Keep daytime activities out, this means no TV or computers. Train your brain that the bedroom is only for sleep and other bedroom exclusive activities.
• Get out during the day. Getting exposure to the sun at least 30-minutes a day can help calibrate our internal clocks.
• Don’t lie in bed awake. Get up and do something relaxing to help keep the anxiety of not being able to sleep at bay.

To further tie nutrition and sleep together here are a few more ways the two interact in both positive and negative ways:

• Sleep and food are our primary sources of energy/fuel. They both support our ability to function in different and important ways. One cannot substitute for the other, however.
• Sleep regulates how your body uses energy and poor sleep can lead to higher risk of obesity and diabetes.
• Energy drinks are not sleep in a can!
• While some food and drinks can hurt your sleep quality, some things like decaf tea and other foods can help relax the body and mind for sleep.

Resources

For more information or helpful resources check out:

• 8 Nutrition and Exercise Tips
• National Sleep Foundation
• Choose My Plate
• gov
• CDC Sleep Resources

MINES Can Help

Hopefully, you can use this information help make National Nutrition Month (and National Sleep Week) a new milestone in your healthy habit goals for 2022. And remember if MINES is your EAP, you have access to a ton more resources through your online benefit PersonalAdvantage. If you don’t know your company’s login information, please contact MINES or your Human Resources department. MINES also has an extensive training selection for sleep, nutrition, and many more wellbeing, employee, and development topics.

To your wellbeing,

The MINES Team

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	The Relationship Between Nutrition and Environmental Wellbeing
For 2018, we at MINES wanted to find a new way to promote the 8 areas of wellbeing. In order to do this, we decided to switch up our monthly communication into areas that you can copy and send out to your employees or give you suggestions around trainings that relate to this wellbeing topic. We also want to continue on from last year’s emphasis on the community and look at how what we do can affect those around us and that affects your community, your state, and even other countries. To your total wellbeing, The MINES Team
How Nutrition Affects Your Environmental Wellbeing Your environment involves everything around you. This includes your home environment from what food you have around your home to the expectations you have for those you live with. What better time than now to look at how you can improve your environmental wellbeing by looking at your food habits and how that impacts your family, your health, and your overall wellbeing. Take this month to examine how to incorporate healthy foods into your family dinners, look up great recipes on PersonalAdvantage if you have it, or use your wellness sessions through MINES to speak to a coach. If you surround yourself with unhealthy food and temptations, it only makes it harder to help your whole family stay healthy. MINES also offers Wellness Sessions if you have EAP benefits with us so call us and see how you can access these. Personal Advantage has some great tools and webinars this month to improve your Nutrition Know How and Environmental Wellbeing or check out our “Nutrition Tune-up” infographic.
Question of the Month What “toxins” (unhealthy temptations) can you remove from your environment to help support your nutrition goals?
Quote of the Month “Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture your heart.” – American Indian Proverb
MINES Updates/Community World View Nutrition can cover a lot of ground – from eating healthy and what type of processed products are ok, to what your individual body needs or, on the flip side, can’t tolerate. If you have knowledge around a certain area of nutrition, why not share that knowledge in a community group or help those who may be dealing with the same health concerns? Take this month to share your knowledge around nutrition with someone else and see what you can learn from them as well. You might find a new favorite, healthier recipe, or you might learn why you are not feeling great after you eat a certain food. Each community has a vast array of cultures and backgrounds so this is a great time to look at other culture’s food prep and choice ingredients to see what you can learn about how others may look at nutrition.
If you or a member of your household needs assistance or guidance on any of these wellbeing topics, please call MINES & Associates, your EAP, today for free, confidential, 24/7 assistance at 800.873.7138.
This Month’s Focus Check out this month’s webinar on Nutrition MINES blogs last month: Don’t Feed the Trolls Check out this Month’s Infographic Important Links Visit our BLOG MINES and Associates 2018 Training Catalog Balanced Living Magazine LinkedIn MINEs Archives Contact Us Email MINES
		MINES does not warrant the materials (Audio, Video, Text, Applications, or any other form of media or links) included in this communication have any connection to MINES & Associates, nor does MINES seek to endorse any entity by including these materials in this communication.  MINES accepts no liability for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided herein, nor any additional content that may be made available through any third-party site. We found them helpful, and hope you do too!

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1) Breakfast – We’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but let’s not forget that it is what we eat in the morning that really counts. Some quick and easy items are: cold cereal, low fat milk, juices, whole grain waffles, and fruit.

2) Group Physical Activities – Plan a few weekly events with friends, family, coworkers, fellow students, or neighbors. This could be a weekly walk around the neighborhood, weekend swimming time, a family bike, or a camping trip.

3) Move – If you’re moving you aren’t standing still. Find a way to spend 5-10 minutes of every hour getting up and doing something physical. This may include climbing the stairs, stretching, or walking around the block or office building.

4) Healthy Snacks – Snacking throughout the day doesn’t have to be unhealthy. Try eating carrots, broccoli or whatever your favorite raw vegetable is during the day. This will help boost your energy, keep you full, and will help you acquire the daily servings your body needs to maintain a healthy diet.

5) Work Out – There are ways to get a good workout without having to buy an expensive gym membership. Do some research on at-home workouts, check out your television service offerings, get online, or find books or videos at your local library. They are key to a good workout and working up a sweat. Overall, simply find a way to get your heart rate up for at least 30 minutes a day.

6) Vegetables and Grains – Try to eat more vegetables and grains. Whole wheat pasta or breads like pita can taste good and are good for you. These will give you complex carbs for energy, as well as fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

7) Balanced Diet – Too much of anything can be bad, right? Try to balance out your food choices over the day and week. Pick different snacking options and have breakfasts and dinners with health variety. This will allow you to get all the nutrients you need to stay healthy. Plus the variety will keep you going.

8) Have Fun – Try a new activity or sport. Participate with friends and family. Eating right and getting exercise doesn’t have to be a burden. If you have the right outlook it can be a joy. Making eating right a fun and balanced part of your life while setting realistic, short-term goals.

Ian Holtz,
Manager, Business Development

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Visit our Website Past Newsletters	Can a Candy Bar Give you the Flu? March 22, 2011
	Even as a child I never craved sugar. Give me beef jerky or pickles any day over candy or chocolate; pretty much anything high in sodium and I’m a fan. So when my fiancé came home the other day with two boxes of Samoa’s there was no temptation to consume these cookies. I am trying to watch my nutrition and so why bring anything into the house that I will devour. You will never see me buying Pringles for the house, they’d be gone in an hour, but I can deal with not eating sweets so the Girl Scout cookies didn’t bother me… at first. There they were sitting right in front of me and I began that internal conversation that starts right before I am about to do something bad. “I don’t even like sweets that much, but you can only buy them once a year, what is one cookie going to do, you only live once…” And I was sold. That little Samoa was right where it should be, in my mouth and just as scrumptious as I remembered. Just because I don’t crave sugar, doesn’t mean they aren’t delicious. Without thinking, I gobbled one more and then another. Oh no! Nick grabbed the boxes, seeing the lack of self-control and despair in my eyes, and he put the boxes on top of the fridge. Shortly after my battle with the cookies we left the house to run a few errands. Upon our return we discovered two shredded Girl Scout cookie boxes and one VERY full and naughty looking Jack Russell Terrier. He ate every last one. Nick was so upset. First, he had just bought the cookies and hadn’t even had a bite yet. Second, dogs shouldn’t consume chocolate. But me, I was ecstatic. I wanted to hug that dog and tell him thank you! Assuming he would stay well all of my temptation was gone and after reading this week’s article, the dog could very well have saved me from getting a cold! Don’t worry, I’m working on my self-control.
	Read more on this topic here…
	Britney Kirsch Account Manager

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Some food for thought

As organizations grow and develop they may need to focus on getting their calories from different sources. According to the organizational life cycle guru, Ichak Adizes, at inception the organization needs to focus on sales or “entrepreneurship.” In infancy the company needs to focus on performance and execution. In the rapid growth stage the company will continue to focus on performance, production, and sales. Then in adolescence, the organization focuses less on production and more on systematizing and consistency while still focusing on entrepreneurship. As the company moves to prime it will re-focus on production as well as systems and sales (“Corporate Lifecycles” Ichak Adizes 1988).

One size does not fit all!

• Challenge your assumptions. Are we doing things just because that’s the way we’ve always done them? Our organizational muscles can get  flabby and weak. We need exercise!
• “Where the mind goes the energy goes.” Are we aligned as an organization about where we are headed and what we stand for? Do we have an organizational intention that we all know and focus on? Our results are based on our practices. Underlying our practices, are our intentions and beliefs positive and forward-looking?
• Do we take as good a care of our people as we do our computers and printers? Do we maintain them regularly, or only when they break down?
• Are our leaders emotionally intelligent? Do they get the coaching, feedback and information they need to be the best role models for the health they seek in the workforce?
• Create Energy. Do we exuberantly celebrate our successes, use our setbacks as learning opportunities, and create times of rest and repose? How are we creating good energy versus stress and burnout?

A healthy diet and regular exercise builds strong organizations every way.

Just some food for thought.

Patrick Hiester
Vice-President, BizPsych

The post How do we get our ‘Organizational’ Nutrition? appeared first on MINES and Associates.

Visit our Website Past Newsletters	Ideas for Healthy Weight Loss March 7, 2011
	Wellness, wellness, wellness! It seems to be the new buzzword going around. Starting about mid-year in 2010 many of our clients wanted to know what we could offer for wellness. We brought nutritionists to benefit fairs and we even increased our nutrition and fitness trainings, but as a psychology firm, we knew that there were so many behavioral components to your health and we wanted to offer more. As an Account Manager, I make an effort to experience what our clients are experiencing so I met with the nutritionist and completed a full assessment. I know what I need to do to lose weight and be healthy; eat more vegetables, exercise more, calories in vs. calories out…yada, yada, yada. However, the assessment delved so much deeper than I had imagined. I didn’t realize how connected my eating was with stress, sleep, and a few bad habits I didn’t even realize I had. At one point during the assessment, Deb, a nutrition affiliate, asked me, “How much water do you typically drink in a day?” I looked at my coffee mug and embarrassingly stated, “There is water in my coffee.” I didn’t even realize how thoughtless I had become with my health and how noticeably my habits were impacting my life and state of well-being. It’s not that I didn’t know that it’s important to strive for 8 glasses of water per day but I think I put “healthy living” on the bottom of my to-do list. Our theme for March is “Food for Thought.” So think twice about all of those Girl Scout cookies and sit back and enjoy this month’s articles for information on making steps toward a better you. And as an added bonus we have our very own nutritional affiliates writing them, so a big thank you to Custom Life Solutions for your insight, knowledge, and new partnership with MINES as we provide our clients with a more holistic approach to that little thing called “wellness”
	Read more on this topic here…
	Britney Kirsch Account Manager

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Once I had come to terms with my reality, I learned to organize my meals in a way that would allow for variety without waste.  Here are some of the tips I discovered that may help you identify opportunities to spice up your single dining:

1. Plan out your week
   If you know that you are going to be tied up for the next two days with activities, don’t cook a big meal.  Planning for your left-overs can mean the difference between eating or discarding a perfectly good meal.
2. Use less spice
   The less you prep your food before cooking it, the more versatile it can be in left-over preparation.  Try cooking 3 chicken breasts with a simple salt and olive oil coating, rather than adding bar-b-que sauce, so you can eat one tonight, shred the 2nd for a chicken salad, and use the third in a chicken noodle soup.
3. Grab veggies and fruit in limited quantities, but often
   Especially if you live in an area with a walkable grocery or market, grabbing veggies and fruits on the way home from work means fresher produce that isn’t spending time waiting on your counter to be used.
4. Purchase “family-size” of common meats and separate to freeze
   This can save you a lot of money from month-to-month.  Family packs are usually much cheaper and separating and freezing those packs into meal-sized portions means you can grab a batch to defrost and cook when needed, rather than purchasing several smaller packages.

For more tips on Nutrition when you’re single, check out this article on the MINES website.

Ryan
The MINES Marketing Team

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