BUSINESS TIP: Biscuit Barrels

A lot of workplaces supply their employees with coffee, tea, fruit and endless supplies of sweet and savory biscuits. We grab a couple of sweet biscuits in the morning - they're perfect with our morning coffee. Then of course by 3pm , we need a sugar hit to get us through the rest of the day. So we reach for the biscuit barrel again. We definitely don't need to get these biscuits everyday - they're not vital for life, but they do give us some enjoyment when eating. And of course they're convenient and require no time to prepare. When these foods are so readily available, it's hard to resist them, even though we all know we don't need them. Next time you want to reach for the biscuit barrel, try these handy hints: 

• Store biscuits in opaque jars. Studies have should, biscuits out of sight are also out of mind, and even simply making a jar opaque reduces the amount of biscuits you reach for.
• Drink water. When the 3pm sugar cravings hit, have a glass of water. A lot of the time, at 3pm we're thirsty not hungry and out brain gets this confused. Drink 1-2 glasses of water before reaching for the barrel.
• Enjoy mint. Munch on chewing gum or even brush your teeth. The mint flavour will stop you from wanting anything sweet as the taste will be ruined.
• Give yourself one day. Choose one day a week, and allow yourself to have biscuits or chocolates only on this day. You can look forward to only having chocolate each Friday. Remember: you don't have to eat blocks of chocolate to make up for the other days you've gone without. Enjoy one or two squares of good quality chocolate.

BUSINESS TIP: Inflexibility at Work

So many of us spend more time on our bottoms during the day than doing any other activity. And it's this sitting that is ruining our health. The average desk worker loses a quarter to a third of their flexibility (range of motion) during their adult life. This is not good as inflexibility worsens and your ability to perform everyday chores such as getting dressed in the morning or getting out of bed. It also means you could end up in a nursing home before the age of 80.

To prevent the ill-effects of inflexibility, it's important that you include regular stretching exercises into your day. Spending 10 to 12 minutes each day to stretch is nothing compared to the benefits you will get. At a minimum, you should stress three times a week. Another great option is to practice yoga. The perfect yoga move for tight leg and trunk muscles is downward dog, Downward dog involves making a "V". Standing upright, bend forward from the hips, so you and up with your hands flat on the floor and you are on your toes - looking like a "V". Shoulders should not be up near your ears - push your shoulders down. Also, push your heels towards the fall.

Don't forget to take little breaks during work too. Get up and go for a two-minute walk. Roll your shoulders and neck.

BUSINESS TIP: Menulog

One in three Australians skipping lunch at least once per week and one in ten Australians rarely or never eat lunch. The top reasons for skipping lunch is we don't have enough time, too many personal tasks to do and we're not hungry. The problem with skipping lunch is you are missing out on some extremely important fuel that will keep you going till the end of the day and increase you productivity at work.

If you're unable to get out of work for a least a 15 minute lunch break, instead of missing your lunch altogether, jump online and have your lunch delivered to your desk. Menulog is an online service which lists over 400 restaurants on the east coast of Australia that will deliver lunch straight to your desk. There are more restaurants available on Menulog, but you have to go to the restaurant and pick them up - they don't deliver.

To order on Menulog, simply visit www,menulog.com.au, choose your restaurant, look at the menu use the online browser to email your order, and receive your lunch within 60 minutes. It's that simple! Menulog is also great as a thank you for employees who work back late, as you can order your evening meal in exactly the same way.

BUSINESS TIP: Water all-round

When sitting in an air-conditioned building all day and running to and from back to back meetings, you can forget that you need to keep your fluids up - an this doesn't mean coffee after coffee. Water is essential for the body - you go live longer without food than you can without water. It makes up about two-thirds of your body weight and is needed to transport nutrients around the body, absorb nutrients from food and remove waste products.

Water is continually being lost from the body in the form of perspiration, urine and through breathing. However, despite its importance, it's easy to forget that your body continually needs to be topped up with water. If you don't drink any water for an hour, your will be at least 1-2% dehydrated and this is enough to affect performance.

At least eight glasses of water needs to be consumed each day, and this figure will increase if you're active, living in top temperatures or are a big sweater.

Signs of dehydration include:
· Thirst
· Dry mouth, tongue and lips
· Dark coloured urine
· Reduced urine
· Dry, loose skin
· Muscle cramps and weakness
· Fatigue
· Headaches

It's important to keep an eye out for the above signs. If you are experiencing theses you may be dehydrated. Another way to determine if you are dehydrated is to look at the colour of your urine. If it is a deep dark yellow colour (as you'll have first thing in the morning), you are dehydrated. Ideally you want to have plain yellow or clear urine.

If you are someone who struggles to drink enough water each day, here's tips on how you can increase you intake and meet you needs.

Strategies for hydrating at work:
· Carry a water bottle with you at work.
· Have water bottles in convenient places at work.
· When you wake-up in the morning drink a glass of water when you brush your teeth.
· Every time you go to the toilet, drink a glass of water.
· Try drinking herbal teas, or adding fresh lemon or lime juice to water if you don’t like drinking plain water.
· At meetings always say yes to a glass of water.

BUSINESS TIP: Commuting Foods

Commuting to and from work can definitely take up a lot of time, and then there are the business meetings when you have to travel over lunch to see a client. What happens when you end up stuck in bumper to bumper traffic or you're stuck in the carriage of a train or tram because of an incident has held it up. You look at your watch and notice the hands tick forward 5, 10, 15 minutes. Your stomach begins to rumble - looks like you'll be skipping lunch again or won't be eating dinner til late.

You can't change the unexpected events that occur when you are commuting to and from work, but you can prepare for them - just in case they do occur. And it's pretty common knowledge that travel time throughout the city, will definitely take longer at some stage during each month. To help you get rid of those hunger pangs during times, make sure you have some food on hand.

In your glove box, handbag or briefcase keep a supply of:

Nuts and dried fruits

Cereal bars

Dried wholegrain crackers

Tin or satchel of tuna

Rice crackers

Apple

Remember to replace and change your food supply each week so that you always have some food on hand, and it is always fresh. Being prepared with some snacks will help tie you over until you can eat a proper meal.

BUSINESS TIP: Airport Eating

For a lot of us, the small and tasteless meals that we receive on airplanes really don’t cut it. Today, airport restaurants and cafes are filling the gap so weary travellers don’t go hungry. Airports are renowned for carrying fast and unhealthy food, with fast food outlets such as McDonalds, Hungry Jacks and KFC having a strong presence. However, now-a-days, airport food courts also sell healthy options.

Next time you are feeling a bit peckish at the airport, instead of succumbing to the smell of French fries, why not try these healthy hints instead:
< Tomato-based pasta available at an Italian restaurant
< Grilled chicken salad with a vinaigrette dressing
< Half a sub from Subway
< Sandwiches with chicken, turkey, veggies or tuna
< Frozen yoghurt or a tub of yoghurt
< Vegetable soup
< Fresh fruit salad
< Raisin toast with margarine or jam
< Sushi
< Deli choice from McDonalds with less than 10g of fat

As you can see, eating healthier when flying, is possible if you take a few minutes to look beyond standard take-away outlets.

BUSINESS TIP: Laughing Through Lunch

When you have a busy day in the office, it's easy to lose track of time and look at your watch at 3pm, realising that you haven't eaten lunch again. If this is you, you are the one in three Australians who skip lunch at least once a week. Of the people that do eat lunch, most people choose foods like hot chips, pies and hamburgers. They're tasty and high in fat and salt, which leads to a larger waistline and high blood fats and blood pressure.

As easy as it is to skip lunch, it is an important meal of the day. Skipping lunch can mean that your blood sugars drop and by mid afternoon lunch skippers are more likely to get cravings. They tend to binge eat on fatty, sugary and kilojoule laden foods in the mid afternoon. This causes a rapid rise in blood sugar levels which results in increased triglycerides (blood fats) and fat storage.

Eating lunch has many benefits besides reducing mid afternoon binge sessions. Lunch keeps you concentrating and working at your best throughout the afternoon, it helps control weight and it contributes to your daily nutrient intake. It also helps to control blood sugar levels, which helps to reduce the risk of developing diabetes and other complications. Lunch helps motivation and enhances workplace relationships.

Some handy tips to see you eating a healthy lunch daily include:

1. Include core foods. Base all lunch choices around wholegrains, vegetables, fruit, lean meat, fish or chicken.
2. Schedule it in. To ensure you don't skip lunch, schedule it into your daily planner or diary, and treat it like an appointment or meeting.
3. Keep food at work. Take bread, tomatoes, cheese, yoghurt, fruit and lettuce and keep them in your fridge at work. At your desk store dry biscuits, tin of tunna, baked beans, dried fruit and nuts, and cereal bars Being prepared will mean you always have food on hand.
4. Good takeaway options. Choose wholegrain sandwiches, pasta with a tomato and vegetable-based sauce, sushi, salads, lean meat/chicken and vegetable dish with steamed rice, baked potato, soup or fruit salad with yoghurt.
5. Limit portion sizes when eating out. Eat one course and if there is food to share as an entree, it doesn't mean that you have to eat it. Also keep a tab on how much you are drinking. It's easy too just keep topping up the glass unaware how many glasses you have consumed by the end of it.

BUSINESS TIP: Balance it!

Did you know that 17 per cent of Australia's are stressed? It's no secret that too many of us are too overwhelmed, pressured and short of time to pursue the things that would really make us happy. Today, more than any other time before, we can access information at the drop of a hat. There seems to be a record number of corporate health workshops and seminars available, which claim to be able to offer us the elusive quality of life - "balance". But what is really the big challenge is how to put common knowledge into common practice. How do you as a individual find your own right path that will lead you to a better quality and appreciation of life?

In this hectic world, a career and our work seem to take centre stage at the detriment of our health, personal relationships and family life. We now work longer hours than we ever have before, which greatly reduces our ability in finding a balance between our working life and our lives outside of it. It's easy to take focus on the immediate work demands and "put off' other aspects of your life such as home life, leisure, relaxation and fun because they are not as pressing and seemingly unimportant. For you to achieve a sense of work-life balance, something in you life has to change. So here is where to start.

Become aware.
Where are you at the moment? In order to change something, you need to apply self-review and assessment to see where you currently are. This step is often forgotten by many and is normally the cause of failure. To change any behaviour, you need to get an understanding of what your values and beliefs are to that behaviour. Get your diary and look at everything that you are planning to accomplish in the next month. Which of these tasks are your biggest time wasting activities? Reduce your time spent on these tasks by half and you will be amazing at how much extra time you now have.

Destress.
A good indicator of being out of balance in your life is stress – the feeling of being overwhelmed, tired or even worse, exhausted. To distress you need to look at each symptom and make it a priority to address each one. Don’t forget that how you perceive something plays a bit role in how stressed you become. You may need to fine-tune your perceptions. Make a list of all the areas of self-perception that need a change and work towards changing your thinking. Relaxation and stress reduction strategies such as yoga or mediation are perfect for destressing.

Time management.
Good time management is something you may be lacking. Now, good time management skills are not about fitting as much in to your day as possible – this isn’t going to create a better balance. Increasing balance in life is about increasing the number of things in your life that are meaningful to you. Ask yourself what are your top five priorities. Does leisure or health make your five three? Because if it doesn’t it’s probably not a huge priority for you, so why would you consider going for a run? Decide what is really important to you.

Plan Plan Plan.
You need to do more than just plan. You can sit and write in your outlook calendar everything that you want to achieve in the day, but too often you can be left with uncompleted tasks. Work-life balance is about dividing your day into equal parts where you contribute equal amounts of time to different activities. Remember what is going to be important for one person may not be important to another. So determine what’s important to you and then work towards your own work-life balance.

BUSINESS TIP: Catering for a Business Lunch

Catering for lunch at a business function can be a lot of work! As Australians become more aware of the benefits of eating for health and wellbeing as well as pleasure, foods served at business functions need to meet the requirements of those attending. Some people cannot eat gluten, others may only be able to eat dairy free foods, while other people may be vegetarian. How can you cater for all these needs?

Be prepared! Prior to the event, get all attendees to request any special dietary requirements. Then let the caterer or chef know these requirements. They will be more than happy to ensure these special requirements are met if they know prior to the day of the event.

What about the health conscious people? It’s not hard to provide tasty yet healthy choices. When selecting the menu for the conference make sure these foods are incorporated into the menu:

• Selection of wholegrain breads;
• Alternative spreads such as avocado, hommus, mayonnaise, margarine;
• Lean meat, skinless chicken, smoked salmon or tuna;
• Ensure there is a vegetarian option;
• Vegetables cooked in limited amounts of oil.

Portion Distortion: When you have finger food catering or buffet style lunch selection, often serving sizes can be quite large. This style of catering can tempt people to eat more. What can you do? Keep portion sizes small and offer lighter choices of foods.

Menu ideas: Some delicious choices that could appear on your lunch menu include:

• Sandwiches made with a variety of breads and containing different fillings such as salad, lean meat, grilled vegetables, skinless chicken, fish and cheese.
• Vegetable based soups containing heaps of vegetables, legumes and/or rice or noodles.
• Meat (lean meat, skinless chicken, smoked salmon and tuna) and cheese platters with crispbreads and crackers.
• Mini pizzas topped with lean meat, vegetables and reduced fat mozzarellla.
• Baked filo pastry triangles with vegetable fillings.
• Fruit platters.
• Low fat muffins

BUSINESS TIP: Eating Away With Work

Work business trips can often knock you out of your usual daily routine. Breakfast is either a full breakfast at the hotel or al-a-carte at a nearby cafe. Lunch can be grabbed on the run, or eaten at the local cafe, or even totally forgotten about. Finally dinner could be room service or a 3 course meal with business colleagues. During these trips, you tend to work over 9 hours a day and there is little time for anything but work. When it's time to head home you may feel exhausted and a couple of kilos heavier. This is definitely not what you want.

When staying away for work, it is best to try and keep your normal daily routine as much as possible. Lets start with breakfast. Do you have a buffet breakfast at home normally? If it's a no, then choose one day of your business trip when you allow yourself to have a hot breakfast with the works. All the other days, limit yourself to a continental breakfast or poached eggs on toast with mushrooms and tomatoes, or pancakes topped with yoghurt and fruit. Remember you don't have to try everything on the buffet - especially if you are staying for more than one day. Spread out the different delicious foods over the course of your stay. After all they will be there tomorrow!

For lunch always have something on hand (in your handbag or briefcase) so that you don't skip it. All you have to do is stop into a supermarket or 7-eleven when you arrive and purchase some snacks such as fruit, dried fruit, nuts, dried biscuits, cereal bars and tuna tips/sachets. At least then you will have a little bit of food to snack on if you can't get to a cafe or restaurant for lunch. If you do have time to stop for lunch, why not choose a salad, a wrap, focaccia, soup or share an antipasto or some dips with a colleague.

Finally for dinner, remember you don't need to overeat! After all you are going to bed soon. If dining in, choose a main and allow yourself either an alcoholic beverage or a entree/dessert. When eating out with work colleagues, there will normally be bottles of wine or beer purchased, entree, mains and dessert, followed by coffees. Just because there is food and alcohol on the table this does not mean that you have to eat it. Think about whether you are actually hungry or whether you are just eating cause everyone else is. Have 1 or 2 alcoholic drinks, a small portion of the entree and then you main. Would you eat any more than this at home?

BUSINESS TIP: Recharge With a Weekend Away

You have just finished another hectic week at work and are hanging out for the weekend. Instead of wasting the weekend lounging around the house, why not book yourself in for a nice relaxing weekend away.

Taking mini holidays can help you to recharge the batteries and restore vitality. All you need to do is jump in the car and head a couple of hours down the road – somewhere with beautiful and peaceful surroundings. This weekend away can help you to forget the hustle and bustle of your working week, and get you to balance your mind, body and soul. Chill out and read the newspaper or a novel, relax by the lake, go for a dip or an early morning walk and breathe in the fresh air. You could even spend some time mediating or taking part in some yoga – either will help you to distress.

Recently, a few friends and I visited a nice little lake down south of Sydney. We spent the weekend yabbying, fishing, swimming in the lake and just relaxing around the campfire. Come Monday morning, we were all set for the working week ahead. Why not organise your weekend away today!

BUSINESS TIP: Prepare Before You Fly.

Business travel can often interfere with your body clock. Travelling often mean delays, different time zones, altered eating patterns, takeaway or restaurant foods and insufficient exercise, all of which can leave you feeling exhausted. The best way to overcome this is to be prepared before you head off on your business trip.
If you’re flying international, consider the food body at your destination, you may even be able to organise catering ahead of leaving. Speak to the airline and the hotel to let them know of any special dietary requirements – as long as you let them know early they will be more than happy to meet your needs.
Another helpful hint is to eat and drink while you are flying. You can pack travellers of your favourite foods to eat on board a long flight. Also don’t forget to drink plenty of water when you fly so that you stay well hydrated. And as soon as you hit the ground at your destination, adjust your eating habits to suit your location.

Have you got any special travel tips that could be of use to other people? Why not post your tips here.