All good companies know that employees who are physically active are healthier and more productive, and wellness programmes can play an enormous role in driving physical activity and health in the workplace.
Download this guidebook from our partners Fitbit to get started on your firm’s wellness programme today.
It’s that time of year again already (almost!).
As more and more companies look set to postpone their Christmas parties, Complete IT Systems and Fitbit are offering a way to help spread the festive feeling this holiday season. With this, employees can enjoy a happy and healthy Christmas – even without a party!
This includes fantastic savings off the full Fitbit range of devices, with which employers can save on the latest smartwatches or by gifting entry-level tracker devices as rewards for employees’ efforts throughout the year.
Fitbit are also offering access to their challenge dashboard for free – letting employers set bespoke challenges by team, department, or even country to create a bit of healthy competition.
In September, Fitbit launched three exciting new products; Fitbit Sense™, Fitbit Versa 3™, and Fitbit Inspire 2™. Each device contains Fitbit’s most innovative technology to date, helping people unlock more information about their health.
Request your handy comparison sheet to evaluate which Fitbit device is right for you!
As Fitbit Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.
To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our Fitbit contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.
Sitting down for extended periods of time is incredibly bad for our health but, now many of us are working from home or at the very least moving about much less than we normally do, it seems hard to avoid.
To help with this, over the coming weeks as part of our Working from Home series in partnership with Fitbit we’ll be looking at a range of exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress management, and general wellbeing activities to keep your employees and users feeling fresh and energised as you work.
In the next in our series of blogs, here’s seven simple steps to eating and staying well while your users are working from home.
With so many of us having to stay indoors at the moment, our eating routines have had a bit of a shake-up. However, this means it’s a great time to get into healthier habits as what you eat doesn’t just affect your weight, it also impacts on your physical health and your mental health.¹
Be powered by protein
According to Wayne Campbell, Ph.D. a professor of nutrition at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, protein-packed foods are a great way to quash hunger and reduce those snack cravings. This is because, as protein travels through your gut, it stimulates the release of the appetite-suppressing hormone cholecystokinin (a.k.a. CCK), which sends fullness signals to your brain – it also reduces ghrelin, a hormone that makes you feel hungry. So, try to include 25-30g of protein per meal to keep hunger at bay.
Choose big-volume, leightweight eats
In a recent study published by the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, volunteers were asked to serve themselves the same type of cereal, but one was in flakes and the other was crushed.² Although those eating the flakes had much fuller bowls, they ended up eating 25% fewer calories than those eating the crushed cereal. This is because dense foods packs more calories into a smaller volume, so choose big-volume, lightweight foods like bran flakes, salad leaves, tubular pasta and popcorn to fill your plate with fewer calories.
Eat little and often
Going a long time between eating can cause fluctuations in appetite, so if you only eat at three points during the day, you’ll be very hungry (and likely to eat more) at each meal. However, if you eat four or five times a day, you’ll have a more consistent appetite and be less likely to overeat. So, try having three smaller-portioned meals with a healthy snack between each one instead.
Win with wholegrains
According to a study from the Department of Nutrition at the University of California at Davis, the benefits of switching to wholegrains have been discussed for years. Packed full of filling fibre, they’re great for your heart, your digestive health and even the bacteria in your gut. So, as well as the more usual whole-wheat bread and pasta, try incorporating different wholegrains like oats, barley and rye into your meals to stay fuller for longer.
Swap your snacks
It’s much easier to reach for the sugary snacks when at home, but try to limit temptation by keeping your cupboards stocked with healthy alternatives. Choose popcorn instead of crisps, grab a carrot instead of a cereal bar and keep fruit (whether tinned or fresh) close at hand.
Since you’re home, try homecooked
Takeaways are very tempting, but since we’re all home more, now’s a great time to prepare food from scratch – especially as we all have a bit more time on our hands. Cooking a meal yourself means you can monitor how much salt and fat you put into your meals and ensure they’re packed with all the goodness your body needs.
Track what you eat
To make sure you’re not overeating, it can be helpful to track what you’re consuming. This is really easy to do inthe Fitbit app or dashboard – simply log what you eat and drink, and you’ll get a breakdown of your calories, macronutrients and even the amount of water you’re drinking. Plus, you can even set up a food plan to help you reach any specific goals.
As Fitbit Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.
To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.
https://blog.fitbit.com/appetite/
https://jandonline.org/article/S2212-2672(14)00104-X/abstract
Sitting down for extended periods of time is incredibly bad for our health but, now many of us are working from home or at the very least moving about much less than we normally do, it seems hard to avoid.
To help with this, over the coming weeks as part of our Working from Home series in partnership with Fitbit we’ll be looking at a range of exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress management, and general wellbeing activities to keep your employees and users feeling fresh and energised as you work.
In the next in our series of blogs, here’s some breathing exercises for your staff and users to de-stress and relax while working from home.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect our lives, it can be increasingly hard to keep a cool head. Even before we began working from home and social-distancing, a 2018 study by the Mental Health Foundation showed that 74% of UK adults felt so stressed at some point over the last year, they felt unable to cope – so if you’re feeling like this, you’re not alone.
Your breathing can have a massive effect on your stress-levels and vice versa. When you’re stressed, your breathing speeds up and becomes more shallow – in fact, breathing quickly can actually bring on feelings of stress.² Luckily, it works the other way too.
When you slow your breathing down and make it deeper, you’ll start to feel calmer. Fitbit’s Relax feature uses your heart rate to create personalised guided breathing sessions for you to follow, but the three exercises below can also help if you start feeling overly stressed.
Mouth-to-nose
Start with three mouth-only breaths, in and out (imagining you are yawning). Then take three breaths where you inhale through your mouth and exhale through your nose. Lastly, do three breaths inhaling and exhaling through your nose only. The initial three yawns will make sure you get a lot of oxygen and, when you switch to your nose-breathing, you’ll start getting nitric oxide which can help you feel relaxed.
4-4-6-2
This exercise is great for focusing the mind, perfect if you’re feeling a bit anxious. Simply inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for six seconds and then hold for two seconds. Keep repeating this pattern, gradually get slower and slower at counting, and you should start feeling a lot more relaxed.
Walking breath
If you’re still able to go outside for a walk (with appropriate social distancing) as part of your daily exercise, then you can try this one. Sync your inhales and exhales with your steps, inhaling for two steps and exhaling for two steps. After a few rounds of this, switch to inhaling for two steps and exhaling for three. Exhaling for longer will stimulate your vagus nerve which activates your parasympathetic nervous system and helps calm you down.
As Fitbit Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.
To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5455070/
Sitting down for extended periods of time is incredibly bad for our health but, now many of us are working from home or at the very least moving about much less than we normally do, it seems hard to avoid.
To help with this, over the coming weeks as part of our Working from Home series in partnership with Fitbit we’ll be looking at a range of exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress management, and general wellbeing activities to keep your employees and users feeling fresh and energised as they work.
To get us started, here’s 5 easy ways to keep your staff and users moving during while working from home:
Turn your kettle into a personal trainer
The UK Chief Medical Officers’ Physical Activity Guidelines report recommends that you should break up long periods of sitting with just one or two minutes of activity. So, while the kettle’s boiling for your coffee or tea break, do star jumps, planks, press-ups etc. to elevate your heart rate.
Talk the walk!
If you’re on the phone talking to your colleagues, leave the laptop behind and walk up and down the hall (or stairs if you have them) as a great way to get a few extra steps in. If you have a Fitbit, you could even challenge your friends to an indoor step challenge.
Create a standing desk
You burn more calories when standing, so try moving your laptop onto the kitchen side (you may need the help of a few books depending on how tall you are) for a new work setup.
Make the time to move
Physical activity can boost self-esteem, mood, sleep quality and energy – something a lot of us need at the moment – so make sure you include time in your working day, whether that’s a session before, after or even during lunchtime. Ideally, aim for 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week and if you have a Fitbit Charge 4, your device can track all that automatically for you with its new Active Zone Minutes function.
Try something new
Whether you’re used to jogging with friends, heading to the gym or kicking a ball about with the gang, now’s the time to experiment with new forms of exercise and challenge yourself. With Fitbit Premium, you can access our Dynamic Workout Library packed full of thousands of yoga lessons, dance classes, abs workouts, HIIT sessions and more.
As Fitbit Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.
To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.
https://www.posturite.co.uk/help-advice/useful-resources/learning-guides/what-is-ergonomics
