We spend a third of our time asleep, a third of our time at work and the remaining third to enjoy leisure pursuits as well as looking after our homes, families and ourselves. The trouble is that the only bit that is flexible is our own time as if we don’t keep the hours at work we get fired, and if we don’t sleep we get exhausted and can’t function. The consequence of this is that, if we’re not careful, we can end up with a really poor work/life balance.
Recently I met someone who takes one-and-a-half hours to travel each way to work. Three hours a day! She has a demanding job and by the time she gets home, she really doesn’t feel like exercising or even cooking a healthy meal. All her physical and mental energy has been exhausted and she has little time or energy left to actually enjoy her life, let alone look after her health, get fit and lose a bit of weight. Not surprisingly she relaxes with half a bottle of wine most evenings with the inevitable consequence of her weight just increasing.
Years ago I used to work 80 hours a week. Yes, I was younger, and my priorities were different but life has taught me that we really should have time to enjoy the flowers in the garden, spending quality time with our husband and family, walking the dog, chatting to friends. Having some space to ourselves too is also important, but we must have enough energy left to look after our health and that means doing some physical activity and eating properly.
It isn’t the cooking of the meals that’s the problem, it’s the deciding what we are going to eat. Having made decisions all day I don’t have enough emotional energy to decide on tonight’s meal so I always sit down at the beginning of the week and decide what the week’s menu is to be. Once the decisions have been made, shopping is organised accordingly and as I drive home I know exactly what is on the menu each evening.
Dieters who plan their weekly menus are much more successful than those who are haphazard in their eating. In my Gi Hip and Thigh Diet the menus are all planned, they are interchangeable if there’s anything you don’t fancy, and there’s even a shopping list for a week. See my website for details here. The diet works and you can lose 7lbs in 14 days on this diet – we have proved it with a trial or 35 volunteers who lost an average of 7.25 lbs in the first two weeks.
How is your work/life balance? What could YOU do to improve your life and make it healthier and happier? Would losing a few lbs and getting a bit fitter help. Think about it today.
Showing posts with label ready meals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ready meals. Show all posts
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Are Ready Meals Good For Us?
Yesterday I was invited to visit Saladworks – a company within the Samworth Brothers Group of companies here in Leicestershire. Samworth Brothers is a family company that have grown and developed over the last hundred years or so years to become the largest employer in Leicestershire with a workforce of some 5000 staff locally with a further 2000 employed in Cornwall. They have several factories that produce food for Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons and others.
Saladworks manufacture a variety of products and a group of us were guided around a couple of the factories. We all looked particularly attractive in our hairnets, white boots and overalls! We saw where the basic ingredients arrive, where they are stored, how the food is prepared and cooked, how pasta is made and measured, how every ingredient is carefully monitored so that if, at any stage – now or in the future - the product ingredients need to be back-checked, a full history of its journey is easily accessible. We watched as ready meals were carefully, and proudly, placed in containers with every component either weighed, counted or measured, to ensure the quantity tallies with the details on the pack – very important for dieters! – and the content composed consistently.
Millions of ready meals, gallons of sauces, tonnes of ingredients are prepared there. The organisation and logistical challenge of creating food of this magnitude is extraordinary. The whole operation is awesome. I was particularly impressed by the quality of the produce that was being manufactured. It was naturally healthy food that had been carefully prepared to make a delicious meal for us to select from our favourite supermarket or store. These were not just any ready meals, these were special.
But Samworth Brothers are not just about producing fine food, they have a very special ethos and they take a real pride in their workforce. Everyone we met, whether they were placing prawns on a paella or weighing out cooked rice, checking the seals on the finished product or washing down the machines, they were happy and you could just feel that they felt valued. There’s even a Samworth Academy which supports the staff by encouraging further education and training. The company believes in investing into their staff and it obviously works. Also, the staff organise charity activities together and raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity. As we all know, these kinds of activities build the relationship of any workforce.
Having happy staff is key to the success of any business and it is something that we hold very dear in our company too. If everybody is working together toward a common goal, we can all achieve tremendous success and make a real difference in a lot of peoples’ lives. Isn’t great when you can have fun doing it too?
Saladworks manufacture a variety of products and a group of us were guided around a couple of the factories. We all looked particularly attractive in our hairnets, white boots and overalls! We saw where the basic ingredients arrive, where they are stored, how the food is prepared and cooked, how pasta is made and measured, how every ingredient is carefully monitored so that if, at any stage – now or in the future - the product ingredients need to be back-checked, a full history of its journey is easily accessible. We watched as ready meals were carefully, and proudly, placed in containers with every component either weighed, counted or measured, to ensure the quantity tallies with the details on the pack – very important for dieters! – and the content composed consistently.
Millions of ready meals, gallons of sauces, tonnes of ingredients are prepared there. The organisation and logistical challenge of creating food of this magnitude is extraordinary. The whole operation is awesome. I was particularly impressed by the quality of the produce that was being manufactured. It was naturally healthy food that had been carefully prepared to make a delicious meal for us to select from our favourite supermarket or store. These were not just any ready meals, these were special.
But Samworth Brothers are not just about producing fine food, they have a very special ethos and they take a real pride in their workforce. Everyone we met, whether they were placing prawns on a paella or weighing out cooked rice, checking the seals on the finished product or washing down the machines, they were happy and you could just feel that they felt valued. There’s even a Samworth Academy which supports the staff by encouraging further education and training. The company believes in investing into their staff and it obviously works. Also, the staff organise charity activities together and raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity. As we all know, these kinds of activities build the relationship of any workforce.
Having happy staff is key to the success of any business and it is something that we hold very dear in our company too. If everybody is working together toward a common goal, we can all achieve tremendous success and make a real difference in a lot of peoples’ lives. Isn’t great when you can have fun doing it too?
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