Janes - Latte or Cappuccino?: 125 Decisions That Will Change Your Life by Hilly Janes

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Michael OMara Books Limited
9 Lion Yard
Tremadoc Road
London SW4 7NQ

Copyright Michael OMara Books Limited 2012

All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-84317-877-4 in EPub format
ISBN: 978-1-84317-876-7 in Mobipocket format
ISBN: 978-1-84317-558-2 in paperback format

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Disclaimer: The information contained in this book is correct to the best of the author and publishers knowledge and contains the latest research at the time of publication. It is not an alternative to seeking personalized medical advice. The information contained is aimed at healthy adults. Pregnant women, children, the elderly, and people who may have different requirements should seek alternative medical advice.

Designed and typeset by K DESIGN, Somerset
Illustrations by Greg Stevenson

www.mombooks.com

IF YOU ARE very slim, get lots of exercise, sleep like a log, feel totally on top of your daily schedule and never shout at your children or partner, give this book to a lesser mortal now.

If, on the other hand, you consider yourself to be a reasonably healthy adult, but you would like to lose a little bit of weight, or you sometimes feel overloaded and anxious about how much you have to do, or worry that your relationships with family, friends or colleagues are not as happy as youd like them to be, this is the book for you.

Its here to help make simple the everyday decisions we often face. The book is based on sound medical research, advice from the most reliable experts, common sense and my own personal experience as someone who has worked for thirty years many of them full-time while looking after my family. And as a writer and editor on quality newspapers and magazines specializing in lifestyle, parenting and health Ive been lucky enough to work with leading experts in the field. This book aims to share the top-to-toe knowledge I have built up over that time, from what neuroscience is telling us about how our brains work to why flat shoes arent necessarily good for our feet.

The books easy-to-digest format runs through over 120 choices that can have an impact on our health and wellbeing from first thing in the morning to last thing at night. Shower or bath? Do a piece of work or delegate to a colleague? Go for a run or a swim? Wine or gin and tonic? Pizza or pasta? Argue with your partner or bite your tongue?

But we are drowning in healthy-living advice already, I hear you say. We are indeed bombarded regularly with advice from health professionals, the food, drink and fitness industries, relationship gurus and so on, but the advice can be very confusing and seems to change from one minute to the next. Thats partly because medical research evolves all the time, and while no one would want to be prescribed drugs or undergo medical procedures that have not been rigorously tested, the words studies show can raise a lot of questions: who paid for the study a drug-company with vested interests? How and from whom was the data collected? Did the published results include any negative findings? So its with these questions in mind that Ive tried to find the most solid sources (listed in full on page ) to back up the choices in this book and give you a measured assessment of the available data.

One of my aims is to demystify the confusing messages sent out to us by the food and drink industry. Labels like healthy or natural sound as if they are good for us, but actually mean very little. Food companies and supermarkets want us to eat and drink more tasty food thats often full of cheap, processed ingredients can mean big profits for them. Similarly, the catering trade offers us bigger and bigger portion sizes, often for little extra cost. The trouble is the more primitive, hunter-gatherer parts of our brains find these extra portions hard to resist. Combined with our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, its no wonder 60 per cent of us are now overweight. Poor diet is raising our risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, but this can be reduced, or even reversed, by changing how we eat, drink and exercise.

The good news is that this book is full of examples of how to make these changes with little food and drink swaps that can make a big difference to calorie intake, as well as fat, sugar and salt levels food groups that can really tip the balance towards ill health if we dont keep an eye on how much we are eating. Some simply presented facts and figures about nutrition at the end of this book on page are designed to help you understand the basics. There are tips, too, on how to improve the amount or type of exercise you get and stay motivated, even if your idea of participating in sport means jumping up and down in front of the TV.

You may be in terrific shape, but perhaps you need some help with relationships, or psychological problems. Some psychologists, psychotherapists or counsellors and most complementary therapies are not regulated by law, however, so their advice may not be backed up by proper qualifications or codes of conduct, and you take it at your peril. So, I have turned to trustworthy sources, such as academics who conduct sound research and professional associations with rigorous standards, to underpin my advice.

Think of this book as a sort of recipe book its been designed to allow you to dip in and out of it with ease, picking the topics you like the sound of and that you know will work for you. Perhaps you already make some of the choices suggested in this book. Nobody would expect you to follow it slavishly, but I hope that if you do take up some of the suggestions, youll find some ingredients for a happier, healthier life.

A BAD START in the morning can leave you feeling grumpy and anxious well into the day. Think: you cant find the right clothes, youve run out of milk and a childs lost its homework well, the stress mounts. A simple routine will set you up for whatever lies ahead.

Freshening Up

The decisions you make in your morning bathroom routine will perhaps be dictated by time constraints, with you or other members of the family queuing up to use the facilities. The good news is that most of the decisions you have to make here are pretty quick and time saving.

Shower OR bath?

Have you ever wondered why Scandinavians swear by taking a hot sauna, followed by a dip in freezing cold water? Its because its thought to aid circulation the heat brings the blood to the surface of the body and the cold drives it back to its core. Why not try jumping in the shower and adjusting the temperature of the water to help your circulation? It also has the added benefit of boosting the blood flow to your brain because your head is exposed to jets of water, and directing the hot water at stiff or painful muscles also acts as a type of massage.