CHFA's Revive in Five - Centre Yourself in Week One

While it may not always seem like it, summer is quickly approaching. Along with it comes camping trips, family vacations, backyard barbecues, and busy beach days. With all the running around involved in planning these trips, it’s easy for us to overlook our own well-being.

The result? Wholesome dinners and regular walks get pushed to the sidelines, replaced with convenient processed meals and phone calls to five different people to figure out who’s bringing the camp stove.

Luckily, the Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA) has put together the “Revive in Five Challenge,” a five-week guide to help us get back on track toward feeling (and looking!) our best.  Thanks to Kristi Richards, a mogul skiing Olympian and World Champion, and Nanci Guest, a dietitian and strength and conditioning coach, you’ll find great tips and tricks to help you get your healthy fitness and eating habits back on track.

Week one 

Week one of Revive in Five, focuses on how we can improve the health and fitness of our core by exploring some core-centric exercises, foods, and supplements. You can find more about Revive in Five’s first week on their website.

Fitness

Whether or not you’re an athlete, core strength is important—it helps stabilize us and makes almost any everyday task, from dusting tall bookshelves to playing with the kids, easier. Weak core muscles can also make us prone to poor posture, which can cause its own series of problems.

While almost any activity will work our core muscles, exercises such as core activation, core twists, and 1/2 spinal twists are particularly effective. Check out the CHFA’s website for more information about them.

Food

Fibre-rich foods such as chia and quinoa are both nutritious and delicious—and are great for improving gut health, too. Studies have shown that dietary fibre may help increase the number of some probiotics, and may even help lower our risk of type 2 diabetes and irritable bowel syndrome, among others.

Check out our recipes for Quinoa Black Bean Stew, Curry Quinoa Sweet Potato Wraps, or Chia Crusted Tofu with Lime Salt for some great high-fibre  dinner ideas.

And don’t forget to load up your plate with fermented foods such as sauerkraut and miso, as these foods may help restore some of our guts’ ever-important digestive bacteria.

Supplements

To keep our tummies content, the CHFA suggests boosting our count of intestinal flora by adding synbiotics, which include probiotics as well as a healthy dose of prebiotics, to stimulate the bacteria already there.

Of course, always remember to speak to a health care practitioner about any supplement you plan on adding to your diet.