Simple Tips To Help You Feel Your Best, No Matter How Dark and Frosty It Is Outside…

As much as we love opaque tights, comfort food and three months off fake tan, winter can take its toll on our lifestyle in other ways. Your diet, immune system and emotional wellbeing are much harder to maintain in the cold months – but follow our expert advice and this could be your fittest, happiest, healthiest winter yet.

Winterproof Your Fitness

1. Buy Proper Gear

Your exercise gear should match the season. The key to winterising your workout wardrobe is thin layers you can remove as you heat up.

2. Try Pyramid Training

In pyramid training, you do five or six bursts of exercise that shrink in time or distance – so, during your workout, instead of simply running a steady couple of kilometers, you’ll start by running in bursts of 800m, then drop to 500m, 250m, 100m and son on, jogging or walking between runs to recover. Your recovery times should become shorter as the burst of speed get shorter.

3. Ask “Which Way Does The Wind Blow?”

Outdoor running experts believe you stay warmer if you start off running into the wind. Why? When you run into the wind, any sweat on your body will evaporate fast, cooling you down. This means, the sweatier you are, the chillier you’ll get, so it’s best to face the wind when you’re still dry.

4. Dump Your Gloves

Cool hands help you to work out for twice as long, as US neurolobiologist Dr Craig Heller. Why? Your muscles get increasingly tried the hotter they get, but keeping your palms clear of gloves helps the heat to evaporate. “I would recommend that you wear gloves until your hands get warm and then take them off to stimulate cooling,” says Dr Heller.

Winterproof Your Diet

1. Ask “Is This Fruit Ripe?”

Winter fruit, such as apples and pears, aren’t as nutritious when they’re too hard, according to Austrian researchers, because the important antioxidant that attacks free radicals only forms as fruit ripens. Tip: Store unripe fruit in a bowl with bananas, which emit a gas called ethylene that helps to ripen other fruit.

2. Dump Low-carb diets

They lower serotonin levels, boosting the risk of winter blues. If you’re watching your weight, try cutting down on kilojoules on alternate days – it’s easy to stick to, you don’t feel deprived, and it won’t lower your metabolic rate. Also monitor your serving sizes. If you have a massive bowl of pasta for lunch, you can have a really big spike in serotonin – but it will soon drop off. The same thing happens if you have a sugar hit. So regulate your portion sizes and choose low GI carbs for slow-burning energy.

Winterproof Your Health

1. Buy Your Own Pen

Pens are common conductors of cold bugs, says Dr Neil Schachter, author of The Good Doctor’s Guide to Colds and Flu. “Simply using your own pen and not lending it out can significantly cut down on your exposure to the cold virus,” he says.

2. Try Visualisation

Spending time each day visualising yourself on a sunny beach relaxes your body and revs up your immune system, say US researchers.

3. Ask “Should I Go To Work?”

You’ve woken up feeling fluey, but should you call in sick? According to Dr Penny Adams, if you are manifesting symptoms such as fever, headache and cough you stay at home. Your contribution won’t outweigh the risk of infecting coworkers-and you will prolong your recovery.

4. Dump Extra Weight

Being overweight may reduce your immune function. US researchers found that tubby mice exposed to the flu virus produced 50% fewer natural killer cells in their bodies, and were 10 times more likely to die than normal-weight mice.

Buy Better Immunity: Your Super-Healthy Winter Shopping List…

1. Sweet potato: The lining of your nose is your first defence against airborne bugs. Keep it healthy with a good dose of vitamin A from this beta-carotene-rich root vegetables.
2. Brazil nuts: Boost your immune system’s killer cells. These selenium-rich nuts enhance your white blood cell’s ability to quash viruses.
3. Probiotic yoghurt: Make friends with your gut by eating bacteria-loaded yoghurt. The more friendly bacteria in your system, the less room for the harmful sort.
4. Kiwi fruit: The ultimate infection fighting fruit, they’re packed with vitamin C, which increases your levels of interferon, an antibody that protects cells against viruses.
5. Oats: Too little shut-eye makes you there times more likely to catch a cold. Loading up on tryptophan-rich oats, in porridge or homemade muesli, will help you sleep better at night.
6. Tinned pineapple: Feeling down? A low mood can reduce your immunity. Pineapple is packed with an amino acid needed to make the happy hormone serotonin.
7. Oily fish: Rich in omega-3s that help your white blood cells seek and destroy bacteria, and strengthen your main organ of defense-your skin. Try salmon or sardines, fresh or canned.
8. Garlic: This pungent bulb keeps viruses and bacteria at bay. It’s rich in sulfur-containing compounds that stimulate infection-fighting cells.
9. Hummus: Chickpeas are high in the essential amino acid lysine, which is vital after a gym session as it helps tissue repair and produces antibodies.
10. Mushrooms: These increase the activity of natural germ-busting cells. Plus, if you swap mushrooms for some of the meat in your meals, they can help increase weight loss.
11. Soup: It may sound like an old wive’s tale, but chicken soap is one of the nature’s best anti-inflammatories. And if you have a cold, hot liquid will help soothe your throat.