‘Suddenly’, topics like wellness, workplace wellness, burnout prevention and work-life balance seem to be hot. Why the inverted commas?

These issues are, of course, not sudden at all. For quite some time, therapists, counselors and GPs have been seeing an increase in mental health problems resulting in burnout. That’s no surprise in a world with ever-increasing pressures on our work-life balance.

Fitness is a crucial part of wellness, but a person who is fit doesn’t necessarily feel well. Wellness is a much more complex subject that poses such life questions as: what motivates me, what makes me tick, how do I relate to the people around me, am I happy with my social life, how do I cope with stress, how do I maintain work-life balance.

Countless books have been written on these subjects. Yet in the end books are geared towards a mass audience. What counts is how we go about integrating book wisdom in our daily lives and how well we succeed in doing so.

The EU has now acknowledged that the rapidly increasing number of people experiencing burnout is not so much a question of fitness as a question of wellness.

In June 2014, the European Commission (OSHA) published a report calculating the cost of work-related stress. It concluded that “stress is the second most frequently reported work-related health problem in Europe.” Work-related health problems refer generally to mental health problems, cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disorders and diabetes, to name but a few on the list. Estimated at €617 billion for 2013 alone, this cost is comprised of factors such as absenteeism, health care costs, social welfare costs and loss of productivity. That’s kind of a big deal.

Belgian Wellness Law (Welzijnswet)

Belgium has now become the first country to create a law specifically addressing the prevention of burnout. This law states that companies on Belgian soil must offer workers protection against psycho-social risks* (the fancy term used for risk factors affecting Burnout). By 1 March 2015 organizations must have made a so-called psychosocial risk assessment in their organization to help their employees in ‘being well’ and to help minimize their risk of becoming ill. Other countries are sure to follow suit quickly in my opinion (for more information check www.life5.eu/wellness-law2015).

So what’s the missing piece of the puzzle?

Often ‘reduction of absenteeism’ seems the common way to measure how ‘well’ an organization is doing. Yet that’s a one-dimensional way of looking through the lens. What’s needed is for organizations to embrace mental and physical wellness of their employees in a broader, more long-term way.

This should include top-down strategies aimed at things such as healthy aging, harassment prevention, burnout recovery, integrative nutrition and stress resilience. We should stop separating ‘Work’ and ‘Life’ artificially when seeking a balance and start focusing on the whole person.

The company Life5 will give workshops in WorldClass about work-life balance, stress management, burnout prevention, and healthy ageing. Check at reception for the schedule or on www.worldclassfitness.be. These will be half-day seminars during weekends.

About Paul Schuchhard

Over the years I have worked with numerous organisations and individuals to support, educate and motivate them to redefine their purpose and goals. As a qualified counselor and coach I work with different psychological tools (CBT, NLP, Systems, TA). As a certified sports-nutritionist and trainer I help people deal with the physical symptoms brought on by stress and an inactive lifestyle.

Eating at the table started as a way to solve problems; the chiefs of the tribes, clans or groups in dispute had to sit together and share their food. This particular happening was a milestone towards more social behavior. They started to set a few rules, for instance: do not raise your voice at the person opposite of you; do not bring your weapons; do not eat from your guest’s or host’s plate, and eat all the food you are given.

Since then, we have evolved our customs around the table. We use food as a means of seducing, feeding, and controlling, and even for its original conception: negotiating.

My fascination with food started precisely around the table. I’m certain that we all have great memories of dinners with family and friends where everyone tried everyone else’s dishes. Or even better, we remember dinners that were prefaced by the expectation of what would be served. Those dishes were the main character of the evening, followed by multiples stories, jokes, teasing, and flirting from the dinner guests. It would be great to eat like this every single night. Yet, the reality is something else.

How have we changed around the table?

Apparently my food choices have been gradually related to how I’ve chosen my friends, furthermore, how I ditch them, and I can tell you without a doubt , they’ve done the same. The standards associated to food that once were fundamental to human gratification have traveled so far into a grey area that is difficult to say what you are eating is what you would really like to eat. What we choose is distorted into a synonym of choice equals goals.

This is confusing, because the set of values that we applied to choose our food have changed, and we have changed along as well, complicating the methodical process of feeding yourself and others. We encounter so many conflicting options such as novelty vs. tradition, in which we are willing to experience new trends. Then there is technology vs. nature, in which we are surrounded by packs of fortified, enriched foods. Convenience vs. care, economy vs. extravagance, and so on.

Well, this is when friendship enters into place

Nowadays, food, instead of giving us a thrill, is making us anxious. I must admit that I have acquired many of my food choices through-out the years by travelling and enriching my taste spectrum. Being an eater (as some people called me) and daring to try different cusines, I thought most people would be willing to do the same when the opportunity arises. But to my surprise I have encountered a segmented eaters environment. There are people that are so fixed into disciplinarian, not-fun-at-all diets, that their health consciousness is taking over, producing a mismatch with me. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m very health conscious as well, but I’m not a fanatic. I couldn’t eat the same dish every evening. I allow myself the privilege to eat what is offered.

To find a common ground, I’m forced to make sets of friend based on food. It’s not like the old days where I had friends with whom I could go clubbing, other with whom I could explore a city or take a trip to a museum, others whom I could tell anything and those whom were good for a girly talk. Yes, this is how I used to do it. The pure idea of expressing yourself with your food choices, the sensorial enjoyment, the emotional experiences, have become a burden. To minimize this unpleasant feeling, I socialize and invite by sets. One night to my veggie friends, the other night, those who count calories or proteins or whatever is on the table (those I like to tease the most), then the super fit “all about nutrition”, then the micro-biotic lovers, and other nights those who enjoy every single dish and drink without reservation. It is they who understand that to get the best of what you are eating, you have to do it in total relaxation. Stress plays the devil when it comes to food, and even more with indulgent treats. Stress equals storing.

The only disadvantage to this situation, as you can imagine, is that I can never invite the whole group at once. I need to combine here and there like an alchemist to get suitable sets. Sometimes the mingling works, let’s not talk about when it doesn’t.

Having said all this, where am I standing when it comes to food and friendship? I can honestly say that I love food but I love my friends too, regardless their peculiarities. In fact, these make them special to me. Although I complained and tried to change them (like they did to me), gathering around the table is still a pleasure that awards moments to be remembered, despite the fact that I’m not sure that I truly like all that I eat, nonetheless, I eat it all.

2014: Time for a personal health strategy? This article is NOT about 10 tips to stick to your New Year’s Resolution. But it IS about preventing a disease that millions of people get without knowing it: type 2 diabetes. It creeps up on us because of a lack of exercise, too much refined food, and too much stress.

Diabetes mellitus type 2 is a disease that can largely be prevented. It’s often called a “self-inflicted” or “lifestyle related” disease, and it develops over many years. If you do not know what type 2 diabetes is, I will try to “compact” the explanation at the risk of oversimplification: it’s a disease where your body can no longer adequately process the energy it gets from the food you eat. Normally you eat your food,  it gets converted into sugars (glucose) during digestion, your blood sugar levels rise in response, and a hormone called insulin is released to help get that energy into your cells. In type 2 diabetes patients, however, the cells have become insensitive to opening the door, they don’t “hear” the insulin knocking on the door. This combination of insulin resistance in your muscle cells and a lack of insulin production ultimately creates a vicious and chronic circle where glucose and insulin can build up in the blood to dangerous levels. That’s the story in essence, but Google it to get the full explanation. MayoClinic.com is a good website to visit.

So what approach should you take to avoid getting type 2 diabetes?

Tip 1: Avoid frequent blood sugar and insulin peaks. If you eat too much in a single meal or often eat processed foods (white bread, white pasta, white rice, sugar, juices etc.), then you can bet your blood sugar levels will peak often. To bring these sugar levels down, your body will need to secrete high amounts of insulin to neutralize the elevated blood sugar levels. Do this: have a look at the foods in your daily food plan, and if refined-floor foods, cornflakes, jams, sandwiches, candy and energy bars are a major part of them, think twice and cut them out where you can. Replace them with more wholesome foods. The closer a food is to its natural state, the better. That means it will not spike your blood sugar as much as processed food. In short: if processed it, don’t eat it. So eat more vegetables and foods that slowly release their energy.

Tip 2: Learn to deal with (too much long-term) stress. Stress releases stored sugar in your blood. When you are continuously stressed, your body produces hormones that make you feel edgy to help you complete your deadline or challenge. Stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline flood your system, and as a result your muscles and liver will release stored sugars to enable you to keep working until midnight. Sounds great? Well, the downside is that too much stress over time will burn your body’s organs out from the inside. That’s the part why it is called burnout. If you feel that your stress levels are “always” out of control, I recommend seeking professional help to learn how to cope with and lower them.

Tip 3: Exercise your heart and major muscle groups regularly. If you don’t work out yet, start today and create a regular exercise schedule. Why? 80% to 90% of the glucose (sugars) that gets into your blood normally ends up in your muscle cells if the insulin is doing its work correctly. Exercise helps your cells remain sensitive to the insulin so that they open up. There is plenty of evidence that shows that when we exert our muscle cells those cells become more sensitive to the insulin knocking on the door. If you don’t have time to exercise, then make the time! That may sound hard, but I guarantee that once you are diabetic it will cost you much more time. So see it as an investment.

Tip 4: Avoid weight gain or yo-yoing up and down. The more body fat we accumulate, the more likely we are to become insulin resistant. So keep a healthy weight or get back to it. Yo-yoing causes much stress on your body (see  Tip 3). Moreover, fat around the waist is especially risky for creating metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes. Do this to check out the current state of your body fat levels. Measure your body fat levels in the gym by asking one of the trainers or myself. We have a handy device that you hold in your hands and that will measure your body fat levels within 10 seconds.

Tip 5: Ask your doctor for a “fasting glucose test”. As I said earlier, type 2 diabetes is not something that you develop overnight. It often takes decades to develop and to be diagnosed as such. Diabetes is a progressive disease. You don’t get it “on a Monday morning” because you had a heavy party over the weekend. Fortunately, there are some early warning signs that can detected in your blood (the pre-diabetic stage or “Syndrome X”). Since prevention is the key, a blood test from your doctor on an empty stomach can establish if your blood sugar levels are elevated when they shouldn’t be (on an empty stomach these levels should be low). It’s also good opportunity to check other indicators of systemics problems, such as elevated cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

Tip 6: Drink more coffee!? Yes that’s right, drink more coffee. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (during an 18 year study) found that coffee drinkers taking between 4 and 6 cups a day had a 29 to 54% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Interestingly, decaf coffee did not offer any protection nor did 1 to 3 cups of regular coffee…

Come and join one of my seminars at WorldClass (10 euros per participant) every other Tuesday evening from 19:00 to 20:15. I’m looking forward to meeting you there!

NOTE: This article is not medical advice, so please consult a doctor if you have specific questions about diabetes or other medical conditions.

Paul Schuchhard is a qualified counselor, a certified sports nutritionist and personal trainer, and a highly experienced corporate communications adviser and trainer. Visit www.paulschuchhard.com or www.life5.eu to learn more about life coaching, stress and burnout coaching, nutritional coaching, counseling and corporate Away Days focused on well-being.

Add muscle:

Every expert agrees that the most effective way to jack up your metabolism is to add lean muscle mass. Muscle is made up of metabolically active tissue. This means that it requires energy to be built, used and maintained. The best way to develop more muscle mass is by weight training. This should be always a part of your training plan!

Try intense training

There’s nothing better than good high-intensity interval training (HIIT) to boost your metabolism. It combines relatively brief, repeated efforts with periods of recovery. HIIT burns more calories than a normal cardio session.

Once you step off the treadmill after your steady-state training cardio session, the calorie burn also comes to an end. By combining cardio and strength training through IT you will have a double benefit from your workout.

Eat protein

Try a delicious protein-rich breakfast that includes ingredients such as eggs, lean meat or chicken and Greek yogurt. Proteins require a lot of energy to break down and digest. Just the act of eating protein can bring up your metabolism. People who eat protein at breakfast time tend to ingest fewer calories throughout the remainder of the day.

Eat pure whole foods

The act of breaking down nutrients requires energy and burns calories (thermic effect of food). But all foods are mot created equal: some take more energy to break down than others. By choosing unprocessed foods like lean meat, fish, vegetables and fruits, you are driving up the thermic effect of food and utilizing more calories for digestion. Eat mostly foods that have very few ingredients listed on the package. Overly processed foods require little effort to digest, increasing blood sugar and your waistline.

Choose supplements wisely

Many supplements and energy drinks have a thermogenic effect. It means that they drive up the heat in the body, which leads to an increase in your metabolism. Caffeine and taurine are popular thermogenics. But supplements can also overtax your adrenal glands and drive up stress responses in the body. So proceed with caution and be sure not to overdo it when adding supplements.

Stay hydrated

Water is a key player in your digestive process. Essentially, without it, you cannot efficiently and completely extract all the nutrients from the food you take in. Think of the water in your body as if it were oil in a car.

Focus your energy on developing lean muscle and getting more pure foods and protein into your diet. Add some high-intensity training sessions to boost your metabolism and get a lean, ripped body!

Salmon flan: Combine 4 eggs, 200g canned salmon, 1 finely chopped onion, 50g flour, 60g low-fat grated cheese, 400ml skimmed milk and seasoning in a bowl. Pour into a greased 23cm quiche dish and bake for 45-60 mins. Serve with a salad with light vinaigrette. Makes 3-4 servings.

Tuesday Dinner

Chicken Caesar salad: Mix 2 chopped hard-boiled eggs, 2 chopped rashers of grilled bacon, 1 slice of toasted whole grain bread (shred and make into croutons) and 125g chopped chicken breast fillet. Arrange over a plate of iceberg lettuce leaves and top with low-fat mayonnaise.

Wednesday Dinner

Spanish tomato tortilla: Fry 200g sliced potatoes in olive oil. Add 150g chopped ham, 2 chopped spring onions and 150g chopped tomatoes to the pan and fry for a further 2 minutes. Add 2 beaten eggs, season with salt and pepper and cook until eggs are set. Sprinkle with parsley.

Thursday Dinner

Grilled chicken with German potato salad: Gril 150g chicken breast fillet. Boil 150g potatoes and 1 egg, then drain, cool and chop. Toss together with 1 chopped gherkin, 1tbsp capers and 1 chopped celery stick. Serve with steamed asparagus and carrots.

Friday Dinner

Mushroom and cheese tortilla: Fry 70g mushrooms and 1tbsp chopped onion gently in a little oil, then add 1 beaten egg, season and cook until set. Heat a big frying pan and spray one side each of two flour tortillas. Place one tortilla spray side down on hot pan, spoon on mushroom/egg mixture, top with 20g grated cheese, top with other tortilla spray side up and cook until golden and cheese has melted.

Saturday Dinner

Beef fried rice: Heat a little oil in a wok or frying pan. Add 1 chopped spring onion, a handful of peas and 1 chopped red pepper, stir-fry for 3 mins, then add 150g lean beef fillet and stir-fry for a further 3 minutes. Add 1 beaten egg to pan and stir gently until scrambled. Add 125g precooked brown rice and 1tbsp low-sodium soy sauce.

Sunday Dinner

Bean Nicoise salad: Mix 90g couscous with 100g drained canned mixed beans 2tbsp diced onion and 1 chopped tomato. Add a plate of diced lettuce leaves, 1 quartered boiled egg, chopped sun-dried tomatoes and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

Supplement of the day: BCAA

Branched Chain Amino Acid is known by the acronym BCAA. Its name comes from its molecular structure as a chain. Proteins are made of amino acids, which are 20 in number. There are certain “essential” amino acids (8 in number) so called because it is impossible for the body to produce and synthesize them naturally. When the body needs energy, it can break down muscle to take the amino acids and use them as an energy source.

BCAA includes three essential amino acids: leucine, isoleucine and valine

Leucine is a source of energy. It stimulates protein synthesis and is involved in the healing of the skin and bones. We find leucine in foods such as whole grains (wheat, rice), nuts and meat. Isoleucine is involved in energy production, improves endurance levels and is a source of energy for muscles. We find isoleucine in fish, lentils and almonds. Valine helps in the body’s recovery efforts and contributes to the proper functioning of the nervous system. We find valine in mushrooms, dairy products and meat. A deficiency in amino acids can lead to physical and intellectual weakness.

Why use BCAA if we can find these amino acids in our diet?

Taking supplements allows a much faster synthesis of proteins, and thus a greater and quicker supply of energy. Before an amino acid is synthesized from the diet, it must first pass through decomposition, digestion and absorption.In conclusion, I would say that if you are an athlete, if you prepare for any type of competition or if you exercise intensely on a regular basis (at least 3 times per week), taking a supplement is essential for protein synthesis and fast recovery. For an average person with a well-balanced diet, however, taking a supplement is not essential.

Note: Before using supplements, please contact a coach.

Stress is good for us, as it helps us to survive and stay competitive; it’s the reason why we get up in the morning to “do what has to be done”. But too much stress over a long period of time is a killer because it erodes our immune system. When that happens, we are at risk of becoming ill. In this case I don’t mean merely catching a cold, but more serious health issues such as burnout, diabetes, stroke, or heart attack. In short: all those things we’d like to believe only happen to other people, but never to us.

Good nutrition is an important part of keeping your immune system in top shape.

In this article I want to explain why nutrition is such an important factor in boosting your immune system. You will see that catch phrase “you are what you eat” extends much further than just how your body looks on the outside. It’s the food that you eat on a daily basis that is going to support or work against your body’s immune system. Let’s see how that works.

The quality of your immune system depends on what you eat.

People under stress often cut corners when it comes to their nutrition. Easy solutions are often timesaving and appealing, but they wreak havoc on your energy balance, leaving you with less energy than before. Refined foods such as sandwiches will upset the sugar balance in your body. The carbohydrates in these foods are so quickly absorbed in your body’s blood stream that the body cannot use it all at once. In response, it releases a large dose of the hormone insulin to lower this “sugar” level in your blood to a more acceptable level. Because of this, your energy levels crash.

When these energy levels gets too low, you will experience strong cravings for more sweet foods (triggered by the hormone cortisol). This is your body’s way of “helping” you by pushing you into restoring energy levels quickly. As a result, you get locked into a sugar  roller coaster, with unbalanced energy levels that add to your (already high) stress levels. Over a longer period of time, that stress will lower the capacity of your immune system to deal with sickness.

Nutrition is not the same as calories

I am sure I am not telling you anything new when I say that your body needs vitamins and minerals. But what most people do not realize is that by ingesting processed foods “all the time”, they are eating foods that lack “nutrients” (vitamins and minerals that your body desperately needs). This creates a body depleted of the nutrients that it needs to function correctly and deal with stress in an optimum way. Whereas a banan contains potassium (ensuring that nerve impulses reach your heart so that it can beat) and magnesium (crucial in contracting and relaxing your muscles), a sanwich will most likely contain none of these minerals. And on top of that, the more refined foods we eat, the more we suppress our immune system because the refined carbohydrates foster a climate of inflammation in our bodies; they deplete our reserves of vitamin B, for example, in order to process the high carbohydrate load.

Supplements alone are not the answer

We humans are “clever enough” in such cases, however, to take a supplement to ease our guilty minds. But does that really work? People that lead a hectic lifestyle often reason that they can get away with eating “bad” refined foods as long as they supplement with “good” multivitamin. This is a myth. If you are living on a diet based on toast with jam, cornflakes, sandwhiches, snacks, coffee and a quick TV dinner with a few drinks in the evening, you cannot make up for the lack of nutrients in those foods by taking a vitamin supplement. These refined foods stress your adrenal glands and will produce more (rather than less) stress hormones in your body, eventually undermining your body’s immune system.

Supplements can at best be an insurance policy to help you work away small deficits or to make the impact of the “bad” foods less damaging. That said, the most useful supplements to deal with long-term stress are a (separate) B-complex vitamin and a supplement of magnesium to help relax the tension in your muscles. Zinc helps the “intelligence” of the T-cells in your immune system, vitamin C helps antibody production, and selenium can help the NK cells (natural killer cells) in your immune system to clear out intruders. And adding vitamin E to the combination with the vitamin C may help increase the total number of T-cells in your immune system. All good reasons to eat nutritious foods, right?

The best way to keep your immune system strong is to prepare your own foods and to plan your meals. If it sounds complex or time-consuming, just have a look at the many websites that focus on healthy meals in 15 minutes. Let’s not forget: preventing sickness is always less time-consuming than having to fight it off later!

Paul Schuchhard is a certified Counselor specialized in the psychology of burnout prevention; he is also a certified Sports Nutritionist and fitness trainer.

www.paulschuchhard.com