Healthy Eating, Exercise Challenge For February And The Importance of Squats

Plus my first poll and a free gift for subscribers

Jan 26, 2025

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Healthy Eating

Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper

How do you eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper, and why would you want to? This old adage encourages the consumption of more calories first thing in the morning and fewer in the evening. It enables good quality sleep, as your digestive system isn’t busy working while you’re trying to sleep.

It means eating a large breakfast, a smaller lunch, and an even smaller dinner, which isn’t how society usually structures its mealtimes. I recently watched a YouTube video by Dr Brad Stanfield, who looked into the benefits, or otherwise, of time-restricted fasting. This led him to the conclusion that eating more calories earlier in the day is closer to the body’s natural circadian rhythm and better for blood sugar levels. Here’s a link to the video for you to see for yourself:

Dr Brad Stanfield's video

New Study

An article in The Independent reported on a new study of 21,000 participants in the UK, US, and Italy, which found that swapping meat and dairy for plant-based foods can do more than help the planet and animals. It can transform your gut and metabolism. The research, published in Nature Microbiology, explored the gut microbiome of vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores. It found that even small changes to a diet to include more plant-based foods can lead to meaningful health improvements.

The gut microbiome is a complex ecosystem critical for breaking down food, releasing nutrients and regulating the immune system. According to the study, what we eat influences which microbes thrive there. Vegans showed the highest levels of bacteria associated with fibre digestion, whereas omnivores displayed microbes linked to increased inflammation and negative cardiovascular health outcomes. The microbiomes of vegetarians fell somewhere in between, benefitting from their partial consumption of plant-based foods.

Omnivores who increased their intake of fruits, vegetables and whole grains showed significant improvements in gut health. So what can we take from this study? Dietary diversity is vital to good gut health. Eating a diverse range of foods, especially plant-based, increases the microbes inhabiting our gut, influencing our overall health. Include a wide palette of colours on your plate, as vegetables, fruits and grains.

Cutting back on meat also benefits the planet as animal agriculture is responsible for most deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and water use. So do yourself and the planet a favour, eat more plant-based foods and less meat, fish and processed food.

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Exercise Challenge For February

Our January Walking Challenge has proved so popular some suggest that we continue into February, maybe even the rest of the year. I’ve found it helpful for my own exercise regime to have others committed to logging their step count with me, and we created a little community encouraging each other. So, this is to the walking group: how about continuing the 4,000-step challenge and perhaps adding another, in February?

Maybe a daily squat challenge of, say 20. Participants can continue with the step count only, increasing the number if they wish, as they did in January, or adding the squat challenge. In a Squat Challenge of, say, 20, you could do the 20 consecutively or as exercise snacks: 5 squats 4 times a day, or 10 twice daily. I’ve researched and written a piece about the importance of squats below. What do you think? Let me know in the poll.

The poll is only running for three days as it will be the 1st of February on Saturday and we need to know what we’re doing before that date. So please vote on your preference ASAP folks.

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The Importance of Squats

When we’re young, our bodies are so flexible that we do squats easily and without thinking about it. Then, we unlearn them in favour of bending over. As we grow older, squats become harder to do, but they are an important exercise to add to your regime to strengthen your leg muscles. Squats use many muscles in our lower body and some in our upper torso, including our core muscles.

They strengthen your skeleton, mainly in the spine and lower body. Squats improve your flexibility, too. As you become older, your tendons, muscles, and ligaments become less elastic. Regularly doing squats can help slow down this process and limber you up. Squats may also boost your bone mineral density for stronger bones.

Adding squats to your daily workout can boost your exercise performance, decrease the risk of injury, and keep you moving more easily throughout the day.

Here’s how to do a squat properly:

Start by doing some warm-up exercises beforehand.

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Stand with feet a little wider than hip width apart, toes slightly turned out.
Hands clasped in front the whole time.
Keeping your chest up and out and the pressure even in your feet, engage your abdominals, shift your weight into your heels as you push your hips back.
Lower yourself into a squat until either your heels begin to lift off the floor or until your torso begins to round or flex forward.
Keep your chest out and core tight as you push through your heels to stand back up to your starting position.

If you prefer, you can use a chair behind you to lower yourself but don’t sit on it. Briefly touch the chair with your butt, then push back up into standing.

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If you’re in the Walking Challenge group, don’t forget to vote in the poll.
Are you a vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian or an omnivore that eats mostly plant-based? What do you think of this study?

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