The Health Project

- Simple Chocolate Banana Smoothie
  
  Posted at 1:00 pm by JP
  
  Nov 29th
  
  Ah ha chocolate I hear you shout – yes indeed it is chocolate but it is real chocolate in the form of cacao powder.
  
  So this Sunday morning, I really wanted to get the kids off to a good start. Smoothies are my secret back door into my kid’s nutrition so whenever I feel they may be lacking in something, smoothies are my go-to as they are kid friendly and they all think the NutriBullet is the coolest thing we own. They are nearly right, the juicer is number one 🙂
  
  You can use any blender or mixer to whizz this together so don’t let the lack of a fancy machine stop you making this.
  
  Add the below to your blender and whizz until smooth.
  
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  Posted in Food
- Paring Down Your Life
  
  Posted at 1:00 pm by JP
  
  Nov 22nd
  Our lives are overfull.
  
  There’s not a single one of us who is free of that trap, in my experience. We say yes to invitations and commitments, we answer as many emails and messages as we can, we join courses and groups, buy books and take on new hobbies, get involved in new relationships and buy more stuff.
  
  The result of this tendency to overfill is predictable:
  - We spend too much money and get into too much debt, and then have too much clutter.
  - We are always busy and always feel like we’re behind on everything.
  - We don’t have time for what’s really important — relationships, meaningful work, solitude and silence, taking care of ourselves.
  - We can’t really fulfill all of our commitments because we have too much going on.
  - We use full lives to distract ourselves from being fully present.
  It’s understandable that we overfill our lives — we are usually acting on desires, and not giving full contemplation to what we want in our lives and what we don’t want.
  
  ‘You can’t act on your desires alone. You have to contemplate the details of what needs to be removed and what needs to be cultivated.’ ~Chogyam Trungpa
  
  So how do we change that? I’d like to propose paring down your life.
  
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  Posted in Stress
- Vegetarian Mushroom Carbonara
  
  Posted at 1:00 pm by JP
  
  Nov 15th
  
  This is a really cool, quick and tasty healthy veggie based version of the creamy bacon carbonara classic. If you are watching the weight or the calories then try this one without the oil for even better health benefits. Get a decent pan on a high heat. If you are not using oil, keeping the pan super hot is key to releasing the flavour of the onions and mushrooms. There is about 120 calories in a tablespoon of oil so pause before you mindlessly add it to the pan, you don’t need it to cook this.
  
  So let’s get cooking!
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  Posted in Food
- It’s Just One Bite of Food
  
  Posted at 1:00 pm by JP
  
  Nov 8th
  
  There are so many things going on in these miracle bodies of ours even just to process one bite of food, that it amazes me how we are still alive at all! As well as so many processes going on in parallel, there are so many things that can and do go wrong in this digestion process, it’s no wonder the pharma companies are making a fortune from all our foodborne diseases. Taking a pill for every ill is far easier for most people than doing the hard yards of working out what it is that you are doing or eating that is not serving you well. Well, that’s where Nutritional Therapy comes in.
  
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  Posted in Nutritional Therapy
- My Experience of: Dublin Marathon 2018
  
  Posted at 1:00 pm by JP
  
  Nov 1st
  
  3 years. 3 marathons.
  
  As someone who was never that sporty as a kid and who never ever thought he could do even one of these, I’m super proud of these medals.
  
  I decided to run a marathon in 2016 after getting a redundancy from a company and deciding that, for the first time in 17 years of working, I would take the opportunity afforded to me and take an extended break from the corporate world. I soon discovered that without some kind of structure to your day, life can become pretty unproductive very quickly. Running and training for a marathon gave me the structure that I needed. It gave me a personal purpose to get up in the morning which is vital to a fulfilled life.
  
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  Posted in Fitness, Reviews
- Marathon Time
  
  Posted at 12:00 pm by JP
  
  Oct 25th
  
  It takes about 16 weeks of training and about 500 miles to train well for a marathon. Depending on your goals, this could be a lot more or slightly less but this is an average of what it takes to run a marathon and run it well and even, dare I say it, enjoy it.
  
  This weekend I am tackling my third marathon in Dublin, Ireland. My training for this one has been less than perfect with lots of life getting in the way of the perfectly written training plan but it was a great reminder to me that the plan is just that – it’s a written down target of things that you want to make happen.
  
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  Posted in Fitness
- The Big M: Momentum
  
  Posted at 12:00 pm by JP
  
  Oct 18th
  
  As most of you know, I am getting ready to take on the Dublin Marathon at the end of this month. This will be my 3rd marathon in 3 years. This will also be my last marathon for a while but I’ll leave that to another post. In terms of training, I am at the peak point in the running schedule now, and yesterday myself and my training partner completed the mighty 21-mile run. In terms of my training plan, this is the tip of how far I run in training. The morning yesterday was awful, hard rain from the very start at 9am and it never stopped. We trained in Kilbogget park if anyone knows it, in south Dublin. It is a luxury to have this park on my doorstep as it’s circumference is 3 miles long so yesterday, we lapped this park 7 times to give us the 21 miles.
  
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  Posted in Fitness
- Breaking the Fast
  
  Posted at 12:00 pm by JP
  
  Oct 11th
  
  Breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen and dinner like a pauper. Not quite right but you get the drift. How many of us actually live by this principle? I was thinking about this recently when I decided to mix it up from my usual staple of porridge oats and various toppings. I got this bee pollen from WholeFoods in a recent trip stateside, it’s a really good quality one.
  
  My morning routine now looks like this…
  
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  Posted in Food
- Going Back to College
  
  Posted at 12:00 pm by JP
  
  Oct 4th
  
  In July of 2016, I got redundancy from a software job I was working at the time. This was the first time, in my 17 years working that I have actually been made redundant from a job. I have been in plenty of companies where they had rounds upon rounds of redundancies but it just never involved me. So anyway, it was my turn so off I went with a miserable severance and a big smile on my face. I actually liked the job so it was a pity but it was due to circumstances beyond my control and the redundancies were wide and deep. So in the end, I decided I would deliberately take 4 months off. The job market was and still is good here in Dublin so I wasn’t worried about picking up another job but I was worried about finding a good job.
  
  Anyway, long story short, this was when I decided to run my first marathon and when I started into a Diploma in Health and Nutrition Coaching from IIN.
  
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  Posted in Nutritional Therapy
- My Experience of: Bliss More
  
  Posted at 4:00 pm by JP
  
  Sep 27th
  
  For the last 8 weeks, I’ve been reading “Bliss More” by Light Watkins. #blissmore
  
  I first came across Light Watkins while out training for Dublin Marathon 2018 and listening to the Rich Roll podcast. If you have time, watch the interview on YouTube. The interview itself is much better in visual but this time out, I was just listening to the audio.
  
  I have dabbled in the black art of meditation before I came across Light and this book. I’ve used guided meditations (Jon Gabriel, Sharon Salzburg), I’ve used apps (Headspace, Insight Timer, Calm) and I’ve even done a course in mindfulness. All of my previous endeavors into meditation has started in good faith, in fact, they started out of a need to manage stress in a better and more natural way but I never felt any progression with these approaches, even the mindfulness weekly course I did. I went through the motions, listening attentively to the guided instructions, anchored in the breath, same time, same place each day for as long as you can stick to it. Long story short, I never really felt that meditation held any water for me. Until now…
  
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  Posted in Reviews, Stress
- Homemade Veggie Chili
  
  Posted at 4:00 pm by JP
  
  Sep 20th
  
  I eat mostly a plant-based diet most of the time, which means that occasionally I do eat a little meat and dairy, generally whenever I really feel my body craving it. It feels wrong to me to be ultra rigid in my food choices so its plants preferably but if that can’t be done for whatever reason, I will do my best.
  
  One thing that I love about this chili is that traditionally, the chilis I have made in the past have always included mincemeat – not anymore and the best thing is I think the dish is better without it!
  
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  Posted in Food
- Marathon Countdown
  
  Posted at 4:00 pm by JP
  
  Sep 13th
  
  6 weeks of training left to go until the Dublin Marathon in October 2018. This will be my 3rd year doing this marathon and it feels a little like albums. The 2nd and 3rd follow up albums are almost harder than the debut. Last year I completed it in 4hrs 2mins and it felt great.
  
  This year is a different beast and here’s why.
  
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  Posted in Fitness
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