Start September with your batteries recharged!

The end of the holidays is approaching, a time when we enjoy good times with friends and indulge in certain "excesses" with our meals. It is normal that, although we continue to consume products that are part of the Mediterranean diet, we allow ourselves certain licences in gatherings with friends and our body suffers changes.

In addition, during the holidays there is a change in exercise habits.

The arrival of September usually signals the return to routine and the moment when we all decide that it is time to put an end to the small excesses of the summer and get back to our habits. On the other hand, it is normal for the return to our daily activities to make us feel a little more tired in the first few weeks.

For all these reasons, today we would like to give you some tips on how to get back to healthy habits as soon as possible and help your body to get back to work as soon as possible.

• Introduce five pieces of fruit and vegetables a day.As recommended by the World Health Organisation, it is the basis for a healthy diet. They will help our body to recover the amount of vitamins and minerals it needs. In addition, we remind you that they are rich in fibre, antioxidants, help to keep the body hydrated, and are cholesterol-free.
• Incorporate into the daily diet foods that help the body to purify itself and eliminate toxins: green leafy vegetables, citrus fruits or red fruits. A good example of how to follow this advice is to cook a green leafy salad with a touch of orange.
• Make purifying brothsFor example, leek broth or a combination of various vegetables such as chard, turnip, carrot and celery. If you still don't feel like drinking a hot broth, you can try cold broths, such as artichoke broth with onion, green asparagus, fennel, ginger, mint and celery.
• Increasing consumption of vegetables that help the liver to regain its full functionEndive, cardoon, artichokes, endive or aubergine will help in this task. After a period of overeating, the liver is one of the organs that suffers the most, so we must eat foods that help it to be at maximum performance in order to fulfil its functions.
• Betting on some green leafy vegetable smothie such as kale or spinach and combine them with celery and lemon juice. You can incorporate this healthy habit into your daily routine, for example as a mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack.
• As for fruit, it is better to take the whole piece because the juice eliminates practically all the fibre. Although the important thing is to eat fruit, for these times when we are trying to get back to our habits after the summer, it is more advisable to eat whole fruit. Of course, juice is also valid, although we should be aware that it does not contain the same amount of fibre.
• Increase consumption of fruits such as pineapple, kiwi or apples, thanks to their high water content and their detox component, they are great allies for getting back to our pre-summer figure.

Of course, these are just a few tips that we encourage you to follow. The important thing, as we have told you on other occasions, is to follow a correct Mediterranean diet throughout the year together with daily exercise.

Mediterranean diet

So far, in this article, we have given you tips that you can follow to help your body get back to its pre-holiday condition after a period of overeating.

But we also want to remind you why the Mediterranean diet is the ideal diet to follow all year round:

• It is based on products such as fruit and vegetables, oil, cereals, meat and fish. Incorporating all these foods into our daily diet results in a balanced diet that is totally healthy for our organism.
• With the consumption of these foods we obtain a better physical condition, and we also help to prevent diseases, mainly cardiovascular.
• It is also associated with benefits such as: preventing premature ageing and the onset of various types of cancer.
• It reduces the rate of obesity, balances our blood sugar, cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

We hope we have helped you with our advice. At Iberiana we are ready to get back from the holidays with enthusiasm and continue telling you interesting things about our sector and everything related to it.