Wellness Workshops
A Healthy Balance, Inc.’s Wellness Workshops are interactive programs designed to engage, educate, and motivate your team incorporate wellness into their lives both in and out of the workplace.
Topics range from nutrition and healthy eating, tips to fitting in fitness and creating a workout routine, strategies to stressing less, workplace wellness hacks, healthy-but-easy recipes, smart snacking ideas, motivation and goal setting, injury prevention and safety guidelines, to tips on striking a work-life balance.
Nutrition and Healthy Eating
Learn the truth about your body and how to fuel it right. These workshops are designed to educate attendees on various aspects of maintaining healthy eating habits and how to integrate this lifestyle into their own. Topics range from learning the basics of nutrition to tackling cravings and eating healthy on the go.
Nutrition Nuts And Bolts
Nutrition seems pretty straight forward, right? Eat fruits and veggies, don’t eat processed food, limit your fat intake, keep your portions in check, eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full. So why does it get so confusing and how does making the right food choices become such a daunting chore for so many of us? While the basics are pretty simple to implement, proper eating and nutrition really is a science (food science!). In Nutrition Nuts and Bolts we’ll be breaking it down to the basics, explaining how nutrients impact your health, and clearing up the confusion around media and marketing.
Take Away Objectives:
- Breaking it down to the basics of nutrition and healthy eating.
- Set the records straight on carbs, fat, protein and how they impact your overall health and wellness.
- Debunking the media myths and marketing confusion around what is actually healthy.
- Showing you how to make healthy “swapportunities” to maximize your nutrient intake on a daily basis.
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The Truth About Carbs
Carbs. Whether you love them, hate them, hate to love them or just don’t know enough about them to make a decision, they play an important role in our daily eating habits and our health. Did you know that they are our body’s preferred energy source? Learn the truth and put an end to your carb confusion once and for all!
Take Away Objectives:
- Learn the health benefits and functions of carbohydrates in your body.
- Discover the role carbohydrates play in energy, metabolism and nutrition.
- Understand the different kinds of carbohydrate sources and how to strike an optimal balance in your meals and snacks.
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Diabetes 101
Diabetes is a lifelong, chronic condition that affects how your body uses glucose, or blood sugar. There are several types of diabetes and the symptoms, complications, and treatment plans differ among individuals. With diabetes, the body either does not make enough insulin or can’t use its own insulin effectively, causing high blood sugar. While there is no cure, Type 2 Diabetes (the most common form) can be prevented and controlled through regular physical activity, healthful eating and achieving a healthy weight.
Take Away Objectives:
- Understand the basics of diabetes including the causes, symptoms and complications of uncontrolled high blood sugar
- Identify ways to control blood sugar levels, such as: how to correctly identify and limit large portions of refined carbohydrate-rich foods, understand the basics of “carb counting” and identify sources of hidden sugar
- Learn how to create balanced meals that incorporate all the foods groups to prevent blood sugar spikes
- Recognize the importance of exercise: how it effects your blood sugar levels, helps to reduce medication dependence, reduces your risk for other chronic diseases and how regular physical activity can make living with diabetes manageable
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Ditch the Diet: Healthy Eating for Life
If you’ve tried dieting to lose weight fast, you’ve probably found that you end up gaining the weight right back. Unfortunately, when it comes to eating healthy to achieve your weight goals, there’s no quick fix.
Learn how you can more easily incorporate healthy eating into your life to keep the pounds off long term.
Take Away Objectives:
- Understand the consequences of dieting
- Review nutrition basics
- Learn what steps you can take towards healthier eating
- Find out ways to boost your metabolism
- Learn how to calculate your individual calorie needs
- Review how to plan your meals and snacks
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Mastering Meal Planning: Take the Guesswork out of Healthy Eating
Do you struggle with knowing how to plan your meals? Are you concerned about eating too much fat or not enough protein? We’ve all heard different facts about nutrition out there, so it can become confusing when you’re trying to practice healthy eating on your own. Learn how you should be planning your meals and snacks throughout the day to ensure you’re getting the right balance of nutrients to get the most out of your meals and stay fueled throughout the day.
Take Away Objectives:
- Learn simple steps towards eating healthier and making well-balanced meals and snacks
- Determine how much you need to eat based on your health goals and calorie needs
- Improve your meal planning skills to make healthy eating fit your lifestyle, which will save you time and money
- Establish structure in your daily eating habits to eat well-balanced meals and snacks, incorporating all macronutrients
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Decoding The Nutrition Label
There’s a lot to read on a nutrition label. There are lots of numbers and percentages that may not be clear, confusing health claims, and commercials replaying in the back of your head. Learn what to look for, what the numbers mean, and how to distinguish the fact from fiction among health claims on the package.
Take Away Objectives:
- Learn how to read the food label and understand how it impacts your personal health choices.
- Be able to decipher marketing schemes from truthful health claims.
- Understand what all the numbers mean and how they apply to your needs.
- Master the skill of scanning a food label and identify whether a food is healthy.
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Metabolism Demystified: Making Your Metabolism Work For You
Feel like your metabolism is non-existent? Looking to boost your calorie burning capacity? There are many factors, such as genetics, age, body composition, activity level, and your eating habits that impact your metabolic rate. Some we can change, some we can’t. We’ll help you to understand the science behind metabolism, how to calculate your individual calorie needs and identify lifestyle habits that may be wreaking havoc on your metabolism.
Take Away Objectives:
- Understand the science behind metabolism and how to calculate your individual metabolic needs
- Learn what factors can impact your metabolic rate and which ones you can control
- Identify lifestyle habits that may be slowing your metabolism and how you can make small changes to get yours revving again
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Sports Nutrition For The Everyday Athlete
Have you ever felt mystified about how best to fuel for your workouts? Have any of these questions ever crossed your mind: Should I eat before a workout? Do I need more protein? Aren’t carbohydrates bad? It can be confusing with all the misinformation and conflicting advice presented to us. Whether you’re a weekend warrior, training for an event, or working out to stay in shape learn how to incorporate the concepts of sports nutrition into your diet to enhance performance, improve recovery time, and keep your energy levels up without adding empty calories to your meal plan.
Take Away Objectives:
- Get a better understanding of the roles protein, carbohydrates and hydration play your athletic performance.
- Learn how to calculate your specific calorie, carbohydrate, protein, and fluid needs based on you and your training routine.
- Understand how to tie the concepts of sports nutrition into your existing meal plan, even if you are managing your weight.
- Learn how to make small manageable changes that will take your health and nutrition to the next level.
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Fitness and Exercise
These workshops are designed to educate attendees on strategies to integrate fitness into their everyday hectic lifestyles. Workshop topics cover tips on making time for fitness, creating a workout routine to reach your fitness goals and incorporating it into the workplace.
Fitting In Fitness
In today’s fast-paced world it can be difficult for people to incorporate exercise, and developing a fitness routine for yourself can seem daunting. With a little knowledge about the basics and some savviness with your schedule, you can develop a routine that fits your: lifestyle, fitness level and specific goals. We’ll cover the main components of a fitness routine, help you discover ways to find (and keep) your motivation, review scheduling strategies to make it easier to fit it in your busy day, and teach you quick fitness tricks of the trade so that you can get more done in less time.
Take Away Objectives:
- Understand the benefits of exercise and maintaining your fitness level.
- Learn fitness quick tips and workout strategies to cut your gym time and boost your efforts.
- Bust common excuses for skipping your workout and find ways to incorporate fitness into your daily routine.
- Review basic time management, scheduling and goal setting skills to see how you can squeeze more fitness into your week.
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Deskercise: Fitness In Your Workspace
The average American sits for 7 ½ hours each day, and current research shows that inactivity is responsible for more deaths than smoking. Prolonged sitting or general inactivity can lead to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, colon and breast cancer. 90% of people say they suffer from pain, such as headaches, neck and shoulder pain, or general muscle stiffness and tightness linked to the way they work at their desk. Deskercise is exercise that can be done right at your desk, in the clothes you wear to work! With simple stretches and movements, you can strengthen and loosen the muscles of neck, shoulders, arms, back, chest, wrists, hands, and legs. These exercises can also give you a mental boost, fight stress and boost productivity.
Take Away Objectives:
- Learn simple exercise that can be done at your desk to strengthen and loosen muscles to prevent pain and discomfort.
- Identify the risks of a sedentary lifestyle and how to incorporate activity into your day, even if your job requires hours of sitting.
- Reap the preventive health benefits of incorporating exercise into your day.
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Making Your Workout Work For You
Are you tired of working out and not seeing the results you want? Do you have a fitness routine and want to make sure you’re maximizing your efforts? Learn the best exercises for your fitness goals, how to plan out your workout routine, tips to use your workout time effectively, and strategies to progress your training plan.
Take Away Objectives:
- Identify why many exercise programs fall flat and how to stay motivated.
- Discuss basic exercise recommendations and how they apply to you.
- Design a workout plan that fits your goals & your lifestyle.
- Learn how to adjust and progress your workouts so that you keep reaping the benefits.
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Flexibility and Stretching: It’s More Than Just Touching Your Toes
Do you need an afternoon pick me up: something to get you energized for the last “stretch” of the workday? Maybe you find your hips, back and shoulders are often sore? Stretching can improve circulation, increase blood flow, improve balance and coordination, alleviate muscle pain due to tightness and has been shown to improve cardiovascular health. This hands-on stretching workshop will guide participants through stretches targeting all major muscles groups and common areas of pain and tightness.
Take Away Objectives:
- Discuss the benefits of stretching (they go way beyond touching your toes!)
- Understand how it can positively impact your physical and mental health.
- Discover how stretching can help prevent injury and relieve pain.
- Learn simple stretches you can do anywhere.
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Stress Management and Productivity
Recognizing your body’s need to slow down and relax is a crucial aspect of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. These workshops are designed to educate attendees on managing daily stress, making small behavior changes, and incorporating simple relaxation techniques.
Stress Management For Managers: Helping You and Your Team Stress Less
Stress can have a negative effect on productivity, performance, energy levels, work and personal relationships, and overall mental outlook. Now imagine the impact on your business when you think about how stress affects your whole team. Think about how your own stress might impact your employees. Whether you’re staying cool and collected, or maybe you’re not so calm, learn how stress can impact your whole team and your business, identify signs of stress or burnout among your employees and develop ways that you as a manager can help to alleviate employee stress.
Take Away Objectives:
- Understand the ways in which stress impacts your team and your business.
- Recognize the mental and physical symptoms of stress in yourself as well as others.
- Gain insight on proper ways to handle employee stress, identify burn out and foster a less stressful work environment.
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Managing Stress: Stay Cool, Calm And Collected
Do you feel like the demands of the day are bringing you down? Are you feeling overwhelmed with trying to balance work and life? Not sure how to blow off some steam without negative consequences? You’re not alone; 43% of adults suffer adverse health effects from stress. It can have a negative impact on productivity, job performance, energy levels, personal relationships, physical health and overall mental outlook. Stress has been linked with heart disease, can cause digestive issues, headaches, skin conditions, fatigue, cognitive impairment and more. It’s vital that you take stress management seriously if you want to safeguard your physical and mental health.
Take Away Objectives:
- Learn to stay cool, calm and collected by identifying stress triggers in your life.
- Recognize the ways in which stress impacts you and your health.
- Develop stress busting strategies and find productive stress outlets.
- Adopt simple stress management techniques you can incorporate into your daily routine.
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Finding Your Work-Life Balance
Juggling all your responsibilities can be quite the balancing act. Your resources are finite and if you push too hard, you may find yourself out of balance. Take a step back to reflect on your personal and professional goals, evaluate how you are spending your time, and find strategies to balance all that you do so that you can make workspace a happy place and your house a home sweet home.
Take Away Objectives:
- Evaluate your personal and professional goals.
- Prioritize your work and life responsibilities.
- Optimize your time and task management skills to create more time in your day.
- Identify signs of stress and burn out.
- Discover strategies to boost your mental, physical and emotional energy.
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General Health and Wellness
Learn the basics of leading a healthy lifestyle the easy way. These workshops are designed to educate attendees on general wellness with topics ranging from goal setting and motivation, surviving the holidays and finding a balance in life to simply making healthy easy.
Healthy Made Easy
It’s easy to make healthy living complicated with so much information coming at us. Eat more vegetables, move more, stress less, and find a work-life balance. Those all sound nice and simple, right? Let us help you break it down to the basics of health and wellness, discuss what healthy is, and help you define what healthy means to you. We’ll show you just how easy it can be with ideas for eating healthy, tricks to fitting in fitness, simple strategies to stressing less, workspace wellness hacks, shortcuts to creating healthy habits, and tips to striking a work-life balance.
Take Away Objectives:
- Define what healthy living means to you.
- Evaluate your current health and wellness lifestyle.
- Identify areas where you are successful and areas in which you hope to make improvements.
- Develop a plan to incorporate small changes for a big impact on your lifestyle.
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Pillow Talk: Getting A Good Night Sleep
Sleep is more than just an extended nap between busy days. It’s something that we all need, but what do you know about it? Did you know that the impact of losing 4 hours of sleep is comparable to the effects of drinking a 6 pack of beer? Did you know many of us can function at high levels of cognition with little sleep if don’t have to do repetitive tasks? Everything from the food you eat before bed, to the temperature in the room, to your pillow, to your workout routine can impact your sleep. We’ll discuss what happens in your body from the time you shut your eyes to the time you hit the alarm so you can start catching some Zs with restful sleep.
Take Away Objectives:
- Learn how sleep works and what happens in your body from the time your shut your eyes to the time you hit the alarm.
- Clarify common misconceptions of sleep.
- Review basic sleep recommendations.
- Uncover little known facts to find out what may be keeping you awake at night.
- Understand how sleep impacts your mood, cognitive function, energy levels, and overall health.
- Evaluate your individual sleep habits.
- Discover sleep strategies that work well for you.
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Bottoms Up! Stay Hydrated
Dehydration can wreak havoc on your body, leaving you feeling drained. It can impede performance, reduce attention span, impact reaction time, and impair executive functions such as the ability to plan tasks and follow a process. Our body is 60% water, and it plays a role in everything from metabolism, cognitive performance and cell regeneration, to digestion and nutrient absorption. Staying hydrated can help improve sleep, alleviate headaches, aid in muscle recovery, ward off back pain, improve focus and concentration, diminish the appearance of wrinkles, fight fatigue, and keep hunger pangs at bay. We’ll discuss what happens in your body when you aren’t properly hydrated, and show you simple strategies to get the water your body needs, which doesn’t necessarily mean drinking bottle after bottle.
Take Away Objectives:
- Understand what happens in your body when you are dehydrated and what roles water plays in your overall health.
- Identify the obvious and not-so-obvious signs of dehydration.
- Learn how to determine your hydration status and personal fluid needs.
- Understand electrolytes, sports drinks, and how to properly hydrate your body.
- Discover easy tips to help ensure that you’re getting the hydration your body needs.
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Healthy Feet
Feet are the structural base of the human body, charged with the task of supporting the entire body. For many of us they are even vital to our ability to do our jobs. How do we thank them? We call them gross, walk around in the same old shoes for far too long, and only tend to them when something goes wrong… or when sandal season hits. We’ll break down the inner workings of this complex system, cover what’s normal and what’s not when it comes to your toes, and give you simple tips to keep your feet healthy and fresh.
Take Away Objectives:
- Discover Understand how your feet impact your overall health.
- Identify symptoms of common foot conditions.
- Review basic foot care to keep your feet healthy.
- Learn to find footwear that fits you well.
- Know the signs that you need new shoes.
- Discover tips to keep your feet fresh and clean.
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New Year’s Resolution Solution
Have you ever made the New Year’s resolution to lose weight, exercise more consistently, or eat healthier? Many of us have, as we see it as a fresh start to the year, especially after possibly overindulging during the holidays leading up to New Years. Stop the cycle of making the same resolution year after year. Learn how to make your goals more attainable and make healthy a way of life!
Take Away Objectives:
- Discover how to set realistic goals and achievable resolutions.
- Learn how to make more time in your day to work at achieving your goals.
- Understand the importance of motivation in achieving and maintaining healthy lifestyle changes.
- Develop strategies to stay motivated and push through barriers.
- Use resources to help keep your healthy resolutions.
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Ergonomics and Injury Prevention
These workshops are designed for employees and supervisors to lay the foundation of back safety and injury prevention training.
Back To Basics: Back Injury Prevention
Back pain is one of the most common reasons people use a sick day, second only to the common cold. Back pain doesn’t just strike when we’ve been lifting heavy boxes, and it’s not a sign of physical weakness. Did you know that stress, anxiety and depression are linked with higher incidence of back pain? Did you know that back pain may be a symptom of muscular imbalance or tightness in another part of your body? Triggers of back pain range from chronic muscle tightness to acute injury to lack of exercise. But don’t worry, we’ve got your back! In this workshop we’ll review basic anatomy and show you just how everything works, teach you the difference between acute and chronic back pain and teach you simple stretches and exercises to protect your back.
Take Away Objectives:
- Gain a basic understanding of the anatomy of the back and spine.
- Identify risk factors in your life and learn preventative measures to maintain the health of your back.
- Understand the different causes of both acute and chronic back pain and how to address them.
- Review simple stretches and low-impact strengthening exercises that you can do at home and at work.
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Elements Of Ergonomics: Optimizing Your Workspace
Whether you spend most of the day sitting, standing or being active, workspace ergonomics is designed to minimize the risk of injury and enhance employee comfort, productivity and work efficiency. Did you know that 9 out of 10 people suffer from pain linked to the way they work at their desks? Workspace ergonomics can reduce back and neck pain, muscle stiffness, repetitive motion injuries, carpal tunnel, tendonitis, muscular pain or stiffness, joint pain or eye strain due to poor vision or lighting. Proper ergonomics have shown to increase productivity by 11% and is linked with improving the quality of your work. We’ll show you how to optimize your workspace and make simple changes in the set-up of your desk or standing station to get you ergonomically aligned and working efficiently.
Take Away Objectives:
- Identify risk factors in your personal workspace for neck, back, joint and muscular injuries.
- Review the recommendations and tips for an optimal workspace setup.
- Learn how to set up your own personal workspace to make it ergonomically sound using simple and easy changes.
- Demonstrate correct sitting and standing posture and review proper lifting and bending techniques.
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