Healthy Eating
Eating a healthy, balanced diet is an important part of maintaining good health, and can help you to feel at your best.
This means eating a wide variety of foods in the right proportions, and consuming the correct amount of food and drink to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.
Click on the link below for healthy eating advice for people who don’t have specific dietary requirements as a result of having a medical condition e.g. diabetes.
Local support
Develop healthier eating habits, be more active, and get on track to start losing weight with the easy-to-follow NHS UK 12-week guide.
If people are overweight, it’s usually because they eat and drink more calories than they need. This guide will help you to reduce the number of calories you consume.
Physical Activity – The Single best Medicine
Do you want more energy, better sleep and an improved sense of wellbeing? If the answer is yes then read on…
Modern life means that many people sit down for most of the day. Two out of every five adults in the UK are physically inactive. In fact the average person spends twice as much time on the toilet each week as they do exercising! We now know that lack of exercise is very harmful and increases our chances of developing lots of diseases and sadly, early death. This is because physical inactivity results in bad fat (called visceral fat) building up. This in turn causes our body’s immune system to become overactive, resulting in chronic inflammation which is the driver of future disease. So becoming active reduces the bad fat, reduces inflammation and reduces the chance of developing future disease.
Even doing 10 minutes exercise a day gives a huge benefit.
So, if we spent 30 minutes a day walking (or any form of exercise) we get:
- An improved quality of life
- Reduced premature death and depression
- More energy, better sleep and reduced chronic pain
If exercise was a drug then everyone would be prescribed it. It has been called the ‘miracle cure’ for a very good reason!
Small steps to feeling good – a guide produced by Newcastle Gateshead Clinical Commissioning Group
Rising Sun Parkrun
It is a 5km run – it’s you against the clock.
Social Prescribing
The term ‘social prescribing’ is used to describe a service which supports people to access a range of non-medical services and activities in their local area.
Social prescribing can help people with different social, emotional or practical needs to find the right support and improve their health and wellbeing.
The service can help you:
- Get support to improve your physical health
- Find employment or volunteering opportunities or learn a new skill
- Tackle money, housing, work or benefits issues
- Cope with a particular condition or difficulty
- Access ways of improving your emotional wellbeing such as befriending schemes, peer support or arts and leisure activities
Contact your Practice to find out more.
First Contact Clinical provides the Local Authority Commissioned Social Prescribing Service in North Tyneside.
Social prescribing can help people with different social, emotional or practical needs to find the right support and improve their health and wellbeing. Our team of Link Workers will take time to explore what’s important to individuals and support them to identify issues and challenges they would like to address. This may involve introducing them to services, groups or activities in their local community.
Stop Smoking
Stopping smoking increases your life expectancy and helps improve your quality of life, not to mention making you wealthier as well!
It is never too late to stop and the NHS is here to help you.
Getting NHS support really works – it can be four times more successful than going it alone (cold turkey) and it’s completely free of charge.
So why not try it? You have nothing to lose.
- NHS
- NHS Smokefree
- Thinking of giving up smoking
- Patient.co.uk
- Stop smoking with ACTIVE North Tyneside
- Want to Quit?
Weight Management
Do you need to lose weight? There are a number of online resources and local Clinics that you can access without having to see your Doctor for a referral.
Weighing too much or too little can have a number of consequences on your overall health. If you would like advice on a healthy lifestyle or would just like to lose weight, our practice nurses can assist you. Please arrange an appointment via reception staff.
Why a healthy weight range is important
By being above or below your healthy weight range you’re increasing your chances of suffering from a number of serious health problems.
Health problems associated with being overweight include:
- type 2 diabetes
- stroke
- heart disease
- some cancers
- issues with fertility in women
- high blood pressure
- osteoarthritis
- fatty liver disease
- kidney disease
Health problems associated with being underweight include:
- weakened immune system
- osteoporosis
- anaemia
- issues with fertility in women
- palpitations
How to lose weight safely
Losing weight safely and at a realistic pace is the best way to reach your healthy weight and to maintain that weight in the long-term.
To make sure you lose weight safely, always speak to your GP before starting a new diet or fitness regime.
Dieting Safely
You can achieve safe and realistic weight loss by cutting your calorie intake down by between 300 – 500 calories per day. On average, this should see you lose 1 to 2 pounds per week. While this might not seem like much, it would equal between 26 and 52 pounds in only 6 months.
Setting small and realistic goals will help you lose weight safely and will make you more likely to maintain any weight loss in the long-term.
Eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, starchy carbohydrates and whole grains will keep you fuller for longer and mean you are less likely to snack. Picking these healthy foods is a much better way to approach healthy eating and weight loss.
A Weight Off Your Mind
Would you like to lose weight or support someone else to do so? Here you will find a range of useful information and resources available in the North East region.