​School holidays have started and many of you are going on vacation. 

Here are three simple snack tips you could use for yourself and your children to keep healthy during your vacation.

• Start your day with  a good solid breakfast. For example yoghurt with muesli, fruit and nuts. Or an omelette with lots of veg. Always add fruit or veg. This will give you extra fibres, which keep you feel full for longer.
  
  
• Stick to 3 x a day. Don't graze all day long but eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. This way you will avoid getting too hungry at any point in time so you won't snack as much.

• BYO: Bring your own healthy snacks. My absolute favorite is home made peanut butter oatmeal energy balls. But other snacks could be:

- piece of fruit
- hand full of mixed nuts and raisins
- snack size vegetables such as tomato, cucumber, paprika
- muesli bars, the more healthy ones, such as the brand 'Kind'
- 'squeeze' fruit from the supermarket, without added sugars
- small jar of yoghurt with fruit, nuts

Enjoy your healthy vacation!

I know it's healthy to drink more water, I've learned it, I advice it to other people and still I'm not doing it myself. I can think of various reasons why I don't: water tastes boring, I'm too busy, I just don't think of it, I don't want to go to the bathroom all the time etc. etc. Probably the same reasons why you might not be drinking enough. So as of today, I'm trying to improve my drinking habits, and a few tips I can give you and I will be using myself:
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• It doesn't have to be water! I can be tea or any other not too sugary drink
• You can add flavour to water: add strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, raspberries, cucumber, mint.
• Keep a bottle or thermo with you so you keep track of how much you drink a day

We still don't know exactly what is 'enough' but I believe it varies from person to person. A very simple rule is to keep an eye out for the colour of your urine, see very handy picture below. If it's light in colour, you're doing great! If it's dark, take action! I have seen this chart for the first time in the bathroom of a school in the tropics, but I think this chart will be great anywhere. We, in the northern hemisphere, also get dehydrated by the weather, despite the cold during the winter.

My practitioner advised me to drink 4,5 liter water. A day. Yes, you heard that right, 4,5 liter of water!!!! I might as well move my office to the bathroom. Anyway, I get the point. If I can't make the 4,5 liter a day, it might be 2,5. Even that is better than my 5 cups of fluid a day. 
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What I personally also really like is the Hydranome water bottle. They are reasonably new on the market and I have been using their water bottle for a while now. They have thought of an easy way to keep track of how much you drink during a day and you can even download their app to make it even easier for you to keep track of your water intake. Also positive, at least that's what I think: it's a family owned business, the bottle is made in the NL, of good quality and safe material. Check out their website for more information:

http://hydranome.com/
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