By Patience Bradley, author of The HouseWork WorkOut

Many people struggle to find time to exercise.  Sometimes just finding a little bit of time in our hectic schedule is virtually impossible.  So don’t try! At the end of the day cleaning and tidying your house is something you simply have to do, modifying your household chores shouldn’t be that hard.

By turning your household chores into a workout you can increase your heart rate and work your major muscle groups.  From hoovering, mopping and dusting to gardening and even cleaning the kitchen, there’s hundreds of exercises you can do at home.

When doing your HouseWork WorkOuts it’s a good idea to do these in 30 minutes slots.  You could even create a 30 minute playlist to work out to. Don’t forget that having up-beat and fast music on will help to keep you motivated, studies show that working out to fast music will increase your pace (which in turn increases your heart rate and therefore see you burning more calories), and the music typically makes you work out for longer.

1. Vacuum Your Entire House

Vacuuming can be a great exercise for your core and abs if you keep those muscles tense while cleaning. It burns around 190 calories per hour, but if you want to take this exercise further and burn more calories, do lunge motions while taking steps to work right in to those glutes.

2. Sweep Or Mop Your Floors

Prepare your floors by clearing the surfaces so you can clean as many as possible in quick succession. Where you can, squat rather than bending over to lift items and get to those hard-to-reach areas. Mopping burns around 195 calories per hour, but don’t forget to switch between your right and left arms to ensure an even work out. Use a good amount of elbow grease when you’re on your hands and knees scrubbing to work out your arms and shoulders, and remember to hold that tummy in while doing so to work out those abs.

3. Run Up And Down The Stairs

When you are tidying-up, and bringing items up or down the stairs, opt to repeat the action more often than you actually need to. For example, when bringing items upstairs, run up and down the stairs three times, as opposed to the one time that you need to. Walking up and down stairs at a brisk pace burns around 500 calories per hour. To turn this in to a toning exercise, go up two stairs at a time, but at a slower pace, so that it becomes a controlled strength exercise as opposed to a cardio one.

4. Do Calf Raises As You Wash Dishes

Start with your legs hip-width apart, before lifting up on to your toes. Hold this position for three to 10 seconds, before slowly coming down to stand on your whole feet again. Repeat this exercise 10 times per set, for three sets, with one minute rest in between sets.

5. Clean All Of Your Windows (Inside & Out)

Use both your left and right hands and arms to ensure an equal work out, and clean in a circular motion. Reach as high as you can to work your abs and oblique muscles (your waist). Cleaning windows burns around 180 calories per hour. The same applies to cleaning surfaces, mirrors, and dusting.

6. Weed Your Garden & Trim Plants

If weeding on your hands and knees, ensure you use proper cushioning, and engage your abs by keeping them tense throughout the work out. If you are doing short duration weeding in bursts, try squatting instead, and don’t forget to squat when gathering up the waste to put it in garden bags. Gardening in this way burns approximately 289 calories per hour.

7. Wash Your Car By Hand

Many of us enjoy the convenience of taking our cars to automatic or manual car wash services, but if you want to take advantage of nice weather, and get a work out in at the same time, wash your car by hand instead. A full car clean includes wetting, cleaning, rinsing, drying, and polishing, which are all fantastic actions for your arms and abs, as well as squatting to reach the lower areas of the vehicle, or to wet your chamois or sponge in soapy water. If you want to maximise this work out, clean the inside of your car, including the windows and hoovering the carpets and seats. Cleaning your car by hand burns around 230 calories per hour.

8. Make-The-Bed Triceps Dips

Depending on your skill level, changing bed sheets can feel like a work out on its own, especially if it’s a double. Maximise the benefits of doing this chore by fitting in some arm toning exercises at the same time. Sit on the edge of the bed with your hands placed palms down next to your hips, fingers facing forward. Scoot off the bed until you are only supported by your arms and feet. The further your feet are from the bed, the harder this exercise is. Lower down slowly, keeping your elbows tucked in to your sides, and use your arms to push yourself back up. Repeat 10 times in one set, for three sets, with  one minute rest in between sets.

9. Toilet Split Squats

When cleaning the toilet and the bathroom, use the toilet (with the seat down) to perform Bulgarian Split Squats. Place one foot on the toilet and your front foot far enough out in front of you so that you can lunge down without your knee going over your toes. Slowly lower your body down and use your extended leg to push yourself back up. Your instinct will be to lean forward over your extended leg – don’t – keep your upper body as straight as you can. This is a fantastic work out for your whole leg as well as your glutes! Don’t forget to repeat on both legs.

10. Lazy Bicep Curls

If you are carrying bags of groceries in to the house, or bags of rubbish out to the bin, use the opportunity to fit in a few bicep curls. Get a good grip on the bag palm facing up and make a fist, keep your elbows at your sides, and lift the bags so your hands reach your chest. This move can even be done with tins of beans, one litre bottles of juice, or anything else that makes a suitable weight, while you’re sitting watching TV!

11. No Time To ‘Waist’

If you are waiting for the kettle to boil, pasta to cook, or the microwave to ding, squeeze in a few squats, lunges, or push-ups off a wall or kitchen counter. If you make a dinner every evening, and a couple of cups of tea a day, the short-duration exercises will soon build up over a week, and after all, every little helps
The HouseWork WorkOut by Patience Bradley is out now and available from Amazon or www.excaliburpress.co.uk/book-shop

Foodies from across the borough and beyond will be delighted to learn that a new guided food tour, Taste of Comber, will take place on Thursday 31 October.

Taste of Comber, hosted by Ards and North Down Borough Council, is the third in a series of tasting tours this autumn, taking in some of the finest dining establishments in historic Comber. This foodie experience celebrates the abundance of flavours autumn has to offer with a distinctly local twist. 

The tour begins with a starter of local seafood at the award-winning Indie FÜde – experts at sourcing the finest artisan Irish produce. Next you will move on to enjoy a main course with wine at the luxury Georgian House followed by a delicious seasonal dessert at the multi-award-winning Sugarcane Bistro.  The tour ends at McBrides on the Square, where guests will enjoy the finest local artisan cheese paired with a tasting flight of local beers.

It’s a truly mouth-watering prospect and as the dark nights start to close in, treating yourself to an exquisite guided food tour in the historic town of Comber where you can hear about the culinary heritage and enjoy delicious food, never seemed like a better idea!

Pre booking is essential. Tickets cost £47 and are available from www.ticketsource.co.uk/ardsandnorthdown.

For more information, including a full menu, go to visitardsandnorthdown.com.

Organisations of all sizes, and across all sectors, possess a powerful asset that can help them to gain competitive advantage, offer unique insights into their organisational performance, and enable them to ‘level up’ by making smarter and more informed decisions.

Although all organisations have access to this asset, many are not able to fully exploit it and leverage the opportunities that can flow from it.

According to Geoff McGimpsey, Marketing Communications Manager at Belfast-based data analytics specialists, Analytics Engines: “Every organisation produces and holds data. This can include transactional information, logistics records, staff timesheets, machine performance, product warranties, and more. When this data is appropriately captured, transitioned into a digital format, and analysed correctly, the organisation gains tremendous insights into its operations, its customers, and its external environment.”

Data can be a powerful and persuasive tool that can help decision-makers in organisations, as well as informing business strategy and reducing risk. Geoff provides the perfect example of the power of data – a data solution called ‘Precision for Pharmacy’ which is currently deployed for the Western Health and Social Care Trust at Altnagelvin Hospital.

Geoff explained: “We helped the clinical pharmacy team move away from paper-based record systems by co-designing a digital solution that enabled greater transparency and improved reporting methodology. The bottom-line was that the teams felt more empowered and they collaborated more effectively. Managers were also able to evidence the impact of the work they carried out.”

The Challenges of Digital Transformation

Organisational change is inherently difficult to accomplish. However, it remains the only constant in today’s dynamic business environment, and the powerful results of a well-developed and strategic change management plan should not be underestimated. 

Analytics Engines has a wealth of hands-on experience in helping organisations develop their digital roadmap. He said: “I’ve found that quite often the biggest challenge businesses face when starting their data journey is properly understanding and correctly mapping out the problem they are seeking to solve. Organisations are aware that they have data, and they understand that it can help but they don’t always understand how. We work closely with businesses to help them understand their problem and to deliver a solution that properly meets their needs.”

For many businesses, there are some hurdles to overcome when implementing a digital transformation strategy, such as getting access to the right data at the right volume, managing it effectively, and getting buy-in from different functions across the organisation.

“Working with an expert partner such as Analytics Engines helps to demystify the process for organisations and gives them the confidence that their digital transformation roadmap is one that will be effective, with useful and positive outcomes that can have a significant impact on the organisation,” he said. 

“We collaborate with a wide range of businesses and offer advice on a variety of areas, such as how to best source and present the raw data, how to cleanse it, and how to draw down those all-important insights.” 

Increased Potential from Digital Transformation Opportunities

Digital transformation presents exciting opportunities for a range of business functions in organisations of every size and sector.

“Some organisations may feel that digital transformation is for more technically matured businesses only, or that it is only suitable to certain industries and sectors,” said Geoff, adding: “Digital transformation is so much more than an online presence. We guide and assist organisations to realise the value of their data assets and to identify where they could be missing out on real business opportunities.”

Often, it is in an organisation’s best interest to be receptive to new data and information.

“Many can combine their owned data with open datasets which can be incredibly enlightening and identify key trends and indicators that the organisation would otherwise have missed,” said Geoff.

With experts in data science, graph and text analytics, location analytics, data visualisation, artificial intelligence, advanced record linkage, legacy system integration, and custom business processes, Analytics Engines have helped organisations – from very varied backgrounds – to embed digital transformation with great success. 

“We recently worked with The National Gallery in London as part of their digital transformation process. We pulled in a range of datasets to create a ‘single source of truth’ reporting methodology,” said Geoff. “The custom dashboard was rapidly adopted across the organisation, putting everyone in every department on the same page in terms of their reporting methods and their understanding of how visitors interacted with their exhibitions. We put the user at the centre of the solution – reducing system complexity and ensuring they could draw the greatest possible insights from their data to optimise organisational performance.”

Experienced in working with healthcare organisations, local and regional government bodies, biomedical science centres, the entertainment and media industries, the hospitality and tourism sector, and education and higher education establishments, there are few industries Analytics Engines have not worked with.

“We have the agility to design business intelligence solutions that provide our partners and clients with comprehensive insight that is capable of enabling change and quickly providing a return on their investment,” said Geoff.

Analytics Engines is also organising a major conference – Big Data Belfast – featuring business use cases and data analytics thought leaders drawn from local domain experts and multi-national organisations. The event takes place at the ICC Belfast on Thursday October 24 2019, and is sponsored this year by EY, as well as Dell, CME Group, Allstate Northern Ireland, SmashFly, SpotX, Altra Executives, Invest Northern Ireland and Signifyd. Find out more about Big Data Belfast and register to attend the conference by going to: https://www.bigdatabelfast.com

To find out more about Analytics Engines and how they can help your business, log on to: https://analyticsengines.com.

Join us this Halloween at The Market Place Theatre in Armagh, if you dare, for the mother of all horror movies.

Phoenix office worker Marion Crane, seeking a new life, leaves town with $40,000 stolen from her employer, and heads towards her lover Sam’s store. Travelling on the back roads to avoid the police, she stops for the night at the ramshackle Bates Motel and meets the polite but highly-strung proprietor Norman Bates, a young man with an interest in taxidermy and a difficult relationship with his mother. Psycho is now considered one of Hitchcock’s best films and praised as a major work of cinematic art by international film critics and scholars. Tickets are priced £9 which includes a Green Lady cocktail.

Celtic Soul, the definitive tribute to Van Morrison, comes to The Market Place on Saturday 2 November, with a memorable journey through the songbook of our very own musical legend! Receiving critical acclaim from devout Vanatics wherever they perform, they have continued their success with shows across Ireland.

With years of playing in blues, folk, trad and jazz bands, the seven-piece band have the ingredients to deliver Van’s music authentically. They are Clarke Wilson on vocals and saxophone, Ray McEvoy (electric guitar), Marcus McAuley (acoustic guitar), Rik Gay (drums), Keith Ward (piano and keyboards), Gerry McClurg (trumpet) and Mark Crockard (electric and double bass). Expect to hear songs from right across Van’s musical history including the big hits as well as stand out album tracks.

Tickets are available from the Theatre Box Office on [028] 3752 1821, or online at www.visitarmagh.com/marketplacetheatre. To keep up-to-date with the latest news at the Market Place Theatre, you can follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/marketplacearmagh) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/mptarmagh) where you will find all the latest information, special offers and video previews.

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