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Personal programmes
 By following these tailored diet and fitness programmes, which are based on expert advice, you can improve and protect your physical and mental health
Programme one
Follow a six-week healthy living plan, tailored to your fitness level, and reap the benefits from day one
Getting started
Read an explanation of what to expect in programme two of your healthy living plan. Expert, week-by-week advice will help you become more active, burn calories and tone your body.
Week three
Diet
This week's challenge is to eat more colourful combinations of fruit and vegetables to make sure you reap the full nutritional benefits they offer.
The importance of colour
Different coloured fruit and vegetables have individual qualities that can benefit your health.
Red, yellow, orange
Contain: beta-carotene, zeaxanthin
Good for: eye health
Examples: red and orange peppers, corn, apricots, mangoes, carrots
Dark green
Contain: folate
Good for: heart health, and prevents birth defects such as spina bifida
Examples: spinach, cabbage, broccoli
Black, purple
Contain: polyphenols
Good for: protecting against heart disease and cell ageing
Examples: black grapes, purple grape juice
Try to include a good range of colours in every meal. The following fruit and vegetables are also very beneficial:
Tomatoes, which are rich sources of lycopene and can protect against prostate cancer. The potency increases
when they're cooked.
Onions, which contain polyphenols.
Oranges and orange juice, which contain folate.
If you didn't take part in programme one, read more about the overall health benefits of fruit and vegetables.
Colourful recipe ideas
To prepare a colourful meal, why not try a three-pepper salad, stuffed tomatoes with rice, lentil and spinach stew or jelly made with half water and half grape juice.
Exercise
This week, you should add 30 minutes to your walking routine and stick with the two interval sessions, with one small change. There's also a new exercise to try.
Your week
Your aim this week is to add 30 minutes to one of your three steady-paced walks to make it an hour-long session.
You should also increase the length of the 'fast' sections of your two interval sessions from two minutes to three.
Here's how to do it:
Warm up with a steady-paced walk for five minutes.
Walk fast for three minutes and slow for two. Do this cycle four times in total.
Cool down with a steady-paced walk for five minutes.
This increases the challenge, because you have less time to recover and spend longer working at the higher rate of perceived exertion (RPE).
In your other three walks (two for 30 minutes and one for 60) you should work at an RPE of four.
Your week could look like this:
| Sat |
Sun |
Mon |
Tues |
Wed |
Thurs |
Fri |
| 1 x 30-minute walk |
1 x 30-minute interval session |
Rest |
1 x 30-minute walk |
1 x 30-minute interval session |
Rest |
1 x one-hour walk |
Hour-long walk
Your longer walking session will add a generous chunk to your energy expenditure. You'll burn around 400 calories in that session alone.
Finding time for a longer walk will also help you grow accustomed to making a space in your life for activity, as well as increasing your overall stamina.
Pace isn't a big concern, but you might want to vary the terrain, perhaps adding a few hills.
The stair push-up
This modified push-up exercise works to tone and strengthen the chest, upper arms and shoulders and will complement all the leg work you've been doing.
Do it every other day, alternating it with last week's Superman exercise.
Stand at the bottom of the stairs, facing up, with your feet hip-width apart. Place your hands, shoulder-width apart, on a higher stair. Your body should be straight from head to toe, and your tummy muscles engaged.
 Bend at the elbows and lower yourself towards the step. When your elbows are at right angles, pause and straighten them again. Do this ten times.
As you get stronger, you can make the exercise harder by standing away from the bottom of the stairs and placing your hands on a lower step. The closer to horizontal your body is, the tougher it will be.
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