Raw Food

Day 36 – 100 Healthy Days – Keeping Momentum High

Health & Beauty, Journey Back to Health

There is no doubt that it was easier for me to stay healthy whilst in Spain.  The heat, swimming pool and delicious salads made it easier for me to eat healthy and move more everyday.  It’s when I’m home I seem to struggle, especially with sugar and caffeine.  I just get so tired with the kids etc… so it has to be done!

photoI know I said that I wasn’t going to ‘give up’ anything but as things are going quite well and want to keep moving in the right direction I decided to give up processed sugar.  As well as wanting to be healthier I have given up sugar due to the horrible fatigue I have been feeling ever since having cancer as a way to try and help combat that.  I am on day 6 now and it is going well.  Apart from on day 4 when I accidentally had sugar in a drink I didn’t realise it was in (we will come onto hidden sugars in due course) but basically….  I have been making some ‘clean’ desserts as fab alternatives, including these delicious Cocoa Coconut Bites that are also a hit with the children – win win!

Moving wise I have taken the plunge and hired a personal trainer to make sure I keep exercising regularly and get the most out of my workouts.  I will be starting with her on Thursday so in the mean time I keep moving and getting out and about and my Davina DVD’s whenever I can.  Even when it was raining at the weekend, hubby the kids and I all got our wellies on a headed into the woods for a long country walk, heaven!

So 36 days in I would say that one thing that has been interesting is the effect I believe it is having on my children.  They are getting out and about more and their diet has definitely improved as I find healthy or clean alternatives and – if I’m honest – I don’t want to be tempted by them eating something yummy I’m not allowed so I’m not giving them things I would have on occasion before.  All in all I believe it is having a positive impact on the whole family, which is only ever good news in my eyes.

The Re-Energiser Mini One Day Detox

Delicious Healthy Recipes, Health & Beauty, Journey Back to Health

My lovely friend Nikki is a little fountain of knowledge when it comes to leading a gorgeous healthy life.  A while ago she emailed me about a Re-Energising Mini One Day Detox she was planning telling me that she decided to do the detox because she had been feeling really sluggish and tired, she had seriously low energy and just generally felt worn out and run down.  She had also been drinking way to much coffee.

Basically feeling like she needed to press the reset button – think we can all relate to that feeling without really knowing what to do.

So what Nikki was doing on her day….

Firstly she chose a quiet day, when there wouldn’t be too many temptations, and then kept to this plan…

  • Morning
    • Green tea or warm water with lemon juice
    • Coffee enima (optional but think they can be bought on the internet)
    • Green Juice
    • 20 minutes of exercise.  This can be a jog, yoga, running up and down the stairs, just get moving!
  • Lunch
    • Green tea or warm water with lemon juice
    • Green Juice
    • Eat cucumber
  • Afternoon
    • Green Juice
    • Eat some cucumber
    • Do some gentle stretches
    • Relax or do some sorting around the house etc…
  • Dinner
    • Chamomile enima
    • Green Juice
    • Herbal tea
    • A good 8 hours of sleep
  • Drink 1.5 litres of water.  Nikki boiled the water, aded a green tea bag, waited for it to cool then put it back into the bottle to sip throughout the day.

Ever since she emailed me about it I have been dying to know how she got on because I actually think this sounds like quite a cool day.  I finally caught up with her this week and she said

“I felt fantastic, I can’t explain what a difference it made.  We had family staying the week before it had been so busy and I felt so depleted but after that day, I felt so well again and just boosted.  Plus the bloating I was feeling from too much indulging on rich food was gone.  I can’t recommend it enough.”

Well that’s me sold!  This will for perfectly into my 100 Healthy Days so I have actually scheduled my detox day in my diary for 3rd August so I don’t make any other plans and am going to have a quiet Sunday with the family where I can detox and recharge.  Will let you know how I get on but if you are feeling like you need a re-charge, maybe its worth a try?  What do you think?  Any detox tips?

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100 Healthy Days – And So It Begins

Delicious Healthy Recipes, Journey Back to Health

Today is Day 2 of 100 Healthy Days.  If you have read my blog previously you will probably know that I am a total sugar addict, adore carbs and live for cheese.  Anything that your not supposed to eat on a healthy diet, I am totally and irrevocably in love with.  And its true love, the kind that lasts a lifetime.  So how do I break up with this love?  I figure its by loving myself more?!

My Green Juice - Kale, Cucumber, Avocado, Celery and Pineapple

My Green Juice – Kale, Cucumber, Avocado, Celery and Pineapple

I’m tired, I have put on weight, I had cancer which has strong links to diet.  I go through phases of eating well then eating crap then somewhere in the middle and this is what has led me to 100 Healthy Days.  I have seen the 100 Happy Days on Facebook and 100 Active Days on Twitter, there seem to be many versions of this 100 day campaign going on so I decided to make my own that would suit me.  They say it takes 30 days to make or break a habit so I am hoping after 100, it will become standard behaviour, even to a sugar-freak like me – that’s the plan anyway?!

I have found many versions of healthy eating and exercise, all with varying degrees of strictness so here is what I am going to do – I am not ‘giving up’ anything.  I know me (surprisingly) and if I do that, I will do nothing but think about what I can’t have and be eating chocolate covered ice-cream before you can say Green Juice.  This for me will all be about making better and healthier choices; for me that means;

  • Making fruit and vegetables the bulk of my diet.
  • Drinking at least 2 litres of water a day.
  • Drinking a Green Juice everyday.
  • Switching white for wholemeal grains.
  • Choosing homemade food from fresh and clean ingredients.

That sort of thing.

Book-Cover-2X8lTc1A few websites I have found valuable in deciding how to do this are Deliciously Ella and 100 Days of Real Food (you are allowed wine in this one, result) and Cookbooks wise it’s, Honestly Healthy by Natasha Corrett and Vicki Edgson and Clean and Lean Cookbook by James Duggan.

I don’t believe good health just come’s down to food, it’s exercise too.  For that my mantra will be Move More!  So even if it is just to walk somewhere locally that I would normally drive too, that will be more movement and get me my ‘Move More’ gold star for the day… Ohhh, I may actually make a sticker chart to hang next to the kids,  such a geek, I know!

Sticker charts aside.  My first day went well eating wise and today has gone well moving wise.  Tomorrow I’m hoping for a bit more of a combination of the both.  But I am pleased, all moving in the right direction.  Just knowing I have decided to do this for 100 day’s seems to have made a big difference in my dedication to what I’m doing.

Coincidently, flicking through Good Housekeeping last night I found an article about giving anything up for 100 days and the impact it can have (what are the chances) and the author was specifically referencing the website Give It 100, you can do absolutely anything as long as it’s for 100 days and the site encourages users to post a daily blog charting their progress.  They are inspirational and worth a look even if you aren’t sure about going ahead, or maybe you will be inspired to do 100 of something else.

Clean Banana Breakfast Pancakes Recipe under Delicious Healthy Recipes

Clean Banana Breakfast Pancakes
Recipe under Delicious Healthy Recipes

Needless to say I will be updating my progress intermittently throughout the next 100 day’s, don’t worry you won’t be getting daily updates, but if you don’t already you can follow this blog by popping your email address in the box to the right (on a computer, below on your phone) and clicking follow and get updates straight to your inbox.

You can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter, for in the moment thoughts!

Wish me luck! Nx

Spring Health & Beauty Tip 16 – Go Green

Delicious Healthy Recipes, Health & Beauty, Health and Beauty Tips, Journey Back to Health

Flood Your Body with Goodness with Green Juice

Spring Health & Beauty Tip 16 – Go Green

The thought of drinking a Green Smoothie can be a little scary, mainly because it doesn’t sound great.  It is an acquired taste, but the fruit is essential as it helps balance out the bitterness.

images-5I have found the most wonderful recipe on an awesome website for you to look at, it even includes a Beginners Juice with a softer taste so if you are interested but not 100% sure where to start, you need to visit 100 Days of Real Food.

Honestly, give it a go, it’s not that bad and the benefit is immense – balance your body’s natural pH, flood your body and cells with goodness quickly and effectively, breaking down the fruit and veg in the blender lessens the load on the body’s digestion,

You can make your juice and put it in a jam jar so you can take it with you when on the move..

Happy juicing x

 

Spring Health & Beauty Tip 1

Health and Beauty Tips

Well its the last month of spring (sort of) and this is the perfect time to continue to give yourself and your life a bit of a spring clean so everyday this month I will be posting a little Spring Health and Beauty tip everyday to help you along the way….

Spring Health and Beauty Tip 1: Drinking Little Bottles of Water

We all know that water helps cleanse the body, detoxify, help our skin and generally be all round fantastic.  People often say to me that drinking 2 litres of water a day is to much, and I sort of agree but a really easy way to make it feel less it to drink from a little bottle.

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There are 4 little bottles of water in a big one which seems hard to imagine but there are.  I think most people can easily drink a little bottle within a couple of hours?!  You have only got to do that 4 times and your done.  Try and get into a habit of refilling your little bottle in the morning, lunch, afternoon and evening.

Happy drinking!

Easy Quick Healthy Tip 25

Health and Beauty Tips

An Apple a Day…

Easy Quick Healthy Tip 25 – Eat Apples

One of lifes natural cleansers, apples help balance acidic body wastes and clean out your system, great when you are detoxing.

Apples are also high in Flavonoids which can help prevent heart-disease and are high in anti-oxidents and we already know from older posts how truly amazing anti-oxidents are.

Apples are also a superfood when it comes to fighting cancer.  They are known to help with a number of cancers as well including Bowel Cancer and Breast Cancer (two of the most common ones).

They are quite high in sugar so don’t go crazy and only eat apples from here on in, but they have a serious amout of goodness in them too so eat away!!

 

Easy Quick Healthy Tip 22

Delicious Healthy Recipes, Health and Beauty Tips

Healthy and yummy?!

Easy Quick Healthy Tip 22 – Mango Ice Cream (healthy natural cheat version)

photo 1

Mango ‘Ice Cream’

I have stolen this from my lovely friend.  Quite possibly the easiest tastiest naturalist treat – that’s not even a treat, its fruit and rice milk and that’s it!

Frozen Mango in small chunks and rice milk, in a blender = Mango Ice Cream – healthy natural cheat version.

YUM xx

Easy Quick Healthy Tip 19

Health and Beauty Tips, Journey Back to Health

Rock Out the Vitamin C

Easy Quick Healthy Tip 19 – Vitamin C

Queen of Vitamins, especially at this time of year as Vitamin C is fantastic for supporting the immune system and warding off all the coughs & colds that are always buzzing around.  But its not just the immune system, Vitamin C can help reduce cancer risk, is a good Anti-Oxient (which you may remember from before – anti-oxidents fight Free Radicals that attack the body and possibly most importantly, help stop wrinkles) and supports the body in its ability to heal and develop, espectially the blood vessels and cartilidge.

The best way to get Vitamin C into your system is through fruit and vegetables.  Obviously we all know the number one fruit Oranges, but it can also be found in

Oranges

Oranges

  • Bell Peppers
  • Kale (seriously, its the top of the list for everything, really need to up my intake)
  • Guavas
  • Brocoli
  • Papayas
  • Strwberries
  • Kiwi fruits
  • Red and Green Hot Chili Peppers

Easy Quick Healthy Tip 15

Health and Beauty Tips

Bluebliees as my daughter calls them

Easy Quick Healthy Tip 15 – Blueberries

I LOVE Blueberries and a good thing too because they are a superfood.  They have one of the highest anti-oxident capacities of all fruits and vegetables.  This fact is amazingly fantastic for us because, anti-oxidents are essential to our healthy living.

Free radicals are the nasties that attack out bodies from the inside.  They damage our bodies on a cellular level.  We are exposed to free radicals through diet, environmental factors such as pollution and smoke.  We basically can’t really avoid them.  Free radicals also cause wrinkles!  This is where Blueberries and anti-oxidents come in.  Anti-oxidents help ‘kill off’ and combat free radicals, kicking them into touch.  The more anti-oxidents we consume, the better!

So basically Blueberries can help slow down wrinkles!  I think that says it all???

The best way to eat your Blueberries is raw, that way you are getting the maximum goodness from them – don’t rely on Blueberry muffins for example.  A few fantastic ways to get them in your diet.

  1. Freshly washed straight out the punet.  The little balls of blue goodness are so yummy, I really don’t think they need anything else.
  2. A handful of blueberries ontop of your breaskfast.  I think they are particularly good with a little homemade granola and yougart.
  3. Blueberries + 1 banana + ice + a little milk + a blender = the most delicious healthy anti-oxident smoothie.

BlueberriesI often see Blueberries on offer but they don’t stay fresh for long but then I found out you can freeze them.  According to the World Healthiest Foods; New studies make it clear that we can freeze blueberries without doing damage to their delicate anthocyanin antioxidants.  After freezing blueberries at temperatures of 0°F (-17°C) or lower for periods of time between 3-6 months, researchers have discovered no significant lowering of overall antioxidant capacity or anthocyanin concentrations.  These findings are great news for anyone who grows, buys, or picks fresh berries in season and wants to enjoy them year round. They are also great news for anyone who has restricted access to fresh blueberries but can find them in the freezer section of the market.  So now I buy double oif they are offer and freeze them.  You can put frozen fruit directly into your blender and it makes it a lovely ice cold drink.

So a delicious fruit that’s deliciously good – awesome! x

Summer Berries Super Goodness

Delicious Healthy Recipes, Journey Back to Health

 

 

 

942399_10153017930575153_869120559_nIf my son will drink this then that truly is an indication that it must be yummy! 🙂

What you will need…

– A cup of Strawberries

– Half a cup of Blueberries

– 50g of Goji Berries

– 1x Banana

– A tsp of Linwoods milled Flax, Sunflower, Pumpkin & Sesame seeds with Goji Berries.

– 2x Tbsp of rolled Oats

– A cup of your choice of Milk or Water

Literally chuck it all in the blender & hey presto a delicious smoothie, full of super-foods, antioxidants, nutrients, vitamins & essential fatty acids…. all that & it tastes delicious!

In this lovely warm weather I have also been adding 5 or 6 ice cubes to give it a seriously refreshing taste.

I honestly think Juices & Smoothies are the easiest way to get some seriously good stuff into your diet in the most delicious way.  I have not stopped since seeing my nutritionist (as well as eating a much healthier diet) & I feel so much better, but this smoothie really is becoming a firm family favourite.

Hope you like it.

Wishing you health & happiness x