A juice for silky smooth skin

One of the best things about my juicing obsession is that I no longer have to wear foundation (this saves me a fortune and has rid me of that horrible ‘I have had foundation on for far too long today feeling’)

My uneven skin tone has vanished, as have my under eye bags and my skin is silky smooth and glowing (oh yeah how much do you want to stroke my face right now??).

My current favourite juice is carrot and red pepper and I drink at least a litre of the stuff a day.  Carrots are packed full of beta-carotene which is converted into Vitamin A in the body.  Vitamin A is the bad boy which sorts out your skin, eyes and gives you a healthy glow.  Studies have shown eating as little as one carrot a day improves skin colour, tone and reduces wrinkles (yup I am now at the stage where wrinkles actually worry me) so imagine what a juice packed with four carrots will do to your lovely little face.

Carrot and Red Pepper Juice

This makes enough for one litre.  Feel free to half the quantities if you are not quite as in love with juice as I am!

4 x carrots
1 x red pepper (I cannot explain how good red pepper in juice tastes, plus they have more Vitamin C than oranges so great during cold and flu season)
1 x stalk of celery
1 x cucumber
1 x apple
2 x sprigs of parsley (not strictly necessary but great cleanser if you have it)
2 x inches of ginger

So if you have a juicer just put them all through the juicer.

If you operate a high speed blender like me, blend with a cup of coconut water (to get the vegetables moving) and then strain through a milk bag.  More information on this method here.

5 Top tips for Juicing success

Ok we all know I love a good vegetable juice – a juice per day is pretty non-negotiable in my book!

I have told you why juicing is so good for you, so now I have some top tips to get the most from your juicy experience.

1. Add some oil to your juice

Yup sounds like a bit of a weird one.  Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat soluble and numerous scientific studies show our body absorbs them better when we consume them with a little bit of fat.  So add a tiny dash of high quality extra virgin olive oil to your juice to get maximum absorption (I have a bottle of high quality organic oil which I use solely for juices, it is too good to cook with, so although it might seem expensive initially remember it lasts a looonnnggg time).

2. Drink your juice on an empty stomach

So as discussed before the whole point of juicing is to give your body a nutrient blast.  If you still have your breakfast floating about in your stomach then you are going to absorb less of those vital nutrients you are trying to get to.  So have it first thing in the morning to give yourself an energy blast and absorb the most of those much desired vitamins.  (I drink a large glass of juice first thing in the morning and then have another before lunch and dinner.)

3. Use a milk bag to strain your juice

So believe it or not I don’t actually own a juicer.  I own a high speed blender which I use to blitz my vegetables and then I use a milk bag to remove the fibre.  A high speed blender is a multi purpose tool, you can make smoothies, raw treats and nut milks using it.  Whereas a juicer you can just….well juice.  Using a milk bag rather than a juicer involves a hell of a lot less cleaning, as all of the pulp is in one place rather than up your walls and stuck in various pieces of the machine.  You also get a lot more juice from your veg by using a milk bag rather than your standard juicer.  Winning.

4. Start off fruity, then ditch it!

So nobody is doubting fruit is great for you, but….vegetables are better.  So you want to make your juice as packed full of vegetables as possible but I understand a pure vegetable juice is a pretty daunting thought at the start of your juicing journey.

Start by using 3 apples or pears per litre, then gradually reduce the fruit until you find you are nearly 100% vegetables and it still tastes great to your newly adjusted savoury taste buds!!  A couple of things you can do to make the juice more palatable is by adding some coconut water, as this is naturally sweet,and adding lots of ginger to give it a kick.

5. Match your colours

Don’t know where to start with which fruit and vegetables go together?  It is as simple as keeping the colours together.  Trust me nothing looks more unappealing than a brown juice!!  So keep your greens together for a fresh fruity little number and your reds, oranges and yellows for a sweet earthy juice.  Cucumber is the exception chuck that bad boy in with EVERYTHING!

Hopefully that will give you a good starting point, especially with detox January fast approaching.

Remember you can contact me through my facebook page with any questions or comments.

Why Juice???

So vegetable juices are everywhere nowadays.  The beverage of choice of the likes of Miranda Kerr, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Nicole Richie to name a few.  If their healthy glow is anything to go by it would appear that vegetable juices are not something we should turn our noses up at.

Vegetables, vegetables and more vegetables

We all know vegetables are good for us, providing a whole host of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.  Remember these are the things that keep our body energised, detoxified and ready to fight disease and infections.

As a quick reminder of the benefits of eating a diet rich in vegetables:

• Reduce our risks of chronic disease.  Studies have shown that eating a diet rich in vegetables reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease, strokes and Type II Diabetes.
• Nourishes our cells giving us energy and making us feel INCREDIBLE.  So remember food is fuel.  If you are eating nutrient rich food such as vegetables your body is getting fuel it can use and this allows your body to work efficiently and effectively.  Goodbye morning coffee….
• Stabilises blood sugar levels.  Do you get afternoon sweet cravings?  This is because your blood sugar levels are crashing and it is looking for a quick fix.  So if your blood sugar levels remain stable you reduce cravings and also fat retention.  Give me that celery. 

I drink at least a litre of juice every day.  In that would be 4 carrots, a cucumber, a red pepper, two sticks of celery and an apple.  Can you imagine eating that much veg straight up?!  It would take you all day!  So the joy of juicing is that you can get all of the nutrients from this amount of veg without having to be constantly chewing.

The great Juice versus Smoothie debate

First things first when I say smoothie I am still talking vegetables.  None of this low fat yoghurt fruit smoothies malarkey (that my friend is called a dessert).

So the difference between the two is that juicing removes the insoluble fibre from vegetables and fruits.  Your body cannot digest the dietary fibre in vegetables so it passes through your digestive trace.  Fibre slows down the absorption of nutrients and some of the nutrients will pass through your body attached to the fibre.  When a vegetable is juiced and all fibre removed 70% of the nutrients will be extracted straight into your glass, and from that 100% of the nutrients will be absorbed into your body.

That is not to say vegetable smoothies should be avoided.  I do a mixture of both juice and smoothies as the dietary fibre is extremely beneficial to your digestive system, but for a nutrient blast a juice wins any day.

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?  GET JUICING!!!

Wellbeing….tell me more….

The lovely Liz from Wellmeaningbeing asked me to be part of her Wellbeing series and asked me what wellbeing meant to me.  It was strange that I was on this wellness mission yet had never stopped to write down what all this even meant to me.  So I did…..

To me wellbeing means….

Feeling your very best every single day.  To me wellbeing is all about you.  So it is changing your lifestyle to make it the healthiest it can be.  For some that may mean being a tee total super runner yogi raw vegan, but for me it is finding a balance between giving my body and mind what it needs and deserves.

I don’t binge drink, but I do have a glass of wine on occasion or some fizz to celebrate a special occasion.  I don’t generally eat pizza on a Monday, but if it is a friends birthday then I will happily celebrate at a pizza restaurant with them any day of the week!  I exercise daily, but if I go out on a run and my body isn’t feeling it, I will respect that and try again the next day.

 Wellbeing means commitment to yourself.  It means mental strength and determination.  But is also means satisfaction, happiness and self-love that you have nourished and cared for your body to the best of your ability.

My wellbeing mission is for people to realise that being ‘healthy’ does not have to be all or nothing, and that it does not need to take over people’s lives.  I want to show people that making small changes will help you feel at your very best every single day.  And gradually these small changes become habits that are engrained in your life and you wouldn’t even consider eating a Mars Bar because you know it would make you feel so bloody awful (true story).

I want people to fall in love with food again.  It is so sad that people (especially women) spend the majority of their lives feeling guilty for eating and hating their bodies.  I want to show people that they can eat healthily, feel good about themselves and their bodies and for it to taste a MILLION times better than the bad food which forms a part of our daily life.

As part of my wellbeing mission I am currently working with Jack Beanstalk Juice to open a juice bar in Balham.  We want the juice bar to be an educational hub where the local community can come to learn about how to make their lives that little bit healthier.  And there will, of course, be great juices and healthy treats such as raw chocolate, energy balls etc

As we are a start up business we are crowdfunding to show our prospective landlord that we have community support and that people want an educational juice bar in Balham.  For more information on what we are about please see our crowdfunder website and if you can pledge it will make all the difference to our wellbeing mission.

THE REVOLUTION STARTS HERE!!!

My latest obsession

So I get a tiny little bit obsessive about things. This often results in me eating my latest favourite food every day for a month at a time.

This months obsession is carrot and ginger juice. I am currently on a litre a day and still going strong!

I love carrot juice because you don’t need any fruit to make it palatable so you get all the good stuff without sugar overload.

Plus it is packed with:

Vitamin A

The old “carrots make you see in the dark” chat is actually based on the fact carrots are rich in Vitamin A, which is responsible for maintaining the health of your eyes. One medium carrot has 204% of your RDA of Vitamin A.

Beta Carotene

Carrots are loaded with beta carotene which is a powerful antioxidant. Antioxidants reduce the effects of ageing on your skin, hair, nails and eyes, whilst detoxifying your system and building new cells.

CARROT AND GINGER JUICE

Makes 1 litre

4 x medium carrots
1/2 x cucumber
1 x stick of celery
2 x inches ginger (I love ginger but feel free to put in less)

If you have a juicer just chuck them in.

If, like me, you operate a blender then blend adding a tiny bit of water to aid in the mushing up process. Then strain through a milk bag (available for about £5 from anazon). Trust me you don’t want to do carrot smoothies, they come out like cold soup. Not ideal.

This carrot juice is modelled by my newest animal helper, the lovely Henry.

My 3 Day Juice Cleanse Diary

So before we start.  I have a confession to make.  I have previously had two failed juice cleanses, one mildly (read sneaky salad and banana) and one completely (read tuna and cheese sandwich on the second and thereby final day).

But I had a good feeling about this one.  Perhaps it was because the lovely Jack from Jackbeanstalk Juice (www.jackbeanstalk.co.uk, twitter.com/jbeanstalkjuice, facebook.com/jackbeanstalkjuice) was joining me for moral support and avocado drooling sessions.  Also he has some of the nicest fresh juices I have ever tried.  So two litres of those bad boys a day seemed like a bit of a treat.

Then Jack said ‘I am going to do you a hardcore bespoke vegetable only cleanse’ and the fear reappeared.

Why would anyone want to drink only vegetable juice all day anyway??

You like holidays right?  Of course you do.  You get a chance to relax and catch up on all those things you never quite got round to whilst you had your day job to do.

Your body likes them too.  Especially your digestive system.  All day we shovel food into our bodies and expect our body to deal with the thankless task of digestion whilst we rush around stressed out with our busy little life’s.

When you give your digestive system a break for 1, 3, 5 or even 7 days, it gets going with the housework it has been putting off.  So it starts digging into your cells and removing the toxins you jam in there every day from eating pesticides, breathing in pollution and drinking toxic alcohol.

So toxin removal plus shed loads of nutrients from all those vegetables you are juicing up results in a very healthy happy digestive system.

Sooo how was it?

SURPRISINGLY EASY.  And I am being serious about this.

My aforementioned cleanses resulted in severe headaches and tiredness as the toxins released.  But there was none of that this time and at no point did I feel hungry.  I bounded through the day, didn’t once feel faint, had better than average concentration and even managed a daily run and Bikram yoga class.

Or that is at least until it was evening.  I felt a huge emotional attachment to eating in the evening.  So although my body was not hungry per se my mind didn’t quite understand why I was not chewing anything pre bed.

Solution was going to bed earlier and this seemed to work because I would wake up in the morning and feel fine again.

Until the last day that is.  Staying in on a Saturday night studying is never cool, but especially when you haven’t eaten for 3 days and the finish line is in sight.  And then half an avocado peels itself cuts itself up and jumps into your mouth.  Damn it.

So what happened next?

Well for starters I lost 4lbs.  That is a lot for someone of my size in such a short period of time.  Especially because I was not aiming to lose weight.  I did not realise it was possible for my stomach to look this flat.  It almost seemed worth just surviving on juice forever more!

My skin was sparkling and the uneven skin tones had really evened out.

I also felt really energised and needed far less sleep.  I had taught myself I did not need food every two hours to keep myself going and that the second my stomach rumbled I did not need panic I would faint and feed it whatever was nearest to hand.

Get me on board now

Sounds like a pretty good deal right.  You drink lovely fresh juices all day long whilst losing weight and your body gets extra nutrients and a little holiday.

I loved it so much it took me until 3pm on the day after the cleanse to have anything but juice!  And I am currently day dreaming of juice whilst I write this.

So the man you want to speak to is Jack from Jackbeanstalk Juices (jack@jackbeanstalk.co.uk) who is happy to arrange daily collection or delivery.  The 3 day cleanse is only £75 which I thought was a bargain as often you are looking nearer the £200 mark for these type of cleanses.

One last thing

As great as it is to remove all of the toxins from your cells it is even more important to get them out of your system.  So there are various ways to do this including oil pulling, sweating them out (some sauna time or Bikram yoga both work well) and if you are feeling extra brave go see Ruth from the Cleansing Space (http://thecleansingspace.web-works.co/) for a bit of colonic hydrotherapy (by far your best option for optimal toxin removal).

One top tip to make being healthy EASY

The key to good health is preparation and commitment. Not exactly sexy, but if you want to make it you have to do it.

I think smoothies and juices are a great way of getting lots of vitamins and minerals into your system. But bugger chopping the fruit and veg every morning at 5.30am to prepare myself a fresh juice before yoga!

So one thing I do every Sunday is cut up enough fruit and veg for 5 smoothies.

I then sort them into individual smoothies portions and put them into individual sandwich bags.

Then I put them into the freezer. You don’t lose nutrients by freezing fruit and veg so win win as far as I am concerned!

Then when it comes to smoothie time just chuck in the blender with your liquid of choice and you are good to go.

An added bonus is that you end up with less fruit and veg waste.

Refreshing blueberry smoothie

Juices and smoothies are such a great way to get extra fruits and vegetables into you! I am definitely all about the smoothies as I think it’s good to keep the fibre in and more practically I find smoothies involve a hell of a lot less mess!

One thing I would say is try to gradually increase your vegetable to fruit ratio. Although fruit is great for you it can contain a lot of sugar by the time you have blended a few pieces up. Although still better than a chocolate bar so crack on if you fancy a fruity number.

I love this recipe as it is so refreshing because of the cucumber and coconut water and the ginger gives it a nice kick.

BLUEBERRY CUCUMBER REFRESHING SMOOTHIE

Makes 2-3

1 x cucumber
1 x tub of blueberries
1 x green apple
1 x chunk of ginger
2 x sprigs of mint
330ml coconut water

Put in the blender and blitz up until smooth. Add ice if desired.

Enjoy!

Ps I often make enough for a few days worth and put it in the freezer and defrost as needed… Efficient as always.