It's All about jUice, 'bout the juice....no trouble!

This week I had the pleasure of not eating any food for three days and just drinking water and juices!

Sound horrendous? Well think again! The mastermind nutritionist behind All about jUice, Glasgow,  Natalie Blue kindly invited me to try their 3 day juice detox/cleanse and as someone who is health conscious I jumped at the chance to give it a go. 

What was involved?

I was prescribed 3 days of fresh juices (4 per day) made by the staff at All about jUice in their Dumbarton Rd shop, following a consultation with Natalie to ensure I was a candidate for doing the cleanse. Four different juices per day (to be consumed every 3-4 hours) and advice given via an information sheet on how to stay hydrated, what to expect from the process etc. 

How did it go?

Day One 

I woke up late. Not a good start to the week or the first day of juicing!

 Bit of a scunner when you wake up realising you're late AND you can't eat now for 3 days! That being said, I grabbed 3 of the juices from the fridge (brightly coloured and looking appetizing indeed) and set out on my first day as a detoxer. I took Natalie's advice and sipped on hot water (minus the lemon because annoyingly I'd forgotten to buy some!) on the drive to work and unexpectedly appeared to be upbeat despite not getting my morning caffeine fix! On arrival I opened up my first bottle of juice, richly green in colour, and I got the freshest, healthiest aroma instantly. Hints of kale, cucumber and ginger, the juice was tasty, filling and had a real zing to it. 

   As lunch time arrived I wasn't dreading 'eating' with my colleague as much as I'd feared. My second juice of the day was entirely different in colour and on my first taste was definitely a different combination than the first. Carrot, beetroot and possibly apple, this was another winner and filled me up, so much so, that I did struggle to finish it in our short lunch break. 

  The last two juices of the day were equally enjoyable, tasty and didn't leave me hungry, though I did however start to feel a little headachy and tired on the drive home (could have been the day's workload though!) and had to catnap on the sofa before hubby got home from work. This was to be expected and was explained in the information notes given, so I bowed down to it and slept it off. 

Day Two

A breeze! 4 lovely juices, some different to the previous day, with my favourite being the berry soya breakfast juice which I could have drank lashings of. No sign of headaches (I did try to drink more water than I would normally to avoid getting them) but the fatigue set in on the drive home again and another catnap was in order, this time on the living room floor where hubby found me. I went back out to work that evening, last juice of the day in hand and leisurely sipped it as I worked. I was more perturbed at not getting my cuppa that evening I have to say but food wise, I wasn't left craving anything terribly or seeing people's heads as chicken legs like in the old cartoons.

Day Three

Probably the toughest in terms of wanting food as in the back of my mind I felt like I was nearly done, even though I still had a full day of cleansing to go through. A little grumpier, a bit tired but certainly, I wasn't starving as the yummy juices were again filling. I enjoyed drinking each new flavour and felt a sense of accomplishment that I reached the third and final day. 

The Honest Bits

I do admit I was a little more irritable on occasions but nothing that anyone else would have noticed (I hope!). Yes, I did have a few moments of 'Mmmm, I could eat something!' but they weren't long lasting or too tempting to sway me.   I never had a terribly rumbly tummy nor did I have the muscle cramps that can be expected from detoxing. if anything, in terms of side effects, all I would say is I was a tad more tired than usual at the end of each day. Nothing 40 winks on the couch or an early night didn't sort out. I didn't threaten to eat anyone and I didn't dislike any of the juices! They were all really tasty! And that really was all I'd been worried about...not liking the juices. No chance of that here, as each All about jUice juice was delicious 

How Do I Feel?

Great! Personally I know the extra boost of vitamins will have been an added bonus to my normally healthy week. I usually get around 5-9 portions of fruit and veg a day but getting it in copious amounts through a juicing detox can only serve me well. Ditching any processed foods, caffeine and alike for a spell had been something I'd been wanting to do for a while to restart my system and give it a well-needed break. For all that I am a healthy eater who is mindful of what I put in my body, I do have my 'treats' sporadically throughout the week and my vice, coffee, daily. I don't drink alcohol though. 

  

The last two days I have felt more alert for sure and that sense of accomplishment that started to creep in on the third day has only increased. I'm pretty chuffed that I saw it through and didn't cave when hubby cooked Super Noddles on Wednesday night. There was no real huge struggle in it for me but I appreciate everyone will deal with it in their own way and come up against hurdles. 

 As I lead a relatively healthy lifestyle some may wonder why I bothered to do the detox in the first place. Are the results dramatic enough to merit the, what some may deem, extreme sacrifice of giving up food for 3 days. Well I'd say, I don't know, as everyone embarking on a juice detox will no doubt have different goals, expectations etc. This is where the expert that is Natalie comes in. The initial consultation prior to any sort of cleanse or detox will determine if it's right for each person and the proper advice, including to consult your doctor beforehand, are set to ensure your experience is a safe and enjoyable one.  Natalie will ensure you're supported throughout the 3 days and your specific needs are adhered to (allergies etc) so no need to worry. In terms of weight loss, I lost a substantial amount actually. 6lbs in 3 days but have already put some of that back on from starting, albeit healthily, to eat again. i wasn't doing it to lose weight, although it was a given as you're likely to lose something when you're not eating for 3 days. The objective behind a detox is to rid your body of impurities and give it and your mind that reboot or kick start it's craving. It then should encourage you to start or continue to eat healthily. And sometimes we all need that little kick up the bahookie eh?! 

For me a huge plus point was that this juice detox was hassle free. When hubby and I attempted a DIY juicing cleanse a while back, we caved through sheer exhaustion caused by the relentless, monotony of juicing all the fruit and veg ourselves. It's phenomenal how many bloomin' carrots and apples are needed to fill a glass and Rob and I were completely  and utterly fed up with the, what felt like, hourly run to Aldi and the bomb site that had in fact become our kitchen by day two. All about jUice takes all that away from you. No fuss, no mess...no trouble! It reminds me of the Father Ted episode where Mrs Doyle 'likes the misery of making tea'......at All about jUice, they'll be your Mrs Doyle! 

So in conclusion......

Did they taste good?                                      YES, they sure did!

Did I manage three days relatively easily?        YES I did. No biggy really! 

Did I feel good afterwards?                            YES  and I still do. In body and mind.

Would I do it again?                                       YES definitely!

A huge thank you to the Team and especially Natalie at All about jUice!! If anyone has questions for Natalie do not hesitate to contact her, she'd be thrilled to hear from you and to help! 

Check them out on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter too! 

 

 

Review: Jillian Michaels' "Maximise Your Life" Event

Mimi here!

Been a bit absent of late...my apologies! Work and general life has been very hectic, but oor Weesse has been keeping you all entertained with some FABBY blog posts #siblinglove. 

So, it's true...I am a gym nut. I love me some exercise. I also love ANYTHING to do with health and nutrition. I am *that* person you see in the supermarket reading the back of the box/packet/tin of everything I pick up. I am *that* person who checks MyFitnessPal before lunch to see what of my options are the most nutritious. and yes, I am *that* person who knows the calorie and nutritional content of many a food off the top of her head! 

*Not me, but it could be. Image from http://www.sheknows.com/

So, if there is ever a weight loss/exercise/transformative programme on TV, you can bet I'll be watching it. I am a huge fan of the USA version of The Biggest Loser, and any other fan will tell you that the most exciting part of that show is ANYTHING involving either of the main trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels. Which leads me nicely onto an event I attended with fellow Kennedy Cupcake Carol on Sunday night!

Jillian Michaels, is one of the world's leading health and wellness experts. Her "Maximimise Your Life" tour has come to the UK for the first time ever...and I was at the first show in Glasgow! Her website states that "In this intimate and uniquely personal experience, Jillian shows you how to harness your potential, kick-start your goals and live an exceptional life, sharing her keys to health, success and happiness. No hype, no false promises: just results". 

Carol and I were both really looking forward to this event. I knew JM mainly from The Biggest Loser (but also from her really quite brilliant workout video 30 Day Shred) whereas Carol knew her mainly from her videos. for anyone that doesn't know much about JM, she has an infamous no nonsense approach to health and fitness. Don't expect any (no pun intended) sugar-coated advice. This is real. Hard. Stuff. And...it works. 

Carol and I went for a GORGEOUS yet quick dinner at La Rotunda, just next to the "Armadillo" venue in Glasgow. Carol opted for a salad with red onion relish and baked goat's cheese, while I chose pan fried fillet of salmon, Mediterranean veg and baby potatoes. I did take pictures but I think we all know what a salad and some salmon looks like. If not you've clearly not been for dinner at my house #staplediet. 

The event doors were opening at 6:30pm, so Carol and I scoffed our 1 course and made may to the venue.

 

HOWEVER for whatever reason the doors didn't technically open at 6:30pm. Or 7pm. Or 7:30pm. No joke. Unfortunately we were waiting in the foyer for quite some time, lamenting our starters we could have had but didn't. When it comes to food, I MOURN for the meals I have missed out on!

ANYWAYS, after being seating in our original seats, we were kindly offered seats closer to the front due to the event not being sold out. RESULT. The talk eventually started at 8:10pm (which, to be honest was a bit late) but we were seated and we were excited about what the event would hold.

What followed was a 2 hour long talk split into 3 main sections:

• Food
• Exercise
• The Self

Being interested in health and being a fitness instructor, and Carol being a Personal Trainer, there was a lot of the first 2 sections that was already known to use. HOWEVER there were a few tit-bits that were actually extremely useful to us. The final section of the talk was extremely insightful in how to motivate, visualise goals and make them a reality. What follows below is a sort of whistle-stop tour of the main details I took from it, and what I think we could all use in our daily lives. I have applied everything I have written to weight loss and health, but the tips in the third section can be applied to ANY goal you might have in life. 

1. Fuel your body and mind. Eat real food...and if you want a treat? Make sure it's only 20% of the time. Know what to AVOID. Jillian also gave us a list of 10 Additives to AVOID. You can find them, and other tools, at http://www.jillianmichaelslive.com/myl-tools/. (There are obviously more detailed nutritional approaches to take if you need to but I'm not a nutritionist so will not be giving out that advice). 

Jillian highlighted that those interested in losing fat would benefit from knowing a few key figures (you can get calculators for the first 2 by Googling them):

• What is your BMR (the calories your body burns just LIVING)
• What is your AMR (the calories your body burns LIVING and WORKING)
• Know what calorie level you SHOULDN'T go under (men = 1600, women 1200) 

Provided you don't go below your lower calorie limit, if you ensure you have a 500 calorie per day deficit (through reducing food and through exercise), this should lead to a 1lb weight loss per week. If you don't wanna lose weight, don't go above your AMR. It's all in the math (which for me is a bummer because I still use my fingers to count). 

Got that? GOOD. 

2. Next on the list is to move. Doesn't have to be much. Just get your heart rate up. Get a sweat on. Go for a brisk walk. Run up and down your stairs. Do star jumps. Walk your dog. Dance in your pants in the house. COME TO A ZUMBA FITNESS CLASS (totes not biased). She gave us some other sums about calculating your the beats per minute your heart should reach for fat burn. These can be found quite easily by Googling something like "target heart rate for exercise". 

Got that? GREAT.

3. Lastly, we discussed goals and self improvement. Jillian proposed that if getting "healthy" is so easy...then why is it so HARD?! If losing weight is just 500 calorie deficit per day for 1lb weight loss per week while avoiding 10 main additives  then WHY do 95% of those who lose weight gain it back? It's not like people don't want to lose weight. Have you ever said or felt any of these things?:

"I'll start exercising once I'm fitter." 

"I'll go to the gym / a class once I'm smaller." 

"I'll feel better about myself once I've got healthier".

Fitter. Healthier. Smaller.

****What does that even MEAN?***** What does health, fitness or size even look like? 

Jillian encouraged us to be specific about our goals and to manage them in chunks. It was more productive to have a larger goal with smaller milestones, than 1 single massive overarching goal upon which you rested on all your hopes and dreams. Day by day, minute by minute results that you can congratulate yourself on when you reach them. Give your intentions some PERSPECTIVE and some ACTION. Ensure that every choice you make every day is CONTRIBUTING towards those goals.

So if we have all these small and large goals, why is it so hard to us to attain any goal and maintain that success? 

The answer? FEAR. "What if I fail? What if it doesn't work? What if I feel worse? What if it's too hard?" Or, sometimes, more scarily...WHAT IF I SUCCEED?

It is never a question of CAN you do it, it was a question of WILL you. 

If you need motivation-Look inside of yourself. Look at your specific goals. LIVE THEM in your head. Same with your moments of hesitation. About to make a decision that isn't going to get you to your goal? LIVE IT. Stop and THINK about it. LIVE IT in that moment before you live it for real. Breathe. Make a different decision. Then do a happy dance cause you rock.

And if you do something you regret? If you fail? If it doesn't work? Learn from it. Get back up. Do it again, but differently. You did something, you learned from it, you moved on. HOW GOOD ARE YOU?

NONE OF THIS will do you any good unless you truly believe you deserve to reach your goals. Don't go on a mission to get healthy because you're "not good enough" as you are. Because you "need to be better". Do it BECAUSE you ARE good enough and you deserve to live a better life than one filled with discontent, illness, aches, pains, money worries, anxiety, feelings of guilt, inadequacy, WHATEVER. Enlist the help of a friend, someone you trust, or someone else with similar goals. Congratulate each other. Encourage each other. LIFT each other. And importantly, lift yourselves.But no one can believe in you if you don't believe in yourself. 

Got that? FABULOUS.

Ooft. Anybody else squished under the sheer WEIGHT or the awesomeness in that advice?

Anyways, Carol and I left the event feeling positively motivated. So much so that I have been following Jillian's nutritional advice and it's working for me. We got the (later than expected due to the later than expected start time) train home with scores of Slipknot fans (nope, Slipknot fans are not generally really into their kale, Pilates and motivational speaking...the band were playing next door in the Hydro). 

I suppose the only potential challenge particularly to the advice contained within the third section of the talk is, well, how REALISTIC is all this? We can't ALL be skinny billionnaires. We can't all give up our "mundane" jobs (speak for yourself, I like mine!) and become Martha Stewart-esque characters who go about driving top of the range cars bought  via our successful business selling books on knitting, working from home (part-time) in our 5 bedroom detatched beach house with our 3 perfect kids, our significant other and a labrador, taking long weekends doing downward dogs at sunrise. We have bills to pay. Doctors appointments to make. Tax returns to fill. Meals to cook. Sinks to unblock. Traffic to sit in. Arguments to have. Tears to cry. Necessary evils of life. 

I don't really think that's what it's about though. You can still hate your job and be earning shed loads of cash. You can LOVE your job and be earning buttons. I think the main message was that success looks very different for everyone, and whatever your "success" looks like, whatever that photo finish is, you have to run with it and make the choices to get there. Nothing happens by accident, and we are just about exactly where we have chosen to be in life, with the exception of those unfortunate tragedies that occur in our family and personal lives and are genuinely out with our control.

Now, what choice will you make next? 

Sleep. Eat. Work Out. Cook. Repeat.

Sleep. Eat. Work Out. Cook. Repeat. 

That right there is my life. 

These days it feels like all I am doing is cooking food! And you know what…that’s not such a bad thing.

My life is filled with food storage containers. So. Many. Containers. Because in order for me to get the best workout possible, reap the benefits of that work out and see better results, I am all about my food prep. 

Here’s what a typical day looks like.

7:30am- Get up, etc. Grab snacks and lunch from the fridge. Whizz up a fruit smoothie (strawberry, blueberry, apple, half a banana, raspberry) or eat 2 (pre-cooked) boiled eggs.

8:15am- leave the house for work

6pm- return home from work and cook dinner. Often I cook salmon fillets in the microwave, or grill chicken with lots of veg and add brown rice. Dinner may also involve reheating chilli con carne made the night before.

7pm- leave house

7:15-9:30pm- Get my work out on somewhere

  

9:30pm arrive home, make a protein-rich snack like GF toast and whole nut peanut butter or cheese

10pm- MEAL PREP CENTRAL. This can generally involve cooking the following night’s meals, making soup, organising the next day’s lunch and putting it in the fridge, cutting up fruit for breakfast, boiling eggs for breakfast, portioning snacks for my working day etc etc.

12midnight- Go to bed.

Meal prepping has allowed me to make great progress with getting plenty of fruit n veg, fibre and protein! It’s just all about thinking ahead and planning. My making my own food I also know what's in it. Yeah, low fat, low sugar low whatever food might be low in, well everything, but you’ve got to ask yourself…WHAT’S IN IT?! 

So, what are my top tips for meal prepping and general food organisation?

1. Write lists. Lots of them. Use Excel (LOVES a spreadsheet) and bask in the glory of your awesomeness.

2. Think a day in advance. What are you having for dinner tonight? Don’t know? What if you asked yourself that question about tonight’s dinner last night. You’d have had more time to decide and would have probably made a healthier choice.

3. Read food labels. If you can't pronounce, or have never heard of, an ingredient, it's not a good sign. 

4. Suss out where sells what. I shop in Aldi for 90% of my food, but I can’t get my bread, rice or fruit bars there, so I get them from Tesco. We go straight from Aldi to Tesco to home and it’s DONE. Also, get familiar with your supermarket and where they keep things. That way you avoid wasting time walking down aisles you don’t need to. TIME IS MONEY PEOPLES. 

5. FREEZE. Making soup? Great! Wanna make this scenario even more fabulous? Make lots and freeze at least half. Same goes for any stews, cooked meats, homemade pasta sauces, even breads etc. You won’t be reaching for the Dolmio if you’ve for a tomato rich homemade ragu in the freezer in need for a little thaw.  

6. Invest in food containers. There is a food storage box monster and he steals tubs on a regular basis. Buy plenty in different sizes (microwave and freezer safe) that DON’T LEAK. Avoid the cheap stuff for food you will be transporting. No one was a soupy handbag.

7. Get into the habit. Do your meal prep at the same time of the day/week and it will become like any other habit. 

8. Use a macro/calorie counting app to keep track of your nutrition. I use MyFitnessPal as a guide. No app can substitute for a personal trainer or nutritionist, so using an app like this great as a guide for keeping track and increasing your own awareness of the quality of what you eat. 

9. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t prep or fall off the wagon. You are a human being. Get over it.

10. I don’t have a tenth tip but couldn’t leave it at just 9 tips. Sorry. 

So when I'm home from work and I am standing over a pan of lean minced beef, chopping courgettes and boiling lentils and leeks, I could wallow in self pity and say that I wish I was lazing on the couch instead. However, I know that I am making every effort to out goodness into my body without having to go to ridiculous extreme lengths or spend a lot of money. 

Happy prepping!!