Juicy Juicy

WARNING – STARTING A FAD DIET

I’m attending a wedding in just over a month in Australia – so what do I go and do, buy a dress one size too small. I didn’t do this so I’d have a goal dress to squeeze into (though it’s working out that way), but because I saw the dress on sale and the only size they had was one size smaller than I am. So even though I’m promoting the notion of no fad diets – it’s all about healthy eating and exercising lots, I’m going back on my word and starting a fad diet (just to squeeze into this dress, honest).

So what’s the diet I hear you ask -  well as you may have read my earlier post on how we brought a juicer at the start of the month; I am doing a one meal a day Juice Fast. Two meals will be a mix of fruit / vegetable juice and the other will be a balanced healthy meal. 

I’m starting today (Monday) and doing it for the next four days, as I’m spending this coming weekend on a hen weekend, where no doubt there will be A LOT of vodka sodas involved I’ll be eating ‘healthy normally’ whilst there – to keep my stomach lined. Then re-joining the juice fast from Monday.

In total I’ll be doing it for 20 days (with a 3 day break for the Hen Weekend). I’m doing it this way so I can eat something each day – otherwise I’ll go crazy, plus it ties in with my social life too. I’ll still be exercising and alternating weights days and cardio days, so I'm still keeping fit. During the week I think it would work well to have juice for breakfast and lunch and a meal for dinner.  I’m going to try and have my lunch juice as late as possible, so that I’m not starving by the time I  get home, and climbing the walls till the boyf comes home to eat dinner.

Mission is to get through the next 4 days. I’ll write and update on Thursday afternoon / Friday morning to let you know how it goes.

A blog a week keeps the doctor away?

I vowed to write a blog post every week, and as it’s Friday and the week is coming to an end, time is ticking on getting this post out and not breaking another one of my new year’s resolutions. It’s been a busy week; except for today work has been demanding all week, but enjoyable – doing the ‘fun’ parts of my jobs. I’ve not exercised as much as I would have liked too, and I’ve not eaten as healthy as I would have liked too – but the weeks passed now and I don’t have a tardis to go back and change that. I just have to accept it.

However I am learning that lots of things are not in my control and sometimes you just need to kick back and have a ‘slower’ week – when work is demanding; try and balance out the stress by having a less demanding time out of work. When things don’t go as planned, just try and stick to the plan next time – every decision is your own, but it’s impossible to control everyone else’s decision around you.

Emotional outburst over…back to normal stuff.

The boyf and I have started watching Game of Thrones. 3 episodes in and so far, it’s OK. Struggling to take the King seriously; as whenever I see Mark Addy in anything I think back to him acting as Fred Flintstone.

Besides that not much more to report – hopefully a more interesting post next week.

X

50p Boat for Juice

I vowed to blog once a week this year and with being in the second week of the year I can’t start breaking those promises to myself now. So whilst I have nothing really to rant or rave about I’ll give you a little round up of what is on my mind this week.

Goggles at the ready

I LOVE living in Oxford. It's everything I want from a city, nice cocktails bars, trendy shops, lots of green areas and a lovely river runs through it. This is the river I can spend summers punting on it, running by the river path and generally enjoy the calmness of water. Then comes a good ole’ British rainfall – cue bursting river banks, flooded main roads and never ending traffic jams. Oxford is bad enough for traffic on a normal day, but when two of the main roads that lead into the city are flooded my commute goes from 20 minutes to 1 hour. To top this off my car is in the garage, so the lovely boyf has been taxiing me into work and spends an hour in traffic each way (now that is love and the benefits of a flexible employer on his side). We are expecting more rainfall tonight, so tomorrow’s commute should be even more interesting.

Naked Juicing

After a late night on Friday the boyf and I finally showed our hungover and tired faces to the public at around 7pm on Saturday night, and crawled over to Sainsbury’s to find supplies to feed our hungover souls (thanks to no takeaway January we had to face the elements). Whilst walking around the supermarket buying the essential hangover supplies (kettle chips, dip, chicken wings) the boyf was checking out the milkshake aisle and got wooed by the Naked juices, so spent £2.50 on a Green Machine to fuel our 5 minute walk home. It made the scrimper (Indian) in me flinch to pay £2.50 for a small juice, when the Sainsburys own 1 liter bottle was only £2, but they are totally worth it. If you have never had a Naked juice before I urge you to try one – either flavor, they are both wonderful.  The norm is that when we find a good edible product, the boyf and I try to recreate it at home, as nothing beats homemade. However our beautiful blender would not be up to the challenge of juicing, and would crush everything we wanted to juice into a stodgy pulp – so we decided this year’s Christmas present to ourselves with be a juicer.

With very little online research we headed to town on Sunday to have a ‘look’ at the juicers; myself more worried about the size of them and if we would have space in the kitchen, the boyf more worried about the price of them and if we would have space in the bank account. After a quick trot around Robert Dyas, we ended up in Argos within 5 minutes we have purchased the Argos own-brand cheap as chips Juicer. We went with cheap because usually when we get into these things it’s a complete phase that lasts a week; so dropping £150 on a juicer would not warrant for now. Though if this phase becomes a daily habit I may have to make the plunge of  purchasing a ‘posh’ juicer. After Argos it was off to the supermarket to pick up anything and everything we can juice. With an array of fresh fruit and vegetable in hand we got home and made a cup of tea and discussed the mixed emotions we have of juicing broccoli. 

With the excitement of the juicer downstairs and the prospect of a freshly squeezed juice I woke up 20 minutes early on Monday morning and made a freshly juiced carrot, broccoli, orange and apple juice and it was so worth losing 20 minutes sleep too. It’s Wednesday today and I've manage to juice every morning, and already feeling better for it (mainly because  I get about 4 out of my 5 a day by 8 am). It is also tasty and quick to drink, so maybe it won’t just be a phase but a permanent breakfast replacement.

I’m also itching to do a juice fast, but I promised myself no fad diets anymore, plus I know it will drive me crazy as I’ll miss chewing too much.

The Juice of our Fruits; Carrot, Broccoli, Orange and Apple

50p Man

I caught up on benefits street last night and although I did not like the way Channel 4 executed the show, I was touched by the 50p man, Smoggy. From what I saw of him it sounds like he had faced a life of crime and its consequences – he had learnt from it and all he wanted to do now was better himself by doing the little he can, with frankly a great business idea. I won’t give away the full story as some people are yet to catch up, but the entrepreneur from Birmingham in my inspiration of the week, if he can find the energy and spark to get up and make a change we all can.

 

More on his story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-25654789?ocid=socialflow_facebook_newsmagazine.

How the festive season helped me overcome my depressive spot

I have down days, just like everyone else – but since I came back from Holiday in November every day for a long time seemed to be a down day, things were looking bleak. I’m not an expert but I was showing all the signs for depression, maybe it was SAD, who knows? I was seeing the negative in everything and not looking forward to tomorrow. Life seems to be drowning me in negativity and it hurt.  I always like to work towards goals, usually it’s holidays etc. and every goal just seemed so far away and out of reach.

As I said I’d have down days before, but not like this – not for such long periods of time either, I was struggling to cope. Going to the gym and exercising it out seemed to be the only way for temporary release as the endorphin high made me feel normal again, but once it wore off I was back to my dark self.

Then the 24^th December came, and I left work that afternoon and headed to my family to go celebrate, knowing it was going to be a quieter Christmas than I’ve experience before and frankly just seeing every single negative aspects of Christmas (now I’m feeling better I can’t think of any Christmas negativity). I arrived to two very excited parents, who even in their 50s were looking forward to Christmas with the same excitement of a 5 year old – not for the presents but spending time with the people we love. The people we can be ourselves with, the people who will forgive us no matter what happens, the people who will love unconditionally. I’m luckily enough to call these people my family. We might not agree all the time about certain matters (in fact we rarely do), but there is something warm, comforting and lovely being with these people.  After a cup of tea and a mince pie with my very excited festive parents I immediately felt better and enjoy a very  lovely festive season – coming out of it looking forward to what 2014 with my usual super enthusiastic, optimistic self.

A little Festive therapy went a long way in improving my mood and making me realise that I have sooooooooooooo much in the world to be grateful for.

Happy New Year all.

Moo and I getting into the Festive Cheer