Posts Tagged ‘fruit’

Detox your worldSo the New Year is upon us. I’m not sure about you, but I really don’t subscribe to going in ‘all guns blazing’ with new years resolutions at the beginning of January. I read a really good article that said you should try to commit to New Year’s intentions rather than resolutions – and I couldn’t agree more!

I still think January is a good time to begin making changes towards New Year’s resolution INTENTIONS, so as a start, I’ve decided to stay off the booze in January. It’s Sunday 6th and I’m still going strong!

As per usual, I indulged slightly too much over the Christmas period and could hear my body screaming out with relief when I went back to my previous (healthier) ways before the festive period. To catapult myself back into healthy eating, I started detoxing by making smoothies by the bucket load – and drinking a glass of Pomegranate juice daily – all for under a fiver (and that was from Waitrose too)!

Simply get yourself down the supermarket and buy the following:

For the detox

  • Pomegranate juice

For the smoothies (5-6 days worth)

  • Frozen summer fruits
  • Frozen chopped mango
  • x1 Pineapple
  • Orange and Mango juice

To make the smoothie recipe, chop the Pineapple and stick into a big mixing bowl, then add the Mango and Summer fruits. Mix everything together, separate into 5-6 sandwich bags and store in the freezer.

Each morning, add the contents of one sandwich bag into a blender with some Orange and mango juice, blend, then pour into a glass and enjoy. And if you want to make it really cool and fresh, blend the fruit when it’s still partially frozen and add a few mint leaves.

Enjoy!

So, last week I wrote about my intention to start on a new natural/preservative free (where possible) health kick. I feel obliged to say at this point that I am writing this post whilst sipping an Amaretto, but that’s purely because I need to get rid of it!

Flax SeedSo, my shopping’s been done and delivered (this was always when I intended to start the health kick more seriously) and I have a couple of new additions that I’m really looking forward to trying.

Firstly – Flaxseed. This was recommended by my good friend and mentor Phil as a natural food to bulk up, well, almost anything!  It comes in a granulated form and although there’s just over 40g of fat per 100g, only 4g is saturated fat.  Which means – lots of good fats. So where do I intend to use it? Initially, I’m thinking in yogurt, porridge, salads, wraps, casseroles and rice – or, anything else that I deem boring in taste!

Sainsbury's Frozen FruitSecondly – Smoothies. Sometimes I’m making them all the time, and sometimes not so much. So, if I’m going to take this health kick seriously, making smoothies on a regular basis is going to be one of the permanent changes. It was the M&S Super Berry smoothie that I’ve recently succumbed to on my lunch breaks that got me back into the idea. So armed with a stash of frozen and fresh fruit, along with juice, I’ll be taking a flask of it with me to work every day.

So to summarise, although I may not be consuming the new diet yet, tomorrow’s the day when it all starts. Follow me here and see how I get on.

So, I’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks now and decided that I’d seriously like to make a go of it – I’m changing my diet for good to go all natural and additive free.

After a significant amount of planning, it’s lead me to question how sustainable this is actually going to be.  My other half (who also happens to be a dietitian) also thinks this could be a tricky diet “lifestyle change” to put into practice.  There are just so many things that can easily be perceived as additive free, and after a quick scan of the ingredients, a cheeky preservative has usually been thrown in somewhere.

Fruit and VegSo where have I decided to go from here? To begin with, I’ll be keeping a food diary to see what I’m eating and where I can make substitutions. To be clear, I have no intension of losing weight, I just want to see if the grass feels greener on the other side of o’naturelle!

To start with, I’m going to give myself a % tolerance, allowing for a certain amount of what passes my lips to contain some artificial preservatives. It’s always going to be a hard one to call, I mean, if natural yogurt is pro-biotic, is the pro-biotic aspect of the yogurt natural???  I’m going to be doing a lot of reading up I think!

Here’s the place to follow my progress anyway, first major change is I’ll be making smoothies, and lots of them! So subscribe to my blog today and see how well I do to become that little bit more organic!

Wish me luck…