28 Day Reboot - Day 5 Summary

I'm pretty used to this now! I don't physically feel hungry or light-headed any longer. What I AM struggling with at the moment, is after 5 days of liquid meals, my mind and emotions want to CHEW stuff! So whilst I do feel physically sated most of the time (except if i go a little too long between juices), the emotional/psychological cravings for solid foods have started (and how!).

Day 5 Summary
Breakfast Juice: Pineapple, mint, english spinach
Morning Tea: Vegetable broth made with garlic, shallot, leeks, bok choy, shitake mushrooms, carrots, celery and a pinch of salt - this was cooked and then I strained off the liquid and just drank that. A nice change from cold juices!
Lunch: Watermelon, pineapple, english spinach
Afternoon Tea: Celery, lettuce, tomato, red capsicum, cucumber, lemon
Dinner: Vegetable broth made with garlic, red onion, red capsicum, tomato, celery, carrot, english spinach and 1/2 tsp vegetable stock concentrate.
After Dinner Juice: TBA - tonight I will probably have a "dessert" juice using pine and orange or something along those lines

Cheats: 10 cigarettes :( Still no exercise but thanks to some advice from Em, I'm not too worried about the exercise for this week anymore, as my body needs to rest and detox and heal during this phase.

Looking forward to catching up tomorrow.
Love and Health,
B xxx

28 Day Reboot - Day 3 and 4 Summary

I've actually had a pretty good couple of days. It seems my body has adjusted and is running quite well on juice.

Day 3:
On Waking: 1L Water
Breakfast Juice: Orange, pineapple, green powder, english spinach
Morning Tea Juice: Beetroot, carrot, apple, lemon, parsley
Lunch Juice: 1/2 large cucumber, 2 stalks celery, 2 tomatoes, lemon, red capsicum
Afternoon Tea Juice: Orange, pineapple, watermelon, english spinach
Dinner Juice: Orange, pineapple, english spinach

Cheats: Too many cigarettes (I actually lost count but I think it was about 12) :(

I was much more active in general, doing work around the house and spent most of the day either on my feet or driving, without feeling light-headed or having a headache.

Cleansing: Lets just say there's movement at the station! Its obvious that a lot of stuff that has been stuck in my digestive tract is being cleaned out. It all very easy and comfortable though! Just have to keep up the water.

Day 4:
Breakfast Juice: Watermelon, lime, raspberries
Morning Tea Juice: Beetroot, carrot, apple, lemon, parsley
Lunch Juice: Spinach, orange, passionfruit
Afternoon Tea Juice: Pine, Mint, Baby Spinach
Dinner Juice: TBA (or I might not have another one tonight, will see how I feel)

Cheats: 6 cigarettes

Once again I had a fairly active day spending most of the time on my feet. I'm feeling pretty good now except for the smoking. Really going to make the extra effort tomorrow to stop!

So far I've learned that I can't do too many juices that are just vegetables in a row - that's when I seem to get dizzy and low energy etc. I guess pure vegetable juice just doesn't have enough calories to keep you going for very long. I've been trying to alternate fruit and vegetable juices, or at least make sure the spinach in my juice makes up at least 1/3 of the juice. I also learned that despite the fact that I don't feel thirsty, as all I'm doing is drinking all day, I DO still need to drink a decent amount of water - 2L approximately. This helps with keeping me feeling full and I haven't had a headache or dizzy spell since I started concentrating on drinking more water.

If any of you are also trying this out, I'd love to hear how you're doing so far! :D

See you tomorrow,
Love and Health,
B xxx

28 Day Reboot - Day 2 Summary

Today was really tough! I had a massive headache all day and felt very low energy. I'm feeling a lot better tonight, so maybe the worst is over! I've discovered that I can't do JUST vegetable juice very easily - working on that!

On waking 1L water.
Breakfast Juice: Pink grapefruit, English spinach, 2 x pink lady apples
Morning Tea Juice: Orange, Watermelon, english spinach, 2 x passionfruit
Lunch Juice: 1/2 large cucumber, 1 stalk celery with leaves, 1 wedge lemon, large bunch parsely, 1 green apple.
Afternoon Tea & Dinner Juice (both were the same): orange and pineapple.

Cheats: 5 cigarettes :( (but better than yesterday, so we're making progress), 2 small pieces of bruschetta type bread with approx 2 tablespoons raw vegan pesto. (In the mid afternoon I was feeling so faint, and had such a massive headache, I felt like I was going to pass out)

Exercise: No walking but I did do all the washing, folding, ironing and cleaned the house so can I count that? Housework-workout? LOL

Wish me luck for day 3!

Love and Health,
B xxx

28 Day Reboot - Day 1 Summary

Here's a quick summary of the first day of my juice cleanse week:

Before Breakfast: 1L water with juice of 1/2 a lemon
Breakfast Juice: Bunch of Kale, 2 oranges, 1 passionfruit, 1 tsp green powder
Morning Tea Juice: Watermeon, 1 orange, raspberries
Lunch Juice: Celery, Baby Spinach, 1 small slice red onion, basil, parsley, 3 tomatoes, juice of 1 lemon
Afternoon Tea Juice: Celery, beetroot, carrot, ginger
Dinner Juice: Baby spinach, 2 stalks of celery, 1/2 a large cucumber, 2 apples.

Cheats: I broke down around lunch time and had a glass of coke that I had left in the fridge :(
I also had 7 cigarettes. I didn't have my first one until almost 2pm though, so that's a good start.

Today I didn't fit in any exercise.

I've felt pretty light-headed most of the day, with a very slight headache. And I was pretty low on energy. I'm pretty sure these are pretty standard detox symptoms, so I'm determined to persevere and reap the benefits of the cleanse!

Tomorrow my goals are to continue with the juices, and to fit in a 30 minute walk, and to have less cigarettes than today (preferably NONE!).

Have any of you started this? If so please let me know how your first day went!

Love and Health,
B xxx

28 Day Reboot - Day 1-7

Have any of you been slipping back into some bad habits lately? The reason I ask is because I had a conversation with my friend Vicki the other day, and we were talking about how we KNOW what's good for us, we KNOW we'll feel better if we do (insert whatever good habit here), and yet we let ourselves slip out of those good habits and back into bad ones! Does anyone know why we do this? Cause I sure don't!

Having said that, since I went away in April for my sisters wedding in Adelaide, I've been sliding further and further into really bad habits. It started innocently enough - because I was on holidays I ate a few things I know aren't great for me here and there, and drank some alcohol, even had some smokes! :( And before you know it, I was feeling low about having put on a bit of weight and developing some bad habits, so that made me eat MORE bad stuff and not want to exercise etc. So NOW I find myself in this place where I'm eating ALL the wrong things, even drinking soft drinks and smoking again! I have no energy and EVERYTHING is a big chore, I'm not enjoying my life at all! :( I've been wanting to do a cleanse/reboot for a while now, and after my chat with Vicki I was inspired by her idea of doing a 28 day program to get back into some good habits.

So I'm going to run a "28 Day Reboot" for myself, and if there are any of you who have maybe also slipped back into some habits you know aren't great for you, please join me for the ride! :D It's starting tomorrow - Monday the 25th of June! I will put up the outline plan for each week on the Sunday night (I'll run the weeks Monday to Sunday) so you can get prepared, and each day I'm going to log what I eat and do and put it up on the blog - to hold myself accountable. I'll also check in on Facebook each day with how my day went etc, and hopefully some of you will share your experiences with me there too!

For Week 1 - Day 1-7 - Food: I'm going to be doing a Juice Cleanse! That is ONLY fresh fruit and vegetable juices for the entire week (WOW, it's going to be a challenge!). I really think this is a great way to pack heaps of easily accessible nutrition into your body whilst cleansing out all the rubbish you don't need. So for this week all you need to have are a bunch of fresh fruits and vegetables, and a juicer, or a powerful blender and something to strain the juice through like a sieve or nut-milk bag. I'm personally planning on having fruit-based juices for breakfast and morning tea, and mostly vegetable juices for the rest of the day. If you have a green powder or spirulina or wheatgrass or chlorella please DO add this into your juices as its AMAZING for detoxing!

For Week 1 - Day 1-7 - Exercise: I'm also going to ease back into some better exercise habits, so my goal for the week is to go for a 30 minute walk at least 4 times in the week. If you haven't been doing any exercise at all, go with this, if you have, perhaps jog or gym for you, but try to fit in at least 4 exercise sessions in the week.

So for right now I'm off to continue vegging out watching telly and generally being a slob! Tomorrow is GO TIME! (I'll also be stopping smoking AGAIN from tonight, so please pray for me and send me your good energy that I have the strength of will to do that!) So see you here or on FB tomorrow night. :D

Love and Health,
B xxxx

Creamy Raw "Risotto" with Dill & Bacon and Spinach Quinoa Pilaf

I've been finding it hard the last couple of weeks to feel motivated to come up with some interesting things to say, recipes and pics for you. I've had this vicious cold which seems to be going around and it really knocked me about - time for me to get high-raw again methinks - and its hard to feel energetic about anything when your head feels like its full of cotton-wool, your nose won't stop running, and your cough could be mistaken for a vicious dog barking!

HOWEVER! I did manage to snap a pic of those Kale Chips I made a while back, so here's the final product: (They were so yummy I'm amazed they lasted me two days - what restraint I showed! hehehe)

They are a PERFECT on-the-go snack for raw foodies - I just threw these in a ziploc bag and there you go, instant delicious and healthy snack to take with you! (The recipe is here btw)

I also made my very first attempt at a mock rice/rissotto type dish, which I've been wanting to try out for a while - I've seen a few recipes around and had a think about how I'd do it in the TMX and it turned out pretty well.

Creamy Raw "Rissotto" with Dill (Raw Vegan, Dairy-Free)

1. First make the "Dilled Sour Cream": Soak 3/4 cup of sunflower seeds in water at room temperature for 2-4 hours. Rinse then drain. Add seeds to TMX along with small handful of fresh dill, (or 1-2TBSP dried dill), 1-2 tsp sea salt, 1/2 TBSP Apple Cider Vinegar, 10g Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and 100g water. Blend all ingredients for 1 minute on Speed 9. Scrape down the sides of bowl and blend for a further 1-2 minutes on Speed 9 or until a smooth, creamy texture is reached.

2. Quarter two medium carrots and chop in TMX for 5 seconds on Speed 5.


3. Add 1/2 a head of cauliflower (broken into florets) and 1/8 red onion (optional) and chop for 10 seconds on Speed 4. This should result in a rice-like consistency.

4. Add the Dilled Sour Cream (should be approx 220-250g) and blend for 15 seconds on reverse and Speed 3, scrape down sides of bowl and blend another 10secs if needed. Serves 1-2 ppl.

The use of the sunflower seeds to make the sour cream, and the carrot makes this a really affordable dish, and it tasted pretty great too! :D

I've also been whipping up some fabulous Green Smoothie's (as per usual, for me the day isn't off to a good start until I've had my green smoothie!). Recently I've been enjoying a lot of watermelon in mine, and I've also added two organic raw powders that I alternate between - one is a green powder of Spirulina, Chlorella, Wheat Grass and Barley Grass, the other is a power berry one (pomegranate, acai berries, goji berries etc). I just add a tsp of one of these to my smoothies for the extra nutrients, and the green powder especially seems to make a big difference to my energy! Here's Jon after enjoying some of my Kale/Pineapple/Fresh Mint/Green Powder smoothie which was breakfast yesterday: (Aren't they just the bluest eyes you've ever seen??? Perhaps I'm biased......so sue me! :P)

Another experiment I had which turned out to be delicious was also Risotto-related - I wanted to make a savoury dinner risotto type dish which was gluten free. I'm a HUGE fan of risotto in general - its always so delicious and super easy in the TMX, but regular risotto can often leave me feeling bloated and heavy in the tummy, whereas a gluten free version doesn't give you that heavy feeling. So I made a pilaf using Quinoa instead of rice, which came out just great:


Bacon & Spinach Quinoa Pilaf:


1. Cut 50g parmesan or pecorino cheese into small cubes and grate in TMX for 10 seconds on Speed 9. Remove from bowl and set aside.

2. Rinse TMX bowl, then weigh 200g of Quinoa into the rice basket, sit into TMX and pour 1200g of water over. Cook for 17 minutes  on 100°C on Speed 3. Remove rice basket using spatula and set aside the cooked quinoa in your Thermoserver or other bowl.

3. In TMX bowl dice 2 shallots, 2 cloves of garlic, and a handful of parsley for 3 seconds on Speed 7. Add 150g chopped silverbeet (including stalks) or spinach, 150g bacon pieces, and 30g Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Saute at 100°C for 5 minutes on Reverse & Speed 1 with MC Off (to allow it to sweat).

4. Return Quinoa to TMX bowl, add 1tsp-1dssp TM Vegetable Stock Concentrate (depending on how salty you want it) and 150g boiling water and cook for 4 minutes at 100°C on Reverse & Speed 1½.

5. Pour pilaf into Thermoserver and stir through most of the Parmesan/pecorino cheese leaving some aside. Serve out and garnish each bowl with a little parmesan and chopped parsley like so:

* For a vegetarian or vegan option, I would substitute some mushrooms instead of the bacon, and perhaps use Nutritional Yeast Flakes (2-3tbsp) instead of the cheese. You would also need to increase the stock to compensate for the saltiness of the bacon.

This recipe makes enough for 3 main serves or 6 side-serves.

I hope you enjoy the recipes, and as usual, if you have any feedback or questions, please don't hesitate to leave a comment here or on my Facebook Page.

Love and Health, B xxx