Feeling Bittersweet | Homemade Orange Juice

The past year has been a little turmoil-filled for me to say the least. From graduating uni and becoming a graduate in a menial bar job (oh the joys of Wetherspoons), to the separation of my parents, as well as everything in between, my emotions have been put to the test. So, putting on quite a number of pounds this season has been a bit of the straw that has broken this camel's back, so to speak. I'm going to speak a little bit more about how I'm dealing with weight gain in a later blog post, but I wanted to share a recipe that has been making this girly's winter a little more bearable.  So, here's my blues busting minty orange juice recipe: 4 (organic) oranges 1 sprig of mint Juice the two ingredients and add some crushed ice if you want a really refreshing beverage. What's your favourite drink to drive away the blues (and yes, wine does count!)

Favourite Detox Tea

I've tried quite a number of detox teas over the last couple of years, and my main reaction to all of them has been effectively "ew". If you're interested in looking at a kind of detox tea "programme", however, you might want to try Bootea, which I've reviewed here. 

This Clipper's Organic Detox Infusion tea is so good that I was actually sad when I realised that my box was running empty and I wouldn't be able to continue having them. Whereas a great deal of detox teas taste horrendous in my experience (somewhere between piles of Autumn leaves on the ground and gingerbread men), this tastes of berries and leaves your mouth feeling cleansed.

As you all know, I'm a great fan of nourishing your body in order to nourish your mind, I think health teas are quite important. This one helped to get rid of bloating, which in my experience always makes me feel a lot happier and less uncomfortable. Plus, taking time out of my day to sit down with a cup of this had a really calming effect on me, and re-energised me to keep me going throughout the day.

What are your favourite teas?

Love and Light

Steph

Strawberry and Basil Summer Smoothie

Smoothies are my go-to breakfast, and unless I've only got five minutes to spare for breakfast this is what I have every day. With the sudden spike in temperature in the UK, I wanted to create a new recipe that would make me think of sunshine before commencing my uni work for the day. So, here we go. Plus it's a completely cruelty-free way to boost your immune system. 

Ingredients:

1 banana

2 apples

1 pear

A handful of spinach

3 strawberries

2 basil leaves

150ml rice/almond/soya milk

1.) Chop all of the fruit up and peel the apples.

2.) Place in a blender with the rest of the ingredients.

3.) Blend and you're done!

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Days 6 & 7: Ending the Week

The last few days were all about making yummy food that was still clean, as well as upping my green tea intake and remembering to take all my supplements for the first time in months. I've now made it so that I've got a little tupperware pot on the side in our kitchen next to the kettle, which has a range of three or four different healthy teas (green, strawberry green, detox, lemon and ginger etc) in it as well as my supplements to remind myself to have both with meals.

After my mammoth gym session on Day Five I was struggling with post leg day and post post leg day pain - my bed = life saving. So, Sunday morning I sorted out a bit of a mood dip with my vegan, clean pancakes, which are divine when topped with a bit of fresh lemon juice and cooked in coconut oil. I'm not the greatest coconut fan, but this really adds something to the flavour of the pancakes.

Overall my detox helped me to remind myself of where I came from on this journey, and start to remember that I can eat clean and still enjoy myself. Plus the bloating I'd gained from eating dairy products - not brilliant when you're intolerant to lactose - as a means to avoid essay stress the week before.

Thanks for sharing this journey with me!

Love and Light

Steph 

Back to Basics | Day Five

Yes, there was no Day Four post. I fell off of my detox bandwagon a bit and wanted to secure today's health before writing a blog post. Today was really a day for hitting things hard and boy am I exhausted. Currently fighting the urge to write this in a foetal position under my favourite fleece blanket is a challenge.

I am loving how vibrant my fruit bowls are at the moment. I have a major sweet tooth, so fruit really helps me manage to stay off of the artificial sugars and forms a fairly large part of my diet. I have at least three portions of it in my morning smoothie and will most days have a fruit bowl like the one above.

Finally, I hit the gym for probably the longest time ever today. Let's pray that I don't have to walk anywhere tomorrow. The fact that the only bathrooms in my student house are upstairs is probably going to result in me crawling around pathetically. Anyway, the second picture is a couple of gym essentials for me: my water, shower gel & body spray and spare socks (hey, no one wants to be re-using after a hard workout am I right?!).

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Day Three

Yesterday wasn't exactly 'perfect' for my detox week I'm not going to lie. I wasn't able to post my blog piece because I took my sister out with my boyfriend and our future housemate to our favourite bar. Hence the slight breakdown in my detox yesterday. However, I avoided the temptation to mix my drinks, especially having ones with yeast in them as well as avoiding my usual post drinking takeaway stop out (*cries*). I've gotten to the point now where the thought of putting fast food into my body is actually repellent because I cannot know what has gone into it.

So, aside from yesterday evening, it was a pretty good day for the detox yesterday, and I'm really starting to feel the effects of it. I walked for a couple of hours with my sister charity shop clothes shopping on my tight student budget. When she picked up a massive faux fur coat for a tenner you knew it was going to be a great day.

Finally, I'm making sure that I don't take last night's excesses into today. I've started the day off with a spinach, blueberry and ginger tea. Hopefully this will help to start and balance my body out again.

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Day Two

Yesterday's lack of negative food's really helped me to restore my energy and I managed to get up and shower at half 6 - something I haven't done in months! Today has been a day for productivity and for once I don't feel exhausted.

I started the day off with my blueberry and spinach antioxidant smoothie which I haven't had in a few weeks. This is a great boost to the morning, especially as I was feeling rather sniffly and under the weather. I also started a course of homeopathic remedy to help rid me of my allergies to dust, pollen and animal fur. This was kindly given to me by my boyfriend's mum (here's her website), so we'll see how it goes!

Finally, my mum and sister came up today, which is something I've been greatly looking forward to. After having a light lunch of organic hummus and rosemary breadsticks, which was DIVINE, I decided to splash out this evening with a lamb roast. Although during detoxing I usually keep to lean meats, this roast was a lot more minimal than one I would usually make, as I only cook them on special occasions. Instead, it was packed with organic veggies and home seasoned roast potatoes. I'm always tempted to buy pre-seasoned frozen roasties, but during a detox I like to know exactly what is going into my food, and looking at the ingredients on one of these packets might horrify me!

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to getting back to yoga as I had no time for it today, but made up for it in a frenzy of cleaning before my guests arrived!

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Day One

Recently I've been falling away from my clean eats diet, and I've started to notice the effect it's having on both my physical and mental health. My sleeping pattern in particular has been all over the place. So, this week I'm going to be posting every day as I attempt to get back to basics, and remind myself why I started this journey. 

So, I've started off the week with a glorious trip to Wholefoods (honestly, I could spend hours in there). This is just a very small sample of some snack-type foods I picked up for when I feel like eating something really bad so that I don't do exactly that. Plus I've been hunting for Himalayan pink salt and wholegrain penne for just about forever, so my little beady eyes lit up with joy when I spotted these. 

As I sit here sipping on my Clipper's organic detox tea, which btw is a million times nicer than any other I've tried so far, I realise that I feel fulfilled about how I've spent my day for the first time in a couple of weeks. I hit the gym super hard for the first time in forever, and you can see the massive smile it put on my face in the top picture. 

Hope you all have a healthy, fulfilled week - what are your plans to improve your wellbeing?

Love and Light

Steph

REN Clarimatte Invisible Pores Detox Mask

With another 5 000 words of essay hell out of the way, I'm ready to get back to blogging and creating new recipes for you guys. This is probably the most expensive facemask I've ever used (costing around £18), but it is absolutely fantastic for your T-zone. It was recommended to my sister as something to use on that part of your face to really get into your pores, making your skin much softer, cleaner and largely blackhead free. 

It is far kinder to your skin that the majority of cheap drugstore facemasks which use masses of chemicals, so it's fab if like me you've got sensitive skin. I learnt this the hard way with a disaster of a facemask in December which made my face look and feel like I'd been sunburnt. Safe to say, a lot of foundation was used prior to the event I was supposed to be talking at a mere two hours after this incident!

Plus it got my little bunny Ted's seal of approval - what more could you ask for?!

Love and Light 

Steph

**All photos are property of Sophie Hartley**

Comments/questions are very welcome 

Holland and Barratt Haul

Cacao Powder

Dr Stuart's Liver Detox Tea

Dr Stuart's Detox Tea

Sweet Freedom Syrup

Holland and Barratt is one of my favourite places to go for supplements and healthy cooking ingredients that are hard to find in your everyday store. Today I popped in for some syrup and caco powder for a little baking experiment, but ended up with a little bit extra!

They've always got sales on, and right now Dr Stuart's tea is 20% off - I've heard a lot of good reviews, so I've been looking to try it out for ages. I'm trying to detox at the moment as I'm going alcohol free for the next few months, so I chose these. Having tried the detox tea whilst catching up on some reading (Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston - it's brilliant!), I can say it's actually really nice for a detox tea. Hopefully I'll do a proper review soon.

Where do you go for your supplements?

Love and Light

Steph

Winter Favourites

So, this post is a bit overdue, but hey, it's still winter, and these are still my favourites, despite any new bits and bobs I got for Christmas. 

A friend recommended cranberry green tea to me at the beginning of the Autumn uni term, and since then I've been hooked. This and my Carmex lip balm have seen me through about three bouts of colds/coughs and a myriad of uni stress over the last couple of months. 

Over the past month or two my hair has gotten super long, almost to an "I-don't-know-how-to-cope-with-the-amount-of-time-it-takes-to-wash" length. V05's Revive Me Daily shampoo has been a godsend. Keeps away the split ends and has ensured my hair hasn't gotten too dry during the windswept days of standing waiting for the unibus.

Finally, my Yankee candle. I always have this on whilst I'm doing a spot of reading for a seminar, or writing a blog post. It's really made my rather sparse uni room feel a bit more like home. Plus, any Yankee candle is a win, right? I'm going sales shopping in London tomorrow and am so excited to grab a new scent at the Yankee candle store. Any suggestions?

Love and Light

Steph

**All photos are property of Sophie Hartley**

Review of Bootea's teatox package

Sorry about the massive picture spam, but I wanted to make sure to show you guys all the different aspects of the bootea package. My sister kindly bought both of us the bootea 14 day teatox package. I was staggered by the price - £19.99 for 21 teabags? You must be having a laugh. Anyway, I'd heard mixed reviews about this product - some people claimed it helped them lose half a stone, whilst others stated that it was simply a waste of money. As you can imagine I was slightly skeptical when I embarked on this detox. 

I'd wanted to detox before I go back to uni to give my body a bit of a chance to reboot before I went back to drinking and depriving myself of sleep (the joys of student life). The basic premise of the package is that you make sure you only drink the tea itself, water and green tea. That means no fizzy drinks or coffee. Personally I only ever drink either green tea or water anyway, so this posed no challenge. Inside the bootea box are two packages: 14 day teabags and 7 night ones which you drink on alternate days. 

On day one I found the taste of the morning tea a bit startling. I'm  neither a fan of lemon or ginger, and I'd never heard of a couple of the ingredients. However, as the days went on I became accustomed to the taste and ended up sort of enjoying it. The night time tea tastes a little pepperminty. I actually preferred this one and ended up getting into a healthy night time regime by having it before bed.

Now for the results. I didn't really see any. I'm unsure as to whether the teatox only helps you lose weight because you cut out the bad drinks you normally drink, and my body was used to not having them anyway, or whether the tea just didn't have a huge effect. Having said that, I did feel a lot less bloated after meals, even big ones. All in all, I liked the internal effects of it, but a weight loss tea which didn't actually help me lose weight isn't worth £19.99 in my opinion. Since the teatox I've bought some lemon and ginger and peppermint tea because of the effects that I mentioned before. Although these teas aren't as effective at reducing bloating as the bootea was, they're a lot more budget friendly.

Have you tried it? What did you think?

Steph