Love from Lois – Chapter 3

Chapter Three

My Juice Detox – How Juices Effect You And Your Skin

I missed a chapter last week, I am very sorry! I decided to do a five day juice cleanse. Ive done a huge number of 3 day cleanses before but I thought while I am stuck at home and not exerting as much energy as usual I might as well go in hard and try a five dayer! Ive also never managed to ditch my morning coffee on my cleanses before (which I accept is in a lot of ways completely defeating the object of a cleanse), but I will be completely honest – my main goal with my cleanses before has been a bit of a weight loss boost and Ive not been too concerned about really doing a detox, however this time I felt differently. I personally couldn’t think of a better time to have done one. Im stuck at home and have no option of socialising with friends and don’t have to be on top form with work, so I thought – I will use the house and this time as a little personal detox retreat, and get some yoga and meditation done daily, but even with that said, Im going to be completely straight with everyone here – it really was the hardest thing I have ever done willpower wise. For the first 3 and a half days I felt absolutely dreadful, not one bit hungry, but craving eating nice foods, I had ZERO energy, I couldn’t even think straight as a result of the most excruciating headache and any consideration of mustering up the energy or focus to write and do any form of work went completely out of the window! 

So… thats the reason for my missing chapter last week, and its also given me my talking point for this week too 🙂

As difficult as it is, Id recommend we all do some juicing and consider some serious detoxing on at least sporadical occasions throughout our lives. We all need to be considering the cells in our body and how hard they are having to work when faced with such a huge assortment of toxins from every aspect of our lives such as pollution and environmental factors, the chemicals and synthetics in our foods, products and washing powders, the processed foods that are available to buy everywhere, all the refined sugar that’s in everything from sweet to savoury meals, and our meat consumption (which if you are a meat eater like myself, I would suggest you are eating too much of it, I know I certainly am). Some of the previously mentioned is almost impossible to completely avoid and some of them you are able to keep to a minimum if you try hard enough, so take back a bit of control and try to give yourself a little cleanse every now and again by doing some juicing. I know well enough how hard it is to eat super healthy day in day out long term. Its takes a huge amount of commitment and preparation, and I know anyone who is a busy working mum like myself or just busy with their career in general finds themselves just needing to grab something quick on occasions. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, life is about balance. Thats the reason I choose to take a little chunk of time to focus on a juice cleanse whenever I can. 

After my 3 and a half days of ‘hell on earth’ as I am lovingly referring to it as, I bounced into the completely opposite direction! My body felt YOUNG, I felt ALIVE and my notoriously puffy eyes were less puffy than I had seen them for literally as long as I can remember (and Im talking over 20 years when Im saying as long as I can remember). My skin was glowing, my face felt more contoured and I lost 5 lbs in weight. I decided that if detoxing from caffeine and refined sugar could make me feel that terrible at the beginning of my cleanse then Im going to try to go on a caffeine and refined sugar free journey going forward, I will let you know how I get on, but for now Ill get back to what a cleanse is doing for your skin as that is my speciality…

People who suffer from breakouts may well experience a bit of breakout when starting a detox as your body flushes out all toxins and one way of doing this is through your skin, but not everybody will experience this. Ive always been lucky enough to have never suffered with breakouts on my skin and still don’t when I juice. 

When you begin juicing you are feeding your body with a HUGE amount of nutrients, and not only that, because they are in liquid form they go straight into your blood stream. Your organs, in particular your liver and kidneys will rapidly begin to remove toxins. Your skin and the appearance of your face in general are very much effected by the function of your liver and kidneys.  

In my opinion, you are best to get either a very good book containing a lot of juice recipes or order a ready made juice cleanse from a very reputable source. If you are lucky enough to live in my area (Liverpool) you will have Claire from Hi Vibe Nutrition available to you, she really knows her stuff and I couldn’t recommend her more. The reason I suggest either of the above as apposed to throwing whatever you fancy in your juicer is because different fruit and vegetables have so many different benefits for your skin. Now Im no nutritionalist, but when we are talking about skin I do know my stuff, so I will go through a few benefits some fruits and vegetables have from a Skin Experts point of view, that’s one of my qualified titles by the way Im not blowing my own trumpet here 🙂

Kale and carrots contain Vitamin A which is a powerful antioxidant, helping to improve your cells ability to renew therefore preventing premature ageing of your skin. 

Beetroot is not only packed full of iron so will help with your bloods ability to carry oxygen to your cells, helping you feel young and energised, but it also cleanses your liver of harmful toxins that will then consequently flush your skin of toxins – giving your skin a detox.      

Celery is wonderful for alkalising your body and has anti inflammatory effects so can help with the enflamed, sore redness you get when you are suffering with acne. 

Cucumber contains ascorbic acid which can help prevent water retention (helping with my dreaded puffy eyes!) 

Spinach, although you don’t get a large volume when you juice it, it is full of Vitamins including Vitamin C. Studies have shown that women who have a very high dietary intake of Vitamin C have noticeably fewer wrinkles and appear to have less skin dryness. 

A couple of other things that arn’t fruit or veg but are great in your juices are:

Ginger, packed with over 40 antioxidants helping with almost all of the above Ive mentioned along with reducing the damage linked to free radicles, helping to prevent your skin from sagging, and lastly – Aloe Vera. This promotes your skins collagen production and we all want our skin to produce as much collagen as possible!

My last point to make is that as long your are juicing correctly, and by that I mean drinking a minimum of 2 litres of water a day, then your skin will be beautifully hydrated too, which in a lot of peoples cases (including my own) it often isn’t.

Going forward Ive decided Im going to try to do a very green based juice for 3 days once a month, and do it as a strict juice cleanse (nothing but juice, water and herbal tea) and I would recommend you try it yourself! By green based juices I mean very low in natural fruit sugars and more vegetable based to try to really alkalise my body. I felt the effects this cleanse had on my skin and over all appearance of my face make it worth doing it at least this often. Aside from the physical benefits, the mental benefits of completing something that requires so much willpower is so empowering! My mum did this 5 day cleanse with me (she’s moved in with me during lockdown) and she said she felt “heroic” when we completed it, which made me laugh my socks off, but what she said is true! You really do feel very proud of yourself afterwards.   But if this isn’t something that you feel like you could stick to or isn’t worth the few days of ‘hell on earth’ then adding juices into your diet and just simply trying to eat more ‘cleanly’ will be a huge benefit to your skin because although you are not giving yourself a full detox, you are still adding all of the nutrient dense foods into your diet and your skin will undoubtably benefit.

If you need any advice, or some moral support to keep going while you are doing a strict cleanse then please get in touch! And please… let me know how you get on 🙂

Love From Lois xxx