Roos van Montfort, a Dutch model, is one of the most loyal clients of Purifyne Juice Cleanse and advocates of healthy living. She is also now the new Victoria’s Secret model! Congratulations Roos, we are so proud of you!!! Xxx

Day 1: Purifyne Cleanse by London Vegan Ballerina

Day 1: A 16-day PurifyneCleanse by one of our client, London’s ballerina – a very interesting and honest account of cleansing process and benefits of it.

This morning I weighed 62.3kg; body fat percentage 28.7%. It'll be interesting to see how these numbers change everyday.

I woke up feeling as usual: tired, moody, and needing at least 3 hours more sleep... My juice package was due to arrive at around 9am, so I had some hot lemon water as suggested and did a session of dry skin-brushing. Feeling a bit more alive now, I proceeded to get some work done, and before long, the delivery arrived.

Inside were: 8 bottles of fresh juice (2 days' supply), 1 small bottle each of coconut water and aloe vera juice, a Daily Routine Summary, some sachets of cinnamon powder, ginger powder, psyllium husk, and green superfoods powder to be mixed with juice, chamomile tea-bags for enema, liver support capsules, bentonite clay capsules, essential fatty acids capsules (all 7 days' supply), one Enema kit, and 1 sisal body buffer. Whew! It's quite a list!! Here's how I got on today:

9.30 am

My first juice! Apple, beetroot, carrot and ginger, with 1 tsp each of Green Superfoods powder and psyllium husk mixed in. I was pretty hungry, so I finished this quite quickly. The juice tasted refreshing, and not too sweet, and it filled me up too. Soon after, I had some natural bowel movement and decided to skip the morning enema. New discovery: I don't need to eat a huge breakfast, (read: drink a litre of smoothie) to feel full.

12.30am

My second juice. Apple, ginger, parsley, and spinach, this time with no powders added. This was my favourite combination. I also had a shot glass of the aloe vera juice. I should mention that I told Purifyne I don't like pears, cucumbers or mint in my juices, so these aren't likely to appear in the ingredients list - thank goodness! It's nice to be able to omit things you really don't like from the juices, instead of having to pinch your nose and down it in one. B-)

4.30 pm

It is so strange not to have to think about what to eat at all. As for cravings, I have none at the moment, and although I felt colder than usual when I went out in the dismal weather, it might just have been a colder-than-usual day. My third juice contained melon, red pepper, celery, and ginger, with 1 tsp of psyllium husk. Not one of my favourite combinations, but it was fine. I don't spend any time cooking, preparing, eating and washing up, so I'm getting so much more things done!

7.00 pm

At 6.30 pm, I had a mug of herbal tea to revive myself from the cold weather outside. Now for my last juice of the day: beetroot, carrot, celery, and ginger. I added some cinnamon powder to this juice, which totally transformed the flavour and I really enjoyed it! I've never been much of a cinnamon-fan, but it makes a really great addition to a juice.

8.30 pm

I took my first enema. I'm going to go to bed early today - feeling sleepy already.

Onward to Day 2!

Nutritional Super-Combos

We read a lot about superfoods health benefits and their effect on our body. The recent study in Journal of Nutrition has found that certain foods become healthier and more beneficial for body nutrients’ absorption when eaten together.

Vitamin C and Iron: Iron deficiency is one of the main cause of irritability and lack of energy. Vitamin C helps the body to absorb Iron more efficiently.

Vitamin C-rich: Lemon, Oranges, Kale, Spinach, Broccoli 

Iron-rich: Red meat, Eggs (Yolks especially), Oily fish, beans and dark green, leafy vegetables

Super-Combo:

·         Rocket salad and squeezed lemon

Vitamin D and Calcium: The vast majority of the population in the UK are Vitamin D deficient which is required by the body to absorb Calcium.

·         Vitamin D-rich: Oily fish (Sardines and Salmon), Eggs and fortified Cereals

·         Calcium-rich: Dairy, Dark Green and Leafy vegetables

Super-Combo:

·         Poached eggs and spinach: Vitamin D in the eggs helps your body absorb the calcium in the Greens.

Vitamin A and Zinc: Having Vitamin A-rich foods together with foods high in Zinc increases the absorption of the skin-friendly Vitamin A.

·         Vitamin A-rich Oily fish, Yoghurt and Milk

·         Zinc-rich Beef, Pumpkin seeds and Oats

Lycopene and Healthy Fat: Foods high in Lycopene eaten with healthy fat increase your body’s uptake of Lycopene, an antioxidant that protect against some cancers.

·         Lycopene-rich Carrots, Tomatoes

·         Healthy fat Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Other healthy Super-Combos

Red wine and salmon: A glass of red wine eaten with Salmon can boost our uptake of Omega-3s.

Salads and avocado: The salads components – lettuce, carrots, spinach – are superfoods in themselves containing a powerful antioxidants called Lutein*. Combining the ingredients with avocado increases your body’s absorption of Lutein by 5 times due to the healthy fats it contains.

*It protects eye and heart health and improves your complexion.

Carrot and coriander soup and buttered crusty bread: The fat in the butter will help your body absorb the antioxidant Lycopene from the carrots.

Friedrichsbad Spa - a unique and cleansing experience for the body and soul

"My recent adventure at the amazing and unique Friedrichsbad Spa in Baden-Baden, Germany – a truly holistic and unforgettable health experience that I can recommend to anyone!"

When my boyfriend said “let’s go to Baden-Baden and visit a famous spa built above ancient Roman baths with natural thermal and mineral waters” I had no idea it would be such an amazing experience. But indeed it was and so much so I want to share it with all of you.

First of all I need to mention that this spa typifies the German attitude towards practicality and cleanliness. In the same way that they approach the separation of different cleaning cloths and the rigid recycling of waste, so too they insist on their spas being “textile free”, aka nude, simply because you can’t get into a bath tub in a swimming suit and expect it to be as clean as if you went in nude. But then they’ve been doing this for generations and would be horrified at the notion of sitting in a steam room or sauna with a bathing suit on. It is considered quite normal and natural to allow your body to breathe freely, detoxify without being strangled by clothing, and sweat out those impurities evenly. The first thing one notices too is that there is every imaginable shape and size walking around quite comfortably, it’s as if being in the same state puts everyone onto an equal playing field and nobody gives anyone else a second glance.

Now that we have that out of the way let me tell you about Friedrichsbad Spa which is probably the only one of it’s kind in the world.

This “temple to the art of wellbeing,” as its calls itself, was built in 1877 as a relaxation facility for German soldiers. It sits directly next to the ruins of Roman baths and is driven by natural thermal streams that surface from 6,500 feet deep and contain minerals like sodium chloride, lithium, cesium, silica, boric acid, manganese, magnesium, and traces of cobalt, zinc and copper.

Housed in a monumental, gorgeously decorated classical building, the baths offer separate bathing days for men and women on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, except for the two central pool areas which are always mixed. We just happened to go on a Friday so it was mixed throughout the whole process, but I found that preferable as I was able to enjoy the entire experience with my boyfriend.

According to signage inside the spa, this is the last bath house in the world to offer a wet sauna heated entirely with thermal heat. The 17-stage bathing process gradually heats then cools your body, utilizing dry air, steam, baths, scrubbing and massage. So it goes without saying that this experience is one-of-a-kind, and therefore shouldn’t be missed. In a letter to a friend, Mark Twain wrote, “Here at the Friedrichsbad you lose track of time within 10 minutes and track of the world within 20….”

A temple to the art of wellbeing

Stages 1 – 3: Hot air

After undressing and leaving our clothes in lockers activated with an electronic chip on a wrist tag, the greeting attendants gave us a sheet and sandals and directed us to the shower for an initial wash-off. The showers draw water from natural hot springs and are diluted with cold water with a temperate control lever, but the pressure is constant, a little like standing under a mild waterfall.

The 54 and 68 degree saunas that followed were heated from below, and we simply laid back on our sheets on fragrant wooden loungers, starting our relaxation as we gazed up at high ceilings with unusually painted tiles.

Stages 4 – 6: Soap scrub

Since toxins had already begun to seep from our pores, it was time to shower again before presenting ourselves to the soap and brush massage attendants. What followed was an exhilarating full-body scrub and massage, including the tummy and the bottoms of our feet, and it ended with a customary slap on the bum!

Stages 7 – 11: The aquatic  life

We then showered off the soap and headed to the first of the steam rooms, now free of our sheets but carrying a square seat pad that the attendants handed to us. After that we had another shower and indulged in the whirlpools and pools that offer a successive reduction of heat, soaking in the mineral salts of the thermal water supposedly offering the greatest health benefits. Throughout we enjoyed the high ceilings and decorative tiles, culminating in the 17m-high domed central pool area with a natural mineral circular pool.

Stages 12 – 15: Winding down

After the big pool, it was back again for an optional cold-water plunge (18° C or 64°F) which I always enjoy although my boyfriend had to think twice about it before joining me for a quick plunge. Then, yet another shower before we dried off with a large bath towel before being taken upstairs for a cream massage to nourish our skin after all the saunas, steam rooms and pools. The cream massage was an additional €10 but oh, so worth it!

Stages 16 – 17: Relaxation

Lastly, the attendants asked us if we wanted to sleep and as it was part of the process we duly nodded our heads and were directed into a large private room ringed with beds. We laid our sparkling clean bodies onto our fresh sheets on top of a blanket and were then swaddled up like babies by two attendants before being told to sleep and left alone in the semi-dark and quiet room. Feeling as secure as a baby, the intention was for us to slowly drift off to sleep but one look at my boyfriend and we both started laughing at the look of each other wrapped up a little like mummies. So I confess we ended up skipping the sleep and escaping our wrappings for the change rooms.

There is actually a last process, the reading room, which we didn’t go into, but the intention is to lounge in a towel and enjoy a gradual return to focused thought.

All in all, it was an amazing few hours that left me feeling rejuvenated, healthy and ready to tackle the sights of Baden-Baden, a truly unique town with a truly unique spa.

Purifyne Success Story of the Month: Donna Coulling, Celebrity PA, July 2012

We often write about the benefits of our Juice cleanse and not so often about the journey that our clients are going through to reach their goals and ultimate benefits. One of our clients, Donna Coulling (Celebrity PA to Helena Bonham Carter, Rachel Weisz, Sir Derek Jacobi and Samuel West) who has just completed her Purifyne Juice Cleanse in July is

“I hope this also finds you well. Thank you so much for the cleanse, it really was one of the toughest things I have done and I was forever battling with myself to throw in the towel as the hunger sometimes felt unbearable, however I am happy to report that I did see it through to the end. It was absolutely a roller coaster ride, a love/hate relationship - I loved not having to think what I wanted to eat and having you make fresh and deliver the juices for me made it so much easier had I opted for a 'cleanse book diet' per se as I probably wouldn't have made through the first day. I hated that I was completely obsessed with the smell of food around me and not having coffee I thought would kill me off! I was worried that i wouldn't sleep as I don't usually if I go to bed hungry but I have slept so well since starting the cleanse. My bloating has gone, my clothes are definitely more comfortable to wear and since starting the post-cleanse I am more aware of what I am putting into my body, I am chewing everything until it practically disappears (whereas before I would wolf it down). 

Now I am in New York for the week, thankfully, I am surrounded by wholefoods which are making my life easier whilst easing myself into eating again: I have my 6 year old daughter taste-testing cupcakes for me as strangely I don't really want any.... WHAT HAPPENED TO ME??!

With all best wishes!”

Success story of the month by Tara Samman, Style and Fashion guru

A style and fashion guru, Tala Samman from Myfashdiary tried our 3-day Purifyne SignatureCleanse Plan and shared her experience with her numerous readers:

“First things first, with Purifyne, you receive a delivery the evening/night before everyday which is packed with the juices, supplements and all the things you need. What I was SUPER impressed with, is the fact that Purifyne are super attentive… Like a cleansing parent. I’ve spoken to the team from the morning hours till around Midnight! They follow up with you on a daily basis, as well as send over info via email (as well as your daily routine). With each package, you receive a ton of supplements to say healthy and not missing any of the nutrients whilst on the cleanse, as well as colosan powder for bowel movement.”

Foods that can be toxic

Despite their “label” of being super-healthy foods, some of our everyday foods can be unhealthy and even toxic. This may be an opportunity for us to rethink what we place in our shopping bags.

Sunflower Oil

It looks as if Sunflower Oil looks as if it was a super-healthy option due to its content of polyunsaturated (i.e. good) fat and being cholesterol-free. However, foods that have a ‘fried in sunflower oil’ label on them should not be your first choice. The refining process exposes it to potentially harmful chemicals:

·         Strong solvents are used to extract the oil from the seed and then degum, deodorant and bleach it.

Alternative:

·         Good-quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil

·         Cold-pressed Rapeseed Oil

·         Butter in small quantities

Non-organic grapes

It looks like these delicious fruit is not one of the get-well foods after all. Non-organic grapes consistently come up as having pesticide residues levels above those deemed safe: 26 instead of 11

Alternative:

·         Organic grapes

Tinned soup

It seems to be one of the healthiest options, yet the coating of many soup cans contains a hormone-like material called Bisphenol A (BPA). The full effect of the hormone is not known as yet, however, some studies show* that it could possibly “alter your body’s insulin production, increasing the risk of diabetes, obesity and heart disease”

*According to Professor Andrew Watterson from Stirling University

Alternative:

·         Freshly made soups

·         Soups in cartons

·         Make your own