©Julia Welstead 2012

At 5.05am I have the kettle on the boil, a slice each of lemon and ginger in my tea mug and I’m piling on warm clothes. It’s a beautiful dawn and I’ve only been awake since 3am worrying about this trip, so I must have had at least five hours sleep. Of all the half-dreamed, half-awake worries: the car won’t start, I won’t remember how to drive (after a six week, post-op break), there will be roadwork obstacles all the way and I’ll get lost in the diversions (and so on and on, round and round, went my whirling brain) the one thing I didn’t pick to fret about was the car keys. I always put them on the high shelf just inside the front door. That’s where they live. The shelf that is just the right height for my three tall sons to knock their shoulders into, and for me to knock my head on. But this morning my hand can’t find them. I pull myself up tall and balance onto my toes, but they definitely aren’t there. The spare key – the one that doesn’t have a remote locking button, doesn’t even have a key ring to its name, poor thing – lurks in the back corner and I grab it gratefully.

No time to drink the tea. By 5.10 the dogs have hopped in the boot and swimmer-son Dale and I set off along the delightfully empty early morning streets of Edinburgh, collect another swimmer on the way and arrive at the freshly refurbished Royal Commonwealth Pool by 5.25am. No roadworks, no diversions, no getting lost. No need to panic. All those hours of lost sleep.

I’ve been looking forward to this moment for ages. After a winter of walking the dogs in the dark and then a six week enforced invalid (in-valid) break, I can finally head out onto the hill of Queen’s Park on a beautiful Spring morning. I swing the car round and pause at the junction. To my right is the huge dark hulk of Arthur’s Seat. It’s darker than I imagined, and somehow very forbidding. I falter, then turn left and head for our regular woodland walk instead, where the girls and I know our way around the paths by heart. The hill will have to wait until I’m fitter and dawn is earlier.

Back home, the dogs flop into baskets to dream of their recent rabbiting escapades and I drink down the cooled lemon-ginger tea whilst writing this. My belly is rumbling, but it must wait while I assemble some fruit, veg and green powders and whizz them up into a juice. Today I am joining Jason Vale in his two week ‘Big Juice Spring Clean’. I’m just pondering how to explain this to you, and I’ve remembered an article I wrote about it last year, so here it is:

Liquid Lunch

© Julia Welstead 2011

I’m contemplating a plastic beaker of green sludge and it’s reminding me of the mush I used to wean my babies on. The revenge of the green mush: this time I’m the target audience. My teenage sons look on in some amusement as I pulverise an ever increasing array of vegetables with the sole purpose – in their eyes – of seeing if I can stomach the resultant primordial soup. They, of course, are still eating bacon and eggs for breakfast, something schoolish at school for lunch, and mince ‘n tatties for tea. I’m taking it upon myself to be the guinea pig for some prototype digestive inputs, before unleashing a whole new diet on them.

Thing is – I love it all: the green mushy stuff, the oddly brown liquidy stuff and the weird sunset hues of the fruity stuff. The more colours the better, in my view. The more colourful, the more flavourful, the more I relish it and the better I seem to feel.

OK so let’s cut to the chase: this is juicing. Sometime last autumn I sold a book (I’m an endangered species – a Waterstone’s bookseller) called “7lbs in 7 days” (by Jason Vale) to a customer and, as usual, had a quick sneaky read of the back cover whilst completing the transaction. Another fad diet? Possibly, but it caught my eye enough for me to track down another copy. So that is how I came to read about juicing and decided to give it a go.

As anyone who knows me will know, I don’t need to lose weight. I’m 5ft 9” and 60kg (and I love the way our British minds now mix up imperial with decimal without a flicker of either doubt or embarrassment, or any attempt at unification). I’m rangy and skeletal. In the gym mirrors, in multi-coloured Lycra, I resemble a deranged giraffe. I really don’t need to lose weight. What I did, desperately, need to do was something to help my ailing digestive tract and unbalanced blood-sugar levels. I was suffering from some nasty bouts of bloat, pain, nausea and other funny business that I was beginning to think might be IBS or some such, as well as highs and lows worthy of a diabetic.

This is where juicing gets really interesting. You might think that extracted juice of raw veggies like celery, cucumber, spinach, beetroot, broccoli stem, yellow pepper, carrot, ginger and lemon, with a shake of seaweed and a scoop of wheatgrass, would send your stomach into a panic and your intestines into crisis and make your blood run green, with some unsociable results. But no! Or not in my case anyway. I began my juice journey last September with a three day detox (see “Keeping it Simple” by Jason Vale) and within those three days all bodily functions seemed to heave a sigh of relief. My body and mind loved the experience so much that I haven’t stopped juicing since. 

By now you might be concluding that I’m some evangelical American with very white teeth. But no: I’m a Scottish woman with the very scary number 50 on the not so distant horizon, a single mum of three teenage boys for whom money is scarcer than hens’ teeth, a woman who likes cake and coffee and wine and chocolate and slobbing out with some rubbish TV. I’m pretty ordinary in other words. But last year lots of things happened that made me sit up and think: do I want to slide into my 50’s with all the usual mid-life accoutrements? The dodgy digestive system, the coffee palpitations, the inexplicably expanding mid-riff (yes, even thin people get that), the back-ache, the stiff neck, the arthritic knees, the migraines, the wine-stained teeth and wine-challenged liver, the subsiding bum, with matching self-esteem, the increasing use of ‘I used to….’ and the inexorably growing feeling of ‘is that it?’ about my life in general. Or do I want to do something about it?

The latter, obviously. Having read “7lbs in 7 days” cover to cover, as instructed (Jason is a hard task master but just knuckle down and do as he says), I dug out the old, but little used, juicer from the back of the cupboard and the first thing I had to do was change its plug – I’ve even had time to move country since last time it was used! (In fact I can’t remember ever using it; I think I just bought it because it’s a nice blue colour.) First challenge over then, I went and bought lots of lovely veggies and fruits and came home and started squishing them all up. The boys got involved over that first weekend – the lure of making a big mess in the kitchen was, for once, greater than the lure of Top Gear – and together we tried out lots of Jason’s recipes and a few of our own. Based on this experience, I can recommend that you stick to Jason’s ideas, for a while at least.

Obedient to his every word, I also joined the local gym (monthly cost: the equivalent of half a dozen bottles of half-decent wine, so even for the relatively poverty stricken, this is a good deal) and I make sure I’m there five times a week, minimum. Because it’s hard to fit in at any other time (work, children, blah blah) I get up early and go to the morning sessions 6.30 to 7.30am. I hear groaning from the readers – but just try it, try it for a week, and I guarantee you’ll grow to love it. You get such a feel-good buzz for the rest of the day and you don’t have to slope off to the gym in the evening, when everyone and his dog is there clogging up the machines. Instead you can be out walking the dogs and then at home cooking and doing homework with your kids and drinking wine with some crap on TV….oops!

Ah yes, there it is. Three months down the line and I’m a committed life-juicer with just a few flaws to iron out. My routine, which I stick to with amazing ease, involves getting up at 6am to make a veggie juice and an oats, fruit and yoghurt mix before whizzing off to the gym for a pump/spin/run hour. At 7.40am I’m running back in the door with a tight schedule: wake the boys, run a bath, cook breakfast for boys, eat half oat mix, boot dogs into the garden with their breakfast, splosh in bath, throw on clothes, bring dogs in, boot children out, lock up and sprint down-town to the bookshop. If any of you have ever seen a beetroot-cheeked girl in your local bookshop, it was probably me. 

The lovely veggie juice that I made first thing comes with me in a flask and I drink it for lunch: the healthiest liquid lunch ever. I also eat an avocado straight from its skin when I’m at work (although if at home I’ll whizz it into the juice in the blender). The remaining oat mix also comes with me in a jam jar and I eat that over the morning and afternoon breaks. And here’s the thing: I used to get daily bouts of low blood sugar and would regularly implore my boss to let me go for the earliest coffee/lunch/tea break lest I collapse from lack of sustenance. But this juice diet has stopped all that. I now feel perfectly replete and in no need for extra snacks – at anytime really. I always carry a Juicy Bar with me (I prefer the veggie ones: even though they look like something we used to feed to cattle, they taste delicious) but more often than not I don’t feel hungry and it gets carried home again uneaten. And my energy levels are through the roof!

My flaws? (well the ones I’m willing to divulge anyway) I’m still on coffee – one a day that I just can’t quite give up. I’m still on red wine – it’s so nice to have by my side as I cook in the evening. And I still veg out in front of crap telly sometimes – but I now lie on the floor and do core exercises while I’m watching, so it’s not all bad news ;~)

My aims? 

1. To keep juicing. As well as making me feel fantastic (uber-energetic and bouncy both physically and mentally) I’ve realised that it’s economically good for me. These veggies are relatively cheap and I now cook one less portion of ‘regular’ food (or boy food, as I now know it) because I make myself a veggie soup for evening consumption. I now have Jason’s follow up book “Turbo charge your life in 14 days” and use recipes from that for my evening meals as well.
2. To keep exercising. I feel so much better and younger that that ‘50’ on the near horizon seems to be diminishing. I think I’ll just stay as a forty-something forever.
3. To kick the stimulants at some point. Well the coffee at least ;~)
4. To go on a Jason Vale retreat week (which come to think of it might achieve (3)) because I’d like to retreat from my life for a week and look at it with the perspective that geographical distance gives, and I’d like to meet like-minded folk. Oh and I’d like to try rebounding, which looks dangerously fun but possibly tricky for deranged giraffes.

The dogs are urgently telling me that all this can be achieved by taking them for a walk through the woods, so I’ll sign off. Thank you Jason, for though it’s rather un-British to say so, you have indeed changed my life. 

Hmmm. It is good to re-read that, as I can now give a progress report. Juicing has continued on a pretty much daily basis, usually as a lunch replacement. Exercise has continued: although I had to leave the gym when we moved, the dogs and I now spend every morning out in the hills, come rain or shine. Much as I enjoyed the novelty of the gym, being out in all weathers in the quiet of the early morning suits me much better. It’s my chunk of sanity in the otherwise noisy world of city life. 

Caffeine has been given the elbow and I’ve all but given up alcohol. All sounds a bit boring doesn’t it? Yup! But these days I get my kicks from feeling healthy and energetic. More of the latter later, but of the former I can tell you that not drinking caffeine is a very good thing to do. You may scoff, but read up a wee bit about the stuff and you’ll be reaching for the nettle tea in no time flat. 

I read somewhere (and am busily scanning the old memory banks to find the source – hey Jason, all this juice isn’t helping my memory!) that every time you drink caffeine the effect on your body’s response system is similar to that of finding yourself face to face with an oncoming tiger. I think that was possibly a slight exaggeration (or I’ve been buying the wrong coffee) but the point is that coffee makes you feel alert and energetic for a short burst because it makes your body think there’s something dangerous to deal with and therefore produces adrenaline. 

This may sound like a good plan if the boss is rapidly approaching to ask for that pesky report, but repeatedly pressing the panic button in this way tends to wear out the system (in other words you’ll age quicker, and who wants that?) and create some nasty side effects. A lot of these are because, having revved up your body for a fight or flight situation, you aren’t then carrying out either of these solutions and all the pent up energy is unused and just has to dissipate, often through such nasties as nervousness, irritability, restlessness, insomnia, anxiety, headaches, palpitations, blood sugar swings (highs and lows) and so on. Sound familiar? By increments your body will tire of this repeated crying of wolf, will respond less enthusiastically and you will feel the need of more caffeine in order to create the stimulating effects. And so the cycle goes.

Giving up caffeine was tougher than I expected. I’d put it at 6 days of feeling headachy and drained. The headache (again, if I find the book I was reading, I’ll get this more accurate) is at the back of your head where a gland (?) that has been expanding to accommodate all your coffee drinking, is now shrinking. The lack of energy is because you’ve been on a false, drug induced, high for so long that your body has forgotten how to regulate its natural energies. By the end of the week you’ll be feeling calmer and more naturally alert and the head will clear. It’s all good news from there. 

Not wanting to give up the delight of a mid-morning milky coffee, I went on to de-caff. There is still a small amount of caffeine in de-caff (I drink Clipper because they decaffeinate using an ‘organic CO2 and spring water method’. I haven’t a scoobie what that means, but they claim it reduces caffeine to an absolute minimum) so to be purist you should stop altogether. Then there’s always the chance of being given the wrong coffee. I went for coffee at a friend’s house last year, all prepared with my own jar of de-caff, but her hubby made all three coffees in identical mugs and I was given the wrong mug (possibly to see how I’d react) and after two glugs I was shakey, sweaty and wide-eyed – all ready for the tiger. 

The question in my head is how far to go with this. Do I really need to give up on my de-caff coffee? Switch to Ovaltine (the Classic Malt is caffeine free, but the chocolate one isn’t) or Horlicks (again their chocolate version has caffeine, their traditional and light malt haven’t) or Barleycup, or another milky drink like milk with honey? Or give up on hot milky drinks? Then there’s the chocolate question: I was horrified to discover that even my beloved Green and Blacks chocolate contains caffeine. But then there’s some perspective to be gained by looking at the numbers (taken from the April 2004 Food Standards Agency Survey on typical servings of tea and coffee):

Instant coffee contains anywhere between 21mg and 120mg per serving

Ground coffee = 15 to a whopping 254mg

Tea can contain one to 90mg per cup.

And set these beside the Green and Blacks chocolate numbers of 2mg per mug of hot chocolate, 3mg in a whole bar of milk chocolate and 6mg in a whole bar of their 70% dark chocolate. Chocolate also contains theobromine – similar to caffeine, but with a tenfold less stimulating effect.

Chocolate, I’m delighted to announce, has some pros: it contains magnesium, which is why you crave it if you’re not eating the right stuff (nuts and seeds, seaweed and other such uber healthy delights), it’s stacked with anti-oxidants (and we all know we need these, though we can never quite remember why), can lower cholesterol levels and has the undeniable feel-good factor, due to a couple of mood-lifting chemicals (tryptophan and phenylethylamine) and then there’s its unique melt in the mouth attribute, which most of us humans just love, for reasons that Freud would have a field day with.

All in all I reckon I might give up the coffee in favour of the occasional nibble of chocolate. The trick is to buy the best quality chocolate you can afford and the darkest you can enjoy. Cheap chocolate tends to contain very little cocoa and an awful lot of sugar.  

Where was I? Oh yes, day one of Jason Vale’s Juicy Spring Clean. Ah well, it’s day five now, and I’m still hanging in there, albeit with a teensy alteration to one of his recipes (no good Scot should ever start the day without a handful of oats).