Juicing: energy booster?

Salam!

Our fruit caterpillar to go with The Very Hungry caterpillar story

As a Mum, I am very watchful of what my children eat and drink. Ever since they were little, I always wanted to make sure I feed them the best of  everything; I refused to feed them jar food, and used to make their own baby food that I would take out with me, as we used to spend a lot of time outdoors.

I am not very health conscious when it comes to me. I am a foodie and I enjoy being one, I don’t particularly have a sweet tooth (probably owing to the fact that my Dad had diabetes and I enjoyed eating and drinking sugarless deink with him, while my Mum would pour  a few spoons of sugar in her tea). But I love my savoury,  deep fried or not, I am ever ready to eat anything that’s salty. I also have a collection of chilli sauce (indeed I love my chillies!).

After my children were born, and they started to eat solids, I would join them and we would all sit together and eat. I realised how important it was for me to lead by example when it comes to eating. My kids are not fussy eaters Alhumdulillah, they eat everything and that’s something I wanted to make sure of. Growing up, I remember being a fussy eater, and my Mum always having to accommodate the menu for me. Anything my brothers and sisters didn’t like to eat, I wouldn’t eat, and also added to that list was my own ‘i don’t like it’ food.

As a mother, I didn’t want them to turn out like me, so I would cook food that I don’t like, and would give it to them even though I didn’t like it and would not eat it. But, as the kids were growing older and wiser, they would ask things like ‘Why don’t you have meat on your plate?’etc... So, I started having more red meat, along with them. No more questions are asked. Is till I’m not a big fan of red meat, but I do make sure we eat it once a week. I must say, I have to thank my kids for that, considering my iron level is always low.

My kids love their fruits/veg. I enjoy my vegetables, but I am not a fruit eater. Like I mentioned before, I do not have a sweet tooth.  Alhumdulillah, the kids never ask anything about me not eating fruits, they love it too much to be honest. But, it did make me realise that I must be lacking in some nutrients and vitamins. I finally found the solution to it: Juicing! Two of my friends have been juicing for a while and had really taken a liking to the thing. So I tried it out, and I love it!

At first I thought it was only going to give me essential nutrients and vitamins, but it happened to give me much more than that. It had a feel good factor, I mean mentally and physically, I felt better, it might just be a psychological thing, cos I know I am doing something right. But I must admit, it had made a difference to my life, I feel a lot lighter ( even though I don’t think it made a difference to the scale).

This isn;t the biggest surprise though, but since I have started juicing, today was the first time I managed to go swimming after a gap of about 3 months. I used to swim regularly before, but due to work commitments and feeling uneasy in asking people to babysit for me, I haven’t been swimming for over 3 months. One thing us single parents feel uneasy about  a lot is asking people to look after our kids while we have ‘me’ time.  No matter how close we are to someone, it is still very hard from us to come forward and say will you be willing to babysit for me while I enjoy some free time. I have thought about this a lot, I find that people who are in a relationship do not find it hard to say that to their partner or even other family members, but this is one thing a lot of us single parents struggle with. Maybe, because a lot of us have had to take more responsibility than others, especially in the case of an absent parent, where all the responsibility have been shamelessly ‘dump’ on us. And we know that it is not a nice situation to be in, and although in no way we think of our children as burdens, we know what it feels like when people are having fun instead of stepping up and shouldering their responsibility. Anyway, today since the girls were at nursery, I managed to go swimming and Boy it was amazing! I have been swimming for quite awhile, but by far this has been my best experience! I swam non-stop for the whole session, and didn’t even stop to breathe for a minute! I did more laps than I have ever done before in the same amount of time, my speed was better, my techniques were better, and it was all effortless. At the end of the session, I still felt fresh and probably could have gone on for a while longer.  I was even approached by people who thought I was great! They should have seen me swimming during my school days!(sarcasm).

I do really think, this all due to the change in my diet. But maybe not, but I guess other people should try it and tell me if it had had the same impact on them!