We love to green-light our day with a green juice in the morning. But vegetable juices are especially beneficial during a cleanse. We chatted to founder of RADIANCE CLEANSE, Clare Neill, about the benefits and her tips on making a good cleanse great!
Spring is a season associated with new life and renewal. Why do you think it is beneficial to cleanse during Spring and what affect can a cleanse have on our mind and body?
Spring is a natural time of renewal. Like the start of any new season it’s a great time to cleanse, to help prepare the body for the change in foods. Spring is particularly good as the weather is getting warmer and it’s therefore easier to enjoy the lightness of juicing.
The effects a cleanse can have are manifold: from shedding a couple of pounds to helping re-programme the mind to ask for healthy foods naturally, to improved sleeping, reducing bloating and glowing skin. Clients often also report having lots more energy and greater mental clarity after a cleanse.
Often people lack motivation or feel overwhelmed on a cleanse program, what are your top four tips for completing a successful cleanse?
- Pick a time frame that is realistic. Three days is long enough to achieve good results but short enough to be psychologically manageable.
- Prepare for your cleanse by introducing a pre-cleanse diet (high in fruit, vegetables and wholefoods) for the three to five days before your cleanse. This helps prepare your body for a juicing cleanse and typically reduces the detox symptoms that you may experience during a cleanse.
- Pick a time when you don’t have lots of social plans – it makes it harder on yourself if you put yourself in temptation’s way, for example by going to a dinner with friends.
- Try to book in some quality time for yourself during your cleanse, whether it’s going to your favourite yoga class or having a massage or facial. It creates a ritual of the whole cleanse process and is a bit of a treat.
Cleansing can help to eliminate a build-up of toxins within the body, how can this help the health of our nails, hair and our skin?
The ethos behind juice cleansing is that it gives your digestive system a rest so that your body can harness its energy for the process of detoxification, helping bring your body back into balance and optimal function.
If our bodies are out of balance then we may not be absorbing key nutrients from our food properly, for example. This has a direct impact on our skin health as good skin depends on our body using nutrients from food, such as vitamins A, C, E and K, Co Q10, essential fatty acids, zinc and selenium to name but a few. The old adage of ‘we are what we eat’ is only part of the story; it is more that ‘we are what we absorb’. Also, as the skin is the largest organ of detoxification it is often the first place that we can visibly see if something is wrong on the inside. If we clean up our digestive health then this may naturally lead to clearer, more glowing skin!
Juicing is an important part of the cleansing process; can you share one of your favourite juice recipes with us and its benefits?
There are so many great juice recipes to choose from, where to start?! I really like the below recipe as it’s packed full of vitamin C and is great for skin health and immunity. There isn’t too much fruit in this either as I’m not keen on high fruit juices as they are generally too sweet.
- 3 medium carrots
- 1 large leaf spring greens
- ½ cucumber
- ¼ red pepper deseeded
- 1 apple (Cox or Braeburn are favourites)
- 1 lemon (peeled)
- 1 handful spinach leaves
Radiance Cleanse are offering all CONTENT readers and customers a 20% off any juice cleanse they book during May. Cleanses can be taken throughout May, June or July. Just quote CONTENT20 at booking. Happy Cleansing! VIEW OFFER HERE.
