Vicki's Gut Love Story (Part One)

Hi, im Vicki..mother of two, wife, Reiki Practitioner, Holistic Skin Health Coach and Facialist. I try and do most things with a holistic approach and i generally feel we, as a family, eat well. But i know i have 4 major downfalls with my diet - all of which i know affects my skin hugely. But i keep eating and drinking these things because they give me feelings of satisfaction, they make me “feel” calmer and pick me up when im feeling down or had a really shitty stressful and energetically draining day. These are: Coffee, Alcohol, super spicy foods and Chocolate! These main foods and drink I’m consuming keep enhancing my Hypersensitive, hot, dehydrated skin. Add in my emotional stress i suffer with on a the daily and BOOM - Hello inflammation!!

Breakfast on day one was sauteed grated carrots and apple with coconut yoghurt and my Bestow Beauty Plus oil! Yummy!

So since I’m always educating my clients in this topic, i thought “Vicki, how can you look after people if you cant look after yourself first” (this was actually my guides telling me this while in a morning Meditation - when i had TIME to do it - in Tauranga at the ‘Bestow Conference - Leading the way in Gut Health’) I had a revelation and its time I focus on my own health above anyone else’s right now. So i signed up to the Gut Health Cleanse immediately as i got back home. I took a week before starting the cleanse to do some research and look through each meal plan to see what i was in for, check out the recipes and how ‘easy’ it would be as a full time working mother to do. Seemed pretty straight forward and exciting, so printed off the shopping list given to you on the website and hit the supermarket. I knew there were a few things on the plan that would be challenging for me to do whilst at work, so i decided to substitute extra meals within the plan on those days. At least this way I’m not deviating off the plan too much.

Weight: 60.9kg

Day 1...

6am morning ritual of hot lemon water to prepare the gut. I have to say, this was a challenging day, as i had all the meal preps to do. I spent most of my day in the kitchen, starting at 6am making breakfasts for the kids, their lunchboxes and prepping and cooking my breakfast for the next two days. Seems quite easy, but i had a 1.5 hour window to get all that done amongst being called left right and centre because kids needed this, lost that, both kids annoying each other at different times and trying to diffuse situations! Then had to get myself ready for the day and be ready to skype my parents in the UK at 7.30! Pheeeew… (I could have managed my time better I’m realising now, like making my breakfast AFTER school drop off) So a bit of a stressy morning - cue red skin alert, heightened stress = increase in redness!

8.30am After school drop off, I decided to go spend some quality time with my new Shakti Mat and de-stress, which definitely helped. Had my breakfast (prepared earlier LOL) and planned my preparation for the rest of the day, amongst household chores etc..

10.45am ‘Time for Tea’ ritual. I had one of the Bestow Teas which was so comforting and warming. However i was thinking of chocolate already and usually by now I’d be having a muesli bar or something sweet! But I was good and just had the tea! While drinking this (and distracting myself from sugar cravings and raiding the pantry), I prepped my lunch which was a chicken lettuce wrap with carrot, spring onion, coriander and kale (droool)

12.00 noon Feeling so starving right now, so gobbled up my two lettuce wraps in like 10 seconds! Felt instantly still hungry straight after eating these, but knew i had a delicious smoothie to look forward to later!

Mid-afternoon smoothie so I’m not starving!

2.30pm Time to head off to pick the kids up from school, so made a super yummy Love Your Gut Smoothie full of deliciousness and it seriously filled me up for the rest of the day. I was quite surprised as I’m really not keen on smoothies as i hate bananas, but mixing it with the other ingredients, I didn’t mind it at all!

4.30-7.20PM Almost 3 hours people!! 3 hours i was in the kitchen!! (again time management wasn’t on my side today as had stuff to do/house to clean and kids homework to attend to) hence the long period of time cooking and prepping in the kitchen! I had to make 2 lots of dinners tonight - one for the kiddies and one for us (yes my kids are serious fussy eaters - but healthy fussy eaters) This meal prep for us was a biggie making turmeric cauliflower rice, coriander pesto and just getting the veges chopped and not knowing the recipes took longer by reading and re-reading the method and quantities etc. Next time I’ll know what I’m doing!

7.30pm When we finally got to eat, it was well worth it and everything tasted amazing. Overall, a busy day prepping but the results and the clean feeling I’m already experiencing is so good! Bring on day 2...