Juice detox: the verdict

It's so good to be eating again!

I managed to finish all six days of the Nosh Detox - despite more than a few ohmigod-I'm-starving instances and a pretty rough second night.

So was it worth it (and by that, I mean the £179 and 24 bottles of juice)?

It was probably worth the experience, but I have to say, I'm not sure I'd do it again. 

I might be feeling differently if I had been feeling really run down prior to starting it, but I didn't really feel the big energy boost that was supposed to come around day 4. In fact, on day 5, the pamphlet that came in the bag of juice said, "This is how you should always feel". Hmm - the same as I usually do?

Truth be told, I can see how the juice detox would be a good way to lose weight. I'm not unhappy with my weight and don't generally struggle with it (although my metabolism definitely took a nosedive a few years ago and I do sometimes wish I didn't love ramen and burgers so much), but I actually lost 10 pounds. I went to bed last night (and was still, prior to dinner tonight) lighter than I was in high school. What?!!!

Anyway, I'm sure it'll all come back on in the next few days, especially as I have a fridge full of cheese, bread, and ingredients for all kinds of yummy things that I'm going to make. I also bought two bottles of wine. 

What I have learned, however, is that I definitely need to drink more water. I'm pretty sure my extreme headaches on day 2 were from dehydration (and the shock to my system of near-starvation), but since I basically hate water, my new routine is to put cucumber slices into a jug of water. Much tastier.

So, that's it. No big revelations but still glad I did it...

Anybody else have any other (more interesting) detox stories to share?

Juice detox, day 3

Feeling much, MUCH better today, thank god!

I don't feel quite like I've turned the corner (people always talk about feeling fantastic after a cleanse, and I'm not sure I would say that just yet), but definitely 100x better than last night.

Short post today - my juices today were:

• 11:00am: The Rehydrator. Contains grapes, strawberry, pear, apple, lime, & flaxseed. 
• 1:30pm: The Eliminator. Contains green leaves, berries, mango, oranges, & acai. 
• 4:30pm: The Healer. Contains banana, peach, pineapple, apple, & the "best green superfood in the world". Not loving these 'vague' ingredients but this was by far my favourite juice so far. The thick banana was such a treat!
• 8:00pm: The Rejuvenator. Contains goji berries, peach, mango, pineapple & lime.

More than anything, though, I really, really miss food. And on that note, how about a few snapshots of my favourite foods?!

Ramen! I could eat ramen everyday. Ramen ramen ramen.

My favourite places in London are:

1) Bone Daddies in Soho

2) Tonkotsu, in Soho

3) Shoryu Ramen, on Regent Street (but surprise! They also have a pop-up in Soho)

4) Ittenbari, ALSO in Soho

I have no idea why they're all in Soho, but who cares!

#NoodleFriday is a tradition in our household (as in, Elliot and I go for noodles every Friday... a bit more difficult now that he's back in Spain but I still manage to get ramen into my system twice a week). Definitely can't wait for juice detox to be over so I can get some RAMEN!

Oh, Bone Daddies also serves this delicious sweet & spicy pork bone dish which is amazing. Definitely not one for a non-meat lover, but the sauce on these is perfectly sticky, perfectly spicy, and there's JUST enough meat on these to be perfectly worth the effort of chewing on some bones. Yum.

I also love a good BURGER. Gaaah what I wouldn't give for a burger right now!

Burgers are pretty trendy right now (still) in London—it seems to have started sometime late last spring or even earlier, I think—but the interesting thing about burgers here is that restaurants ask how you like them done. In Canada, burgers have to be fully cooked through (health officials say the 'safety' of beef all comes down to its surface area, since that's what is exposed to air—and obviously, ground beef has a lot of surface area before it's formed into patties). Here, you can get your burger medium-rare or even rare.

I didn't think I would like a medium-rare burger, but surprise! I do.

This before-and-after series is from Honest Burgers, in Soho (they also have a location in Brixton)

And this next one is from Patty & Bun, near Bond Street / Mayfair!

As you'd expect, everyone has an opinion on who serves the best burgers in London. My friend Lis swears by Patty & Bun's, but she had a lamb burger and I had a regular beef burger, and mine was far too messy. The sauce was running down my arms from the very first bite! It was still pretty good, though.

Honest Burger was, IMHO, the better of the two. Probably the best burger I've had in London, actually. We did wait 2 hours for our table (we went to a pub and had 2 bottles of wine first, so that might have helped, too), but my burger stayed intact throughout, with perfectly uniform amounts of meat, bun, vegetables, and cheese in every bite. Amazing.

I've also had a Lucky Chip Burger (yummy and great to be able to eat it outside, at Netil Market in East London) and a burger at Meat Liquor (overrated and in a room that has over-the-top slaughterhouse décor), as well as many a burger from various pubs (the Prince of Wales in East Putney does a pretty good burger). What can I say... I can't wait until I can eat burgers again, too.

Now that I'm starving and REALLY MISSING FOOD, I shall drink some cucumber-infused water and go to bed.

Juice detox, day 2

I'm lying in bed with my laptop propped at a really awkward angle, but I can't muster up the energy to fix it... I feel like I'm going to die!

Day 2 sucks. Here are the juices I had today:

• 11:00am: The Rehydrator. Contains passionfruit, strawberry, orange, parsley & flaxseed
• 1:30pm: The Eliminator. Contains acai powder, pineapple, mango, blueberries, & peach
• 4:30pm: The Healer. Contains green synergy powder, green leaves, banana, kiwi, & oranges
• 8:00pm: The Rejuvenator. Contains goji berries, passionfruit, orange, mango & lime

The first half of the day went by smoothly - I was running late this morning so the lemon & ginger tonic was slightly less offensive when I gulped it down at the train station. The Rehydrator and The Eliminator (such a terribly evocative name... a bit gross) were also fine. The Rehydrator in particular was a bit thicker in consistency, so more like a smoothie, which I was into.

My 4:30pm drinks on Days 1 and 2 have both been green, although yesterday's contained avocado and today's contained mystery "green leaves". But after that is when the day started really falling apart! 

What started out as a headache got progressively worse until I had a migraine (well, my type of migraine, anyway - I don't get the aura or sensitivity to light that some people get). When I got up to leave the office, I got clammy, had cold sweats and nearly vomited. I had one of those moments in the bathroom where you wonder if anyone will notice if you sit down on the floor in one of the stalls. :(

When I got home, I got straight into bed, only to get up 10 minutes later when the doorbell rang (yay, four more days of juice had arrived), major GRRRR, got back in bed and fell asleep for about an hour. Eventually, I got up and, since my headache had subsided slightly, I decided to try and drink the 8:00 potion. 

Rejuvenator, my ass! The first sip made me retch so I decided to take a break... which is what I'm doing now. We'll see if I get through the rest of the bottle. 

This is my sad, sad current view

My Aussie friend (whose name is Julia!) says this is normal, and that Day 2 is the worst, and that headaches are a common symptom. She also says by Day 3 things start looking up. The "detox manual" leaflet (which came with the first delivery) confirms the headaches, but not the Day-3-looking-up thing.

Hopefully she's right.

Juice detox, day 1

I started a juice detox today. I'm not 100% sure why - I suppose as some kind of willpower test? In any case, I'm always up for trying something new!

My Aussie friend recommended a London company, Nosh Detox, to me. She had completed two of their juice programs and liked the results (she said she noticed a huge change in her energy levels), so when they had a 50% off deal on in April, I decided to give it a go.

It wasn't cheap: even with the discount, it cost £169 for six days of juice (you get four juices a day, so 24 bottles in total... yes, that's a lot of plastic), which is more than I would normally spend on food in this amount of time (I'd say I buy lunch and dinner approximately six or seven times a week in total), but these kinds of things normally are a bit of an investment, aren't they? That's what I told myself, anyway.

Side note: my new favourite packed lunch (though I've actually been doing this since November) is leafless salad, which is exactly as it sounds: everything that you'd put into a typical salad, minus the lettuce. My favourite combination is:

• avocado
• tomato
• cucumber
• a bit of cheese
• sweet corn
• chick peas (only if you feel like it - they're pretty filling)
• black beans (again, only if you feel like it as they're pretty filling, too)
• a boiled egg
• roast chicken breast or tuna 

I finish with either a handful of capers (for their saltiness) or a tablespoon of oil and vinegar dressing. Cut everything up into bite-size chunks - the second best thing about this salad is that you can eat it with a spoon! In fact, I started making this dish because I was sick of wrestling with those big, annoying (and often messy) leaves of lettuce every time I went to take a bite!

Back to Nosh.

Here are the juices I received for Day 1, snapped as I was making my last pasta supper:

The nice thing about this detox is that it's pretty mindless. It's like detoxing for dummies! Unlike some cleanses, you aren't allowed any food, but each bottle is packed with enough nutrients to sustain you and detoxify your system at the same time.

And, as you can see, each bottle says EXACTLY what time you're meant to drink it. It's simple, but it's genius!

Oh - the company also delivers the 6-day supply in two batches, so everything is pretty mindless. You just pop them in your fridge and bring the right bottles with you when you leave the next day! (This is starting to sound like a plug for Nosh, but I swear, I paid for the detox.)

I woke up kind of excited to start, but of course, as soon as you know you're not allowed to eat, food is all you can think about. I'm not a big breakfast person (I usually just have something small, unless it's the weekend, in which case, I LOVE BRUNCH), but I was starving by the time I got to work. The Lemon & Ginger Tonic I was allowed to drink at 8:30am (the tiny bottle in the front) didn't cut it, and I didn't like its flavour, either. Boo.

The rest of the day was pretty standard... the juices are timed pretty well, so by the time I was starving, it was nearly time for the next juice. Here is what was in them, in order:

• 11:00am: The Rehydrator. Contains passionfruit, strawberry, orange, parsley & flaxseed
• 1:30pm: The Eliminator. Contains acai powder, mango, pear, grapes & lemon
• 4:30pm: The Healer. Contains avocado, mango, watercress, pineapple & "green synergy powder" (the first weird-sounding thing)
• 8:00pm: The Rejuvenator. Contains goji berries, banana, berries, orange & lemon

Here are the finished juices.

I went for a run this evening (I was worried about going to the gym on an empty stomach tomorrow morning! And why not torture myself more while I'm at it?) and now, it's about three hours earlier than I would normally go to bed... and I think I'm going to go to bed.

Life's pretty boring without food.

The next five days follow the same four principles (with the same tonic each morning), so we'll see how I feel. Keep you posted.

Weekend away, part 2

Haven't had time to posting the rest of my thoughts about our Easter trip to New York, so here are the photos instead!

Lichtenstein - a good precursor to my visit to the Tate Modern, where the artist's retrospective ends in a few weeks.

The super-impressive Warhol Campbell's soup collection. Spot the cheddar cheese soup... sounds gross but also kind of delicious, no?

What! Amazing.

Edvard Munch - an obvious obsession with painting people's hands over their cheeks. Quite a good collection of his work - though I was a bit disturbed by the constant recurrence of this theme in so much of his work, to be honest.

Everyone knows I love Mondrian...

Also met my friend Susan for a lovely breakfast at Veselka, near St. Mark's Place. Love this little Ukrainian diner and the little old man that served us!

Standard view from the path that cuts through Central Park.

Sneaky pictures of the inside of the Guggenheim... they no longer let you in just to view the grand foyer - you need to buy a ticket almost immediately upon entering, and there are about 3 security guys ready to kick you out if you're loitering about for a photo!

All in all, had an amazing time – ate a lot, saw some friends, and soaked up the wide roads, the super-tall buildings, and the general feeling of openness that apparently, I've been missing here in London.

Much-needed weekend away

It's only been one week since Elliot and I were in New York, and even though it already feels like it was eons ago, I can't wait to get back.

The last time I was in New York was in 2010 - I went on a Kiehl's press trip just as the Vancouver 2010 Olympics were kicking off, which was a bit weird… I remember feeling like I was leaving the city just as the whole world (or so it seemed) was arriving.

During our visit, we stayed in Fort Greene / Clinton Hill in Brooklyn, which was new to me but really nice. As a tourist, it's probably nicer to bunk up in Manhattan, but our place belonged to a friend of Elliot's and you can't beat free accommodation. It was also an amazing, HUGE apartment (especially by London standards!), but Elliot has forbid me to post photos. Sorry.

We pretty much ate, shopped, and walked our way around the city, with a few art stops in between (but inevitably we'd end up shopping and/or eating again).

First up: brunch at The General Greene on Dekalb Avenue, which was basically out the front door and a few steps down the street from the apartment.

Love: the casual, cafe-diner feel of the place (I didn't realize this, but I'm sick of London places that try and recreate that old-time American diner feeling; I now believe it can only feel authentic in the States).

Also love: cheddar grits. Who would've thought?! They went perfect with my over-easy eggs. 

Side note: I like that "over-easy" requires absolutely NO explanation in the States. To be fair, most Brit servers will get it, too, but they'll often say "oh, fried" in response to you in a snarky tone. And forget about ordering your eggs "over well"!

Random, I know, but I decided that I'd try and take snapshots of things I forgot about and felt a sudden sense of "aww, look!" about. 

Brown packets of Sugar in the Raw was one of those things.

Whee, hi! We look a little weary here but actually had a great time. This is, of course, us on the High Line, a public park elevated above Manhattan that runs from the Meatpacking to West 34th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. It was built on an old rail line that was saved from demolition. 

I had seen it under construction in 2009 but this was my first time actually ON its pathways. I can imagine how beautiful this must be in the summer. 

Note to self: come back to New York in the summer.

From the High Line, we wove our way through Chelsea and ended up stopping by this super-techy shop called Tekserve, where Elliot had bought his last Mac. We bought our Apple stuff at the actual Apple store this time, although we did get some accessories here.

It was a bit too geeky for me, but I did spy a random 13-year-old boy practising his Justin Bieber moves while watching music videos on an iPad. I also liked these archival walls.

Remember these Macs (Macintosh, I believe their sticker said)? I remember sitting in a classroom at school with about 20 of these computers, with all of us students logged onto the BBS (bulletin board system) and thinking it was SO COOL to be chatting online... to each other.

We then took some obligatory New York photos (but not too many). Here is the iconic Flatiron building at the intersection of 5th Ave., Broadway and E. 22nd St., in the Flatiron district.

Next stop: Num Pang, which was featured in this list of cheap and cheerful lunch spots that was handily published on Refinery29 a few days before we left. I had a noodle bowl with grilled beef; Elliot had a healthy brown rice bowl with the market fish (I forget what it was).

It wasn't drop-everything-and-go cheap (our bill came to around $20), but it was definitely reasonable, a perfect spot for a casual walk-up lunch, and super delicious.

Throughout our trip, I was surprised to find that a lot of things haven't changed much in the last three years. For instance, some of my favourite restaurants - La Esquina, Freeman's - are still relevant and 'cool', and I could still remember where certain shops were (such as the APC store in Soho).

Of course, some things had changed a LOT. Such as this. 

This is the nearly completed One World Trade Centre, a.k.a. Freedom Tower. 

Freedom Tower stands where the original World Trade Center stood. Last time I visited New York, the site was a flat construction site. I can't remember checking out the area much the few times I was in the city before that, but I did fly to New York in April 2012, just 7 months after 9/11, and witnessing hundreds of people and thousands (millions?) of memorial plaques, bouquets, teddy bears and other trinkets lining the barricades around the building. The air also felt dusty, from all the debris that was still strewn everywhere. 

At 104 stories, the new Freedom Tower will be the tallest building in the western hemisphere - and in fact, even unfinished, it has already claimed the title for tallest building in New York for nearly a year. What a way to commemorate the tens of thousands lost in the attack—and say fuck you to terrorism.

Another view of Freedom Tower...

and some other very tall buildings downtown.

After our little adventure downtown, we headed to the Lower East Side and lined up for "Americanized Oriental Food" (pulled directly from their site, thank you) at Mission Chinese Food. 

(By the way, I hate the word "oriental", but let's save that for another day.)

In the line, we spotted Padma Lakshmi, model, presenter of Top Chef... and ex-wife of Salman Rushdie. She was coming out of the restaurant with a small entourage; apparently she really likes the place. A normal-looking 40-something guy swooned when he saw her, waved, then shouted, "Seeing you just made my life!" Whoa.

Anyway, here's Mission:

tiny and very 'American Chinese-y'

We had the mapo tofu, Chongqing chicken wings (both of which were scary yummy spicy), plus a few smaller dishes from the other side (lamb meatballs, smashed cucumbers). 

I need to go back with a bigger group so we can order 10 dishes and I can try them ALL!

We were lucky to get in as they close between lunch and dinner.

mapo tofu

So, interlude... 

Here's another thing I spotted in a store that I realized I hadn't seen in ages! Full-scap, three-hole punched, 8.5" x 11" (a.k.a. letter size), VERY NORMAL lined paper! 

As it turns out, apparently the US and Canada are actually the exception when it comes to paper. While we use this very sensible-looking paper (three holes just make so much more sense than 2), nearly every other country in the world uses A4, which is slightly longer. I just learned that here.

A pack of paper photographed backwards. You get the idea.

Now back to food. This is the view from our perch at the bar at Momofuku Noodle, one of those legendary places that I have probably tried to visit every time I've been to New York, but only got around to (that is, had time to wait in line for) on this trip. 

It was well worth the wait, and the food is well, WELL worth all the hype. We started with kimchi, which was served with a tiny, cute bottle of hot sauce.

And then, of course, we had ramen. 

Yum! 

More New York highlights coming soon.

Happy International Women's Day

To all the incredible, smart, and incredibly smart women in my life!
xx