2009 New Year Resolutions

Welcome!

Ooh we are almost there the begining of yet another year!
I am very excited about 2009 as it is an odd numbered year & the odd years are usually very successful years for me.
I've mentioned in previous posts a few things that I have planned for 2009 so I wonder what wonderful unknown things are going to happen as well.

Yesterday I participated in a New Year Resolution Workshop run by one of my good friends. The workshop was fabulous as it was about each participant getting clear on what we want to have in 2009. I just love hearing what others want for the following year. Sometimes people ask for basic things in life & then others just really go for it & ask for the BIG stuff!

What have you decided that you want in 2009?

Keeping in alignment with combining Raw Foods in your life I've decided to give you 5 easy tips to incorporate more Raw Foods into your life. These are easy to follow so I encourage you to try some or even incorporate them all into you daily life. Those of you who are already doing these things then that is fantastic & keep going!

Five Tips to Incorporating more Raw Foods for better Health for 2009

1. On rising cut a lemon in half & squeeze it into a glass of tepid water & drink before putting anything else into your body. This helps to cleanse your body first thing.
2. Only eat fruit for breakfast for a change on the alternate days. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere like I am Mangoes are so divine right now so eat 1 mango for breakfast. Or if you are in the Northern Hemisphere then have 1/2 grapefruit for breakfast or make your own fruit salad.
3. Before lunch have a fresh juice or smoothie. Choose either 3 of your favourite fruits or 3 of your favourite vegetables & drink.
4. Lunch, select your favourite leaf salad & keep the combinations simple. Add 3 of your favourite vegetables - rocket, tomato, celery & grated zucchini is one of my favourites with the dressing of your choice
5. An afternoon snack eat a handful of nuts. I like a combination of almonds, cashews, hazlenuts, walnuts & a brazil nut.

Good luck with your 2009 New Year Resolutions & if you have decided to give all that a miss this New Year then enjoy not having any.

Have fun incorporating the above tips into your life over the New Year period.

I hope each & every one of you have a very happy & safe New Year's Eve & I look forward to returning in 2009 with an abundance of new tips!

Until then.

With love, warmth & radiance

Julie-Ann xo

Merry Christmas

Welcome!

Merry Christmas to you all.

I wish each & everyone of my readers a very Merry Christmas & Happy 2009!
A huge thank-you to you for following my new blog & I appreciate your feed back.

This time of year is always a wonderful time to reflect on all that we have done & achieved either expected or unexpected. I have loved 2008 & it has turned out to be a very special year for me with the conception of many wonderful things following & being launched in 2009 & beyond.

Some expected things were getting certain areas of my life finely tuned & better organised, letting of draining people & situations, setting new boundaries for myself in all areas. Better appreciating family & close friends. Getting my teeth into something I feel passionate about & being open to changes.

Unexpected things were discovering The Raw Food Coach, Karen Knowler. Karen has now become a friend as well as mentor & it was her who introduced me to Raw Foods. Here is Karen's website. Karen is a true expert in the Raw Foods area http://www.therawfoodcoach.com/
I enjoyed Karen's work so much that I travelled to the UK in October to partake in one of her trainings which I am now starting to implement.
Being back in London again was so wonderful & definitely unexpected. I had to venture to Cambridge where I hadn't been before for the Training & I met so many wonderful new people who have also become friends. Cambridge is such a beautiful, beautiful place. Then on my way home to Sydney my flight was such that I 'had' to fly via Paris! What can I say! But ooh lala..
Thus, I did all my Christmas shopping early!
This trip was definitely my 'unexpected' highlight for the year.. :)

What have been the Expected & Unexpected highlights for you in 2008?
Do let me know as I'd love to hear them.

Enjoy your families on Christmas Day & try to remain as healthy & wholesome with your food choices as you can! I shall be doing my best although with my family's delcious food that just maybe easier said than done this year. We can always improve on this for next year with a better knowledge & awareness so watch this space.

With love, light & radiance

Julie-Ann xo

Raw Reflection

Welcome!

Today I am sharing a little of my Raw Reflection from the last few months.

Since I have been eating more wholesome Raw Foods so much has changed for me in such a short space of time. It is because of these changes that make me want to follow a predominantly Raw & Living Foods lifestyle.

Okay so my body has definitely responded to the cleaner foods. Organic foods that is. I have been gradually detoxing over the last few months by letting go of excess weight, redness from my skin is disappearing before my eyes, from bread & milk. I also have so much more energy! A lot more in fact.. :)

But as this journey continues it isn't only physical detoxing I have been going through it is also emotional, mental & spiritual too. Wow now there has been some heavy & scary stuff I've been letting go of there!

Emotionally, I've been looking closely at how I handle situations & people. It's interesting because now the cleaner & clearer I am becoming within myself I've realised I want my relationships to be this way too. I definitely feel so much calmer emotionally & I am sure I am reflecting this with my friends too. I feel that my close relationships are getting even juicer & better than ever. That I love. I find it easier to be honest with those I love & now I am okay at setting new boundaries in other scenarios. It has been scary at times I must admit but now I am in a better space with who I am. Yes that has meant letting go of some relationships that were toxic. But hey the healthy ones are really healthy & I have more room in my life to enjoy them!

Mentally, I am embracing a new thirst for knowledge & love challenging my brain with new information & tasks! I can easily move forward with these new ideas & information too. Thus, the creation of The Wholesome Food Coach blog. So watch this space for some announcements in the next little while.

Spiritually, I am becoming even more connected to my Inner Voice and/or Spirit. I have always been very spiritual & at times psychic but now the clarity I have with how to move forward in my life is simply awesome. I love the calmness I can easily experience.

So with these changes that have been happening within & around me over the last 6 months I have been cleared some space within myself for the new. I have made a lot of big decisions for myself in all areas of my life because of this clarity. For the better I might add & I am definitely very excited with what is to come in 2009 because of these changes!

My brand new website, The Wholesome Food Coach is going to be launched in the very early part of 2009. I am really excited about what I will be offering you in January & it is definitely worth tuning into. On the website I will be giving you the opportunity with all sorts of delicious ideas, participating in workshops, ebooks, recipes, beautiful photos & so much more! I won't say too much more as I would like to keep some of it a surprise!

Just think all of this was created because I changed a few of my own eating habits & included more Living Foods.

I wonder what is & will happen for you!

Next time I will be showing you how you too can make a few changes by swapping some cooked food choices with some wholesome Raw food choices. It really is that easy!

Until next time

With love, warmth & radiance

Julie-Ann

What are Raw and Living Foods!

Welcome!

Mmm Raw & Living Foods.
There is just so much to talk about on this subject so I shall keep this week's post brief.

As time goes on I will be revealing & highlighting diferent topics that are just so relevant to Living foods. These will include the benefits of incorporating more raw & living foods into your life.

So what are Raw & Living Foods then?
Raw & living foods are food that hasn't been heated above 47C or 105F. This is because you want to keep the maximum nutritional value within the food you eat. Heating food to high temperature destroys most of the nutrtional benefits. The better teh nutritional content of vitamins, mineral & enzymes in the foods you eat then the better you feel within yourself on all levels. You experience more energy, clarity of mind & a greater connection to spirit. Basically your overall quality of life is imrpoves.

Such life promoting foods include what we know of as the basics in life anyway. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouts & sprouted grains.

If it has been grown in nature then it is raw, alive & full of goodness.

Eating food with high quantities & quality of natural vitamins, minerals, protein & enzymes is what helps your body to function properly & gives you that alive feeling! The idea of eating Raw foods is to eat as many enzyme rich foods as you can. This I will explain in another post.

Eating the best possible food for you is just the beginning of the magic that Living Foods give you!

So, how about this week you add some more living foods into your diet. Add some of those gorgeous sprouts into your salads that you may not have tried before. Or maybe it is just having a salad for one meal for a change.

I also encourage you to think about that snack you may normally eat & change it from a processsed food to a raw food. Is it a biscuit or doughnut? Or something else that you KNOW isn't good for you. Instead how about have a piece of fruit or some gorgeous fresh nuts.

Whatever it is, really taste how that living foods tastes to you.
I know when I eat a juicy ripe mango it tastes suculent to me. When I eat Raspberries they taste decadent to me. When I bite into a crisp apple I know that this is fuel for me.

How does your favourite Living Food really taste is to you?

With love, warmth & radiance

Julie-Ann xo

The Beginning

Welcome!

Hi I am Julie-Ann Booth & welcome to my blog, The Wholesome Food Coach.

I am a classically trained Chef who is now journeying into the world of Raw & Living Foods. Here is my website so you can learn more about who I am & what I have done in my career. www.julie-annbooth.com

The Wholesome Food Coach was created because there are just so many of you who have been asking me how you too can cook & make beautiful dinner parties with healthy & delicious tasting food. The WholesomeFood Coach is able to easily offer you this & so much more by educating you the benefits of incorporating more Living Foods into you repetoire for family & friends.

I have always had a very keen knowledge of learning the various ways that food can heal our bodies. My belief with this philosphy is becoming clearer & clearer as I venture more into the world of Raw & Living Foods. As a Chef & especially after working in the industry for 20 years I have had to accomodate so many individual dietary requirements for people over the years without other guests being obviously aware. This is where I love weaving my magic through creativity! During this time I have seen so many ways in which the wrong types of food has been detrimental to people's health & created diseases. Some can be mere inconvenience ailments like diabetes & allergies whereas, others can be life threatening such as cancers & heart disease. Yet on the other side of the coin I have also very happily seen how the foods we eat can contribute to healing & keeping our bodies vibrantly healthy.

As a Chef I realise how much influence I have when I am preparing food for someone & I always want people to walk away feeling good. This is how I keep inspired by adding variety to someone's sometimes limited palate.

I was first exposed to this 'new' Raw way of life in April of this year. I wasn't quite sure what it was all about & curiousity go the better of me. I started researching then sat back & thought.. "mm wait a minute I eat predominatly raw food & I wasn't even aware of the fact." It was something that I had always done & I LOVE the natural flavours of most food. As a chef I was curious to know more about it as to me this was a whole new style of cuisine that I could definitely use in my day to day routine. So with a little more research I read that if someone drinks what is called a 'Green Smoothie' every day for 14 days then they would experience changes within their life & for the better. Of course being totally skeptical & having a chuckle to myself I thought 'yeah right, whatever'. But because it was all so new & I was ready to learn more I decided to take up the challenge & see what happens.

Okay, so in all honesty I did think once I had blended my first smoothie "uh oh here we go it is going to taste absolutely disgusting so I had better block my nose & physc myself for the horrid taste". I talked myself into it by reminding myself that I have downed Chinese herbs before so I could do this because it is good for me! Well at least it doesn't smell like those horrid herbs so I told myself I can drink this harmless little smoothie :)

Guess what? I couldn't believe my taste spuds! It actually tasted nice. Wow! It was so good & I happily drank the whole lot! And now I really look forward to my daily Green Smoothie. I must say that by drinking this daily & eating more Living Foods things are very, very different in my life now & I honestly couldn't be happier!

Below are 2 very basic recipes that I started drinking initially so I encourage you to try these & feel free to be a little more creative as the days go on. Try drinking these smoothies for the 14 days & please let me know how you go.

Banana & Baby Spinach Smoothie
1 Banana
1 generous handful of washed baby spinach
1/3 of a glass of filtered water

Just put all of the ingredients into a blender & puree for aprox 45sec. It is now ready to drink! That simple. When I first started having my smoothies I preferred to drink them around mid morning so I wouldn't be snacking on the wrong foods. This made a huge difference as it kept my sugar craving at bay!

Mango & Spinach Smoothie
1 Mango
1 generous handful of baby spinach
1/3 of a glass of water

Again straight into the blender & puree for 45sec.
You can vary either one by incorporating both fruits into the one smoothie or add strawberries, blueberries or raspberries. Even a pear. The list goes on so enjoy experimenting.

The amount of water you add to either smoothie can be determined by how thick or thin you would like to drink it. I encourage you to experiment & please let me know how you get on.

Next week I will share some other variations & the nutritional benefits of eating Raw Foods.

With love, warmth & radiance

Julie-Ann xo