All posts filed under: Well-being

Verso age-defying skincare

Being 52 this year, I have to admit it is the first time, I’m being self-conscious of my age. It never bothered me until now. It’s not even the number that bothers me. It’s seeing how my body ages in some areas. When it comes to skincare and make-up routines, I’m really on the low end of maintenance. I don’t wear a lot of make-up. A toner, day cream, and night cream were pretty much the only things I applied to my face for years and I was happy with that. I suspect that if you are around the same age, little by little you’ve noticed things are changing. At first, we don’t really care. The lines around the eyes are getting deeper but that’s OK. The skin on our legs seems to be dry all the time but who cares. Nobody does and you don’t until you DO care. At the moment, I’m in that zone, trying to come to terms with all these changes. I don’t know about you but I’ve always wanted to …

Intense cocoa muffin without added sugar

Chocolate muffins without added sugar

Published by BODIE and FOU Style Blog

Like many of us during the Covid-19 lockdown, I turned to cook and baking. I’m not a natural Cook. In fact, I usually feel I don’t have time to do things in the kitchen and I’m known for walking away from the hob and leave things to burn. However, these past few weeks, things have changed a bit. I have cooked and baked a lot more and the crazy thing is, I no longer hate the whole thing. I’ve always admired my sister-in-law and mother-in-law in New-Zealand for their abilities to make muffins, scones, and other delicious things while we were sipping a cup of tea. They made it so easy… So now that I had a new-found love for cooking, I wanted to try a few recipes that Mila would love without them being a total sugar bomb. These intense cocoa muffins without added sugar were perfect. I highly recommend eating these muffins warm with a bit of yogurt. If you don’t want to be tempted, just keep a couple out and freeze the …

How are you all doing?

Published by BODIE and FOU Style Blog

How are you all doing? I see a lot of people struggling on Instagram, getting really stressed out and worrying about the Corona 19 and it breaks my heart. Worried about it is understandable. It’s a new situation for everyone to deal with. Added to the unknown, the fear of getting infected comes the money issue. A lot of people running small businesses like me will be affected. No-one knows how and when we will come out of the other side but I know we will. Some may have not been affected by the economic downturn in 2008 but in terms of money worries, this was a big one to go through too. Yet we all survived because times like us make us resilient, resourceful and proactive. I don’t know if it’s because I went through 2008 hell and back but I’m not feeling worried this time around. One of my biggest fears back then was to lose everything. When I say lose everything, at the time, my mind was fully focused on material things …

How to do a home retreat and lose weight in the process

Published by BODIE and FOU Style Blog

As some of you saw on Instagram recently, I have managed to drop a few more kilos since my article on intermittent fasting in October last year. Since I know how painful and miserable those extra kilos can make us feel, I just wanted to share with you what worked for me. Like a lot of you, stress and tiredness usually make me overeat on the wrong food (overeating on green beans never happened ha!). Those 3 months of intensive renovations to get CASA PYLA ready for the Summer, left me with a few extra kilos I had lost the year before. So at the end of June, I was feeling tired, bloated and worried that I would put back on all the weight I had managed to lose. At the same time, Mila had been diagnosed with a 20% scoliosis. Her job over the Summer was to do plenty of exercises like stand up paddle, physio sessions to strengthen her back and prevent scoliosis to get worse. Being a teen, she wasn’t taking things as seriously as I …

How I lost 11.02lb in less than 4 weeks on intermittent fasting

Published by BODIE and FOU Style Blog

As mentioned on Instagram (here and here), I have started intermittent fasting and lost 11.02lb (5kg) in less than four weeks. I’m now down to 7 kilos (15.43lb), 2 kilos lost during Summer + 5 on intermittent fasting. When I found out that I had finally lost 7 kilos, I burst into tears. Tears of joy of course but also tears of relief and sadness. The last thirteen years were not exactly a walk in the park weight loss wise. While being pregnant with Mila at the age of 35, I put on 55.11lb (25 kg). A figure that didn’t really worry me at the time. I was 7.87 stone when I got pregnant (50 kg for 1.55m) and was very active. So I just assumed that once Mila was born, I will work out again and lose it all. Except I didn’t. Over the years, I lost weight and regained it after being hit by depression, and when my father died. By the time I started intermittent fasting on 08th Sept ’18, I was 70 kg …

Ham, cheese & yogurt muffins with St Helen’s Farm

Published by BODIE and FOU Style Blog

Since I’m on a detox sugar to avoid eating refined sugars (#week 9), I have been trying to find delicious, healthy recipes to keep me on the right track while enjoying my food. This ham, cheese, goats milk yogurt muffin recipe has been a major success in our household! It is exactly what you need to make healthy snacks for your children or if you are traveling and want to avoid eating all the junk food on the road. The original recipe was initially with wheat flour and cows milk yogurt but since I do not tolerate gluten and I find goats milk easier to digest than cows milk, I swapped both respectively for buckwheat flour and St Helen’s Farm goats milk yogurt which we have been using since Mila was little. The health benefits of goats’ milk Steve was the one who introduced me to the benefits of goats milk Vs cows milk when I stopped nursing Mila thirteen years ago. He has always been interested in health and well-being and as the son of a kiwi …

How to avoid a hangover

Published by BODIE and FOU Style Blog

The obvious thing to avoid a hangover is not to drink in the first place or drink a reasonable amount but sometimes, we just need to let our hair down and have a good time. So here are a few useful tips that will help you to avoid a hangover, splitting headaches, dehydration, interrupted sleep, upset stomach or feeling lethargic… Tip #1: Don’t drink on an empty stomach If you are the party host, have healthy appetizers like carrot or cucumber sticks on rice cakes or gluten-free oatcakes. My favourites are Nairn’s gluten-free oatcakes with organic houmous which makes a great healthy snack and was recommended by my Nutritionist. Tip #2: Eat before going out If you are going out, eat a meal that involves carbs, proteins and healthy fats like this delicious spicy prawns salad rather than a green salad. Food will help slow down the body’s absorption of alcohol. Red meat is great too as it contains a high concentration of amino acids and B vitamins that help process the nasty byproducts of alcohol. Tip #3: Drink …

Inspirational words by William Saroyan

Published by BODIE and FOU Style Blog

Let me share these inspirational words by William Saroyan to start the year. These beautiful words by William Saroyan have been wrongly attributed to Ernest Hemingway on Pinterest. Saroyan published them in a book called “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze”. For those who never heard of William Saroyan, he was among the most reputed American writers of the early 20th century. He won a Pulitzer Prize, an Oscar, and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. In his books, William Saroyan tells stories about the challenges and delights of rural America through the lens of life in the Central Valley of California. As Stephen Fry put it: “He is one of the most underrated writers of the century. He takes his place naturally alongside Hemingway, Steinbeck and Faulkner.” American Authors were my dad’s favorites. That’s all he read and he was reading a lot. He could easily go through 3 to 5 books a week. He used to have a mood board in his bedroom with pictures of all his favorite American Authors. What …