Just Be...Simple

The Juice Master Detox

2011-02-25T20:57:00.000+00:00

The last couple of months I’d hit a bit of a slump. I was exhausted from university work, still struggling to shift the pounds I’d put on over Christmas and could feel a cold coming on. As our half-term reading week was approaching at medical school I thought that now was a good time for a detox. I decided on the Juice Master super juice diet which claims can allow you to lose 7 pounds in 7 days by consuming nothing but freshly made juice. It’s carefully calculated so that you get enough calories and the extra supplements it suggests you take give your system a total revamp.

At the end of the first day I had what I can only describe as the worst headache I’ve ever had. Reading the advice in the book I believe this was due to caffeine withdrawal because of the amount of tea I had previously been drinking. Apparently this can be quite common on juice diets and may also cause an initial lack of energy.

I found myself hungry over the first few days. As I’m not a huge fan of strong-favoured vegetables, I found I was making some of the juices and only drinking part of them as the flavour really wasn’t for me. It does say in the book, however, that if you wish you can deviate from the plan and stick to the juices that you prefer. For me that was:

1. JM’s Super Detox Juice – apples, cucumber, celery, spinach and watercress

2. Passion 4 Juice Master – natural yoghurt, banana, apple, pineapple

After I made this switch I found that I only needed about 3 juices a day, as opposed to the 4 or 5 suggested in the book. This however, is common, as the plan is designed to be adapted to your specific needs.

I chose to do the plan at this specific time because I had a relatively easy week at university, meaning I had more time back at the house to prepare the juices. I did however find myself deviating from the plan several times due to various reasons involving work or social events.

Although I didn’t weigh myself throughout the week I could feel that I had lost weight and my stomach was definitely a lot flatter. I also had comments made about how good my skin was looking. I was quite sceptical about the attitude change towards food mentioned in the book. But it was completely right! By the end of the week I was craving solid food yes but only things like fresh fruit. I was even cringing at the thought of eating carbohydrate-rich foods.

The plan leaves you feeling refreshed and makes you so much more conscious of what you are putting into your body. You realise that you actually don’t need to consume anywhere near as much in order to keep yourself functioning. It takes willpower but you’ll appreciate it in the end!

How To Make A Success Of Anything

2011-02-20T11:13:00.000+00:00

This year at university I have been working as Vice President of one of the medical societies. At the beginning of the year this society was not well-known within the university and although it had great potential, hardly any events were held last year.

This year the President and I decided to give the society a revamp. So far this academic year we have achieved many things including getting over 60 new members, taking a trip London, having speakers give specialist lectures and raising over £400 for charity (and counting!).

There are several things that helped us to make the society so successful, and I believe these can be applied to making any society, small business, even blog a success:

1. Evaluate what you already have – to start with we looked at how the society had been structured previously and what this committee had managed to achieve. We then focused on areas that had room for improvement. So, first of all, look at what you already have, and identify where you can do better.

2. Get help – last year the committee consisted of 6 members: president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, 1st year representative and 2nd year representative (I happened to be the first year rep so know how the committee worked). We found that in principle this worked quite well, however we did find that students in the clinical years of our medical course (years 3, 4 and 5) knew little about the society. Therefore we decided to introduce a new position this year and elected a Clinical Representative. So, look at what you need to do and decide what help you will require in order to achieve it.

3. Re-evaluate regularly – by this I mean take a moment, maybe once a week/month to look at what you have and how well it is doing. We decided that although it was impractical for the committee to meet regularly due to time constrictions, having a means of communication (a Facebook thread) meant that we could all view and post ideas and give feedback. It also meant that when we did want to arrange a committee meeting we could organise it easily as everyone could see what was happening.

4. Know your audience and advertise appropriately – our audience was medical students. And what do students love? Free stuff! During the society fairs this year we created goody bags (cheaply I might add, 80 good bags for £7!) and included a plan for all the events we were holding during the year inside them. We made the society free to join and all the students had to do to get a goody bag was give us their email address. Even if they had no intention of coming to an event we now had a means of advertising to them and they were now at least aware of our society. We also created a society website and Facebook group to keep people updated on all the events we were holding.

5. Don’t be afraid to ask! – This is my final point, but one that has done wonders for us this year. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. For our bake sale fundraisers we had cut-price Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Specialist speakers gave up their evenings to give lectures free of charge. Cadbury’s donated a gift voucher for our charity raffle. The local hospital gave us a free tour of their baby unit. All this happened because we asked (nicely, I might add!). If you are doing good the more often than not people will be willing to help you. If you are have an advertising opportunity then businesses will want to help you out to get some publicity. Don’t be afraid of asking, after all the worst they can do is say no.

This year has been great for our society and now that people are aware of us, and we have a structure in place, I’m sure next academic year will be even better. I hope this has been useful, if you have any other advice then I’d love to hear it!

New Beginnings

2011-02-16T08:59:00.000+00:00

So you may notice that things are a bit different around here:

• The blog has a new, simplified title.

• The old posts are gone (gasp!)

• The ads are back (double gasp!)

I logged back into my account the other day and felt awful about my neglected little blog. Previously I had been posting like mad, going for quantity over quality, listening too much to other people and didn’t have a clear view of where my blog was going. I wanted fast popularity and spent more time publicising my blog than concentrating on the important bit, the content.

So, we have a new title that makes more sense. The old posts are gone to make way for new, better quality ones. And finally, the layout, which I love, has remained the same apart from the addition of a bit of adsense (which I will be removing eventually).

I’m excited for this new start, so watch out for my first proper post.