My Favourite Smoothie Recipe: Papaya and Beetroot

Posted by IrieDiva on May 1, 2012 in Health | 6 comments

I’ve been juicing, or rather blending, more often these days in an effort to increase the amount of vegetables in my diet and of course to assist me in my weight loss efforts. I don’t have a juicer so I use my blender, the trade-off is that I keep all of the fiber that a juicer filters out. Makes for an awful texture but keeps my tummy fuller longer and so works as a meal replacement! I’ve been trying to blend a batch every Sunday so I have no excuse not to have my green juice daily. Read Afrobella’s post on some benefits of juicing and her experience. While I haven’t done a full-on cleanse yet, I have been gearing up to do one and clean out my insides, especially my liver which can take a beating on the weekends. -__- I’m also trying to put on my big girl panties and throw some aloe in my juices but I’m not there yet! 

Recognise this dress? It fits!!!

Posted by IrieDiva on Mar 19, 2012 in Fashion, Health | 12 comments

If you were following my diet blog before I incorporated it into this blog, then you would have known about my progress dress. In that video, I couldn’t zip it all the way up and I looked a haute mess when turned sideways. Well, I wore the dress last week!!! Full disclosure? I definitely had on shapewear underneath it. I’m not where I want to be as yet, but I’m not where I used to be either and that deserves two dougies and a dutty wine. 

My first homemade green smoothie

Posted by IrieDiva on Oct 6, 2011 in Health | 1 comment

I need to get more greens in my diet. Don’t we all? I remember as a child my grandma used to try and get me to eat these ice cubes she froze with calaloo and milk and I dunno what else. I thought they were the most disgusting thing on earth, unless she put lots of condensed milk in it. So she made a deal with me to sweeten it up. I guess yo gotta do what you gotta do when it comes to kids.

Fast forward to me as an adult in a time where green smoothies are “cool” and all the health nuts are doing it. I’m well aware that my diet is sorely lacking in greens. Apart from the few leaves of lettuce I put in an occasional homemade burger, there’s really nothing else green in my life. I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you why we need to eat at least 3 cups of leafy greens per week…but I will anyway.

New progress dress and HCG cycle one results

Posted by IrieDiva on Sep 28, 2011 in Health | 0 comments

Lord…my HCG results were just watch the video. But before that. As I said in my last video, it’s a good idea to have a “progress dress” to use as a measuring stick. I need to take some pics in those jeans to see if my 15lbs made any difference but I now have an official progress dress. The sleeves on this dress are too tight and it can’t zip all the way up on me. Hopefully if I do decide to go ahead and do another cycle of HCG, I’ll be givng away the dress as it will be too big. It’s a size large anyhow and my aim is to be a medium at least.

Vegetarian for a day….or at least…a meal

Posted by IrieDiva on Sep 4, 2011 in Health | 0 comments

Deneice Falconer

Ex-colleague turned friend of mine Deneice calls herself an earth strong foodie who’s a vegetarian and on a quest to teach us how to live off the earth around us. A quick glance at her twitter timeline reveals how passionate she is about this topic as she tweets resources daily that confirm how much clean eating sans meat is good for us and ways that we can incorporate it in our lives. I told her recently that she really should anchor all this info on a blog and she responded that she started to but fell off the wagon…I’d like to think I inspired her to start blogging again and hopefully she’ll keep it up.

Recently she invited me, or rather I invited myself, to a little show and tell she had for a few of her friends. She says people ask her all the time what exactly is it that she eats and how to prepare vegetarian dishes and so she thought it would be a good idea to share her knowledge in an intimate little cooking class. She was excited to have landed an industrial kitchen to use but boy the heat! Working in an industrial kitchen everyday is bound to make people miserable. It was unbearable. I was drained for the entire day but I’m really happy I went.

On her menu for the class was:

A shake a day keeps the cholesterol at bay

Posted by IrieDiva on Aug 22, 2011 in Health | 0 comments

my fave kind, old fashioned

When I used to work a 9-5, I brought my oatmeal daily to the office to have as my breakfast. I cup of oatmeal, preferably the hard old-fashioned kind, some skimmed milk powder and some raisins for sweetness. When I got to work I just added water and went to town. It kept me from buying fried dumplings with gravy or fried fritters and ackee or curry chicken. Or Burger King breakfast with hash browns. YUM.

This was a win for my pocket as well as my health. Now that I work from home, oatmeal has lost its appeal to me. Dunno why but I have the same box I bought in May when I quit my job right now on top of my freezer. I prefer to have cereal when I’m home. The problem with cereal is that its got a lot of calories and not the same filling effect, and I imagine oatmeal has much more nutrients as well. My husband came for a visit recently (we currently live on two different islands) and reminded me that oatmeal is quite flexible. He loves him some oatmeal too. He made a shake with it every morning. I love me a shake!