Introducing the Paleo diet: A healthy new eating trend

Hello, all you diet addicts out there! Hereby I shall introduce the Paleo diet. But guess what: The Paleo diet is supposed to be one of the most healthiest diets which has ever been out there. At least that is what everyone tells me. 

Ok, starting from the beginning. The Paleo diet is right now the "hottest" or "healthiest" trend out there among all the diets. Many celebs like Megan Fox, Miley Cyrus and so on are doing it with joy. The Paleo springs up from the word Paleolithic era which was a time period from about two and a half millions ago. It was an era where our ancestors hunted for fresh foods which included fresh meat, fish, seafood, fruits, vegetables, oils, seeds and nuts. As you know, processed food did not exist during that time nor refined sugars and dairy products. Hence, the paleo diet is all about eating healthy and mainly eating these types of things which the "wild hunters" would eat.

On the left you can see the food pyramid with regards to Paleo. Your main source of nutrition and protein should be meat, eggs and fish. The meat should be of high quality and the other products certainly, too. What is missing on the pyramid are any types of diary products, wheat or grains. No milk, No yoghurt, no bread! And sugar is also cut at all. Alcohol is also not "allowed" during that diet. Nonetheless, Paleo is not really a diet which you follow for a couple of weeks but rather a lifestyle as you have to completely change your whole style of eating and living. 

Does it work? Paleo in real life:

My boyfriend is also trying the Paleo diet right now. I have to admit that it is definitely harder than we thought. We are both very healthy eaters and I try to avoid bread, sugars and alcohol as much as I can, anyways. So for me, the diet is not really a change but for my boyfriend it is pretty tough. He had to cut his beloved spaghetti and also cutting bread was the most difficult challenge for him. He also didn't feel very well for the first week so I think that it really depends on the person how well you take it. Nonetheless, he is still following it. His goal is not to loose weight but to just feel overall better and healthier. I will tell you in a couple of weeks how it turned out. Below you can see some pics of the healthy Paleo pancakes we made just recently for breakfast. It is crazy, they just contain coconut flour, eggs and baking soda and tasted very well.

Above you can see a pic from my last holiday with my most favourite sweets at all: Frozen Yoghurt!! That had to be cut too (my biggest loss;)).

Have you tried Paleo already or are you following any type of special diet?

What is your key to stay slim and healthy?

Have a great day!

Love

Julietta

Biggest sports fair: ISPO 2014

Last week, one of the biggest sports fair took place in Munich, named ISPO which is the abbreviation for "International sportswear and fashion". I was impressed. There were so many halls with various booths of fashion and sport retailers, manufactures of sport appliances and so on. The halls were clustered after certain themes. My favourite one was the "health and fitness area". Stromberg (who is a German cook-more or less famous;)) introduced there various types of health foods and the green juice. It seems to be that you cannot get out of the way of green juices! There are so many recipes out there, celebs drink it, even my mum just started mixin' it every morning. By the way, she highly recommends it. I will try it out soon & surely will tell you about my experience. Moreover, I met at the ISPO one of my favourite fitness idols: Johanna Fellner. You can check her out on her website: http://johannafellner.de/ She also writes for the fitness magazine Shape. In my opinion, she has one of the best bodies ever, comes across so sympathetically, and has a great philosophy about keeping a healthy lifestyle and even develops her own functional fitness programms.You can see some pics of her below.

So, the main question arises....What are THE hottest trends? 

Well, there were several innovations introduced with regards to winter sports like skiing, snowboarding and so on which are not necessarily in my main area of interest;). For example, there was a new technology introduced against avalanches called JetForceTechnology. It is some kind of instant rescue which helps you to get constant air in case of an avalanche. Nonetheless, the trends which I found very interesting were

1. Functional training ( TRX , for example)

2.  Measuring fitness watches/ instruments

Funtional training implies training the acitivities or movements performed in daily life. It is basically the opposite of going to the gym, using the machines where you mostly only train one or two muscle-groups. TRX standing for Total Resistance eXercise is one of example of it. The workout consists of hanging or gripping the legs in the straps and performing the moves. You can easily work on every muscle group. The other advantage is that you can basically carry your gym around. The straps are very light and you can hang them in your apartment, outside where there is little space. The second trend which I mentioned is mainly the technology that you can use to punctually measure your fitness level and movements. It is made for people who want to get the exact result of their training. So for example, there are sport watches which measure every move you made during the day. I am a fan of those technologies but already have a very good sport watch which measures every kilometer. Without it, I couldn't have done my Marathon Running training.

So, enough talking! Check out the pics now;)!

Enjoying the green juice

Almonds are the new chocolate!

CEP Running Socks- ♥ the pink ones

Fitness tower- you can perform all kinds of exercise on this machine--crazy

Johanna Fellner in action :)

Johanna & me

Starting with TRX--Heels are not really helpful!

Getting in the correct position

Working together

"Short version" of TRX-the shorter strap

Colorful fitness apparel- like the pants very much

Nice running outfits from Falke

My mantra!

Where is the icebear?

Hey, my eyes hurt! 

Hometrainer made out of wood

                     I hope you got an impression what the ISPO was all about. Sports, Fun, Sports.......!

                                                                    Cheers, XOXO

                                                                           Julietta

Teaser ISPO 2014!

                                                         

                                                                   Dear sporties,

Last Sunday, I went to the ISPO which is one of the biggest sports fair. I honestly have to say that it was the best fair I have ever gone to. EVERYWHERE all kind of sports, sports clothing, sports & gym equipment, sporty people :)

Above you see a little video which I made while visiting the different booths. I will post a more detailed report with lots of pics soon............

                                                                 Talk/Write to you soon,

     

                                                                        Love Julietta  ♥

Eat Clean with Quinoa Sushi- Dinner for 8

Here, I gave a little presentation before dinner on the advantages of quinoa;))

Yummy healthy sushi!

                                                                    Hello my dears,

time for some great, yummy and healthy cooking again:=). Two weeks ago, a lovely girlfriend of mine showed me a great recipe for making healthy sushi which she found on another blog "project for healthy living". We thought it would be a great idea to try it out as it looked really easy to make and tasty as well. I honestly always thought that making sushi is very difficult and takes a loads of time. Nonetheless, this recipe showed us differently. I also found a similar recipe in Attila Hildmann's book "Vegan for fit" which I already wrote about. Hence, I will make some kind of a summary of both recipes and tell you what I think is important. You can surely always mix using different types of vegetables, rice or quinoa depending on your taste. The sushi turned out be so easy to make & god-heavenly yummy;) that I wanted to make a larger dinner for 3 other couples which my boyfriend and I got many invites before and who are also very good cookers. So, the pressure was on:). I just used the amount of ingredients for 2 people and more or less multiplied it with 4 to serve sushi to 8 p.

Quinoa Sushi for 2 persons ( for 8 p. multiply with 4)--> everyhting bought in a bio supermarket:

• 200 g. tofu 
• 1/2 cup of quinoa
• nuts puree
• 1/2 package of nori leafs
• 2 carrots
• 1 / 4 cucumber 
• 1/2 Avocado 
• soy sauce 
• Wasabi

First of all, you boil the quinoa for appr. 20 min in hot water. On its package it is described how much water you have to use for a certain amount. While the quinoa is cooking, you cut the vegetables in long, thin pieces. If you want to have more variety you can surely add other types of veggies. Then, you shortly fry the tofu in a pan until it turns slightly brown. When the quinoa is done, you mix it with two to three tablespoons of nuts puree to add some flavour.

After that, you put the sushi roll's surface (the nori leaf) on a bamboo mat. You put the quinoa on the very front, make it flat and put some stripes on wasabi on it. On top, you put the vegetables and then roll the nori leaf into a sushi roll. After that you cut it into pieces. First sushi roll done! Isn't that easy?

Ähhh ....this is was the kitchen looked liked afterwards...

Decorating the table

Helllo everyone, here is Julietta the cook!

Is the tofu ready?

Dinner is served!

The dinner turned out to be so much fun and everyone was so sweet about it. So, I hope that you got a little inspired and kinda lost the fear to make a dinner for a huge group (everyone can do it;)).

Have a great week and tell me when you tried out that sushi or can recommend some other healthy recipe!

Love
Julietta

Anti-Aging for your hair

When I am looking for good, new hair products, I don't necessarily search in Germany but mostly in UK online shops. For some reason, I have the feeling that the latest trends are mostly introduced in the UK or United States. Nonetheless, as I was searching through some UK online shops for new hair products, I found the product above: The Anti-Aging overnight hair rescue which repairs while you sleep from Alterna. I never heard of that brand before but the overnight rescue against anti-aging sounded very appealing to me (as I already noticed some strands of grey hair!). Furthermore, I prefer overnight or leave-in conditioners as this is the easiest and least time-consuming way for me to treat my long hair. For daily use, I use the absolut repair masque by L'Oréal. It works for me but for a really deep hair treatment you have to leave the masque in longer than 2 or 3 minutes and I am never really that patient. Hence, I thought that the overnight rescue works as a good supplement. I ordered it online and received it last week.


As it can be seen in the pictures, my hair is really long and naturally dry. I colour it every three to four month which additionally damages it. Furthermore, I don't get my ends cut regularly because firstly, I'd like my hair to grow long and secondly, hair salons in Munich are very expensive and you always pay for a whole cut, also when only cutting your ends.

In addition to that, I often used a curling iron. I don't curl my hair that often anymore because it got strongly damaged. Despite using heat protecting treatments or other products, the heat will split your ends in the long-run when you have natural dry hair. At least, that has been my experience:(.




On the website of Alterna, there is a link to a YouTube Video where the product is tested and explained in detail. If you are interested for a detailled description of its ingredients, the video is very helpful and provides deep insight. In a nutshell, the masque contains mico-sized hair proteins & amino acids which deeply repair damaged hair and prevents future breakage. As I just got the product, I only used it twice yet, but I can already recommend it. First of all, the bottle looks and feels very professional and of good quality (far from cheap plastic). You only need a quarter-size small amount and apply it to your dry hair. I applied it on my whole hair but you can especially work it in the ends. Then, I made a bun and just went to bed. It didn't leave any stains on the pillows. In the morning, I used shampoo to wash it out. The result was softer hair with extra shine. I can already recommend it. Nonetheless, I will make some "after" pics in a couple of weeks, so that you can really see the difference before using the anti-aging rescue and after.

The products costs around 30 EUR (100 ml) and is available in many online stores, for example:

Germany:

• Amazon
• Hair-Shop 24

UK:

• Beautyclub
• SkinStore

USA:

• Sephora
• Real Simple

What is your favourite hair product?

                                                              A great week to you all,

                                                                    Love Julietta