BEYOND THE CLEANSE
Nourishing your skin and looking after your body is a lifelong journey.
You did it! Take a moment to congratulate yourself for completing this week of cleansing, healing and well-being rituals.
By now you will have learnt some new recipes and hopefully a whole new way to think about cooking and preparing healthy meals. You have kicked some bad habits and begun the process of establishing beautiful well-being rituals that care for your skin and your soul. You will be enjoying the physical, mental and emotional benefits that are the reward of those who dedicate themselves to the Bestow Cleanse or Love Your Gut programme.
And, of course, the big question is:
What now?
How can you let this experience be a turning point in your wellbeing journey?
How can you build on what you have learnt over these seven days?
How can you carry this new wisdom into your everyday life?
We have compiled some tips, strategies and resources to help you to continue to live the Bestow way beyond the cleanse.
Don’t Go Crazy!
After a week of cleansing and low sugar you should find that your cravings for sugar and processed foods are significantly reduced or gone altogether. Continue to be kind to your body and don’t trick yourself into thinking that you ‘deserve’ a wine and chocolate binge. Chances are, you will not enjoy the alcohol as much as you think you might, as you will be more sensitive to how alcohol affects your body. Furthermore, if you re-introduce processed foods and sugar into your diet the sugar-chimps in your brain will start demanding more. There’s research that suggests sugar is as addictive as cocaine – need we say more! Continue to work in harmony with your body, befriending it and loving it with kindness, wellness and wisdom.
Introduce New Foods Slowly
Once you’ve completed your week of cleansing, you can start to introduce more variety into your diet. Try introducing one new food or beverage at a time (i.e. dairy, gluten, nuts, grains) and observe the way your body feels and reacts to those foods. It is the perfect opportunity to identify foods that don’t serve you well, which you might not have been aware of before.
COOKING AHEAD
Prepare some Bestow Breakfasts for the Week Ahead
Make it easy for yourself to begin each day well by pre-preparing some healthy Bestow breakfasts. What could you cook and put in the freezer? Which breakfast recipe do you want to make part of your regular routine?
Create Some Lunch Bowl Elements
Create some Lunch Bowl basics for your fridge this week so you can easily assemble healthy lunch bowls with whatever vegetables and protein you have in your fridge. Review the meal-planner and select a few recipes or elements to make this week.
Make Your Favourite Dinner Recipes Again
Consider choosing a few favourite dinner recipes from your Bestow programme and make them again this week. Repeating them will embed them in your memory and grow your confidence with making that particular recipe. Which two Bestow dinner recipes would you like to try again this week?
Continue to Avoid Heating and Congesting Foods
Continue to avoid foods that heat and congest the skin, such as alcohol, coffee, refined grains, saturated fats and sugar. By this stage, you’ll be feeling lighter and more energised (and your skin should reflect that too), so hopefully you’ll find it comes naturally to continue eating well.
CHECK OUT THE BESTOW RECIPE BOOKS
The Bestow Recipe Books are your new best friends for continuing your healthy way of living.
The five Bestow Recipe Books are all designed with skin health in mind. Each one is gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free and avoids all heating and congesting foods. This means all the hard work is done for you. Instead of focussing on what you can’t eat, you can freely enjoy what you can eat.
SAVOUR
Our latest recipe book brings to your kitchen a nutritious and tasty collection of one-dish savoury meals which celebrate organic, locally-grown, seasonal vegetables. This recipe book has an abundance of lunch and dinner recipes and is the perfect Bestow book to add to your kitchen repertoire following the Bestow Cleanse.
BESTOW WITHIN I
The first recipe book in the Bestow ranges provides easy ways to help you incorporate Bestow Beauty products into healthy everyday recipes. It comes with a comprehensive introduction, which introduces the concept of eating for skin health and provides information about heating and congesting foods and their alternatives.
BESTOW WITHIN II
A helpful complement to Bestow Within I, this book offers a wider repertoire of tasty skin-safe recipes. It contains lots of warming, nutritious meals for the cooler months and some of our favourite recipes!
BESTOW TREATS I & II
Check out Bestow Treats I and II for some healthy treats that will care for your skin and satisfy your cravings with delicious, nutritious ingredients. Remember though, un-refined sugars are still sugars, so eat these in moderation, and as treats, not as part of your everyday food choices.
YOUR BESTOW SKIN NUTRITION BOOSTERS
Continue Your Daily Bestow Smoothie Ritual
The Bestow Smoothie Ritual is one of the most powerful parts of the Bestow Cleanse because of the significant contribution it makes towards meeting your nutrient RDI’s each day.
Continue this daily ritual to nourish beautiful, glowing skin from within and to enhance your well-being. Feel free to experiment with the best time of day to have it. Make it work for you. If you make it fresh and put it in an air-tight container, it will keep for several hours un-refrigerated and up to a day in the fridge – great for a snack on the run.
How to Replace Your Bestow Products When They Run Out
If you bought your Bestow Cleanse Pack from your beauty therapist, we encourage you to continue to check in with your therapist and to purchase Bestow products from their clinic. Bestow therapists have a wealth of knowledge about Bestow products and can provide customised advice.
To find a Bestow stockist and skincare therapist near you, please visit the Stockists page on the Bestow website.
If you do not have a stockist in your area, you can purchase products directly from the Bestow Online Shop.
Increase Your Dosage of Bestow Gut Love + Powder
If you tend to have a sluggish digestive system or regularly experience bloating and flatulence, we encourage you to purchase Bestow Gut Love + powder so you can continue to include it in your Bestow Smoothie each day. This is particularly important if you struggle with acne and congested skin, as efficient elimination is vital for clearing the toxins and waste hormones that can contribute to these skin challenges.
Increase your daily dosage from one teaspoon of Bestow Gut Love + powder to one tablespoon over several weeks*. (Simply increase the amount you put in your Bestow Smoothie). One tablespoon is the ideal amount, but we start with one teaspoon to help your digestive system to adjust gently.
One tablespoon includes a high amount of fibre and it is important to ensure that you drink 6-8 glasses of water during the day to avoid constipation. Fibre needs water to function properly in your body.
* If you have just completed the one week Bestow Love Your Gut Programme, consider continuing on and doing the Four Week Gut Healing Programme. Repeat the 7-day meal planner four times and increase the dosage of your Bestow products according to the pattern outlined in the Bestow Love Your Gut Smoothie.
FEATURED BESTOW PRODUCTS
Bestow Beauty Oil
Moisturises your skin from within. Rich in EFA’s, it helps to clear congestion, makes your skin feel soft, smooth and velvety and gives it a natural, luminous glow.
Bestow Beauty Plus Oil
Is a booster version of Bestow Beauty Oil, providing extra nutritional support during times of stress of ill health.
Bestow Love Your Gut +
Restores the gut and renews the skin with a world-class probiotic to rebalance the microbiome and fibre-rich superfoods to promote elimination of toxins.
TIPS FOR HEALTHY EATING
Plan your meals in advance.
Plan what you are going to eat ahead of time to avoid making snap decisions when you are hungry or tired. Make sure you have healthy snacks available to take the edge off your hunger and avoid fluctuations in blood sugar levels.
Eat at the same time each day.
Create a regular rhythm of daily meal-times. Your body likes to be able to predict when you will eat and to prepare the digestive system ahead of time. Be kind to your digestive system by eating your evening meal before 8pm and by eating only until you are 80% full at each meal. Having regular meal-times helps to regulate your blood-sugar and prevents you reaching for quick-energy food.
Eating on the run
Containers of dried fruit, nuts and seeds make handy, portable snacks which you can keep in the car or in your hand-bag. Fresh fruit can also be a good stop-gap.
Watch your portion sizes.
Portion sizes have snuck up in size over the past few decades. Our grandmothers ate from a plate almost half the size of modern plates! To maintain a healthy weight, remember these simple hints for portion size:
– A snack should be no larger than the size of your fist.
– Main meals should be no more than two fist sizes of your concentrated food (proteins and carbohydrates). Add as many salad greens or non-starch vegetables as you can.
Continue to Care
It is not only the changes you have made to your eating that are important to sustain, but also the well-being rituals for your skincare, self-care and soul-care. Often it is these things that are the first to fall by the wayside when life gets a little busy. But that is often when you need the rituals all the more! The Bestow Beautiful Breathing Ritual, in particular is a simple but powerful way of supporting your physical and mental health during times of stress.
We encourage you to continue to look after your skin with the three Daily Skincare Rituals, and to integrate the soul-care rituals into your life.
Your Daily Skincare Rituals
Self-Care + Soul-Care Daily Rituals
Check out the blog-post, ‘My Beautiful Day’ to see how the rituals can fit within the rhythm of one day.
Have a Question?
Post your question in The Bestow Cleanse Community Facebook Group and Jenny will respond. You’re probably not the only one wondering about it and others will benefit from the discussion. Alternatively, you can email your question to Jenny directly on hello@bestowbeauty.com.
