Can you believe that tomorrow, Wednesday, will be the longest day of the year? It’s mid-summer already and on Sunday when I returned from dropping a client off at Evesham train station, the temperature was 31* outside! It’s been a hot week and absolutely, definitely summer weather. How do you cope in the heat? Being half Latin, I find it brings me to life and I become very activated!

So what happens in heat? We sweat.
What happens when we sweat? Our body releases salty liquids from our sweat glands to help us cool down.
When we lose liquids and salt what happens?
We dehydrate.

Now, more than ever, is the time to stay hydrated.

How do we replace our water and salts to avoid headaches and lethargy in summer heat?
By drinking enough water and non-sugar/alcohol/sweetener/caffeinated drinks for our body weight and by eating nature’s solutions for this time of year – foods high in water and electrolytes (the salts we lose when we sweat) like:

Watermelons, cucumbers, sunflower shoots, tomatoes, corn on the cob, beetroots, apples, carrots, green beans and many other things that the garden is just beginning to offer us right now!
I’m heading home for Washington state today and look forward to US watermelons which weigh on average 20-25lbs (9-11kg) each. As a girl, we would get through a whole watermelon every week as a family, and I can guarantee that there will be a watermelon in the fridge when I get to my parents next week!

Watermelon is one of the four alkaline fruit (lemons, limes, grapefruits are the others). So here’s a great recipe, if you haven’t tried this already.

[If you are avoiding all sugars, then cucumbers are your friend both as a base for salads, smoothies and juices.]

Watermelon Salad
Watermelon cubes
Lightly toasted pine nuts (to bring out the flavour which is important in this salad)
Feta cheese cubes (avoid if you’re vegan)
Lots of chopped up basil and/or watercress (some people use mint)
Lime to drizzle and garnish

How you do it
Toss together the ingredients in the proportions you prefer (use LOTS of pine nuts) and drizzle with olive oil before serving. This is a meal on it’s own because of the fat from the nuts, feta and olive oil which will signal satisfaction to the brain.

Last week in the detox, as you can imagine, there was a great emphasis on cellulite loss in preparation for upcoming summer holidays. We saw phenomenal results and had very happy clients going home after only 5 days with inch-loss from waists and thighs. What’s the secret?

Skin brushing and our cellulite wrap kit combined with sweating it out in our full spectrum infrared sauna! To find out more and buy click here.

During the first week of our June detox, the weather was very rain-shine-rain-shine so instead of watching all the peonies in the garden rot, I decided to cut and bring them all in to the house. There is nothing more luxurious than peony bouquets and my experience of them is that the flowers don’t last long in the vase before they drop their petals. [So much so, that I wrote a poem about this in 2012 as part of a National Trust garden commission.] Anyway, I fully expected to be cleaning up piles of peony petals around the house the next day but would you believe, it never happened!

The peonies opened fully and stayed opened in the vases for days before finally drying on their stalks! They never shed their petals and in the end, we just pulled them out of the arrangements!

Why the Peony Power? It’s the Grander water!

Last October, we had Grander water plumbed into the mains of Milestone so that all the taps, baths and showers had Grander water flowing through them. We continue to stand the water carafes on the Grander boards because the longer water is in contact with the Grander boards, the more revitalised it becomes. So if the Grander water makes the peonies keep in their vases, just imagine what it will do for you in this heat?!

If you don’t already own and use a Grander product, please get in touch to learn more, we would be happy to supply you this summer.

So, as I mentioned, we finished June detoxes on Sunday and I’m off now to take my post-GCSE son back to Washington state for 3 weeks of outdoor adventure and visiting family. Upon my return, I’m going to film the rest of our TMD workshops to put online so that all our clients can refresh their memories and answer those, “how do you do that again, Helena?” questions! We’ve been having a workshop from 9-10am in the kitchen each morning whilst we drink our 9am green juice and plaster our faces with either wheatgrass foam or bentonite clay for some good fun and inspirational learning.