I’ve posted about my adventures in juice cleansing many times over the years, and about this time last year I told you about my experience with the Nutriseed 5:2 Club.
(Just to be clear BTW, I was a customer of Nutriseed for several years before joining their ambassador program, so when I talk about these products it’s a mixture of stuff I’ve bought and stuff I’ve been sent to try out. The links are affiliate, but I also have an exclusive code at the bottom of this post that will save you a bit of money.)
Today I’ve got an update for you about how I’ve got on since then and what’s new in the juicing world. But first, a recap:
Nutriseed 5:2 – what is it?
I’m sure you’ve heard of the original 5:2 diet: a type of intermittent fasting, involving two very low calorie days folded into five days of normal eating.
Essentially what Nutriseed have done with their 5:2 club is to assign the two low cal days as juice days. Your week then consists of two non-consecutive juicing days, and the other 5 are business as usual.
So there’s no calorie counting or other faff involved, and most of the week you just eat whatever you would normally eat. Simply store the juices in your freezer until you need them, then put 5 in the fridge the night before you want to use them.
My Nutriseed 5:2 update
The short version is – I’ve been doing Nutriseed 5:2 off and on for about 10 months now and I have lost and kept off just over a stone, gone down a dress size and am firmly at a healthy BMI. If I wasn’t in my 50s then I’m sure it would’ve been more, but given that at this stage of life you only have to inhale outside a bakery to put on 3lb, it feels like a major achievement.
I didn’t lose weight every week, and sometimes I would stay on a plateau for quite a while. But once lost, I haven’t put anything back on, and that includes holidays, nights out, takeaways and all the usual stuff that tends to knock you off track.
Non scale benefits
Ultimately for me the bigger benefits haven’t been about weight – the biggest change is how much my sleep and energy levels have improved.
One of my perimenopause symptoms was broken sleep. I would often wake at 3am with a hot flush and a whirring mind. Really, not what you want at 3am. It’s so much better now. I found that in particular I would sleep really well after my two juice days, and then wake up feeling full of energy the next day.
Then that starting to happen on other nights too, until now when my sleep is generally solidly good. And my energy levels are pretty bouncy too. I suspect that at least part of that is to do with all the water I’ve been drinking alongside the juices. Lots of water and a decent night’s sleep would perk anybody up.
I’ve also really enjoyed being a part of the Nutriseed community, via their and the Facebook group. When you join the 5:2 club you get access to a fantastic, supportive Facebook group. Sometimes I think that I came for the juices but stayed for the community. They’re a great bunch of people.
I know I’m kind of gushing about it now, but it really has been life changing.
Soup and juice time!
The reason I wanted to do this update now is for anyone who might be thinking of getting into a juicing 5:2 plan, but doesn’t fancy the idea of cold juices in the winter – the big news is, it now comes with added soup. Each juice day consists of 5 x 250ml bottles, chosen from a line up of 8 juices and 1 soup.
So this is what my juice days have consisted of this week:
And BTW, it’s not a soup, but that brown one on the right contains almonds, dates, cacao powder and cinnamon and is a dead ringer for chocolate milk. Never thought I’d be having chocolate milk on a juice day but there you go. Some people heat it up so it’s like hot chocolate. Maybe I could add brandy to it for Christmas? Possibly not quite in the spirit but it’s a thought…
At the moment there is only one soup available for the 5:2 plan – Tomato and Basil – but there are more flavours on their way. I’ve had a preview of one of them and it was delicious. They’re all plant based/vegan. I’ll update here when they’re available.
I had done a soup and juice cleanse a few years ago with another company. I think it was two soups a day plus three juices. This was when I would do a juice cleanse once or twice a year to clean the pipes. Anyway, my experience then and now has been that it’s much, much easier (and let’s face it, a bit less boring) than a juice-only cleanse.
The Tomato and Basil is lush. Really fresh and filling and a bit garlicky.
Product details
The soup and juices shown here are part of the 5:2 club choices, which you can find out more about from the Nutriseed website here. The Nutriseed 5:2 club works as a subscription (which you can cancel at any time), with a choice of 1, 2 or 4 week dispatch. Plans start from £29.99 per week – find out more here. Use my exclusive discount code JOANNE10 to get 10% off.