Info all Articles

Next week it will be 1 year since I had a nasty cold! This is a pretty spectacular thing for me, in the past I used to get regular colds and at least twice a year they would be really nasty ones – I particularly suffered from bad head colds and I hated them! Since I started to clean up my diet and exercise better the number of colds I’ve had has reduced significantly, and as I said, it has been a year since I can recall having one!

Does anyone else find that when the Christmas holidays come round (or any holiday for that matter) that they come down with a cold or other illness? I think that for me, a mix of my body being able to relax, late nights, alcohol and eating a little less than stellar seems to leave me more susceptible to colds and bugs.

I’m absolutely determined to avoid getting ill this year and it must have been fate as last week I was sent this amazing box of goodies from The New Zealand Honey Company:

I reviewed one of their honey’s here, and I was very impressed. This kit is full of natural products that are renowned for enhancing your immunity. It includes:

• Garlic
• Ground ginger
• Dried Blueberries
• Lemon Juice
• Lavender Oil
• Peppermint tea
• Thyme Honey
• Beechwood Honey Dew Honey
• Manuka Honey

The honeys included in the kit are more potent than the honey in the squeeze bottles – these all have high levels of pre biotics and antioxidants as well as having anti bacterial properties. I’m really looking forward to using all these goodies and hopefully they will help to keep me fit and well over the holidays. I tend to try and avoid taking drugs and painkillers unless I’m feeling extremely poorly, so having some natural alternatives is great. In addition to using these I’ll be sticking with some of my tried and tested methods for keeping colds at bay:

• Keep my intake of fruit and vegetables high – Over the holiday period I’m going to make an effort to make sure that I still eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables (including a good proportion of them raw) – this will not only benefit my immunity but will also help to stop me feeling sugared out!
• Keep starting my day with warm water and lemon – and add some of that honey!
• If I feel like I’m coming down with a cold I usually try and make a pre emptive strike by taking a Berroca tablet, Emergen-C sachet or other evanescent vitamin C:

When I’m wanting to boost my immunity I also enjoy lots of my garlic filled Leek, White Bean and Greens soup, green smoothies and I drink hot water with fresh lemon juice, grated ginger root and honey. 

Yesterday morning I got up feeling a bit yuck so I added some of the Thyme Honey to my usual pre workout banana snack and my usual warm water and lemon juice:

The honey tasted good and has an almost medicinal flavour. Fingers crossed I won’t end up with a full blown cold!

I’ll properly review those honey’s when I’ve used them for a while to see if I do feel they have supported my immunity. Here’s hoping to an illness free festive season!

How do you look after your immune system? Do you prefer natural remedies to drugs? What are you doing to try and stay healthy this winter?