Lockdown Newsletter – Week 2

We couldn’t love you guys more if we tried. These past few days we’ve been blown away by your resilience, your willingness to adapt, your support of each other, your strength and your ability to focus on the positives and smile.

We’ve truly felt the value and power of our community and just how important human connection is. We’ve loved seeing you embrace this new challenge and how you’ve pulled together to raise each other up, support each other and keep us all going.

We’ve also loved how inventive you’ve been, from weights made out of cat litter, cats, pans full of utensils, bricks and babies to WODs on a boat, in the park, in your bedrooms and kitchens! It’s made our days seeing how you tackle the Home and Zoom WODs!

We’ve also had our first Valesco coffee morning, pub quiz and Ready Steady Cook with Coach C.. is it just us or is your virtual social calender busier than your normal one?!

We’ve also absolutely loved all your posts in the Facebook group, please keep them coming and if you’re new to us and not yet in the group let us know and we’ll make sure you’re included.

If you’d like to contribute to our Lockdown newsletters please, please do email us . In the meantime grab a brew, and enjoy this weeks edition of the Valesco newsletter.

NUTRITION WITH VIKI

At this time of uncertainty, with the coronavirus pandemic escalating, the possibility of an uncertain amount of time self-isolating and a lot of questions left unanswered, we thought that on top of the hygiene tips which we receive from the Department of Health, we would provide a positive, easy and effective way to support and boost your immune system in each edition of the Valesco newsletter.

This is general advice, not intended to replace any advice given by the NHS or health professionals.

Let’s kick off with…

GUT HEALTH

A whopping 70% of the immune system is located in our gastrointestinal tract aka the GUT. The gut is populated by beneficial bacteria (think the stuff that’s advertised in pots of Yakult), collectively called the microbiome. These little guys play an essential role in defence again pathogens, metabolism and the formation of nutrients that have antioxidant and immune enhancing properties.

In short, our gut health is key to supporting our immune system and our microbiome is our own internal army so to speak. Part of its’ role is as security team to our intestinal wall, contributing significantly to its barrier function. It achieves this through space occupation (crowding out the bad stuff), secretion of anti-microbial chemicals and supporting gut integrity.

So how can we boost our own gut health and in turn support our own immunity?

Regularly eat probiotic-rich food: kefir, natural yogurt, fermented vegetables such as sauerkraut and kimchi and drink kombucha. You can now readily get these foods from the supermarket and good news they have a great shelf life. If your feeling more adventurous you can have a go making them yourself. Recipe’s coming soon!

Feed the microbiome with fibre-rich foods (aim for 20g per day) such as cruciferous veg (cauli, broccoli, cabbage etc), onions, garlic, leeks, flaxseeds and whole grains.

Keep your intestinal wall happy and healthy. At a mere 1-cell thick, if it gets damaged, it will allow pathogenic bacteria and foreign organisms into your bloodstream. Your gut bacteria protect your mucosal wall but on top of this, a diet rich in micronutrients and amino acids maintain the integrity of this delicate wall. Vegetable and bone broths are packed with healing amino acid L-glutamine maintain its health helping reduce inflammation and stops unwanted particles passing through this one cell thick barrier.

Be happy to keep your microbiome happy! One of the ways friendly bacteria works is to crowd out unwanted bacteria. But if you have a poor diet and lifestyle their colonise will reduce in size. Stress, sugar, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, smoking all have a damaging effect, so try and keep to a minimum. Your microbiome is also affected by over training so make sure you aren’t overdoing it and get plenty of rest and sleep!

COFFEE MORNING WITH AMY

This coming Wednesday, Amy is hosting a coffee break over Zoom 11am.

Why? Because as of Wednesday she’s taking some time out of the 9 to 5 lifestyle and is concerned about no longer having a routine. She’ll be asking the question, ‘How do we have a routine, when there is very little to have a routine about?’
If you’re in this boat or think you can help please come and join her for a coffee and a chat or if you just fancy a chinwag, all welcome.

HEADS UP!

If you’re looking to take Facetime to the next level, we highly recommend a game of Heads Up. Download the app and have hours of naming celebs, your best accent attempts and signing! Enjoy!!!

6 week Lockdown Nutrition Programme

6 week Nutrition education programme! FREE! 100% FREE!

If you want to treat it like a challenge either to avoid getting fluffy during lock down, build some guns or lose a little fluff then 100% you can do this! Or, if you want to learn a little more about food, learn some new techniques, enjoy making some fun & interesting food or you just want to diversify your current routine then this programme is for you! More details about this and how it is going to work will be released later this week so watch this space….

COACHES CORNER

Ready, Steady, Coooook- Coach C’s Hummus Recipe

If you missed Coach C on Facebook Live this week, where were you?! His heavenly humous recipe is below:

1 tin chick peas or cannelloni or berlotti Beans..

I clove garlic

I teaspoon tahini

As much virgin olive oil as you like

Juice of half a lemon or lime

Optional chili powder to taste or Chipotle paste.

Salt and pepper to taste

Optional paprika and parsley or mint to garnish.

Blitz all up in a food processor, taste and add more of what ever you like to your taste. Serve with warm flat bread or Crudités or both.

If you have it Garnish with stripes of molasses and pomegranate seeds and mint, this will give you full affect and taste. Enjoy

DI'S HEALTHY FLAPJACK

Servings:12
Calories: 130 kcal

Ingredients
3 large bananas
175 g any dried fruit you have, I also added some walnuts I found in the cupboard
180g oats
1 tsp ground mixed spice/cinnamon
1 pinch salt
2 eggs

Instructions
Preheat oven to 180c/Gas 4
Mash bananas in a bowl
Stir in everything else, mix it up and let it stand for 15 minutes. Tip mixture into a greased 8″ square baking tray.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown on top

Until Next Time, Big Love Team Valesco xxx

Save The Date

Save the date – ISOLATION STYLE!

We’ve got lots more up our sleeves to keep you guys connected and beat the boredom. Some of the things we have coming up are:

Book Club
Paint your pet
Lockdown bake-off
Step count challenge
The ‘school science’ project challenge
Specialist classes – DU workshop, Weightlifting technique class, Mobility classes and a Banded Bro sesh
Bi- weekly Quiz – next quiz night 08/03/2020
Weekly ‘Ready Steady cook’ with Charlie

If there’s anything else you’d like to see us host, please do get in touch!

Who Wore It Best

ISO-STYLING!

Geertje and Becky doing us proud, twinning whilst homewodding! You’ve got no excuses guys, send us pics of you twinning with your pets, partners or on Facetime/Zoom!