Making the world more juicy!

February is national heart month and the British Heart Foundation is inviting you to join thousands of others in February to organise your own ‘red themed’ event.

They’ve even organised a National Wear Red Day on February 24^th!

Here are the main factors that contribute to a risk of heart disease, according to the British Heart Foundation:

• Smoking
• Obesity
• Not eating the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables
• Drinking more than the recommended levels of alcohol
• Having high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol levels

I would also add being physically inactive, high stress levels and a poor diet (not only NOT eating fresh fruits and veggies, but relying on processed food and caffeine.

My Mother has been recently diagnosed with high cholesterol and I’m rapidly approaching one of those milestone Birthdays – ya know, one of the ones with a zero on the end!

So I’m using National Heart Month as a wonderful excuse to increase my own fitness, improve my diet and increase awareness.

Deaths from heart and circulatory disease are falling but it remains the UK’s biggest killer. In 2009, around one in five male deaths and one in eight female deaths were from coronary heart disease.

Looking at the list of risk factors, I think there are three areas for me to focus on:

• Although I think I eat reasonably healthily, I don’t always hit the five a day for fruit and vegetables.
• I can get quite stressed and angry
• My lifestyle is too sedentary

Throughout February I’ve got some fantastic guest writers lined up to help us spread the message. They’ll be sharing their own stories, making themselves accountable and taking on challenges of their own by penning some pieces for Little Green Blog.

On a personal level, we’ve agreed, as a family to spend the month getting fitter. We’ll be digging out the trainers and tracksuits and getting out for a walk every day. We’re also going to experiment with juicing, which is one of the finest and easiest ways to improve your diet. Little Miss Green enjoys a takeaway meal once a week and she’s volunteered to donate the money she would have spent on those meals to the British Heart Foundation and has agreed to pick one week where she eats only healthy meals – what a girl!

I’ll be meditating every day throughout February to see if I can get those pesky stress hormones to take a break!

To join in with the BHF fun, we’re going to focus on RED juices to celebrate the month, so please share your favourite red juice recipes with us to try!

What about you – could you do with losing weight, improving fitness levels or increasing exercise? Let me know in the comments below!

Thanks to Philips, I’m going to get into juicing – they are sending me one of their new Avance juicers to try! Check out their Facebook page for more juicy details.