Guest Author: Liberty Mills
We spoke to Liberty Mills about how Nuzest has supported her over the past two years. Liberty is a Certified Integrative Health and Nutrition Coach, a mum of 2 and a huge advocate of ours.
In 2018, aged 44, I found out that I was pregnant! It was incredible news, particularly as I had been told earlier that year by a leading European IVF clinic that my partner and I had less than one percent chance of conceiving with my own eggs (even with the assistance of IVF!) The clinic were so confident of failure that they told us that it would be unethical of them as a medical team to take our money and I should use my own ageing reserve of eggs, as the chances of success were so low.
So now, not only was I studying to become a Certified Health Coach, while balancing a busy mediation job in London but I had also just added the sole responsibility of producing a perfectly formed baby in my “geriatric” body - geriatric being the name given by medics to women who are pregnant age 35 and over. I was eager to nourish my body and create as much balance as possible, making my body a strong and productive machine to grow a healthy baby while protecting and supporting myself along the way. It sounds a simple quest. However it was as a taller order than I had initially anticipated with many vitamins and supplements having added bulking agents that I did not want to put in my body while pregnant. Many of the powdered supplements were filled with sugar alternatives to make them more palatable, none of which I wanted to consume, especially the sugar or sweeteners, as on my course I was being given lectures on how too much sugar negatively influences the unborn babies development of their own microbiome and also their skin, with it being increasingly common that babies are being born with issues such as cradle cap and infantile eczema.
In my second trimester I was low on energy due to having to endure a three hour daily round commute on the tube and not always getting a seat even with my “baby on board badge”… Add to that 30 hours of study a week to complete my course and the physical demands of growing a baby and you can imagine how hard going it was. I am a pescatarian, but I was having less and less fish in my diet due to the smell of certain fishes and my over active sense of smell not being compatible. I knew I needed to do something quickly. Over a cup of herbal tea, I discussed my energy quandary with a friend and she suggested Nuzest Clean Protein. I ordered one of the functional flavours - The Chai Turmeric Maca flavour and while I was online I spotted Good Green Vitality, also by Nuzest and added it to my basket on a whim. I knew greens were full of iron and hoped it would give me a boost. That click on an off chance saved me in so many ways.
I’m a huge advocate and loyal consumer of algae’s. I have been taking spirulina and chlorella daily, for about 10 years. I also knew the importance of lowering over active inflammation in my body, due to reversing my own symptoms of the autoimmune disease Lupus a few years ago and Good Green Vitality had many anti inflammatory ingredients in it, that I wasn’t already taking. I may have now become marker free from Lupus, but I knew traumas like giving birth could activate a flare of Lupus in some women, so I was very passionate about creating a safe heaven in my body, not only for my baby, but for me and also my family. At the time I had a whole shelf in my cupboard, dedicated to vitamins and minerals that were safe to take during pregnancy. However, if the truth be told, I didn’t always take them all. Sometimes I simply forgot where I was up to and which had I just taken and which were left to take, or I simply couldn’t be bothered to go through them all.
When Good Green Vitality came into my life it solved the issue of what to take and when as it included ALL my usual algae and vitamins and minerals, but had the added benefit of over 65 other active ingredients too! All I needed to do was scoop once and add water! Even my partner got on board as in his own words “it didn’t taste like pond life”, like my smoothies did, that I attempted to smuggle spirulina in for him….
An extra bonus I found with the Good Green Vitality was that it curbed my cravings for sugar. Within a week I was no longer dreaming about another square of dark chocolate or disappearing into the kitchen to make another pear crumble, as now I was naturally energised. I was passionate and determined to reduce my consumption of refined sugar and in the last trimester I managed to go 32 days without any refined sugar and didn’t even miss it.
Good Green Vitality became my secret weapon in my last two trimesters of pregnancy and I believe it aided me in getting perfect bloods every time I had them taken at the hospital and lessened the normal pregnancy curses of cramps and constipation. The day after Ulnai was born I was exhausted. Seven hours of labour pain relief free was hard work and I had two huge glasses of Good Green Vitality as soon as I got home. It was like my body was crying out to be replenished. Now the baby was born I knew how crucial is was to support my body in its recovery and meet the demands of breast-feeding, broken sleep and the re balance of my hormones in those hazy days and weeks that follow when women are in a vulnerable place emotionally and physically.
Ulani has just recently turned one and is a very energetic and curious girl with her crawling at high speed and learning to walk. Toddlers are fun, but also hard work. And that means I always have to be two steps ahead of her. I had twenty two years between the births of both my daughters and my life is very different now to back when it was when I was in my 20s with my first daughter and I was living a relaxed life, a stones throw away from the beach in South Africa. I’m now four years away from turning the big five O, busy running my own health coaching business and live in the hills of Yorkshire that beg to to be walked daily, even in the rain. I cook all my meals from scratch. Most of my food is grown locally, but I still need that extra support in my diet for the demands of life. So now I take the Good Green Vitality. I love it.
Not only does it keep me ahead of Ulani and on track with my clients, but it has made a huge difference to my hair and nails and my love life. Due to having Lupus a lot of my hair fell out and I chose to wear a wig due to the alopecia being so wide spread over my head. But after taking taking Good Green Vitality for a year and a half daily, now my hair has come back like its on a mission to be seen and I’m now able to wear my hair out and be wig free!
My nails too have taken a new front row seat. They were often ridged and brittle, due not only to the Lupus attacking me, but the immune suppressant drugs I was taking for years. My nails would split and flake and I didn’t see the whites of my nails for years. Now I have to cut them back as they get too long.And yes my love life! Being a parent is rewarding, but it’s also demanding and tiring. With not only having to be constantly alert in the day, but then failing to get good quality, unbroken sleep at night due to the baby perhaps moving into their own room or having yet another bout of teething… We the parents so often just fall into bed, or fall asleep on the sofa. My partner notices when I have ran out of my 'Good Green Happy Juice' as he calls it as I do have more super early nights, compared to when I am stocked up I have the energy to have more adult me time in the evening and have fun, play cards, watch a whole movie, rather than have to watch it in two halves over two days.
Good Green Vitality for me, not only supported my pregnancy, my birth and my endurance in labour, the active ingredients in this powder aided my recover from labour, helped create a happy healthy peachy skin baby and now keeps my energy up, without my body being spiked and therefore I have no crash and it supports my social life too. I literally don’t think I will ever be without it. Even if I ever did decide to not take it, my partner would beg me to get back on the Green Happy Juice “as he can see the difference it makes to me in side and out” and therefore our life and our family!"
Liberty's Website: www.integrativeliberty.co.uk
Liberty's Instagram: @mills.liberty
