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“WITH THE SUMMER FAST APPROACHING TAKE CARE OF YOUR SKIN & ENJOY A HEALTHY PANCAKE MIX”

Hi Everyone,

Welcome back if you were here for the last couple of posts and thanks for stopping by if this is your first time.

 

This month in my blog, I will discuss:

• Skincare top tips

• Sustainability: I would love to hear from you!

• Healthy alternative ingredients: Healthy Pancake Recipe

 

And please pass along and share with any friends or family members that you think would relate to, enjoy, or be helped by any of my content.

Skincare

Skincare

As some of you may have seen, in the past weeks I proudly announced that I am participating in Eucerin Deutschland’s 2021 Spring/Summer Campaign @Eucerin_De (paid partnership). Over the next months we are going to be spreading awareness and educating the public as much as we can on the importance of skincare and how you can take care of your skin health and ultimately your overall well-being. In Germany alone there are over 220,000 new skin cancer cases every year, so I want to help make sure everyone is doing what they can to protect themselves.

Throughout my professional tennis career, I spent years following the summer around the world for 10 months of the year. I had to ensure that I took excellent care of my skin on a day-to-day basis for both health and beauty reasons and it is something I really enjoy. Normally, I would have started the year in Australia, so this year I have found my skin to be particularly sensitive compared to other years (despite the limited sunshine) because my skin has changed behaviour after not being so prepared or building up any “tolerance” to sunlight. I didn’t know that this was possible, did you? But this shows that your body is constantly changing, and everyone needs to pay attention and ensure they are taking the best care of their bodies, inside and out.

As part of my involvement with Eucerin, I have had the privilege to spend some time learning from skin care specialists and doctor’s. Personally, as skin care has always been a passion and interest of mine, I thought I had educated myself quite well in the past, but my eyes have been opened. I wanted to share with you 5 key top tips that I have learnt and may assist you on your skin care journey:

  1. Find the right product for you and your circumstances dependent on your skin type, your gender and for the scenario in which you are in the sun. For example: if you have hair on your legs and arms you need a different product than if not, if you are snowboarding you need a different solution to someone going to the beach, if you have oily or dry skin, or if you are spending a lot of the time in the water this also requires a different product. Sweat and water-resistant sun cream is very important to use when playing and competing in outdoor sports. Your local pharmacy will be able to help advise, which products are right for you.
  2. Apply enough sunscreen to your body and reapply: This may surprise you but as a reference, a 1.8 metre man needs sun cream in the amount equivalent to the size of golf ball, if he is in swimming trunks and no shirt. The amount for a shorter female will naturally be less, but this is still a fairly large amount. You also need to check the sunscreen bottle that you are using and reapply in the timeframe that it directs to you. New fun fact that I learnt: sun protection doesn’t start deteriorating until you are outside in the sunlight, so this is your when your clock starts, not actually if you were inside for a period of time after applying the sun cream.  
  3. Apply cream correctly & cover all areas: this may sound like common sense however, any part of your body that isn’t covered by clothing has to be covered in sun protection. Eucerin completed a study with a group of men and women, who applied sunscreen and then UV light was used to gather evidence on how well the group applied the sun cream across their body. On average 9% of the body surface was not covered by sunscreen by the women and 13% was not covered by men, meaning these areas would be subject to sun damage. Some specific areas that a lot of people tend to forget are feet, or back, and swimsuit area. Use a spray for the back area so you can get extra reach, and the advice from doctors is to apply indoors without any wind or breeze, so it goes specifically in the area your body needs and not across the beach or tennis court ;-).
  4. Expect the unexpected: Firstly, even if the sun isn’t blaring it doesn’t mean you skin isn’t soaking up sun radiation and consequently sun damage if you have not applied the correct protection. Secondly, which is a complete misconception, is that just because you don’t suffer from sun burn doesn’t mean you aren’t subject to sun damage and skin cancer.
  5. For German-based readers: In Germany, free skin cancer screenings are covered by insurance, normally for the age of 30+ and sometimes earlier, so please make sure you are making the most of that offering with your local provider. Currently, not even 1/3 of the German population are taking up this opportunity and it is really easy, uncomplicated and doesn’t hurt. (Note: I cannot advise or speak to how these screenings process works outside of Germany.)

If you have any specific questions during the next months, please reach out and I will try my best to work with the specialists and give you the information you need.

Health & Mindfulness

Health & Mindfulness

This has been a common theme so far across my recipes, and again this month I am putting an emphasis on using alternative, healthier ingredients. In the pancake mix recipe below, I have used a combination of spelt and buckwheat flour instead of regular flour, as they can be more easily digested and have a wealth of fabulous nutrients. I also use almond milk instead of regular milk to cut down the amount of dairy I consume in my diet. Personally, I like to use natural sugar in my pancake mix, but it is not necessary if you want to eliminate it completely and are ok with your pancake mixture to not be so sweet. You can also substitute the sugar with maple syrup, but I save that for on top ;)

This pancake mix recipe can make a great filling breakfast to start your day off right with a selection of fruits or can make a tasty sweet dessert topped with maple syrup and vegan dark chocolate drops. One other thing to mention is, that if you like to have protein shakes, you can add your daily protein powder into the pancake mixture for some variety in a post-workout meal/snack.
 

Healthy recipe: Spelt Buckwheat Pancakes (for 2 people):

What you need

  • 1 Mixer
  • A Shaker
  • A pan

Pancake Ingredients

  • 80 grams of spelt flour
  • 100g buckwheat flour
  • 2 teaspoons of baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons of vanilla sugar
  • 3 pinches of ground cardamom (alternatively a mix of cinnamon and nutmeg)
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon of coconut oil
  • 180g of almond milk

Pancake Toppings:
These are my recommended toppings, but you can add whatever you personally like :-)

  • Maple syrup (to taste)
  • Vegan chocolate cream hazelnut (to taste)
  • Vegan dark chocolate drops
  • Coconut chips
  • Raspberries
  • Strawberries
  • Sliced banana

Instructions

  1. Add the spelt and buckwheat flour into the blending bowl
  2. Measure and combine the baking powder, vanilla sugar and cardamom (or cinnamon + nutmeg) into the blending bowl
  3. Mix all ingredients well
  4. Add the egg, almond milk and coconut oil and blend well
  5. Heat the pan on the stove
  6. Melt a small amount of coconut oil in the pan
  7. Depending on your preference (size, thickness) add the pancake batter to the pan
  8. Fry one side of the pancake for approximately 1-2 minutes and turn over the pancake and finish the other side for approximately 1-2 minutes.
  9. Serve with healthy toppings of your choice

P.S. Make sure that your Almond Milk is unsweetened to get the best nutritional benefits. Sweetened almond milk contains about 7g of sugar. Last month I also used almond milk, a great milk alternative, as an ingredient in my tasty raspberry smoothie recipe here >>

Sustainability

Sustainability

After travelling around the world for my career, I understand the negative effects that this had on the environment over the years, and the carbon footprint I consequently created. I now try to make a conscious effort to make small positive choices every day to help the environment, or at least offset any negative effects that I have. I believe that if everyone made good planet-conscious choices every day, no matter how tiny they may seem, significant progress would be made.

This month, I will be joining a live panel with some amazing women and one of the discussion points will be sustainability. I already know that for next month’s blog I will be inspired and will want to dig a little bit deeper into this topic so, it would be great to hear from some of you in the meantime to highlight companies that are leading the way in helping the environment.

Let me know your favourite eco-friendly companies in any industry (food, clothing, jewellery, tech etc.), or what you like to do as your part for planet Earth and I will take the time to research and feature some next month. Please send an email to: sanderssportsconsulting@gmail.com and I will be sure to look over all of them!

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Julia Görges

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