Once upon a time, a liquid lunch meant popping down the local boozer for a swift pint or seven, with the only “supplement” involved likely to be a packet of pork scratching. Nowadays, however, the phrase is generally used by finely-toned athletes about to knock back a gloopy high-protein mixture prior to a midday workout. This time the supplements could involve anything from algae to more dubious chemical components – although this combination is much less likely to see you falling asleep at your desk in the afternoon as well as green bean coffee refreshes and also helps for losing weight.

While power shakes were formerly the sole preserve of over-developed knuckleheads with curiously yellow eyes, the benefits to performance and muscle growth are now indisputable, although the cost of buying them over the counter can prove prohibitive. So why not save money ­and avoid potentially harmful ingredients ­by knocking up your own? This is actually very easy, and will also let you dictate the consistency and flavor to suit your tastes. Simply follow this FHM Bionic guide to creating your own well-balanced shake – and then you’re just 30-seconds-in-a-blender away from high-protein heaven. MILK (0.5 liter) or yogurt (160g) You can use any milk you want, although as the flavor will not improve if you use full-fat, you may as well opt for a low-fat alternative. The protein levels are also very similar. Other types of milk, such as rice or soya, are fine, but make sure you choose the unsweetened varieties, as sugar simply isn’t necessary.

You can use plain low-fat yogurt instead of milk if you prefer. This will make the shake slightly creamier and although there’s not much in it, there is usually a little more protein than in milk.

TOFU (Wog)

Tofu may not seem the obvious choice of protein, but it’s perfect in a smoothie. It’s versatile, naturally low in fat, and a great source of protein. It doesn’t matter if it’s fresh or long-life tofu, but after you have added it to the blender, put the remainder in a bowl, cover with water and keep in the fridge. If your smoothie turns out too thick for you, simply use a little less tofu next time.

NUTS AND SEEDS

To add some essential fats and minerals, throw in three or four plain un-roasted nuts-pecans work well. You can also add a teaspoon of pumpkin, sesame or sunflower seeds.

FRUITS

These provide carbohydrates and fiber, and

by changing fruit you’ll be able to have a different tasting smoothie every time. These combinations work well: banana and blackberries; peach and pear, apple and kiwi fruit. While fresh fruit is always best, you can buy a pack of frozen berries and use some to make the drink more refreshing on a hot day. Whatever fruit you use will contain antioxidants that can help quash the damage done by free radicals. Use half a punnet of berries, and one punnet of each larger fruit.

ADDED EXTRAS

Throw in a sprinkling of cinnamon as this boosts the action of insulin, making energy production more efficient. Or add a teaspoon of blue-green algae powder. This provides yet more protein and is extremely rich in nutrients. But be warned – it may well turn your drink a lurid green.

Ali Hewson first met Gregory in New York around 18 months ago. She and U2′s long-standing stylist were researching ideas for the band’s look for their current album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. The Rogan label had been contemplating business initiatives that twinned “aesthetic innovation and social activism”. Ali and Bono were thinking along similar lines: they already had an involvement with a Dublin-based chain of ethical, healthy fast-food restaurants, Nude. Wanting to expand their socially aware activities, they were advised that the best way to help Africa free itself from the poverty/debt trap was less to do with aid than trade. Says Ali, “Africa wants to stand on its own two feet.” And making clothes is something Africa has the resources to do, and do well.

            Lest all this conjure up images of dull-but-worthy items – shapeless smocks or scratchy hemp-wear, say – take note: Edun’s clothes are very cool. Bono says: “The clothes have to look as extraordinary as the tale they tell.” As we might expect from the design brains behind the hottest jeans around, Rogan Gregory has created a range that is free-flowing and quietly seductive – cute skirts, hooded tops and buttoned vests in soft colours and finishes. It’s a reaction, he says, to the “plastic bling-bling thing”. Hence the “back-to-nature” name.

            Hence, too, the location for the Vogue photoshoot for this story. The Luggala estate in the mountains of County Wicklow belongs to a member of the Guinness family – a friend of Bono’s and comprises 5,000 acres of wild Irish countryside, a short drive from Bono and Ali’s place outside Dublin. After a series of business meetings last year, http://gnet.org/defy-aging-and-tired-eyes-remain-the-fairest-in-the-land Bono and Ali took Gregory there for a visit. The grandeur of this remote setting, with its 1,000 head of Sika deer and its own lough (lake), had a profound effect on the designer and how he and Ali shaped the first collection.

            Sitting by a crackling log fire in the house’s drawing room, gazing at the art- and music-loving owner’s Francis Bacons and Lucian Freuds on the wall, Gregory says that the Luggala estate has “that ethereal feel, with the mist and the moss and rocks. It’s definitely otherworldly, and really romantic. It has a real enchanted feel, too. It’s like nowhere I’ve ever been before.”

            “‘Nowhere I’ve Ever Been’ – I’m gonna write that song…” muses Bono from behind his perma-fixed Miu Miu shades, to laughter all round. This interjection is typical of the charismatic 44-year-old. After a day in his company, it’s apparent that he likes nothing better than entertaining, whether it’s the world’s stadium masses or a group of friends, collaborators and strangers gathered in a cosy room in the Irish countryside.

            “They like me for my ideas, and I stay away from the clothes,” he jokes. He’s clearly passionate about this new venture and its benefits, devoting time to it while U2 are in the middle of a hectic round of global promotion and limbering up for another year-long world tour. Even after this photoshoot, Bono will disappear for an evening meeting with a colleague from DATA (Debt, Aids, Trade, Africa), the lobbying organisation he co-founded in 2002. Ali, responsible for the managing of Edun and driving it forward, is a well-known and much-loved figure in Ireland on account of her many charity works.

            For all three kindred spirits, Edun is about doing their bit, but stylishly and for profit. This is not a charity case, nor a militant “anti-globalisation” initiative. “We’re not trying to be in any camp,” says Ali. “We’re just trying to do the right thing, and effect some change. We’re offering a choice: these clothes are made with respect for the people who created them. You can buy them and know that you can feel good wearing them.”

            In practical terms, U2 are planning to incorporate Edun clothes into the merchandise on sale during their world tour, which starts in March in California. They’re also in talks with other bands Bono mentions Coldplay and REM – to do likewise. Will we see Bono wearing them?

            “Listen, I come from punk rock, I haven’t a hippy bone in my body,” he grins. “But I’ll be wearing these clothes.”

The worlds of music and fashion often collide. But when Bono, his wife Ali and designer Rogan Gregory came up with Edun — a fashion label with a real conscience—the results were guaranteed to be out of the ordinary.

            It is, notes Bono, a matter of some amusement within the U2 camp that he has involved himself with the world of fashion. “This is the man who brought you the mullet,” he says with a knowing smirk. And, he might have added, the chukka boot (circa The Unforgettable Fire), the Stetson-and-vest combo (The Joshua Tree), the wraparound fly-shades (Achtung Baby). . . But now Bono is atoning for his past style sins, and – as we might expect from rock’s foremost conscience – helping save the world at the same time. Bono and his wife of 22 years, Ali Hewson, have teamed up with American jeans-led fashion house Rogan to create Edun: a “socially conscious apparel brand”.

            Integral to the new line are the ideas of ethical commerce and sustainable development. In the same way that Fair Trade chocolate or coffee benefits producers in developing countries by paying them decent money for their goods, so Edun is predicated on a more equitable distribution of profit.

            Edun will have no Asian sweatshops employing underpaid coconut oil for skin children to churn out garments made from chemically treated materials. From cotton field to factory to shop to customer – the founding principle behind the label is that everyone in the chain benefits.

            Edun sources organic fabric, where possible, from Peru and Turkey, and the line – soft slouchy denims, cotton shirts and layering tees – is made in worker-friendly factories in America, Tunisia and sub-Saharan Africa. Every garment features a slogan stitched inside: “We carry the stories of the people who make our clothes around with us.” In the words of Bono, responsible for this slogan and maestro of the headline-grabbing soundbite, “it’s conscious consumerism”.

            The creative director behind the line, Rogan Gregory, was motivated to get involved by the fact that “fashion leads all other trends – design, and other mass movements – towards a certain aesthetic lifestyle.” He also believed he could turn the copycat mindset that characterises the industry to good effect. “People were knocking us off selling copies of our jeans for half the price. I thought, ‘Let’s create something so good that people will want to copy the whole idea of a brand with conscience, not just the clothes.’ That way we will make a little bit of change.”

Of you are overweight and ridiculed for your appearance; you must be desperate to lose weight somehow. By now you must also have tried number of ways to shed flab. If you are one of those people who cannot find time out from their busy schedule to hit the gym and do hard workouts daily, and you also cannot control the temptation to stick to a diet, what you need is a natural product that does it all on its own and helps you in your endeavor of losing weight. Of late, there has been a lot of talk about a natural product called CLA that seems to be just what the doctor ordered fro people like you.

CLA is a good fat that actually helps in removing body fat
CLA is a fatty acid that is not essential for us human beings. It is a fat that is found naturally in some dairy products apart from red meat and lamb meat. What this means is that you eat fat and still achieve fat loss. This may sound illogical but this is what happens when a person consumes the good fat called conjugated linoleic acid. CLA has been found to bring many health benefits. They are known to fight carcinogens and have been found to prevent onset of many types of cancers. They also improve the immunity levels of the body and increase the metabolism of the body. But one benefit for which they have suddenly become popular across the country is their ability to break fat inside the body cells. To make it easier for people to consume high quantities of CLA, they are being made available in the form of CLA supplements. This means that even those who are vegetarians can now avail the benefit of CLA by buying these supplements from the market.

Green coffee extract and raspberry ketones are also making waves these days
Green coffee is another product getting a lot of publicity as being a natural product that helps people in losing weight. If you tell someone about this health benefit, he will probably laugh at you given the stimulant property of caffeine in coffee beans. But for those who do not know, green coffee refers to raw coffee beans that are actually green in color and have not been roasted for long to have that aroma and taste of coffee beans. Green bean coffee has been scientifically proved to help people lose weight and body fat if they maintained a healthy lifestyle and also did some exercises.

Last but not the least is raspberry ketone, an enzyme found in red raspberries. Studies involving this aromatic compound have revealed its efficacy in regulating the metabolism of the people. Raspberry ketone regulates the protein that helps in breaking of fat inside body cells. The daily dosage to achieve satisfactory results is 100mg, and to consume this high amount, one has to take supplements available in the market.

With these natural products, things seem to be easier for people desirous of weight loss without strenuous workouts and difficult diets.

I’ve always had an issue with pain, but after trying Acai berries for just two days I observed a substantial difference in my appearance. My complexion was softer, I felt healthier and to tell the truth I felt completely re-energized. Visiting the swimming baths was not an issue anymore, contrary to my previous experiences.

Among the best benefits of acai berry was its freedom from unwanted effects. It was refreshing to have the ability to take this supplement and I realized that I could start working without the need to be worried about any embarrassing accidents. It has been 3 weeks now and my weight reduction goals are still going strong. Actually, after going to my GP he explained my cholesterol levels had came back to normal, which was very good news for me as a couple of months before I was almost at the point of being placed on medication.

Our body system will keep on gathering body fat as soon as we overindulge and over a period of time, results in the development of many poisonous substances in our body. If these harmful toxins are not washed quickly, they would cause many health conditions. The most common ones include weight problems, decreased stamina, elevated cholesterol ranges, really low potency and hypertension levels. Many of these are dreadful conditions which should not be permitted to affect us. These complaints are linked to extra lower body fat, poisonous compounds within the system that does not make us feel and appear desirable, but can intervene whenever we attempt to do cardio or work out, because we do not have the stamina and energy amounts vital to carrying out the needed programs.

Because of this, the all-natural Acai berry detox supplements, found in pure berries, juices or drugs can help to detox our bodies, return misplaced energy, stamina and potency ranges in addition to boosting and enhancing mood levels. It is particularly significant to provide a positive signal to the brain to consume excellent meals and allow us to eliminate unhealthy, sweet and fried foods in addition to unnaturally flavored drinks. This might in some manner enhance the body’s hormones to help the mind to do a lot, to assist lose excessive body fat, accumulated cholesterol and to boost our vitality.

Many detox diet programs are known to have abnormal components and awkward techniques to cleanse the physique from poisonous compounds. When you are using the pure detox it will not only allow you to flush dangerous harmful toxins out of your body, but also strengthen your defense mechanism and prevent you from being overweight or possibly suffer from other well-being problems. It is very critical to keep yourself informed about the all-natural Acai berries supplements and that they actually offer an all-natural, wholesome and pretty fast way to slim down, which cannot be said of other supplements in the marketplace.