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With the turn of the year many of you amazing people have started the year with a healthy bang. Let me give you all a winning high 5… nice!
Ok so I am very proud of you as you have set your mind to a task that is going to bring a happy you. Lets now talk about a detoxing through juicing… I have had a number of you reach out about my thoughts on it and so I wanted to identify some simple thoughts for you to make your own decision on it 😀
As always you know your body better than anyone else’s so it is up to you to really understand your best direction… Oh and yes I do carry my celery water/smoothies or beverages around Manhattan in my Mason Jars… true story, Here we go!
Fibre-less
The primary ingredients for juices, fruits and vegetables, contain a huge amount of fiber… this is a big part of the nutritional benefits. It essentially helps not only the obvious in digestion but also help circulate the right nutrients to the relevant organs and cells requiring them. When you juice these wonderful bits of color the juicer itself does not allow any of this fiber-goodness to come through into the result product… You may see it more commonly as pulp-less juice, pretty much straight liquid.
One of the issues with this is that our body’s don’t get full from the one drink that you have consumed, in fact because of the insulin spike (we will get to that in a second) they only get hungrier, so you end up wanting more. How is that for going against its original purpose?
Sugar Concentration
Another issue with it is that once you take out that aforementioned fiber it increases the amount of sugar remaining in your body as the fiber helps to get rid of that “not very fun” carbohydrate. Another negative is you tend to consume multiple amounts of the given ingredient. Have you ever noticed how much juice you get out of one carrot? It’s not exactly a lot so you tend to have 2-3 x the ingredient in each juice. This is great IF you were getting all the nutrition you were after, however instead what you are getting is more and more sugar…as that is what is remaining in that liquid.
With increased sugar in the blood your body responds by spiking your insulin levels. When these levels elevate they directly block the ability for your body to metabolize fat. So not only do you have increased levels of readily available energy that your body doesn’t need and you will be storing it somewhere, but the fat you want to get rid of will not be available to be used as energy when you do want to metabolize it.
Bite off more than you can sip
Have you ever noticed that a lot of the color from your ingredients found in the pulp is much brighter & vibrant? Thats because thats where most of the nutrition is.
Now that sounds amazing from getting your daily vegetables, but the reason you can eat so much is the that all that good things that fill you up are not present. Thus you tend to actually consume much more nutrients than you generally need (talk about controversy!) Yes too much of anything is not good, everything in balance. Just be mindful of this when selecting your juice.
Energy-conservation
One of the less obvious problems with juicing is that when we do any form of detox over an extended period of time our bodies are always looking for what it needs or requires. When we juice we tend to miss out on maintaining healthy levels of certain vitamins and minerals. When this occurs our body’s go into an energy conservation mode and they hold onto the little things they have left of those micronutrients. Not only is this tough on the body at the time, but when we reintroduce those foods back into the body we don’t know how to handle or deal with them. They have been in short supply for so long that when they get to the warehouse we don’t know how to handle the inventory. I always say your internal systems need to go to the gym too and if they miss out on digestion they are missing out on exercise and we all know what can happen there.
Yes you lose weight, yes you may get thinner, but thats generally muscle atrophy, where your body has to rely on breaking down its proteins to supply energy. This is not a healthy means for your body to live off either and has direct negative affects on your hormones and your brain… Your brain does not like breaking down its muscles to use as energy, it releases bad chemicals in the brain and doesn’t make you think and function straight.
The Solution…
Its simple… I like to call it Smoocing! The process where you combine juices and smoothies. By not using a juicer but instead a blender like a Vitamix, you are never losing your good nutrients. You can only consume a certain amount, and your insulin levels are balanced by the fibrousness that your body is taking on. You keep it to one carrot (if that) and lets be real smoothies are awesome! So try adding a bit of a juicing element to your next smoothie for some wins! As always this is an opinion, always do what is right for you as you know your body better than anyone else!
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