Juicing, How much Is Too Much?

Hoo-ey, there's a lot of articles out there about whether to juice or not to juice. I started looking at this issue after a young colleague of mine decided to do a 10 day juice detox to help heal herself from her physical back issues and  remove toxins & medications from her body.
As you may know, from previous blogs I've posted, that I used to own a juicer which I thoroughly enjoyed. It died and I replaced it with a Nutribullet. I tend to worry when people go to extremes in any way and this really made me nervous. I know, I suddenly turn into a "mom."

Anyways, she said she felt so good inside and out, that she went another 4 days only juicing. she started out by only being able to ingest 4 or 5 of the recommended 7-8 glasses of juice/day. But, eventually, she did manage to get all of the recommended glasses/day down. She said she feels better than ever and now wants to try it again for 21 days. Yikes! Well, again, the locker room being impetus for my subject matter. I decided to begin looking up articles about the benefits and the risks of a juicing only diet. Wow, there are quite a few articles on the subject of juicing so here are just 3 of the ones I looked at. Please do some of your own research and tell me what you think.

First, an article from CNN atcnn.com/Health/ gave some insights into the need or non-need to detox the body systems. Your body already has organs (liver, kidneys) and an immune system in place to do that work. Do we really need to juice to help them along?

Then you have the fact that when you eat the whole whatever-it-is, you typically eat 1 serving but when you juice you ingest multiple servings and therefore the calorie and the sugar levels ingested increase significantly. All of this without receiving the fiber benefits of cleansing out the body. The article used the example of 1 cup of pineapple, yuck, eaten is about 83 calories but a cup of pineapple juice is 120 calories! Gadzuooks! The content of the juice is much more concentrated than its original form. Food for thought?

Then I decided to do a bit of research on the differences between the Nutribullet, and other machines to the like, and juicing. Again, I found a number of articles on the subject. Clearly there's a war going on. Oh well, again, I'll give you links to some of the articles I read, give you a brief overview and let you decide for yourself.

NJ.com also weighed (yuck, yuck, yuck) in on the subject and seemed to agree with the previous article. It recommended that if you're going to juice, only replace 1-2 meals/day with juice but take in whole foods as well to keep the ball rolling. It helps with satiety as well as lessening the amount of calories being ingested.

Huffingtonpost.com, in an article titled "The Fiftysomething Diet," also stated some of the same concerns and pros of juicing but it also mentioned a few other items to think about.

One being the increased risk of diabetes when juicing some of the higher glycemic items like, again, pineapple, watermelon etc. due to the high sugar content and the need to add more of the produce to get a descent amount of juice. Then there's the cost. It takes alot of produce to make a cup of juice. Boy does it ever. But it also mentioned the high spoilage rate of juicing. You need to ingest the juice at least, the same day or you run the risk of contamination.

It did however offer a way to preserve your juice. That would be to freeze the juice, like in an ice tray, for later consumption. What a great idea!

The article also gave a nice little list of some of the pros to juicing too. Apparently celery juice can help to lower blood pressure. Apparently, a Vanderbuilt University study in '06 found that people who juiced, whether it be extracted or purchased, 3 or more fruit/veggie juices per week seemed to be at a lower risk for Alzheimer's disease. Thats pretty cool, right? And...of course juicing just makes some veggies just more palatable.

Then I found some articles on the debate between juicing and blending like Nutribullet, Vitamix, Ninja etc.

Anyway, they all seemed to be either pro juicer or pro blender. You like one or the other. I really liked my juicer but it was definitely a pain to clean out all of the time and my Nutribullet is soooooo easy. I can add flax seeds to it and it fills me up each morning for my breakfast. The preparation is so much easier with my blender too. I used to have to cut up alot of the produce befor juicing it up and the blender just does it all for you. I know, I'm lame sometimes.

I remember juicing an "energy" drink 1 morning when I had to be at work at 6:30 in the morning. it hit me as I got to work and I guess I was bouncing around the weight room. An executive of the company was working out and asked me what was wrong with me? I said, " I juiced this morning." rather proudly and excitedly and his response??? "Stop it." I almost wet myself. I laughed & laughed. I still do when I think about it. I was making him crazy bouncing around like that. The juice was high in sugar content I guess. Carrots, appples, beet and parsley. Hey, it was 6:30 AM! I needed that.  Oh well, I'm much more even keeled now with my morning smoothie. It's organic berries, flax seed, about 1"  ginger, kale, Greek plain yogurt and almond milk now.

Pick your machine and enjoy it. I love mine and use it alot. It's all just a matter of taste.

Now on to my workouts. I've been doing a circuit type workout lately. chest-back-biceps-triceps then taking a 60 second rest and repeating the exercises again before another rest. This is 1 way to increase the metabolism along with the strength & endurance I've lost so much of. Yes, yes, yes, it's only upper body but as I stated in an earlier post, I'm working on a new class and so I've been trying some of the possibilities out on my self and Whew1, let me tell you they're a butt burner all right.

Here's something to try out; The De-constructed Burpee, after a warm-up please.

Each exercise is done for 6 reps as follows;
6 push-ups
6 frog jumps
6 squat jumps
6 full Burpees
Rest 30 seconds & repeat for 4-6 rounds.

Wholly moley, I was sweatin' like crazy and huffin' & puffin' after that. Now, I did modify after 2 rounds from the floor to a bench. I also didn't jump back on the frog jumps but I did jump forward and I only did squat thrusts to my tippey-toes. Why? I have a 3 month old store-bought knee! Thats why. I'm not that crazy, but it still kicked my a__, okay?!?

This is just 1 of the types of complex workouts I'm working on. I did another 1 for the Booty. There are different types and formats using just 1 piece of equipment or body part, time or reps, but it's on power & endurance so the weight is minimal but the output is extreme. You just go, go, go. It can be 3 tor 8 exercises done in succession then you get a short rest and repeat the series 4-6 times. I'm actually having some fun with this and I'll keep you posted on my progress along with the types I try to put together.

As for my knee, it's feeling so great that many times I forget about it except when I see the scar, which is looking pretty spectacular in my opinion. Other folks remark about my procedure now. Kinda funny. I'm doing so many things that were so painful just a few months ago. Absolutely amazing. Thanks Doc.

Well, I've the kitten locked in the house, the pooch is lying by the open front door looking at me with those big eyes quietly awaiting the magic word to be spoken, "Walk?" so I must end this now. Before it gets too hot to go.

Stay healthy everyone and keep dancing.

Peace out!

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