Confused?
The previous post on about juicing verses a ‘bullet’ (or a blender), has created a lot of interest on Face Book and Twitter. It made me realise that the whole planet isn’t actually following the Super Juice Me programme that the Juice Master Jason Vale promotes at this time of year. After all, I didn’t know anything about juicing until I was introduced to it a few years ago. Since then I have developed my own juicing programme, and have to admit that I have never followed a full juice only detox as explained through the Juice Master website. Jason makes it very clear that you have to find the system that works for you, and although I have many clients who have done the full three, five and sometimes seven day detox, personally I use juicing as a nutritional boost each morning rather than a total juice detox.
So the questions coming in are generally about fibre. People are concerned that they won’t be getting enough. Here’s the ‘thing’, if you are over weight and generally needing to improve your diet, you won’t be eating enough fibre anyway, so leaving the fibre out of a pile of veggies during a three, five or seven day plan won’t do you any harm. After all, you are getting more vitamins and minerals than you’ve had in a long time. The idea is to rest and re calibrate your digestive system. Allow it to come alive again after too many processed foods, caffeine and alcohol. Get the vitamins into your system FAST! There is plenty of soluble pectin – gel fibre – in the the apples. Taking a juice cleanse for a few days is perfectly okay. Think if you were unwell with a tummy bug, you wouldn’t eat much. You would take fluids. This isn’t dangerous. With a juice cleanse you are giving your body nutrients…… and another question….
‘But what happens when you come off it? You will get fat!’
NO. You really won’t. If you follow the plan… and gradually introduce food that is ‘clean’ and healthy. You WILL put on weight if you go back to eating highly processed rubbish with high salt and sugar and little nutritional value. After a juice cleanse, you will find that you don’t actually crave the ‘rubbish’ food any more. Watch this…. It may just change your life!
If you don’t fancy a full juice cleanse – as some people find tricky during the colder winter months, you could do what we call the JJM, ( juice, juice, meal) so you would make your lunch juice thicker by adding avocado to your juiced bits in a blender. Just make double at breakfast and add the second lot to the blender- more fibre and a Super Food! Or, if you also use a bullet…. you can make your lunch time ‘juice’ more of a smoothie. Thicker, but try to keep away from milk and yoghurts added to the blender though…. more of that in later blogs.
And the other question I’m being asked… ‘Why don’t you just eat it all?’ ….. Errrrr because you DON’T !! All the vitamins from this little pile are in my system first thing in the morning.
I’d rarely EAT all that in a day. My personal programme of day to day healthy eating would be a Ginger shot first thing, then a herbal tea followed by a bigger nutrient packed juice. I also have breakfast, usually porridge or spelt toast, but always an hour after the juice – I can do this as I work from home. You would have to tailor make your own plan. Sometimes if I’m having a ‘rest’ day I may have a thicker juice and no solid breakfast.
Usually during the winter I have homemade soup for lunch and then an evening meal.
On a sunday we often miss lunch and have a smoothie with an added banana and forest berries, especially when we are gardening or doing DIY. No time to stop, but we need something for energy.
I don’t LIVE on juice! That would be silly.
Two great morning juices:
1) Small beetroot, small parsnip, one carrot, 2 apples, ginger, turmeric (about a cm of each), slice of lemon. Personally I don’t juice oranges, but you could add an one to the above selection.
2) 2 apples (or pears), stick of celery, small handful of broccoli (use the stalk too! Lots of juice in that!) A handful of spinach or kale, and when in season some cucumber with the usual lemon, ginger, and turmeric.
Be sensible, it’s not an exact science with measurements. I personally don’t eat cucumber in the winter as it’s too cooling to my system, but if you like it, try it with the beetroot recipe. If you hate celery, leave it out. Play about a bit. Recipes in books are a great guide, but you will find your own way.
The basic rules are – The greener the juice the more Chlorophyll in it and the more alkali it is. A powerhouse of cancer reducing nutrients – research has shown that cancer cells cannot survive in an alkali body. I like my first juice of the day to be a green one….unless my husband is playing golf, then I make him a beetroot based one. Beetroot was the fuel of Olympians. A superb pre-exercise drink to help oxygen be released from cells ( but you need to add sweeter fruits so carrot, parsnip and apple go well with it) Better performance! He usually wins…and will blame it on the lack of beetroot if he doesn’t!
If you have a juicer and are a little bored with your routine, this is a lovely little book that will give you some inspiration….. Yes, it’s by Jason Vale, but let’s face it, he knows his stuff!
Find a routine that suits you. Look at the different ingredients. If you cook you will understand how different flavours blend together. Juicing should be enjoyable. If you really don’t like something, leave it out. You will become more interested in which veggies hold different vitamins….Eat fresh. Organic if you can. No fridge scrapings please…. not many nutrients in those! Go play!
