Many of my clients are beginning their juicing journey, so I thought it was time to make another post to answer some FAQ and offer a few tips. A juicer may seem like a bit of an investment, but at $100-$200 you can get a pretty good one and compared to other "weight loss" products, it's not a bad price. Discount stores like Big Lots often have them in stock. Just the other day I saw a Jack Lalanne Juicer for $99 (retails for $179).
So you've got your juicer...Now What????
Some are jumping right in and juicing anything they can get their hands on, fearlessly trying odd combinations and fruits and vegetables that they can't even pronounce. Others are having a more difficult time with the idea of not only eating new foods, but drinking them.
Here's what I recommend to all of my first time juicing friends. Start with what you know you like! If you like apples, awesome! grapes, great! melon, marvelous! (Sorry for the alliteration, I couldn't help myself). And keep it simple... start with a base, something with a lot of water content and a mild flavor, cucumber is the most commonly used. Then add your sweets, apples, pears, carrots, oranges, ect. Top it off with something super nutrient dense like spinach, kale, beets. Try to keep it all in the same color family for starters, especially if you have mental food hurdles to conquer. If texture is an issue, you may want to have a mesh strainer handy, depending on your juicer, you may get some foam on the top of your juice.
Make small amounts at first until you find combinations that you like, or can even just tolerate, and keep at it until you build up the courage to venture beyond the basic apple. Soon you'll be adding ginger, lemons, limes, celery and who know's, maybe even things you've never fathomed purchasing from the produce section like bok choy and chard!
The point of juicing is to get vitamins, water and other nutrients to the cells in the most efficient way possible. Since juice doesn't need digesting, the body can absorb the nutrients from the stomach directly into the blood stream with very little effort and waste. If you've ever looked at the label on a multivitamin bottle, you have an idea of the number of vitamins and other nutrients like amino acids and minerals the body needs to function at its best. Luckily, getting all of these things is not as hard as you think so don't get all worked up about deficiencies or run out and buy every bottle on the CVS vitamin isle. Eating a variety of colors (skittles don't count!) and textures is typically all you need.
That leads me to a quick side note about multivitamins. Unless you have a vitamin deficiency, multivitamins are a wast of money. Although they boast 100% of your recommended amount of a bajillion vitamins and minerals, the body is extremely inefficient at absorbing those nutrients in that form (that's why your urine is neon green, you're literally flushing money down the toilet). Our bodies are designed to absorb all the nutrients we need from our food, that includes water! By food, I mean things that grow out of the ground. You know, the stuff our ancestors ate for thousands of years before microwaves and refrigeration.
I'm off my soapbox, back to juicing. But instead of listing an infinite number of recipe combinations, here are a few resources I like to use for inspiration. Happy Juicing!
https://www.facebook.com/VegetableJuicing
https://www.facebook.com/juicingrecipes
And a link back to an earlier blog where I listed a few smoothie recipes, just in case you're not yet ready to take the juice plunge. http://fitfunctionalmom.blogspot.com/2013/01/fastingcleansing.html
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