About Chris: He blogs at HealthSmartLiving.com about wellness, cooking, and juicing. He struggles but does try to use facebook so encourage him with a like or a note!
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Juicing has been come a mega trend over the past couple years. Juicing really started back in the 80’s as part of the larger healthier living movement in America but it didn’t really take off until several famous (and beautiful of course) Hollywood starts started juicing. Two of the stars that most notably elevated juicing were Naomi Watts and Jennifer Aniston.
Benefits of Juicing
- Increase your daily serving of fruits and vegetables. Before I started regularly juicing, I tried really hard to get my 8 daily servings of fruits and veggies. I mean I really tried. But I usually failed. Just do the simple math with me… You would need to eat 2 pieces of fruit for breakfast, 2 vegetable over lunch, grab an apple for a snack midday, cook 2 vegetables with your dinner, and end your day with another piece of fruit for your desert to make 8! The great benefit of juicing is a single juice can have up to 4 servings which cuts your daily requirements in half!
- Improve the variety of fruits and vegetables in your diet. We all find ourselves in eating ruts. We can easily get limited by our schedules, cooking ability, and even our taste buds. With juicing it’s super easy to expand our variety without knowing how to cook it or even liking the taste.
- Raw foods keep more of their vitamins and minerals vs. cooked. I definitely won’t call eating cooked vegetables bad for you but it’s really unfortunate that we lose so much nutrition through the cooking process.
- Faster and more complete nutrition absorption. A good cold pressed juice is simply concentrated nutrition without any pulp or fiber to delay or block your body’s uptake.
3 ways to use Juicing in your life:
Weight Loss
Juicing is a great supportive way to loss weight. It supports you by ensuring you are still getting your basic nutrition while you diet and it also helps reset your system. People who juice will actually start to crave more fruits and vegetables vs. sweets and junk food. Sounds crazy but it’s really true.
Meal/Snack Replacement
Making juice at home or buying a daily juice from a local fresh juice shop is a great convenient way to take a meal on the go. A juice meal won’t be as filling as a standard meal but it’s a great way to tide your over until you can sit down for a proper healthy meal.
Disease Prevention
Juicing allows you to greatly increase your daily intake of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Countless studies have uncovered which specific ones are linked to each disease. I keep my juice recipes organized by benefit on my blog. They include pain relief, weight loss, and improved digestion.