After my less than successful “Juice Cleanse”, you may think I never want to see another juice in my life! But although I’ve come to the conclusion that I disagree with an extreme all juice low calorie diet (duh), adding colourful and healthy juices to your everyday diet can only be a good thing.
Therefore I was pretty enthusiastic about #CurrysIntroJuicing, an evening of fun fitness workouts and getting creative with some awesome Philips juicers.
The evening started off with a Juicing Nutrition talk from Derry Temple (who also led the workout later on). He gave us a good brief overview on the positive and negative sides to juicing and how a juiced-up diet can be a great complement to exercise (the event was not advocating juice fasts, in fact I asked straight out Derry’s opinion which was a resounding no, so there you go…).
Here are some of my take-away-tips on how Juicing and Fitness can work together…
- Before exercise juices are great as they’re more easily absorbed and the digestive system doesn’t have to work as hard to break down the fruit.
- Juices also help you get your 8 a day, and they are packed full of vitamins and minerals.
- Juices offer the body increased absorption of micronutrients such as Vitamin C, which can be found in oranges, kiwi, broccoli, spinach etc and helps to boost the immune system.
- Enzymes in the fruit and vegetables dilate the blood vessels and improve blood flow helping to carry those nutrients round the body for your workout.
- Antioxidants also neutralise free radicals brought on by physical stress post workout.
- Magnesium in green vegetables stop muscle cramps.
- Potassium rich juices (from ingredients like carrots, sweet potato and melon) contain electrolytes which also limit cramps, and fight fatigue and headaches.
- For post-workout recovery protein is important for muscles repair, and green juices contain the most protein. To increase this add chia seeds, nut milk or protein powder.
- Bear in mind that there are negatives- juices made entirely of fruits contain high levels of fructose (sugar), and juices generally aren’t “whole foods” (you need protein and fat too). The removal of pulp creates a lack of fibre as well.
- But it’s great to know what you’re putting in your body- no artificial sweeteners or colours such as some sports drinks- and lots of great tasting fruit and vegetables!
The juice that I made was a simple combo- 2 apples, half a cucumber, a handful of strawberries and a handful of raspberries. I call it “Red and Green” 🙂
If you want to give some of the other recipes we made on the night a try, here are a few suggestions:
What do you think about using juices as pre/post-workout fuelling? What combination would you create?! 🙂
Beki x
