Lifestyle, Recipes

Intro to Juicing

I have been having a hair loss problem for the last two years, and it freaks me out.  Although I admit that I shouldn’t have washed my hair every day or styling it with a flat iron.  I couldn’t stand greasy hair, especially since my hair is a very fine hair.  It only took a little bit of oil to make me looked like Severus Snape (played by the amazing Alan Rickman) in the Harry Potter movie.

my heart breaks for this character

But, I am in a desperate mode, and I am willing to do anything to stop my hair from thinning.  I tried a lot of products, and to be honest, they are quite expensive and does not work for me.  So, I started to use natural products for my hair (natural shampoo, homemade hair oil, etc.).   So far, it helps to reduce hair loss, but I am not satisfied yet.

I try to research the possible cause of hair loss, and I found out it might be because my body was lacking some nutrients.  Those research leads me to find out which nutrients I need to incorporate into my food and beverages and how best to do it.

In General, I eat vegetables and some fruits.  But, I might not pay attention to how much the intake I should have done and how much I  consumed.  Not to mention how the food that I consumed were processed.  When I looked at the table or charts of average nutrition that our body needs, there is just no way that I could fulfill all of those requirements by having a bowl of salad or eat one apple a day.

No wonder I have a nutrient deficiency and it is gnawing on my health.  Of course, there are some easy (not so cheap) solutions out there.  Thousands of vitamins and supplements specifically formulated for our convenience is available out there.  But I have always been careful about taking any chemical products inside my body.  For example, I always try the more natural approach first whenever I was sick before taking a readily available medicine.  I have nothing against people who do; it’s just not who I am.

Long story short, I need to eat more vegetable and fruits so that I will be able to fulfill what my body needs.  The best way to do it is through Juicing.  In this post, I won’t talk about juicing specifically to hair loss but about the benefits of Juicing and how you can start the journey of a healthier life through it.

WHY JUICING?

If you are like me who can only eat a limited amount of fruit and vegetable in one day, then juicing can be a good way for you to make sure you take sufficient nutrition in your body.  When you eat one apple, you feel fuller already, but when you drink a glass of apple juice, you consumed 2-4 apples before you feel full.  Through Juicing, your body can absorb the nutrition better because the juicer extracts the juice from its fiber.

That way, you can also put any vegetables and fruits that you tend to avoid.  For example, I try to avoid kale and celery on my salad because of its strong taste.  Now, I can put it in my juice and get all the healthy nutrition it contains.

Apart from all the beneficial things about juicing, it has also its disadvantages.  As mentioned earlier, the juicer extracted the juice from its fiber which means you don’t get the health benefit of it.  For someone who is trying to lose weight, eating fresh fruit will make you fuller because it still contains all of the fiber. Thus it helps to reduce the food portion you take.  But there are also ways you can use the fiber left from the juice so that you are still able to reap the benefits.

Here are some interesting read about the top 11 juice myths, debunked.

HOW

There are many articles and videos about the good and the bad way of juicing and here are some of the summary of the best way to juicing, when to drink it, and what to put in your juice.

Drink the juice on an empty stomach.

When you drink a juice on a full stomach, it slows down your metabolism, and that leads to an overweight problem.  Because when you have a slow metabolism your body does not use up energy as quickly as normal metabolism does, therefore some food will be stored as fat.

Don’t put too many fruits.

Fruits and vegetables (mostly fruits) loads with sugar.  So, when you are mixing too many of them in a recipe, then you load your body with sugar.  Try to maintain an 80:20 comparison between vegetables vs. fruits.  The sugar contains in fruits are not as bad as those “added sugar.”  However, any sugar is breakdown into Glucose and Fructose, and at a certain point it can be problematic to us regardless of where it came from

If you want some information about why sugar is bad for us, here is a good article about it.

Drink your juice right away.

Because the longer the juice sits it will be a perfect place for bacteria to grow.  So, try to consume your juice as soon as possible and again better on an empty stomach.

Do it consistently.

Like anything else, you need to do it consistently to receive all the benefits of what you’re doing.  Be consistent in incorporating juice into your life.

Try to mix and change your recipe every 3-4 days.

After some time your body will be used to whatever fruits and vegetables that you put in the recipe.  Our body won’t absorb as effectively as before all of the enzymes, nutrition, and vitamins that it has.  So, try to rotate and play around with your recipe.  It’s also fun!

Juice the peel and skins!

Yep, you read it right.  There are many vitamins and nutrition content on the skin of fruits and vegetables.  Take a lemon, for example; lemon peels contain a spectrum of vitamin and nutrition such as potassium, vitamin C, and calcium.  So, next time you’re adding lemon on your recipe, don’t throw the skin.  Of course, don’t put too much that it ruins the taste of your juice, add just an appropriate amount.  Another tip, unless it is non-organic fruits and vegetables, always leave the skin on.  Check out this post about how you can use a lemon peel in your food.

Last but not least, Eat healthily and regularly.

Juicing should not replace our food intake.  Juicing help us to ingest plant-based food more than we normally do.  You will still to eat fresh fruits and vegetables even if you’re juicing.  You will still need protein and carbohydrate intake.

Just after a couple of weeks since I am juicing, I can feel that there is new growth on my scalp.  I also notice that my skin looks healthier.

So I hope this article inspires you to try juicing.  Let me know in the comment if you have a favorite recipe for your juice.

Thank you for reading and stay positive!

16 thoughts on “Intro to Juicing

  1. Juicing does a lot of good for your body. I am glad that you are taking steps toward solving your hair loss problem using natural resources. I wish you all success. Thanks for sharing!

    1. I think green juice is one of the best way to sneak in some greens..we use fruits as replacement for sugar, that’s why the recommended proportion is 80% greens and 20% fruits..
      Thanks for the comment 🙂

  2. My son bought me a juicer last year for Christmas so I could start doing this but I only stayed with it for a couple of months. I did notice a lot more energy and my digestion was much better also.

    1. Oh it’s too bad that you didn’t continue..it is indeed a little bit of effort to prepare the ingredients by cleaning and cut the them all to a suitable chunk, but it’s all worth it..
      Thanks for sharing 🙂

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