Juicing for Energy: How a Juice Cleanse Feeds Every Cell in Your Body

Written by Stacey

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- by Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo

If you’ve ever done a juice cleanse where you consume primarily or exclusively fresh pressed juice for a specified length of time, you may have already experienced the state of “juice euphoria”  that comes from having a clean digestive tract and a clear mind.

There is something very freeing about not eating for several days to several weeks and allowing your body to rid itself of toxins.

Each cup of vegetable juice is jam packed with all the nutrients you need to give your mitochondria the raw materials to make energy for you.  When you juice rather than eat, the nutrients make a bee-line right into your blood stream, allowing every cell in your body to feel alive and energized.

Most people think that if they do a juice cleanse – meaning consuming nothing but juice for several days or longer – that they’ll feel weak and tired.  Quite the contrary in most cases.  Think nutrients for starving cells.  When you eat in the usual fashion – meaning low nutrient food consumed on the run and under stressful circumstances – there’s very little nutrition, and your digestive system does not digest it well.

If you typically feel less energetic after eating, or crave food even when your stomach is telling you to stop, you just may benefit from a juice cleanse.  Your approach can be as simple as replacing a meal or two with fresh squeezed vegetable juice.  Of course, if you’d like to really benefit, try a juice cleanse for 3-5 or even 10 days.

Three days is easy to do on your own; ten days is another story.  There are a lot of emotions and habits that rear their less than pretty heads when you do an extended cleanse, and it’s best to do it with support, like the 10-Day Juice Cleanse program the Raw Divas are doing in August.  I am one of their team of juice and cleansing experts and I must say, I am impressed with what they put together.

Tune in to my recent blog talk radio show called “Juicing as an Antidote to Fatigue”  for all the “juicy”  details.

Tags: digestion, energy, fatigue, juice, juice cleanse, nutrition
Posted in Cleansing Programs, Detox Program, Exhaustion, Fatigue Treatment, Vibrant Health

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Adrenal Fatigue: 3 Tips to Make Your Weekend Count

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Adrenal fatigue is estimated to affect 80% of women at some point in their lives.  That’s 4 out of 5 women who’ll experience exhaustion of a key gland pair – the adrenals.

You’re not alone if you feel frazzled and exhausted by the end of the work week.  While our fast paced age of technology has done wonders for keeping us connected like never before, it comes with a price.

Used to be you only got your adrenals fired up when tigers and lions were chasing you.  As soon as the threat was handled, your adrenals would settle down and you’d return to a calmer and more steady pace.

When you’re at work, managing the tigers of deadlines, unhappy customers, unruly students and the abundance of stressors that frequent your day to day life, your nervous system operates from a state called sympathetic dominance. When you meditate, rest, do yoga and take time to “smell the roses”  you operate from parasympathetic dominance.

Who cares?

You need to if you desire to be focused instead of foggy, energetic instead of exhausted and  fit instead of fat.

You see, in sympathetic dominant mode, your digestion slows down, the valves between the various parts of your digestive tract tighten (leading to constipation and abdominal discomfort), and the high level thinking part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, is inhibited, your hippocampus, gate keeper of your short term memory,  gets damaged and DHEA, sometimes called the anti-aging hormone, decreases.  The end result is you feel bloated, foggy headed and worn down.

In parasympethic dominant mode, the opposite happens.  Your digestion becomes more efficient,  your prefrontal cortex is enhanced, your hippocampus repairs and DHEA increases. As a result you feel calm, clear headed and focused and young.

By you may be wondering how to lengthen your stay in parasympathetic dominance.

Start by using my 3 tips to make your weekend count.  They will put you into parasympathetic dominance and enable you to rejuvenate before starting the hectic pace all over again on Monday.

Make the weekend count by using it to regroup and give yourself the gift of self care.

1- Set aside 30 minutes for you! Go ahead and look at your calendar and schedule it in.  And KEEP the appointment with yourself.  Do something you love to do.  Take a bath, lay in the sun, read a book…just do something that’s strictly for you.  You’ll feel rejuvenated as a result.

2- Take time several times a day to express appreciation to someone, to yourself or to the universe for the blessings in your life.  Studies have shown that 30 seconds of appreciation is the most effective means of restoring balance to your system.  The Institute of Heartmath has performed dozens of studies on the benefits of appreciation.

3- Take some extra time to sweat. Yes, sweat.  When researchers analyzed the sweat of participants after exercise,  they found it loaded with toxins.  Exerting to the point of a good sweat has many benefits with regards to cardiovascular health, hormone balance and detoxification.  And surprisingly they found that the sweat after running for 30 minutes was more full of toxins than the sweat produced in a sauna. If you use your weekend to sweat away toxins, you’ll feel more focused and peaceful when you start the week again.

If you find yourself thinking, “I already know that”  in response to the simplicity of these tips, ask yourself this:  “Am I taking action?”

Many of the people I work with in group programs and individually are looking for the more glamorous solutions to their health challenges and fail to handle the underlying sympathetic dominance.

Sympathetic dominance is a real problem. No matter what herbs, supplements and foods you eat to support your tired adrenals, if you just keep forcing them to work hard, you won’t be able to restore them.  And burned out adrenals can lead to thyroid issues, hormone imbalances, insulin resistance –which contributes to excess belly fat— and chronic fatigue.

I urge you to slow down and use the weekend to restore balance.  Once you get that piece wired, we can talk about how to increase your parasympathetic dominance during the week.

To find out the impact of sympathetic dominance on your health, you can answer a set of questions, check physical signs, look at a few markers in routine blood work and even order specialized hormone tests.

In my new course, Assess Your Own Body Chemistry I teach how to evaluate for signs of nutritional deficiency and hormonal imbalance.

Love, Health and Gratitude,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, appreciation, chronic fatigue, detox, detoxification, digestion, digestive tract, Dr. Ritamarie, DrRitamarie, health challenges, heart math, HeartMath, hormonal imbalance, nutrition, self care, supplements, thyroid, tired
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Stress, Detox Program, Exhaustion, Fatigue Treatment

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Green Smoothie Cleanse Recipes – Low Glycemic

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Our Summer 2010 Green Smoothie Cleanse is officially over, and we’re transitioning into the Post Cleanse Week.  Chronic fatigue symptoms are abating, allergies are improving and the consensus is there is an overall increased sense of well-being the cleanse promotes.  This week is as important as the cleanse week itself.  This is wher new habits are formed and the imporvemetns made dueing the cleanse are either re-inforced or left behind. Continuing on a high raw food diet plan helps people sustain the benefits long term.

Here are a couple of delicious recipes shared by one of our Green Smoothie Cleanse Participants.  They use in-season, fresh, raw and ripe produce and just the right amount of seasonings.

“Spring Garden Soup”

4 tomatoes
4 celery stalks
2 cups spring mix
2 cups romaine heart
2 limes juiced
1 garlic clove

“Spicy Garden Soup”

1 Tomato
1 English Cucumber
1/2 Zucchini
2 handfuls string beans
8 cups Spring Mix
1 garlic clove
1 ginger nub
1/4 cup lime juice
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 cups water

Blend and enjoy!

Love, Health and Joy to You,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, Cleansing Programs, detoxification programs, Dr. Ritamarie, DrRitamarie, Gluten Free Diet, green smoothie, green smoothie. detoxification programs, Living Foods, raw and living foods holiday recipes, Raw Foods classes, vegan foods, whole foods
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Articles, Cleansing Programs, Detox Program, Fatigue Treatment, Gluten Free recipes, Raw and Living Foods

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Adrenal Fatigue: Tips to Restoring Your Energy and Your Health

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Do you ever wake in in the morning, even after a long night of sleep, only to feel sluggish and wishing you had another few hours to rest?

This is one of many signs of adrenal fatigue.

Adrenal fatigue is a common condition in our fast paced, stressed out society.

Your adrenal glands are your body’s mechanism for responding to stressful situations.  In the olden days, this meant getting chased by a tiger or dealing with severe cold without shelter or proper clothing.

Fortunately for us, tigers and lack of clothing are not problems we deal with on a regular basis.

Unfortunately we have our own modern day tigers, and they chase some of us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Modern Day Tigers that Stress Your Adrenals

• Deadlines at work?
• Juggling kids schedules with your own?
• Worry about the economy?
• A sick parent or child?
• An unreasonable boss?

Whatever it is, the response is similar to a real tiger chasing you.  Your adrenal glands step into action and do what they do best…shift you into what is often called “fight/flight mode”, and in scientific terms, “sympathetic nervous system dominance”.

In hyper vigilant adrenal state, your heart rate increases, your respiration quickens and the blood supply to your brain and vital organs decreases and is sent to your extremities…so you can run away or fight.

In addition, your digestive track activity decreases and the sphincters– the valves between sections of the digestive tract– tighten.  This is to protect you from needing to use the bathroom in the middle of running away from or fighting a tiger.

Translate this into modern life.  If you find yourself stressed out and worried quite a bit of the time, you increase your risk of indigestion, constipation, gas and bloating as well as heart and circulation problems due to prolonged increased heart rate.

Oh, and I forgot to mention.  In fight flight mode, your sex drive goes away, too.

Doesn’t help to be having lustful thoughts when you’re trying to get away from that tiger.  On a biochemical level, the same chemical molecules that make the adrenal hormone cortisol, which gets elevated under stress, are also needed to make estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, all needed for libido and reproductive function.

Another problem with cortisol is that in excess it can cause damage to your mitochondria, the energy producing mechanisms in each of your cells.  Cortisol also damages your hippocampus, the part of your brain that helps with short term memory.  Ever walk into a room, only to forget what you went there for?  That’s likely because your hippocampus has been impeded by the cortisol you produced when you were stressed out.

Yikes!  SO if this is you, what can you do to fix things?

In my over two decades of clinical practice, I’ve seem many cases of adrenal burnout and the damages caused by chronic stress.

Fortunately there are actions you can take reverse the damage and repair your adrenal glands.  But if you keep getting stressed out, you’ll be a lot like a hamster on a wheel….working hard but never getting anywhere. Repairing your adrenals and transforming your response to stress take some time and retraining, and the transformations you experience when you do can be miraculous.

3 Tips for Combating Adrenal Fatigue

1- Learn stress management and stress transformation techniques. One of my favorites is called Heart Math, and uses a combination of deep breathing, focusing on your heart and feeling appreciation.  It completely changed my life.  I did a 90 minute stress transformation teleseminar a couple of years ago that guided the participants through the process and the response was dramatic.

2- Nourish your adrenals. Did you know that 80% of the vitamin C used in your body is used by your adrenal glands?  Excessive stress depletes your vitamin C stores and can lead to allergies, poor wound healing, easy bruising and increased susceptibility for colds, flu and other infectious disease?  Your adrenals also use lots of B vitamins, especially pantothenic acid and B6.  That’s why a lot of B complex formulas are called Stress formulas.  Eating a whole foods, high raw, high green diet will ensure you have adequate intake of nutrients to maintain your adrenals when they are brought back to normal;however, when you’re in the mode of recovery, supplementation is often needed.

3- Support your body’s detoxification systems by periodic cleansing. Face it, eating on the run, making even occasional poor food choices and being stressed out impair your liver’s ability to do it’s job of cleansing.  One of my favorite ways to cleanse my body is with green  smoothies. Even though I eat really healthfully, exercise on a regular basis, and do my Heart Math exercises daily, I’m not perfect.  I still get stressed out sometimes, I’m exposed to toxins and I eat on the run more often than I’d like.

I personally do a Green Cleanse at least quarterly by taking a week off eating and just drinking green smoothies or juices for 7 days.  I am always amazed at how much more energy I have when I do this.  That’s why every 3 months, I lead a group green smoothie cleanse.  I have hundreds of success stories from people who feel they got their life back after a green cleanse.  This time around I’ve added a new component – daily interactive journals.  The details about the cleanse, go to my Green Smoothie Cleanse Website.

If you’ve already done a green cleanse or a short cleanse and are ready to take it to the next level, I suggest you do a deep tissue detox like my Six Week Deep Tissue Detox or something similar.

Bedtime and Wake-up Rituals for Adrenal Fatigue Support

One last tip for rebuilding your adrenals – create supportive bedtime and morning rituals that re-establishes
your circadian rhythm. Here’s a starting set that I recommend to my adrenal fatigue patients:

1. Shut off all electronics within an hour of bedtime.
2. Eat your last meal within 3 hours of bedtime.
3. Fill a 16 ounce glass with pure water and the juice of 1 lemon and put it by your bedside.
4. Find 3 things to appreciate before you fall asleep.
5. Find 3 things to appreciate before you get out of bed.
6. Drink the water as soon as you get up.
7. As soon as you get up, go outside and get 5 – 15 minutes of sun, even if the sun is not out.  Face in the direction of the sun and sip your water.

Get going on these habits, cleanse regularly and master the Heart Math techniques and you’ll soon be bouncing out of
bed in the morning with vim, vigor and enthusiasm for life.

I hope to meet you soon on a green smoothie cleanse.

Love, Health and Joy,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, chronic fatigue, Cleansing Programs, detoxification programs, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, DrRitamarie, green smoothie, green smoothie. detoxification programs, Living Foods, Raw Foods, raw foods diet, raw foods recipes, Vibrant Health
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Detox Program, Green Smoothies

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Green Smoothies vs Green Juice, Fruit Friend or Foe, and Other Controversial Topics

Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo

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Green Smoothies have been my friend for close to 25 years now.  My daily smoothie habit is a part of my life, just like brushing my teeth.  When Dr. Brian Clement spoke here in Austin earlier this month, he brought up a very controversial issue…Green Smoothies vs Green Juices.  He flat out said that green smoothies were “a step above soft drinks” because 90% or nutrients are lost through oxidation  when the fruits and vegetables are blended.

I personally have a hard time with this.   Nutrient destruction can occur as a result of damage by heat, light and air.   The amount of damage is a function of severity and  It is generally accepted that nutrients begin to be damages when heated above 118 degrees F.   I have not found any studies that confirm this.  In fact there is quite a bit of evidence that refutes this.

First of all we need to define what we mean by nutrients.

1. Macronutrients: nutrients consumed in large amounts , ie protein, carbohydrates and fats.
2. Micronutrients: nutrients consumed in small mounts , ie vitamins, minerals, enzymes

Not all are similarly sensitive to oxidation.  Take minerals for example.  You can leach them out with prolonged heat, but its hard to destroy calcium by blending.  In fact, calcium becomes more available after blending because ti’s released form the cell walls, a feat ordinarily accomplished by stomach acid – which becomes deficient as we age and abuse our bodies.

The smoothie vs juice debate is a hot topic these days.  Her’s an excerpt from an excellent article written by Kevin Gianni of Renegade Health.  Kevin gave me permission to reprint it .  Thanks Kevin.  You saved me some precious time.

There are 5 important issues to address when discussing the Green Smoothie vs Green Juice debate, according to Kevin.

1. Oxidation
2. Fiber
3. Sugar Content
4. Available Nutrients
5. Ease of Making them.

Number 1: Oxidation

It’s said that high speed blenders can oxidize your nutrients so that when you drink a smoothie you won’t get the health benefit of it.

This is why you should drink juices instead.

This is false.

Victoria Boutenko did a study using potatoes in a blender and in a juicer and found that the potatoes in a blender oxidized much more SLOWLY than the potato juice.

• Fiber actually protects the smoothie from oxidizing quickly.
• Juices should be consumed right after you make them for the highest nutrient profile.
• Twin gear juicers like the Tribest are best for slowing the oxidizing process when you juice.  (Sold  in the Renegade Health store)

So the bottom line is this…

Smoothies oxidize slower, which means you will be able to preserve more nutrients for longer.

For oxidation, we like smoothies best.

Number 2: Fiber

Don’t we need fiber to prevent heart disease?

Why would we take the fiber out when we make a juice?

These are good questions.

First off, we do need fiber… but if we’re eating a high raw diet we’re getting plenty of fiber.  Your body won’t miss the fiber from the juice.

Why take the fiber out of the juice?

For fast absorption (and maximum) of the nutrients.

A juice to me is like a power-packed supplement to your regular healthy diet.

For fiber, the smoothie has more, but the juice has a different purpose.

Number 3: Sugar Content

For sugar content, if you’re using fruits and sweet vegetables for your juices and smoothies you’re going to get sugar.  Most people can deal with moderate amounts of sugar in their diet for an extended period of
time.  (Higher sugar for shorter periods)

Because there is fiber in your smoothie, your body will absorb the sugar slower.  This is good for your pancreas. When you juice fruit, you take away the fiber and this can cause your pancreas to struggle to regulate your blood sugar.

For this reason, I recommend smoothies with sweet fruits and veggies and juices with greens and low  glycemic fruits like lemons and limes.  This way you can enjoy your fruits without blood sugar spikes and enjoy a nice, clean green juice!

Just to recap, smoothies contain more fiber, don’t oxidize as fast, and allow for slower nutrient absorption.

Juices have less fiber, oxidize quicker and allow for quick absorption.

Now again, this doesn’t mean that juices are bad, they just have  their place.  We use them as we would a supplement.  Drinking an organic vegetable juice is an opportunity to get great nutrients and minerals straight into your system.

4. Available Nutrients

When you juice a veggie, you strip away all the fiber.  This makes  the nutrients extremely available for your system to absorb. When you blend a veggie, you break down the fiber making the nutrients easier to absorb, but you still have a bunch of fiber that will slow absorption in your intestines.

For sugary foods this is ideal.  For greens it’s good too, but not as good as a green juice.  When it comes to readily available nutrients, juices take the lead.

5. Ease of Making Them

Smoothies hands down on this.  Put your ingredients into a blender  and turn it on.  Cleaning with a blender is simple too. Rinse it out a bit, add some water and soap, then put it back on the base.  Turn it on for a few seconds, then use a sponge to clean out what’s left.

Juicers are harder to clean because they have more moving parts.

To get the best of both worlds, you can use your blender to make juices.

Add your juice ingredients to the blender, add some water, and blend.  When you’re done, strain everything through a nut milk bag and you have your juice ready to go.

http://www.renegadehealth.com/smoothieweek

Check out Kevin’s Smoothie Wee Specials…1/2 off Kevin’s  “Smoothies for Optimal Health” book, and discounts on Kev’s Super Smoothie Powder.

For the second topic, Fruit friend or foe,  we’ll continue tomorrow.

Bottom line:  enjoy your smoothies and have juice too, for a powerful nutritional boost.

For a super powerful nutrition and energy boost, check out our Green Smoothie Cleanse as part of our  “Drink Green Stay Lean”  Coaching Program.

Love, Health and Joy to You,

Dr. Ritamarie

Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, Cleansing Programs, detoxification programs, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, DrRitamarie, green smoothie, Living Foods, raw and living foods holiday recipes, raw foods diet, vegan foods, Vibrant Health
Posted in Cancer Nutrition, Detox Program, Green Smoothies, Holistic Nutrition, Vibrant Health

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