A couple of weeks ago while on vacation, I went out to eat
with family and ate some things that were outside of my usual diet. This often
happens when one is away so you try to do your best with what you have. I
happened to wake up the next day feeling like absolute shit and because this
commonly happens in these types of situations, and being that Health is one of
my biggest priorities in Life, I knew of some old-fashioned remedies that
always come in handy when away. My wife and I went to a local Whole Foods
Market that had a juice bar and I had a carrot-apple-beet juice. Within the
hour, my symptoms of lethargy, GI discomfort, bloating, and joint achiness
disappeared.
Another instance was when my wife decided that she no longer
cooks on Fridays and bought some take-out fried chicken from Dirty Bird in NYC.
Now Dirty Bird isn’t so bad since they use free-range Amish chickens but their
biggest downfall is that they fry their chickens in canola oil. Canola oil is
an industrial by-product oil that use been maliciously promoted as a “healthy”
oil due to its “omega-3” fatty acid content. This oil is unstable and goes
rancid very easily facilitating a significant inflammatory/immune response in
our bodies when consumed. It’s cheap and that’s why food establishments use it.
It’s NOT healthy at all. Anyway, I’ve recently eliminated about 90-95% of all
vegetable & nut/seed oils, as well as grains from my diet for the past 6
months since our baby girl was born earlier this year. Eating the fried chicken
after an 11 hour work day, I was so hungry and had little reserve to prepare my
own food, it did taste great but as I always tell my clients, “you play, you
pay”. The next morning I woke up with a soreness in my right sacroiliac joint
that interfered with bending movements. Historically for me, this happens when
I eat too much gluten-containing grains and other processed food junk. I become
a bit constipated, flatulent, bloated in the abdomen, and increased joint pain,
mainly in the low back due to the viscero-somatic relationship of the gut and
lumbo-sacral spine. To remedy this, I decided to drink some freshly strained
beetroot juice a few days after I had the fried chicken. Beetroot juice is an
absolutely powerful beverage and should not be taken for granted. You can do a
Google search on its benefits and you’ll find that it’s a blood purifier, liver
& gallbladder detoxifier, lowers blood pressure, has anti-cancer
properties, aids digestion & elimination, and may even improve one’s skin
health. I don’t know about all these benefits but I do know from personal
experience with experimenting with several “liver & gall bladder
cleanses/flushes” (for several years) and with extreme fasting, what it feels
like to manipulate liver & gallbladder and GI tract functions. The beetroot
juice appears to have an effect in stimulating bile release which assists the
liver & gallbladder in unloading stored toxins and releasing them into the
colon to be eliminated from the body. In layman’s terms: it can clean you out
and make you poop more effectively. I drank a large amount of beetroot juice
alone, about 12 ounces and immediately felt nauseous and had to lie down for
about 20 minutes. Afterwards, when the nausea subsided, it stimulated a massive
bowel movement and about an 80-85% reduction in my low back soreness. Pretty
awesome, huh? I used to feel similar experiences after going through a
liver/gallbladder flush protocols. Beetroot juicing can be considered somewhat
of a “mini-liver/gallbladder flush” as a quick way to reset one’s metabolism
after highly stressful conditions.
When you eat junk, the body will store toxicities from that
junk if it doesn’t have the reserves to do it right away. Over time, excess
toxicities can be stored in our organs and most commonly, into fat tissue. This
creates an excess physiological load on the bodily systems and if not unloaded
eventually, will lead to perceived symptoms. Usually when symptoms appear, the
body’s compensatory mechanisms have already been overly taxed for quite some
time. Food like beetroot juice greatly assists the body in unloading the stored
toxins.
Warning
I do not suggest drinking beetroot juice alone and not
greater than 1-3 ounces in the beginning. This may elicit a huge detoxification
reaction such as nausea and GI discomfort. Try the juice of 1-2 beetroots along
with some carrot and apple juice. Drink as needed to offset any undesirable
effects of eating crap food or being excessively stressed out. At the most you may see your urine turn pinkish (possible sign of having low HCL (gastric acid) levels) and your poop turn reddish. Don't be alarmed. That's normal.
Also, do not use this as a “quick-fix” for a poor diet. You
may become very uncomfortable and feel extremely sick if you do. There is no quick-fix to
Health. Pay Attention. Experiment and Be Truthful with your experiences.
The How-To:
If you don’t have a juicer, you’ll need a blender. And a
strainer as well.
1-2 small beetroots, peeled and sliced
1-2 small carrots, peeled and sliced
1-2 medium apples, peeled and sliced
-Add the produce into the blender along with some bottled
spring water (enough to cover the produce)
-Blend until liquefied.
-Pour into glass over strainer.
-Drink and enjoy!
