Are smoothies and juices something you should include in your anti-inflammatory toolkit? Being a big proponent of fiber, my answer might surprise you.
In this episode, we'll unravel the benefits of each in managing your overall health. You'll learn how smoothies can help you sneak in a variety of fruits and vegetables ... kind of like eating a big bowl of salad each day.
Plus, you'll discover how these delicious drinks can serve as a gentle introduction to high-fiber foods, easing your digestive system into a healthier routine.
In this episode, I'll guide you through the practical steps to incorporate smoothies and juices into your diet effectively, making it easier to boost your nutrient intake and reduce inflammation.
We'll discuss why variety matters, the digestion-friendly nature of smoothies and juices, and how you can train your gut to handle fibrous foods better over time.
Whether you're just starting your RA journey or looking to enhance your current regimen, this episode is packed with actionable insights and encouragement to help you thrive with RA.
Rate, Review, and Subscribe! I am honored that you tuned in to today's show and I don't want you to miss a single episode! Make sure you go HERE to hit the subscribe button so you know when the next episode drops.
If you found this episode helpful in any way, please leave me a Rating + Review. When you do, it helps me reach and support other people, just like you, so that they can move toward living a healthier and happier life with RA. Click HERE, scroll down to the bottom, tap to rate with 5 stars, then scroll down and tap 'Write a Review'. Then share what resonated with you in the episode! What did you love the most?
*This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any illness or disease. The information provided herein is for general educational purposes, has not been reviewed nor approved by the FDA and is not intended to take the place of advice from your medical professional, licensed dietitian or nutritionist. You are solely responsible for your health care and activity choices. Your decision to try this formula does not constitute a client-coach relationship. For my full disclaimer, please visit: https://dawnlaflin.com/disclaimer/
Are smoothies and juices something you should include in your anti-inflammatory toolkit? Being a big proponent of fiber, my answer might surprise you.
In this episode, we'll unravel the benefits of each in managing your overall health. You'll learn how smoothies can help you sneak in a variety of fruits and vegetables ... kind of like eating a big bowl of salad each day.
Plus, you'll discover how these delicious drinks can serve as a gentle introduction to high-fiber foods, easing your digestive system into a healthier routine.
In this episode, I'll guide you through the practical steps to incorporate smoothies and juices into your diet effectively, making it easier to boost your nutrient intake and reduce inflammation.
We'll discuss why variety matters, the digestion-friendly nature of smoothies and juices, and how you can train your gut to handle fibrous foods better over time.
Whether you're just starting your RA journey or looking to enhance your current regimen, this episode is packed with actionable insights and encouragement to help you thrive with RA.
Rate, Review, and Subscribe! I am honored that you tuned in to today's show and I don't want you to miss a single episode! Make sure you go HERE to hit the subscribe button so you know when the next episode drops.
If you found this episode helpful in any way, please leave me a Rating + Review. When you do, it helps me reach and support other people, just like you, so that they can move toward living a healthier and happier life with RA. Click HERE, scroll down to the bottom, tap to rate with 5 stars, then scroll down and tap 'Write a Review'. Then share what resonated with you in the episode! What did you love the most?
*This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any illness or disease. The information provided herein is for general educational purposes, has not been reviewed nor approved by the FDA and is not intended to take the place of advice from your medical professional, licensed dietitian or nutritionist. You are solely responsible for your health care and activity choices. Your decision to try this formula does not constitute a client-coach relationship. For my full disclaimer, please visit: https://dawnlaflin.com/disclaimer/
Speaker 1:
Smoothies make it easier to eat healthier foods that might otherwise be problematic for you, because what's happening is, when you're adding everything into the blender, it is pre-digesting this for you. It's starting to break down that fibrous exterior, which then allows your body just to absorb those nutrients. It doesn't have to take the time to break down those fibers. I'm Dawn Laughlin, certified health coach and fellow RA warrior. It wasn't all that long ago that I was in this place where I was fearful of the uncertainty of my future, wondering when my next flare would come or wondering when the pain would let up. Fast forward through many trials, errors and lessons learned and you'll find a gal who is stronger, healthier and more confident in her future than ever before. Yes, I still have RA, but RA doesn't have me. I believe our lifestyle, food choices and mindset greatly impact the way our bodies handle rheumatoid arthritis. I created the Thrive with RA podcast to explore the science-based ways to realign your health. Through these three pillars and so much more, we'll be navigating both the messy and the blessings that come from living a life with RA. Each week, you'll get a good dose of education, inspiration, encouragement and hope as you take small steps to improve your health and overall life. If you've been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis or are still trying to figure out if the symptoms you're feeling are indeed rheumatoid arthritis, you are in the right place. My friend, let's get started. Hey there, friend, welcome back to the Thrive with Ari podcast.
Speaker 1:
Today, I want to talk to you about a question that comes up time and again which is better for reducing inflammation smoothies or juices? And my answer is both. They both serve different purposes and can be beneficial in driving down inflammation. Now, I want to preface this by saying that they are not cures. Like I say all the time, there is no one single magic bullet. Rather, look at these as additions to your anti-inflammatory toolkit. So, with that said, let's look at each, and we'll start with the smoothies.
Speaker 1:
Now, before we go too deep, I think it's important to do a little self-reflection and ask yourself how many vegetables and fruits do I generally eat in my daily diet on any given day? Now, there's no judgment, this is just you taking a little self-assessment. And when you think about that amount of vegetables and fruits that you're eating, would you say it's a varied amount. How much variety do you get within that? If you are like most people, it's not enough, which is where the beauty of smoothies comes in. They're an excellent way to bring in a lot of nutrients into your daily diet.
Speaker 1:
The reality is is that when you are trying to reduce inflammation, you have to add in a variety of nutrients that your body is missing. It's critical, while you could eat a massive salad every day that's loaded with different types of vegetables, it's a lot of chewing, and don't misunderstand me, because I encourage you to eat salad. Salads can be a wonderful way to add a variety to your meal, to every meal that you're eating, whether it's a side salad or an entree itself. But when you think of all that chewing, you could also put all of that in a smoothie and still soak in all those nutrients, minus the chewing. So it's a great way to mix things up. Which leads me to my second benefit. Smoothies are easy on digestion.
Speaker 1:
Now you may be thinking, dawn, my stomach doesn't do well with a lot of veggies, and this could be for a number of reasons, the first being is that, if you're like most people, fiber is a fairly new concept. Your body is not used to digesting it. Think of it as training your muscles, just like you would go into a gym as a new person to lifting. You're not going to go lift the heaviest weight possible. You're going to start slow, build your way up to work to where you can handle a heavier weight. The same goes for when you are training your gut. You are working to help your gut begin to break down these high fiber foods. You're helping them increase digestive ability, and so you want to take the time and do it slowly and build your way up.
Speaker 1:
Now, another reason is that you might be struggling with common issues of a sensitive stomach or a gut, with permeability issues. When you have these issues, you could be struggling with eating foods that are actually healthy for you. A third reason is that you could be low on the digestive enzymes that are necessary to break down fibrous foods. Now, you probably are already guessing where I'm going with this, but smoothies make it easier to eat healthier foods that might otherwise be problematic for you, because what's happening is, when you're adding everything into the blender, it is pre-digesting this for you. It's starting to break down that fibrous exterior, which then allows your body just to absorb those nutrients. It doesn't have to take the time to break down those fibrous walls. And that brings me to benefit number three, which is smoothies provide a lot of fiber. Here you're adding all those ingredients into the blender. It's breaking down those fibrous walls and releasing the nutrients into your drink, leaving the fiber inside.
Speaker 1:
Fiber is food for your good gut guys in your microbiome. When you feed and nourish them, they're able to work harder for you. They go to work repairing and rebuilding cells. They're maintaining the gut lining as well as keeping the peace within the gut microbiome. Studies show a correlation between RA patients and poor gut health, meaning the microbiome tends to be out of balance. There's possibly a low diversity of good bacteria or again, that permeability issue. With the gut lining, your goal is to help get the good guys back in charge, because when they are, they're releasing inflammation, reducing compounds out into your body. It also helps repair the gut lining, which then overall, cumulatively, starts to improve your overall inflammation.
Speaker 1:
Another benefit of fiber it helps improve your regularity. When you are regular with your bowel movements and they're the right consistency, you can feel confident that you're helping your body move the toxins out. Unfortunately, there are way too many of us who are not regular and we have normalized this, saying it's just how my body operates, which isn't true. More than anything, you need to focus on turning that around so that you have more regularity, because when you're not regular, those toxins have nowhere to go. The toxins that are left building up in your body can then lead to more problems down the road.
Speaker 1:
Okay, let's talk about benefit number four, and that's hydration. Hydration is critical when you're reducing inflammation and keeping your body functioning at its best. It enables your cells to have structure and fluidity so that they're able to send and receive messages properly. It also helps lubricate and cushion your joints, which helps improve your joint pain. It also helps improve digestion and so much more. Now here's where the smoothies come in, because fruits and vegetables you guessed it have water. Adding them to your smoothies makes it easier for you to hit your water intake goals. In fact, you can even use water to make the smoothie, as opposed to alternative milks, so that you can get to that water goal so much quicker.
Speaker 1:
Now let's talk about juicing. Juicing is a process where you extract all the juice from your whole fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices and you're left with this beautiful concoction of a concentrated drink that's loaded with nutrients. You've got your vitamins, your minerals, antioxidants and electrolytes. It provides this really impressive amount of nutrients that can go nourish your body at the cellular level, all within a single drink. Another benefit is that juicing can help you take in a wider variety of foods that you might not otherwise eat. For example, I love beetroot juice. I mix it with some celery, cucumber, ginger, carrots, lemon. It's delicious, but I don't love cooked beets, so I don't eat them quite as often. But you give me a beetroot juice, then I'm all in.
Speaker 1:
The third benefit I want to touch on is hydration. Again, we're talking about hydration. Smoothies bring it, and so does juicing, especially when you drink it first thing in the morning, which is what I recommend. When you wake up, your cells are thirsty. They have been working all night to repair and rebuild and clean up whatever is going on for you inside your body.
Speaker 1:
When you drink a green juice, you're helping replenish those vital nutrients. You're rehydrating those cells and, as if that wasn't enough, juices can be very energizing. It's essentially what replaced my morning coffee, though I was never a big coffee drinker to begin with. I didn't even start drinking it until my mid-30s, when I started drinking celery, cucumber and ginger juice, which is my go-to every day. I never went back to coffee I didn't miss it is my go-to every day. I never went back to coffee, I didn't miss it. My green juice became my new mojo without even trying. It gives me so much energy. In fact, I drink it before I go work out, each day, and it energizes me throughout.
Speaker 1:
So if you're hearing all this for the first time, you might be thinking this all sounds great. Why are some people against juicing? What it boils down to is the one nutrient that's missing from juices, and that's fiber. You literally strip the fiber away when you cold press a juice, and if you've been following me for any amount of time, you already know how passionate I am about fiber. It's crucial that we consume it every day. So then, why am I here recommending green juices if they've been stripped of fiber? And that's because of this last benefit that I'm going to touch on. It helps support your digestive system. When there's no fiber to compete with, you're just giving your digestive system a rest while deeply nourishing it at the same time. In addition, it can help get things moving first thing in the morning, and I've already touched on how important regularity is.
Speaker 1:
Now, one thing I want to highlight because there's no fiber, it's important to make sure that, whether you are juicing at home or you are buying a pre-made cold-pressed juice, that you keep the content, your sugar content, low. You want to avoid those with added sugars altogether, and if you lean more toward a green juice, those naturally are lower in sugar. By doing so, you're helping your body avoid that glucose spike and drop that we often see because we don't bring in enough fiber to whatever it is we're eating or drinking. So making sure you keep that sugar content low is very important. If you're using fruit to sweeten your green juice, lean on an 80 20 concept, where 80 of it is veggies and 20 is a low glycemic fruit.
Speaker 1:
Now that you know the benefits of both smoothies and juices, you might be wondering how to incorporate them into your day. Well, here are a couple of things that I personally do, as well as suggestions for you to consider. You can benefit from a juice anytime, but I find drinking them first thing in the morning to be most beneficial. As I mentioned before, when you are drinking juice before other foods, smoothies or even coffee, it's allowing your body to soak in those nutrients without having to compete with any other food in your system. It also helps fire up the digestive system, supporting regularity. For me, my morning routine is I sip on my juice, make my smoothie, which I save for after my workout, and then I head out the door.
Speaker 1:
You can swap your smoothie out for either breakfast, lunch or a snack. Just make sure that, if you are using it as a meal itself, that you include protein in with that. You've got your good carbs, your protein and your healthy fats. Now a couple of pro tips that I would suggest when you are drinking your smoothie, go slow. If you drink it too quickly, you will feel bloated and blah as your digestion tries to catch up. Also, throw in a couple of chewing motions as you get started, and here's why ketchup. Also throw in a couple of chewing motions as you get started, and here's why Digestion starts in your mouth. When you are chewing, or emulating that motion, digestive enzymes fire up. That helps kick-start the rest of the digestive tract, letting it know that nutrients are coming. When drinking a juice, you can accomplish that same thing just by giving it a swish or two as you get going.
Speaker 1:
And there you have it the many benefits and reasons why I believe there's a place for both smoothies and juices in your anti-inflammatory toolkit. So tell me what do you think? Are smoothies and juices already part of your routine and, if not, are you up for trying them? Dm me on Instagram at dawnlachlanhealth or send me a message through the show notes. I'd love to know. All right, I hope that you found this episode valuable and it helps you consider new tools for your RA toolkit. Thanks so much for hanging out with me. I'll see you next week, same time, same place. Bye for now, thank you.
