This week’s show notes brought to you by Shannon.
Nick and I are chatting about popular beverages on this week’s show!
Not so much recipes, but rather the health benefits of oh-so-trendy juicing and the often debated alcohol. Before we get into that though, a little recap of training.
I was in recovery mode after a yoga immersion weekend – which is almost a full three days of yoga – it takes a toll, especially being fairly pregnant at this point. With only a couple months of yoga training left though, the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight. Still learning some important lessons though, including the importance of self-care, especially as a teacher or trainer.
Nick meanwhile, has been shooting a lot of exercise videos for the Tampa Strength YouTube channel (link). If you’re interested in remotely training with ETT, you don’t have to move to Florida. Give Nick a shout, elementaltampa@gmail.com, and he can build an online workout for you.
On a sad note, one of Nick’s and my favorite Peloton instructor, Steve Little (who focused on heart rate training), is moving onto another career, so we say goodbye (with a couple water eyes). We’ll miss you Steve Little! And if you’re curious about learning more about Peloton, check out our past podcast that features an on-bike review by Nick.
We’ll miss you Steve Little! (Image courtesy of Peloton blog)
Pros & Cons of Juicing
We used to be pretty hardcore juicers a while back. Our juicer of choice is the Bella NutriPro juicer (sadly discontinued so we can’t link to it) and we used to juice every day with it. Green juice was our preferred recipe, though we grew to love beets as well.
We even learned a few lessons. Lessons like drinking juice straight away, which provides the optimum delivery of nutrients. Some of the lessons, we got from the Juice Generation book, which includes some great recipes and info.
To help highlight some of the pros and cons of juicing, we gathered together a nice little list for you!
Pros:
- Great way to provide a large amount of your daily nutrient requirement
- Make nutrients in produce easily absorbable
- Great way to eliminate food waste
Cons:
- Depending on the ingredients, can deliver a large sugar spike
- Can be expensive
- Lose out on the fiber
Different types of juicers could minimize the amount of fiber loss.
While I am more of a fan of juice than smoothies, Nick is the opposite. What camp are you? If you are a juice fan, let us know what your favorite type is.
Yes you need all this, and more, to make green juice for two
Now onto an epic debate. Is it possible to call alcohol healthy?
More specifically, does MODERATE alcohol consumption provide health benefits? Moderate meaning 1 drink per day for women and 2 drinks per day for men.
(1 drink is defined as 12oz beer, 5oz of wine & 1.5 oz of spirits)
In our personal experience, one health benefit (which might be rather obvious) is the relaxation and social lubrication provided by moderate alcohol consumption.
In addition, red wine contains resveratol, which certain studies suggest helps prevent damage to blood vessels, reduces LDL cholesterol and prevents blood clots.
Certain studies have linked moderate alcohol consumption, other than just red wine, to improved heart health. One 12+ year Norwegian study stated that moderate alcohol consumption lowered heart failure risk by 33%. However, other studies claim that even one drink could cause irregular and possibly harmful heart arrhythmias.
Red wine is healthy……..or is it?
Our final verdict is that the studies/information is inconclusive on whether or not alcohol is healthy. Even the studies that found beneficial results associated with moderate alcohol consumption state that their findings do not prove causation, meaning they could not determine whether or not the improvement in items like heart health were actually due to alcohol consumption.
We do know that excess alcohol consumption can lead to plenty of negative health issues like liver and pancreas diseases, heart failure, hypertension, cancer, stroke, behavioral issues and obesity. According to the CDC, excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010 (link).
So no magic bullets on the alcohol front.
As we wrap up, we have a couple friendly reminders for all our awesome listeners.
First off, keep checking cltampabay.com to see if you can vote for ATF for the “best local podcast” in the Best of the Bay contest.
Secondly, take advantage of Nick’s current free fitness consultation by emailing him at elementaltampa@gmail.com.
Stay tuned for more episodes and give us a shout on social media (Facebook, Instagram or Twitter).
Links to this week’s episode
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nick-burch-702220833/how-juicing-and-alcohol
Elemental Training Tampa 