Hello.

For people I coach this is one of those informational emails on things I do research on in my spare time, for others you may just find this interesting, or not. This email is a bit long so if you would rather call me to find out about it or to get more information just give me a call instead.

However, a number of people asked me to get them more information on what I discuss below. I apologize for the length/detail but it's a great topic and worth the read. The few people that I've talked to to date about this have asked me to send something like this to them, which is why I've put this together and sent it to you all. People often ask me questions about particular products and their effectiveness (equipment, supplements, diets, etc). I'll contact manufacturers and be contacted by reps to discuss/try out different products. Along the same lines people often ask me questions about what they can do to maximize their performance and get the most out of their training programs. These general questions get me interested in finding answers to particular issues.

One thing I find that tends to cross both of these issues is nutrition and how people can eat better and get the most out of their training. In a lot of cases the questions revolve around what they can eat or take as part of their diet to give them more energy/feel better and or experience better recovery from their training. I'm really good (and I try to get you to be really good) at eating for fuel. Get enough fuel into your system to give you the energy you need to get through your workouts effectively, but not so much fuel that you have too much in your system and have a hard time losing weight (if that's a goal).

One thing I do have trouble with though is eating for health.

Oxidative Stress in the Athlete

 As an athlete that (occasionally) trains pretty hard I understand that I am exposing myself (through this hard training) to a potentially tremendous amount of oxidative stress on my body by increasing the production of harmful free radicals. Proper nutrition of course reduces oxidative stress by providing a greater variety of antioxidants that offset the production of free radicals. Free radicals are produced in your body when water reacts with oxygen in your mitochondria to produce hydrogen peroxide, a toxic molecule called a free radical. The daily bombardment of your body's cells by these free radicals gradually breaks you down. Therefore the harder you workout, the more important it is for you to ensure you are ingesting an adequate supply of antioxidants.

Vitamins C, E and beta-carotene are only three of the thousands of antioxidants that are available when you eat a variety of fruits and vegetables (the sources of antioxidants). Think of the full complement of antioxidants that your body needs as an orchestra. If you only have a couple of these antioxidants playing the orchestra doesn't sound too good. Even if one or two are missing the tune just doesn't sound right. Even if they are there and they aren't playing at the right volume the tune will sound off. However, have them all in place, plying properly and the melody is amazing.

Proper nutrition can help ensure you minimize health problems and .. -reduce the impact of free radicals -increase your lean muscle mass and reduce body fat -ensures you store energy properly and release it when required -workout longer and harder -recover quicker -avoid requirement of caffeine, sugar and other potentially harmful substances -recover faster from cuts and scrapes -sleep better Eating for Health I have a hard time eating an adequate/required amount of fruits and vegetables each day.

I know the US Food and Drug Administration says 5-9 servings of Fruits and Vegetables a day are recommended. Athletes I would think would need more, 8-12. 8-12 servings is a lot. I'm lucky if I buy enough fruits and veggies to give me 2-3 servings a day. I don't really count bagged salad which I think is my main vegetable source. And the fruits and vegetables I do eat really only come from a few different types of fruits and veggies. Not a very good cross section of the nutrients I should be getting into my system. Some of you may get an adequate supply in but the majority of the people I talk to certainly do not. Of course there is no substitute to eating a wide variety of fresh, clean (no pesticides or herbicides) fresh fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. However, that would be quite hard to do.

I was intrigued last fall when a friend of mine introduced me to Juice Plus+. Of course I thought he was just trying to get me onto something new and interesting. I asked him to give me some to try out and I would let him know what I thought. It didn't quite work out that way as he explained the importance of fruits and raw veggies (cooking destroys the majority of the enzymes, phytonutrients, etc. that you're eating these foods for in the first place) in a good eating plan, and proceeded to show me that I was certainly not likely getting enough of either of them. Dammit, he was right. He wouldn't give them to me to try out but he didn't need to. I know I don't eat healthy, per se, so I decided to go on the Juice Plus in the fall last year to try them out.

Around the middle of February I was ready to talk to people about the product. I signed on as a distributor and in the first conversation I had with a client about nutrition the second thing she told me (besides she ate way too much carbs) was that she didn't eat enough fruits and veggies. I mentioned the Juice Plus+ I was taking and she wanted on it too.

Juice Plus+

 Juice Plus+ has all the nutrients (phytochemicals/nutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, fibre, and chlorophyll) of a mixture of 17 different fruits, vegetables and grains, basically the nutrients (in powder form) of fruits and vegetables compressed down into 4 capsules. I take 2 fruits in the morning and 2 vegetables in the afternoon and now know that I'm getting my recommended nutrient amounts from an equivalent of 8-10 servings of fruits and vegetables.

The capsules contain all the goodness that regular fruits and vegetables do; without the bulk, mess, sugars, calories, salt, pesticides, herbicides, inconvenience, etc of regular foods. I knew that if I didn't go with the Juice Plus+ then my options were: -to not buy the produce (so save the money that it would cost me to get 8-12 servings of these foods a day) and not get the recommended daily requirement of fruits and vegetables and hence the nutrients I need -buy the produce and not eat it and end up throwing most of it away (so I don't save the money and I still don't get the recommended daily requirement of fruits and vegetables) -buy it and eat it (spend the money but not waste anything and get the recommended daily requirement of fruits and vegetables), yeah like that's going to happen for any length of time - take the Juice Plus+ capsules each day and not worry as much about the fruits and vegetables thing, but know I'm getting my recommended daily requirement of fruits and vegetables.

Although I do have to buy the Juice Plus+ capsules. I still try to eat fruits and veggies, but I know I'm going to stick with what I like to eat, which I also know doesn't give me the variety I likely need. Of course it's hard to say exactly how well they work but I do know that for the first time in a long time I didn't get bronchitis and have to go on antibiotics this past winter (which I've had to do almost every single winter since I was 16). I got 2 colds this winter that lasted 1.5 weeks and 6 days. The first cold hit (oddly enough) two weeks after I stopped taking the Juice Plus+ capsules as I was down in Florida and had ran out.

Everyone knows they need to eat better but it's often very hard to do with any degree of consistency. I'll still try to eat well (for health as well as fuel) but I like knowing that these 4 capsules are at least giving me, on a consistent basis, all the nutrients I need. Most people are surprised by the deficiencies they have in their system from a lack of proper nutrients. Once you get those levels back to a proper level (sometimes takes a while) you should feel better and experience increased health. Everyone reacts differently to what nutrients they are deficient in. People I've talked to and/or studies done on the product though indicate benefits of a better nutrition program, particularly from taking Juice Plus, include improved sleep, reduction in aches and pains, better recovery from workouts, reduction in cravings, clearer complexion, and lessened severity of allergies.

Of course including less processed food and more nutrients in your diet can certainly help to fight the increasing incidence of heart disease and degenerative diseases like cancer. I use to take over a dozen different types of vitamins a day before, but now just take my Juice Plus+, a Flax seed oil pill (for omega fatty acids) and glucosamine-chondroitin for my old knees. And if you don't like taking pills at all, Juice Plus+ comes in a chewable form.

Juice Plus+ Studies

Juice Plus+ has been directly reviewed in numerous studies by leading universities and research hospitals and is the most thoroughly researched nutritional product ever. The results of taking Juice Plus are amazing, including... -increases in blood plasma levels of key antioxidants after only 28 days of taking Juice Plus (indicating that Juice Plus is assimilated (bio-available) by the body. Quite often vitamins people take are not); -reduction in oxidative stress as evidenced by a reduction in lipid peroxides by 75-100%; -after 80 days on Juice Plus researchers found improvements in Tcells, Bcells and natural killer cells indicating improved immune function; - after 80 days on Juice Plus researchers found 66% reduction in DNA damage; -after 7 days increase in blood antioxidant levels associated with reduced risk of disease; -reduction in homocysteine levels (consistent with a reduction in risk of coronary heart disease).

Basically you'll recover faster, have a stronger immune system and be healthier. The longer you take the product the more positive the changes you're likely to see in your overall health and wellness. Thousands of doctors and health professionals actively promote Juice Plus+ as a healthy way for their patients to maintain a healthy diet.


Children's Health Study (this is really cool)

Juice Plus+ has a program that if you, as an adult, take the Juice Plus capsules then you can get a free supply of Juice Plus capsules (or chewables) for your child between the ages of 6 and 18. This is such a great program as there are so many kids (as well as parents) out there that don't eat properly. It is also part of a multiyear study to follow the effects on parents and children of taking Juice Plus+. Results so far from over 25,000 families show that:

After 4-8 months on the Juice Plus+® product adult participants report that 80% of the children in the study have become more aware of their health in general; and that 90% have some positive result to show for it. Read more at www.childrensresearch.org
Cost

You would think Juice Plus+ would cost a lot and when I first heard the price I thought it did. However, I know feel that it is far less expensive and convenient than buying and preparing all the fresh, raw fruits and vegetables that I should be getting each day. In Canada, Juice Plus+ is about $60 a month, in the US it's about $40US a month. When I think about how much I would spend on getting a variety of the required amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables each day I quickly realized that $2 a day is cheap.

Steve Bentley - www.bentleycoaching.com