The Best Dietary Supplement (In My Opinion!)

Let me get this out of the way now: I'm not out to push a product here - there are no kickbacks for me by sharing this post with you.  While I would like to become a distributor someday, I'm currently not - I'm simply a consumer and a firm believer in this product and I am only passing along the information I have and encouraging everyone to give it a try simply because it works!

I'm talking about Juice Plus.  I never really knew anything about it before I was introduced to it - I honestly just thought it was just another pyramid scheme product that encouraged people to "work from home" and "earn money on their own schedule" and I lumped it into the category of all the other home sales companies out there like Pampered Chef or Thirty-One.  And I love me some Pampered Chef and Thirty-One and have bought plenty of products from those parties that I've come to love and use frequently, so I figured it was probably a good product like those were, and probably did have health benefits like they claimed to have, but on top of that I also assumed it was probably something the company tries to hook you on and convince you that you need to take this product forever for it to actually work, and really, who wants to do that?  I used to sell ItWorks! body wraps, and I got out of it for that reason - the product worked, but I felt like the only way to see continuous results was to use it forever, and therefore keep forking over more and more money on their products, and I didn't feel good about that.  Added to the fact that it seemed to encourage people to bypass the fact that you need a healthy lifestyle to attain results in weight loss and body tone, thinking this magic wrap will solve everything, but I digress.

Turns out, Juice Plus isn't like that.  However, I encourage taking it forever, just like the company does!  But it's not because they're out to scam money out of you.  I think this stuff is for real and from personal experience, it works.

Here's why I believe in it, and why taking it forever isn't a bad idea:  All it is is fruits and vegetables.  Picked at their peak time, immediately dehydrated so that all that's left is the nutrients and antioxidants, and encapsulated, so all you're consuming is fruit and vegetable nutrition in capsule-form.  Why?  First of all because we don't eat enough of that stuff.  I know I don't, and I have a fairly healthy diet to begin with - certainly not perfect, but what I would consider above average for the Standard American Diet (aka SAD).  So if I'm not, I'm sure most everyone else isn't either.  So we have to come up with ways to make sure our bodies get proper nutrition.  You can supplement with vitamins, but unfortunately those are ususally either synthetic (which can end up having the opposite effect you're going for and be very detrimental to your health) or isolated - vitamins need to work together with other nutrients to be the most effective.  The best way to get vitamins into your body is through whole food sources - the fruits and vegetables from which they originated.  That's why it's so important to eat plenty of it, but, like I mentioned before, it's hard.  Another option a lot of people have turned to is juicing - load up a bunch of fruits and veggies and blend it down into a liquid and drink it.  It's an awesome option for sure, and a very easy way to get good nutrition.  But one problem I find is that it still contains the excess sugars and calories, if weight loss happens to be one of your goals, and also the convenience factor is tricky, which can be a hindrance for people with busy, on-the-go lifestyles.  I personally don't juice for that very reason - loading up my blender with fruits and vegetables after cutting them to size, coring, seeding, peeling, whatever, then making sure I clean the blender right away because dried fruit leftovers is not fun to clean off later - it can take a chunk out of your morning and if you're wrangling kids and have places to be, that can be tricky.  On top of that, if you're going to juice regularly, you're going to go through a lot of produce, and if you want to do the absolute best for your body, organic is the best way to go, and we all know that gets pricey.  Even just regularly buying local produce can get pricey.  And if you're going to juice for your whole family?  Whew...

Consuming plenty of fruits and vegetables and the nutrients they have in them is only going to increase your health - boost your immune system, prevent or even reverse diseases, and ward off cancer.

I think I made a few good points.  So back to Juice Plus.  It's just healthy, whole fruit and vegetable nutrition in capsule form.  That's pretty crazy easy, if you asked me.

I got started on it when I was pregnant with Harlee.  I was still learning, still a bit uninformed when it came to what constituted "healthy" in terms of supplements and diet, and like probably most women, got talked into going to the pharmacy to fill a prescribed prenatal "vitamin".  Hello morning sickness like I never could have imagined.  I can't remember what prompted me to stop taking the vitamin to reduce morning sickness, maybe it was my mom telling me that sometimes multi-vitamins make her sick, but either way I quit taking it and felt much better.  Morning sickness tapered off to a mild unsettled feeling in the morning and I could finally function again.  Unfortunately I wasn't taking anything anymore, and I do think it's important to get the additional nutrition to support the little person you're growing.  Then one day, I was working the front desk at the local YMCA at the time, one of the members (and now a friend of mine) came in and we got to talking about morning sickness and prenatal vitamins and she told me she took Juice Plus throughout her pregnancy as her prenatal vitamins, and maybe I could look into that.  She started selling it because of the great results she saw from it, so after reading up on it and learning more about it, I decided to give it a shot.  Besides, the price it was to take the supplements wasn't really any different than what I would be spending on extra fruits and vegetables anyway.  Well, it wasn't long before I started seeing results - my system was feeling regular, I felt like I could function better, my energy levels felt more balanced, it was great!  Since then I've gone to several seminars and listened to speakers discussing the health benefits of Juice Plus, or just eating more fruits and vegetables in general, and it's really amazing what this product offers.  When I found out I was pregnant this time around, I took Juice Plus as well as an omega-3, vitamin D, and then added in an all-natural prenatal, but still had some pretty decent morning sickness.  Not as bad as with Harlee, but still lots of violent vomiting in the mornings and feeling very unstable throughout the day.  I ditched the prenatal and stuck to only the Juice Plus and omegas and vitamin D, and my morning sickness lessened.  I think it's unavoidable - the huge hormonal shift your body goes through only makes sense that it would cause you to have some sort of side effects, but it sure is nice to not have to suffer SO much.

Now, I have tendencies to be inconsistent with taking supplements regularly, so for awhile there I'd completely forget to take anything at all.  At one point I noticed I was getting hit with horrible fatigue in the middle of the day, and it was during my second trimester too, when you're supposed to feel your best.  It dawned on me that I had forgotten to take my supplements for about a week and a half at that point.  Wondering if that was the culprit, I started immediately taking it again, and wouldn't ya know, no more fatigue!  I went back to enjoying normal energy levels (which is pretty necessary when raising an almost 3-year-old and wanting to maintain a workout routine as well as manage everything else going on in life).

I've read a little more about the benefits of Juice Plus in pregnancy, and one bit of information I liked was shared by an OB, Dr. Doug Odom, who conducted his own small study on how Juice Plus affected pregnancies.

Over time, Dr. Odom and his nursing staff noticed that with the Juice Plus+® moms, they were seeing fewer Caesarean deliveries (“Csections”), fewer premature deliveries, and a lower incidence of preeclampsia – a condition of late pregnancy that is  characterized by high blood pressure and that can be potentially lifethreatening
to both mother and baby. They also noticed that the newborns of these moms tended to have higher birth weights, fewer admissions to neonatal intensive care units, and a lower incidence of respiratory distress syndrome.

 This is an awesome supplement for anyone, no matter what stage in life you're in.  And there's a ton of research to back it up, which you can read for yourself here.  It benefits your oral health, skin health, heart health, all the way down to the health of your DNA.  And it makes sense - fruits and vegetables are what nature put in place for us to consume to nourish our bodies and keep us healthy inside and out, so it's no wonder these clinical research studies are coming back with so much positive proof that our bodies greatly benefit from getting more fruit and vegetable nutrition.  And being able to get solid nutrition in capsule form only makes it that much better - or at least I know it does for me and my busy lifestyle!

If you want to learn more, I purchase my Juice Plus supplements through Jennie Walker and have been for the past 3+ years since the day she mentioned it to me early in my pregnancy with Harlee.  She can be reached at jen_g80@hotmail.com or on her cell at (618) 593-4900.  I encourage you to get in touch and ask more questions and learn more about the great health benefits (and the great convenience) of Juice Plus!