Tuesday, August 22, 2017

The Greens

My new favorite kids book
The other day I was listening to the Fit2Fat2Fit podcast at work. I stay about a month behind on my podcast list, it's awful. But on this one Drew interviewed the CEO of Organifi, a company that makes powders you can mix into water or juice. This post is not sponsored in any way and I did not use Organifi products, although they do seem wonderful.

My current list of complaints begins by still hovering around 210 lbs and being unable to run thanks to a persistent foot pain. The new pain that has been racking up this year is (I think) arthritis in my elbows, wrists, and hands. Joint pain doesn't play games - it sucks. Also I've been waking up with lower back pain.

Then you can imagine my surprise when this podcast guest said that he had been drinking greens every morning, and after 7 days did not wake up with lower back pain anymore. That did get my attention. Then the rest of his joint pain cleared up shortly after the 7 day mark. I immediately had to investigate this product line.



Organifi offers a line of green (and now red) juice powders. The green juice is mostly vitamins and superfoods, totally organic. The ingredient list is very robust with stuff that I know has been good for me in the past. The red juice is a powder of anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory foods that looks amazing. Seriously amazing. I can't wait to get my hands on some of this stuff.

Fortunately, I already had some greens. I bought a jar of vitamins & greens from the clearance section at a GNC a few months ago. And since I already start each day with a full bike bottle of water (24oz) I figured I could go ahead and throw the greens in there for a week and see how it felt. The greens are a complete vitamin, mineral, superfood, and energy supplement.

Monday was the first day on the greens. Tuesday evening I hit swim practice with my team, that ended up being my only workout on the week. It got a little hectic, but by the next monday I did indeed feel great. Seems like the greens worked! It is a fantastic way to start my mornings.

Trader Joe's also has both a green juice powder and a red juice powder. I'm really wanting to try the red stuff now. I also found several options for green and red powders on Amazon. They don't all have the same ingredients but I bet the results will be similar yet still different for every person/powder combination. Still after only one week I am totally hooked on these greens.



This past Monday was IM day at swim practice. I still got in the 1500 yard warmup and 1500 yard IM set. But my joints. My joints did not like the IM set at all. It turned into just a kick set, and tonight (Tuesday evening) my right elbow is still in enough pain for me to skip swim practice tonight. Joint pain sucks. I thought after last week this was going to go away. I'm still having some lower back pain when I wake up too, but that could be the mattress or pillow. It feels like that has eased up some anyway. But the joint pain, that's real today. I'm not quite sure what that means. Maybe I need to give swimming a rest? Still have a couple of open water races coming up.

Have you ever tried adding powdered greens to your morning water? Any red juice tips?

3 comments:

Jess said...

Urgh I hear you about how frustrating pain can be. It sucks that you still can't run because of your foot pain. :( I haven't tried the greens stuff, but now I'm a tiny bit tempted.

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

I haven't tried either but since my RA has been acting up lately it sounds like something I should look into. I'm sorry to hear that you've been having all of this joint pain. Have they ruled out that it's RA? Joint pain is awful and very debilitating. I've been dealing with a flare that keeps resurfacing and it's just so annoying and painful. My hands are typically what's most impacted so it makes it hard to work since I do so much typing. Makes me feel like an 80 year old woman. I am barely working out right now as anytime I increase my activity, the flare tends to come back. Womp womp.

Kristie said...

I'm sorry you're still feeling the pain with no relief in sight. I just checked out the ingredients to Organifi and I'm allergic to coconut and can't have a few others due to my health issues...But I do use EnergyBits and RecoveryBits, which are Chlorella and Spirulina Algae Tabs. They have helped ease some of my joint pain and inflammation in the past.