Going Green

No, I'm not talking about making your workout more environmentally friendly but I do suppose you could cut out taking those mostly indigestible protein powders on the market and thus decrease your own personal emissions of greenhouse gases. I'm sure your workout partners would appreciate it. But that's another subject for another time.

I'm talking about going green in the form of powdered green drinks--that stuff that looks kind of like pond scum mixed in water. Let me tell you about my accidental discovery.

I did a very difficult workout one day and felt like I was going to drop dead any second. I didn't and a few days later I was going to repeat that workout. Before doing it a second time, I mixed a glass of greens and drank it down. I did the workout with no problems and felt rather good at the end. 

I experimented. I tried to do the same workouts around the same times of day under the same conditions. The workouts in which I drank the greens, I finished quicker, felt better, and had much more energy at the end. I was onto something.

I did some research as to why. I haven't yet found an exact answer but from what I have found, I believe it has to do with acid-alkaline balance. Exercise is an acid producing activity. Lactic acid is produced in the muscles and other acid forming reactions occur when the body is under the stress of exercise. The body operates better in an alkaline state. A lot of the foods and beverages we consume like sodas, coffee, tea, alcohol, sugar, processed foods, junk food, and meat are all acidic. Most people are probably chronically over acidic.

The high alkalinity of the greens help to counteract the acids produced by exercise and that allows the body to continue longer in a more efficient state. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

If you want to try this and see if it works for you, there are some things to look for when choosing a green drink. First, get one with no nutritional yeast added. Some green mixes have it added as filler. Regardless of where you stand on nutritional yeast as a food, it's acidic when consumed and would negate some of the alkaline benefits of consuming the greens.

Second, stay away from mixes that have seaweed and other water vegetables added. The reason is two-fold. Some people have an adverse reaction to plants from water and if you don't know the conditions from which they were harvested, you may be getting a lot of contamination even if all the land plants are organic. Also, mixes without the kelp, dulse, etc. taste a whole lot better. Trust me on this one.

Third, get one with organic ingredients that are low temperature air dried. This will retain a greater portion of the nutrients found in the plants. A big bowl of salad would, of course, be better but it would be hard to eat enough at one sitting to get the punch of alkalinity found in one glass of a green drink which absorbs fast and gives you an instant alkaline boost. 

If you try this, I would be very interested to hear your experiences. It works well for me and  I think you would be pleasantly surprised. Thanks for stopping by.