Taisha Henry – The Concordian

We live in a world of trends, and besides fashion, dieting may be the biggest fad that people adopt. Celebrity diets always catch our attention and, this past year, one in particular has become controversial.

During the summer, my family and I tried the latest health trend, “juicing” which is a diet that restricts you to consuming only vegetable and fruit juices and water for anywhere between a few days to a few weeks.

Now, before I continue, I must say juicing is expensive and involves a certain amount of dedication to truly benefit from this detox diet. While the first two days may seem easy, expect a lack of energy and some time in the washroom on the third day and a sense of desperation by the fourth or fifth day.

We’re all guilty of following a fad diet at one moment in time. We all want change and we want it fast. Some believe juicing isn’t the easiest or safest way to lose weight or start a healthier lifestyle, nor is it fit for everyone.

“It can be very dangerous. If you have certain illnesses like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, for example,” said dietitian and co-author of Complete Arthritis Health Diet Guide and Cookbook, Kim Arrey. “It can affect your electrolyte balance which can unbalance your whole system. Some people get diarrhea and become very dehydrated.”

However, if done properly, juicing can be very beneficial. The Huffington Post recently published an article that stated juicing may ward off Alzheimer’s and lower blood pressure because of the disease-fighting chemicals in the juice of the fruits and vegetables. During this past summer, my brother received The Juicing Bible recipe book that offers a juice to help for just about every disease or virus, including HIV.

Yet, not everyone can just jump into a seven to 30 day juice fast and stick to it, nor is it healthy for everyone. If you’d like to give it a try, start with replacing one meal a day with a juice. Not only will it help you lose that extra winter weight before bathing suit season, but it will help you meet your daily dose of fruits and vegetables in one drink. The great thing about juicing is that you can incorporate produce that are rich in nutrients and antioxidants that you wouldn’t normally eat as a snack, like kale and ginger.

Although it does take less energy to digest your fruits and vegetables in liquid form, you lose some of the nutrient benefits of the skin and the fiber from the pulp. It is also recommended to blend your own juices or visiting a juice bar rather than purchasing bottled juices that could contain higher sugar levels, defeating the whole purpose of a detox diet.

Arrey suggests that if juicing is done for a short period of time, maybe three days, it can actually help break old habits and lead to new, healthier ones. Juicing is controversial but with a thumb up from your doctor, incorporating at least one juice a day into your diet and monitoring the difference is worth a try.

If you choose to include juicing in your daily diet, investing in a juicer may be the best option. While centrifugal juicers are the cheapest and most common option, the high speed grinding and straining may generate heat and reduce the amount of enzymes. A masticating juicer “chews” your fruits and vegetables, which is a better option if you plan to include leafy greens in the mix. You would, however, need to chop your produce into smaller bits because a masticating juicer has a smaller mouth and takes a little longer to grind the ingredients. The ideal (but most expensive) type of juicer is a triturating juicer. It may run slower but it preserves the most nutrients and extracts the most juice of your produce.

Here’s some cool recipes to try!

Beet Retreat:

1 beet

3 celery sticks

A cup of watermelon

1 cucumber

½ pineapple

Green Machine:

½ bag of kale

Celery

Cucumber

4 green apples

½ a pineapple

As a university student, an ordinary hour for me consists of working or studying, driving, chatting on the phone or texting, checking emails, listening to music and eating. Looking around at my peers, I can say with confidence that we are all slaves to multitasking. But if you think you’re being more efficient by doing several tasks at once, you couldn’t be further from the truth.

In 2009, Stanford University conducted a study comparing heavy media multitaskers versus low media multitaskers. The results showed that heavy multimedia taskers have trouble filtering out irrelevant information, are unlikely to ignore irrelevant representations in memory and are worse than low media multitaskers at task switching. According to the study, heavy media multitaskers are distracted by the different forms of media they are consuming.

For example, how many of you have been on a call, gone into the kitchen to get something and walked right back without the item you went for? Or, have you ever caught yourself writing a paper and listening to music when suddenly you find yourself accidentally typing out the lyrics.

Unfortunately, our brains aren’t meant to do two things at once. Technically, even when we think we’re multitasking, it’s really just our brain fooling us by rapidly switching between tasks. In doing so, we are overworking our brains and absorbing very little information. It also takes us longer to complete the primary task we set out to do.

“We certainly have found that [heavy media multitaskers] are worse at all aspects of multitasking, focusing and memory management. There is no question that your work suffers when you multitask,” said Professor Clifford Nass, one of the researchers of the study.

Although you might think you are accomplishing a lot in a short amount of time, you really are not. Nass went on to explain that, “in the short run, doing multiple things at once makes you do all of them less well and doesn’t save time. In the long run, it harms your brain so that even when you are not multitasking, you do worse.”

So why do people multitask?

Assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University, Zheng Joyce Wang, recently released her observations from her own study on multitasking. She concluded that people gain emotional satisfaction from multitasking, and revealed that we feel like we are accomplishing a lot because we confuse those positive feelings for productivity. The reality is that we aren’t being more productive, we just feel emotionally satisfied.

So now that we are faced with the cold, hard truth of our bad habit, we must learn to properly manage our time. It might be the only alternative to multitasking. While I hate to admit my parents and teachers were right all along, time management might be the only way to get everything done, avoid high stress levels and save a time for our social lives. You’ll be surprised at how much free time you’ll have left over if you efficiently manage your schedule.

Now put your phone back in your pocket, logout of Facebook and finish what you started!
SIDEBAR – To help you through the process, especially during the last weeks of the semester, we’ve done some research and put together some tips on how to manage your time.

-Make a list of the tasks you need to accomplish and plan out each day
-Prioritize your tasks and say no to nonessential ones
-Delegate
-Focus during your most productive time of day, whether it be morning or night
-Breakup time-consuming tasks into smaller ones
-Manage your time in increments, work in intervals of what suits you best
-Evaluate how you’re spending your time
-Limit distractions
-Get plenty of sleep, six to eight hours and eat properly
-Take a break when needed
-Plan a reward for yourself so you have something to look forward to