Juice Diets

One of the most popular detox programmes is a juice diet or juice fast. The principle behind juice fasting is that if you drink only water and fruit/vegetable juices (yes, avoiding all solids!), your body uses a minimal amount of energy for digestion, and therefore can dedicate its resources to ‘healing’ any ailments it suffers and burning fat reserves for extra energy that might be required.

Juice diet advocates promote the benefits of juice fasting – it eases the transition to a healthier lifestyle as dieters are less likely to suffer post-detox symptoms; juice diets can prevent many illnesses associated with poor dietary habits; also, juice fasting is associated with enhanced mental well being.

Though there are as many different juice diet plans as there are juices, the programmes do hold a few principles in common. Among these are:

1. The best time to start a juice fast is the spring.

2. Purchase a good-quality juicer.

3. Dieters shouldn’t undertake more than two juice fasts a year.

4. Better success is achieved by weaning yourself onto a juice diet (gradually eliminating alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, sugar, dairy, wheat, animal proteins, fish and eggs over the week to ten days preceding your juice fast).

5. Limit the juice fast to between three and seven days.

6. Following the fast, gradually add solids back to your diet, starting with organic fruit and vegetables.

7. Go to bed early while you’re fasting – the liver, your body’s key detox organ, is most active from 11pm to 1am according to traditional Chinese medicine.

8. Keep warm.

9. Get plenty of rest and relaxation.

General rules for a juice diet are:

1. Drink between 32 and 64oz of fresh juice per day; use between one and three parts water to one part juice for drinks.

2. Avoid citrus fruits – good choices for detox juices are celery, carrot, kale, cabbage, apple, pineapple, cranberry, spinach, beet and greens.

3. Six glasses of water should be consumed each day to aid the body in eliminating toxins.

4. Use organic fruits and vegetables to make your juices – if organics aren’t available in suitable quantities, wash and peel the produce thoroughly.

5. If you can’t make fresh juices yourself due to lack of suitable produce or equipment, it is alright to purchase suitable organic juices from your local health food shop.

Results of following a juice detox or juice fast plan are varied, depending on the juice diet that’s been followed. General benefits include improved energy, improved sleep, better attitude and more motivation to exercise and generally follow a healthy lifestyle.

Some dieters have complained of headaches, sore muscles, general weakness, disrupted sleep and mood swings at the beginning of a juice fast – these symptoms are commonly associated with detox diets in general. Some people should not attempt juice fasts – this particularly applies to people with kidney or liver dysfunction as those organs are put under more stress than usual during a detox plan of any sort.