How to start a juice cleanse?

SonicDeathMonkey80

I did a 30 day juice fast and it changed the way I previously thought about food and my "healthy diet." Like any cleanse or fast, the whole purpose is to change the way you think about food and to open your eyes to what you are and are not eating and what your body could possbily be lacking. These are not necessariy recommended for purely weightloss purposes but are intended to teach you dicipline in your eating habits. They are a stepping stone to lifestyle changes and I absolutely encourage them. Fasting and cleansing are not for everyone, as you can see by all the negative comments, but I think they can be life changing if you do them correctly and take them seriously. I used a book called "The Juicing Diet" which is chalk full of useful info on fasting, cleansing, and juicing for just all around better health. It also has tons of awesome receipes for all palates. Also, I use a Nutribullet as normal juicers are much more expensive and tend to elimiate the natural fiber that is found in most fruits and vegetables. I hope this helps and good luck!

Exactly!!!

The people who have tried it, understand, and the people who don't understand, are most often people with closed minds who have never actually tried it.

I say the same thing about Ouzo.

If I'm going to pillage my muscle mass, I'd rather do it with booze.

rml_16

Exactly!!!

The people who have tried it, understand, and the people who don't understand, are most often people with closed minds who have never actually tried it.

Or simply people with some knowledge of nutrition, biological functions and logic.

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt

I did a 30 day juice fast and it changed the way I previously thought about food and my "healthy diet." Like any cleanse or fast, the whole purpose is to change the way you think about food and to open your eyes to what you are and are not eating and what your body could possbily be lacking. These are not necessariy recommended for purely weightloss purposes but are intended to teach you dicipline in your eating habits. They are a stepping stone to lifestyle changes and I absolutely encourage them. Fasting and cleansing are not for everyone, as you can see by all the negative comments, but I think they can be life changing if you do them correctly and take them seriously. I used a book called "The Juicing Diet" which is chalk full of useful info on fasting, cleansing, and juicing for just all around better health. It also has tons of awesome receipes for all palates. Also, I use a Nutribullet as normal juicers are much more expensive and tend to elimiate the natural fiber that is found in most fruits and vegetables. I hope this helps and good luck!

Exactly!!!

The people who have tried it, understand, and the people who don't understand, are most often people with closed minds who have never actually tried it.

And I'm sure "The Juicing Diet" is also "chalk full" of sound science and hard facts. It probably also has no fear-mongering in it whatsoever. And it's also probably free, because the author who wrote it did it out of the goodness of his heart to help all of us poor souls who are eating a balanced diet with protein, fats, and carbohydrates. There's no way that he uses sensationalism to sell books and juicers to people who are gullible enough to believe him, right?

RGv2

Okay if I knew everyone was going to be a ****ing *kitten* about this, I wouldn't have asked.

Welcome to MFP. Most of these people have so much food industry propaganda ingrained in their minds, they just simply don't know anything else. Anything they know little or nothing about, they pretend they are experts, and will tell you to avoid.

If you want to do a juice fast, go ahead. The most important things to remember, are use fresh juice. Nothing from a bottle. And plan your POST fast diet! That is the most important part! If you go back to eating crap food, you will be doing yourself no favors.

bcattoes

So, your whole premise is that it's a horrible idea because you don't support it? You have no reason to believe it will do harm, correct?

I'd file "not eating food for 3 days in the hopes of health benefits and weight loss which will not happen" under harm.

Sure a person can live for 3 days without food. But I'm not about to start saying "that's great" for no reason.

But there is a vast difference between "that's great" and actually doing harm. People on this site are ridiculous sometimes. While I would agree that in the big picture a 3 day juice 'cleanse' is highly unlikely to provide any benefits whatsoever. It is just as unlikely that it will do harm.

Not eating for days sucks. Maybe it's no big deal to you and the Fruitologist, but for the rest of us I'm gonna go out on a ledge and say starving yourself and subsisting only on juice for days at a time sucks.

The OP wants to do it to kickstart her journey/jumpstart her diet/lose weight/cleanse unnamed toxins/fire up her metabolism/etc. She's not doing it just for kicks. She has specific reasons she wants to try this and none of them are going to pan out.

So rather than encourage them, I prefer to be honest.

Then be honest. I think not eating for one day would suck. I don't mind being honest about that, though I honestly don’t see how it's relevant to the discussion either, since I wouldn't be the one doing it. But I certainly wouldn't act as if the cleanse was going to harm the OP when I honestly don't think it will and can't back up the statement.

Unnecessary or unpleasant =/= unhealthy.

Jewlz280

I'm not certain what you mean by cleanse...but we have a Ninja juicer which you can get on Amazon for $99.00. This blender can actually make almond milk out of almonds. (I've never tried it, but someone on Amazon did.)

The trick to juicing on your own is to search the net for some good recipes. I've made the mistakes of just stuffing raw spinach, etc., in there an ending up with undrinkable slug.

My favorite juicer recipe is one 16 oz can of organic pumpkin, 4 cups of almond milk, cinnamon and Stevia. Incredibly filling without making you feel overstuffed.

Another favorite device I like is the Hamilton Beach steamer (the two tier which is about 30 bucks on Amazon.) Can put two layers of raw veggies (e.g., carrots on the bottom closer to the steam) and cauliflower on the top (since they steam more fully more quickly), and make some tasty steamed veggies if you toss on some spices (I like oregano.)

Now, every now and then when I feel that I just need to take a break, I'm very stressed and I know I'm going to make very bad choices or I just need to reboot, I'll do a 3 day program of the stuff I described above....it just seems to get me out of a bad pattern or get me started on a good one.

What you are doing is not juice. What you are doing is a smoothie. And if OP were going to do some sort of liquid diet or whatever, this IMHO, would be the way to do it. It's food, but in drinkable form. I wouldn't go all liquid (OH THE BATHROOM HORRORS) but adding a smoothie or even two to your diet would be just fine. My issue with juicing is that you don't actually fix anything. You don't actually get MORE out of it. You get less and it is COSTLY. And it isn't something you can do forever (drink only juice). But you can do smoothies for forever. Blenders (even good ones) aren't that costly. And you can have a TON of variety along with a device that does more than extract water from perfectly good items that could be eaten. Not to mention, blenders can do more than just make smoothies. That's why everyone is saying don't do it -- long term, it's not beneficial, it's costly, and you don't really get much from it if you don't continue it.

I have to say, the reason many people on here are blunt and give direct answers is because questions like these come up literally several times a day. And for anyone who has been here a while, you see the post and IMMEDIATELY roll your eyes. As much as people WANT to be supportive, listening to the same ol' things over and over day in and day out while still trying to be involved and do your thing is hard. Especially if those things are not beneficial long term. Good luck to you!

Again, I started with saying I don't know what you mean by cleanse. My description of what do is based upon a medical supervised "cleanse" I did a Northwestern University's Center for Integrative Medicine last year (supervised by Dr. Judy Fulop). Northwestern called this a cleanse or detox.

If the OP's definition of "cleanse" means cayenne pepper and lemon juice in distilled water, e.g. (I think this was Beyoncé's Master Cleanse a few years), well, I have no input on that. But, if she means cleanse by another definition (the Northwestern one, e.g.,) what I described was the regimen I followed.

Everything that goes into a blender isn't healthy for you and not every thing that goes into a blender is healthy for you either.

I'm confused... I wasn't arguing with you...

missyjane824

When I have a question the first thing I do is search on the forums so if I decide to go through with asking my question I will know what to expect for answers and I can be angry or satisfied(depending on the question of course) about it without having to post. Works out for everyone in the end.

CipherZero

The reason you're seeing so much pushback is cleanses do nothing demonstrably useful, and frequently at a premium price for the privilege.
You want to go for it, be my guest - just don't try to convince me that cleanses are anything but wishful thinking without other evidence.

Rocbola

The OP wants to do it to kickstart her journey/jumpstart her diet/lose weight/cleanse unnamed toxins/fire up her metabolism/etc. She's not doing it just for kicks. She has specific reasons she wants to try this and none of them are going to pan out.

Tell us again how she wont achieve any of these goals, from your extensive experience?


Still waiting....

Bernadette60614

I'm not certain what you mean by cleanse...but we have a Ninja juicer which you can get on Amazon for $99.00. This blender can actually make almond milk out of almonds. (I've never tried it, but someone on Amazon did.)

The trick to juicing on your own is to search the net for some good recipes. I've made the mistakes of just stuffing raw spinach, etc., in there an ending up with undrinkable slug.

My favorite juicer recipe is one 16 oz can of organic pumpkin, 4 cups of almond milk, cinnamon and Stevia. Incredibly filling without making you feel overstuffed.

Another favorite device I like is the Hamilton Beach steamer (the two tier which is about 30 bucks on Amazon.) Can put two layers of raw veggies (e.g., carrots on the bottom closer to the steam) and cauliflower on the top (since they steam more fully more quickly), and make some tasty steamed veggies if you toss on some spices (I like oregano.)

Now, every now and then when I feel that I just need to take a break, I'm very stressed and I know I'm going to make very bad choices or I just need to reboot, I'll do a 3 day program of the stuff I described above....it just seems to get me out of a bad pattern or get me started on a good one.

What you are doing is not juice. What you are doing is a smoothie. And if OP were going to do some sort of liquid diet or whatever, this IMHO, would be the way to do it. It's food, but in drinkable form. I wouldn't go all liquid (OH THE BATHROOM HORRORS) but adding a smoothie or even two to your diet would be just fine. My issue with juicing is that you don't actually fix anything. You don't actually get MORE out of it. You get less and it is COSTLY. And it isn't something you can do forever (drink only juice). But you can do smoothies for forever. Blenders (even good ones) aren't that costly. And you can have a TON of variety along with a device that does more than extract water from perfectly good items that could be eaten. Not to mention, blenders can do more than just make smoothies. That's why everyone is saying don't do it -- long term, it's not beneficial, it's costly, and you don't really get much from it if you don't continue it.

I have to say, the reason many people on here are blunt and give direct answers is because questions like these come up literally several times a day. And for anyone who has been here a while, you see the post and IMMEDIATELY roll your eyes. As much as people WANT to be supportive, listening to the same ol' things over and over day in and day out while still trying to be involved and do your thing is hard. Especially if those things are not beneficial long term. Good luck to you!

Again, I started with saying I don't know what you mean by cleanse. My description of what do is based upon a medical supervised "cleanse" I did a Northwestern University's Center for Integrative Medicine last year (supervised by Dr. Judy Fulop). Northwestern called this a cleanse or detox.

If the OP's definition of "cleanse" means cayenne pepper and lemon juice in distilled water, e.g. (I think this was Beyoncé's Master Cleanse a few years), well, I have no input on that. But, if she means cleanse by another definition (the Northwestern one, e.g.,) what I described was the regimen I followed.

Everything that goes into a blender isn't healthy for you and not every thing that goes into a blender is healthy for you either.

I'm confused... I wasn't arguing with you...

Sorry about the confusion...what I was trying to say: We don't know what the OP is actually proposing. People define "cleanses" differently.

nomeejerome

Well, the OP didn't say fruit juice, it just said "juice". But even a 3 day water fast is unlikely harm an otherwise healthy body.

we know nothing about the OP, nor do we know their medical history etc. So nobody can state with fact that "it will do no harm."

Read those two posts, and tell me how they are different?

I saw that when I posted it. You brought up a 3 day water fast in a juice cleanse thread and stated that it probably would do no harm in a healthy body. Could I have worded my response different? Sure. The point still stands that we know nothing about the OP to make those types of statements.

edit to fix quotes

ndj1979

never start...

ndj1979

Okay if I knew everyone was going to be a ****ing *kitten* about this, I wouldn't have asked.

so everyone who disagrees with the juice cleanse is an ahole....got ya...

Jewlz280

Another thing you could do, if you are truly interested in finding out how well this works, is to go to the 'Success Stories' section and ask how many of those people who have not only lost weight but who have improved their cholesterol, reversed their diabetes, improved their strength, gotten whatever health ills under control if they did a juice fast/cleanse and if it helped. And if not, what they DID do. If that isn't enough, check out other sites where you have folks with successful loss and health improvement such as 3 Fat Chicks or Calorie King. OR, even google people who have lost weight and kept it off long term.

Bernadette60614

I'm the one saying, I don't know what you mean by cleanse..but on the whole topic of a*sholes.

When you do a cleanse (and I did the medically supervised one I described above), your own a*shole becomes a very important part of your daily life!