Juice Fast, Safely

What is a Juice Fast?

A juice fast is a commitment for a certain length of time to consume only liquids – specifically raw vegetable juice, fresh fruit juice, water, strained vegetable broth and herbal non-caffeinated teas.

How to Incorporate a Juice Fast

You can still use the concept of a juice fastito get you great results without having to go for a long period surviving on only liquid meals.  Here’s how:

• one day fasts
• part day fasts
• mini fasts
• juice and blended food “fasts”
• juice and raw food “fasts”
• and even just including juicing into your daily routine along with the other meals you eat will start to get you on the path to a healthier life.

Any help you give your body by lightening your diet and adding in juicing is going to give you better health and a body you love over time.

Benefits of Juice Fasting

A popular reason to begin a juice fast, or “cleanse,” is to shed excess weight, to get a running start on a weight-loss program, or to feel healthier.

An often-surprising consequence of a successful cleanse is an improvement in mental clarity, energy levels, skin tone, and sleep quality.

(Results vary, everyone is different).

The human body is a miraculous machine which is good at cleansing itself. However, modern life with air and water pollution, sedentary lifestyles, and poor, convenience-food and sugar-laden diets does put strain on our natural systems.

How To Succeed on a Juice Fast

Here are my 6 top tips for a successful juice fast:

Tip #1: Have Plenty

You will want to be sure to have a good supply of fresh vegetables and greens on hand. Since you won’t be eating any solid foods at all for the period of your fast, you can’t simply open the refrigerator for something to “tide you over” until you get out to the supermarket.

Tip #2: Make Time

It’s best to drink juices when they’re freshly made. That means you need to plan to set aside time to chop the vegetables, juice them and clean up afterwards, each time.

Tip #3: Sweeten it Up – Naturally

Fresh vegetable juices, particularly green vegetable juices, can be made more enjoyable with a touch of fruit to sweeten them.  You can also use sweeter vegetables such as carrot, beetroot and bell pepper.

Be particularly careful not to overdo fresh fruit juices as they will send your sugar levels out of balance.

Use low sugar fruit juices – fresh grapefruit juice alone is lovely, green apples add sweetness to any juice, and berries add a whole new indulgent flavour.

Use lemons and limes in everything if you like! They are wonderful alkalizers and extremely low in sugar.

Tip #5: One Half Green Juice

A good rule of thumb is to ensure that about half of your juices when fasting are green vegetable based juices, and then use other juices for fun and variety.  That’s important for best results.

Most people drink between 3 and 4 litres / 100 to 135 oz of juice per day. But everyone is different, and it depends on your experience with fasting, your health history, your work and family commitments and your diet before starting.

Tip #6: Relax

This isn’t often discussed, but rest and relaxation are vital for optimal results from a juice fast.

You need to give your body the maximum chance to embrace and work with the healing and cleansing process.

• cut out excess work that can wait,
• say no to social events which might make your juice fast more difficult to stick to, and take up more of your time and energy,
• leave the hard workouts out of your exercise routine
• communicate to any one you need to that you won’t be taking on anything extra

Carve out some time for relaxation, rest, gentle movement like stretching and walking, reading, meditation and for working on creative projects that inspire and delight you.

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