I have yet to understand juice fasts. What's so great about them? I feel like you don't get all the nutrients you need, as well as a lot of calories from the natural sugars.
Agree with llama, juice fasting imo is terribly unhealthy. What's the reason behind it?
Lol, you two have clearly never seen Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.
How would you
not get the vast majority of the nutrients you need? It's recommended that you get five servings of fruits and veggies a day. Yet I can put in carrots, beets, apples, lemons, cilantro, kale, cucumbers, kiwi, and so on and get literally four times that amount every day.
I don't know why everyone is so obsessed with calories. I ignore calories completely. They hardly matter. I focus on nutrient density first and foremost. I have learned through experience that getting a complete profile of nutrients helps more than anything else. When I have a complete profile of nutrients -- extremely difficult, by the way; I'm still learning -- cravings virtually cease, and it matters naught the amount of calories. And this is despite the fact that I burn a ton of calories every day because I am extremely active.
While I don't know how many calories are in 40 ounces of fresh fruit and veggie juice, experientially it's nothing too significant.
As far as sugar goes, that's a legitimate concern. Read that list of fruits and vegetables again. Not much sugar. I like to actually enjoy my juice, so I use a small handful of fruits and veggies for sugar: beets and carrots for vegetables, and one or two sweet fruits, almost always apples and oranges.
Other than that I pay no mind to what potential sugars I'm ingesting. Why? Because I'm already healthy and active. I exercise every day and did not stop just because I was fasting (or "cleansing," if you're pedantic).
It is important not to deprive oneself if you ever want to stick to a healthful lifestyle for more than just a handful of weeks or months at a time. If I'm getting a few too much sugar in one burst, so what? I posit -- both theoretically and experentially -- that rewarding myself with a slightly more sugary fruit & veggie juice, or a slightly sugary granola, is helping me stay committed, because when you break down, guess what you're going to eat? Ice cream, chocolate, and all other kinds of crap that is 0% healthful. Don't allow the perfect to be the enemy of the better.
As with anything in life, the benefits of a juice fast must be
experienced. It's so far from the realm of experience of most people's lives that it's natural that people are threatened by it. The way I feel mentally and physically on them does not lie.
I've been experimenting with fasting for the past three or four years. It's completely awesome! Spiritually and holistically inspiring every single time, without fail. Every single time my experience gets lighter and better.
How do I even begin to note the positives? My energy levels skyrocket. Focus and patience improves. Motivation. Stubborn belly fat dissipates. Skin and hair quality improve. Taste buds normalize. Psychological cravings disappear. Resolve and discipline strengthen. Food is incredibly overrated; one is shocked at the attachments one has to food that have absolutely nothing to do with sustenance itself! It's one thing to intellectually pontificate on these things and quite another to live it through mind, body and soul.
I wrote much more about my juice fasting experience on my blog back in January, when I fasted for nine days to help break a stubborn (but far from debilitating) addiction to meth and marijuana. To anyone reading this who is interested, just PM me and I'll send you the link. (I don't like advertisements of any kind.)
My goal is 30 fasted days for the year. I broke the fast yesterday evening; I'm at 14 for the year. Sweet!
