Is Juice Fasting Really Fasting?

IS JUICE FASTING REALLY FASTING?

1 of 2 Parts

I've gone over fasting in my last two previous posts. You haven't heard the last from me on the all-important subject. I will continue to blog about fasting because there's just so much fab research being done currently on the subject and much of that research is showing some spectacular results in in improving glucose levels, cholesterol, C-Reactive Protein, kidney and liver function, and lowering blood pressure in both animal and human studies. 

I'll also continue to shout out about fasting because I love it. Fasting works for me better than anything else I have ever tried (and I have tried almost everything-trust me) in keeping my weight exactly where I want it to be and in helping me to maintain both a high-percentage of lean muscle mass as well as a single digit body-fat percentage simultaneously. Who doesn't want to achieve all that a little quicker and a whole lot easier?! Fasting hasn't just worked for me. It has worked awesomely for 8 out of 10 of both my male and female clients.  It would probably work for you too if you knew more about it and made up your mind to give fasting a whirl. 

Today, in the first of two sequential blogs, I want to branch off a little from fasting and talk about juicing. I feel pretty compeled to blog about Juice Fasting and/or partaking in a Juice-Detox Program because so many of the juice bars you and I frequent are pushing their high-priced juice fasts and juice detox programs as if they were the second coming or something. It seems as if you can't be truly healthy if you haven't "detoxed" yet. 

Because so many people who buy their juice, over making it themselves at home, have told me that oftentimes they feel a touch bit guilty or pressured by the juice bar's staff to purchase a juice detox program or to lay down their cold-hard cash for a 1-, 3-, or 5-day juice fast, I feel motivated to open up a discussion about whether these costly juice fasts and juice detox programs are all they're cracked up to be. 

Whether you're trying to get more fruits and veggies into your diet, hoping to "up" your antioxidant levels, or attempting to lose weight, it seems like almost everyone has had their hands wrapped around a green-looking juice recently. And most of us are buying our fresh-pressed juice outside of the home because making our own juice is a time-consuming pain in the butt. 

Let's admit it, juicing at home is best because that way we know exactly what's going into our juice but is a lot of work. First, you've got to drive to the grocery store, walk to the produce section which is normally in the very back of the store (this forces you to buy other items you hadn't intended to purchase because of impulsivity), vacillate for 20 minutes trying to decide what in the heck to juice (kale or swiss chard...apples or carrots...celery or no celery) buy the veg and fruit you guessed would be the best for you to extract its juices from, pay for it, and then drive back home only to have to carry all those haevy vegetable & fruit-filled bags into the house. 

If all that effort wasn't time consuming enough, you then had to unpack all the juicing material, dump the produce into the sink and wash the snot out of all of it with a pricey biodegradable, food-grade veggie wash to remove any pesticide drift (chemicals from nearby conventional plants due to the fact that many organic and conventional produce companies use the same facilities to process their products.) There is also oftentimes a food-preserving wax coating the outside skin of bell peppers, cucumbers, apples, lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruits, cantaloupes, eggplant, and avocados to protect them from bruising or damage, to prevent mold, and to improve their overall appearance. The main reason you should wash or scrub your produce is to get rid of any germs and bacterial contamination like E. coli that could be on their outside skin which could make you very sick if you didn't wash it off. After washing the fruits and veggies or peeling off its skin if the produce was conventional, then, chances are, you had to cut the plant matter into small enough pieces in order for them to fit into your particular brand of juicer. 

You remember your juicer; don't you? You know the one that you shoved under the counter or placed high up on some shelf somewhere gathering about a half inch of dust on top since the last felt compelled to use it--which was probably not since the first week you bought it because juicing, as you learned, is a bookoo of hard work just to get a small nutrient-dense filled glass. And let me not fail to mention the huge clean-up job that must be done after you've juiced. 

All of this time, hard work, and effort costed you money. With the greatest of intentions, you realized, and you certainly aren't alone, it sure is a lot easier and cost effective just to drive over to your local juice bar, order a juice, and pay $10-15. This takes me to the blog topic at hand--Is Juice Fasting Really Fasting? 

I will start Part 2 of this particular blog topic in my next post. 

Thanks for reading,

-Bell