How to Juice Fast
Juice fasting is a simple thing to do. It always seems that people get apprehensive about how to juice fast. It’s actually a really healthy thing to do and safe to do periodically.
A juice fast is abstaining from food and drinking only fresh juice for an extended period of time to cleanse, heal and jumpstart health.
There are three parts to a juice diet. Easing in, the juice fast, and easing out.
In planning for your juice fast, the first thing you need to decide is how long your juice fast will be. Juice fasts range anywhere from 1 day to 60 days and even longer.
The most popular tend to be 3 day, 7 day, 14 day and 30 day juice fasts. The longer your juice fast, the longer your body will have to heal and cleanse. If you have a serious health condition or are on medications, you’ll want to talk to your doctor before starting.
Easing into a juice fast
A week before your juice fast, eat clean, unprocessed light meals. It would be ideal to eat vegetarian, vegan or raw for a few days before so that detoxing side effects are less.
Drink smoothies each day and try to have at least one juice. This will prepare your body for juice fasting. This is not necessary, but recommended as it’s better for your body. If you can eat light for at least the day before it will make a difference on how your body will react in the first few days of the fast.
How to juice fast
During a juice fast, you’ll want to drink a variety of only fresh juiced juice. Don’t drink bottled juices as it does not have the nutritional value that fresh juice has.
A typical juice fast does not consist of smoothies or food. However, many people will make their own modified juice fast by eating raw vegetables or smoothies to slow down detox side effects or calm hunger pains.
General guidelines for how to juice fast:
- Drink mostly vegetable juices. Limit your fruit juice consumption to only one fruit only juice a day. Many people drink at least 4 glasses of juice a day. If you want to drink more that’s no problem. Drink a juice for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between meals.
- Drink several glasses of fresh spring water to help your body cleanse and remove toxins.
- If your bowel movements are slow, drink sienna tea or add psyllium husk powder to at least one of your daily juices. If your body is not removing waste, the toxins could get reabsorbed into your colon.
- Be sure to allow your body to rest. It needs energy to cleanse.
- You can exercise during a juice fast, but it should be low impact exercises such as Pilates, yoga, stretching, light walks or gardening.
- Herbal tea is beneficial to support cleansing. Have some tea during the day for variety.
- It’s not a good idea to drink coffee or have caffeine during your juice fast as it’s counterproductive.
- It's a good idea to make sure you have a lot of produce on hand so that you aren't tempted by other foods.
During a juice fast, you might experience some detox side effects like nausea, headaches, fatigue, dizziness, flue like symptoms, runny nose and achy joints.
These are good signs and usually mean that your body is cleansing. Just take it easy and rest. If you power through it, you’ll start to feel much better around day 4 and 5.
Easing out of the juice fast
Easing out is an important step of how to juice fast. When you decide to stop juice cleasning, you definitely don’t want to eat a heavy meal. It will hurt your stomach.
A first meal should consist of a raw soup, a smoothie or a light vegetable salad. Eat light for at least 2-3 days after the fast. Don’t eat fried food, heavy meats, cheeses or oils. Stick to a light vegetarian diet so that your body can adjust to solid food again.
It’s also a good idea to have at least one juice a day while easing out. A glass of vegetable juice with a meal will aid digestion. Swirl the juice in your mouth between bites as you eat so that it can mix with your saliva.
Juice fasting is so great for your body. Follow these simple guidelines on how to juice fast and you should have a successful cleanse.
Try out these detoxifying juice recipes to use while your juice fast.
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