The Fundamentals of Juice Fasting
Cleaning one’s body from the inside out can be performed with fasting, and one of the age-long methods of fasting is juice fasting. The mere drinking of fruit and vegetable juices is recognized as a way to flush out accumulated toxins and waste material from our body.
The main benefits of juice fasting are seen not only in the increased strength and vitality of the body – the conditions of our mind and spirit are also affected in a positive way. If you are looking for a proof, just check the miracle transformation of Jeo Cross.
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Useful Information
It takes a lot of preparation, some additional time and some extra money to be able to perform you juice fasting successfully. The important thing is – you should be relaxed and without too many engagements – if you have a busy week at work, or if you have any upcoming engagements, it might not be a good idea to start with the fasting until you have cleared up some space and time in your life.
Fruit juices are abundant in sugar, minerals and vitamins. Vegetable juices contain a lot of useful nutrients and can be used as cleansing and healing juices to alleviate certain health conditions (under appropriate medical supervision).
Juices that are NOT recommended for fasting are orange juice or tomato juice, whereas the BEST fasting juices include all juices from green, leafy vegetables, lemon juice, beet, carrot, grape, apple, ginger root, and celery juice.
Usually not very popular but extremely helpful, bone broths could also be a real revelation while fasting.
Probably it is a good idea to dilute your juices with water and/or to drink them in small sips. This will prevent taking in too much sugar, which will diminish the risk of sugar shocks similar to drinking soda pops.
Tab water is not the best choice when on juice fasting. If you are like us and never use tab water for drinking and cooking, it won’t be a problem at all. It is much better to drink spring water especially if bottled in glass bottles. The latter is free of chlorine, fluorine and other impurities that tab water may contain, so it makes sense to use only spring water while on your fast.
Preliminary Activities
If you want this change of your diet routine to be as smooth as possible, it is important not to make any abrupt steps. Therefore, prior to your juice fasting, make sure you switch to eating raw foods only (fruits and vegetables) for a day or two.
In order to prepare for juice fasting mentally, visualize how your day will look like once you have started. Walk your mind through all the important steps and make sure you understand how much time it takes to prepare the quantity of juice required. Prepare yourself to cleanse the juicer afterward, the sooner after the juice is extracted the better. If you are new to juicing, take some time to familiarize yourself with your juicer.
Prepare enough produce for the first 2 to 3 days of fasting. Organize your kitchen so that you won’t have problems disposing the pulp or freezing the extra juice in case you prepare too much of it. Even though it is best drinking freshly prepared juice, you can freeze some of the excess to be used within the next 24 hours.
The Fasting
Prepare your basic routine that you should follow during the entire fasting. Here is an example that you can modify according to your needs:
7:30 – 1/2 cup lemon juice and 1/2 cup warm water
8:00 – stretching and walking exercise
8:30 – herbal tea
9:00 – 1/2 cup fruit juice and 1/2 cup spring water
10:30 – fruit juice
12:00 – vegetable juice
15:30 – fruit juice
17:00 – vegetable or fruit juice
18:00 – vegetable broth
20:00 – herbal tea
The morning lemon juice with water, which is a hot lemonade actually, provides vitamin C and cleanses your liver. The beneficial action of the tea brings in liquid into your body as well as provides useful nutrients. You can choose from a variety of teas the ones that best fit your taste, but also you can select according to the specific ailments that the teas are known to help cure. Cabbage juice can help you heal ulcers and problems with the digestive system. However, it may cause excess gas, especially if mixed with other juices. A combination of carrots, celery, turnip, beets, parsley and garlic is an example of a beneficial healing juice.
When you start your juice fasting, your body will start extracting waste and toxic substances at a higher rate. It is said that “toxins sting twice: once on the way into the body and again on the way out of it”. So, expect problems when the poisons leave your organism.
Some of the early symptoms of this process (during the first few days) can be:
- running nose,
- headaches,
- lightheadedness,
- fever,
- accumulation of plague-like deposits on the teeth,
- bad breath and unpleasant odors, as well as
- rushes and pimples on the skin.
None of these is a reason to worry. As your body cleanses even further, these symptoms will quickly disappear.
How to Break the Fast
Getting out of the fast is MORE CRUCIAL than getting in. There is nothing more harmful than accustoming your digestive system to liquid food and then all of a sudden dumping large quantities of solid food into it. Never do that to an inactive digestive system! Give it time to adapt to solid food once again, by very gradually including small portions of solid food into your diet. The longer the fast the more time (days) you will need before getting back to the food you used to eat.
Useful references for further reading:
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