Whether or not you have juice cleansed or not, you may have had the thought about doing one right after a vacation where you overindulged, or right before you have a big event to lose weight fast. Don’t get me wrong, I love making my own juices and drinking them. BUT- I have it with other food throughout the day. Only having juice for days at a time may have some bad consequences. While it might help you lose weight in the matter of days, that doesn’t mean it’s healthy….whatsoever. Here are the reasons why I, personally, am not a big fan of juice cleansing.
- Juicing removes some nutrients from the fresh fruit and veggies
Just like cooking your vegetables for too long can remove some of the nutrients, putting your fruit/veggies through the juicer can remove some of its important healthy parts. Juicing can remove the fruit’s/veggies fiber, which is the main substance in helping you feel satisfied and full. When there is no fiber, you will get hungry quickly.
- Loss of muscle
Most of the time when juicing, your body isn’t getting enough protein that it needs. So most likely, yes, you will see the scale go down in numbers, but this will just be your muscles shrinking. (your body metabolizes by taking from your muscles.)
- Tummy issues
Just drinking juice for days can really hurt your stomach. With the loss of the great dietary fiber that your body needs, and with the crazy amount of sugar from the fruit you’re consuming, it may constipate you or just upset your tummy. You can also become very dehydrated.
- Not the good kind of weight loss
As said before, you will lose weight because of your muscle shrinkage. Not only this, but you will not necessarily be losing the fat you want to lose, it will just be water weight. When juicing, your body shreds that water weight so you see the number on the scale go down. And then right after you’re done juicing, this water weight will come back.
- There is really no need to “detoxify” for days
I know I’m no doctor, but your body is a brilliant system where it detoxifies itself, and it isn’t necessary to do for DAYS. For me, when I cleanse my body, it’s with great nutritious food, smoothies and juices ALL combined.
- Your mood
I don’t know about you, but when I don’t eat I am HANGRY. (hungry, angry) I literally cannot even talk to someone if I haven’t eaten in over six hours… yes it is that serious hahah. These mood swings can be caused by low blood sugar because you’re not eating enough. So if you’re on a juice cleanse, don’t be alarmed when you’re easily irritated.
- Lack of energy
Juice cleanses can drastically drain your energy! This means you won’t have good energy to workout, either. In a juice cleanse you are cutting back on calories, but your body doesn’t stop burning them, so you can feel very weak. I remember training a girl who was doing a juice cleanse for three days, and on the second day, she had no energy to even do jumping jacks because she felt weak and lightheaded.
- Bad eating habits
In my opinion, cleanses that advertise extreme weight loss in just 3-5 days isn’t a healthy option for a number of reasons, but especially because of the way it advocates very unhealthy eating habits. Girls do not need to be told not to eat for days. It encourages an eating-disorder type of habit, and can create binge eating when it’s over. Every girl I know that has done a juice cleanse says she craves a massive bowl of pasta or a whole pizza. The restriction of food is usually never a good call for anyone.
- It’s pretty damn expensive
Juice cleanses are ridiculously expensive. I personally feel there are so many other ways to be very healthy without spending so much money. I highly encourage you to make your own juice if you can because it WAY less expensive. (I mean you literally can save hundreds.)
(Disclaimer: A lot of these reasons are part of my opinions. Everyone is different. Also, I am not against juice. I love drinking it and it’s a great way I get my daily intake of veggies or fruit, it will just never be the only thing I drink in a day. )
