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Indeed, doing an extended juice cleanse or juice fast is markedly different than just juicing as part of everyday life. I’ve done a lot of juicing over the years and I normally think of juicing in its supplemental form, such as drinking juice for part of the day and eating solid food during other parts of the day. This type of approach is best covered in the section ‘The Power of Juicing’.
For now, I want to dive in a little deeper on the implications of deciding to drink only juice and eat no solid foods for an extended period of time. I have done this once, when I completed a five-day juice fast. I experienced some really amazing results from that and I would highly recommend to anybody to give this a try.
To summarize the impression that I got from the juice cleanse, it was a sort of energetic, lightly, tingly sort of experience. I felt my bowels sort of empty out, and the energy flowing throughout the body became very strong and distinct. I also noticed that my mind became freed up and started to focus on other things, where normally I would be preoccupied with my next meal and food and so forth. Also, at the time, I was struggling with sort of an addiction or back and forth I was going through with salty foods, and the juice cleanse really straightened me out in that regard.
By the end of it, I felt that I had done a reset on my gastrointestinal tract, as well as renewed my own attitude and disposition mentally, by clearing my focus. Also, by the end of the five days, I had kicked my salt habit and I was back on the straight and narrow in terms of elevating my levels of discipline and eating the foods that I wanted to be eating.
There are a number of potential benefits you could get from doing a juice cleanse, namely:
— Quick results to increasing your levels of health and wellness if you need a quick boost
— For those who are really motivated and want to kick up the speed on solving your health problems, this is a quick and (relatively) easy tool you can use to throw fuel on the fire
— Especially for those with intestinal challenges, giving your GI tract a break from solid foods can allow the energy of your body to re-dedicate itself to cleaning, repair and regeneration of the gut and other areas
— You can experience some similar benefits you get from water fasting, which is touted by many wellness individual as well as spiritual leaders (and is covered more in the segment ‘Water Fasting’), while still filling your body with nutrition, electrical energy, and probiotics which you will get from the juices
It can definitely change your life — and I say that without exaggeration. One week could turn your life around and put you on a new direction and new groove. People underestimate how attached that they get to their daily routine and foods and chewing and these rituals. The juice cleanse really shakes that up and re-directs not just the appetite and body energy flow but also the mind and emotions. It’s really pretty neat if you ever get to try it.
During Day 1 and Day 2, I was feeling hungry-ish but not overly so. Whenever I was feeling peckish I would just drink lots of juice. Fruit juice especially is very nutrient-dense and packed with calories, so my body had no trouble getting nourished, but transitioning from what you’re normally used to eating, which may include a lot of fat, protein, salt and/or processed ingredients, can be a bit of a shock to the body.
By Day 3, I had no hunger really at all. Towards the end of the juice cleanse, I did find I was really gravitating towards the fruit juice. I think this pull was due to the higher electrical frequency and stimulating nature that fruit juices have towards the nervous system, more so than the juices of vegetation.
There are no hard and fast rules about how much juice you can drink or what kind. Just follow your intuition. I made both fruit and vegetable juice. There is an argument to be made for how vegetable juice can be a healthier option, because fruit juice without the fiber and pulp can more easily cause your blood sugar to spike and crash and with vegetable juice this is less of an issue. Also, fruits which are lower in sugar have less of this problem versus fruits which are very high in sugar. For example, apple juice would tend to have a lot less sugar than pineapple juice.
At this stage in my life, when I did the five-day juice cleanse, I had a lot of weight on my shoulders and was really feeling like I was working very hard in my life to pay off the debts of previous years, and was paying the price for bad decisions that had been made in the past. About halfway through the juice cleanse, I felt something break free and just started to feel a lightness in my mood, and more of a fun outlook, which is more like my old self and my personality going back to being a child, teenager and young adult. There was a newfound pep back in my step, and a playful, humorous elevated mood from the good old days, before things got more somber and serious for me. By the end of it, I was very grateful for this, and carried that forward beyond the cleanse. I felt that my personal stars had realigned and I was now back much closer to who I really was and my real self.
These are the little bonus things and icing on the cake that come with doing a cleanse like this. After all, you get into doing a juice cleanse maybe because you want to lose a few pounds, or clean out your gut, or reset your body’s metabolism a bit. But then, maybe you get to have some kind of profound experience that can reset your mood, or discipline levels, or even your outlook on your life. This is what amazes me about these types of experiences and I thank God that I did it.
I did this cleanse on a four-day weekend, so the last four days were free from work. But on the first day I went to work and performed my job duties without an issue. I highly encourage you to look at your calendar and figure out when you could spend two, three, four or more days (or even just one) drinking only juice, and just see what happens. Go to the store and spend 30 minutes picking out your favorite produce, take it home and juice it, preserving it in glass ideally and refrigerating it. You can juice as you go, but that takes a lot of effort, and I find it’s easier and less stressful to do it ahead of time (although not quite as fresh).
Definitely give it a try, and your body, mind and spirit will thank you for it and pay you back many times over.