How much weight will I lose on a juice fast?
The main benefit offered by a juice fast, to those who wish to lose weight,
is the speed of the weight loss. Initially, weight loss can be as high as
three-to-four pounds per day, but as the fast continues, the average loss will
be one pound-per-day.
To see a person drop 30-to-40 pounds in a 30-day juice fast is to see a
person totally transform his life. Self-esteem is given a boost and for the
first time in their life, discipline becomes a lifestyle. The fast becomes a
catalyst for a total life overhaul. People start dressing better, showing more
confidence, becoming more organized, more dedicated in relationships and more at
peace.
Juice fasting for weight loss and stubborn fat
Trying to stay on a diet can turn a simple journey to the supermarket into an
epic challenge of self-discipline. How can you ignore all the florescent-lit
aisles of junk food offering every temptation known to the tongue when you are
hungry depressed and feeling deprived? It becomes a war of desires where your
willingness to surrender is quickly rewarded.
In a culture that esteems fashion-model thinness as perfect beauty, fat is
the ugly disease that must be cured. This creates an obsession with weight-loss
that increases the difficulty in losing weight. It is like trying not to think
of a white horse. The more you try not to think of it the more it comes back
into your thoughts.
Obsession, slow metabolism and high-calorie food are a deadly combination for
weight gain. The worst offenders of weight gain are starches, fats, and refined
sugars. Since the biggest part of our diet is starch in the form of breakfast
cereal, cookies, cakes, pies, chips and bread, it has the greatest impact on
weight gain. Starches are worse than sugar. For a short amount of time, the
blood sugar will peak allowing the body to store the excess sugar as body fat.
Starch is different in that it is a slow release of sugar, which is perfect for
long-distance runners, however, if you are inactive, the slow-releasing sugars
will be turned into body fat. Excess calories equate to excess fat.
For many, juice fasting is a last ditch effort to lose stubborn fat that has
resisted every attempt at weight reduction. Diets may have given you a
short-lived victory, only to suffer defeat by one indulgence that escalates into
a feeding frenzy resulting in being heavier than before the diet.
How juice fasting affects addiction to food
My war with food addiction lasted 10 long years. I had been healed from years
of drug abuse, but my battle with addictive behavior was not over. I desperately
wanted control over what I ate, not for weight loss, as I was thin, due to a
very fast metabolism; but binge eating made me feel like garbage.
Cookies, cakes, ice cream and chocolate were the enemies I loved. At the
saturation point, where I could not stand myself anymore, I would fast and my
body would recover from the damage of the abuse, but it only deepened the power
of my addiction.
After 20 days of juice fasting, I would go on a feeding frenzy destroying all
the benefits of the fast. My resting stomach was stuffed with the most volatile
mixtures of food. Sometimes it took weeks to recover. After years of blowing
fasts, the realization came that fasting was increasing my compulsiveness.
Fasting had become a drug. I longed for the freedom of the fast, that amazing
feeling of being in total control. Victory tasted sweet but it never lasted.
Over and over I plunged into the pit of hell, blowing the fast and enduring
painful feelings of being a failure, guilt and feeling out of control.
How the juice fasting diet affects metabolism
The fear is that while juice fasting, the metabolism will slow down and
afterward there will be more weight gained than before the fast. Initially, any
calorie reduction will cause a lowering in the BMR or base metabolic rate.
Cleansing will bring health that will increase metabolic performance and energy
output. In other words, you will eat less and feel more energetic.
The greatest impact you can have on increasing your resting metabolism is
exercise. After a workout, you can be sitting on the couch reading while burning
calories, as the muscles are grabbing glucose from the blood to replace glycogen
supplies. The key to weight loss is fewer calories and more exercise. A diet
high in raw food provides fewer, low-density calories, and higher-fiber,
more-filling foods.
How the juice fasting diet affects digestion
After a juice fast, the body is more efficient. Digestion is better due to a
cleaner colon. The colon walls have been cleansed of impacted feces, allowing
improved absorption of nutrients. The good news is that greater efficiency
equals enhanced energy. Healthy people burn more calories. They also eat less
because they are more active and feel better about themselves. They don't need
food as a security blanket.
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