This post has information all about juicing that will be helpful should you decide to incorporate juice into your diet! Doing a raw juice fast is incredible for the body.  It removes toxins and heals disease by giving the body pure live nutrients it needs to be healthy and disease free. Juice fasting has been around for decades but most recently a guy named Joe Cross brought it more into the public attention with a documentary that followed him as he went on a 30 day juice fast. During those 30 days he got off all his meds, cured himself from a non-curable illness and lost a bunch of weight.  I’ve juiced for many years though only as an addition to my diet.  You can do a juice fast for 30 days or more and come out on the other side healthier and more vibrant than you ever imagined.  At the bottom is a quick update on Roy’s and my progress.

Types of Juicers

The two main types are Centrifugal and Masticating, (also known as cold press).  I have both, but my favorite by far is the centrifugal which is also less expensive, faster and much easier to clean.  A masticating juicer allows you to juice leafy things easily including wheatgrass. You can also make nut butters with them.

You can still juice leafy things (though not wheatgrass) in the centrifugal juicer as long as you sandwich them between harder fruits and veggies. Centrifugal’s also have a larger opening which allows for easier feeding.  The key is that you want a juicer that extracts the most liquid out of your fruits and vegetables.

After a lot of research I bought a Breville on Amazon a few years back and it’s been wonderful! You can drop a whole apple in the top of it!

Organic or Not

Depending on where you live you may or may not have access to a lot of organic fruits and veggies. The cost will also vary and they do tend to be more expensive. I use a mixture of organic and non organic as I have limited choices. I always buy organic baby spinach, romaine, and carrots and apples.

One great thing about organic is that when you’re juicing  you don’t have to peel things. If you can’t buy organic make sure you wash all your items well and peel them. The peels have a concentration of pesticides and some foods are worse than others.  Carrots probably give you the most bang for your buck, meaning you get the most juice for the least cost.

Free Pocket Pesticide Chart For Shopping

Use & Cleaning a Juicer

Gather your fruits and veggies. Wash. Peel if they are not organic. Place them in the juicer sandwiching leafy things between hard things to help them extract better. i.e. an apple, a handful of baby spinach, some carrots… etc.

Cleaning the juicer is fairly easy. You can of course toss the parts in a dishwasher. As I’m using mine 5 times a day I rinse by hand and keep them handy.

What To Expect When Juicing

There are certain things you can expect when you do a juice fast. Seven days is a great short term detox period with up to 30 day or more depending on how you feel and what your goal is.  Everyone is different and will experience different things depending on what their diet and health was before the fast.

DETOXING – WHEN FEELING BAD IS GOOD

The point of doing a juice fast should be to get healthier. Weight loss will be a side effect of that. Detoxing is a large part of getting healthy. If you’ve eaten the standard American diet, i.e. processed foods, meat and dairy, it’s possible you will be full of chemicals that a juice fast will flush out. This can make you sick with flu like symptoms as they pour out of your body.  Some use it as an excuse to stop but that is a GOOD THING!  That feeling passes after about three days. I didn’t have any detox myself because I was already eating well but Roy did. He had a headache for a couple days and pretty strong flu like symptoms for about four. He felt like crap.  But he hung in there. Try to do the same and you’ll be so glad you did! It’s always a good idea to get a checkup before starting. Try to find a doctor who is supportive.

CRAVINGS & HUNGER

Your gonna have ’em. Why? Because processed foods are created to be addictive. We don’t naturally crave things. They are a chemically induced effect.  There’s plenty of evidence about that available. This is the main reason you find sugar or some form of it like fructose in just about everything that is not sweet. Sugar is highly addictive (and incredibly harmful.).  Cravings are not hunger but they can sure be strong.  Keeping busy is a big part of dealing with them. We’ll be giving some great ideas on handling them in a future post.  REMEMBER: Cravings are NOT hunger. They will pass if you distract yourself.

You will also probably have some hunger pangs to start as your body acclimates to a no bulk way of eating. However, those go away quickly because your body is getting the pure nutrients it has needed all along.  Ever wonder why you’re hungry all the time on a standard American diet? It’s because your body is not getting the nutrients it needs to thrive.  It’s literally starved for them  so it keeps signaling hunger hoping you’ll give it what it needs to live. (How sad is that?)  A juice fast will give your body what it needs and it will love you for it!

PALLET CHANGE

One of the things you will notice is your tastes or pallet will begin to change dramatically and things that you may not have cared for before will start to sound mouth watering… like an apple. I never ate much raw fruit before I started eating healthier. The thought of eating an apple as a snack was not remotely appealing. I never ate broccoli and if I ate vegetables they were canned. Once I cleaned out my pallet from all the chemicals of processed foods, I not only love apples, my mouth waters at the thought of them. Same thing with steamed broccoli.  One of my favorite meals is a big bowl of brown rice topped with a bunch of steamed broccoli with sea salt sprinkled on top. Then I have a big apple with a handful of walnuts for dessert or a snack later. Pure heaven.

OTHER CHANGES

There are a variety of things you can start to notice the longer you juice or even eat a truly healthy diet. Your skin will clear up, you will be able to think more clearly. You’ll have more energy and sleep better. Sex will be better. Your eyesight will improve. Roy has noticed that already.

When our son Charles changed his diet and cured himself of a dangerous medical condition he was wearing glasses at the time. He ended up having to stop wearing them because his eyesight got so much better he couldn’t see with the glasses. It was years later before he had to wear them again.

Remember your body is always striving for health. Give it what it needs and it will not let you down. You’ll feel better than you ever imagined!

BOWEL MOVEMENTS & OPTIONAL ENEMAS & COLONICS

When you stop eating solid foods it’s natural for your bowel movements to also stop. It will take a few days to empty your bowels from what was in there, then because you still have “stuff” in your colon you will have a movement every so often as some of that clears out.

If you’ve eaten a standard American diet for years there will literally be pounds of stuff packed into your colon that won’t come out on its own. This is a wonderful time to get a colonic! Or several. (I’m not kidding on the pounds thing. Want to see an instant drop in weight? Get a few colonics.) Many suggest doing an enema a day while on your fast. Back when I started eating well I did a series of professional colonics as I had a bad diet up to that point. They really are not bad at all and you feel PHENOMENAL after each one! You would be surprised at how much horrible caked in junk is stuck in your colon from eating dairy, meat and processed foods for years. That stuff in there is toxic and causes colon cancer among other diseases. Many times only a colonic will remove it.

We own a Colonic Board which lets you do home colonics. Colema is a name brand though you can get others. They are not quite as thorough as a professional colonic but are  far better than just an enema. Roy has done three of these since he started his green smoothie fast. (I asked if I could take photos but he said no. Party pooper… literally.)