Juice Cleanse

So I recently just completed a 3 day juice cleanse. The idea of the cleanse is to only eat raw cold pressed vegetable/fruit juices for 3 days. The reason I wanted to do this is I have never done one before and I wanted to be able to give my clients my personal opinion on what I thought of them. For convenience reasons I didn’t make my own but instead I bought ready made cold pressed juices through a company called Nutriseed. A client of mine had used them before and said they were great.

The Benefits of a Juice Cleanse

The purpose of drinking only raw cold pressed vegetable juices is to give your digestive system and other organs a rest from having to break down solid processed foods. By using a cold pressed technique you can retain up to 95% of the nutrients from the fruit and vegetables making these macro nutrients more readily available to your cells.

Often our body’s are working so hard to get rid of the toxins that even when we eat healthily we are unable to absorb all of the nutrients we should be due to our body’s being inefficient.
On a day to day basis we consume processed foods, excessive amounts of caffeine, alcohol, dairy and meat and over time this has a detrimental affect on our organs and how efficient they are at doing there job.

As we get older our metabolisms slow down. But what people seem to forget is that it is our liver which is our detoxification organ responsible for not only the process of breaking down toxins, but also the organ for metabolising fat. So it makes sense to look after this organ right?

Other benefits of Juicing:

*Rest the Gut

*Rest the Liver

*Lose Weight:

*Break bad habits

*Improve Energy

*Rest the Body of Toxins

*Improve sleep

*Rehydrate

What I experienced

Day 1: The first day was the hardest. For me cutting out caffeine gave me headaches and made me feel more tired than usual. I missed eating solid food and felt hungry as I usually consume between 2300-2500cal and this cleanse gave me roughly 1000cal a day.
I didn’t train on this day as I didn’t feel it would do me any favours being so low on calories with a bad head. I weighed myself at the start but didn’t carry out any additional tests such as fat % or lean muscle mass.

Day 2: After a fantastic nights sleep due to the lack of caffeine the day before I woke feeling really energised and didn’t hit the snooze button once, which is not like me 🙈😳 Throughout the day I didn’t seem to miss eating solids foods and the headaches had disappeared. Strangely I didn’t miss my coffee and opted for a peppermint tea instead which was really nice. I did train on this day but I chose to do a really low intensity weights session to ensure I didn’t burn too many calories – energy felt low throughout. That evening I felt really relaxed and sleepy when I got home from work, which was actually a nice change as I usually struggle to wind down after a long day even when I am tired.

Day 3: Another good nights sleep and I felt good again waking up early. I weighed myself first thing and I was 3 pounds down already. Strangely on this day I didn’t crave solid food or coffee and actually quite enjoyed feeling lean and empty. This day I seemed to have more energy than the previous two days and felt really good throughout. Normally I will have moments in the day when I’m full of energy and other moments in the day when I crash and that’s typically when I would reach for the coffee to pick me back up. On this cleanse I didn’t seem to have the highs and the lows which felt really good.

Where will I get my protein from???

So while on the 3 day cleanse you take out and eliminate all meat and dairy products and try limit solid food as much as possible. And yes, just like you my initial thought was my muscles are going to waste away without getting my daily protein shake or steak. And granted you won’t be hitting your usual daily macros but you will still be getting in some form of protein as one of the key superfood supplements Spirulina (seaweed) is added to most of the shakes. Spirulina is the highest natural protein food on this earth, containing all the essential amino acids our body requires. Also protein and calcium is present in the vegetables in every juice.
The cleanse that I did was purely juice only. However if you wanted to increase your calories and fibre you could add some nuts and seeds in.

Will I lose muscle on this cleanse?

The only test I did before the cleanse was weighing myself. I didn’t do any other fat or muscle tests so I couldn’t be 100% sure what it was I actually lost but I imagine along with water and fat I did lose some muscle as my calories were lower than my body was used to. When you give your body less food than your BMR (Basil Metabolic Rate) your body will eventually go into starvation mode, which means you store fat for protection and break down muscle tissue as energy. I knew going in to the cleanse this was most likely going to happen. Do I really care for the sakes of 3 days? No. If I did it for longer I would probably try and get in some additional plant based protein to reduce the chance of this happening.

Introducing regular food again:

One of the key things to remember when doing any diet/cleanse is that once you have finished you have to be careful as to how you reintroduce foods back in. What I mean by this is is that if you used to eat a load of rubbish before and this made you fat then guess what? if you go back to it it’s going to make you fat again! Often people blame the diets for not working, but it’s the lack of consistency that doesn’t work more often than not. If you stop exercising guess what? Your probably going to gain weight. If you stop eating healthy foods, then guess what? Your probably going to gain weight! So it’s important you gradually start exercising again and reintroduce healthy foods. Not go on an all inclusive holiday to Benidorm!

After day 3 of only consuming vegetable and fruit juices I introduced white fish and solid vegetables. I also introduced almonds and some flax seed to add in some extra fibre. Over the past week I have increase my calories gradually back to near enough where they were before I started the cleanse, and my training as resumed as per usual. Since doing the cleanse I haven’t drank any coffee or had any other forms of caffeine. This is not to say I won’t ever have a coffee again as I do enjoy the taste, but for now I’m enjoying how my body feels without caffeine.

Summary:

I think there is definitely a place for juicing. I would say to anybody considering doing a juice cleanse to go for it. The Benefits physically and mentally are fantastic. Just do your research into the most safe and effective way to do it first.

Thanks for reading,

Matt Hall