How to survive a juice cleanse?

I was all prepared to start my my juice cleanse after all the weekend stuffing and holiday “cheat” meals. It was really easy to start gorging out on food unknowingly during rest days, friends meet up and gatherings, only to realize it after you step on the scale or after the pants is too tight to fit. Familiar?

The best way to start the week right will be committing into a juice cleanse! Read my previous juice cleanse journey here! Why do I say so and what can a juice cleanse do for you?

Here’s a whole list of benefits of what and how a juice cleanse can help your body reap;

1) Rest the stomach and liver – Juices require less of the stomach’s digestive processing and goes directly into the blood stream. The liver as our main detoxifying organ, every molecule of food that is absorbed through the intestinal wall  moves into the liver for detoxification and preparation before being allowed to enter the rest of the body. The problem is, there are too many toxins for most of our livers to handle – causing wreak havoc in distant cells. A juice cleanse rests the liver’s overload.

2) Rest and repair the gut – Toxic foods (such as saturated fats, refined carbohydrates, foods with additives, pesticides and allergenic foods), taking medications (such as antibiotics), and even stress can impair the intestine’s functioning. By consuming only juices, it cleanse the gut and allow it to rest without transporting food to our digestive organs.

3) Reduce your appetite – Juicing doesn’t really shrink the stomach — although it feels like it does. Juicing eliminates the habit of comfort eating, and makes you feel satiated with less food, which provides a big psychological boost to help get over the hurdle of changing habits.

4) Eliminate harmful foods and flood it with super nutrition – A juice cleanse eliminates dairy, wheat, gluten and fermented foods from the diet (as well as coffee and alcohol). Pumping up on the vitamins and minerals as those fruits powerhouses cleans-up and heal the body system.

5) Lose weight – A juice cleanse (three days minimum) is a great way to jump start a diet. It not only helps control appetite and cravings, but is naturally lower in calories, while supplying the body with probably more concentrated beneficial energizing.

6) Rehydrate the body – Drinking sufficient fluids (5-6 glasses/day) makes the body function more efficiently, moreover increasing energy and helps insure proper elimination of toxins.

Source: Huffington Post

I started off with Green Apple and Lemon juice to kick-start breakfast! Apples contain pectin, which detox and remove cholesterol and toxins through the liver and kidneys. Lemons contain a pocketful of benefits, this also includes in removing waste and promotes a healthy liver. I love how those sour buds got tinge up after my first juice.

Next, blending my favourite green juice! The best way to re-hydrate and cleanse the body system! Green juice are harder to consume as it is not as sweet as what fruit juices are. Imagine.. Broccoli? Cucumber? Celery? Bitter-gourd?

Therefore, people who are accustomed with green juices can consume 6 bottles of them in a day, for me I prefer a mixture of greens and fruits juices. Here’s what I did (pictured);

1. Green Apples with Lemons

2. 5 Green Juice

3. Guava Juice

4. Oranges, Yellow Pears  with Lemons

It was not a starvation day for me, as I am used to having juices for breakfast. The challenging part was during night time, as work ended and everyone is heading back home for dinner and what I could have was just a cup of cold green juice. I must say, it takes a lot of discipline. Juice cleanse encourages early sleep as well, as the body is drained out of solid food and the mind starts to spin around.

How to survive a juice cleanse?

1. Prepare your juices and label them, this will ensure your mind to accustom what comes next for lunch,etc and it will be hard for you to break that.

2. Be consistent in fulfilling your juice quota. Drinking every 3 hours is vital, filling full and satisfied is important to keep the juice cleanse going on.

3. Stay in the office during lunch hour and do more work instead of thinking what to eat, as usual.

4. Stay focused on the finishing satisfaction and remain committed. Make every second worth it!

5. The best survival technique is to get a bud and do it together! Cause nothing works better with a constant motivator and someone to check on your progress. Competitiveness will boost and enhance performance.

That’s all for now. #Juicingselfie

Definitely, not everyone is suitable to go through such a juice cleanse programme without solid food at all. Some may experience fainting spells and cold limbs, which I strongly encourage all to listen to your body. If a 3 days juice cleanse is too long for you to handle, shorten it to a day or two instead. What is most important is the body is able to withstand and reap those benefits instead of crashing and falling sick.

“Listen to your body”

5 green juice recipe to detoxify effectively

The rave on juice cleanse are on the rise now! Most ladies out there are yearning to try juice cleanse, in the hope of wanting to lose some excess weight. The basic principle is to flush out all toxins in the body. By relying on juices itself, the body is dependent on the liquid solely. Therefore, it is important to choose the right juices during these cleanse.

Juice fasting has long been used as a great way to detox human body. This process of flushing out works very well while fasting because our body does not need to divert any attention to process such as digestion and elimination of food we eat. Whatever we eat or drink during fast is very light which puts minimum pressure on our system. Thus our body works effectively in healing itself (our body has a mechanism of self healing) which also includes removing toxins, healing internal and external wounds, etc.

Talking about super food, who doesn’t know that vegetables are the best source of fiber and nutrients? Therefore, here are my pick for the 5 best green juice!

INGREDIENTS

1. 1/4 Japanese Cucumber
2. 1 Seeded Green Apple
3. 2 stalks of Celery
4. 1/2 Green Pepper
5. 1/4 Bittergourd

DIRECTION

1. Wash all ingredients.
2. Chop them and put all ingredients into a juicer.

TASTE

Taste relatively sweet as the Green Apple and Cucumber neutralize the bitterness of bittergourd.

EFFECT

Exceptionally good at preventing high blood pressure, cholesterol disorders and constipation.

Purported benefits

High in antioxidants, controls blood sugar, iron deficiencies, detoxifying effect, and weight loss.

Bittergourd
The bittergourd is said to detoxify your body and also has been known in Asian naturopathy to be an excellent vegetable for the management of diabetes and high blood-sugar conditions. Drinking it to balance out high-GI foods that have been consumed as to counter the high insulin production.

Green Bell Peppers
According to website research, 1 cup of green bell peppers provides our body with 120 mg or the equivalent of 200 percent of your daily vitamin C intake! Great for the skin too!

Celery
An excellent source of Vitamin K, celery is also a low calorie food that is GREAT for people who are trying to lose weight, with it’s high antioxidants level making it a super food suitable for all ages!

Cucumber
Cucumbers are high in potassium and silicate, which is great for replacing lost electrolytes as well as being awesome for your skin health.

Green Apple
Green apples give you the sweet and sour taste that is highly packed with nutrients and it is LOW in calories!

Try having this power juice every morning before breakfast, it is the best time for absorption during an empty stomach! If you are trying it out for a 3 days juice programme (6 x 500ml of juice per day for 3 days), you may like to include this power juice into the regime. However, not everybody is able to do a 3-days juice cleanse programme varying from body to body. The body may not be used to a sudden change from solid food to liquid food. The best way is to listen to your body and react with how it feels! Take baby steps in improving your health and make it a habit to replace wholesome food with junk food. The way back to health is the best decision of my life!

xHappy weekends.