I’ll get to the answer in a later in the post, but let’s just look for a moment at the reason for asking this question.

Before you considered cleansing I’ll bet you never asked the question, “How much food should I eat in a day?”  You just ate until the point at which you felt full (or sometimes beyond that point).  It’s interesting isn’t it?

When you decide to get healthy or lose weight, you begin to examine your life and your past behaviors.  Sometimes this isn’t pretty.  And when you realize you’ve been overeating or eating the wrong foods for a number of years you begin to question every thought and every action.  You begin to distrust yourself and you seek help.  That’s okay.  That’s a great place to begin again.

How Much Juice Should You Drink?

When you are on a juice cleanse, that’s drinking only juice for a set number of days, the juice becomes your meal.  So think of it that way.  Spread your juice “meals” throughout the day and aim for four juices per day.

It’s important to realize the function of the juice.  It loads your body with nutrition and flushes your system of toxins.  You want to drink enough to feel full.  If you are getting hungry it is a sign that you need more juice.

So here it is:

A good place to start is by drinking 16 oz, four times per day.  That gives you 64 oz.  You may drink more or less depending on your situation and needs.  For example if you are very active during the day, your body requires more fuel.  Drink more.  If you are hungry or feeling healing reactions (headache, body aches) drink more.

Your body knows how much juice it needs.  It will tell you.  Take a quiet moment and listen.  You will begin to learn the ways your body communicates with you and you can begin to start trusting yourself again.  Happy Juicing!

Your Turn

Are you trusting your body?  How much juice are you drinking on your juice cleanse?  Let us know in the comments below.

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I’m writing this post as I sit inside a cozy A-frame log cabin in a canyon north of Santa Barbara California. My family and I have come here, to this wilderness location to get away from the city for a few days and in essence we are here to detox from our modern lives. We have limited access to phone and internet connections as well as modern cooking equipment.

What are we doing?

To outsiders it might seem that we are giving up a lot. In fact we are even paying money to the cabin owner for this natural experience. But we are also beginning to notice the simple things that we never would have noticed without taking a break from our hectic schedules. And it’s making a great improvement in our lives.

Simplicity

In just a few short days we’ve noticed a bluebird on our picnic table, the fresh scent of California lavender, and the sound of a single falling leaf. These all remind us to slow down the pace, practice being in the moment, and cleanse our souls.  Juice cleansing is also based on this same simple detox principle. Your body needs a break from the hectic routine of eating on the go and often eating the wrong kinds of foods.

Slow down and practice being in the moment. Drink fresh juices to recharge your physical (and spiritual) health. As you do this you will begin to notice the little things too. Here’s a list of five benefits you might experience on a juice fast cleanse:

Five Benefits of a Juice Fasting Cleanse

1. increased energy
2. better skin tone
3. reduced cravings for junk food
4. improvement in chronic conditions
5. clearer mental focus

Detox Naturally

At first it might seem like you are giving up a lot but your body knows how to heal itself if you give it a vacation. After juice cleansing for a few days the gastrointestinal tract will begin to clear itself of the residue accumulated from a busy lifestyle and unhealthy eating. It’s so amazing that such simple actions can help you recharge quickly and greatly improve your life.

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Are you worried what your family might think or sad because you feel you can’t sit at the dinner table?  Fear not, if you are well prepared you can sail through this year’s holiday season with ease.

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Here are some tips you can use:

1.  Delegate food preparation.  Is the holiday dinner at your house this year?  For some people who are juice fasting it is difficult to prepare food for others.  The sights and sounds may either repulse you or tempt you to sneak a bite.  Turn the festivities into a potluck event.  Explain your situation to others and ask them to help by bringing their favorite dish.  Alternatively you can order food from a local restaurant,  just remember to plan ahead.

And speaking of planning ahead…

2.  Don’t skip a juice “meal”.  What if you’re having such a great time at your holiday party that your forget to drink your juice?  Don’t get stuck in this scenario because you might be tempted to eat solid food.  Have some vegetables and fruits pre-washed and cut so they are ready for juicing at a moment’s notice.  If there’s no way you’ll be able to make juice during the party then make a pitcher of juice ahead of time and drink it throughout the day.

But what if the situation is just too awkward?

3.  Make juice a part of the holiday meal.  Rather than explain to everyone why you’re not eating, encourage the others to join you!  Make juice as the “soup” course of your dinner.  Serve it in decorative bowls and eat it with a spoon!  In the event that your guests might not want a cold soup, gently warm the juice over a low heat and enjoy.

While food is certainly the center of holiday traditions, it’s not the only event going on.

4. Focus your attention elsewhere.  To help take your mind off of food spend some time playing card games with the kids or looking at family photo albums.  Of course there’s always the holiday football game and after dinner nap you could participate in!

Make the holiday’s joyous whether you’re juice fasting or not.  There’s no need to get into a debate about the pros and cons of your diet.  Everyone makes their own decisions.  But you can lead by example and be a positive role model.  And maybe at the end of the party someone will ask for your juice recipe!

Will juicing be a part of your holiday festivities?  How do you plan on handling it?

Juice Cleansing FAQ

Q.  Do I leave the peel on my fruits and veggies when juicing?  And what about the seeds?
A. Generally, if you buy organic produce you can leave the peel intact.  Non-organic foods should be peeled or at least washed thoroughly. You can make your own vegetable wash with this recipe. Citrus fruits should be peeled because the rind tastes bitter and may contain pesticides, but you can leave the white pith.  Many seeds can be left in the fruit and put through the juicer.  Hard “pit” seeds such as peach, plum, and cherry must be removed first.  Apple seeds do contain a small amount of a cyanide compound, which the body can easily detox in small amounts.  Juice machines do break open the seeds which can release the compound.  If this is a concern for you, then you can core the apple before juicing.

Q.  Can I make a pitcher of juice and store it for the day?
A.  The vitamins and nutrients in juice can oxidize or decrease over time so it is ideal to drink the juice right away.  The presence of light and oxygen speed up this process, but you can slow it down by keeping the juice in the refrigerator.  Be sure to use an airtight container (preferably opaque or dark in color) that is not much larger than the amount of juice and store it for up to 24 hours.

Q.  How many days do I have to drink the juices?
A.  If you are attempting a juice cleanse (juice fast) and have never done so before you may want to try a 1-day cleanse.  It’s a quick way to get your body used to the schedule of fasting.  The most common cleanses last 3, 5, or 7 days.  This is plenty of time for your body to eliminate standard toxins built up in the body.  You can do these short cleanses periodically throughout the year.  If you would like to attempt a longer cleanse, please enlist the help of a health professional to monitor your health and progress for safety reasons.

Q. Do I drink the juice all day or can I eat something such as raw foods when I get hungry?
A.  The reason for not eating during a juice cleanse is so that the colon does not use energy to digest new foods entering the body, but instead removes the built up foods and toxins that have not previously been absorbed by the body.  The reason for drinking juice is to give the body nutrients without digestible material.  There are some modified versions of the juice cleanse which allow minimal amounts of food, but this would be considered more of a maintenance diet and not a true fast.

Q. Can I use a blender?
A.  A blender is different from a juicer.  Blenders do not remove the fiber from the juice, therefore your body is digesting food.  The point of a juice cleanse is to relieve the body from digesting for a few days.  I recommend buying a juice machine, however you may blend your foods and strain them through a nut milk bag or cheesecloth to manually remove the fiber.

Q. Can I use just one recipe for my entire cleanse or should I mix in different vegetables and fruits?
A. It is best to mix up the recipes for a couple of reasons.  First you may get bored drinking the same juice all day for several days.  Also your body requires a lot of different vitamins and minerals to maintain optimal health.  By trying different veggies and fruits in your recipes you’ll be giving your body balanced nutrition.

Q.  Is it possible to do the juice cleanse with a majority of fruits instead of veggies?
A.  I recommend a vegetable based juice cleanse.  Fruits can be great in limited quantities, but fruits speed up the detoxifying process and can make your cleanse symptoms (shakes, headaches) feel worse.

Q.  How do you get enough liquid from the leafy vegetables?
A.  Some of the leafy vegetable just don’t have that much juice in them.  However the juice that is there is very powerful so don’t dismiss them altogether.  To get the best yield out of the leafy greens try rolling them to compact the leaves or wrapping them around a cucumber or carrot.  Making them “bulkier” may help to get more juice.  If you are getting serious about juicing you may want to check out a masticating juicer.  This type of juice machine “chews” the food at slower speed and may work better on the leafy vegetables.  Check out my juice machine guide for more info.

Q.  If I went on a juice cleanse, where would my protein come from?
A.  Vegetables DO contain protein.  For example spinach has about 1g of protein per cup and broccoli has about 2g per cup. Typically as a society we consume too many proteins and we’re conditioned to believe that we will not survive with less.  You will.  But if you are concerned about proteins you can add a powdered spirulina/wheatgrass type supplement to your juice.

Q.  How much weight will I lose on a five day juice fast?
A.  You may lose some weight during a juice fast.  The amount will vary per person but the average is about one pound per day on a five day fast.  Much of this is simply retained water and built up food matter in the colon.  To maintain the weight loss it is important to stick to a routine of healthy eating, exercise, and periodic cleansing.

Happy Juicing!

With a flash of inspiration Joe realized he needed to change his routine in order to change his life.  “I felt like I needed to give my body the energy it needed to perform the function of self-repair. I thought, ‘If I just get out of the way, it will heal itself,’ ” .

Joe enlisted the help of Dr. Joel Fuhrman in America and began a 60 day juice fast.  He traveled across the country, with a juicer in the back of his car, to share his new found love of juice and talk with people about their lifestyle habits and hopes for the future.  The inspirational journey was documented in the film Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.

Remarkably Joe lost 82 lbs on his juice fast and helped many others to do the same.  It has created such a buzz that people are wanting to know how to start their own juice fast like Joe.

Tips for a 60 day juice fast

1.  If you are on any medications or have any health problems, have a medical professional monitor your progress.

2.  Start out with a small goal, say 10 days.  This makes the task more manageable mentally and makes it easier to chart daily progress.  Not everyone needs to fast for a full 60 days.  As in #1, a medical professional can help you determine what is right for you.

3.  Though it would appear in the film that Joe just woke up one morning and started juicing, it is best to prepare mentally and physically for at least a week prior to the cleanse.  You can read about my preparation process here.

4.  Easy does it.  This is not the time to multi task.  Take a few days off or lighten your work and responsibilities.  Your body will be hyper focused on cleansing during this period, so relax and let your body work it’s magic.  Light stretching or walking is all you need to do to assist.

5.  Continue drinking water.  Water has an important function of flushing out the toxins and waste.  You still need to drink plenty of water.

6.  If you experience any adverse effects besides light headache and fatigue in the first few days, consult a professional.

7.  Congratulate yourself on ANY progress made!

Happy Juicing!  BONUS!  Here’s the recipe for Joe’s Mean Green Juice!

In the movie Joe uses a Breville Juice Fountain similar to this:

To learn more about juicing and juice fasting, including recipes I recommend the following books:

Let’s start with juicing.   The function of juicing is cleansing and supplementing.  By cleansing I’m referring to whole body cleansing, but primarily that of the colon and the blood.  Since juice contains no fiber it can bypass digestion and quickly be absorbed into the bloodstream.  This eases the colon and allows more energy to be devoted to removing foods and waste that are already inside the body.  Most of us really don’t pay attention to how much and which kinds of food we’re taking in.  Even a healthy person with a good diet can experience this build up of waste and a slow moving or sluggish system.   Juices provide maximum nutrition and energy so that the body can heal itself.

There are two ways to go about cleansing with juices.  The first is simply to drink fresh juice first thing in the morning, every morning. The first meal of the day breaks the fast that your body experiences from the last meal of the day before.  If your last meal was at 6:30pm and you eat breakfast at 6:30am, you’ve already experiences a twelve hour fast!  Drinking juice before breakfast extends this fasting just a bit longer, plus the nutrition goes straight into action, giving you a super boost.  Now that’s a great way to start the day!  The second way to cleanse with juices is to go on a short term juicing fast for a period of one to ten days.  In this method the colon has adequate time to really begin eliminating and healing.

Now, blending is much the same as juicing in that it contains the vitamins and minerals.  Blended foods are easily digested, but they do still contain fiber so there is definitely digestion happening.  The function of blending is to provide whole food nutritional meals that contribute to building healthy cells. You might want to add extra foods such as bananas, avocados, and yogurt into the mix for extra nutrition and variety.

Most people get stuck on the issue of fiber.  Yes fiber is absolutely necessary for the colon and for a healthy body.  Blending provides this. It builds up the body.  But to cleanse the body you need to remove the fiber.  Juicing is best for cleansing.

In summary, juicing and blending have two different functions. Juicing is for cleansing and supplementing, while blending is for nutritional meals and cell building.  It’s great to include both into your diet even if it’s just for variety.

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