A juice cleanse is a type of diet that consists solely of drinking fruit and vegetable juices in an attempt to detoxify and lose weight. The real question is: exactly how nourishing are these cleanses? Some people wonder if this cleanse really lives up to the hype; The answer is yes and no. Let’s dive into why that is and weigh the pros and cons of a juice cleanse.
The good thing about juices
1. Helps with portion control
Juicing can help you control portions and eat less. When you eat again after a juice cleanse, you can reestablish your portion control and stop overeating, which is easy to do.
2. Motivation to lose weight
Juices can also provide motivation when trying to lose weight. It reduces the starch your body absorbs, which causes you to lose water weight. Seeing that number decrease on the scale can help provide that boost of encouragement.
3. Get your nutrients
Technically, the ingredients in a juice are healthy when you blend your own fruits and vegetables. Blueberries, for example, are high in vitamin C and K, while mangoes are high in B6 and vitamin A. By drinking these juices, you’ll be able to stock up on nutrients that your body is naturally depleting.
4. Green juices really are superfoods
While too much fruit can mean too much sugar, a vegetable-filled juice is much more nutrient dense and isn’t as overloaded with sugary fruit juices, which can cause blood sugar spikes.
5. It’s a post-holiday reset
If you have been eating poorly or eating a lot of fried, processed, or heavy foods, you can do a juice cleanse to detoxify your system. But instead of thinking you need to lose starvation pounds, think of it as a way to give your body what it craves nutritionally, for no more than a couple of days.
