Juicing - bad or good??

[runningLou]

I know there are ladies on here who are true founts of nutritional wisdom and I just wondered what you thought of juicing / juice diets? A friend has done the 7lbs in 7 days one and is now having 2 juices and 2 small meals a day and is losing absolutely loads!! I know the fans of juicing say it's really healthy and detoxes you etc ... But then I've read a lot of stuff about it just giving you a massive fructose hit, and also not including the fibre you'd get if you ate the fruit whole. And isn't it really, really high carb and high-GI??

just eat spoonfuls of sugar .... fruit juice is loaded with it ....
and how is that sustainable for the next 20 years?

sounds like a way to sell books and make people yoyo to me

I once did a four day juice retreat with my sister. We were so hungry that we stopped at the first service station in the way home and ate double the calories we would have ordinarily consumed over those four days. It was truly miserable. Never again!

From a nutritional point on view it strikes me that juicing strips away the fibre and leaves behind a whole load of fructose. It's bound to see results as it must seriously restrict calories but I'd wager those pounds fly back on once normal eating is resumed. The stories rolled out about miracle weight loss tend to be people who had very, very poor diets to start with and who educated themselves whilst juicing, so on returning to eating solids opted for infinitely better foods than pre-juicing!

There is no such thing as detoxing and nothing to be gained by eating nothing while drinking juice for a few days. Sorry if this hurts anyone's feelings, but a quick look at medical textbooks will show that there is no detox mechanism in the human body.

I don't think there's anything wrong with including fresh, homemade juice into a balanced diet and a lovely fresh blood orange and watermelon juice in a nice glass with a straw is (IMO) a much better treat than a slab of Dairy Milk! However, I agree with the other posters, a juice fast or long term juicing in place of meals isn't the answer.

I have just done 6 days where I had juice all day and a regular meal in the evening. I lost 5 lb ( am usually 9 stone) but most importantly I felt great. I also found that not thinking about cooking meals made me not obsess about food as I have done when trying low carb or 5.2. I Continued my regular exercise plan of 10k run one day and gym sessions three other days and felt stronger than usual. Since eating more regularly I have added on another 2 lb. Now I'm having juice for breakfast, small lunch, mid afternoon juice at kids tea time and a regular dinner.

The juices I have are mostly veg not fruit though. This mornings was a raw beetroot, 2 celery sticks, 2 carrots and an orange. How can that not be a healthy breakfast? There is a good green smoothie website that has great recipes and advice, I'll try and find it.

You'll obviously lose weight as juice weighs a lot less than solid food (given that the water content will be passed out in the urine) so over a few days the weight of your gut contents will be much reduced. It's not fat loss I'm afraid (which is why the scales went back up when you started eating more food again). That's how the juicing/detox plans claim you can lose 9lb in 9 days (or something like that!). Also it's true that "detox" plans or products are complete bunkum. Unless your kidneys or liver are failing your body has a perfectly good "detox" system already and nothing you eat/drink/don't eat will affect that. Agree, however, that having a freshly squeezed juice now and again is a good part of a healthy diet.

It very much depends on what your stomach will make of juicing. You are supposed to aim for 80% veg, 20% fruit so it should not be too sweet. Unfortunately, it was completely unsustainable for me because it made me very unsociable () - I needed to be pretty close to a loo at all times. I would start and reevaluate as the first day was ok-ish for me though I felt very sleepy. Apparently, it's quite a well known side effect.

All this is really interesting ... Those of you who do like juicing, did you use a blender and keep the peel / pulp in with the veggies and fruit? Or did you use a juicer and add the pulp back in? I'm concerned about what I've read about juices being so low fibre ...
To be honest I love veg, especially crunchy veg, and would much rather eat kale or spinach than have it whizzed up. I think I would go a little crazy on juice as I really need to chew to feel like I've eaten something, if that makes sense?!