Yes, it sure can. Most people do juice fasting for one or both of the following benefits. Detoxification and/or weight loss. People who are more advanced in fasting might also do it to help clean or repair a specific organ or body part. Still, if we had to guess, we would say that the majority of people do it for weight loss.
Below we will answer the top questions asked on the web right now.
Be sure to read each sub-headline (which is a question) so that you are sure you don’t miss any questions that you have as well.
Disclaimer: The following is for educational purposes only. We are not advocating a change in dietary, health, or exercise protocols. Please seek the advice or council of your nutritionally educated health care practitioner before engaging in any dietary or exercise changes.
Without further ado, let’s dive right into those most frequently asked questions.
When people start with the objective of losing weight, some of the very first questions they always tend to ask are:
How Much Weight Can You Lose On A 3 Day Juice Fast?
Most people will drop anywhere between 5 and even as much as 15 pounds. The problem is that it’s not very much fat weight, it’s just a lot of water weight, and the food that was in your digestive system is coming out with no food to replace it. The real fat loss will likely be close to between 1 and possibly 3 pounds.
3 pounds might be stretching it just a bit, but it’s possible because you’re shocking your body with such a low caloric intake for 3 days.
Yes, you’ll likely see your stomach flatten out considerably. However, as soon as you start eating again, you’re going to gain that right back. You’ll repopulate your intestinal tract with food weight, and you’ll regain the water weight primarily from the salt in your food.
How Much Weight Can You Lose On A 7 Day Juice Fast?
Most likely, you’ll see your weight drop somewhere between 3 and 15 pounds. See the three-pound question above for details. However, the reason you won’t likely exceed the 15-pound mark that we discussed for 3 days is that, after the initial shock, your metabolism will start to correct itself. It’s how you were programmed to survive. If you run low on food, your body lowers your metabolism in an attempt to conserve calories (the body’s currency).
Yes, just to be straight, many will call it ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate). However, ATP doesn’t work in the absence of fuel (calories), which is why we identify the real metabolic driver as calories.
As mentioned above, don’t get too excited about a big weight loss in the first few days. This will be mostly water weight and the food exiting your digestive tract, which you’ll gain back once you re-feed.
How Much Weight Can You Lose On A 14 Day Juice Fast?
Now here is where it starts to get interesting. With a 14-day fast, much of the weight you could lose might just be fat. Here’s how. When you first start fasting, you lose a little fat, but most of the weight is water and food leaving your system. Then, over the next few days, you continue to lose fat, which starts adding up.
So, let’s say realistically, over a 14-day juice fast, you lost 15 pounds. Let’s say 5 was water weight, 5 was food weight that you eliminated, and 5 pounds of that was actual fat loss.
When you re-feed, you’ll fill your digestive tract with food, and you’ll regain the water weight, and you could have 5 pounds of real fat loss to show for it.
This could be better or worse depending on whether you exercised and maintained a caloric deficit during the fast. If you did, then you could lose as much as 7 to 10 pounds.
Anything more than that and it’s probably just pie in the sky, which certainly has nothing to do with fasting, but might be part of your dreams while you are.
How Much Weight Can You Lose On A 30 Day Juice Fast?
In the first week or so, you’ll likely drop quite a bit of weight, which will be mostly water and the food you had pilled up in your digestive tract. Along with that, you could lose up to 2 to 5 pounds of fat because your body is shocked. Then, as the weeks go by, if you’re in a caloric deficit and exercising, you can expect anywhere from 2 to 5 or so pounds of fat loss per week.
This is by no means a guarantee; this is just stating what was found in the scientific literature.
However, it’s incredibly well known that when you exercise in a caloric deficit, you’ll lose weight whether you fast or not. Add fasting to the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for losing weight.
When you re-feed, you’ll reload the digestive tract with food and you’ll likely gain back your water weight. The net weight loss from the 30-day fast could be between 8 and 20 pounds if you at least maintained a caloric deficit the entire time.
You need to remember that a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, so you need to have a net expenditure of that many calories to lose each pound. If you don’t, it just won’t happen. It’s not mumbo jumbo or the latest diet with doctor wisdom, it’s science.
What Are The Benefits Of A Juice Fast?
There are so many we could write a book, but here are just a few.
A). There are so many books, websites, studies, and even bible references to the cleansing power of fasting that it’s mind-boggling. We here at Health Getters have done a lot of juice fasting, and I am on a 100-day juice fast as I write this. So, we have the collective, first-hand knowledge that most other sites lack. We know because we do it ourselves.
We have all seen the immense power of a juice-fast cleanse and all the amazing things it can do for your body.
However, the biggest benefit, in my eyes and that of everyone here, is not so much the weight loss. Yes, sure, you can get that too.
The big benefit is the cleansing. There is no feeling in the world that comes close to being in the middle of a solid food vacation, as John Rose likes to say. You feel so good that you may start to question whether or not you’ll ever eat again.
I mean, of course, you will, but you kind of almost don’t even see the logic in it anymore.
B). It allows the body to do what it’s designed to do, which is to be a big juicer itself.
Think about it. Just like some of the best juicers on the market, you masticate the food by chewing it. It goes through a tube that allows the juice to flow through it into your veins, which you then use.
Your body is just one great big juicer, so juice fasting just allows you to free up your body from all the work of normal digestion.
You were born consuming a liquid diet (mother’s milk) and were designed to thrive on it for the first 1 to 5 years of your life. Your body is adapted to do just fine on a liquid diet.
Because your body has for so long associated fiber with peristalsis, you should use the larger hole filter on your juicer or use fiber powder put into the liquid to keep a bowel movement going every few days.
However, other than that, you can do just fine on a liquid diet for as long as you’d like. Some people only consume their food in a liquid state, called “liquidarians.” They still eat fruits and vegetables. However, they just blend them first and/or juice quite a bit of their calories as well.
The logic is that their bodies don’t have to work nearly as hard to process the foods. They sip their ‘shakes’ all day long, providing a trickle of nutrition that keeps blood sugars stable and nutrients flowing.
C). Another amazing benefit of juice fasting is that the average person consumes more fruits and vegetables in a day than the average person consumes in quite possibly a month.
The reason we said quite likely is that fruit and vegetable consumption varies throughout the United States rather dramatically, with Hawaii ranking amongst the highest and West Virginia and Louisiana tied for last place.
If you had to go for the average, you’d be looking at Colorado, and compared to them, you’d get more fruits and vegetables in a day than the average person there would get in a month if you do our famous kitchen sink juicing plan.
The kitchen sink juicing plan is where you juice just about everything you can get the juice out of and put it into one container and drink it all day.
It’s a massive blend of fruits and vegetables that covers so much nutrition that you’d need an app to calculate it all.
So, the benefit is that you get all that amazing nutrition every day.
That, in and of itself, is more than enough reason to juice fast. Then combine that with the other benefits and it’s a powerhouse.
What Are The Downsides Of A Juice Fast?
There aren’t very many, but here are the ones that some people might face. A) You may have a challenge with hunger during the first 2 or 3 days of a juicing program. B) If you’ve been exposed to a lot of chemicals or eat poorly, you may have a lot of junk coming out of you. However, we don’t see that as a negative, we see that as a good thing because it’s a lot better than leaving it in there.
Other than that, it may be a little bit of a time inconvenience because it takes a little time to make fresh juice each day.
However, in our opinion, it’s nothing but upside from there on out.
Should You Drink Water On A Juice Fast?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, you should still consume your normal water consumption because juice isn’t water and your body needs water to survive. So, yes, drink lots of pure water while juicing.
Can You Drink Coffee Or Tea On A Juice Fast?
Yes, absolutely. You should still consume your normal water consumption because the juice isn’t water and your body needs water to survive. So, yes, drink lots of pure water while juicing.
What Foods Can You Eat On A Juice Fast?
None. That’s the point of a fast, you’re taking a break from eating. You don’t consume any foods whatsoever.
Do You Really Pass Fecal Plaque Ropes When Juice Fasting?
Yes, you sure can. This is dependent on the type of fasting you’re doing and whether it has a colon cleansing component or not. It’s, of course, also reliant on time. A short three-day fast is not long enough for you to fully eliminate all the food you had been consuming before the fast. So, on these short-duration fasts, no.
However, with the longer versions, yes, if you have a colon cleansing component to your fast.
Can You Exercise While Juice Fasting?
We have to tell you to seek the advice or counsel of your nutritionally educated healthcare practitioner before beginning any diet or exercise program. With that being said, yes, once you’re cleared to do so, then absolutely you should.
Be sure to take it easy for the first few times, so there are no challenges. Other than that, you should do just fine.
Sources
1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0975947616300092
5. https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/7/1/48A/4524022?login=true