Juice Fasting for Weight Loss: All you need to know - Benefits, consequences and Risks

Juice fasting has become extremely popular these days and is both a weight-loss and body cleanse diet. Juice fast is a diet where one only drinks fruit and vegetable juices, sans the fibre, and other clean liquids like water and tea.

Juice fasting is believed to help manage weight as it gives the digestive system a break, and makes it easier to absorb the nutrients present in the juices. Fruit and vegetable juices are rich in vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients, which are considered essential for the body and helpful in the process of weight loss.

Juice Fasting for Weight Loss: All you need to know - Benefits, consequences and Risks

Juice Fasting for Weight Loss: All you need to know - Benefits, consequences and Risks

Benefits of Juice Fasting

Like mentioned, juices contain a lot of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients which are essential for the body. These help in building better immunity in the body, remove toxins and cleanse the body, and also better digestion. Apart from these functions, juice fasting is also beneficial in weight loss as it helps to keep the body light, hydrated, and nourished. Some people also believe that juice fasting can prevent cancer, though there is no study that has proven this yet.

How to practice Juice Fasting?

Though your plan of juice fasting will determine exactly how you go about it, here is a basic structure for practising juice fasting. You can pick organic vegetables and fruits, since they are believed to have fewer chemicals and pesticides on them, or just the regular ones according to availability, prices, and the length of the period for which you plan to fast. Try including more vegetable juices in your diet than fruit juices, to ensure that your body is provided with all the nutrients you require.

Consequences of Juice Fasting

Juice fasting, just like any other diet, will have consequences on your body. Since you go absolutely off solid or even semi-solid food, your body is likely to experience fatigue and tiredness in the initial days since your body is not used to functioning on such little diet. In extreme cases, it can lead to severe diarrhoea, low blood pressure, and extreme dizziness.

Risks of Juice Fasting

Juice fasting is not one of the best diets as recommended by doctors and there seem to be reasons for the same. Juice fasting is not considered the safest diet as only juices can lead to problems of undernutrition in the body. Another health risk that is very likely to be faced is that of weight gain, instead of loss as juices contain a lot of natural sugar. You should be very specific about which juice you incorporate in your diet to ensure that you do not gain weight. This sugar can also lead to disturbance in the blood sugar levels of the body. Young children, pregnant women, older people and people with weak immune systems should avoid juice fasting.

Disclaimer

Tips and suggestions mentioned in the article are for general information purpose only and should not be construed as professional medical advice. Always consult your doctor or a dietician before starting any fitness programme or making any changes to your diet.