Juice fasting...in reality, is it good or bad for your health? I decided to embark on an 18 day journey with an open mind to find out for myself.
Juice fasting, extreme or should every one do it at least once in their life time?
The toughest journey I have ever embarked on, full of ups and downs, and ready to take on bigger challenges.
It all started when my husband started following John Rose, one of the most prominent figures in the juicing world. He came to me super excited about the idea of doing something radical that can apparently reboot your system and is apparently the cornucopia of health and wellbeing.
The program consists of 90 days of juicing only fresh fruit and vegetables, nothing bought in store where it contains chemicals or has been pasteurized therefore killing its nutrients.
At that moment in time, I was making a transition in my carreer from jeweler, to the holistic health world of iridology and herbalism. I have always been drawn to science and medicine, up to one point in my younger days, I was quite decided to go to medical school, but life happened, and I never had the chance.
Background about my health journey... Since I was born I had many allergies. As a baby I was actually allergic to all milk types, which made my poor little life (and in consequence my mother's life) a living hell.
As a kid, I was suffering from fevers and infections at least once ever 3 months, which then by the age of 7, doctors recommended having my tonsils removed. That sort of solved the problem for several years and I was in decent health, allergy free, and enjoying my life, except for my recurring migraines (approximately 2-6 per month).
At the age of 19, I started getting sick for a couple of days which which consequently landed me in the hospital. When blood work was done, the doctors could not make heads or tails as all my values were absolutely rock bottom and they told my mom that either I had... beginning of leukemia or purpura. Basically, my blood had absolutely no platelets and if I had an accident, I could bleed out.
Going to the best doctors in all of my country, no one could figure out what was happening, their best advice was just to keep doing blood test every 2-3 months to keep track of any developments. Eventually, we looked for solutions in alternative medicine.
After years of treatments, everything went back somewhat to normal, and my platelets since then have always been in the range of 70-90 (the minimum one should have is 200 and maximum 400). But I have been able to enjoy somewhat of a decent life.
As I reached my 30's, my body just went bonkers !!! Allergies to almonds and most fruits started developing, weight kept pounding on no matter what diet or how much exercise. My period was always beyond painful, headaches got worse, skin rashes, loss of hair and fatigue. My immune system was through the floor, I would be the first one to catch every cold and bug circulating (my husbands called me patient zero haha). I recurred to natural or holistic remedies and things got better for some time, but as soon as I slipped a bit on my treatment or lifestyle, all the "wrongs" would creep their ugly head back.
So back to my husband suggesting the 90 day detox... desperate times call for desperate measures, right?
We embarked in a world of research through Youtube, watching all the videos of people who had done everything from 30 days, 60 days and one lady was on her 95 plus days !!! The results they had achieved were nothing short of MIRACLES!!!
Everything from healing thyroid, chronic fibromialgia, heart disease, liver disease, cron's disease, regained hearing, walking again, cured depression (hello my old friend!), and the list goes on.
I thought... 90 days of my life juicing seems like a small price to pay for a reset of my body and life time of wellness and health.
So, my first attempt began.
First run lasted four and half days.... it seems insignificant compared to the 90 days I wanted to do, however John Rose took years of training before he could do the 90 days in one go. What I saw in those 3 days was enough to convince me to try again, but this time for 14 days of juicing plus the 4 days of breaking protocol, adding to 18 days total.
The first round of 4 days were TOUGH, its like a junkie coming off drugs. You get withdrawal symptoms, feel a bit light headed, cranky and time passes by so slow, as if you were holding your breath under water.
On the positive side, I notice debloating like I had never seen, I could breathe so well and smell everything, my skin looked fantastic and it had such a glow and no headaches. During those days I got my period and realized that it was half as painful as it usually is, no foggy brain, and just feeling like I could deal with it a lot better.
A month later, I was on track for tackling my second part of the juicing. Now, I live in Sweden and it is March, meaning the fresh produce selection is quite poor, expensive and if you decide to buy some fruit, is usually a waste of money. So two weeks seem good enough, and if all went well, I am gonna attempt the 90 days by the summer where produce is better and cheaper.
Boy, if my first time was tough, this round 2, I thought was even harder. Kudos to my husband for putting up with me.The first 3 days you experience hunger like never before, it feels as if your stomach is eating itself up. I could smell absolutely everything regarding food that was even a mile away, and every time I smelled food I felt like curling up in a little ball and cry.
My nerves were on edge some days so bad, everything seemed to get me irritated. I was terrible company, and considering I am doing this while being on lock down because of the corona virus, my husband is a saint!!!!
And now, the bright side... as time passed, those things got better. The hunger passed and I realise that a lot of my eating behavior comes from my mind wanting to eat, not so much hunger. I have had this rash on my arm that many doctors have claimed it is because of gluten intolerance. I have gone on diets excluding gluten and it has never gotten better (worth mentioning, I do keep a healthy eating habit where 85% of the time I am vegetarian, and within that percentage, I am vegan 40% of the time, and I have a serious relationship with vegetables).
I went to a Chinese acupuncturist once, and said my arm was a reflection of my intestine, and that there was some serious damage on the inside, which makes sense, as an iridology I am able to find great damage to my intestinal tract also.
Day 4 was really interesting, as it was a painful day. It was as if all of my previous little old injuries and aches came to haunt me all together in one day. I had extreme muscle soreness, unbearable back pain, old injuries like the ankle I sprained badly 2 years ago started hurting, lung inflammation, sore throat... Bt then the following day, after good sleep and bowel movement, I felt like yesterday never happened.
I have heard a lot of holistic doctors talk about the healing crisis where in the process of healing, your body opens up to detoxify and repair, which is a painful and uncomfortable process, which I find logic.
For the rash in my arm I have tried cutting out gluten, creams, gels, scrubs, homeopathy... all of which slowed it down a bit at some point, but never healed it.
Now,I am able to confirm that for the first time in 8 years my rash is getting a lot better, the redness is mostly gone and the bumps are being cleared out. I take this a sign of my intestines being healed.
During my research, I heard of some people talk about experience a sense of "high" during or after the cleanse. Now I can totally attest to that claim as I have experienced it myself. On day 10, after some solid 9 hours of sleeping, I woke up feeling the clearest I have felt in my mind since I could remember. I decided to go grocery shopping on my bike, and was enjoying it so much, to the point where I ended up I biking around for 10 km, experiencing a sense of calm, energy, bliss-full happiness. I felt like I was on cloud 9 all day long. Everything around me was being perceived as full of life, I felt one with everything.
Apparently, this is the natural state of human beings when they are clear of toxins.
Now, on to poop talk... If you have kept on reading, and you find this topic to be a bit too much information, I encourage you to not read ahead.
I consider myself to be a good pooper, always going around 1 to 2 times per day with no strain, problems or issues.
When you are on a juice cleanse, you drink nothing but pure juice, no pulp or fiber, just the juice full of the vegetable and fruit nutrients.... and STILL.... I managed to poop once a day or every two days. Research says that humans have a lot of waste encrusted all throughout our intestines due to the poor diet. Autopsies have been performed where they find pounds of encrusted fecal matter to the point where a pencil has trouble passing through the intestines.
Some people say those reports are fake.
It is impossible for me to say if its true or not, but my own math says that 1+1=2 here... No food has come in for 11 days, only purified liquid going in.... how on earth is poop still coming out?!?!?!?! And proper amounts, dare I say!!!!! Therefore I do find the idea of having a lot of things stuck on the inside to be true.
Now the idea of the juice cleanse is more like a fast, where you give your organs a break from processing all the time and go into regeneration. The fruits have astringent properties where they are supposed to be cleaning out the stomach, purifying blood, moving the lymph nodes, and over all acting like a broom over your body. Vegetable juice is supposed to provide the minerals and building blocks to regenerate the organs in your body.
In this juice fast, you are supposed to drink, drink, DRINK !! Minimum is 3 liters a day, and you should make sure to have enough variety of fruits and vegetables. You are also supposed to consume your daily calories of 1,500-2000 a day so that you don't loose weight. To be honest, I have hit my calorie mark every day and have still managed to loose 5 kilos... the body is wise and gets rid of what it does not need as a lot of toxins are stored in our fat cells.
Being all of this said and done, it greatly change my health BIG TIME, however it did have some down sides. I did not contemplate that my body needs a lot of oils, which lead to an OMEGA 3 and 6 depletion which had consequences such as anxiety and insomnia.
It took me MONTHS to figure out.
Some people, like my partner, has done them without any negative side effects, and now studying a little bit more (wiser, for sure) I understand that this protocole is not for everyone, and you should consult a detox specialist. If you want to approach it, a detox specialist will help you determine the length of time, supplements (if needed), combinations and will guide you through what is normal and what is not, when to push forward and when to know to stop in order to avoid self harm.