Benefits of Juice-fasting

Juice-fasting is very popular among the Indians since ancient times. For the Indians, they practice fasting very frequently for spiritual purposes or to de-stress their mind and body.

On the other hand, juice fasting also helps one to detoxify and lose weight. The conservative method is to consume juices for a period of about 21 days to detoxify your body and should not eat any other food or drinks. Nonetheless now there has been lots of research conducted on juice-fasting since it has been reported that it may cure various disease if practiced strictly under the guidance of an expert in this field.

There are few effective methods that I have been practicing for along time:
On the first 3 days you should take about 250ml of juices five times at the interval of three hours. Hence the total quantity of juices to be taken on the first 3 days will be 1250ml. Then increase the amount of juices on the 4th day till 6th day gradually to 300ml of juices five times starting from 7.30 in the morning and the last should be about 7.30pm in the evening.

Once your body has adjusted to the juices, you can slowly increase the quantity everyday from the 7th day onwards. This means from the 7th day onwards you can increase the quantity of juices to 350ml and on the 8th days to 400ml and so on till 21 days. If you feel bloatedness in the stomach, it means that the quantity of juices taken is more than required. In such scenario, the amount of the juices should be slowly decreased.

It is safe to consume this juice-fasting for 21 days or till about 1 month. One word for caution, you may also experience dizziness, headache, stomach ache or body ache while practicing this juice-fasting. This is because the juices are actually detoxifying your body hence it will eliminate the toxic elements in our body.

The golden rule that must be observed by everyone during juice fasting are that one should be completely relaxed and calm to be able to get the full benefit from this programme.

The best time to observe this juice fasting is when you are away from all kinds of stressful work. One should also avoid smoking, drinking alcohol, tea or coffee during this period. You should only indulge in yoga and meditation to be able to get the full benefit from the juice-fasting.

Once you have successfully completed the 21days of juice-fasting, you must break the fast slowly by decreasing the amount of juice to three times a day and then to consume fruits like banana and papaya with a glass of milk. Then on the second day you can start eating moong dhall (green lentils) cooked with any vegetables. You must boil the moong dhall and vegetables. Please refer to my previous posting on July 13, 2009 on how to cook healthy moong dhall.

Try not to use oil in your cooking temporarily since your body needs time to digest after a long period of juice fasting. Try not to eat excessive spicy food right after you have completed your juice fasting. This is because your body may not be able to digest too much food and may cause you to have stomach disorder or vomiting symptoms. This is why you must gradually increase you food to allow your body to digest the food.

If you are doing juice-fasting to cure any particular disease then you should consult an expert practitioner.