Everything works … until it doesn’t
The South Beach Diet works 鈥� until it doesn鈥檛. The Atkins Plan works 鈥� until it doesn鈥檛. Weight Watchers works 鈥� until it doesn鈥檛. Blood type eating works 鈥� until it doesn鈥檛. Juice fasting works 鈥ntil it doesn鈥檛.
For most people, every extreme remedy fails sooner or later. Why ? There are at least as many plausible explanations as there are diet plans. The bottom line is that they will fail unless the individual can find a happy balance that gains the benefits without taxing the willpower and available energy and time commitment past their limit.
What made this topic come up ? I have revisited long-term juice fasting this past month, and as I write this column I am in day six. I plan to go up to 30 days if need be to reset my biological clock, and reset my food addictions. You may recall that my last long-term fast was over two years ago. I have practiced intermittent fasting in the interim with reasonable, but not perfect, success. I have plenty of energy, and in my mid-fifties can perform admirably at physical tasks, but in the past months, my digestion has been more strained, and I have had difficulty slimming down to my ideal weight range. I was hovering 10 to 20 lbs too high, in my opinion.
So I decided it was time to initiate the most fail-safe method of behavior and weight control I know of: fasting.
I like juice fasting because it is not truly starving myself, although it sure feels like it 鈥� especially the first three days. Fasting (feasting) on organic fresh vegetable and fruit juice implants extraordinary mounts of nutrients in the body, while helping cleanse toxins. The problem is, for most people, it is very hard to willingly stay in what feels like a state of starvation, and the body will fight hard to push you to eat.
After 24 or 48 hours, everything looks edible. No matter how much juice we drink, the body will still flip out whenever you see solid food. But there is a reward for braving it out for at least three days: good food such as raw veggies and fruits gain an appeal 10 times what they were before, so now you can feel satisfied by healthy food in a way you were not previously. This is a huge help, because no one is going to get or stay fat on celery and tomatoes.
The last time I did this, I went 10 days on nothing but water and veggie juice. That was rough, and I went through periods of feeling very weak, and even depressed. The outcome was well worth it: I lost 65 pounds and totally revamped my blood profile, but it occurred to me this time around that perhaps I might look into other strategies to compliment the juicing. After doing some research, I found convincing advocates of fruit fasting, and of raw vegan eating as a cleanse. So after going all veggie juice for three or four days, I lost about six pounds. Then I incorporated raw organic fruit and vegan salads. I am on day six today, and it appears I am continuing to lose weight and inches. So that蘑菇视频 great news because my biggest fear of long-term liquid fasting is muscle loss. If I am able to still eat some raw vegan food each day, I will feel much more confident about that aspect of it. I also notice an extra burst of energy from incorporating the raw foods.
As with many areas of natural health and nutrition, there are strong advocates on all sides. Some, such as Joe Cross, author of the documentary 鈥淔at, Sick, and almost Dead,鈥� swear by the success and safety of veggie juicing. Others, such as Dr. Robert Morse, ND, swear by mono-fruit fasting. He claims that fruit has more powerful cleansing agents than veggies. Other advocates such as Dr. Alejandro Junger advocate raw vegan eating as the best system cleaner. I believe all of these experts are correct in their own right, and all these approaches work 鈥� until they don鈥檛. When don鈥檛 they work? When you and I can no longer sustain them because they are boring, or because our willpower starts ailing, or because we start feeling weak, or depressed, or any number of real human imperfections.
So my current approach is to rotate or combine them. For example: juice fast for three days, mono-fruit fast for three days and then eat raw vegan for two weeks. Or perhaps juice all day, and have a vegan salad and a piece of fruit for dinner. This last one would be a form of Ori Hofimekler蘑菇视频 Warrior Diet. I can personally attest to the incredible success of juicing in combination with any or all of these, which give me unparalleled success compared to any other approach I have tried. If you are not generally 鈥渉ealthy,鈥� you probably want to get a blood profile done, and have someone monitor your progress just to be safe. But for those of us who do not have any known conditions, the above approaches have been shown to be safe time and time again. There is no shortage of videos on the Internet with testimonials of real people and their experiences with these techniques.
As with many worthy self-help efforts, I won鈥檛 say it will be easy, but I can say it will be worth it.
Be well, and best of luck鈥�