Juice Fast
 

Hello,

I am 5'8 and weigh 250 pounds. I love food so much. It's an addiction. A real serious addiction. Just today I have started a juice fast, I'm not sure how long I will stay on it but I am not having any solid food for as long as possible. Nothing but juice! Have any of you done this before? If so can you please tell me about your experience? Thank you so much! If any of you have any information or opinions on this, please let me know.

I've fasted numerous times. Never a juice fast, though.

I've done 30 day water fasts twice and shorter ones a number of times (one to three weeks).

You can lose weight really fast and it really becomes almost a "religious" experience. Now, I have no idea if it works the same way if you're actually taking in calories--I've never done that.

The "last time" I lost a bunch of weight I did a 30 day 0 calorie fast, followed by 9 months of 1000 calories a day and lost around 200 pounds.

Of course, once the weight was gone I stopped logging my food here and gradually slipped back into old habits and all the weight and probably a bit more came back.

Now I've come to the conclusion that fasting is not for me. I like to eat food and find that I can be very comfortable around 1500-1600 calories and still lose 3-4 pounds a week on average. I do realize that I'll likely never be able to eat "normally" and intend to continue to count calories using FitDay indefinetly.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Michael

Juice fasts are a lot safer than water fasts. I did the water fast for 4-5 days and my heart started to beat irregularly. A friend of mine did the same thing and had the same experience after 2-3 days. My experience with fasts have been that I have gained all of the weight back plus more. But if you need a good kickstart, go ahead and do the plan as long as you can and just be sure to have a diet plan for when you break the fast.

A suggestion for you...
 

Hello there!

There are a couple of books that are "MUST READS" for you. My opinion is to avoid the fasting process as your primary strategy for losing weight. it is not a permanent solution and what will you do when it is over? I hear your frustration and encourage you to avoid blaming yourself. All you need is a better understanding of what is going on and then you can address it with the right tool.
The first book is "Change Your Brain, Change Your Body" by Dr. Daniel Amen. It will help you understand what is going on that drives you to eat. Also - "The End of Overeating" by Dr David Kessler which describes how food manufacturers understand and use your brain addictions to your extreme disadvantage. I also have to say Fitday is a great tool, props to the host of this discussion.

I download books from Audible.com and listen to them while I do my cardio. You may find you enjoy the same and it is a time saver for people who have less time to read.

There is sooooo much hope for you. You just need to better understand the battlefield, the right weapons and how to use them.

I hope this helps you...my prayers are with you!

What juice fast are you doing? Are you making your own? Are you adding veggies to it?

I personally would never do a long fast but I will do a day once in a while but not for weight loss.

Fasts are terrible for you nutritionally, but leaving that aside, if you don't make permenant changes to the underlying problem you'll just gain the weight back, as Michel alludes to.

Rebalancing your diet and losing weight at a steady pace is safer, will have you feeling better, and is more likely to "stick" long term.

Intermittent fasting
 

If you are wavering on the juice fast approach, you may want to take a look at intermittent fasting (IF). There are a few ways to do it, however they do unlock the benefit of fasting, which is an upregulation of fat burning genes during fasting hours.

Some IF are one day feast, one day famine; others rely on a delayed start to breakfast and a shortened eating window 5-12 hours. What is great about these approaches (compared to typical 20% calorie reduction) is that every few days you eat more than your basic maintenance requirement, and run deficits the other days. So there is no long-term feeling of deprivation that leads to cheating and then blowing the diet to smithereens. I know that in a few days I'm going to eat more than I want.

I realise that during an extended fast you become used to living off of your own body's stored fuel, aka fat, and that you are not terribly hungry.
Some of this happens with IF. For example tonight I couldn't finish my 9 oz of lasagna, even though I am running a 1K+ calorie deficit at the moment.
You don't really feel like you are dieting.

I'm only trying to lose 10 pounds, but it is a pretty painless way. Probably also for 50.

I've never done a juice fast, but I have done water fasts several times for upwards of 10 days. I recently did one for 4 days prior to starting dieting/exercising about a month ago. It's a great way to purge the body of toxins that have been built up over the years, and of course it's a great way to rapidly drop some pounds.

From what I know, it's perfectly safe. It just has to be done correctly, prior, during, and after.

Anyway, there's an out of print book that has a great chapter on fasting, and it covers all kinds of fasts as well as documenting the health benefits and dispelling the falsehoods. You can find the entire book "The Complete Handbook of Nutrition" by Gary and Steve Null on Barnes & Noble right now for $1.99, but if you're interested in just the fasting chapter send me a PM and I'll point you in the right direction.

Cheers!

VitoVino

I did Intermittent Fasting for quite a long time (over a year) and liked it. I got the idea from another diet blog. Very little scientific background or advice other than 'try this,' which is, by the way, a very sketchy way to introduce someone to a drastic change.

However, it seemed safe enough. I didn't lose weight on it. It did prove to be a fairly healthful choice for me, though, because it gave me some insights about hunger and moderation. It also was a very stressful time in my life and my 'eating days' weren't managed properly. Compounded with a serious delusion that low-carbing was going to be successful (not!), I think I actually gained weight during that time. I certainly didn't lose.

The Intermittent Fasting schedule that worked for me was to start the fasting at 6 p.m. one night and fast (only coffee and water) until the next night at 6 p.m. Then, eat 'normally' for the next 6 p.m. to 6 p.m. period. Alternate. The beauty of this schedule is that you do spend 24 hours without food, having only plain coffee (or plain tea) or water. Get plenty of liquids! You also will have at least one meal a day.

The day that you start, you will have had at least one meal. Then, when you resume eating, the next day after 6 p.m., you will get in at least one meal. Every day, you get to eat one meal, at least. That's where the challenge is, if you are trying to lose weight. It's easy to see the fasting as an 'off/on' switch and overdo the times when you're 'allowed' to eat.

If you respect the calories involved (it all comes down to calories), then the 'on' times, when you are in an 'eating period,' you should just have meals, no snacks, and try not to overeat (no second helpings). The overall effect will be that your caloric intake averages out to be lower (and you lose weight) but not if you're doubling up on the food during your eating periods.

It was surprisingly easy for me. Better than that, it was nearly impossible for the people around me to detect that I was on a 'fast.' I am much better today at turning down food opportunities ('let's go out to dinner, lunch, breakfast,' 'have some of this,' 'there's leftover xyz in the fridge...') but with intermittent fasting, I always had at least one meal in the day. How I treated the meals was what made the difference, for better or worse!

I just watched this... pretty interesting to see the change

http://whatwouldtotowatch.com/2011/0...iew-joe-cross/

I did a juice fast for two days once during the winter. On the second day I had really bad headaches and was dizzy. On the third day I woke up violently ill. I could not hold down, keep in, any food for the next two days. I'm not sure if the two day juice fast or the two days of being sick lost more weight. Long story short, I discovered it's not for me.

My guess is this was just a coincidence. I can't see how just drinking juice would make you sick like that. :confused:

fasting experience
 

2010 I have done a 50 day fast, of which the first 20 days were water only and the last 30 days juice fast. On my juice fast I only consumed between 100 and 250 kcal/day and I mainly juiced fruit, cause I hate the taste of veggies. Fasting is a great way to break the cycle of binging/compulsive eating, if you have problems with this. After about 10 -14 days you are not constantly craving/thinking about food any more.
However, it is not a good method to lose weight. With a long fast you deplete your body of mineral and vitamins and your body uses up a lot of muscle as protein. In 70 days I lost 46 pounds and another 5 over the next couple of weeks but, probably due to malnourishment I started craving all kinds of foods and it sent me into a feeding frenzy and right back to where started, so I gained it all back and a bit extra.

I probably did just catch a cold, and that caused my issues. Maybe I'll try again someday, but for now I'm a little scared too. Maybe not totally rational but...

I agree, fasting for weight loss is not the answer. I've done 30 day water fasts twice and lost a bunch of weight. Eventually gained it all back. This time I've eaten pleny of real food and lost 250 odd pounds in a reasonable time frame and I plan for it to stay off.

Regards,
Michael