Are juice cleanses good for weight loss?

Maybe you’ve overindulged lately on a steady diet of burger, fries, pizza and ice cream.  You’ve gained more weight in the past several months than you’d like and are considering going on a juice cleanse to detox your body and jump-start you weight loss goals. Is this a good idea or not?

A juice cleanse typically involves weaning yourself from solid foods and consuming only liquids made from freshly-pressed fruits and vegetables.  This regimen of eating could last as little as a couple of days to several weeks. The theory is this can help detoxify the body, support digestion and kick start weight loss. There are a variety of “juice cleanses” that may involve fruit-only, vegetable-only, or fruit-and-vegetable juices.  Some people juice their own while others may decide to purchase fresh juices.

What are the downsides of juice cleanses?

Granted, fruits and vegetables are quite nutritious being rich in phytonutrients, antioxidants and fiber.  But when juiced, this process of extracting liquid from the fresh fruits and vegetables leaves behind most of the healthy fiber and some antioxidants found in the skins and seeds. For example, the white pulp in an orange provides flavonoids (antioxidants with anti-inflammatory and immune-system boosting benefits) that are not included in the final juice that is consumed.

Another factor to consider is that juices offer little else nutritionally and are often very high in sugar. Excess sugar – even when it is naturally occurring – is difficult for our bodies to metabolize and can end up being stored as fat.

If you are only relying on juices that are stripped of their fiber content and lacking protein and fat to balance out carbohydrates, this can send your blood sugar soaring, only to crash soon after.  This can lead to food cravings, overeating and eventual weight gain.  

Living off of a heavy carbohydrate-only diet that juices offer, means you are depriving your body of necessary protein and fat helping your body to function properly. The longer you stay on a juice cleanse diet, the greater chance you can become nutrient deficient and begin to notice and suffer the effects of it. Each day, your body requires a sufficient amount of protein in order to maintain muscle mass. When you deprive your body of protein, you will begin to lose muscle mass that may be hard to gain back after you go off the diet.  The less muscle mass you have, the fewer calories you will burn making losing weight in the future, that much more challenging.

Also, although the scale numbers may go down, it's a false sense of weight loss, as most of the weight loss from juicing comes from water and bowel content loss and less likely from fat. Not to mention, buying fresh-pressed juices is expensive

Are juice cleanses recommended for weight loss?

While drinking a nutritious fresh-pressed juice once a day can be part of a healthy diet, to strictly limit only consuming juices for days or weeks is not the solution for weight loss. As discussed previously, a steady diet of high-sugar juice can convert your body from a slow-absorbing carbohydrate machine into a fast-absorbing one.  This will only trigger an increased insulin response making you hungrier, thus making it harder to lose weight.

Even though you may lose some weight while on a juice cleanse diet, this type of eating style is not sustainable for any length of time.  The diet is difficult to follow long-term meaning eventually, you will go back to your normal eating pattern. But when you do, because you have restricted yourself from regular foods, you may end up rewarding yourself after juice cleanse which can lead to overeating. Very likely, the majority if not all of the weight you may have lost on a juice cleanse diet, will be gained back again in a relatively short period of time.

The best way to promote reaching a healthy body weight

While what works for one person may not work for another, a tried and true method of achieving a healthy body weight revolves around eating a well-balanced diet.  This means choosing good-quality whole foods and removing foods that are highly-processed and high in sugar and unhealthy fats.

Your best bet is to have the right balance of quality protein, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates to balance your blood sugar, reduce your food cravings, and control your hunger and satiety hormones.   Other key factors for reaching a healthy body weight include:

·      Regular, consistent exercise of at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity each week.

·      Having 3 meals a day – do not skip meals

·      Getting sufficient sleep of at least 7-8 hours each night.

When these habits are put into practice, not only will you see sustained weight loss, but you will also feel good!