Michelle Caterson
www.juzcit.com.au
The first time I heard about juice cleansing I asked questions. I hear much the same questions from people visiting my online juice store. The thing I didn’t get was, what are these supposed ‘toxins’ in my cells that I apparently need to clean out, and how does juice do that?
I was skeptical. I don’t like and don’t follow fad diets. I certainly don’t ever want to waste money on something that doesn’t work. I wanted everything explained and I wanted a lot of evidence that a cleanse was going to be worth doing.
I went to the web where of course there are proponents and detractors. The number of articles and the claims from each seemed to be completely contradictory and were sometimes just confusing.
So who is right? The people claiming that juice cleanses are a fad or the people claiming that juice cleanses are good for you?
The only way to know for sure was to find out the facts!
Firstly, there is plenty of research that supports increasing your consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. In fact there are numerous government programs and research papers linking increased fruit and vegetable consumption to reduced risk of stroke, cancer and other chronic diseases. The world health organization has estimated that approximately 6.7 million deaths worldwide were attributable to inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption in 2010. Fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals, plant sterols, flavonoids and antioxidants.
Secondly, we all know that the liver is one of the body’s main cleansing machines. The liver produces bile acids essential for digestion; it eliminates waste and detoxifies your body. When we overload the liver with toxins such as alcohol, caffeine, over the counter pain relievers, prescription medications and chemical exposure we can cause inflammation of the liver that can lead to chronic liver disease.
If I did something to the outside of my body that caused inflammation, say for example I kicked my toe and it was red and swollen. Then I kept kicking my toe day after day, I would not expect that my toe would be able to heal and recover. My sore toe would affect my walking, it would affect all sorts of things that I would normally do if I didn’t have a sore toe.
The way I look at a juice cleanse is like giving your toe a chance to heal so you can walk in high heels again. Your liver has a chance to rest and recover so that it can do its job properly again. When that happens, you feel refreshed and energized.
So after much research, I decided to start with a 5 day cleanse.
I was absolutely amazed at how great I felt after I had finished. For the last couple of months I have been flat out starting my new juice business. I have been replacing 1 to 2 meals nearly everyday with juice and I do a 5 day cleanse every month.
These are the biggest things I noticed:
- I have noticed that I sleep better
- I have more motivation to tackle the big jobs.
- I have been surrounded by sick people and not been sick.
It was enough evidence for me, is it enough for you?
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