Its the beginning of 2020 and many of us are pursuing our New Years resolutions, and for some, those goals include starting a healthy routine.
Getting back on a healthy track can include resetting the body with a detox, and juice cleanses are often a popular way of doing just that.
Its no secret that this popular diet can hit your wallet, so are juice cleanses really worth forking out the big bucks for?
Peggy Kotsopoulos, Holistic Nutritionist and author of Kitchen Cures: Revolutionize Your Health With Foods That Healtold Daily Hive in a phone interview that you can do a juice cleanse from home but be prepared that it can be a process between juicing and cleaning the juicer when youre done.
If you can do it from home, its so much more worth it,Kotsopoulos said, it is more cost-effective, and you can choose your own ingredients.
Kotsopoulos said when youre juicing from home, you can better control the contents and quality of the foods going into the juices compared to when youre buying.
You want to make sure its organic, and that gets really expensive if you get it through a service or through a store, she said.
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[The juices] can be really sweet if you get them through a service or a package. They have these red beet juices, which are so high in sugar,Kotsopoulos said about packaged juice cleanses.
For example, sometimes store-bought juice cleanses can have six juices in a day. There might only be two green juices in there, there might be an orange juice, which has carrot and might have turmeric, Kotsopoulos said, but its very sweet.
When youre juicing from home,Kotsopoulos recommends sticking to green juices and using organic cucumber and celery as a base because you get a lot of water and output in terms of juice.
To customize the juices,Kotsopoulos said you can add herbs that have detoxifying effects to help cleanse your liver and the body of heavy metals, and to sweeten the juices, apples and pears are your best options.
When youre shopping for a juice cleanse, you can find some packages ranging from one to seven days. I personally dont recommend juice cleansing for more than three days,Kotsopoulos said.
While juice cleansing gives your digestive system a break, clears up your skin a little, and eliminates toxins,Kotsopoulos says the most important thing when it comes to eating well and cleansing and detoxifying is where are the toxins going you have to eliminate them from your system, explaining that you need fibre for the toxins to bind to in order to be flushed out.
Youre not getting any fibre in a juice cleanse, at all. Youre just getting the juice it can be high inchlorophyll and vitamins and minerals and all that goodness,Kotsopoulos said. If you were going to do a smoothie for example, that has the fibre in it, youre still getting all that nutrients in it, or eating a green salad but the fibre is the most important thing to bind on to the toxins to help eliminate it from your body.
Plus, your energy levels really decline after a while,Kotsopoulos said, because youre not getting enough calories.
Youre doing calorie restriction for three days, lets say, and thats taxing on your body in a whole other way: your metabolism tends to slow down, you feel sluggish, you might not feel great and thats all normal, but thats because youre also not getting all the nutrients and all the calories and the energy and the protein that you need, she said.
So thats why the shorter the duration, the better [when youre juice cleansing], Kotsopoulos said.
I would just do it if you kind of want to reset your system a little bit, like one day is fine, three days max,Kotsopoulos said.
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Going into a juice cleanse, its best to prepare ahead of time by at least a week by incorporating more fruits and vegetables into your diet, as well as lean protein and fats,Kotsopoulos said. Thatll ease the burden on your system.
When you are on a juice cleanse,Kotsopoulos said its important to listen to your body; for example, if youre not feeling well on the first day, dont push yourself. You can add a salad or nuts to snack on if youre feeling low on energy. The point of [juice cleansing] is to make you feel better at the end of it.
Kotsopoulos said another great way to reset your system on a daily basis, is having a glass of room-temperature water with a squeeze of lemon and cayenne pepper each morning about a half hour before you have breakfast, supplements, or anything to drink, adding when youre sleeping at night is when your body is actually working the hardest to heal or repair and eliminate toxins, and the lemon juice helps to cleanse the liver.
Kotsopoulos said drinking green juice doesnt have to be just when youre cleansing; its great to include into your daily lifestyle routine as a snack during the day.
For recipe ideas, including juicing and smoothies, you can followKotsopoulos online on Twitter and Instagram.
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Juice cleansing: Weighing the pros and cons of this detox diet | Dished - Daily Hive
