How Does Juicing Promote Weight Loss?

Take a peek at the shelves in a bookstore or at your local library and you can find books promoting juicing for weight loss. While the debate over the benefits of juicing rages on, juicing can help you meet the recommended intake of fruits and vegetables, especially if you don't like to eat these nutritious foods. Juicing even has a few benefits for weight loss.

Calorie Reduction

Along with regular exercise, controlling your calorie intake is one of the critical steps toward losing weight. Juicing allows you to consume more fruits and vegetables --- foods that are lower in calories than fattening choices such as meat and refined-grain products. When juicing vegetables, opt for less-starchy varieties including green, leafy vegetables such as spinach, broccoli and Brussels sprouts.

Increased Fiber

When juicing, do not discard the fiber that's separated from the juice. Fiber helps slow the rate at which your stomach empties, thereby helping you feel fuller for longer and to control blood glucose and insulin levels. Insulin is a hormone that can stimulate appetite, as well as fat storage in your body, especially around your abdomen. With this in mind, adding the fiber back in is especially important when juicing. It takes several fruits or vegetables to make one cup of juice, which significantly boosts your intake of carbohydrates and therefore your blood glucose and insulin levels.

Detoxification

Natural health advocates such as Brenda Watson, a certified nutritional consultant, recommends detoxification diets, including juice fasts, as part of any plan to lose weight. The thinking is that toxins disrupt various functions in your body essential for losing weight, including digestion and metabolism. Research suggests that the toxin-weight gain claim has validity. For instance, in a Belgian study published online in the journal "Obesity" in 2010, researchers found that a persistent organic pollutant called β-hexachlorocyclohexane had a significant negative effect on body mass index, waist measurement, fat mass percentage and total and subcutaneous abdominal fat tissue.

Considerations

If you try a juice fast, do it for three days only, recommends Watson. Longer juice fasts are more likely to lead to complications such as fatigue, headaches and nutrient deficiency. Alternatively, juice fruits or vegetables as a snack or to replace just one meal a day instead of all your meals. Use organic fruits and vegetables whenever possible to reduce your intake of toxins that can undermine weight loss, according to Watson.