A fruit juice detox diet can last anywhere form one day to two weeks and can help you not only lose weight but increase your overall health and flush out toxins from the body. Detox diets such as the Master Cleanse diet is an example of a juice diet and is a lemonade-only diet done over a period of days or weeks. There are, however, other juice detox diets that are less extreme and provide the body with more calories and more nutritious foods.
Detox Diets
Detox diets are intended to purge the body of toxic waste by ingesting nothing that contains artificial chemicals or compounds that toxify the body and cause a range of health problems. Detox diets include the Carol Vorderman diet, the Raw Food diet and the Fruit Flush diet. Detox diets are intended for detoxification, not weight loss, although some weight loss will inevitably occur. You should keep in mind however, that a lot of your weight loss will be water loss and will likely be gained back especially on a liquid diet such as a fruit juice detox or the Master Cleanse diet.
Fruit Juice Detox
Fruit juice detox diets are performed by consuming nothing but fruit and vegetable drinks for a period of days. Dr. Cynthia Foster, an advocate for alternative methods of healing, recommends fasting one day per week or four times per month. Use green vegetables such as parsley, kale, beet greens, chard, spinach and dandelion leaf; cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage; root vegetables such as beetroot, carrots and sweet potato; and fruits such as grapes, citrus fruits and apples. A variety of herbs such as peppermint, fennel, basil, ginger and garlic are also used as well as wheatgrass. Ideally you should be drinking a gallon or more of juice per day. The idea behind a juice fast after all is that it flushes the toxins from your body, so it is imperative to drink a lot.
Benefits
A juice detox diet is safe, according to Foster, who asserts the reason for its effectiveness and health benefits is that "we are not depriving the body of calories, but simply putting the nutrition into the body in liquid form instead of solid form." Foster also suggests that detox diets can be used to help treat a host of diseases. "I have used it as a healing technique for those with pain, cancer, depression, arthritis, severe infections that failed antibiotics, autoimmune diseases and many other supposedly incurable diseases", she says.
Scepticism
Scepticism over the effectiveness and scientific evidence regarding detox diets still abounds. In the medical world, detox diets are not recognized as an effective cure or treatment for any condition and have been described as unhealthy in some cases. According to registered dietician Katherine Zeratsky, "There's little evidence that detox diets actually remove toxins from the body. Most ingested toxins are efficiently and effectively removed by the kidneys and liver and excreted in urine and stool." Detox diets are seen by many medical practitioners, such as Dr. Joanna Dolgoff, as a "money-making industry preying on the insecure and teaching faulty eating principles."
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