Pureed Vegetable Diet & Juice Cleanse

Excess weight can threaten your overall health and may also contribute to life-threatening medical conditions such as heart disease. You may shed excess pounds through dieting, but understand that some diets can be more harmful than helpful. If you are considering a pureed vegetable diet and a juice cleanse, get all the facts to help you determine if these measures are safe and appropriate for your health status and weight loss goals.

Pureed Vegetable Diet

Vegetables are an essential part of your daily diet. Filling your plate with the recommended 2 1/2 cups of vegetables each day will help you get many of the nutrients you need for good health. Pureed vegetables provide just as many of these nutrients, such as potassium, fiber, vitamins A and C and iron. The Harvard School of Public Health reports that a diet rich in vegetables might reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Vegetables might also help you regulate a normal blood pressure and maintain a healthy digestive system. On this diet, the bulk of what you eat during the day is pureed vegetables.

Considerations

While pureed vegetables certainly have a place in your healthy eating plan, you will miss out on key nutrients by only eating pureed vegetables. Vegetables provide you with essential vitamins and minerals, but they do not contain all of the nutrients your body needs. You will get very little calcium from vegetables, which your body needs for strong bones and teeth. Vegetables will not supply you with adequate amounts of protein either. Your body needs unsaturated fats to function normally, and unless you add healthy oils to your puree, you will miss out these as well. A pureed vegetable diet will not supply your body with enough calories to work properly either.

Juice Cleanse

A juice cleanse is designed to clean out your colon and rid your body of potentially harmful toxins. Many people who do cleanses report that they feel more energized and are able to lose weight. Cherie Calbom and John Calbom, authors of "Juicing, Fasting, and Detoxing for Life," report that a cleanse might also improve your digestion and get rid of headaches. A juice cleanse requires you to drink only raw fruit or vegetable juices for a specified period of time. There are many companies that market juice cleanse products, as well as many cookbooks that provide directions for concocting your own juice cleansing combinations.

Considerations

According to MayoClinic.com, your colon cleans itself, which makes a juice cleanse unnecessary. In some instances, a colon cleanse can actually be dangerous, causing problems such as dehydration and bowel perforations. A juice cleanse also does not contain enough calories to support your bodily systems, which might leave you feeling weak and dizzy from low blood sugar. Consuming only juice also causes your body to go into starvation mode, which decreases your metabolism and can leave you feeling fatigued and sluggish. A juice cleanse restricts what other types of food you eat, which can leave you deficient in certain nutrients. Always ask your doctor before attempting any weight loss plan, particularly if it calls for only eating certain foods.