It’s the summer of 2024. Two significant wars are happening on the other side of the world. Pollution and climate change are escalating concerns. A stressful presidential election is also on the horizon. While I don’t mean to minimize any of these issues, it seems that there's always something toxic in the news cycle.
Another form of stress stems from being separated from nature. The reason is simple: where there are trees, there's fresh air, which means more oxygen. More oxygen leads to deeper, more effective breaths, and with increased oxygen, the central nervous system relaxes.
Pure food and pristine water are increasingly difficult to find. These external forces are depleting our calories and challenging our immune defenses.
We have distractions of all kinds and carry baggage from our childhoods. The vast majority of humans are in a chronically anxious state. We've been in this state for so long that it has become normalized. We need to do a lot to help ourselves reach a relaxed state, so we don’t adversely affect our health.
It should be obvious by now that the body and mind are connected. They are essentially one entity. If our body isn’t in a good place, the mind will be anxious. Conversely, if the mind is anxious, it changes our body's chemistry.
Let’s get into the solution. Take a long, slow inhalation through your nose and then exhale. You just had a good meal in that deep breath. That deep breath is loaded with the prime nutrient. Drink clean spring water. Go to Central Park, sit in the middle somewhere, and be surrounded by trees and the sounds of birds. Let’s hope no one gets mugged. But seriously, just these few little activities can make a big difference in our overall chemistry.
The juice cleanse, also known as a juice fast, had its prime time from 2010 through 2015. A few things happened to close that chapter. First, people became scared of any type of sugar, even if it occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables. This is a catastrophic mistake, but we'll delve into that in another chapter. Additionally, juice cleanses bought from a store are just too expensive to do often enough.
The next problem I witnessed firsthand was that companies entering the juice cleanse business started pasteurizing their juice through a process called high-pressure pasteurization. This pasteurization extends the shelf life of juice in a plastic bottle for quite a long time, but it degrades the flavor and taste. Customers were buying these types of juices, tasting them, and finding them absolutely horrible. This turned people off from juice cleanses.
After the juice cleanse craze, everyone went berserk for the Paleo diet and then the keto diet. Thankfully, those trends are slowly passing away because they are absolutely absurd and have no basis in science for the long-term health of the average person. Additionally, they are really dangerous for people with debilitating illnesses. We'll leave that discussion for another chapter.
Juice cleansing has tremendous value. First, no matter what you’re doing, you’re getting plenty of pure hydration that naturally occurs in the produce. Second, juice provides macronutrients, including carbohydrates, protein, and a small amount of dietary fat, depending on the formulation.
There is also a trace amount of fiber in every juice; otherwise, the juice would be clear, and you’d be able to see right through the jar. The denser material you see floating to the bottom is the fibrous material.
In fresh, non-high-pressure pasteurized and non-heat pasteurized juice, there are a ton of friendly bacteria that naturally reside in the fruits and vegetables. These bacteria are an important part of your digestive flora, also known as the microbiome.
There are also vitamins and minerals in abundance, along with super micronutrients that are often overlooked, such as antioxidants and phytochemicals. Antioxidants are incredibly important because they slow down the degradation of the cells in our bodies. They are most abundant in fruits and vegetables, whereas there isn't much of this substance in animal protein.
The first benefit of a juice cleanse is that it is calorie restrictive. If you do it long enough, it's a simple subtraction math problem: if you take the calories out, you have to subtract some weight from your body. However, there's no guarantee how fast you'll lose weight, and there's no guarantee you'll lose fat right away because many variables affect each individual's chemistry.
I don’t think a juice cleanse is the optimal diet for weight loss because most people only do it for three days, and you're not going to lose that much weight in three days.
The best reason to do a cleanse is to give your body some relaxation. Relaxation from what, you might ask? Well, if you think that the standard Western diet isn’t taxing on the overall chemistry and metabolic systems of the body, you're mistaken. Most of us are constantly running a marathon to keep up with our dietary and lifestyle mistakes. No one is trying to judge you; we’re just trying to find solutions to common problems by talking about them.
A juice cleanse also has the benefit of showing us how we can subsist and thrive on cleaner foods, avoiding dietary mistakes like processed foods, junk foods, eating late, combining incompatible foods, consuming cow dairy, and taking in far more protein than our bodies require based on our size and age. During a juice cleanse, you’re eliminating most of these dietary mistakes.
It takes an average of 3 to 5 days for a person to get past the difficult habit change. With a juice cleanse, you’re simply not doing certain things anymore, which can be really scary. If we practice our breathing exercises and attempt meditation during a cleanse, we get the benefit of doing something incredibly restful for our physical body and incredibly calming for our emotional and psychological state.
We have assisted people from all over the world for over 15 years with juice cleanses of all durations. There was a time when we operated 85 juice bars around the country and centered for a long period of time on juice cleanses. We sold more than 100,000 juice cleanses over a ten-year period.
The only way you’ll know what a juice cleanse can do for you is if you try one. You can start with a half-day or a full day and see how you feel afterward. The secret to a juice cleanse is that you don’t have to end it abruptly and go back to steak and cheesecake—no judgment. When you finish your juice cleanse, transition back to warm soups, delicious salads, and whole, fresh fruits. This way, you extend the benefits of your cleanse. You can gradually reintroduce your dietary mistakes if you need to, though it’s better if you don’t. But that’s your choice, and no one is here to judge you.
Juice can be costly, even if you do it at home. You’ll find that the price per calorie for this type of lifestyle is greater than the price per calorie for the standard Western diet that relies on supermarket shopping. We’re not comparing it to fancy restaurants; we’re just saying that if you were to eat only produce bought from a supermarket, your bill would be higher than if you included animal flesh, bread, cakes, cookies, cereals, and all the other nonsense sold at the supermarket.
Anyway, juice cleansing on a regular basis is a fantastic way to reset your mind and some portion of your chemistry. No matter what any doctor tells you, the fact is that anytime you leave out a dietary mistake, there’s an immediate improvement in your overall chemistry. So even if a juice cleanse eliminates most dietary mistakes for just three days, there will be an immediate improvement in your chemistry during those three days.
What you do after that is the next part of the problem to solve. Eventually, we need to address the primary causes of addictive eating patterns and sedentary lifestyles, if we choose to. It’s better if we do. There are many detractors of juice cleanses, but not for any scientific reasons with substantial proof. If anyone has anecdotal evidence that juice cleanses are fantastic and safe, it’s us, because we administered so many thousands of them to such a wide variety of people and never had any problems.
I could write about what I witnessed without any trouble because I'm not putting it on a package or a sign. I watched people with the worst dietary problems and health risks do extensive juice cleanses and make dramatic improvements. There are many fantastic doctors out there who agree that when you leave out your dietary mistakes, there's an immediate improvement in your overall chemistry.
You still have to eat, you still need your calories, and you still need your nutrients. So what better way to do that than by drinking fresh, raw juice that's organic and free from single-use plastic? That's what we serve here.
We recommend drinking four juices per day on a cleanse and adding one smoothie for extra calories if you feel hungry or remain active. As you get more advanced, you can drink five juices and be satisfied. Balance it by ensuring that half of the juices are green and that some juices have plenty of fresh fruit to provide the energy you need to get through your day. It’s not the best idea to go to the gym intensely to try to lose weight during a cleanse.
That approach won’t give you the cleansing, relaxing effect you’re aiming for. You certainly can push your body that way if you feel it’s necessary, as long as you’re as safe as you would be when eating solid food. However, it’s better to view your cleanse as an opportunity to totally rest. Take deep breaths, read important books, lie down on the couch in the middle of the day and take a nap, do some writing, go for walks, and be surrounded by nature and things that bring you enjoyment. Cleanse not just your body, but your mind and spirit as well.
