Do you juice?

**elipson** · Posted On: 2/23/2012 5:48pm

Hahahaha holy **** this thread dissappoints!!

**Quiet Girl** · Posted On: 2/23/2012 8:29pm

I admit, I was a little disappointed that this thread wasn't about "roids" too because that would've been rather amusing.

My opinion is that it wouldn't hurt to try juicing but I wouldn't replace every meal with juice only, at least not for more than a day. I only say that because I don't think it's fun to be hungry.

I have a juicer and I'll use anything from applies, lemons, carrots, celery, kale, spinach, oranges, fennel, ginger, cucumber - you can use anything and it's nice because the fruit flavor will usually over power the vegetable flavors - a plus if you're considering juicing for kids and want to sneak in their veggies.

The down side is that it's messy and it can be a pain to clean the muck out of the juicer, especially when you see how much fruit/veggies are required for a little bit of juice. However, you're in control of the ingredients and don't have to worry about any added sugars or anything that could be found in packaged juices.

Personally, I think it's a good meal replacement and as far as detoxing, it could be beneficial as far as giving your digestive system a break so that it can focus on removing toxins from the body (anything built up over time - food additives, pesticides, chemicals from cleaning/hygiene products, etc.) and I say that based on information I learned from reading "Clean" by Dr. Alejandro Junger. I'm obviously not an expert. I did experience weight loss by consuming more liquid meals than solid for a certain amount of time (3 weeks), but I gained it all back. It wasn't my goal to lose weight but I wanted to try the "detox" to see how I felt and I did feel better. I had more energy and found that this sort of thing is good for people who can't tolerate certain foods (like bread, dairy, fast/junk food) which I can't.

**Griffalot** · Posted On: 2/27/2012 2:09pm

First time poster here and thought I would jump in since I actually have some experience with this topic.

My Wife and I did all juice for a week and a half and it went well, but wasn't a magical treatment like some things (like the movie Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead) would have you believe.

I never got any violent cravings or felt hungry, which was a surprise to me. However, I DID get a massive headache on day two that lasted about four hours - I suspect it was caffeine withdrawals.

The downside was that I couldn't work out very hard for a week and a half (only light cardio or I would get light headed pretty quick). I lost a total of 9 pounds, but some of that was muscle, I suspect some of it was the result of completely cutting out sodium and some was my insides no longer having anything solid inside to process.

When I went back to solid foods, I felt GREAT. My energy and stamina we increasingly higher for the next few weeks.

**robdaze151** · Posted On: 2/27/2012 2:40pm

yeah, If you count excess Chipotle' burritto grease as juice.

**elipson** · Posted On: 2/27/2012 2:55pm

You lost weight because you massively cut the amount of calories you were consuming on a daily basis.

Nothing more interesting than that.

**Griffalot** · Posted On: 2/27/2012 3:50pm

I think it was more. I'd say my intake before juicing was around 2200 calories a day (so for ten days, my total calorie intake was 22,000.)

For the juice diet, you drink a LOT of juice of all kinds of fruits and vegetables, and I would estimate I drank about 1,000 calories a day (I am used to the minimum I should take in as 1200, so I remember being worried about this.) This would mean that I took in 10,000 calories for the week.

With a deficit of 3500 calories to burn one pound, this would mean that about 2.9 pounds would be due to the calorie cut - which leaves about 6 pounds of other random stuff.

**wetware** · Posted On: 2/28/2012 4:08am

Originally Posted by Griffalot

With a deficit of 3500 calories to burn one pound, this would mean that about 2.9 pounds would be due to the calorie cut - which leaves about 6 pounds of other random stuff.

Like the muscle mass you catabolized to maintain body systems that require protein to continue functioning properly?

(Add to that: the contents of your digestive tract. That stuff takes time to get through there.)

**Griffalot** · Posted On: 2/28/2012 11:53am

Originally Posted by wetware

Like the muscle mass you catabolized to maintain body systems that require protein to continue functioning properly?

(Add to that: the contents of your digestive tract. That stuff takes time to get through there.)

I was actually consuming more protein that I expected since the spinach/kale/other leafy greens made up a huge part of the intake. It's not like eating a salad where a portion is a few cups - it's all liquified so a portion is a whole stinking bag. I estimate I was getting at least 20 grams a day of protein.

I did lose some muscle mass, I suspect simply because I stopped strength training for 10 days.

**ChenPengFi** · Posted On: 2/28/2012 12:18pm

Originally Posted by Griffalot

I was actually consuming more protein that I expected since the spinach/kale/other leafy greens made up a huge part of the intake. It's not like eating a salad where a portion is a few cups - it's all liquified so a portion is a whole stinking bag. I estimate I was getting at least 20 grams a day of protein.

I did lose some muscle mass, I suspect simply because I stopped strength training for 10 days.

Recommended protein intake for athletes is generally around 1g per lb of bodyweight per day, so unless you were 20 lbs you were not getting nearly enough.

...a 165-pound (75 kilogram) nonathlete has a protein requirement of 60 grams per day. On a per kilogram basis, athletes have a higher protein requirement because of a greater lean mass, a greater need for tissue repair, and because a small amount of protein is burned during physical activity.

This increases the protein requirement for athletes to approximately double that of nonathletes (1.2 to 1.7 grams per kilogram). Therefore, a 165-pound (75 kilogram) athlete has a protein requirement of 120 grams (480 calories) per day.

http://www.healthline.com/hlbook/nut...n-requirements

**taijidude** · Posted On: 4/10/2012 3:45pm

A big part of persistence in juicing is the juicer. It was mentioned before that cleaning is a pain in the ass. It can be. There are typically two types of juicers, centrifugal and masticating. The cheap-oh kind are generally centrifugal, and are good for casual juicing, maybe once a day or so. A commercial grade juicer like a Champion (masticating) is far easier to clean, which makes frequent juicing less of a pain as it takes about a minute to clean. But you also get far better extraction than from a centrifugal. The pulp that comes out of a masticating juicer is almost completely dry (except for fruits) plus a masticating juicer can usually be used for other things, like making nut butters. (nothing like a fresh cashew or almond butter) As a side note, the pulp makes damn fine compost or fertilizer for a garden.
I've been juicing off and on for about 20 years. I never found juice to be a real good replacement for meals. I always felt hungry again shortly after as it digests so fast. It's definitely good as a compliment to meals. It's probably far better to drink a glass of fresh veggie juice than to eat the veggies, as the cellular breakdown allows you to digest something like 75% of the nutrients compared to around 10 to 15% for whole veggies.

As for the weight loss mentioned earlier, it was probably largely due to a much reduced carb intake.