Anyone here ever done a juice diet?

[Dr_Fwd]

Well, today is my last day fasting. I started at 240lb and as of today I'm 228lb.
I'm planning to do this again next month.
Jer, thanks for inspiration Brother!

[Jer]

I was thinking about this the other day and wondering how it would effect the presence of drugs in your blood stream. Suck if you flagged on a drug test because you were trying to do something healthy.

I wouldn't think the levels would be high enough but I don't have the answer to that. I'm still not 100% sure that I believe it but it sure seems like a lot of people do.

I imagine liquid protein drinks defeat the purpose since they provide energy to your body instead of drawing from your fat?

I too would like to know if anyone knows the answer to this. Bolthouse Farms makes a protein juice and I've stayed away from it because I didn't want to endanger my diet since I didn't know.

I had a terrible dream last night. I was at a birthday party and ruined my fast by unconsciously throwing a handful of Chex mix in my mouth and chewing away.

That's funny man. I'm lucky that I rarely dream so I haven't had any dreams about it but my wife (who isn't doing the juice diet) has. Funny how the human mind thinks.

[Jer]

Well, today is my last day fasting. I started at 240lb and as of today I'm 228lb.
I'm planning to do this again next month.
Jer, thanks for inspiration Brother!

Awesome man! Good job for sticking it out and making it to the end. What made you decide to stop? Was it a certain time frame you set or a certain weight goal you achieved? Just curious why you didn't decide to do it longer. Either way it's good that you met your goal I'm just curious what your goals were since I forgot (if you posted them).

[Jer]

Starting Weight: 290.8
Current Weight: 272.6
Previous Weight: 272.8
Lost since last: 0.2 :-(
Total Weight lost: 18.2

Today was the 2nd biggest disappointment for me for this diet. The first one being a few days ago when I actually gained 1.4lbs. I was concerned this may happen and now I'm not sure what to think. The other day I had some low sodium V8 and then that night I made the first Spicy V8 recipe I found and the next morning I had gained weight. I assumed it was the V8 but wanted to rule out all variables and that day I didn't have any fresh juice and went back to the Bolthouse juices. The next morning I was down my usual 1.4lbs plus the 1.4lbs I had gained the previous day for a total of 2.8lbs. Great, I was back on track. Yesterday I stuck with Bolthouse because my wife was bringing home a different juicer on her way home from work that I wanted to try out. Last night I took a couple of house to make the Skittles recipe that Spidey posted as well as the 2nd Spicy V8 recipe that I found. It took quite a while to get all that juiced and my body was hungry so I kept drinking Bolthouse while I was making juice. Once they were done I had a few drinks of each one to taste... wouldn't say I really got a lot of juice from either batch really but some. That night I started having physical hunger which I also had the night I had Spicy V8 and fresh juices which concerned me since I hadn't had physical hunger in like a week or so maybe. Sure enough, wake up this morning and I've only lost 0.2lbs instead of what I expected to be around 1.4lbs which was my 'normal' over the last week or so after the first several days where I was losing a lot more.

So, what the heck is going on? I'm leaning towards the Spicy V8 recipe I used having something with sodium in it and I'm retaining water again so what is the ingredient? I may just give up on these Spicy V8 recipes all together as I don't want to add sodium to my diet at this time and it seems as though I may be with those recipes. I'll post the recipe below again:

6 medium carrots
1 small beet (wash well)
3 large tomatoes
2 cups baby spinach (may increase if you like)
1/4 head cabbage
1 habanero pepper (or more to taste if you like it spicy)
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
3 stalks celery
1/4 sweet onion
1/2 garlic clove
3 kale leaves (a little goes a long way so be careful)
chili pepper
sea salt

Obviously the last ingredient is salt and I didn't even add salt to the juice because I didn't want to add any sodium. I wonder which ingredient(s) is adding sodium if that is indeed what is going on. Hmmm...

[tmckay2]

V8 might have ha enough salt to make you retain some water weight.

If someone is wanting to go cheaper and easier but not quite as good but the 1 liter bottles of naked and dilute it a bit with water. It's pretty thick, especially the green machine and some of the others with vegetables. You can spend about 10 bucks per day which isn't bad.

[Jer]

V8 might have ha enough salt to make you retain some water weight.

I get that but that doesn't explain why I retained water last night before weigh-in this morning.

[Jer]

I think I figured it out! Turns out that beets are high in sodium. Who knew?

Spicy V8 (two recipes)
1)
3 carrots
3 stalks Celery
1 sweet green pepper
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 cucumber
1/2 beet
5 or more small ripe tomatoes
1 clove garlic
2 or more hot green peppers like serrano or jalapeño
add cayenne or fresh horseradish to taste


2)
6 medium carrots
1 small beet (wash well)
3 large tomatoes
2 cups baby spinach (may increase if you like)
1/4 head cabbage
1 habanero pepper (or more to taste if you like it spicy)
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
3 stalks celery
1/4 sweet onion
1/2 garlic clove
3 kale leaves (a little goes a long way so be careful)
chili pepper
sea salt

I guess spinach is a little bit high in sodium too so I'm going to steer clear of both of those as I juice and hopefully I don't run into these issues again. So let this be a lesson to everyone, as you search for juicing recipes know that some recipes you find aren't taking this juice fast diet into account so you need to examine ingredients before you assume everything will be fine. I may try to tweak these recipes to be more 'fast friendly' but I wasn't loving the idea of standing over a juicer for hours to make these complex recipes anyway. I think I'll stick with the few ingredient ones I've found that I posted earlier.

[rondog]

So, kale.....are you supposed to cut off the stalks and only use the leafy parts? I'm wondering if that's where I got some of the nasty taste.

[Jer]

So, kale.....are you supposed to cut off the stalks and only use the leafy parts? I'm wondering if that's where I got some of the nasty taste.

Nope, you can throw the whole thing right in. The stems shouldn't add any bitterness at all. Some fruits and veggies you'll want to skin or leave greens out (Apple seeds & carrots have toxic seeds & leafy portions respectively but they're rather low levels for human consumption) but most of them you can just toss it all right in the juicer. Some even have good nutritional value in the parts you don't generally eat. Some can be bitter though but kale isn't one of them that I'm aware of unless you got a hold of some bad kale.

[rondog]

Nope, you can throw the whole thing right in. The stems shouldn't add any bitterness at all. Some fruits and veggies you'll want to skin or leave greens out (Apple seeds & carrots have toxic seeds & leafy portions respectively but they're rather low levels for human consumption) but most of them you can just toss it all right in the juicer. Some even have good nutritional value in the parts you don't generally eat. Some can be bitter though but kale isn't one of them that I'm aware of unless you got a hold of some bad kale.

Hmm, I didn't core the apples, just cut 'em in half and in they went. Might have been the cucumber, lemon or ginger too, although I did peel the lemon. Ginger just went right in. Gotta get a recipe book or two, I can see it already.