Spring Juice Cleanse

Are you ready to shape up for spring and skip into summer with a new glow, abounding energy, and your waistline redefined?  Juice cleansing is your key.

We just finished our spring Juice & Raw Foods Retreat.  Everyone was rejuvenated.  Several people lost 9 or 10 pounds.  Everyone was glowing by the last day.  If you missed the retreat, still have an opportunity to cleanse with my 30-Day Detox that starts in a week.

Here’s why juice fasting so powerful in changing how you feel and look:

• Juice is rich in antioxidants that bind up toxins that would otherwise damage your cells. Without all those bad guys roaming around in your system, you’ll have less damage.  That means fewer wrinkles.  It also means more repair from the inside out.  You’ll start looking younger. You’ll improve the health of your stomach.  Are you hooked on ant-acids?  Trouble with digestion?  Juice fasting can give your stomach a break.  It won’t have to work so hard to extract nutrients.  Actually, the work is done by the juicer.  If you have low stomach acid, which can cause acid reflux by the way, you’ll get a break.  You won’t need as much strong acid to break down the juice.  And after the juice cleanse, you could try adding two teaspoons of raw apple cider vinegar to six ounces of water and drink 15 minutes before you eat.  That may solve your problem.
• Repairs your gut. That’s right!  Gut repair is the name of this game. The Standard American Diet is a gut buster for sure.  Here’s how the gut gets damaged.   The American diet is replete with damaged fats, sugar and other refined carbs, flour products that turn to glue-like substances in the gut, foods saturated in additives and pesticides, and gooey cheese.  Dump on all that some anti-acids and other over the counter drugs.  And twist it all up with a heaping dose of stress, and you’ve got more than enough to give you constant indigestion and to damage your tiny little microvilli that are responsible for nutrient absorption.  This can lead to leaky gut syndrome, which allows particles to float into your system that shouldn’t be there.
• Rejuvenates your liver. Your liver is the king of your detoxification organs. It’s the hardest working organ you have.  Everything has to pass through your liver.  It’s the prep plant for the rest of the body.  Problems arise when there are too many toxins for the liver to deal with.  It can get congested and even develop stones just like the gallbladder.  This is your time to cleanse this key organ.  It’s key to your health, youthfulness, and efficient weight loss.
• Facilitates weight loss. You can lose 5 to 10 pounds in a week when you juice fast.  I say this because I can back it up with stories from all the people who have attended our juice fast retreats through the years.  You will lose some water weight, but what’s wrong with that?  You will also lose some fat.  The 3-day juice cleanse is a fantastic way to jumpstart your detox.  It helps control your cravings.  I call it the ultimate palate cleanse.  Because your juice fast days are lower in calories (usually around 1,000 or less when you don’t use a lot of fruit) you will lose weight.  But you aren’t starving your body because you’ll have plenty of healing, energizing nutrients.
• Flat belly. Watch your stomach shrink.  You’ll get rid of belly bloat.  That muffin top of fat will melt away day by day.
• Kicks up your energy. The first day or two you may not have more energy; you may be more tired as toxins are released.  But just wait!  Energy is on it’s way. And the energy is better than anything provided by caffeine or sugar.  This is true sustaining energy.
• Mental clarity. Juice cleansing is the ultimate foggy brain buster. You might feel a little spacey as you are juice fasting, but then the fog will clear, and those 100 billion plus little neurons in your brain will spark up. One reason for better clarity is that you are restricting calories. A study published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging found “There is significant evidence linking caloric restriction in adult mice with the growth of new brain cells. Specifically it is linked to increased production of [Brain-derived neurotrophic factor] BDNF. Basically restricting your calories and not overeating produces somewhat of a stress response in the body. Following this stress response is the production of new neurons.” (http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2013/03/05/11-ways-to-grow-new-brain-cells-and-stimulate-neurogenesis/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15123339; accessed 4/16/16)
• Heals at the cellular level. When you flood your system with raw juices, you provide an abundance of biophotons, which are light rays of energy that plants absorb from the sun. They help your cells communicate better.  And when you start cleansing the interstitial fluids that bathe the cells, the little cells start taking in nutrients and expelling waste more efficiently.  The biophotons also feed your mitochondria, the energy units of your cells. All this spells… you guessed it… cellular healing.
• Provides maximum detox. As you drink your nutrient-charged fresh raw juices, you are consuming a cornucopia of nutrients—antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, phytonutrients, and biophotons. Your body uses all these nutrients for detoxification.  Now your body can support all the phases of detoxification far more efficiently.  Plus you won’t be pouring in more toxins.  On a normal day, many people pour in congestive or toxic substances all day long.  The body can barely keep up with what’s coming down your pipes, let alone clear out any stored up toxic material.  It’s kind of like a heavy snowstorm.  You may shovel all day long just to keep your deck from collapsing. Finally, you’re worn out and quit. During your juice fast days, your body can focus on removing the cumulative toxins stored in organs, cells, and tissue spaces. And for most of us, there’s a lot of unwanted material stored up. “In a study spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in collaboration with Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood of these 10 children, collected by Red Cross after the cord was cut, harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage.” (http://www.ewg.org/research/body-burden-pollution-newborns; accessed 4/16/16)
• Purges mucous. Do you have mucous hanging out in your inner parts?  The juice fast,  like no other form of fasting, helps your body get rid of excess mucous that can build up over time. Various mucous membranes line body cavities and canals  such as the respiratory, digestive, and urogenital tracts. They are found in the mouth, nose, trachea, eyelids, lungs, stomach, intestines, and bladder. Mucous provides protection and lubrication and it offers a barrier from outside invaders. When we’re in a state of good health, this mucous has a thin consistency. But over time, with a build up of toxins, chronic conditions can arise. We may experience a buildup of thicker mucous, which can clog our system and harbor chemicals, pathogens, and dead cells that would otherwise be removed. When we juice fast, we eliminate refined flour products, fried food, sugar, dairy, sodas, caffeine, alcohol, and junk food— typical mucous forming foods and substances.  As we ditch the irritating foods and substances, the body stops producing excess mucus, and it can work on sweeping out mucous, dead cells, pathogens, and other foreign material.
• Alkalizes. This is another juicy bonus. Fresh juices are very alkaline. This is helpful in balancing pH in your body. You must maintain a delicate, precise pH balance in the blood, which is slightly alkaline. A healthy pH balance in the blood should be between 7.35 and 7.45. To maintain this balance, the body will draw minerals from bones, teeth, and muscles to use as buffer against the acids if there aren’t enough minerals present in your diet. The acidity or alkalinity of foods can be classified by how we process them. Our bodies transform nearly all foods into acid or alkaline bases. Though we need a balance of different foods for good health, most people eat far more acid-producing foods than alkaline-forming foods. Consuming excess acid-producing substances cause a condition called acidosis.  Adding high-alkaline vegetable juices to your diet brings your pH into balance. You will notice that you gain energy when your body is more alkaline balanced.  Fresh juices are packed with minerals and other nutrients that help you achieve this acid-alkaline balance.

Read more about the 30 Detox Challenge!

Today’s Recipe

Moroccan Beet Detoxer

• 1 small bunch of mint
• 1 dark green lettuce leaf such as romaine or green leaf
• 1 beet, with leaves
• 1 cucumber, peeled if not organic
• 1 lemon, peeled if not organic
• 1 green apple

Cut produce to fit your juicer’s feed tube. Wrap mint in lettuce leaf. Start by juicing the beet and cucumber, then push the lettuce-mint wrap through slowly, and

follow with lemon. Pour into a glass and drink as soon as possible. Serves 1.

Adapted from The Juice Lady’s Big Book of Juices and Green Smoothies