On Tuesday morning, I started a juice fast as an experiment.

I have juiced in the past, but I have never done a juice fast (eating nothing… only drinking juice).

I’m using a Champion 2000 juicer and drinking all juice immediately after juicing.  I have a wide variety of fruits and vegetables that I’m juicing.  I juice whenever I’m hungry or thirsty with no restrictions.

The purpose of the juice fast isn’t weight loss, although I actually expected some.  The purpose was to see how it affected my sense of well-being and my blood pressure.  It is failing so far in the first criteria.  I have a constant headache and my stomach is very rumbly all the time.

Many who advocate a juice fast claim that the headache and rumbly stomach are due to my body eliminating toxins.  I don’t know what to think about that.  In general, I have learned to trust my body to know what is good for it.  When I started eating organic foods, I felt instantly better.  There was no transition time when I felt worse for awhile.

The advocates of juice fasting claim that the headache will pass and I will feel better.  We’ll see.

I have noted that resulting mix of carbs, fat and protein with juicing is exactly the opposite of what I have found to work for weight loss in the past.  Still, I expected some weight loss even if it was burning muscle.  I’m not sure why.  It just seems impossible to maintain weight or gain weight while drinking only fruit and vegetable juice.  That does seem to be the case so far though.  Juicing is a high carb, low protein, low fat diet.  It is extremely similar to the no-fat diet that lead to health problems for me.

What are your experiences with juicing?  Good?  Bad?  Ugly?

-James D. Brausch