Two days and a great deal of stomach rumbling later, I can tell you this juice fast really isn’t my bag, baby!
I’ve lost five pounds (and no bodyfat) in 48 hours, but when you’re my size, that really isn’t dramatic weight loss. When you consider that no bodyfat was lost in the completion of this diet, you really need to consider what was: lean body mass (aka muscle) and water. Mind you, muscle is what gives us a good shape and makes us look thin. Consider a 100 pound woman with 50% bodyfat and a 150 pound woman with 20% bodyfat. The one weighing 150 is much heavier but I guarantee she’s a knockout!
I have serious concerns about the safety of using a diet that causes muscle wasting. After all, muscle is what keeps our metabolism going. If we aren’t careful, we can literally eat that muscle up and kill our metabolism. Having been a yo-yo dieter since the early 80’s, I know what this sort of dieting can do to the body (it got me to a point in my life where I weighed 265 pounds). You starve yourself for two days and the whole time, you are dreaming of bacon double cheeseburgers (I know I was) and then when you finish the fast, you drive straight to the Burger King drive through and eat a burger that has more calories in it than you’ve consumed in juice in the past two days! I actually passed Burger King twice today. The operative word here is PASSED. I kept telling myself “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” I felt like Dorothy in Oz. I was clicking my heels like crazy!
I’ve been doing some reading on fasting and it seems that it can actually be very good for you – if done properly. But fasting for two days only to snap into Burger King just isn’t healthy for anyone. If you approach fasting with the intent of cleansing your system and drink the sort of drinks that will help you do that (no, I don’t mean prune juice) experts say that it can be excellent for your body and even help some people to deal with illnesses (and obesity).
That being said, I’ve drunk the last of my “miracle” juice and I’ve decided to embark on a cleansing and healthful fast using Kyo-Green powdered drink mix and Superior Greens, a dietary supplement to support detoxification functions. The major ingredients in these products are wheatgrass, barley grass and chlorella. I’ve been doing some research on this and from what I’ve read, one ounce of wheatgrass juice has the vitamin and mineral equivalent of over two pounds of fresh vegetables. That sounds pretty nutritious to me!
Now you’re probably wondering why I would continue fasting when my commitment to the 48 hour diet is complete. It’s quite simple actually, after 3 days of fasting the hunger generally goes away. It’s those first three days that make or break you. I just have one more day to go and I rather like not having to wash dishes!