How to do a safe 3-day Vegetable Juice Cleanse

Doing a juice cleanse is intensely detoxifying. Your body has an opportunity to stop expending energy digesting food and concentrate on healing and purifying your system. However, doing a vegetable juice cleanse can unnecessarily tax your body if done improperly. Here's how to start and end a safe three day vegetable juice cleanse.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• juicer
• fresh organic vegetables
• purified water

1. PLAN YOUR SCHEDULE. Doing a vegetable cleanse is a serious change for your body. You may be irritable and tired during your cleanse, so you'll want to make sure your schedule and circumstances are in your favor. Pick days where you won't have overly stressful situations (such as family visiting, a big presentation at the office etc). Starting a 3 day cleanse on a friday and continuing over the weekend can work well. Plan that this will be downtime for you to relax and be gentle to your body.

2. TWO DAYS BEFORE. Eliminate sugar, refined sugar, artificial sweeteners and other sweeteners (such as corn syrup etc) from your diet two days before you switch to all vegetable juice. Eliminate meat from your diet. On this day, eat mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, and easy-to-digest grains such as oatmeal or brown rice. You're starting to prepare your digestive system to slowdown and change gears.

3. THE DAY BEFORE. Eat only fresh vegetables the day before your cleanse. This can be challenging. Don't use any salad dressings or other toppings on the vegetables. Mentally prepare yourself and get ready for your juice cleanse the next day.

4. IN THE CLEANSE: VEGETABLE JUICE. Now, we're really in the cleanse, and you can drink all the vegetable juice you want. Clean and wash your vegetables, and juice them just before you plan to drink the juice (you'll get the most nutrition). You can have as much juice as you want during the cleanse. If you don't feel hungry, have some anyway, your body needs it.

5. IN THE CLEANSE: EXERCISE. Gentle exercise such as walking, tai chi, simple stretching or yoga will help release toxins from your body. You likely will have much less energy, that's fine, and that's why gentle exercise is a natural fit.

6. IN THE CLEANSE: WHAT ELSE TO DO. Stay fully hydrated. Drink lots of purified water. You may want to add fresh lemon slices to the water -- it's more interesting and a natural detoxifier. This is essential to get the toxins you're releasing OUT of your body.

7. COMING OUT OF YOUR CLEANSE. You'll be doing the reverse of how you prepared for your cleanse. The morning your cleanse is complete, eat some uncooked fresh vegetables such as a baby carrots or cucumber slices. Over the course of the next two days, gradually introduce more fresh foods by starting with a raw vegetable only meal, then cooked vegetables, then add fresh fruits, then grains. Finally, on the second day, add oils, meats and sugars (if you want to re-introduce these at all.)

Tips & Warnings

• If you don't have a juicer, you can get fresh organic vegetable juice prepared to your exact tastes at Whole Foods and other health food stores.
• Lemon juice left in your mouth can damage the enamel of your teeth. Be sure to brush your teeth if you've just had lemon and water.
• Remove other toxins from your life while you're doing your cleanse. For example, don't paint your house, or get a new couch. The off-gases from such materials are bad anytime, but especially harmful for you when you're body is sensitive during a cleanse.
• For additional cleansing power, consider drinking a detox tea (unsweetened of course) between vegetable juice "meals".
• Cleansing is best for clearing toxins from your body, NOT for losing weight. However, this is a great way to "reset" your body, to get rid of cravings for sugar and other unhealthy foods.
• If for some reason you decide to end the cleanse earlier than 3 days, still slowly introduce foods back into your system as described in step 7 so that you don't have digestion trouble.
• I am not a physician or nutritionist, if you have any concerns about the safety of a juice cleanse for your body, please ask your doctor.

[FrazzledNanny]

on 2/4/2009 Great article. 5*

[juliebmack]

on 2/4/2009 Sound way for doing this safe - as stated in your warnings! Good article!