A couple of days ago, I posted a question on Reddit to seek out some advice on getting started with juice cleanse and I truly appreciate some of the useful responses I got. Here’s a shout out to you guys :)I’ve decided to compile my findings and share it with you awesome redditors as I take the plunge into juice cleansing. Hopefully, you will find this a piece a useful reference and resource.Assuming you’re starting right from scratch and you’re aware of the benefits of juice cleansing, the first thing you need to do is get a juicer duh!

Types of Juicers

A reliable juicer will make your life so much easier. As far as I’m aware, there are 5 different types of juicers. They are centrifugal juicers, masticating juicers, triturating juicers, hydraulic press juicers and manual juicers.

Centrifugal juicers are the ones we’re most accustomed to, but it seems that most juicing experts don’t recommend this type of juicer as they produce the most wastage, introduce heat and air (from friction and high speed) during the process thus causing the juice to lose some of its flavor, nutrients and oxidize quicker. It is also not the best for storage. They are great for citrus fruits but horrible with extracting juice from leafy vegetables which are the key ingredients in most juice cleanse recipes.

With that said, masticating juicers are the type recommended (also suggested by fellow redditors Hiwhatsupdoc & ToniJabroni) for home and personal use. They produce the best nutrient packed juice with minimal wastage and without introducing heat or too much air in the process thus preserving its flavor and preventing oxidation. However, do take note that masticating juicers work very slow and can be a hassle to clean.

Triturating and hydraulic press type juicers are said to produce the most and best juice from raw food but are costly and more for commercial usage.

Manual juicers on the other hand can be useful if you don’t have any access to electricity; camping, loss of power etc.

Mental Preparations

One thing that can ruin your juice cleanse plan is lack of mental preparation. Doing a juice cleanse requires you to stay off a whole list of things that you may find challenging. After learning about this, I find it to be a big deal. It’s challenging mostly because it affects your usual habits and addictions and lets be honest that most of us are addicted to caffeine, sugar and carbs.

Here’s a list of things NOT to consume during your juice cleanse:

Coffee And Caffeinated Beverages

Alcohol 🙁

Dairy Products

Canned Food

MSG – should be avoided even if you’re not doing a cleanse

Wheat / Gluten Products

Soy Products

Protein (Red meat)

Fat

Sugar (Sodas, chocolates, candies etc)

Junk Food

Fast Food

Tobacco Smoking

To keep it simple, basically when you’re juice cleansing, you should only consume your juice and anything not found in the list above for the intended cleanse period. Number 1,2 and 13 will hit me the hardest throughout the week that I plan to juice cleanse and that’s something I need to be mentally prepared for.

It doesn’t stop there. To ensure that my motivation is as hard as a rock, I went on to dig further on the potential side effects that may occur from undergoing a juice cleanse. I found out that many have reported temporary weight loss, stomach flu like symptoms, needing to go to the bathroom constantly, nausea, dizziness, tiredness and are unable get involved in strenuous activities.

Knowing this, I would plan mine when I have the week long break from work. But it depends on the urgency! If you need to do it now, just start as soon as possible!

What else should you know?

You will need to get fresh organic (ideally) ingredients from your local grocery store (will share a list of common juice cleanse ingredients later)

You’ll need to spend time cleaning, prepping for juicing and then cleaning after.

You’ll need storage for your ingredients and juice (although juice storage not recommended)

So it seems tedious enough to back off from the whole idea. But it’s not that bad if you have the free time, right motivation, have everything planned out ahead and know what you need.

How to get the right motivation?

A fellow redditor justblaze5687 suggested that you “watch BOTH of the fat, sick and nearly dead movies”. I have actually seen the first one and loved it, will have to check out the other one since it came out recently. I love the other advice about just doing it. People often get caught up in the paralysis of analysis and never actually DO IT.

Failing health and illnesses seems to be the prime motivators for juice cleansing in my personal opinion. If you should find yourself in those scenarios, that should be enough motivation to get you to start and stay committed to the cleanse. Invest in your health now or spend money on illness later, either way you’ll be spending time and money.

Let’s not forget the benefits with I believe and assume you’re aware of. But they should be good motivators as well!

Physical Preparations

Is there even a need for physical preparations? Well, this went by almost unnoticed until drewski1987 brought it up. Firstly, throughout my research, I have not come across anyone writing about this. It seems that most juice cleanse/detox articles I have read online have no trace of it.

This may help minimize some of the side effects from doing a juice cleanse. That is, preparing your body first instead of bringing it to shock which may backfire your whole regimen. So it makes complete sense to reduce all the badies (from the ealier list of to avoid) that you’re consuming and giving your body time to adjust. I mean, for some of them , you can just completely cut out without worries but if you’re say, a heavy coffee drinker, alcoholic, smoker, meat eater etc you might want to stop those in a reduction manner.

How Long To Juice Cleanse

This is a very subjective area of the topic. No one can tell you exactly how long to juice cleanse. It really depends on your objective, tolerance and ability to cope. There’s definitely going to be some sort of drawbacks somewhere. Having read a few articles at question, I found that there are a number of detailed plans that will guide you from day one all the way through. There are X days – XX days ones to follow.

The longer you can stay on juice, the more time you’ll give your body to heal itself. However, for a beginner and in relation to the physical preparations, it’s advisable to go with 3-5 days first and then slowly increase the duration as you start getting used to it. Toughest period you will encounter is within the first 7 days. During this period, the side-effects and symptoms occurring will be most intense. The good news is, from the second week onwards the intensity will reduce and you’’ll start enjoying some of the benefits from juice cleansing. Healing will start from here onwards.

Common Juicing Ingredients

Kale Garlic Spinach Ginger Tomatoes Lemon Pineapple Cinnamon Blueberries Mint Apples Beets Broccoli Cabbage Celery Cucumber Cranberries Fennel Grapefruit Mango Parsnips Pears Swiss Chards Tumeric Watercress Wheatgrass Asparagus Lime

You can use a lot more ingredients not in the table above for juicing.

Juice Cleanse Recipes

I find it hard to make any recommendations as everyone seems to have different likings and taste. So what I’m going to do is just list out 2 of the recipes which was suggested by a couple redditor.

Here’s a recipe from Hiwhatsupdoc5-6 huge handfuls of Spinach1-3 Cucumbers (depending on size)1-2 handfuls of broccoli (stems are great)1-2 carrots1/2 – 1 green apple (depending on size)

And here’s another from ToniJabroniMy juice is usually kale, chard, cucumbers, celery, spinach, ginger, a piece of beet, and some carrots. Those last two are sugar sources so go easy.

You will definitely find many more great juice cleansing recipes online than just two. Below are some sites to start:

//healthyblenderrecipes.com/recipes///doctoroz.com/article/joe-cross-3-day-weekend-juice-cleanse//juicerecipes.com/recipes/​

What’s Next?

Start compiling those recipes you might like to try out and create a rotation sheet on what juice you’re going to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner daily throughout your intended juice cleansing period. And lastly, I’m going to go with justblaze5687 on this one… DO IT!