I am thinking of doing something similar to this. I recently watched the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" where a guy talked about juicing for 60 days straight. He talked about all the health benefits and what not that come from essentially being a liquid vegetarian. With my diabeetus, cholesterol and triglycerides as high as they are I am putting some serious stake into trying this out. I am actually buying a tri-pod for my camera so I can do photo updates and doing a big blog sort of thing about it, to talk about what I drank that day and what I did in my (hopefully) one hour+ workout every weekday.
I have a giant whiteboard in my office so I figured I would post my start weight, measurements and medical stats (gotta see the doc for those) on the whiteboard and my current weight and measurements off to the side a bit and take a picture of me in the middle each week to go along with the blog.
Figured if I had a blog where people actually paid attention to what I was doing I might do a bit better at keeping up with it. Not to mention I have another friend or two that have already shown interest in trying it as well if mine goes well.
Never in human history has the body been designed to subsist on liquid, no matter how nutritious that liquid is. It's a bad idea. Don't say you've not been warned.
You can accomplish the same goals with real food, without endangering your body at the same time.
The nice thing about the juice is it lets me cover up all the flavors I don't like and still get all the nutrition. And it probably won't be a full liquid diet, I will have some oatmeal in there as well on occasion.
Besides, not like there is much more damage I can do to my body at this point.
The nice thing about the juice is it lets me cover up all the flavors I don't like and still get all the nutrition. And it probably won't be a full liquid diet, I will have some oatmeal in there as well on occasion.
Besides, not like there is much more damage I can do to my body at this point.
Oh, you can always do more damage to your body. I agree with and will echo what Thrax said "Never in human history has the body been designed to subsist on liquid, no matter how nutritious that liquid is. It's a bad idea." I can't stress this enough, as I hope many would agree, proper nutrition is the biggest part of weight loss and a healthy life! It takes a bit longer to get to a goal, but it's the absolute healthiest and safest way to go.
The nice thing about the juice is it lets me cover up all the flavors I don't like and still get all the nutrition.
That's my point. You will not get all of the nutrition. Liquids pass through the human digestive tract too quickly to absorb sufficient nutrients from them. You may have nutrients in that drink, but they are not readily bioavailable to the intestine for synthesizing into stuff your body uses.
A better question would be, is it healthier than my nearly all meat diet? Even if it isn't the healthiest choice in general. I don't like fruits or vegetables so anytime I eat them is pretty much going to be juiced, and like I said it won't be ALL juice, just mostly.
And the only damage I could think that would really happen from this would be mild malnutrition. I already got kidney damage, liver damage, high cholesterol, increased risk of heart attack, diabetes, and GERD.
Maybe you could try blending the foods instead of juicing them. There are a lot of nutrients that are left in the pulp...
Not to mention all the fiber you are losing by juicing ... which potentially helps with GERD and high cholesterol, and helps keep you satiated.
0
HumerusMegSomething, something medical professional, Fitness bitch, Sexy chefAustin Icrontian
My medical mind is spinning... I concur with everything stated above... Juicing is poor not only will you have a hard time with digestion when you come off but the change in diets will most likely make you gain weight back after going back to real food... Please rethink this challenge, you have to be more conicous of the effects instead of the end result you want to achieve. I'd be more than happy to make medically safe suggestions if you are willing/wanting to hear my opinion.
@d3k0y So you want to go from an all meat diet to the other extreme, all/mostly juice diet? Why not just a balanced diet? Save a couple hundred dollars not buying a juicer that is just going to waste even more of your money by giving you only 10-40% of the food you put into it. I don't know how those became so popular, they're so wasteful. Have you considered seeking out a nutritionist or personal trainer and getting some medically backed advice?
I juiced for a week or two once just to see how my body would react. I lost weight, probably muscle and water. I didn't like it, I put the weight back on. The only positive was I seemed to be thinking clearly and I felt light and oddly energetic. I barley pooped, and that was not Icrontian of me at all. Overall though, not my cup of tea and I think you would have a similar experience.
For the record, I do think your body absorbs a fair amount of nutrients from juice and you certainly can use the pulp for ingredients in other meals. Nutrients, I thought, were brought in to the blood stream primarily through the intestine and not during the digestive process in the stomach. I'm only 75% sure on that though.
I'd say juicers have a place if you want to make a nice spinachy drink as a snack to hold you over and control hunger between meals or fullness during a low calorie meal.
0
TeramonaConsulting Tea Specialist Best Coast! Icrontian
Allow me to weigh in on this for a moment, and please please don't take offense to anything I have to say here. I'm just giving you my experience, and an honest opinion.
I have been diagnosed with a great many things in my life, Sir. One of them, embarrassingly enough (and this is the first time I will ever really say anything about it in public), was an eating disorder. I have never consciously deprived myself of anything, but the way I was eating fell very decidedly within the realm of "disordered eating." This is relevant to you only for this reason: I know what being malnourished is like.
I won't go in to how I was eating, or why... but I will say that I wasn't getting what I needed from the foods I was eating. I can tell you with ABSOLUTE certainty, that just living off juice will harm your body. I can see someone doing it for a week to lose some quick weight for a wedding or something (though I still wouldn't ever recommend that), but for 3 months? It's a terrible idea. Even if you're throwing in oatmeal every once in a while, I believe that this is training your body to hold on to food it gets, because through juicing... you are essentially starving yourself. I could be wrong on that point, so I will leave someone else here to correct it if that is the case.
Now, to the important stuff. Being malnourished isn't fun like you might imagine. I felt like crap every day of my life. There was constant nausea, fatigue, even minor depression. Then, one day, I was called in to the Doctor's office and told some very scary things about my health and my body, including the fact that I've seriously messed up my heart, that I'm risking severe nerve damage, and that I could make myself blind. This is all due to lack of nutrients. It all came down to the way I was eating. Now, I've been a vegetarian since I was about 5 or 6 years old, so this has been years of beating my body down (including forcing it to run 6 days a week)... So, this is an extreme of what could happen to you if you don't eat well. Having said that, it's still a good example.
Now here's where I don't want you to get offended. You said you don't like fruit or vegetables, and that you live on a mostly meat diet. I think you said it's either the juicing or the meat eating for you. I don't believe that kind of thinking is going to get you anywhere. You really have to be willing to change things around if you're looking for change, you know what I mean? I've had to make a very conscious decision to eat foods that I don't like, because I know my body needs something better than what I was giving it. For the past month, I've been feeling better than I have in my whole life.
Annnnnway, I'm getting self conscious now. So, off I go. Good luck to everyone, and here's to living a healthier life!
Nutrients, I thought, were brought in to the blood stream primarily through the intestine
Precisely where a juice/liquid won't go, is my point. Solid foods take time to process in the intestine, which is the exact biological design that allows our intestine to extract maximum nutritional benefit from whatever is churning around in there.
What I'm saying, basically, is this: when you really want to make a statue, you take time with the clay... not with that weird clay juice.
0
BlackHawkBible music connoisseurThere's no place like 127.0.0.1Icrontian
Just something I'd like to add:
My mom when diagnosed with breast cancer decided to go on a juice diet (with a very lean salad for lunch) for 90 days to fight the cancer instead of opting for chemo and a mastectomy. Celery juice, carrot juice, wheat grass, teas, etc. It was pretty much hell for her but my dad joined in with her for support. In the end it worked. Cancer was gone and she lost considerable amount of weight.
For accuracy I looked up my previous thread about this: http://icrontic.com/discussion/93231/juicing. Just like many other things in life it happened somewhat differently than how I actually remembered. It turns out my brain was less sharp, not more sharp. However, my memory of not pooping was accurate.
Highlights of the linked thread include a wonderful explanation by @Thrax of what happens to people who juice diet (metabolism, water weight, etc), and also @Mt_Goat telling me to stop worrying about dieting and go have sex with my wife.
I think you should go the other way; dehydrate and compress all of your food into small swallow able cubes. Maximum space efficiency, perfect macros, its perfect.
Mt_GoatHead Cheezy KnobPflugerville (north of Austin)Icrontian
Again, as has been drilled in so far that juicing alone is a verrry bad idea. My Dr had warned me that the only 2 ways it is OK to do is; 1) as a cleanse for a short period of time not to exceed 4 days and 2) it is perfectly fine to do as a supplement to a normal diet if it is the only way to get your fruit and veggies in and if possible add some of the pulp for roughage. I had lost over 60 pounds and have now kept it for about 2 years now. I used the supplemental juicing with pulp method and excercise, drink lots of H2O all the time, cut back on carbs (bad carbs in particular), portion control and increased activity / excercise. If you at least start walking 20 min 2x a day and only go as far as your pace will allow you will be able to go much farther after only 2 weeks, then in crease it to 30 min and get it up to 1 hr if only it then becomes 1 walk a day. The sustained cardio will then go a long way to changing everything about your body. I could go on and on about endorphins (and yes, sex releases endorphins as well), metabolic burn and a host of things that happen when you control intake and activity but I will keep this simple. The best advise is to develop a sound plan and stick to it!
I lost about 15 lbs by drastically cutting carbs, mostly bread, pasta and snacks. I am maintaining (about 10 lbs high) with normal food (I don’t eat fast food except pizza), less pasta, not much bread, almost no snacks, and a smoothie breakfast.
My breakfast this morning was a smoothie consisting of almond milk, banana, apple, mango, strawberries, blueberries, and protein powder. I usually add walnuts but forgot this morning. You can throw in a handful of nasty stuff like raw spinach and you can’t even taste it. It’s not really low cal, but replaces a high-fat, high calorie breakfast and helps get me going. Of course I still have two cups of black coffee. That’s what really gets me going.
The best part is that I never even reduced my beer consumption! My liver is okay.
Oh, yeah. I don't exercise much. That would certainly be better that just diet. I'm just lazy.
I'm not going to comment on juicing, as I think the fact that it's a bad idea has already been covered quite well.
What I will chime in about is your distaste for vegetables. I was the exact same way. I didn't like most all vegetables and my diet was mostly meat and carbs. I was severely overweight (335lbs @ 6'4"). Last January, I had finally had enough and dedicated myself to getting down to a healthy weight. That meant changing my eating habits. It meant cutting back on the carbs and meat and eating more fruit and veg. At first, I didn't much care for it but I made myself do it. After a while, I found ways that I really liked to eat vegetables. Usually it meant cooking them or stir frying them, but at least I was eating them. I've even started to enjoy a very limited amount of raw (or very lightly cooked) vegetables. What I'm getting at, in a roundabout way here, is that just because you don't LIKE something, doesn't mean you shouldn't eat it. You might have to force yourself to do it at first, but eventually you'll find ways you like it or you'll just get used to it. Just my 2 cents.
Comments
I have a giant whiteboard in my office so I figured I would post my start weight, measurements and medical stats (gotta see the doc for those) on the whiteboard and my current weight and measurements off to the side a bit and take a picture of me in the middle each week to go along with the blog.
Figured if I had a blog where people actually paid attention to what I was doing I might do a bit better at keeping up with it. Not to mention I have another friend or two that have already shown interest in trying it as well if mine goes well.
You can accomplish the same goals with real food, without endangering your body at the same time.
Besides, not like there is much more damage I can do to my body at this point.
And the only damage I could think that would really happen from this would be mild malnutrition. I already got kidney damage, liver damage, high cholesterol, increased risk of heart attack, diabetes, and GERD.
For the record, I do think your body absorbs a fair amount of nutrients from juice and you certainly can use the pulp for ingredients in other meals. Nutrients, I thought, were brought in to the blood stream primarily through the intestine and not during the digestive process in the stomach. I'm only 75% sure on that though.
I'd say juicers have a place if you want to make a nice spinachy drink as a snack to hold you over and control hunger between meals or fullness during a low calorie meal.
Hm.
Allow me to weigh in on this for a moment, and please please don't take offense to anything I have to say here. I'm just giving you my experience, and an honest opinion.
I have been diagnosed with a great many things in my life, Sir. One of them, embarrassingly enough (and this is the first time I will ever really say anything about it in public), was an eating disorder. I have never consciously deprived myself of anything, but the way I was eating fell very decidedly within the realm of "disordered eating." This is relevant to you only for this reason: I know what being malnourished is like.
I won't go in to how I was eating, or why... but I will say that I wasn't getting what I needed from the foods I was eating. I can tell you with ABSOLUTE certainty, that just living off juice will harm your body. I can see someone doing it for a week to lose some quick weight for a wedding or something (though I still wouldn't ever recommend that), but for 3 months? It's a terrible idea. Even if you're throwing in oatmeal every once in a while, I believe that this is training your body to hold on to food it gets, because through juicing... you are essentially starving yourself. I could be wrong on that point, so I will leave someone else here to correct it if that is the case.
Now, to the important stuff. Being malnourished isn't fun like you might imagine. I felt like crap every day of my life. There was constant nausea, fatigue, even minor depression. Then, one day, I was called in to the Doctor's office and told some very scary things about my health and my body, including the fact that I've seriously messed up my heart, that I'm risking severe nerve damage, and that I could make myself blind. This is all due to lack of nutrients. It all came down to the way I was eating. Now, I've been a vegetarian since I was about 5 or 6 years old, so this has been years of beating my body down (including forcing it to run 6 days a week)... So, this is an extreme of what could happen to you if you don't eat well. Having said that, it's still a good example.
Now here's where I don't want you to get offended. You said you don't like fruit or vegetables, and that you live on a mostly meat diet. I think you said it's either the juicing or the meat eating for you. I don't believe that kind of thinking is going to get you anywhere. You really have to be willing to change things around if you're looking for change, you know what I mean? I've had to make a very conscious decision to eat foods that I don't like, because I know my body needs something better than what I was giving it. For the past month, I've been feeling better than I have in my whole life.
Annnnnway, I'm getting self conscious now. So, off I go. Good luck to everyone, and here's to living a healthier life!
What I'm saying, basically, is this: when you really want to make a statue, you take time with the clay... not with that weird clay juice.
My mom when diagnosed with breast cancer decided to go on a juice diet (with a very lean salad for lunch) for 90 days to fight the cancer instead of opting for chemo and a mastectomy. Celery juice, carrot juice, wheat grass, teas, etc. It was pretty much hell for her but my dad joined in with her for support. In the end it worked. Cancer was gone and she lost considerable amount of weight.
Just like many other things in life it happened somewhat differently than how I actually remembered. It turns out my brain was less sharp, not more sharp. However, my memory of not pooping was accurate.
Highlights of the linked thread include a wonderful explanation by @Thrax of what happens to people who juice diet (metabolism, water weight, etc), and also @Mt_Goat telling me to stop worrying about dieting and go have sex with my wife.
@CrazyJoe That just puts a horrible vision in my mind.
My breakfast this morning was a smoothie consisting of almond milk, banana, apple, mango, strawberries, blueberries, and protein powder. I usually add walnuts but forgot this morning. You can throw in a handful of nasty stuff like raw spinach and you can’t even taste it. It’s not really low cal, but replaces a high-fat, high calorie breakfast and helps get me going. Of course I still have two cups of black coffee. That’s what really gets me going.
The best part is that I never even reduced my beer consumption! My liver is okay.
Oh, yeah. I don't exercise much. That would certainly be better that just diet. I'm just lazy.
What I will chime in about is your distaste for vegetables. I was the exact same way. I didn't like most all vegetables and my diet was mostly meat and carbs. I was severely overweight (335lbs @ 6'4"). Last January, I had finally had enough and dedicated myself to getting down to a healthy weight. That meant changing my eating habits. It meant cutting back on the carbs and meat and eating more fruit and veg. At first, I didn't much care for it but I made myself do it. After a while, I found ways that I really liked to eat vegetables. Usually it meant cooking them or stir frying them, but at least I was eating them. I've even started to enjoy a very limited amount of raw (or very lightly cooked) vegetables. What I'm getting at, in a roundabout way here, is that just because you don't LIKE something, doesn't mean you shouldn't eat it. You might have to force yourself to do it at first, but eventually you'll find ways you like it or you'll just get used to it. Just my 2 cents.