Benefits Of Juice Fasting Or Feasting
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At the mention of “Juice Fast”, one often thinks of weight loss. But juice fasting is really about HEALING, weight loss will follow. Find out your “why” and you will appreciate the tremendous benefits of juice fasting that follows.
Why Juice Fast?
Juice Fasting for Nourishment And Healing
People fast for different reasons. Sometimes I fast for spiritual reasons. Fasting can be an oasis where I can go to, to draw spiritual refreshment, away from the demands of this materialistic world. And sometimes I juice fast simply to detoxify, to “reset the internal button”, for healing after a bout of “unhealthy eating” (especially after traveling), or simply to get rid off some extra pounds.
For whatever reason you’re fasting, know that it is always beneficial to allow your digestive system to rest, and for your body to heal.
The traditional method of water fast (drinking only water and nothing else) is NOT recommended for long periods. A water fast, while it allows your body to rest and does “some” cleansing, it doesn’t provide your body with the fuel and nourishment it needs.
Short periods of water fast is fine if you’re generally healthy, but it’s not recommended for you to go on an extended water fast, unless you’re familiar with fasting, and know what you’re doing.
I personally find that juice fasting is one of the best and fastest way to detoxify and heal your body from most chronic diseases, for two simple reasons:
- It effectively removes toxins, naturally; and
- It hydrates the body with nutrients that repair, rebuild and regenerate.
These two factors are so important, because the opposite of these are what make one sick in the first place:
- We get sick because of overload of toxins in our body; and
- Our bodies are undernourished due to eating foods that are dead and depleted of nutrients.
Read how our bodies become sick from what we eat.
Juice Fasting for Rest
When juice fasting, we allow our digestive system to take a much-needed rest. The energy saved is used for deep tissue cleansing that goes on in the body during this time. The fresh fruit/vegetable juices we drink contain the necessary nutrients to help repair the damaged cells, heal and nourish.
The human bodies are meant to run on “fuel” from plant foods as they are “live” foods that are rich with enzymes, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and antioxidants. These, when extracted properly, are being assimilated by our cells for nourishment. When our cells receive superior foods, the inferior stuff (toxins) will have to make way for them, thus are being eliminated (detoxify).
You ask why don’t we just eat the whole fruits? Well, consider a carrot. If you were to eat a carrot, your body is able to assimilate only a very small percentage of the nutrients. But when you drink carrot juice, your body is able to assimilate almost all of the nutrients that are extracted. This bioavailability of the nutrients can do much wonders to speed up healing.
Read what is “live” foods, and why you should drink juices.
During a juice fast, the body is stimulated to greater metabolic and eliminative activity. After an extended fast, you will surely lose some weight, breakouts on your skin will clear up, your hair shines, your eyes brighten, mental clarity and vision are improved, and you will feel more energetic and needing less sleep during the day. An extended juice fast is powerful in healing your internal organs, strengthen your immune system, and begin to heal your chronic diseases.
Mind Over Body
Juice fasting can be a very humbling experience as you determine to resist temptations, building up your self-confidence as you sharpen your discipline and self-control that are required to go through a fast. Through fasting, you learn to control your body and appetite instead of having your body control your life.
When done properly, there are tremendous health benefits of juice fasting that you can enjoy. Whether you decide to do an extended juice fast/feast or frequent short juice fasts, you can expect to heal many ailments or even reverse health issues.
What Happens During A Juice Fast/Feast
Diseases occur due to the wrong foods we’ve been feeding our bodies through the years. Toxins from processed/refined foods (artificial food additives, preservatives, chemicals, etc.) and the polluted environment “suffocate” our cells and lead to diseases, inflammation and pain.
When doing a juice fast/feast: In the absence of solid foods but with the flood of nutrients from freshly-extracted juices, your body cells begin to release the toxins (inferior materials) that they were holding on to and replace them with nutrients from fresh juices (superior materials). This is a time of cleansing where repairs, healing and nourishment take place.
Most deep healing starts to take place after about 21 days of an extended juice fast when the cells begin to regenerate using the superior materials that they are receiving. This extended period allows the body uninterrupted time to do the meticulous work of healing. During this “spring-cleaning”, you can expect wastes and toxins being removed and eliminated from your body (you will notice them coming out in slimy mucus form).<
Wastes/Toxins Being Eliminated:
- Trans-fatty acids and fatty tissues, and along with it, drugs, chemicals, pesticides, etc.
- Dead, dying, damaged or diseased cells
- Toxic wastes in the lymphatic system and bloodstream
- Toxic wastes in the spleen, liver and kidneys
- Excess mucus from the lungs and sinuses
- Excess cholesterol
Years of faulty diet, beer, junk food, sweets, etc. are being torn down and released as toxins into the blood to be transported out of your system. Be sure to drink plenty of water (distilled water is best) during fasting to flush these wastes out efficiently. You may encounter some healing crisis but welcome them as evidence that your body is responding nicely to the fast.
When an extended juice fast is done properly, you will find that at the end of it even though you feel physically weak, a lot of healing had taken place inside your body. And as you slowly regain your strength, you will realize that your previous ailments may have also disappeared.
Water Fasting, On The Other Hand …
Starvation by water fasting, on the other hand, happens when in the absence of food, there is not even nutrition. This can be dangerous. During an extended starvation, the cells start to attack the body’s vital tissues for survival. This is why a full fast from food and fluids are not encouraged for more than three days.
Water fasting is not to be attempted unless you’re generally healthy and know what you’re doing.
Miraculous Benefits Of Juice Fasting
Spiritual Benefits
During an extended fast and prayer, you save the time from preparing meals and spend it on prayer (or meditation) instead. The longer you fast, the more your flesh becomes weak and more sensitive and in tune with the spiritual realm. When you put in more time in prayer, you will experience spiritual or prayer breakthroughs that you may not experience otherwise.
When your physical flesh comes under pressure from weakness, it forces you to become “detached” so that you can quietly observe and realize who you really are. It can be a very humbling experience when even pride of life can be broken.
When you become spiritually bankrupt with nothing to turn to, you face a vacuum in your life that only God can fill. When you have nothing, then you realize that your dependence on God’s mercy enables you to have the same mercy on others.
Ask God to bring to remembrance and bring release to those who have hurt you, and those whom you have hurt. Forgiveness releases you from the bondages of fear, doubt, guilt and hopelessness.
Also read about emotional healing reactions during an extended fast.
Physical Benefits
At the end of an extended or 40-day (or more days) fast/feast, you may feel like you have “reset an internal button” that has rebalanced your body chemistry. You can expect healing in almost every aspect of your being:
The digestive system is given a well-deserved rest: Although there is very little or no fiber during a juice fast, the juices “loosen up” old hardened fecal matters in the intestines. When you break your fast, these will be “swept out” and eliminated along with the first foods you eat. This is why breaking fast properly with plant-based foods is so important. If you were juice feasting and eating plant-based foods, the cleaning out of the intestines will occur earlier on during the cleanse.
Increased and improved mental clarity: Live foods provide live energy that increases the neuro-transmission, thus enhancing the receptivity of the brain and nervous system.
Enhanced emotional, physical and spiritual sensitivity: When the internal chemistry is brought to balance, when there is mental clarity, emotional toxins are also released that improve a general wellbeing.
Rapid and safe weight loss: Once your internal organs are brought to a homeostatic state, weight loss just follows and weight maintenance will be easier when you continue to eat healthy.
Increased energy level and vitality: When toxins are being eliminated, every part of your body feels like new. Your cells are being properly nourished with the right fuel. Vitality is inevitable.
Healing of chronic diseases caused by years of poor diet and lifestyle. When your internal organs are healed, they begin to function like new and most of the symptoms you used to have will begin to disappear.
Reduced nasal stuffiness and congestion: Stuffiness is caused by toxins that cannot be expelled. The phytonutrients in juices are effective in cleaning these off the organ walls to be eliminated.
Clearer/glowing complexion: When the liver and kidneys are cleansed, nutrients can be carried freely to the entire body for nourishing that give the skin the shiny glow.
Reduced water retention: Fresh juices have high content of potassium that helps cleanse out excess sodium from your cells that cause water retention. Along with loss of excess water, weight loss is often evident early on in the fast.
And many, many more benefits … but most importantly …
A new YOU, rejuvenated physically, mentally and spiritually.
CONGRATULATIONS !!
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