Sunday, March 16, 2014

The Juice Cleanse Craze- Introduction and Questions



Welcome to SPRING! We are all reminded of the New Year’s Resolutions we made to shed some pounds this year, preferably before we go gallivanting around scantily clad without the safe, bulky sweater protection we all can resort to for our Colorado winters. I myself am preparing for an April trip to St. Croix and a May trip kicking off the festival season in Gulf Shores, Alabama. I’m a gym membership holder and I try to make healthy choices when eating out and grocery shopping, but between the 20 oz. lattes and grab-n-go snacks I find myself searching for a diet or exercise that can really jump start some weight loss for me. 
 While searching, I came across plenty of options, but many of them require preparing a week’s worth of meals on my only day off and while I give gold stars to all of you who are able to accomplish an entire meal-time makeover this just wasn’t going to work for me. Then, I found out about juice cleanses. They can range from three days to a couple weeks and can be prepared at home with a juicer or store bought and ready to consume. While preparing to delve into one of these cleanses for the sake of my bikini body and for a first hand look at what these are like; I have a few questions. Are Juice cleanses safe? Are they effective for you in the long-term and the short-term? Do they actually cleanse your body of toxins and provide a jump start for weight loss or weight management? Do you get all the nutrients you need from a liquid diet?  Are there any long or short-term repercussions of consuming only juice as opposed to solid foods? Is there a certain length of time on a juice cleanse where it is most effective? What are the necessary fruits and veggies to create a balanced juice diet? How do you feel when you are surviving on only juice?
I look forward to doing some thorough research to find the answers. I plan to do a shorter juice cleanse for a first hand look at the effects of being on a liquid diet. I will also be researching and referencing health/ fitness magazine articles that do some myth busting of their own on the juice cleanse, while finding some medical/scientific sources on the safety and internal effects of being on a juice cleanse. I am hoping to find out one way or the other what the juice cleanse really does to the body and its effects on short and long-term weight loss goals.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting research inquiry on a popular diet topic. You raise lots of good questions in your post. With this issue, it will be especially important to find sources from published magazines, newspapers, and scholarly journals from the library databases. When you search "juice cleanse" online, you will get LOTS of sites trying to sell you products and/or information. The trickiest part of your project will be weeding out all the commercial, money-driven sites to focus only on credible research backed up by well-known doctors. You might start with a site such as Wed MD and see if they have an entry on this type of diet.

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