WHY A JUICE FAST-Rejuvenate Health Retreats.

JUICE FAST/DETOX

The romance with unhealthy food can be powerful, as evidenced by the staggering  63 percent  of Australian adults who are overweight or obese, well over half of our nation’s population. That’s almost two in three adults.

Research going back decades has shown us that we can not only be healthier, but may even be able to reverse severe chronic disease by changing to a more plant based diet. In addition to breaking the cycle of cravings for foods that undermine your health, just 3  – 4 days of a juice cleanse can do so much more!

Here are more than a dozen significant health enhancements you can obtain with a 4 day juice cleanse: Note: First rule, keep it organic where possible, otherwise you are ingesting many of the same pesticide, herbicide and antibiotic residues the body is trying to clear out.

1. Rest the stomach: For the millions of people who are on acid-suppressing drugs — and for older folks who often don’t produce enough stomach acid — making the stomach work less to extract nutrients can be a huge benefit. Juices require less of the stomach’s digestive processing (churning, acid and pepsin).
   
   
2. Rest and repair the gut: Toxic foods (including saturated fats, refined carbohydrates, foods with additives, pesticides and allergenic foods), taking medications (such as antibiotics or antacids), and even stress can impair the intestine’s functioning. There can easily be an imbalance in the gut flora and fauna balance as well as actual breaks in the intestinal barrier, also known as “leaky gut”, allowing substances into our bodies that should not get a free pass. Consuming a plant-based juice diet allows food to be assimilated quickly through the intestine, consuming less energy, while the toxin free, nutrient dense food helps to repair the gut itself.
   
   
3. Rest the liver: The liver is our main detoxifying organ. Every molecule of food that is absorbed through the intestinal wall (fiber is not absorbed) moves into the liver for detoxification and preparation before being allowed to enter the rest of the body. The problem is, there are too many toxins for most of our livers to handle, with many passing unchecked into the general circulation to wreak havoc in distant cells. An organic juice cleanse rests the liver’s overload.
   
   
4. Reduce your appetite: Juicing doesn’t really shrink the stomach, although it feels like it does. Juicing eliminates the habit of comfort eating, and makes you feel satiated with less food than usual. This provides a big psychological boost to help get over the hurdle of changing habits.
   
   
5. Ease food decision-making: Juicing focuses on consuming fresh whole food produce every few hours, reducing the enslavement of thinking constantly about what the next meal is going to be. Not only do we feel sated, but realise we are no longer slaves to our addictions with (often very harmful) foods.
   
   
6. Eliminate harmful foods: The juice cleanse eliminates dairy, wheat, gluten and fermented foods from the diet (as well as coffee and alcohol). Often the majority of people over 40 are relatively insensitive to wheat. Being off this, and other common trigger foods for a period then reintroducing them can help define what foods are causing our body problems.
   
   
7. Floods our body with super nutrition: Being on a fresh produce diet gives us not only the vitamins and minerals but the all important phytonutrients that are powerhouses for the clean up and healing process. Juices are by nature raw foods and retain nutrients that would be destroyed by cooking, including some B vitamins and especially (digestive and anti-inflammatory) enzymes.
   
   
8. Lose weight: As you are feeling better and having more energy, you also naturally lose weight. Some of this is water bloat, but also some is fat. A juice cleanse (three days minimum) is a great way to jump start a diet. It not only helps control appetite and cravings, but is naturally lower in calories, while supplying the body with probably more concentrated beneficial energising and healing nutrients than it has seen before.
   
   
9. Improved energy: After the first day’s adjustment period (mostly missing crunching, and any coffee/alcohol cessation symptoms), most people begin to feel much more energy and clarity consuming only fresh juices than they ever did with frequent caffeine drinks.
   
   
10. Rehydrate the body: Most people have an inadequate fluid consumption, often having diuretics such as coffee or tea as their main beverages. Drinking sufficient fluids (5-6 glasses/day) makes the body function more efficiently, increases energy (often successfully removing the afternoon brain fog), and helps insure proper elimination of toxins.
    
    
11. Reduce physical problems: You begin to feel generally better, not just with your energy, but with many chronic symptoms such as headaches, rashes, general aches, congested sinuses and chest and bloating/cramping/gas. Too much of the time our body is fighting off the things we do to it, not only with food, but also with lack of sleep, inactivity and stress. Take a break, rest the body and mind and flood it with nutrients.
    
    
12. Allow maximum detoxification: To optimally support all phases of the body’s natural detox process, you need a very broad range of plant supplied nutrients like anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatories. By providing the body with super nutrient dense foods, juicing allows the body to have more of the resources it needs to support the phases of detoxification, and even to begin to help remove the cumulative toxins stored in the body (147 industrial chemicals on average in Americans’ bloodstreams with many present in newborns).
    
    
13. Heal our cells: Switching to an organic plant-based diet allows cells to work optimally to re-establish efficient internal messaging and manufacturing processes, allowing the mitochondria to create energy without having to fight off a plethora of free radicals and inflammation, and reducing some of the impediments to proper DNA functioning.

Juicing is not for everyone. Check with your health care provider first, especially people who are pregnant, underweight, diabetic, have unstable heart disease or low blood pressure, or who have life-threatening health challenges.