long-term juice cleanses is the nutrients
you miss out on while doing so.
“A three-day cleanse would be
more than enough for most people,”
Tuck says. “Any more than that,
the body’s going to be starving of
other nutrients because you can’t get
everything from juicing – you’re not
getting your proteins, your fats or
your fibre.”
According to Maston, we can also
end up with iron deficiencies and
impact our bones due to the lack of
calcium from the restriction of multiple
food groups.
Weight loss
Doing it to lose weight? Think again.
Bird says that while drinking juices
are a great part of your health and
wellness, they’re not designed as a
quick fix for weight loss.
“When you cleanse, you lose a lot
of water weight, so as soon as you start
eating again you will put that weight
back on,” Bird explains.
Maston says that while juice
cleanses are popular to drop a couple
of kilograms before a big event, people
may be unaware of the decrease in
metabolism as a side effect. “Theweight loss from a juice cleanse does
come from some body fat but a lot
of muscle mass as well, and we don’t
want to lose muscle mass because
that’s the basis of our fuel burning,
our metabolism,” Maston says. “So
you might find you gain back weight
quicker when we come off a diet of
juice cleansing because we’ve lost
muscle and consequently decreased
our metabolism.”
On the f lip side, Maston says to
beware of putting too much into
our at-home smoothies, where a
healthy choice can be turned into
a calorie bomb. “People think the
more ingredients they put in, the
better – but you can end up with this
whopping big, rich shake that’ll take
hours to burn off,” Maston says. “Go
for two to four ingredients maximum
and try not to add oils to your shake,
and if you want nuts or chia seeds, just
add a teaspoon.”What does ‘cold
pressed’ mean?
This process of juicing uses a
hydraulic press that literally
presses the fruit and vegetable
slowly without generating any heat
(which traditional juicers with a
fast-spinning blade do) to extract
the maximum vitamins, minerals
and live enzymes with the juice,
which are lost in other processes.
It can last up to 72 hours, as
the cold pressing exposes the
produce to less oxidisation
(picture the white flesh of an
apple browning soon after biting
into it), rather than a traditionally
made fresh juice, which should
be consumed immediately.According to Maston,
we can also end up
with iron deficiencies
and impact our
bones due to the lack
of calcium from
enough food groups.58 | AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HEALTH naturalhealthmag.com.au