10 Reasons Why You MUST Juice

Written by: Chantale Raad


 
This past week, my sister and I ditched our carnivorous diet and ventured into the vegan world with a 5-Day Reboot Juice Cleanse. What made us attempt this liquid-only diet, you ask? Well, it wasn't until we watched Joe Cross' documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead on Netflix (among others, including Food Matters and Vegucated) that we decided it was time to completely reboot our bodies with a major health makeover. Now, this is something I never thought I would ever attempt in my life. I've always been against any sort of "fasting" or "starve yourself" diet. But after learning how vital and beneficial it is to pump pure vitamins and nutrients into your body, I decided it was a must. So, after we had our Mediterranean Last Supper on Sunday, we boldly embarked on our fruit-and-veggie based 5-day juice cleanse. 

What is the Reboot?

The Reboot is a fast where only liquids in the form of natural vegetable/fruit juice, water and herbal teas are ingested over a period of time. The juices power up your system and promote weight loss, clear skin, clearer thoughts, and an overall boost in energy.

10 reasons why you have to juice:

1. It is a complete detox for your body. Juicing rids you of all the wastes and toxins by flushing you out completely with a liquid diet, thus easing your digestion. 
2. While flushing your system, it also injects your body with high doses of vitamins & nutrients. Juicing is a faster more efficient way to absorb immune-boosting nutrients by increasing your fruit and vegetable consumption. In one 16 oz serving of juice, you receive an abundance of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients from these plant-based liquids, which helps build a strong, disease-fighting body and helps decrease aches and pains in joints and muscles. 
3. It promotes weight loss. You slim down and lose pounds and inches in a matter of days, but in a healthy way. 
4. It gives you clear and radiant skin. Pascale has always struggled with acne and has sought almost every medication and treatment for this issue, none of which made a huge difference. Her skin is the clearest and smoothest it has ever been. My skin is glowing brighter than ever before. And to think, this is solely a result of what we consumed for five days!
5. It evolves your palate and helps you acquire a taste for vegetables and fruits. So much so, that you begin to crave them instead of junk food. Over the course of five days, we both noticed that our cravings for pizza and burgers (and cheese pretzels and Chipotle… and, and, and) slowly began to fade, and we actually started jonesing for juice and things like salad and lentils, etc.
6. It gives you energy! The first couple days when your body is undergoing the shock of adapting to an all-liquid diet, we felt a bit lightheaded and tired. But on the fourth and fifth day, we had so much energy that we were practically beaming with it.
7. It shrinks your stomach. We were surprisingly full on just juice because our bodies were being properly nourished. After we completed the cleanse, we noticed that our solid food portions shrank drastically as we would get full faster.
8. It’s a great jump start to a healthier lifestyle. When you complete the juice cleanse, you feel so great and see such wonderful results that you want to continue eating raw and clean. Plus, you will have acquired a taste for all these plant-based foods that you never would have imagined consuming before.
9. It teaches you self-control. To be able to fast on a liquid diet for five days is not the easiest thing in the world, especially when you are faced with temptation from every corner (watching others eat, TV commercials for food, driving down the road and seeing a sea of fast food joints, etc). By going through with this cleanse, you learn to fight the temptations and distinguish between an emotional craving and an actual hunger pang. It also heightens your self-awareness as you learn to listen to your body and supply it with what it truly needs to be nourished. You will think twice before you binge on a bag of chips because you will know that your body is still going to lack the nutrients it craves (hence the dissatisfaction you feel after eating the entire bag). So you make wiser decisions more easily. 
10. Which brings us to our last reason…juicing allows you to inspire others. We have had the privilege to inspire so many people in just this past week to take this step towards health and wellbeing. In addition to feeling so great physically, the emotional gratification of positively influencing others has truly been the cherry on top. It has helped us to live out our mantra: Be the change you wish to see in the world. We hope we’ve inspired you today to start juicing! 

Try our favorite juice recipe, Sporty Spice: 

• 2 beets
• 1 carrot
• 3 stalks celery
• 1/2 lemon (peeled)
• 1 orange (peeled)
• 1 handful basil leaves

For more information on the different juicing plans, 

go to: www.rebootwithjoe.com/rebooting/plans