# Juice fasts and cleanses, yes, one of those corny new years resolutions



## Moovers (Dec 24, 2013)

Hello, ladies. Have you ever tried one and have succeeded? And kept the results? 

I just tried one for 9 days, felt great, lots of energy, I substituted coffee with green tea (still need that caffeine).. I would feel great, my skin would look shiny and fresh.. I would run/ swim, go to yoga and sleep better.. I didn't weigh myself, but probably lost 10lbs

One day I ran for 1,5 hours and the next day I opened chocolate truffles I received for holidays and "blacked out" and eat them all! Went to store for more. 
Well, I have done this before so it wasn't a big surprise. I struggle to find balance what I know is the most important aspect of a healthy full living.

For me it is rather - all or nothing, I have periods when I run 30 mi a week, eat very clean and small portions and lose up to 20 lbs, feel great, then for some reason (excuse), like busy at work or similar and I just stop caring, eat some fries with dark beer at a local brewery, cheese cakes etc etc, weight comes back and lack of energy, moody.. 

I have some knowledge about nutrition and I have a pt certificate so it is not a lack of information issue, it is more like, how can I find balance? How can I stop that all or nothing attitude.. I feel super motivated or stop caring all together.

I have always been athletic (grove up playing sports semi professional).. I ran distance and track and played basketball what resulted in an athletic built legs and I would weigh more than I look, though never more than 140 lbs, I am 5'4). 

I wonder what keeps others motivated?


----------



## Sandfly (Dec 8, 2013)

Hi!

Feel free to ignore this, I note you said you know your nutrition. I'm not a lady, nor even a gentleman 

For anyone interested, I found that: 

1. if I freeze extra meals, I am less likely to binge on junk.
2. If there are crisps/chocolate in the house, then I will eat them. So, no-one has them in the house.
3. Regular smaller meals with 50% complex carb and min. 30% protein work for me. Protein keeps me going for longer than carbs alone. Protein alone is unhealthy, because of the acidity/kidney issue. So an alternative if carb consumption is too high is plenty leafy vegetables along with the protein. 
4. Always eat carbohydrates with some protein within an hour of waking. You'll binge on food the rest of the day if you don't. Furthermore, more of the calories will be 'hoarded' and comverted to fat rather than used - hence the lethargy. You're feeding your body, and your body is hoarding it rather than using it like you intended. To get round this you will begin reaching for sugars to 'force' your body to stop hoarding and so the cycle starts of bloodsugar peaking and troughing.
5. Eat before you go out. Eat before you visit the supermarket.
6. Look into food combining to up the whole protein intake without upping the animal fats. This means A. beans/lentils (pulses) with grains (eg brown basmati rice, millet, rye - avoid wheat if poss.) B. Dairy with Grains eg Rice pudding, but watch the sugar content C. Dairy with beans/pulses - very difficult to combine, but you could have smaller portions of two separate dishes at the same meal, eg something with cottage cheese, and something with chickpeas at the same sitting. I hate peas, but if you like them, then peas count as a 'pulse' - so eat them with your rice.
7. After exercise, it is OK to eat some simple carbohydrates, like a granola bar straightaway - maybe when you're in the changing room on the way out, so long as you don't go overboard, and the meal after is back to complex carbs. This is to prevent the hoarding syndrome starting up again, and meanwhile you replace the glycogens in your muscles and stimulate growth hormone through insulin - lethargy avoided again.
8. The body needs variety. Often the cravings are down to getting too much of one type of food - too much of one mineral, vitamin and not enough of others, so the body in its blind way is trying to force you to eat other foods. Tonight I had some liver and onions, tomorrow I'll eat some fish, yesterday I had a kind of cabbage and lamb stew with millet and lentils in it. At some point this week I'll use the rest of the lamb in a Libyan tomato based stew with spices, chickpeas and rice ... and freeze a few batches of it to rotate.
If for example, you thought "liver is good and low fat, so I'll only eat liver every meal from now on" your face would literally start falling off eventually, if you don't die first. PS - if you eat some liver, and you find that you feel wonderful the rest of the day, consider if your lethargy might be something to do with anaemia (or somesuch thing that happens to women)
9. Fruit isn't that good for you, not when you can have vegetables instead.
10. Nuts and dried fruit together however are ok to snack on. Not peanuts - walnuts, brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds are better. I noticed peanuts made me feel ill. Could be just me.

OK thanks for listening !!


----------



## Moovers (Dec 24, 2013)

Thanks, I know this is theory, to pass my pt exam I studied sports nutrition but I am not so good in keeping balance I tend to exercise too much and then I have all kinds of fast- sugars cravings. 

I think I have to acknowledge that diet is 80% of a healthy lifestyle and don't push so hard when it comes to exercise. 

I am also thinking of keeping a blog for myself and maybe it could help others as well. I am training for a 1/2 marathon in mountains.


----------



## norajane (Feb 7, 2012)

Why don't you try making a plan that you follow?

Chart all your planned work-outs, in _moderation_. Don't slot in an extreme amount of running or whatever. Just do it in moderation, say 3 times a week for 30-40 minutes. That will keep you from burning out on it and quitting altogether. 3 times a week for 30 minutes is do-able for months on end instead of a few weeks of running for an hour every day. 

Do the same for your meals. Plan them out and stick to it. Don't starve yourself on so-called cleanses. Don't black out and eat everything. 

Make a plan and stick to it. Take control.


----------



## Sandfly (Dec 8, 2013)

Norajane has a very important point.

If you exercise beyond about 40mins to one hour, you cease burning carb-stores and start burning muscle or fat.

Sounds good, until you consider the effect of this.

Fat costs very little in calories to maintain, and muscle costs more in calories, at rest therefore, a muscular body burns more calories than a fat one.

Added to which a raised metabolism at rest post-exercise through regular instead of binge-workouts, means it is even higher per muscle mass.

Secondly, runners who quit running get fat very easily. This makes them more likely to carry on running, adding to the problem. Reasons being:

1- They've burnt off their upper body muscle mass. So less consumption of calories during rest, less metabolic effect of exercise during rest.

2- The more sustained-time in which you do Cardio, the more efficient the body becomes at conserving fuel. So the fat-burning effect of cardio decreases over time as the body becomes 'used to' doing a lot with very little.

So you can exercise yourself fat, if you're not careful.

The antidote is as norajane suggests - limiting the length of time spent in the cardio zone in favour of shorter more regular periods.

Making sure you don't burn away your upper body muscle mass, by pushing weights on your non-cardio days. But again, not too 'many' because, then it become A. Exhausting, leaving you prone to breakdown B. the muscle will disappear when it breaks down anyway if you overdo it regardless of having pushed the weights- so protein levels and carb levels should not be sacrificed even on these 'off' days.

You just have to look at the upper body strength of sprinters, swimmers and gymnasts, compared to marathon runners to know I'm right about the muscle-burning side-effect of marathons.


----------



## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

Apparently you just need sugar free gummi bears and lose 10 you'll be cleansed three ways to Sunday!

The Amazon Reviews For Haribo Sugarless Gummy Bears Are Disgustingly Hilarious


----------



## Moovers (Dec 24, 2013)

Faithful Wife said:


> Apparently you just need sugar free gummi bears and lose 10 you'll be cleansed three ways to Sunday!
> 
> The Amazon Reviews For Haribo Sugarless Gummy Bears Are Disgustingly Hilarious



Juice fast has a lot of benefits but if you haven't tried you can't possibly know, I am not going to hold that against you if you want to be a little sarcastic, go ahead, actually I was too before I tried, now I only do organic stuff (thought I would never do that).


----------



## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

It was just meant to be funny...did you read the link?

I have nothing against juicing or cleansing, I'm just a dork.


----------



## Moovers (Dec 24, 2013)

No i didn't, fair enough, I will, I just assumed, ok, I will less "assume" in future.


----------

