Should You Be Juicing for Weight Loss?

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Juicing is a popular way to obtain nutrients from fruits or vegetables. But what are some of its pros and cons? And can juicing help for weight loss?

Let’s take a closer look at juicing and juicing diets, to help you decide whether you should be juicing on your weight loss diet.

What is juicing?

Juicing is the process of removing most of the solid products from a fruit or vegetable. The remaining liquid, or juice, is left for consumption.

Juicing diets, or juicing fasts, are basically diets that are composed mostly of, or only of, consuming drinks created by juicing.

How to juice

There are many ways to juice fruits and vegetables. The most expensive way is with a juicer, and some of these things can cost hundreds of dollars and do nothing else but juice.

You can also just stick everything into a blender, then strain it through a mesh or cheesecloth. The finer the mesh, the more liquidy the juice.

The fruits and vegetables are typically prepared for juicing by washing and chopped into large chunks.

Ones with thin or no skins like apples, ginger, carrots, and cucumbers, are usually just thrown in with skin and all.

Ones with thicker skins like citrus fruits, lemons, pineapples, or bananas, have their skin removed beforehand, especially since the skins of some of those fruits contain oils that would make the juice taste unpalatable.

Pros of juicing

Juicing can help extract some nutrients from fruits and vegetables, and make it easier and more palatable to consume for certain people.

It can actually be quite useful for those with bowel diseases who cannot consume much fiber.

For example, a patient with active Crohn’s disease or colitis will find that any solid food, especially insoluble fiber from fruits and veggies, will cause them a great amount of stomach pain and intestinal irritation.

Juicing can allow these patients to consume some of the nutrients from fruits and veggies, without potentially aggravating their medical condition.

The juices of some fruits like pomegranate contain anti-inflammatory compounds that may actually help patients with inflammatory bowel disease to reduce their risk of a flare-up.

Now there are sources that suggest juicing helps the body to better extract nutrients from fruits and veggies.

In healthy adults, we don’t have any good evidence to suggest that this is the case. Our stomach, body, and digestive enzymes are already very effective at breaking down most of the food we eat and absorbing it quite effectively.

So juicing does have some specific benefits for certain people, however these benefits may not be applicable to weight loss.

Cons of juicing

In many cases, a lot of the nutritional value of a fruit and vegetable is tied up in its soluble fiber, particularly with weight loss.

Having more soluble fiber helps to bulk out the stomach and control your appetite, so you end up needing to eat less.

Because some soluble fiber is removed from juices, this makes the glycemic index of the consumed juice much higher than consuming the fresh fruit itself.

A higher glycemic index means that the sugars in the fruit or vegetables are absorbed into the bloodstream much quicker, leading to a higher insulin response from the body.

Overall, this means that your body is more likely to store the sugars you consume from juices as fat, compared to the sugars you consume from the whole fruits and vegetables.

For example, the amount of juice you obtain from 3 oranges is about 1 glass.

The amount of calories from 3 oranges is actually similar to 1 glass of orange juice, since most of the calories are tied up in the sugars of the fruit, which is mostly dissolved in the juice.

When we compare 3 whole oranges to 1 glass of orange juice, consuming 3 oranges will also give you a whole bunch of soluble fiber, making it likely to be much more filling than having 1 glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.

As a result, many of these juices are not very filling, and you might have to end up consuming more overall calories from these juices to keep your hunger and appetite at bay.

Is juicing for weight loss effective?

There doesn’t seem to be any direct or intrinsic benefits specifically for weight loss.

Consuming the whole vegetable or fruit provides more of the appetite suppressing soluble fiber that is beneficial in weight loss diets.

Juicing diets that rely on consuming only juiced fruits and veggies help some people lose weight primarily because the total calories consumed per day is very small on these juicing diets.

If a very low calorie diet is your goal, then consider one with more variety, with a good mix of protein and fat, as well as fruits and veggies. Just lower their portion sizes.

Such diets are likely not sustainable for long periods of time, since juicing diets usually lack the protein and fat, as well as many other nutrients your body needs to function and burn fat properly long-term.

You may also become constipated, since the soluble fiber intake is quite low.

So you might experience a temporary drop in weight, but rebound weight gain is pretty common on juicing diets.

Should you be juicing for weight loss?

If you suffer from an inflammatory bowel disorder, and are experiencing an acute flare-up, juicing can help provide you with additional nutrients as you get your flare-up under control.

If you’re just looking for a way to introduce the nutrients of some fruits and veggies into your diet, and you can’t stand eating the whole fruits or veggies, juicing might be an option.

But you might also want to consider trying those powdered vegetable mixes or greens powders, since those powders sometimes do include some of the beneficial soluble fiber.

You could also consider taking nutritional supplements, or Vitamin Injection Therapy for an even stronger boost, if you’re looking to make sure you have all the nutrients you need for fat burning and keeping your metabolism up during your diet.

However, if you’re looking to use juicing primarily as a way to help you lose weight, consider consuming the whole fruit or veggie equivalent.

For example, if you’re going to juice 2 carrots, 2 apples, and some kale for breakfast, consider just eating 2 carrots, 2 apples, and some kale instead. You’ll likely find that eating the whole fruit or veggie helps you to feel fuller than the juice alone.

Learn more about

• Vegetarian diets: Benefits and risks
• Dietary fiber: an overview

See also

• 
  Doctor Reviews: Bee Bread
  Bee bread is fermented bee pollen, and may be quite nutritious, but lacks any researched health benefits in humans.
• 
  Arsenic in rice
  Rice often contains trace amounts of arsenic. White rice, and basmati rice from California, India, and Pakistan, tend to have lower amounts.
• 
  Mercury in fish and seafood
  Mercury is found in nearly all seafood, however tend to be in the highest concentrations in top-feeding, predatory fish, like shark and tuna.
• 
  Best Sugar Substitutes for Weight Loss
  Natural sweeteners may be better for health than artificial sweeteners, however using sugar substitutes does not support weight loss.
• 
  The Glycemic Index Diet: an overview
  The Glycemic Index diet focuses on foods that are lower in glycemic index and load, which can help with diabetes and weight loss.