What’s the Deal with Juice Diets?

Juice detox (or cleansing) is a diet consisting mainly or exclusively from juiced fruits and vegetables. The detox routine is usually performed for three days, after which a person can carry on eating a normal, hopefully healthy, diet.

Some employ them to detoxify their body, while others like them for their weight loss potential. Some people feel much better on a juice diet than on their usual modern diets, which consists of unhealthy fast food and loads of sugar and caffeine.

Juicing is becoming more and more popular, and with 65 percent of Americans suffering from obesity, many view juice cleanses as a quick fix for their health issues. But is that really so?

The Science Behind Juice Cleanses

The consumption of fruits and vegetables certainly is a healthy habit. However, they need to be a part of a balanced diet, not the only things you eat. Why cleanse then?

Well, this is the reason why many are skeptical about cleanses. They claim that your body is detoxifying itself all the time anyway, so there’s nary a benefit provided by these cleanses. But when you’re on your juice diet, you’re not actually ingesting any of the bad stuff you usually do!

Instead, you’re literally bombarding your body with a surge of healthy vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fibers that have a rejuvenating effect on your body and mind. They also taste great, which is another mood booster. It’s likely the reason many people feel a lot better on these diets – they lacked the necessary nutrients in the first place.

Juice detox will lower your total cholesterol level, although it will bounce back if you revert to an unhealthy diet. Weight loss is also observed, since during the detox much less calories are ingested. Also, there is evidence that fasting in general is very healthy for humans, and a juice cleanse diet is exactly that.

Not only that, but juice diets are an important catalyst that shifts you away from your unhealthy eating habits. Once you taste the greatness of the fruits and veggies, you’ll find it much easier to stay health-conscious!

What to Watch out for

There are some ground rules for an effective juice cleanse. NEVER buy those cheap, pre-packaged sugary drinks that stores claim are “juices”. They’re not! At best, you’re drinking concentrated juice from years-old fruit with added water and sugar. At worst, all you get is fruit flavor, with nary a trace of the fruit! Ouch!

Instead, you should opt for freshly squeezed organic juice from naturally grown fruits and vegetables. Only then can you be certain that what you’re getting are real nutrients, instead of processed junk food! If you find it difficult to buy and juice all that fruit and veg yourself, there are some services that can deliver freshly made juice – to your doorstep!

Remember to use a variety of fruits and vegetables during your cleanse to ensure you get an adequate amount of every nutrient. Avoid only some fruits that can cause issues with certain medications. The most common offender is grapefruit, so it is safest to avoid it if you’re taking any medication.

How It’s Done

The cleanse is performed for three days to a week. Three days is adequate for a first-timer. Cleanses aren’t easy! Some advocate a pre-cleanse phase that includes giving up sweets and soft drinks in the days preceding the cleanse (although that’s a good tip in general).

The cleanse usually consists of taking a glass of juice every two hours, along with water, if desired. This means 6 to 8 glasses of juice daily. It is optimal to juice more vegetables than fruits, to avoid making juices too sweet and ingest excessive sugar. We suggest a 3:1 or even 4:1 ratio in favor of vegetables. But you’re always free to experiment with various combinations to find out what you like. Remember, don’t turn this into an arduous habit. It’s supposed to be both healthy and fun!

When properly done, juice cleansing can bring great benefits. It will make you feel better and let you live a healthier life. And who knows, you might develop a craving for more fruits and vegetables. That’s a win-win in our book!

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A lot of people are trying to get fit and to lose weight in this time of the year, and they start with diet they have found online or diet that someone has recommended them. First couple of weeks it’s fine, but later on, the willpower begin to fade, and diet is no more, and another year they have tried another diet that didn’t work. Every change is hard, but it’s a lot simpler if you make sure that you have planned your 90 days or some other period.

Find a good source of information

Before you start, a must have is to find good source of information – website, book, friend who has been through this, or even a nutritionist.
You have to choose how much & when will you work out and then make a schedule.
If you are planning to go to the gym, you have to find a gym that is near you and you feel comfortable working out there.
Every diet, if is a quality one is different than your current diet, and you’ll have to find some articles that will help you to find the differences, to learn why are you eat chicken and not hamburger, and this will help you to understand that you have to make some changes.
Find out what will you eat, what is bad, what is good, when to eat some things, why oatmeal is ideal for breakfast and so on…
Learn about nutrition and training, and you’ll see that will pay off.

Mindset

Every athlete, prepares mentally for game, match or competition. You must understand that you can do something if you try, champion mindset, devote yourself to success, prepare to say no to your friends when they want to go out for pizza, it’s hard, but your mindset must be ready.
There will be a lot of setbacks but if you are prepared, you’ll pass them without any trouble.
Find out your why, why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to add more muscle mass?
Why do you want a flat belly? Why do you want to feel better?
Answer these questions, and write it down, and every time you feel like you want to eat a junk food, or miss a training session, just read your why, and move forward.

Find a training routine

You are going to the gym or you work out at home, but what exercises? And how?
Internet is full with workout routines, for gym, home, with equipment, without equipment.
There is no room for excuses, before you start, find a routine and watch it, just to see what is waiting for you. Yes, you’ll see the sweat, but sweat is crying.
Find friend who works out, ask him if it’s this program too advanced for you, or is too simple, and ask him how to do some of exercises.
If you don’t have that kind of a friend, you can contact us and we will answer to all of your questions.

Start step by step

If you are eating 2-3 times a day, first week start with 4 meals a day, and after week, if you are comfortable with 4, add another meal, because goal is 5-6 meals a day.
If you want to start to go to the gym, go once, just commit to go 3 times a week, you have your workout routine, you know how to do some of exercises and you can start!
Start to remove junk food from your current diet, and in a few weeks, you’ll be on your new diet without junk food, without even noticing that you have removed junk food.
Don’t listen to others when they say, “don’t go to gym, it’s a waste of time, just to a 2 hours of cardio every day and don’t eat anything and you will lose weight”, or “why do you need a diet? Don’t eat anything and you will lose weight”. But if you go on your path of losing weight like this, you’ll lose your health.
Or if you don’t go to gym, if you work out at home, it will be the same.

Measure your progress

When I started my fitness journey, every Sunday I was taking pictures of myself, and after couple of weeks, I couldn’t see the progress in the mirror, but pictures were showing me wrong. And when you see progress after a couple of weeks, you don’t want to stop, but only you can see the progress, is if you measure your progress, pictures are better than scale, if you ask me.
Take your measurements, arms, hips, chest, thighs. Put measurements on the fridge, so if you come in temptation to eat some junk food, you’ll see your progress and you won’t even open the fridge.
Enjoy in the progress, it’s a lot more fun than destination, because one you reach your goal, you want more, because you have enjoyed in progress and you miss that journey.

Test yourself

I had a 3 different kinds of chocolate bars over my keyboard, and every time I was on computer I looked at them, I asked myself, “Do I really need this, does my body needs all this sugar?”
And always, always, answer was no, so I was 6 months without any kind of chocolate, cause I was testing myself every day.
It’s easier to not want something than forbidding something to yourself.
When you are at party or celebration, and someone offers you a some sort of junk food, and you are on your diet and you don’t want to mess up your diet, just say “I don’t want to eat that”, not “I am on a diet and I am not allowed to eat that”.

Preparation

“If you don’t prepare for success, you’ll fail.”

All excuses comes from poor preparation, I don’t have this, I don`t have that and so on…
You must make a list of things that you’ll need for your journey. When I started running in the morning, for I prepare my shoes, shirt, shorts and iPod, and when I wake up, everything was set and I just put my clothes on and walk out the door and start running.
When I decided to start gym, but seriously this time, I’ve written a 6 months training plan, with couple of routines. And it way easy to follow trough
Every morning you must know, what, when, and how will you eat. For example, if you will eat a 2 meals of chicken breast, you must wake up one hour earlier to prepare meals, you have to put them somewhere.

For the end, every beginning is always hard, but why wouldn’t give yourself a chance for change?

If you are reading this article, I assume that you are considering to start something, or you have already started. The moment when I decided to make a change was when I saw a photo of me shirtless, and I knew, I must change something. I’ve changed my whole life in past 2 years, but everything has changed for better.

Jim Rohn once said:

Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.

Think about that quote!

Stay tuned and share if you like it!

The post Successful Diet Plans – Tips For Beginners appeared first on Workoutr.com.

Summer is only a month away, so everybody wants to know how they can have a summer body as fast as possible. For best results, you have to begin NOW. You can make some serious results with serious effort. This 10 tips will help you to incorporate some new habits in your lifestyle.
This 10 tips are based around nutrition and training.

1.    Eat every three hours

First step of any good diet, of nutrition plan, is more meals throughout the day. Everybody knows this quote, “If you want to lose weight you must start to eat more meals, the same amount but more meals”. This quote is true, but it’s not that simple. Some people tend to not eat at all, and scale will show result, you will lose pounds, but pounds of what? Pounds of water and muscle, and fat will stay.
Eat every three hours. Protein based foods, with complex carbohydrates and healthy fats.
Whole wheat bread, oatmeal, brown rice, barley, lean meat, eggs, chicken, cottage cheese, tuna, cod and etc. With only this ingredients you can have a lot of different recipes.

2.    Train at least two times a week

If you haven’t trained some time, start with only two times a week, but I recommend three times for better results, and of course, five times a week for a much better results.
Train whole body at once, try to hit every muscle as possible, HIIT is a great example of fast and easy training, with HIIT, in an one hour you can burn up to eight hundred calories.
Push-ups, squats, lunges, burpees, mountain climbers, leg raises, jumping jacks, high knees, plank…
All of these exercises have a lot of modifications, I’ll post some of HIIT workouts, that I am doing and what helps me to stay fit.

3.    Drink water

Water, water, water. 80% of people doesn’t drink enough water. You need to drink a 34 fluid ounces per 55 lbs. of body weight.
Have a glass of water first thing in the morning, before every meal and before you go to sleep.

4.    Eat more protein

People think that protein is only for bodybuilder, but protein is essential for all of us. Protein helps you to build muscle, burn fat, reduce cravings and much more.
As is mentioned in tip no 1. eat protein based meals, that means, first you’ll have to put protein on a plate, and then everything else.
Try to eat at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight, for those who are training in the gym or want some serious muscle mass, eat 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.

5.    “Open fist” meals

This sound odd, but it’s a really powerful tip, it has helped me when I started, and try not to eat too much, and still feel full.
Open fist meals, what does this mean?
The meal you eat, shouldn’t be bigger than your open fist, treat this like easy way to see how much is enough. If you feel hungry check how much protein does meal have, and if it’s too little put some more meat.

6.    Vegetables

Next to your protein on your plate, for fat loss, vegetables are must have. Vegetables have fibers that you need, and no one eats enough fiber, the same case like the water. Fiber will help you to normalize your body sugar levels, and reduce fat loss.
Just change your side dish, if is it rice, potato, pasta, bread, put green peas, lettuce, tomato, broccoli.
These are simple vegetables that you can eat whenever you want, and will taste great.

7.    Drink more tea

When it comes to drinking tea, not only in the winter, but whole year. It’s weird to drink tea in summer, but it will help you to shed fat down.
Green tea, early grey, rooibos, hibiscus, yellow tea, chamomile (before bed time).
You can make a lot of smoothies with teas, because they taste great and will give a fresh taste to your smoothie.
Or you can make ice tea, just put tea, lemon and ice. You can drink this throughout the whole day.
Personally I recommend to drink green and earl grey. I drink them at least once a day. They will burn fat and give you energy. Chamomile is great before bedtime, because it will relax you so you can have a good night sleep.

8.    Remove junk food, and fast sugars

Junk food, without exceptions, is calorie-dense and nutrient poor. As consumption of junk food has increased dramatically,not only in US but globally, where almost  25% of people  consumes predominantly junk food meals. This trend brought us rising epidemics of numerous chronic diseases and accounts for a long list of reasons why eating junk food is bad – diabetes, obesity, depression, nutrient deficiencies etc.

9.    Two week challenge

Try to do this simple method, it takes a little time, but you can test yourself if you are really serious.
This will test your willpower, remember, you can have a great result if you stick with a nutrition plan.
2 weeks challenge is, trying with nutrition and workout plan, and if you succeed you can go for 3 weeks challenge, and so on, 4 weeks, 5 weeks…
For this challenge you will need, a list of meals that you will be eating in course of 2 weeks. Also you’ll need workout plan, because you need to know what and how to work out.
Buy all things you’ll need for this 2 weeks, so you can’t have excuses, like, “I don’t have this or this”.
If you are having a bad time without junk food, fast sugars and so on, after 2 weeks if you didn’t eat anything bad, you can have a little cheat meal, just to taste, best cheat meal is little fat, but with fast carbohydrates. But only ONE meal, not whole day, and if you eat this, you must go for 3 week challenge afterwards, not back on your old diet.

10. Don’t drink your calories

When you go to coffee shop or to supermarket, you’ll see a lot of hidden calories.
All those sodas and juices taste great, but you can check nutritional label, and you’ll see a lot of sugars and additives that will sabotage your progress.
If you want to drink orange juice, buy oranges and make it by yourself, don’t buy it from the store because is full of sugar.
The best thing is to drink water or tea, but not flavor water or some other variation of water, drink plain water or spring water.

This were short, basic tips, if you have more questions write it down and we will try to reply as soon as possible. Give yourself a courage to change your lifestyle step by step. You can achieve lot of things in your life just by taking little steps and giving yourself time and patience. Our team will begin to put a lot of new things on this website, like new articles about nutrition and training, shop with new items, and a lot more. Stay tuned!

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