Diabetic Dad Man here to tell you about how juicing (also known as juice fasting) may be just what you need to start healing your diabetes permanently, solve your weight loss problems, and begin your journey into a healthy lifestyle.
You have probably heard at least something about juicing and most of what you have been told can be confusing and sometimes misleading. I’m going to try to clear some of that up for you today.
So, what is juicing?
To start, a lot of people can’t even agree on what to call juicing. Is it detox juicing or juice fasting or detox fasting or maybe JUST juicing? To make this easier on everyone let’s just call it juicing.
Next question, is juicing some magical kind of diet that will cure everything wrong with your body? The answer is not really, but sort of. Success and outcomes are going to be something different for almost everyone. I don’t expect it can fix everything for everyone, but I know if you do it right it can change your life like it did mine.
After having personally done juice fasts for 3 days, 7 days, 21 days, and even 45 days, I can tell you that I absolutely recommend juicing for diabetics as a first step to reset/control your blood sugars.
The purposes of each length of fast are very different, but starting with any juice addition to your diet is a great start. Most people start with the intention to do a 7-day juice because it “feels” manageable in the short term. That’s pretty true but don’t be surprised if you decide to extend your fast when you see and feel the results. Any first fast will likely give you a great beginning in changing how your diabetic life turns out in the long term.
We will need to clarify the types of juicing, for instance, I believe that there is a difference between:
- Just juicing because it’s good for the body.
- Juicing specifically for weight loss.
- And for me, juicing for straight-up health reasons. Like being a 30-year diabetic.
We sort these out because depending on why you’re juicing the process will be very different.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Generally, juicing is simply taking fruits and vegetables and extracting just the juice from them so you have an amazingly healthy drink. You can do this through a variety of tools. Just a quick peek online will show you an overwhelming amount of juicing machines, juicing tools, or blenders all aimed to help you accomplish your new diet.
There are many juicing tools and we will get to them in later posts, but it has been my experience that a specialized machine makes juicing much easier and more effective. As I said, most people juice for some healthy reason, which seems to make sense to me. I am guessing that very few people juice for the fun of it but who knows?
The Detox in Juicing.
When you juice you detox, when you google “what is a detox” Google will tell you that a detox is the medicinal removal of toxic substances from a living organism. You will often see diets talk about detoxing and cleansing the body. I propose a different definition.
I suggest that the detox you go through when juicing is more like resetting your body. For some, like me, this can lead to feeling younger. For others, this can be the change of what foods they enjoy and their eating habits.
For example, I and my teenage daughter juiced for 45 days to see how long we could go. It was for my health as a diabetic and her weight loss. While we didn’t expect it, those 45 days changed the foods we enjoyed! After discussions with several people we have found that by juicing for more than 21 days, they were excited to try new foods and break bad eating habits. My daughter describes the whole process as “changing her tastebuds”.
So this detox is more like a reset, but the purpose is more a rewind of your life so you feel younger and eat better.
In any case, this rewind strikes me as one of the more unusual, but underrated reasons to do juicing.
I would love if you put your reason for wanting to juice in the comments. That will help make sure I get around to doing posts that are the most relevant to you!
My reason to start juicing was that I felt like I was going to die soon and wanted to stay around as the dad for my kids. I was tired of feeling like hell and it was time to restart my healthy life.
The first time I juiced was because I needed to detox. My plan was simply to get a new health start because I was losing ground in my fight against diabetes.
I read online, watched videos, and found juicing as a first step. I loved the idea that you could shock your system by changing your entire diet for anywhere between 3 days and usually not more than 60 days. I was instantly interested.
Of course, juicing for weight loss pops in magazines on and off as it comes into and out of fashion. There will be headlines about how some movie star lost 60 pounds in a month for a role, or how a hot fitness influencer says you can lose 20 pounds in a weekend. (This one sounds like maybe there might have been meth or some other new medicine involved, but who am I to say.)
All the sensationalism made me skeptical at first.
My personal headline is that I actually lost at least a pound (and sometimes even more) most days during my 45-day fast. At the time that seemed like a lot but I want you to know that by the time I got my life where I wanted it to be I had lost over 100 pounds. I was thinner, feeling better, and my diabetes was under control.
The reason I am taking another shot at juicing now is that I backslid a bit. And after 30 years of being diabetic, I am simply tired of being tired and diabetic. I am betting this round of juicing will get me back on track specifically because I have created a lifelong process to follow once I complete my juice fast.
One more thing: why trust this information from me?
There are plenty of places on the internet where you can go to find all of the in-depth medical information on juicing, but I am not that medical guy. I’m just coming from a place of experience and not scholarly research. There will be very few things that I have not tried before I tell you what I have found. If I find something I haven’t tried first, I will make sure you know that upfront.
I suppose that sometimes I get curious about details and read up a bit to make sure things are safe or smart, but by and large, I am lucky that my daughter researches on the internet better than anyone else I know. I know that if she looks for information she will hunt down what we need to know.
That’s one of the ways she protects her Dad. She’s very good at it and I am forever grateful for her.
What I know as I go into my next round of juicing is that it’s worked before, it will likely be a bit different this time, and I have a plan. I’ll let you know how it works out for me.
This blog, all my social posts, and every bit of information is intended to help, protect, and save a friend or family member. So, come join our community. Learn with us and let’s see if we can rewind both our lives to make sure we can be there for everyone that we care about.
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