What in the world is soft start juicing and why should you do it?
Starting your first (or next) juice fast is often the hardest part of the whole diet for most people. There are a lot of reasons to not get started. Let’s explore some real quick.
1. You have never juiced before and it’s confusing.
This is one of the main reasons why my Diabetic Dad Man blog exists in the first place. I’ve been juicing on and off for over a decade and I remember how hard it was to get started. Just so you know, I did it pretty much all wrong and I’m here to help you avoid the problems I had.
2. You feel like you have to spend all this time researching the perfect way to juice.
There might be better or worse ways to “do a” juice but I’m not sure there is a perfect way. Different things work for different people and our goal here is success for you specifically. For instance, this post is about Hard Start and Soft Start juicing, and maybe for you if you Soft Start it’s harder to get into juicing than just going full turkey into it. Maybe you can’t juice without the Soft Start method. Maybe either could work for you. You do you and I will give suggestions. It’s all good.
3. Worrying about how safe a juice fast is.
The act of making juices has been around for hundreds of years and the idea of a juicing fast was first introduced around the 1930s, so there’s a history here. It’s perfectly safe but you can always check with a doctor or two. They will tell you everything from, “That’s just a silly way to do anything for weight or being diabetic”, to “I’ve done it before, I was fine, but let’s give you a bunch of tests and keep on top of it all”. In the end, it’s not that unusual, lots of people have done it. If you’re really concerned, just keep your doctor in the loop about your new diet.
4. You have no idea when to start or how long to go for.
That’s the easiest question to answer in my mind. First, finish a bit of research and then GET STARTED IN THE NEXT WEEK. Period. Just do it. Make your commitment to yourself NOW, and give yourself 7 days to get ready and dive right into it.
The worst that happens is you have some missteps like not measuring out your juices correctly or accidentally letting some fruit go bad. That said, we have pretty much all the information you need to get rolling. It’s going to be better than just fine. It’s going to be life-changing. Who knows, you might have just found the solution to weight loss and being diabetic right here on the site. I’m betting on you.
So keep reading and I’ll give you a very effective framework for doing a juice fast that isn’t painful and is effective.
PAINFUL? WHO SAID PAINFUL?
One of the sort of hidden facts of your first juice fast is that there are often a few days at the beginning of your fast that will put your body through what feels like a flu or even like a hard hangover, not that I know what a hangover feels like (looking to see if my younger daughter is reading over my shoulder).
Some people think of these hard days as necessary to having a successful juice fast. Personally, I do not see the heroics in unnecessary suffering, but as I have said many times before, “You do you”. I’m all about options, but for me, I prefer to have the least painful steps in my life as possible.
There are two ways you can start your Juice Fast, let’s look at them.
HARD START:
The first is the traditional method that I call Hard Start. It’s simple, you wake up in the morning and just start drinking juice and not having any food. This is what people have been doing forever. It’s quick, very simple. BUT sometimes the food hangover you have can break your will to continue your juice fast.
I know that a hard start can kill your juice because I had it happen to me. I was starting on my 2nd full juice fast. I was planning on 21 days because I had done 45 and that had felt crazy when I looked back. Besides, I didn’t have 100 pounds to lose. I started my fast and was immediately detox sick. My doctor said it was likely an actual detox and I should just stop complaining.
Nope, I couldn’t convince myself that the DTs were doable. My fast crashed and I knew there had to be a better way. The thing is, there wasn’t a better way. I looked everywhere I could. The best advice I found was that sometimes there was hope that you might luck out and not get sick. The other suggestion I got was to plan the juice fast to start on a Friday so that you could lay in bed for the weekend. I don’t give up that easily, so when I didn’t find any solution to my juice detox problem, I decided to create one. That solution is the Soft Start Diabetic Dad Man protocol.
SOFT START:
The Soft Start program is designed to ease you into your juice fast and avoid the hard detox. Basically, it is a plan that exchanges juice drinks into your current diet, over a week until you are done with food for the short term of your Juice Fast. The important thing is that you don’t just trade breakfast for a juice, and then two juices for breakfast and lunch, and so on. The key to success is a system that not only exchanges juices but also helps your body get used to a short-term liquid diet as well as to not crave foods that you know are bad for you.
On my first fast, I let myself be convinced by my Ex that I deserved a big blowout meal and alcohol festival for my “last meal.” Man did I learn the hard way. The human body functions better on gradual change. Soft Start simply eases your body into juicing and just as important, prepares your mind to see your juice fast as a positive thing,
The big secret is simple. Once you are 3 to 4 days into your fast, you really do start feeling a ton better. I mean shockingly better. The first time the detox was actually worth it! Losing 100 pounds and improving my health was spectacular even if it came at an enormous price at the beginning.
But now, I want the soft start transition from normal food to healthy juicing to make my life easier. I get a similar benefit with the only real cost being adding a week to my process. Totally worth it because I was already giving up 3 to 4 days in bed. What’s a few more days? Also, I can keep living my life under Soft Start and not have to hide away in the basement during family dinners.
So now you want to soft start if you are going to try soft start to skip the pain, but what other things do you need to know to have a successful launch to your Juice Fast? Check it out here!
If you’re interested in my Soft Start Plan we’ll have a download posted in the next week. Happy fasting!
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