The Juicy Truth.

A study by the UK's Centre for Appearance research (CAR) found that 90% of UK women are unhappy with their bodies. It is this constant state of dissatisfaction which means the currently market for weight loss products is enormous and expanding daily.

It seems more and more people want to lose weight but are often too impatient to create a sustainable weight loss plan.One of the latest crazes to be sweeping through the celebrity world is 'Juice Dieting' - Replacing your daily meal intake by juices made up with an array of fruits, vegetables and supplements. 

The companies behind the juices encourage their ‘representatives’ to entice customers through transformation photographs and clever marketing tools.

Just like any competitive marketing schemes, these representatives do not care about the individuals and will therefore do whatever it takes to convince the customer that a meal replacement will give them the body they've always dreamed of.

One juice plan in particular making the headlines is 'The Juice Master Diet' which claims on average you will lose 7lbs in 7days. 

Although the success of the diet has been widely broadcast in the media, there are very little success stories which show the diet as a long-term weight loss enhancer.

There also seems to be very little examples of success stories that don’t feature celebrities who are clearly being paid a lovely sum in order to paint a golden halo around the company.

In February last year, I was contributing to a lifestyle blog in which I talked about fad dieting and weight loss extremes. One area that particularly interested me was this idea that you could replace your body’s natural instinct to chew and enjoy food with a liquid substitute.

I was skeptical as ever, that drinking juice all day every day for seven whole days could have anything other than a negative effect on my body’s normal functions, and I was right to be skeptical and here’s why…

What is it?

The programme consists of beginning the day with a cup of hot water and lemon, followed by 5 juices at 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm and 8pm. The juices are made up of fruit, vegetables and vitamin supplements.

You will need:

· Multitude of different fruit and vegetables, list of which is printed in the book - (I spent around 60 pounds on the week's shop - a lot more than I would usually spend on myself)

· Wheatgrass, Spirulina and friendly bacteria tablets

· Juicer

· Blender (yes both!)

· Flasks to transport your juices.

During the week….

Adapting to this new lifestyle was difficult. Although the first day my energy levels were high throughout the day, I felt myself getting slightly grumpy and agitated. 

Balancing a busy lifestyle and the juice diet was also tricky. Vale claims you should aim to have your juices as fresh as possible and try and avoid making them up hours before. This theory probably suits the celebrity lifestyle where they can afford to have the juices made and brought to them, but during a busy day I found myself having to carry 3 of them around with me which at times was heavy and frustrating.

The whole week was pricey! Having spent £60 on the juice ingredients, and £20 on the supplements I was spending around £50 more than I would on an average weekly shop. In order to keep the ingredients fresh, Vale also encourages a mid-week shop which would be inconvenient for many busy households.

It was also extremely frustrating for people around me. My housemate at the time was was regularly woken up by the 8am whirring of the blender, and my boyfriend at the time who felt as though he couldn't eat in front of me out of guilt. The flexibility of sustainable dieting is removed causing you to draw unwanted attention towards you and accusations of starvation.

The last two days on the diet were particularly tough too as my headaches and dizziness increased and at times I felt faint and lethargic.

Bowel movements were also a problem and found myself occasionally waking up in the middle of the night with crippling stomach ache.

At the end of the week, I guess it did deliver. I lost 8lbs in one week but friends and family immediately told me how gaunt and pale I had become.

Although I assumed the hard work was over, the few weeks post-juice taught me otherwise.

After seven days without solid food my body had turned itself upside down and digesting all the food I used to eat before the juice diet was impossible.

I found myself constantly nauseous, and would get full on a few bites of food. If I tried to eat a normal sized portion of food my body would immediately reject whatever it was and I’d be diving for the nearest bathroom.

I spent many nights following the diet in pain with stomach aches and a constant level of sickness which left me miserable and unable to enjoy all the foods I used to love

In total it took me three weeks to get my appetite back and by this point I was turning to any form of food for comfort. The last thing I wanted to look at was a fruit or vegetable and soon enough I had put the weight back on that I had lost.

Luckily for me, I began the diet at just under 9 stone so after losing the juice weight I could handle the weight increase that occurred from eating solid food. This isn’t however something that would work for people who needed to lose a lot of weight as they would quickly find eating normally again would undo all the week’s juicing in a matter of days.

Was it worth it?

In terms of quick weight loss, the results are undisputable, however, I don’t believe the headaches, occasional nausea, dizziness and overall impact on your daily routine is worth it.

The aftermath of the juice diet was horrendous and I was left miserable and in several days-worth of pain.

To summarise:

Losing weight can give you back your confidence and make you feel amazing and of course we all want to see those results in the mirror as fast as possible.

The truth is quick and restrictive diet plans will not give you a long-term sustainable weight loss.

Diets which encourage meal replacements are slowly but surely increasing the nation’s fear of food. Food is to be enjoyed! There are so many ways to create tasty, healthy meals which will give you the body you want with none of the side effects!

Of course we want to speed up the process, but the truth is, it doesn’t happen that way. Slow and steady changes and hard work will give you all the results you want if you persevere. I may have lost my weight over three years not three months, but I have kept it off through consistency, good food, and exercise, not by juicing my way through it.

Please please please do not get sucked into a clever marketing strategy, with a very clever sales pitch.

Herbalife, juiceplus, and all the other companies who promise you their juices will get you to your goal, couldn’t care less about what happens as long as you’re lining their pockets with cash. 

The juice experiment was one of the toughest and most insightful experiences I have ever gone through and made me appreciate good food and exercise more than ever before.

Don’t be fooled by someone who tells you replacing your meals will give you your dream body, these people have no qualifications, and are playing on your vulnerability and low self-esteem by telling you everything you want to hear.

These representatives attend intensive training to respond to doubtful customers and to create a comforting sales pitch which removes any doubt you may have.

One thing I pride myself on is honesty. No a big weight loss isn’t easy it requires sweat, pain, sacrifice and a lot of hard work. There may be times you have to say no to that piece of birthday cake, or ask for salad instead of chips, but all these little changes will be worth it, and they will eventually get you that body you’ve always wanted.

So my advice? ditch the shakes, bars and empty promises and start getting to know your own body and you can build the figure you’ve always dreamed of.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint”