So you’re thinking about doing a fast or a feast, a juice fast, a fruit feast, a water only fast, a master cleanse. What do you need to do to be successful?
No matter if you plan to do a juice fast, a fruit feast or some other kind of detox, these tips will help you start strong, push through the difficult times, and make sure you reach your goals.
Clarify your goals. One of the first things you need to do when you’ve decided to do a juice fast or fruit feast or intermittent fasting, whatever the type of fast or detox you’re thinking about doing is to clarify your goals. What is the purpose for you doing this fast?
Are you trying to lose weight? Are you trying to tackle a health issue? Are you detoxing because you’ve just had a binge time? You’ve been eating all this unhealthy food? Have you been traveling? Are you ready to get rid of all of that excess toxins and things that you’ve been eating? Do you have a particular amount of time you want to fast?
Getting clear on these goals will help you to decide how you’re going to proceed. What are your goals? What are your purposes?
Keep a wellness/fasting journal during your fasting time and during your healing journey. It’s one of the first things I suggest for people when they’re making diet and lifestyle changes or when they’re doing a fast. In your journal, you’ll be keeping track of your goals and your progress. Of what’s happening? How are you doing with keeping to your fasting goals? What are you drinking or eating? Or when you’re eating or drinking. And what are the things that are causing you issues and troubles?
I won’t go so much into details about that here because I have done that in detail in this video.
Choose the right kind of fast/detox. There are many, many different types of fast that you can do it. You could do juice fast, a smoothie fast, a raw food fast or a fruit feast or a juice feast or the master cleanse fast or there are so many different types of fast and they all have or water only fast.
They each have their own benefits and potential problems. Look at what your goals are to help you decide which of kind of fast is best for you. Do some good research, talk to people you know who have done the type of fast you’re considering before. Find a resource that can help you make the right choice, the right decision.
It’s a good idea to start before you start.
Don’t go on a big binge right before you do a fast because you think, oh, I’m not going to be able to eat these things for a while, so I’m going to go ahead and eat all this stuff. Don’t do that. Phase yourself into it. So if you’re going to start on Friday and it’s a Monday, take this week to gradually remove some of the things from your diet, the most the most offensive ones, remove your high fat things, remove the animal product things.
Gradually start removing some of the most toxic parts of your diet. This way you’ll minimize your detox symptoms, you’ll minimize the healing process. Your first few days will be less of a struggle to maintain. So start before you start by gradually tapering down what you’re eating to getting you closer and closer to the way you’re going to be eating or drinking or whatever it is you’re going to be doing, doing your fast or detox.
On the flip side, as you end your fast introduce foods back into your diet slowly, bit by bit, don’t just go from juice only to eating a cheeseburger. Introduce the foods that you’re going to be eating again on a slow, you know, bit like if you were feeding a baby, start with something small and gradually introduce larger amounts of food and different and different varieties of foods.
Otherwise you’re going to just undo all of the hard work that you were doing. And we don’t want to do that. So introduce food back slowly. Start with a salad, start with raw food. Start with fruit and just gradually, gradually introduce more and more things. And don’t start with like complicated fancy dishes. Start with something simple, mild seasonings, and very gradually introduce food back into your system.
Do be aware that you’re very likely to experience some detox symptoms that sometimes cause people to think they need stop their fast. They start to feel flu and cold symptoms or they start to get skin eruptions. Don’t let these things cause you to stop. Those are part of the process. You can expect that you might have headaches, you might be really tired for a while. These are the types of things that happen when you’re doing a fast, or detox.
You’re going to have symptoms as your body purges out the various things that have been accumulating in your system. This is actually a good sign. It shows that it’s working. As you are purging these things, they come out through mucous, through skin eruptions, through stomach issues. You might even have emotional and spiritual and mental purging as well. Write all these things down in your journal and keep on stepping.
Help your detox process along by working with your body to purge the toxins from your system. Your system purges through your bowels, through your urine, through the skin, through your breath. You can help this process along. If you’re doing a juice fast or some type of fast when you’re not having regular bowel movements, then you can do an enemy every day because otherwise the things will just reabsorb it to your colon. Drink plenty of water so that you’re urinating frequently and do some deep breathing. Go out and get some fresh air. Do a dry brush massage, which is taking a natural hair bristle brush and brushing your skin all over from head to toe. Or use a loofah in the shower. Anything to helps slough off the dead skin cells.
And all of this will help speed up the healing process. It will assist your body in this detox process.
If you are taking medications, you need to be monitoring yourself very carefully because when you’re doing a fast, very quickly, often within a day or two, your needs for medication will will drastically be reduced or be eliminated. So you need to be checking your numbers and talking to someone who is supportive of what you’re doing. Someone who can help you make sure you’re not overmedicating yourself and getting yourself into trouble.
Make sure whenever you’re going out and about, that you bring your juice or some food or something with you so that in case you start to get lightheaded or you start to feel weak, that you can fortify yourself and you’re not tempted or relegated to eating something that you’re not really wanting to eat.
Don’t let missteps cause you to stop. Maybe you end up one day breaking your fast. You realize, oh, no, I’m eating these peanuts! This is not part of my plan! Don’t let that cause you to stop. I write it down in your journal as to what you did. What were the things that caused you or led you to do that? Then get right back up on track and continue on!
If you use these type of experiences to inform you of the types of things that can cause you problems, it’ll help you have greater success going forward. It doesn’t mean you just have to quit. Just pick up where you left off and keep on going. Don’t let your slip ups cause you to stop.
Do modify your life as you need in order to support your fast/detox. If you normally go to a heavy exercise class, maybe this isn’t the time for that. If you normally hang out with your friends on a Friday night, maybe this isn’t a good time for that. Look at the things that are going on in your life and modify as necessary so that you are able to actually stick to your plans for the duration that you want.
It’s a good idea to be tracking things like your weight or any of the numbers that you normally take, your blood pressure, blood sugar in your journal as well, so that you can track your progress. You can see how you’re how you’re doing, how far you’re going along towards your goals, as well as identify any potential problems. Write them every day in your journal so that you can see how you’re doing.
Make sure that you drink plenty of water, keep yourself hydrated, and drinking water can help get you through a time when you’re feeling like, Oh, I can’t take it anymore. I just need to eat something! If you drink some water that can help stave off whatever this craving is, it can help satisfy you.
These are some of the things that I recommend to help you have a successful fast or feast and be able to use this experience to help move you closer to your health goals or to get you through a crisis.
How have your fasting/detox experiences been?
- Never done one
- I get started but haven’t been able to stick to it
- Ok, but could have been better
- Great! I do them regularly
I’d love to here about your experiences.
What do you think? What do you have any additional suggestions? What have there been the things that have helped you on your fast increasing experience?
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