#4 The most popular: the juice or smoothie cleanse
This is just one example of all the possible liquid-only cleanses people take up, and they are indeed the most popular out there. Chances are that if anyone mentions to you that they are doing a detox cleanse, your mind will go to a juice or smoothie type of cleanse. They got so popular because they essentially replace any solid food with fruit and vegetable smoothies and juices, which makes them more convenient.
People can pre-buy these juices from one of the myriads of companies that have made a business out of this, or even go down the route of making them at home, following their favorite recipes from the internet. Some people bypass the inclusion of real fruits and vegetables at all, instead going down the route of “healthy” powder juices for one of their liquid meals of the day.
They can last anywhere from 3 to 21 days, and there are times when people hold them for even longer periods of time. Do not get us wrong; there is nothing wrong with drinking freshly pressed fruit and vegetable juices or even adding smoothies to your diet. They are packed with vitamins and nutrients, and it is a great way to add some vegetables you wouldn’t otherwise include in your diet. However, when they end up replacing every other meal you may have, it is when they stop being healthy additions and enter dangerous territory.
After all, drinking only juices and smoothies for an extended period of time without consuming any solid food will cause more problems than it will solve in the long run. You are essentially depriving the body of any protein and fat that would come from solid food, which will lead to you becoming more and more hungry as time passes. What’s more, keeping this type of detox cleanse going can lead to low blood sugar levels, decreased productivity, fatigue, and brain fog.
Since a lot of people are doing this to lose weight, it is not an effective method. Once you go back to eating actual food and resume your regular diet, you will end up gaining most of the weight back.
