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The Healing Power of Juicing
by Cynthia Foster, MD

• Why many supplements fail
• Juice Fasting Benefits: it can help incurable diseases
• Will it work for acute situations?
• What is a juice fast?
• What other types of fasts are there?
• How to do a juice fast
• What juices are best to drink?
• Caution: Don't ignore colon while juicing
• Is there a juice fasting program I can do at home? What do I need?
• Herbs that maximize juicing benefits
• What juicer should I get?
• How will I get enough protein?
• What if my condition gets worse?
• How long should a juice fast last?
• Won't I feel weak?
• I can't  juice - I'm hypoglycemic
• Will I lose weight?
• I don't have time to juice fast
• How often should I juice?

Why Many Supplements Fail:

I am a conventionally trained medical doctor. Over twenty years ago, I almost lost my life during my medical training. But it was not the medical profession that cured me from the epilepsy, it was the holistic RN I saw who was practicing outside of the confines of conventional medicine. To help me, she used not medications, but only natural remedies and little-known natural healing techniques. After the well-qualified medical doctors at my medical school repeatedly misdiagnosed me and gave me the wrong medications, I was forced to consider another option.

This holistic nurse was my other option. She had official medical credentials, yet at the same time, practiced holistically. She taught me holistic medicine and saved my life, mainly because natural healing had also saved her life and stopped her from going into kidney failure twenty years prior. She also took great joy in helping supposedly incurable patients recover their health when doctors said it was not possible.

I made a voluntary choice after I finished my conventional medical training to practice holistically and I have been healing patients naturally for over 20 years. (Click here to learn more about me) So, I've seen a lot of sickness both as a trained medical doctor and as a holistic practitioner, and I've seen what people try to do to get well. I've seen what works and what does not work.

When health begins to decline, usually the first thing people try are supplements.  When one supplement doesn't work, then a person usually tries another. And on and on it goes - the supplement roller coaster. Each supplement is supposedly more "miraculous" than the other. This supplement worked for Auntie Mae, or this one worked for cousin George. In a random fashion, people often compose a health program such as this for themselves. These often fail. Meanwhile, the truly powerful healing techniques such as juice fasting are ignored. In my clinical practice over the past 20 plus years, what I have found is that juice fasting is THE quickest, most effective way to heal from almost any health issue. Doing a juicing program makes every other natural method work faster: massage therapy works faster for fibromyalgia, acupuncture works faster for pain, energy healing is accelerated, herbs work better, etc.  It's so easy, you can do it in the privacy of your own home, or even take juices to work with you. 

Juicing Helps Incurable Diseases:

I have used it as a healing technique for those with pain, cancer, depression, arthritis, severe infections that failed antibiotics, autoimmune diseases and many other supposedly incurable diseases. The results were nothing short of miraculous. The most amazing result I've seen from juice fasting was with a lady who came to see me with the classic symptoms of multiple sclerosis. She had struggled with this disease for three years straight, remaining symptomatic constantly throughout that time with a page long list of severe symptoms. She walked with great difficulty with the help of a cane, barely able to make it up the three steps to get into my office. She agreed to do a juice fast for a few days, and I urged her to continue with it for a full week.  Although there were doubts that this "juicing" would make any kind of difference at all, she began to discover other sources that confirmed the powerful healing effects of juicing therapy. After the completion of one week of consuming just fresh juices and a few herbal formulas (Colon Activator Formula, Colon Detox Caps, and Earth's Nutrition Formula), she returned to my office walking without a cane, without a limp, and without any outward signs that there had been anything wrong with her.

This is how strong and effective a juicing program can be. And as effective as it is, I have found that combining it with a few choice herbal formulas can effect an even greater, more rapid healing.  All of the following herbal cleanses can work twice as fast when combined with juice fasting: Colon Cleanse, Liver/Gallbladder Cleanse, Kidney/Bladder Cleanse, and Total Body Cleanse.  The Total Body Cleanse is a 28-day cleanse designed to be used with juicing to heal and sometimes reverse many incurable diseases.

Juicing is the therapy most used by the late Bernard Jensen, a chiropractor whose healing ranch became the site for many healing miracles over 60 years of his natural healing practice. The mainstay of his therapy was a juice fast lasting for an entire month combined with a very strong intestinal purification program. This program consisted of supplements and enemas designed to thoroughly cleanse the intestines. (The Colon Cleanse Formulas I use are based on Bernard Jensen's, Dr. Christopher's, and Harvey Kellogg's old intestinal cleansing herbal formulas. Their experience taught them that the most effective way to cleanse the bowel was to do it while juice fasting. This way, solid food couldn't interfere with the process. 

With this program, these very ill people began to eliminate pounds of old hardened fecal material. The fascinating part is what happened after this material came out: people were healed. Their cancers disappeared, their skin cleared up, their arthritis went away, and they were able to function again.  After a cleanse such as this, Dr. Jensen taught people how to eat unprocessed whole foods and lead a healthy lifestyle so that they could maintain the health that they had just regained. Although he did use several supplements, which he swore worked wonders, it was the combination of his diet therapy along with the supplements that allowed him to accomplish such dramatic healings with his patients.

Many people do not realize that Bernard Jensen himself came down with prostate cancer in his eighties. I know about this story because I went to one of his seminars and he had just recovered from the cancer and a car accident that left him in a wheelchair with a spinal cord injury. He had healed all of the cancer and he had started walking again - something the medical doctors had told him was impossible. When I saw him, he was still walking with a cane. He was walking with a bit of a limp. (Although I heard a few months later that he had thrown out his cane and was walking just fine). And he told all of us seminar attendees exactly what he went through to heal 2 different calamities in a row.

After years of healing incurable disease, he was suddenly faced with his own. His prostate cancer was at an advanced stage, already spread to his bones. The medical doctors told him just to give up. Dr. Jensen said he'd like to try nutrition therapy for his cancer, and the doctors laughed, saying, "What do we know about nutrition; we're medical doctors!"  

Yet Dr. Jensen was unstoppable. He began his own carrot juice therapy program, fasting on nothing but carrot juice for four months straight. At the end of four months, there was not a trace of cancer left in his body. After four months of fasting, he was feeling very weak, but as he had always instructed his patients: after cleansing, it's time to nourish and rebuild.  He then rebuilt his body with foods and supplements, and regained his health completely. Eight years later, at the ripe old age of 92, Bernard Jensen passed away, not from cancer, and not from any disease, but peacefully in his sleep because it was his time to go.

What is a juice fast?

Well, technically, its's not a juice FAST. A fast implies that one consumes no food or water. However, during a juice fast, one is consuming plenty of food.  However, that food just happens to be in liquid form only. Therefore, it allows a person to get the maximum amount of nutrition while still allowing the digestive organs time to rest and heal. A juice fast is a liquid, nourishing diet consisting of solely juices and water. There is no restriction on the amount of juice that can be consumed. Therefore, it should not happen that one feels hungry during a juice fast. In fact, one should feel quite satisfied. But the most noticeable effect is that of feeling lighter and more energetic. Many natural healers have combined periods of juice fasting with certain supplements which potentiate and speed up the benefits of the fast.

It is VERY important to read this entire article before attempting a juice fast on your own. Some people feel badly due to poorly planned juice fasts, and there are many inferior healing routines floating around out there that can make some people feel worse. I've received some emails from people who tried juice fasts where only 6 glasses of juices per day were allowed - and they felt lousy the entire time. I've had others write me who attempted water fasting and felt worse than when they started. Others skipped the colon cleansing formulas and were detoxing weeks later instead of feeling better immediately. To avoid these problems, follow the entire juicing program outlined in this article, or go to a juicing retreat where an experienced professional can help you. It is very important to read the next section on caring for the colon during a juice fast.

Caution: Don't Ignore Colon While Juicing

VERY IMPORTANT:
Herbs to Activate and Heal the Digestive Tract
During a juice fast, since there is no solid food ingested, the bowel does not have any fiber to work against; therefore, the bowels stop moving.  When the bowels don't move and a person keeps juicing, there are many toxins that are released into the bloodstream, and they can't get out of the body. This feels absolutely terrible!  Next, instead of being released from the body, many of them can be reabsorbed back into the tissues.   This can be completely avoided simply by taking the intestinal cleansing formulas listed below.  The bowels can eliminate three or more pounds of toxins per day - this is a very important elimination organ! We need the bowels to move, so that the toxins can be released from the body. These recommendations are very important.

Other "Must-Have" Herbs That
Maximize Juice Fasting Benefits:

1) Cayenne - cayenne gives energy and helps dissolve mucous, stops bleeding in the intestines, hemorrhaging of the uterus, and bleeding in other organs. It dissolves blood clots, and increases circulation to the head, making it invaluable for use in strokes and senility such as Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. Start with 1/8 tsp of 150,000 Heat Units Cayenne once a day. Very gradually work up to one tsp three times per day. For Cayenne Tincture, start with five to ten drops, and work up to one dropperful (30-35 drops) three times per day.  If you can handle it, take even more - but do it slowly and gradually. The body does gradually adapt and is able to handle larger doses over time. For weaker cayenne, it's necessary to take much more to get the same effect. Powdered encapsulated cayenne that has had the "heat" removed from it is about the weakest cayenne available and doesn't do much.  Don't expect it heal anything serious. The hotter the cayenne, the more it heals. Take strong cayenne with juice - don't take it on an empty stomach or you will be sorry - intense intestinal cramping can result from doing this.

2) Algae - Spirulina, Chlorella, blue green algae, and Dunaliella (red algae) are the four major edible kinds of algae. People have been consuming certain types of algae as food for thousands of years.  Algaes have been found to contain all of the essential amino acids. They are a complete protein source second to none. The protein content of algaes range from 60-70% with a very high protein utilization factor. This means that the body is easily able to absorb and use the protein contained in algae. Algae usually comes in a powder form, or in tablets or capsules. Begin with 1/2 tsp of the powdered algae per day and increase to whatever dose feels right. Otherwise, follow directions on the supplement bottle.  For people who don't like the taste of the powder or liquid, capsules are the next best way to take algae. The least desirable method is tablets since they are highly compressed, making them more difficult to digest and absorb. The Essential Nutrients contains most of the supplements mentioned in this article, combined together into a convenient formula that saves a lot of time and makes juice fasting much easier and even fun.

3) Nutritional yeast - Saccharomyces cerevisiae - yeast is very high in B vitamins including B12. The kind I like is Red Star T6635 #12 Large flake. I've seen it sold in bulk at the health food store as well as in the supplement section.  People who have gout shouldn't not take yeast since the high protein content may aggravate gout. Start with 1 TBS per day and increase to 2 or more TBS per day if that feels right.  Since nutritional yeast is so high in B vitamins, and the nervous system requires so much of them to function properly, this makes an excellent food for the brain, peripheral nerves, and spinal cord. Those with nervous system disorders such as myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis, brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, premature senility, all types of dementia, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, and other neurologic diseases may want to increase their dose as needed.  People with milder neurologic problems such as anxiety, depression, mental and emotional disorders will benefit, too.  This yeast is also contained in the Earth's Nutrition Formula. Essential Nutrients is very similar but is yeast free and designed to accommodate those with Candida and yeast problems.

4) Wheatgrass powder, capsules or tablets.  Contained in Essential Nutrients 

5) Barley Grass powder, capsules or tablets.  Contained in Essential Nutrients

6) Herbal teas - The herbal tea I use the most for this purpose is Detox Chai Spice since it activates all the organs at once and greatly assists in removing toxins from the body. If there is a history of kidney stones, the K/B Herbal Tea is an excellent choice that assists in cleansing stone-causing residues from the urinary tract. Any herbal tea from DrFostersEssentials is fine to drink during a juice fast.

Side Note: there are some herbal teas out there that are marketed for dieting and weight loss that contain loads of caffeine and other stimulants.(e.g. teas such as green tea, ma huang or ephedra). It's not wise to start drinking caffeinated beverages during a juice fast if you have not already been consuming them beforehand, or you could give yourself heart palpitations. Although sometimes green tea does not contain much caffeine, there are many types that contain just as much caffeine as regular black tea.  People should not drink teas from these three stimulating herbs except in the following two cases:

• Severe asthma, in which case these stimulant teas may provide needed symptom relief in an acute situation.


• People who are already drinking coffee every day who need to stop coffee during their juice fast.  People who are regular coffee drinkers who suddenly stop drinking it can get withdrawal symptoms such as fatigue, depression, low blood pressure and possibly fainting.  So, if coffee is normally consumed on a regular basis, switching over to caffeinated green tea during a juice cleanse can help avoid caffeine withdrawal symptoms.

To summarize: if you're drinking coffee, switch to green tea during a juice fast. If you're not drinking coffee or green tea, don't start.

Germ Blaster Formula


7) Organic, unfiltered apple cider vinegar (Braggs and Spectrum are good brands usually found in health food stores). Apple cider vinegar is especially good for arthritis - it helps to wash and dissolve calcium deposits from joints and muscles and balances body pH.  Start with one Tablespoon three times per day and increase to as much as you feel you need. A great apple cider vinegar formula to take at this time is Germ Blaster. The cayenne, ginger, garlic and onion in this formula greatly stimulate the circulation all over the entire body.  These herbs also kill many germs and parasites, making this a great formula to use to speed up recovery from a cold, flu, bronchitis, or any other type of infection. The horseradish content is excellent for clearing out sinuses. The cayenne, garlic and ginger should not be taken by those who have acute or chronic diarrhea since they can activate the intestines.  For those who are usually constipated, it's wonderful.

Everything Needed For a Successful Juice Fast:

(in order from most important to less important)

1. Vibrant Colon Formula (for most people) or Colon Start Plus (extra strength) Don't take Colon Start Plus or Vibrant Colon if you have active diarrhea
2. Colon Detox Caps
3. Essential Nutrients  
4. Detox Chai Spice
5. Optional: Germ Blaster or Cayenne Tincture (don't take either if you have active diarrhea)
6. Optional: for those with colitis or chronic diarrhea: use Colon Soothe instead of Vibrant Colon, Colon Start Plus and Colon Detox Caps
7. Juicer
8. Juicing recipe book
   

How to do a juice fast:

How much juice should a person drink during a juice fast? Many people make the mistake of not drinking enough juice. Not drinking enough juice can cause very unpleasant healing reactions and ravenous hunger. This is not about hunger or deprivation - this is about nourishing and healing the body. Drink as much juice as is desired. Drink a combined total of one gallon per day of fluids (including all juices, water and herbal teas). If there is hunger, it means not enough juice is being consumed.  Ideally, it should actually feel as if you are drinking TOO MUCH juice.  Again, this is truly a juice "flush," not a fast.

What juices are best to drink?

Since juices are concentrates, dilute all juices with an equal amount of water. I typically do not recommend an all fruit juice fast.  Diabetics should juice fast on diluted vegetable juices only and not on fruit juices.

It is easy to make fruit juice combinations that taste good. It is a bit more challenging to make vegetables taste good. That's why it's important to get some good juicing recipe books. A good juicing recipe book takes all the guesswork out of making juice combinations taste good. Consult some recipe books for juice fasting. Michael Murray's The Complete Book of Juicing contains many recipes for delicious juices. If you've made a vegetable combination that doesn't taste good, add carrot and/or apple juice to it. Most of the time, that will make the juice palatable enough to drink, and sometimes, you even end up with a great-tasting combo!

What juicer should I get?

It depends on what a person wants and how much one is willing to spend. The Champion Juicer has a large motor which practically never wears out. I've known people who have had their Champion juicer for over 25 years. The great thing about the Champion is that it is so easy to clean. It also has a homogenizer attachment that makes nut butters, frozen fruit desserts, and pates possible to make. It retails for around $249.95. The Champion does a good job with most juices except wheatgrass and delicate stems and leaves. I had one of these for many years, and I liked it because it was so quick to clean. But I couldn't juice delicate greens very well with it. The stems would get tangled around the masticater, and the juice yield was lower. For juicing delicate greens and fresh herbs, people need a wheatgrass juicer, a Green Power Juicer or Green Life Juicer which retails from $449 to $550. These juicers can handle wheatgrass as well as delicate greens and vegetables. I currently have one of these and it juices everything. It takes a little longer to clean, but I LOVE it because it juices delicate leafy green veggies, and the juice yield is so high. Everyone knows how emphatic I am about the importance of leafy green veggie juices for healing.

Another less pricey juicer is the Omega 4000 which retails for around $300. One of my friends has the Breville Juice Fountain Elite juicer and he loves it because he hardly has to do any chopping of his fruits and vegetables because the opening to the juicer is so large. The amount of time it saves him is an incentive to juice more often. It retails for about $399, and the less deluxe model is the Juice Fountain Plus which retails for around $250. 

What other types of fasts are there?

Mono Diet Fast:

During a mono diet cleanse, only one type of food is consumed during a period of time. Probably the most famous and successful one is the grape diet. Persons on this diet are encouraged to drink as much grape juice and consume as many grapes (plus the grape skins and seeds) as desired. This method was popularized by Johanna Brandt who healed herself of cancer using this diet.

The Lemonade Diet:

This cleansing diet was used by Wyatt Earp and later by Stanley Burroughs as a very effective way to detoxify the body using fresh lemon juice, cayenne pepper, maple syrup and water. This is a good cleanse with one minor problem: the salt flush. I have tried this one and I have had friends who've tried it as well.  Within 1/2 hour of consuming the salt mixture, an osmotic diarrhea occurs. This is felt as a watery, often uncontrollable diarrhea. This diarrhea can cause electrolyte depletion, cause palpitations and can be dangerous for those who are taking heart medication. Although popular because it's cheap, the salt flush is not the only or the best way to cleanse the colon. In the world of natural healing, cheaper is NOT always better! Good herbal colon cleansing formulas such as the Vibrant Colon Formula and the Colon Detox Caps are moderately priced and can easily take the place of the salt flush - and the good news is that for people that use the herbal formulas, no one has to rush to the bathroom with watery diarrhea.

We've had clients do the Intestinal Rejuvenation Program (Vibrant Colon + Colon Detox Caps) instead of the salt flush and laxative tea and it worked extremely well. In fact, in one client, the hardened mucoid layer sloughed off of the colon lining in only 3 days instead of the 10 days that is normally expected when doing the lemonade diet as originally recommended by Stanley Burroughs.

I must caution people about doing the lemonade diet since it is a stronger cleanse, and this makes it mandatory to do the colon cleansing portion. We've had an acquaintance who had heard about the Stanley Burrough's lemonade diet and started doing it. However, he did nothing to care for his colon during this time, except to drink a laxative tea once or twice during the week. No salt flush, no Vibrant Colon, and no Colon Detox Caps. He ended up in the emergency room with a very painful gallstone attack. There, they asked him, "Have you lost a lot of weight recently? Rapid weight loss is associated with gallstones." He had indeed lost weight quickly (which was wonderful), but the fats that were being released during his weight loss overwhelmed his liver and without the absorptive colon formula to soak them up from the intestines before they recirculated back to the liver (enterohepatic recycling), they stayed in the liver and gallbladder and caused an acute attack.

The bile must flow freely during the lemonade diet, otherwise gallstones can form. Therefore, please take your herbal intestinal formulas to prevent this from happening! The Vibrant Colon encourages the bile to flow and the Colon Detox Caps absorbs toxic bile filled with fats so that they are eliminated in the bowel movements instead of being recirculated back to the liver where they can cause gallstone attacks. Colon cleansing is of crucial importance for protection against gallstones during the lemonade diet.

Water Fast:

During a water fast, only water is consumed. This method is preferred by adherents of Natural Hygiene who insist it is the only true method of fasting.  It is a dramatic fast, and cannot be extended for long periods of time (1 to 2 weeks) without adverse effects. Although it has been effective for some when done for very short periods of time, I usually find the cleanse to be too "rough" for most people to handle. Some people have reported that they never gained back their energy after doing a water fast. I do not recommend water fasting because there is a chance that it could cause damage due to lack of nutrients and a too rapid detoxification. Without nutrients, the body begins to break down toxins, and this is beneficial in the short term. However, there is a point where energy reserves from fat are used up and the body begins to break down muscle tissue for energy.

Years ago, a patient of mine refused to have anything to do with juice fasting because her previously healthy brother in his 20's had died during an extended water fast at a water fasting retreat. She was told that his heart had suddenly and inexplicably stopped. There was no history of heart problems or any history in the family of heart problems, so this was a complete shock to the family. Some water fasting extremists have caused irreparable harm to patients by refusing to give any enemas or herbs to move the colon because of a false belief that that enemas are unnatural and one shouldn't reverse the movements of the intestines. Because of this, the rapid detox overloaded the body and caused kidney damage. There have been many reports of kidney damage caused by extended water fasts. These misguided beliefs cause harm.

I know you're going to find a few cases of people who disagree with me and they want to tell you that water fasting is amazing and wonderful, and I'm sure many of these cases are real, but alas, just because some people succeed at something does not mean it will work for everyone. I am a doctor who is bound by ethics to warn you of things I have seen that have the potential to be harmful or even deadly. I have seen many fruitarians, raw foodists and other people who were so extreme with their diet, they had to be hospitalized with protein deficiency, deadly fungal infections and other complications. All of these people thought they were doing the right thing for their health, and all had been convinced by some "expert" that it was the right thing to do. Enough said.

A Juice fast, on the other hand, is very safe, and I have never seen anyone experience a bad outcome from doing a juicing routine. In fact, I normally see a very therapeutic response which is very exciting. One of the reasons why is because we are not depriving the body of calories, but simply putting the nutrition into the body in liquid form instead of solid form.  A caveat here is in the case of diabetes. I do not usually put diabetics on juice fasts because it can be very difficult to control the blood sugar response, especially to fruit juices. However, I have had a few Type II diabetics succeed at a juice fast when they focused mainly on leafy greens with just a few low glycemic fruits. Diabetics on insulin can have a few glasses of green leafy veggie juices added to a regular diet, but a juice fast in this case, in my opinion, should really be supervised. I think it's preferable to do a raw food herbal cleanse first to see if we can get more gradual results without blood sugar spikes and lows. If there is a Type I diabetic out there who's done it on their own, by all means, send me an email and I'll make a correction.

Popular Protein Sources

How will I get enough protein?

When people do my juice program exactly as I have outlined and take the above supplements, there is no chance of not getting enough protein.

Remember this is not a fast during which there is starvation.  This is a flush, during which the body typically receives more nutrition than when solid food is eaten.  It is easier for the body to extract nutrients from liquids than it is to digest solid foods to get their nutrients out.  There are plenty of nutrients consumed during this juice flush, especially if you drink at least a gallon a day of juices, and consume algae and nutritional yeast.  When the body is healing itself, this is a sign that it is getting even MORE nutrition than it needs. Whenever the body gets more nutrients than it needs, it will use those nutrients to heal.

The average American typically eats too much protein on a daily basis.  He or she has animal protein for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It is rare to find an entire culture based on this incredibly high amount of protein in the diet.  The human body is not designed to digest and assimilate this much protein; therefore, it is left undigested in the body and often stored away in the form of tumors - both benign and cancerous. The excess protein also acidifies the body, making it more likely to attract illness, and increasing pain in the body. And finally, excess protein must be eliminated through the kidneys, and research shows that excess protein consumption can actually damage the kidneys - and sometimes permanently. We all need to rethink our beliefs about protein, most of which have to come to us through the meat and dairy industry propaganda sales tools.

Those who feel the slightest bit squeamish about not getting enough protein during a juice fast can take a double dose (four tablespoons) of Essential Nutrients per day.  The algae content is 60-70% usable protein that contains all of the essential amino acids. This is much higher than the percent protein in beef (which is only 22%), or eggs (12%) or milk (3%). When taking either of these formulas, there is no way to get protein deficient.

What if my problem/ condition gets worse?

In cases of arthritis, fibromyalgia and other painful conditions, it may get worse temporarily before it gets better. This is normal, expected, and is a good sign that the fast is working to cleanse the body. It will pass in a few days, and after that time, the pain will most likely be better than it was before starting the fast.  If the colon is ignored during juicing, these reactions can last longer. It is very important to have bowel movements every day in order to avoid these unpleasant healing reactions. Please see section on herbal colon cleansing formulas.

I know my body - I can't do that!

If people really knew their body and were completely in tune with it, they would not be sick.  How does one know if he or she can do something until that person is in the middle of doing it? I've put many a person on a juice fast who swore to me that they couldn't do it. They came through it just fine, and were amazed that they felt so much energy during it.

Won't I feel weak?  I'm too weak to do a juice fast!

Most people don't realize that a juice fast will provide even more energy than they normally have.  I've also put people who were bedridden with bodies full of cancer on a juice fast and it helped them tremendously, and got many of them out of bed.  I've never found a person who was too weak to do a juice fast. Juice fasting is a time when the mind is stimulated and all sorts of creative ideas flow. It is the perfect method to use to unleash creativity for artists, musicians, actors, writers and any other sort of creative profession. It takes 30% of the body's entire energy to digest food. This is a lot of energy! 

When one does not have to digest solid food, one has this much more energy in the body with which to heal. Since the body is always moving towards health, it will use this energy to bring itself back into balance. It will do things such as dissolve calcium deposits in the joints, release toxins stored in the liver, kidneys, muscles, and fat. It can dissolve scar tissue in the body, and begin to regenerate and clean up aging, injured and infected organs. Since juice is loaded with enzymes, the body does not need to use up extra energy to create digestive enzymes to digest it. Instead of digestive enzymes, the body manufactures other types of enzymes (metabolic enzymes) that it can use to break up protein deposits, hardened lymph (many Chinese herbalists say that fibroids are actually congealed lymph), and other toxic accumulations settled in the tissues. 

I can't do a juice fast - I'm hypoglycemic

So was I. In fact, I had extreme sugar highs and lows while eating a normal diet. When my blood sugar would go low, I would be on the ground unconscious. And when I was unconscious, I would have seizures. Yet, when I did juice fasting, this did not happen.  When people do the juice fast as directed, they are almost constantly drinking juice. They drink juice every hour.  When they do it this way, they are continuously giving their body more carbohydrates, and it is virtually impossible for the blood sugar to go too low. 

An important situation in which to be cautious about doing a juice fast would be in cases of diabetes or in someone who has ever passed out from low blood sugar - this is rare and usually only the case in diabetes. (In cases of  diabetes, I would strongly recommend frequent monitoring of the blood sugar at least 3 times daily - the high blood sugar problem can go away so quickly that the regular dose of insulin or other blood sugar-lowering medication can make the blood sugar go too low.)  Diabetics can also experience blood sugar peaks, so it is important for them to monitor the blood sugar frequently during a juice fast. People who are not diabetic do not need to monitor their blood sugar, since their blood sugar control mechanisms are functioning fine, and they do not have problems juicing.

Now, people sometimes have short periods of tiredness in the midst of the energy because the body is doing all of this cleansing work.  Old solid toxins that had previously settled in the fat cells, liver, kidneys, brain, pancreas, muscles, joints and bones are being liquefied and released into the bloodstream to be removed.  This feeling of tiredness is commonly misinterpreted as a blood sugar low.  It is NOT.  This "healing reaction" as it is commonly called can be greatly relieved by giving extra attention to the elimination organs as mentioned above. This makes the juicing program go much more smoothly and comfortably. Also, even more energy comes from taking the Essential Nutrients Formula and/or the Cayenne during a juice fast.

Will I lose weight?

Juice fasting is a great balancer - it helps the body to return to balance - whichever way that is. The answer is yes, a person can lose weight if one is in need of losing weight. A juice fast liberates 1/3 of the body's total energy. This is a lot of energy! When this energy is liberated, the body produces metabolic enzymes that break down protein, lymph, mucus and other types of toxic accumulations. The entire body/metabolism can get an overhaul depending on how long the juice fast is continued.

Cases of obesity are usually a combination of over consumption of calories, underactivity, hormonal sluggishness and liver/gallbladder sludge. Juice fasting and herbal cleansing can help to correct the last two. To prevent overconsumption of calories during a juice fast, all fruit juices should be diluted with an equal amount of water. After the juice fast is over, a calorie-overloaded diet rich in processed foods should be switched over to a nutrient-rich whole foods diet in order to maintain the weight loss.

When one is very thin and underweight, it is better to drink the juices undiluted. In these cases, in underweight people who needed to gain weight, I've known them to gain it. People are usually underweight because they cannot absorb nutrients from their food - even if they are eating large amounts of food.  Juice fasting is a fool proof way to make sure the digestive system  absorbs the highest amount of nutrients from food. To increase the nutrient levels even more, consume two tablespoons of Essential Nutrients twice daily.

Will I lose too much weight?

In cases of severe toxicity, the body must break down many toxins before it can get to the task of rebuilding the body. Sometimes we see that cancer patients lose a lot of weight during a juice fast. This is temporary and nothing to be alarmed about, but it can be quite dramatic. Cancer patients typically lose a lot of weight even when they are on a diet full of cheeseburgers, steak and fried chicken. In fact, they usually have cancer because they have eaten these highly toxic foods their whole life. Medical doctors fret over this and usually prescribe a diet of very fatty and unhealthy foods. It usually never works to help the patient gain weight, but usually always succeeds in making the patient constipated and even more toxic.  

Cancer patients lose weight because cancer is a degenerative disease. The body is breaking itself down because the metabolism is so deranged that these patients cannot digest or assimilate even the simplest of foods - much less fried foods or hamburgers! The technical term for this is cachexia. Cachexia is sometimes also called "wasting disease," and is a direct result of the severe toxicity that occurs in cancer, NOT from juicing. The DISEASE cancer causes people to lose too much weight even if they never did a juice fast.  When the body is cleansed sufficiently, the cachexia reverses, and it will then be possible to put on weight - but it's not possible to do this beforehand. For a rapidly-growing tumor, there is only so much time to detox. Time is of the essence and juice fasting is pretty much the fastest way to detox. Without it, it may not be possible to detoxify the body rapidly enough to reverse the cancer, and conventional treatments can also fail.

I don't have time to juice fast

Neither do I, but I still do it.  Ideally, one should make the juices fresh and drink them immediately. Juice contains the most healing nutrients just after juicing. However, for people that needs to leave the house, it is acceptable to make extra juice and bring it along in a container. When people know they'll be gone for a while, they just pack it in a cooler. It's not difficult. If you forget to bring juice with you, go by a juice bar, and have them make it for you. This is a nice break from making the juice yourself. I've even known people to get great results from drinking store-bought bottled juices, (make sure it is 100% juice) so no one gets away with using the excuse that he or she doesn't have time to do a juice fast. With a little planning, everything should go smoothly.

Sometimes people are in the midst of life and death situations. When people are severely ill and need to juice fast and they give me this excuse, I tell them to get out of my office.  I tell them, "Stop wasting my time and yours. If you don't have time to get well, go to a medical doctor who will surgically remove whatever organ in your body is sick. Don't complain when you don't have any organs left because you didn't take the time to take care of yourself." I have had some clients who didn't have time to take herbal supplements, either. They continued to get sicker and sicker while they DIDN'T follow my programs.  Many of them died. Some of them resorted to surgery. The time to do a health program is NOW, not when you think you'll be ready. If you wait until you're ready, you might end up in the hospital because you waited so long to do anything about it. At this point, it is sometimes too late. Don't wait - do it now!

How long should a juice fast last? How often do I do it?

One option is to fast one day a week. Another option is to fast for three to five days per month. Some people do long fasts - sometimes up to a month of juice fasting, once a year. These options are all good for maintenance and for some extra housecleaning of the body. For more serious or life-threatening situations, more juice fasting may be indicated. (NOT water fasting) For a cold or flu, the first thing to do is fast. Juice fast until it's gone. This works usually within the first 24 hours, but may need to be extended to three to four days if the cold or flu has already settled in for longer than a day before beginning to juice. If needed for severe toxicity, the juice fast can be extended until it is felt that it is time to stop. The body usually lets us know when it is time to stop.  

I once did a juice fast that lasted 63 days. My natural healing teacher had done it for 60 days, and was a good role model for me, and I still had more healing to do. Juicing is completely safe and extremely therapeutic when done correctly. During this 2-month period, I felt energetic, clear-headed, creative and I was teaching yoga classes.  No one knew I was juicing if I didn't tell them. Not everyone needs to do a juice fast for this long, and even just a day or two of juice fasting can have wonderful effects.

If there is a severe degenerative disease in the body, it is even more powerful to take detoxifying herbs during the juice fast. This is what my 28-Day Total Body Cleanse is for. It's the ultimate maxed out fastest, strongest way to cleanse and detoxify, especially if you have tried everything else and it didn't work. It is for people who want to make a big change quickly.  Read more about the 28-Day Healing Program.

Will it work for acute situations?

In acute or emergency situations situations, juice fasting is usually the BEST thing to do: kidney stones (use with Vibrant Colon Formula, Colon Detox Caps,  K/B Herbal Tea and Kidney/Bladder Formula), appendicitis, gallbladder attack (use with Simplified Stone Cleanse), severe colitis attack (use with Colon Soothe Formula and liquid chlorophyll or  Essential Nutrients only), severe bodily injuries (with Essential Nutrients and Calcium From Herbs), hemorrhaging (with Essential Nutrients and Cayenne Tincture), pneumonia (especially with Intestinal cleansing formulas and Germ Blaster Formula and/or Echinacea Premium Formula), and other acute infections. In my experience, juice fasting works for acute situations better than any herb, vitamin, or natural supplement. When herbal teas and tinctures are used IN COMBINATION with juicing, this is the fastest possible route to healing. Click here to learn more about how to use herbs for emergencies.

Learn More: Simplified Stone Cleanse Parasite Cleanse Kidney/Bladder Cleansing Liver/Gallbladder Cleansing Total Body Cleanse Candida Cleanse Cholesterol Busters Cleanse More Natural Health Articles

About the author:

Dr. Cynthia Foster, M.D.

A Conventionally Trained Medical Doctor Who Left Medicine Almost 20 Years Ago to Practice 100% Holistically

After receiving a required Hepatitis B vaccine for entry into medical school, Dr. Cynthia Foster became severely ill with grand mal epileptic seizures. The seizures occurred twice daily for almost four years – almost the entire time she was in training to become a conventional medical doctor at the University of Texas Health Science Center. Putting her life into the hands of a very experienced holistic nurse who was using holistic healing methods with unprecedented and extraordinary results, she refused all medications or other medical interventions for the seizures.

Using only natural methods as her treatment, the seizures went into complete remission, and she has been seizure-free for over 20 years. Her first book Stop the Medicine tells the incredible story of her miraculous recovery as well as giving a behind-the-scenes look at the Modern Medical Establishment. In her search for healing, she has traveled the world learning and incorporating natural methods into her holistic practice, including herbal detox, natural supplements, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, energy healing, mind-body medicine, healing visualizations, juice fasting and therapeutic foods.

After receiving her MD degree, and refusing to practice medicine because of the miraculous healings she had seen in others and experienced for herself, she began her practice using only natural methods to heal her patients, specializing in teaching people how to heal themselves with simple remedies and techniques, and has been able to repeat the miraculous healing results with her patients that she herself had personally experienced.

Over the past 20 plus years, she has served many roles including not only healing practitioner, but also herbal product trainer and spokesperson for herbal product companies, and also founded her own pharmaceutical strength herbal product line called “Dr. Foster’s Essentials” to address the health problems she was seeing in her practice. She noticed over a period of two decades of seeing patients, that they usually brought her grocery bags full of so-called “natural” supplements that simply did not work. She founded Dr. Foster’s Essentials, insisting on including herbal extracts up to ten times stronger than what is traditionally available in grocery stores, drug stores health food stores, and even online, as she felt these “mass-marketed” remedies were too weak and watered down to heal anything as serious as what she had experienced with the epilepsy.

A highly sought after speaker and university instructor, she has lectured worldwide on a wide range of topics from the use of herbs to emotional healing to conventional medicine classes for acupuncture students. She has been interviewed numerous times on radio programs and mentioned in the press as well as featured in magazines, newspapers, and on television. Current projects include a second book describing how to use herbs and natural healing techniques to overcome life-threatening, chronic and incurable health issues.



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"Let Me Listen To Me and Not To Them."
-Gertrude Stein

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