Eczema is a real pain especially when it is chronic, scaly and infected. By drinking tasty green juices, you can repair the state of your skin faster. This tip was recommended to me by a nutritionist who said I should focus on healing my skin from the inside. Her suggestion worked.
In your quest for flawless skin, you may have come across the term “Juice Fasting” Just living on 8 glasses of juice for 1-90 days. As this may seem rather drastic, here are some juicing guidelines that can set you up for a successful, well-planned fast.
Why Juice Fast?
As we are 70% water, it is sensible to keep hydrated. We can survive more than 3 days without food, but only 3 days without water. What water or juice does is keep our bodies clean of toxins. It also provides nutrients to our body via our bloodstream within 40 minutes of drinking it. Another thing is that if we don’t drink enough during a day, we simply end up being constipated and feeling real sluggish.
Need I say more??
A juice fast is simple – Just drink 10-12 glasses of vegetable juice a day for 1 day to start with.
Once you manage that, you can practice juice fasting every month until you feel ready to increase the length of the fast by another day. Baby steps are crucial here!
Another benefit of fasting in this way, is that you give your digestive system a rest from using up energy to digest food. Your body can then use the juice nutrients to strengthen your immune system
How to Prepare for A Juice Fast
At least 1 week before, eat a large salad of 7 vegetables a day. This could replace one main meal, for example, lunch or dinner.
An example of your salad could be:
Chopped half ripe plantain, carrots, tomatoes, okra, avocado, cucumber, ginger root, topped with parsley leaves with sunflower seed sprout dressing and sprinkled with a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice.
Or let’s put this in simple viewing mode:
You will need:
1 ripe plantain,
3 medium carrots
3 tomatoes
3 fresh okra
1 medium avocado
1 whole cucumber
1 cup of sunflower seed sprouts (just soak for 6 hours in a bowl full of filtered water)
1 cup of chopped parsley leaves
1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon
Method:
- Slice the plantain, cucumber, tomatoes and okra. Then arrange in a bowl.
- Slice off the tip of the avocado and then cut it around the stone. Then chop into medium sized pieces.
- .Drain the sunflower seeds and blend in a food processor. This is your dressing.
- Sprinkle the chopped parsley leaves
- Then sprinkle the lemon juice over the avocado to prevent from going brown.
All you need do is arrange all the ingredients in a bowl then say Grace, Share and Enjoy!
Serves 1 – to make more just multiply the ingredients by the number of guests you have.
This is a colourful and filling salad due to the inclusion of avocado. It is also full of mouth-watering minerals and vitamins.
Organic or Not?
The best way to get organic food is to grow your own! However, in cities, growing our food is the last thing on our minds. Too many commitments – both family and work – get in the way. So we eat out a lot and our health suffers. Then we take a holiday to escape the rat-race…
What about seeing juice fasting as a holiday for our digestive system?
Referring back to organic food – yes, it is better than pesticide-sprayed food which can cause allergies, etc. So check around your area for a food market where the people work on farms and can tell you where they grew the food they sell.
Is Juice Fasting a Fad?
At first, I thought so when I became aware of juicing a decade ago. However, as time passed, more and more of my friends and families turned to it to regain control of their health. So now I see Juice fasting as a way to fix an ailment speedily.
It is a lifestyle for me and I am happy to have discovered it. I did try not juicing for almost 8 months, and drink distilled water instead, however, my nails became brittle and broke easily.
How Did Ancient People Eat?
Very simply – in fact in Genesis 1:29 the Bible says – “Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yield seed; to you it shall be for meat”. People ate raw vegan without calling it that term!
Even the animals were meant to be vegan – Genesis 1:30 – “And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creeps upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat”; and it was so.
The Earth was also much younger and nutrient dense. As a result, people lived til 800 years and had children for the first time at 120 years of age. Genesis 5: 3 – And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own like likeness after his own image; and called his name Seth.
Verse 4: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were 800 years, and he bore sons and daughters.
Verse 5: And all the days that Adam lived were 930 years; and he died.
I KNOW…. I didn’t believe this either so kept reading and noticed one thing – the earlier people of Ancient Times had children – the younger they died.
God got tired of our evil ways, so during Noah’s time, the flood occurred. Or rather the Ice Age…
When Noah left the ark, the earth multiplied with people and animals again, but the Bible says in Genesis 9: 3 – “Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things...” We began to eat meat… Then our life span reduced to 120 years. Father knows best!
But really, if you want to keep looking young and feeling youthful, juice fasting is a great way to diminish your fine wrinkles.
Mind you, it does not and should not replace balanced meals when you have finished the entire fast.
Results Are To Be Believed
One of my friends who is of a larger build, changed her eating habits and came down 3 dress sizes. Then her healing crisis happened. Pins and needles and feeling cold. I created a flax seed (linseed) based juice with celery, carrot, cucumber. Some ginger root and lemon juice was added. This was blended with 1/2 an avocado.
Two days later, when I rang her, she said she had so much energy that instead of her usual walk round the park nearby, she ran! She was excited and also fed 4 of her friends with the lentil soup recipe I suggested she make.
Now, we are all at different stages of health, with different levels of nutrition knowledge. So it is best to go at a pace you can handle. This friend took baby steps each day for 1 month, then 2, then 3 then 4. In the 5th month she ran….
Here’s Your Starter Juice Fast Plan
1. Decide on the best day of the week to do your juice fast. It could be at the weekend or mid-week.
2. Think of this time as ‘Rejuvenating Me”… You are worth it, so give yourself the much-needed rest. You will have more energy to serve the world afterwards.
3. Give Your Juice Plan a name:
“The Juicy Game Plan”
“Juicing Game-Changer”
“Juicy Awakening”
“Patch Away”
“Rippling Tasty Session”
4. Include your family if you can…when they see your results after your first fast, they will be interested to know why you are glowing. Make it fun and include them. Give them a taster of your juices.
5. Prepare at least a week in advance.
6. Buy all your grocery for the fast so you have enough to last you for at least 3 days. This way, you won’t be tempted to snack on unhealthy food.
7. The only fruit allowed is green apples and a dash of fresh lemon juice to enhance the taste of your juice. Apples and lemon juice can be blended with all types of vegetable. These fruit give a sweeter taste to any juice you make.
8. Ditch sodas, sugary stuff and dairy at least a week before. We are concentrating on green juices for their re-building effect on the body.
9. If you are juicing for more than 7 days, make sure to consult a nutritionist who is experienced in juice fasting.
9. Try to get to bed between 9pm-10.30pm each night. You need to have at least 7 hours of sleep so your body can repair itself.
10. If you experience a healing crisis, eg, headaches, dizziness, colds or shakiness. This is completely normal. It means your body is detoxing and throwing off unwanted toxins. If and when this happens, rest more during this time. Your body should recover within a week of this crisis.
11. Write a food journal and note your progress…. How you feel each day and the appearance of your skin during this time.
12. If you can, stick to 8-10 glasses of juice a day. If you feel hungry, fortify your juice with 1 teaspoon of freshly ground flax seeds (linseed). They contain essential fatty acids that will prevent your skin from drying out, especially in colder seasons.
As you can see, it really is very simple to juice fast and you can practice this in a healthy way without getting real sick!
If you would like to know how to create tasty recipes for your own juice fast, join my email list for 10 Juicy Recipes. All completely free.
Need I forget to mention – you will need a suitable cost-effective cold press juicer to extract more pulp from your veggies and fruit.
I recommend an Omega Masticating Juicer as it is a lower speed than a centrifugal one and it will not heat up the nutrients from your veggies or fruit.
I am in the process of writing 10 more recipes for you to try. They are easy and tasty….Your tastebuds will love you. And as a side benefit, you may even lose some unwanted weight!
Thank you for this post here but I must say that this is the first time that I will be reading something like this and I will say thank you for sharing all these here. Personally, I have never tried juice fasting before but definitely, I have been on diet plans before. So, this might be anothee challenge that may be worth trying out and seeing the result. This is great to see and thank you for sharing out here.
Hi Abel,
We are all on this earth to help one another….There are things that people know and some don’t and vice versa. The main thing is that one person’s experience can really help to shorten the learning curve and problem span of another.
Thriving is better than surviving…and I’m glad you enjoyed reading this. Taking action is next.
I’m not always surprised when I here of the things people do just to ensure that they look as young and flawless as a baby, nowadays there are lots of products in the market that claims to do best but are mostly made with chemicals that can be dangerous, that is why it is good to go with natural components like juice, and juice fast is a nice idea rather than chemicals.
I like my skin looking young, but it works out quite expensive for a long term fix. However, no one believes my age or my Mother’s for that matter.
The real secret to flawless complexion is to hardly touch it. My arms have fine wrinkles from scratching for a year in 2014-15. My face is much better.
So I worked out that a juice fast – or rather feast – will definitely be the answer. At least I’m not scratching anymore!
If anyone is reading this – there is a life beyond eczema and it’s not just surviving with creams, lotions and potions.
But then, we all live to learn.
Ah, this is not a bad one at all. To see that there are some fasting plans that I can use for myself that will really help me to be able to get the skin tone that I want. You seem to know so much about this which is a very good thing. I see that this fruits are very good and they can really help my skin too. It’s good stuff
Yes, juicing is excellent for achieving glowing skin. The only requirement is time, a good juicer that is easy to clean, and a budget for extra fruit and vegetables to juice with. I tend to make juiced blends more often. That way, you waste less pulp from the fruit or veggies. A juiced blend is part juice, part smoothie…
Having clear skin is I doubted one of the things we all want and I feel happy about this article which has given us so much to look at instead of going to get some cream that could be harmful to the skin. I have always been a fan of natural products and seeing these vegetables as the answer to near skin gives me so much joy. Cheers
Eating and juicing vegetables and fruit should come naturally to us. The trick is to drink at least 2 litres (64 oz) of freshly made juice daily. Only then will you be able to prevent or reverse wrinkles or other premature ageing effects on the body.
I am glad that you are a fan of natural products though – you have a headstart!
Thank you for the information here. Definitely worthy to see and I must say that I value all shared here. In all honesty, juice fasting seems like an exciting project to me and definitely something that I would want to get myself into. The fact that it us even more beneficial on the overall health makes it very great to see here. Thumbs up to you
Glad to be of service Nath. Thanks for the kind compliments…Much appreciated.
I’ve been looking into juicing as a way of losing the extra weight that I’ve gained during all the lockdowns, not mention off-loading a bit of ‘middle age spread’. I hadn’t really considered it as a remedy for eczema, so this was a real eye-opener as I’ve suffered with eczema since childhood.
I was a bit worried about juice fasting until I read your article and my mind is a lot more at rest now. Baby steps are definitely the way forward rather than just diving head long into it and making myself ill, which would be entirely self-defeating.
I had wondered what kind of juicer to get as well and was weighing up the pros and cons of the different types. You’ve definitely swung me around to a Centrifugal juicer due to the lower speeds not heating up the ingredients and reducing their nutritional value.
I’d be very interested in hearing what results have you had from juicing so far?
Cheers
Rich 🙂
Hi Richard,
Good to hear you want to juice your vegetables and fruit for your health.
Actually, it is the cold-press juicer that has the lower speeds, not the centrifugal type. They are also more expensive but durable than the centrifugal juicers.
If you can afford it, look for the whole fruit cold-press juicers as they don’t require you to cut up the fruit and vegetables.
Heyyyy!
I’ve been juicing for quite a while now, and I think it’s great! You’ve written a great article here for people that aren’t too familiar with the process and its benefits! Great work! I love juicing because it does make life simpler for you during your fasts and is also really good for you!
Great work! Thanks again!
Lol! I’m glad you juice already…
Yes, juicing does ensure we get all our phytonutrients for the day. It’s much better than eating a whole salad which requires a lot of chewing. But then again, we need to chew our juices slowly to make sure we digest them better…
This is a very interesting and informative post on juice fasting. Although I am familiar with intermittent fasting, I have never come across the concept of juice fasting. You mention to start with 10 to 12 glasses of vegetable a day, and then gradually increase it. Should these vegetable juices be pure, for instance only carrot, or only kyle, or can one do a blend of mixed vegetables?
Hi Line,
To get all the different nutrients from a blend, the best way to juice is by choosing at least 5 different vegetables and 1 type of fruit.
For example, 1 whole cucumber, 1 head of celery, half a bunch of parsley 1kg of carrots, 1 plantain and 2 apples. This is a juiced blend and you can add an avocado to the mix.
Method: Juice the celery and carrots, then pour the juice into a sturdy blender. Then put sliced raw plantain, the sliced cucumber and the parsley leaves, chopped apples and the avocado into the blender.
Blend on high for 1 minute until you have a smooth blend. This makes at least 6 glasses of juicy blend and is very tasty.
More recipes will be coming soon.
Thanks for this information. The fast that you suggest appeals to me in that I now attempt to fast one day weekly and the recipe you suggest seems more effective that what I make. I do not have skin problems so I am wondering if this particular recipe can be of benefit for general health. Its great that you are promoting fasting. You explained why consuming liquid and fasting is important. Thanks for the article.
That’s alright Anastazja.
Juicing is definitely good for general health and I have coached several friends on what delicious juices and avocado smoothies they can make in their kitchen.
I have also coached my Mum who is in her 80s and still drinks 4 glasses of juice daily. Although not fasting, drinking up to 8 glasses a day makes a great boost to general health.