Juice Fasts
Juicing may seem like a simple way to lose weight, but it can easily backfire. You see, a nutritious juice consumed on occasion can be beneficial to your health, but when you begin to limit your diet to strictly juices it not only fails to be helpful to your well-being, it can actually do more harm than good.
Long-term fasts lead to muscle breakdown and a shortage of many nutrients. Depriving your body of vitamins and minerals that you get from food can actually weaken the body’s ability to fight infections and inflammations.
Although juice fasts often receive attention from celebrities, just like other super-restrictive eating plans, there is very little evidence that regimens such as the well-known Master Cleanse do anything more than lead to unpleasant healthy side effects and rarely long-term weight loss.
Juice fasts also significantly increase your intake of sugar, upsetting the body’s natural balance of blood sugar, potassium and sodium levels creating potentially harmful conditions for diabetics and people with heart and kidney disease. For diabetics, the skyrocketing blood-sugar levels can result in:
- Fatigue
- Blurry Vision
- Excessive Hunger
- Excessive Thirst
- Wounds or infections that are more slowly to heal
On a juice-only diet, you may not get enough fiber or protein to make you full. Not getting enough protein could also mean that you lose valuable muscle mass. Large amounts of foods high in vitamin K, may also change how certain medications works.
As for the detoxifying claims of juice fasts, many gastrointestinal experts say there is absolutely no need for an extreme diet to cleanse our insides. While there are medical conditions that can interfere with organ function and prevent the body from clearing toxins, healthy people already have a built-in detoxification system – the liver, kidneys, lungs and skin. Juice fasts only serve to create an imbalance in the finely-tuned system already existing on your body.
Starvation, Fasting, Very Low-Calorie Diets
While you may think that drastically slashing calories leads to weight loss, the truth is the weight loss includes precious muscle mass and poses major health risks. Rapid weight loss that occurs by critical calorie restriction causes:
- Water, some fat, and muscle loss
- Decreases metabolism
- Causes a shift towards a higher percentage of body fat
- Increases the risk for metabolic syndrome and type-2 diabetes.
Anorexia Causes Serious Damage To Your Body
Anorexia nervosa takes an enormous toll on a female’s body. Between 5% and 20% of people who develop the disease will eventually die from it, and the longer you have it untreated, the most likely that you will die from its devastating effects.
Anorexia is a mental disorder with significant physical consequences to the body. In fact, even before a person with anorexia starts to look “too thin” serious medical changes have already begun. Some of these are:
- Loss of Your Menstrual Cycle – this is significant for many reasons, such as complicating reproduction, but it also negatively affects your bone density.
- Anemia – Human blood needs certain nutrients to remain healthy and vital. Without sufficient nutrition your body does not have enough healthy red blood cells. Red blood cells provide oxygen to body tissues, causing you to feel weak and weary.
- Dry Skin and Hair Loss – Anorexics usually do not consume enough fluids and the result is dehydration. This causes skin to become dry and flaky. The scalp often becomes bald or patchy. Meanwhile hair growth increases on other parts of the torso which is an attempt by your body to keep itself warm.
- Feeling Cold – Females with anorexia usually feel cold and it’s not uncommon for their fingers to appear blue. In fact, their body temperature often registers a couple of degrees below what is considered normal and healthy.
- Slowness of Thought / Brain Shrinkage – Most women with anorexia find it difficult to think straight, especially think quickly. Do you know why this is? Calorie Depletion. Another consequence of starvation is brain shrinkage; and it is permanent. Studies show that anorexia can cause a drop in a sufferer’s actual IQ.
- Damage To Your Bones – The evidence linking anorexia to bone loss is clear. These losses can be significant, especially because many females develop the condition at a time when bone development is crucial. Bones need calcium to remain healthy and strong. When deprived, bone conditions result. Most bone loss is permanent, leaving young women at severe risk of bone fractures and spinal curvature.
- Damage To Your Heart – When you body loses muscle mass, it loses heart muscle – so your heart gets smaller and weaker. It also gets worse at increasing your circulation in response to exercise, and your pulse and your blood pressure get lower. Cardiac tolls are acute and significant, and set it quickly. Heart damage is the most common reason for hospitalization in most women with anorexia.
Anorexia is a multisystem disease, one where virtually no part of the body escapes its effects.
The good news? Recovery is possible.
Many of these complications can be reversible – if the person returns to a healthy weight. Unfortunately, too many people believe that anorexia is strictly a psychological disorder and ignore its medical complications, unless the patient becomes dangerously thin.
The Sooner A Person Seeks Treatment, The Less Severe The Complications Will Be
Recovery from an eating disorder is possible. It’s happening every day at The Meadows Ranch. For additional information about the treatment of eating and anxiety disorders, please call to speak to a Counselor at 866-390-5100 and we will contact you with the information you need.