A juice fast is a powerful way to lose weight, increase your energy and improve digestion. Imagine being able to drop as much as 10 pounds in one week. You can but before you dive into a fast, its important that you understand what it entails and properly prepare yourself for the week of juice fasting.

During this week, youll consume juice and juice alone. No solid food. Its by consuming only juice that you will fully reap the rewards of juicing and lose the most weight.

1.First things first talk to your doctor

Before you get started, you may need to talk to your doctor. If youre on medication, your dosing may need to be adjusted since you wont be consuming solid food. Your doctor may also want to add supplements to your routine for the next week. If you want to lose weight, youre going to need to fast correctly, and that means making sure youre doing it in a way thats healthy for you.

2.Pick a juicer

Masticating or centrifugal; commercial or consumer grade; wide shoot or narrow there are numerous styles of juicers at a wide variety of price points available. Do your research and find the one that will help you meet your goals and, more importantly, is one that will help you stick to your juice fast for the duration. If you know youre short on time, you may want to opt for one with wider shoot that doesnt require a lot of chopping as well as one thats relatively easy to clean.

3.Stock your fridge with fruits and vegetables

One of the first keys to success in juice fasting is having the proper tools. This means stocking your refrigerator with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables for juicing ideally these will be organic. It may help to find recipes for juices that sound appealing to you and making sure, at a minimum, that you have those ingredients on hand.

Heres a look at some of the more commonly used key ingredients. Stock up on these to use as a base and experiment from there.

    • Greens Most of your juices should include at least one green ingredient, i.e. kale, spinach, broccoli, cucumber, celery, Swiss chard, etc.
    • Sweet juice ingredients To make the juice tastier, youll probably want something to add some sweetness, i.e. apples, beets, carrots, grapes and pineapples.
    • Savory juice ingredients You can make your juices more savory by adding vegetables such as tomatoes.

4.Make your juice tastier

You can make your juice a little more to your liking with the inclusion of fresh herbs, spices or more unique fruits and vegetables such as parsley, basil, lime or ginger.

5.Fresh juice is the best juice

When you juice your fruits and vegetables, especially your greens, youre breaking down the cell walls which allows the body to absorb the nutrients easily. Thats good news if youre drinking your juice immediately. But the longer your juice sits, the more these nutrients and enzymes degenerate. The best way to get the nutrients your body needs and reach your weight-loss goals is to make your juice fresh.

If juicing throughout the day is not an option based on your schedule, you may want to select a masticating juicer such as Green Star or Samson as these tend to fight oxidation better and last longer. If youre using the more common centrifugal juicer, I recommend storing your juice in a glass jar, keep it refrigerated until youre ready to drink it, and divide your juice into single serving sizes so its not exposed to air and light more than necessary.

6.Drink water while youre fasting

In addition to your juice, drink at least 8 glasses of filtered water every day. This is a good practice every day but drinking plenty of water is especially important while youre doing a juice fast. Keeping your body hydrated will also help you shed the pounds.

7.Ease back into solid food

Remember, you havent eaten solid food in a week, and just because youve done it for most of your life, it may still come as a shock to your body. Its best to start with solid fruits and vegetables and slowly add more grains and proteins as your body is ready.

A juice fast is also a great way to jump start dietary changes that will lead you down the road to additional weight loss goals, so dont sabotage everything youve done in the past week by gobbling down unhealthy foods. Instead, stick to healthy, raw, vegetarian food choices and you will find that not only do you keep off the weight youve just lost, but youll continue to make headway towards your final goal weight.