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Serious Questions About The Risks Of Juice Fasting
12 years ago
I wanted to ask this on tumblr since there's a huge community of people who focus on the risks on restrictive diets like this, but I also figured I'd get more answers and responses here.
One of my friends on facebook started a juice fast the other day. She's a very petite woman, somewhere between 90-100lbs. Not very big AT ALL.
Greg pointed it out that she's only two days into her fast and already feels starved, is always freezing, and might be hallucinating because of it. (From what he's seen on her facebook)
What worries me is she's doing this to "detoxify and cleanse" her body as well as doing it to look better (As she put it, she doesn't have "That glow" anymore, or something) after watching some documentaries about build-up in the colon and the dangers of pretty much all food ever made. It doesn't seem like she's actually done much research into juice fasting other than biased health-fad sites.
After ten minutes of research I came up with far more negatives than positives that come with juice fasting.
The only positive thing I've found is people saying it makes you feel cleaner. But all the actual scientifically proven risks GREATLY OUTWEIGH feeling "clean" in my opinion.
So my question is, how on Earth should we actually approach this? We both want to let her know of the risks and such but her obsessions with her looks and health, as well as the people who are cheering her on in support of starvation, will make that a VERY sensitive topic and an argument we may not win.
My other question is do any of you guys know anything about Juice fasting? And if you could point me to any unbiased articles that weight the pros and cons, I'd appreciate it.
(I say unbiased because every thing I read in favor of it basically says it's amazing and wonderful and there aren't any real risks blah blah blah. But I also don't want it to be an inherently negative article either.)
This just worries me because I know this girl can get REALLY obsessive about the way she looks to the point of extremes and we're both very worried that this could develop into something much more serious is she keeps listening to biased information and propaganda.
So if you guys have any info you could throw my way, it'd be much appreciated.
Fruits, by themselves, do not contain all the components a grown human body needs to thrive. Why would anyone assume that their juices would?
I have no idea how any could think that either. It makes no sense to me.
Secondly, well, fasting in general is a bad thing. Juice fasting is slightly less bad than just the plain old tea and water fasting, because this way you at least get some vitamins and sugar into your body, but aside of that there's not much point to it. Sure, you detox SOMEWHAT, because your body at some point starts up to gnaw at his bodyfat, and stuff keeps building up in there over time, but it takes some time before it does that. Like some weeks. And doctors pretty much generally disprove of this practice and tell you to instead keep up a healthy, diverse diet to keep your body well.
From what you tell me your friend is not all well equipped with bodyfat, so she may want to overthink her decision, because if her body collapses in on itself (shaking, cold) after just two days, she won't make it for much longer.
Also one point she may want to consider is that she will start to stink. Like, really stink.
When you fast, your body changes up its body chemistry to accomodate. I think its called a Ketonic chemistry or something. What results of this that your sweat and natural odors take up a really nasty smell to them, and also you'll get a bad breath. I don't know how how bad it is when you do juice fasting instead of tea and water fasting, but it can't be much off from that. So yeah, even if she thinks she'll look good from this, she should consider if she wants to look better or stink horribly out of her mouth and body.
From what I've been reading, your body eats muscle before fat because it has more nutrients that you body needs, so it breaks down muscle first.
But I'll let her know about the bodor odor thing. That may work to convince her more than all the health risks sadly... :\
Its part psychology, but a large part comes from our culture today enforcing that you gotta be reek, sleek and weigh under 60 kilogram if you're a grown women. A perfect hourglass figure. You're everything above that, you're ugly and fat.
And your case works the other way too. I myself have a slow metabolism. When I was young it was way faster, so I could eat to my hearts content and not get fat. Now that I grow old that doesnt work anymore and even eating normally and doing work still makes me gain weight. And a classmate I once had was born with a faulty liver, so until it was fixed later her body accumulated all kinds of poisonous material, fat and the like in her body, condemning her to a live of being pudgy. She went through depression because of that because she could do ANYTHING and would never hit that idolized beauty of slenderness.
On the other hand I know someone who can eat (and does eat) pretty much unhealthy, lot of fat, sugar, protein and carbs but doesn't gain any bodyfat. He violently tries to gain weight, sorta like what you're saying.
So yeah, I'm sorry if you're offended, but thats my POV. Violently trying to adhere to a beauty standard when doing so will kill you, be it violent fasting, outright starving or making yourself vomit IS a bad thing. I didn't dissed your inability to gain weight.
And throwing up to lose weight is called bulimia. It's a very serious mental disorder and I don't know how it would even have been considered funny by anyone. I hope they went to recovery and got better because Bulimia is very serious.
Society says a lot of things about a woman's weight. They promote curvy women while at the same time saying you're fat if you're bigger than a size 2. Women who are skinny get called anorexic, sick, disgusting, ect. And women who are fat get called, slobs, ugly, gross, ect. Women, in the media's eyes can't win. Just look at someone like Jennifer Lawrence. She is by NO MEANS overweight in the slightest, but the media says she's too fat. It's a really horrible world out there...
Basically your friend is a moron who doesn't understand even basic nutrition. If she wants to "feel clean" tell her to take a stool softener. This is why we have science.
Also being skinny sucks, but showing your sensitive about it just paints a target on your back.
She tends to get really obsessive over her health over the littlest things. She recently went on a vegan binge because it was the Gracie Martial Arts diet, or something. But she didn't do much research on what her body needed, what those diets do ,and how to properly eat a vegan diet and get everything your body needs. She's really not the brightest bulb in the box sadly...
Well when you've been bullied about your whole life and it being nothing but a negative impact on your life, you kind of get sick of people thinking it's okay to be mean to skinny people. It was not me "being sensitive" but rather a reminder of all the bullying and harassment I went through because of my weight. I have every right to be upset when people insult my weight or body type. Just like I have the right to upset about anything that offends me. :\
If her hallucinations persist she may develop a hereditary schizophrenia as well. Anti depressants and bipolar medications (These are used to treat schizo to, despite their intended purpose.) are most likely going to be harmful to her if she ends up needing them in the long run. The best way to help her right now is to suggest she see a doctor before she does any more dieting.
I will most definitely point her in the direction of a doctor. I am very worried about her health because of this.
The only advice I can give here is to just tell her straight up. Sit down with her, and simply tell her the problems with what she's doing here.
Here's where it gets dangerous. If adipose tissue has run out, and the body STILL requires energy to keep itself functioning, it will go after its own proteins. This is NOT reversible. If the body starts feeding off of its own muscles and nerves, the damage will be permanent. From what you say, she doesn't HAVE any fat on her body, which means right now she's surviving off of the meager sugars in the juice and her own body. The constant cold and possible hallucinations might indicate she is already suffering neuronal damage, aside from the obvious starvation she's forcing herself into.
As an aside, eating only fruits and vegetables will NOT keep a person healthy for long. Our mouth has four teeth specifically designed to tear meat, and our intestines are designed to process mostly sugars and proteins, neither of which is found in high quantities in general plant matter.
Sources: I'm a med student. We covered most of this last semester. I could link you to the PDF of the textbooks covering this matter, if you'd like.