The Difference Between Water Fasting and Juice Fasting

Earlier this year I did a 10 day juice fast ala Joe Cross and his movie “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead”. During that time I drank fruit and vegetable juices that I made in my Breville juicer. Along with the juices I did have a cup of coffee with raw milk in the morning and a cup of chamomile tea with raw milk before bed. I lost 10.4 in one week on the juice fast and 10.2 pounds in one week water fasting.

In the beginning for the first couple of days juice fasting I felt really good. I had energy and was in general happy. Towards the end (I only made it to 9 days juice fasting) I was craving cooked or solid food so much so that I ended the fast. The fruits and vegetables that I needed in order to juice cost me $10.00 a day. Of course that was in Manhattan where everything is expensive but still..I only juiced maybe 3 times a day in order to keep the cost down.

Recently I went on a water fast. I drank nothing but water except for my same coffee and tea routine morning and night. There are a few major differences between water and juice fasting. When you water fast you completely lose any desire for food. When I was juice fasting after a few days I had major cravings..not for bad food but for solid food like a salad or anything cooked. It became so bad that I eventually went off the juice fast after 9 days. Also, juicing is expensive! It costs about $10 a day to juice fast and I was being very conservative. Water fasting is FREE! The other huge difference is after about 3 days of water fasting you lose all cravings for food. When I was juice fasting if I smelled food cooking I had an overwhelming craving to eat it, while water fasting I enjoy the smell of food cooking but I still don't want to eat it..it's really amazing and weird. The other main difference between water fasting and juice fasting is that I did have more energy while juice fasting. I remember that I even went running while juice fasting. That is not the case while water fasting. You might be able to go for leisurely walks and you can definitely carry out your daily duties but you will not want to run or exercise strenuously when water fasting. In fact you should put yourself into a position so that when you want to rest you can.

In both instances I felt a great deal of mental clarity and slept wonderfully.

Additionally, I have to mention that I am overweight. If you are not overweight and you attempt to do a long term water fast it can be quite dangerous and I would not recommend it without medical supervision. I've even read that some people have died doing long term (that is longer than a week) fasts that have not been overweight to begin with.

So, my conclusion is that Water Fasts are more beneficial than Juice Fasts if you are overweight and want to lose weight.

To reiterate on Water Fasts:

1. You lose the same amount of weight as a juice fast.

2. It costs NOTHING and juice fasts are expensive.

3. You have no cravings whatsoever after about 3 days.

4. They give you mental clarity and you sleep well.

Fasting is a lost art in our culture. Our culture is so obsessed with food that a complete water fast is usually met with various degrees of horror from the public. I can't tell you how many people have reacted to my water fasting with comments like “It's bad for you to fast”, “You'll hurt your metabolism”, or “Don't go for too long you'll die”.

In my opinion if it was good enough for Jesus then it is good enough for me. Common sense tells me that fasting is a good idea, animals do it, our ancient ancestors used to do it on a regular basis and every major religion recommends it. So I'll leave it up to you to decided but as for me I am glad to have stumbled upon this technique and I'm sure I will continue fasting for the rest of my life..although not without breaks in between :)