Hunger and Cravings: The biggest side effect and most common challenge of cleansing is feeling hungry—especially for first-timers. Your body is probably used to consuming at least three full meals per day, and your stomach likely isn’t
used to feeling empty.
It’s important to drink lots of water in between. Staying hydrated helps you feel full and prevents hunger-related symptoms, like headaches and fatigue.
Frequent bathroom visits: Frequent bathroom visits are an expected consequence of cleansing. During a cleanse, you’re moving your body from a typical food-based diet to a liquid diet, meaning your bowel habits will change too. It’s is a normal part of the cleanse process, and your bathroom habits will return to normal before or after the cleanse is finished.
Because you’re consuming an all-liquid diet, you’ll also need frequent pee breaks. You may even notice that your urine has a red tinge. This is a normal effect of drinking the Red cold-pressed juice.
If you’re concerned about how increased bathroom trips might affect your daily life, you might try starting your cleanse right before the weekend or whenever you have your days off.
Health risks: Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should avoid Juice cleanses. Since our juices don’t undergo high-pressure processing (HPP), they aren’t pasteurized. Pregnant women should never consume unpasteurized milk, cheese or juice because of the risk of bacterial infection.
Cleansing is also not recommended for children and teens, who are still growing. However, there’s little evidence that suggests that short-term cleansing is harmful to the average adult. Not eating solid foods for a few days doesn’t produce any severe side effects and is generally safe for most people. However, if you have diabetes, hypoglycemia, heart disease or another chronic illness, then a full, multi-day cleanse may pose unknown risks. It’s important to speak with your doctor or another health care professional before making any dietary changes.
Cleansing and fasting is an ancient tradition practiced by many cultures for thousands of years. It’s believed that Hippocrates, the famous Greek physician, first recommended fasting around the 5th century BCE. In the Greek medicine system, Hippocrates would advise his patients to abstain from food as a way of healing certain diseases. By refraining from eating, his patients could improve particular symptoms and get in touch with their physical and mental needs.
Think of cleansing like the passing seasons. Just like the year has changing seasons, so too does the body, and cleansing can offer you a time of rest and reflection. Cleansing and fasting can help give you the space to listen to your body’s needs and reset your physical health. Cleansing or fasting are periods of paying conscious attention to our physical, mental and spiritual health. It’s a limited time in which you commit to purify the body and reconnect with a higher power or your inner strength.
Throughout history, different groups of people have understood there is a natural accumulation of toxins in the body. Though the body is excellent at purifying itself, it also requires support through cleansing, which helps stimulate and encourage the body’s natural detoxification systems.
The tradition of fasting is done for different reasons within different cultures, but all traditional fasts have similar purposes. The point of cleansing or fasting can be broken down into the three main reasons:
Removing toxin sources: During a fast, you stop your exposure to the source of toxins. Even in ancient times, before synthetic chemicals and harmful toxic products, people sought to eliminate their exposure to certain impurities for a specified length of time.
Adding pure and healthy nutrition: During or after a fast, the practitioners would then introduce health and pure ingredients and nutrition back into their bodies. One particular ancient tradition, Ayurveda, recommended a specific protocol of plants and herbs to stimulate the body’s natural repair and healing mechanisms, which work better after exposure to toxins has ceased.
Resting the body and mind: Due to the mind-body connection, fasting is both a physical and mental practice where you cleanse the body and rest and reflect for your spirit.