Is This Juice Diet Really a Good Idea?

By Ava Feuer, REDBOOK.

They're among the biggest--and most controversial--diet trends out there with the medical community claiming the newest liquid diets are but a short-term fix and advocates touting their supposed myriad benefits. Jason Vale's 5lbs in 5 Days promises that on his juicing program, you'll drop weight like that, but we're a little skeptical.

Vale, a Brit who owns a chain of juice bars and has written a series of bestselling books, credits juicing for his own health turnaround--he believes it's what's behind his weight loss, giving up smoking and drinking, resetting his addictions to junk foods, and curing skin conditions like psoriasis and excema. Sure, his D.I.Y. program is a departure from the packaged cleanses on the market, but despite his success coaching celebs and athletes, we weren't sold, so we asked Vale to elaborate.

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Can you sum up the plan for us? What makes it different than all the others out there, especially from the ever-growing number of cold-pressed juice companies?

It's all about getting the person into the right frame of mind first. Most people just deliver the juices, but they don't deal with the addiction, withdrawal, detox, and, more importantly, what to do after the program. That's just as important.

How many calories does it all add up to each day? And how did you arrive at that number?

I don't do calories, because the whole calories in, calories out theory is flawed on many levels. We need to move away from that and tap into furnishing the body with what it actually thrives on. You can eat 2,000 calories in candy bars or 2,000 calories in broccoli and the body will respond very differently. As for the ratio of nutrients, I prefer a ratio of color. Different colored fruits and veggies pack very different nutrients, so I've made sure to include the rainbow, and moreover, things like whole avocados to give soluble and insoluble fiber.

You say that on your plan, the average person drops between seven and 10 pounds in a week. Isn't it unhealthy to lose so much weight so quickly?

For years, there has been a rumor that you shouldn't lose more than two pounds a week, but it's utter rubbish. There is no scientific evidence to suggest it is healthy or unhealthy to do so. Clearly, all seven to 10 pounds aren't fat--I've never said it is. However, it is something the body wants to get rid of when it has the chance. Moreover, it's all about momentum. If someone weighs 220 pounds and their goal is 170 pounds, chances are that if they lose one pound the first week of a diet, they'll very likely give up. But if they see real results, they feel like they're flying and want to continue.

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I think most people would agree that detoxing the body is a good idea, but why is doing it with juice better than doing it with a well-rounded, whole-foods-based diet?

I don't know why people don't eat a fruit- and vegetable-rich diet, but they don't, so we need to find another way. Fresh juicing is the answer.

When you eat any fruit or vegetable, all you are ingesting is the juice contained within the fiber; fiber cannot penetrate through the intestinal wall. It's not so much you are what you eat, but rather, you are what you manage to absorb. Juicing is rapid healthy nutrition--it takes just 15 minutes to leave the stomach where all of the nutrients can be absorbed easily.

Not only that, but although we tend to eat fruit raw, we usually cook--and in many cases overcook--our vegetables. We are the only creatures on earth who cook our food, a process that kills off nutrients. Juicing is perhaps the best way to get the finest, easiest-to-absorb array of different colored fruits and vegetables in their raw form into your body.

Many companies promote three-day juice cleanses, claiming your body loses essential nutrients after that point and can start eating its own muscle for energy. You advocate five days. Why?

I not only advocate five days, but I did a 28-day juice diet last year and I have never felt better. I agree that having nothing but processed juice or nothing but orange juice for five days would be a bad idea. But I ensure that all the bases are covered. Not only does my program have a spectrum of different colored juices, the first and last juices of each day are actually blends. I do this for two reasons. One is to add avocado, which is the perhaps the ultimate superfood--it contains the good fats that regulate appetite, which is essential for anyone on a liquid diet. The other reason is make sure there is some whole food within the program since we need a little insoluble fiber. If a juice program is well thought out--mine is based on 15 years of research--then fears of the body losing essential nutrients and eating its own muscle are completely unfounded.

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A lot of people believe that juice diets are temporary fixes, and that they'll gain the weight back immediately after. What scientific evidence is there to combat that?

Where is the scientific evidence to the contrary? It's true that if after a juice diet, someone immediately goes back to the diet that made them overweight to start, they will gain weight back. That's not because they went on a juice diet, but because of the way they eat on a regular basis.

But people often feel so deprived at that point that they binge. Do you not see this?

I ran an addiction center for years, so I know that people only feel deprived if they feel they are missing out, but a juice diet can literally reset cravings. The vast majority of cravings come from the mind, but there is no question that white refined sugar, salt, and fat trigger them. After five days of juicing, withdrawal from these drug-like foods and drinks ends, and often so does the desire for them. There is no scientific evidence to prove cravings abate in a set time, but we do know that things like caffeine and nicotine leave the body in three to five days. However, you also need to remove the mental desire. You cannot get into the right frame of body without first getting into the right frame of mind.

Then, in addition to a physical reset, shouldn't people to seek psychological treatment for dealing with these issues?

This is where people have it wrong. The vast majority of people are addicted to refined fat, salt, and sugar, which create false hungers and make people believe they cannot live without them. This doesn't require psychological treatment, but an understanding of the food trap.

So what's health and diet philosophy?

The vast majority of lifestyle diseases, although given different names, are in fact part of the same thing. Our bodies are over-polluted to the point that our cells bathe in the absence of genuine live nutrition. If a person removes the pollution coming in and addresses their nutritional deficiencies, most lifestyle diseases will either improve dramatically or go away completely. If we make optimal health our number-one goal, a slim body will naturally follow.

Our take: It sounds as if Vale's proven a lot of this through his own experiments, but we're not totally ready to buy into explanations of how the body processes "pollutants" like sugar, fat, and salt, since we've yet to see scientific proof that these are effects are real.

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