You can't go wrong with investing in a good blender. My K-tech is over a decade old and it's still going strong. Quality piece of machinery. So is the Vita-mix. The nutribullet isn't going to cut it.
And yes, you are going to lose weight, I looked like a cancer patient after each one of my four water fasts. But when you start building again, it's quality muscle. If you've never cleansed before you're going to be getting rid of alot of internal garbage. You'll be starting to build on a new, solid foundation.
Total Male Optimization "People who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt those that are doing it"
Yeah, 1lb each of kale, spinach, celery and a large cucumber (plus apples and pears to taste - generally around 4-6 of each) as outlined on TotalMaleOptimisation were the cornerstone of my juice feast - I'd do it across 4 batches, and it'd make about 4 quarts of liquid once squeezed. I'd then make a quart or two of something sweeter for a treat - plums, pineapple, grapes, melon, blueberries and watermelon all work fairly well alone or in combo with one other.
Banana pulp can't be strained through a nutmilk bag, so you'll have to leave them out. I also had real trouble with peaches, strawberries and raspberries - the pulp tends to just sit in the bag and no matter how hard I squeezed, very little liquid came out. Same with oranges, so they should be squeezed with a hand juicer rather than blended and strained.
I consumed 90% fresh produce, with a little high-quality store-bought orange juice (sans bits), apple juice and coconut water. Probably not as good as fresh produce, but I was away from home for a couple of days and there are only so many bottles of green smoothie you can pack in an overnight bag.
Good luck on your cleanse!
No worries. Nah, I just gave them a good rinse under the tap before cutting them, but that might be a good idea if you can find a clean enough product. Kale tends to come pre-chopped though, and sometimes spinach too - in those cases you don't want to wash them too vigorously or squeeze too much water out, as some of the water-soluble nutrients will be lost with the water.
Oh on that subject, just one more tip - after blending, I'd let the mixture sit in the blender whilst washing/chopping the ingredients for the next batch, to give the water-soluble nutrients a few more minutes to dissolve before straining. Not sure if there's really any science to that, but it doesn't add any extra time or effort to the whole process either.
Awesome. After the feast, how slowly did you re-introduce foods? I plan to go for a week, but I probably need to go for 10 days- 2 weeks, as my symptoms are pretty bad. Would whole steamed vegetables and fruits be best at first? Maybe bone broth as well.
I broke my 2-week cleanse first on orange juice with pulp, then yoghurt and whole fruit, but by the evening I was straight back onto my regular foods (paleo obviously). Probably wasn't wise, but I didn't have any negative effects whatsoever (apart from maybe feeling fuller on a little less food).
The juice cleanse is an excellent opportunity to find out if you've got any food sensitivities though - you may want to wait a couple of weeks before reintroducing dairy, to see if you feel any different when you eventually do. Most people in the Western world probably haven't gone 10 days in their life without consuming dairy in one form or another.
If you've recently been experiencing any recurring digestive issues or autoimmune-like symptoms, you may even want to go the whole hog and try an Autoimmune Protocol-style reintroduction period for various food groups. While juice-feasting, if you're not consuming any nightshades you'll be avoiding all the known trigger-foods, and once you stop blending your fruits and vegetables, and add meat/fish back into your diet, you'll basically be on the strictest version of the AIP diet already. I've never really had any digestive issues that didn't clear up when I went paleo and this was a little too extreme for me, but I know English was big on his gut health and felt it played an instrumental part in his recovery.
Total Male Optimization "People who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt those that are doing it"
Could some of you guys help with talking me through what your diet looked like post juice feast or water fast? I know the protocol suggests a paleo diet with carbs in the evening on training days, but what did the bulk of the diet consist of? I have had so much muscle wastage and weakness and it seems pointless to even lift weights anymore and i've done it for 6 years! it is so heartbreaking man. I have yet to do my juice feast but I guess I just wanted to get more input before embarking on all of this. I just don't see how I can be fixed at this point.