I have just returned from a 2 week holiday in India and let’s just say I was not shy about tucking into a curry or twenty! I ate A LOT. My resolution of healthy eating was temporarily put on hold while I indulged in India’s amazing food. I made the decision that life is too short to miss out on an amazing curry!

To get back on track, now I have returned, I decided I would buy Jason Vales book and try out his juice diet. The premise is that you lose 5lbs in 5 days if you stick to it, to the letter. There are many skeptics out there, on the concept of juice diets, they all have horror stories of when one of their friends did it. What’s great about this book is that it details the most common reasons that people are anti juice diets and gives you the counter argument you need to justify the benefits. It’s necessary to read the book before embarking on the diet as it gives you loads of handy hints about how to be successful. If you’re anything like me, it’s really easy to get over excited and dive straight in, but I really would recommend reading the book 1st.

Here is why I thought the juice diet was great:

1) You are not hungry

Did I crave a chicken tikka masala from time to time? Of course, I’m a real foodie and I did slightly miss having actual meals, but was I hungry? No not at all. In fact sometimes I couldn’t finish all the juices as they were quite filling.

2) The juices are very tasty

All the juices, without exception were very tasty. When you are making them and see what is going in them, you can’t help but think they might taste awful, but they really don’t. They all tasted really good.

3) They give you energy

Each day of doing the juice diet, I had way more energy than usual. I think of myself as a person with crazy amounts of energy anyway, always on the go. I realised through doing this diet, that although I do have an abundance of energy, I usually have a dip late afternoon. Often I have a big lunch and I think that’s what causes the dip and makes me feel like a nap later on in the day. With the juice diet I didn’t get that low. I had high energy throughout.

4) Exercise

I try to exercise most days, sometimes just for 15 minutes or so, other times up to an hour or more. Jason Vale suggests splitting your exercise into twice a day. This actually worked really well for me. Most days I did between 20 minutes or half an hour in the morning and the same in the evening. I rarely exercise in the evening normally, as I don’t have the energy, but as I mentioned, I had loads of energy during these 5 days. It meant I worked a lot harder than I would have, having done one longer stint of exercise and also there are benefits in having two recovery periods.

5) I lost 4lb

I only weigh 119lb’s, so to lose 5lb in 5 days, is a bit of an ask and I was a bit sceptical about whether it would be possible. I was therefore quite surprised to find I had actually lost 4lb by the end of the diet. I was really happy with this. As well as losing the weight, I felt a lot better, my skin and hair felt healthy and I felt motivated to continue to eat healthily (there are tips on how to do this in the book)

In summary, I would totally recommend this diet to anyone who wants to feel healthy and lose some weight in the process. As Jason Vale says, it’s only 5 days. How bad can it be?
Let me know if you have done the diet, or are thinking of doing it in the comments below and how you got on.