Truth or Trend: To juice or not to juice?

Waist trainers, crash diets, colon cleanses—all things touted as the next miracle solution for weight loss. With the help of our new Registered Dietitian columnist, we’ll sort out the truth from the trash when it comes to health trends on your social media feeds, and provide healthy, sustainable alternatives for those to-good-to-be-true fixes. Welcome to Truth or Trend.

If you’ve been on social media at any point lately, you have certainly scrolled across posts claiming juicing is going “detox” your body and provide quick weight loss. Well, as a Registered Dietitian, I’ll let you in on a little secret: you don’t need these juices, and, in fact, they are a waste of your money and time.

The human body has an innate ability to process and “detox” for free with organs like the liver and kidneys. These juice cleanses promote inadequate nutrition as they are low in protein and fiber, are a form of unsustainable crash dieting and typical result in yo-yo weight gain, and tend to have a laxative effect, thus result in a loss of simply water weight.

Take-aways: If you’re looking to try and “detox,” don’t waste your time; your body has this under control. If you’re looking to lose weight, skip the crash juice diet and try a more sustainable approach with a small health goal like adding a daily serving of fruits and or vegetables to increase fiber in your diet.

Becca is an Ohio native and University of Cincinnati graduate who works as a traveling consultant dietitian and is currently living in Juneau, Alaska. She owns Centum Cento Fitness LLC, a company dedicated to using evidenced based practice to help empower clients to build sustainable and healthy lifestyles through nutrition and fitness. Follow Becca on Instagram!

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