Juice diets have become a major fad, with people pigging out on holiday or during the festive season and then relying on a juice cleanse to help them lose weight and detoxify their bodies. Here are eight reasons why a juice cleanse is not the best way to go. 1. Whole fruits and vegetables are healthier than juice. Fruits and vegetables are loaded with dietary fibre, but you lose out on this fibre when you juice them. Fibre controls your blood sugar levels, keeps your digestive system moving and maintains heart health, among other things. 2. You’re drinking a lot of sugar. Fruits are loaded with a type of sugar called fructose, and though fructose is a natural sugar, too much of it is unhealthy and can cause fatigue, blurred vision and infections. When you eat whole fruits, the fibre content in the fruits slows down the absorption of the sugar, but since juices don’t have fibre, the sugar gets absorbed very quickly. 3. Juices don’t make for a balanced diet. Juice diets may lack certain nutrients because they eliminate several food groups. You may fall short of your daily protein requirement, and miss out on certain key vitamins and minerals that your body needs. In fact, it’s quite possible that the weight you lose during the cleanse is due to loss of muscle mass rather than loss of fat, simply because your body isn’t getting enough protein to fuel muscle growth and maintenance. 4. Juices don’t fill you up as much as regular food. Chewing food helps your body realise that it’s full. When you drink juice, there’s no chewing involved, so you don’t feel very full. 5. Juice diets can be dangerous. Juices provide you with very concentrated doses of certain minerals like potassium, which can be harmful to your kidneys. Juice diets can also be harmful for diabetics, pregnant women, people with disabilities and people undergoing chemotherapy. 6. Your body detoxifies itself anyway. Your body works round the clock to get rid of chemicals and toxins through your sweat, urine and faeces. There’s no need to go on a juice diet per se. 7. The weight loss is not sustainable in the long run. People lose a lot of weight when they begin juice diets because the lack of carbs causes the body to lose a lot of water. This makes them think that juice diets are a magic way to lose weight, but when they start eating carbs again, their bodies start retaining water once again. Juice diets are also not conducive to long term weight loss, because after the diet people go right back to their old habits and gain back the weight they lost. A better strategy to lose weight would be to cut down sugar and junk food intake on a long term basis. 8. Juice diets are expensive. If you’ve ever done a juice cleanse, you’ll know that it’s not cheap! Juices are not really affordable for any prolonged period of time.