On cheating

The thing about juice fasting is that it's not a "diet" per se. Certain diets, such as the Atkins or South Beach diets, have strict rules about how foods can and should be combined. I know for a fact that if you break the rules with the Atkins diet, you can actually undo the benefits from weeks of strict adherence. It's like the diet puts you in the condition of fuel-soaked tinder and breaking the rules is like lighting a cigarette. This is why "cheating" is a word that comes up when you're on a diet: If you aren't following the strict rules, you're breaking them. I think it's a lousy word, myself. Who, exactly, am I cheating? Is it any wonder why we have such strange and guilt-ridden attitudes about food when we describe the act of eating something we enjoy with a word which means "dishonest" and "betray"?

The effects of juicing are a little different. You're not really tricking your body into ketosis the way the Atkins diet does. It's not a magic trick or a trigger for your body to function in a way it wouldn't naturally. All you're doing is loading lots and lots of nutrition into your body. That's it. You're clearing the path between you and the good stuff in the fruits and veg you eat. Nothing more. Your weight loss and alertness if your body just doing what it naturally does; you haven't "tricked" your body into doing those things. You've "allowed" it to. In other words, if you eat a chocolate bar, you aren't undoing the results of all your juicing discipline. Unlike Atkins or South Beach, nutrient intake isn't something you do "for a while" or as some kind of magic trick to drop a few pounds before a wedding. Nutrition is the central purpose of food. It's the key element in making sure everything in your body and mind works properly. And, as part of the long game, it's not like you're never going to eat another hamburger again for the rest of your life. It's about habits and moderation. It's about making sure the good things you're putting in your body vastly outnumber the bad.

Be aware, however: There are certain things that happen when you have been juicing for a while. Your body, no longer used to things like caffeine, wheat, sugar, dairy, will respond differently than it did when those things were a major part of your life. Your new over-sensitivity to these things is actually a sign of health. After all, you're not supposed to drink four cups of coffee a day and feel nothing. If that's what's happening, something is wrong with you. Anyhow, I mention this because if you do decide to cheat on your juice fast, you may feel way more like crap than you expect. You may once have been able to pound back two burgers and a large Coke in a sitting, but after a prolonged period of juicing your body will have changed. Your old eating habits may be unappealing and perhaps even impossible for the new you that you've created (I actually had a rather unpleasant surprise in that regard just last week).

Bottom line: If you're juicing and you really just have to have a donut, then just go for it. And enjoy the hell out of that donut. It won't undo the good work you've done. I once read a quote (the source of which I can't remember): "There is nothing wrong with what a man does, but there is something wrong with what he becomes. It is good to remember this." If you're a person who eats a donut now and then, there's nothing wrong with that. If you become someone who's all about donuts, then you have to worry.

And forget about guilt. It's pointless and does nothing for you, whether you're a glutton for junk or a juice-fasting purist. Instead, stick to reason and moderation. Hard to go wrong with that.