The extreme part is short term, 3, 10, 30 days, whatever you choose. To clean out your system of all the crap that's in it from processed foods, if you have been eating poorly.
After that, you go to a whole food diet, as in unprocessed. If you can hold to the juice diet, you'll have the resolve to hold to a regular healthy diet.
Staying away from the processed foods and cleaning out your system (fat cells included, they store more than just fat, the chemicals are in there too)
People with some serious weight and on medications need to be careful, rapid weight loss will release stored medication and can actually cause issues from an excess of it being released from the areas it was stored in. So if anyone wants to do it but has existing medical problems, you do need the supervision of your doctor.
Husband and I don't have any medical issues that require care... I was dealing with chronic fatigue and lack of energy... from eating poorly. I eliminated soda several years ago so I didn't have to go through that withdrawal.
All you need to do is read the label on foods. As in the ingredients. When on the front it says "No trans fats"... that's the least of it. How many preservatives and other additives are in it? How processed is it? Every process a food goes through removes nutrients in it. The purpose of the juicing is to put those nutrients back, and quickly.
Look at the pile of veggies it takes to make a juice. You can't eat all that in one sitting, and most people can't fathom eating it raw, unbuttered, unsalted, ect. Granted you still aren't getting all the nutrients from each individual veggie because you are not eating all of it, but the juice is concentrating the most important bits into a quantity you wouldn't be able to obtain by eating the whole thing.
At least I don't know anyone who'll eat 4 apples, a lemon, 4 celery stalks, a handful of kale, a cucumber, and a knob of ginger in one sitting, 6 times a day.
Another issue is the tastebuds. How you taste and what you find appealing... cheese sticks or brocoli? Carrot juice or coke? Taking 10 days on the juice completely changes the way you taste things, and makes it easier to eat healthy after that. You'll be able to taste the chemicals and syrup in soda instead of the pleasing taste you enjoyed before... more likely it'll taste like poison. I tried to have a sprite over the holiday... tasted like syrup and it's not even a dark soda.
My husband can't stand the taste of celery, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, carrots, beats... just won't eat it. Hide it in juice... he can't taste it and can now "eat" it. He also has a cheese addiction. LOL... that's still a work in progress.
How we eat now... nothing processed besides the cheese he won't totally let go. The ingredients for dinner here now is... brown rice, wild rice, red pepper, green pepper, sweet onion, garlic, tomato, basil, cilantro, sea salt, olive oil. Compared to the ingredients of Rice-a-Roni... major improvement.
I grew up eating organic/natural foods and juices... wasn't until I was out on my own and eating on my own that I screwed it up, started feeling bad, gaining weight... now I'm circling around back to it.
Starting to feel like I used to... this last week I have been naturally sleepy at 11, and bouncing out of bed at 7am all on my own. I haven't been a morning person in awhile!
Before I had to use sleep aids, and it was a chore to crawl out of bed at 9am.
