Fruit and Vegetable Juice for Weight Loss?

Is glass of juice equivalent to a serving of fruit? And what about a smoothie? Learn how juicing can be great for weight loss.

People who struggle with their weight or obesity and want to lose weight need to know that they’re up against many different factors. Many opt for unconventional solutions that promise fast results, such as diets based on juice or smoothies.

According to the World Health Organization, obesity is a disease that affects more than 650 million adults. Furthermore, of those 650 million, it leads at least 2.8 million to their deaths. These alarming numbers have nearly tripled since 1975. And the worst part? It’s increasing.

Health and sports professionals need to work together to face obesity, which is already considered an epidemic. There must be serious changes on both an individual and public level to control health problems and the food industry.

Losing weight

When people first start thinking about losing weight, the initial motivation is usually strong for the first few pounds. But after time, they run into difficulties and cave into questionable weight loss methods.

Currently, substituting meals with juices for weight loss via calorie-restriction is a popular yet faulty dieting fad. Dieters who resort to this method usually gain all their weight back when they return to normal foods. The strictly-juice diet relies more on calorie-restriction that changing lifestyle habits, the latter being proven to be the most effective method around.

Juice for breakfast?

Juice has always been on the breakfast menu. You can see it for yourself on every early-bird restaurant menu. But is juice equivalent to a serving of fruit? Try looking at it from this point of view: is there a difference between having an orange juice and an orange for breakfast?

Simple answer: there’s a difference in how full you feel after. When you eat a piece of fruit, you’re getting vitamins, minerals and most importantly, fiber. Fiber keeps you full and helps your digestive system flow smoothly. And in the end, don’t you want to feel full when you eat?

But dietary fiber isn’t the only reason why oranges will fill you up more than just their juice. If it weren’t the case, you could simply add the pulp to your juice and you could enjoy a filling breakfast; but it doesn’t work like that.

The digestive process actually starts much sooner than you might think. When you consume a piece of food, your digestive system is already running; your body releases gastric juices and hormones that start making you feel full. In addition, chewing also helps trigger the feeling, making it an important action in the process as well.

But let’s boil it down even more with the following experiment: how many oranges do you need to make a glass of juice? Generally speaking, you need at least two. So, the test is, which of the two options leaves you feeling fuller? A glass of orange juice or two oranges? See the difference now?

And juicing?

Unlike in regular juice, juicing doesn’t eliminate the pulp, which retains all the natural fiber. But it’s not all good news: by juicing fruits and vegetables, you lose the digestive advantages of chewing. And not chewing means feeling less full.

Consuming excess calories through homemade smoothies that are rich in milk and calories is one of the biggest problems associated with bariatric surgery failures. Bariatric surgery aims to help patients lose weight by shrinking the size of their stomachs. A smaller stomach limits the amount of food that patients can ingest.

But not all juices are bad choices. Some commercial nutritional products can help the patients meet their nutritional needs.

For example, a broken hip creates a massive need for proteins, which can be challenging for patients to meet with their normal diets. A smoothie supplement would be a beneficial complement to their treatments.