Fitness Guid: The 5 Best Juice Diet Tips You've Never Heard Of

If you're thinking about going on a juice diet, let us help you on your journey with this list of the healthiest, most surprising and most useful juice diet tips.

1. Use your brain. Pick a diet that seems nutritionally sound and is not extreme. Drinking only juice for two weeks straight is not nutritionally sound.

Consuming juices with no added fats for more than a few days is not nutritionally sound. Nor is following a low-protein diet for long periods of time. If it sounds like a fad diet, it probably is.

Replacing a meal a day with juice, or doing a two or three-day juice fast is fine for most people, but a doctor should be consulted first if you have any health issues. Doing intermittent, short juice fasts can be a healthy choice for people without diabetes or kidney issues.

Ideally, a healthy diet should include solid foods and juices, and incorporate healthy fats in addition to proteins and carbohydrates. Consuming dietary fiber is also necessary for good health, and is something juices cannot provide. A diet of only juices cannot provide all of the nutrients you need for good health.

2. Don't be surprised if you get tired of juice at some point during your diet. Mix things up! Try new combinations of fruits and vegetables.

Try mixing your fresh juice with pureed avocado, pureed banana, crushed ice, almond milk and/or yogurt. Add healthy oils like flaxseed or extra virgin olive oil, especially to savory vegetable juices.

Use juicing to create a gazpacho soup or a carrot-ginger dressing for a raw salad. Look up new fruit- and vegetable-based recipes to try. Consider investing in a raw food cookbook for additional ways to incorporate raw fruits and vegetables into your diet.

3. Juice only what you will drink. Juice oxidizes quickly, especially if it's foamy and aerated, which destroys some of its micronutrients. One of the most important juice tips that many people have never heard of is that juicing ahead of time is not healthy.

If you will be away from your juicer for much of the day, feel free to make and bottle (in non-reactive glass jars or bottles) the amount of juice that you will need while away from home. But don't juice on Sundays for the rest of the week, or juice your dinner in the morning. It won't look or taste as good, and it certainly won't be as good for your health.

4. Juicing is not just for fruits and vegetables. There are many plants that people forget about when starting to juice, but which can add so much to juices.

Try flavorful roots like ginger or turmeric. Delicious and powerfully healthy alliums like garlic and scallions. Edible flowers such as nasturtiums and pansies, or herbs such as basil, parsley and cilantro.

And don't forget about lemons and limes, which are fruits that often get ignored when it comes time to turn the juicer on! They can significantly change and improve the flavor profile of many different juices, especially vegetable juices.

5. Be patient. Although some people experience an instant burst of energy the first day they start juicing, others do not. Some people take longer to see improvements in their health.

One of the most important juice diet tips is to remember that the first few days may not be easy - They may involve hunger, headaches, or mild nausea. These side effects tend to go away after a few days. It is worth the wait, because you will eventually start to feel your health improve.

Think about how long you were eating unhealthy processed foods and you will realize that it makes sense for it to take a while to undo the damage from that type of diet. So be patient with your juicing, and know that it will pay off in time, with better energy, healthier skin and hair, and improved immunity.