Many people use fruit smoothies or juice cleanses as a tool for losing weight.  If your diet was terrible before you started drinking juice, then I guess it could work.  But I don’t recommend it for anyone.

Fruit is put on this planet to make animals fat.  Bears eat berries in order to fatten up before hibernation.  So why would it be any different for us?  

Most fruits ripen naturally at the end of summer or fall.  Our ancestors would go HAM on these fruits for only a few months out of the year.  This creates the perfect situation for packing on a few extra pounds of fat to help survive through winter when food would become more scarce.

Today it’s summer all year round.  It doesn’t matter if a fruit is in season or not, we have access to it thanks to all the technological advances in shipping and refrigeration.  

Drinking fruit is far more fattening than eating fruit.  Juice is mostly sugar with a few vitamins and antioxidants, but not enough to outweigh the sugar.  A cup of juice and a cup of soda have about the same amount of sugar.  I have yet to hear a logical reason that people are drinking soda for the health benefits.

When you eat the whole fruit you are getting sugar, vitamins, antioxidants, but the difference is that you are also getting fiber along with it.  The fiber will alert the ghrelin receptors in your stomach that you have food and to stop eating. 

Ghrelin is our body’s hunger hormone.  When our stomachs are empty, ghrelin is released to stimulate hunger.  When our stomach is stretched by eating food, ghrelin levels decrease.

When we drink juice or anything similar, those ghrelin receptors never become stretched, so ghrelin stays high and we stay hungry.  That’s why we can drink the juice of 40 fruits but not feel satiated.

So if you are craving something sweet, eat real whole blueberries instead of going for a smoothie.  That way you’ll actually satisfy that craving instead of left wanting more.