It often seems as if it is easier to win an Olympic gold medal than to achieve permanent weight loss. But these juicing recipies for weight loss will help you shed pounds while enjoying the four benefits of juicing.

The approach is simple: Drink one to two glasses of juice daily. With one or two glasses, you will consume the nutrients of as much raw produce as everyone has always recommended. The advantages of juicing are both the convenience and the increased nutrient value. Even the same juice bottled commercially loses many of the most volatile nutrients to oxidation and heat. Those are three of four of the juicing benefits — freshness, maximum nutrition, and convenience.

The following recipes show you the fourth juicing benefit: the unending variety available in your home-made juices. Start with this one from the Great Juicing book:

Pineapple-Orange Rapture

4 oranges

2 cups pineapple

1 sweet potato

Process in juicer. Stir. This is very high in vitamins A and C — a great morning drink. Kids love it — just don’t say what’s in it. This juice by itself is very sweet, so use it mostly for flavoring other juices with a high vegetable content.

You need to show some moderation with a juicing diet. Trying to lose more than 1/2 pound per week is likely to be unhealthy. That includes a diet of just juiced fruits and vegetables.

A juice fast of 1-2 days may be good for cleaning out your system and may help you jump-start a juicing diet for weight loss, but for the longer term, you must have adequate protein and fats, as well as the carbohydrates that juices do not provide. And do not juice all the veggies you eat. You need plenty of fiber to keep your intestines functioning.

Drinking the 1-2 glasses of juice daily can give you with a great deal of sugar along with the many basic nutrients. Juices, especially those with a lot of fruit or carrots, can be very sweet. Diabetics or pre-diabetics need to be careful with these ingredients. Sticking more to the vegetables is a good idea for any weight loss plan. Vegetables, except carrots and sweet potatoes, are generally low in calories. Use the sweet ones more as condiments to add interest to the vegetables. Here’s another recipe for further inspiration:

Red Wonder Juice

3 carrots

1 apple, cored

1 cucumber

1 beet

1 stalk of celery

Juice. If you think this juice needs a bit of a zing, add fresh ginger to taste!

Experiment with including more vegetables and less of the sweet stuff to further reduce the calories and the effects on your blood sugar.

You will win a gold medal when you apply your own program of juicing for weight loss. No matter how you do it, you will have the juicing benefits of convenience, nutrition, freshness, and variety as well as weight loss. Please mount the award stand now!