We have a juicer at home, so I figured I might as well try a 2-week juice fast; nothing too long or intensive.
I'm worried, though, that it'll be more trouble than it's worth. I know you regain a lot of it back afterwards, because it messes up your metabolism--but how long will it take for my metabolism to go back to the way it was before the fast?
For example, if I continued eating the same way afterwards, will I end up gaining even more weight than I lost?
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You don't need to worry about your metabolism because it won't get messed up. There are many reason why juice fasting is unhealthy and foolish but metabolism is not one of them. The answer to your question is, your metabolism is normal and will continue to be normal, doing what metabolism does by reacting to the demands you make of your body chemisty.
You cannot make your metabolism speed up significantly or more than briefly without adding muscle. Here's the story.
One of the most common myths or misunderstandings in diet, nutrition, and fitness is that metabolic rate is responsible for a person's natural tendency toward being fat or thin or muscular. Or that metabolic rate can be changed to help lose fat or gain weight. This is not true and easy evidence of that fact can be found here ---> http://www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html where basal metabolic rate (BMR) can be calculated with only height, weight, sex, and age. If metabolism was responsible for gaining fat or staying thin, that natural tendency would have to be included in the calculation of BMR. It's not.
It's important to understand this fact because it will put an end to the frustration that comes with trying to change the metabolic rate to create a specific effect such the loss or gain of body weight, fat, or muscle. Unless you have a real medical issue, your metabolism is fine and nothing you do is going to create more than a normal temporary change in metabolic rate with one exception. Adding lean muscle mass will raise your BMR by about 50 cal/day per pound of muscle for as long as you maintain that muscle. That's a lot of work for a little change but for many, it's an excellent metabolic investment.
If it's important to you to blame something for being an easy or hard gainer, then blame your parents because those propensities are inherited...genetic. Or blame your soma (body) type (ecto, endo, or mesomorph) and the number of fat cells you have. But don't blame your metabolism because it is nothing more than the totality of the energy exchanges which happen every second of every day as required to sustain your life given the demands of the moment.
Most people would be well advised to not even use the word metabolism as it has no real relevance to the problems of being an easy or hard gainer. It makes no more sense to think about your metabolism in regard to diet or exercise than it does to think about your car's horsepower when pressing on the gas pedal to go or the brake pedal to stop. If you're concerned with losing fat, gaining weight, building muscle, or maintaining, follow good diet, exercise, and fitness strategies and your metabolism will take care of itself.
For more about metabolism, go here and see what the experts have to say ---> http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/metabolism/WT00006
NOTE - It's worth mentioning that there are websites with articles about "boosting" the metabolism. Livestrong.com and WebMD.com are examples of credible websites which suggest ways to boost the metabolism. And, although what they say is true qualitatively, they don't provide any quantitative information thereby leading the reader to believe they may be able to make fat loss easy. The truth is anything you do to increase your energy output temporarily will increase your metabolism. However, nothing other than adding muscle will boost your metabolism significantly and permanently. Be very careful about information you glean from dot coms. There is as much bad information on the internet as there is good and most of it is driven by profit motive.
Don't drink your food. Eat it. I don't have the room left to explain why juicing is bad. Suffice it to say you deprive yourself of a significant part of the GI exercise that goes with eating...mastication, salivation, digestion, peristalsis, etc. And, you get more calories fasting drinking while depriving yourself of the fiber-rich pulp you get from eating whole fruit.
The reason you'll regain fat lost with juice fasting is because you'll return to your normal eating habits which gave you the fat to begin with.
Good luck and good health!
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