How I shed 8lb in 7 days on the juice diet

With the party season fast approaching, most of us are keen to shed a few pounds before our evenings become a whirlwind of calorie-laden social gatherings. And as it’s already mid-November, we’re looking for a quick solution.

Keen to lose half a stone, I discovered it’s possible to shape up on a diet that’s nutritionally balanced but wouldn’t leave me feeling famished. The secret? It’s not what you eat, it’s what you drink. That’s the message from Jason Vale the juice master who lost four stone on his revolutionary diet of liquidised fruit and vegetables.

Over the past decade Jason, 39, has acquired a celebrity following with Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore and Katie Price all disciples of his juice and smoothie diet. However, he hasn’t always been the health guru he is today.

Born in south London, Jason had an unsettled childhood punctuated with a spell in a mud hut in Togo after his mother Nina went to Africa.

He was plagued with ill-health and suffered his first asthma attack at eight, which nearly killed him. Two years later he developed eczema. The steroids prescribed for his asthma made him balloon and by the age of 12 he weighed 13stone.

At school, Jason was known as Fatty Vale. By the age of 15 he was a heavy smoker, his favourite foods were burgers and fries and his lunches consisted of pints of lager. A year later, his body erupted with the inflammatory skin condition psoriasis.

Throughout his 20s, Jason – who at his heaviest weighed almost 15 stone – began experimenting with diets and exercise. After a while he stopped smoking and worked as an addiction counsellor. Eventually he gave up alcohol. Then, at 29,

he read a report on the health benefits of carrot juice. He bought a book on juicing and thought that ingesting fruit and vegetables might help his skin.

His first juice mix was spinach, celery and cucumber. “It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever tasted,” he says. “I had some apples handy so I juiced them to get rid of the taste. As soon as I tasted that apple juice, it changed my life. It tasted wonderful.” Apple and pineapple, he found, can make most vegetable-based fruits sweeter and more palatable.

“My weight started to drop off and my asthma improved,” he says. “I began to consume more juice and less food. I got hooked on it. I had what I now know is a juice high.”

Eventually his skin cleared up and Jason, who refers to freshly extracted raw juice as “liquid gold”, has never looked back.

In order to lose weight in a healthy way, he recommends substituting a juice for breakfast and lunch and eating a balanced evening meal. His juices also include supplements such as spirulina, rich in vitamins, protein and essential amino acids. These can be bought from health food shops or from his website.

All you need to complete his diet is a juice extractor, a blender for avocados, bananas and mangoes and a selection of fresh fruit and veg. Jason’s juices are filling and tasty and he has spent hours making foul-tasting mistakes so you don’t have to.

It sounds easy enough so when Jason invited me to attend his ultimate detox retreat near Marmaris in Turkey, I jumped at the chance to kickstart my pre-Christmas diet.

For the first four days of my week-long stay we dined on nothing but fruit and freshly extracted raw juice. On the fourth night we were given soup and wholemeal bread for dinner.

Then on day six, we sat down to an eat-as-much-as-you-like fish, rice and vegetable buffet. Surprisingly I didn’t gorge on the food because, crazy as it may sound, I wasn’t actually hungry.

Many of the guests on the retreat had been before. Some were recovering from serious illnesses, including cancer. One man insisted juicing had enabled him to recover more quickly from a back operation.

The Bordubet retreat nestles deep in the mountains close to dense forest. It is set in lush grounds bisected by a river upon which black swans glide. The luxury hotel is connected to a private island a mile away.

A range of activities are offered from meditation and yoga to basketball. Over the week, I ran, swam, took part in tai chi and climbed a mountain. My typical day kicked off with net football, a game combining the elements of netball and football. This was usually followed by a “rebounding session”, which entailed bouncing on mini trampolines.

Each afternoon Jason gave us a talk on food and addiction and afterwards, during the hottest part of the day, we were encouraged to relax in hammocks or lie by the pool.

It was a shock to get home to the cold and rain but when I stepped on the scales, my spirits lifted. After seven days on the juice diet, I was 8lb lighter and I had far more energy.

My eyes looked brighter and my skin was supple. When I went to the supermarket I instinctively pushed my trolley towards the fruit and vegetables and steered clear of the biscuits. It seemed I had been well and truly juiced.

** Jason Vale runs two Juice Master retreats in Turkey. Kate attended the Ultimate Detox Retreat which will next run from September 12 to 19 and 19 to 26, 2009.

Daily Express readers can claim £200 off a retreat by stating code DEJM09 when booking. For details, visit www.juicemaster.com or call 0845 1302 829.