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How of­ten can I carry out the Well­ness Week?

We ad­vise healthy peo­ple to com­plete the Well­ness Week twice a year. Once in the spring to over­come the ef­fects of win­ter: tired­ness, slug­gish­ness, list­less­ness, too much food and too lit­tle ex­er­cise. And once in the au­tumn to pre­pare for the win­ter, es­pe­cially to strengthen the im­mune sys­tem and get go­ing again prop­erly. Ad­di­tional or longer Well­ness Weeks should only be un­der­taken on med­ical ad­vice and un­der med­ical su­per­vi­sion.

Can I also shorten the Well­ness Week?

Yes, even one day of juice fast­ing can re­lieve the me­tab­o­lism a great deal, but with re­duced health ben­e­fits. For very short juice fasts of 1 to 2 days, the prepa­ra­tion and build-up days are not nec­es­sary, but for fasts last­ing sev­eral days, they are still re­quired. Many peo­ple carry out reg­u­lar juice fasts once a month for health rea­sons.

I get hunger pangs, what can I do about them?

Dis­trac­tion is prob­a­bly still the best rem­edy for thoughts that re­volve around food. The only thing that helps against hunger pangs at first is to fo­cus on other is­sues. Make your­self a cup of tea, en­joy it con­sciously, look for­ward to the feel­ing of ela­tion af­ter suc­cess­fully com­plet­ing the Well­ness Week. Get mov­ing – go for a walk in the fresh air. If noth­ing else helps, eat a small spoon­ful of honey. It has a very strong taste and can pro­vide re­lief. Of course, this should not be­come a habit dur­ing the Well­ness Week. But it is ideal if you re­ally need help.

I’ve been snack­ing. Is the whole week now point­less or can I con­tinue?

That can hap­pen once in a while. You have a weak mo­ment and quickly reach for the choco­late. This is no rea­son to de­clare the Well­ness Week a fail­ure. How­ever, solid food in­take can ac­ti­vate the di­ges­tive juices and in­crease the feel­ing of hunger. So use the re­main­ing days to fully con­cen­trate on your daily sched­ule.

How many calo­ries do I con­sume each day dur­ing the Well­ness Week?

Dur­ing the juice days you con­sume an av­er­age of about 400 kcal. Thanks to the nat­ural or­ganic fruit and veg­etable juices, your body is sup­plied with im­por­tant vi­t­a­mins, min­er­als and sec­ondary plant sub­stances.

How much weight do you lose in a week of fast­ing?

This is strongly de­pen­dent on body weight: the heav­ier you are, the more weight you lose. Most fasters end up los­ing at least 2 to 4 kg (or more). In or­der to main­tain this weight loss in the long term, how­ever, some­thing must change in terms of your nu­tri­tion or lifestyle (e.g. more ex­er­cise) (fast­ing has noth­ing to do with go­ing on a diet). Oth­er­wise, the dreaded yo-yo ef­fect is very likely to oc­cur. Weight loss should there­fore rather be seen as a wel­come side ef­fect.

I have a bad headache, can I do any­thing about it?

Headaches can oc­cur dur­ing Well­ness Week for var­i­ous rea­sons. One of the most com­mon is a drop in blood pres­sure (also caused by caf­feine with­drawal), which man­i­fests it­self in most fasters in the form of mild symp­toms such as fa­tigue and headaches. An­other cause may be in­suf­fi­cient fluid in­take, be­cause the body needs more fluid than usual dur­ing the Well­ness Week. You should there­fore drink at least 2 litres per day, or a lit­tle more if pos­si­ble.

For acute headaches, drink­ing a large glass of wa­ter with a slice of lemon, briefly mas­sag­ing the tem­ple (pep­per­mint oil is very good for this) and get­ting plenty of fresh air can help. The in­testines can be an­other cause of headaches. If you don’t have a daily bowel move­ment, you can help things along with a ta­ble­spoon of Glauber’s salt dis­solved in a glass of luke­warm wa­ter. If your headache has still not sub­sided, take a painkiller.

I have lac­tose in­tol­er­ance, can I drink all the Well­ness Week juices?

The Vita 7 juice con­tains whey and there­fore lac­tose. This makes it un­suit­able for peo­ple with lac­tose in­tol­er­ance. You can eas­ily re­place the juice with oth­ers. For ex­am­ple, with the fruity Mango Mix or the Breuss or Veg­etable Gar­den juices.

What is meant by a “light meal” on the prepa­ra­tion day?

A light meal means some­thing eas­ily di­gestible, i.e. food that will not feel heavy in the stom­ach or re­main there for a long time. On the one hand, this is im­por­tant be­cause it helps pre­pare the stom­ach and the di­ges­tive sys­tem for the up­com­ing juice week and the as­so­ci­ated lack of food, and on the other hand, it is also vi­tal for the build-up day and the days af­ter a juice fast in or­der not to over­strain the stom­ach and the di­ges­tive sys­tem af­ter go­ing with­out food (which could oth­er­wise cause stom­ach ache, bloat­ing or di­ar­rhoea).

The fol­low­ing are con­sid­ered to be eas­ily di­gestible, for ex­am­ple:

• Vegetables (steamed or boiled – not raw)

• Potatoes

• (Polished) rice

• Pasta

• Tender wheat (e.g. Ebly)

• Light meat or fish (steamed, gently cooked and only lightly seasoned – not deep-fried, breaded or fried in oil/fat)

The fol­low­ing are con­sid­ered to be dif­fi­cult to di­gest, for ex­am­ple:

• Vegetables from the cabbage family (e.g. cabbage)

• Salad (as it is raw food)

• Sausages, meat loaf, red meat

• Pulses

Is there a trick to help me swal­low flax seeds?

For many peo­ple, it takes some ef­fort to take flax seeds on an empty stom­ach. It is eas­ier if they are swal­lowed with plenty of liq­uid or pre-swelled briefly in a glass of wa­ter. When you take flax seeds, make sure you drink plenty of liq­uid. This causes the mucins to swell in the in­tes­tine. The in­crease in vol­ume stim­u­lates the ac­tiv­ity of the in­testines and al­lows the con­tents to be trans­ported more quickly. The seeds can also be freshly ground to make them eas­ier to in­gest. Al­ter­na­tively, chew them well be­fore swal­low­ing. Many peo­ple quite like the slightly nutty taste.

Can I con­tinue to take my nu­tri­tional sup­ple­ments dur­ing the Well­ness Week?

For op­ti­mal fast­ing suc­cess, we rec­om­mend avoid­ing ad­di­tional prepa­ra­tions and food sup­ple­ments. The juices for the Well­ness Week have been com­bined ac­cord­ing to nu­tri­tional cri­te­ria and pro­vide a bal­anced amount of vi­t­a­mins, nu­tri­ents and sec­ondary plant sub­stances. For this rea­son, there should be no de­fi­ciency symp­toms dur­ing the juice fast week. If med­ica­tion or di­etary sup­ple­ments have been pre­scribed for med­ical rea­sons, their use, as well as par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Well­ness Week, should be dis­cussed with your doc­tor.

The Well­ness Week can also pro­vide an im­pe­tus to re­con­sider tak­ing such prepa­ra­tions in gen­eral. The ef­fect of vi­t­a­min prepa­ra­tions in par­tic­u­lar is con­tro­ver­sial. A re­cent study by Tufts Uni­ver­sity in Boston, for ex­am­ple, was able to prove that the reg­u­lar in­take of vi­t­a­min sup­ple­ments does not bring any health ben­e­fits. Es­pe­cially with syn­thet­i­cally pro­duced nu­tri­ents, there is also the prob­lem of over­dos­ing, which can lead to harm­ful side ef­fects. Peo­ple who eat a bal­anced diet usu­ally ab­sorb enough nu­tri­ents and vi­t­a­mins through their food.

Can I swap juices that I don’t like for oth­ers?

Of course you can. How­ever, you should re­ally only swap juices if you don’t like the taste at all. This is be­cause the juices have been put to­gether ac­cord­ing to the juice fast­ing con­cept de­vel­oped by Dr. Otto Buchinger, which is recog­nised in many pro­fes­sional cir­cles, to en­sure that your body is sup­plied with im­por­tant min­er­als, vi­t­a­mins and vi­tal sub­stances and that good detox­i­fi­ca­tion / elim­i­na­tion can take place. Gen­er­ally, you should swap one veg­etable juice for an­other veg­etable juice, or one fruit juice for an­other fruit juice. Sim­ply se­lect your favourite juice from the Biotta range. You can choose from over 20 juices. It should prefer­ably be a juice that is not too acidic and does not have too high a calo­rie con­tent. Your lo­cal phar­macy/​drug­store team will be happy to ad­vise you.

Is sport al­lowed dur­ing the Well­ness Week?

Light ex­er­cise, e.g. a stroll, gen­tle walk, swim­ming or cy­cling, prefer­ably in the fresh air, should be in­te­grated into the fast­ing week sev­eral times. Dur­ing in­ten­sive sport, the body can show signs of fa­tigue more quickly dur­ing a fast­ing week. In ad­di­tion, en­durance and strength per­for­mance may be re­duced. Re­lax­ation is just as im­por­tant as light ex­er­cise. Treat your­self to a break from hec­tic every­day life dur­ing this week. Lis­ten to your body and pam­per your­self and your senses with a warm bath, med­i­ta­tion or gen­tle phys­i­cal ex­er­cises.

Do you lose mus­cle mass dur­ing fast­ing?

If you in­clude ex­er­cise in your fast­ing pro­gramme, you don’t need to worry about mus­cle at­ro­phy, as shown by a study of over 1,000 fasters con­ducted by the Char­ité Uni­ver­sity Hos­pi­tal in Berlin. The study com­bined ex­ten­sive phys­i­cal en­durance train­ing with a 4-week fast­ing cure. The fasters who ex­er­cised had more strength and en­durance even af­ter four weeks of fast­ing and they were more mo­bile than be­fore the fast. Strength and en­durance can there­fore ac­tu­ally be in­creased through a tar­geted ex­er­cise pro­gramme.

Can I drink other juices in ad­di­tion to the juices in the pack­age?

If you no­tice that the amount of juice in­di­cated in the weekly plan is sim­ply too lit­tle for your body, treat your­self to a small glass of an­other Biotta juice in be­tween. Pre­fer veg­etable juices to fruit juices. But even these should not be­come a habit. You may not even need the re­place­ment juices af­ter the first few days. You can look for­ward to them all the more once you have suc­cess­fully com­pleted the Well­ness Week.