by Antonia Hoyle
t HE photos on her fridge door show mother-of-two Kelly Enisz at her slimmest. In one she is wearing a strappy bikini aboard a yacht off the Ibiza coast. Another shows her in skimpy shorts on a Cyprus beach at sunset, and in a third she looks impossibly glamorous at a wedding in a clingy size ten dress.
But since the pictures were taken, she worries she may have gained a few pounds. Yet instead of deciding to control her portion sizes and count calories, she will resort to a more drastic plan: a liquid diet.
For up to a fortnight at a time, in the run-up to special occasions such as holidays and weddings, Kelly survives on nothing but juice.
It may sound extreme — and even downright dangerous — but Kelly is one of a growing number of women relying on fruit and vegetable juice diets to slim down.
Homewares retailer Lakeland reported juicer sales had risen 40-fold in 2013, and Vitamix, whose top-of-the-range juicers cost £600, tripled its sales between 2010 and 2015.
Devotees insist juice diets give results quickly, are easier to follow than traditional calorie-counting methods and can even improve mood and energy levels.
But experts warn that not only do liquid diets lack vital nutrients, they can cause a range of health problems, from tooth decay to diabetes, migraines, dry skin and fainting spells — and even lead to weight gain and obesity in the long run.
However, Kelly — who has been on eight such diets in the past three years — swears it is the best way to maintain her figure.
‘I need a quick fix to slim down — I don’t have the willpower for traditional diets,’ says Kelly, 31. ‘With juice I can lose up to a stone in just a few days and I don’t just look thinner, I feel better.’
Celebrity fans of liquid diets include Kate Moss’s half-sister, model Lottie Moss, 19, who recently posted a picture of herself on social media at a week-long health retreat in Turkey, alongside the caption: ‘No food, just juice.’ h EALTHY living advocate Gwyneth Paltrow, 44, meanwhile, revealed she lived on nothing but goat’s milk for eight days to rid her body of ‘parasites’.
But can a liquid diet ever be safe? Not according to academics at the American College of Cardiology, who warn they could make us fat by concentrating the calories in food, making it easier to over-consume.
Dietitian Anna Daniels agrees. ‘I wouldn’t recommend juice diets to anyone,’ she says. ‘For a start, the idea of juicing to detox is a marketing myth — our kidneys and liver do a perfectly good job of getting rid of toxins on their own.
‘If your juices contain mostly fruit you also run the risk of consuming too much sugar. In the short term, this will spike blood sugar levels causing a subsequent crash which will then lead to lethargy, irritability and concentration lapses.
‘Long term, it can lead to diabetes, obesity and tooth decay. And you will be depriving your body of fibre, dairy, wholegrains and protein, which are essential for healthy digestion, skin, bones and cardiovascular function.’
However, Kelly is undeterred. ‘I would never do anything to jeopardise my health,’ she says. ‘But I need results fast and don’t see anything wrong with it.’
She started juicing in 2014 after watching a documentary called Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead, in which a morbidly obese man has seven fruit and vegetable juices a day for 60 days.
‘It helped him change his diet and inspired me to lose weight,’ says Kelly, from Billingham, Co. Durham, who is married to Army driver Liam, 28, and has two children, Scarlett, 11, and Cohen, nine. ‘I went straight out to buy a juicing machine.’
At 10½st and a size 12/14 she was hardly fat, but says: ‘I’m only 5ft 3in, so excess weight shows, especially on my bottom and thighs.
‘I’d tried every other diet, from Slimming World to Weight Watchers, but never lost more than 2lb.
‘I always gave in to temptation. We were about to go on holiday and I wanted to look good on the beach.’
So she bought every fruit and vegetable she could find and liquidised them into seven pint glasses of juice a day.
‘I made a ratio of 80:20 vegetables to fruit so they weren’t too sugary,’ says Kelly.
She doesn’t know how many calories she consumed, but with an average juice containing five portions of fruit and vegetables, the daily total is unlikely to exceed more than 1,000 — around half the recommended 2,000 a day for adult women. ‘At first I had horrendous headaches and felt groggy,’ says Kelly.
‘By day three, however, my energy returned. My skin looked clearer and I didn’t feel hungry because my stomach was full with liquid.’
By the end of the week, Kelly was delighted to find she had lost 8lb and was a size eight.
But dietitian Anna Daniels warns that any euphoria is usually short-lived, saying: ‘When weight is lost this rapidly the majority of it is water and glycogen — your body’s carbohydrate stores — which will soon come back when you start eating normally.’
Sure enough, as she flew home from her Ibiza holiday, Kelly, had put on 5lb thanks to a week of sugary mojito cocktails, breakfast buffets and restaurant dinners. ‘Perhaps it was stupid, but I just wanted to look good in