Prune Juice & Weight Loss

If you enjoy the taste of these juiced sugar plums, you can gain nutritional benefits including weight loss if you drink prune juice. A healthy, well-rounded diet and exercise routine are the best ways to lose weight, but prune juice can help regulate appetite and play a role in your overall weight loss plan.

Nutritional Value of Prune Juice

Prune juice is high in fiber, potassium and vitamin A and rich in antioxidants. FitDay gives this specific nutritional information: one cup of prune juice is high in sugar at 44 grams, provides 17 percent of vitamin C and iron, 20 percent of potassium, 28 percent of vitamin B6, and 10 percent of fiber. Many of these nutrients can help you lose weight, but your diet plan should limit your intake of sugar.

Does Prune Juice Work With Healthy Weight Loss Plans?

If you drink prune juice and eat the same foods in the same amount, prune juice will not help you lose weight. Nothing will help you lose weight except eating fewer calories and exercising. The way prune juice can assist your weight loss plan is if the juice is used as a healthy substitute for unhealthy foods. The high fiber content of prunes can help you stay fuller for longer, thereby regulating appetite, and can also help clean the digestive tract. If you currently eat foods with little or no fiber, prune juice can act as a natural laxative by regulating digestion. According to the book "Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism," potassium rich foods such as prune juice can help balance metabolism. A well-balanced metabolism ensures that calories are being burned efficiently, thereby assisting with weight loss.

Considerations for Safe Weight Loss

Though prune juice offers many other health benefits, the main reason prune juice can cause weight loss is its fiber and water content. Prune juice is not to be used as a "lose weight quick" diet technique; fast, easy and safe weight loss solutions don't exist. But, by adding prune juice into your diet, you can improve your overall health, which often leads to a more stable body weight.

Weight Loss: Better Alternatives to Prune Juice

Prune juice does not offer any health benefits that are not found in regular, whole pieces of fruit. Instead of drinking a glass of prune juice before or after dinner, eating a piece of fruit such as a plum, grapes, cherries or a banana will provide fiber as well as water. Whole fruit usually contains just as many vitamins, antioxidants and other nutrients. Whole fruit might be a cheaper, tastier alternative if prune juice is either unappetizing or too expensive. These alternatives can contain fewer grams of sugar than prune juice, too.

Warning for Using Prune Juice While Dieting

Those who switch from a low-fiber to a high-fiber diet can have uncomfortable side effects such as diarrhea. Prune juice, as noted by needfiber.com, contains sorbitol. Sorbitol is a natural (but potent) laxative which cannot be fully digested. Therefore, the body must expel it. Try gradually incorporating more fiber into your diet. Start with half a cup of prune juice followed by one cup of water, which can help flush the system more gently. As the body regulates itself, adding more prune juice is fine. Lastly, some prune juice contains added sugar: when purchasing any fruit juice, read the ingredients to ensure it is 100% juice.