Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

For those of you who don't know, I am a documentary junkie. Honestly, I would rather watch docs than any other kind of movie/show...unless it's an NBA game, maybe. But I absolutely love them. And yes, I know, we all hate Netflix and they suck for raising prices on us, blahblahblah. BUT, streaming Netflix offers so many docs, I don't know what to do with myself sometimes! I often times spend MORE time looking through the pages and pages of available ones, adding them to my queue instead of actually watching them. I'll watch them on all subjects...for example, this past weekend, I watched "Ballerina" about Russian ballet dancers, "A Life Apart" about Hasidic Jews in America, and "Flight From Death: The Quest for Immortality" about our irrational fear of death. So yes, quite the hodgepodge of subjects. One of the docs that had landed on my list was called "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead". (I had actually pressed PLAY the other day, but I got a phone call right as it started, and by the time the call was over, it was a bit too late to start the movie.) So, this evening, I found myself with some free time and an empty mind waiting to be filled with something new...

It's the story of this Australian man named Joe who has an autoimmune disease. He takes a lot of meds to control this condition, and is also overweight. He was doing some thinking about how the body can heal itself on the outside, if you get a scrape or a cut, so why can't it do that on the inside if you treat it right? He hooked up with some doctors and started a 60 day juice fast. He decided to do this fasting in America, 30 days while living in NYC and then the last 30 days while road-tripping across the country. He talked to a lot of people about their eating habits and lifestyle choices. (The pervasive theme seemed to be "You're crazy for doing this juice thing. I can't do it. I have no willpower.". OH. And most of these folks had major health issues, not limited to obesity alone.) Joe had a juicer in the trunk of his car, powered by a little battery and his diet consisted of a fruit/veggie juice only for 60 days.

At this point you've probably gone straight to, "What the hell is this man thinking?? How can that be good for you?" WELL...as I watched, I learned. Using freshly made juice, not from a box or bottle, you are smashing a hell of a lot of nutrients into that cup, and being as they are now in a liquid state, it's a lot easier for them to be absorbed into the body. Hmm. Interesting.

Joe lost 90 lbs in 60 days. Whoa.

Along the way, Joe meets a man named Phil, a truck driver with the exact same autoimmune disease and carrying about 430 lbs around with him. Phil joins up, does the juice fast for the 10 days that Phil asked him, decided to keep going...did it for 60 days and also lost 90 lbs. (And in 10 months lost an astonishing 200 lbs. Good lord.)

And no, they don't just drink juice for the rest of their lives. They go to a diet of fruit, veggies, beans, micronutrient foods. This one doctor on the movie, Dr. Fuhrman, had an interesting food pyramid thing for a "high nutrient" diet that seemed like a good idea as well. Joe and Phil both inspired a lot of people to give this a try, and everyone that did, after the first few days of detox, felt amazingly energetic, lost weight, etc.

Am I buying a juicer? I don't know.

Do I need to reboot and detox and all of those good things? Absolutely.

I am certainly still fat. But I'm not sick. Do I feel as good as I could? No way. I've been lazy for the last few months and it shows. But, I absolutely feel better than I did 2 years ago at this time. Am I nearly dead? Nah. Was I before? I don't know. I felt okay. I could get around okay. I didn't have any health issues...yet. But I am willing to bet that if I had kept on this destructive path, I would've been setting myself up for a life of medications and disappointments.

I have 10 days at home before I head to western PA for Tim's band camp. The good part of being away for 2 weeks is that I won't be at Sbux, being tempted by all of that crap there. The bad news is that it's never easy to try to eat well out there. Going to a restaurant is an exercise in wading through a sea of fried food, and attempting NOT to eat ice cream after every meal. But if I use my time wisely in the next week and a half to reboot my exercise and my food, I should be able to coast through those 2 weeks with no problems.

I can't say I'm not intrigued by this juicing idea though. Does it seem like an easy way to lose some weight? Sure...depends on how you define "easy", I suppose. And it's kinda like when I did EOB's detox plan. 4 days seemed like an eternity. I felt like killing people on Day 2. Buuuuut, that's what happens when you feel like you're being deprived, even though you're actually helping yourself. I don't think a juicer is in the financial plans right now, but resetting my mind and stomach is. Plus, with the temperatures soaring by the end of the week, I probably won't want to eat much anyway. It'll be too much trouble.

So, to make a long story short....before you cancel your Netflix subscription, be sure to watch "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead"...you may find the inspiration that you're looking for. :-)