Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

At the recommendation of a friend, I watched this documentary on Netflix. Oh. My. Word. It's about two men who go on a juice fast and cleanse their bodies and lose a lot of weight.

Why juice? They use fresh, raw produce and a juicer every day to make their juice. This way they get tons of vitamins and micronutrients to keep their body working properly, but their bodies start using up their stores of fat. I've heard of juice cleanses before and thought people just used bottled apple juice. Don't get me started on a rant of bottled apple juice. It's nothing more than sugar water with some added Vitamin C (very good for use as a sweetener in green smoothies though).

They show the amount of produce they use in a day. That let's you know right then and there why they juice. It would be almost impossible to eat that much. And when things are in liquid form, the body doesn't have to work as much to digest and absorb the nutrients. So it can devote more energy to cleansing the body of toxins and healing. That's the theory behind it anyway.

I noticed on this show and on Biggest Loser that once people start losing weight their eyes become more sparkly and shining. Their entire countenance just lights up. In the movie, when we are introduced to the second man, I couldn't help but think of how lifeless his eyes were. I don't say that to be mean, but he just didn't seem to focus on much. He was a truck driver and when it showed him driving his semi down the freeway, his eyes had that glazed over look that kids get when they're watching TV.

The first guy ended up losing about 90 pounds. I was so amazed at his transformation; he honestly looked about 10 years younger than when he started. The second guy ended up losing about 90 pounds on his juice fast and about 220 total by the end of the documentary. He ended up looking 30 years younger.

It drives me crazy when people say, "Life's short and I want to enjoy it" (meaning they want to eat a bunch of junk food) or "It's not worth it to live like that (healthily) if it's only going to give you an extra five or ten years." First of all, I am only 40 pounds overweight and I don't enjoy it one bit. I can't move like I used to, I get tired so easy, I don't have the energy to keep up with my children. There are so many health problems that come with being overweight and most of them build up and build up and cause most of their problems near the end. Diabetes is no pleasant way to go with going blind or needing amputation or having kidney failure. I'm sure most people don't enjoy heart attacks or congestive heart failure. I had a teacher in college who had congestive heart failure and after an awful surgery and being open on a table for several months ended up passing. He was the sweetest man I ever knew and I'm so incredibly saddened he went that way. He was pretty young too, he should have had another 20 years in this life.

Second, I'm pretty sure anyone who is about to die prematurely would be begging/pleading/bargaining with God to give them an extra 5-10 years. I cannot imagine someone saying, "Well, I'm about to go but it was worth it because I got to eat my McDonald's until the very end." I would imagine something more akin to regret would be coming out of their mouth, but maybe that's just me and what I would do.

So I was talking to Corey and telling him how we need to do this and lose 40 pounds each. I don't want either of us to die. Now Corey is more like the tortoise and I'm more like the hare. He thinks it would be better if we work into it slowly. I have no problems with this as I am learning that baby steps are best for me. I've tried jumping into too many things and trying to be too perfect that I know it won't work if I do it again.

Also, since I'm a nursing mama, I didn't think it would be a good idea to give this a try when baby girl depends on me so much. I think I need to maintain a balanced diet and some of my fat stores can be used for feeding her. I am glad my SIL confirmed these feelings by saying pregnant and nursing women shouldn't do this. I'm not too upset about this; I know now is the time to take care of baby and I can work on the fast later.

And then there's the fact that Corey works and didn't want to be suffering through withdrawal symptoms as the toxins leave his body while he was supposed to be working. My friend Clairissa said the most painful days are usually days 2-4, so I thought Corey could start this on a Friday, have Saturday and Sunday off and not have to worry about it being bad and if he still felt bad he could take Monday off and by Tuesday he'd be better. He thinks it would be less of a shock to the system if we do this gradually.

Plus we don't have a juicer and can't afford one so we're stuck with our green smoothies. I know Clairissa is using her Vitamix and straining it until her juicer arrives, but our blender won't liquify all that produce, so I don't think straining it would be a good idea.

So our plan for now is to do a green smoothie every day for breakfast, healthly lunch, healthy dinner, lots of water, no junk food. The last part will be hard for me (and him too). I have been craving sweets lately and been eating too much chocolate and ice cream. No mas! I have high hopes that we can go forward with our healthy plans and get so much healthier. And I don't want people thinking I'm some sort of crazy just jumping on the band wagon. There is pretty much one school of thought concerning diet related issues that I subscribe to and that is the Word of Wisdom. I do not jump on the HCG bandwagon or the low carb bandwagon or the GF bandwagon or the dairy free bandwagon or the high fat bandwagon. Real Food by Nina Planck and Food Matters by Mark Bittman kinda sum up my thoughts about it. The juice fast fits in with my ideas because you are 1) getting your nutrients from real food and 2) using up existing fat stores. That's why God created fat stores, to be used by the body later.