So today I am starting a 15 day juice fast, consisting of nothing but fruit and vegetable juice.
Several years ago I watched Joe Cross's movie Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead.
A documentary about Joe and how he was going to get himself healthy and lose weight by just drinking fruit and vegetable juices for 60 days, while he was traveling across the United States and talking to people about their eating habits and how they affect their life's and health.
My husband had a heart attack at 41 and needed 4 stints all together 1 every few month, because one blood vessel after another in his heart started to clog up. After 6 month and the last stint things started to go better for him.
He has always been lean, trim and in shape mostly due to hard work in construction.
His father however, past away of a heart attack at the age of 53 and it seems my husband inherited the danger of suffering from heart attacks from his dad.
After his cardiologist inserted the 2nd stent into his heart we finally realized that we had to make changes in our life's and stop eating junk foods, stop smoking and be more active.
First after many years of smoking we both stopped cold turkey.
He, because he had to if he wanted to live and me in support of him and because I had seen what might happen if I continue. Instead of eating junk food we began to cook more and eat healthier foods. Then after watching Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead we bought a juicer.
My husband started to drink fruit and vegetable juice fairly regular and started working out.
I did not join him in juicing, I just kept saying: "I rather eat my fruit and veggies than drink 'em!"
I really like eating vegetables, but oddly enough I could not see myself drinking veggie juices.
Carrots are great, but hate to drink carrot juice. Tomatoes are totally awesome, but forget about drinking the juice, I just can't do it, be it raw juice or Bloody Mary's, I hate it!
So a little time went by, my husband is doing great, but now suddenly I started to feel like crap.
I went from one doctor to the other and not one of them could really tell me what was wrong. All they would say is that I probably suffer from depression and anxiety, I kept telling them that I did not believe that this was the case. I had absolute no reason for depression or anxiety.
I was happy in my marriage and life, had no stressful job. There was nothing that would cause me to be depressed.
My symptoms were many and some days all at once.
Often I had a hard time breathing, chest discomfort, could not sleep, felt dizzy and had no energy. Doctors ran all types of tests, pumped me full with medication, nothing helped!
This went on for years. I was angry, because doctors made me feel like I was making it all up saying there was nothing wrong with me physically, that I just imagined things were wrong with me. Yet, I honestly had all those things happen and was without energy to do much of anything.
That and some of the meds caused me to gain a lot of weight. Believe me, now there was a reason for me to get depressed about!
Unfortunately obesity runs in my family anyway. I fought most of my life not to get fat, but at 4'10" every pound I gain is visible and it seemed from one day to the next I finally did end up fat.
I had enough!
After years of feeling awful and not knowing why I decided to ween myself off all the meds, started power walking and lost some weight, but then something would happen that kept me from working out and I gain some of the weight back again ...it just went back and forth.
The only good thing was, that I started to feel much better, which allowed me to enjoy things like arts and crafts, travel and life in general again.
The bad part is that I still sit here short and fat, continue to have trouble sleeping, feel uncomfortable in my own skin, hate to be fat and the limitations it has.
Two days ago I watched Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead 2 and made the decision to finally give juicing a try. I will start with the 15 day plan and see if it will make a difference in the way I feel and if it is possible for me to lose the weight.
I'm sure it will not be easy for me to drink some of the juices, but I want to give it a real and committed try. A week ago I started with my 4 mile power walks again and dropped 4 pounds already.
My juice fast will begin with me at 223 pounds.
I bought lots of fruits and vegetables and will join my better half in juicing now. Maybe I should have done so years ago.
Time will tell!
If you want to know more about Joe Cross and his movies visit this website. The first movie is available for free and can be watched on his site, Netflix or Amazon Prime. You will also find plans, recipes and lots of info on how to do a juice fast.
Thanks for looking
