Juicy...

So last night, while attempting to find something on Netflix to watch, I stumbled upon the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. I remembered someone I followed on facebook mentioning it, so I decided it would do for our pre-bed movie. And I'm glad I did.
Basically, it's about this guy who's very overweight and experiencing medical issues because of it. He decides to go on a juice fast for 60 days in order to cleanse his body from the toxins of his crappy eating and completely overhaul his eating habits. So, for 60 days he ate nothing but fresh made juice and water.
I was really skeptical about this. I just kept thinking, how are you going to get your protein and calcium? As soon as he starts eating regularly again, he's going to gain weight back. This probably isn't good for you.
Well, at the end of the 60 days he had lost over 200 lbs. which can be expected on such a restrictive diet after his formerly obesity-inducing one. That's not all though. He also reported gaining a lot more energy and just an overall feeling of wellness. Plus, his medical issue completely subsided. Along the way, he met other people who decided to give it a try like a woman who suffered horrible migraines. She did a 10 day fast and reported a loss of migraines and increase in energy. Another morbidly obese man did it and it completely changed his way of life. The surprising thing? Once they stopped the fast, the weight stayed off. You know why? Because they changed how they ate. They started eating fruits, veggies, nuts, lean meat... basically eating how we all SHOULD be eating. They stopped with the processed and over-sugared crap. Doing the cleanse helped them realize just how bad all of that is for you with how good the healthy food made them feel.
Needless to say, I was intrigued. I mean, I definitely thought it had to be unhealthy and wouldn't last after the cleanse was over. But they were monitored by doctors and they were fine. They were getting enough nutrients and they maintained a healthy lifestyle after.
My husband asked if I thought I could do it and I got thinking. Not necessarily if I could, but what if I did? I've been trying to overhaul my eating to a more "clean" diet, but it hasn't really worked or doesn't work long. The people who did this cleanse were motivated to maintain a healthy diet after. And it made sense to me that they felt better overall. I mean, with all of the crap we put in our bodies it's no wonder we're all sick and tired all of the time. Personally, I have an overall lack of energy and I feel tired all of the time. And I'm sure a lot of the blame goes to what I eat. If I was putting nutrients and natural food into my body that it knows how to process instead of synthetic food it wasn't meant to digest, how can my well being not improve?
I looked into this cleanse further and saw how the program worked. Basically, you do a juice cleanse for a certain period of time and then start reintroducing solid fruits and vegetables back in and finally add meat. The key to keeping the effects, though, is to change how you eat. Take out the processed stuff and boost how many fruits, veggies, nuts, and lean meat you eat. Makes sense right? The cleanse gets rid of the toxins and crap that has been stuck in your system. You get a "clean" start.
This movie was really intriguing. I'm definitely considering doing it. I don't think I'll do 60 days since I don't really need to lose weight, but maybe a 10 day cleanse. It'd be really hard, but if doing it helps change my way of thinking about food, it's worth a shot. I need to clean up how eat even more and I would like to before I have kids. I want my kids to grow up eating healthy so they don't know the difference, unlike how I grew up. To do that, I need to set an example. So why not now?

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