nubcake

Has anyone here seen this yet? https://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

Pretty impressive results with a few people on there, not just with weight loss but massive overall health improvements as well.

I have always been one to believe that the best medicines usually come from nature and that diet is extremely important...now I just need to work on that impulse and self control thing to live what I know to be true in my mind.

My questions to you guys, has anyone tried anything similar to the juice fast in the show? I would love to try it out but quality juicers (ones that can do more than citrus fruits) are extremely pricey, as is buying things like "naked juice".

I have a couple motives on finding more first hand info about it, I need to loose about 30-40lbs and I would like something to help jump start my energy levels again after being run down by way too many long hours at a physically demanding job (I have since quit there and went back to something I love) I also wonder if it would be something for my grandfather to look into but not to the extreme as the host does. He is in his late 60's and has already had many surgeries from diabetes complications that range from loosing a few toes to heart issues and I wonder if it might help him out but wanted to see if anyone has had first hand experience with this first.

Either way, when I saw it, it was a very fascinating documentary and the ideas that are presented make a lot of sense in theory. If you have netflix that is where I saw it, I think it was even one of the streaming choices.

Thanks for any opinions in advance

JoeMetal

I've had a lot of experience with the sort of people who do juice fasts. I find them incredibly misguided. While it is certainly good to get more non-processed food into your diet, I find that removing all solid food and only drinking juices for weeks on end to be a horrible idea.

Perhaps the thing that irks me the most with juice fasting is the normal bit where people do it to "cleanse" and "remove toxins". You're feeling like **** the first couple days? That's just the toxins leaving your body! Thankfully the documentary you mentioned keeps that sort of thinking to a minimum.

As a scientist, evidence (not just anecdotal) is very important to me. As a vegan, I've done lots of research on juice fasting looking for said evidence. It's simply not there. The only thing you'll find is people telling their stories about how juice fasting saved their life. It's too much like the "magic bullet" for my tastes. I'm convinced that both people in this documentary could have made similar changes if they had simply pledged to exercise more and eat better and not gone to the extremes that they did. It wouldn't have been as risky as essentially starving yourself too.

If for some reason you're still interested in this sort of thing, there's another documentary that I saw that had a similar anti-toxin/chemical/evil spirits method that you might enjoy. It's called Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days. That's another one that I find dangerous, but I suppose if you're of the right mindset, you may enjoy it.

kansastdi

There can be complications going back to a regular diet after a lengthy juice fast.

nubcake

What are the actual dangers with it? If you are getting all required nutrients how bad can it be? I would imagine you do not get much fiber or protein when juicing. I am not trying to challenge what you said, just asking questions. Juicing regularly but not necessarily juice fasting at the very least seems like it could be a very good thing for you, it would make it much easier to get a lot of vitamins and minerals that we miss. I am sure proper diet could solve this but we all get busy at times and things that can save a good deal of time can be nice. I think I would rather try to supplement my vitamins and minerals with juicing than a multi vitamin because from what I read most multi vitamins are so concentrated you just pee most of it out and that there is questionable quantities despite what labels say.

FunkyStickman

I've watched it, was a fantastic movie and has gotten some of my friends and family thinking about what they eat.

The juice is rich in nutrients, without having large amounts of excess calories. I agree about lacking fiber, though, I'd rather just eat the food. In his case, however, he was actually consuming as many nutrients as possible in the most concentrated form. I used a similar diet, though I didn't go as far as juicing everything.

In essence, when your body says it's hungry, what it's asking for is nutrition, not calories. Then we eat junk food (which has tons of calories but almost no nutrition) and we wonder why we're still hungry... we haven't given our body what it's asking for. If you eat as much nutrition as possible, your body will burn off fat for energy, and the nutrients all go towards healing and tissue reconstruction.

I'd recommend something similar, but just not juicing everything. I suppose if you wanted to, you could add soluable fiber to the juice, as long as it was natural.

man with bikes

One question: If you were to do a juice diet, why wouldn't you just eat the fruit?

FunkyStickman

By juicing, you could actually maximize the amount of nutrients you could eat at one sitting. Fruits and veggies are largely fiber and water, by eliminating the fiber you are in essence eliminating the "empty bulk" and going stright for the good stuff. I would say fiber is a very important part of your diet, but in extreme cases, I could see juicing as a short-term way to "supercharge" your nutrient intake.

jjermzz

I found a cheap juicer in Target for $40. Only problem is that you gotta chop the veggies to fit.

The movie is very inspirational. The juice cleanse is doable, because your just being a vegan. If weight lost is your goal it'll be easy if you bike.

I like to juice carrots easy and inexpensive. You can buy 5 lb for $2.50 and juice about 2500 ml or three VOSS bottle water. I use the VOSS bottle because of the clarity. The clear bottle and shape lets you see it and clean it very good. I reused it for a month now. Drink real juice that you make twice a day along with biking and you'll be good.

jjermzz

Juicing changes the way you'll be food especially bottled juice. Experiement, with it most of them are yummy.

Mr Sinister

I might have to try this, but not the only thing for a whole day. Juice for breakfast, a reasonable lunch, and then juice for dinner. Right now I am trying fruit smoothies for breakfast and lunch, with a regular dinner... So maybe a slight change is in order.

man with bikes

I supercharge my nutrient intake by taking a multi-vitamin. If you make your drink nutrient dense it will also be calorie dense. For example, how many oranges it take to make 8oz of juice? Anyone can drink a 8oz glass of OJ, how many people will eat 4 oranges.

tony_merlino

I'm 59 years old, and have spent most of my adult life either losing or gaining weight, with some short intervals of semi-stability in-between. I've seen and tried most of the major diet sensations over the years, and managed to lose weight with all of them. Bottom line: If you reduce your calorie intake to lower than the amount your body needs to maintain it's current weight and activity level, you'll lose weight. Period.

I've also found that there's little difference in how I feel as a result of a particular diet philosophy. The more below the maintenance caloric intake for my instantaneous current weight/activity level the diet is, the worse I feel, i.e. the faster I try to lose, the worse I feel. Also period. It doesn't matter what mix of nutrients I eat, other than eating more protein rather than simple carbs avoids some of the rush/crash effect. But nowhere near as much as the high-protein/low-carb proponents claim.

That usually means that I feel worse at the beginning of a diet than towards the end, because most diets start you off with more of a caloric deficit. It has nothing to do with "toxins leaving the body" - it's just that you're starving. As you lose weight, your body needs less to sustain itself, so if you don't change the diet, you'll "get used to it" and start to feel better.

The point of posting this here is that I've found the "philosophy" of the diet from a nutritional point of view to be completely irrelevant. I've seen the fashion switch from low cal, low fat to low cal, "balanced", to high protein to low protein to higher fat to no fat to mostly carbs to no carbs - and back again, in every possible combination. All diets ultimately work by having you eat fewer calories than you need to maintain where you are.

I remember reading one nutritional expert, maybe 15-20 years ago, who claimed that juices are poison, particularly fruit juices, and that they should be avoided on any diet because they're essentially liquid candy with some vitamins thrown in. Now it seems the trend is that, as long as the juices are magical (meaning REALLY expensive), they're the perfect food. Funny.

I'm sorry - this just sounds like more BS to me. I'm almost 4 weeks into my latest (and hopefully last) battle of the bulge. I'm just eating a more or less balanced diet, trying to keep the carbs mostly complex, but not eliminating pasta or Italian bread from the bakery - I decided that any diet that does include those things is not sustainable for this Italian boy from Joisey. I'm trying to eat enough calories to sustain my target weight, which should result in a loss that will average about 1.5 lbs/week over the next 9 or 10 months. I've lost 11 lbs so far (you always lose faster at the beginning). I've got about 50 lbs more to lose, give or take...

After more than 40 years of trying fad after fad, what I've settled on is the notion that, if you eat what it takes to be the weight you want given your sustainable activity level (for me, that's about 45 minutes of aerobic exercise, including cycling, 4-5 days/week), you'll get there eventually, and you won't have to do anything special to stay there except to keep on doing exactly what you've been doing all along. Works for me.

david58

I have fought the battles for a long time as well. By eating good food - not processed, not artificial, but real food (grass-fed beef, fresh veggies and fruit, complex grains if any) - I find my weight much easier to maintain. If I can maintain with a low activity level, then losing is easy by adding the exercise. So much of the processed food is designed to make us want more, that if I stay away from the stuff that comes in cardboard or plastic or cans I can eat till I ain't hungry and then stop, and not be hungry again for a while (rather than minutes). I just have to remember I can't quit...

tony_merlino

That's an interesting point. What do you suppose is in the processed stuff that makes us want more? My guess is salt and sugar. I haven't started really tracking sodium, but maybe I should...

Chrysalis

After seeing this movie I juice fasted for about 5 weeks in July/August of this past year.
I have a major back injury/several back issues one of which cause sever and debilitating leg pain which had made much walking/exercising impossible. The first couple of days of the fast were not a problem to me because I was eating a high raw diet anyway so there was really no evident "healing crisis/detox reaction"

Benefits-
I felt great from the second day until the last...minimal hunger.
I slept through the night for the first time in many years (due to pain)
I had amazingly less overall inflammation
Almost no leg pain/back pain (due to less inflammation)
Overall so much more energy
Positive/happy outlook
Clear/radiant skin and eyes

Cons-
Hard to maintain/Hard to cook for family and not eat
You HAVE to exercise or you will lose muscle mass and you do NOT want that.
Expensive...you will use a lot of produce...organic is the way to go.
If you are an emotional eater you do have to deal with that.

The reason not to just eat the fruit/veggies is because juice fasting/feasting quiets the whole digestive system...the idea being that the body will then use the energy to heal any areas of the body that needs it instead of wasting it on the effort of digestion. Remember this is not something you do forever. Ultimately when you go "off" the fast you will not return to a processed food diet but one that is high in fruits. veggies and whole foods.

How you break the fast is an or more important than the fast itself. You can become very ill if you just throw yourself back into eating crap. You have to educate yourself in this as in all things. There are modified versions of the fast that include solid foods at the reboot.com site which is Joe's website.

I lost 30 lbs during the fast and regained about 7 when I started eating "normally" again.
You will hear lots of pros and cons and opinions...my suggestion would be to educate yourself, make your own decision...maybe try it for ten days.
Best of luck~

olindacat

I went to the Santuary in Thailand and did a 10-day fast and then followed that up with two weeks of macrobiotic foods. I lost about 25 pounds. Problem was, i followed that up with heavy drinking in Eastern Europe and a cruise in the North Sea... not exactly a healthy prescription. What I can say, and this isn't scientific, was that in the 10 days of fasting I quit smoking, stopped taking four different medications, and was scuba diving on the 10th day, feeling fearless and unstoppable. I have tried in subsequent years to do this on my own at home to save money, but always fall apart and give up after a few days. I thinking fasting has been going on for eons. Perhaps there is no empirical data to support it, but I find it to be very good to kick off a program. It's just a matter of extending it for life.

That is the hard part.

goldfinch

I am inclined to think that for some people starting a diet with something radical like a fast, or juicing, or ultra low carbing, or going to a fat farm, or taking a trip or whatever, can be a good way to shake yourself up and out of old habits and get ready for something new. But then you do have to move on to the next step. At some point your old life returns but you might in the process manage to weaken some of the things that used to trigger overeating.

Sayre Kulp 

I haven't seen the movie, but I've taken up studying nutrition in my spare time. I skimmed a few of the comments so far on this thread and one thing that caught my eye was a mention of what we eat versus how full we feel. Well there is a simple answer to that one. If you want to feel full, try proteins and good fat sources (olive oil, for example).

Fruits and veggies are good, however I would suspect most of us would rather juice fruit than spinach. The downside here is that you can spike your blood sugar (hint: that extra energy you've got isn't just from the nutrients - you're also on a sugar rush). When your blood sugar spikes, your body produces insulin to keep your blood glucose balanced. Understand that your body can only tolerate a limited amount of sugar, but can store it infinitely as fat. So that's what the insulin winds up doing - telling your body to store the excess sugars as fat. Over time, your cells can become insulin resistant.

Just some food for thought - no pun intended.

ZippyThePinhead

Sorry to resurrect the thread, but I saw this recently and was pretty taken with it. So much so that I went out and got a juicer from Costco. But I found the movie on Hulu, if anyone is interested.

El Conquistador De Amore

Watching this movie motivated me to get an omega vert juicer. I use it nearly everyday. Often twice a day.

goldfinch

I bet juicers are pretty common at suburban rummage sales.

Leastbest

The cheap ones are. After you've done it a while you upgrade to a nice one.

Rona

I watched this movie and got motivated too. I tried juicing for a few days and was kinda perturbed at how much stuff goes into one or two small glasses of juice... so I decided to try eating only fruit and veggies for breakfast and lunch, then a small dinner. That seems to be working okay. I'm not shedding pounds fast, but they are coming off.

It also means that I don't have to count calories or anything until dinner time. It's also an easy rule- I don't have to make hard decisions. It's super easy to just eat as much fruit or veggie as I want. Anyone who's not up for juicing and give something like this a try.

Six jours

This could be the whole thread. Hell, it could just about be the whole subforum.

It's very, very simple: if you want to lose weight, reduce your caloric intake. I've lost weight eating an almost pure junk food diet. I just ate less of it. Of course, that's still not a very healthy diet. If you want to lose weight AND improve health, eat "closer to the source" and throw in some exercise. That's really all there is to it.

Three months ago I got tired of whining about being a fat tub of goo, so simply cut back on eating. I'm down 25 pounds so far. It ain't rocket surgery...

goldfinch

The rocket surgery/ brain science is in keeping it off. You are never done and always "on a diet," or at least your shrunken fat cells may think so.