The Documentary Marathon: Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead

If you couldn't tell, DH and I have been going on a Documentary Marathon purely based on what Netflix tells us to watch. Trusting a computer motherboard with our viewing choices has been working out pretty well so far! Next up--Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead. It goes hand-in-hand with Forks Over Knives in that it's mostly about eating MORE VEGGIES. In this case though, the food isn't necessarily 'whole', but pulverized into a super-nutritious juice.

Summary: A guy from Australia decides to go on a juice fast (which isn't really fasting, in the starving sense of the word), cleanse his body, and regain his health.

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead

This documentary was good in the sense that it inspired my husband and I to basically eat more fruits and veggies, in the form of a liquid or a smoothie if need be. It's hard to eat a bunch of veggies and fruits in one sitting, but it's easy to eat an apple, celery stalks, half a cucumber, half a personal-size watermelon, pineapple, two radishes, and a bunch of kale in ONE smoothie. (I have to rethink which veggies I add since I have recently realized that some veggies--kale--actually inhibit my thryoid gland function.)

One thing I really enjoyed was that this guy took his juicer on a road trip throughout the United States. He actually tried to encourage people to eat more veggies, asked them all sorts of questions to get them thinking about their nutrition, and generally made friends with everyone he saw. All in all, I liked him because he was congenial! And his accent was wicked cool.

The filthy rich guy who made the movie had a skin disease (chronic urticaria, read--hives, but an inflammatory, autoimmune version) that doctors prescribed pills for and, as Western doctors do with autoimmune problems, said that there was nothing else to be done about it. Autoimmune problems are seen as an irreversible process that sometimes 'flares up' and sometimes goes into remission. Nutrition really isn't brought up as a possible cause to the problem or as a possible solution.

In any case, this Australian dude radically changed his diet and his urticaria is gone. What that says to me is that many of our inflammatory, autoimmune diseases might be preventable, reversible, and temporary.


The coolest part of this documentary to us was how it ended up being twice as long as planned just because a trucker who weighed like 400 pounds also decided to do the juice fast! And now he is well on the way to being a slim guy, a better father, and a man unafraid of public speaking. That last bit was really inspirational because you see this obese man go from ashamed and fearful to confident and extroverted. The dude was sharing his juice with fellow vacationers.

I have been trying to hunt down a used juicer on Craigslist and eBay--so is everyone else in America. If anyone had good intentions about juicing and just doesn't use it, please give it to me! I have seriously been blending stuff up and then straining it....tediouser and tediouser.