Have you seen the documentary “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead”?
If you haven’t, you may have heard about it, as it’s been quite popular since its release last year. It’s available on Amazon and Netflix.
The movie chronicles Joe Cross’ journey to lose weight and regain health by living on green juices for 60 days, and inspiring others facing similar health problems to do the same.
Even though the proposition of a raw vegetable juice detox exclusively for sixty days may not be your “cup of tea” (or your “glass of juice”), I always find it inspirational to watch true stories demonstrating people who overcome disease by removing all the junk food from their diets and use the healing power of raw plant foods.
Ok, so maybe the message of this good-natured documentary is not exactly super-original; there are also many who accuse Joe of being a smart businessman selling juicers (some even call the movie a Breville juicer infomercial) – but it just seems to me that we need more people like Joe screaming at us to take charge of our own health and well-being.
The film clearly demonstrates how powerful and effective proper nutrition is to one’s health. Whether it’s a 60 day green juice fast – as shown in the documentary – or following 80-100% green smoothie diet, or even just eating raw plant foods for extended period of time – it can provide an amazing transformation for anyone.
It’s a great testimonial for how effective taking the charge of your own health can be.
Even though the proposition of living on raw juice exclusively for sixty days may not be your “cup of tea” (or should I say “glass of juice”), I always find it inspirational to watch the healing power of natural foods and benefits of removing all the junk foods from our menus.
After seeing the positive results from Joe and a couple of individuals who also tried a similar fast, you may get inspired and motivated to reboot your own life with juicing.
Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead: The Movie
Joe is seriously overweight, his body laden with and suffering from a debilitating auto-immune disease to boot. When he turns to doctors and conventional medicine – they fail to provide a a real solution, so Joe turns to the only option left… the body’s ability to heal itself….
So he quits eating the junk food, and makes a 180 degree turn in his nutrition determined to only to drink fresh fruit and vegetable juice for the next 60 days….
As you may expect, his transformation is truly amazing …
Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead Movie Trailer
Mean Green Juice Recipe
4 stalks of celery
1 cucumber — (peel off skin)
1 ginger root — (thumb size – peel off skin)
1/2 lemon — (skin cut off)
2 green apples
6 kale leaves
By the way, if you’re thinking about buying a juicer, you will probably like to know that Joe Cross is using a Breville juicer. You can also make green juice with your blender, by blending all ingredients on high speed and then straining the pulp to separate the juice.
Reboot Your Body: My 2 Cents
Going on a sixty day juicing diet is quite extreme and it isn’t necessarily the easiest, most practical or even the healthiest way to lose weight and regain health for most people, in my opinion.
By juicing fruit and veggies you are losing virtually all of the beneficial fibers, unless of course you eat the pulp – or drink green smoothies. 😉
What I would recommend instead, is simply to add freshly made vegetable/green/fruit juices (and, of course, lots of green smoothies) to your diet.
Don’t go cold turkey; just ADD the juice and smoothies.
As the days go by, drink more and more of it, until you find yourself eating less and less of everything else.
Next start replacing your “meat and potato” type meals with more fruit, vegetables, as well as some whole grains and beans.
Taking cold turkey plunge into the juice fast is challenging to say the least, and you might just fold and abandon the fast too quickly, and never return to the wonders of juicing. That’s why it’s better to ease into this gradually.
Also, you need to be aware of the detox effect – with some unpleasant side effects – that will kick in if you go into this too quickly. As you detox you might feel mild flu-like symptoms for a few days as your body discharges the toxins.
Also, buy a really good juicer. If it’s not easy to do the juicing, it will become the excuse to quit. I recommend Breville which you can buy at a really good price at Amazon.com.
Also it’s important to remember that not everyone is a candidate for fasting or juicing. People with hypoglycemia, for instance, would do really poorly on a juice or water cleanse. So if you’re fasting and feeling really horrible, lightheaded, sweaty, nauseous, dizzy, faint, etc., you need to eat something! Be sure to consult a nutritionist before embarking on one of the more rigorous programs.
Detoxing Your Body With Raw Food Cleanse
Truth is, everybody could use a cleanse, once in a while. Unless you live in a pristine environment in the middle of the jungle with only access to organic, tree-ripened fruits!
If being tired and exhausted is a daily thing for you you just can’t ignore the bloated stomach and the lack of energy always makes you feel drooped down, then all you have to do is to detox your body to get back in shape.
Even just a one-day detox is often enough to get you back on track with the raw food diet and help you purge some accumulated toxin.
Here’s an easy, one-day detox anyone can safely follow:
BREAKFAST:
Either skip breakfast, or make a light smoothie consisting of some fruit and greens.
For example:
· 3-4 bananas
· 1-2 cups of sweet fruit (mango, papaya, pear, apple, etc.)
· 2 cups of baby spinach
· water
Blend together
LUNCH:
Same as breakfast, or have a fruit meal of one or two types of fruit. (Eaten whole or as a smoothie.) For example: papaya and banana, blended together or eaten together.
AFTERNOON SNACK:
Make another green smoothie. Here’s one of my favorites:
· 3-4 bananas
· 1 ½ cups of frozen blueberries
· 2 cups of spinach or romaine lettuce or other greens (non-bitter)
Blend with water!
DINNER:
If you’re really hungry, start dinner with some fruit, or a fruit smoothie or soup.
Then follow with a simple vegetable soup.
Here’s one that I really like:
· 2 medium tomatoes
· 2 small cucumbers, peeled
· 1 mango or 1 cup of another fruit
· fresh basil, or dill
· 2-3 green onions, fresh
The idea here with this soup is to blend it at the lowest speed in your vita-mix or blender. It should still be chunky. Dice the tomatoes and cucumbers. Blend together and add the other ingredients. Blend slowly!
If you’re still hungry after this soup, you could make a non-fat salad, or eat more fruit. As long as you avoid oils, nuts and other fatty foods, as well as salt, you’ll still be following the guidelines for the cleanse!
Try this one-day detox, and you’ll see how great you feel. Now imagine what 7 days could do for you…
Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
If you have a favorite recipe, why not submit it here in the comment section of this smoothie recipes blog for others to enjoy too!
I also welcome any comments, questions and suggestions. Thanks!
Hi,
Thanks for your blog.
I am looking for recipes of green smoothies. My problem is that I am allergic to (many fruits) but in the context of the smoothies I am allergic to bananas, apples and pears, and I see them in almost every recipe. I believe this is to make the taste sweeter and creamier, do you have any idea of what I could use to substitute?
I normally dont drink a lot of dairy, but I was thinking that I could use some keffir yogurt to make them creamier, would this work?
thanks a lot for your suggestions!!
Have a great day!
Themis
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A good way to make a smoothie creamier is to use 1/2 avocado.
I have had my gallbladder removed. Do you think this is still a good idea for me? Any tips or alterations suggested.