Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead

For over 2 years, my dad has been drinking vegetable "smoothie" daily for breakfast with recipes recommended by Dr. Tom Wu from Taiwan. As a result he is healthier and looks younger. After watching this documentary, he was inspired and did 3 weeks purely on the smoothie (skin and all fiber included, not just the juice). Surprisingly, he now looks even younger and healthier. His psoriasis condition improves dramatically. So much that I am now trying this out for 10 days. I'm on day 5 now and my skin is glowing I barely need make-up in the morning. I also don't have the migraine which I usually have during my period. I like this documentary very much I am buying the DVD for others who want some inspirational boost to start their health journey.

First of all, I am a vegetarian, I was from the moment I first saw "earthlings", one of the most sad and terrible documentaries about the way animals are treated in a day to day basis for us to be able to consume them.. from that point forward I just watched each and every documentary about healthy diets, vegetarianism, vegan-ism and the likes.

I just watched this new film with no expectations whatsoever, thinking I've seen it all, what else could impress me. My knowledge about the subject is wide, I already did fasting, detox diets and all you can imagine, I weight 59kg and I am 38 and I didn't think I could learn something more about it, and I was right! I did not learned anything new, but, oh boy how wrong I was about the whole thing.

I did make a huge mistake in over-thinking my position as vegetarian following logic steps when in fact, that was not the thing that lead me to where I am in the first place, instead, it was experience, seeing other people much better than me, my girlfriend feeling great, me, not so much.

THIS is the core of this film, experience.

The movie does away with all scientific explanations (except for a few doctors in between) and put all of it's effort on showing us real people, real experiences and some really disturbing transformations (for the better!).

Suffice to say the movie struck me as beautiful, excellent, super inspiring and right to the point. It's so good that I want to watch it again and again with all the people I know so they too can see for themselves the importance of diet.

They say an imagine worth a thousand words, well, this movie is all about experience, images, transformation, virtue, will and most of all, inspiration to others.

Explanations, I know them, probably a lot of people don't but now I see this is not so much important anymore, this movie nailed it.

Please go watch it you won't regret it, even if you're not interested in all this green stuff.

8 out of 10 for sure!

The movie pace is strange, seems like 2 movies in one,mixed in with some Osmosis Jones (Chris Rock cartoon) type animation. It is very educational and uplifting. Honest and not condescending at all but light hearted and humorous despite the serious subject matter. The interviews with Americans is straight to the point and gets them "you and me" to ask some important questions of ourselves and how we value our life and health. It almost seems like an advertisement for Juicer's but never names a brand specifically that I caught. I went to Macy's today and they had 2 left. The sales clerk mentioned that they were flying off the shelf due to a movie about them. I was tickled to tell her about the movie, and that I was one of "those people". We did not buy from Macy's but just wanted to get hands on. I highly recommend you check it out, and hope you enjoy. P.S. I watched it free on Hulu, and got the Juicer for cheaper directly from the manufacturer (an Australian brand). Cheers.

I've never written a review before, I am worried about the word limit :) Here goes : You've got to see this film if you are serious about turning your health around. I've been studying the "Gerson therapy", "Food Matters", "Jay Kordich" and "Andrew Saul" stuff, in an effort to get healthy and fit, and it's all a little overwhelming for me. This movie follows the same approach but does it in such a simple way, it's perfect! America is in a health crisis, and with health care's tremendous profit margin the trend will be to make us sicker and fatter each year. We are just dollars for them - society has us on the fast track to diabetes and obesity - not to mention smoking and prescription drugs - but we can take back our health :) Watch this movie, then go to their website and join in - reboot your health :) Also Google up the stuff I mentioned above. They all use juice like this.

Good health and abundant energy, it's worth any price - but it's also surprisingly affordable.

You know, I got to hand it to Joe Cross, the enthusiastic Australian stockbroker turned lifestyle guru who spearheaded this 97 minute infomercial. He instinctively knows that the best way to prime his audience is through personal stakes and dramatic results. Thus instead of going the sane, unsexy route of weening out of bad habits to slowly lose excess weight, Cross puts his body through a 60-day juice cleanse while driving across America, confronting ordinary citizens about their diets. Why; probably because its easier to hock his "Reboot with Joe" program to those looking for quick and easy solutions.

It's easy to buy into it. The rotund sufferer of chronic urticaria we meet at the beginning of the film has the easy-going personality of a lazed step-father being asked for $20 bucks. Even as he looses the weight, he massages the soft sell with a canned genuineness and an easy to digest chipper attitude. "I was fat, and there was no one to blame but myself," he says in a moment of reflection. He liquefies his veggies and goes all in. "Don't taste half bad."

As the film wears on, Joe faces off against the litany of excuses people have for eating what they eat. "I only got so long on this earth, I might as well enjoy it," is the common refrain though my personal favorite answer to the question, "why do you eat all this junk?" has to be, "Because I'm sixteen." Everyone in frame seems to know they're not doing the right thing. To Joe these people are addicted to food and lack the willpower to seek solutions. The solution in his eyes is of course a "reboot" that will reprogram the body to readily take in micronutrients and macronutrients. "If all the world's major religions fast, then they must be onto something."

I'm no nutritionist so I'm not going to make any bold claims. Lest to say, there's probably more to a healthy lifestyle than Joe Cross's musings and a few choice doctors stating the obvious. This is where Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead gets into serious trouble. Thanks to clever editing, Cross's self-evident truisms seem to meld into doctor testimonials with no actual data to backup anything. Nowhere is this more evident than when Cross's third act guinea pig Phil Staples goes into the doctor's office with him and he prods the doctor with leading questions like, "What will happen if Phil continues to eat like he does?" and "Is Phil healthy enough to go on a fast?" Notice he never asks "Should he go on a fast."

The film also ignores the social aspect of its project. Joe's example, as amazing as it looks on TV, probably has more to do with him being able to spend 60 days consuming less calories than Gwyneth Paltrow starring in a Calista Flockhart biopic. The rest of us, you know, have to work for a living and need the caloric intake to make sure we don't collapse on our wheelbarrows and in our cement mixers (I'm assuming my readership are interminably sarcastic bricklayers). We also often live in food deserts, suffer from malnutrition, succumb to social and peer-pressure such as indulging in a Fourth of July cookout etc. Yes, it's ultimately you choice but your choice is informed by the world around you. And if you need any further proof that a 60-day juice cleanse may not work for everyone, check out Phil's article, "I Was the Poster Boy for Weight Loss...Then I Gained 200 Pounds".

Lack of data, lack of comprehensiveness and the nagging suspicion that you're being sold something you don't need, like a canister of turtle wax. That is Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead in a nutshell. The fact that it's so laser-focused on creating and maintaining a brand may just be its only saving grace because it least it doesn't have that far to fall. It simply wants to make what it does look great and I suppose it succeeds in those modest ends. It's ultimately a D+ doc; C- because I'm embarrassed to say I dusted off the old juicer after I saw it.