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Malaysia Fogle

Professor Day

Nutrition 1020

9 November 2019

Fat Sick and Nearly Dead

Fat Sick and Nearly Dead is a nutrition documentary made in 2010 that follows Joe Cross

around the United States, for sixty days, tracking his goal of losing weight though a juice fast. In

this documentary Cross has a goal to lose weight and be healthier by doing what is called a juice

fast. His juice fast consisted of fruit and vegetables for every meal of the day for sixty days.

During this sixty-day cleanse he overcame obstacles of watching his camera crew eat food while

he drank juices, not eating foods that smelt good, and remembering why he was doing this

fasting. For this adventure he wanted to get away from those he knew well, so he knew he

would do this. Starting in New York he spent about thirty days there starting this cleanse while

going around and asking people on the street what healthy was to them and if they would ever try

this cleanse. He met many people and helped one lady during his time in New York. This lady

did her own ten-day challenge and from there Cross helped many more. After the thirty days in

New York Cross travelled across the country finishing in San Diego to celebrate his

accomplishment. While driving across the country Cross helped a truck driver from Iowa by the

name of Phil Staples and helped him start his journey of weight loss. In the end they both lost

weight and made it to both their target weights.

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Joe Cross is an Australian wellness advocate as well as entrepreneur, author and

filmmaker. “In 2005 Cross weighed 22 stone (310 pounds) and suffered from and autoimmune

condition, chronic urticaria, for which he had been taking medications such as steroid prednisone

for years. (Wikipedia).” While going through the process of dealing with this illness he was

mostly eating processed foods, smoking, and drinking alcohol often. According to Cross, “his

eating habits are what caused his illness and he wanted to change his lifestyle. (Cross).” This is

where his nutrition background comes in. After finishing his sixty-day juice fasting, he has now

gone on to write a book six book one called “Lose Weight, Get Healthy and Feel Amazing.” He

is also the CEO of Reboot with Joe which is a brand that helps others wanting to lose weight and

feel great do the same thing as Joe has. Though Joe may not have a huge background knowledge

on nutrition, he did know enough to start and learn. With learning he has now grown a company

and have taught many others.

While watching the documentary I had many new ideas learned and points of views I

would have never thought of. In the documentary (Cross) says it “food is and addiction.” This

isn’t the first time I have this, nor have I thought of it, but this is the first time I have watched

someone eat so minimum from such an overweight lifestyle say this. Food is and addiction none

the less and needs to be shown the same light as drugs and other additions. Within the first few

days Cross was having withdraws of food and wanting to stay in his room feeling bad for

himself; which is no different than any addition. We cannot have people think that fast food and

unhealthy eat habits think oh well I’m here for a good time. We need to start implying and

implementing that around the globe especially devolved nations where we have all these easy

ways of eating, we need better eating habits. Another thing that I was never aware of was
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doctors have a food pyramid for those who are overweight and looking at eating right and losing

weight. This pyramid instead of starting with wheats, going to fruits/ vegetable, milks, meats,

then fats at the top the pyramid used by doctors start with vegetable at the base, going to fruits,

nuts and seeds, then making its way up to the animal based foods. Before watching this

documentary, I thought that it was the same food pyramid no matter what and in the same order,

the only thing different would be the serving sizes. After the doctor in the documentary

explained why it clicked with me. You are wanting to make sure the they fruit, and vegetables

are being consumed because you know they are getting all the micronutrients that the body

needs. You are also getting the body in the habit of wanting to crave fruits and vegetables

instead of the fats, oils, and sweets. “…Many studies showed that those one this diet had an

average weight loss of 53 pounds and most of those people kept it off… this makes your chances

of having cancer, diabetes, heart disease all decrease. (Penny).” The point I got from this is

having to get a doctor’s approval on this before even doing just a 10-day cleanse. Mainly in

Cross’s journey he was having to get blood tests every 10 days to make sure levels where still

good. I found that insanely eye opening. I would have never thought in a million years that you

would need to get your blood tested that many times will on a juice cleanse. Then with the juice

filling you up as if it was a meal baffles my mind a bit as well.

A few things to compare from this documentary to our book is the My Plate to the juice

every day. With the My Plate reminds us the eating healthy is the goal. My Plate recommends

half your plate be filled with fruits and vegetables, one fourth to be grains, the last one forth to be

proteins and then on the side about an eight to one fourth of dairy (choosemyplate.gov).

Throughout the whole documentary I do not recall him every saying that protein was covered in
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anyway. In our book DRI says we should be consuming at least 0.8 grams of protein per

kilogram of our body weight a day. Though we have learned that some vegetables can have

some proteins it is not the amount we need in a day. It was also never shown how much of

everything was put into his recipes in the documentary. Another thing to compare is according

to our book and USDA MyPlate men should eat 2 cups of fruit a day and 2 ½ cups of vegetables.

Again, we are not sure how much Cross was consuming but that would put his fiber levels well

above the needed amount. Another thing is according to our book most people go off a 2000

calorie count a day. Without knowing how many juices he drank a day was he meeting this limit.

In the end I choose this documentary because of the hooking title. Fat Sick and Nearly

Dead is something you hear plenty of people talk about but it’s something that makes you think

why? I wanted to know the story behind this title and wanted to see what was done to fix this. I

was pleased with this documentary. I learned that nutrition should always be the starting point to

all aspects of life because we turn to food all the time. We need to make sure that what we are

putting into our body will benefit us in the long run and not just the short distance. To see the

changes in Joe and Phil was amazing and it made me so happy. It also made me want to make

some changes in my life. Though I am fit and take workout classes and eat healthier I do need a

gym membership and I will probably do that now, because if I was happy seeing their results, I’ll

be ecstatic with my small results I want. I am wanting to incorporate the themes and ideas I

learned about this documentary in my life. I want to try to put some of those juices in my day by

drinking those instead of a fatty snack like chips. I feel like that will help me to start

incorporating more vegetables and fruits in my diet and will over all make me feel a little bit

better. Documentaries like these are ones I wouldn’t watch unless I have to but I now want to
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watch more to see the outcomes of different people and there journeys, I just think it is amazing

how this small difference changed lives so drastically in a good way. Even with this

documentary being released back in 2010 I do believe that everything that was mentioned in it is

still very much applicable today. Mainly because most of the United States and other parts of the

world are obese and this documentary is just trying to show you, you don’t need to go buy diet

pills, excessively workout, or go through surgery; there are other ways to lose weight and feel

healthy in a safe way.

Works Cited
choosemyplate.gov. n.d.

Fat Sick and Nearly Dead. Perf. Joe Cross. 2010.

Fat Sick and Nearly Dead. Perf. Prof. Penny. n.d.

Wikipedia. Wikipedia. n.d.