‘Reboot With Joe’, My Crazy Idea 

This past Christmas we traveled to see my husbands family in Seattle. It was a wonderful trip, except that I slept terrible and came home feeling completely ill, exhausted and just plain done. But we had to get right back into it..school, girl scouts, basketball, homework…life.

I had lost pretty much most of my motivation to go to the gym, because poor sleeping isn’t exactly a new thing for me. I’m a terrible sleeper, such a light sleeper that the newspaper getting tossed on the front porch at 4:30am can wake me up. I even use a white noise machine in the kids’ rooms and in mine.

However, I decided to go do my favorite class on a Tuesday morning at 24 Hour Fitness here in Burbank, it’s the Body Pump Class by Les Mills. Love it.  I needed it despite not wanting to go.

As I was leaving, I ran into a dear friend. We briefly chatted about how terrible and unmotivated we both felt as busy mothers. The last thing she said to me before I left was, “You have to watch this documentary I just watched this week with my husband, it’s called Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead.”
I laughed at the title and took no offense to what she might have been trying to say to me.

Something in my life needed (needs) to change and I was actually excited to go home and watch this film on Netflix, but the T.V. wasn’t available to me as it had been claimed by Jake & The Neverland Pirates first, so I turned it on my iPad and watched it as I made dinner and cleaned the kitchen that night.

I was inspired.

The gist of it is, this Australian man, Joe Cross is overweight and suffers form a terrible auto-immune disease that has caused him to take Predisone for the past 9 years. After trying almost everything else to stay healthy and treat his disease, he decided to try a radical juice fast, I mean radical. 60 days, nothing but fruit and veggie juice.

The results are crazy and the people he inspires along the way have just as amazing results as he does. I won’t tell you much more because I think you should watch it.

The next day, I watched it a second time…in my kitchen, on my iPad while cooking.

I am not a fan of diets. Don’t like them. I don’t like restrictions on food at all, which is why I may have a problem to begin with, because restrictions on food make me want it even more. Not much else is like this in life for me, just food.

I made a list of the reasons I could think of to try juicing.

Here’s my list:

• I am 50 (5-0) pounds overweight since the birth of my third child.
• I do not sleep well, ever. Never really have. 4 hours in a row and then hourly waking after that is normal for me.
• I drink way too much coffee. I love coffee, but I drink coffee all day long to combat the tiredness I feel and in return, I believe it affects the way I sleep (See list item above this one)
• I feel miserable, somewhat depressed and short fused on a regular basis. I snap at my kids and husband and blame it on my lack of sleep (which isn’t entirely untrue, right?)
• My mother died of breast cancer. Not sure I need to elaborate on this one. Although I don’t carry the breast cancer gene (I’ve been tested) there is still a history and research shows that the more weight you carry, you increase your chances of developing cancer.
• I had Gestational Diabetes with baby number three. I was on a restricted diet for the last 3 1/2 months of that pregnancy and felt amazing. I looked amazing and my third was the smallest baby at 7 pounds. However, this puts me at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life, if I don’t keep the weight down. And needless to say, I fell off the wagon after her birth.
• And last, but not least, the most important item on this list…..I am addicted to sugar. Sugar for me isn’t just an occasional dessert throughout the week. Sugar for me is my best friend and enemy at the same time. I am an addict. I binge on it. I use it. I abuse it. I substitute it for normal meals. I eat food with every emotion, happiness, sadness, stress, excitement, frustration…you name it. I need to break up with sugar.

Earlier this year, I was reading loads of diet books, reviews and this brilliant phenq review really inspired me, after all that I knew I needed to make some changes.I was so determined to do this juice fast. I began texting friends to see if they had a juicer I could ‘borrow’ so I could test out a 10 day juice. Although I have a Vitamix, I knew I would need a juicer for this one since the last time I tried making something with Kale, I nearly gagged through three swallows before chucking it down the drain.

A friend did have one I could borrow, but I was so determined, I went to Costco and found one on sale..so, I took it home.

I stopped at Sprouts to get all of the essential fruits and veggies I would need to create my mixes for this amazing 10 day juice fast I was about to embark on.

I was all set to go the next morning….and I did.

Stay tuned for the results of days 1-3, coming later this week!

You can find more information about Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead HERE….