A New Pharmiechick Obsession

Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead

I recently moved back into my old house, which makes me happy for many reasons.  Besides the close proximity to Wegmans (the best grocery store in the whole world), safer places to walk Emma, and just plain loving this house, it also gives me access to FIOS internet and television.  In other words, I can finally watch Netflix again.  

Besides Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek Voyager, I also watch a lot of documentaries on Netflix.  So when "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" popped up on my recommendations, I decided to see what all the hubbub was about.  The general consensus had been "life changing"...and while my life isn't completely revitalized, I have at least changed lanes.  Pretty exciting, actually.

"Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" follows an Australian dude who is very overweight and has a severe skin condition.  So right there, it kind of strikes a chord with me.  Yep, I'm fat and have struggled with eczema for over 10 years.  Anyhow, he decides to go on this crazy juice fast for 60 days, while taking a road trip across America.  Now, I'm not talking a juice fast like he's drinking a lot of Tropicana.  He takes tons (probably about $20 a day worth) of vegetables and fruits, runs them through a juicer, and drinks the results.

The results are actually mind-blowing.  Over 60 days, he loses about 90 pounds.  But that's not the amazing part.  I mean, if I followed any sort of diet program religiously I would probably lose that much weight.  What got me all sorts of excited and kind of obsessed with this whole juicing thing is that his skin condition improved drastically, to the point that he was able to stop taking oral steroids to alleviate the symptoms.  As someone with serious eczema (and we're talking so bad I would happily knaw my leg off at times to get the itching awfulness to stop for even a day), this is a dream come true.  So I ran right out to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and bought a juicer.

I haven't actually done a juice fast of this magnitude yet, and I probably never will.  But I have been replacing some meals and snacks with various juices, and while my eczema hasn't gone away, I am feeling much peppier.  I think that is probably more due to my chronic lack of vegetable intake than actually juicing the vegetables.  But I have found that juicing certain veggies that either take forever to chew or just seem plain icky to eat whole does make them a lot more palatable.  After trying various juice recipes, I can say that the only one I won't ever drink again involved an entire beet juiced with some other poor, unfortunate fruits and veggies.  It was like drinking dirt, and I blame the beet entirely.  Well, I blame myself in part.  I should have known better than to put a beet in anything.  Really, the only people who ever liked beets besides Dwight Schrute (who I am now convinced is just straight up crazy) are those that grew up in the Great Depression, and that was only because they had to eat them to stay alive.  Lucky for me the produce department at Wegmans has so many other fruits and veggies that I will never have to drink dirt juice again.

So to end this rather long and somewhat tedious blog post, I am now completely obsessed with juicing any sort of produce (except bananas and kiwis...those you have to use a regular blender for, not a juicer).  I feel happier and more energetic, and I am actually craving vegetable juice now...as in carrot/celery/lemon juice, which is fabulous!  I am so dedicated to juicing things that my obsession has now extended itself to a high end juicer that I absolutely must have...the Juice & Blend from Breville.

Breville's Juice & Blend, aka PRETTIEST JUICER EVER

Seriously, I haven't seen an appliance this beautiful since I got my GE gas range/convection oven.  And that literally brought tears to my eyes the day that it was installed in my kitchen.  I must have this juicer, but I can't find it available anywhere to purchase.  It also costs more than a purebred yellow lab puppy.  But I think it will be worth it.  In the meantime, I will continue lusting over it while watching the how-to videos over at the Breville website.  *Sigh*