Drinking Juice And Cutting-Out The Crap.

Two examples of the green mush that is available.

____ Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is a film I recently watched with my good buddy, Ross Duthie. It is the story of an Australian called Joe Cross who is overweight and suffering from a buggered-up immune system due to eating too much of all the wrong foods. His answer to this crisis is to go on a sixty day US roadtrip where he only eats fresh fruit and vegetables after they have been put through a juicer that he carries around in the back of his car. A radical answer that gets the right results. He looses 100 lbs and gets his health and fitness back. Along the way, he meets a 420 pound American truck-driver called Phil who joins Joe on the juicing crusade and looses an incredible 200 lbs. A lot of the film is about the benefits of fresh juice but it also tells the viewer what foods they should steer clear.

____ I have never been on a diet in my life; preferring to keep fit by exercise and an active lifestyle. When I came back from a three month cycle-tour of New Zealand, I weighed 190 lb [ 13 stones 8 pounds ]; about as light as I have ever been. But as a truck-driver, it is easy to pile on the pounds when working, especially on  van work. I can quickly go up to 225 lbs, if I don't make an effort to go to the gym and do some cycling. I also eat all the wrong stuff; two slices of pizza for $5 is good value and fills me up but is all the wrong processed, fatty crap that does me no good at all.

____ The Food Pyramid is another thing from the film that also struck a chord with me. It shows that I should eat a lot of stuff from the base of the pyramid such as fruit and vegetables. Plenty of seeds, nuts and grains from the next ascending layer but less from the top layers such as fatty meats, sugary sweets and alcohol. As I was coming up to my medical for the three-year driving-test examination; I decided to give "Juicing" a try. I couldn't do the "Boot-Camp" type of detox fasting that Joe and Phil did but could try to cut out the crap and drink the juices that are available from the truck-stops and convenience stores.

____ Morning coffee and a danish pastry have been replaced by an ice-cold bottle of "Mean-Green." Mars bars and Bounties have been replaced by bags of Trail Mix; nuts and seeds and all good. The two-slice pizza deal from the hot deli has been replaced by a chopped salad with turkey from Subway. It is not a rigid regime and sometimes I have a proper sit-down meal but keep well away from the buffets. The results have surprised me; as I have always thought that people got fat because they did not exercise enough. I have gone from 225 lbs to 203 lbs in two months. My belt-hole is two holes smaller and my blood-pressure at the medical was only just on the high side of normal; not as high as it has been in recent years.

____ The most surprising thing has been how easy it has all been. I have not felt hungry or craved for any thing special. The Mean Green juice doesn't look very appealing but it tastes good and is satisfying. The bottled juice and trail-mix aren't cheap but when you consider that you can pay $15 for a sit-down breakfast; $10 for the good stuff is not going to bankrupt you. There is plenty of stuff about Juice Diets on the Internet and juices seem to be  more and more available on the road. The film is well worth watching; if just to see how a bloody great over-weight truck-driver gets his life back on track from a seemingly hopeless situation. Phil is a real hero and an example to all the thousands of over-weight drivers, like me, who eat the wrong stuff and too much of it. But the most telling piece of information comes at the end of the credits when it states: "Phil gave up driving trucks."