Author: Courtney Daniels

I recently had a fun discussion with longtime friend Susan Burnstine for Santa Fe Workshops. We talked about why I became a filmmaker, the circumstances that led to my making my first movie, and what I think of film festivals. We also covered how to decide what your first film should be about, what to do if you don’t have financing, and my favorite DIY film-distribution service. To watch, click on the video below, or click here.

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is a documentary film made by an Australian businessman, Joe Cross, who had become so unhealthy and overweight he decided to take drastic action: he went on a 60-day juice fast, while crossing America and talking to strangers about his journey. His idea to have a film crew follow him was genius. Built-in accountability!

In the film, Joe talks to people in big cities and small towns, offering everyone samples of his juices (which he makes using a Breville centrifugal juicer in the back of his car!). He tells them about his mission to get in better health by juicing and asks them about their diet and attitudes toward food and health. He invites everyone to join him on the juice fast. But no one takes him up on it. He returns to Australia, slimmer and healthier.

Six months later he gets a call. A serious, likable guy he met in Iowa–Phil–asks him for help.

I won’t tell you anymore about the film, because it’s great and I think you should see it. Jimmy and I watched it with his dad and stepmom, when they visited us this summer, and we were so inspired we got juice-fast fever!

If you’re wondering why juice vegetables and fruit rather than just eat them: When you juice, you are getting the micronutrients of, say, 6 carrots, rather than just one—i.e., you’d have to eat a ton of produce to get the amount of micronutrients that are in one glass of green juice. And blasting your cells with a ton of micronutrients from plants—Joe Cross calls this “pure sunshine”–is great for your health. If you’re wondering why a juice fast: It gives your body a break from digesting meals, so it has more time to do important cleaning and repair work. It also acts as a “reset” button: it disrupts your current habits, cleanses your palate and makes you crave healthier foods again.

Eager to take advantage of the inspiration we were feeling, I researched juicers, chose the Kuvings B6000 and ordered a great little book, The Reboot with Joe Juice Diet. After some debate, Jimmy and I decided to do a 5-day fast. We started on Saturday (October 5) and finished it October 9 at midnight.

I went into the fast thinking it wouldn’t be that hard. Then I thought I wouldn’t get out of it alive. And finally, I learned to love aspects of it.

It was the hardest thing I’ve done this year. I feel like I’ve been through a crucible.

And now I have tremendous respect for what I think of as a magic bullet.

THE JUICE FAST

When you see photos hyping a juice fast, there are all these attractive glass vessels full of beautiful-colored juices. Mostly shades of pink, red and orange.

But those are FRUIT JUICES. Which have a lot of sugar, and even though the sugar is naturally occurring, you shouldn’t drink too much of these juices.

What you are not shown is an army of bottles full of army-green juice. Because that would not be as enticing. Which leads us to a crucial fact I’d forgotten before embarking on our 5-day juice fast:

I don’t like green juices.

I can handle the taste when I’m drinking them. It’s not bad, in the moment. But before I drink one, and after, I am repelled by them. I have no desire to drink them, whatsoever. Which I somehow didn’t think about before this juice fast.

So, on Day 1 of the fast, I found myself surprised, yet again, to realize I’d been living in Duality instead of Reality. If you are not familiar with the concept of “duality,” it’s basically la la land–your own made-up world, in which you do not face facts.

I wanted all the benefits one gets from doing a juice fast. So, I forgot I don’t like green juices.

The higher the variety of quality produce (purple cabbage! fennel! parsley! carrots! yams! blueberries! raspberries! beets!), the murkier a green juice becomes. It is fantastic for your health. But it’s not necessarily something you’re psyched to drink 4-6 times a day. You should know, however, that Jimmy did not mind drinking the green juices. So, maybe you would not find them objectionable either. (We’ve found that the addition of fresh mint leaves and carrots can make a green juice taste relatively good.)

What saved me during our juice fast is the fact that I cheated. I allowed myself to have two things that were not initially going to be part of our juice fast: homemade nut milk and coconut smoothies. Yes, it remained a liquids-only fast, but officially, it was not a juice fast. It was a juice + nut milk + coconut smoothie fast. The reason for the coconut smoothies: Joe Cross recommends several glasses of coconut water each day that you’re fasting, to get electrolytes. But packaged coconut water tastes awful. If you hack open a fresh coconut available in the produce section of the grocery store, the water is DELICIOUS. But, it’s very sweet. I thought it would be better to cut the sugar impact by blending the water and the coconut meat into a smoothie (with nothing else added).

Homemade almond milk

Homemade coconut smoothie (just coconut water and coconut meat)

In 5 days, I lost 3 pounds. On Day 2 of the fast, my stomach was already so flat it was concave. Jimmy lost 5.8 pounds in 5 days.

During the fast, it often occurred to me that someone who eats as healthy as I do has less incentive to do a juice fast. Jimmy pointed out that I regularly eat all of the fruits and veg we were juicing. I eat super healthy every day–not in jags, not off and on. EVERY DAY.

Day 1 of the fast was hell.

I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. Looking back, I wonder now if it was a primal response–it’s as if I were a feral animal who was desperate for food.

I wanted to cheat so badly, it shocked me. I wanted to shove food in my mouth when Jimmy wasn’t looking. I wanted to EAT EAT EAT and LIE LIE LIE to my friends and family on IG and FB, where I was posting about my fast. I was folding like a lawn chair. Unraveling like a cheap shirt.

That first day was so unbearable, I couldn’t imagine how I was going to get through it, much less 5 days. It felt impossible.

I sincerely wanted to quit and Jimmy gave me a great line on which to do it: “Woohoo! We made it through our 1-day juice fast!” Friends and family on IG and FB would’ve laughed, I’m sure, and I would’ve been off the hook. My integrity might’ve taken a hit, though, and that was something I couldn’t swallow.

But I continued to debate quitting the fast every minute of that first day AND for a good chunk of the second day. I had to admit that Day 2 was 50% less difficult than Day 1. Even though, at the end of Day 2, I finally had the cruddy feelings they warn you about. I felt run down, nauseated, weak, and shaky. That’s when I panicked and made myself a glass of cashew milk with extra sea salt. I didn’t even care that I was cheating/adding something unplanned to the juice fast, because I was scared by how bad I felt.

The next morning, Day 3, I woke up feeling like a million bucks.

Knowing I could have a nut milk or a coconut smoothie took the edge off. Big time. It helped me deal with the fact that I would be drinking more dark green juices for breakfast, lunch and dinner. What fascinated me about Day 3 is that solid food had suddenly become a distant memory. It’s crazy how quickly you can acclimate to a new normal. In just THREE days, I was accustomed to drinking juices instead of eating meals! That blew my mind.

Here’s another surprise discovery: You’re not really hungry on a juice fast! I don’t know if it’s because the juices are so nourishing, or what. There was one point at which I was “starving.” But I should’ve just drank another green juice. The fact is, I probably just didn’t want to. Because I had already become repelled by them on Day 1. But if you do drink 4-6 veg and fruit juices daily, like you’re advised to by Joe Cross, you truly are not hungry. You might definitely still want to EAT FOOD. But you’re not actually hungry.

I only felt cruddy a couple of times during the juice fast—the night of Day 2, and maybe the night of Day 3. Jimmy never felt cruddy at all! He had a slight headache at one point but he said it wasn’t bad. We had abruptly stopped drinking two matcha lattes a day, when we started the fast, so our headaches probably were just from stopping having caffeine.

Jimmy was much more sanguine during the juice fast. He didn’t find it as difficult as I did. He was not tempted to quit like I was.

THE STRANGE EFFECT OF DAYS 1 AND 2

On Days 1 and 2 and even parts of Days 3 and 4, I was unable to be in the present moment much. I was too miserable! I felt restless and so uncomfortable. I just kept wanting so badly to quit the fast.

But by Day 5, the juice fast had become easier. Possibly because I knew it would be over by midnight. (At the same time, I kept fighting an overwhelming impulse to just blow off the final hours of juice-fasting and EAT!)

We did debate staying on the juice fast for longer, though. Because each day you stay on it, you’re giving your body a chance to do important cleaning and repair work, and you are feeling fantastic. Full of vitality. Also, juicing instead of eating makes life easy in many ways: you don’t have to decide what to eat or plan meals, you don’t have to cook or clean up after cooking.

Most people keep accruing more and more miraculous health benefits the longer they juice fast. (If you want to stay on a juice fast for longer than 15 days, like Joe did, it’s recommended you consult a doctor first and during.) It’s especially easy to see how people who have serious health issues keep going. Because many stop experiencing symptoms in the very first week of juicing and even cure themselves of their physical ailments if they keep up a new, healthier diet. And for those who are overweight, it must be exciting to drop a pound or two a day. It’s hard to beat that rate of speed.

Joe Cross drank nothing but veg and fruit juices for 60 days. He lost 87 pounds, stopped having painful hives and blisters from the autoimmune condition he’d developed years prior, and was able to keep ramping down from the 20mg of prednisone he took daily. He eventually stopped taking the steroid altogether and is healthy and happy from having maintained a healthy diet and lifestyle since making Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.

I found myself really admiring him and Phil and the woman who’d suffered migraines from the film. They really became heroes to me, during our juice fast. I so admired their staying on the juice fast for as long as they each did.

On Day 5, like I said, Jimmy and I were conflicted about whether to stop or keep going. Ultimately we decided to stop juice-fasting just because we don’t have a lot of weight to lose and we didn’t want to get our bodies used to not digesting solid food, having a reduced calorie intake, etc. But we really were torn.

HERE’S THE WEIRD TAKEAWAY

The final surprise we’ve experienced: Eating food again is not as incredible as we thought it’d be. I mean, it’s great, yes. But my epiphany is this: A juice fast is not as awful as you think, and returning to eating solid food is not as great as you think.

A juice fast “reboot” is a brilliant solution for getting into better health immediately. It makes you appreciate the incredible properties of plants.

And it’s cool that you can heal your body of misery-causing or even life-threatening ailments with something provided by nature.

FIVE TIPS FOR DOING A JUICE FAST:

1. Don’t burn too many hours researching juicers. Joe Cross acknowledges that none are a breeze to clean. Our Kuvings B6000 masticating juicer is definitely easier to clean than the first juicer we had years ago, a Breville, and I love it. It’s a goodlooking, vertically oriented appliance and does not take up a lot of counter space. But Joe loves Breville and remains a fan of their fast centrifugal (also vertically oriented) juicers, which are relatively affordable. They don’t heat the juice, destroying the nutrients, which is key! That means you can store juice in the fridge for 48 hours as opposed to needing to drink it within minutes of making it. We got our Kuvings at PlantBasedPros.com for a small discount and paid no sales tax–it was around $375 total. I think you can get a Breville centrifugal juicer for around $200-something. I would also strongly recommend buying The Reboot with Joe Juice Diet recipe book, by Joe Cross. It tells you what to expect, it lays out daily “meal” plans for a 3-day juice fast, a 5-day juice fast, etc., and it has great recipes for healthy meals when you transition off your juice fast.
2. Start your juice fast on a date that allows you to lay low for the first 2-3 days, because you might feel some amount of physical discomfort such as a slight headache or lack of energy. Alternate strategy: Start it at a time where you’ll be really busy and will welcome the break from planning and preparing meals! You might want to batch-process juices, such that you are only using and cleaning your juicer once every 2 days.
3. You might want to buy a big bag of carrots, a few bunches of greens (kale, Romaine, parsley, etc.), a couple of pears (which are delicious when juiced!), 1-2 bunches of celery, 2 yams, and at least 2 pints of berries to get started on your first day of juicing. And then you will likely need to keep going back to the store every other day to restock your produce supply. Btw, some people complain that it’s expensive to buy organic produce for juicing, but we spent way less than we do on regular grocery runs that include packaged foods.
4. It’s probably not good to have even natural fruit sugar sitting on your teeth for hours between “meals.” Consider getting in the habit of brushing your teeth after every juice, especially if your juices include fruit such as apples, pears or oranges. Speaking of, I would not add a lot of fruit to your “main meal” (green) juices. We found that green juices actually taste better with carrots as a sweetener rather than, say, apples. We made separate, delicious fruit-combination juices to drink in small quantities as a fun chaser for green juices. (Pear-peach-sweet potato juice is particularly good. I added a dash of cinnamon to mine.)
5. Consider how you want to get electrolytes–through packaged coconut water? Or by cracking open fresh coconuts like I did? (It’s a bit of a chore, and it can splinter the bottom edge of your big chef knife, but coconut smoothies are delicious and are a reason to live when you are struggling in the first few days of a juice fast.) Or, Google other ways to get electrolytes naturally, without consuming beverages that have chemicals or added sugar.

I think this holiday season really snuck up on people, because so far we’ve only received one card. From Dr. Bernard Markowitz. (A cosmetic surgeon who told me, in a consult, that my face is asymmetrical. Happy Hanukkah to you, too, Dr. Markowitz!)

Recently, I was sitting on my couch, fixated on the sensation of acid creeping up into my throat, because apparently I have GERD, and I thought about how stress was likely the cause. And it occurred to me, for the millionth time, that there’s really no good reason to feel stress. Because if times are good, you should be happy, and if times aren’t good, you’re undoubtedly growing. Suffering always leads to greater wisdom and compassion. “Pain is the gift no one wants”! In fact, some of the most memorably beautiful moments of my life have occurred when I was going through some kind of hell.

Anyway, while having these thoughts, I stumbled upon a new life philosophy. A new motto! And this motto is so good, it makes me wish I were a player in the jam-packed Online Motivational Coaching Space. Because any life coach worth their salt has a sticky tagline. But enough preamble, I’m gonna lay it on you:

Look forward to EVERYTHING. Even the “bad.”

Right?! I mean, how much better would life be if we didn’t worry about the future, didn’t dread anything, and instead eagerly anticipated EVERYTHING, even the bad, knowing that the bad, especially, will lead to awesome insights, connection to others, and our personal development?!

Excited, I wrote this new motto on an index card, and I look at it occasionally. Has it stopped me from experiencing stress? Fuck no. But maybe it’s because I don’t look at it often enough. I need to move it to my nightstand.

If you find this motto–“Look forward to EVERYTHING. (Even the “bad.”)–comforting, I’d be thrilled. Because that’s what I really care about: “Adding value,” as people in the Online Motivational Coaching Space say!

If you think a friend would find this comforting or helpful, please consider sharing it. Thanks!