I just finished watching Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead on Netflix. It’s a documentary about a guy who decides to reboot his life by going on a juice only fast for 60 days. He lost weight and everything you would expect from such a drastic change in lifestyle. He was energized, didn’t rely on his medication, and had a better outlook on life.
After many years of overworking and not paying attention to my diet, I think age has finally caught up. Today, I struggled to remember words, concepts, and experiences as I was responding to an email. Just a few years back, I would be able to do that while tweeting, listening to music, watching a movie, and drinking a soda.
For me, I’m naturally a small build. I can eat massive amounts of food and not gain significant weight. Instead, it all affects my mood and arteries. So, starting today, and my defacto New Year’s resolution, I will be going on a hybrid juice diet. I’m not going to give up eating all meals, but will replace at least 50 – 75% of my meals with juice.
Using data to analyze my progress
As a technologist, I love tech toys. In the health world, there is a lot of tech to monitor virtually everything. The advantage of doing so is the amount of data I can collect over time versus my periodic checkup at the doctor’s office.
I’m currently using:
- a Fitbit to track activity level (flights of stairs, steps taken) and sleep quality (number of times awoken at night). The app also has a form to manually track body measurements.
- DNA sequencing from 23andme. This is a little creepy but I sent in a saliva sample a while ago and they sequence part of the DNA and correlate it to survey data from participants.
I would like to track:
- Weight – I would like to try the Withings wifi body scale. It tracks weight, fat mass, and BMI and transmits it via wifi.
- Blood pressure – Withings also has a blood pressure monitor that could hook up to my iPhone.
Daniel — looks like this post is a few months old — how is your new diet regime going? A friend of mine turned me on to "Forks Over Knives", a documentary about animal products being possible causes of cancer. When I was about 25, I went on a 2-week juice fast, based on Paavo Airola's book "Are You Confused?" Lost 22 pounds in 14 days, received the benefits of eating nothing but fresh fruit and vegetable juices, and earned the wrath of my uncle, a noted medical researcher at UC Irvine. He subsequently told me that Airola's fast was "probably" effective, but that I should carefully watch the condition of my kidneys and liver, as they were apparently under a tremendous amount of stress while my body was eliminating all the nasty chemicals that had been built up. He also was concerned about my intake of amino acids (i.e. protein)… Nonetheless, I hope you are well and feeling even better. kso
I watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead last month and have been drinking vegetable juice as part of my morning ritual and afternoon pick me up. So far everything has been going well. I plan on drinking more vegetable juice now that I finally found mason jars. It makes juicing the night before easier.