Life Is Not Layaway

 I love documentaries. I especially love Netflix, because they have a wide variety of them. You can get your fix from any subject.. Weight loss, nature, addiction, criminal, sports etc.

Earlier this week I was home sick with a stomach virus, what else shall a girl do between bathroom runs? I turn on Netflix and see what I can watch to take my mind off things for a bit.

Of course I go straight to the documentary section and see what I can find. First one I find that seems decent would be - Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead. I've heard of this one before, the title alone will make you look twice.

The documentary follows Joe Cross as he attempts a 60 day fast. He is not allowed to consume food, only juice. Therefore he goes on a path of juicing. It follows him on this fasting journey and how he grows from it and tells others, he calls it a “reboot”.

Along the way he meets a truck driver who has the same health issue as himself(autoimmune disease). Joe makes the truck driver a juice and told him to contact him basically if he ever needs anything. A few weeks later, the truck driver contacts him. Joe jumps on a plane and starts to help the driver out, then the story follows him. It was amazing to see the transformation of both.

After that I watched Forks Over Knives, Hungry For A Change, Vegucated and Food, inc. All speak about how the food we consume each day and how it's changed over the years. For example, a chicken now a days is a million times bigger than a chicken in the 70's. How chicken houses are made now and what they have to feed the chickens, how they live, how they kill them. Some may think, it's a chicken, they are born to feed us.. Well, we don't think the same about dogs, yet they eat them in some countries. What the animal eats, you end up eating yourself. If it's pumped with hormones, you will be as well. We say this and keep on eating it.

To see how animals are kept in small areas, standing in feces of their own and many others. In the case of chickens, they are so big they can not even walk. They just lay on the ground, gasping for air, waiting to die. When they come to pick the chickens up, they throw them in small cages. They grab them by the neck and toss them around, break legs, whatever it takes – they do not care.

In the case of cows, most are confined to small areas of land, no grass. They are fed corn and stand in feces 24/7. Males are castrated because it helps the meat, they are not put under for the process, they just start cutting or tie a rubber band around them until they fall off.

Since they are fed corn and not normal food meant for cows, also since they are standing in feces of others, it causes great concern for E. Coli. No problem! Once they are tortured upon death and they grind up all parts for meat, they use ammonia to get rid of it. MMMMMM! I don't know about you, but I just LOVE ammonia for supper! … said no one ever.

This is all done because of the high demand of meat now a days. They do not care if it's quality meat, they just need to get it out to make the money. It's all about the mighty dollar, really.

Have you ever wondered where your food comes from? Unless you raised it from birth, do you really know what happened in the process?

This is why America is so sick! We basically eat crap each day, either it's being bought at fast food restaurants or at supermarkets. They don't care if it makes you sick, gives you heart disease or cancer, so what. Healthy people just makes no sense at all, fewer trips to the dr., how does that help?! Studies have shown that you can get all the nutrients from veggies and fruits. Most people love to eat meat because of the protein, you can receive that from veggies and fruit.

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

-Hippocrates

Did you know the body is designed to heal itself? If it's fed the right things, it can. What is it going to hurt? You are putting wonderful things into your body each day, can't go wrong.

For a good part of my life, I've spent it putting horrible things in my body. I would eat fast food daily, which is not filled with anything good for the body. If it was not fast food, it was heavily greased and fried or had so much butter in it, although Paula Dean would be proud, I am not. Not only food...soft drinks. Coke has always been amazing to me, does coke care? No, it just demands to be bought! It's pumped with so much sugar that I would keep coming back for more. Diet soft drinks are not any better.

My weight loss journey is about losing weight – Yes. I, not only want to lose weight, I just want to be healthy. I'm going to focus on putting healthy things in my body and when the weight falls off, I will of course be happy about it. What good is it to lose weight if we are not healthy? No pill will ever make you healthy, no shake. It may have a little of what you need to “get by”, but it will never be a lifestyle, it's a quick fix.

I've decided to become a pescatarian, which is basically a vegetarian that eats fish. It's not like I'm going to run out and eat tons of seafood, I just like having the option if need be. I've mostly been juicing and making veggie wraps at this point. I'm excited about diving in and finding more recipes and growing from this.

This life is short, we are born to die. Every thing in between is up to us, will we make the best of it? Sitting on a couch, slurping on a milkshake – it's not the best way to enjoy this life. I feel more free and I love life. Over a month ago, I hated myself. I hated that I would eat fast food every day, that I loved all the wrong things. Basically, I was just waiting to die with all the crap I was putting in my body.

With eating the right things and exercise, I feel I'm adding days to my life. Even if for some reason I die a week from now, I know that I lived life the healthiest way I could possibly. Life is a gift, yet we act like we can put it on layaway and save it for later. No, it's here for a short time and then gone. Make the best of this life, LIVE.

Until next time! =)