A few weeks ago my wife and I watched a really inspiring documentary with a depressing title: “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead.” The documentary tells the story of Joe Cross, a man from Australia who was overweight, in his forties, unhealthy, and on steroidal medication to treat an auto-immune disease related to his diet and weight. Joe was a fun-loving guy who loved to eat, and it showed – unfortunately he had gotten to a point in life where he was in constant discomfort and facing the prospect of long-term damage to his health (and long-term reduction in his life expectancy).

Rather than spend the rest of his life feeling “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead,” Joe Cross decided to take action. He knew that he had to make some radical changes. So he went on a special juice diet, making fresh juice from fruits and vegetables. This all-fruit and vegetable diet gave Joe’s body a constant infusion of micronutrients, and helped him feel full without eating anything else. He gave up fast food, pizza, French fries, burgers, milkshakes, and everything else he used to love to eat.

Joe Cross committed to 60 days of his juice diet. During those 60 days, Joe lost 80 pounds. His auto-immune disease symptoms went away – he felt better than ever, and was able to stop taking his steroidal medications for the first time in years. Losing weight gave Joe the confidence to re-boot his diet and lifestyle – he started walking and jogging and lifting weights, and he had a new relationship with food. He no longer needed to stuff his face with lots of food, instead he could eat reasonable healthy portions.

During those 60 days of his juice diet, Joe Cross travelled across America talking with Americans about how they felt about their bodies and about their food. Many people were sympathetic to Joe’s journey but didn’t think they had the discipline to do it for themselves. One man Joe met was a truck driver from my home state of Iowa who was severely overweight – the medical term is “morbidly obese.” This man was suffering from the same auto-immune disorder as Joe. Joe said, “If you want help, you can call me any time.” A few months after he got back to Australia, Joe Cross received a voice mail from that truck driver, saying that he was ready to change his life and regain his health.

I won’t spoil the rest of the movie for you, but suffice it to say that the biggest transformation was yet to come.

“Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” is a great movie for anyone who’s thinking of making changes in your health and dietary routine. Whether you want to lose weight, eat healthier, or just feel better and more energized, I think anyone can learn something from this movie.

Here are a few ideas from the film that strongly resonated with me:

• The human body is resilient: Even if you weigh 400 pounds (like the truck driver in the movie did), it’s incredible how well the human body can recover if you give it a chance. With steady improvements in diet and exercise, and long-lasting changes in lifestyle, even the sickest and most overweight people can feel better and live longer, healthier lives.
• Start small: Not everyone needs to commit to a full-fledged 60-day juice diet like Joe Cross did. You can try a 10-day juice fast just to “reboot” and re-energize your diet. Sometimes small steps are the most important that you can take.
• Modern life makes it hard to eat right: I love fast food. I love cheeseburgers and French fries and milkshakes and pizza. But when you think about how our bodies evolved, this kind of modern diet is really “unnatural.” Human beings weren’t meant to eat as much meat and cheese and grease as we eat today. There were probably many times in human history where food was not readily available, and where people needed to go without food for most of the day, or even a few days at a time. Eating three square meals a day, with meat at every meal, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Our bodies, in many ways, are better suited to eating lots of fruit and vegetables and “grazing” all day, rather than eating a few heavy meals.

If you are interested in food and nutrition and want to learn more, I strongly recommend “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.”

You can also follow the movie’s creator, Joe Cross, on Twitter.