Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead Page #2

and that night I went to bed.

I went to wake up the next morning

and it was up

my forearms and Shins

and very itchy and scratching.

It's like hives.

It's chronic hives.

It spread all over my body,

torso, and geez,

I was lit up

like a Christmas tree.

This is how

my autoimmune disease works:

When you get bit by a mosquito,

receptors under your skin

send a signal to your brain.

HQ, we got an invader

in Sector 3.

Scramble the histamines.

Roger that.

Histamines are being deployed.

Histamine makes the blood vessels

around the bite swell,

making it more difficult

for the poisons

in the mosquitoes' saliva

to spread through the body.

As a side effect,

the whole area is

swollen, red and itchy,

but with my disease,

the receptors

send the wrong messages.

A handshake is like getting bit by a thousand mosquitoes.

Mayday! Mayday!

All hell's

breakin' loose down here!

All histamines,

report to battle stations!

And this can happen at anytime

to any part of my body.

Just the smell,

just the smell is sensational.

Normally I'd eat two of those,

not two slices,

two whole pizzas.

I better get out of here.

So I've been coming to the US.

off and on for the last 35 years.

I even lived here

when I was a kid.

It's like a second home to me.

I reckon Americans

are super friendly.

Maybe that's because

I'm not from around here.

I also love American food,

and if I'm gonna really change

the way I live my life,

I'm the sort of bloke that likes

to tackle my demons head on.

So, I couldn't think of

a better place to be food free,

than here in the US.,

the home of the hamburger.

- Have you ever heard of fasting?

- Yeah.

Have you ever fasted?

Only when I ain't got

no money to eat, man!

It's the only time I fast.

I think I sent off for it,

it's ten bucks or something,

"How to Lose 12 pounds

in Four Days."

It consisted of...

First day you eat nothing

but nine franks.

You drink all the liquid,

or diet soda, but nine hot dogs.

- You have nine hot dogs.

- First day.

- I would never be able to do that.

- I would never fast.

- Why not?

- I don't have enough self-control.

And you?

I don't like not eating.

It doesn't seem healthy to me.

Second day, you have a fruit,

apple or a pear,

but you have to have nine apples.

I went four years one time

eatin' only on Monday,

Wednesday and Friday.

Third day, you had eggs.

Like a boiled egg. You could have

ten, nine boiled eggs.

I don't fast, I eat.

I eat fast,

but you know, I don't fast.

You eat fast.

The fourth day, you could have

a mixture of all three of those.

OK.

And that was the Four Day Diet.

- Did you lose any weight?

- I lost about 12 pounds.

I have no interest in it.

Every time I hear that

they're sick at the end,

they're grumpy.

They hate their kids,

they hate their husbands,

you know, they're pissed off.

Then they reach some high,

then they lose eight pounds,

then they gain it all back

in three weeks.

Yeah, right.

- Are y'all from Australia?

- I am from Australia.

- Yeah, I can tell...

- Why? You been there?

You got the Russell Crowe

thing happening.

- Have I? The accent?

- Yeah, the accent.

Yeah, I'm not as good

of an actor as him.

I hear you.

Right from the beginning

he loved his food.

He'd have a bottle,

but when it was finished,

he'd drink it so quickly,

then he would just throw it

the other side of the room.

And demand another one.

He was known for somebody

who loved Coca-Cola.

Like his father.

Love it!

When I got out of high school,

I was in good shape.

I skipped college,

went straight to work.

I got a job with a brokerage firm

and wound up on the trading floor

of the Sydney Futures Exchange.

After five years, I went

into business for myself.

And at age 23,

I was making a truckload of money

day-trading futures and shares.

Lots of cash meant fast cars,

big boats,

big nights out,

and in my case,

food, lots of food.

And boy,

didn't I give it a nudge.

In the years I've known him,

his weight fluctuated,

big time!

Went up and down

like a bride's nighty.

Cold, depression,

headache, hangover,

varicose vein,

menstrual, stress,

I would like you to make me

your favorite juice.

- My favorite juice?

- Yeah!

The cleansing cocktail?

The cleansing cocktail,

that sounds good.

- Carrot, apple, beet and ginger.

- Sounds good.

Step right over here,

hes gonna fix it for you.

- Beautiful. Thank you very much.

- Thank you, no problem.

So juice fasting, you're

still eating something,

you're drinking

nutrients.

Particularly a lot of

micronutrients

that are coming from

fruits and vegetables.

And because it's a liquid,

it's more rapidly absorbed.

So it's a quick, easy way

of giving your body

a very potent source

of healthy nutrients.

Now try to think about

the way we normally consider

juice in our country,

which is in a bottle,

in a grocery store.

Whether it says it has

sugar added to it or not,

it has been so processed

that it's not at all like

the fruit and vegetable juice

coming out of a juicer

that you're making at home.

How about a small apple juice please?

Thank you.

Like it doesn't seem logical

not to eat food.

I mean where did three meals

a day come from?

I mean who decided

we eat three meals a day?

Why isn't it six or seven?

Or...

two?

I don't understand that.

Spinach and beans.

It's gonna be...

a big part of my future.

I actually love spinach.

When you're eating three meals

a day and you're 41,

that sort of equates to

Now we go on holidays,

we sleep at night,

we give our car a service,

but we don't think about

giving our bodies a rest.

Part of being on this journey is

I've resigned myself

that I'm not gonna eat so...

Once you do that,

surprising how easy it is,

like...

Theres nothing gonna

break me here.

I'm not gonna have a panic attack

and run out and buy a donut.

Alright. OK.

All the energy I need

to digest,

to get through my day,

here it is here, look.

It's sitting here.

So,

I've gotta think about it that,

you know, the falafels that

I had say two months ago.

They're still sittin' there,

and, I gotta think mentally that

I'm actually having them now.

So the idea of fasting

is not unique.

In fact, fasting is part of

who we are as a human being.

You see, for millions of years

we basically lived by the philosophy

of hunter-gatherer.

But to survive when there wasn't

anything to hunt or gather,

we became like human refrigerators,

capable of storing food

and carrying it with us

for lean times.

So early man had a

tremendous amount of activity

just to survive.

In our current modern world,

we don't necessarily

have to expend much energy

and the reality is that

many people don't.

We have very sedentary jobs.

We're not chasing animals.

We're not running away

from animals.

We are riding to work,

sitting at our desk,

and sitting in front of the TV.

Yet we're consuming

far, far more calories,

particularly from processed,

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