Here is a public admission, my diet, over the last number of years has been killing me! To many burgers, pizza and fried chicken from fast food outlets along with too much convenience home cook food left very little room for the nutritional food I needed to have a productive life.

The result of this self abuse may not be evident to many people who know me. Many say I’m not overweight, even though my BMI puts me in the obese bracket. It is also not evident how little energy I have, as many friends don’t see my collapsed carcass on the sofa at the end of the day.

I’m not fit enough for life!

I’m constantly tired. Constantly struggling with concentration and fighting weight and food. My self-confidence has finally dropped to see that the body in the mirror is not the sporting specimen of earlier years.

I’m not a fan of pharmaceutical solutions from doctors, so every so often, a minor reboot happens to attempt to improve things. However it’s all too easy to retract into old habits, blaming work and family stress as the relapse happens.

So what’s different this time?

Nutrition has become a topic of conversation between friends. Understanding how a friend suffers with food intolerance, and how others are making changes to improve their health has changed my outlook. And maybe most importantly, these are friends who enjoyed burgers and pizzas with me in the past.

I recently completed two weeks of healthy, self-prepared food where I lost a few pounds of weight along with feeling more energetic – it was just a shame a family holiday became a convenient excuse to return to old habits.

So I had started to see the benefits of better eating, however I just seem to need that extra push to buy in long term. Netflix came to the rescue.

Fat Sick and Nearly Dead

I watched a few documentaries on Netflix. The first couple showed how mass food production with added chemicals and how reducing fat has increased sugar in Western diets. Statistics show how First World Westerners are becoming bigger, fatter and starting to live less. Tobacco smoke is reducing, so it has to be something else effecting us. Another film, promoting veganism was interesting regarding the benefits of a plant based diet – however I like meat so veganism is not for me.

However two documentaries by Joe Cross, Fat Sick and Nearly Dead and the sequel opened up my mind to a way forward. In the film, Cross lives on a fruit and vegetables juice diet for 60 days, lost weight and started to resolve his health issue including removing pharmaceutical medication.

The most important feature of Cross’s story is how he is open about the potential of stress and life issues causing fluxuation in the diet, however by keeping an aim of a plant based diet as central to every meal choice, the body will receive the nutrition it needs, and associated health benefits.

The Future starts now!

I’m making a change, and hope for long term success. By being more public about my change, I’m hoping to improve my diet, my life and most importantly, my health.

I’ll keep you updated.