The new trajectory led me to an Overeaters Anonymous group in the area.
They had a great sense of humor — they even waved a pizza box at the beginning of every meeting. It was known as the 100-Pounder Club, because there were several people there who had lost more than a hundred pounds.
I sat there thinking, A hundred pounds? Are you kidding me?
The man who didn’t push
A close friend of mine had been attending. He’s the one who brought me, and he later became my sponsor. Great guy. Thank you, Rich, for all your love and care. Rich didn’t push. Rich listened.
One day we were sitting on my patio, smoking a cigar together — yeah, I liked my cigars — and Rich began to tell me what worked for them. He talked about this smoothie and that juice, this smoothie and that juice. Finally I said, “Rich, I love you, but you and your wife are kind of weird with all this smoothie-and-juicing stuff.”
He laughed. “Well, Mike, it’s a scientific thing. This is how it works.”
“Scientific?” I said. “There’s nothing scientific that supports all this stuff.”
Two movies that changed my mind
Quick note before I go further: I’m telling my story, not prescribing a plan. Diabetes, fasting, and major weight loss belong in a conversation with your doctor. This is simply the road I walked.
He suggested I watch two movies: Forks Over Knives and Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead, the Joe Cross story. So I did. I watched them both. And I came back to him and said, “Well, I’ll be darned. There is something to those.”
Again, learning was critical for me here. I’m a guy who taught reading comprehension and critical thinking for years — and I had to learn this the same way I’d tell anyone else to: go look at the actual sources, then decide. So I went further down the road.
Thirty days, mad, then buzzing
Sure enough, I practiced the Joe Cross thirty-day juice-and-smoothie fast. It’s a lot like the Daniel fast. And I’ll tell you what — after about ten days, I was mad. I was so hungry.
But around day twelve or thirteen, I started to feel really good. I talked to Rich about it when we got together later, and when he heard me describe this feeling of buzzing inside me, he laughed and said:
Welcome to your body having extra energy that’s there for you — instead of spending it all just breaking down the food you eat.
Huh.
At the end of thirty days, I’d broken another plateau. And I hadn’t done anything crazy or radical — just the juice-and-smoothie fast, eating carrots, making my own hummus, and popcorn for dessert, because I like to crunch.
What I learned from Rich
What I learned from Rich was bigger than juicing. I learned that real change happens in community, with a guide who listens more than he pushes. I learned that you don’t have to go radical — you have to go consistent. And I learned that your body will tell you the truth if you finally get quiet enough to hear it.
That last lesson was about to cost me my favorite food.