THE SALTY SAILOR

Dear Michelle,

"Heavy" has unfortunately been cancelled. But thank you for your interest,

Best,

Paul
Casting Producer
Tijuana Entertainment
Heavy

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HEAVY CANCELED
Oh, well! The cable show, "Heavy," that helps super plussize men and women to turn their lives around by offering them free trainers, free counseling and nutritionists, etc..., has not been renewed for a second season by A&E. I'd written to them when I was in despair and out of control eating cooked food, as I honestly didn't know how I was going to stop and reverse the constant weight gain. They liked my story and wanted to pursue my participation in the show, but, alas, it was not meant to be!

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LOSE HALF OF YOUR WEIGHT AND WEIGH UNDER 180!
I'm dissappointed because the free help would have been an amazing blessing. And it was a do-able goal within the 8 months that they would have filmed and tracked for me to lose half of my body weight with the intense daily trainer-led workouts, and restricted calories - (I was going to request they put me on raw.) The last I checked I was in the low 350's (i'm not checking more than 1x/week), which means i could have finished the show weighing an ideal 175lbs.

I mean, can you IMAGINE??? Jeeeeeezzzz, Louise....!! Me, a chronically obese person could ACTUALLY BE a NORMAL weight in less than a year?????

What a beautiful dream i had - me, walking down the aisle with Cliff at a normal weight, him picking me up and carrying me back down the aisle after saying I DO, getting my skin removal surgery and having an attractive body back, working out like a real athelete and fulfilling my childhood dream of being a body builder.

Being a part of "Heavy" could have changed my life.

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I DID IT BEFORE, I COULD DO IT AGAIN
I did lose 140 lbs in 8 months at OHI on raw with no personal trainer, so if i did it once, I can do it again.

And i am 10 days raw today on this gorgeously ideal sunny and breezy day in Philly :-))

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SALT SALT SALT
During the last two days working at Arnold's Way, i restricted my salt intake because I do not feel physically comfortable at work when my ankles or legs are swollen. I do now what makes me feel good, and this works. All of the meals i ate were either fruit based or were salads that were highly seasoned with garlic and ginger and cayenne, but no salt. It worked so well.

Restricting salt at work was an instructive and familiar practice. It reminded me again that salads without salt are absolutely do-able if they are pepped up in every other respect. And restricting salt at work takes away almost ALL compulsive snacking, that I can so easily fall into, like constantly munching on salty raw bread. Without salt, i just naturally eat when i'm hungry, and that's IT. I'm in control.

Going salt free brings me back to 3 times in my life when i was easily losing weight on raw.

1) The first time was at OHI, where we were fed low fat raw salads and meals containing ZERO salt. This was the bulk of my diet while losing my initial 140 lbs. My fringe meals were salted gourmet raw and I only ate those OUT. This was a very good practice, indeed. I rarely ate compulsively during these 8 months at OHI. This seemed like the perfect balance for me.

2) The second time i went salt free n raw was when i followed raw food bootcamp www.rawfoodbootcamp.com and ate a low fat fruit based diet with no salt. I began to lose weight again and got down to my lowest raw weight, 249, but gourmet became a no-no instead of a wonderful allowed treat and i began to binge on gourmet. My head got really messed up during this period.

3) And the 3rd time i ate salt free was on Dr. Graham's banana diet for 35 days. I lost 40 lbs, and gained them back in a WEEK by returning to salt and everything else bad. Dr. Grahams totally restrictive plan just served to prove to me that his program was too extreme for me. I couldn't last more than a month on it.

3 DAYS NO SALT
When i was at OHI, I joined Weight Watchers so that i would have a written record of my weight loss. I would check in at WW every 2 weeks.

3 days before I was to get weighed, i would restrict myself to only eating OHI food, which was salt free. I would not go out for any raw gourmet meals at Cilantro or Ranchos during those 3 days before my WW weigh in.

Every 2 weeks I got weighed, i consistently lost 7 lbs. That's 3.5 lbs a week.

With my 3 days of no salt, I had the best of both worlds - delicious gourmet raw salted food AND weight loss creating salt-free low-fat raw.

The "plan" I came up with at OHI has served to constantly inform me of what the ideal raw diet is for me. It functioned so well for me, and I continue to return to that idea.....not of restricting salt FOREVER....because THAT did NOT work for me.....but of restricting salt in some measure, as a help to lose weight or lose bloat.

During the past 10 days raw, my ankles have been swollen every night I've eaten salt. This has been discouraging, but i allowed it since the salt seemed necessary for me to get back "into" raw without feeling too deprived.

After 2 days of restricted salt so i could feel comfortable and in control working at Arnold's Way, my body finally let go of a lot of water. I peed so much last night!

My body says THANK YOU for these breaks from salt, and my ankles are happier for it. My mouth misses salt on these days, but knowing i will soon be salting again, lightly IF POSSIBLE, makes it do-able.

Today i do the best I can. And that's good enough.

xoxo michelle joy