Joe Cross – Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

And all you’ve got to do is go back to Mother Nature. Take fruits and vegetables, nuts, beans and seeds, and just make that most of your diet for a period of time — be it 60 days, 90 days, six months, a year — whatever you think you need to prove to yourself that there’s a chance that you can get away, off those medications.

That was the driving force for me. It wasn’t about weight loss — making people feel like they need to lose weight.

Marlise:  Can you see the perfection in your journey?  How do you view what happened to you?

Joe Cross: I often start my talks, and even in the new movie that’s coming out in September, I talk about the fact that here I was, tripping over my bottom lip, feeling so sorry for myself that I had this illness. And I ended up turning the worst thing that happened in my life into the best thing that happened in my life. I went from one extreme of complete self-loathing and this is like ‘why me, why me’ to now, where I’m still actually asking the question, why me?, but it’s a different why me? Why are people coming out and listening to what I have to say? Why are people watching my movies, and why are people buying my books. My English teacher would be falling over the fact that I’ve written a book.

But I think that there’s a tremendous amount to be said for taking the things in your life that seem the most adverse, and working out a way they can become the most powerful things in your life. I have a saying, which is, “We don’t learn anything new, we just remember what we forgot.” And I think what that really is about – is the fact that all the big things we have in life that we need to know the answers to, whoever is at home that is struggling over something — what they should do, about a life choice – is find the answer within.