Facing the Fat
Facing the Fat
NR | 18 January 2009 (USA)
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Obesity has become one of the most overwhelming diseases in our modern society, even now considered to be of epidemic proportions. This documentary film dives into this sensitive, but socially powerful topic and exposes shocking statistics of the fattening of our culture. Kenny Saylors, overweight himself, faces his own fat in his life as he embarks upon a 55 day, Doctor supervised, water fast to see the effects of this ancient practice on our bodies today and to examine if healing properties truly do exist within our own bodies in this extreme method of food restriction.

Reviews
Flyerplesys

Perfectly adorable

Tyreece Hulme

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

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Leoni Haney

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

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Staci Frederick

Blistering performances.

calpurnia-62329

He keeps talking about his health but never mentions what he is going to eat once he is back on food. In a few scenes he is seen salivating over terribly unhealthy food. He says the fast has not reduced his cravings for fatty food. I was shocked he never once mentioned what he was going to eat after the fast to keep losing weight or to maintain his weight. I was positive he was going to gain it all back. When the fast is over he is going to do 2 weeks of a juice fast. We again get no mention of his new lifestyle. This is just plain ridiculous! I just googled him and he gained it all back and then some. What a surprise! I wish I never ever watched this. To me the first day would be really hard but he never says "I'm starving" until about day 4.I agree with the above reviewer who says he had to have lose more than 4 pounds of muscle. He had to be lazy and not exercise because it was dangerous to exercise. After 2 weeks of no food he had only lost 10 pounds. A 315 man who follows the weight watchers program can lost ten pounds the first two weeks. If he had gone on a 1500 calorie a day diet and exercised an hour a day he would have lost the same. I just can't condone stupidity. This was a total waste of time.

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Dennis Littrell

Despite the fact there is something seriously wrong with this story I found the documentary very interesting, perhaps because (1) I wanted to find out how it ends. Does he stay with the water diet or give up or get hospitalized, or…? And how many pounds does he lose? (2) I wanted to find the fraud in the film, so to speak.So I kept watching.(WARNING: SPOILERS TO COME) Our hero Kenny Saylors not only manages to stay on a water-only diet for the planned 40 days, he re-ups for 15 more days in other to break the Guinness world record. He hooks up with a medical firm whose doctors and nurses weigh him, advise him, give him a physical and track his progress. (They get a little publicity from the film which Saylors directed with himself as the leading man.) He is seen again and again at places crawling with food, food, and more food: barbecues, restaurants, dinners with friends, etc. He even cooks. But he just smells the air and smiles, eating nothing.He lost 44 pounds in 55 days. There are a couple of things fishy about this. (You should excuse the expression.) First, at his weight (something like 315 pounds to start) eating nothing for 55 days and only drinking water one would expect him to lose even more weight. Second, he said he only lost four pounds of muscle mass. That too is suspicious. Anyway he was denied the world record probably not because it would endanger others trying to break it (as claimed in the film), but I suspect because quite simply the Guinness people didn't believe him.Addendum: sometime after the diet Saylors started gaining weight again so that in 2013 he weighed 465 pounds. But wait. On March of this year 2017 he weighed 473.4 pounds. His website Reinventing Kenny where he reports about and You Tubes his latest weigh loss adventures reads in part "Inspire. Motivate. Encourage. TRANSFORM!" Okay. I kind of like the guy. I like the way he has turned his weight problems into stories and apparently a nice enterprise. However extreme yo-yo dieting is dangerous and perhaps he should do his public a favor and guide them to professional people who can help them, if that is possible.The truth is Saylors is a man who can go to extremes; in fact he apparently cannot live a normal life. I wish him the best and hope he can someday truly slay the dragon of insatiable appetite.--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is No as We Think It Is"

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Joe P

I was a bit disappointed while watching this documentary that it actually scored so highly. To have a goal of losing fat and the only vehicle you have to get there is fasting with water, is frankly irresponsible. News flash, take a look at a clinical study or ready a book on weight loss and nutrition before trying to starve away 20 years of fat in 55 days. Spoiler To fast for 55 days, only lose 44 pounds and claim 40 pounds was "pure fat" is so wrong. When you don't eat for an extended period of time, your body uses muscle to feed itself, not just fat. If I weighed 315 lbs and ate nothing for 2 months, I would be extremely disappointed with such a low number, horrible!If you are reading this review, please only watch this documentary for education on how NOT to lose fat. The fat came back shortly after the film.

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oldjude

Kenny Saylors achieves what he sets out to do in this movie, in my opinion, which is to show people that they can do what they thought impossible. I am a food-addict myself (though I have never been overweight due to health issues), and I know how reliant one becomes on food, when it is their crutch. They think that food is their only reliable friend...Kenny busts that myth apart. The movie itself is packed with annoying clichés, but it's still done well and Kenny Saylors and his team should be applauded for their efforts, and for showing people that a lot of what health- professionals are taught and teach in the western world is bogus fabrication and based on keeping the lucrative fast food and medical industries thriving.As someone who has embarked on water-fasts, myself (for health reasons, not weight reasons) I can say that it is truly an extremely difficult thing to do, particularly if like me and Kenny Saylors you use food as a means of comfort and stress-relief.

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