Facing the Fat (2009) User Reviews

Facing the truth would work better

[DennisLittrell · 6/10 · 24 June 2017]

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"

Mixed feelings

[sibrahim-50579 · 6/10 · 21 September 2022]

As a person who's done a 21 day water fast and currently experimenting myself with different fasts it was insanely interesting to see how someone else would react and how their journey would go.

There are some issues First of all there is 0 mention of how he wanted to continue his lifestyle after the fast. This usually leads into bad choices after nullifying the whole journey.

We don't see his weight on the scale it would help to see.

They don't elaborate on the electrolytes he's taking and what other supplements he should or shouldn't be taking, what his mindset was to stop hunger pangs how much water he drank etc people might try without medical supervision and with the wrong supplements which is very dangerous!

It has too much focus on his daily life and a lot of moments between his friends and acquaintances that quite frankly didn't contribute to the movie at all.

I think it skipped a lot of info midway about how he was urinating, what keto levels he was at, at which date and what he did to feel better at low moments.

Also he didn't really talk about whether his mentality and mindset changed much like cravings, clarity etc.

Also I'm not sure if this is allowed to say but some of the replies here are straight up sharing wrong info. Yes on fasts you will lose muscle weight, but only very small amounts the vast majority will be fat as long as you have big fat reserves in your body, he never became normal weight so autophagy and ketosis will make sure it's taking from the best possible source available.

And no you will not lose the same amount of weight from a healthy diet there is no faster way to each a calorie deficit than not eating, it's simple math. However you can exercise really really well and eat little and lose weight just as fast but if you exercise and not eat that would be far faster. (Arguably not safe tho of course)

Also his weight loss was sorta normal in my 21 days I lost about 26 lbs/12 kg and it slowed down a lot in the last few days. (Muscle mass hardly went down but fat went down by a lot)

Differences that did surprise me compared to him is that exercise made him really sick( I did very little but felt physically better than ever!), and after 2 weeks I had no cravings whatsoever whereas for him it took 4 weeks to get to that point. Altho his friends taunted him by making him grill hot dogs that part would prolly have been hard and such social events would prolly prolong everything.

Overall I applaud him for finishing his journey and his social circle that helped him. Not many people can do it, mentally that is. Physically, anyone with an overweight body and no severe medical conditions can do it with the right electrolytes.

Not one word about his future eating plan

[calpurnia-62329 · 3/10 · 8 July 2017]

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.

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.

[oldjude · 7/10 · 18 September 2012]

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.

This film contains inaccurate health information

[emma_chase · 1/10 · 18 June 2022]

There's a concerning amount of them health misinformation in this film. Food does not become trapped in the colon and require a colonic irrigation, as the film's narrator claims, for example.

Fat Guy Starves Himself but Doesn't Lose Much Weight

[ligonlaw · 1/10 · 7 October 2018]

Kenny Saylors goes on a fast and claims to have gone longer without food than anyone ever, who is still alive. He drinks a lot of water. This film is more or less his video diary of his journey. The problem is that, for all his suffering and complaining, he doesn't really lose the amount of weight that a person who eats nothing would. While I can't say he's a complete fraud, you have to take his claims with a few pounds of salt.

Awful and fake

[djarmus · 1/10 · 7 November 2016]

This might be the worse thing, I've ever seen. This movie is a total lie and fake. Anyone who watches this know, they never ever show him on the scale and weight, just a print out copy. This guy is a producer in real life and just made 109 min lie. Don't waste your time with this junk. I've never ever seen such BS in my life. The only people that would rate this is his friend's and idiots... 7.4 at the time. Joke Don't waste your time. I'd like to say the "Doctors" are actors, or worse paid. I hope they take this off prime asap. You sir are a liar and suck. People just watch the first 5 and then the last 5 and you tell me. I'd like my hour back of my life.

Fascinating Glimpse Into The Benefits of Fasting

[scottgillette · 8/10 · 7 March 2020]

This documentary examines the toll that obesity plays in our lives and how to combat it.

Kenny's experience shows how effective water fasting can be in terms of improving health and losing weight. What was more remarkable was that the vasty majority of weight that he lost was body fat.

Unfortunately, Kenny did gain the weight back over a decade. This is not a reflection on fasting, but on how old patterns can be.

We rise, we fall. Kenny showed us how we can rise in this video, and I salute him for it.

Watch only to learn a diet to avoid- good effort for the fast, very poor advice

[prymas · 3/10 · 1 December 2016]

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.