Jazzed About Juicing

Today is day one. Well, my current day one in a long line of day ones. We use this phrase in excess when talking about dieting. "I'm starting my diet again on Monday", "Today is the day I start the new me", and "Today I am starting diet X" are all common expressions that us "dieters" hear all. the. time. As someone who has been overweight obese my entire life, I am quite familiar with this way of speaking and how these terms affect me. Eating healthy needs to stop being seen as a part time fad or something we can start back up if we fail. It shouldn't be something we can fail at. We need to strive to be healthy and always working towards the goal of a healthier us. Being healthy should be a life choice, and something we enjoy doing.

In the past few months, I have moved away from calling myself someone on a diet. A diet is not a lifestyle change, it is a constriction on what you can eat and how much you can consume. Eating healthy is hard. Really hard. EXTREMELY hard. Who am I kidding? It could possibly be one of the hardest things in this universe! (Other than diamonds of course) Even within specific eating plans, you can always mess up or eat the wrong thing... And not all eating plans are healthy. Did you know that Oreos and Poptarts are vegan? If I only ate those two products and went around telling people I was vegan, something would be terribly wrong.

My eating habits have always been poor. I am addicted to food, and it is hard for me to eat healthy... but I try. I have been through every weight loss program you can think of. I tried Weight Watcher, Atkins, The Raw Food Diet, starving myself, and I even had weight loss surgery done! During my undergraduate career, I decided to get the gastric sleeve vasectomy surgery. Weighing in at 310 pounds at age 20, I knew I needed to do something about my weight or I was going to die. I'm not going to lie. Health was not my main concern in college. I wanted to lose weight so people would like me, and I would fit in with the people around me. I was sick and tired of being that fat girl.

After receiving the surgery and losing around 90 pounds, I hit a plateau and relapsed. I gained back 25-30 of my 90 lost pounds when I began graduate school and on a trip to Israel. When I came back from Israel, I knew something needed to change, but I didn't know what to do. After overhearing a debate about eating choices, I went raw. Not just raw, but vegan raw. Only fruits, vegetables, and nuts that are not cooked above 120 degrees. I enjoyed it, and it was helpful, but after almost three months and 35 pounds down, I began to relapse again. I told myself that I could have self control and work non-raw foods back into my meals. Boy, was I sure wrong. I had eggs, I had chicken, I had bagels, I had ice cream. My entire raw food plan went down the drain. I felt horrible about myself, and I gained back 6 pounds. I was not happy.

This weekend, I chose to start juicing. I was originally going to start the 60 day juice cleanse on Saturday, but my will power was not strong enough. After two days of juicing and preparing, I believe I am now emotionally ready for this challenge. Watching the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead helped me to realize that it will be hard, but I know I can do it. If I will it, I can achieve it. I need to put my health first, and focus on me, and everything else will fall into place.

Today is day one.