So while waiting for a client the other day I was catching up on the important information in the world via “Us” Magazine. In it a celebrity was quoted saying she enjoys working out but hates “dieting.” For some reason while working out myself this morning that little quote jumped back into my head and I started getting more and more upset by it. I realized just how backwards our society is in that eating Doritos and pizza is just simply “eating”…while eating nutritious vegetables, grains and proteins gets the negative connotation that goes along with “dieting.” People think of the word diet and they think “tasteless, boring, unsatisfying” and is that going to win the race in beating obesity if people keep allowing themselves to think that healthy foods lead to unhappiness when it is just the opposite? There are some circles where people still slightly make fun of people who eat healthy. While I have definitely not seen the movie, there is a quote in the preview of a Queen Latifah movie where she goes “I ain’t one of those salad-eatin’ chicks!” as if to say people who eat salads only do it to be skinny or are overly feminine or are no fun to be around.
Let me set the record straight. I grew up on Twinkies and Hohos and I LOVED them. Couldn’t get enough. That’s because that S#*T is addictive. And when you’re hooked on one drug, there isn’t room to be hooked on a different healthier kind. I wouldn’t eat any type of lettuce as a kid other than iceberg. Vegetables? Forget it. I got my high on baked goods and sugar. And I was never happy with my body and always had horrible allergies. I was jealous of the other girls in ballet class with longer and leaner muscles and who didn’t know the misery of never being able to breathe out of one nostril. It’s taken me nearly a decade to turn my diet around and I’ll have it be known that eating foods that are nutritionally dense are addictive also. You just have to give your body a chance. If you go with the connotation associated with being “on a diet” you will never feel or look the way you wish you did. NEVER. And you would be amazed to see just how tasteless most things you think you can’t live without really are once you readjust your taste buds to healthier fare. I tried a Twinkie about 4 years ago for the first time since probably late middle school. It tasted like pure chemicals. The texture was strange, the color, the horrendously over-sweet in a not from real sugar kind of way… The same goes for other processed foods as well. Once you detox from those foods and then try them again, you can taste the difference.
So get off your asses, stop making excuses, stop thinking that giving up french fries and pizza is some huge sacrifice because it’s not. Especially not if you are the type to constantly stare at yourself in the mirror wishing this jiggle or that jiggle could improve, or if you look longingly at another person on the subway who looks fit and healthy wishing you could be so “lucky.” Luck has nothing to do with it! ’JUST DO IT.” You’ll forget all about those nutrition-less foods eventually, and then every once in a while get a chance to eat them and enjoy them because they aren’t part of your every day world. You’ll begin to look forward to a big healthy salad because of how it will make you feel, and it will still be delicious once you condition your brain to appreciate and enjoy these foods. And you will do this for your entire life, because that’s what a diet SHOULD be. It should be the way you eat consistently, not the way you miserably eat for a short amount of time in order to lose weight, which you will inevitably put back on and wind up even more miserable.
You will lose weight, you will feel better and happier because of this, you may even remedy some chronic diseases along the way. You will exude more confidence with these improvements, be more motivated to mix and mingle, find the man or woman of your dreams and live happily ever after.
I kid you not. My wedding is this November 
Let’s start a salad revolution!
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