my FIRST EVER blog post!

Day One of Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman (he also has a Facebook page:  Joel Fuhrman M.D.)

My mom and I kicked off May Day with a commitment to Dr. Fuhrman's hardcore six-week plan for accelerated weight loss.  My goal is to blog as much as possible throughout the experience in order to share with others the nitty gritty of the day-to-day experience.  A quick skim through testimonials make the plan sound SO easy--this aids the motivational front; however, the realist in me notes that many of these testimonials are looking back over an extended and significant weight loss journey.  These folks have met and/or surpassed goals and are summing up their experience in a mere sentence or two--hence the exceptional optimism.  Good for those folks, but the rest of us are still chugging along at the beginning; we are still craving cheese, sausage and ice cream.  Real life weight loss is HARD.  It's HARD to change habits, it's HARD to break cravings.

Dr. Oz wrote the foreword for this book.  This statement provided the inspiration for my first post:


"It is clear to the public that a minor change in one's eating habits will hardly transform one's life so readily.  So the public turns to magic cures, pills, supplements, drinks, and diet plans that simply don't work or are unsafe.  After a few failures, they give up hope."

The key word here is minor.  People want weight loss to be easy, they want to make small changes and expect big results.  They want reclining in front of the TV to count as an ab workout.  No, no folks, eating right is a major change from the accepted norm of the American diet.  It is HARD to go against the grain of American culture where unhealthy food options dominate every grocery store, are easily delivered to our doorstep, are fed to children in schools etc.

My former minor change revolved around cheese:  I eat incredibly healthy, have perfect scores across the board on my blood work, I exercise five to six times a week for an hour, but I'm still at the top of the overweight category for my height aka almost obese.  I'll have another blog post about that tomorrow.  Bottom line, time for a change, a major change.  The RN who did my heart check recommended Dr. Fuhrman's book to me.  She asked me what I crave:  cheese, aka saturated fats.  I friggin' LOVE cheese.  I used to love all forms of dairy products, but over the past few years have been able to cut out nearly everything in the dairy family except cheese.  (Even ice cream!  I never thought that possible--I used to love ice cream almost as much as cheese!).  I've been quite stubborn about my cheese obsession.  How did I commit to turning my former minor change into a major change?  I looked at it like this:  cheese & obesity vs. healthy & happy.  Simple.  But still HARD.

Dr. Oz also stated, "Unlike for many diseases, the cure for obesity is known."  You are definitely what you eat!  Obesity is sad, frustrating, and makes people uncomfortable; it is a problem, an epidemic, a disease; it is self-defeating and self-perpetuating; it causes depression, anxiety, hormonal imbalances and heart disease. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the US.

I have no interest in eating myself to death, so I'm "eating to live."

~ ~ ~

So, what did I eat on the first day?


Breakfast:  A very large fruit salad of strawberries, pineapple, apple and a sprinkling of ground flax seeds
Lunch:  A big salad with lots of balsamic vinegar, a whole wheat pita filled with sauteed mushrooms, onions and a little bit of avocado
Dinner:  Salad, curried beans and fruit salad

My thoughts:  I didn't plan ahead very well, so my meals were a bit boring--my salads usually consist of a little bit of every vegetable in my fridge.  My favorites were my little pita and the fruit salad.  My mom loved the curried beans (basically just beans with lots of curry powder and onions).  She is obsessed with the balsamic dressing recipe in the book!

I also went to Zumba!  It's always extra-challenging not to shovel food in your mouth after cooling down from a hardcore workout.....I was so pumped about making it through the first day without meat and dairy products that I didn't even think of them as temptation--I tried to think of them as no longer part of my life for the next six weeks.

Was I hungry?  Immediately after dinner I still had the desire for a little bit more....enter amazing fruit salad!  You're allowed as much fruit as you would like on this plan, so my mom and I picked our favorites to have throughout the first week.  I highly recommend going for your favorite fruit whenever you get a major craving!

Tomorrow:  more thoughts and quotes about obesity.

Over and out from my FIRST EVER blog post!  Thanks for reading.....toodles!