This doctor wasn’t the first one to tell me to lose weight. Twelve years earlier, during my first visit to a gynecologist, while my feet sat in stirrups and my legs splayed apart, my doctor decided it was the perfect moment to tell me that I was “too heavy for a girl my height” (as if I didn’t know). I nonchalantly agreed, all the while wondering how far the vending machine was from this room. I had struggled with weight my whole life — as a chubby, bullied kid, an awkward teenager clad in heavy eyeliner, and as an adult who crusaded for animal rights by day and ate entire soy-cheese pizzas by night. Here’s how I finally took control and established a healthy lifestyle that works for me: I basked in the freedom of not obsessing about, or even thinking much about food and food prep — which I did in batches to simplify the time-consuming process of loading up and cleaning the juicer — and I settled into the newfound simplicity of juicing as if it were a long-awaited meditation. And rather than think of my juicing as a “diet,” I reframed that first fast as a way to take a break from the hectic pace of my life and settle into a temporary new rhythm. I read a book about healthy living. I checked in with my body. I drank juice. I replaced junk foods with whole, plant-based foods instead: vegetables (cooked and raw), fruits, some whole grains, lots of beans, some tofu, and a small amount of high-quality fats, like seeds and nuts. I found so many resources out there for eating this way and I stopped leaning solely on the fake cheeses and meat replacements that had helped me transition into my vegan lifestyle. The following month, I did another juice fast — three days this time. The month after that, I did another 10-day-er. For three years, this regime of juice-fasting (10 days one month, three days the following, then 10, then three …) and eating a whole-foods-based diet in between became my new normal. Related reads: Photo Credit: Jessica Mahady
