When I was a sophomore, I went kind of bonkers on my meal plan and totally ran outta free-food-cash at the end of my second semester.

While I was whiling away the couple of weeks between the end of the semester and sweet, sweet winter break, I ended up supplementing my meager collegiate diet with tons of grapefruit, since I was lucky enough to have a fruit tree in my backyard.

I came up with all kinds of ways of eating these acidic, pink babies: drizzling them with honey, cubing them in salads, juicing them, and slamming them down with a glass of O.J.

What I didn’t know then was that eating a little grapefruit with every meal helps you shave off pounds. Of course, thems were desperate times, and I don’t think I cared very much about stemming my freshman fifteen, but whatevs. Read More »

I know lots of people who swear by fasts.

Three day grapefruit fasts, weeklong juice regimes, monthly cleanses, I’ve heard them all, and haven’t wanted to try a single one.

Call me strange, but I’m a fan of food. I’m no holy profit or international peace symbol, and since shrugging off my Roman Catholicism, feel no guilt for eating a sandwich on Good Friday. Basically, I have no need to give up food I work two jobs to pay for.

My friends go on and on about the health benefits of fasting, but I’ve always felt eating a regular healthy diet has it’s own health benefits—with the added incentive of energy.

While I totally respect and appreciate people who abstain from food for religious reasons, I’ve just never been the kind of girl to equate being hungry with being healthy.

That was until I realized a good friend of mine, who is completely normal and well adjusted in every way, regularly fasted on Sundays.

“All I drink is green tea” she told me a few weeks ago when I asked her why she wasn’t joining me for lunch, and explained that flushing out her body and relaxing once a week was one of the best things she’d ever done for herself.

While my friend is on the thin side, she watches her weight very closely, and explained that giving her body one day a week to “get rid of toxins” in a simple, easy way has really helped her maintain her weight. Read More »