LIQUID BREAKFAST

CONFESSION #3: I like to drink my food.

Because it's easier, that's why. To take a shake or a smoothie and throw it back like a martini...it requires no thought, it is good when you are on-the-go, it's brainless. (I could tell you I am strapped for time in the morning but then I would have to answer to my older sister, who once lost a buttload of weight by getting up every morning -- before her kids and before heading off to her full-time high-pressure corporate job -- in order to take a nice 7 or 8 mile run. As you might imagine, she's not big on the excuses)

But no matter what peace I find on a personal level with this sneaky maneuver, as a mother it feels somehow improper to drink a SlimFast and call it a meal. It seems illicit, like that cigarette I sneak under the bushes at night. It feels wrong. Immoral. A betrayal. And so I gave up my SlimFast habit when I had kids. Along with sobriety, sanity and any single digit-sized pants I might have owned.

My own mother lived on SlimFast and Dexatrim through some of my formative years and while she fit into her size 8s well into her 50s, I can't say it taught me a whole lot about proper nutrition and hence, perhaps, some of these luscious curves.

And so I feel I owe it to my own kids to research and execute well-balanced meals, involve them in the growing, harvesting and cooking process whenever possible. We have a garden, we visit famer's markets, we cook from scratch together.

Yay me. Where's my medal? I'm fucking exhausted.

Inspired by a visit this past weekend to Be Healthy Boston with fellow curvy girl Rebecca, I finally found a way to cheat without the guilt....... JUICING!

First of all, I got my hands on a book that I loved reading -- called Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr. I love a few things about this book -- namely that she has a fantastical potty mouth and I happen to really respond to that. Also, it has a visual likeness to a magazine, which is good for hyperactive readers like myself.

But her message is one of promoting optimum health and while I have read umpteen books over the years that promote the same practices (blah blah blah become vegetarian blah blah blah give up sugar, caffeine and booze aka everything you enjoy in life blah blah blah take a jillion supplements), somehow she penetrated my thick skull. I am not going to run out get my colon blasted by some spa-like hose (another one of her recommendations) or start dry-brushing my skin at night (okay, I really don't have time for that) but the juicing chapter stopped me in my tracks.

Holy shit. Yes. Take all the veggies that I have been forcing down my throat for the past year and frankly, I am getting quite tired of. Take an extra 5 minutes in the morning to throw them through the juicer and sip on the elixir until lunchtime. Yes, yes, yes. YES!

I am sold; hook, line and sinker. Finally, I am free to get my nutirtion in liquid form without sacrificing everything I know to be true and right -- for my kids -- about healthy eating. As far as they are concerned, I am magically consuming a shit ton of veggies, like always...and they are simply relieved that I am not requiring them to drink my concoctions too.

More for me, then. More for me.