I Confess...

...that I really know nothing about blogging.  The only blog I read (religiously) is Perez Hilton.  But please don't judge me based on that.  In fact, please don't judge me at all.

Who am I?  Well, from the outside, I guess I'm a pretty typical, suburban mom with two boys, I'll call Primo and Segundo (Big Night fans rejoice!), a husband, I'll call him Mr. X and two very loud crazy dogs. We live in Anytown, CT just outside of New York City.  My mom likes to say our town reminds her of a Richard Scarry children's book, where everything in the town looks just so.  The lawns perfectly manicured, the mail trucks at the post office all perfectly in a row and the people perfectly coiffed.  I had never really thought about Anytown this way until she pointed it out.  Now it's all I can think about when I see those mail trucks.

Life is good in Anytown, why wouldn't it be?  Every Saturday morning in the Fall in Anytown, mobs of high-strung, type-A parents swarm the soccer fields with their Venti lattes and L.L. Bean fleeces yelling and cheering for little Johnny to make a goal.  And yelling and screaming when he does not. Anytown is a sports town.  And God help you if you don't have a child that likes to play sports (like I do).  During the week in Anytown, the husbands leave to catch an early train to NYC and come home after the children are in bed.  The wives (myself included) spend the morning getting the children ready for school, then leap in their cars like gazelles to head off to the gym. I forgot to mention, every woman in Anytown is skinny (but more on that another day).  And me, being of Italian decent (huge gasp!) am on a constant mission to keep up with the "Skinny's".  You might think that I don't like living in Anytown, I do...sort of.  I am a City girl, I love, love, love New York City.  I lived there for 11 years prior to having Primo.  I'd move back in a heartbeat, but Mr. X thinks Anytown is a much better place to raise children.  Oh, and one more thing...

I'M A VEGAN!

Now, let me just say, that I have only been vegan since January of this year.  It all began with a three week cleanse that I did to detox from all the crap I had eaten over the holidays.  I followed Kathy Freston's Quantum Wellness cleanse.  And for three weeks I gave up caffeine, alcohol, sugar, gluten, dairy and meat.  Cold turkey (no pun intended).  For years I had been an on-again, off-again vegetarian, giving up meat for months, sometimes even years on end, only to go back to it eventually.  But this time, something just clicked.  Giving up all the things that had been slowly poisoning my body was a real life-changing experience.  I also began reading all I could about the industrial farming system and the horrible lives these poor animals lead only to be tortured and inhumanely slaughtered so that we, as Americans can enjoy that Big Mac. And then I look at my sweet dogs, who feel pain like we do and I think to myself, I could never eat you.  So why then would I eat another animal?  It just all began to make a whole lot of sense.

I watched Michael Pollen's Food Inc. to learn about where our food really comes from and how each of us has a responsibility to ourselves, our families and our beautiful planet.  I read Fast Food Nation, Eating Animals and the Omnivores Dilemma.  I tried to watch the documentary Earthlings, but was too devastated by what I saw and could only get through 30 minutes of it.

All that said, I am not going to try and convince you to give up meat and dairy.  It is a personal choice and I have no judgements.  My family eats meat and dairy, Primo and Segundo can't get enough milk, we go through a gallon every few days.  But perhaps, I may write something here that will get you thinking, even if for just a moment, about where your food comes from and what it may be doing to your body.

Now, for the real reason I have started this blog.  This weekend I am going to try something I have never done before.  I am going to try a juice fast.  I need to detox my body from a gluttonous vacation and regain my focus on health and fitness that has been waning over the summer.  We purchased a juicer over the weekend and we've already been experimenting with lots of delicious new juices.  So we'll see how it goes.  They say you shouldn't tell a lot of people that you are doing it, but I think if a lot of people know, it will help me keep my focus.  We'll see.  Maybe I won't even last a day.  Maybe I'll be so grumpy and irritable that Primo and Segundo will run screaming from the house.  Maybe I'll faint in my Sunday morning yoga class.  But maybe, just maybe I will be able to look inward and focus on the bigger picture of healing my body and clearing my mind.  And maybe this journey will make me stronger, centered and more accepting.  Maybe.