til it sticks to you

Hi all.


Fifi here.


I tried a new thing this week. I tried, for a week, to eat Vegan until dinner every day. Was I perfect? No. But something funny happened.


I realized how much my body craved fruits and vegetables. I juiced every morning, and most days for lunch, as well. I piled my plate full of vegetables for dinner and stocked my fridge full of produce.


The results? I lost the .5 lb I Virginia-gained and another .5 lb. Amazing? No. Am I discouraged? A little.


But, as I stepped of the scale this morning, a poem my mom had us all memorize in toddlerhood popped in my head. It reads:

Stick to your task until it sticks to you,
Beginners are many but enders are few.
Honor, power, place and praise,
Will always come to the one who stays.

Stick to your task until it sticks to you,
Bend at it, sweat at it, smile at it too.
For out of the bend and the sweat and the smile,
Will come life’s victories, after awhile.

This was a bit of our motto growing up, and although I've recited it millions of times, the 27.5 diets I've started would laugh, knowing I usually do anything BUT what the poem suggests (stop chuckling, Atkins. You too, Southbeach!).


Which is why I'm so dieted out. So sick of following 'programs' set out by people trying to make a buck.


And then, on the flip side, there's that whole genre of buck-makers writing books claiming "diets don't work". Well...come on obese America....we all know that NOT dieting doesn't work either. 


So what does work?


I think it's there between the lines of that poem. Stick-to-it-iveness works. Sticking to an exercise plan. Sticking to choosing the right fuel for your body, and so on. Because, research shows, most diets WORK if you stick to them.


So, that's my goal for next week, sticking to an exercise plan (a goal to run every day and weight lift 3 times a week) and planning and carrying out healthy, produce-filled meals.


Carpe diem. But after you're done seizing it, seize the next day and the next....