Project 52 Begins

As of today, Project 52 begins.

What is Project 52? you ask? (Yes, I can read your thoughts. I have ESPN.)

I suppose it could mean a lot of things, but for me it will refer to a goal I am setting for myself for the year 2010: losing a pound a week for a total of 52 pounds for the year.

Is it unlikely to happen? Maybe. Will it be difficult? Most definitely. But I feel it is something I need to do, and there's no time like the present. My recent trip to the hospital convinced me that I need to make some major changes in the way I take care of myself if I intend to avoid going back there on a frequent - or even permanent - basis.

At different times in my life, I have struggled with my weight - perhaps not to the same degree as Oprah, but nevertheless it has been a challenge for me. I am not one of those people who never sets foot in a gym because I don't need to - and I truly envy those people who never have to think twice about it. Nevertheless, it is what it is, as people are wont to say.

This goal will also be difficult to reach knowing what I know now, which is that I have had a condition called hypothyroidism for the past five or so years. In other words, my thyroid, which regulates metabolism among its many chores, is essentially shot to h-e-double hockey sticks, and I have to take medication daily to supplement it. Additionally, my current problems were compounded when I had to take a series of steroids and cortisone supplements for health reasons a few years ago. For those who are not familiar with these things, they boost your weight quite a bit in a very short time.


This is a topic that is tough for me to talk about, but I feel that if I get it out there in the open, to some degree, and enlist the aid and moral support of family and friends in accomplishing this somewhat ambitious task, then I will have tools to assist me throughout the process: gym buddies, encouragement, Jiminy Cricket-like consciences when I'm surrounded by junk food at parties, and what-have-you.

Project 52 began today, as I previously stated, with a 24-hour juice cleanse under the direction of my good and nutritionally informed mother. The idea of this juice-a-thon is to wash out impurities and other yucky things in my insides, which admittedly have been through a lot over the years, including two years' worth of South American food and having also once digested a sampling of poi.

This juice cleanse began with downing essentially a half-liter's worth of prune juice - that thing that you always thought people 50 years older than me habitually consume, and you would be right - to start this morning. If you guessed that it tasted quite awful - almost as bad as Diet Coke (I said almost, Jill) - then you would, likewise, be correct.

It's a good thing I work mostly from home. If I had been at the office today, I would have assuredly been sent home - if you catch my drift. That one glass of prune juice, I feel, satisfied my prune juice needs for, well, forever.

Fortunately, the worst was over after that. I have gone on to spend the rest of the day alternating between glasses of water and pure apple juice (freshly squeezed and brewed) every half-hour until I write these very words.

I will periodically be undergoing similar juice and distilled water cleanses in the process of trying to reach my Project 52 goal. Here's a toast of l'chaim to life.