I Prefer Getting Old to the Alternative.

You know the saying “I Prefer Getting Old to the Alternative”? This being said, I prefer to be a healthy “old.”

I am not talking about Longevity- I am talking Quality of life.

You cannot control longevity – you might step off the curb and get hit by a bus or a bullet. But, you can control the quality of your life. You can avoid getting sick with diseases directly related to how you eat. High cholesterol is a bullet of another kind; as is cancer or heart disease.

Every time I hear that someone has the key to longevity – a new diet or a new pill, I just roll my eyes. Longevity itself is in the hands of the Almighty, the Universe or maybe our own stupidity as in the case of getting hit by a bus…..Our health is directly related to the choices we make. And I do mean directly.

Our wellbeing, our happiness, our performance and our ability to avoid being miserable is absolutely related to the educated decisions we make in how we eat. This is my humble, well-educated, opinion, of course.

This opinion is based not just on 17 years of working to turn around my own health…

But also on watching some really amazing doctors, my mentors if you will, turning around the health of my friends and family from life threatening diseases to good health in a matter of a couple of months of eating healthy.

Now, I know that eating “healthy” as it stands in today’s society is an enigma because no one tells you exactly what eating healthy means. In the dictionary of modern phrases, there is a blank left next to “healthy eating.” It is open to each one of us to decide what it means, and hope we get it right.

Disease is one way our body lets us know whether we bet on the right horse or not. If you have any chronic issues, if you rely on any OTC products-no matter if it is just occasional headaches or burning stomach-you are being told by your body that you have made the wrong bet; you have gone in the wrong direction.

Your ability to change that direction can make your life better-perhaps even prolong it…if you don’t step in front of a bus, that is!

But the question still remains: What is eating healthy?

When someone tells me that they eat healthy, I wonder what that phrase means to them. Being the nosey person I am, I usually simply ask them what “healthy” food means to them and usually they say something like, “I had a chicken breast and boiled broccoli for lunch”

Well, I am sorry, but I have to laugh at that! Yuck!

That’s not eating healthy, because among other things, you will die from boredom!

Eating healthy is not eating boring! Eating healthy is educating your self about what the body needs; then going and finding it. Finding the best and most available of that food out there, by reading books, or surfing the Internet, and then filling your pantry with it. (Or just take the shortcut and buy my book Easy Sexy Raw)

OK, I know, I sad that naughty word – RAW. Many people freak out about changing their diet to “RAW!” The “Oh My GOD! I have to give up fried chicken” diet.

Well, despite the fact that even the posted signs hanging in the subway say that eating fried foods is dangerous for your health, why do people equate giving up their one favorite food with eating “RAW”?

I don’t see people dreading eating to be thinner because they have to give up fried chicken, or not starting weight watchers because they have to give up pasta. Is it that they will diet just to be thin, but not healthy? And why do they associate thin with healthy?

Getting back to raw: May I suggest that each week you eat as much raw food as you can and then cheat with your one fried favorite? So you have something to look forward to and yet can be healthy most of the time? This way you can get thin AND be healthy without feeling deprives – how about that for a triple play?

While you are thinking this over, think over something else; there are raw breads, cakes, cookies, pasta dishes, tarts, ice cream – all healthy, all raw – to fill in the meals BETWEEN your weekly fried favorite. You’ll want for nothing….

Now that’s food for thought!

In a somewhat unrelated-but related story:

Yesterday I accepted to do some shows during fashion week and I originally thought, frankly, I would almost rather die than to face those “looks” the 18 and 19 year old models give you when you first walk in. The “what is SHE doing here. She is not one of US” looks.

Even Boomer on his The Boomer Esiason show said to me: “What is it Old Timer’s Day?” Oh ha ha, Boomer. Very funny.

Ok, I get it, I am not 19 and well, surprise of all surprises: I don’t really want to be.

Thinking back on that time, I realized that I do not want to go back to those nerve wracking days where I did not know where I was going or how things were going to pan out; running here and there trying to make my mark. The days where I was starving myself to remain thin and thought I knew everything but didn’t.

I like some of the security of knowing who I am that age brings; even if at times I am still not sure how things will pan out. Today I really do know everything; I don’t just think I do! (LOL)

Age can be comfortable if we work at it. The trick is to stay healthy and to feel good while aging! Tall order you say? Nah, that’s not really so.

I can give you the secret to that trick.

I am a walking talking billboard on how to turn your health around and stay healthy while having fun doing it. Now I can eat great food, not STARVE and remain thin; now I NEVER get sick; now I Never have to face the side effects of OTC meds; and I eat ice cream!

Let me teach you how I do it…..

Laugh in the face of nay-sayers!

You know, those people who think that they cannot:

feel “young” again (yes, raw food can do that)

look young again (check)

be healthy again (check)

perform again (check)

feel good again (check, check,  and double check, baby!)

I decided that those girls should wish they were me. They should wish for the information I have to give. If I could go back to that silly 19 year old I was and tell her – give her – the information that I have now, I could have avoided a lot of misery, dieting, and ill health that I faced simply because of uneducated choices. Because frankly, when I was 19, no one was talking about how bad cooked food was in general or how bad 95% of the diets were for you. We need to learn and re-educate ourselves, as new information is made available.

Today, I have reversed all my own issues and have given my information to some of the most powerful people in the world- and yes, they are talking about their results!

But these little girls who I worked with yesterday, well, they are another matter. They are not having any issues ‘YET.’ Therefore, they think that they know everything; and that everything they know is working for them. They think that getting old is way in the future and they will never feel bad or tired or have chronic pain and I understand because I was there once myself not too long ago.

What they don’t know is that everything they do to the body is accumulative; and that sooner or later it all catches up to you. All the late nights, the starving, the cooked foods, alcohol, the uneducated decisions we make-they come back to haunt you in the guise of annoying, chronic issues, or if you are really unfortunate, bigger health issues. Why do I say that? Because my radiologist told me, sooner or later, he gets everyone.

But hey, at 50 years old, here I am walking shows, on the cover of Italian AMICA, German Donna Freuline and Chinese Shang Magazines – things that these girls would kill to do. And I am not 19.

Will they learn from that?

At 34 I was done modeling. I was tired, bloated, miserable and depressed- and at 50 I am the best I ever was. Will you learn from that?

So after having thought it over, I walked into that makeup salon back stage at Fashion Week and I held my head up high and took my place beside these sneering 19 year olds who were furtively throwing resentful and obnoxiously questioning glances my way and I smiled and cracked the ice with a joke about being 50.

It was the Pink Elephant in the room so I just spoke out loud what they were all thinking- And that was all it took.

By the time we were done with the shows, there were pictures all around, hugs and hope.

And why not- they hopefully see that there is a chance not only for a beautiful healthy future, but some Longevity as well.

It’s the kind of longevity that is not in the hands of God, but in the hands of every person who puts food in their mouth.

As for me-I have come to terms with being the “Healthy Raw Food Chick.” If that’s what I have come to represent-then I embrace it!

If I could change the life or destiny of just one 19-year old, or one 59 year old for that matter, then all that I have gone thru- all that suffering and starving and the deep pit of ill health and despair that brought me to seek out a sure-fire thing that worked-if all of that searching has brought me to a type of fountain of youth, if it took all my mistakes to rethink and relearn health, and it pushes me into the position where I am compelled to bring this message to the world, then I must do it.

That message is so simple:

YOUR HEALTH, YOUR WELL-BEING, YOUR HAPPINESS, YOUR QUALTIY OF LIFE DEPENDS ON ONE THING:

NOT ON WHAT YOU EAT, BUT ON HOW YOU EAT IT!

EAT IT RAW!