How I Lost 10 lbs in 7 Days on Green Smoothies –
Revelations of a 60-Year Old Father on Green Smoothies
– by Harold Warner
I am sixty.
Depending on which side of that number you are then that may or may not seem old to you.
To me it is getting older, though I want to believe it is still young in a relative sense.
A Lot of Hot Air…?
I think my father was about forty five when he wondered out loud if I would ever do something practical with my life.
I was challenged to gain his acceptance of my many choices. He had come through the Great Depression, the dirty thirties and two world wars; me through some school parties, “groovin’” in the sixties and many ski trips.
I believe my father was a bit more than sixty when I heard him telling a neighbor that I was flying balloons and it wasn’t in a boastful sort of a way. It was more an expression of “what next”.
He was in his late sixties when I established the world record for distance flown in a hot air balloon. He was in his early seventies when my wife and I, with our business, put 139 hot air balloons into a spectacular daily aerial display over the 1988 Winter Games that gained us broad acclaim. I am sure every person my father met from those days forward knew of my relationship with him, the jobs I created and the good we achieved.
I may have heard my father’s voice coming out of me when Tera began promoting raw food. It was not the voice my father had in his seventies, but his younger doubtful voice.
It made no sense!
I’m Not the Young Buck I Used to Be
In recent years my active business life, travel, stress and preoccupation with work has taken its toll. Well, actually, it hasn’t taken anything, but rather added significantly to my life in mass and dimension. I had never struggled with weight as a young man. I burned whatever fuel I took in.
Time has changed that. Without truly being conscious of it, I adopted a less active lifestyle while maintaining the gastronomic habits of the earlier more energetic years, and as a resulted, added pounds.
Enter Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), which meant that I could no longer run the endless miles I used to.
I lived life more attached to my adventures than my results. My running at a brisk pace would now have me bent over choking on a painful and dry hack! So I dieted, and with each diet cycle I renewed my commitment to try again after the end of the next holiday.
I am not sedentary by any means, but I do not burn what I once did as a younger man.
If You Want Real Change…
Heavy business travel was the best excuse I offered for not changing. It’s just not easy.
Enough exposure to the things Tera was saying about health and diet convinced me to tell her that I was ready to try something new. She was coming to my house for the holidays and I was ready to let her take control of my menu for one whole week!
I accept this much: A lifestyle change is required if you want real change. You can no more defeat your bad eating habits hanging around the golden arches than you can defeat a chronic alcohol addiction while hanging out in bars. It may seem remarkable, but “getting that” took a while.
So with lingering shadows of doubt in the back of my mind, we bought the blender and stocked up on all things green and fresh, plus a few extra sprinkles such as bee pollen, chia and hemp seeds.
I lost 10 lbs in 7 Days on Green Smoothies
With the guidance of a binder of recipes provided by Tera, I set to the first challenge of producing something palatable. …“Not bad” to the first one!
My earlier and perhaps ignorant impressions gave no hint that I would actually enjoy a “green” smoothie in the morning more than my usual breakfasts. I was wrong! A quick review of the ingredients and it became clear that I was intending to become less with more.
I did not grow weak, I did not suffer dizzy spells, and in fact my eyesight could not have been more clear the morning I stared down to the bathroom scale and saw numbers that I had not seen in some time. Ten pounds of me was gone and it had only cost me a week of change! Even more remarkably, I had enjoyed my meals the entire week.
Energy, Weight Loss and Exercise
The subsequent week continued with very positive results, though with a less steep drop in weight, nonetheless a further reduction that yielded new energy.
This new energy granted a boost in my desire to exercise. It is overstated perhaps, but for those of us that have more about our middle than we want, weight loss and energy make good partners.
Then from the exercise a most recent revelation: The GERD seems to be sleeping!
Thank You, Tera.
I will not say the GERD is gone or cured, but it is resolved to a state that two physicians failed to achieve with conventional and expensive medication. I will confess that when Tera predicted that might happen I discarded her suggestion as complete nonsense. Wrong again.
So now I seek the voice of my father in his most advanced years. …
…The voice to say, “Thank you, Tera.”
Love,
Dad.
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If you’d like to get your dad or any of the men in your life on the green smoothie bandwagon, then check out our 7-Day Rabbit Food Challenge.
It comes with a complete 7-day menu planner and is perfect for new comers to the plant-based lifestyle!