High Ho the Cherry
Whenever I see the word “diet”, my eyeballs naturally gravitate towards the words “die” and my butt begins to twitch. I’m not much on hearing you can’t have this or that. As soon as you tell me I can’t have the cookie, I want the cookie…And I don’t even crave cookies, dang it!
Lucky for me, Keri Glassman’s book, The O2 Diet: The Cutting Edge Antioxidant-Based Program That Will Make You Healthy, Thin, and Beautiful says “diet”, but it doesn’t read like a death sentence. She’s quick to point out that most people focus on the bad foods and what they can’t have, and less on the good yummy foods we should happily shove in our tummies. She’s a quirky writer, and honestly, she only spends a bit of the book defining how the O2 Diet works. She breaks down why we need foods rich in antioxidants, how these foods improve our lives and even spends a brief time debunking some of the superfood trends that come and go. Grocery lists, menus and recipes are included. It don’t get no betta’ , baby.
In the book, Glassman and her peoples recommends cherries like whoa by the way. So I took it upon myself to try the cherry juice they were so kind to send. Rookie mistake: I didn’t dilute the stuff before drinking and about gagged myself on rich, thick cherry concentrate. By the way, if you want to cleanse out your system quickly, I recommend pure cherry concentrate to the head. I had myself a bit of a “High-Ho-Cherry-NOOO,” if you will.
After I learned how to drink the stuff properly, I started to dig the benefits. Did you know that a glass of cherry juice is a good pre-run beverage? It’s been proven to help marathon gurus with their post-run recoveries. (If only Jenn and I had read this book before the marathon!
There are other nuggets of juicy bits (no pun intended) in the book. Add it to your cookbooks and enjoy the goodies you CAN have that do a body good. Just remember to dilute, dilute, DILUTE!
—Tish