….an opinion, that is.

You know that childless friend who sees fit to tell you how to raise yours? Repeatedly? How about the coworkwer who is 100 pounds overweight who wants to tell you how to lose weight? The couch potato cousin with all the great workout tips? The broke brother who wants to tell you how to run your business?

Right. C’mon! You know them and so do I. These last couple of weeks I’ve heard from a lot of them. And you know what I did with their opinions? I put them right where I put every other piece of junk mail I get – in the trash.

The truth is that most people will give you an opinion on anything and everything, whether they actually KNOW anything about it or not. I’m sure that I’m guilty of it, as well. I try very hard not to tell someone what they “should” or “ought” to do. I’m not in their shoes. I don’t have all the facts. I am not qualified to tell anyone what they should or ought to do! And, guess what. No one is qualified to tell you that, either.

I can tell someone what I might do in their situation as I understand it, but I cannot tell them what to do. Even this blog doesn’t tell you what you should do or ought to do in order to make healthier choices. In this blog, I tell you what I’ve done and what has worked for me. I tell you my opinion based on my experiences, not my advice based on yours.

In regards to my juice fast: I’ve had people tell me that I wouldn’t be able to handle the physicality of my job without adding protein to the juices. (They have no idea how much protein a person needs in a day or that plant supply protein. They certainly had no idea how much a participant ingests on the reboot.) I’ve had people tell me that I should drink more water. (They had no clue how much I was already drinking.) Wrong and, oh, yeah, wrong.

I’ve also read accounts from and actually spoken to people who have done the juice fast. Them, I listened to. They’ve done it. They’ve walked the road and, although my body will not likely respond exactly like theirs did, they can give me a fair idea of the lay of the land. The thing that made me modify my original plan was a medical condition I’ve had for years that, frankly, I’d forgotten about and didn’t factor into the equation.

So, I’m going to break my own rule here and give some advice.

To those of you trying to make healthy choices and changes in your lives:

1. Do not listen to anyone who has not already successfully made those changes.
2. Listen to anyone who has successfully made them.
3. Educate yourself and figure out what works for you.

To those of you who know someone who is trying to make healthy choices and changes in their lives:

1. If you have successfully made those choices and changes for yourself, offer them positive encouragement and share the benefit of your experience.
2. If you have not successfully made them, offer them positive encouragement (and maybe join their effort), or
3. Keep your pie whole shut.

And, in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”