Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! (3 page)

At some point in our lives, every one of us dazzling human beings clomping around in heels gets an important call from the “This Is Your Chance” hotline. For some, like me, the entry point came in the form of medical desperation. Life hits a 911 tipping point and suddenly you’re up against the ropes of mortality, begging for one more shot. You realize that the only way to get out of the rubble is to rebuild a more sustainable you.

For others, a divine disco light ignites the spark and your third eye explodes with love for yourself. In that instant your inner Queen wakes up to the holy “Wow, I’m worth it” truth. Good-bye, woe-is-me thinking, and hello, royal care. The awakening is like a cosmic consciousness cocktail that makes you tipsy with self-empowerment.

Or maybe it’s not quite so dramatic and extreme. Maybe your call to action comes from boredom or just feeling “over it.” You’re literally
sick and tired of being sick and tired. No more marking time. No more sofas, remotes, and stalking people on Facebook. No more excuses. Amen, sister!

Regardless of how you arrived here, you’re farther along than you think. Just by picking up this book, you’ve proved that you have what it takes to become a kick-ass Wellness Warrior. Let’s give you the body and soul makeover you deserve! It’s time to clear the slate and get back to basics. Like the Bionic Woman, you will be stronger, faster, and have great hair, but only if you smarten up and change your life. Stop mainlining stress or pile-driving Cinnabons and get with the Crazy Sexy program, lady!

Do you have any idea what it’s like to feel blissfully whole and comfortable in your skin? Do you know what it’s like to be centered and grounded yet filled with an abundant supply of zippy energy? You will. The Crazy Sexy Diet and lifestyle (otherwise known as CSD) gives you the tools to navigate your journey with clarity and balance. There are many things that are out of your control (your neighbor’s bratty kid,
rainstorms, skinny jeans and tube tops), yet you actually have a lot of power over your health, happiness, and life—and it all starts with your mouth. What you put in it, and the words that come out of it, determine your destiny. Shitty nutrition and chemical crutches will wear you out. Stinkin’ thinkin’ and verbal self-abuse amputate your angel wings.

Alysia Cotter Photography

Health is more than just the absence of disease; it is the presence of vitality. Health is freedom from obstruction; it’s living in a harmonious way that creates both inner and outer peace. Change the menu. Rewrite the recipe and break your bad eating habits before they break you. The perception that optimum well-being is beyond our reach enables us to avoid taking responsibility for our lifestyle choices. But when you focus on what you consume literally (food and drink) and figuratively (thoughts, ideas, gossip, bad reality TV)—your world transforms at the deepest level. Saying yes to yourself creates an auspicious shift in other areas of your life. A new job, passion, or cause presents itself. An abandoned dream gets a second shot. Fulfilling relationships replace one-way streets. A health issue stabilizes and in some cases reverses. One thing is certain: Gorgeous you will glimmer inside and out.

Nobody can take away your ruby shine when you’re happy and healthy. And when you’re in that positive space, there’s a cascade effect: You pay it forward by sharing your wellness tips through deed and example. It’s a win–win situation. But there’s more. Your choices are not only terrific for you, they’re awesome for the planet. Holy hip shake, that’s cool!

To be honest
, my dream was never to create another diet book. Especially because “diets” don’t always work! Yet I couldn’t keep my years of research and experimentation to myself. As a result of the success of my documentary film
Crazy Sexy Cancer
(which I wrote and directed for TLC) and my first two books,
Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips
and
Crazy Sexy Cancer Survivor
, so many people wrote to ask me what I eat, how to meditate, what books to read, where to go for detoxification or wellness retreats, and how to best balance it all. These letters didn’t just come from cancer patients—curious seekers from around the world who were looking to make healthy changes in their lives also reached out to me. These motivated mystics gravitated to my anything-ispossible attitude and real-deal information.

The program I lay out for you in this book encompasses far more than diet, it’s the overall lifestyle that works for me and countless other people. While I am not a doctor or a scientist, I am a Crazy Sexy survivor. Since changing what I eat and how I live, my body and mind are healthy, strong, and empowered. I prove my own point every day, and the proof is definitely in the pudding. This is why I have included some inspirational testimonials from folks who have adopted my lifestyle. Their stories are as powerful as the people who share them. Join us! In these challenging times it’s crucial to become “Prevention Is Hot” cheerleaders. Set an example, teach your children, and lead the way to health, spiritual wealth, and happiness through personal action. Nobody knows your body like you do, and waiting around for someone else to fix your woes is playing a risky game of roulette.

This book is my gift to you, a love letter to life born from a crappy diagnosis that became the catalyst for a healthier existence. You’ll read some of the details of my mud in a minute. But hey, no mud, no lotus, right? The most beautiful things spring from the compost pile. Cancer rocked my world and forced me to find a “new normal.” The Crazy Sexy Diet is the result of my years of questioning and study—it’s loaded with information that will deeply transform your life and possibly even save it—or at the very least reduce the pesky cellulite! It’s an awakening without the disease, knowledge without the price. Changing your mind may be the biggest obstacle you face. But once you do, you’ll realize that you are the one you’ve been waiting for …

My wake-up call
came on February 14, 2003. “Happy Valentine’s Day, you have canSer”—spelled wrong to piss it off and take my power back. At the time I was a fabulous thirty-one-year-old actress and photographer living in New York City. Actually, I was a party hound and stress slut, trying to get my shit together and make a name for myself. Sometimes I lived high on the hog; other times I
could barely put the fast food on the table. That’s kinda the nature of the arts: feast or famine. On my personal D-Day, I found myself lying on a cold exam table while a nurse named Mildred passed an ultrasound scanner across my belly. Piercing abdominal cramps and shortness of breath had forced me back to my primary care doctor. It was the same pain I had felt for three years, only magnified. Since my doctor hadn’t found anything wrong with me on the previous visits, I learned to live with the discomfort. “You’re like most uptight city girls,” he said. “Constipated!” Plus, I had Teflon youth on my side: Nothing could happen to me. Yet on that particular day the pain was unbearable. I figured I’d blown it out a few weeks before while partying at a film festival where a movie I was in premiered. Showing off for a hot dude in yoga class probably didn’t help, either.

The nurse’s distressed look forced me to ask her what she saw. “I can’t tell you that,” she sternly replied. “You’ll have to speak with the doctor.” Okay, I could wait a few more minutes. In walks the doctor. “The surface of your liver is covered with about a dozen lesions,” he said. I had no idea what that meant. I thought lesions meant cuts and I wondered how I’d cut my liver. Yes, I regularly enjoyed a few cocktails and other recreational substances, but wasn’t this an extreme result of a few indiscretions?

Then he clarified things for me. The lesions were tumors, a twelve-pack of misery that made the ultrasound images of my liver look like Swiss cheese. But that wasn’t all; about ten more tumors were in my lungs. And get this, the cancer was completely inoperable, no surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and—here’s the knockout punch—no cure! In an instant I went from hot chick to sick chick, saddled with an extremely rare sarcoma called epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (EHE) that affects less than 0.01 percent of the cancer population. Little is known about my annoyingly hard-to-spell and -pronounce disease, and none of the big C cancer bucks go into studying it. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (that’s military speak for “what the fuck?”).