The phrase "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" originated from a ninteenth-centruy Welsh folk expression that goes, "Eat an apple on going to bed, and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread." It's been altered many times over, but the message has stayed the same: the daily apple will keep you healthy and disease-free.
It seems to be relatively true. According to AllAboutApples.com, apples pack vitamin C, fiber, and are loaded with an army of disease-fighting nutrients. Studies have shown that the baseball-sized fruit can reduce inflammation (by maintaining blood vessel health), which can prevent causes of cancer. HealthDiaries.com also lists 10 Health Benefits of Apples ranging from Diabetes Management and Weight Loss, to Cancer Prevention of all sorts, and Alzheimer's Prevention. They sit on countless lists of foods that can help readers (with whatever) and their juice, next to cranberry and orange, is advertised the most for child consumption. On a less scientific level, the crispness of apples help people feel instantly better, more alert, healthier, and satisfied.I love apples. When I started the Weight Watchers program (for the third time) in October 2009, apples, along with countless other grab-and-go fruits and veggies, became good friends of mine. That first Fall quarter, I ate a Honeycrisp - more on these later as they are God's gift to the world and I'm positive it was a Honeycrisp that earned Eve her expulsion from the Garden of Eden - every day in my 10:30 Women Studies class. I was in love. No one could stop me... not even God's agenda.
And that's how it's seemed to work. I have had an apple - or two or three - a day almost every day for the past year and a half and, knock wood, I have yet to get sick. Living in: an apartment with 6 roommates, a house with 21 other students, and a second apartment with 5 ladies, almost all of whom have been sick, I have dodged flus and common colds. I honestly can't remember the last time I was sick but I think it was that time I had a fever in my Sociology of Murder class my Freshman year of college. This was two years ago.
One night this summer, I said to a doctor friend of mine, "Hey! I thought an apple a day keeps the doctor away." "It's not just apples," he said, "You have to eat green beans, and carrots, and corn..." To this, I cutely responded, "I had all those things today and you're still here!" I'm no Gullible Gabby and I do not honestly believe that eating an apple every day will keep a person 100% well, because I know my lack of illness is due as much in part to my regular exercise as it is to my fairly consistent healthy diet (containing the daily apple). And I know that my body has been prepared by the way I've treated it to fend off any virus, but you can't protest that my daily apple has not had an influence. Especially when the little guy boasts such a fortune-telling reputation.
This is all so painfully true - to the sometimes sick commoner and to my currently unhealthy self - that I have decided to take it back on... with intent. I have been the aforementioned "healthy" in practice and on paper for the most part since October 2009, except, of course, recently. After a year of doing Weight Watchers with the most gung-ho attitude I could, I have slipped to 80%... 50% on plan. My minimal healthy actions have placed me back in the next-up weight bracket, feeling sluggish and unhappy, and resistant to make the small good-for-me decisions that used to be so simple to make. I have yet to catch a virus, but I would most certainly name myself ill. However two truths I discovered in the last year and a half still remain true: exercise makes me happy and resets the right intentions in my mind and body (if just for a moment), and apples, especially when cold, continually do the same... while often producing note-worthy consumer satisfaction.
Enter: this challenge. The competitive person I am, I have decided to take on a large challenge, broken up into small daily tasks, to help force me to remember what felt SO INCREDIBLY GOOD about being healthy and why I thought I'd never digress. After checking it out with my mind, my body, and my doctor, I have decided to eat 1,000 apples and run 1,000 miles in the year 2011. According to basic math this fractions down to just under three (2.67) apples and miles per day, an average I already come close to if not meet every day... on a good day. The challenge will most likely not be, in essence, the right behavior, since running and eating are both things I have done for a while and quite enjoy; the challenge in earnest will be making every day just as good as the last.
One thousand apples. One thousand miles. Three hundred sixty-five days. The numbers are huge, but when broken down per twenty-four hour period, the bites seem much more manageable. My sticktuitiveness, never a strong suit, once proved itself worthy of praise when I lost almost sixty pounds on the Weight Watchers program, with daily cardio. I expect it to earn another blue ribbon in the new year.
Being healthy is not a goal, it is a constant job, and it never lets up. Sure, there's margin for error, fun, laziness, and ice cream, and one need not be perfect in order to be seriously healthy (for the record: I was never, and never will be, perfect), but I think remembering - especially in this culture of quick food, quick fixes, and quick days - that healthy is a full-time job helps one (me) to not feel tempted to check out once "healthy" is attained. Because this is what I did.
So here it goes. Watch out, 2011. There are miles of apples before me and nothing (well, alright: very little) can stop me from running this course.
