Hey Chalkboarders!
I am SO excited to be guest editing for the month of April. As a huge fan of the site – and, of course, the ridiculously delicious Pressed Juicery elixirs – I was thrilled to be invited to contribute to this growing community of healthy lifestylers, eager (like I am!) to find easy, innovative ways to live better every day.
Let me tell you a little bit about who I am. As a kid, I ate around a dinner table where we were as likely to be chatting about the newest research relating Vitamin D and immunity as we were minimally invasive cardiothoracic surgery techniques or what I’d done at school that day. Suffice to say, I couldn’t really escape having a passion for health and wellness. Yes, Dr. Oz is my dad – but he is one of four surgeons in my immediate family, and my mother and grandmother are both deep into alternative and complementary medicine, so I grew up with a very unique perspective about how we can best care for ourselves. When I got sick, we didn’t immediately run out to the pharmacy – there were home remedies, energy healing, even exercise therapy that we went to first to give my body’s natural defenses a chance to kick in. And, hey, I made it, so I guess they must have worked.
And yet, growing up, I struggled with my weight – which just goes to show that you can have access to all the information in the world and still have a hard time connecting it to your life emotionally. I tried every fad diet under the sun and, of course, none of them worked because they put food in a position of power it should never have. I was sick of failing, and sick of being overweight, so I set about creating a lifestyle that would allow me to permanently shed 30+ pounds by making health a priority and not an obsession. My book, The Dorm Room Diet , documents the healthy lifestyle I developed that allowed me to finally get healthy and happy.
These days, I get to play with Mario Batali, Carla Hall, Michael Symon and Clinton Kelly every day on ABC’s The Chew. We cook, we laugh, we do random skits…it’s been the most incredible experience getting to learn alongside these brilliant teachers, and we have so much fun together! As the resident practical tipster and health advocate of the bunch, I present simple, healthful, delicious recipes and easy lifestyle solutions our viewers can feel good about.
What I’ve learned is that the key to healthy living is learning how to make it easy and indulgent—something that’s simple to work into every day life, given all the stresses and time pressures we face, but still provides the sensory “wow” we all want. Which seems to me to be exactly what The Chalkboard Mag is all about!
We will always be battling the clock for more hours in the day, but we make time for the things that matter. In my own life, if it means I don’t have a chance to respond to every tweet (as much as I would love to! You can find me @daphneoz or run all the errands I need to so that I can make it to the gym, then that’s what has to happen.
Moreover, if I can’t make it to the gym so I can have a real conversation and sit down for dinner with my husband, then that’s worth it to me. It’s all about finding the balance that’s right for you – and I am always open to new and better solutions.
I’m looking forward to sharing some of my takes on how to strike this balance of finding your healthy, happy place over the course of the next month, along with a few of my other favorite things. Chat soon!
x Daphne
