Allison+C’s+Final+AmEx+2013+Speech

=Title of Speech= From the Inside Out

=Text of Speech= When I was in third grade, I ate Taco Bell every Wednesday. Whoever could say their multiplication tables the fastest that week got to go with the teacher, and every week it ended up being Aysen Tan and I. You may wonder why I’m starting out a speech in my final days as an 11th grader with a stupid story about eating cinnamon twists and soft tacos once a week as an 8-year-old. Well, Mr. Geib told us to talk about the one thing that’s been on our mind the most for the past couple months, and the one thing that has been on my mind the most for the past 11 years is my body.

I’ve always been very self-conscious. For basically my entire life I’ve lived in a world of fear. Fear of what people think of me and fear of changing any part of my life so that I could actually like the way I look. Whenever I ate anything, I immediately thought about how fattening it was, but I simply liked food way too much to go on a diet. I’ve never been good at sports and I’m definitely not competitive enough to enjoy them, so I had to rule that out. I run and work out sometimes, but not enough to where it would ever change how I look.

Then, five weeks ago I was at the mall, looking around at all of the bikinis and summer dresses, and I realized I couldn’t take it anymore. I was done feeling uncomfortable in my own body. The body that I was born in, that I’ve lived and grown up in for 17 years was completely different from one that I wanted. I decided to change. The next day, I started a new way of eating based on a book called “Eat to Live.” It’s not a diet, it’s not like Weight Watchers or something, it’s a lifestyle, and now, after 17 years of eating crap and then worrying afterwards of how many pounds I would gain from it, I am the healthiest person that I know, besides my two parents who are eating the same way as me and who have helped me tremendously.

Eating to live means that I’m vegan and I don’t eat sugar, salt, or anything cooked in oil. My meals consist of only fruits, vegetables, beans, and nuts, and to most of you, that probably sounds like torture. It was for me, for a while. Until I started losing weight very quickly and started feeling better than I ever have. I’ve also changed my definition of what being healthy means. Whereas before, a healthy person was anyone with a perfect body, I now know that healthy can look like me, like how I do right now.

My dad recently brought home a book called “Salt Sugar Fat.” It has some staggering statistics in it like the fact that more than half of American adults are now considered overweight. I found out that Yoplait has twice the amount of sugar as Lucky Charms and that the rate of obese children has doubled since 1980. The first chapter of the book begins with a scene of a meeting that occurred in the spring of 1999 involving Pillsbury, Nestle, Kraft & Nabisco, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Coca Cola, and Mars in which they discuss the fact that their products are one of the main reasons that Americans are increasingly becoming more and more obese. They end the meeting by deciding that they really don’t care if Americans are obese, unhealthy, or even if they die, as long as they can make money. These are the makers of our food here in America. Or rather, our crap, as it should be called.

If any of you are how I always was my entire life, you’re hearing me talk about being healthy and how we should change our eating habits and blah blah blah, but really you’re thinking, “Shut up and let me eat what I want.” Honestly, I used to get really angry when people told me I should eat healthier. It’s my body; I can do what I want with it. But really, the only reason I thought that was because I had never experienced any other lifestyle.

In the world I want to live and grow old in, I want to see a healthy human race. I want to see people who care about the insides of their bodies as much as their appearance on the outside. I want to see fast food restaurants with menus of tofu and spinach. I want to see McDonalds and Snickers and Oreos disappear in the blink of an eye, similar to how Twinkies disappeared a few months ago, even though they’re back now. People all over the country are dying because of the sheer crap in the foods that we love and crave here in America. I don’t want my country to be known as “that place where everyone’s fat.” Remember the movie Wall-E? I know I don’t want to end up like the America foreshadowed there, and I’m guessing none of you do either.

But that’s just the first part of the America I want to see. Like I said, for most of my life, my body and my health have been the main things on my mind. They completely consumed me. Nothing ever overshadowed the little voice in my head that told me I looked bad. I would take a test and then, “Hey Allison, when are you going to start eating better?” would pop into my mind. I’d be driving home from school and that voice would be talking all the way home, until I walked in the door, looked in the mirror, and realized that little voice was just me telling the truth about how I really looked.

This year, I finally realized that my insecurity with my body was what I like to think of as my “thing.” You know that “thing” that everyone has? That one thing that bugs them to no end that they wish they could change but they can’t get the motivation to do it? All of you are probably thinking of something right now. I know I am. I’m still haven’t reached my goal with this new lifestyle that I live.

I also have other things that I haven’t been able to do yet like being serenaded by Justin Bieber, finding Area 51, carrying the torch for the Olympics, and recording a rap song, but I’m sure those will come soon. I want you all to think of something that has been consuming you.

I want to live and grow old in a world where everyone finds the motivation to finally fulfill whatever their “thing” may be. I want to encourage you to just do it now. No matter how hard it might be, please, please do it because it will take such a burden off of your shoulders and out of your mind. It did for me. I’ve lost 18 pounds in 5 weeks because of it and after 17 years of being someone that I didn’t like, I really do like myself now, and I feel better than I ever have.

=**Cite Your Sources**= Fuhrman, Joel (2003), //Eat to Live//, Little, Brown and Company, New York

Moss, Michael (2013), //Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us,// Random House, New York