wellness – Page 11 – Fat Girls Fitness

Get Rid of Your Freaking Clothes

Maintaining a safe distance from your “comfortable” aka “fat” clothes should be treated the same way you’d stay away from the lady clipping her fingernails on the subway: the greater the distance, the better off you are.

I can relate to the need to hang to hang on to your unwanted clothing way beyond its need to exist on your life. This post comes from someone who can justify any purchase through sheer force of imagination.

The thought process goes like this. First you wonder, “How great would this look if I happened to lose 5 pounds while simultaneously finding myself in a casual dining situation in Morocco?” And before you can answer yourself with a resounding, “so great!” You realize that the purchase has already been made.

FullSizeRender Identify and destroy bad patterns of behavior.

It’s time for you to release your cottony victims from your life, closet, or miscellaneous vacuum sealed bag.

Here are a few ways you can convince yourself it’s ok to let go:

• Watch Hoarders
• When you donate your clothes, they go to someone less fortunate and that feels good!
• Curse them with bad luck so you don’t want them anyway
• Wear it to an event where a lot of pictures are taken because god forbid you are twice tagged on social media wearing the same thing to two different events
• Witness a crime in your fat clothes

Clothes swap!

If, due to extreme poverty or a generalized hatred of shopping, you truly feel you have either your fat clothes or plastic bags to choose from – that’s cool.

Start a clothing swap with friends! This is a good way to not only pass on some sweet threads to a deserving peer, but also to have a meeting of the minds.

Those who are further along in their weight loss journey are also passing their motivation on to you. Perhaps your bestie’s pants are only a temporary stop before you step down to another size – free stuff! no commitments! One of my favorite things about pants is that they don’t judge. You can use them as much as you need to and drop them like a hot potato as you continue to drop the amount of hot potatoes you eat.

May your fridges and closets be wisely stocked!

Five Things to Drink Instead of Diet Coke

Writing this post feels a bit like speaking at my own funeral. I love Diet Coke so much. Diet Coke is my friend.

But fuck Diet Coke, because it’s my greatest addiction.

But I love you Diet Coke. I was just playing. Come back 😥

Kicking the Habit

I’ve tried so many times to kick the habit. I failed, I succeeded, and failed.

I kid you not that I had serious withdrawals. If I didn’t drink Diet Coke by 1 PM, my lower back would start hurting. I would get a terrible headache. Wtf is that about.

An End to Extreme Approaches

I used to take an extreme approach to quitting the great Diet Coke. “Starting today,” my dumbass would say, “no Diet Coke for all of eternity.”

And by 1 PM my back would hurt. And by day three, you’d find me underneath an overpass, injecting Diet Coke directly into my thigh.

I’ve stopped taking this approach. Quitting my dearest friend is too hard.

Instead, when I want a Diet Coke, I just try to drink something else. And sometimes, just sometimes, I have a fucking Diet Coke. And it’s glorious.

Five Alternatives to Diet Coke

1. Water. Need I say more?

2. Green Tea. Usually, water doesn’t scratch the itch. And oddly enough, coffee doesn’t scratch the itch for me either. I’ve never been a huge tea drinker, but Green Tea somehow does the trick for me. And after substituting Green Tea for Diet Coke a few times, it actually became much easier. It’s a habit thing. If you don’t like Green Tea, maybe you’ll like Black Tea or one of those zesty orange flavored teas.

3. Coffee. Maybe coffee will work for you. Coffee is delicious, and it has health benefits. The coffee at my office is disgusting and burnt. It gives me heartburn. So choose a coffee that is not the coffee at my office.

4. Vitamin Water Zero. Ok so arguably this is just as terrible for you as Diet Coke. I don’t know, it probably is. But I find it less addicting. And I guess it has vitamins. So sometimes I just want a Diet Coke and I have a vitamin water instead. Then I don’t want Diet Coke anymore.

5. Crack. Sometimes, you need something a bit harder. Crack is probably equally addicting to Diet Coke, but you won’t find it at Duane Reade. Once you develop a full blown crack habit, your Diet Coke habit won’t seem so bad. It’s all about perspective.

I can’t remember if crack is one of those drugs that makes you skinny, but try it for yourself and let me know.

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Five Awesome Books for Fitness

If you’re smart like me, you read a lot of books. And if you’re sexy like me, some of those books are about health and nutrition.

Here’s the thing – I want to look good. But what I want more than that is to be fully immortal.

So these aren’t diet books. They’re books about health. And some of them contain new or different thinking which might be controversial. But they’re all interesting.

“Eating on the Wild Side” by Jo Robinson. I fucking love this book. So will you please read it? I don’t know. Maybe you’ll find it boring.The premise is that even if you eat fruits and veggies, our modern varieties are not necessarily giving you optimum nutrition, because we’ve bred out some really good stuff. Each chapter covers a category of produce. The author provides the following info:
1. the history of the crop;
2. the genetic history;
3. how to pick the most nutritious variety;
4. how to prepare it for optimum nutrition;
5. how to store it for optimum nutrition;
6. interesting facts that will surprise you

The book is fantastic. Its just brilliant. Even if you’re not so into nutrition, it’s just a super interesting book about plants. I listened to it on audiobook maybe three times. While exercising, of course 😉

2. “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan. Even though it’s not so old, this book is basically a classic. The info is so basic, and the author is just so smart. The premise is to just eat fucking food. It’s great.

Pollan rails against “nutritionism” and tells us why we shouldn’t really trust what we get from nutritional studies. He gives me lots of fuel for my anti- FDA government conspiracy fire. And yet he’s not at all a conspiracy theorist. He’s just a smartie pants.

3. “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes. This one is a classic in nutrition circles. Just give it a read.

4. “Grain Brain” by Dr. David Perlmutter.

This is where my list starts to get a bit controversial. Dr. Perlmutter is kind of one of those “hippie” doctors. You may not agree with him. I tend to agree with a lot of what he says, and I think he’s very careful in his claims.

This book isn’t about weight loss. It’s about how our grain-heavy diet affects our brain. He also tells us how to eat to best preserve our brain function into old age. Hint: it’s not bagels.

I think it’s a great book and an interesting book.

5. “The Fast Diet” by Dr. Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer

Hate the title. Love the book.

This isn’t a diet book. It’s a primer to Intermittent Fasting, and it takes a very gentle approach at that.

Basically, this book touts the benefits of greatly reducing your caloric intake for two days a week. So it’s not really about “fasting” per se. But if you don’t know much about fasting, this book is a great start. It’s very approachable. And I love that it gives both a male and female perspective on fasting.

But wait! There’s more!!

If you just so happen to be an ignorant fool who doesn’t want to read a book, you are in luck. The Fast Diet was based on a BBC Documentary, also featuring Dr. Mosley. You can check it out on youtube here. It’s great.

While you’re at it, check out my list of awesome documentaries here.

Happy Reading 😀

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A Way Out: Eating Without Counting

FullSizeRender 5.jpg — This plate contains meat, mac and cheese, and starchy veggies prepared in oil. But notice how it’s mostly veggies. And underneath is entirely greens.

I’m about to describe how I eat, in general.

I think that for most people, a diet like mine will allow them to lose weight – even without exercise. And yes, even without counting calories.

All you have to do is listen to your appetite.

This is basically it:

This is KEY: I’d guess that 3/4 of my diet is veggies, by volume. I eat as many veggies as I want. Many greens, but I don‘t shy away from starchy vegetables.
I dress my salads however I want – sometimes including croutons, seeds etc. I personally only like a small amount of dressing, and usually no dressing at all.
I eat a small amount of meat several times a week. Many weeks I don’t eat any meat at all.
If I’m not eating a TON of greens for a particular meal, I use small plates. Large plates are ridiculous.
I eat lots of soups, usually broth based (rarely creamy)
I eat lots of eggs, every day. With a little bit of olive or coconut oil.
I’m not big on dairy, but I have it when I want it
I try to stay away from refined foods
I eat not too many beans, but probably more than most people
I eat 1 or 2 squares of chocolate every day
Some days, I drink wine
Occasionally, I eat bad stuff

The foods I eat most often are:
greens, eggs, sweet potatoes, avocados, tomatoes and onions

On Meal Frequency (and this is important!!):
I eat as often as I want, but I NEVER eat simply because it’s meal time. Some days I eat very often, and some days not at all. I eat completely according to my appetite.

On Physical Activity:
I stay active, but only because I enjoy it. I don‘t do harsh exercises. I walk often, hike often, and sometimes jog.

Three caveats to all of the above

1. Losing weight is different than maintaining weight. What I’ve described, to me, is a healthy diet – based on what we know now. If you eat like this, and according to your own appetite, then your weight should take care of itself, barring some other major issues.

If you go from eating processed foods to eating like this – I imagine you’ll lose weight without counting calories. But if you always eat like this, and you haven’t been losing weight, then of course you won’t. For you, adding exercise or cutting out some calories might work.

2. Getting from A to B is a trip. If you rely on processed foods and carbs for the majority of your needs, it could be very difficult to suddenly transition to a diet like this. You don‘t want to torture yourself, and yes – it may take time. I suggest adding vegetables to your diet first, rather than taking anything away. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy and prefer eating this way. It just took some getting used to.

3. This diet makes me feel full and satisfied. If this doesn’t make you feel full and satisfied, it’s not going to work for you. This is why I suggest adding rather than subtracting. Fill up on veggies that you love, and begin to gingerly try ones you don‘t care for. You might find that you get to an ideal weight without even trying.

Sometimes, Counting Calories is Good.

In some situations, counting calories might make sense. For more on that, check out my post On Counting Calories.

Happy not-counting 😀

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On Counting Calories

IMG_6648 2.JPG — Calories don’t count if you eat standing up.

I don’t take a strict “calories in-calories out” approach to weight loss or maintenance. Still – your overall caloric intake is important. Very important. Perhaps the most important factor in determining your overall body composition.

Even so, you don’t have to count calories to lose or maintain your weight. It just depends on the circumstances.

Full Disclosure: I Can’t NOT Count Calories.

I don‘t count calories anymore. But I did spend my entire life doing it. So now, at the tender age of 28, I can’t NOT count calories.

Sadly, I’ve become such an expert that I just do it subconsciously.

I can very accurately predict the calories in basically any food. And without thinking about it, I just always know how many calories I’ve had to eat on a given day.

Businessman Trying To Solve math Equivalents — I’m like a Calorie Rain Main.

The reason I tell you this?
..So that you take my advice on calories with a grain of salt.

Because after all, even though I DON’T count calories, I actually DO count calories. It’s like the 10,000 hour rule for fat people.

Sometimes, Counting Calories is Good.

Counting calories can be very helpful under the right circumstances. Specifically, counting calories might be a good idea if:

You’re a noob.
You eat lots of processed foods and carbs.

“Noobs” are people who don’t know much about nutrition. Being a noob is a good thing. It means you’ve actually enjoyed your life, instead of focusing on what you eat all day.

Still, Noobs might be a little confused. And not through any fault of their own. The basic nutrition facts we learned in school – well, they were wrong. Eating fat doesn’t make you fat, eating cereal for breakfast is probably a terrible idea, and yes – you can eat the egg yolk. Even if you have high cholesterol.

If you’re a noob, counting calories can help you become more mindful of what you are eating. This might lead to a greater awareness of how your diet might be less than ideal.

But be careful, noobs, lest you fall under the impression that caloric intake is all that matters. It’s part of a bigger picture.

…which brings us to processed foods.

People who eat lots of processed foods might also do well to count calories.

Two reasons:
1. Processed foods are less filling than whole foods, so your body might not be cueing you properly on when to stop eating;
2. Processed foods are often designed to be addictive, making it more likely you’ll overeat

Similarly, for some people, carbs have a tendency to increase your appetite and cause cravings. This is certainly my experience.

A Way Out

Read my blog post on how I eat, in general. I believe that for most people, a diet similar to mine will allow them to lose weight – even without exercise.

And yes, without counting calories!!

The keys are –
1. Crowding out poor choices with MANY veggies; and
2. Listening to your appetite

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Seven Reasons Why You Should Hike for Fitness

unnamed-4

I love hiking more than anything else in the whole world. I just want to be one with nature. And then I want to come home to all of my modern amenities and never look at nature again.

Don’t Do it to Lose Weight.

When it comes to weight loss, physical activity is secondary to food intake. And not everything has to be about weight loss. Sometimes it’s just about hugging a tree.

unnamed-5 — I hike because I desperately enjoy sitting on unfamiliar rocks.

But, seriously. Do it to lose weight.

But realistically speaking – who cares about nature? I, for one, haven’t stopped celebrating global warming since the moment Al Gore invented the internet.

Just look how sweaty my back is. I am definitely losing weight!

Hiking and the Deep Burn.

Hiking is fantastic because…

1. God gave you muscles. God gave you a variety of muscles. He wants you to roam this earth in sorrow and longing, constantly questioning his existence as well the purpose of your own. And he wants you to do this at various elevations.

Scrambling up and down hills engages a variety of muscle groups. This makes hiking a dynamic activity which brings you closer to God. Just ask a Rabbi and he will confirm that he has no idea what you’re talking about.

2. You can take pictures. Hiking is scenic. When hiking, take a picture and post it on social media. This will accomplish two things. First, it will let everyone else know how much better you are than them. And second, it will create a cherished memory of a time when you let everyone else know how much better you were than them.

3. It takes a while. When you hike, the time flies because you are among friends, invariably talking shit about all of your other friends. A weekly hike gives me the extended workout I need to allow me to eat as many french fries as I can find under my couch cushion.

unnamed-7 — Friends who hike together, talk shit together.

4. It’s Conducive to Planning. At the gym, it’s easy to fall behind. One bad day at work, and suddenly you’re six tacos deep instead of six squats deep. Hiking, on the other hand, is conducive to planning.

Plan to hike EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY beginning on March 1. Compile a list of hikes, and actually schedule them out with friends. You will be accountable because these specific hikes are now in your calendar.

5. It gives you something to talk about with fit people. Fit people love expending energy in various extraneous ways. So if you want to talk to a fit person, try bringing up the hike you did last week. If the person is truly fit, then he or she was probably doing the very same hike as you, and at the same exact time. Now the fit person is more likely to have sex with you.

6. It’s good for your physical and mental health. With the exception of that scary thing from The Little Shop of Horrors, being around plants is good for your mental and physical health.

And since most of the plants on earth will be dead soon, you should take in as much nature as you can, while you still can.

7. Trail Mix.
Hiking is the only time when you are allowed to feel good about eating M&M’s. Don’t let this moment pass you by.

Downsides of Hiking

If you go hiking, you will probably get lost or worse – eaten by a bear. In either event, it won’t be a particularly pleasant way to go.

But in case you’re still interested, I find many of my hikes here. You can also check out Meetup.com for hiking groups near you.

Happy Hiking 😀

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What’s More Important – Diet or Exercise?

I’m going with diet.

Yes, they’re both important. Blah blah blah. But I firmly believe that when it comes to weight loss, physical activity is secondary to food intake.

While it’s true that some people don’t move enough, it seems to me that many more people are reasonably active, and still experiencing issues with their weight. Perhaps I am biased because this was my personal experience – always overweight, and yet always quite active. But in any event, I’m not the only person who feels this way.

The typical Western diet is calorie dense.

In general, food is primary because while we are designed to want to eat until we’re full, we are also designed to eat foods that had a much lower caloric density than the foods we typically encounter today. Admittedly, we were also designed to work a bit harder for those foods (a factor in favor of exercise, I suppose).

Still, typical Western foods are so calorific that even a large amount of exercise won’t offset poor eating habits. And to make things worse, the caloric density of these foods is probably magnified by our general over-reliance on carbohydrates – the consumption of which tends to affect our metabolic state in favor of storage.

For some, exercise can increase appetite.

My advice to anyone, simply based on my own experience, would be to avoid starting caloric restriction and a workout regimen at the same time.

Of course, you have to know yourself. But in my experience, exercise increases my appetite noticeably. In fact, exercise has been shown to both increase or decrease your appetite depending on a number of factors.

In life, we expect clean and predictable answers. People will say “Oh you can never lose weight without exercising.” But that’s simply untrue, because the truth is much so much more complex than what some person put in a single news headline.

You can look at what scientific studies tell you, or you can sit down and mindfully examine your own life experience, incorporating what you pick up from the news as well. Our bodies and brains are unique, and in the end, what works for you depends on more factors than a scientific study can possible consider. You need to know yourself.

Consider – how did you get where you are now?

If you have a lot of weight to lose, maybe it’s time to consider this – what caused you to put on the weight in the first place? And be honest with yourself.

If you overeat often, you should probably deal with your eating habits before dealing with your physical activity. If you find it’s difficult to get full, then you want to begin opting for more veggies with every meal. Simply adding veggies may cause you to eat less of other more calorie dense foods. This was the case for me. Of course – I still exercise regularly for the health benefits.

On the other hand, if you’ve put on a pound or two each year slowly throughout the years with age – maybe you’ll do fine just adding enough activity to compensate for your slowing metabolism. Try it out, and see how it works for you.

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14 Days of Probiotic Foods

We are beginning to understand a thing or two about what a healthy gut environment looks like. But that’s about it – a thing or two. So how can you use this limited information to improve your life?

We know of a few strains of bacteria that are probably “good” in general. And we don’t even know for a fact that they are “good” in and of themselves. It could simply be that the presence of these strains is a sign of a healthy gut, which is healthy for other (unrelated) reasons.

But we know at least this. For patients afflicted with C. Diff, fecal transplants save lives. And fecal transplants have shown some very interesting results in studies on humans and rats. So a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut is essential. We just don’t know exactly what a healthy gut looks like.

What does your gut look like?

We also don’t know what your gut looks like. Partly because we don’t care, but mostly because you haven’t shit in a cup and sent it to us. And even if you did send us a cup full of feces, we wouldn’t look at it. We’d probably just call the police.

Even if we did know what your gut bugs looked like – what would we do with that information? Sure, we could see if you had an overgrowth of something terrible. Or a deficiency of good stuff. But is there an ideal to aspire to? Is it the same for everyone? Is it even the same at every stage of life? We simply don’t know.

So we’re working with limited information. Which is why incorporating probiotic foods is, in general, your best bet for a healthy gut.

Probiotic Supplements versus Fermented Foods

When you buy a probiotic supplement, you could be getting one strain of bacteria, or five strains or whatever. Sure, these strains have been studied – but the question is, do we even know enough about gut bugs to know what to look for? How likely is it that these supplements capture the bigger picture of what we want in the gut?

The other issue with supplements is that they only contain bacteria. And there is more to your microbiome than that. Even if you have the right gut bugs, they might thrive better when delivered along their perfect fuel.

Fermented foods, unlike supplements, are whole. Fermentation goes back a long way in human history. We have evolved with these foods, and they have evolved with us.

When we look at the diversity of fermented foods that we can eat, we realize that if we begin to regularly incorporate fermented foods into our diet, we can increase the chances that we are putting a variety of healthy bugs into our gut.

Beware of Yogurt

Yogurt is great. But many yogurts that purport to contain “healthy” bacteria also contain a ton of added sugar. It is very possible that too much sugar in the diet fuels an overgrowth of “unhealthy” bacteria. Plus, added sugar is generally a bad idea – especially for breakfast. There are better ways to shape up your gut.

Fermented Foods

Yogurt can be good, just pick something without added sugar. And given the overuse of antibiotics in modern society, you probably won’t get everything your gut needs from yogurt alone.

So try to include a variety of other probiotic foods and beverages into your diet. Including:

Sauerkraut
Pickles
Kimchi
Kefir
Pickled anything
Miso Soup
Tempeh
fresh sourdough breads (but watch out, for the same reason as yogurt)
Kombucha

14 Days of Probiotic Foods

I challenge you to incorporate at least one of the foods from the above list into your diet every day for the next 14 days. And try mixing it up if you can.

If you don’t regularly eat any of the foods on this list, it’s likely that increasing your intake will put you in the direction of a better, stronger, and more diverse gut microbiome. Especially if you have a long history with antibiotics, as most of us do.

After the 14 days is up, continue to regularly incorporate these foods into your diet. I am confident that as time marches on, we’ll learn so much more about the nature of our insides that this post will look silly. But until then, it’s the least we can do.

Happy Cultivating 🙂

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To Lose 30 Pounds, Aim for Eight.

Successful diet — “Yes! I ate a whole slice of pizza and only gained seven pounds”

So you want to lose 30 pounds, am I right? Or 40 or 50?

Well you can do that. And probably in time for Spring, too. Definitely in time for Summer. Wouldn’t that be the most incredible thing? Just stop for a moment and imagine how sassy you’ll feel. Just imagine how quickly you’ll abandon your loser husband and kids.

Losing enough weight to abandon your entire family is well within your reach. In fact, I wish I could just burst through this computer screen right now and squeeze your face until you feel within your soul just how possible this is for you.

All you need to do is forget your ultimate goal. Wipe it completely from your mind. Instead, just “aim for eight.”

It’s not magic, it’s logic.

Losing 30 pounds is hard. Losing 40 pounds is the absolute worst. You just don’t need to embark on that kind of journey, because you’re probably not a murderer and therefore deserve some modicum of happiness in your life.

Losing 50 pounds is basically impossible. It’s so difficult that I’d rather get eaten by a shark. And yet I have lost 50 pounds, and more.

Great White Shark breaching — I would rather be inside this thing

But losing 8 pounds? That’s cake. Most people can do it in less than a month just by making small changes.

Here is the idea.

This is important. You can’t “aim for eight” in order to lose 30. You need to forget the 30 completely. Forget it at a cellular level. It is NOT your goal. Not now, not ever. Your goal is eight. It is always eight.

I can’t emphasize this enough. Because it’s not enough to simply forget your larger goal. You must actively banish it completely from your mind. It’s just not your goal, because your goal is to lose just eight pounds. Eight Eight Eight Eight Eight. Lose 8 pounds and then reevaluate. Chant it with me now “Eight Eight! Eight Eight! Eight and reevaluate!”

So – What is your sole mission on this earth?

To lose 8 pounds. And not starting tomorrow, not starting on Monday, starting right now. If you want to lose weight, then you start RIGHT NOW – the second you read this paragraph.

Your goal is now to lose 8 pounds. As quickly as you can, but in a healthy way.

What’s Next?

Once you lose eight pounds you have two rules:
1. You are PROHIBITED from losing more for a minimum of 1 or 2 weeks; and
2. You are PROHIBITED from gaining any weight back during this time. You hear me?

Not an an ounce. You are spending a minimum of one or two weeks maintaining your new sexy self. But it’s even better if you spend more time maintaining. You can maintain your 8 pound loss for a month or more if you want.

Why? Because you reached your goal. And now you can let your body and mind rest as for as long as you need.

A Note on Natural Fluctuations During the Maintenance Period

And now, excuse me as I contradict myself. Of course, natural fluctuations in weight happen – and for some women more than others.

And if you go from a strict eating regimen to a less strict regimen, you’ll probably gain some weight from water and glycogen.

Be reasonable, and be kind to yourself. But be mindful. You’ll know if you’re gaining ‘actual’ weight. Just try not to do it, but also not to lose. Because your body thinks it’s starving to death, and it wants a little break.

Re-evaluate

Maintenance period over.

Congrats. You lost eight pounds, and you’ve maintained it. Or maybe you gained a pound or two back.

No big deal. It’s been one or two weeks, but maybe you want to maintain for longer.

Because what’s your new goal? You guessed it. Aim for 8. You can do it the same way you did the first 8, or maybe try something completely new. Who cares? Just do it.

Wait, hold on. I’m confused. How much weight am I trying to lose?

Imagine a friend is curious about your diet. She asks you what your goal is. Do you say “Oh, well I just lost 8 pounds, and now I’d like to lose 20 more? ”

Hell no!

You say “Yep – I’m just trying to lose 8 pounds” And every time you lose 8, you win. Re-set. Game over.

What’s going to happen when you lose 8 pounds?

The first eight: You’re going to feel great. You’re going to feel as bright as the sun. You might go down one size. You’ll realize, “hey – it’s not so hard.” I could do this 3 more times.

The second eight: This is when you begin to feel like a new person. You’ve probably gone down one or two dress sizes.

Do this three times, and you’re down by 24 pounds. You won’t even realize how it happened so quickly.

Meanwhile, you’ll be establishing great habits. You won’t be stressing yourself. You won’t be setting insane expectations, and you won’t be simultaneously starving and working out at the gym. Instead, you’ll be giving your body what it wants and needs, because you’re only trying to lose a few pounds at most.

So aim for 8. I don’t care if you’re 20 pounds overweight, or 100 pounds overweight. Write it down today in lipstick on your bathroom mirror.

And when you reach that goal, you can re-evaluate.

Start today! Don’t wait until Monday! You can do it!!!

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How to be a Hippie and also a Skeptic

Funny hippie man holding a love heart and pointing up.

Is Detoxifying Real?

I am a skeptic. So I understand why words like “toxin” and “liver” sound made-up and stupid.

But I’m also a hippie. So at least once a week, you can find me in a meditative trance, removing “toxins” from my “liver” by way of complete abstention from food. That’s right, I fast weekly. Fuck. You.

I Don’t Know What Toxins Are

What the hell are toxins? Where do they live?

I don’t like magical terminology because I love science. And in the name of science, I truly abhor catch-all words (like toxins). But that doesn’t mean that toxins aren’t real. In fact, I’m beginning to strongly suspect that livers might be real too.

Toxins may include, but are not limited to –> pesticides, traces of antibiotics, chlorine (from your drinking water), MSG, BPA, preservatives, pollutants from various plastics and emissions. Dear god, even glucose is toxic to your blood (why do you think your body is so good at clearing it?).

Some of these toxins live in your fat. When you lose weight, they are released into your blood. These are called “fat soluble.” Yikes.

Some toxins are stored in other places, like your left eye, or your right eye. Maybe this explains why you can’t look at your mother straight.

Some of the above listed compounds might not even be toxic. Who knows? But some probably are. And some might not be toxic to you, per se. They simply destroy your microbiome and cause your ass to leak blood at the most inconvenient times (a phenomenon we fitness bloggers refer to as “anal menstruation.”)

It drives me crazy when people dismiss detoxifying as pseudo-science.

I apologize, on behalf of the hippies, for failing to effectively articulate their filthy-hippie points of view. Maybe they’re too busy chanting at a crystal.

But despite never showering, the hippies might be onto something. And the hippie within me feels it intuitively.

Your so-called “liver”

Your body detoxifies constantly. Through sweat, through breath – even through your incontinent bladder. Your body is a homeostasis MACHINE. And it cannot LIVE without constantly detoxifying. How can you not respect its amazing homeostatic powers?

This alleged “liver” of yours supposedly plays a role. Sure, whatever. Maybe Unicorns play a role too.

Imaginary or not, I don’t think that your so called “liver” is helped by a bed of rose petals, cayenne pepper, maple syrup, or whatever stupid thing you probably believe in. Namely, because all of those things are moronic.

…But perhaps, just perhaps, we should at least consider the possibility that this mythical organ might be helped by a short break from the never ending onslaught of FOOD FOOD FOOD and chemicals that you’ve stuffed down your gullet every 3-5 hours (as recommended by ‘professionals’) for the past 38 years of your life.

Fasting and/or Just Not Taking in Toxins

Fasting is both ancient and new. Short fasts have shown health promise in so many ways. When there are problems with blood work, fasts often improve those problems.

I’m not going to cite specific studies here, because it’s so much easier to just make my claims without any support at all. But if you’d like to learn more – here are some great books that I love: “The Fast Diet” by Dr. Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer and “Grain Brain” by Dr. Perlmutter. Dr. Joel Fuhrman also has great book on this topic, but it’s slightly dated.

If you don’t want to fast, you can detoxify in other ways. And in fact – fasting alone will never be enough.

You can simply reduce the amount of toxins you take in. And that’s real. Here is a story about a family who went fully organic for just two weeks. The amount of pesticides in their blood plummeted. We still don’t know what effects, if any, this has on health. But I suspect that chemicals often have consequences. Why wouldn’t they?

Detoxifying Could Simply Mean Not Eating Weird Chemicals

You don’t have to be a hippie to simply not eat weird chemicals.

Just try not to eat them, or at least to eat less of them. Chemicals go to the places where you put them. Why wouldn’t they? And even if your body is fantastic at getting rid of them, you don’t have to make it work so hard.

And while it is probably true that your liver is nothing but a myth perpetuated by the media, that doesn’t make it infallible. Everything degrades over time, even things that were invented in the cold sterile boardroom of some heartless corporation trying to sell you liver pills.

For more information on how you can avoid weird chemicals in your produce, check out EWG’s Clean Fifteen and Dirty Dozen lists. These lists tell you which fruits and veggies are most likely (and least likely) to be contaminated with pesticides.

It’s nice to create a nice environment for the things you love, and it’s nice not to take chances with your hot body. Treat your so-called liver with respect, and your so-called liver just might thank you by not killing you.

Peace. Love. Detox.

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