· INTRODUCTION ·
SO, YOU WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT…
SO. YOU WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT.
That’s not even a question—it’s pretty much a given these days. There is the assumption that if you don’t have a freaking thigh gap, then you should want one. And you are kiiiiiind of lazy if you aren’t working on it.
Don’t get me wrong. As a society we are kind of lazy. We move too little. We eat too much crap. There are rising rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes in children, fer fuck’s sake. But somewhere in between—
I can’t see my feet/an entire season of Game of Thrones is my idea of a marathon/yes please I would like that super-sized.
And
Washboard abs/ultramarathon running/eating an entire banana is my idea of a wild night
—there is a lot of room for being normal. Which is totally healthy.
So just pause for a second and think: What if you decided that you didn’t have to lose weight after all?
I know. It’s crazy. Just stay with me here.
I know you want to be healthy. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have picked up this book. (And if you are seriously out of shape, uncomfortable, facing health issues, and your habits are such that you barely managed to take your hand out of the KFC bucket to open this book, then I am so excited to help you change all that. No judgment. I got you, girl.) But what if you are more in the muffin-top category? The “I’ve been trying to lose the last ten pounds for the last ten years” category? The truth is that your belly fat is probably totally normal. And healthy. (If you want to double-check, I’ve got a quick assessment at www.fitfeelsgood.com/book.)
I’m guessing you don’t like the way it looks. That’s totally fair. (And in the next chapter, I’ll go on to explain why there is nothing shallow or unfeminist about wanting to get fit just because you think it looks hot.) But before you decide to change your habits in the name of hotness (as you will learn to do in this book), it’s worth considering that the body ideal you are striving for is probably just a fashion trend that is exaggerated by highly processed and Photoshopped images. Fashions change and so does the ideal body. Imagine if people had subjected themselves to shoulder implants to conform to the shoulder pad rage of the 1980s. Trying to attain a certain look that happens to be popular right now might not be worth the pain in the ass—or the abs. Even if the coveted thigh gap (or whatever is the latest thing) could be realistically achieved, it’s totally possible that a different body type will soon be in favor.
Even in my tender young lifetime (cough forty-two years cough), body trends have varied wildly. I can remember times when Kim Kardashian’s bum would have been an embarrassment. I clearly remember distinct periods of wanting to look:
By the time we all manage to “break the internet” with champagne glasses balanced on our prominent Kardashian butts, the pendulum will swing back toward Twiggy again and we’ll all start freaking out about having defined collarbones or something and be incredulous that we ever worried about our butts at all.
The truth is that body trends are as transient and fickle as the butterfly collar or the overplucked eyebrows of the ’90s that we all deeply regret. There’s nothing wrong with following trends or wanting to look a certain way—I still freaking love that Linda Hamilton look—but you’ve got to make sure it’s worth it before you drag yourself through another “Let’s get fit now, seriously this time” effort.
Look down at your body right now. Seriously—do it. (Extra credit: Try to do it with love and no judgment.) These are the simple facts: the body you are looking at right now is the result of:
It’s as simple as that.
You can’t choose your genetics (obvi). But you can absolutely choose your habits and therefore change your body. Which is what this book is about. And in consciously choosing and creating your habits (rather than defaulting to your norm) you are consciously choosing the body that is right for you. It might not be the body that society thinks you should have. It might not be the body that you had once for about fifteen minutes at the peak of doing some completely unsustainable diet. It will be the body that is the result of your genetics and your chosen habits that you can cultivate and sustain for life. The habits that actually make you feel good.
Because here’s the deal: It’s not that hard for most people to move from having an unhealthy amount of body fat to having a healthy body composition. But it might be a serious pain in the ass to go from a normal amount of fat to being super “cut,” depending on your genetics. The great news is that you get to choose. Not society or fashion trends. In fact, you must choose. Or you will be fucking miserable.
Let me give you an example. My awesome and hilarious friend, Beth, was obese for most of her life. Her parents were big, and she grew up in a household with unhealthy habits—lots of TV and most dinners were takeout or frozen microwave meals. In her twenties, she decided to stop drinking Coke all day and start walking to school and back. In doing so, she dropped a lot of weight, and although she was still chubby, she could shop at “normal” clothes stores, and she felt much better. She got so many compliments, and she was really happy with her success.
Beth was easily able to maintain her new habits, and her weight normalized at her new set point. After a while, everyone got used to her new weight and stopped mentioning it. Beth noticed that the compliments had dried up and worried if she still looked good. She decided to kick it up a notch, and she went on a strict low-carb diet (even picking the croutons out of her salad). In doing so, the compliments returned, and Beth was able to get down to a weight that she had never dreamed of. She did it. She was one of the “skinny girls.”
But.
She was also kind of fucking miserable. She had to really plan out her food before going anywhere, and it was a pain in the ass. She had gone from being the “fun, outgoing one, who was up for anything” to the one who never accepted a bite of your dessert and anxiously asked the waiter whether there was any sugar in the glaze on the salmon filet. In short—she was at her dream weight. But she found it fucking HARD.
Here is an example of an effort-to-results graph for Beth:
So, I’m guessing you know what happened next. Beth couldn’t sustain her extreme low-carb diet and she reverted back to what was a more natural set point for her: no Coke, daily walking, dessert occasionally, eating the shit out of the croutons on the salad. And, given her genetics, this meant she was no longer “one of the skinny girls.”
And I wish I could report that Beth made this choice consciously and is totally at peace with it, but instead, she’s like most women in modern society. She starts every week weighing herself and feeling like a failure because she’s not at that goal weight she was once. She tells herself, “That’s it! No more croutons! No more dessert—you can have flavored soda water. It’s time to get back to being one of the skinny girls. For real this time.” She gives it a shot for a day or two and of course, it proves to be too hard to sustain for long. And so the cycle continues.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Let me tell you another story as a comparison. It’s mine. As I’ve mentioned, I was always a bit chubby. Genetically, I’m lucky—my parents are both lean—but I grew up with the carby convenience habits of a lot of kids in the ’70s and ’80s: cereal for breakfast, bagel for lunch, pasta for dinner. I was also extremely physically awkward and would have preferred to die than be caught playing sports or, like, “trying” at something. By the time I’d reached my twenties, I had slowly gained enough weight that when I’d go clothes shopping, I’d always reach for the very back of the rack and hope there was something big enough to fit me, even though I’m only five foot four.
I tried everything to lose my belly fat, and I rode that weight-loss roller coaster like I had a season’s pass and I wanted to get my money’s worth. Eventually I developed one of the 7 Habits of Highly Healthy Motherfuckers that you are about to learn: exercising consistently. In doing so, I got quite a bit fitter, and I was reaching toward the middle of the rack when I went clothes shopping. Maybe sporting a muscle or two. But when I nailed down my nutrition (again, using the habits you are about to learn), that’s when my body really started to change. I’d go into a clothing store and the saleswoman would hand me a pair of jeans to try on and I’d look at her incredulously, thinking she’d mistaken me for a twelve-year-old.
And I know that sounds like a happy ending, but, like Beth, I found this “peak skinny” hard to maintain. It required that I measure all my food and avoid any alcohol. Drink my coffee black. I was doing it, but the austerity didn’t quite match my sense of who I was.
So I decided to consciously choose a different spot on my graph.
Did you catch that? I made a choice. I didn’t “fall off the wagon”; I consciously decided that fitting into the tiny teenager jeans wasn’t worth the effort. This is where I think my story deviates from Beth’s and from so many other women, who are constantly beating themselves up in the quest for perfection. Instead of relentlessly striving for peak skinny and berating myself for not adhering 100 percent to the strict rules that made it possible, I have decided to love the body that I have when I’m eating well 80 percent of the time. Because that feels like a reasonable effort to me. You might like more freedom than me and want to put less effort into your healthy lifestyle. Or maybe you are happy to be totally hard-core and eat well 90 percent of the time.
The point is to choose your effort consciously—and then your only job is just to be happy with the results. I never look down at my belly (and yes, I have a belly) and think, “Dammit! Why did I screw up at that restaurant when I was out with my friends and have drinks and appetizers?!”
Instead, I look down at my belly and think, This is the belly I get when I choose to eat well 80 percent of the time. I chose this belly. I could choose to have a six-pack, but that would mean that I would track every calorie and never have a glass of wine. I already know that is not the right choice for me. It makes me less happy. I also know that if I were to eat healthy only 50 percent of the time, my belly would get bigger and I’d feel sluggish and that would make me unhappy. THIS is exactly the belly I have chosen. Now I get to love it.
The problem, I think, is that most women operate like Beth. Constantly striving for a body that doesn’t match the effort that they can give sustainably. And they are constantly beating themselves up about it—rather than just letting that “ideal weight” idea go fuck itself.
So, what if:
Would you still want to lose weight?
What if…as of this moment…you were no longer hoping to lose a couple of pounds? (I know it’s crazy, but stay with me here.)
What kind of space would that free up in your life?
I’m not trying to dissuade you from wanting to lose weight. On the contrary—my transformation from a chubby, inactive person to someone of above-average fitness who freaking can’t wait for bathing suit season has been one of the most rewarding journeys of my life. The ripple effect into every area of my life has been incredible. I’m so excited to share it with you so that you can recreate a life-changing transformation in your own life.
But I want you to start this transformation understanding that YOU get to decide on the body you want. And it may be the body you currently have. Or, it may be that you will choose a body with six-pack abs.
Either way, your journey to loving the shit out of your body starts now.