· CHAPTER 2 ·

FIND THE FUCKS

I’VE GOT GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS.

The good news: getting lean and healthy and staying that way for life is actually pretty simple. The bad news: if you want different results than you’re getting now, you’re going to have to do something different.

You would think that’s a big “Um…duh.” But, let me tell you, if there’s one thing that people hate, it’s changing their behavior. I mean, a lot of people will tell you that they are an easygoing, go-with-the-flow type person, until you ask them to go with a different flow than the one they are used to.

Take the hundreds of people who pay good money for my online transformation program. Usually they will have heard about the program from a friend who got great results, or maybe they read some review online. In the beginning, they are so excited to get lean and healthy once and for all that they’re practically doing jumping jacks in front of their computer. They slap down the investment, thinking this time it’s going to be different.

Then they get their grocery lists and menu. They show up in the Facebook group asking if it’s okay to adjust the program to accommodate their current habits. “Can I still have toast with peanut butter every morning? Because I really love my toast with peanut butter.”

At this point I have to gently ask if their current habits are giving them the results that they want. The disturbingly obvious answer is no. Which totally sucks for them. Because most people are pretty attached to what they are currently doing. To admit that what they are currently doing doesn’t work would be to say that they had wasted all that time and effort. It would be like admitting you just spent the past ten years digging for gold and then learning that there was never any gold in them thar hills. You had been given the wrong map. Usually, by the time they get to me, they have been digging for a long time.

Imagine you run half marathons and do yoga and eat a low-carb diet. You’ve been doing that for so long now that it’s part of your identity as a fit person. But the truth is that you aren’t seeing the fat loss results you want. What’s your natural, totally understandable response? You run more and do more yoga and start eating beef jerky for breakfast and try to kick-start some results around here. But you get more frustrated because you’re noticing diminishing returns from all those efforts. The routine that used to work well isn’t delivering the same results, and you are busting your ass just to maintain your fitness, and nothing is improving no matter how hard you try. You start to think: How much more diligent must I be? How much harder must I work? Is something wrong with my thyroid? Why does God hate me?

The truth is that when it comes to weight loss, most people are executing Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results. Is it any wonder that so many people feel batshit crazy when it comes to weight loss?

I know you might be working hard already and putting in a solid effort. You might already be logging your hours on the treadmill and ordering the salad dressing on the side and Googling sugar-free, grain-free muffin recipes. But if you aren’t getting the results you want, I’ll say that that effort is good for only one reason—it satisfies a puritanical work ethic of being industrious and busy. I’m going to argue that you are actually letting yourself off with “easy effort.”

What do I mean by easy effort?

It’s a concept that’s made the rounds in personal development circles, but I heard it from John Berardi of Precision Nutrition. Easy effort is hard work that feels familiar. Kind of like putting in time at a job you hate. Or playing the martyr in your family by doing all the housework. Putting up with bullshit in your marriage in order to avoid having a confrontation. Taking another online course on how to be a life coach instead of just putting yourself out there and doing it. Running three miles a day because it’s what you’ve always done. All that shit is hard work, but it’s the devil you know. It doesn’t require a lot of mental effort. It also requires nothing new from you. It allows you to feel busy but ultimately will never really change anything.

Real effort frightens the bejesus out of you. Easy effort is just a slog you have to get through.

Real effort demands improvement. Easy effort lets you stay basically the same.

Real effort accomplishes something meaningful. Easy effort lets you tick a box on a to-do list.

Change happens when you drop all that distracting busywork and actually try something new. You know, the stuff you’ve been avoiding because it’s too intense? The stuff you probably suck at because you haven’t put the required practice time in yet? The stuff you can’t manage while you’re in autopilot mode so you make yourself too busy so you have a good excuse not to try it? Yeah, that stuff. That’s the stuff that would put you on a whole new trajectory.

That’s what I’m talking about.

I’m going to ask you to suspend all your “rules of healthy living” that you may have accumulated through years of various diets. It may feel uncomfortable or even scary AF. Instead, we’re going to get back to basics and create healthy habits that will last for life.

The act of building new habits and skills will require some effort. You’re going to have to use your brain when you don’t want to. You’ll have to unplug from autopilot. You’ll need to surrender to being sucky at new skills for a little bit. You may have to deal with a little grumping from the people around you who liked things the way they were. But if you want to change your body, you have to do something different. And yes—doing something different can feel hard. But the good news is this: those healthy habits are eventually going to be effortless. (I’ll tell you how soon, so chill.)

Think of anytime you learned a new skill and what a pain in the ass it was when you first started. Think back to that first week at your current job. The new procedures, the names you had to remember, the skills you had to develop. It probably felt a little overwhelming. While I was trying to get my acting career off the ground, I worked briefly as a travel agent. And at the end of those early days at my travel agency I felt like my head was going to explode trying to learn all the computer codes to pull up the fares for the various airlines and then add on our commission and taxes, etc., etc. I’d flop onto my couch at the end of the day with a shaking hand holding a glass of pinot grigio and sob into the phone to my best friend, “I can’t do it! I swear to god, travel agents are the smartest people in the world.”

While I still hold the utmost respect for the intelligence of travel consultants, I will say that I eventually got the hang of it and it didn’t seem like that big a deal. I could quote fares while doodling on a piece of paper and wondering what was going to happen on Ally McBeal that night.

The same thing will happen with your Healthy as Fuck journey. At the beginning, it’s going to feel like a lot of work. Your first BBQ without beer might feel like agony. Your first day without five cups of coffee might feel like moving through ectoplasm. The first time you don’t “help” your child finish her ice cream cone might feel like everything is wrong in the world. But you can do it. And after a while it will become absolutely effortless. And just because it’s effortless doesn’t mean bullshit easy effort. I’m talking about foundational skills that deliver continuous results. But you’ll only get there if you want the results badly enough.

You know who the real badasses are when it comes to pushing through the really hard stuff? Who don’t fuck around with bullshit effort but constantly make the kind of effort that’s actually worth a damn? Little kids.

The other day I was watching my six-year-old son at skating lessons. He would glide a few feet before his feet slipped out from underneath him, sending him sprawling onto the ice with zero dignity intact. With minimal drama, he got back up and did it again. And again. And this was the effort-cherry on top of a day at school where he struggled and stammered through every word as he learned how to read. That’s working hard for real.

When was the last time you pushed yourself through that level of pain in the ass in order to build a new skill? Because most of us adults will give a little effort and then give up, saying that we “don’t have the time right now” or “life is too crazy.” It’s usually crazy with busywork. It’s up to you to clear space and energy for the important shit.

It’s understandable: Humans are like any other living organism. We seek pleasure and avoid pain. Which is why every now and then I’ll have a client who says, “I want to lose weight, but I just can’t stop eating cheese and drinking wine every night!” I’ll respond, “If that’s the case, then you don’t really want to lose weight.”

I’m not saying that to be a total bitch. I’m just pointing out that she clearly associates more pleasure with cheese and wine than getting in shape. The problem is, she thinks that she wants to lose weight. But in the moment, she feels like wine and cheese. And guess what? Your feels are going to win over your brain. Every time.

Did I just tell your life story? Don’t freak out. Girl, I got you. We are breaking that cycle now. And remember—I told you that I currently eat healthy about 80 percent of the time. This isn’t about forbidding wine and treats for the rest of your life. I don’t want to live that way, and I’m guessing you don’t want to either. This is about creating automatic healthy habits that allow for those exceptions with minimal impact. When you have automatic daily habits that serve your goals, you can also have a habit of a small Friday-night indulgence and still have a body that is getting fitter. But if you can’t seem to get those consistent daily habits off the ground and you are stuck in a pattern where you just can’t execute the behaviors that you know you should, I guarantee it’s because you associate more pain with changing your current habits than the pleasures of what is on the other side of that change.

That’s why I’m not just shoving a bunch of workouts and recipes at you. This is where we collect all the Fs—all the fucks and all the feels—that are going to drive you forward, over the hump of changing your current behavior so you can create healthy habits for life.

This is where we find your why. Because if you’re going to choose unsexy delayed gratification over the ever-so-alluring immediate variety, we’re going to have to switch a few things up. We’re going to have to create some strong new associations.

Ready? As we move through the next section I want you to actually stop reading, close your eyes, and really reflect on this stuff. Even better if you write this stuff down. If you aren’t a “Dear Diary” kind of person, I get that you might feel like a doofus, but let me tell you something—it’s a lot more doofus-y to spend your whole life wondering why you can’t make lasting behavioral change. When you take a moment to close your eyes, feel this shit, and actually write it down, you get mad props for real effort, rather than the easy effort of skimming the page.

First, I want you to connect with the pain of your current situation. WARNING: THIS WILL SUCK. That’s the point. I want you to go there and inject all the feeling you can into it. You know all those feelings and insecurities that you drown in food and booze and distraction and fake news? Yeah. We are going to feel those now. Put on your big-girl panties.

Write down what will happen if things stay exactly the same as they are right now, if you continue on your current trajectory. For example:

If nothing changes, I’m going to continue to get heavier every year. I will spend the rest of my life feeling uncomfortable every time I sit down because my waistband is cutting into my belly. I will always feel a little out of breath. I will always worry that my kids and my spouse are embarrassed to introduce me to their friends. I will spend every summer feeling sweaty and uncomfortable because I don’t want to wear shorts and a tank top. I will start to get health issues that will seriously impact my enjoyment of life and worry my family. I will never have the energy to do the things that I want to do.

Do you feel seriously yucky yet?

If not, go back and re-do it. Remember—you will naturally avoid pain and move toward pleasure. We need you to feel the pain of your current situation, or you won’t have enough fucks to fix it. Write that shit down in a rainbow diary with a lock if you need to, but do the work.

Now I want you to close your eyes again and take yourself to pleasure island.

You know the hopes and dreams that you don’t allow yourself to really connect to because you’ve tried losing weight so many times that you can’t bear to get your hopes up again and it’s easier to believe there is just something incurably wrong with your adrenals or your big bones or your genetics? GO THERE. What will life be like if you nail this thing? What would be so freaking awesome about having exactly the body and energy that you want? What if you were actually the hottest person you know? What would you do with the extra brain space if you never thought about losing weight again? What would you do? What would you wear? How would you feel? For example:

If I had the body and health of my dreams, my entire life would be fucking amazing. I would wear such awesome outfits and I would feel proud about the way I look. I’d walk out of the house thinking, I hope I run into ALL my exes at the grocery store today. I would be that fun mom who has the energy to run around laughing and playing with the kids and I could just let loose with them and I wouldn’t feel like a fool or out of breath. They would love it so much if I actually climbed on the playground equipment and chased after them. I’d have so much more energy to get shit done that I’d basically be superwoman checking shit off my to-do list like no one’s business. Garage organized? Book club started? Cat taken to the vet? Check, check, and check, bitches. I could stop being tired all the time and be in a much better mood for my family. We’d fight so much less and actually enjoy each other’s company. And don’t even get me started on what it would do for my relationship if I started feeling sexier and initiating some midweek lovin’. I might even buy some undies that aren’t entirely practical and give my partner a heart attack. And then I’d strut into work with so much confidence (in my awesome outfit) that my boss would be like, “Wha? Who is this amazingly brilliant leader and why has she been hiding behind her computer all this time?” Basically—I’d be the person I was always meant to be. I could stop hiding my awesome.

You should keep writing until you feel like you are going to burst with excitement about your hot new bod and your new, amazing, healthy life. You should be mentally picking out bikinis with a big-old smile on your face. You should feel so pumped up about your vibrant health that you want to run out of your house and arm wrestle unsuspecting strangers just so they can feel your POWER. Your new goal should feel not only exciting but absolutely essential.

Keep going until you feel connected to your deepest sense of self and what’s important to you. Remember that the difference between going on a diet or trying something for a while and actually changing your life for real is changing your sense of identity. You need to distill your “why” down to the core of your new identity. You’ve got to OWN this shit.

I want you to finish the end of this sentence: “I am going to push through the initial discomfort of habit change and lose weight once and for all because I am the type of person who…”

For example:

…lives life to its fullest and there’s no way my physicality is going to get in the way of that.

…models healthy living for my kids and brings my best self to all my relationships.

…will not tolerate being sick, boring, and tired. I have one life to life, and I want it to be awesome.

Keep going until you feel like you are going to cry when you read your one sentence about the kind of person you really are and why you are going to lose the weight once and for all. This is your “why.” These are your Fs.

Now I want you to stay with that feeling. That feeling, that identity that you’ve just connected to—that’s the person who is going to skip the wine and cheese. That person doesn’t give a fuck what’s on Netflix at 11:00 p.m. because they have a workout to get to the next morning. That is the person who is going to push through and actually have the balls to make real change, who won’t get distracted or placate themselves with easy effort that is actually just avoidance of the real shit.

Once you’ve found your Fs, I want you to hold that vision and ignore everything else. I mean it. Don’t let any obstacle steal your attention. It’s all about that vision.

Now, I know this sounds like your standard goal-setting vision board shit. But let me tell you about how I saw this work in real life. It happened while I was pretending to die an excruciating death in theater school.

The acting exercise seemed simple: We were told to imagine that we were in a room—and we had to leave the room in absolute silence or we would die. It was up to us actors to come up with some imaginative circumstances around this premise, but the most important part was doing the emotional preparation for the scene. We had to imagine how we would die and really connect to what was at stake—the potential pain, the consequences of getting it wrong. (Ahem. Just as I’ve encouraged you to do just now.) In this case, you have to picture actors huddling in all corners of the room, listening to death sounds on their headphones for proper gruesome inspiration. People were looking at pictures of their family that they wouldn’t see again if they made a sound while trying to get out of the room. I burned a little pile of my own hair and smelled it to imagine my flesh burning. Like, we WENT there.

The next part of our emotional preparation was to focus on the objective: why we wanted to live. Which we sort of fuffed off a bit because, like, who doesn’t want to live. Duhhh. Also, we were theater students and it was much more dramatic to wallow in the hair burning, etc.

What happened was this: One by one, we all failed the exercise because we made a noise while trying to escape and therefore “died.” Sometimes the actor would scuff the carpet a bit, or their knee would crack as they stood up. But always, always, because the door to exit the room creaked. I mean the motherfucker CREAKED. There was no way around it. And every time, the prof would raise his eyebrow, shrug, and say, “You’re dead,” then mark a big, fat F next to our name in his notes.

Eventually we all started to get pissed and protested that the assignment was ridiculous. The fucking door CREAKED. There was no way to escape the room silently! It was physically impossible. To which my unsympathetic prof replied, “If you want to live, the door will not creak.” I thought he was a total dick.

Until someone passed the exercise.

I still remember it. Her name was Christine. She was calm from the very start. (Most of us were quivering wrecks by the time we had done our “emotional preparation” for the scene.) She had unwavering focus on the door. When she started to move, there was no question of her joints making a noise—she was floating across the room. Every movement was fluid, economical, and purposeful. She reached that fucking creaky-ass motherfucking door that had been our collective undoing for weeks (causing untold actor hissy fits) and put both her hands on it and slowly, confidently, opened it and escaped.

It was the most beautiful and fascinating thing I had ever seen. We were all gobsmacked.

“That,” my prof said with a steely gaze at the class, “is what happens when you truly want to live.”

Unlike the rest of us drama queens, Christine had spent less time mentally jerking off on grisly imaginations of her own death and instead got Absolutely Fucking Clear on why she was going to live.

And this is how you need to be about your new body and health. It’s happening. You are going to make it happen. You are going to be like my son who never asked to quit skating lessons even though he bailed on his face all the time. Because he’s a little boy growing up in Canada. Giving up on skating would be like giving up on walking. It’s just not an option. You are going to be like a little kid learning to read, no matter how frustrating it is to build that skill because reading is fucking rad and there’s no way you are going to grow up illiterate. That’s what it feels like when your objective is part of your identity, when it’s rooted in your deepest values.

Look, I know you skipped that exercise above when I told you to find your Fs. When I asked you to really go there and find that statement where you distill all those amazing feelings of why this life change is important to you down to one essential sentence about your identity. But I’m telling you that if you don’t find the Fs right now, this journey is going to be a short one. You are going to skip to part 2 and take a stab at “the diet,” and then two weeks later you are going to come down with a case of the Fuckits. And I suspect you’ve already tried that strategy.

I repeat: Weight loss is actually really simple. There’s actually a chance that you will have to do LESS in order to release the last ten pounds, twenty pounds, or whatever you are working on. But in order to get different results you are going to have to do something different.

Shifting your habits is going to challenge you. And I mean really challenge you—not just add more easy work that makes you feel like you’ve checked a box. If you are going to rise to meet that challenge, you are going to need a strong reason why. So if you didn’t do the exercise, I suggest you go back and do it now.

Once you are all fired up and so fucking clear on why you are going to live—I mean really live, in a body that feels amazing to you—let’s just skip to the good part and get you there immediately. Like, now.