· CHAPTER 5 ·
THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY HEALTHY MOTHERFUCKERS
I HAD A FRIEND WHO WORKED FOR THE FAST-FOOD CHAIN WENDY’S. SHE once told me a story about the person who came in and ordered a Baconator combo with chili cheese nachos, a vanilla Frosty…and a Diet Coke. We would giggle at the preposterousness of the last-ditch attempt at caloric restraint. Ridiculous, right?
But I wonder if this sounds more familiar: the person who goes to the latest trendy restaurant and is careful to send the bread basket away, order the grass-fed organic beef, and trade the potato for a salad with the dressing on the side…and then orders three artisanal cocktails—double shots in each with simple syrup and a maraschino cherry.
Don’t get me wrong—this makes a LOT of sense in a foodie, deliciousness kind of way. But not really from a health perspective. It would have been way healthier for that person to have the damn potato and skip the third cocktail.
People are more conscious and health focused than ever before. But they are focusing on the wrong things. And usually that’s because of the wellness news cycle churning out more breaking stories about health and fitness, keeping us distracted by the latest superfoods and bro-science instead of just living our lives and focusing on the basics.
Because the things you actually need to focus on are old news. Boring. Imagine trying to sell magazines with a big headline saying Vegetables! Still good for you after all these years!
Instead, it’s much more profitable to headline some breaking news about Ice cream is low on the glycemic index! (This is true, by the way—the protein and fat slow down the absorption of sugar.)
But investing your health efforts in the relatively low glycemic index of ice cream would be an example of focusing on the wrong thing.
Sure, there are a gazillion healthy habits that are worth cultivating. Taking a multivitamin probably isn’t a bad idea. Good posture never hurt anyone. Want to chew your food ninety-nine times before you swallow? Knock yourself out.
But keep in mind that we have a limited amount of fucks to give about this—so I say we distribute those fucks in the smartest way possible, and that is keystone habits.
In architecture, a keystone is defined as “a central stone at the summit of an arch, locking the whole together.”
In behavior, a keystone habit is one that sets off a snowball effect of other positive behaviors.
For example: I exercise first thing in the morning. I know that makes me a little bit hateable, and maybe you are one of the many who would rather gouge out their eyes with a fork than exercise first thing in the morning. But check out the ripple effect. When I exercise first thing in the morning:
So, it’s not that I’m fit because my workout burns all these calories. I’m fit because the workout sets off a chain reaction of healthy behaviors that add up to me being the insanely hot MILF you see on the inside cover of this book.
In focusing on keystone habits, I’m applying the 80/20 rule—also known as the Pareto Principle. The Pareto Principle states that we get 80 percent of our results from 20 percent of our effort. For example, in business, 80 percent of sales will usually come from 20 percent of the clients. In baseball, it was observed that 80 percent of the wins came from the top 20 percent of the players.
In health and fitness, 80 percent of your results are going to come from 20 percent of your efforts. The trick is to figure out what is the 20 percent effort that is actually delivering results, and then just do more of that.
I call them the 7 Keystone Habits of Highly Healthy Motherfuckers.
HABIT #1: FILL HALF OF EVERY PLATE WITH VEGETABLES
Want a new diet that actually works?
Fill half of every plate with vegetables. That’s it. That is your new nutrition plan. You can stop stressing about carbs and fat and protein and gluten and turmeric and whatever. Instead, aim for about seven servings of vegetables a day and watch your belly shrink, your moods regulate, and your health improve. Not only will you get hella hot and feel like a sexy MOFO, you’ll add years onto your life just by filling half of every plate with vegetables.
I know it sounds too simple, but it’s actually a huge shift from the way most people eat, even if they think they already eat very healthy. Research shows that only 9 percent of Americans are eating the amount of vegetables recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
It’s not at all uncommon for me to have a client who claims to have a great diet, and when I look at their food journal it looks like this:
Breakfast: Whole grain granola and plain Greek yogurt with a banana
Lunch: Chicken and avocado on a gluten-free wrap
Snack: “Clean” protein bar
Dinner: Salmon with quinoa pilaf and side of asparagus
Now, I don’t want to shit all over this menu, because it’s not like this person is snorting lines of trans fats and pouring vodka over their Cheerios. They are clearly making an effort—and I’m assuming if you are reading a book like this, then you are clearly making an effort. I’m just saying that if you want to focus on the 20 percent effort that delivers 80 percent results, then you should shift that effort to focus on VEGETABLES.
The menu outlined above (which contains only one serving of vegetables…two, if there were a tomato thrown into that wrap) is what I often see from my clients who have been trying to offload the last few pounds for the better half of their lives. When they switch to a more vegetable-centered approach, then the weight falls off and they feel so much better.
Here’s an example of the focus shift I’m suggesting.
When you stand in front of the fridge to plan a meal, you probably start with the protein, right? “Okay, so we’ll have some chicken…and then on the side we’ll have some rice…and I should probably use up that cauliflower.”
Or maybe you are a plant-based eater and you start with the starch: “We’ll have buckwheat soba noodles, and then on top we’ll throw some peppers and onions.”
Here’s what I want. When you open your fridge, you should hear the song “Welcome to the Jungle” in your head because there are so many freaking plants in there. Then, when you are mentally constructing your meal, the first thought that goes through your head should be something like Now, which vegetables will I fill half my plate with?
To get you all fired up about getting your veggies in, consider this:
Unless the diet is just totally stupid (like the Cotton-Ball Diet, where you soak cotton balls in liquid and eat them to make yourself full—this seriously happened; don’t freaking try it, obvi), every diet trend has basically been a variation of (1) eat more vegetables, but also (2) DO THIS BRAND-NEW THING. Diet books are sold on the supposed revolutionary new findings about macronutrient distribution or superfoods, but open any of them and the real “secret” is replacing a lot of processed crap with a lot of green.
Vegetables are little phytochemical bombs of awesomeness. Phytochemicals are what gives the food it’s color (that’s why you are always being told to eat a rainbow), and they are powerful antioxidant agents. Research suggests that phytochemicals help prevent cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and age-related mental decline. Seriously—if you could get a patent on a pill that was as powerful as just eating plants, you’d be hella rich.
Vegetables are packed with vitamins and minerals. Vitamins and minerals are organic compounds that your body needs to function normally, and you need to get them from food. If you aren’t getting the vitamins and minerals you need, then not only do you risk chronic health conditions, you will look and feel like total shit.
Oh? But you don’t like vegetables? Do you like energy, a hot bod, and living a long time? Then I suggest you get into vegetables. That’s what I advised this guy who hired me to help him drop some weight and maximize his sports performance, but warned me, “Just to let you know, I don’t like vegetables, so you’ve got your work cut out for you, Duncan.”
To which I replied, “Actually, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Because you are about to completely change your life by eating a lot of vegetables.”
My point here is that you are an adult, and you are responsible for your own choices. Eat what you want, but if you are reading this to get healthy and hot, you are going to be eating a shit ton of vegetables—and they don’t have to taste like mushy, chlorophyll-plant-matter punishment. Vegetables can be as delicious as Brad Pitt’s debut in Thelma and Louise. If you don’t believe me, go to my site (www.fitfeelsgood.com/book) and grab some of my free recipes, and you’ll see why that dude was eating his words (and his kale) in twenty-eight days and thanking me.
But what about protein?
A recent study shows that 60 percent of Americans are now actively trying to increase their protein consumption. This is total bonkerstown. Repeat after me: “I really don’t need more protein.” In Canada and the United States, the average person is consuming nearly twice as much protein as recommended. Another way to say that is that the average person is consuming WAY too many calories in excess protein.
And yes, you can gain weight from protein. Because protein has been marketed as a health food, people have this idea that it’s “free”—that they can consume as much of it as they want without gaining weight. This is also a tenet of the keto/paleo movement and part of what makes it so popular. It’s absolutely insane. Protein has four calories per gram. Carbohydrates also have four calories per gram. If you are overconsuming protein (and, according to the WHO, you probably are—by a lot), then that is a just a lot of calories you don’t need. A generation of people have been sold on the idea that carbs make you fat, and protein makes you lean. This is a lie. Excess calories make you fat. A caloric deficit makes you lean. A gram of protein and a gram of carbohydrate have the same number of calories. Overeating any kind of food will make you gain weight. More on that later.
Nonetheless, the marketing of more protein = healthier is probably one of the most successful food fads of our time. A 2014 market research report showed that consumers will spend more money on their food if the word protein is emphasized. A perfect example of the health-washing of protein is the Cantina Power Menu at Taco Bell, which boasts double the meat for “twenty grams of protein!” The company president is quoted as saying, “People are looking for food that gives them energy.”
This shows that people are completely confused about what protein actually does. Protein doesn’t give you energy. Carbohydrates give you energy. Protein’s job is to build and repair muscles and tissues. When you work out, you put stress on your muscles and create little microtears. Protein’s job is to help your body to repair that muscle and make it bigger and stronger—WHEN YOU WORK OUT. You can’t just sit in your car scarfing protein bars and think that you are building muscle. What you are doing is consuming excess calories and gaining weight. Stop it. Swap your protein bar for carrot and celery sticks, and if you want to build muscle, then, um, use your muscles (more on that coming up).
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not starting a new “evil macronutrient” campaign here by saying that we should avoid all protein (although damn, dude—if I were successful with starting a new anti-protein diet trend, I could make a trillion dollars with new food products with big, healthy-looking seals promising that this Twinkie is “Protein-Free!”). I’m just pointing out that most people are way overconsuming protein and way underconsuming vegetables. Reversing that trend and consuming everything in appropriate portions (specifics comin’ up) will make you a hell of a lot leaner and healthier.
Here’s a sample day’s menu in which half of every meal is vegetables. This meets the seven servings of vegetables and three servings of fruit recommended by a recent meta-analysis done by Imperial College London.
Breakfast: Carrot-cake smoothie: banana, some oats, a big-ass handful of spinach, a carrot or two, a couple of walnuts, some dates to sweeten it, and a splash of almond milk to lube it all up. Maybe chuck in some cinnamon and vanilla if they happen to be within reach.
Lunch: Lentil vegetable soup, and apple for dessert
Snack: Celery with almond butter
Dinner: Zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and tofu tossed in sundried-tomato pesto with long-grain brown rice and a bowl of berries for dessert
By the way, this menu provides 62 grams of plant-based protein—more than enough for an active, medium-sized woman in her forties. According to the World Health Organization, 0.83 grams of protein per kilo of body weight is sufficient for 97.5 percent of the population. And it’s totally possible (in fact—better) to meet all your protein needs by eating plants. But seriously, before you bust out your calculator and start tracking your food to figure out your grams, let me just tell you: Protein is almost definitely not a problem for you. Even if you go to the gym. Even if you are vegan. Fussing about calculating your protein grams would be an example of busywork, the kind of easy effort that wastes time and distracts people from actually making real change in their bodies. It’s really way less complicated than the fitness marketing cycle would have you think.
If you do love numbers and research, ditch the protein-obsessed bro-science and look at the largest and most comprehensive study on human nutrition ever done: the China Study.
Called the “Grand Prix of epidemiology” by the New York Times, the China Study was a partnership between Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. It collated massive amounts of data collected over a span of twenty years. Here’s what they figured out: “People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest.”
They recommend going straight up vegan (which is what I did as soon as I learned this information), but even if that’s not your jam, T. Colin Campbell, called the Einstein of Nutrition, recommends putting as many plants on your plate as possible to avoid disease and get to a healthy body weight.
Which is why I say you start with filling half of every plate with veggies as your new #1 Keystone Habit. If you make that one change, you can ditch all the rest of your complicated food rules and get on with your life.
Your long (lean) and healthy life.
Now, even if you aren’t salivating at the thought of more cauliflower, I know this next keystone habit will get you excited…
HABIT #2: GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP
It’s not exactly breaking news that you are totally screwed without a good sleep—and the world is finally catching on. Sheryl Sandberg of Lean In fame rocked the business world by recommending that executives prioritize sleep over working more. The Dalai Lama claims that sleep is the best meditation there is. Actor Mindy Kaling is quoted as saying, “There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it.” When I mention to my clients that we are going to be focusing on sleep as much as burpees, they almost weep with relief. And here’s why—since 1960, chronic sleep deprivation has increased dramatically in North America. If you are regularly getting less than seven hours of sleep a night, you are in that bleary-eyed club. And don’t even go telling me that you are perfectly fine on five hours. Science says you are kidding yourself—just like the tipsy guy who thinks he is totally fine to drive.
Everyone needs at least seven hours of sleep a night in order to function optimally. You also need those forty winks if you are going to lose your belly. Here are four reasons why.
Lack of sleep produces cortisol.
When you are sleep deprived, your body assumes that you aren’t sleeping because you must be in some kind of crisis. And when in crisis, the body creates a hormone called cortisol to help you get through it. It’s the fight-or-flight hormone that helped keep our ancestors alive during times of stress—when stress meant we had to flee from a saber-toothed tiger or survive a famine or something. In those cases, it was really helpful that cortisol sent the body into lockdown mode, slowing down the metabolism and storing fat around the middle in order to help us survive the plague or Mongolian raiders or whatever.
In modern times that translates to you lying awake in bed, stressing about whether you are going to make it to Costco tomorrow before it gets too busy, and dumbass cortisol thinking, She’s probably stressed that the continents have shifted and there aren’t enough mammoths to go around. I should probably make her fatter! Thanks, cortisol, you dick.
A lack of sleep basically makes you drunk.
Guess what? If you’ve been awake for eighteen hours, you have the motor and cognitive impairment of someone who has a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent, which is legally drunk (and leaves you at equal risk for a crash, btw).
And when you are drunk, do you eat lots of vegetables and make fantastic decisions for your health? No, you do not. You eat chili cheese fries and watch Netflix HARD.
Sleep is when you reap the benefits of your workout.
When you exercise, you put stress on your body. But it’s the good kind of stress, the what-doesn’t-kill-me-makes-me-stronger stress. The stress part happens in the gym when you are on your sixty-third squat and your quads are begging for mercy. But the getting stronger part happens later that night when you’re sleeping. Deep sleep releases growth hormone, which not only builds and repairs muscles and tissue, but prevents premature aging. Without the sleep, you’ve just got…stress. And (as I will repeat ad infinitum) stress will make you retain fat and be generally miserable.
Lack of sleep gives you the crazy munchies.
When you sleep, the body balances two hunger-controlling hormones, ghrelin (makes you hungry) and leptin (makes you feel satisfied). If you get less than six hours of sleep, your ghrelin levels rise, and your leptin is repressed, meaning you are going to want that second piece of cake. And maybe the third. And then you might have trouble metabolizing that cake due to a sleep-deprived overproduction of insulin, which can lead to—you guessed it—body fat storage. (Also increased risk of diabetes, but who’s counting?)
Good sleep boosts your immune system and keeps you ready to move.
A lack of sleep can make you prone to getting colds and the flu, which is exactly the kind of thing that’s going to prevent you from being consistent with your training program. When you are well-rested and healthy, you are good to go for a wicked workout, which is in turn going to help you sleep better later on, inducing a positive cycle.
When you’re sleeping, you aren’t snacking.
Best way to shut your pie hole? Shut your eyes. When people ask me about the best snacks to have at night, I’ll usually tell them (with love): “If you are craving snacks at night, that’s probably because you are tired and your body is screaming for energy. Skip The Late Show and go the fuck to sleep.”
But sometimes going the fuck to sleep is easier said than done. If you are like a lot of my clients, you are a huge fan of sleep. If sleep were a teen heartthrob, you’d have its picture hanging in your locker with puffy-heart stickers. The only problem is that sleep, like a teen heartthrob, can sometimes be a bit elusive. Either you can’t get yourself to wind down at the end of the day, or you wake up at 3:00 a.m. with a spinning mind. If you want you + sleep = true love 4eva, here’s what you need to do:
Go to sleep and get up at the same time every day. Even on weekends. Yup, you heard me. Don’t try to “catch up” on sleep by sleeping in on weekends—you are just screwing yourself over to ever feel rested because your body won’t be able to find its rhythm. Establish a routine to wind yourself down and stick to it so the body starts to recognize when it’s night-night time.
We all know that a great workout will give you an energy and endorphin boost. This is awesome at 9:00 a.m., but not so welcome at 9:00 p.m. Ideally, your workout will end at least two hours before it’s time to start your bedtime routine. However, the most recent studies show that exercise at any time of day will promote a better sleep than not exercising at all, so I’m afraid you don’t get to ditch your evening workout in the name of better z’s. You might want to skip that afternoon coffee though. Try to limit caffeine and have the last cup of coffee before 2:00 p.m. Don’t fall for that afternoon treat business from Starbucks. That’s just The Man fucking with you.
Give yourself twenty minutes of restlessness and contemplating climate change and wondering what your high-school crush is doing and then get up, change the scenery, and do something quiet like read a book or have a magnesium-rich snack like a banana. (That’s not random; magnesium helps you sleep. Spinach is also full of magnesium, but no one is getting out of bed for spinach, amiright?)
I’m a huge believer in getting outside as often as possible, which is why I bully all my clients to get thirty minutes of outdoors time every day. Studies show that exposure to sunlight can help regulate circadian rhythms—the internal body clock that decides when it’s time to sleep and when it’s time to party. If your workplace is a cubical cave of fluorescent light, you need to be especially careful to get outdoors during your breaks. (Tip: follow the smokers. They are so outdoorsy!)
The clicky-clicky temptations of your screens are not telling your body it’s time to wind down. They are telling you that everyone has a nicer house than you and you should probably buy new shoes immediately. Get old school with a book or a magazine…or another pleasant bedroom activity of your choosing (wink).
Stop kidding yourself that your nightly glass (cough half bottle cough) of wine is helping you sleep at night. Oh sure, it will get you to bed—but after you pass out, the quality of your sleep will be shitty. You won’t get the REM sleep (deep sleep) you need for maximum mental and physical regeneration, and you’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble dozing off again.
In fact, laying off the booze is so important that it’s a keystone habit all on its own. So put that corkscrew away, turn on the kettle, and settle in for Habit #3…
HABIT #3: BACK AWAY FROM THE BOOZE
I wish I didn’t have to type that, but I really do. I get that there’s nothing better than a glass of wine after a hard day. It feels like a reward for doing LIFE. Which is why when I was pregnant and hung out with other pregnant ladies, one of the hot topics was alcohol.
“Is it really so bad to have a little sip?”
“How awful is it that I got drunk on New Year’s Eve before I found out that I was pregnant?”
“This baby is about to fall out of me. Surely it can’t do any harm to have a drink now?”
I asked my midwife about it and she responded with “No amount of alcohol has been proven safe for the baby.” (sad trombone)
But here’s the real kick in the pants: That is still the case long after you are born. No amount of alcohol has been proven to be safe. For any of us. Now, before you decide that this book might actually be better used as a nice coaster, let me tell you this: I’m not going to tell you that you have to abstain from all alcohol. Instead, I am going to tell you that there’s a good chance you are drinking too much. And there’s a really good chance that it’s affecting your fitness results.
When I was in my twenties, my doctor asked me how many alcoholic drinks I had in a week. “Seven,” I answered confidently, because I had heard that seven was the recommended limit for women. What I didn’t tell her—and she didn’t ask—was that all seven were happening on Friday night (in amazing gold lamé American Apparel leggings, thank you very much). Consuming that much alcohol in a single night is actually considered binge drinking if you want to get all pedantic about it, and we all know that’s not particularly good for you blah blah blah.
Now I’m all grown up. I’ve retired those leggings, and those Friday nights are ancient history (see reference above re: pregnancy). So you can imagine my indignation when I learned that my new, terribly sophisticated adult drinking habits actually qualified me to be a “heavy drinker.”
WHAT.
If you had asked me, I would have said my drinking habits were normal—and they probably are. Tell me if you can relate to this:
Sometimes a girl likes to unwind with a small glass of wine at least three nights a week. Totally normal, right? So according to the United States Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, that qualifies as a “moderate drinker.”
Fine. I’m comfortable with that.
But let’s get realistic and say you actually have a glass of wine pretty much every night. Sometimes maybe that glass isn’t so small, but more like a bowl with a stem on it. And at some point during the weekend you will definitely enjoy a cocktail or two. Now, those United States Dietary Guideline killjoys are graduating you to the category of “heavy drinker,” according to the recommended guidelines for women. Heavy drinker? Come ON! That seems a little alarmist, right? It’s not like I’m doing tequila shots in line at the bank and showing up for school pickup wearing one of those beer-funnel hats! The kind of drinking I do is just called grown-up LIFE! Who’s with me, ladies?!
A lot of ladies are with me. Alcohol used to be marketed with sex, romance, adventure, sophistication. But a few years ago the conversation shifted, and suddenly “Mommy Juice” is just something you need to get through the freaking week. It’s just fun to give your friend a wine-dispensing purse. Adding a greeting card is easy because about a third of the cards aimed at women will include sassy jokes like “Who is this ‘Moderation’ we’re supposed to be drinking with?” or “A day without wine is like…just kidding, I have no idea!”
Okay, those are kind of funny. But it’s not funny how much we are all drinking and how it’s affecting our health—and waistlines. In her book, Drink, Ann Dowsett Johnston talks about how alcohol use in women in the developed world has skyrocketed over the past decade. And here’s the thing—just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s good. It’s also normal to be feeling the consequences of drinking too much. By the time most of my clients get to me, they are starting to feel that nightly glass of wine affecting their energy and their mood. And they are certainly feeling it when they try to zip up their pants.
I’m sure I’m not going to shock you by saying that alcohol is a horrible idea if you are trying to lose weight. I mean, you know it’s high in calories with zero nutrition. It stimulates appetite. It is high in sugar, which triggers an insulin response, which can lead to fat storage, particularly around the middle. It decreases the quality of your sleep, which (as you’ve seen) also makes you gain weight. And it makes you less inhibited around food and very unlikely to work out the next day. I hate to say it, but that nightly glass of wine really leads to a total shit storm for belly fat. Oh—and cancer and all that as well.
A recent paper published in New Zealand showed that a third of alcohol-related cancer deaths among women were associated with less than two standard drinks per day. But what about all those delightful viral articles in your Facebook feed that talk about the health benefits of red wine and that if you lived in Tuscany and started drinking wine with lunch when you were eight years old you would live to be one hundred?
Here’s what those studies are talking about: There is an interesting relationship between alcohol and health risk that results in a J-shaped curve, like the one pictured on the next page. If you look closely, you’ll see that heavy drinkers have a high risk of mortality—obvi. But you’ll also see that absolute abstainers also have an uptick in their relative risk of mortality, while moderate drinkers have the lowest risk of early mortality.
BUT. That doesn’t prove moderate drinking is the cause of lower mortality. Just because there’s a correlation between moderate drinking and longevity, it doesn’t mean there is a causal relationship. Maybe there are other factors at play. Maybe moderate drinkers are also happier, more social, or less stressed out. Maybe absolute abstainers are abstaining because they are already sick or have previous addiction issues and that’s why they don’t touch the stuff.
Just because one variable (moderate drinking) seems to be related to another (maximum life span) doesn’t mean it’s directly affecting the other variable. Here’s another great example of correlation vs. causation:
…just sayin’.
Like I said, all that stuff about antioxidants in red wine is (sadly) not the reality. Remember, there was a time when doctors were recommending brands of cigarettes (“The touch of menthol added to Kool cigarettes soothes the throat!”). In my opinion, the dubious claims of fringe health benefits are historically the last gasp of an industry that is getting busted for harming us. According to the Center for Disease Control: “The risk of death from cancer appears to go up with any level of alcohol consumption. The current and emerging science does not support the purported benefits of moderate drinking.”
Which is why seven drinks a week for women is the LIMIT. Not recommended dosage. You’ll never hear a doctor recommend you START drinking if you don’t already. Having guidelines of how much of a toxic substance is acceptable is called risk management. Doctors came up with these limits because in most cases it’s not practical or realistic to ask people to just stop drinking. I feel the same way.
This is where I get to the part where I tell you that you don’t necessarily have to stop drinking. Yes, the latest studies show that absolute abstinence is probably the best thing for your body, but we are more than just bodies. That’s why my favorite definition of wellness is from my personal trainer certification course: “Wellness is the search for enhanced quality of life, personal growth, and potential through positive lifestyle behaviors and attitudes.”
I love this definition because:
So, in my opinion, if occasional alcohol is the social lubricant you need to get up and dance at the wedding, or an integral part of a cherished cultural ritual that’s been around for generations, or the perfect enhancer to a holiday meal, I don’t think it’s necessarily “better” to abstain.
However, if you want to be Healthy as Fuck, you are going to have to face up to how much you are drinking—and why you are drinking. Here’s what I want you to do:
Take an honest, nonjudgy tally of how much you are currently drinking per week.
Have a think: What alcohol do you consume habitually that you could survive without? Is it:
The third drink at the bar on Friday?
The glass of wine while you prep dinner every night?
The B52 shot you licked off that guy’s belly at your friend’s bachelorette party?
Which are the drinks that contribute to your quality of life? And which are the ones that are moving you further away?
Now that you’ve given some thought to the amount of alcohol that serves you best (remember—you always get to choose!), here are some ideas on how to reduce your intake without going nuts.
Destroy the habit loop by interrupting the trigger.
Remember that the structure of a habit is trigger, behavior, reward. Which booze triggers can you consciously avoid or interrupt? For example, if you tend to drink a glass of wine while you watch TV at night, interrupt the trigger by brushing your teeth and taking a book to bed. If you tend to meet your girlfriends for dinner and drinks, switch it to brunch and a walk.
Exchange the habit loop for a better one by replacing the behavior.
As we’ve already discussed, it’s easy enough to avoid triggers if they are environmental, but emotional triggers are trickier. Stress is probably the biggest trigger for wanting a drink, and not totally avoidable. So what you need to do is replace the behavior you carry out in response to the trigger and try to get a similar reward.
You might think that nothing is going to chill you out as effectively as a nice glass of wine, but as Annie Grace points out in her brilliant book, This Naked Mind, we have the illusion that alcohol reduces stress, when it actually just numbs the feeling temporarily. As soon as the effects of the drink wear off, we’re left contending with alcohol withdrawal as well as the original reason we are stressed out, which leads to wanting another drink. And then you wake up the next morning after a shitty sleep with a hangover and are much less able to cope with whatever is stressing you out. In the long run, alcohol will always make stress worse.
On top of that, when you reach for the bottle every time you are stressed, you rob yourself of the opportunity to figure out how to self-soothe. Only you can figure out what will genuinely make you feel better after a rough day. The bubble bath cliché? Masturbating? Watching Labyrinth with David Bowie? Watching Labyrinth with David Bowie while masturbating in the bath? Now that is a Tuesday night.
Experiment with clear parameters around booze.
Annie Grace has a great Thirty-Day Alcohol Experiment, in which you abstain from all alcohol for thirty days to see how you feel. She also gives great information and context to help you reframe your beliefs about alcohol. If working on your relationship to booze is a goal for you and you are looking for some structure around a Dry January, this is a highly recommended (and totally free) program.
As I mentioned, I don’t insist on absolute abstinence for my clients but suggest the following parameters:
Using those guidelines, people all over the world have successfully shifted from a daily glass of wine to cope to a weekly glass of wine to celebrate. In doing so, they have saved themselves countless calories, deepened their sleep, increased their energy, taken a major step toward getting rid of a stubborn belly, and reduced their risk of cancer. Seriously. When you back away from the booze, you are taking a giant step toward your new life as a Healthy Motherfucker.
HABIT #4: CHILL YOUR ASS OUT (AND MEDITATE)
I know you might not believe me, but it’s possible that all you need to do in order to achieve your fitness goals is…less.
Less striving. Less effort. But most of all, less stress.
I learned this the hard way during my early years as a fitness instructor. As I’ve mentioned, I was a bit of a late bloomer in the whole fitness department, so I had the fervor of the recently converted. I was teaching several high-intensity classes a day, training for a half marathon, as well as working on my yoga teaching certification. I was still a little chubby, so I had impostor syndrome in my new career. But I figured if I just worked a little harder, then I would get the body I thought a real fitness professional should have. And then my yoga instructor told me this story.
There was a woman who was a regular at the yoga studio. Front-row type of person. There was a sub instructor and the class was starting out slower than usual—a lot of “connecting to the breath,” and then some head rolling, finding your “center,” that kind of thing. And this woman in the front row was wigging out. Exasperated sighs and eye rolls. Finally, the yoga instructor asked her, “Is something wrong?” She exploded, “Yes! I need to burn five hundred calories a day. So, can we get on with it?” And the yoga instructor responded, “Well, maybe if you sit still for a second, you’d realize why you eat five hundred calories more than you need each day.”
Oh, SNAP.
That story bitch-slapped me so hard. Because I was just like that woman getting impatient in a yoga class. So resistant to drop my hustle. So not interested in doing the real work of sitting still and figuring myself out. Which is why I can totally empathize with my clients who come to me with patterns like this:
And the cycle continues until they are burned-out and have a belly they can’t get rid of.
This kind of high-stress, high-adrenalin lifestyle makes it almost impossible to get Healthy as Fuck.
But before you go and park it on a mountain to om away the rest of your days, let me clarify something about stress: stress isn’t always bad. Workouts are stress. Learning a difficult new skill is stressful. If everything was easy, we wouldn’t be forced to grow and get better.
Our bodies and psychology are amazing at dealing with acute stress like that. We release hormones that give us a quick burst of energy and shut down nonessential functions so we can do the important task at hand. We are brilliantly designed to handle this kind of acute “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” stress.
What our bodies (and brains) are less good at dealing with is chronic stress. The ever-present feelings of always hustling to keep up. Of being defeated. Of constantly worrying about bills. When we are in a state of chronic stress, our bodies release fat into the bloodstream for energy. We don’t use that energy, so it builds up as plaque, which increases our risk of heart disease. Chronic stress also causes our bodies to shuffle fat to our midsections in an effort to protect our vital organs from this perceived threat. Chronic stress leads to anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, and then it increases our appetites and makes us crave sugar and fat.
So many of my clients are pushed to the limit and using snacks to make themselves feel better, to get a quick hit of energy or pleasure. For so many, that snack fiesta is probably the only fun thing that has happened to them all day. I’m telling you right now: if you don’t allow yourself a little breathing space and a little fun, you will continue to reach for the snacks.
When people ask me, “What’s more important, exercise or getting seven hours of sleep?” my answer is: “What’s most important is designing a life that allows you to do both of these absolutely essential things without a trade-off.
When I say things like that, people think I don’t understand that they have commitments and children and aging parents and jobs. I do get it. I promise I do. I’ve got all that stuff too. But before you repeat to me (and yourself) the story about how you are so busy, just remember that you have a choice. Even if you don’t have a choice in your schedule (which you almost definitely do), you have a choice in the way you respond to that schedule.
What I mean is this: many people believe that they have to work long hours when really it’s up to them to create clear boundaries for what they will and will not do. Many people believe it’s necessary to have a big house, and entertain friends at a certain level of fanciness, and take their kids to karate lessons, and all the rest. I’m not saying any of this stuff is bad by any means. But they are choices that you’ve made. And if your choices are making you live a life of stress, then maybe it’s time to rethink them.
Even if you don’t want to reconsider the structures of your life, could you change your response? Is it possible to do it all with more ease and fun? Or does it have to be all duty and furrowed brows and high pressure? Does the morning routine really have to be so frantic, or can you add some playfulness? Would you maybe enjoy your hour-long commute in traffic if you listened to a wicked mystery novel while driving? What would the real impact be if you didn’t check your email all weekend? Is your debt, your kids, your job really a life-or-death situation? Does stressing about it help at all? If you decided to take everything way less seriously and actually enjoy yourself more, would anything really collapse? As Mark Twain wrote: “I have known many sorrows, most of which never happened.”
I know that life is probably demanding a lot from you. But I’m telling you that creating some space and some joy in your life is essential. It’s like when you are on a plane and they tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you assist anyone else. If you have been playing the martyr and moaning about how you are so busy looking after other people, stop it. You’ve got to take care of yourself and your stress level—otherwise you are no good to anyone.
As your loving coach, I challenge you to come up with some ways you could simplify your life. Do you need to have a talk with your boss? Or tell your family to pick up some slack around the house? If you’ve got some cash to throw at this whole healthy living thing, it’s totally possible that hiring a housekeeper is the best “weight loss/health and wellness” dollars you will ever spend.
Once I was listening to a keynote speaker at a fitness conference with about twenty thousand fitness professionals. The speaker asked us to stand up if we felt like we were in good shape. Most of us stood up. And then he asked who ate only healthy food. There was some giggling as fewer people stood up this time. Then he asked who felt that their life was filled with happiness and joy. And guess what? Almost no one stood up. Like, crickets.
And I was like, wow. This is fucked. Everyone in this room needs to stop counting push-ups and carbs and start counting how often they laugh every day. Not just because it will lead to better quality of life, but because it’s also a key health predictor.
In Dan Buettner’s book The Blue Zones, he examines diverse geographic pockets where people live unusually long and healthy lives. He looks at Loma Linda in California, Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia in Italy, Ikaria in Greece, and the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. In each of these areas, there are an unusually high number of super centenarians—people who not only live to be one hundred years old, but do so while staying vital and kicking ass. The Blue Zones research is about trying to identify the common factors between these areas that would seem to have very little in common. One of the key commonalities between all the Blue Zones was low-stress living, with lots of strong social and family connections, and a deep sense of purpose.
If getting Healthy as Fuck is important to you, reducing any chronic stress in your life has got to be a priority. Like, an emergency. I know you’ve got shit to do, but at the end of the day, you’ve got one life to live, and I suggest you design it with intention, rather than just running around like a crazy person, unconsciously snacking and then trying to burn five hundred calories a day to make up for it. Which brings us back to our keystone habit and one of the most effective ways to reduce stress: meditate for twenty minutes every day.
Now don’t panic. In order to meditate, you don’t need to roll your eyes to the back of your head and chant or anything. Just sit comfortably and pick something minorly interesting to focus on—your breath, a candle, some soft music, or nature sounds. And every time you catch your mind wandering toward your to-do list, or what you want to have for dinner, or who shot JR—just gently pull your attention back to your point of focus.
Treat your brain like an adorable little puppy that wants to bounce everywhere, but you lovingly bring it back to where it’s supposed to be every time. Be aware that pretty much no one is able to really stop their mind from bouncing around like a retro ’80s pinball machine and just accept it. I’ve had clients who have said, “I can’t meditate. My mind just won’t focus.” I know. That’s the point. That’s like saying, “I can’t exercise. I get out of breath.” But if you exercise with consistency, you will eventually get less out of breath. And if you meditate consistently, you will find you are better able to focus. Slow and steady improvement is what we are looking for here. Remember that compound interest chart?
Even so, meditation can be a tough sell for my clients. I mean, these people hired me to help them get abs, not enlightenment. One of them pushed back with the totally understandable question: “What is the real value of adding twenty minutes of daily meditation to my life? The idea of sitting there and being unproductive stresses me out more than anything. Spending the twenty minutes feels like a waste of time.”
I get it. And you’ve probably already heard that meditation is awesome for you. The latest research is showing that it can reduce the inflammation caused by stress, decrease your blood pressure, help you sleep, reduce chronic pain, and improve your emotional health in almost every way.
But if you are mostly interested in how meditation helps you lose weight, maybe it helps to think of it this way: meditation is like a gym for your brain. And if you haven’t got the memo yet, most of the heavy lifting when it comes to getting a crazy-hot body is actually going to be happening in your brain. It’s a lot easier to sculpt your physique if you sculpt your brain first. Large-scale neuroimaging studies show that meditation will decrease activity in the amygdala, which is involved in stress and fear responses as well as anxiety. And it strengthens areas of the brain that are involved in emotional regulation, body awareness, and introspection. Which means that when you take the time to meditate every day:
Developing that self-compassion is probably the most important benefit of meditation when it comes to getting Healthy as Fuck. Meditating every day will lead to a greater acceptance and love of exactly how your body is right now.
Which is, as we’ve already covered, the real objective. You just have to practice. And meditating will help.
HABIT #5: EAT IT ALL, BUT EAT WAY LESS OF IT
When I used to do one-on-one personal training, the first session with a new client would involve mostly talking. We’d sit down in their living room, I’d do a lifestyle interview, and we’d try to figure out why they weren’t getting the results they wanted. They almost always thought it was an exercise problem…or a thyroid problem…or adrenal fatigue…or maybe just something that happens once you get older.
When I would ask about their diet, they would always say, “I eat really healthy!” And they did—these people were not trying to convince me that Pop-Tarts have fruit in them so they are healthy. They are people who spend top dollar on having a personal trainer come to their house. They are stone-cold serious about this shit.
And almost always, they are stone-cold overeating. They usually had no idea.
For instance, Tara reported that she was really “good”—she would always make herself a salad with some protein for dinner. She had young kids and they would have macaroni or whatever kid food, but Tara would have her salad with protein. This sounds great in theory, but here was the reality: While Tara was making food for her family, she was having bites and licks and tastes, along with a glass of wine. After dinner, she’d tidy up the dishes, and of course there’s no point in saving those last few bites of ketchup-soaked macaroni, so she’d just eat the leftovers before putting the dishes in the dishwasher. And then when the kids went to bed, she’d make herself a little snack because, after all, she’d only had a salad for dinner. In reality, Tara had probably consumed two meals’ worth of calories by the end of the night.
Let’s take Barbara’s story as another example. Barbara had previously seen temporary, but really promising, results with a paleo/keto/low-carb diet. So she had very strong ideas about certain foods being good (those with lots of protein and fat) and certain foods being bad (those that contained carbohydrates of any kind). By the time she hired me, Barbara was getting really frustrated because her weight was creeping up, even though she wasn’t doing anything “bad.” She was following the diet that had worked so well—she was avoiding all carbs! But she was also eating a fuck-ton of chicken breasts and sugar-free coconut bliss balls because according to her low-carb plan, they were “allowed” in unlimited amounts. Result: Barbara was tired, grumpy…and gaining weight.
Those are two examples of clients who believed they were eating “really healthy” but were still gaining weight. But most of my clients just overserve themselves. They eat beautiful, healthy food (I work with a lot of self-described “foodies”)—but just way too much of it.
Here’s an example: Nuts are really healthy, right? Absolutely—nuts are loaded with healthy fats that will lower your cholesterol, and they are an antioxidant powerhouse. But an appropriate serving is the size of your thumb—about eight almonds. Not a handful. Organic tofu is a great source of plant-based protein, but a serving would be the size of your palm. Oats are fantastic. A serving would be about the size of your fist (that’s cooked, dude). Most people will easily eat twice these amounts.
I have so many clients who would tell me “I don’t know why I can’t lose weight—all I ever eat are salads.” But their salads include half an avocado, plus dressing, plus a sprinkling of cheese, plus a boiled egg and some nuts. While it’s awesome and huge high fives that they are eating such healthy, nutrient-dense food, there is just too much of it on that plate if fat reduction is part of their goals.
Maybe the examples sound familiar. Maybe you snack too much at work. Or have automatic second helpings. Or eat until you feel just a little bit too full. The fact is that if you have any of these unconscious habits of overeating, no matter how healthy the food is, it will lead to excess body fat.
You can’t ignore good old fashioned CICO, which is fitness dork shorthand for Calories In, Calories Out. I know, no one talks about calories anymore. It’s like you just stepped into a Tab cola commercial from the ’80s. The trend for many years now has been to demonize a certain food or food group rather than talk about calories. This allows us to externalize the problem. The enemy is sugar! It’s carbs that have done this to me! It’s not that I’m eating too much. I can eat as much as I want as long as there aren’t any carbs! Note: Telling people to eat less isn’t going to make anyone any money, which is why it’s not emphasized in popular culture. However, telling people that they need to avoid carbs will spawn a whole industry of low-carb alternative foods.
In telling people to eliminate carbohydrates (or whatever the latest baddy is), often a caloric deficit is created, and that initial weight loss will happen. Yay! However, eliminating any major macronutrient is unsustainable because it will result in intense cravings until you satisfy that need. Macronutrients are, by definition, nutrients that your body needs to survive—and you need to get them from food. Your body will send you signals to eat until that is fulfilled.
There have been studies showing that when given low-fat foods, subjects will consume 60 percent more calories. Why? Because they keep eating, trying to fulfill that need for adequate fat. Which is why you’ve got to eat carbs, protein, and fat. In a reasonable amount. No need to start tracking calories, because that’s the worst way to spend your life with maximum head-fuck potential.
Here’s the less bonkers plan.
Eat veggies! Fill half your plate with vegetables! ALL of them.
We’ve already covered this, but just to get you all pumped up again about the fat-blasting potential of this habit, remember that filling half your plate with veggies takes care of most of your CICO. It will fill you up with dietary fiber so you aren’t hungry and pack you full of nutrients that will make you immortal. (Okay, not quite, but veggies are the closest thing we’ve got to the elixir of youth and vitality.) Great sources of veggies include: any of them. Anything leafy and colorful is awesome. Just try to avoid anything fried or swimming in sugary, fatty sauce.
Eat protein! Limit it to the size of your palm.
As I mentioned earlier, you really don’t have to stress about meeting your protein requirements. Even if you do go 100 percent plant-based, you can easily meet your protein requirements as long as you are eating real food (versus vegan junk food, which totally exists—just because Doritos are vegan doesn’t mean they are good for you, sorry).
Protein is a macronutrient that we need to live, and it’s awesome for weight loss because it builds and repairs muscles and tissue. Maintaining your lean muscle mass (through working your muscles—this doesn’t happen with protein alone) will increase your resting metabolic rate and facilitate a smokin’ body composition. Protein also will help you feel full longer, as it takes longer to digest than carbs. An appropriate portion of protein would be the size of your palm (both diameter and thickness), and the best choices would be legumes, tofu, and tempeh; remember that the conclusions of the China Study were to eat as much plant-based foods as possible and avoid animal products for maximum health and longevity. Next-best options would be wild-caught fish, poultry, and free-range eggs. Even lean red meat should be limited due to its association with earlier mortality and heart disease.
SERIOUSLY AVOID: processed meat and deli slices and fatty meat like bacon.
Eat carbs! Limit them to the size of your fist.
Hell yeah, you can eat carbs and get lean and healthy! In fact, you kind of have to.
Carbohydrates are the primary energy source for your body and your brain. If you don’t eat carbs, you will have low energy and be kind of dumb.
Remember those Orange People I used to certify as personal trainers? Sometimes I’d be teaching them while they were in the final stages of their “cut” phase, which is when they build a ton of muscle by eating a lot and doing a lot of strength training, and then they “cut” the fat on top of the muscle by going on a strict low-fat, low-carb diet and doing HIIT cardio training. It ends up looking hot as hell, and I know it’s tempting to just drop this book and follow their lead to get to the same look, but just a reminder: none of them looked that way in real life because it’s impossible to sustain.
So this fitness competitor came to my personal training course, about a week before his competition. He brought a BUCKET of cooked ground beef to my course and just spent all day eating it with a spoon, right out of the bucket. Not only was he lacking somewhat in dining decorum, but he also kept apologizing for not understanding the material and explained that he hadn’t eaten any carbs in a week, so he was feeling a bit mentally foggy.
Point being: you need carbs to function. There is nothing wrong with carbs. However, not all carbs are created equal. This might look like a low-carb program to you, but it’s really more of a smart-carb program.
Great carbs: sweet potatoes, beets, legumes (yes, beans and legumes are a carb and a protein; don’t stress about it—just eat them because they are a power food, loaded with B vitamins and fiber), potatoes, yams, squash, whole-grain rice, amaranth, oats, quinoa, buckwheat, all fruit
Bullshit carbs: highly processed carbs, such as white bread, pastries, crackers, anything with added sugar
Wait. Are you saying I can eat bread?
Well, I mean it would be great if all your carbs were unprocessed whole foods. But bread is a cultural staple for a lot of people, and there are bread options that would be a good source of carbs. Sprouted bread, whole-grain rye bread…these are awesome! But remember the portion should be one slice. So yes, I am saying that tofu/egg scramble with tons of veggies on a slice of whole-grain toast would be a great five-minute healthy meal. A sandwich with bologna and two slices of Wonder Bread is really…not.
What about sugar? It’s the devil, right?
I don’t think sugar is necessarily the devil, and recent comparisons to cocaine are probably a little exaggerated. Again, it’s a portion control thing. The WHO recommends that sugar account for no more than 5 percent of our caloric intake, or about six teaspoons a day. That sounds like a lot until you consider that includes added sugars or naturally occurring sugars in juice or natural sweeteners like honey. The average North American gets three times that amount each day, and no wonder. Sugar is added to everything these days. Your ready-made coleslaw, your frozen pizza, your orange-chicken glaze, your yogurt, your onion soup. There is more sugar in your ketchup than there is in vanilla ice cream.
The easiest way for you to avoid sugar is to make your own food from real whole food sources as described here. That way, you can save your six teaspoons of sugar for something that’s worth it (like a square or two of dark chocolate) instead of getting punked when your tomato sauce puts you over the limit, spiking your blood sugar and making you hungry a few hours later. If you are currently in the habit of drinking sweetened drinks like soda or iced tea—quit it. That is a bunch of liquid nonsense that is making you fat and unhealthy. I don’t care if it’s got zero calories; those fake sugar substitutes are associated with cancer and are just training your palate to want more sweet, chemical bullshit. Switch to water and watch your waist get smaller and your health get better. If you really love flavored drinks, there are some herbal teas that are so delicious they should be illegal.
Eat fat! Limit it to the size of your thumb.
Why? Fat is a major source of energy, transports certain vitamins, is essential for cellular health, and makes you feel satisfied.
Awesome fats: nuts and seeds (flax, sesame, chia), avocado, olives, nut butters
Less awesome: dairy fat (cheese, yogurt, milk, cream), animal fats (lard, fatty meat like bacon)
AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE: Trans fats. These are found in vegetable shortening, some margarine, baked goods and crackers, fried foods, and anything that lists “partially hydrogenated oils.” Remember how I said eating a shit-ton of vegetables was basically the only thing that everyone agrees on when it comes to nutrition? Just kidding, I lied. Not eating any trans fats is the other thing. Even small amounts of trans fats can fuck you over: even a 2 percent increase of calories from trans fats has been associated with a 34 percent increase in all-cause mortality. The best way to avoid this stuff is to stop buying processed foods. Instead, make your own damn cookies from scratch. Don’t buy the ones on the shelf. There’s a reason they stay fresh on the shelf for months, and that’s because trans fats have been added to keep them stabilized. A good rule of thumb thrown around by dieticians is: if your food can’t go bad, it’s not good for you.
Okay, you’ve got the trans-fat thing, but did you get that fat portion recommendation? One thumb-sized portion of healthy fats. This is where you might be looking at your adorable little thumb and thinking, Wait a second. THAT is all the peanut butter I get?! I’m clearly going to starve.
Let me assure you that you will not starve. When you eat quality food and tons of high-fiber, nutrient-dense veggies instead of sugar and processed carbs, you will find that you are satisfied with less. When you eat appropriate amounts of all the macronutrients instead of depriving yourself of an entire category of food that you need to live, you’ll find that you have fewer cravings.
Here are some other tips to help you reset your appetite and eat less.
Don’t eat unless you are genuinely hungry.
Duh, right? Except a lot of us really suck at that, especially in North America. Some cultures have got it figured out: In Okinawa, Japan, it is customary to say hara hachi bun me (“eat until the belly is 80 percent full”) before every meal. This gastronomic restraint probably contributes to Okinawans’ relatively low BMIs, which is thought to be one of the reasons why Okinawa is one of the Blue Zones of exceptional longevity.
The Ayurvedic tradition from India is one of the world’s oldest holistic healing practices and recommends eating until 75 percent full. And in France (a culture known for being inexplicably thin despite huffing back croissants like no one’s business), they don’t say, “I’m full” after a meal. They say, “I’m no longer hungry.”
This is what you want to aim for when eating: no longer hungry. It’s time to stop riding the standard North American cycle of stuffed and starving. Here’s how you do it.
Slow. The. Fuck. Down.
This is another one of those ways that mindfulness and generally chilling the fuck out is really the key to losing weight. If you eat in a distracted way or shovel it in between activities like there’s a prize for first place, you are not giving your body any opportunity to tell you that you’ve had enough.
The challenge I’m going to give you is to spend twenty minutes eating each meal. Bonus points if you eat that meal without any distractions (computer, TV, book). Put down your fork between bites. Chew. Breathe. Drink a sip of water. Think about what you are doing instead of wondering five minutes later what black magic fuckery made your burrito disappear. Consider how you like the food. Have the balls to go off autopilot for the twenty minutes it takes to eat your meal and allow your inner wisdom to shine through with profound insights like “Holy fuck. I actually don’t feel like I need this entire burrito after all.”
Know the difference between genuine hunger and a craving.
Here’s the deal:
The thing is that most of us give into our cravings so much that we don’t even know what hunger feels like.
Experience hunger.
There’s a good chance you rarely experience hunger. Kids these days are basically on an IV drip of Goldfish crackers. Even health-minded adults will graze all day under the pretense of keeping their metabolisms revved.
Allow yourself to get hungry and then don’t panic. Hunger isn’t an emergency. Diarrhea is an emergency. Tell yourself you can have food anytime you want, but you just want to experience being hungry for a few minutes.
Once you get to know real hunger, you will start to become better acquainted with how it feels in your body versus a craving. What you think is genuine hunger may actually be your body’s conditioned response to your accustomed pattern of eating (your habit). If you interrupt that habit, you can reset the pattern. Even if you are actually physically hungry, remember that no one has ever died of starvation between lunch and dinner. You will be okay. I get that you might hate the feeling of being hungry, but know that it’s your emotions that hate the feeling—your body is just fine. After adapting for centuries of food scarcity, your body knows how to deal with being hungry. When not getting its usual number of calories, the body says, “I know! Let’s metabolize stored energy!”
On the other hand, our bodies have not yet evolved to handle excess amounts of food. Our system gets overloaded trying to digest and process the overwhelming amount of food, and it uses up a lot of energy and makes us grumpy. (That’s why you want to go to sleep after your Thanksgiving meal, by the way. It’s not the tryptophan. There is just as much tryptophan in nuts and cheese as turkey.)
BONUS: Allowing genuine hunger before your meals will also make your food taste crazy delicious.
In conclusion, eat it all! Protein, carbohydrates, and fats are all essential to live, and none of them are “bad.” Enough with the macronutrient witch-hunt silliness. Just eat whole, unprocessed foods and keep to the portion sizes recommended here. If you follow this simple plan, you will easily shed extra fat, feel so much more energy, and increase your chances of living a long and healthy life. I’m not shitting you when I say that food is powerful medicine. But just like any medicine, there is an optimal dose. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. But forty-three apples a day will make you gain weight and give you nasty farts.
And just so you don’t end up in a situation where you are tempted to eat forty-three apples in a day, you might want to start doing Healthy Habit #6…
HABIT #6: PREP AND PLAN AHEAD
Pop quiz: What is the number-one reason people give when asked why they aren’t in good shape? You got it: “I don’t have the time.”
Unfortunately, we have to admit that this is bullshit in so many ways. And I’m not even talking about the fact that most of the people who say that have probably found the time to binge-watch something on Netflix or get into a heated fight with someone in the comments section on the internet. It’s bullshit because making a healthy choice usually doesn’t take more time. Let me explain with an example.
My friend Laura said to me, “I’ve really been trying to eat healthy, but the other day was so busy that I wanted something quick and I just threw a frozen pizza in the oven.”
This is a scenario we can all relate to, but it actually makes no logical sense. A frozen pizza takes about twenty minutes to cook. And that’s after the oven preheats (which takes approximately five lifetimes when you are hungry). Some chickpeas sautéed with a couple of handfuls of fresh spinach and one tablespoon of delicious pesto takes about three minutes. The problem is not that Laura didn’t have the time; it’s that she was stressed out after a busy day, so she unconsciously executed her stress habit loop (trigger = stress, behavior = eat pizza, reward = brain releases endorphins as a response to salty, fatty food and feeling of “treating” herself).
We don’t need more time—we need better habits.
When people say they don’t have time to get in shape, they imagine commuting to a gym for an hour-long workout every day and then battling traffic to come home and start wrestling with a butternut squash and marinating some protein when everyone is starving and grumpy and wanting dinner like, yesterday. I agree. For most of us, that is a fucking nightmare. Because most of us do feel strapped for time. So, if this Healthy as Fuck project is gonna happen, it needs to happen in the most time-efficient way possible.
Introducing: the Meal Prep Power Hour. If you want to lose body fat and get ’er done with the least amount of time spent, then you need to allocate some time each week toward prepping healthy food. This is the absolute most efficient use of your time if you want to lose weight. If you are someone who has been working out every single day but you are experiencing a weight-loss plateau, I challenge you to skip one of your workouts and use the time to do my Meal Prep Power Hour—and watch your body shrink.
Here’s why: If you have good food in your fridge, you will eat good food. If you don’t make the effort to have good food in your fridge, you will eat according to your current habit pattern, which is resulting in your current body. Which very well might be a totally awesome and slammin’ body, but if you’ve read this far, I’m assuming that losing some fat is important to you. And if losing some fat is important to you, then it’s going to be all about changing your diet.
Yes, exercising is totally important as well, and I’ll explain that in the next habit. But if weight loss is your primary goal and you are strapped for time, it is WAY more efficient to not eat those calories in the first place than to try to “work them off” with exercise. And the best way to ensure that you will eat healthy, nutrient-dense food with a low caloric load is to prep and plan in advance.
Seriously, dude. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that this healthy eating shit is just going to happen on its own. Just have a look at how many veggies are available at your local Starbucks, where people think the “healthy” option is getting a soy latte with some sugar-free bullshit syrup because it’s low carb. Look around at how fat and tired and unhealthy almost everyone is, and you will realize that if you want to look and feel different from the rest of the world, you will have to act different from the rest of the world. “Going with the flow” is deciding to be out of shape and unhealthy. Period. You cannot rely on good food being available to you. You need to plan in advance and make it happen. It’s not as hard as you think, and it is the best investment of time you can give toward your healthy and hot bod.
Here’s a sample Meal Prep Power Hour. I do something like this every Sunday to set me up for healthy lunches, easy dinners, and healthy snacks. If you want a Meal Prep Power Hour that includes specific recipes, grab it at www.fitfeelsgood.com/book.
This sample menu includes:
Set your timer for one hour.
READY…
SET…
PREP!
Step #1: Roast your veggies.
If the thought of filling half of every plate with raw veggies makes you want to cry, you’ll definitely want to have some roasted veggies on hand. It completely changes the texture of the vegetables and often brings out their natural sweetness. You’ll want to include some of the allium family (onions, garlic, etc.) here, which are not easy to eat raw but have powerful antioxidants and give lots of natural flavor to your food without adding calories. Peppers, zucchini, and root vegetables like parsnips and sweet potatoes are all awesome roasting options as well.
Once you have roasted veggies on hand for the week you can put them on a salad, add them to a sandwich, puree them into a soup, or add them to a grain bowl. The party never stops.
Preheat oven to about 400°F; wash and chop veggies; toss with a little bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper; and throw them in the oven. Set your alarm to check on them every twenty minutes or so, and remove when you see the toasty bits happening.
Step #2: Get quinoa (or some other grain) cooking.
You want to switch up your grain choice every week for maximum nutritional diversity, but the reason quinoa is such a big deal is because it’s not actually a grain—it’s a seed. (That’s why it looks like it “sprouts” when you cook it.) This means that it has a lower glycemic index, is higher in protein and fiber, and contains awesome, hard-to-get nutrients like magnesium. It’s also gluten-free, if that’s a thing for you (wink).
You can use your cooked quinoa as a yummy breakfast option that’s high in plant-based protein: heat it up with some cinnamon, add some almond milk, and top with some fruit and nuts. You can toss some quinoa in your salad to make it more filling. Or make a quick grain bowl for dinner by adding some roasted veggies and pesto.
Step #3: Getcher hummus on.
I know there are thirty varieties of hummus at your grocery store, but chances are that they are all made with some nasty cheap oil, so you are missing a chance to absorb some of the good, anti-inflammatory fats you would find in good-quality olive oil. Not a bad idea to switch up your legumes and make a black bean spread or whatever next week. Hummus is just some chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, and lemon juice in a food processor. Chuck in some spices and let your creativity soar. You are now an artist whose medium is bean dip.
Or, if you are brave, give your kid a potato masher and let them smush it all up while you get on with your life.
Step #4: Salad bar time!
I know, I know. You don’t win friends with salad. The trick is to make it as varied and delicious as possible, so you don’t feel sad about your life every time you pull out your lunch at work.
Make sure you have a selection of salad toppings that you love. Think avocado, seeds, olives, some cheese if you are down with dairy. (The fat from cheese isn’t as good as the fat from the others, but hey, if it’s the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down, that’s cool.)
Buy a selection of greens (whatever works—just switch it up every week or so). If not prewashed, then tear it up into bite-sized bits, wash it, dry it, and package it. Chop up a shit-ton of veggies: peppers, carrots, celery, cucumber (bonus points for seasonal), and portion it out into mason jars or containers for quick grab-and-go ability. Make sure to cut some vegetables in sticks for hummus dipping.
Step #5: Make your own dressing.
It is not easy to find salad dressing at the grocery store that isn’t full of cheap oils and weird shit. Skip it and make one at home with oil and vinegar instead. This is your chance to use up that fancy flavored vinegar that someone gave you for Christmas two years ago. The classic ratio is one part vinegar to three parts oil. Add some herbs, crushed garlic, and mustard for some tang, and shake it all up in a container that seals tight. This formula tastes so much better than commercial salad dressing that you will be overreacting to your salad like you are auditioning for a stock photographer.
Step #6: Prep some protein.
By now the quinoa should be done, so you can put that away in the fridge (seal it up tight: should last three to five days) and use the same pot to make some red lentils. Lentils are a great source of iron and folate, and if you’ve got cooked lentils on hand, they can be added to bulk up a salad, smushed into a patty for a quick veggie burger, folded into a whole grain (or lettuce) wrap for a taco-type thing or added to a soup to make it more of a meal. I do one cup of red lentils to two cups of veggie stock and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes.
If lentils aren’t your jam, you could also whip up a marinade in a container and throw some chopped tofu (or your protein of choice) in there. Tofu on its own tastes pretty bland, but it’s great because it will soak up any marinade and be a little protein-packed flavor bomb that you can throw on your veggies without even having to cook it first.
Step #7: Make some power balls.
I will often get asked which are the best bars to have around in case of emergency. It’s a good question because a lot of us eat on the go and most of the “nutrition” bars on the market are about as good for you as an Oh Henry! bar. Homemade power balls are easy and way healthier than the shitty protein bars you are currently eating. If you are trying to lose weight, I’d recommend you keep your snacks to vegetables—or fruit if you want something sweet. However, on days when that’s just not going to cut it, you can make your own power balls. These will keep you going and satisfy your need for a treat while packing in some healthier slow-release energy.
While the lentils are cooking, wash the food processor well (you don’t want your power balls to taste like garlic from the hummus). Throw in two parts oats to one part nut butter (tahini for a nut-free, school-safe alternative), a splash of maple syrup or honey, and then get wild with add-ins like flax and sesame seeds, hemp hearts, shredded coconut, raisins, or dark chocolate chips. Play with flavors like cinnamon, cacao, or vanilla and switch it up each week.
Pulse until it all clumps together. Roll into small balls (this is another great “What a big helper you are!” project for kids) and store in the fridge for a quick hit of energy preworkout.
Step #8: Package and clean up!
By this point, the lentils and the roasted veggies should be done. Let them both cool on the counter to room temperature before you package them up in sealed containers. The veggies should last three to five days, and you might get a whole week out of the lentils. Glass and stainless-steel containers are ideal, but I’ll be honest and say I still have some plastic floating around. Pick your battles and remember that none of this shit has to be perfect. Every little step in the right direction counts.
Step #9: Celebrate!
Once everything is stored in the fridge, kick back and relax with the satisfaction that you just spent a very productive hour toward getting Healthy as Fuck.
HABIT #7: EXERCISE CONSISTENTLY
The other day, my client Sarah said something that broke my heart and made me realize that maybe I’ve been one of those asshole trainers. Here’s what happened.
She posted in our group: “Oonagh, is Zumba the same as your quad workout?”
I wrote back: “Zumba would be a great replacement for something like a run because it’s endurance cardio. My quad workout is strength training and high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which works different energy systems and is more efficient for weight loss.”
I shouldn’t have said it.
Now, don’t get me wrong—this is all totally true. The best type of exercise to lose weight in the shortest amount of time is to do strength training and HIIT. HIIT is a type of cardio training in which you just go balls-out hard for a short period of time and then rest and then do it again. The other type of cardio training is LISS, which stands for Low-Intensity Steady State. HIIT would be doing a hundred-meter sprint and resting and doing it again for about twenty minutes. LISS would be going for a forty-minute easy jog.
Trainers love HIIT because you can get the same fat-burning results with less time spent exercising. If you have ever thought to yourself, If only I had a trainer, then I would know the real secret magic to getting super fit—I’ll just tell you right now, there is no secret magic. If you want to lose body fat, most trainers today will eventually get you doing strength training and HIIT. It’s important to note that I said eventually. Before you even think about the “best” way to train, you need to get consistent. Developing a regular routine that you stick to is about a million gazillion times more important than the type of exercise you do.
That’s where I fucked up. Because Sarah wrote back: “Oh, I’m so mad at myself! I thought I had done something good.”
SHIT.
Sarah had never really been able to get her exercise habit off the ground, and she finally found something she liked, and I made her feel like it was “wrong.” The only appropriate answer here would have been: “You tried a Zumba class? You are awesome! When is the next one?”
Instead, I behaved like one of those douche-bag trainers who comes up to you in the gym and tells you that you are squatting all wrong and you’ll probably hurt your knees so you should probably pay him $3,000 to awkwardly watch you squat for the next year as it’s the only way to prevent a total nuclear meltdown of your body.
That is the kind of bullshit that keeps people scared of exercise or feeling like they shouldn’t bother if they can’t do it “right.” All this concern about proper form is over-exaggerated and hardly necessary for people who are mostly moving their own body weight. Seriously. Anyone who tells you that you are “doing it wrong” is trying to sell you something.
Here’s how you check your own form:
If you answered yes to the previous two questions, your form is a hell of a lot better than everyone parked on the couch watching TV right now.
Now maybe you are thinking, Wait a second, Oonagh. Isn’t it supposed to hurt a little?
No. Repeat after me: “Exercise should never hurt.”
Will it always feel comfortable?
Fuck no.
If you are comfortable, you aren’t challenging yourself. By the end of a set of push-ups, your muscles should be begging for mercy. But that’s not pain. Pain is caused by an illness or injury, and it’s not a normal experience of exercise.
It’s understandable that new exercisers get confused when we’ve all been fed the “no pain, no gain” line since Jane Fonda first donned a pair of leg warmers. I actually had a client once who was so out of shape she didn’t even like casual walking. I started her training program slowly by asking her to clap her hands over her head while sitting down. She started and then immediately protested, “It hurts! It hurts!” I was completely baffled until I realized that when she said, “It hurts,” she just meant that she was experiencing exercise-induced muscle fatigue by lifting her arms up and she freaking hated that feeling.
So, here’s how you tell whether you are experiencing the good I’m-challenging-myself-and-getting-stronger discomfort vs. the bad holy-fuck-don’t-do-that-ever-again pain.
“Challenging myself” discomfort: Usually feels like a gradual onset of a burning type of sensation that you feel right in the muscle (not the joint). The feeling will go away when you stop doing the movement.
“Oh shit, something went wrong” pain: Usually a sudden, sharp pain, often felt near the joint, that will result in you not wanting to use that part of your body, even after the exercise is over.
Got it? Great. You are ready to exercise. Seriously.
Off you go now.
What are you waiting for?
Oh—are you waiting to have more free time? Do you really think there is ever going to come a moment when all your emails are answered and the house is spotless with the laundry all folded and your kids want nothing to do with you and you are going to look around and shrug your shoulders and think, Well, I’ve got some time on my hands. Guess I might as well do some exercise now? That moment won’t happen. There will always be more important things to do if you don’t put this first. And if you don’t put exercising first, you will lose functioning of your body and your life will seriously suck. If you don’t use it, you lose it. Your amazingly efficient body will start to atrophy those muscles, and then you won’t be able to use them when you want to, for stuff like stairs. Like tying your shoes. Like getting off a toilet without assistance. Seriously, who wants help getting off a toilet? No one. Make the time to exercise. There is no excuse. And just a reminder, your heart is a muscle. If you don’t use it (by raising your heart rate), then it will also lose function. Also known as dying. And no one wants that either.
You can’t wait until you have “more time.” And no, you don’t need more money either. Take Oprah. Remember Marathon-Running Oprah? It was after Wagon-of-Fat Oprah, but before Spiritual Oprah. Anyway, Marathon-Running Oprah was talking about her new fitness kick, and somebody challenged her and said, “Yeah, I could get in shape, too, if I had money for a personal trainer and a personal chef!”
To which Marathon-Running Oprah apparently responded: “I can have all the personal trainers in the world, but it’s my fat ass that’s running around that track.”
Point being: your personal fitness is the one thing you can’t outsource. Otherwise I’m sure Oprah would have. Yes, you throw some money at it and get some help and that is awesome. I’m so proud to say that is exactly what I do for a living. But you still need to take radical responsibility for your results. I have the lovely experience of receiving almost daily emails from people saying, “Thank you so much! Because of you, I’ve lost weight and totally changed my life and I feel incredible!” And although I love getting those emails and they fill my heart with joy, I always counter: “I didn’t do a single one of your planks. I didn’t eat salad when I wanted a chimichanga. YOU did that. Those results happened because of your actions, not mine.” On the other hand, I will occasionally get an email that says something along the lines of “I bought your program and it didn’t work!” And then when I ask them if they actually did the program after purchasing it, the answer is “Well, no…” (Seriously, this happens.) Because people are desperately looking to outsource responsibility for their health, but it just doesn’t work that way.
At the end of the day, you just need to get up and do it. You don’t need more money. Push-ups, crunches, and running are free. And the internet is a tickle trunk of free workouts as well. (If you want my curated list of the best Free Fitness on the web, go to www.fitfeelsgood.com/book.)
Just do something. Pretty much every day. Even on your vacation. Even on days when you don’t fucking feel like it. (“Yoga for When You Are Hungover” is one of the links on my Free Fitness resources. You’re welcome.) It doesn’t have to be hard—start with a walk around the block. It doesn’t have to be long—my clients and I do a twenty-minute strength and HIIT training program, and we are so ripped and hot, it’s crazy. It just has to happen consistently. No negotiations. No hitting the Snooze button and then lying there having a big, old debate about whether you REALLY have to exercise today because blah blah insert-exercuse-here blah. Or trying to make a deal with yourself about how you’ll exercise later or skip a meal to make up for it. Listen to how funny your brain is trying to wiggle out of it and then get the fuck up and exercise anyway. (More about this when we “Break Up with Your Bullshit” in chapter 8.) It can be anything as long as you are moving. Step outside the box and think about what movement you might genuinely look forward to. What did you love doing when you were a kid? Swimming? Skating? Climbing? Find something you love—or at least something you don’t hate—and go for it.
When people ask me, “What is the best exercise?” I know they are looking for my educated trainer answer (which would be the standard “strength training and HIIT cardio” if they are looking to lose fat), but really I want to tell them to just put on their favorite music and dance like a fool and laugh and have fun. Because if you are having fun, you will actually DO it. At this point of my life, I think that strength training and HIIT cardio is more fun than tequila shots and a sombrero, but that certainly wasn’t always the case. Remember that in order to get consistent I had to bribe myself with trashy, guilty pleasure TV.
So, if you aren’t yet exercising consistently, what do you need to do to make that happen? You need to take radical responsibility for your health and figure out what would be fun or at least tolerable enough that you would commit for real.
The idea is to move you up this continuum:
At the bottom, we have Sedentary Sally. She drives to work, sits at a desk, drives home, and then sits and watches TV. This is pretty common and why most North Americans get only about five thousand steps a day (versus the ten thousand recommended for adults).
Just above that we have Inconsistent Irene. She exercises sometimes, but she can’t get that consistency down. She will get a burst of motivation and maybe work out three times in one week, but then the next week is a write-off. And she manages one the week after, and then she gets sick, etc., etc. (Don’t get me wrong, Irene is doing WAY better than Sally! She’s broken the seal—that is a huge accomplishment! But as far as seeing any difference in the way she looks and feels, she’s probably going to experience going one step forward, one step back, and get seriously frustrated.)
Then there is Consistent Carmen, who goes to a dance or yoga or rock-climbing class three times a week. If she’s happy with her results, then I’m happy! However, if she wants to get leaner and healthier, I’d encourage her to increase her frequency or maybe join Kate…
Constant Kate goes to boot-camp class three times a week, where she does HIIT cardio and strength training. In doing so, she’s being really efficient in revving up her metabolism and building lean muscle mass, therefore changing her body composition in the least amount of time.
But then there is Molly the Mover. She doesn’t go to a gym or anything, but she’s a farmer or a chef and she is moving all day every day and uses her muscles. She’s lean, and her body functions really well. Physically, she seems much younger than her years. She really earns her Netflix at the end of the day.
Finally, there is Hard-Core Holly. Holly is working out most days a week where she works her muscles hard and gets out of breath and sweaty. She also bikes to work, goes for a walk on her lunch break, and does active play with her kids when she gets home, easily getting at least ten thousand steps a day. Holly is definitely above average in her fitness. She has tons of energy and looks hella tight.
(By the way, if you are reading this and thinking, But I am a Hard-Core Holly! And I’m not hella tight, WTF?!, then you are awesome because you’ve nailed this critical habit of consistently challenging your body to get stronger. The secret to busting your plateau is going to be in one of the other habits.)
Notice that the big leap was between Inconsistent Irene and Consistent Carmen. Notice the next big leap was between Constant Kate and Molly the Mover. You might be surprised because Molly doesn’t work out, but she is leveraging NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), which is basically a fancy way of saying that she keeps her metabolism revved up all day long and therefore has an elevated caloric burn all day long. The latest science shows that NEAT is one of the most underrated components of wellness. It basically means you just can’t sit all day. It’s fucking awful for you. It’s way healthier to be on your feet and moving throughout the day than go balls-out at a spin class and then sit on your butt for the other twenty-three hours of the day. I tell all my clients to aim for ten thousand steps a day, get up and move every hour in order to counteract the effects of sitting, and get that NEAT revved up all day.
As your habits develop and you move up this continuum of exercise behavior, you will see why exercising consistently is one of the most powerful keystone habits you can implement for your life. You will see that you are less likely to eat Toaster Strudels for breakfast when you just came back from a run. Even if it was a pathetically slow ten-minute run. You will notice that you are less likely to kill half a bottle of wine every night if you are committed to going to boot camp in the morning. And that’s just the immediate aftereffects of movement, not to mention the long-term health benefits of regular exercise.
When you exercise regularly, you will:
Did you, um, notice that losing weight isn’t listed here? Surprise! Exercising certainly won’t hurt your weight-loss attempts, but trying to burn off calories through exercise is actually a piss-poor weight-loss strategy. For example, to burn off a side order of fries, an average-sized person would have to go on the elliptical for about two hours. Unless you want to waste your life on an elliptical machine, it’s way more efficient to just not eat the fries in the first place.
The idea of “burning off” food is an old-school mentality that doesn’t work. Worse, it creates a head fuck where you start thinking things like I did a hard workout so I deserve this treat or I’ll order pizza tonight and just do a really hard workout tomorrow. This leads to a “binge and purge” mentality that will:
The role of exercise with fat loss is a bit more subtle. When you increase your lean muscle mass, you will have an elevated resting metabolism (because all those sexy muscles burn more calories when you are just sitting around scrolling on Facebook). That’s why trainers are always trying to get you to lift weights and build muscle, especially as you get older and muscle mass naturally declines with age. And no, it won’t make you bulky, for fuck’s sake—it will make you a total babe. In fact, in a study done by the Harvard School of Public Health, it was determined that the most effective training program for belly fat reduction for older adults was strength training for twenty minutes a day along with aerobic training. Any old aerobic training is great (go Zumba!), but if you want maximum results for the minimum amount of time in the gym, HIIT is the way to go. When you do HIIT and strength training, you are boosting your resting energy expenditure for up to seventy-two hours after the workout as your body recovers. What that means is that three days after you got your pump on you are still torching calories.
So that’s why I answered Sarah the way I did when she asked me if Zumba was the same thing as my quad workout. It just isn’t. But it was still kind of a dick answer for me to give because Sarah was at the Inconsistent Irene stage of things, and I made it sound like she fucked up by not being a full-out Hard-Core Holly. That would be like saying that someone who just ran their first marathon wasn’t doing a good thing because she didn’t win the race.
And just because exercise isn’t the most important piece of the puzzle for weight loss doesn’t mean you should dismiss it, even if eliminating your love handles is your primary goal. You remember how 99 percent of people who lose weight will gain it back? Guess what the other 1 percent do? They exercise. Do you remember that crushing article where they followed up with all The Biggest Loser contestants and they had mostly gained the weight back? Those who didn’t were the ones who had maintained a regular exercise routine.
Just get into it. I know it can suck to start. Believe me, I spent the first half of my life avoiding exercise like it was E. coli. But let me tell you from the other side of the first awkward shuffling and gasping attempts—the cumulative effects of being a consistent exerciser are unbelievable. If Pfizer could package a pill that does everything that regular exercise does for you, it would be a total mic-drop moment for Big Pharma.
And here’s the best part: you don’t have to wait around to not have a heart attack in twenty years in order to be glad you exercised. You will notice the effects immediately.
What’s not to love about that? It gives you the most immediate return on your time investment. Where else can you get that sweet-ass deal? As soon as you finish exercising, you will experience the natural exercise-induced endorphins that will make you feel happier and more relaxed and confident.
And might I remind you, feeling happy and relaxed and confident is actually our end goal. So if you are going to “skip to the end” and bask in happiness as I advised you to do when you got your head out of your ass in part 1, I suggest you get exercising. Now.
Oh, and by the way—if you’ve done the whole “Let’s get fit!” New Year’s resolution thing before…and by February all you’ve got to show for it is a ThighMaster gathering dust under your bed, never fear. Next, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about How Not to Be a Big, Fat Quitty McQuitterface.