· CHAPTER 10 ·
HOW TO FIGHT THE FUCKITS
AND NOW, LOVELY READER, IT’S TIME FOR YOU AND ME TO HAVE THE TALK. Have a seat.
I wanted to discuss something that may be a little uncomfortable, but it’s perfectly natural and there’s no reason you should feel embarrassed. You have come very far in your journey as a Healthy Motherfucker. And I am so proud of you. Around this time, you might start to notice some changes in your body. And that’s a good thing! It means you are blossoming into the strong and healthy woman you were meant to become. But sometimes, when we go through changes, we can also have some very strong emotions. These emotions are called the Fuckits. Have you ever found yourself thinking thoughts like:
“I know I said I was going to eat healthy, but fuck it, fast food is just easier.”
“I know I said I wasn’t going to drink during the week, but fuck it, I’ve had a hard day.”
“This healthy-habit stuff is a pain in the ass. Fuck it. Pass the brie.”
Yes, I thought so. It’s totally normal. And even though the Fuckits can feel really yucky sometimes, they are actually an important part of growing up.
The Fuckits are like the puberty before you hit full maturity as a Healthy Motherfucker. This is the inevitable stage when you want to give up on your new healthy habits. The Fuckits make you moody and grumpy. You might feel like you don’t even know who you are anymore. You will feel rebellious, defiant, petulant—and totally pissy. The Fuckits aren’t a flattering stage. But (like puberty), they are a necessary part of you blooming into your full potential. The challenge is making it through to the other side of the Fuckits and crossing the threshold into a new phase of maturity and wisdom, where your healthy habits are on autopilot and having abdominal muscles is no longer just an urban legend.
It’s a phase that most people never reach. Those kids are still riding the diet roller coaster, and for them, the Fuckits mark the crash of their latest diet effort, the moment they declare the diet (or, much more tragically, themselves) a failure.
To show you where the Fuckits fit into the life cycle of a Healthy Motherfucker, here is my perversion of the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change (possibly the most studied framework of healthy behavior change in psychology).
In this model, there are six stages we go through when changing our behavior or habits:
Catastrophe? Hardly. Here’s why you shouldn’t beat yourself up if you have a case of the Fuckits.
THIS SHIT IS TOTALLY NORMAL
I’m not saying aim for the Fuckits or anything, but nothing in life progresses in a linear fashion, so there’s no point in freaking out when the Fuckits show up. Your goal is to pull yourself out of the slump quickly and with minimal drama. I’ll tell you how to do that in a paragraph or two, but first let me repeat: nothing in life trends upward in a perfectly straight line. No one’s career is just one promotion after another. No one’s relationship is just peachier every day. And certainly no one’s health and fitness is one “personal best” day after another. Even when things look like a steady upward climb from a distance, there are always the peaks and valleys within that general trajectory. For example, the chart above shows the Dow Jones over the past ten years. It’s generally going up, but you can see that there is a jagged pattern within that upward climb.
And if you zoom in to just the latter half of the last year, you will see the jagged pattern within the jagged pattern, meaning that we will have good months and bad months. Zoom in a bit more and you’ll see good days and bad days. Good moments and bad moments.
So you don’t want to sweat those downward drops too much. Instead, you want to pull back the camera and ask yourself whether your progress is generally trending up or down. Here’s how you can make sure: If your progress is trending upward, then the highs will be increasingly higher and the lows will also be higher. If you’re trending down, your lows will be lower and your highs will also be lower.
Here’s what an upward trend might look like with our healthy habits:
See? The high was a bit higher—she not only went running, but she also pushed a little bit harder than ever before. The low was also a little bit higher. She doesn’t have to be perfect and never go out drinking. Her overall health is trending upward because she did it just a little bit healthier than last time.
Even if your Fuckit spiraled from a few vodka and sodas to a bender that would make a frat boy blush, remember that creating habits isn’t about perfection. Habit-building is the slow process of re-establishing what your norm is—or what “home” is to you. It’s not that you never go on a trip (or a one-night bender); it’s that you always come back home (to your healthy lifestyle, your new identity).
I heard a story once about a martial arts master who could stand on one leg forever. His students marveled that he never lost his balance. The master corrected them and said, “I’m always losing my balance; I just find it very quickly now.”
And that’s really the deal. As you master your new habits, you will find that the Fuckit phases will get shorter and less frequent, and you’ll go less deep into them. That’s partly because you are building habit automation, but also because you will have done your research. This brings us to another reason why you shouldn’t sweat the Fuckits too much.
YOUR FUCKIT RELAPSE CAN BE REFRAMED AS RESEARCH
Once you’ve been consistent in doing your healthy habits for a while, being a Healthy Motherfucker will be your new normal. This is awesome, obviously, but it can also lead to thoughts such as I feel fit and awesome. I don’t need to keep doing all these healthy habits anymore. It’s like the person who goes off their medication as soon as they start to feel better, not realizing it’s because of the medication that they feel well. These thoughts might tempt you to conduct highly scientific experiments like the following:
Observation: I sure feel like a fine specimen of humanity these days!
Question: Do I really need to keep doing all this healthy-living shit?
Hypothesis: Maybe I can now resume my old habits with minimal consequences. I predict that if I relax all my healthy habits, I will be happier and feel freer.
Experiment: I will spend this holiday season eating and drinking whatever I feel like and exercising only when it’s convenient and I’m in the mood.
*One month and five hundred puff pastry hors d’oeuvres later*
Conclusion: Hypothesis not supported. Although the initial thrill of relaxing my habits was fun, I quickly found that my energy and confidence were impacted, and the result was less happiness.
If you need to do some research, then do some research. But fer fuck’s sake, don’t deny yourself the lesson you learn from your research. Gain the knowledge and get on with your damn life. Spare yourself the energetic resources of conducting the same experiment over and over again, mmmkay? Even if you do need to—ahem—confirm the results of your initial findings by testing again (“Maybe I should try partying my way through vacation and see if it’s a different outcome than the holidays!”), reframing your visits to Fuckitland as a deliberate experiment is so much more empowering than saying something like, “I fell off the rails.”
Because guess what? Sometimes your hypothesis will be supported! Maybe you will be happier if you loosen the reins a bit.
Which brings us back to the beginning of this book—where you get to choose. Remember back in chapter 1 when I insisted that you get to choose the body you want? The way out of the Fuckits is to start back at the beginning and repeat the process I’ve outlined for you in this book. Starting with…
STEP #1. EXERCISE YOUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE.
Now that you’ve conducted your experiment, you have great data to use to help you choose where you want to be on your effort-to-results ratio chart. Remember that each individual has their own effort-to-results chart, and you get to pick the right spot for you on that continuum. You either:
Choose the effort you want to give and make your peace with the consequent results.
Or
Decide on the results you want and accept the effort required to achieve your goal.
Now that you have more information about what level of effort feels sustainable and what results are most important to you, you can be more intentional in choosing the perfect spot on that chart for you. You are better equipped to determine the right balance between the effort you’re willing to put in and the results that will make you happy.
In yoga there is a saying that each pose should have a mixture of Sthira (strength or structure) and Sukha (softness or sweetness). Your Healthy as Fuck lifestyle should aim to strike a similar balance. Most people will quickly find they are unhappy without structure, even if they think they want to “be free.” In fitness, that structure looks like regular exercise and healthy eating habits, regardless of whether you feel like it in the moment. Having total “freedom” to follow what you feel like doing in the moment—hitting the snooze button, eating whatever looks delicious—is confusing immediate pleasure with the pursuit of deeper happiness. Deeper happiness comes from the personal growth afforded by accomplishing hard goals. And accomplishing hard goals requires some structure.
On the other hand, most of us will rebel if we are caged within structures that are too strict. Again—it’s about balance. Pleasure, sweetness, and freedom are important. If you never eat anything sweet, never miss a grueling workout, and never stay up late to party with a good friend, it’s probably only a matter of time before you snap. If you find that you are getting the Fuckits too often, maybe you are demanding too much Sthira/structure and not enjoying enough Sukha/sweetness. Maybe you need to choose a different spot on your effort-to-results chart.
I’ve already told you that I chose a spot that results in me having a belly—even though I’m a leader in the fitness industry. Stereotypically, my position means that I should be inspiring you with pictures of my ripped abs, shiny hair, and perfect meals on Instagram. But I’m afraid you’ll have to do without that kind of inspiration because I’ve experimented with habits that resulted in a very lean body, and although I loved the look, I found the structures too hard to maintain and not worth it—for me. I’ve also experimented with total “freedom,” which resulted in a much bigger belly and lower energy, and it made me unhappy, unhealthy, and uncomfortable in my skin.
And so I’ve chosen a place on my personal effort-to-results chart that includes a bit of a belly. It also includes some killer biceps I love, burpees I do even when I don’t feel like it, the occasional beer I enjoy immensely with a summer sunset, and brussels sprouts I eat automatically just to fill half my plate with vegetables. This is the perfect Sthira and Sukha for me. Whether the outcome inspires people is not something I have control over. My responsibility is to choose consciously and then get to work on loving both the effort and the results.
If you’ve had a bout of the Fuckits, it’s a great time to review and recommit to where you want to be on your effort-to-results chart. If you choose deliberately and radiate the happiness that comes from that choice, I will find you inspiring as fuck, and I’ll totally follow you on Instagram. ;-)
Now, what if you’ve chosen exactly where you want to be on your effort-to-results chart but are struggling with executing your habits consistently? In that case, move on to step 2!
STEP #2. DO YOU HAVE THE Fs?
Now that you’ve chosen the perfect spot on your effort-to-results chart, you might want to check your pockets to make sure you have sufficient Fucks to maintain the effort you’ve chosen.
Remember that if you want to see different results in your body, you are going to have to do something different with your habits. This will require extra Fucks when you are first establishing your habits and they are not yet happening automatically.
Revisit the pleasure and pain exercise that you totally skipped back in chapter 3. What are the real consequences if you don’t get your shit together and stick to your habits? Where will you be in ten years if you continue on the Fuckit trajectory? Thinking about this shit should hurt. If you are avoiding facing those yucky feelings, you are never going to have the Fucks to change your behavior.
But don’t linger on the negative feelings and get all self-pitying. Remember that story when I was at acting school and we had to escape the room quietly in order to live? Those of us who focused on the pain of possibly dying…died. The one girl who focused on why she wanted to live was the only one who escaped the room and therefore lived. Once you’ve identified the painful consequences of buying real estate in Fuckittown, drop that vision entirely. Instead, redirect all your attention to the life you actually want. How would it feel if you were just as healthy and hot as you want to be? If your healthy habits felt like an effortless part of your identity? Where will you be in ten years if that change started to happen today? I bet it would feel pretty damn good. Which is the whole point. Feeling good. Happiness.
Once you’ve found your fucks, then…
STEP #3. REMEMBER THAT IT’S ALL ABOUT HAPPINESS NOW.
I know that the Fuckits can be a dark place. You are mad at yourself for breaking your intentions. You have a sneaking suspicion that you just don’t have the strength of character necessary to do this shit. You might resent your stupid body for requiring the maintenance that it does. All these grumpy thoughts are totally natural. Remember that the Fuckits are like puberty. You might feel like you want to lock yourself in your room because no one understands you and write bad poetry. I get it. (Just ask my tenth-grade English teacher. I should find that poor woman and send her thank-you flowers for taking seriously my 1992 epic poem, “Dark Shadows, Cast by the Moon.”)
But now, with the benefit of maturity, we all know that kind of melodrama isn’t particularly helpful. Remember that the ultimate goal here isn’t really to eat vegetables or run a six-minute mile or even to lose weight and get smokin’ hot. The ultimate goal is the feeling that you think you will have once you’ve accomplished those goals: happiness. And happiness will never come from marinating in yucky, self-hating, fuck-it thoughts.
Even though you might be mad at yourself, you have to forgive yourself and move on. Remember that it is impossible to “punish” yourself into good behavior. Self-punishing thoughts will lead to self-punishing behaviors. Bad feelings will lead to more bad feelings. This is exactly the opposite of what you want.
If you need help being gentle with yourself when you are in the Fuckits, picture yourself as a little baby who is learning to walk. You keep falling down on your little diaper bum, and you’re getting frustrated and starting to cry. Would you get angry with that baby and yell at her because she isn’t able to walk? Would that help? Would it result in her learning to walk faster? Of course not. What you would do is pick up the frustrated baby and comfort her and make her happy. Once she’s happier, she is much more likely to have success. Frustrated babies are fucking useless. And so are you when you are in the Fuckit zone. So, your one job right now is to comfort your grumpy baby self. Go for a walk, call a funny friend, or do whatever you need to do to get out of your funk. I will often counsel my clients, after they’ve made regrettable choices: “This is not the end of the world. You are one workout away from feeling like yourself again.”
Oh, by the way, when do you give up on the baby learning to walk? Never, obviously. Because walking rules. And you want the best life possible for your baby. Same goes for you and achieving exactly the body you choose. And this Healthy as Fuck habits-based approach works. You are on the right path. Making healthy habits part of your identity is the only way to long term health and hotness, and you now know exactly which keystone habits to focus on. Just because you are slightly off course right now doesn’t mean that it’s the wrong route for you or that the destination isn’t worth it. If you keep coming home to your healthy habits and loving yourself every step of the way, you will be astounded by the change in your body and the quality of your one and only life on this planet. So when the Fuckits happen and you are having those yucky feelings, don’t try to soothe yourself by getting distracted and tempted by the latest weight-loss fad. None of those fads work in the long run. You’ve probably already done that research, so don’t waste your energetic resources doing it again, when you could be focusing on getting back on track with being the Healthy Motherfucker that you truly are.
If you need convincing that there is a light at the end of the Fuckit tunnel, there are all sorts of #fitspo before-and-after shots at www.fitfeelsgood.com/stories. But remember that the real transformation might look like this:
That’s an airplane seat belt. My client Donna sent the photo to me because her healthy habits have resulted in a weight loss that meant she didn’t have to ask for a seat-belt extender. And now that she doesn’t have to face that humiliation, she wants to travel the world.
Or Evie, who always avoided getting in boats because she was afraid that she would be the one to tip it over. Here she is after her first day with the Dublin Dragon boating team:
Or Rebecca, who was the classic sandwich generation woman: looking after parents and kids. She felt trapped by her circumstances and made her life smaller and smaller. The couch called to her after work, and she became less social as the weight piled on. She never wore anything other than black. She is shy, so she asked me to decapitate her in this before-and-after shot:
But she also said, “Tell them not to look at how much weight I’ve lost but how I feel. I am no longer waiting to live my damn life.”
Starting to live your damn life can happen right now, at exactly the weight you are. Forgive your little baby self for getting the Fuckits, and proceed to step 4!
STEP #4. REVIEW YOUR KEYSTONE HABITS.
Let’s review the 7 Habits of Highly Healthy Motherfuckers and get real about where you are being a slack-ass MOFO. Again, don’t get all self-flagellant about it. This is just information that you can work with.
Wanna be part of the 1 percent? Then eat your damn vegetables. Research shows that there is a 99 percent chance you aren’t getting the optimal ten servings of fruit and vegetables a day, which will automatically control your calorie intake and, um, help you not die.
Since 1960, chronic sleep deprivation has increased dramatically in North America and—looky looky—so have our waistlines.
If you drink alcohol, you have to acknowledge that it sabotages your fitness results, even if you are pristine in all your other habits. Is it time to back away from the booze?
Every time you start thinking of yourself as a fat fuck who has a cheese addiction, you will fulfill that prophecy. Drop the drama in your head using meditation and you will drop the extra junk around the middle.
Remember that almost everyone who has excess body fat is just straight up eating too much. Period.
By now you’ve realized this shit doesn’t just happen on its own. Dedicating an hour a week to meal prep is probably the most efficient use of your limited time if fat loss is your priority.
No, you can’t “work off” food. But exercising consistently is one of your strongest weapons against getting the Fuckits, and a key predictor of maintaining weight-loss results for the long term.
Have you identified your area of slackitude? Now that you know what’s not working, let’s get mega practical and figure this shit out.
STEP #5. IS THERE ANY WAY YOU COULD MAKE THIS HABIT EASIER?
Channel my dominatrix “get ’er done” former boss and ask yourself How could I make this more fun and easy? How could you set up your environment for success? Reduce distractions? Do you need to ask your friend for the name of her babysitter? What are the barriers getting in your way, and how can you hedge them off in advance? Could you take five minutes to automate reminders on your phone? Is it time for some kick-ass new music to get you pumped? Do you need to come up with a different bribe to make yourself actually want to do your habit? Often, the Fuckits are a result of life making your habits too hard. If that’s the case, you might want to think about what needs to change in your life in order to support you being healthier and happier. Seriously. You’ve only got one life to live. Don’t be a victim to your circumstances. Change what needs changing.
STEP #6. HOW COULD YOU RECRUIT MORE SOCIAL SUPPORT?
The best way to make something fun is to make it social. Even if you identify as an introvert, your peers will create the new normal you will conform to, for better or worse. So, is there any way you could make your healthy habit a group activity? Could you ask your family for more support? Is there a group that is already doing this shit so you can join it and learn from them? Don’t be afraid to suck in front of other people. If you are dead serious about your new habit, grow a pair and make a public commitment so that your community can hold you accountable.
STEP #7. WHAT IS THE BULLSHIT YOU ARE USING TO GET OUT OF YOUR HABIT?
What was the thought that went through your head before you dove headfirst into the Fuckit pool?
Were you on vacation and decided to “pause” your habits because you were all like “YOLO, bitches!”?
Or maybe you were convincing yourself that while you’d really just love to be doing your habit, you unfortunately don’t have time right now?
Rewind your mental tape to figure out what that clever brain of yours is coming up with in order to push you back to your comfort zone. It’s just trying to protect you, but you are going to have to become consciously aware of it in order to politely decline. Come up with a break-up speech so that you don’t fall for this seductive Bullshit again.
On the other hand, if your story about why you can’t do your habit feels pretty legit, that’s when you proceed to step 8!
STEP #8. HALF-ASS YOUR HABIT.
If your habits are collapsing faster than a game of Jenga with a toddler, you might be pushing yourself too hard, too fast. I get that you want results like, yesterday, but we are playing the long game here. That all-or-nothing, go-hard-or-go-home mentality is a recipe for a Fuckit soufflé. Instead of giving up, ask yourself: What half-ass version of my habit could I realistically do now to start building that habit loop?
Remember that those half-ass efforts totally count. One percent improvement every day doesn’t sound that exciting until you see the glorious boner that is a compound-interest chart:
Now that’s what I’m talking about. Those are the kind of results you can get from consistent, teeny-tiny improvements.
And remember, it’s not that you are always perfect and never get the Fuckits. If that compound-interest chart were real life, it would be more of a jagged line with lots of ups and downs. All you have to do is make your highs a little higher and the lows also a little higher, and the Boner of Success will be yours.
So, shrug off the occasional bout of the Fuckits and focus on what you are doing right. And, dude. You are doing so much right.