"Many people ask me about how I've managed to lose weight that I figure it would just be best to put it in a Note and refer people to it on an individual basis. This is not due to laziness. This is due to the fact that the answer is incredibly complicated and really insanely difficult to type out on my phone with several bags of groceries in my hand (or whatever the case may be).
First of all, you have to find a good enough reason to lose weight. You can't really do it for others. You have to associate it with your own personal gain. Maybe you're tired of your thighs rubbing together in the summer. Maybe you want to become a stripper and not break the stage. Either way, it has to be for you and there has to be an end goal. This is very important. You can't just have a nebulous "I just want to look good" idea of where you want to wind up. It's not focused enough. For me, I remember the moment I realized that I didn't only want to, I needed to lose weight. I was newly single and not really interested in any of the male prospects available to me. I realized that if I wanted to get a certain... caliber of man, I needed to step my game up. You should only really date one point up or down from where you land on the 1-10 attractiveness rank and if I want a 10, I can't be a 5. It just doesn't work that way. I had an end goal. I really wanted to have sex with someone who didn't physically disgust me. So from there it started and I could not be stopped.
Once you have come up with your tangible reason to put down the fork, you need to completely change your entire lifestyle. Forever. I'm not kidding. I'm not going to lie to you. It's going to be super difficult. You're going to walk by cake in Jewel forever and secretly want to give up, but this urge will dwindle painfully slowly as time goes on. You're going to have to realize that these foods that you love, that comfort you, that fill you with insurmountable joy are actually what make you jiggly. They're like a partner that throws you down the stairs and then brings you flowers, crying about how they're sorry and they love you. The flowers are nice. The bruises are not. Stretch marks are not pretty no matter what way you want to fucking spin it (unless you've had a baby in which case you're a beautiful tiger. Werk dem stripes. You've got beauty beauty.).
Once you've accepted that you are going to feel unending sadness whenever you gaze upon cake/Doritos/pizza/french fries/etc. you can now begin the process of learning how to replace those tasty awful foods with better things. This is actually not that hard. I have a few key principles:
1. Less brown/yellow foods. More green/colorful foods.
2. Do not get into juicing. Juice diets are extremely bad for you. You need the fiber in fruits and vegetables which will get discarded after extracting the juice. What you don't need is 15 oranges worth of sugar.
3. When going grocery shopping, pay more attention to the outer aisles of the grocery store (meat, cheese, eggs, dairy, vegetables and fruit) and avoid aisles (bread, cereal, frozen things, canned things, soda).
4. Be strict with yourself but not too strict. However, do not allow yourself "cheat days". This is a slippery slope of a concept because there is simply no way to regulate it. You can't have one cheat day per week. You can't have more than one cheat day per week. If you don't give yourself very specific circumstances to cheat, you will cheat all the time. That's just how it works. You have to keep your shitty appetite on a short leash from now on, especially at the start. For example, I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER drink soda UNLESS I go to the movies in which case I allow myself an extra large of any soda there is. I only go to the movies like once every three months so I end up never really having soda. That being said, no soda, ever. Give it up. Give it up right now. Cold turkey. Never drink it. I cannot express this enough. You cannot drink soda regularly and be skinny. It is impossible. Do not even fucking try. Other examples, I will let myself eat cake if it is offered to me at a party but I will never under any circumstances seek out and buy cake for literally no reason. I will only eat one piece when offered, unless it is my birthday, then I will have two. I will never eat McDonalds unless I have, for example, walked 6 miles that day or something. You must earn it. You must earn the most delicious cheesy carby food and realize that before, you were basically just eating cake every day and calling it "normal".
5. Be wary of "healthy foods". Gluten free means nothing unless you have celiac disease. Chai tea lattes? Sounds like a yoga healthy crunchy dream, but it's incredibly horrible for you. Full of sugar. Cobb salads have bacon and eggs and cheese in them. Wheat bread is still bread.
6. Lay off the alcohol.
Let me know if you want any recipes. I never really feel as if I am depriving myself of tasty food, I just don't binge eat ice cream.
On to the exercise portion of this lesson. Keep in mind, the food thing is way more important. They say abs are made in the kitchen and it's true. But you should also probably work out in order to avoid the dreaded "skinny fat".
Basic principles with exercise:
1. You absolutely have to have a routine. You have to make working out a necessary part of the day. You can't just not go to the gym because you do not have time. You can't just not go to the gym because you're tired. You can't just not go to the gym because you have some other elaborate excuse for being weak. You have to treat it like eating, sleeping, or work. You have to just fucking do it. I don't know what else to say there. That is strictly a will power thing and you will either have something or not.
2. Running is simply not enough. There are plenty of giant fatasses that can run 3 miles in a relatively short amount of time. That speaks to their stamina but you're not doing this to be able to outrun giant desert cats. You're doing this so you don't silently weep when you try on clothing in Target. That being said, you absolutely have to lift. You. Must. Lift. Heavy. Things. And put them back down on the floor. And pick them back up. Lift first, run second, always. Dedicate one day to your lower body, and the next day to your upper body. You're going to be in pain fucking constantly, especially at first. Accept it now. Unless the muscles physically hurt when touched or you do not have full range of motion, you can still work them out. So do it.
3. Stretch before and after and, if you have the time, during. If I have all the time in the world, ideally, I come into the gym, stretch, lift things, stretch, run, and then stretch.
The way that I typically like to think of exercise is less like, oh, I'm doing this to be hot because that outlook poses problems. You'll be tired and sore and don't want to go to the gym because you just want instant results and it's just impossible to work that way. So I like to use really embarrassing scenarios to motivate myself to work out. Sometimes I'll pretend I'm training for the Hunger Games. I'm serious, it works.
Other things:
-That thing I said about instant results earlier? I was dead serious. You're not going to notice anything drastic, ever. That's just the nature of seeing yourself every day. It's like watching a puppy grow into a full grown adult Rottweiler. You just sort of see it every day and you look at it one day and go, huh, you could rip me to shreds easily, what happened? Just give it time.
-In regards to losing physical lbs, unless you are seriously obese, you will not ever lose more than a pound a week and still be considered "healthy". If you're obese, expect to lose 2-3 lbs a week and plateau at the "skinny fat" stage. It happens. Otherwise, when you go to a point where you're no longer considered "fat", don't pay too much attention to the scale. Don't pay attention to BMI. Pay attention to how much you jiggle when you walk. Pay attention to how much better your pants fit. Stand up straight and try to pinch the fat on your stomach and once it becomes difficult, you're now a majestic beautiful unicorn.
-Smoothies. Do the smoothies thing. Bananas and mangoes and soy milk (unsweetened) and protein powder and peanut butter. NO JUICE. STOP IT WITH THE JUICE.
-Nobody in the gym really cares about what you're doing. We don't see you and go "oh look at that disgusting hog" and we don't look at you and go "you go, girl" and wish the best for you. Unless you're like, super hot, no one is looking at you and if you're super hot and people are looking at you, that's good. What people do care about is if you are hogging a machine and texting while the gym is packed. If you get your sweat all over a machine and don't clean it off and give everyone ringworm. If you wear strong cologne or perfume. If you walk in front of people watching their form in the mirror (the more you lift, the more clearly annoying this will become). Just don't be a dick.
That's about it. Let me know if you want recipes/workout suggestions or have any questions."
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