Love is first...

A lot of people I talk to lately have weight loss on their minds.  Maybe it is because the weather is starting to change and we’re all putting on clothes we haven’t worn in a while.  Before I talk about weight loss, I need to get one thing out of the way:  YOU ARE FABULOUS JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.  You will not be a better person or more loveable or more intelligent or more capable if you lose weight; you will just be less weighty.  Pardon me for the yelling, but the fitness industrial complex and our capitalist overlords are very loud on the subject of thinness equating to virtue, spice, and everything nice, and they are not right.

 

Now, fabulous people, if any of us in our fabulousness want to lose weight, we need to approach the process with love.  I am not here to take away anyone’s cookies or to chase anyone around a track with a whip.  Shame and humiliation do not work to motivate people.  Deprivation is not a way of life.  So, how do we do it?

 

First, we give our bodies good food.  This might take some experimenting and we might have to remember some stuff about the long term when our short term brain is screaming for Twinkies.  (I don’t happen to like Twinkies, but we all have cravings for things that pretend to be food, like Twinkies, Jack-in-the-Box tacos, movie popcorn…)  Good food does taste good, but it also makes us feel good, not sluggish or hung over.  After a whole chunk of time spent studying fitness nutrition, I will only say with certainty that we should all eat our veggies and drink lots of water.  The rest of our consumption really depends on personal chemistry and preferences.

 

Then we give our bodies good movement.  Good movement means we burn some calories with cardio and we change our body composition with weights.  We toss in some flexibility, some core and balance stuff, and a touch of relaxation, and we call it a day.  Unless we are professional athletes, we should be able to get our movement done in an hour or less a day, on average.  Good movement will sometimes leave us a little sore, but we will know it is good movement because we will find our energy levels rising, our brains working better, and our bodies working better.

 

I will not lie:  weight loss is hard.  Our bodies have to work against centuries of evolution plus the pressures of agribusiness, modern life, and pandemic bonuses.  It can be done, but it is best done slowly and with love.