Images by Brooke Richardson Photography

For much of our lives, we were advised to avoid dietary fat if we wanted to stay svelte and healthy. It was drilled into us that fat makes you fat. Not PHAT (aka pretty hot and tempting, for those of you not up on early-2000 pop culture - who even are you), but f a t. The no bueno kind. Well guess freaking what?! That guidance is WRONG-O. 

Current studies show fat is actually ESSENTIAL to your health. Imagine that. In a powerful article by Dr. Dwight Lundell, a heart surgeon with 25 years' experience and over 5,000 open-heart surgeries under his belt, he admits he was wrong all those years. Here are some key takeaways from his article (which I will link below):

• Inflammation is the real culprit
• This has prompted a paradigm shift in the treatment of heart disease and other chronic ailments
• Inflammation causes cholesterol to become trapped, causing heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended.
• Inflammation is your body's natural defense to a foreign invader, such as bacteria, toxins, or viruses
• If we chronically expose our bodies to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process (looking at you, McD's "chicken" nuggets), a condition occurs called chronic inflammation.
• We have simply followed the recommended mainstream low-fat diet, unknowingly causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. Yikes! This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes (aka DIABEETUS), and obesity.

• The biggest culprits of chronic inflammation are, quite simply, the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour, and all products made from them) and the excessive consumption of omega-6 veggie oils like soybean, corn, and sunflower found in many processed foods

• (This is a gnarly analogy) Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes extremely red and nearly bleeding. Imagine you repeated this several times a day, every day for five years. If you could  even tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that worsened with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now. JIGGA WHAT?!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• A diseased artery looks like someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall
• SEVERAL TIMES A DAY, EVERY DAY, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into even MORE injuries, causing the body to RESPOND CONTINUOUSLY and appropriately WITH INFLAMMATION
• In case you didn't get the point: "While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone" 

Bananas, right?! Really makes you re-think what you put in your piehole, when you visualize the effects. Another argument for eating foods as close to their natural state as possible (future post on this).

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Back to the benefits of fat. Here are some solid reasons to embrace fat:

1. Better body composition 
2. More muscle
3. Easier fat loss
4. Improved reproductive health
5. Better brain function and mood with less risk of depression
6. Stronger bones and decreased risk of osteoporosis
7. Reduced cancer risk (suck it, cancer)
8. Better cholesterol ratio and reduced heart disease risk
9. Stronger immune system
10. Better SKIN and eye health (yassss! the better to see that glowing skin with, my dear)
11. MORE ENERGY!!!!!!!!

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So don't shy away from that fat, mis amigos! The closer a food is to its natural form, the better, so avoid anything that's been messed with, i.e. items labeled "low fat" or "low sugar." Real butter is much better than margarine (margarine is straight chemicals, yo), whole milk is preferable to skim, etc. And no more dry salads, puh lease!! Fun fact: Full-fat dressing actually ENHANCES nutrient absorption and bioavailability. So you're actually missing out if you pass on the fat. Good news, right?! Happy eating, PHATties!!!!

xx,

-w-

Links:

https://www.sott.net/article/242516-Heart-Surgeon-Speaks-Out-On-What-Really-Causes-Heart-Disease

http://main.poliquingroup.com/articlesmultimedia/articles/article/1069/ten_amazing_benefits_of_eating_fat.aspx

“Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

A few years ago, I read a health and fitness article which made a pretty bold claim: Walking is the best thing you can do for your body. It listed the following benefits you usually hear associated with walking: decreased blood pressure, increased circulation, improved blood pressure, decreased joint paint, elevated mood, etc. 

Sure, all good things. But really? Walking is the best thing you can do for your body? Exaggeration much? Turns out..no. It's actually pretty dang incredible for you.

Get this: Walking is the NUMBER ONE form of exercise for which our bodies are designed. Say whaaaat. Not squats. Not crunches. Not running. WALKING. Walking is the most natural movement for us. Not only does it generate the aforementioned benefits, but studies keep finding more and more. Here are some more:

• Reduced body fat and body weight. (Turns out, it's truly effective at reducing belly fat. Hollaaaa!)
• Improved glycemic control, especially if you walk 30 minutes after eating
• Boosted memory and creativity - musts for me!
• In conjunction with the previous benefit, it sparks ideas and solutions. (My best ideas/solutions usually come when I'm out walking my dogs.) 
• Increased lymphatic flow, which helps flush toxins from the body. (YES PLEASE!)
• Reduced pain (It's low impact and can even help offset joint pain and arthritis by keeping those muscles warm and limber)
• Improved sleep (particularly if you walk outside during the day, which helps regulate your circadian rhythms)

And if you really step to it and get moving, it can be an even BETTER workout than jogging! Once you near that threshold, it's actually easier to break into a jog than it is to maintain that brisk walking pace. 

Some tips on amping up your walk:

• Incorporate weights: ankle weights, wrist weights, weighted vest, light dumbbells, or a baby :)
• Add in intervals: play around with varying inclines/speeds. Note: If you jack up the incline while on a treadmill, keep it hands free! If you cling to the sides of the treadmill, you're technically cheating.
• Take a hike! A hike is a fantastic way to squeeze in some extra booty work

Working out places stress on your body. This is a good thing, because your body's reaction to the stress is what makes it stronger and faster. However, if you're in a hyper-stressed state to begin with (mentally/physically), then this can do more harm than good. Especially if you OD on the the workout/don't let your body recover. Walking is an excellent movement option if you are:

• Wanting active recovery (especially if your muscles are sore!)
• Easing into exercise and don't want to jump into anything too strenuous
• Recovering from adrenal fatigue and need to mellow out for a bit while not losing your endurance
• Are needing stress relief
• Trying to fit both exercise and meditation into your day, yet keep falling short. Hello, moving meditation (it's a thing!)

Your walking pace, intensity, and length of time are completely up to you, depending on your individual goals/needs. A ten-minute walk 30 minutes after eating can be just as comparable as a 45-minute walk. When I walk my dogs, I turn on my tunes and zone out. It's my release time, my me time, my reflection time. I'm not trying to make a certain time or cover a certain distance - I'm there for the mental benefits. 

So decide what you're in it for, and go for it!

Here are some helpful resources:

http://theshawnstevensonmodel.com/benefits-of-walking/

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/5-surprising-benefits-of-walking

https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/why-walking-most-underrated-form-exercise-ncna797271

xx,

-w-

Photos by Brooke Richardson Photography

Wanna know something scary? Don't worry, I never list a problem without providing a solution.

SITTING IS KILLING US. 

Whether you're deep in a Netflix binge or chained to a desk at work, the result is the same: bad news. Sedentary lifestyles are no bueno, and we're sucked into them for a number of reasons:

• Technology makes our lives increasingly more convenient
• Social media hooks us (HELLO mindless scrolling)
• Jobs limit us to one spot for long periods of time (this includes commuting)

I used to think I was in the clear because I consistently worked out and prioritized fitness. PSYYYYYCHE. Turns out, research shows no matter how hard you kill it in the gym, no amount of time or intensity can offset the effects of you being sedentary for 5+ hours. Get this: Sitting for over five hours is the health equivalent to smoking a pack of cigs a day. YIKES. 

However, there is a remedy: standing up every 10 minutes. Ideally, you get the heart pumping a little while you're at it, by doing squats/lunges/jumping jacks/etc, but at the very least, get off your booty. 

Set a timer on your phone to remind you to stand up every ten minutes. Pretty soon, your body will prompt you naturally. For a few years now, I've been standing up every ten minutes, and like clockwork, my body will start screaming at me to stand up on that tenth minute. It's incredible. I personally do squat/lunge variations for a few seconds when I stand.

Still not convinced? Get a load of the following:

• Sitting for long periods of time can cause changes in your muscles. You stop breaking up fat in your bloodstream and start accumulating fat. You get sleepy and gain weight. [New York Times Phys Ed columnist Gretchen Reynolds in her book The First 20 Minutes in an NPR article, inked below].
• When you stand, your heart beats ten times more per minute than when you sit. In a year, this adds up to more than 30,000 calories burned, which equates to running ten marathons [Ragan.com article, linked below]
• Taking walking or water breaks throughout the day can increase productivity by 60 percent!

So LET'S STAND TOGETHER.

xx,

-w-

Resources:

http://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/2653704/patterns-sedentary-behavior-mortality-u-s-middle-aged-older-adults

https://www.npr.org/2012/05/09/152336802/stand-up-walk-around-even-just-for-20-minutes

https://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/Standing_every_20_minutes_negates_the_effects_of_s_49947.aspx

Let's play a game of true or false. You in?  Okay, true or false:

• You've ever felt less than motivated to work out
• You've ever forced yourself through a workout, hating every minute but determined to get that summer bod on lock
• You've ever talked yourself out of exercise and talked yourself into Netflix instead
• You've ever blasted yourself for being lazy...yet somehow that tough love failed to translate into a regular fitness regimen
• You've ever critiqued your body and wanted to change it yet...the thought of doing something about it leaves you feeling hopeless/overwhelmed so you just...don't
• You've ever been too exhausted to work out because LIFE

If you answered "true" to one or more then...welcome to the human club!!! I feel you. I'm a driven and disciplined person and yet...there are days i realllly don't friggin' want to work out.  Like really. And the more I try to bully and convince myself I need to, the less I want to. I always feel better after I do, but overcoming that initial hump is brutal, amiright?!!

Want to know some tricks that have been game changers for me?!! They trigger such a mentality shift for me, and work every single time, whenever I'm hurting for motivation.

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               Simply focus on M O V E M E N T

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That's it. Forget about aesthetics and trying to look a certain way. Forget about forcing yourself to lift as heavy as last time because you're so consumed with progressing. Forget about burning a certain number of calories or achieving a certain number of steps. Forget about leg day and chest/back day and working a certain muscle group. JUST MOVE. 

Go for a walk (I love walking my dogs and zoning out to music - it soothes my soul like nothing else). Do a Fitness Marshall dance video on YouTube (total blast). Do a few yoga vinyasas. Take the stairs at work. Stand up every 10 seconds at work (more on this later). Eliminate the pressure on yourself and just focus on simply moving. THAT'S IT. [Re]discover the joy in it.

Next:

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Grant yourself permission to quit after 10 minutes

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If you're lobbying hard to convince yourself you need to go to workout but you just don't wanna - then tell yourself all you have to do is ten minutes. That's all. You can quit with dignity after logging 10 minutes. You can actually get an excellent workout in (hello HIIT!!! hello lifting heavy for low reps!!!) in that amount of time. And IT'S JUST TEN MINUTES. That's about the time it takes you to shower, or eat a snack, or start getting sucked into the social media vortex. JUST TEN MINUTES. You've got this!!!

If you need workout inspo, peep Alexia Clark on Instagram (my fave!) for ideas for quick but effective circuits. What I love about Alexia is her variety of workouts. She posts at least a couple of workouts daily - via both her feed and stories.

Or message me, and I'll happily shoot you a quick workout to do!!  If you choose a cardio machine, make the most of your time by avoiding steady-state cardio (unless you're just focusing on movement - then by all means, you do you!) and incorporating intervals by adjusting time/resistance/incline/speed throughout those ten minutes.

xx,

-w-

Images by Brooke Richardson Photography

Body. This area is near and dear to my heart. It's been my passion and focus for more years than I care to count. The truth is...

My body and I haven't always been on the same team, for which I take full responsibility. Blinded by lofty aesthetic and fitness ideals, I tried to force my body into what it wasn't. Superhuman stamina or bust. Six pack or bust. Each day I demanded improvement. It was unacceptable to me to do less than the day before. Rest days were laughable. Just one more rep than the day before. Then one more. Then one more...

With a pace and mentality like that - without the chance to recover - it doesn't take long for your body to B U R N out. And I kept up that pace for a disgustingly long time. I still marvel at how my body kept up with me as long as it did. At the height of it, I was working out over 5 hours A DAY. And we're not talking light jogs - we're talking going A L L  O U T. For example, here was a day in the life:

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5:00 am: Wake up and do an Insanity video. Add additional cardio before and after the video started jusssst to make sure I was getting all I could from the workout. After the video ended, repeat a few of the parts I feel I didn't do as well.

7:00 am - Park my car as far from where I was going as possible, so I could squeeze in some extra walking miles to and from classes at ISU.

11:00 am: Kickboxing/aerobics class

3:30/4:00 pm: Arrive to Gold's Gym early, so I could knock out some extra cardio 

4:30 pm: Pilates

5:30 pm: Hip Hop Aerobics

6:30 pm: Body Pump [weight-lifting class]

7:30 pm: Zumba

*In between all of this, I was working and going to school full-time, demanding excellence of myself in those areas as well

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By nature, I have an all-or-nothing personality (something I've really had to work to overcome). My days were for working/working out, and my nights were for winding down and eating. In my mind, eating was part of relaxing and releasing - not something I did throughout the day to, ya know, FUEL MY BODY. (facepalm) For so long, I denied my body's screams for adequate rest. For solid nutrition. For self love. 

As you can imagine, my body wasn't too stoked about my regimen, and I wasn't too stoked about my body's refusal to obey. I felt more and more sluggish. Each step was a chore. I wanted to cry, thinking about drumming up the energy to get through each day, yet each time it came to work out, my OCDness kicked into gear and I'd force myself to do just as much or more than the day before. I was terrified of losing the "progress" for which I'd battled (little did I know, my lack of rest was actually hindering progress). Again, in my mind it was all or nothing: if I didn't do as much as I'd done the day before, then all was lost. Ironically, people at the gym nicknamed me "Energizer Bunny" - little did they know how untrue that was. Rather than energy, it was sheer stupid determination powering me. 

As you can see, that drive for "greatness" is a slippery slope. It's always been my biggest strength and biggest weakness.

Eventually, my body waved the white flag. It just.couldn't.sustain.that pace. It had run on fumes for far too long, and it had had enough. I'd magically produce the energy for hard workouts, but could barely put one foot in front of the other otherwise. My sleep suffered. My concentration suffered. I had unshakeable brain fog. My adrenals were shot and my metabolism was wrecked. Add into the mix pre-existing thyroid and sleep issues, and you have a recipe for total disaster. 

While I hold myself fully accountable for the hell I put my body through, I'll be honest: positive feedback from people partly fueled my fire. Even if I didn't initially set out to drop weight, I soon started hearing from people how "fantastic" I looked. How inspirational I was. To "keep up whatever" i was doing "because it's working." The compliments were intoxicating. Naturally, I thought, "What the hell did I look like before? Clearly this is a necessary improvement - I need to keep this up!" To be fair - the complimenters were good-intentioned and had no idea of the true story, but... I will be FOREVER grateful for the very few people who had the courage and compassion to see through the exterior and tell me I looked too thin and worn out. To me - it felt like they were eliminating the pressure to keep it up. They were giving me permission to put down the gloves and quit the fight. That's why to this day, I am always careful about complimenting a person's weight loss - especially if I'm unsure of their motivations/methods. I never ever want to add fuel to their fire. If I do comment, I try to emphasize their fitness - rather than aesthetic - gains. 

Why did I just dump on you like this? Not because I wanted to blab about myself. Not because I wanted to elicit sympathy/pity/awe/etc. My SOLE REASON for bringing you in on this is to prove recovery is possible. TRULY. And to help along your journey of self-acceptance and healing. I would love nothing more.

I'll tell you a secret: I always thought people who said they recovered from body issues were, well...FRIGGIN' FULL OF IT. I thought, "They're just selling a line" or "Yeah, they must not have felt as intensely about it as I did." I never ever ever ever ever ever (times 1,000) thought I would ever be able to achieve balance and have a healthy relationship with my body and fitness. I was convinced I was doomed to a life of hating and resisting my body.  

Well, guess what?!!

IT REALLY AND TRULY IS POSSIBLE. It definitely is not instant. It takes time, effort, persistence, and DESIRE. It takes internal and external support. It takes commitment to being on the same team as your body. And honestly - that's when the magic happens, when you recognize the phenomenon that is the human body, and all it does for you. Once I stopped resisting, things fell into place. Once I truced with my body and allowed it to do its thing, it delivered tenfold. The key is listening to your body. I eat more and work out less, all while looking and feeling better than ever. And there have actually even been times in the past where my body naturally dropped significant weight easily and effortlessly without killing myself. The body has its own reasons for doing what it does - so your best bet is to befriend it. Trust me.

My one and only focus now is feeling good - now and long term. That one objective drives all of my decisions: what I do with my body, and what I put into it. It's just a bonus that I look in the mirror and like what I see, but that's no longer my motivator. There is an undeniable power in getting on the same team as your body. Your body is an intelligent and powerful force. It already knows what it needs, in regards to diet, exercise, rest... All you have to do is tap into that intuition and sync up with it. That's it. Your body naturally does the heavy lifting (literally and figuratively). Get out of your head - especially if it's filled with impossible ideals of how you "should" look - and make friends with that bod of yours. Through this blog, I will share tips and tricks I've found useful on my path to healing. And if you're one of those lucky souls who's never personally faced such issues - as long as you have a body, this blog section is for you! I will share tips in general for looking and FEELING your best. LET'S DO DIS.

xx,

-w-