So what have we learned, class?  Anyone?  I don’t hear any questions, so I’m going to assume you all understood and remember everything I have said until now, and I can go home and make cardboard forts.  Anyone?  No?  All right, see you all next week.

Toodle-loo, suckers.

Hey, what are you doing?  Who are yo – let go of me!  Hey!  HEY!  I asked if they had any questions, and no one answered.  What?!  Get off of – OW, THAT HURTS!  WHAT DO YOU MEAN “THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS”?!  I say, “If they can’t ask me questions while I’m typing but BEFORE I post, that’s their problem!”  OW, JESUS, FINE!  FINE!  You want me to summarize?!  I’ll summarize so much shit outta this that there will be summaries and shit all over the room!

Damn.  I didn’t even know there were blog police.  Fuckers.

I have come to the end of the basics of food with regards to weight-loss and I figured that I might as well go over the bullet points of each post.  This serves a few different ends.  One, it allows you to see all the info side by side which can help you understand the connections between each food group and your body.  Two, it allows me some room to extrapolate on ideas I was not able to fit into the original posts.  Three, it allows me to add jokes I wasn’t able to fit into the original posts.  Four, I slacked off and waited until the last minute to write this and I didn’t have time/wasn’t ready to start the exercise section yet (please forgive any spelllling erorrs and grammars it be bad).  Five, there is no reason five.  And lastly, six, because I damn well feel like it.  Everyone okay with that?  I can’t see or hear anyone oppose it, so I’ll assume we’re good to go.

SIGNIFICANT WEIGHT-LOSS IS ABOUT THE LONG RUN

Committing to losing weight is about realizing it is going to take a lot longer than a couple of weeks.  Or months.  Perhaps even years.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ll eat right and move a little more and then be done with it.  If it has taken you a life time to become a large person, it’s going to take some time to work it off.

Awww man, why you gotta bring out the worried baby face?

But don’t worry.  It won’t happen as quickly as you would like, but it won’t take a lifetime to get rid of.  In fact, once you start losing weight, you’ll be amazed at how fast it can go.

AN EDUCATION IS YOUR GREATEST TOOL

Look, I really wish my blog could stand in for your education.  Not only would it mean you would have a one-stop shop, but it would also raise my ego through the roof.

Or in my case, to Jupiter, since I'm an arrogant bastard.

But you have to go further than my ramblings.  The things I needed and did learn were specific to my own challenges and behaviors.  I would have immense cravings to finish a box of oreos, so I learned what they were made of and what they did to me and that helped me start to put them down.  I don’t have time nor the energy to list every single food and what it does for you.  Wikipedia, library, books, internet, gyms, teachers, they have so much more information than I do, and unlike me, you can actually trust that their answers are 100% bullshit free.

Okay, so maybe more like 80%.

FOOD > EXERCISE

Not saying that you shouldn’t exercise, but when it comes to significant weight loss (25 lbs or more) it’s all about what you’re putting in your mouth.  Most big people don’t get that way because they aren’t moving enough but because they are eating too much.

DIETING ≠ NOT EATING

Look, people, I can’t stress this enough: Starving is not a diet regime, it is an international health problem and a killer of men, women and sadly children everywhere.  If you stop eating, your metabolism will slow to a crawl and your body will eat itself (fat, muscle, bone, organs) until you die.

THE REAL FOUR FOOD GROUPS

Using the analogy that your body is a car:

Protein – What the car of you is made of.
Carbohydrates – The gas the car of you runs on.
Fiber – The cleanser and maintenance on the car of you.
Fat – The oil of the car of you.

WATER – DRINK IT!

I don’t care how much water you think you’re drinking, you should be drinking more of it.  Milk, tea, coffee, soda, liquor (my love); all of these can and in most cases should be thrown out the window.  Just switching from soda to water will help you lose five pounds.  So drink more water.  Drink so much water, it’s uncomfortable.

YOU ARE MEAT

You are made of protein, so you should eat a lot of it.  Chicken, eggs and fish are great sources.  If you vegan or “animal friendly”, there are also seeds, nuts, beans and lentils.  If you’re, you know, normal, then there is also pork .and beef.  Try to stick with those first three though.

CARBS AIN’T BAD

The entire biological world runs on what carbs provide – glucose.  Who are you to argue with nature?

"I HATE YOU TREES!"

There are two kinds: simple (white bread, rice, sugar) and complex (roots, bran, oatmeal).  Each is good (although too much of the simple and you’re asking for trouble) and you should be eating both.

FIBER

A kind of carb that helps to “clean” you out.  It helps “flush” your system.  It aides in “making you poo”.  Also available in two kinds, just like carbs: Insoluable, which brings the swift movement of bowels, and soluable which helps regulate your insulin levels.

FAT GETS A BAD WRAP

There are three kinds of fat: Polyunsaturated fats (good fats, found in fish, nuts and leafy greens), mono-unsaturated (okay fats, founds in meat, dairy and avacados), and saturated fats (evil, heart-killing, tom-peeping, moustache-twisting fats, found in butter, lard and cream).  Try to get as much as you can of the polys, and stay away from the last group, no matter how good they make things taste.

SMALLER PORTIONS MEAN SMALLER TUMMIES

Your metabolism (the rate at which your body uses energy) is like a fire: If you feed it too much at once, you’re fire will be nothing more the embers.  Feed it too little, and your fire dies.  Feed your fire a reasonable amount of fuel every few hours and you will have a fire that could burn down the Boreal Forest.  Eat five small meals a day, spaced out two or three hours from each other, and you’ll stoke your fire and shed pounds.

"I can feel the fat just MELTING off!"

TIME FOR A PLAN

Your diet should consist of mostly leafy greens and other vegetables, and fruits, which should comprise almost half of your diet.  Next comes protein, which I think should take about a quarter of your diet.  The rest of the space should be taken up by complex carbs and fiber, and what little is left can be taken up by simple carbs and fat.  How you decide to fulfill these requirements is up to you.

TO EAT IS DIVINE, TO SNACK IS A SIN

Snacking is the mindless consumption of food that has nothing to do with hunger.  Train your brain to recognize the difference between wanting food and actual hunger.  If you must snack, then turn towards low calorie foods like dried fruit, nuts, or (my favorite) homemade popcorn.

SMOOTHIES ARE A GIFT FROM GOD

Replacing one of your meals with smoothies made from loads of fruit, milk (or soy milk), whey protein powder, nuts, seeds, oatmeal and anything else you can jam in a blender and drink will help load your body with vitamins and nutrients while not sending your calories count sky high, will help keep you fuller longer and will pep you up in the morning a lot quicker than that cup of coffee.

I haven’t told a joke in a while, so here is a picture of a giant rubber ducky.

Those are the basics.  After this I’m going to start talking about exercise more and how it relates to weight-loss.  As with the food portion, I will start off on the broad themes and then narrow down to specifics you’ll want to narrow in on.  After I’m done with that, I’ll go about bringing the two groups together and the way to create a personalized weight-loss plan.  There are other things I want to talk about when it comes to food (like dairy, and vitamins) but I’m still researching those and coming to understand where it fits into my diet, and I don’t want to blog anything regarding weight-loss if I haven’t been through it myself.

And that’s the key to most of the tips above, that I came to them through my own experiences.  I’m not a fit trainer who has had a perfect body their entire lives berating you on your screw ups, nor am I a doctor trying to push some pill or a “entrepreneur” trying to get you to buy into the new fad.  I am a guy who has lost 80 – 90 lbs over the last nine years.  Controlling my weight is a continuing struggle for me every day.  I still have the Fat Voice in my head telling me I’m not worth the trouble, I still have the urge to eat when I’m not hungry, and my emotions are still at the mercy of the scale.  But I haven’t given up.  This isn’t about being thinner, it’s about being able to live life without fear or regret, and if you are on the same road (or trying to start on the path) I’m here to cheer you on and let you know that it is worth it.  That you are worth it.

. . . . .

Okay, officer.  Can I go now?  One more joke?  Geez.  Fine, here’s a drawing of a turkey in a bottle.