Courtesy of my dear Facebook friends who are hoping to brush up their back-to-school bodies, lately my news feed has been generously peppered with articles about Bikini Bods, quick-fitness tips, and 4-week diet plans. While I enthusiastically support all efforts to improve mental and physical health, there are ways to lose those nagging 10 pounds without all the diet and exercise nonsense. Below, I have outlined 10 of these 10-pound eliminators:
1. Go shopping! You were waiting to buy the fall fads until you hit your goal weight? Wrong tactic, silly! Buying a new jean jacket or a flattering top will give you the mental confidence of a lighter you! And when you gain more weight? Just shop again! Let's get our priorities straight: purchases over push-ups, people.
2. Eat a cupcake. So you're scrolling through #foodporn on Instagram and dying to eat whatever leftover sweets are in the kitchen, but you're considering denying yourself the sweet glory of a cupcake because the girls holding sweets in the Instagram photos are clearly so much skinnier than you. But what are they doing differently than you? EATING CUPCAKES! They are skinny, they are eating cupcakes. You want to look like them, so eat the cupcakes. Obviously cupcakes are the secret behind their lean arms and slender thighs. Trust your eyes, not your size.
3. Eat your veggies. If you accidentally eat three cupcakes instead of one and then feel horrible, don't try to burn off the calories by working out. You'll never be able to burn 600 calories on the elliptical before you have to be home to catch your favorite TV show. Eat a carrot instead. Cleansing your palate with a carrot will immediately make you feel like a healthy goddess. And you'll improve your eyesight at the same time! If you end up eating another cupcake, it's totally fine! Just eat another carrot! If you don't have any carrots in the house, just look at pictures of carrots on the internet. This worthy tactic is called validation via veggies.
4. Never stop eating. While trying to lose 10 pounds, its extremely important to avoid starving yourself because your metabolism will slow down and your body will enter starvation mode in which it converts all food directly into fat. So, essentially you should never, ever stop eating. A great way to ensure that you are constantly consuming calories is to carry around a small fanny-pack filled with nutritious snacks such as chocolate chips, peanut-butter MMs, and doughnut holes. If you are interested in really taking things up a notch, munch on celery! You actually burn more calories eating celery than you gain from the food itself, so watch out and make sure you aren't losing too much energy! Remember, the Snack Pack has your back!
5. Watch trashy television. Feeling like you have abs is a great way to feel like you've lost 10 pounds without losing 10 pounds. Find the trashiest television possible that you can't watch without laughing hysterically at the poor souls who are humiliating themselves on national television. Then settle down with your Snack Pack TM and watch away. Laughing is the best medicine, and it's also the most effective way to get a bikini belly. All those abs exercises you've heard about? Simply a part of The System's effort to force you into physical therapy. 99 percent of traditional abs exercises actually have adverse effects, creating a superficial image of abdominal muscles while storing malignant fat underneath. Essentially, you are actually better off with no abs at all than with the toned stomach that Society tells you to work for! If you want abs, watch something naughty, don't do pilates!
6. Spend more time on the internet. You will hear lots of people tell you that technology is the death of fitness because the time you waste on social media you could have spent working out or doing something productive with your life. Wrong! What these people don't realize is that the internet is a key spring of wealth for improving your mental and physical well being. As you sit and gaze enviously at the pictures of happy couples on the beach, perfectly arranged salads, and skinny b*tches and their perfect travel adventures, all you need to do to make the experience worthwhile is change your mindset. Instead of being jealous, engage in visualization. Imagine that it is you in every photo. Imagine that your potato chips are pieces of the verdant lettuce on your phone screen. Imagine that you are the one climbing some famous peak, walking along a sunset-beach, and etc. Life is nothing more than what you think it is!
Einstein said: "Reality is merely an illusion".
Douglass Adams said: "You create a universe by perceiving it."
Jon Bon Jovi said: "Change your perception of what a miracle is and you'll see them all around you."
Lifehack.org says: "Your perception IS your reality."
See! It's a miracle! All you have to do is spend more and more time on the internet until you convince yourself that someone else's life is your reality, and it will be. Perception is reality.
7. Don't drink water. Water supposedly helps with weight loss. Remember, our goal is for you to feel 10 pounds lighter, which is much more important than actually being 10 pounds lighter, because actually losing 10 pounds would make you addicted to a "healthy" lifestyle --"healthy" as is defined by the media. Remember, we don't trust them! It's probably another ploy. Instead of drinking water, don't drink water. Drinking water will make you feel bloated. Be wary of water.
If you really have to drink something, drink a diet soda. Diet soda is criticized (again, by the media), for containing aspartame, which turns into formaldehyde in the human body. But is that actually a bad thing? No! Trust Alicia Keyes, not the media. Formaldehyde, also known as H2C=O is highly flammable which means that the next time you turn on the radio and hear Keyes belt "That girl is on fireeee," she could actually be singing about you! You could be that girl. And haven't you always wanted Alicia to sing about you? Besides, what better way to burn calories than by ingesting a flammable chemical compound? VIVA FORMALDEHYDE! H2C=O > H2O
8. Take naps. Hunger always makes you feel like you've lost a few pounds, and I don't know about you, but I always wake up hungry. Thinking about hitting the gym? Take a nap instead! As an added benefit, you'll avoid all the wear and tear on your precious body that comes from artificial activities such as weight lifting, running, walking, and changing into work-out clothes. #Gains = pain. Naps over reps.
9. Defy The Patriarchy. If you think about it, you don't actually want to lose weight for your own happiness. You aren't actually looking to slim down because you'll feel stronger, more confident, or more energized. You want to lose weight because The Patriarchy tells you that you need to. Your mom is the one who told you to get in shape? It was actually The Patriarchy. Your doctor? Obviously The Patriarchy. The voice in your head? Definitely The Patriarchy. What you need is not to lose 10 pounds, but actually to gain 10 pounds in order to free yourself from years of abuse from The Patriarchy. You want to be the ideal woman. You need confidence. You need feminism. You need that full-size, white-sauce pasta dish you always avoid at the Italian Restaurant on date night. Feminism is a full plate.
10. Finally, if you're feeling a little crazy, maybe skip the cupcake and go for a run.
