Power Body by Yvettebam

Wanna know some trouble with me? When someone begins to speak about the body, I get INTO IT. I can’t stop talking about it.There’s no small talk about how you want to go on a low-calorie diet with me. No, no. I will either walk out of the room, bite my tongue hard and make mental notes of things to write about later before purposefully steering the conversation away… or SIT YOU DOWN AND LOVINGLY SLAP YOU. Into behaving.You won’t find me at the dinner table disclaiming about how I “definitely shouldn’t have another slice of cake”. Baby, I’m having cake if I want it… and the thought of “should or should not” does not cross my mind. When it comes to food, those types of thoughts (should I? No…. wait… maybe a little… okay fine a little bit… damn it, I shouldn’t have done that!) are rooted in shame (which I wrote about in this article here). Fact: IT TOOK ME YEARS TO GET OUT OF THE SHAME CYCLE. The deconstruction of shame, and the replacement of LOVE, is a process that had me, quite frequently, on the floor, bawling. That’s one of my main annoyances in life, by the way: witnessing the covert shaming of the body in small moments that are meant to be filled with connection (for example a dinner party!). Growing up, I was a part of too many tables with women bashing themselves before diving into the “newest” dietary advice they’re keen on trying, or subtly glancing up and down on a woman who is going for seconds. Little me was very confused back then…Because it never made any goddamn sense. That is, if one were to develop a true understanding of the body! In the culture of shame and comparison? It makes sense. But if you were to get to the root of the foundational understanding of the majestic physical apparatus that your consciousness controls that was bestowed to you by God himself you would see that it does not make any goddamn sense. And quite frankly? It’s very boring.It’s very boring to be a person who is bashing their own body. And that’s me shaming you in the right way. The way out of the body hatred shame spiral. Tee-hee. Don’t be boring. Don’t bash your body! For real: there’s so many other creative wonderful ways you can spend your energy, spend your time, hone your focus toward than… subjugation, or the control of thyself… in a way that is materially focused and not advantageous in any way toward your health. That’s boring. I’m the cool new mean girl int town and self-shaming is SO last decade. And the whole calorie model we’re all obsessed with? It’s less than half of the equation. My newest heartbreak: witnessing patients in hospice lament about how they should be losing a few pounds, or how their stomach has never been this flat before and how joyous they are in this revelation. I could write about that one for hours. Does it truly never end? This idol worship of vanity? It has been constructed within us since we were very young… does it ever end? The rejection of our beautiful God-created vessel? The subjugation of it, the controlling aspect of it, the idea that we need to make ourselves smaller? In order to what: Appease? Appease the male gaze? Appease the female gaze? Appease your parental gaze? In order to appease a societal gaze? The sexy bunny gaze? LET ME SAVE YOU YEARS, READER: THE GAZE IS A PRISON. Whatever gaze you are appeasing… I think that’s a good place to start with the insertion of curiosity. Insert a little curiosity into the honest question of: whose gaze AM I trying to appease? It will tell you a lot. You see what I mean? SUDDENLY WE ARE TALKING ABOUT DEATH. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE CASUAL ABOUT THE BODY. I JUST DON’T. THIS TOPIC IS MY RIDE OR DIE. MY KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR. I WANT TO LICK MY OWN FLESH AND DANCE FOR IT. WAIT, NO, TOO MUCH, SHUT UP YVETTE! Yeah, we’ll go there. Eventually. Both in the physical sense (you and me ain’t nothing but mammals praising flesh until the final hallelujah on our own death beds) + literally if you stick around for the substack ride with me.…. Annnnyyywaaaayyyy….I’m here to let you in on a little secret, one that has nothing to do with restriction and everything to do with a foundational understanding of how the body works.The secret is titled as a weight loss secret because it grabs your attention, doesn’t it? ”I want to lose the weight!” says everyone in their intergenerational trauma lineage.Don’t get me wrong: sometimes it’s very optimal to lose weight. But here’s the difference… we don’t always have to view weight loss through the lens of shaming, and through the lens of control.We can view it through the lens of a foundational understanding of the body, and through understanding hormonal chaos, also known as obesity.Obesity is a state of metabolic hormonal chaos. And when we view it from that very logical approach, it stops being a “something is wrong with me” approach.You know that voice.“I’m fat and something’s wrong with me.””I’m fat and I’ll never have the life I want.””I’m fat and therefore unlovable!”That word (fat), and the connotations (that it brings), are not rooted in truth.This is important to understand and begin to unwind… because those connotations don’t only show up in a quiet moment when you’re reading this. They filter through your mind when you’re eating a third brownie. They filter through your mind when you’re ordering Uber Eats for the 100th time that day and the 100th week in a row. Whatever those connotations are for you, I want you to know this: they are not true. They are rooted in shame. And when we recognize that, when we recognize a shame stronghold for WHAT IT IS, when we hold it up to the light of our consciousness, to the light of our curiosity (because curiosity is a form of love), it begins to die. We can stop doing shame and subjugation and start asking better questions.Why is this existing within me?What is the chaos beneath the surface?And yes, we can explore this emotionally and spiritually as well. But if we look at it from the physical sense, obesity is rooted in hormonal metabolic chaos. Dysfunction. Something that is not ordered.That’s what I mean by chaos. Chaos is simply a description of something that isn’t orderly.And guess what? That says nothing about the person as a person.It simply means that this person has a disorderly room, in this case, metabolic dysfunction. And there are many steps we can take to optimize that room, bring it back to order, so the person feels alive in that room.Not because the person is trying to appease others through the room. Not because they’re trying to look a certain way as a person through the look of the room, trying to present themselves as someone spectacular because they have this great room. That’s all aesthetic b******t.And when we make an idol out of vanity, shame is always at the foundation of that.So I want you to practice something. Insert curiosity into whatever is being regurgitated within you, even as you’re reading this, even on the day to day, even on those restaurant outings. Whatever it may be for you.Heck, I love sugary coffee. Even as I’m sipping that sugary coffee, whatever comes up for me, the references I make toward myself as a person, that’s where the work is.That’s where we insert curiosity and get into spelunking. Spelunk into the shame instead of allowing the shame to subjugate you into a smaller version of yourself (and I’m not necessarily speaking about the physical sense now).The secret that I want to reveal in this article, which is SO easy to do, and is rooted in the foundation of OPTIMIZING THE METABOLIC PROCESS. The secret simply is… the creation of…The Fiber NetI’ve come to think of it in this way: a net on the bottom of my stomach that serves as a slow-down mechanism for…GLUCOSE ABSORPTION! (& subsequent improved insulin sensitivity, a main driver in obesity). Think of it like a welcome mat for digestion! Many of our meals nowadays are seriously lacking in fiber, and this matters more than we think, because the sequence in which we eat deeply matters. I eat fiber first, not only to slow down glucose but also to hormonally optimize the body. This is especially important in the modern world, where refined carb-fronted meals are becoming a norm due to the simple fact that they’re cheap, able to be preserved for long periods on grocery shelves, and tasty. You know what I love? The old-school logic of starting with greens. Our ancestors weren’t doing that because they hated joy. They were doing it because digestion is a ritual. That is why, historically, we began meals with a salad. This historical salad had not only the benefit of creating a natural fibrous net but also used to be made of digestive bitters (think: arugula, dandelion greens, kale), which effectively prepped bile for release (hence aiding your digestion!).It’s less about “I am eating this salad because I want to be skinny” (this is a toxic mentality!) and more about: I AM EATING ADDITIONAL FOOD IN ORDER TO EFFECTIVELY PREP MY DIGESTION (with a fibrous net + digestive bitters). NOW: Do I really eat a salad before every meal in order to create a fibrous net?No, I’m not a monk. Luckily, there’s other options… and I’m about to explain my favorite one below! Digestive bitters aside (also available in herbal tonics by the way), you can create a fibrous net in many different ways. In the past, I tried using… psyllium husk. This always felt slightly “off” to me, mainly because my underlying foundation in regards to the body orients around how nature operates… and, to be frank: nature did not make that option romantic. Does it work? Yes, it does. I used to take capsule formats before meals and the fiber was fiber-ing. There’s easier food variations. My favorites include: eating a couple artichoke hearts before meals (the ones that are in a jar on the grocery shelves), eating the vegetables on my plate first (if I have any)… or... my new favorite…Chia seeds + unsweetened coconut milkThis combination is amazing. There’s variations that you can make (the world is your oyster!).

When everything is said and done….* (The holiday season is over and there are no more distractions of family parties and presents.)* (My office in my home is set up, and the distraction of having to shampoo the carpet three times has been satisfied.)* (Francis the puppy and I are finally settling into a nice routine, and the distraction of BUT WAIT I MUST MONITOR HIM AT ALL TIMES is nulling out.)* (Somehow I have successfully put 100 boundaries in place, so the lifelong distraction of LET ME HANDLE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE CHAOS NO REALLY I’M NOT BUSY is officially retired.)What if…IT’S TIME TO…ACTUALLY…D OI T?Yes, it. The thing! The thing that has been put off, time and time and time AND TIME again! Me, myself, & I have a pattern: covering the sacred with busyness.(IT’S ALL FEAR BABY!)There’s tiny whispers within me.“Hey Yvette, maybe it’s time to start discussing the largest fascination of your entire life in a consistent way?”“Hey, Yvette, you know it doesn’t have to be hard, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but it DOES have to somehow come into existence… so maybe you can… sit down at a keyboard?”And then, from an observational point of view, I notice doing what I do best: INSERTING DISTRACTIONS. I’m suddenly launching three renovation projects. Maybe, I think, when THOSE GET DONE, maybe then I’ll start on what I actually want to do.But here’s the truth:When those three renovation projects get done… the goal will shift. My mental map has created a flawless blueprint of how perfect my life has to be (absolutely, divinely absolutely f u c k i n g aligned) prior to the START MARK of my actual passion project.I am an expert at avoiding the (oh-so) sacred responsibility of curating the “PLEASE FINALLY DO SOMETHING WITH ME” soul project that has been brewing (ever-so-painfully) beneath my skin for nearly a decade now.Heck, I might just decide that I need to first learn how to completely take apart a car engine before being consistent on Substack. Who knows.Today I decided to axe that part of me and give it voice… because maybe you recognize it too.It’s an insidious little b*****d. It has infinite layers. It twists, it turns, and it tells you all types of lies: “The moment is not right.”“Your routine has to be perfect before you begin.”“You don’t know enough yet, maybe you should go back for another two years of school. Hell, let’s enroll at Oxford” (Yes, I literally, actually, did that). “You gained weight after a relationship gone horribly wrong, fattie—there’s no chance for you now. Speak about the body? You’re an impostor!”I know better, yet I still fall for it.Because there’s a safety within it.The calling of my little human life, the sharing *of* the fortuitous musings that have taken me across the world on escapades, studying anatomy, people, and the vast landscape of emotional healing, it’s a goldmine.It’s a goldmine for my spirit.It’s a place where creativity works through me.It’s a place for me to meet God.And it’s terrifying to share that with the world at large.The body has been my deepest teacher, my highest muse, my discovery of divinity.It wrecks me to see the body being shamed, blamed, and paraded around as something to FIX in this modern world—something to subjugate into a particular appearance deemed worthy, something to control…But the insidious little b*****d of “not yet” has been displacing me from that treasure cove, and the BEAUTY OF SHARING ALL I KNOW IN AN EFFORT TO HELP OTHERS.Not yet, it tells me. But scrolling on Instagram for hours?“Oh Yvette, you always have time for that!” Distract yourself, woman, it’s the name of the game!Enough.Here is to showing up absolutely imperfectly,Time and time again,Little by little,Until it becomes the only way through the day.There will never be a perfect moment to begin, and developing focus is a process that will require my consistent conscious choice.I even moved to Hawaii for seven years, thinking that living in paradise, away from the vast troubles of my home life, would be the solution. I imagined myself writing on the beach, writing in the oh-too-cozy comfort of an oceanside studio, writing in class, writing while eating smoothie bowls… yes, yes, what a daydream.Turns out I was still just Yvette in Hawaii.And Just Yvette thinks of everything in existence to avoid doing the thing that she deeply cares about.Because… what if giving it life results in death?What if it IS stupid?What if people make fun of it?What if my family thinks I’m weird?What if the one hundred thousand enemies in my head come into existence in this very room and begin attacking me… swallowing pharmaceuticals that are simultaneously purring, “Take us. We’re good for you,” while moaning in pleasure?So, Just Yvette decides it’s much safer to keep her essence under lock and key. Just in case, you know. Just in case. It’s much better to daydream and live vicariously through illusion. The masses have swallowed the poison of this world and it is useless! Useless!That’s why I’m launching my FOURTH renovation project this week! ….. (just kidding).That’s that insidious little b*****d again. His name is Shame—sometimes I call him Shawn—and he’s been my bestie for a long while now. He has many forms. He’s pretty cute sometimes and assures me he’s Keeping Me Safe. He tells me all types of things because He Loves Me. I’m not allowed to leave my room though. Shawn says that’s Bad.But I know his secret. I read his diary while he kept me in a cage and turned the other way with his self-satisfied smirk.Discipline and Consistency will kill him.Here’s the kicker: Purpose will be attacked. There’s no way around it. Eventually, it will be attacked. That attack can start as severe procrastination. It can take on various shades of shame. It can convince The Holder of Purpose (all of us!) of all types of things.After all, Shawn hisses… “You are no one special, so why should you even try?” Shawn can convince you that unless you do everything PERFECTLY, there is no chance for you. You must have an EFFORTLESS MORNING ROUTINE, a PRISTINE evening wrap-up, a catalog of organized files and to-dos, an absolutely logical plan A to Z, all before you even begin. Overwhelm happens easily in this state. It’s so much! One person can’t possibly do it all! It’s safer to fail before you even start. Back into the cocoon of distraction, fueled by dopamine hits that convince me I’m not fully wasting my time.Nothing begins. Seeds are planted. But Spring never comes.The fantasy la-la land of “when I finally have _______ THEN I can _____” persists.I become like a chipmunk, cheeks filled with acorns, incessantly storing them and depriving the world of seeing my sapling because Shawn told me it’s weak.God works differently. God would love to see our Saplings. God doesn’t expect us to be flawless. God nudges with curiosity, and tosses in rain and sunshine accordingly.You’re handed a tiny, pretty pebble and you wonder: where did this pebble come from? Let me look for more tiny, pretty pebbles. You follow the breadcrumb trail down a path that feels like it’s calling you. You may not know why it’s calling you, and you certainly don’t know where the path takes you, but you feel it in your bones, and the tiny, pretty pebbles that keep landing in your palm are confirmation. God is supportive in this way. If you step off the path, there is no shame with God. There is simple redirection, and the loving embrace of more metaphorical, beautiful pebbles.Purpose will be attacked because it is the direct beeline TO God and there is nothing more that insidious little snake b******s like than to remove that connection.We have always been worthy of our purpose because it was inlaid into our hearts BY God.Streams of curiosity? Follow them. Share them. Make art with them. Write with them. Cry with them. Turn on a camera and talk to them. They are from God. And you don’t have to be anyone in particular to receive them.You don’t have to be beautiful. You don’t have to be fit. You don’t have to have three psychology degrees from three universities. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to drive a new Mercedes. You don’t even have to get out of bed in the morning.Repeat after me:I AM a daughter of God and therefore I AM worthy.I AM a son of God and therefore I AM worthy.And every single gosh darn person who says otherwise has been temporarily deceived by the insidious little b*****d in all of us: Shame (a.k.a. my bestie Shawn).Let’s kill him together shall we?A little dash of discipline,And a conscious decision, daily, to be consistent,I’ll invite you to Shawn’s funeral in six months’ time.I love you.Answers to Loose Skin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.answerstolooseskin.com/subscribe

Aloha friend! Welcome to my new series, “10 Easy Ways to Sky-Rocket Your Weight-Loss with Body Regulation”!Each week, I’ll be posting an in-depth article pertaining to how to regulate the body and achieve weight-loss and fitness as a byproduct. If you’d like these weekly posts to be automatically delivered to your inbox, subscribe to my substack at www.answerstolooseskin.com (and if you’re reading this, then you’re on my substack! Hi! I’m new here and would appreciate a follow!)How did this series come about? Well, it took me a while to understand the concept of “body regulation”.For years, I was obsessed with the prevention of loose-skin. I inherently knew that the casual dismissals of “oh! It’s all genetic!” were baseless. Our body is wiser than that, and epigenetic research shows that our environment is vital.I released a 6-month program called Secrets to Loose Skin following my weight-loss journey of 150 pounds. In this program, we go into the DEPTHS of fascia, lymph, musculature, abdominal pressure, and more. If you’re interested in check this program out, it is live on my website (www.yvettebam.com).There was an undertone between everything I was doing, a foundation that I didn’t even know I was addressing… but what was the common connection between all of these modalities?!A connecting force was present, yet I couldn’t put a finger on it.I began to study people with different conditions. As a body worker, I became acquainted with tissue. Fascia began to speak to me underneath my fingertips, telling me the unconscious stories that individuals were holding…There's something about the body that we, fundamentally as a society, have lost sight on. But what is it?Everywhere I looked, I saw individual’s using heavy dieting measures and exercise routines to alter their shape.But was this the only way?How was it possible that unless you were extreme in your approach 24/7, the body would turn fat? How was it possible that you could only have one cookie per month, or the body would revolt? How was it possible that a diet of green salads was the only way to go if we wanted to remain fit and trim? It didn’t make sense to me. Surely, we aren’t meant to be perpetually monitoring our body, day-in and day-out?Yet everyone seemed to be convinced that the calories-in and calories-out mentality was the only way to find success, and 5am morning jogging routines were a necessity that screamed “Motivated Babe”.After I lost 150 pounds, I noticed something weird: the amount of food and calories I ate did not change by much.How was THAT possible?Slowly, over 7+ years of learning everything I can about the body, I began to understand the underlying foundation that I had been touching on throughout my work (without consciously knowing what it was).That foundation is regulation, which sounds simple but can actually be quite a complex process in the modern world. We have grown very detached from the regulatory force of the body. Regulation is working WITH the body and its processes instead of attempting to control the body, restrict it, or move from the classical space of “I am not enough.”.Regulation is about re-forming a relationship to your body that is oriented in truth, and the truth is that your body is your deepest friend - not an enemy to force into a new shape. Regulation also requires understanding multiple body processes - especially if you’re coming from an obese sector, where your hormones need loving attention.Regulation is a key underlying-yet-VITAL component to health, vibrancy, fitness, and shape. Hormones are the body’s chemical messengers, and until we REGULATE our vessel, and subsequently regulate the informational flow throughout our body, we will struggle with an up-hill battle with fitness.Secrets of Loose-Skin is a 6 month REGULATORY program, in which we work with the body’s state (obesity) and re-wire it, slowly, with respect toward the body at the forefront. I take you through the program using my own body as an example. The ultimate theory behind loose skin is that it is a byproduct of DYSREGULATION. Many people approach the body in an incorrect way when it comes to weightless, believing in the top-down hierarchy of Calories Are King.Now, you deserve to know that working WITH the body and its systems will always be your winning ticket, which is why I am making this FREE Series of “10 Easy Ways to Sky-Rocket Your Weight-Loss with Regulation That Has Nothing to Do With Food or The Amount of Calories You Eat.”Subscribe to get future posts sent directly to your inbox. All future posts are FREE for two weeks only, and then moved to an archive for my paid subscribers..Welcome to Part One, and remember…Your body is NOT working against you. Your body is NOT something to control. Your body is your best friend, your loving vessel in this reality, and it is time for everyone to learn the interconnection of regulatory practices so that we may BEGIN TO ENJOY OUR BODY’S AGAIN (instead of being in perpetual cycles of “omgggggg I ate too much caaaaake”)..Enjoy the next few weeks of REGULATION tips and tricks! Subscribe to this substack to get them emailed directly to you! Paid substack members get video bonuses every week.Part 1: Reprogram Your BreathMost people are terrible breathers. It sounds silly, I know. We’ve been breathing since the first second of our life! Common sense tells us that we’d at least be “good” at breathing. Turns out, we’re not. We live in a chronically dysregulated society, and this imprints itself into our breathing patterns.My take on body regulation is a process of returning back to the original blueprint of our body, of functional patterns. But what does functional breathing look like? And what caused our breathing to go into a disarray in the first place?The core of the breathing problem in society is stress. Well… not exactly. Stress itself isn’t a bad thing. Stress is a hormone, known as cortisol, and it’s necessary. The core of the breathing problem in society is ACTUALLY that we haven’t been taught to regulate stress effectively.Everyone has stress, it’s a part of life. There is never going to be a moment in your life where everything is in balance, everything is perfect, and you can FINALLY begin the thing you’ve been wanting to do for the past few years! Move on from that daydream. Part of living functionally is being able to manage stress well, and a large part of that is a simple perspective shift.The stress hormone, cortisol, can serve as a motivational hormone when it’s in balance. In fact, without cortisol we wouldn’t be able to wake up in the morning! if we all were tasked with living docilely as monks in the mountains then unregulated stress wouldn’t be as big of a deal… but how do we, as normal people in the day-to-day mayhem of present society, regulate stress?Turns out, breathing is a large part of it. You have 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your body, and ensuring oxygen efficiency is where regulation starts. Efficiency being the key word, but more on that later, because… wink wink.. it’s not actually about breathing MORE.There’s a lot of misinformation about breathing. A classical one is “Buddha Breathing,” with the abdominal walls flaring out. I cringe every time I see this, because clearly there is zero understanding of abdominal pressure and pelvic floor pressure with standard Buddha Breathing work.So, how can we approach functional breathing?Let’s begin with a mini-exercise.What do you think of when you think of relaxed breathing?Don’t scroll ahead!!! Let’s do a correlation test for a moment. Think about three words for….* relaxed breathing& 3 words for…* stressed breathing Got it?Seriously, just take a moment. It will help begin the reprogramming aspect of your consciousness here.La-la-la-la-laaaaa.Got it, for real this time?I trust you…. Okay. Here’s mine:Relaxed breathing: slower, deeper, mouth is closed, quieter, air travels through the nose only, uses the diaphragm to descend down the abdominal cavity, shoulders are down, connection to our coreStressed breathing: constricted, stays in the upper chest cavity, faster, noisier, quicker, air travels through the mouth, more agitated in upper body, shoulders might be moving, limited body connectionNow, with this in mind… I have some rapid fire questions!Why are we telling people to breathe MORE, when “more” equates to “faster” and “faster” equates to stressed breathing?How do you breathe MORE without breathing FASTER?You can’t.So, what are we saying when we tell people to breathe MORE?What does it mean to be oxygen deficient, in a society where most people are actually breathing quite rapidly?Furthermore, if we do the opposite and slow down, or breathe less, then how does this fit into the regulation equation? How does breathing LESS serve the body? Doesn’t the body need MORE oxygen, not less?Even if the in-breaths are deeper, what does it matter if the perfect calming breath is thought to be one-minute in duration?How can the body function optimally by breathing… less?We’ll answer all of these questions, and more, in a way that makes SO MUCH SENSE!Nose Goes…Rapid, fast breathing is correlated to stress with good reason. Our body goes into a sympathetic nervous system state, which redirects blood flow from the internal organs and into the extremities. The body does this with purpose. A sympathetic nervous system activate is also known as “fight, or flight” and it prepares us to either run away from the threat, or fight the threat. Blood flows into our limbs, digestion is put on hold because it’s less important than staying alive, and adrenaline shoots into our system.Stress breathing is also oriented in the chest cavity. The diaphragm, a muscle located under our rib cage, does not fully engage. We use rapid inhalation to draw in more oxygen in order to prepare the necessary muscles to fire up.When we become “stuck” in this immobilized-diaphragm chest-breathing stress response, often due to the fact that modern-day str

The First Element of Self-Discipline is HungerI’ve seen the above photo floating around social media periodically.An ensuing wave of protests often follows that image, with angry individuals accusing the image’s statement of promoting disordered eating.In recent years, it feels like a buffer has been placed into American society. Like a large energetic buoy, for lack of a better word, has been inserted between the world and the American public.Individuals in America are so seemingly protected in their procured walls, so righteously minded, and *so* into sanitizing their environment in sake of further protection (this has nothing to do with the dreaded 2020 C-word). It feels like people can’t take the heat anymore.Everyone gets offended over everything. We have built a culture of highly-bubbled people that are so KEEN on penetration from something that isn’t highly-bubbled that they JUMP at the first opportunity to be #triggered. These are the people that spend hours replying to comments online, desperate to FEEL SOMETHING other than the soft curation of their whimsical fantasy-land. Does this trigger you, reader? It is with purpose. Call me an annoying a*****e, you are self-righteous in your world.We jump at the first opportunity to have something penetrate the bubble (if only we would realize that artistic living involves purposely penetrating our own bubbles!).But the worst dichotomy our little bubbled lifestyle offers is that it is only through the #privilege of living in a curated society that we can even afford to BE triggered.When I first read the statement of the “first element of self-discipline being hunger” I was captivated. A resonance of truth struck me. The thought of disordered eating didn’t register. It wasn't until I scrolled through the comments that I realized how vastly different my interpretation was… and just how weird our 3+ large meals pLUS SnAcKieS society has grown.  We buffer ourselves with food, and are convinced it’s healthy because corporate food giants invest in studies that tell us to eat more, and then they slap heart-healthy labels on insulin-spiking refined-grains.To date: my longest water fast, in which I consumed nothing but water, has been 40 days.To date: My longest dry fast, in which I did not consume any food OR water, has been 7 days.To date: the driving force of both of these examples was Discipline.When I speak about my experiences, I get peppered with projections. It came to the point where it shut down my voice for a couple years. I LOVE the world of fasting, I LOVE the world of the body, I’m still in school at the age of 32 learning MORE about the body. I will never stop learning about the body. In car rides, I forfeit music for audio books. At home, I am plagued by books in every corner… plagued because they are all screaming at me, simultaneously, “Read me! Read me!” On the computer, I have 1000s of hours logged reading medical journals.I love the body, and it was my experiences with FASTING that unfurled my relationship to the body.For a long time, I struggled to coherently express my experiences with fasting.I lamely replied with casual variations of... "Well, it really opened me up emotionally!" before placing the subject further down on my list of "Things Not to Speak to Normal People About". I felt as if I couldn't, for the life of me, transmit my fasting experiences accurately.In particular, I had a horrid experience in Jerusalem while on a pilgrimage with 40 other people. A dozen of us sat around a campfire, talking story at the end of the day. Inevitably, it came to a discussion of “what do you do…” and a Polish-speaking man heavily focused on me, in front of the group. I replied with my usual variations of, “oh, I do so much that it would take too long to explain!”He pressed me. He told me not to be embarrassed if I was out of a job.I was flustered. My Polish language capabilities are 50% less than my English, especially for topics that are out of my “zone”. I tried describing more of my work. Inevitably it turned into a discussion about the body (my line of work!) and he, seeking the FIRST POSSIBLE CHANCE TO INSERT HIS GORGEOUS OPINION, told me that I was a beautiful woman, but that I definitely needed to lose some pounds. Sigh. He completely ignored my statements of my current project, Secrets of Loose Skin, in which I regained weight to lose it on camera, and instead told me a way to make myself more attractive for him.Lose weight, Fattie.So I get it. Guys, I get it.I say a lot about this buffered culture of #triggered people because the truth is that it IS a lot. And the truth is… if we pull the sticks out of our own asses and simply don’t pay attention to energy vultures who like to purposely state inappropriate comments, then the cycle of energetic consumption ends.The bubbled-#trigger movement in this society is a massive contraction for me BECAUSE of the cycle of energetic consumption that gets fed from it.But I get why people are so sensitive about their body. They’ve had a lot of situations with Polish a******s, for example, commenting unsolicitedly about the gorgeous body they have.As if our goal in life, as women, is to make sure the a******s peckers get hard when they turn their eyes onto us in viewing pleasure…Not only was I insecure in relying my experiences (the ongoing lesson of learning how to use my voice is... well... still ongoing...) but I also didn't quite know how to formulate the "proper" wording for it. In the one year since that conversation I thankfully have grown 100-fold in being able to state what it is I do, exactly, and being able to handle a******s.My life’s work with the body is far broader than fasting, but fasting began it all. Fasting was the tiny snowball at the top of the hill, right before it begins to roll down and gain momentum.I began my fascination with fasting because I wanted to lose 150 pounds without loose skin, over 7 years ago now. After I lost 150 pounds without loose skin, I wanted to put out a lot of information about this miracle healing agent… only to realize that many people cannot fast for as long as I have.I decided to regain some of the weight and lose it again, but this time using absolutely NO long-term fasting. I needed to find a way to lose a lot of weight WITHOUT loose skin and WITHOUT long-term fasting.I knew that loose skin was a byproduct of dysregulation… and I knew fasting was so healing for the body DUE TO REGULATORY PATHWAYS… so I began with: How do I balance my body in regulation while losing weight and NOT incorporating intense fasting protocols? What are the regulatory pathways fasting uses, and how can I best mimic them in normal day-to-day functioning?That’s how “Secrets of Loose Skin” was born: a 6-month program in which the viewer JOURNEYS with me as I lose the weight, in real time, in a SUBSTANTIAL AND APPROACHABLE WAY while working with hormones, nutrition, fascia, lymph, and musculature.But in real life, every time I tried to describe my experiences, it fell flat. It felt as if a congruence factor was off, as if the receiving party was interpreting the color blue when I was trying to speak green. This feeling would shut me down.I was unwilling to dive into a subject that I already felt was misunderstood from the intro. It was much easier, in every single possible scenario, to simply let it drop and pretend I didn’t have much to talk about. I spent years of isolation during which I, quite literally, spent 90% of my time alone in the middle of a rainforest.And I stopped talking about fasting.To someone who still believes a human would die after about a week of not eating, hearing information about a 40-day water fast is bound to bring up a hell of a lot of disbelief... and immediate judgement. It goes against our social patterns. It goes against nearly everything that we have been conventionally taught about food and the body. It goes against recommendations of mainstream Western (and petroleum-based, profit-generating, big-pharma) medicine.Thankfully, the tides are turning now… with Reddit forums about fasting being prevalent, and more people that have experimented and reached levels beyond 40 days sharing their healing experiences. (Psssst: I know a man who has dry-fasted, no food or water, for 20 days!). The edges of what is possible are definitely expanding as more people choose to turn against pill-popping medical disciplines.Nonetheless, when you fast… you simply "go against” the general tide. There is a lot of societal sigma with fasting. It draws attention. Usually in a bad way... but that's the general process of going against a tide. People notice you. They finger-point and shake their heads and secretly await the moment that a current pulls you under so that they can hear your redemption story of “I was lost but now I am found!” And proudly congratulate you on returning back to the safety of nurturing the metabolism like a two-year-old child who needs to eat every few hours.I have had more side-eye looks, worried expressions, and baseless variations of speeches about how incredibly "bad" water-fasting is than I can count. My favorite one came from a distant relative of mine... who, with an escalating voice, told me all about how terribly fasting would effect my health (oh the ABSOLUTE horror I was bestowing upon my body!) while her fingers were greased from a meal that beckoned artery clogs *aaaand* right before she drank herself silly for the third weekend in a row.But I admit, all of these energetic contusions shut me up for a few years. I was exhausted with trying to share. You cast your pearls before swine for long enough, metaphorically speaking, and yeah… you stop wanting to share.I wanted to talk about the vast spiritual and emotional whirlpools that extended fasting fostered! I wanted to talk about the parts of Self that I slowly became acquainted with, about how fasting plants seeds that flourish into consciousness! I wanted to talk about the patterns I b

I did it! I successfully underwent a (very long) dry fast……*aaaand* I’ve tacked on another point to my list of “THINGS I WAS TOLD US ABOUT THE BODY THAT ARE DEEPLY WRONG”.This one being: a human cannot survive for more than 3 days without water. FALSE.7 days of no food and no water, just pure body functional livin'. We all know that dry fasting is controversial as heck, and I’m not here to convince you of anything!I don’t think you should dry fast… unless you want to.I don’t think you should NOT dry fast… unless you want to.You do you.I’m here offering my experience for your reading pleasure, and maybe you’ll write me a nasty comment or two to generate more viewing eyes. Fingers crossed, please tell me all about how I am Spreading Dangerous Information About the Human Body’s Capabilities. I’m ever-so-eager to hear it…(Hehe)So, why did I do it? I completed a seven day dry fast for purely experimental purposes. In short: I wanted to see if I could do it.Would I repeat this length of a dry fast? No, I wouldn’t, not unless there was a specific medical necessity for me to do so.Good news: I didn't die. My kidneys didn't shrivel up. I didn't even enter a coma, by golly! Everything the internet told me will happen… has not happened. I spent the majority of the fast in a semi-blissful state of relaxation, with a few occasional intrusions of media telling me that I was going to die. My body, however, felt just dandy. The Russian Medical Journals I’ve been reading pertaining to research about dry fasting may just be onto something. My body feels as if it’s in an optimal state of health and, dare I say it, I'm even feeling a little bit superhuman.Fun Fact: Fasting has been intensively studied by the East for a very, very, VERY long time. The West, as most of us know, has turned toward making billions of dollars per year colluding with pharmaceuticals instead of offering true pathways to health. The body IS a miracle worker, but many of us have been subdued by the spell of this society, and installed with a belief that we cannot trust our body, or that the body is something to control.Why is it that almost everyone is on prescription drugs nowadays? Weird. Hmmm…Anyway, back to my experience!PREPARATIONPrior to this seven day dry fast, I completed too many 1 to 3 day dry fasts to count properly. My first EVER dry fast was three days long, back in November 2018. Surprisingly, this first ever dry fast, despite being over half as short in duration, was more difficult than the seven-day dry fast! Fasting, like most things, becomes easier the more you do it. Why? The body develops a metabolic switching “muscle”.Back in 2018, after I finished that first three day dry fast, I remember thinking that I wouldn't DARE go past three days. Three days still seemed like a shock-factor to me. The more I practiced fasting, however, the more a longer dry fast seemed… perfectly feasible. I am now acquainted with people that have even completed a twenty day dry fast, which is just mind boggling to me.Going into this dry fast, my goal was initially five days. I ended up going past that, which was a lovely bonus. On my previous attempts of reaching five days, I kept having mind hiccups on day four.I say "mind hiccups" for a reason. My body could have kept going. I have no doubt about that. My body seems to be so adapted to these kind of altered states that it barely rolls its eyes at me anymore. It feels like a trained fasting athlete, or something. I didn't even have any problems sleeping on this seven-day dry fast... which is weird because my cortisol spikes should have kept me up!It’s always been my mind that needed convincing… not my body. My body adapts, and it adapts well, because the body knows what it is doing. The more I become acquainted with fasting, the more I find myself being able to trust my body. My mind is the one that always yielded, expertly crafting reasons why it yielded. These reasons can be incredibly, viscerally convincing when you have not had a drop of water in 3+ days time… but it all goes back to the simplicity of…"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't... you're probably right”.I’ve proven this quote to myself, over and over again, with my log of fasting experiences. Fasting has been an incredible tool of mind-training.This time around I decided that I COULD actually do this, and that’s what made the difference between another 3-day fluke and a successful goal accomplishment. I recognized that my mind was telling me that I COULD do it, but that I didn’t actually believe it, and that’s what was causing my perpetual flops. Fasting introduced me to deeply subtle layers in my own mind-body connection. I also view the fasting journey as a deeply spiritual exercise, choosing to implement a conscious observer point-of-view as I enter altered mind-body states. This is what helps me get through the mind ping-pong battles of “OH I’LL JUST START AGAIN TOMORROW!” And “No! You already committed to it!”This is easier said than done, especially when you're a beginner. Hunger and thirst are powerful motivational inlays that'll weave themselves into your mind like you wouldn't believe... It's hard to be an observer in these types of primal states!That, however, is EXACTLY why I love getting myself into these states.There's no doubt about it: dry-fasting is like water-fasting on steroids. It does get easier the more you practice, but going without water still obviously remains a hefty challenge. Learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable is akin to an art form. It takes a continuously chosen and honed state of mind to help you recognize that you're so much stronger than the part of you that identifies with your mind.Let's start with the most common question:Won't you like... die?Sure. You'll die. Eventually. We will all eventually perish, into a little piece of dust, return to the stars and sing Oh-La-La in our heavenly homes.You pose a great risk of dying every single time you get into your car on your morning commute. And if you don't die from the six hundred car rides you take per year then you'll surely die from the compounded years of having your soul sucked out a tiny societal straw that has you doing jumping jacks to impress shadow projections. Woo!Oh, and if you think I’m being obnoxious now with this completely unrelated example then let’s dapple a little splooge of relation into the mix and talk about the long-list of foods that’re banned in other countries that America the Great gives a thumbs up to… yummy nutrition like titanium dioxide, brominated vegetable oil, BHA, BHT, rBST, skittles, pop-tarts, gatorade (advertised for athletes and health but truly just a hub for refined sugar!)…Or, let’s go FULL DABBLE mode and see how precious our nutrition recommendations get. The Classical American Food Pyramid has you thinking that a diet full of refined grains is a heart-healthy diet…Oh, but we don’t talk about that. We talk about how dangerous it is to go WITHOUT food, yet cannot accommodate conversations about the danger of the poison that we have all around us in today’s little corporate society…What do you think your body would prefer: three days with food or water, or a artificially dyed drink loaded with an insulin-spiking fructose sugar bomb that can only be processed by the liver and thus leads to an inevitable down-the-line fatty liver syndrome due to the fact that our liver cannot process SO MANY FRUCTOSE MOLECULES at a time?I would place my bets on: the body would prefer nothing, in comparison to poison.But I digress…Look, the body is high-functioning. It knows what to do. Your body knew what to do when refrigerators didn't exist. Your body knew what to do when your chances of eating for the next couple days ran past your peripheral vision. Going for extending periods of time without food and water is NOT new. We didn't always have easy access to BPA-enriched fluorinated water.Somewhere along the way of living within our current paradigms, we've been taught to mistrust our bodies... that our bodies will suddenly go "caput" on us and collapse without warning. Horror stories of going into the doctors office for a regular checkup only to receive lab-test results of terror are paramount... but questions revolving around the systems of life as we know it are blankly averted. Doctors are more interested in the ticking clock than your explanations, the medical system has been set up to fail with pharmaceuticals that quell symptoms but refuse to address the underlying causes, food items are more akin to rat poison, and the horror story goes on.The point is: our skepticism is heavily misdirected. Fasting is not the concern, but it takes a lot of the brunt force blame from individuals that have products to sell you (*cough* westernized medical industry *cough*).Fasting is a natural state for our bodies to slip into and our bodies have a methodology in place that not only recognizes fasting, but flourishes within it… the body just needs a little time to adjust if it’s been living under the 6-small-meals-a-day recommendations of corporate America.Your body: Yes! Finally! A chance to rest the constantly churning digestive tract and actually pay attention to all the back-log of work we've been putting aside!Cell autophagy agents: it's go time!I am an advocate for the belief that our bodies are our greatest allies. Our bodies main job is to keep us alive. It knows what to do and it always does what it can to its utmost ability. Methodically abstaining from food and water might just be one of the best things you can do for your body.The World of FastingInformed fasting can be used as a healing agent for the body. It is my belief that our bodies, when given proper time and attention, are miraculous self-healing agents. Your body can be your best friend, if you choose to harness the connection. Problems begin to accumulate when you do not give your body enough time to actually do what it does best: preserve an