Dear Kim,

The summer season will be here next week and I look like crap. I dread taking my kids to the pool! Do you have any tips or advice to get me in shape quick? Ok, maybe not in shape, but maybe feeling better about myself?

Sincerely,

Frumpy in Frampton

Dear Frumpy,

Obviously you haven’t seen my body lately. In fact, just before reading your letter I was trying to determine if I prefer my chocolate chips to be milk chocolate or dark chocolate. I tried doing a blind taste test with my industrial sized Costco bags, but no one was there to tell me which one I selected. So tomorrow I’m setting up a scoring system and creating elimination rounds based on flavor, texture, swimwear, and raw talent. I hear milk Chocolate will perform a fire swallowing act- clearly a bad decision. But I digress…

Frumpy, despite my recent weight gain, I do have some advice for you (and trust me, I’d look a lot worse if I didn’t follow it).

Diet

Eat healthier! Avoid sugars, simple carbs, and alcohol on weekdays, between the hours of 9am – 9:15am. If you slip up, don’t be too hard on yourself, fifteen minutes is a long time to abstain.

Also, consider replacing the unhealthy snacks in your house with healthy ones, something you’d never eat in a million years. For example, try replacing Doritos with Mexican Spice flavored worms,

or substituting potato chips with salt & vinegar crickets,

or chocolate bars with laxatives.

Water

Drink water, tons and tons of water! If you hate the taste of plain water, you can always add lemon or filter it through ground coffee beans and fermented grapes from the Napa region.

Fitness

Making small changes, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator, choosing a stand up tanning booth instead of a lay down one, mixing cake batter by hand, and riding your bike to the Dairy Queen in one of those reflective sweatsuits, can make tiny differences in your overall health. And those tiny differences, my friend, will add up to make small differences that you can almost maybe see!

If you’re feeling really motivated, consider joining a gym that offers free childcare. You can use that hour to have some coffee and think about ways to get in shape.

Motivation

There are a lot of different ways to motivate yourself, but I’m only familiar with the unhealthy ones, like self-shaming. This can be anything from squeezing a thigh into your size 4 wedding dress to lining the inside of your sunglasses with fat pics of yourself. The sky’s the limit.

Also, know your weaknesses, anticipate the ways in which you’ll sabatoge yourself, and have an action plan to circumvent them. For example, I know that if it’s storming I won’t get out of my car and walk from the gym parking lot to the gym. So now, when it rains, I arrive in the parking lot an hour early and call AAA to tell them that my car broke down. When they arrive, I ask them for a ride to the front door. Don’t worry, it’s all covered under my insurance.

Frumpy, I hope I’ve given you some advice you can use. I’m almost certain that if you follow my suggestions, you’ll be in shape in no time…(really…there’s no time in which you’ll be in shape).

Have a great summer!
Kim

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