Only one quarter fat.

So I'll be honest. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that no, my body is not 50% fat. Thank god because, really? That would have been devastating.

That being said, I'm at 25% body fat, which translates roughly to about 38 pounds of fat. On my body. Just, sitting there. Being fat. Doing nothing. Taking up space in my clothes. Being gross.

For those of you who blacked out during 8th grade health class, the basic principle is this: muscle does weigh more than fat, but muscle also contributes to the metabolic process. Simply stated, muscle burns calories, just by being there. Its not an extraordinary amount, but, muscle works. Fat jiggles. So obviously, we want our body compositions to be more muscle than fat.

Concept #1: Mastered!

The second thing of many I learned tonight is that my hormones are a total disaster. And I'm not talking about being premenstrual. I'm talking about all those other really important-but-no-one-really-knows-exactly-what-they-do hormones, like insulin, and gluco-something-in. (side note: I'm not even going to attempt to be scientific here. I don't have the education, knowledge or training to even come close to getting things accurate so, if I overgeneralize and say something wrong, then, my bad). All those really important hormones that make the processes of the body run and run correctly? Well, mine are a mess. Nothing is working right. My liver hates me (which we knew), I can't detoxify estrogen, and my insulin is on a never-ending roller coaster. So I have to corral these bad boys back in order and get things working the right way.

How?

For starters, I have to understand the following: everything I have ever consumed or exposed my body to has caused this hormone chaos. But, and this is important - it's not my fault. Because I didn't know. Did I know that eating a steak and cheese sub with extra mayo was going to make me gain weight? Yeah, okay fine that's a no-brainer. But did I know that dumping all that processed garbage into my body year after year was going to eventually completely derail the digestive, metabolic, and all sorts of other processes? No. I guess I didn't think that far in advance. So Concept #2 is this: retrain these processes to work correctly and re-balance the hormones.

The first step is to food detox by eating only protein (from meat and nuts) and green vegetables for the next 14 days. Aside from the blatant lack of my beloved carbs, the scariest part about this is the green vegetable. The last time I had something green that came from the earth unprocessed was a lime. In my Corona.

And a word about broccoli: for as long as I can recall, I have loathed broccoli. At a very young age, I insisted that I be allowed to bring my Popple (stuffed animal) to the dinner table. I only recently told my mother that it was because I wanted to stuff my broccoli (or any veggie really) into the pocket of the Popple so I could pretend I ate it, and throw it away later. Pretty genius, thank you. Needless to say, there isn't any stuffed animal in the world that is going to get my ass out of this one. But this step is so important, and oh so hard for me. The nutritional component of this whole thing is going to be the hardest for me to master.

Concept #3 is perhaps the most important: no matter what size, weight, shape, age or color, you gotta love yourself enough to be good to yourself, in every way possible. And I do. Which is why I can sit here and make fun of myself. It's my way of kicking my own ass into gear and making this positive change in my life.

Gag. Enough of that. Self love is too serious. But that was for you, mom.