Spoiler alert: I’m the client in this scenario because I’m actually not really into client testimonials. Last year, around this time, I bought this really simple, cute, black shirt dress. It fit well and was flattering, and it was just nondescript enough that I could wear it to a casual get-together, to work, or dress it up and wear it out. I wore it to Christmas parties, to funerals, to meetings, to barbecues. It’s my favourite dress. My favourite dress of any dress I’ve ever owned in my whole life. Cut to yesterday. I’m in the mall and I think to myself “Oh. I guess I should think about getting an outfit or something for the Christmas party season.” And because I don’t really care too much about being on the cutting edge of fashion, I go back to the SAME store and - lo and behold - they are selling the SAME dress again this year. A perfect time to buy a new one! I am slowly becoming one of those people you see in cartoons who opens her closet and has 100 of the exact same thing hanging in there. 100 pairs of faded denim. 100 floaty blouses. 100 of this dress from Aritzia. My size happens to be Large. I need to stress: I have never lost one minute of sleep over this. I’m tall, I’m wide. “I've been a size 12 since I WAS 12” I often joke. Much of my need for size Large clothing is often to accommodate a big skeleton - monkey arms, giraffe legs, shoulder breadth, a pretty big ribcage, a wide pelvis. Classic tall person stuff. The only Large one they had was in navy blue. The black version of the dress only had a Medium left. I grabbed the blue, saddened to not be able to EXACTLY replace my favourite black dress. Off to the fitting room I went; but first I turned and grabbed the size Medium black dress, just for the hell of it. I’m not trying for any kind of surprise ending here, people; you know where this is going. Navy dress in Size L? Didn’t fit. Looked like an unflattering silk potato sack. Black dress in size M: Jackpot! A perfect fit. Somehow, some way - without even trying - I’ve gone down from a L to a M, which is the equivalent of going from a 10/12 to a 6/8 (caveat: if these were pants I’d not have had such luck; see above, re: giraffe legs). How to Create Health and Become a Badass without Even Trying I lost two dress sizes in a year. I wasn’t really overweight last year. I’m not really underweight now. I’ve just continued to streamline my body composition and become leaner. I don't even care about body composition! But lots of people out there do - specifically, nutrition clients. So I'm telling this story for you. You want to lose weight? Okay. *cracks knuckles* Let's do this. I did it without even trying. I mean, I am “trying” in the sense that I changed my entire way of eating and belief process around food in order to cure myself of inflammation and insulin resistance. And I have just been, I guess, “following that” plan ever since… although I struggle with that verbiage because I’m not following a plan. I’m not actively DOING anything. Not restricting, not depriving, not writing it down, not tracking meals on a smartphone app… I’m just eating good, real food. Food that exists in nature. Meat, veg and fat. I’m exercising less than I have in my entire life, too! So there goes the theory that the only way to lose weight is to eat less and move more… In addition to the dramatic improvement I experienced pretty immediately upon adopting this way of eating years ago - energy, mood improvement; weight loss; abdominal fat loss - I am still, without trying, continuing to progress. And will continue to do so. Because the body is a homeostatic machine. Homeostasis: I’ll let you google that world if you want, but the basic gist is: the body wants only to be in balance. It is designed to take care of itself. Designed to be healthy and happy. When I encounter unhappy/unhealthy people in my nutrition practice, the whole process centres around trying to uncover all the ways in which they are getting in the way of their body’s homeostatic function. If you think that some of my recommendations sound weird - maybe you were expecting more along the lines of recipes and meal plans? - I ask you to trust the process. I’ve got a plan. It’s all about creating health so you can enjoy life inside a healthy, happy, homeostatic human body. Will you lose weight? Yes, often without even realizing it.