“Pain is temporary, lingerie football pics in a magazine for the world to see are forever.”

This post was written during the preparation phase for this article, but I decided to hold it until the article actually came out (in the July issue of Orange Coast magazine). Click over to OrangeCoast.com for the full article.

This note from Cali:

Your daily dehydrating inspiration:

I now know why those crazy fitness people on Instagram are crazy. Because when your whole life revolves around dropping weight, you will go insane. You will be lonely. And you will want to post every tiny bit of progress to social media.

I had a week to prepare for a photo shoot in a sports bra and boy shorts. So basically, all about the abs. I’m fit and lean and all that, but needed to lean out even further to get all the abzzzzzz required of me. I immediately undertook an extreme diet and dehydrating protocol, which I would recommend to no one. Part of this routine was the old sweatsuit-on-the-treadmill routine, which we’ve all seen or heard about but few have actually done. Now I have. And I never want to do it again. (Props to the trainer who called me the unabomber … made me laugh for a good five minutes and temporarily forget the absolutely pain, horror, and monotony of running intervals on a treadmill)

Part of this routine involved drinking so much water I might explode, and then severely limiting water intake. One day out, I spent 4 of my precious allotted ounces on coffee. Here’s a photo of what four fucking ounces of coffee looks like.

I ended up dropping ten pounds in the week, which isn’t really a fair number to share (not only because it’s incredibly unhealthy and unsustainable). In the two weeks prior, I had been researching a “hardest workouts in OC” article, so basically waaaaaay upping my cardio/HIIT while keeping my heavy weight training the same—which would spark weight loss in anyone. But two-a-day workouts like that for a professional in something other than sport isn’t sustainable either. I’m also up to my eyeballs in stress (apartment search, anyone?) and I tend to lose weight when extremely stressed.

Most of my coworkers noticed my weight loss and asked how they could do the same. Weight loss is a long-term project requiring mostly lots of preparation: meal prep, food prep, schedule prep. Spend advance time in making healthy foods available to you all week, and you’ll be much happier for it.

As for me, I’m happy to have grass-fed butter back in my (many more than four ounces of) coffee.