David Vienna - Pretty Sure Youre Fine

Copyright 2023 by David Vienna.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

ISBN 978-1-7972-1718-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-7972-1901-1 (epub)

Design by Jon Glick.

Cover Design by Cat Grishaver.

Chronicle Books LLC

680 Second Street

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.chroniclebooks.com

Dedicated to my wife Larissa,

who didnt have the heart to tell me I was pudgy

until after I lost the weight.

Pretty much everyone wants to be healthy. And with a growing list of cultural and culinary movements like Pilates, hot yoga, CrossFit, mindfulness, sleep therapy, meditation, organic veggies, cage-free eggs, conscious breathing, gluten-free everythingthe pressure to get wellness right can feel downright nerve-racking.

Sticking to a diet makes us eat poorly, our fitness goals are set at an unrealistic level thanks to media and advertising, and were totally stressed out about stress. Yeah, while living a healthy life offers a ton of benefits, in many cases the pressure we put on ourselves to maintain that lifestyle ends up being counterproductive, hobbling our attempt to achieve our health goals. And when there are countless health-and-wellness gurus with 0 percent body fat shouting that we need to change, improve, break that habit, level up, try harder, longer, faster, with less food in your belly and more sweat on our brow, the pressure can manifest in destructive behaviors that are downright unhealthy. So forget those perfectly toned windbags. They probably dont even know what its like to spend a full half hour sobbing in the KFC parking lot while eating a four-piece combo.

Thank freaking goodness you picked up Pretty Sure Youre Fine, because it encourages you to trust your gut (even if its a little bigger than you think it should be), shows you things arent as bad as you might think, illustrates how the stress you generate trying to maintain unrealistic health practices is worse than whatever your perceived problem(s) could ever be, and assures you its okay to eat an entire sleeve of Oreos every once in a while.

This isnt just opinion. Well, it is opinion, but well-researched opinion by a former journalist (thats me) that is also fact-checked by a couple of totally awesome experts. Yancy Berry is a personal trainer certified through the American College of Sports Medicine and Equinox Fitness Training Institute, and an addiction recovery specialist. And Cyndi Sarnoff-Ross is a licensed psychotherapist with three decades of clinical experience, and a member of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. They made sure theres no advice in here like, Need a healthy snack? Lego bricks have zero calories! (Even though its true.)

Of course, Pretty Sure Youre Fine just covers the little stuff (and some medium stuff). If your concerns involve a diagnosis of a serious medical or mental condition, please, for the love of your health, do not look for pointers in a book you likely found on the back of your friends toilet.

Otherwise, feel free to dive in to the book, not the toilet. For the moment, go ahead and skip the workout, break out the Doritos, and relax. Because Im pretty sure youre fine.

You figure you should get in shape, but every time you think of how to accomplish this, your mind fills with a big ol neon sign flashing one single word in glowing red letters: exercise. Just saying the word wears you out. Like, why so many syllables, ex-er-cise? Why cant it be short and fun, like eat and sleep?

And you dread making time during the day to run or swim oreven worseride a Peloton bike. You have stuff to do, after all. Theres work, and those back episodes of Law & Order: SVU arent going to watch themselves.

No amount of caffeine can break through the wall of exhaustion and procrastination youre stuck behind. You wake up tired every morning, sleepwalk through the day, and collapse on the couch each night. Youre so tired, even your naps leave you needing a nap. The herculean effort required to create and maintain an exercise routine that would benefit you in any substantive way would take more energy than you have to offer.

We all push ourselves too much a lot of the time. We work through lunch, let vacation days go unused, and end the day just as exhausted as we started it. Being tired all the time is pretty common (one study found that 40 percent of all Americans wake up tired multiple times a week). In that way, theres nothing wrong with youor rather theres nothing unique about that particular affliction.

But heres something you might not want to hear: Exercising regularly can help you sleep better and increase your daily energy. Yeah, just hearing that makes you want to have a little lie-down.

Leave the CrossFit madness to professional wrestlers and Marvel movie actors.

Dont worry about becoming a triathlete overnight. Start small with a daily walk and give yourself time (months, not days) to see and feel results. As the walk becomes easier, add distance or increase your pace. And leave the CrossFit madness to professional wrestlers and Marvel movie actors.

You glance in the full-length mirror (something you normally avoid) and notice youre a little thicker around the middle than you realized, and youd like to fit into your favorite pair of pants again. Or maybe it wasnt even your idea. Maybe your doctor advised you to lose weight, the jerk.

But after weeks of exercise, you still look like an overstuffed Hostess Twinkie. So, you adjust your schedule to make it more of a priority. Weeks later, you still look doughy and gross. What the heck? Its common knowledge exercise makes you into an Adonis. But, no, not you.

Nope. Its best to just buy new, slightly larger pants and settle into your current form, one thats sort of doughy and always creaks when you stand up.

As our bodies age, our metabolism slows. Its just nature taking a well-deserved cool-down after sprinting groin-first through puberty. Its unrealistic in your forties to maintain the same chiseled physique you may have had during your twenties. So, some extra pounds are usually okay.

If your doctor advised you to lose weight, however, you should probably listen because they went to school for this and you went to school for, what, anthropology or something? The fantastic news is exercise means a lot of different things and most of them arent painful. You dont need to go from lazing on the couch to flipping a tractor tire in the gym parking lot overnight or at all, really.

You dont need to go from lazing on the couch to flipping a tractor tire in the gym parking lot overnight or at all, really.

Its possible that youre not seeing results because its just too soon. Sometimes it takes months to see real effects of regular exercise. Of course, there are other possible reasons: Real, lasting weight loss comes when you couple exercise with dietary changes; everyones body is different and yours just might like to take things slow; youre exercising too much (yes, thats a thing); youre not being 100 percent honest about your calorie intake; and/or youre not doing the right