Tomorrow is the start of my juice feast. I am excited, equiped, ready, but also a little scared. This promises to be a life-changing experience, and as much as we need change in our lives, we tend to feel threatened by it.

Let me first explain what juice feasting is. Some of you have expressed concern over this decision and I would like to set your mind at ease.  I’m going to quote from The Fresh Network Blog:

Juice fasting has been around for decades, and involves consuming only juices and usually much less than your daily calorie requirement meaning (a) you will lose weight pretty rapidly; (b) you will need a lot of rest and might not feel great as the detox can be intense, meaning that (c) you may not be able to work or carry out your usual duties while doing it; and (d) you probably won’t be able to continue on the juice regime for more than a month.

Then along came juice feasting.

On a juice feast you consume all the calories and nutrients your body needs; just in the form of juices (4-5 litres a day of them!) rather than solid foods.

Juice feasting is basically about supplying your body with EVERYTHING it needs, but in the most readily absorbable form. Your body has to turn everything you eat into a liquid anyway before it can use it, so you’re just relieving it of that work and freeing up the energy it would have expended on that - while supplying it with abundant vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, phytonutrients and enzymes.

So, now you may wonder why I’m juice feasting. There are several reasons:

1. Detoxification. A juice feast will bring about rapid detoxification.

2. Weight loss. This goes hand in hand with #1. Toxins are stored in the fat cells and on a juice feast fat is lost rapidly, getting rid of the toxins too.

3. It is a journey of discovery and will challenge me like nothing in my life has ever challenged me before. I want to prove to myself that I can do it.

4. It will be a bridge between our current, unhealthy diet and our new 90% raw diet, getting rid of cravings and developing a reliance on fresh raw produce.

5. It should clean out my intestines of years of accumulated waste.

6. I will be connecting with my body-mind, building a relationship of trust and respect.

7. It will teach me to listen to my body, to identify false hunger and to rest when needed.

8. I will relearn the art of taking care of myself, by practising my healing breath, doing visualizations and exploring my dreams.

9. Strengthening of my immune system.

10. At the end of it, I will be healthier than ever before in my life.

LET THE FEAST BEGIN!

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For a lot of people on the Healthy You Challenge the cracks are starting to appear.  They were so gung-ho in the beginning, they tried their best and despite a few cheats here and there, the scale appeared to be their best friend.  Sure it was hard, but the rewards were visible on the graphs, in the  stats and the tickers.

But after four weeks, the scale is becoming a little stubborn.   And it feels like all the hard work is for nothing.  You’re starting to feel depressed and inadequate again.  Thoughts like “I can’t do this”, “I should just quit and try again next month/in the spring” and “Maybe I don’t deserve to be thin.  I’m such a failure!” are cropping up.

As I’ve read between the lines in so many blogs these last few days, I started wondering why I’m not feeling like that.  After all, I haven’t lost a single ounce yet, and I’m still going strong.  Of course, I believe in what I’m doing with all my heart and soul.  I believe that this will be a viable and desirable way for our family to live, once it’s fully implemented.  But I believe the real difference between the people who are still motivated and the people who aren’t, is the way we started off.

The ones who are wavering now are the ones who started with a bang.  Who wanted to lose x amount of weight by a certain time, who had a Day 1 of a “plan”.  Who went on a diet.  Sure it’s great in the beginning.  But then real life starts interfering.  And while you’re still following the plan, you are in fact feeling bored and deprived.  You feel as if you are being punished for your past excesses.  The thought of living like this for another week, let alone the rest of your life, fills you with despair.  And what’s more, you’re putting in all this effort and “only” losing a pound per week!  That’s just not fair!   It’s even based on a scientific principle - the law of diminishing returns.

Compare that to the group who are still motivated.  They are the ones who made small changes initially, but kept adding to it.  In the beginning their losses were negligible, but as they increase their efforts, at a pace that suits them and doesn’t feel like punishment, the rewards are increasing.  They are learning habits for a healthier life.  And they don’t care how long they take to get to the end, because viscerally they know that there is no end to this journey.  The journey is our life.  We will never be finished, complete, done, perfect and all-knowing.  To wish this journey over is to wish your life over.

 If you are not happy with your journey, go and sit on a rock, soak up some sun and re-evaluate your goals and your approach.  Decide whether you want to move forward, regardless of the pace, or whether you are going to retreat back to your captivity.  If you decide on the latter, know that your prison is not your fat body, it is your mind that refuses to believe in yourself.  Staying on the rock is not an option.  There is only forward or backward.

I recommend forward.  You get to walk with some great people!  And the views are fantastic!

Remember I mentioned Plettenberg Bay yesterday?  Lidian posted a picture on her blog today about one of her “feel good” places.  Plett, on the south coast of South Africa, part of the well-known Garden Route, is one of my feel good places.  I used to walk to work in the morning and this was the view I had when going down the hill.  Seeing the sun come up over those mountains and paint the water pink and orange used to soothe my soul and prepare me for the day ahead.  I was very happy in Plett, the last place I lived where I was still a normal weight.

Gym today was tough!  I struggled in Pilates, but also had some breakthroughs.  It helps to ask questions when you’re struggling.  “Why is this hurting?” or “Why am I feeling this here?” are great ways of correcting mistakes.  I must be the only person who leaves a Pilates class bathed in sweat.  And embarrassed!  I only saw halfway through the class how dirty my feet were!  I showered last night before going to bed, but I’d been walking barefoot on the wooden floors all morning and with the wind blowing like it does in CT in summer, the floor gets somewhat dusty.  Tomorrow I’m wearing socks to Pilates!

Then came cardio. I knew I was in for a rough time when I started on the elliptical.  I did my 5 minutes and moved on to the treadmill.  By then I’d twigged that all the hunky guys in the Vodacom shirts were the Vodacom Stormers, our region’s Super 14 Rugby Team*.  I was full of aches and pains on the treadmill and almost gave up after 10 minutes, but somehow got a second wind and marched on.  I did not feel moved to break into a run on this occasion, and that’s just fine by me!  Maybe tomorrow!  I finished off with 5 minutes of arm ergo, so even though I wasn’t in any “zone” today, I completed the whole workout and in retrospect it wasn’t to bad.  My Pilates instructor was working out too and gave me a thumbs up! 

* The Super 14 is an annual rugby contest between 14 regional teams from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

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I am so blessed and inspired by the people I meet on this journey!  Every day!

Yesterday I “met” a fellow juice feaster, Michelle. She’s only a few days into her journey, but is doing great! She starts her day by watching this beautiful inspirational video that she’d compiled. Please take a few minutes to watch it. It will so much better equip you on your weight loss journey.

I’m also going to watch it every morning, so I will be putting it on a static page named “Inspiration”!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwE8HLLue48]

Used with permission. 

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I have been tagged by Kelly!  I find it hard to believe that there is something about myself that I haven’t shared yet (well there’s plenty, but I’ve swept my misspent youth under the rug and you’ll have to torture me to get it out!). So I hope you manage to stay awake through what promises to be 6 extremely arbitrary facts about myself.

Here are the rules.
(1) Link to the person that tagged you.
(2) Post the rules on your blog.
(3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
(4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
(5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Okay, so here goes:

1. I drank ant poison (Dieldrin) when I was about two years old. Not because of the ennui of potty training and the lack of cartoons (we only got TV in SA when I was 6), but because it was within reach in a soda bottle. I’m nothing if not opportunistic.  I had to have my stomach pumped. Wonder if the experience scarred me emotionally…

2.  I’m extremely myopic.  I started wearing glasses at age 8, only in order to see on the blackboard and tv screen.  My eyes deteriorated over the next ten years to the extent that I would have had to wear glasses permanently, but fortuntately I got contacts, which I wore and didn’t clean properly throughout my aforementioned misspent youth.  In my mid-thirties I had developed so many problems with my eyes that I had to restrict my contact lens wearing and now I wear glasses again.  When I heard the news, I got Lizana, who is very cool and has excellent taste, to go with me and choose a funky frame.  Now that I’m doing pilates and aqua aerobics, I’m back to wearing contacts for a few hours a day.  This seems to be a happy medium.  Oh, by the way, the prescription for my left eye is -4.5 and for my right eye -7.5, meaning that my right eye is just about useless. 

Look at the glasses and ignore the orange hair… I have already forgiven myself!

3.  I am a great aunt to two little girls.  My father has a daughter  from a previous marriage, who had her children when she was very young.  Her son started a family at a young age too, so that makes me a great aunt.  My great nieces will be older than my own children!

4.  I’m addicted to Sudoku.  Not the online kind, it has to involve a very sharp pencil and a soft eraser.

5.  I don’t bake.  Never have, never will.  You can keep your cookies and cakes, they don’t tempt me at all!

6.  I once got given a boat my a one-legged man.  Long story.  Met him in a bar in Plettenberg Bay, where I was living at the time.  He mentioned that he had this boat at the lagoon, but that he couldn’t handle it himself on account of his leg.  He lied.  He couldn’t handle it on account of the boat being too big and heavy for one person.  As a boat owner,  I had a willing stream of ne’er-do-well lads who went fishing with me, rowed their merry hearts out and helped me drag the boat up and down the beach.  When I left Plett, I gave it to one of them.  And got fat.

This is what my boat looked like, except that it was orange (much like my hair years later…)

There’s a class I want to check out, called Body Sculpt: A low impact, overall body conditioning class using various techniques, to tone and condition different muscle groups. The use of Thera bands, Pezzi balls, your own bodyweight(!), and specific mat exercises provides a good workout that appeals to both men and women. Because you can never be too rich or too sculpted, you know…

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It’s that time of the week again - the Healthy You Challenge weekly report back.

I’m up 0.4 kg on the scale.  This doesn’t worry me in the least though, because I know that I’ve been working very hard in the gym this week.  I can feel my body changing.  The scale will catch up eventually…

While I see this as a health journey and not a weight loss journey, measuring the weight loss is a way of monitoring progress.  I can’t see inside my body to monitor my healing.  I will be sure to report any healing that I become aware of, but I can see the numbers changing on the scale, feel my range of movement and my stamina improving, compare my measurements and start fitting into smaller sizes.  So, the scale will still feature.  I just won’t give it any more power than it deserves.

I am so pleased that I’m mixing up my workouts, since I’m reaping the benefits.  I last had a Pilates/cardio day on Thursday and then I was really dragging myself on the treadmill.  These two intervening aqua aerobics workouts have worked some magic, because when I hit the eliptical after Pilates, I felt strong and able (Bryan Adams’ “18 Till I Die” helped!).  I’d only set it for a 5-minute workout, so from there I moved to the treadmill.  Last Thursday I really struggled with my 20 minute walk, but today I creamed it!  I was walking a full 1 kph faster than last week and had a nice rhythm going, swinging my arms, instead of clinging on for dear life.

While in the pool, I happened to glance up at where I normally sweat and groan on the treadmills. I saw a lady, who was probably about my size, jogging. Slowly and not for long, but jogging. And I knew that my day will come… It may not be graceful or pretty, but it’s not a spectator sport! It’s yet another person breaking free from the shackles of her weight.

Remember that?! I wrote it yesterday. I had no idea when I saw that lady, or when I wrote that paragraph, that my day was a mere 24 hours away! Yes, I jogged today! One minute I was walking fast, rocking to “The Spirit in the Sky“, and the next minute Shakira was telling me most suggestively that her hips don’t lie. And with only a minute left on the clock, I inexplicably hit the + key repeatedly and started running! For a whole minute!

And then I burst into tears!  I cried throughout my 5 minute arm ergo workout.  In fact I’m crying as I write this.  I weigh 345 pounds and I ran.   I really am emotional about it.

I’m claiming that as a NSV!

I was in such an emotional state, I even jumped on the stair master.  That was not so great…, but I managed one minute.  Hello glutes!

Because of my size, I struggle with some things in Pilates.  I just can’t reach, or breathe, or hug my knee to my chest, etc.  Fortunately the instructor helps where he can and tells everyone to “just do what they can”, which is great!  I’m much more likely to try something if failure is not frowned upon.  Today I was laughing about something that I was woefully failing at and he told me “You’re doing great!”  I stopped giggling and told him:  “I want you to remember this.  I want you to remember all the things I can’t do, because in a few months time I will be able to do them.” 

I’m not setting any new goals for the week to come, since I will be starting my Juice Feast on Friday.  The first 2-3 days will no doubt be tough, but I’m continuing my exercise plan as is, maybe only adding a few laps in the pool on the aqua days.

Have a great week, everybody!

Life only demands from you the strength you possess. ~ David Hammarskjold

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I did another hour-long aqua aerobics class today, with a different instructor and boy, am I feeling it!  She really made us work!  But I loved it.  Even though I’m tired (and quite sleepy!), I’m happy and satisfied.

While in the pool, I happened to glance up at where I normally sweat and groan on the treadmills.  I saw a lady, who was probably about my size, jogging.  Slowly and not for long, but jogging.  And I knew that my day will come…  It may not be graceful or pretty,  but it’s not a spectator sport!  It’s yet another person breaking free from the shackles of her weight.

I only noticed today that there is a whole bevy of new Healthy You Challengers.  I’ve loaded everyone on my Google Reader and will see you around!

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No, you don’t have to brace yourself for another fanciful analogy.  I just needed a snappy title and “He’s just not that into you” didn’t feel quite right.

Today I want to explore our relationships.  More specifically our relationships with food and with our bodies respectively.

As overeaters, comfort eaters, emotional eaters, we have developed a very unhealthy love-hate relationship with food.  The dieting experts tell us to change our relationship with food.  What they’re actually saying is “Stop loving food.  It’s just fuel for the body!”  That is the whole premise of calorie counting.  Energy taken in and energy expended.  This is far from the whole truth. 

Yes, we eat too much!  Yes, people lose weight by limiting calories.  But health and weight loss are better achieved by eating more calories of a higher quality, than fewer calories of poor nutritional value.  And we’re doing this for health, remember!  Everything you put into your body affects your body in some way.   If you eat fresh, mostly raw, whole foods, you are enabling your body to heal on a cellular level.  We are made up of trillions of cells, all of which get replaced on a regular basis, ranging from daily to every few years.  These replacement cells are built by the nutrients from the food we eat.  Are you building a healthier body, or are you creating the breeding ground for disease? Cancer cells cannot multiply unchecked in a body made up of healthy cells.

What the body can’t use is either being excreted via our organs of elimination - the bowels, the kidneys, the sinuses, the skin, the lungs and sometimes even the uterus.  A rash is the body trying to expel something that it doesn’t like.  Same with acne,  eczema,  mucus and a whole host of other “conditions”. 

If the body can only eliminate 10 units of waste a day, but you’re feeding it 15 units, by the end of one week you are left with 35 units of waste.  This has to be stored somewhere.  Fortunately for the body it has a handy storage solution, known as fat cells.  Where to the preservatives we eat go?  Yup, you guessed it!  They go and do some more preserving in our fat cells.  This is why it keeps getting harder and harder to lose weight.  And you’ll be surprised at what the body deems as waste!  It has not fallen for advertising and doesn’t care a whit about “enriched XYZ”.  It wants food made by God, not man!

Have you ever had a big steak for lunch?  How did you feel afterwards?  Energized?  I didn’t think so!  The fact of the matter is that some foods require more energy to be digested than what they contribute to the body.  So clearly, eating for energy only works if you are eating foods that are easily digested, like fruit and vegetables.  A calorie is therefore not the end all and be all of our existance.

 Similarly, we’re not doing exercise for the amount of energy we’re expending.  We’re doing it to get oxygen rich blood to the furthest reaches or our bodies, to build strength, to protect us against bone loss and disease, and to feel good.  Did you know that exercise stimulates at least 16 different hormones in the body? 

All our body functions are dependant upon hormones produced by our endocrine system.  Temperature control, weight control, fertility, mood, water retention, appetite, metabolism, thirst, sleep patterns, insulin production, growth, digestion, etc.  The endocrine system is a very complex and sensitve system made up of glands, like the gonads, the pituitary, the thyroid, the adrenals and a few more.  These glands have to work together to balance the production of hormones.  Everything you put into your mouth affects the endocrine system.  Not surprisingly, the things that stimulate and promote the effective functioning of the endocrine system are fresh, whole foods.  And the things that upset the endocrine system are refined foods, sugar, drugs, caffeine, alcohol and other fermented products, artificial sweeteners, animal products, heated fats and food additives.

Back to our relationship with food…  Clearly, we need to start seeing food in a different way.  Not as a calorie or a point.  But as something that will either promote health or disease in our bodies.  The question to ask when we eat is not “How many calories/points does this have?” but rather “What is this going to do to my body?”.  In time we will start loving the foods that nourish, hydrate, alkalize, build and cleanse the body.  We will be loath to put anything into our bodies that harm them.

Slowly but surely, our focus will change from a relationship with food to a relationship with our own bodies.   Trust will be built.  The fear of regaining weight will disappear.  We will exercise because we love ourselves.  There will be new respect for the wonder and the miracle that is our bodies.  Eating will become an act of thankfulness and worship. 

May all be fed!

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I’ve had an “Aha!” moment again today.  I have to be so careful that I don’t see my weight as my health problem.  My weight is merely a symptom of a body in crisis.  Sure, the crisis has been brought along by eating too much of the wrong foods and not exercising.  My weight is the alarm bell that is sounding, telling me that my system cannot cope with the poor diet and lack of exercise.  Therefore, I should be grateful for my weight, provided of course that I heed the warning. 

Before you march me to the stake and strike the match, consider this:  thin people also have heart disease, cancer, arthritis, infertility, diabetes, osteoporosis, dental caries, acne, lupus, MS, eczema, asthma, chronic sinusitis, indigestion, varicose veins, stomach ulcers, gout, acid reflux, etc.  If fat was the problem, thin people would be healthy.  But they aren’t.  They’re just thinner. 

Fat is the symptom.  Just like infertility is a symptom.  Infertility is the body’s way of saying, “I cannot conceive or carry a child at this time.  Please restore the balance in the body and try again later.”   The body is infinitely wise.  If your health is threatened, it will temporarily shut down “non-essential” functions, like reproduction,  until health is restored.  And health can never be restored by taking a tablet or a hormone.  Health can only be restored by eating natural, whole foods, getting enough exercise and sunlight and avoiding substances that the body finds toxic.

I want to be healthy.  I want to be fertile.  I want to be free of my eczema.  I want to be at the right weight for my body.  I want to be physically fit and active.  I want to have boundless energy.  I want to see better.

I am not on a weight loss journey.  I am on a journey to gain health. 

These last few days I have been newly inspired by a group of bloggers who are on a 92 day Juice Feast.  And I have decided that I am ready to feast too.  I have many books and resources on the subject and have just never been able to get going.  I will prepare myself by eating only fruit and raw vegetables for the next four days and starting my feast on 1 February.  I am committing to feasting for the month of February, but holding my options open for continuing into March and beyond.

Juice feasting serves to cleanse, rebuild, rehydrate and alkalize the body.  It is not a diet.  Health cannot be achieved by dieting.  After the feast, we will continue on The Natural Way, which is how we want to live our lives and raise our kids.

Get ready for a blow-by-blow account!

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Yesterday at gym I saw a girl that took my breath away.  I was completely smitten.  Not because I want to do her (I’m 100% heterosexual!), but because I wanted to be her.  There was just something about her that made me think “I could look like that”.

First of all, she had a beautiful, feminine face and boyish short blonde hair, exactly like I used to wear my hair when I was young and thin.  She was probably in her early thirties.  Her body was exquisite.  Tall, big-boned and strong.  Very strong.  This girl was ripped.  Very defined back, arm and shoulder muscles.   Toned legs, flat stomach.  Neat chest. 

I’m guessing that she must be a professional sportswoman.  (I work out at the Sports Science Institute, where a lot of professional athletes and international sporting celebs go.  I once had Australian National cricketers on treadmills on either side of me!)  She obviously does weight training, but she’s not overdone like those ridiculous women with their orange tans, big peroxide hair, tiny bikinis and weird poses.

This girl had the most amazing presence.  She was calm, neat and very precise in her movements.  I liked the matter-of-fact way she got on the bike and started cycling with total concentration.  She moved gracefully and purposefully.  I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.

The best part of her was her totally gorgeous ass.  One would expect a rock hard butt from someone like her, but she had the most feminine derriere I’ve ever seen.  Soft and rounded.

Some people have dreams of losing weight and getting fit so that they can wear bikinis, run marathons, whatever.  I just want to look like that girl!  And I’m going to work for it!

Today I attended my first aqua aerobics class.  It was awesome!  I tried really hard and did well!  My arms and shoulders are quite sore now, but tomorrow is my rest day, so I’ll be fine to do it again on Monday.  I have mapped out next week as follows:

Monday - 1 hour aqua aerobics

Tuesday - 1 hour pilates, 30 minutes cardio

Wednesday - 1 hour aqua aerobics

Thursday - 1 hour pilates, 30 minutes cardio

Friday - 1 hour pilates, 30 minutes cardio

Saturday - 1 hour aqua aerobics

The week after that I will start 30 minutes of weight training on the days that I do aqua aerobics. 

Here’s some motivation for the week:

It’s your constant and determined effort that will eventually break down all  resistance and sweep all the barriers before you. Persistence means taking pains to overcome every obstacle, to do all that’s necessary to reach your goal.

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We have a winner!  Lidian guessed correctly!  I most certainly did not have a pet snake in high school.  I have an extreme and irrational fear of snakes.  In fact, if I turn a page and see a snake picture, I will hurl the book across the room and not touch it again. I always joke that a snake won’t even have to bite me to kill me!

This means that the rest are true!

1. My mother tongue is Afrikaans, a local language that evolved from Dutch, although it is said to closely resemble Flemish. It is one of our 11 official languages. The others are English, Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Tswana, Swati, Venda and Tsonga (I had to look it up)! My husband is English speaking, and we converse in both English and Afrikaans at home. I don’t speak any of the native languages, but used to be fluent in French and could get by in German. I still read French, but would speak it quite badly now - another case of use it or lose it!

2. Shudder!

3.  What can I say, we moved a lot when I was a kid.  Then I went to university and dropped out after two years (doing two different courses).  When I got divorced I started yet another course, completed one year and stopped.  Then I did a year of Bible College.  And stopped.  So after 4 years of tertiary study, I actually have no qualifications!  And I really don’t mind.

4.  He invited me on a dinner date two days after making contact online.  I said “yes”, and I haven’t said ”no” since!  He is the best thing that’s ever happened to me (with some stiff competition from my best friends, Lizana and Charlotte!) and I love him dearly.  He really is my second chance.

5. So six of you doubted my ostrich riding skills!  If I didn’t currently weigh over 300 pounds, I’d be most offended!  This is in fact true.  When you don’t have any qualifications (see #3), you get to do a lot of menial jobs.  After my au pair stint in France,  I got a job on an ostrich show farm.  The job entailed taking groups of tourists on a tour of the farm and educating them about ostriches.  The last bit was a physical “show and tell” with a tame ostrich.  We’d pull the neck around, open the beak, lift the wing, etc.  Then we’d demonstrate that it one can in fact ride an ostrich, if you weren’t too attached to going in a specific direction.  One stops by pulling the neck back, like a hand brake.  We would demonstrate this and then we would let the tourists try.  I attribute my still youthful appearance to all the laughing I did in those six months!  If you had a particularly obnoxious, loud mouthed yob on your tour, you’d make sure that he got one of the more unruly birds.  And you’d send him off to the dirtiest (read shittiest) part of the enclosure!  By the way, the photo at the top is me (looking great, if I may say so myself), loading a German onto the ostrich.  The one below is also me, showing off the “fan”.

6.  Yes, I am a natural blonde, although I have strayed to red in the past.  These days my hair is mousy, so I have to help it along a bit with Clairol Nice ‘n Easy.  But here’s the proof! (And Dee, I’m not offended!)

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