What you do 80% of the time… …is more important than what you do the other 20% of the time. Consistency > Perfection. every.single.time. I believe the most important thing when approaching ANY holiday is to go in with a plan that you'll be happy with at the end of the day. If you plan not to track a single thing and eat whatever for the day, that's awesome, as long as you will feel good about that choice. If you plan to track the best you can while enjoying time with friends and family, that's great, as long as you will feel good about that choice. The key is to be intentional with how you choose to approach a holiday (or any event, for that matter). And then define what success will look like for the day... Because when you go in with a plan, you create awareness and ownership of your goals for the day, and you're less likely to shift into the habits you're working to change. After the holiday celebration, I highly suggest you reflect on your day and ask yourself what worked, what didn't, and what lessons you can walk away with for the future (remember, there's no failure, only feedback). That being said, I am ALWAYS up for sharing tips to help you succeed on your journey... >>> Click Here For My 8 Fav Holiday Success Tips <<< And one last thing before I go...one of the more frequent questions I'm asked around the holidays is how to track alcohol. If that's a question you've also wondered, check out the free guide I created that will show you how to log your alcohol intake! Click the button below to grab it.
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Lots of people looking to improve their eating think meal plans are the answer. The only problem? Meal plans usually suck… and they rarely last. So, instead, check out these 6 ways to transform any diet in a sustainable way. “Do I get a meal plan?”This is the most common question we get from folks who are considering, or just started out in, our nutrition coaching programs. The answer: No, we don’t do meal plans. But we can’t blame people for asking. Sure, meal plans have long been a staple of the fitness and nutrition industry. Coaches are taught to create them. Clients are taught to expect them. Unfortunately… Most of the time, meal plans don’t work.You see, traditional meal plans are explicit prescriptions. Eat this exact thing, in this exact amount, at this exact time. For example, you’ll often see: Breakfast – 7:30am 3 eggs, scrambled 1 cup vegetables 1 piece whole grain toast 1 cup coffee 1 glass water Morning snack – 10:00am 1 protein bar 1 handful mixed nuts Lunch – 12:30pm 4 oz chicken 2 cups salad 1 handful seeds 1 glass water After exercise – 4:30pm 1 scoop whey protein 1/2 cup frozen fruit 2 omega 3 capsules 12 oz water Dinner – 7:00pm 4 oz steak 1 cup cooked veggies 1 baked potato 1 glass water You might be thinking, “Good! I want a plan. I’m sick of trying to figure all this stuff out! Just tell me what to eat!” Unfortunately, when we try to follow rigid prescriptions like this, lots can (and often does) go wrong. For example: Scenario 1: You just don’t stick to the plan.No matter how enthusiastic you are, meal plans can be tough to follow. This is normal. Life can get in the way.
This is also normal. Unfortunately, it means you might not get the results you hope for. For instance, a meal plan you hoped would help you lose weight could actually encourage you to gain weight instead. Scenario 2: You follow the plan perfectly.In fact, you follow it too well and for too long. Most meal plans are meant to be temporary. They’re designed to help a person get to a specific short-term goal, like dropping a few extra pounds before a wedding, learning to manage blood sugar, or cutting weight for an athletic competition. Our bodies can usually adapt to a rigid way of eating for a short period of time. But if you’re too strict for too long, you could wind up with disordered eating habits and lasting health (mental, metabolic, hormonal, etc) consequences. Scenario 3: You follow the plan for a little while but it sucks.It isn’t sustainable. It doesn’t make you feel better. It doesn’t keep you sane. Maybe you see some short-term results (or not). But you hate living and eating this way. You never want to see another stupid piece of lettuce or 4 ounces of chicken. Eventually, you get so turned off by the process that you regress or quit altogether. You conclude that “eating healthy” sucks. And you miss your big chance to learn how to make healthier, more enjoyable, more lasting and real changes. Another reason meal plans fail.One of the biggest (yet generally unacknowledged) problems with traditional meal plans is their focus on “nutrients”. Real people don’t eat “nutrients”. We eat food.We eat meals, often with other people. We eat meals that match our cultural background and social interests. And we rarely measure things precisely. Sure, sometimes an explicit prescription is necessary.For instance, professional athletes or bodybuilders (in other words, people who make money off their bodies and athletic skills) use meal plans to prepare for training and competition. A prescribed meal for someone in that situation might look something like this:
Instead, we eat foods like:
You don’t need to weigh and measure everything, or count out your almonds. Ask yourself: “Is someone paying me to do this?” If the answer is no, you likely don’t need this kind of approach. You just need to think about what you’re already eating, and how you could make it a little bit better. This means fiddling and adjusting. Making small changes and improvements to what you already normally eat and enjoy, one small step at a time. Think about a spectrum of food quality rather than “bad” or “good” foods. Welcome to the meal transformation game.When you play with the idea of a food spectrum or food continuum, you get to experiment with variables like:
In which situations is that easier or harder? When your choices are limited (for instance, when you’re traveling, or eating at a workplace cafeteria), how can you shoot for “a little bit better” while still being realistic, and without trying to be “perfect”? Let’s transform breakfast, lunch, and dinner.Here’s how that “food spectrum” might look in daily life, with a sample day of eating. Transforming breakfastStage 1 Let’s say that your go-to breakfast is a whipped-cream coffee drink and a chocolate croissant. You pick it up in the drive-thru, and wolf it down on your way to work. This is your starting point. It’s not “bad”. It’s just no longer working for you. You’re getting indigestion from rushing, the croissant doesn’t hold you at all, and you’ve just spilled the coffee on your crotch while changing lanes. Now your game is to improve your breakfast just a little bit, starting with what you already have or do. Stage 2 Your opening moves in the meal transformation game:
But this is a solid start. Well done. Stage 3 Next level of game play:
No problem. We’re keeping it real. Stage 4 Now you are seriously playing like a pro.
Transforming lunchStage 1 At this point, starting out, the idea of a sit-down lunch feels flat out ridiculous. “Eat slowly? Who has time for that during a busy workday? Grab a burger and go!” Another “car dashboard” meal. Another stomach ache and regret. You decide you might want to play with this meal too. Stage 2 To improve this meal a little bit:
Stage 3 At this stage, you’re doing a little prep work:
You still grab a diet cola from the vending machine to wash it down. You move from your desk to the lunchroom, where you socialize with co-workers. This slows you down a bit and helps you digest and relax. Stage 4 You’re having the burger without the bun, alongside a nice pre-prepped salad. Instead of staying at your desk or in the office, you take a break. You sit outside and get some fresh air while you enjoy your meal. For a drink, water’s all you need. Transforming dinnerStage 1 It’s 8pm. You’ve just gotten home after an insane day at work. All you want to do is put food into your face and zone out in front of the TV. You can’t even imagine making anything more complicated than boxed macaroni ‘n’ cheese right now. Ketchup and hot dogs are as fancy as it gets. Stage 2 Same concept, but:
Stage 3 Things are getting fancy.
Stage 4 Again, we’re playing at pro level here. With your meal planning and prep strategies, even a weeknight dinner looks good.
Meal transformation is not about reaching perfection.If you’re at stage 1, all you have to do is shoot for stage 2. Or stage 1.5. If you’re in stage 2, play with getting to stage 3. And if you’re stage 3, heck, you can stay where you are. You might never get to stage 4. Or it might only happen at times when you’re relaxed and have a little extra time. Stage 4 might only happen on Sunday night, whereas the rest of your week is a mix of stages 1, 2, and — if you’re super lucky — 3. And that’s OK. How far you progress along the continuum all depends on what YOU want, what YOU need, and what YOU can reasonably do, right now. Over time, things can change. Play YOUR game. Success secret: Have a food prep ritual.You might look at these photos and think, “How can people possibly do all that?” One success secret: Having a food prep ritual. The idea is simple: Practice planning and preparing healthy food in advance. This makes healthy eating convenient and easy. It also makes decisions easier: You don’t have to make a choice when you’re rushed and hangry. Your food prep ritual can include:
Experiment with systems, skills and strategies that work for YOU and YOUR life. The real goal of a meal plan is to stop using a meal plan.Fit, healthy people who have a good relationship with food don’t need other people to tell them exactly what to eat at all times. Living a fit and healthy life doesn’t require perfection, either. If you are using a meal plan:That’s OK. Some people like prescription, especially if they are working towards a specific short-term goal, like cutting weight to compete in wrestling, making sure they get enough nutrients to support a healthy pregnancy, or fueling their triathlon performance. Keep it short-lived. Meal plans are supposed to be temporary, working towards a short-term goal. Keep it real. As much as possible, try to make the meal plan fit your real life, not the other way around. If you’re a parent, a worker, a student, or anyone else living in the real world, most of your meals will fall somewhere in the stages 1 through 3 spectrum. That’s perfectly OK. Just experiment with being a little bit better, wherever you can. Remember all goals require trade-offs. If you want to achieve a high level of performance or exceptional body composition, understand what you are prioritizing and sacrificing. Getting very lean, for instance, comes with costs. Make sure it’s working for you. If your meal plan is making you feel:
…and if you find that meal plans result in you:
What to do next1. Consider where you sit on the spectrum of meal “stages”.Where’s your food game at? What level are you playing at? What level would you like to play at? Given your goals and your current situation, what is realistic? For example, if you currently eat at stage 1, your goal might be to eat at stage 2 for most meals. Or, if you eat at stage 3 most of the time but find yourself dipping into stage 1 or 2 meals more often than you’d like, aim to stay at stage 3 a little more consistently. 2. Start small. One step at a time.Pick one meal to transform and focus on that. For instance, you might leave all your other meals at stage 1, and focus on getting lunch to stage 2. Concentrate on improving that one meal each day. Using the examples above, you might think about things like:
Try just fiddling with one or two, and see which ones work best for you. 3. Add things slowly.Once you’ve improved one meal a day, try another. If you feel like lunch is a solid stage 2 or 3, play with moving breakfast, dinner, or snacks along the spectrum. Or, once you’ve improved one factor in a meal (e.g. adding more protein), try another. For instance, if you’re getting more protein, now try switching out your sugary soda for some soda water. Or adding a little more veggies. Be patient; small steps add up. 4. Set yourself up for success.Notice what makes it easier and simpler for you to eat better. Then figure out how to do or get more of that. For instance:
5. Enjoy your meals.Meal plans don’t usually address how you eat. Before you change what you eat, you can also try changing how you eat. For example, you could:
Meal time is YOUR time. 6. Work towards being your own boss.Sometimes you might just want someone to tell you what to do. That’s fine, and helpful, especially if you’re juggling a lot. But only for a while. Over time, look for ways to help yourself intuitively and wisely make better choices, rather than just following the rules. Think long-term. What do you want to happen over the next few months? Year? 10 years? Do you want to be on a meal plan for the next few decades? Today, if you were to take one small step towards the “better” end of the meal spectrum, what might that look like? How can you start playing the “meal transformation game” today? - Kayli Montoya-Huston So you’ve been listening to Kayli and I about how to lose body fat and you’ve adjusted your diet and you’ve started resistance training. That’s fantastic news. Wait . . . you say the scale is up this morning. Oh man that must have been scary huh? Well guess what! I have more good news for you, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing and it’s totally normal. Fat loss and weight loss are not linear. It is very common and incredibly normal to see the scale go up and down from day to day. This is why I suggest that you weigh daily. Now, if you struggle with body dysmorphic disorder or the scale causes you severe emotional distress, that suggestion changes. When you weigh daily and record that weight somewhere, you can plot the weight on a chart and you will see the overall trend going down. We don’t care about what is happening in the micro perspective here, it’s the macro that matters. When you are in a fat loss phase, you should be watching several different metrics. I suggest keeping track of your body measurements, biofeedback, how your clothes fit, and the scale. Oftentimes the scale won’t move but you notice your clothes are looser and your measurements are dropping. This is usually a good indicator that you are gaining muscle mass and losing body fat. None of these metrics by themselves are good indicators of your progress. You must look at all of them together. As a matter of fact, the very definition of a plateau in fat loss requires a consecutive 4 week of no scale movements and no measurement movements. Unless both are stalled for 4 consecutive weeks, you are still making progress. There are several things that can cause the scale to fluctuate. Your body weight can fluctuate up to 4% from day to day depending on the situation and your body. Water can often be a driver of scale weight. You could have been dehydrated one day which made your body hold on to more water, this can make the scale go up. Your body could be inflamed from a hard workout, this can make the scale go up. You could have undigested food left in the gut which would make the scale go up. You could be full of poop. I don’t mean that facetiously. If you’re struggling with constipation or you didn’t get enough fiber to help you clear out your bowels, the scale will go up. Stress, lack of sleep, eating later at night, eating fried or sugary foods can all make the scale go up. It is important to be aware that in order to gain 1 pound of body fat in a day, you had to eat 3500 calories OVER your maintenance calories. So if you eat 2000 calories per day just to stay at the same weight, you would need to eat 5500 calories that day for the increase in the scale to be due to body fat. So the next time the scale is up 2 pounds from the day before. Ask yourself, “did I really eat 7000 EXTRA calories yesterday?” I would almost guarantee the answer is no. Since I mentioned measurements, I feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a swing in the other direction. I mentioned all the different types of metrics that you should watch for a reason. We don’t just watch these to test the validity of the scale. They are important in their own right. For example, say the scale is going down and you’re super stoked about that but the measurements are not dropping. That’s discouraging isn’t it? If you are a person with quite a bit of extra weight to lose and the scale starts dropping but the measurements are not budging and you aren’t noticing a difference in your progress pics, there’s a good chance you are losing fat, but it isn’t going to be the superficial body fat that gives your body shape. You are most likely losing the visceral fat first. This is the fat that surrounds your organs. This is a good thing. Do not let this discourage you. This is why the first 10 pounds lost causes the most impact on your health markers on lab work with your doctor. When you drop the visceral fat, your body can work more efficiently. I would strongly suggest watching several different measurements of progress. Scale, measurements and photos are all great ways to judge your progress. I would argue that even if those things aren’t moving or changing, but you feel better, you are winning. Oftentimes if you chase health and wellness, the body you want will come later and then you can really enjoy your newer body and actually feel better in it. If you would like more 1 on 1 help reaching your fat loss goals fill out our coaching application to hop on a free coaching call so we can discuss your goals and see if you would make a great fit for the Phoenix Rising Program. You have probably heard me talk fat loss killers in social media posts and videos, but there are so many moving parts that have to work in harmony to achieve fat loss that it’s important to really highlight the major sources of problems. We have talked about how water, diet, sleep and movement all affect fat loss, the one that most people tend to forget is STRESS. Stress can affect your fat loss in several different ways. As a matter of fact, it can be the major wrecking ball that takes out the other pillars necessary to keep your weight trending down toward your goals. First, let’s address what constitutes stress. People use the word stress interchangeably with anxiety, feeling anxious, fearful, nervous, overwhelmed, panicked or stressed out. Usually stress manifests in people’s lives without them noticing, but usually shows it’s ugly face through anger, irritability, depression, tension, headaches, joint and muscle aches, gastrointestinal distress, frequent illness and lack of sleep. Your body cannot tell the difference between stressors or negative emotions. All of these things to your body are simply stress. A fight with your spouse, rough day at the job, lost $20 at the slot machine, feeling under the weather . . . the situations are numerous, but the point is, your body doesn’t know the difference between these situations or if you’re being chased by a lion or starving. All stressors cause your body to automatically go into flight or fight mode to help you survive that famine or fight that lion. To do this, your body releases adrenaline and cortisol, the stress hormone. When cortisol is released, glucose is also released into your bloodstream. Glucose is your body’s primary source of energy. Great, your body is now suited up for battle. The problem is when the threat is gone (great job, you killed the lion), your adrenaline wears off and your glucose wears off, but your cortisol goes into high gear to replenish your energy supply. So what does this mean for you? Let’s break it down When your glucose level drops, your body craves sugar because your body knows that sugar will give it the quick energy boost it thinks it needs. The problem with this is, when you consume so much sugar after stressful situations your body tends to store as abdominal fat, which is usually one of the hardest areas to lose it. This creates the infinite loop of stress, cortisol, gain weight, crave sugar, eat sugar, gain more weight and round and round the mulberry bush we go. So maybe you think you’re stronger and smarter than your body so you don’t end up in the sugar cycle mentioned above. Ok, let’s cuss and discuss what that pesky cortisol does to your metabolism. Even if you aren’t eating high fat or high sugar, cortisol slows your metabolism and as an added perk, also raises your insulin, a hormone that contributes to fat storage. Researchers have found that stress could cause as much as an 11 pound weight gain in one year. So there’s other perks of high stress, anxiety, cortisol (whatever word, be it 4 letter or otherwise, you’re using for it) on your body. (I really hope you’re picking up on my snarky sarcasm toward stress, because it can be a pesky bugger.) Are you an emotional eater . . . STRESS. Cortisol not only causes unhealthy cravings but can also make you eat more than normal. Do you struggle to plan meals or prepare meals when you’re stressed? That probably makes you want to hit up that Chik-Fil-A down the street or just grab something easy rather than taking the time to make a healthy choice. Stress can often mean you’re overworked, have a busy schedule or spend too much time commuting can really cut into your time at the gym or other activities you would usually do. This also makes people cut out meals from their diet. And last but not least . . . DRUMROLL PUH-LEASE . . . Remember SLEEP and how not getting enough sleep can cause you to hold on to extra body weight?? Let’s recap, not getting enough sleep can cause ghrelin, your body’s hunger hormone, to increase and also make your leptin levels decrease. Leptin is the hormone that makes you feel full. So basically when you don’t get adequate sleep, you eat more because you’re hungrier and feel less full. Ok back to stress. Stress comes in clutch to really round out this terrible cycle by making it difficult for you to fall asleep, stay asleep and get good sleep. So that cycle ends up looking like this>stress=little sleep/poor sleep=increased appetite. It is a nasty cycle, and when you pair that with the research showing that lack of sleep also leads to a decrease in metabolism, you then aren’t sleeping, you’re eating more and your body isn’t burning as much of what you put in. I’m not sure how you’re feeling about that little cocktail of weight loss disasters, but if you’re 100% not ok with it, continue reading and let’s talk strategies to fix it. First, we need to say that you will never be fully free of cortisol. Your body does need some, but it produces its own normal amount without you jump starting it like a dead car battery. You have to practice stress management. You can do this through self care, meditation, mindfulness, breathing exercises, getting adequate sleep, exercising, journaling, reading, listening to music, and eating a diet of health foods. These things are very important to your mental health, physical health and overall well being. There’s nothing frou frou about taking care of yourself. You have one body and one life, treat them well. Other simple things you can do are drinking water and eating more whole foods. These things help fight cravings but you have to put in the work to keep your mind right in order to hit your goals. If you have questions or want to discuss your situation in more detail, click the link and apply for a coaching call. I want to teach you where you should put the majority of your focus on if you're wanting to lose fat, build some muscle and just care about your overall health. This Hierarchy was explained very well to me by my Coach Jeremiah Bair. I would love to share with you what I have learned from him. To the right, you will see The Fitness Hierarchy Ranked from most-least important:
Most people are surprised by this, expecting cardio to be the number one focus, followed by stepping into the gym a few times, and dieting hard for a couple weeks every January. Now why doesn’t this work? Nutrition In order to lose fat we must eat fewer calories than we burn in a day. It is impossible to erase a poor diet with exercise. Why? Because you just don’t burn very many calories when you exercise (about 5% of your total daily calorie burn comes from exercise.) Calories in < Calories out = Fat Loss. This is called Energy Balance Main takeaway here is watching your diet to control the “calories in” side of the energy balance equation is much easier than trying to lose fat by ramping up the “calories out” side of the equation. This is why Nutrition is the most important factor to pay attention to. Resistance Training Lifting weights actually burns fewer calories than cardio. But, resistance training has many more benefits for you than cardio:
It’s rewarding It’s a huge psychological boost Find a plan you can see yourself sticking to for a really long time. Cardio Cardio is still helpful. We just don’t want to put the majority of our focus in it. Cardio has obvious cardiovascular health benefits-it’s good for your heart. Cardio has carryover to your resistance training. It allows you to recover quicker - both between sets and between training sessions. Now the biggest issue with cardio is that your body adapts very quickly to it. When you adapt to something, you become more efficient at it. Becoming efficient means you’re burning less calories. So take this for example: If you were to run 1 mile you might burn 100 calories. As the adaptation occurs, the calorie burn decreases. So after running a mile every day this week and burning a 100 calories each time you may end up only burning 90 calories the next week, and then 80 the next. The only way to keep burning 100 calories is to increase the distance and/or time spent running. The problem is - who has the time or desire in our busy lives to keep adding miles forever? Conclusion:
-Coach Kayli Questions? Email me: kaylimontoyafitness@gmail.com Have you ever gone to your doctor asking about ways to lose weight, and the first thing they tell you is that they have a “magic” pill that will help you lose weight fast? All you have to do is take this pill and eat 1,200 calories a day.
Does this sound familiar to you? Unfortunately, this seems to be common practice. Did you know that on average, U.S. medical schools only offer on average 2.8 hours of instruction on obesity, nutrition and physical activity counseling. That sure doesn’t seem like much time dedicated to nutrition to me, but then again, this isn’t normally why we see our family doctors. They are great at many other things but sustainable fat loss isn’t one of them. I have been training and coaching for almost 5 years now and I have had many clients seek my help after having gone through extreme dieting and pills prescribed by their doctor. They dropped a lot of weight fast, but then gained it all back and then some after stopping the pills! For 99% of people, 1,200 calories is way too little to be consuming. Our bodies need that much energy intake just for basic needs, things like breathing and to operate our internal organs. Our bodies are extremely capable of adapting though. This is what has kept us alive for so long. We have survived countless famines throughout history. We used to be hunters/gatherers and only ate when we made a kill or forged and found food. There would be a feast followed by many days of not eating while searching for more food. How did we survive??? We survived because of our bodies ability to adapt. Our metabolisms would “learn” how to run off lower calories and would “slow” down our metabolisms. Meaning we could survive off less food and when we did find food again it would store it as body fat in case of emergencies when there would be no food. Nowadays we rarely have a problem finding food, in fact, we have the complete opposite problem. You can find something to eat on every street corner! We are constantly tempted. Okay, back to why eating 1,200 calories is “wrecking” your metabolism. As described above, our bodies don’t understand that you want to look better in the mirror or drop a couple pant sizes. Your body only knows it isn't receiving enough nutrition to survive long term. So it does its job and lowers your metabolism to keep you alive! I’d say a thanks is in order haha. So rather quickly after eating only 1,200 calories you will notice you are no longer losing weight like you were in the beginning. At first it just slows, then weight loss all together stops. You’ll notice other signs too: constant hunger, cravings, moodiness, poor sleep, skin issues, and women can lose their cycle. This is our body's way of saying, “Hey! I need some nutrition, damn it!” So most of us cave. We go back to eating just like we were before and gain every single pound back. We have to find something sustainable to lose weight, because we will have to continue it to keep that weight off. Enough of the negative. Now, let me share some ways I help my clients lose body fat and keep it off! First, we want to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change. Stay with me here. I want my clients to keep eating as much as possible during their fat loss phase. During the first week, we will figure out what their maintenance calories are (what they need to eat to stay at their current weight.) Once we find this number, we will lower their intake by just 250-500 calories max. You will start to see fat loss from this amount. A sustainable fat loss rate is around 1-2 pounds per week. If you are losing more than 2 pounds per week you are not eating enough to keep your metabolism in a healthy place. After a few weeks, their calories may need to be lowered again to keep seeing results but this is why we start high so we have room to make adjustments along the way. Next, I will have them incorporate resistance training 1-2 days per week. Resistance training is proven to build and preserve muscle on our bodies. The more muscle we have on our bodies, the more calories our bodies will burn at rest. It will keep our metabolism “higher.” Plus, I believe you may find yourself to look more aesthetically pleasing with the added muscle. Last, and definitely not the least. . . We program in periodization. This simply means we don’t want to stay in this fat loss phase for longer than 8-24 weeks depending on their size and how much fat they want/need to lose. There needs to be times where you go back to eating at maintenance again or even in a surplus to get your body back to a healthier place. Yes, you may put a few pounds back on but if done properly, it won't be much. If you try to rush the process and stay in a fat loss phase for a long amount of time you will end up “slowing” down your metabolism and end up gaining all the weight you just lost and sometimes more! If you still have weight to lose, you can always go back into a fat loss phase after spending some time in a maintenance phase. The key takeaways here are:
I hope this helps you in your fat loss journey and if you would like even more guidance, I have a few spots opening up soon in my online coaching. Shoot me a DM and let’s talk about what you are struggling with the most right now and see if I can help. |
AuthorKayli is a certified personal trainer and online coach that specializes in fitness, wellness, nutrition, mindset, mobility and everything in between. Categories
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