The Weekly Fill

The Weekly Fill

Your Summer Diet Changes Start Here

🛑 Before You Change Your Diet This Summer, Read This First

Alexa Schirm's avatar
Alexa Schirm
May 06, 2026
∙ Paid

I’m a squeaky wheel at this point. And I’m not even sorry. I’m declaring this is a summer of action.

Not a summer of learning more, researching more, bookmarking more, or adding another podcast to the queue. A summer of actually doing the things you’ve been talking about doing.

Here’s the question I want you to sit with: How different could things look by September if you really showed up this summer? Not perfectly. Not with a complete overhaul of your life. But because you’re actually doing the things you’ve long known you should do but haven’t.

Information can’t change you. Only action can.

Your Summer Diet Changes

Over the last two years, I’ve been working to become fat-adapted. And honestly, I’ve experienced more benefits from this shift than from any other dietary change I’ve ever made.

I know this might sound silly, but one of the things that finally pushed me to do something different was the stiffness in my knees. It was a kind of stiffness I started noticing when I worked out. That eventually became the loss of the ability to squat on my knees at all.

It was my sign that something had to change.

Yes, I know I’m aging. But I also don’t believe that I’m a victim of aging. My lifestyle was the problem, not my age.

Which is why I’ve made some significant changes to my diet since then. Changes that, if I listed them all out right now, would probably send you running. That’s why I’m going to introduce them slowly. But also because the bigger changes only became possible when you start really small.

Think of it like a snowball. We all want to be a snowman. But we look at the hill and think we need to start pushing a boulder. When really, we just need to start with something small and let momentum do the rest.

The Most Important Step Everyone Skips

Before any diet change, you have to do the small things. It’s just how the body works.

You can only change to the degree that you have the capacity to do something different. Change requires resources that include energy, nutrients, bandwidth, and mental clarity.

Far too many of us are trying to make big leaps while running on empty.

This is why people get stuck in the consumption loop.

You read the article, watch the video, save the reel, buy the book. It feels productive. But deep down, you know it’s not. The real reason you keep consuming instead of doing isn’t that you lack information. It’s that you don’t have the energy to act on what you already know.

Consuming just gives you the false impression that you’re doing something productive.

Which is why, before anything else, I will always come back to this…

You must have a consistent movement practices before you attempt any diet changes!

Movement comes before diet. If you’re not moving consistently, don’t try to change your diet yet.

A step before a leap. Always.

I posted a clip about this recently (watch it here). The idea that movement is a step and diet is a leap. And I had this backward for the longest time.

For years, I was trying to optimize my food while my body was under-challenged and dysregulated. It wasn’t until I went back to the simplest thing, just walking, that everything else started to get easier.

Walking snowballed into the bigger changes. The true fat-adaptation I had been chasing for years became accessible because I first created the capacity and resourcing for it.

If you haven’t joined the Summer Walking Club, I’d highly suggest you do. It’s the first snowball that generates the momentum to build the entire snowman!

Start with one step at a time.

Join the Summer Walking Club Here!

(And if you want to understand why walking does what it does, I documented everything I experienced walking 15,000–20,000 steps a day. The results might surprise you. Read it here.)

If you are moving consistently (and only if), then there is one diet shift worth making before summer begins. It’s highly optimized for this season, and it actually has nothing to do with what you eat. It’s the when of eating.

Become a subscriber to get the first diet change.

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to The Weekly Fill to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2026 The Living Well · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture