3 Lifestyle Changes That Aren't About Weight Loss

I don’t know about you, but in 2020, working out wasn’t exactly on my radar. In the midst of so much turmoil, and with gym closures, it was just more hassle than anything else. I had a child home from school from March through June, I was running my own business for the first time in my life (more on this later), and I was just working to make sure that everyone in my life was safe. The most working out I did was going on roughly weekly long walks with Forrest. These were a soothing way for us to spend some time together and it allowed Forrest to get all his energy out (especially since I didn’t have 3 hours for him to go to school and play with other kids anymore).

It goes without saying: not working out for a year had a huge impact on my life. Not so much on my body, although I’ve definitely noticed more aches and pains in the last year (that might be because I’m 32, though).

There was a time where I worked out every single day, where I looked forward to it. After I had Forrest, that number shifted from every day to 3 times a week and I’d take him walking in his stroller frequently. The older he got, the less time it felt like I had—plus, I couldn’t just pop him into the stroller with a snack anymore.

When 2020 started, I remember feeling a surge of guilt about my gym membership: I still had it, but I wasn’t using it. After I got laid off, I just didn’t feel like I had the time for it. I was working all the time and burnt out at the end of the day. Plus, as Forrest got older, he stayed up later and bedtimes somehow became more difficult. There were a lot of things happening.

This is all to say: working out hasn’t been on my radar for the last year or more. But all those aches and pains I’ve been feeling have made me think about it more and more as well. Plus, I’ve been doing the (challenging, difficult, strenuous) work of removing the link between “working out” and “losing weight” in my own mind. (I encourage you, as well, to take on this work, although, as I said, it’s really, really hard.) That meant not working out. That meant looking at my life and how I think about my body differently. All good things. Powerful things. Things I needed to do.

On January 1, 2021, for the first time in my life, I did not set a goal about my body. Instead, I wrote about my anti-resolutions and how one of mine this year is to not try to change my body—but rather to work with it, to treat it with respect and kindness. For me, this is a huge moment and I want to hold space for myself to feel however I need to feel about it.

When we talk about wellness, and diet culture, and health, we often hear the phrase: “lifestyle change.” Lifestyle change has, like wellness, become a codeword for weight loss. In that way, I don’t love the term “lifestyle change”—but I think there is potential for us to rethink what lifestyle changes are and can be, how we can use them in our lives. When the New Year comes around, we all have this desire to try to make the best of our lives—and how else can we describe that other than… a lifestyle change?

Without further ado, here are 3 lifestyle changes to consider for 2021 that have nothing to do with weight loss and everything to do with honoring yourself. All of these lifestyle changes have to do with improving your life in ways that are meaningful to you and prioritizing your mental health.

1. Incorporating activity into your day

The thing about working out that I’ve learned over my life is this: if you don’t enjoy it, you will get nothing out of it. So when I say, “incorporate activity into your day,” I mean doing something you like. Do you enjoy yoga? Then do yoga. Do you like going for walks? Go for a walk! I used to force myself to do cardio and lift weights every single day and while I looked forward to it, I also hated it—and I don’t think, at the age of 32, I’ll ever be able to force myself to sweat out 45+ minutes of cardio ever again. I simply don’t have the patience.

What I can do is bike for 30 minutes a day. Or use my standing desk throughout the day. Or go for a hike on the weekends. There is so much activity that I do enjoy and I no longer wish to participate in the parts I don’t like.

By incorporating activity into your day in a way you enjoy, you get all the positive aspects of working out without any of the kind of ucky ones. That being said: if you aren’t at a point in your life where working out works for you, or you don’t have the energy, or it is too triggering, there are so many ways to be “active.” Taking an evening walk. Cleaning your kitchen. Dancing to your favorite song. These are low stress ways to honor your body without being too intense.

On this note, I firmly believe in treating yourself. If incorporating activity you love into your day is something you’re interested in, then I have a few recommendations for gear. I’m a huge fan of leggings and sweatshirts (It’s what I wear… every day?) Here are a few favorites from Adidas.

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2. Adding journaling to your day

Listen, I love journaling. I will never stop writing about journaling, talking about journaling, and encouraging others to journal. Journaling in a way that makes sense for you—whatever that means for you—is something I’m so passionate about.

Here’s why: I think journaling is a great way to self-reflect, to reduce your own stress, to show gratitude not just to yourself but to others and your body and your world. Journaling is so many things. You can read all of my blog posts about journaling here.

I know many maybe wouldn’t consider journaling to be a lifestyle change—but I think by making time for yourself, even just 10-30 minutes in the evening, can be a huge lifestyle shift for lots of people. By taking that time to yourself, to journal in a way that is comfortable for you, you are changing the future of your life: you’re telling yourself that you’re allowed to take up space, to take up time, to prioritize your mental health and well-being. And that’s incredible.

If you’ve ever wanted to add journaling to your life, but just haven’t taken the plunge, I think there are tons of ways to do this. Here are a few ideas:

• Using a paper-and-pen journal that you keep at your desk. Every morning, you can use one page for your to do list and one side for your journal. Don’t think of journaling as “I’m going to write out my whole day”—but rather, I’m going to reflect on my day or the previous day. You can write a whole page or a paragraph or however much you feel like.

• Use a Google Doc.

• Use your Notes app.

• Use a day planner and just fill in that day’s square.

• Text yourself.

• Email yourself.

Like I said: there are tons of ways to journal that aren’t just sitting down to write in a journal, like a Dear Diary scene in a movie! You can use a Passion Planner to memory keep, a day planner, your Google calendar—so many options! These are just a few. If you want to start with journal prompts, well, I obviously have a ton of those as well.

3. Working on a daily schedule

There were some days between March and July that were just… whatever. Whatever worked! Candy for breakfast, bread for lunch, something low energy for dinner, the TV on at 7am and not turned off until 7pm, watching movies in bed with popcorn. Whatever. It was survival.

But I don’t thrive in that kind of life and neither does Forrest. Since September, we’ve been working to get back to a daily schedule—not the same thing everyday, but at least something where he (and I!) know what to expect out of each day. This is the day we go to school, or this is the day we go get groceries, or this is the day we go for a long walk.

This is a massive change to your lifestyle. If you’re struggling with burn out, with a lack of self-care, with feeling like you have no control over your life, I can’t recommend working on a daily schedule enough. It gives your day structure.

I feel like this is something a lot of moms learn pretty fast. After you have your baby and you have this very fragile, squishy newborn in your house, you can quickly get overwhelmed and the parts of your life that used to be so sure just… fall away. It’s harder to just run to the store; it’s harder to make breakfast, and morning coffee; it’s harder to get out the door to work; it’s harder to find purpose in each day when you feel totally overwhelmed. Trust me when I say: a schedule helps. It helps so much.

I have a whole series of posts about establishing a daily routine or schedule. These will help you determine what you want in your day, how to get started (the truth is: you just start!), and a few other things to consider.

Why You Don't Have to Give Up Treats After the New Year, Featuring Hungryroot Cookie Dough*

Deprivation is, as they say, bullshit. I know this. You know this. Ok, maybe you don’t know this—or maybe you just don’t quite believe it yet. Not everyone is aware of the dangers of diet culture and what it does to us psychologically. If you, like me, grew up in the 90s, you were bombarded with messages about dieting and thinness versus fatness. And if you, like me, absorbed all these messages, you’ve been mildly obsessed with what you eat, with working out, with controlling your body in small ways for at least a few years, if not longer.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve definitely finding myself fighting these messages internally even more. Especially after becoming a mother, there is so much pressure to look and behave a certain way, to try and take “control” of your body again. Working in offices over the years, diet and weight is always a topic of conversation among women in the office. It’s hard to combat these messages internally when so many people still aren’t aware of how negative and harmful this kind of talk can be.

If you would like to learn more about diet culture, and what it is, here are a few resources that do a better job explaining than I ever will:

• What is Diet Culture?

• What is Diet Culture from Christy Harrison

• Recognizing Diet Culture from NEDA

You might wonder what on earth this has to do with cookies and the New Year.

One of the messages about thinness, food, and weight I experienced most growing up was the idea that after Christmas, you should give up any and all treats. I heard it from my mother, my friends, my other female family members, teachers, random cashiers. Then, I’ve heard it from other moms, coworkers, my son’s teachers… it goes on and on. If you’re concerned with your body, it seems like the New Year is a great time to give up everything you love and start fresh. For many, that means cutting out foods that they love and enjoy. It means austerity.

But, as I said, that’s bullshit. Depriving yourself of things that bring you joy in order to feed into a system that won’t make you healthy or happy is bullshit. Diet culture is bullshit. Giving up cookies for any length of time is bullshit.

As I’ve written about goals before, if you set up your goal to make yourself miserable, you’re not going to succeed.

Sometimes, people think that rejecting diet culture and accepting body positivity means you “give up” on health. Other people have written about this much more eloquently, but… diet culture, and dieting in general, has never been about health. Someone eating less calories than a 7-year-old is not healthy—but I would not begrudge them for it, because they’ve learned that behavior through negative messaging. Body positivity is not about rejoicing for health that is good or bad; it accepts that using health as a moral barometer, or a measure of goodness in a person, is not a good idea.

There are lots of people who are unhealthy for reasons that are completely out of their control. You do not deserve to be treated badly just because you are unhealthy or because you are perceived as unhealthy.

We associate good health (or being thin, because they two are often conflated for us socially) with being strict, with being regimented, with being disciplined. But that’s just not true. Those with a good relationship with food

I am of the belief that you can want to make better food choices for your health without having to worry about having the “perfect” diet. You can have room in your daily food for everything you love—with a mind on nutrition. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. That kind of thinking only hurts us.

That’s why I am such a huge fan of Hungryroot. Not only can you get groceries delivered to your home (honestly, who doesn’t want that!?), you can get healthy, nutritious options that are also super delicious and satisfying. One of my favorite things about Hungryroot is, and probably always will be, the cookie dough options.

I’ve written a few posts about Hungryroot before. Here is a brief round up:

• I Tried Hungryroot So You Don’t Have To

• Revisting Hungryroot

• How I Use Hungryroot for Weekly Meal Prep

• My Favorite Hungryroot Foods & How I Get My Kids to Eat Them

• A Busy Mom’s Guide to Road Trips

It goes without saying that I really love Hungryroot. I get at least two deliveries every single month. When it comes to Hungryroot, I find it’s really easy to use their website; they have a new system where the box size you choose has a certain number of credits and you can use those credits to add meals and grocery items to your box. That means, if you know you have a busy week coming up, you can add a bunch of meal options to your box and have everything you need for a week where you simply won’t have the mental energy to cook. Or, if you just need a few pantry staples, you can get grocery items; I always stock up on the ancient grains pancake mix, superfood almond butter, and a variety of rice pouches to make day-to-day meals easy.

One thing I always make sure to have in my Hungryroot delivery is cookie dough. They have a few different options, but my favorites are the Black Bean Brownie Batter and the Almond Chickpea Cookie Dough. Both are exceptionally good right out of the fridge—and it’s perfectly safe to eat it raw! But they also make great baked cookies for kids snacks, an after dinner treat, or a cookie exchange. Plus, with extra protein and healthy ingredients, they make a great option if you’re trying to cut back on stuff that might make you feel sluggish, like white sugar, flour and gluten.

For Christmas, Forrest and I baked up some of the Almond Chickpea Cookie Dough to take to a Christmas cookie exchange. I wanted something that people would love and that would be a healthy alternative to cookies for anyone who needed it. I love cookies—you know I do—but sometimes, I want a cookie without all the extra, you know? Here are two super simple Hungryroot recipes using their cookie dough!

I used a tub of the Almond Chickpea Cookie Dough from Hungryroot and about 4 tablespoons of flour. You don’t need to add flour, but I wanted to make sure these cookies held their shape well. I then scooped 1 tablespoon scoops and rolled them into balls. I flattened them slightly with the lid of the cookie dough tub before baking for about 10 minutes. When they came out, I dunked them in melted chocolate with coconut oil and sprinkled on some sprinkles. They were delicious. A tub of cookie dough makes exactly 9 cookies using my measurements; you could make them smaller.

Here’s another healthy option: use a tub of the Black Bean Brownie Batter and portion into 1 tablespoon scoops. Place into a mini muffin tin and press down, leaving an indent in the middle. Bake according to package instructions. When they come out, press a Hershey’s kiss, either plain chocolate or one of the Candy Cane kisses, into the center. Let cool. Black Bean Brownie Blossom Cookies! Quick, easy, healthy, and delicious!

If you want to reject the idea that you have to give up treats after New Years and want to eat some delicious, nutritious cookies, you should give Hungryroot a try.

You can use my code PAUSES2021 to get 40% off your first order!

I hope the New Year brings you as much success and happiness as you can wish for! Set your goals high and attainable, dream big, and eat cookies!

Disclaimer: as noted by the asterisk in the title of this post, this post is sponsored by Hungryroot. For each time my code is used, I do receive a small compensation from Hungryroot. However, all opinions remain my own. If you’d like to learn more about my disclosure policy, click here.

Actually, You Don't Need a Summer Detox

The worst part of summer is not the sticky, hot weather that starts to get oppressive around, say, late August; it's not the sunburns, or bug bites, or having to work when the weather is absolutely splendid outside. No, the worst part of summer is the diet industry. 

If you read my blog, you know that I've struggled with body image for a long time. It's what made me stop taking outfit photos. And it's why I don't really photograph myself for this blog still. Trust me, I'd love to--but it's just not something I can do right at this moment. 

And you know what absolutely doesn't help? Summer and the rapid influx of blog posts, Tweets, and Instagram posts about doing a detox. More than 10 people I follow have mentioned their recent juice detox (ugh), or their extremely pared down diet that is little more than socially acceptable anorexia (double ugh). Having to mute everyone who mentions doing a summer detox is exhausting, so let me be the one to say: y'all, we don't need detoxes. 

If you have a functioning liver, you don't need to detox. Your organs do that for you. 

You also don't need to drink special tea to help you lose weight. And you also don't need appetite suppressant lollipops. 

That's right, Kim Kardashian, I'm talking to you. Instagram is often rife with diet culture, repeating absolutely false and quite frankly dangerous information. (Does anyone else get those awful weight loss accounts in their Explore section of Instagram? I swear, it's the worst part of the Instagram algorithm.) It's not just poor, misinformed Kim K whose doing it. She's in good company, of course. Every single one of her sisters (minus Kendall, bless) has posted a misguided ad for some kind of weight loss product. 

In case you don't know, Fit Tea (and Fit Coffee and Lyfe Tea) is a tea that acts as a laxative. That's all these products are: expensive, repackaged laxatives. Not only is it dangerous to take them as weight loss products (and not just for your dignity and outfit if you dare venture out of the house after drinking one), it's incredibly irresponsible. Laxatives are not a way to lose weight. They are a way to damage your body. Just like detoxes. 

Appetite suppressant lollipops aren't just meaningless marketing tactics (most likely, they're about as effective as eating a real lollipop); they're dangerous as well. Encouraging people to "eat a lollipop" to "suppress their appetite" presumably when they are actually hungry... is encouraging people to starve themselves. Plain and simple.

Just like these teas aren't designed to make you actively lose weight (but rather to become addicted to a mindset and product that benefits only the person who sells the tea), this isn't a lollipop designed to help curve overeating or boredom eating (two things that can be helped more effectively buy body positivity, rejecting diet culture, and intuitive eating); this is a lollipop that encourages you to starve yourself and not eat, period. But the truth is, it won't work; if you try to use it that way, you'll end up eating, which makes you feel ashamed of yourself; you'll buy more lollipops, you'll try hard. And now you're stuck in a negative binge-and-restrict diet culture induced cycle. This is the damage that ads like this cause. 

Summer detoxes are the same thing. Juice cleanses don't actually cleanse any part of you. They starve you. You'll lose weight, of course, because you aren't eating food or any fiber at all. You're just drinking empty calories, sugar, and water. This is dangerous. Your body needs food to survive. As long as you are in reasonably good health (and many people with chronic illnesses are not--and they deserve to love their bodies too), you don't need to detox yourself. If you do need to detox for a medical issue, that's something you discuss with your doctor--not with some charlatan who survives off of carrot juice on the internet. 

So as June approaches, remember: you don't need that detox. Even if your sister in law is doing one and won't stop posting about it on Instagram. Even if your friends are work mention that they want to start drinking smoothies for every meal. You don't need to detox. Your body is good enough, and beautiful enough, as it is, right at this very moment. 

How Intuitive Eating Changed My Life

A few months ago, I started listening to a new podcast called Food Psych, hosted by Christy Harrison, a certified Intuitive Eating Counselor as well as a Registered Dietician Nutritionist. I had heard of intuitive eating before (although it hadn't been called that) through Geneen Roth's books, but I had never actually tried to put it into practice. 

I am nothing if not a victim of diet culture; I have been thinking about diets, and shaming myself for eating, for as long as I can remember. I still remember the vivid horror I felt, at 9 years old, that my thighs were bigger than my best friend's and how I needed to fix it immediately. 

For years, I've known that my eating behavior was not normal or healthy. I fixated on food at all times: worrying about it, wanting it, dreading it. I never really knew when I was hungry; I ate when I was expected to, then I ate out of stress, boredom, or feeling nothing. I read an article recently called Hunger Makes Me (that I highly, highly recommend) and I never identified more with a passage of writing than this one: 

I will rely on any other cue—the ease or difficulty of procuring food, the time of day, what other people are doing, the timing of my work and gym and social plans—before I’ll remember to look inward. Imagine being told that your biggest secret—your weirdest sexual fantasy, your most embarrassing faceplant, your favorite Nickelback song—was supposed to dictate your behavior, publicly, as many as three times a day.

When I started listening to Food Psych, something clicked inside of me. 

All these things we view as healthy--going low carb or no carb, posting on fitness Instagrams, taking diet advice from uneducated strangers on the internet, signing up for Weight Watchers--are killing us. Diets, I've since learned, only increase your chances of gaining weight. A study of diabetes patients found that the group that was instructed to diet actually ended up in worse health than the control group that maintained an "overweight" status. 

Here's the thing: weight doesn't determine your health. You're just as likely to get diabetes if you're fit and healthy as if you're overweight. If your reaction to reading that sentence is "No, I've learned diabetes is a fat person disease!", then congratulations, you got played by the diet industry. We are seeing just as high of numbers of diabetes diagnoses in fit, healthy people as overweight people, leading us to believe that diabetes is more genetic than we have previously believed. 

That's just one example. There are many. 

Beyond that, diet culture confuses us about what we feel: we eat what we've planned, when we're supposed to, versus eating what our body craves when it is actually hungry. When you get rid of "taboo foods," when you allow yourself to eat a cookie when you're hungry and want a cookie, but also allow yourself to eat a salad when you're hungry and your body craves a salad, then you are letting your body lead you. The arbitrary lines of "good" and "bad" foods cause us to obsess over them. 

This is all damaging behavior. I know it is, because I'm living it and it's damaging me, mentally and physically. 

I started reading a book called The Intuitive Eating Workbook (I'm still working through it, but will review it soon) that walks the reader through the 10 principles of intuitive eating. It's hard work and I won't pretend I'm perfect at it already. It's hard to get rid of everything I've ever known in terms of "healthy" food and "healthy" bodies. But opening myself up to body positivity and health at every size, I can only see my mental health improving. 

The hardest part of practicing intuitive eating is telling others around you to stop talking about their diets, to stop talking about dieting around you in general. I find (and really, have always found) that diet talk triggers my anxiety eating, but after starting to practice intuitive eating, it's even worse. The moment someone starts talking about never eating cookies again, or giving up cake or bread for life, I start to doubt what I'm doing. I start to wonder if maybe intuitive eating is wrong and all these diets are right. Certainly, all those fitness Instagrams seem happy...

The truth is though that I can't imagine a life where I permanently give up a bad food. I would never be happy never eating cake with my son or baking cookies with him just to eat the dough. That's just not a life worth living, nor is it sustainable--because eventually you'll be confronted by your "off limits" food. It's not a matter of having self-control. It's a matter of listening to your body and allowing yourself to eat. 

But I still struggle with telling others that I cannot listen to diet talk. I still struggle with confronting the beliefs other people still hold about diet culture (and who believe I should be actively dieting). I still struggle with health anxiety that I'm giving myself diabetes or going to die early for no reason. 

It all takes work. But I can tell you: intuitive eating, truly, changed my life.