The body demands creative exploration. We suffer when the mind says no.

•••

Fitness creates agility, sensitivity, the ability to stop on a dime, bend, pivot, lift, release gently into the earth, flow back into the cycle, reemerge, renew, reveal.

Fitness creates the ability to feel and sense and know without words, without question.

Fitness is love, devotion, respect, connection.

Fitness is flow and structure and their necessary weaving.

Fitness is willingness, growth, openness.

•••

Physically speaking… the body wants flow.

The best training sessions appeal to the senses — mitigate the mind’s banter and focus on the feeling. For how else does one know whether the challenge is sufficient for muscle to grow?

The spreadsheet contains no nerve endings. Nor does the mind, interpreting sensation, know what it really means.

One must enter the pulse — the groove — the rhythm — the beat of muscles contracting, lengthening, sending feedback through spinal column.

One must listen to the muscle. Invite the mind into blood swollen tissue. Respect the energy given and effort produced.

One must love and nourish the body — repair the ruptures day out and day in. Kintsugi the cells with adequate amino acids and just the right balance of carbs and lipids.

One must remember to rest well and often, and to honor the creative spirit that brought her to the iron temple where the journey commences.

•••

Be well my friends.

In whey may you trust.
Unless you’re vegan.
Then remember to eat your beans with your rice to get all essential amino acids ;)

xx Faye

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Physically speaking… fitness is a long game.

And whether we know it or not, we’re all playing. Moving pieces around. Trying to make things make sense in our lives. Developing heuristics for what is good and what is bad and what is realistic. For what might help us get to where we want to be.

I spent a lot of years trying to do it “perfectly” — but what I didn’t know is that MY perfect had nothing to do with what other people proclaimed the “ideal” to be.

I spent a lot of time trying to be somewhere I thought I should be, but when I got there, it didn’t quite live up to the fantasy.

Now I pay more attention to what I want, and less attention to what other people are saying.

Now I go to the gym and lock the fuck in. Rep by rep, sensation building, sweat dripping. Delicious.

I rest when I need to, but don’t sink too deep into the mattress.

I eat in a way that makes me feel good, but don’t rely on food for happiness.

I seek education from reputable sources.

I test everything myself.

Most importantly, I pay no mind to other people’s opinions. Because if i’ve learned anything, it’s that my body (and yours!) speaks far more clearly than that influencer on social media.

I remember as often as possible, I am always coming into balance. Can’t avoid it. The body is literally physically designed to maintain homeostasis.

It’s been a journey to accept this, though. The desire for “results” and to “be there already” can have a strong sway. A quick hit of abs and hey, maybe I’d be happy! Of course, I only know through trial and error that while I absolutely do value the aesthetic beauty of the body, and I do have preferences and I do desire to look and feel a certain way…. I am not willing to compromise my long game to get there. Yo-yo dieting and the mental gymnastics we preform to convince ourselves our of cognitive dissonance are stupid, illusory, and take far more energy for less ROI than locking into the long game does.

For a long time I didn’t get this. But now? I know what I want and I know how to move toward it. (And I know it might change in the short term, but the big vision is always the guiding force).

Others’ opinions have become a moot point. The noise that use to clutter my mind and make me run around in circles goes in one ear and out the other. I know the voices I trust. And I know how to spot bullshit in the fitness industry a mile away.

Everyone is convinced their way is THE WAY, but the truth is there are a few simple principles in fitness that broadly apply (progressive overload, calories in - calories out, metabolic adaptation) and the rest is experimentation. Endless variables to play with. It’s fun! I mean, it can be, as long as you get on board with the (mostly) unknown territory that is existing in a human body.

Next time you see a blanket statement about how to achieve your dream body, remember we all exist in different bodies, with different preferences, different degrees of discipline, different life circumstances, different physiologies, and different cognitive architectures. We all have different desires. And differing levels of drive, devotion, and time to direct toward those desires.

Remember we are not all fitness influencers who have the time to spend their entire day meal prepping.

Remember your meals, your workouts, and your wardrobe really do not have to look like that girl’s to achieve your goals. But they also can, and that’s fine too. You’ll learn something either way.

Which leads me to the point…

Firstly, I want to acknowledge both the simplicity AND the nuance that is lifelong fitness. It’s fun. It’s hard. It’s surprising. It’s predictable. It’s exciting. It’s boring… It’s all the things.

I’m here to support you in navigating that journey. Dismantling your biases (the ones that keep you stuck in cycles of never progressing toward your goals). Offering you insights to simplify the journey and help you integrate your fitness goals with your actual life, not some ideal life you think you need to achieve results. Cause news flash! And I know you know this but… you have to start from where you are. One foot into those cute sneakers. Then the other. Well maybe put on those leggings first cause you probably know as well as I that while you can put on leggings with sneakers already on, it’s kinda messy and you wouldn’t want anyone walking in on you while you try.

IN CONCLUSION!

I’m here to help you lock into your pursuit of fitness, whatever that looks like for you.

Stick around babes.

x Faye

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Protein Fund

Oh the wild, wild world of fitness. Everywhere you look, you’re confronted with opinions about the “ideal body” and the “perfect meal plan” and the workout that will get you shredded in just 10 days!

Walk into the “health food section” of the grocery store and you see claims of magical wellness emblazoned in bold sans serif on every package. The cereal you used to buy for $4.99 now has a high protein version that sells for $9.99 at least, and while it may have more protein than the peasant version, it usually still has more fat and carbs than protein, not to mention excessive amounts of fiber that might fuck up your stomach. So as a protein source, it’s kind of a waste of money and doesn’t even taste that good. Yes, of course I’ve tried them. I’ll take Peanut Butter Puffins and a bowl of greek yogurt over those posers, any day.

Wow that was a lot about cereal.

But it needed to happen, because early in my fitness journey, I was all over everything everyone said about fitness, and I was none-the-wiser OR fitter for it. I was actually just confused, starving, and running in circles. And let me be clear about one thing: I hate running. Respect to those of you who get after it, especially in the summer, but my god you are a specific kind of crazy.

Anyway. I don’t think my fitness story is unique. But I don’t think this kind of story is talked about enough… because STIGMA.

So, to begin the process of simultaneously embracing and shattering the stigma of being a FIT GIRL^™ I give you the simplified version of my story:

1. Got into fitness because I knew it was supposed to be good for me.

2. Found some stuff I really enjoyed! Wanted to get better and stronger.

3. Tried to be perfect about it, got crazy disciplined and obsessive. My “fitness” was no longer fun or actually fitness promoting.

4. Developed an eating disorder because my latent be skinny at all costs narrative was ACTIVATED, baby.

5. Realized through a series of failed attempts to get stronger that starving and overexercising wasn’t gonna work.

6. Got super uncomfortable with the idea that I’d have to change anything and convinced myself I had different physiological needs than every other human, you know, just to prolong the torture.

7. Got so frustrated that I finally accepted I wasn’t getting where I wanted and it was my fault choice.

8. Remembered nothing changes if nothing changes, and I have the POWER to choose differently.

9. GOT EDUCATED ACTUALLY! APPLIED MY KNOWLEDGE! Made changes. Saw different results. Over time, felt massively better, stronger, more trusting, empowered, energetic, AND saw my body composition change AND didn’t die. Yay!

If you’ve been here, I see you.

• If you’re on step 1, stick with me, get off instagram and tiktok, and skip to step 8.

• If you’re on step 2, I see you! Yay! See above.

• If you’re on step 3, I seeeeeee youuuuuu. See above.

• If you’re on step 4, I urge you to take care of yourself and to please seek professional help. I avoided professional help for far too long and kept suffering silently for a decade. You don’t have to. There are people who really want to help you, not punish you. I want you to know there is a whole world outside of where you are. There is enjoyment and connection and vitality and power and it is all yours for the taking, whenever you want it.

• If you’re on step 5, I see you, and YAY! A revelation! Please proceed to step 8.

• If you’re on step 6, I see you. The discomfort is temporary. The discomfort is worth it. The discomfort never really goes away, so you might as well learn to move through it. I want you to know there is a thing that feels better than torture even if it does hurt a little sometimes. It hurts so good is different than suffering.

• If you’re on step 7 and you’re beating yourself up, I see you. And I’m here to remind you that no matter how much you think you fucked up, you can still change. The opportunity has not evaporated. You are not fucked up forever.

• If you’re on step 9 and you’re just confused about where to start… yeah, I see you. First of all, please stop trying to piece together a fitness program from instagram and tiktok. Second, keep reading. Step 8 is where it all happens.

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Now, without further blabbing, here are 6 things I wish I knew when I started my fitness journey.

i.e. how to start doing step 9…

1. You Have To Eat! More Than 1200 Calories!

Yeah I know you’ve seen r/1200isenough. Stop it.

You have to eat to fuel workouts, to recover from workouts, and to grow muscle. Your body needs those 1200 calories literally just to SURVIVE. For your brain to function. For your heart to beat. Your organs to do all the things they need to do. Piling the stress and energy expenditure of a workout on top of the basic functions it takes to keep you breathing and your heart beating requires extra calories.

2. “Skinny” is not actually the look you want, if you want to look like you have muscles, and you want those muscles to work, and you don’t want to get dizzy when you stand up from sitting.

There’s so much to say about this. There will be posts dedicated to this alone, I’m sure of it. But for now, know this: the fitness models you see with the “ yoga body” or, the “pilates body” are doing resistance training. Defined, poppin muscles don’t come from flapping your arms in the air and stretching in a hot room. Nothing against yoga or pilates, I love how they feel, but I am not doing them to grow a juicy ass. (Just ask Mikala Jamison).

3. Tracking food is not a competition to stay under the calorie count.

If you’ve struggled with ED this is likely where your mentality is (am I right?). Consider that tracking food could be a way to make sure you’re getting enough of the good stuff. The stuff that’ll help those muscles pop pop pop. And also make you FEEL GOOD and ALIVE and ENERGIZED. Just imagine… if life wasn’t an exercise in giving yourself less, but a practice of nourishing yourself with food that will literally support your goals. Even if you don’t see it or understand or believe it now. Also remember: change takes time. Results are not immediate. Trust the process. Also if you do want to track, I personally use the app MacroFactor and big time love it.

4. You’re probably way stronger than you think… but are letting the discomfort fool you.

If you’re already in the gym or doing workouts, even if you’ve been at it for a while, it’s likely that you’re confusing discomfort with inability. They’re not the same thing.

One of the core principles of muscle growth is progressive overload, which is basically inducing body adaptation over time by increasing workload thru adjusting the intensity of work via number of reps/sets, increasing weight, etc.

But if you’re increasing the reps and like… it’s still really easy? Like you could crank out 15 more… sorry but you’re just doing a bunch of work for little if any return on investment. Is this you?

In strength training you get to learn all about your mental barriers. When you meet an edge, a thought creeps in like hey, wouldn’t it be easier just to like… do the easier thing? Yeah in the short term, of course it would be easier. But is it moving you toward your goals? What about when life gets hard? Do you shut down? Back away? Give up?

The skill of strength is the skill of honesty. And you can learn it with a barbell that you tell yourself is a little too heavy, but you learn, in practice, is not.

5. ZOOM OUT!

It’s easy to get discouraged when you’re hypervigilant and tracking everything every second of the day. When you’re lifting your shirt to see if you suddenly have abs 2 hours after the last time you checked.

Changes are happening, slowly, gradually, in ways you won’t even notice if you’re looking for them all the time.

Step away from the mirror. Give yourself a month. Take progress photos… BUT NOT EVERY DAY!

And while I am all about aesthetic goals if those make you happy, which I know they do for a lot of people (myself included!) I also encourage you to have felt sense goals. What would you like your energy to be like? Those shifts, actually, can happen WAY faster than the physical. Especially if you’ve been living in starvation/overworking mode for a while, adding some fuel to your body can change your whole outlook on life. Trust me. Well actually don’t trust me, try it and see.

6. YOU NEED REST!

You need to sleep (I know, I like staying up till 3am watching youtube, too, but I suffer for it).

You need rest days.

You need rest between sets.

You might think you don’t need rest because one of the crazy things about undereating and overworking is that it can make you believe you’re invincible. You can convince yourself that running on fumes is actually your superpower (breaking: it’s not).

What if I told you there was a whole other level you’ve yet to unlock. True energy. Clarity. Drive. Motivation to move and do things beyond staying small (ya, it’s a theme okay?)

Rest is when your body recovers, repairs, integrates what you’ve kinesthetically learned. Rest is yummy. Rest is like ahhhhhhhh yes! Rest is the great contrast we get to experience amidst our busy busy lives. Rest is not punishment (I know sometimes it feels like it). Rest is a gift. There is no prize for being the most overworked girl in the gym unless you created it in which case, I offer you a new one: queen of giving yourself the best opportunity to perform as well as you want by valuing rest just as much as you do work.

Again, don’t trust me. Try it. Cause I know you won’t believe me unless you do. And you just might be surprised by how much you like it.

OKAY! Well I had like 5 more written down and 37 more that came to me as I was writing, but I think that’s enough for now. Parts two and three are in our future.

And real quick before I go… this morning I noticed these mugs sitting next to each other and couldn’t resist the photo op. Which are you choosing?

Till next time… onward!

x Faye

P.S.Let me know in the comments where you are in your journey, and what you want to know about moving forward.

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I know, I know. Everyone’s getting shredded for summer and here I am like… okay, time to pack on the muscle. Idk though. I spent my whole life absolutely petrified of the idea of gaining weight. And to do it on purpose?! Are you fucking kidding me?

It’s literally taken me six years to break down my mental barriers and ACCEPT the pure science of muscle building. Muscle needs CALORIES. Who knew?! I mean it’s obvious when you look at the mechanics of what’s going on. You’re literally synthesizing new muscle tissue and how could you possibly do that if you’re just barely eating enough calories so your organs can function and you can get in your 10k steps a day (which I do, btw) and you can somehow also workout 4x a week.

To be honest I knew what I was doing but like I said, I was terrified. Ever since I was a little girl in the 90s the narrative was, essentially, be thin and you’ll be loved. But was I really loving myself by not giving myself the nourishment I need to achieve all my goals?

There is a miles deep laundry list of projects I started and didn’t have the energy to finish, foolish things I did in pursuit of making sense of stuff that inherently didn’t make sense, tens of thousand of dollars spent on coaches and books and supplements and other useless shit again, in the pursuit of making sense of the nonsensical.

Beneath it all I just wanted to feel strong and powerful and good and confident in myself and my body and my ability to achieve literally any goal.

Makes sense then (woah, something that makes sense!) that I’m now entering muscle mommy territory.

After too many failed attempts at becoming shredded due to my literal inability to maintain focus and energy toward my goal… this time, I’m locked the fuck in.

I’ve read and listened to too much science to deny it any more. Starving myself in a socially acceptable way does not a gym rat make, no matter how much time I was spending at the gym.

So from here on out, the goal is to train hard, eat well, rest well, and get jacked. And also get better at writing a blog since if you’ve somehow landed here, I’d love it if you stuck around a while.

P.S. I am super nostalgic for the blogs of the golden age, when everyone was taking shitty photos and just blabbing about their days. I’m gonna weekly 1 for self-accountability and 2 for evidence that I’m transforming since it really is hard to believe sometimes. Documentation is magic like that.

I may or may not share progress pics (probably yes) and will definitely share recipes, meal ideas, and training reflections just in case you’re tryna become a muscle mommy too. If you are, please say hi! I need some fitness friends for real for real.

Okay. That’s it for the (re)intro. Love you! Bye!

I was talking to a friend, we’ll call him Wolf, when out of the blue he said, I don’t really know how to have fun. Which made me wonder, really?

He’s a devoted jiu jitsu practitioner, is consistently in the gym lifting, and has recently taken up some strange sport he’s freakishly good at that involves target shooting, night vision goggles, and adjacently exploring abandoned mansions at midnight in the mountains of West Virginia.

After I pointed this out to him he reconsidered. Huh, maybe I actually am having fun.

Turns out he’s so engaged in the process that the fun doesn’t even register. And maybe it’s just the perception of these pursuits being “hard work” that makes the mind go… nah, you couldn’t possibly enjoy that!

Nodding your head yet?

Before we’ve engaged in an activity, especially one that seems challenging or uncomfortable, like lifting, ahem, it’s really freakin easy to judge it as not fun therefore I don’t wanna do it. And then never do it. Or try it once, confirm the this is hard and not fun bias and write it off forever.

Which brings me to the idea of adherence, which I and many others will argue is the number one most important thing in a fitness journey. Not those saved-but-never-actually-done swipe workouts on instagram. Not a daypass to the gym. Not going for a run one day (in the middle of the summer are you insane!? (yeah I don’t like running sue me) and deciding it was too annoying. A whole ass lifelong journey.

Adherence. Why would you adhere to something you hate?

Well the answer is you won’t. Which is why, when contemplating your fitness endeavors, it’s so important to consider whether you ENJOY the pursuit itself — or just the idea of what you’ll get from it.

But wait. You saw that thing on instagram about the 21 day shred that will get you fit just in time for the beach. Why don’t you just do that and surely it will propel you into fitness victory!

I mean you can, sure, but I doubt any extreme method will get you hooked for life. I doubt you’ll even make it through the 21 days.

Because in addition to your fitness choices being enjoyable, they also need to be flexible and realistic if you’re really gonna stick with them.

In 21 days, something is bound to set you off course, and then what? You skip a day. Then another. Then another. Until you write it off altogether. Yeah, that really wasn’t fun. AND I made no progress. I suck and this isn’t worth my time. Fuhhhckit.

The thing about fitness is that it tests you. The whole point is to challenge yourself, and in my opinion (and again, many others far more seasoned than I), learn to enjoy the challenge — the process — itself.

When I mental scroll through my fitness journey (which will be a whole epic post of its own) it might seem fragmented from the outside — I went from yoga to climbing to lifting to calisthenics back to lifting to dance to basically becoming a snake to remembering my forever love, lifting again. The connecting thread was always that I was deeply enjoying the process of what I was doing. Enjoying the learning process. The visceral challenge. The feeling of connecting with and strengthening my body. The burn. I was enjoying getting to know myself, my weaknesses, my triggers, my limits, the reasons I turned away from the heavy weights I loved most…

And most importantly, I was enjoying the process of becoming more disciplined in my pursuits of fitness so I could progress toward an ever-more focused, intrinsically motivated purpose. cus like I said. getting shredded for summer is cool and all. But an external motivation is not everlasting. It can help get you started, sure, but in the long run, you have to dig deeper within. Find your purpose, your why, your code. Find the place where your devotion, your desire, your discipline are lit on fire… so that even when it is hard as fuck, which it will be, you want to show up precisely because it’s hard as fuck. Because you know that ultimately, the enjoyment you cultivate from staying the course outweighs any fleeting thoughts toward the contrary.

Thanks for reading, friend. Subscribe for more fitness, focus, fun, and yummy nourishing food…

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Pay for my protein powder

Hi friends! Welcome back to the more-organized-by-the-day-stream-of-consciousness that is my voice. How are you feeling? What’s happening? Is there a cute animal near you?

I’ll tell you what’s happening here. I’m more obsessed with writing than ever. Writing is funny. You ever think about what you’re translating? Where it’s coming from? How you know which word comes next? How something you feel in your toes can come through the movement of your hands? Or how something you felt decades ago is only now being processed?

Seventeen years ago, I wanted to be a fitness blogger. Something about the idea of fitness struck me dead center in the chest. I was hooked. But I went about it all backwards, trying to look the part rather than become the part. I saw girls with “morning abs” (congrats if you were never subject to this alluring delusion) and workout bags and protein shakes and overnight oats (which I cannot believe are actually sold premade now… c’mon people!) and thought, “well, if I have those things, I’ll be just as happy as them!” 

Sound familiar?

I tried and tried and tried, but I just couldn’t find that thing I was searching for. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know that thing was myself. Turns out when you’re convinced another person’s — or worse yet — an entire industry’s ideal, should be your ideal… self connection is pretty elusive. 

After more than enough “copy, paste, repeat” and very little change, I started to suspect that mayyyybe what I had taken as gospel wasn’t the holy grail after all. Oh, drat.

With great trepidation, I went off and did my own thing, explored movement and food and fitness and creativity… and would you believe I began to actually learn what worked for me? It took a whole lot of grit and determination and yearning, and yes, it was embarrassing and heartbreaking to let go of beliefs I’d grasped so tightly about “the right way to be. Sure. Absolutely. But the tradeoff is, I got to take my own journey. Which is more valuable than an affiliate code for “Fit Tea” could ever be.

Curiosity led me to explore things far beyond my comfort zone. Some I embraced (heavy lifting, rest, butter, ice cream) while my instinct to stay away from others was confirmed (business coaches, rigid diets, men in their 20s).

Ultimately, what I discovered is simplicity. 

Which may be surprising considering the literal hundreds of thousands of fitness and diets books available, the 1,359 workout classes at the gym, and the endless barrage of influencers with flashy apps and brand deals. 

What a revelation. Fitness is actually really fucking simple. Not instant, not easy, but absolutely positively 10000% SIMPLE. Rejoice!

I know it, you know it: the age of social media is ablaze with shiny details. But when it comes to learning useful skills (things that create real fitness), being lost in the details is a recipe for disaster. Or at the very least, an incomplete skillset. A details only approach is like a portrait where the subject’s accessories — earrings, bracelets, necklace, nail polish, handbag, sunglasses — have been colored in, but the structure that supports all those things — their body — is nowhere to be found. 

In the broad sense, there are only so many ways a body can move, only so many foundational movement patterns from which all the others (the details) are born. If you’re doing the work of strengthening those skills, you’re also building body awareness that will open the doors to the infinite fountain of creative permutations. It’s like painting. Every possible color you could mix comes from just a handful of base colors. Without access to all the base colors, you cut off your potential to experience the infinite color possibilities. Yet, even if you don’t mix more nuanced colors, you have the ability to paint something beautiful using just that basic handful. 

So sure all those celebrity fitfluencers are bright and gorgeous, but you don’t need Tracy Anderson (whose monthly studio membership is $900 btw, wtf?!) to tell you how to kick your legs up in the air and wiggle your arms around like a ballerina on lsd. I guarantee your body has better ideas. And to access them, all you have to do is show up consistently, challenge yourself (in useful ways), listen to your body, and do it all with a good dose of purpose. 

Oh, and don’t worry, we’re gonna get all up into the what and the how and, wait for it… 

the WHY of all these things. It’s gonna be intimate af and fitness af. 

Should we even go here yet?

I’m debating this. Shall we get into the wild world of food? I guess we should. I’m confident I can provide a small dose of good information that is better than 99.9% of the bullshit on the internet. I’ll dedicate future posts to this topic, no doubt, but first, I’ll say this: For every person claiming their diet is the “best” diet, there are 1000 others directly opposing them, and 1000 more making tiny adjustments, rebranding it, and selling it as something new. The point is, it’s all marketing.

So let’s break it down, shall we? (If you’d rather not go here… just skip this section, but I know there is a ton of confusion about how to eat well, and I’m about to shed some hard-earned light). Alright. Let’s go.

Did you think of MACROS when I started talking about food? The current conversations seem to consider macros as the “holy grail,” but I want to zoom out further - because we don’t eat “macros.” We eat food, which composes meals, which compose our diet, aka: the way we tend to eat.

My best non-diety diet advice

1. Before you start eating, pause, take a couple breaths, tune into your body, and maybe, if you’re feeling really crazy, offer a little gratitude for your nourishment and where it came from.

2. Make an effort to nourish yourself with as much real food as possible. Get on board with eating stuff you can recognize.

3. Eat a reasonable amount of food. Don’t be eating yourself into discomfort on the regular. Also don’t starve yourself.

4. Make. It. Yummy.

5. Eat enough protein. Try to get some at every meal. Supplement with protein powder if you feel like you aren’t getting enough and don’t wanna spend all that time chewing.1 Protein is the BUILDING BLOCK of our bodies; we need it to maintain and rebuild muscle, which becomes especially important as you add more movement to your life, which I’m hoping you might become inspired to do. 

6. Eat enough fats & carbohydrates. They are the FUEL for our bodies (versus the building block that is protein). How you account for these nutrients is up to your personal preferences. And how your body responds is, well… up to your body. You’ve just gotta be willing to listen.

7. Know it will take some experimenting to see what works for you. Give it time. Some people thrive eating more fat/less carbs, others thrive the opposite way, and still others are somewhere in the middle. Remember those bajillions of diet books? 

8. Have the ice cream (or cake, or cookies) and move on. We know what happens when you make something totally off limits. It becomes all the more enticing, right? One night, you find yourself eating an entire box of cookies and shame at 2 am. Or maybe fishing that cake out of a trash can, Miranda Hobbes style? Listen, there’s nothing wrong with having something that’s not “the epitome of health,” and when you let it be part of your “regular life” in moderation, the tendency to overdo it lessens. But also, sometimes you want the whole pint of ice cream! Celebrate that shit. Your body is wise, and the more you focus on creating a better relationship with your body, the more you can trust each other.

Remember: there are endless ways to go about this. Fixating on relatively unimportant details like “superfoods,” meal timing, food combination, and any of the bajillions of miracle fads popping up every day will more likely than not discourage you from discovering a simple approach that works for you. 

Last note: aim to eat in a way that feels good. 

Start noticing how you feel before and after meals, and generally throughout the day. Notice what you’ve been eating when you feel better. Notice what you’ve been eating when you feel worse. Adjust accordingly. 

Know this will likely change depending on stress levels, activity levels, your menstrual cycle, the weather, whether that guy texted you back, etc. 

Pay attention to your habits, and if you don’t like how you feel as a result of your habits on an ongoing basis… maybe it’s time to make a shift.

I went a little off my normal route… but we needed to 

And now, despite bemoaning “pitches” a couple days ago, I’m gonna go ahead and give you mine. Well, my non-pitch. My mission statement. After all, what’s a gal without a mission? Just a lil spack floating in the big wiggly abyss? I need a tether to this flying space rock. Plus, I want you to know what you’re in for. It’s only fair, right? (yeah, maybe that’s what the about page is for, but I’m not quite ready to drown in the rewrite).

So here it is: as much as possible, I want all of us here to enjoy the fuck out of life, and I want it to be SIMPLE. For me, simplicity means focusing first and foremost on creating better relationships with our bodies. Through movement, through nourishment, through play, through creativity, through connection.

Fitness either is or isn’t a sexy word depending on your outlook… but I'm gonna take a risk and call the grand symphony of all of the above a pretty stellar recipe for fitness. 

TL;DR — there will be no “life hacks” or “perfect diets”  or “optimized morning routines” or any other sort of “magic bullet” here (though that is a surprisingly nifty blender). What there will be is showing up consistently, doing the damn thing, paying attention, and adjusting accordingly. 

Maybe it’s not the perfectly packaged program the marketing gurus would have you buy. And that’s on purpose. The benefit of not taking shortcuts is that we all get to learn, think, and express freely through the big beautiful process. We get to carve our own paths.

That was a ride, huh? I’m excited out of my mind to share more of this stuff with ya’ll. Till next time!