Does My Morning Routine Need a Multi Vitamin?: Ritual Vitamin Review*

I’m a big believer in a daily routine. Whether you’re working from home right now or just trying to survive with your kids, having a routine is great way to feel like your best self. I find that scheduling times to do certain things helps me do them—and reminding myself of my goals, and my daily tasks to meet those goals, is a great way to stay motivated and on task.

One of my big goals for 2020 was actually related to my health; I’ve always struggled with my body and body image, and I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m often too tired to make dinner at the end of the day. Doing so requires me to keep a routine: I meal prep, I plan time to cook, and I make it happen. Stay-at-home orders, however, really threw a wrench in that routine.

It’s required a lot of work for me to put how my body feels first. I try not to think about calories anymore—but rather, what is going to support my health at this point in my life? What is going to make me feel good? And when I talk about feeling good, what does that mean for me?

When it comes to my daily routine, I try to hit a few specific points:

• Feeling accomplished. I know there has been a lot of discourse recently about “you don’t have to be productive right now”. I totally get that. But that’s also not for me. I’m still working and unfortunately, my job is all about production. For me, to feel good about my day, I have to feel like I accomplished something.

• Supporting my health (and my body). For me, this means taking a soothing bath in the evening, eating foods that make me feel my best, and taking a multivitamin that I love. (More about this in a minute!)

• Keeps me motivated. Having a clean home motivates me—that means, every day I have to make time to clean the parts of my home that need it. Typically, this means cleaning every sink and toilet in the house, and vacuuming the floors.

Why I Added a Multi Vitamin to my Routine

I’ve taken vitamins and supplements most of my life. When I was in elementary, I stopped eating dairy for a long time—and I remember my mom making me take those chewy calcium supplements every day. That was my first introduction to using a supplement to support my health and fill in the gaps.

Previously, I’ve always used gummy vitamins in my routine. When I was pregnant with Forrest, I relied on gummy vitamins to get me everything I needed—but I also knew they didn’t have enough calcium for me! (Can you tell calcium has always been an issue for me?)

I recently started using Ritual vitamins** in my daily routine. Every day, I keep them by my coffee maker so I can take one when I drink my coffee and eat breakfast. I take a second vitamin with lunch usually. I’ve always broken up when I take vitamins, especially if I need to take two, because I found this helped my stomach not get upset. (I have a very sensitive stomach, so this is just for me! Most people can probably just take 2 at once!)

The reason I took the leap and went with Ritual vitamins, instead of my usual gummies, is because I was looking for something that would support my diet a little more. When I bought gummy vitamins in the store, I often felt unsure of what I was getting. How was this going to help me?

The great thing about Ritual is that they tell you exactly why they include everything they do. Here’s what they have to say:

Essential for Women contains essential nutrients, each in their absorptive, vegan certified, non- GMO, gluten-free, and dairy-free forms. These nutrients fill the gaps in women’s diets to build a healthy foundation for the future, supporting the brain with Omega-3s, blood and heart health with Iron, and bones with Vitamin K.

One thing I specifically liked was that the Essential for Women vitamin (what I’m taking!) is designed to support the absorption of calcium. When I was pregnant with Forrest, I didn’t get enough calcium and one of my molars rotated. I know, that sounds terrifying. I feel you! I ended up getting an abscess and needed a root canal that took up the better part of a year. I took calcium supplements when I was pregnant, alongside those gummy prenatal vitamins—and I realize now that I probably wasn’t taking the right combination of things to actually support my body absorbing those vitamins!

I also like that Ritual vitamins are dairy-free and vegan; not eating dairy is a huge step I made for my health and while I’ve gone back and forth on it, I definitely feel better when I don’t eat dairy.

How Do I Like Them?

The thing I love most about Ritual vitamins**, to me, was that they are easy to swallow, they didn’t upset my stomach (multiple bonus points there!), and they don’t have that powdery, weird vitamin smell. They smell minty and fresh and amazing. Plus, they’re really pretty—their packaging is just plain cute!

When it comes to how they worked for me, I think it’s hard to say definitively—but I do feel like in the last month, I’ve been feeling a lot better about everything. I think part of that is my mindset: you can make a situation better in lots of ways, and developing a routine that works for me, and really drilling into my work, has helped a lot. But having Ritual vitamins** as part of my routine was a big help too.

There is also something very comforting to me about doing the same things for myself every day: I clean my bathroom sink, I make a cup of coffee, and then I take my Ritual vitamins. And that feels really good.

Are Ritual Vitamins for You?

Do you want to try Ritual vitamins** too? They have 3 varieties:

• Essentials for Women

• Prenatal (I really want to hear more about these!)

• Essential for Women 50+

Visit Ritual’s website to learn more about each variety and what they offer.

If you’re looking to make a multivitamin part of your routine, here’s a few tips:

• Keep your multivitamin where you’ll remember them. When I hide my vitamins in my medicine cabinet, I’m more likely to forget about them. I set a reminder in my phone and add it to my to do list—and I keep my vitamins by my coffee maker, like I said, so I see them every morning.

• Find a routine that works for you. I split up my vitamins, just to make sure I don’t end up getting sick to my stomach (like I said, this is mostly a me issue—sometimes drinking too much water too fast makes me sick to my stomach!). But find something that works for you: maybe taking your vitamins at night or setting an alarm.

• Set a goal related to your vitamins. Maybe you want to make sure you take them 5 days a week at least or you want to take vitamins for a year—just to see if it makes a difference. Set a goal, divide it into daily-weekly-monthly tasks (in this case, taking them every day!) and go for it!

If you would like to try Ritual vitamins, click the button below to order a bottle today! I think you’re going to love them. Let me know how you incorporate them into your routine and what you think.

How I Use Daily Harvest to Offset the Hectic Holidays*

I have a very sensitive stomach.

This has been a relatively new realization for me, even though I’ve had stomach problems my entire life. I was always prone to stomach aches as a child, always complaining that my stomach hurt. (Forrest has recently started doing this and, man, I’m sorry, kid!) I was a very picky eater and I tended to gravitate towards foods that were very easy on my stomach: toast, Cheerios, crackers. Basic, simple carb-based foods that weren’t super flavorful.

Fast forward to the last few years and my stomach issues have changed. For years, every time I visited Danny’s parents in Idaho, I would end up with a stomach ache, having to lie down for hours. At least I knew the cause for this one: I was eating way too much food in a short span of time. And none of that food was good for my body. (We’re talking multiple fast food trips here, people.) However, I still didn’t think I had a sensitive stomach.

It’s been only in the last few months that I realized the foods I eat, and tend to gravitate towards, don’t make me feel very good. Today, we know there are no good foods and bad foods, that diet culture is bad, and that fundamentally it’s ok to eat however you want most of the time—with an eye towards gentle nutrition (like making sure you aren’t malnourished and are getting essential vitamins and minerals). But it goes without saying: if you eat food that doesn’t make you feel good 24/7, you aren’t going to feel good.

When I first started getting Daily Harvest smoothies (and working with Daily Harvest), I did so with the intention that I just wanted some quick options for breakfasts for myself. I love smoothies, but putting them together myself is a pain. I know that seems really whiny—how hard is a smoothie?—but whatever, this was my struggle. I loved Daily Harvest instantly, not just because the smoothies are fast (that’s a fact), but because drinking them made my stomach feel about 400 times better than it did in weeks. Plus, I started to feel like I had more energy.

Here’s why I personally love Daily Harvest:

• Convenience: I know for some people the cost of Daily Harvest seems high. $7 per cup! But when you think about what comes in each cup, to assemble them yourself or even make one smoothie of the same ingredients, would cost a ton of money! Plus, they are delivered right to your doorstep, in recyclable materials.

• Fast & easy: when I make a smoothie, I don’t want to spend a ton of time cutting things up. It’s 3 easy steps to having a smoothie: add liquid; dump into a blender; and blend. I have a quick dinner for myself in just a few minutes, which is all I need.

• Unique recipes: These smoothies let me try things I would never try before (watermelon & beet root smoothie? Love it!) without feeling bad if I don’t like them (and then have 100 lychees or whatever leftover). Plus, you get a variety of fruits & veggies in every cup, so it can boost your energy and make you feel good about eating something super delicious.

I’ve made a lot of changes to my lifestyle in the past few months. Working from home exclusively now, I have to stay on track day-to-day without anyone else to keep track of my time. I’ve started wearing blue blocking glasses to help my migraines and my sleep patterns (they help!), as well as using night shift on my phone most of the time. I’ve started using ergonomic work solutions, a standing desk. You name it, I’ve tried it to be healthier. So why not change up what and how I eat to feel better about myself too?

Health isn’t a barometer of good and bad, of course. However, I knew that my low energy, migraines, and more had to do with what I was eating (and in that similar vein, also related to my anxiety and depression). So, I decided to change things—and Daily Harvest has helped me do that.

During the holidays, it can be easy to start eating a lot of foods that don’t make us feel good. I love Christmas cookies, pumpkin pie, and mashed potatoes as much as the next person—but those are heavy foods that can leave my stomach feeling gross and my body sluggish. Added a Daily Harvest smoothie in the morning or as a snack before a holiday dinner makes me feel at least a little bit better at the end of the day.

If you want to make sure you have plenty of delicious, healthy options available alongside your favorite Christmas treats, be sure to use my code PAUSES for 3 FREE cups in your first order from Daily Harvest. Click here to order! (I highly recommend the Pineapple + Matcha smoothie! It’s my absolute favorite.)

I Tried Noom Coach so You Don't Have To

Trigger Warning: In the efforts to be fully transparent, and as body positive as I can be while also working on my physical weight for health reasons, I tried Noom for a variety of reasons, some of them weight-related and some of them not. I’m really excited to tell you how it went. However, I understand reviews like these can be really triggering, especially for those struggling with negative body image. As always, if you feel something like this will be hard for you to read, don’t hesitate to close the window.

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Update as of September 2020 When I originally wrote this review nearly 18 months ago, I expected some pushback in comments, especially from those who still ascribe to diet culture. Instead, I have received feedback that went along with what I’d written: that people wanted to like Noom, but found the process difficult, the designation of food as Red, Yellow, or Green triggering, and more. I actually haven’t received one negative comment about this blog post until today.

I was originally going to reply to these comments directly, but then I thought, I don’t really require giving this person the time of day. But I do have notes about Noom I’ve been wanting to add. So here it is, both a response to a man who felt compelled to yell and me, and everyone in the comments (and everyone who privately emailed me) who so bravely expressed their disappointment with a product with paid for that made us feel bad or triggered, and further notes on Noom and why I think Noom is bad.

Sorry that’s the spoiler: Noom is bad and you should not spend your money on it. Period, end of story. It is a waste of a ridiculous amount of money. And make no mistake—Noom is expensive as all hell.

Noom says it is specifically “not a diet”—in fact, the app and its marketing positions itself as “anti-diet.” This is really cute and very chic of them, very on trend, but the fact is, it’s a bunch of bullshit and lies. Noom is a diet. Just like Weight Watchers. But Noom is even worse because at least WW is telling you it’s a diet. Noom targets a particular group of vulnerable people: people who have potentially had eating disorders or simply disordered eating in the past who have potentially gained weight and feel bad about their bodies as a result.

I know how that feels. I know diet culture is horrible. I know I need to recover from my eating disorder. But I also still find myself wishing to lose weight most days. Noom specifically targets people like me: people who are torn between so badly wanted to accept and love our bodies and still firmly believing that we are less than because we weigh more than we used to.

And Noom is the worst for that.

Because Noom. Is. A. Diet.

They aren’t special. The psychology in their app isn’t special. They’re just using very good copywriting and cute graphics. It’s not that deep.

I realize now that my experience with Noom was an experience steeped in fatphobia. The goal specialist who told me I was lazy and making excuses said that because she assumed, because I am fat, and a mother, that I am lazy. That I somehow have hours of time where I’m just shoving bon bons in my face. Because all fat people are overeaters and spend their evenings on the couch, right? How she treated me, and how Noom responded when I tried to report her (at the time of my using Noom, there was no option to actually report a coach—you simply requested a new one, a process that took literal days to happen because their response time for everything at Noom is that of a snail. Speaking of lazy, I don’t think it’s me, Noom!) was an exercise in poor customer service and fatphobic stereotypes.

This is all I have to say on Noom. I’m sorry to everyone who has just signed up for it and sees this blog post, hoping for a good review, a success story. I don’t know anyone who has used Noom and not regained back the weight the lost—or who lost any weight to begin with. No one I know has had a good experience with Noom. You still have time to get your money back.

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I started using Noom, an app that divided food into Green, Yellow, and Red groups, at least 5 years ago. I remember signing up and having the app on my phone. I didn’t like the Red, Yellow, and Green designations; I totally “got” it, but it didn’t really help my issues with seeing foods as “bad” versus “good.”

And while Noom does subscribe to the idea that making foods taboo is bad, using Red, Yellow, and Green ascribes them to “Stop,” “Caution”, and “Go”, which still arranges them on a spectrum of Good to Bad. For all their dedication to terminology at Noom, I don’t know why they kept this designation system! They could have at least chosen different colors.

Either way, I stopped using the app and promptly forgot about it until I heard an ad for that very same app on one of the many podcasts I listen to. “Huh?” I thought. “Noom costs MONEY now?!” I needed to know what the difference was.

Noom Coach is a program like the app I used way back when—that same structure of assigning food to categories and you eat a percentage of the category each day—with the added addition of a Goal Specialist, a Group function, and more. Basically, it became a support program to help you navigate both the physical aspects of weight loss and the emotional and psychological aspects as well. As someone who has struggled with my weight for a long time, I found this focus a little refreshing; there is a lot of psychology around the foods we eat and why (as well as the foods we don’t eat and why) and I’ve always been very interested in it.

As well, since one of my goals in 2019, is to have a second baby, I knew I needed to get to a starting point that would be less damaging to my body than last time. (Again, that disclaimer at the beginning of this post comes in). This is something I need to do for my long-term health, since having preeclampsia during a pregnancy massively increases my risk of heart disease. I thought Noom would be a great option for that, since it seems a little more gentle than, say, Weight Watchers.

What is Noom?

Ok, so first things first: what is Noom? Noom is, like a said, a weightloss app. But it’s design is not just like MyFitnessPal or Weight Watchers. It targets the psychological aspects of weight gain and loss as well. Like I said, they divide foods into Green, Yellow, and Red. Basically, Green foods are foods that are nutrient dense, but not calorie dense. Everything in Noom is based on caloric density. Green foods are things like fruits and vegetables, whole wheat bread, leafy greens. Yellow foods are things like avocado and peanut butter; nutrient dense, but also kind of calorically dense. And Red foods, despite Noom’s insistence that no that’s not the case are the foods you expect: butter, oil, fast food, coffees.

But it’s more than just tracking food. I only signed up for a 2 week free trial (and spoiler alert, I did not spend the money for the first 3 months), but I still had access to the Goal Specialist you are assigned immediately. After a while, you’ll also be assigned a Group Coach, as well as a Support Team. That means within the app you have daily articles to read, quizzes to take, and more, as well as daily weigh ins, tracking your intake, and more. Plus, you’ll have support throughout the entire time.

In theory, this sounds like a great program. They set you up for success right from the beginning and just ask you to be more conscious of choosing nutrient dense foods. For me, that worked really well.

My Experience Using Noom

I’m an emotional eater. I know this. I know it! I also know that I love, love, love certain foods and viscerally hate others. I am a very picky eater. I don’t like most condiments. I don’t like anything mushy. I struggle with leafy greens because I find the texture really unpleasant in my mouth. In general, I’m just a picky eater. I am also extremely busy and very stressed. I have a 3-year-old, a full time job, and a lot going on in my life right now. When I originally started this review, my brother was about to get married—and if you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know that this was a huge stressful event in my life. Well, a lot happened both before and after the wedding; so much so that I had to put this review aside to deal with it and not use this review as a place to unload.

I’ll just say: my experience with Noom did not help my stress levels.

Like I said, I think Noom’s setup is absolutely great; the app is lovely and easy to use. I loved the daily articles about psychology. I loved the quizzes. The separating of food into color groups made sense, but I still found it a little triggering to see that Red column. There was one thing I had a huge problem with. It was my Goal Specialist.

I want to preface this, again, with this: I know 100% that my experience is based entirely on the fact that one person messed up and it ruined the entire app for me. I know that. And I know that if I had gotten any other Goal Specialist, who was more of a match to me, i probably would have spent the money on Noom Coach to keep going for 3 months. I know those things.

Ok, so, it’s time to talk about what happened.

The purpose of the Goal Specialist is to walk you through the goals you set up in Noom. My goal was to have a baby in 2019 and to get to a happier, healthier point, both physically and mentally. I won’t say the name of the Goal Specialist I was assigned; we’ll call her S. The thing about the Goal Specialist was that she only really sent me one message per day—and in fact, for the first 4 days of the program, I only got 1 message from her asking me to think about things I wanted to work on, then message her on Wednesday after I signed up. That was easy enough.

Here’s roughly what I sent:

“Hi S! I’ve been thinking about things I want to work on and I definitely think preparing ahead is going to be a big one. I feel like I’m busy all the time and end up grabbing whatever is easiest to eat once I get to work. I have a toddler and getting him out the door is my number one priority in the morning, alongside making sure my husband gets to work on time. I feel like I don’t really have the time or energy to really food prep, so ideas for grab-and-go items I can have ready would be amazing!”

I got a reply from S nearly 24 hours after I sent that. Almost always, if she messaged me in the morning and I replied immediately, it would be 24 hours before she replied again. I don’t know if this was part of the program, but it made communicating really difficult. I unfortunately didn’t save her response when I deleted and unsubscribed from the program and app, but this is roughly what she said:

“Michelle, it sounds to me like you’re making a lot of excuses. We all have the same time in the day.”

Firstly, categorically, no, we don’t all have the same time in the day. I work 65+ hours a week adding up all my various jobs and responsibilities, on top of having a toddler, cooking and cleaning, caring for a large dog, and taking time for myself. I work out 4 days a week already. The subtle implication that I’m lazy made me see absolute red. This reply was not helpful and did not answer my question or request whatsoever; it didn’t help me get to my goals. It was demotivating and damaging.

My reply was absolute shock that she would say something like that to me. It was not a supportive comment to make to someone who was asking for very specific suggestions. I replied and told her that absolutely was not something I was ok with her saying and I would be requesting a new Goal Specialist. Which I did.

It took 4-5 days for them to assign me a new Goal Specialist.

In that time, S messaged me again and apologized, then again implied that I don’t grocery shop! So great, another snide comment about being lazy. Nice!

When I was assigned my new Goal Specialist, I was close to the end of my free trial. I tried having a conversation with my Goal Specialist about how I was struggling to remain motivated to use the app after S’s messages and, again, it always took nearly 24 hours to receive a reply. When I expressed concern about the program when it took so damn long for anyone to reply to me, the new Goal Specialist (we’ll call her A) simply apologized. Finally, I realized I was done; it wasn’t working for me, despite the fact that it had everything I really wanted in a weight loss app. I told A I wanted to cancel my subscription before the end of my free trial so that I would not be charged for 3 months.

It took two days for that to happen, but I wasn’t surprised by that.

Final Thoughts

I know that’s a lot to read. And trust me, it took me an embarrassing amount of hours to write it in a way that wasn’t just emotional.

As someone who is incredibly Type A and fears being seen as lazy, being called lazy was a huge trigger for me. (And again, I realize this is the action of one person, but it is one person who represents Noom.) It made me immediately not want to even open the app, let alone follow what it told me. If the representative thought I was just lazy and making excuses, then what did it matter? The things I struggle with—taking time for myself, taking a break from working, not having to be perfect all the time—are very real, and yet, I felt like my Goal Specialist had completely devalued the things I struggle with. She acted like they weren’t real and that hurt a lot.

I think part of this issue is this: i was assigned a Goal Specialist that was 1) much younger than me and 2) not a parent. I don’t mean this as a way to talk down to young people (she was maybe 22 or 23) or people who aren’t parents. But fundamentally, the life experience between a fresh-out-of-college Gen Z and a 30-year-old millennial is monumental. The same as between a non-parent and a parent. I definitely feel sometimes that young people and non-parents look at parents and think we are just being lazy in regards to what we eat and our activity levels. But it’s not true. We know it’s not true, but it’s impossible to fight a stereotype, ultimately.

And beyond just that life experience level, what does a Goal Specialist who has never been overweight, never had to rush a toddler into the car to get to drop off on top, never had to walk around with the evidence of pregnancy on their body forever, know about my life? About my experience in this body? About the invisible sacrifices I make both at home and at work daily? The ways in which I have to choose between my health and the health of my family? How can they help me when they think I’m just making excuses? If you read even a single article about working mothers, you know that we perform massive amounts of emotional labor and make sacrifices every day. (And when I say working mothers, I mean mothers who stay home too. Taking care of a home and raising children full time is work, they just aren’t being compensated.) What can a Goal Specialist expect to motivate me when they only see my inability to remember breakfast as being lazy? When they don’t see that in the time I forgot to grab a healthy breakfast, I dropped off a toddler who cried and wanted to stay with me, made sure my husband had breakfast and lunch for work, cleaned up the living room, got to work, arranged my schedule for the day, started working, and made sure coffee was made for the office?

We all have things we struggle with, of course. This isn’t unique to parenthood or motherhood. But I definitely felt that Noom was missing that crucial element of assigning Goal Specialists based on experience. It felt incredibly random and S just wasn’t a good fit for me. In fact, she set me back in terms of my mental health and it took a long time for me to be able to talk about it. I haven’t even told Danny about my experience on Noom.

So, to summarize, here are my thoughts:

• Noom is, in theory, a great program.

• There are still some major issues with the way Noom assigns Goal Specialists, as well as their system for tracking.

I found the entire experience really disappointing and, frankly, disconcerting. It’s the New Year and Noom advertisements are everywhere. if you see one and it sparks in you to try it, I hope this review helps you better weigh whether the cost is worth it.

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. 

Refresh Your Workout Wardrobe This Spring

My husband and I recently rejoined the gym. If you read my blog(s) (um, this one or the one before, or the one before that), you probably know that, until I got pregnant, I worked out nearly every day. At least 5 times a week for sure. I love working out, but once I had Forrest, it became really challenging. 

Going back to a gym routine lately has been so much fun. On the downside, however, all my work out clothes are from pre-pregnancy. Can you see where I'm going with this? 

It's a sad situation right now. Especially the sports bra situation. So let's look at some options for refreshing our spring workout wardrobes. 

1. Sports Bras

Nike Pro-classic in Black/White / Good Vibes High Neck Sports Bra from GOOP / Women's Studio Bra in Sapphire Poppy. 

Sports bras are always a challenge. Hopefully I'm not alone in this. Everyone has a particular style they favor and a particular fit they like. I picked three different types: a very traditional sports bra (the Nike); a cute-almost-crop-top sports bra; and a high-backed sports bra with lower sides. All three are super cute and not super expensive. 

2. Tops

Inhale/Exhale Top / Rodeo Rags Tank Top / World's Okayest Runner. 

Athletic tops are one of those things that I believe are inherently a little scammy, right? You can wear just about any shirt to workout in, as long as you're comfortable. I prefer loose fitting tank tops, so I picked three cute ones for your enjoyment (I'm loving the World's Okayest Runner tank). In general, I buy my workout tops at Forever 21 or Target: wherever I can get some affordable that I'm totally ok getting covered in sweat. 

3. Leggings

Aerie Chill Jogger / Nike Workout Pants / gFast Performance Colorblock Leggings

Honestly, I could spent the rest of my life in athletic leggings and be absolutely fine. Also, if I ever become magically super wealthy, I will just buy hundreds of pairs of the best leggings I can find. I love them. My favorite workout leggings are from Aerie and they unfortunately don't make them anymore (grumble), but these "chill joggers" look super comfy for workouts and for lounge. If you're more a traditionalist, the black Nike workout pants are classic and the GAP leggings are perfect for late Spring/early Summer runs outside. 

How to Be More Active When You Don't Have Time

For an entire year after Forrest was born, I really struggled to get back into being active. When you feel like you don't have time, when you're always moving from one thing to the next, it can be hard to add "go for a walk" or "do an exercise video" to that. In the last three months, I've tried harder to be active: to take Forrest on walks, to not just sit on the couch. 

If you're busy in the same way I'm busy, and you're not willing to wake up at 4am ahead of your toddler (someday, Forrest will sleep in, right?), here are a few tips for trying to be more active. Here's the caveat of these tips: I'm not claiming you'll be able to work in a 2 hour work out. It won't be easy. But here's what I do. 

1. Get a Fitbit 

This is a daunting one for some people. But I love my Fitbit. I have a cheap, $50 Fitbit (it's the most simple version) and a hand-me-down Fitbit One. Both work just fine. You don't have to get the fanciest version for it to work, I promise. I mostly just need my steps. Here's the thing: I work a sedentary job, I have a toddler. I know it's going to take a while of practice for me to hit 10,000 steps a day. (For some people, who live in cities where walking everywhere is possible, this is nothing.) So my goal everyday is 5,000 and if I hit that, I feel pretty good. If I can hit 7,000, I feel like a champ. Set realistic goals for you and your Fitbit. 

2. Fit in what you can 

Ok, this is a big one for me. I used to love going to the gym every single day after work. I would spend an hour doing cardio and lifting weights. It kept me healthy, made me feel good, and improve my mood. But the truth is, I just don't have time to do that anymore. I've thought of ways to fit it in: going before work, leaving work earlier, going in the evening once Forrest is in bed. But I'm so exhausted by the end of the day. Instead, I try to go walking when the weather permits. Forrest and I will walk around the park, then play on the play structure. It's a nice little exercise and we get outside the house. On days where I'm home with Forrest, we go in the morning, and then usually play outside for a little while in the afternoon. 

3. Download workout apps. 

I have tons of work out apps. FitStar and Pump Up are two of my favorites. In the evening, I have about enough energy to clean the house and then for a 10-15 minute work out using one of these apps. It's not a huge time commitment, but it's enough to make me feel like I'm active. I like FitStar because it automatically syncs to my FitBit. However, I like Pump Up because you can generate work outs depending on what areas you want to target and whether to include cardio or not. So if nothing else, a quick work out using an app is doable, especially in the evening or early morning. 

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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. 

Getting Over Body Obsession

I wrote recently about my struggles to stay body positive while also actively trying to lose weight. This is not an easy task for me and one that I work really hard at; I don't want my friends who are happy with their bodies to think I'm judging them simply because I am trying to lose weight. Remaining body positive, and supportive of everyone in my life, is incredibly important to me. 

But beyond that, there are things I need to work on that aren't just losing weight and body positivity. I've always had an unhealthy obsession with my body size, and monitoring my body size. I recently mentioned to a group of mom friends that I can remember my exact weight at every important event of my life: my wedding day, the day I got home from Idaho after graduating, the day I got engaged, the day I had Forrest. These are numbers taking up valuable space in my brain. A small part of me had held out hope that this was normal behavior, but I knew it actually wasn't. It's not normal, or healthy, to remember your weight on exact days, especially days dedicated to your own wedding or your first child. 

I cried every morning I had a doctor's appointment because I knew they would weigh me--and write that down on a little piece of paper, cruelly, without letting me defend it. I always wanted to put an asterisk on it. One that said, perhaps, I was thin once! I really was! I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted because I was so active! I work a sedentary job! I'm working on it! I wanted to argue with the computer system that classified me as a "high-risk pregnancy due to overweight status." I wanted to tell my doctor, every appointment, that I'm not, like, ok with my weight; I know I need to change. 

This is also not normal behavior. The actions of the medical community notwithstanding (there are some definite changes that need to be made regarding the treatment of weight issues and non-issues), it's not normal to obsess about how much you weigh when you're pregnant. 

I remember writing up a workout plan for myself postpartum. I remember anxiously imagining a time where I could restrict calories again. This is not only not super healthy, but really depressing to think about. 

It's hard to know that I have so many issues relating to my body and health. As I've written before, I know I'm dealing with body dysmorphia, but that doesn't really change the fact that when I go to the doctor, I get treated like none of my issues matter because, obviously, I just need to lose weight and they'll all magically go away. (This is one of the most annoying things about my medical treatment: I can guarantee you weight loss isn't going to fix at least 75% of my issues, but ok.) I know I want to lose weight for my health and my personal happiness--but I also know that, in some ways, I won't ever really be happy because you can't be happy when you're obsessed with your body. Period. End stop.

I posted on Twitter recently about all the fitness Instagrams I follow. A lot of them are people who have lost significant amounts of weight through IIFYM (If it fits your macros), a method of measuring food that focuses on macronutrients versus calories. I love following these accounts because I feel like IIFYM gives you a more realistic ability to follow meal plans, because you worry about nutrients instead of just calories. You go for nutrient dense foods and you'll feel fuller and be healthier. However, a significant portion of people who follow IIFYM tend to start going down this very strange path where they start eating a lot  of artificial foods (like that nasty Halo Top ice cream stuff or Arctic Ice) and weighing their food. Seeing a woman list that she ate 100 grams of onions, and only that much, is a whole new level of obsession.

It's very easy to go from one end of the spectrum to the other: being overweight and obsessed with your body to the point of hatred, then losing weight and becoming obsessed with staying that way. Perhaps so intensely obsessed that you start to do things like traveling with a food scale everywhere and weighing individual sandwich ingredients in a restaurant. It was six years ago that Marie Claire published this piece about healthy living bloggers--and how their meal plans are dangerous and unrealistic--and yet, we're still doing it. 

We live in a culture that is obsessed with bodies and body sizes--so it's easy for us to get obsessed as well. It's a cycle that difficult to break, but I believe it is possible: I believe it is possible to lose weight and be body positive, to lose weight and not become obsessed with staying thin, to be healthy and not weigh food. I believe these things are possible--I just need to work on doing them.