2022: A Year of Gains
2022 was a year I gained a lot. And I don’t just mean weight gains over the holidays. I am talking about the kind of mental, emotional, and yes, physical gains, that come when you open yourself to the opportunities that surround you.
This past year I have been gifted a lot of amazing experiences. I travelled (several times) to weddings, as well as a trip to Vegas.
I competed in my first pole competition for PSO Canada East.
I adopted a kitten who has become a well know adventure cat.
I got a permanent teaching position, raising me above the uncertainty of daily and long term occassional work, and into a new salary range.
I also made a new circle of friends within my Toronto neighbourhood, including neighbours in my building to share laughs and blunts and even keys with whenever we need a pet fed or walked.
And perhaps most noteably, I found a partner who is essentially the male version of myself, and who I love more than everything I love put together.
Truly, Ive had a lot of gains this year, as you can see. But it doesnt stop there. With all thuis happiness that has come my way, I also gained weight. I’m not going into numbers here, and I am not trying to make it seem as if I gained so much that I would be unrecognizeable on the street, but I will say certain clothes that fit me other Christmases would be a squeeze this year.
Sometimes I see a picture of myself or a video and feel a twinge of guilt that I’ve let my body go— even minimally. But the truth is, I really don’t think I could have had all the experiences and other life gains this year if I hadn’t.
This year, I truly commited myself to prioritizing connections and making memories over controlling my body. I made the choice to go out for drinks or to concerts and skip a workout. I made the choice to join in a group thai food order, or partake in a feast of indian food. I made the choice to ease up on my strict vegan tendencies and eat the muffin made with eggs, or try a bite of a a cheese stuffed ravioli.
I’m not saying that any of these things alone are the cause of a jump on a scale. I know friends and family members who enjoy all of the above on a regular basis, and their bodies stay pretty much the same. And I know continuing to be more relaxed around food, and joining in and sharing these meals and treats with others, I will not continue to gain weight for ever. Actually, I don’t think I’’ve really gained anything since I started writing this post a few weeks ago.
But even if I did, I wouldn’t regret it. The small, tight body that I had , particularly during my days of extreme restriction was a physical embodiment of my tight and rigid thinking. My life was about as full and voluptuous as my figure. In other words, the exact opposite. My days were calculated, measured, controlled.
And anything that threatened to disrupt that (such as a birthday dinner or night out) caused me anxiety and fear, instead of the excitement and revelry it should have.
Last January, I wrote a 2022 Manifesto for how I wanted to live my life. One of the things I wrote was “Memories over Calories.”
I’m so happy to say that I committed to that vision. And while it was not always easy or perfectly executed, I ended 2022 with more memories and moments of love and beauty and spontaneity than I could have imagined.
I’m hoping to gain even more in 2023. Here’s to making all the memories, joining in, and always prioritixing people and connection over numbers.
What are you hoping to gain this year?
Happy 2023,
-Jae
A Season of Redemption: A Christmas that undid the Shit of Christmases Past
This christmas was special, for a lot of reasons.
For many of us, it was the first christmas in a long time that we were not living in a pandemic state of panic.
We were able to gather with loved ones without masks or uncomfortable rules or restrictions, or anxiety of what we might be giving or receiving that would not be wrapped in a bow.
For our family, it was the revival of our annual big neighbourhood christmas party, where our house was filled with friends and neighbours from the age of 21 to 71, with a buffet of food as far as the eye could see.
After 3 years of not being able to host it, the atmosphere of the night was extra boisterous and beautiful, with people staying late into the night, or early into the morning, talking and laughing, playing pool, and dancing with a glow of an extra shot of whisky and christmas tree twinkle lights.
It wasnt only gathering that made this christmas so wonderful, but the particular people that entered my life this season.
Like the ginger-bearded man who sauntered up to a rain-drenched me at the end of a music festival on Canada Day.
Who would have guessed that would have led us to spending this whole christmas together, sharing our families and time in between Markham and Barrie, dancing around the kitchen in matching plaid pajamas…
To be spending Christmas with someone you love as fully and intensely as they love you is the greatest gift that I will never for a second take for granted.
Especially after several years of feeling an emptiness of spending the holidays without that.
I won’t lie, as much as I love christmas, the day, the season, and the feeling in general, the last few christmases I have felt like I’ve been chasing the idea of the feeling instead of being in it.
Between being in the throes of anorexia, the battles and emotional warfare of recovery, and navigating the end of relationship that I once thought was supposed to be forever, the “wonder and joy” of the season remained more of a fantasy than reality.
Even with that ex partner, I vividly remember spending one christmas afternoon sobbing into his arms in my bed after what was otherwise a perfect morning of opening presents, simply because I was overwhelmed with the feeling of guilt and anxiety of indulging in breakfast treats and then being caught and restricted from shovelling the driveway.
While I was further into recovery these past few holidays being single, the memories of being in love and celebrating christmas still permeated enough to dull the joy that was so present.
Of course, I still revelled in the love and company of friends and family I hadnt seen in a while, but I missed picking out that perfect present for that special someone, sneaking away to open each others gifts and read their heartfelt words away from the schmozz of the rest of the house.
Even not with them, I missed the feeling of Singing along with the christmas love songs that came on the radio, with them in mind, really and truly feeling the sentiment “all I want for christmas is you.”
For me, more than any other holiday, including the so vehemently loved or hated valentines day, christmas is about love.
And after the blessing of experiencing it with a partner for several years, the christmases that follow once that partnership ends, don’t hit the same.
They can be filled with family and festive joy and food and gifts, but the memory of that Christmas in love haunts it.
And thats what made this christmas so exceptionally beautiful. It wa a christmas that once again I was in love. And more than that, a first Christmas of the two of us in love together. A love that felt more right and real to me than it did the last time, with someone who I know truly loves every part of me- the wacky, the zany, the-handstands-in-the-kitchen-me—- and not just tolerates it.
I get to be unapologetically me, and celebrated for it.
This christmas I received some wonderful gifts and experienced some wonderful moments.
I was gifted a second Lupit pole and gorgeous Slovenian-made crash mat, a beautiful bullet journey and super quality fine art markers, and lulu leggings that have now become my second skin.
I went snowshoeing in the rouge valley and stumbled upon 3 deer, took pictures of my cat in a plaid matching hoodie, played obnoxious board games and took shots until the wee hours of the morning, and curled up in front of classic christmas movies.
But the most wonderful thing this Christmas was the little moments, the ones that likely no one else even noticed, even if they were there.
V coming up behind to me to wrap me in a hug as I was putting together our christmas dinner.
Twirling around the kitchen as if it was a ballroom even without music there, responding to V’s beckons of “Jae Bae Sunflower” as we were getting ready to head out to his parents’ christmas dinner.
Curling up under the sheets, talking until we fell asleep, whispering merry christmas as the clock struck 12 on Christmas eve.
These were the moments that made this Christmas, and redeemed it from everything it wasn’t in the years before it.
And of course, taking cute family photos with Rajah in matching PJs was a bonus.
Merry Christmas, everyone,
Love the ones you’re with-- and hold onto those memories, whether they are new or in the past of the christamses you spent in love.
There’s no better feeling,
See you in 2023,
Jae x0x0
Tis’ the Season (for being sick) — some musings about resting to return back to health
I feel like some kind of omniscient game is being played on me. Looking back on my bullet journal from last december, it turns out the very same day I came down with the covid last year, is the very same day —- December 13— that a whopper of a cold hit me this year.
For the past 3 days I’ve been coughing my lungs out, nursing a headache and a fever, and not able to do much other than sleep, eat, watch TV, and occassionally fiddle with my knitting.
Perhaps even more karmic, is that this cold hit me right after I was beginning to feel some of the inklings of my usual pre-holiday anxiety about being out of my routine, subject to more food and indugences, and less opportunities to exercise, and how that might wreak havoc on my body, and my mind. It was the fist weekend of several from now until post new years— of holiday parteis and events with family and friends, with all kinds of boozy drinks and full dessert platters and and rich hearty meals.
It was a fabulous weekend— the Friday I was at my partner’s work christmas party, where we stayed well past midnight before heading back to our hotel only to carry on the party at the bar, and then the room.
Waking up late the next day, we were just in time to pull ourselves together and make it out for my family’s big neighbourhood Chritsmas party that night, where there were even more food and drinks to be had.
Sunday, was our family’s celebration of St.Nicholas day, essentially a warm up to christmas with a table of plates being magically filled with all kinds of small treats and goodies over night. Its another lazy festive morning in pajamas, lovely and lots of fun, but once again, out of my usual food and movement routine and after a two previous days of festivities, it was starting to feel a little uncomfortable.
The nagging voice in my brain started to pipe up again. I was acutely aware of how many days- how may hours— it had been since I had gone for a long “enough” walk, done a quad draining bike ride to class, or had a training session for pole. I also found myself becoming more and more aware and anxious about my body, and how it was changing (if it was. Are my thighs closer to touching? Is my stomach bigger? My arms feel like they arer flabbier.
In reality, it had been 3 days— not long enough to make any drastic changes.
And when I did go back to doing 2 pole classes that following Monday, I felt as if my body was instantly back to the way I wanted it. Obviously, not because a coule pole classes have that kind of body sculpting power, but because I never really changed in the first place.
It was just my anorexic, compulsive brain kicking me in loud enough to believe it.
Yes, it felt good to move after that rather sedentary week. I felt like I could exhale, already planning and lookig forward to resuming my fairly active routine up until gouing head to head with christrmas.
But waking up on Tuesday with a bad chest cold and the chllls it became evident that wasnt quite the case. I had come down with the same virus that took out a number of people at a party we went to over the weekend.
I was laid up on the couch for three days. Too tired and full of phlegm to exercise or even pole— even if I wanted to.
The funny thing was, my anxiety didn’t skyrocket being sick and sedentary (again) like i expected it to. In the past, when I was severely disordered, ity would have been practically impossible for me to have layed on a couch for three days especially after a weekednd of food and festivities.
The only way I probably could ahve coped owuld have been by eating as little as I could possibly get away with, thinking my bdy relly didnt need it if I wasn’t being active. I remember sneaking in squats and jumping jacks and situps in my bedroom if I was sick for more than a single day, and even quietly lacing up my running shoes to sneak out for a run, despite a sore throat and chest cough.
It wasnt even because I wanted to. It’s because I needed to. The only thing that I was dreadinfg more than the cold air in my inflamed lungs in that moment was having to be lying down for another minute, my mind being attacked by pulsating anxiety and shame over “what I was letting happen” to my body .
Being sick this year in a way was like a breath of fresh air. For three days, I didnt sterp foot out of my house, or even my pajamas. Even after my fever broke and I was feeling a bit more energetic on the second day, I still prioritzed rest,, and enjoyed watching christmas movie after christmas movie, knititng and crafting and puzzling in the glow of the christmas tree lights. Yes, I still felt small tremors of guilt, for choosing this kind of routine even when I probably could have braved a walk around the block. But these were just ripples, not the tidal waves that used to overtake me.
I don’t know if the timing of this onslaught of sickness was pure;y coincidental, or if there was a greater universal intention behind it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter. The universe, or God, or consciousness, or however you might phrase it, has a way of granting you something you need, whether you want it or not. Of course I didnt need to be sick. But I needed something to break me out of the anxcious and destructive throught patterns that I was beginning to fall into again. I needed to be reminded by something with some force, that rest is sometimes neccessary, and breaking routines on occasion is more than okay.
I was also reminded of how far I’ve come, being able to actually allow myself that rest. To be able to hole up on a couch alll day with christmas movies and crafts was something I secretly craved, and yet could neverallow myself to do.
The few times I tries to enjoy a movie midafternoon, I couldnt hear the TV over the blaring voices in my head screaming at me to get up, go for a run, you have to burn some calories to deserve this.
This year, coccooned in a blanket watching Netflix at noon on a wednesday, all was quiet. And it was bliss.
Merry Almost Christmas,
Don’t forget to rest and enjoy it,
—Jae xoxo
A Very Covid Christmas (again)- and 10 Things I Learned in Isolation
This Christmas I officially joined the covid club. I still have no idea where I got it, although between teaching in person and a busy social life, there are several possibilities. I am very lucky, in that my symptoms were mild. I had a scratchy throat, and a light cough for a few days, but in all honesty if it was not covid times, I would have felt guilty taking off any more than a day of work for it.
It started with feeling tired , and as a new teacher I didn’t really consider that a symptom, as much as an unavoidable way of life. But then my throat started feeling weird. I thought I was just dehydrated. It wasn’t so much sore as it was scratchy. Honestly it was only as I was sipping a beer in the distillery, feeling as if lacerations were being lit up as I swallowed the carbonated liquid that I started to make the connection. However, after two bouts of pretty bad colds/flus already this fall, I wasn’t super concerned it was covid. I really just didn’t want to be sick in any kind of way in these weeks leading up to christmas.
I went home, went to bed , thinking a good sleep would help. Instead I was up half the night feeling feverish, hot and cold at the same time, with a pounding headache, and achy as if I had arthritis in my hips. At 4:30 that morning I sent an email with my principal with typo laden plans explaining my absence that day.
I woke up feeling much better. My fever was gone (did I even have one in the first place? I wondered). My throat felt much better, and my headache was mostly gone too. I did have some phlegm and a cough, but it was much milder than the cough I had the last time I was sick, and that was not covid.
I somehow miraculously did not infect any member of my family, despite seeing them over the weekend and on the very day I started having symptoms, and for that I am eternally grateful. I did, however, land my lovely roommate with Covid for the second time. And unlike me, who luckily gets to leave my isolation the eve before Christmas eve, she only started having symptoms a few days ago and must spend Christmas on her lonesome until the 27th. She isn’t holding it against me, and I’ve been showering her with early Christmas gifts including a delivery of Craig’s Cookies and an UberEats gift card, but I still feel awful to have thrown a wrench into her family Christmas plans.
The most distressing part of this whole debacle is that I have to suffer the inconvenience of 10 days of isolation during the week of excitement and anticipation leading up to the 25th. I missed several Christmas events, including the annual Christmas reunion dinner with my high school friend group, and our family Christmas on the 19th with cousins who live in BC was cancelled completely. My hopes of sipping (chugging) mulled wine with my cousins watching our parents get equally as toasted were dashed.
But as I am continuously reminded, it is just the times.
I feel like I’m going through the ultimate 2020 rite of passage having covid. In a fucked up kind of way, receiving my positive result from a PCR test almost felt like a golden ticket to Wonka’s factory-- something I had heard about, and always knew was a possibility, but never quite believed I would ever be the recipient. It felt as if I was just hearing the term “Omnicom” and gossip about Covid becoming a big “thing” again, when all of a sudden I had it.
People are continuously fascinated by Covid. It has this air of intrigue composed of both awe and fear around it, the virus equivalent of “He Who Must Not Be Named” (AKA Voldemort, for the non-potter-heads). When I got my test result, I contacted all the people I had seen the weekend leading up to it. The owner of my pole studio sent out a message to those I had been in class with me letting them know they had been in contact with “a positive case.” “Don’t worry! The owner assured me. I didn’t say it was you! I Kept it anonymous. It was very kind of her to do that, but also, why do we have this attached shame complex to a positive test? Its not as if anyone conspires to get covid and then spread it to as many people as they can. Its a virus that as a world, we are all fighting together.
Friends reached out with the same questions:
How are you?
What are your symptoms?
How did you get it?
My not very exciting responses were okay, fine, and no idea. They were relieved I was okay, but at the dame time there is a sense of disappointment. Like that’s it? This is what we’ve been hiding from for close to 2 years?
I get it. But still, I am grateful that this, for me, is all covid was.
My isolation companion, Jaeda
10 Things I learned in Covid Isolation
Covid feels like a mild cold (and I thank being vaxxed for that.)
I’ve been sick three times this fall/winter already, and each time my symptoms were much more severe than this. Other than a short bout of feeling feverish in the middle of the night when I first started feeling off, covid felt no worse than a mild cold. I had a scratchy throat for two days, and a very light cough and not a ton of energy for a few more after that. However, by day 4 or 5, I would’ve been back to my regularly scheduled life if what I had wasn’t covid.
I know some people might take this as proof that covid really isn’t a big deal, and that there are unnecessary precautions and restrictions being made out of fear/ corruption/ ignorance etc… But I am pretty confident that being double vaxxed probably had something to do with the very mild and manageable experience I had. And, for what I am very grateful, keeping my parents and family, and students from not getting infected by me, considering I was in close contact with many people right up until the night I had my fever. Yes, I got covid, BUT it could have been MUCH worse.
2. It's very convenient to isolate in walking distance to family.
This fall, my grandfather moved into a care home, leaving his house right next to my family home empty, Even before I got my official positive test result, my parents invited me to do my isolation in this empty house so I would have room to sprawl out and also be nearby for them to help me out. I know I am beyond lucky to have this convenient set up, but it was honestly a life saver. And every home cooked meal that was lovingly delivered to my door did not go unappreciated.
My Grandfather’s empty house where I spent the past 10 days in isolation
3. I will never again take for granted the opportunity to grocery shop in person.
Grocery delivery services and Instacart are very convenient, and during my 10 days of isolation, they kept me well fed and well stocked. But as a grocery shopper, I am much more of an in-the moment impulse buyer of what looks good versus writing a list. I swear I spend longer navigating the instacart website, trying to rack my brain for what I want to eat for the next week versus walking the aisles and buying what looks yummy at a good price. I also felt denied the experience of food shopping in the days before christmas… Meandering the festive displays of chocolates and oranges and fresh figs as Christmas music blares through the aisles. People watching the festive folk grocery shopping in Santa hats and holiday sweaters , carts filled with things for entertaining like wheels of brie, giant panettone, and cartons of egg nog. Maybe I am a bit of an odd duck, missing food shopping in this way but there's nothing like being locked indoors for an extended period that makes you miss these ordinary experiences of being human.
4. I am more introverted than I thought
At first, the prospect of having to isolate for 10 days sent me into a spiral of dread. I hate being alone, I thought. I am an extrovert! I need people. Turns out I can be pretty content on my own with a puppy, a home pole studio, and a puzzle. I was able to get lots of writing done, make several gifts for family, friends, and their dogs (hello, hand sewn bandanas) and watch anything I wanted without compromise. Actually by dat 9, I was kind of wishing I had one more day of isolation to get a little bit more done before my time was up and I was thrown back into the mayhem of a family christmas.
5. I still remember the majority of every Taylor Swift song
I love to sing, but living in close quarters with a roommate, I never subjected her every often to my belting it out musical theatre style impromptu concerts. In a big house on my lonesome, with Taylor Swift playing on my spotify, I didn't hold back. Turns out I remember the obscure lyrics from obscure tracks on Red and 1984 just as well as I did back in 2010.
6. Christmas cookies taste better when you can share them
Near the end of my isolation, when I figured I was mostly noncontagious, I started christmas baking, making dozens of beautiful cookies. It felt nice to bake, but when you are sharing the finished result of a perfectly shaped sugar cookie or lightly whipped aquafaba meringue with none but yourself and your dog, the joy falls flat just a little. I could've eaten oreos with my hot chocolate after that day of baking and been equally as satisfied, and created much less of a mess.
7. The truest friends don’t forget about you when you are MIA (out of sight out of mind)
Despite my new discovery of an introverted side, it was really amazing to hear from friends throughout my isolation. I totally get out of sight out of mind, and I hate to say I often fall into that pattern of interaction, especially with friends and family in different cities and provinces. So when I was dropped off a covid care package from my extremely thoughtful long time friend, I felt loved and appreciated and cared for, and I think that itself made the entire isolation experience so much more endurable. Even something as simple as the texts I received from various friends and family checking in on me, or saying hi in just a sentence or less were beautiful reminders of the connections I had in my life, and the friendships I do not take for granted.
covid care package from a dear friend <3
8. A walk does not need to be 5 kilometres
In isolation, technically you are not supposed to leave yourself. In a very quiet street in the suburbs, I made an exception twice a day (morning and night) to venture out to walk my dog (masked) and keeping away from people. My dog is 13. We do not go far and we do not go fast. The furthest we ever go is barely 2 kilometres and it takes close to 45 minutes, with lots of breaks for sniffing things. Usually however, it's closer to ½ a kilometre, to the park to walk through a woodlot and back .
Before getting covid, I had a pretty ingrained habit of getting at least 5 km in a day. Sometimes it was all at once. Sometimes it was a few kilometres to school, a few back, and then another few over lunch. Anything less felt well-- lazy. After 10 days of slowing down to Jaeda’s senior citizen pace, I realize getting out for just a slow walk around the block can do just as much for my spirits and energy as a speedy 7 km loop around the city. Also, I think having a dog as company on these walking ventures is also a big factor in the happiness level achieved.
9. It's okay to walk zero kilometres a day.
Expanding on the last point a little more. There were some days in my isolation where Jaeda was sore or the weather was rainy and miserable where it made no sense to break covid protocol and venture outside. And while the first day this happened I felt pretty anxious , I did it and (obviously) nothing bad happened. If anything, it felt freeing. As much as it was a downer getting covid, especially at christmas time, in a way I am thankful that it forced me to face this very deceptive compulsion I have continued to hang onto. As healthy of a habit of walking every day is, the fact that I was doing it pretty compulsively was important for me to break.
10. After a long time of not being around other people, it starts to matter less what they might think.
In isolation I didn’t wear makeup for the whole 10 days. I also did not wear anything but pajamas (and pole shorts) for most of that 10 days either. At first, the exception was putting on a pair of leggings to go walk the dog. But in the latter half of my isolation period, I found myself not caring enough to get up and change out of my pjs and would simply throw on a coat over my fuzzy plaid pj bottoms before leaving the house. After doping it once, I did it every time. I didn’t even feel silly. I just felt like a girl walking her dog in her pajamas and I owned it.
I came out of isolation on the eve of December 23rd, just in time to celebrate christmas with my family. In some ways, it was a very convenient circumstance of covid. But I am still happy its over.
Out of isolation, Christmas morning. Jaeda was happy too.
How was your covid christmas?
xoxo
Jordan
The Post-Christmas Mind-Fuck (A Survival Guide to “New Year, New You” and other BS)
We all know it. You might be in it right now—that vacuum of time and space that exists between Christmas and New Years. That one week of the year where you don’t know what day it is, and don’t really care, when it gets to be late enough in the day that it feels counterproductive to change out of your pyjamas and christmas cookies remain a viable food group.
In all honesty, its this aftermath of Christmas that is my favourite time of the holidays. The shopping, cooking, cleaning, and wrapping have all been done, and (in none pandemic times) there are no more relatives to visit or guests to entertain.
There is literally nothing to do but revel in the wrappings of all the festivities that went down, enjoy some of the new toys or gadgets you received, and crack open that bottle of wine and box of chocolates that was under your tree.
And it’s important to enjoy this time— to truly enjoy it. Because as soon as New Years’ Eve hits, reality as we know it turns on its head. This, my friend, is the Post-Christmas Mind-Fuck
property of @cheezeburger.com
The Post- Christmas Mind-Fuck (Explained)
January First hits with the force of a a full champagne bottle, and in the blink of an eye, reality is turned on its head. Everything we have been told is right is now wrong, everything we are told to buy and eat and do we are told to avoid or undo. It is like being in a snow globe being shaken so violently that we can no longer recognize the scene within.
All the messages and ads and posts for the past month telling us to indulge, bake cookies, buy candy, eat, drink and be merry, and watch christmas movies huddled under blankets, are replaced overnight with messages about new year cleanses, detoxes, exercise regimes, and self-discipline.
Every Christmas baking recipe on Instagram is replaced with an ad for a detox tea, juice cleanse, or Keto diet trial. The influencers that were posting pictures of candy-cane rimmed eggnog and gingerbread donuts are now posting pictures of their new Gymshark clothing doing “damage control” at the gym for their “holiday guilt.”
It is enough to make you want to crawl beneath your new weighted blanket and not resurface until March. But then again that would be disregarding the revered commandment of “thou shall turn off Netflix and exercise away every ounce of chocolate consumed.”
And that is the mind-fuck.
Everything that was being toted as festive and merry and of the “season” become demonized overnight , and implying that you, dear, sweet, ignorant mortal, now have the duty-- no, the privilege, to rectify your moral wrongdoings by fixing your body.
Perhaps you have not been directly told to “fix your body”, but instead to “shed weight,” “get back on track,” “cleanse your system” or “detox your gut.”
Regardless of how it is worded, the message that bombards us every January that the most productive thing you can do this New Year is to change your body.
As someone who once subscribed to this message not just on New Years but all year round, for many years, I am writing this post to call bull sh**, and to hold your hand through this mind fuck so that you can still eat your chocolate if thats what you want to do on January 1st without feeling like a less worthy being.
So here is a survival guide to help you through the next few weeks of diet culture propaganda headed your way..
The Christmas Mind-Fuck Survival Guide
Arm yourself with knowledge
“New Year New You” and the messages about diet and weight loss that accompany it exist so people can make money. “You are fine exactly as you are doesn’t exactly spur people to buy things. However “Change your body to be better” and “here are the training plans, workout gear, cookbooks, and other products that will help you do it” has a better chance of having people spending money.
Become Diet-Culture-Literate
Check out this post here for myths about food, exercise and metabolism. Understand that so much of the cleanses, detoxes, crash diets, and even lifestyle restrictive diets from Keto to paleo to vegan to whole30 don’t quite live up to their promises. While it is true that most of us eat more and move less around the holidays, and that can result in some weight gain, studies have found that to average in one pound of weight gain for an adult human. And that minimal amount is easily lost as the person returns to their normal routine after the holidays. Our bodies are wonderful, intelligent mechanisms that can maintain equilibrium and maintain a healthy set point weight with little to no intervention or micromanaging on our part. Silly human.
Walk Your Own Path (use a filter for what you say and what you hear from others)
This time of year, everyone and their mother has a comment to make about how much they’ve been eating or how little they have been exercising or how excited they are to get started on their new resolution to start the ____diet or ___exercise program in the new year.
If you typically feel yourself anxious or stressed by these comments of food or body by others, you have a few options:
Change the Conversation. Spend time with people who have more interesting things to talk about than their bodies. Politely ask those people if they wouldn’t mind changing the subject if they bring it up, or better yet, slyly make the subject change yourself.
Be the change. Set an anti-diet example by reaching for a second cookie as they start talking about their upcoming cleanse. If they give you any kind of shocked or harrowed expression, tell them that they are welcome to do them, and that you will do you. And you trust that your body can handle a little extra energy and rest without any conscious efforts from you to “detox” it afterwards. And then send them over to this post.
Smile and nod and stay in your lane. Listen without actually listening, because whatever someone else’s choices are for their one bodies will not affect yours. Just because your best friend is going Keto January 1st does not mean that all of the sudden your own body is going to start rejecting gluten. Follow your own path, and do what works for your own mental and physical health-- NOT just because you saw it on Instagram.
4) Enjoy the rest of the holidays (and your life) in peace. It is going to be back to real life before you know it. One day in the not-so-far-off future, you are going to be back at work (whether in person or in your living room), fully dressed, with a dog to walk or kids to get to school and dinners to make, with not so much as a lindt chocolate ball in sight, and you will be wishing you spent December 29th watching one more Christmas movie.
Life is going to keep going, so enjoy the slower rhythm while we have it. Move in ways that feel good, whether thats a walk around the block, a skate at the local rink, or tobogganing with your kids. Eat food thats feel good, whether thats leftover mashed potatoes or a big salad and a plate of cookies. Honour your hunger, respect your cravings.
5). Make some resolutions for the new year that have NOTHING to do with what you look like.
Thats what I’ll be doing as I sip on my latte and eat some leftover potica today.
potica!
Want to see what those are? Hang on for my next post!
Hope you are all staying positive and testing negative, and Happy NYE!!!
Jordan
The 5 Minute Rule (A reflection on loss and perspective)
Grateful for this view in my back yard (almost).
I’ve been stressing out over a lot of things lately.
Some small, and some not so small. Many of which I do not feel ready to divulge yet here. Lately, its been causing me so much anxiety that I feel sick and restless, exhausted and heavy-limbed and yet unable to sleep.
I have been thinking circular thoughts, dwelling on problems that make them seem much larger than they need be, and overthinking bits of conversations and moments that have taken place in the day when they have probably long been forgotten by the others I was with.
I was in one of those moments, obsessing over something someone said in passing, anxious over the way my clothes have been fitting, and feeling overwhelmed by the thirty parent interviews I will be hosting for my kindergarten classroom this week, when I was abruptly met with a hard hit of reality.
It was learning a new friend of mine, a beautiful vibrant, compassionate soul of a person, does not have parents on this earth. My friend and I were discussing plans for Christmas. She listened sympathetically to me rant on about the stress and overwhelm of going home for christmas, and how full and busy the house is, laughing as I made reference to my mom’s thwarted efforts of an early Christmas dinner year after year. Then I asked about her plans. She confided that she might go to her sister’s might not do anything. I asked if her parents lived far away, or if she would see them.
And that’s when she told me both her parents had passed away. She didn’t offer why or when and I didn’t want to pry. I told her I was sorry to hear that, and followed her lead in changing the subject.
This time it was my turn to laugh at the stories she recounted from her day at work, offer ahhs, and ohs in all the right places. Meanwhile, every schema and internal perception of the world was being rewritten. The interviews this week felt meaningless. I felt ashamed and embarrassed for allowing negative body image to even be a thought in my mind. And I began to think back to every comment or mention of my parents or family to her, trying to remember exactly what I said, and gauge just how insensitive it might have been.
It’s a week later and I still cannot stop thinking about this.
Yes, I am in the middle of interviews, and working thirteen hour days to talk to parents.
No, I have not yet been able to book a covid test, and may not be able to go see my family over christmas.
And yes, we are in lockdown yet again, and that means I am no longer able to train at my pole studio which has been keeping me sane these past few months.
The truth is that none of this matters. All that does is that my family is still safe and healthy and together. I have never needed to survive a loss so close to me, although for many years of my life it was my greatest fear.
While I cannot even begin to understand how difficult it might be to experience losing my family, I know it is a devastation from which one never truly recovers. It is life changing.
And that’s the thing. All that which I am currently stressed and worried about is not in any way going to impact the trajectory of my life.
It feels wrong, and selfish, now for me to be stressed out by these problems which in perspective are really NOT problems.
I am trying to use this new knowledge to help me shift my perspective from worrying about these things that may or may not happen, many which are out of my control, to being grateful everyday for all I do have. Most importantly my health and well-being, and the health, happiness, and love of my family.
Grateful for pre-covid christmases.
So if you’re finding yourself stressing over something today, getting caught up in feeling like you have too much to do, or worrying about something, take a second to zoom out. And then apply the five minute rule:
Think of your life five years from now. Is whatever you are stressing over in this moment going to make a big impact in your life in five years? If the answer is no, then it is not worth spending more than five minutes worrying about now.
And once you do that, think about my friend, and what she has lost, or the people in your life you know who have may also suffered true loss. Perhaps you yourself have suffered a great loss (in which case, all the love and compassion in the world to you). And then think about all you do have: the people that fill your life with love and happiness.
The healthy, functioning body that allows you to move and breathe and hug your loved ones.
The opportunities to try new things, go new places, and be whoever you want to be. The freedom to make mistakes, to fall and get back up again.
And the oft overlooked gift to feel all these things-- joy and sadness, pleasure and pain, thrill and fear, for how can you truly know the first without experiencing the latter?
A snapchat I am happy I saved several years ago.
The point of this post is NOT to say I will never feel stress or worry again. Even as I write this, it has flashed through my brain that I’ve been sitting too long, and perhaps I should take a break from writing this to do some kind of exercise.
There’s a good chance tomorrow or one day next week some curveball will come my way at work and begin to send me into a tailspin of “what-ifs” and “I can’ts” and “if onlys”. However, this story will help ground me, as it is now, quite literally, keeping me in this chair to finish this post, and quell the voices in the back of my head vying for my attention.
Five years from now, it won’t matter that I spent an entire night sitting at my desk instead of getting in some movement. However, in five years, I will likely be glad that I took the time to put this revelation into a post, and create a tangible reminder for myself and you that are now reading this of the importance of perspective, and being grateful, truly grateful, for all we do have that enriches our life with happiness and meaning.
Have you heard of this five minute rule before? How do you practice perspective taking in your life?
Love,
Jordan