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Big vaccine news, Joy’s weight lifting comeback, graves’ update, and listeners tell us which new year’s habits actually stuck.
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Audio Length: 50:47 minutes
Joy: Hey guys. This is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire. Still.
Joy and Claire: Still Joy and Claire.
Joy: This is Joy and Claire. Claire, I was thinking just mere moments ago that it’s almost been a year when we transitioned from Girls Gone WOD to This is Joy and Claire.
Claire: I know. The crazy thing about that to me is that we still get pitched on Girls Gone WOD –
Joy: Yeah, you want to talk about that?
Claire: – people who are emailing us they’re like, “Hey” –
Joy: “Hey girl.”
Claire: We got one the other day from someone who was like –
Joy: “I love your page.”
Claire: “I love your podcast, and I listen to it all the time, and we were wondering if you would want to have this person who –“
Joy: Knows how to nip and tuck and juice cleanses.
Claire: Yeah, so many juice cleanses, so many get-abs-quick. And who was the latest one had some connection to Girls Gone WOD?
Joy: Yes, I need to pull that one up. That was classic. Because I’m like, well you want to get us on with Gwyneth Paltrow, we’d gladly talk to her.
Claire: Yeah, I’m okay with that.
Joy: Oh my God.
Claire: We’ll revive the feed for Gwyneth because she’s a Martian, and I’m always interested to talk to people from other planets. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so thanks for hanging with us for the first year of Joy and Claire. And also the wackiest year possibly in the history of humanity.
Joy: Who would have thought when we started this new podcast journey that this is where we would end up.
Claire: Right. No one, most likely.
Joy: Do you ever miss doing a CrossFit-focused podcast like Girls Gone WOD?
Claire: No, because we can just talk about CrossFit on this podcast if we wanted to. And if we wanted to, we would, but we don’t want to which is why we changed.
Joy: I’m just nostalgic for how we were back then. The newness of being in the podcast world. I don’t miss only talking about that, but I think that’s just the nostalgia of being really the only female-hosted CrossFit –
Claire: So fresh faced.
Joy: So fresh faced. And going to the CrossFit Games and being recognized, that was awesome.
Claire: I still miss that. I will always miss the CrossFit Games. I can’t wait for the CrossFit… like every year we would talk about, are we going to go. And this year we didn’t get to go, and I really missed it. So next year, I really want to go.
Joy: Yeah, for sure. That would just be – hey, everyone out there that still does CrossFit and wants to go to the CrossFit Games, let’s all meet there and have a dance party. Wherever we’re going, I just want to have a dance party.
Claire: In 2021 after we’ve all had out vaccines.
Joy: Yeah. Speaking of vaccines. Today – was it today that they…?
Claire: Today was the first one. So today is Monday, the 14th. The first non-trial vaccines in the US went out today.
Joy: This is a moment in time.
Claire: And, you know, we’ve talked about this before that we’re not going to change anybody’s mind who is anti-vax as a methodology. But I definitely have learned a lot in the last few weeks about the safety and effectiveness of the trials that this went through and the process that this went through. Which I think most people who are typically, I don’t want to say “pro-vaccine” because I don’t personally think it’s a belief system.
Joy: It’s not like you’re pro-gravity. You just believe it.
Claire: Right. I know there’s a lot of reasons that people do or do not get vaccinated, sort of speaking to the otherwise-healthy, not contraindicated group here. I know there’s a lot of reasons that people don’t get vaccines. But people who are otherwise fully vaccinated are still wary of this vaccine because of the timeline, a lot of them. And I’ve just learned a lot in the last couple of weeks that made me feel a lot better about that, and I would encourage you to go out and find some information. There’s a ton of people online everywhere right now, putting out, kind of debunking that and saying, here’s exactly, like it’s so easy to explain exactly why it went so fast and be like, here’s exactly everything that happened. Here are the things that are normally sequential that happened at the same time. Anyway. So there’s just a lot of that going around, and I really appreciated that because it’s made me feel better. And Brandon being on the COVID floor is likely going to get the COVID vaccine within the next week.
Joy: Which is so cool. Holy cow.
Claire: It’s so cool. And I’m pretty sure it will be the Pfizer one, which I think is a two-dose, right? And I just want, not only is Brandon on the COVID floor as all of you know. And he goes back and forth. He’s in the OR sometimes. He gets floated to the COVID unit a lot. But my mom is otherwise totally healthy, 64, not in a high-risk group, but she is the caretaker for my 94-year-old grandfather. And my dad is 75 and is in remission for lung cancer. So all of the people in my immediate family around me are really high risk. And given that we’re really high risk from being exposed, it’s just felt like that much more isolating for us. We are the poster family for the devastating, asymptomatic spread. People in our next circle are very high-risk. So we have just not really seen people for more than a couple minutes, and we haven’t been in doors with them now for like a year. And I’m just really looking forward to, once Brandon gets vaccinated, once my grandfather does, once my dad does – and my grandfather and my dad will be in the second round – it will just feel like… we’re not going to just go back to normal, but it will just feel like we’re not playing with fire anymore.
Joy: Exactly.
Claire: And I’m really looking forward to that.
Joy: This is such a huge moment. I feel like, because we’re in it it’s hard for us to realize how momentous this whole experience has been. This is really going to go down in the history books, but we don’t think about it because this is just our daily life. But to be alive in the world when there is a huge pandemic that hasn’t happened in years and decades, and then experience the magic of a vaccine for this disease. I had to take a moment today. I was like, wow, when I saw the picture of the first, I think it was an ER nurse that got the vaccine. It’s just, I don’t know. Like we were talking about about a month ago about the light at the end of the tunnel. We have this almost road to the end of the pandemic. I wrongly immediately was feeling, “Oh my gosh, now we’re free.” And that’s really not how we should be thinking because not everyone is going to get the vaccine and how we can mitigate that. Anyway. It’s just important to continue to follow the leadership of your state. Even if your leadership is not doing the right thing, do the right thing as a human. You know what that is. But it’s just so exciting.
Claire: And I think, too, it’s like – you and Jess and I were talking about this earlier. That it’s not a neutral choice. It’s not like, get the vaccine and you know, guys again, obviously we are pro-vaccine. We are pro getting the COVID vaccine.
Joy: I mean, I’m for science.
Claire: I’m for science. And I’m not going to tell you what to do, but these are my beliefs. And not even beliefs.
Joy: I just, no. It’s science, please, it’s science. Let’s not argue about science.
Claire: Whatever, you know, I’m not sitting here trying to convince you if you’re anti-vaccine to get a vaccine that you truly feel is unsafe. That’s up to you. But the choice is not, get the vaccine or nothing. The choice is get the vaccine or eventually get COVID. This is a highly-contagious situation. I was talking to somebody about this the other day. I was almost comparing it to chicken pox where it’s like, if you’re a kid and you get chicken pox, if you have a healthy immune system it’s probably not that big of a deal. A small percentage of kids end up with life-long complications from chicken pox, and a small percentage of immuno-compromised kids end up with really terrible chicken pox cases. But the older you get, the more extreme it can be to the point of causing blindness and things like that. And obviously being on a ventilator is that realm of extreme complications. And that’s kind of how I think we will get to the point of viewing it, of like, nowadays we vaccinate our kids for chicken pox. I had chicken pox. It was fine. I mean, it wasn’t fine, it was a pain in the butt. But it was chicken pox.
Joy: It’s so funny because I don’t have kids. I didn’t know that they had a vaccine for chicken pox. I was like, really? Kids don’t get chicken pox anymore? Because I got them late in life. I got them when I was in 8th grade. It was so painful.
Claire: Right, but even that is, like I got them in 2nd grade. But even that, you’re still a kid.
Joy: Yeah. But just typically little kids get it.
Claire: Right, like elementary school kids get it. I’ll be interested to see if COVID sort of becomes that for the next generation. You can get a vaccine for it. If you get it as a kid, it’s not that big of a deal, but you get vaccinated because you don’t want to expose the adults in your life. And you don’t want to set yourself up to maybe in that minority of cases that do become more intense and more extreme. But most of the data we have is that healthy kids aren’t really affected by COVID that much. So it’s just interesting. And will this kind of become like that where one day we will look back and, “Remember when we didn’t leave our houses for a year because of the COVID and now it’s just in our flu shot every year?”
Joy: It’s so weird to think about that. It’s so weird to think, too, that even maybe five years from now – I’m so glad that we’re recording this and just having this time capsule – five years from now, “Woah, I almost forgot about 2020.” I don’t think we’re ever going to forget, but to a point where it’s just so far behind us, it’s just kind of this blip. I just hope it’s that. I hope it’s that. I know it’s not like that for everyone. But there’s a part of me that’s like, I just kind of want to erase this year. Not really, there’s some good lessons, but whatever, let’s move on. There’s a lot of good lessons, but I’m not down for looking at the silver lining.
Claire: Yeah, really exciting week, really historic week. But whether or not, again, you have questions or doubts about the vaccine, it’s definitely a very historic week.
Joy: For sure.
Claire: And I’m really glad it’s here. So let’s talk, just give a little update about your health if you want to.
Joy: Yeah. I can’t remember when we recorded the last episode. I want to say it was before – was it right before I went to the gym? I think it was. Right before I went to the gym when I was like, “I’m going right now.” And I really had a hard time. I walked in, and I went in to pick up a barbell, and I just didn’t feel good that day. I was kind of shaky. And picking up a barbell felt momentous to me. So just kind of doing some minor movements just to see how my body felt. I didn’t have any specific program. The first day I was going into open gym, I was not like, “Oh, I’m going to do this WOD” or “I’m going to do this lift.” I was like, I just need to know how I feel. I need to know what movement feels like in this body right now. I just tried to do some back squats to see where I was with that, and it was so, so low for me. I know some people when I posted it messaged me and was like, “Oh, that’s where I’m at right now.” Yeah, but for me, I was really, really, I was back squatting 180 just fine. And so when I was leaving the gym, I saw some people that I used to work out with. And they were like, “Hey, how are you doing?” and I just started bawling. And they were like, “How are you? What’s been going on with you?” And so of course I’m a terrible liar and I can’t just be like, “Oh I’m fine” and I just started crying. And I couldn’t stop crying. I was just sobbing as I was telling them what was going on with me and just pointing at the pullup bars and being like, “God damn it, I used to be able to do a pull up, but now I can’t do a pull up, and I just feel so weak. But this is what’s going on with me,” and da da da. And they were just super kind. These are girls that I don’t really hang out with or talk to every day at the gym, so I felt kind of stupid because I was like, sorry guys. You asked me a simple question and I just lost it on you. But since then, I’ve just been going a couple of times to the gym just to do open gym. I haven’t really done the barbell club that much, which is the more structured weight lifting class that TJ runs. I kind of chickened out last week because I was like, I just don’t feel comfortable and confident enough to go to an actual class yet. I just want to go do my own thing and see how it feels, kind of watch my heart rate. Which is kind of what I’m the most worried about. It gets really high sometimes. It almost kicks you into a panic attack because your heart rate’s so high that you’re like, am I going to faint? What’s going to happen? So that’s kind of where I’m at. I think I’m feeling more confident after this weekend working out. Overall, I feel better. I’m not going to be like, oh, I’m just so much better. I feel objectively better, and after seeing my naturopath the few times that I’ve seen her already. And at our last appointment, she gave me the results of one of the tests. I’ve done a ton of tests for her, and they’re still coming back, so I don’t have all of them yet because it takes a few weeks to get each one back. And the one that she got back was the food intolerance test. The intolerance that she showed for me was dairy – just straight dairy – and then a combination of foods, which is a little more complicated to explain, and I certainly don’t want to go into the weeds with this because I’m not a doctor and I don’t’ really know the science behind this. Two foods she says I can’t eat within four hours of each other is sugar –
Claire: Like, sugar, sugar? Like synthetic sugar?
Joy: Yeah, she gave me a list of all the “bad sugars.” You can go into semantics about all sugar is bad sugar, but whatever. Not good sugar and fruit. She was like, your body can process these, and I don’t want you to eat this type of sugar within four hours of each other. She’s like, sugar, objectively is just not good for you, period, but this is something that you have to work on. Well, I think this part is harder for me to talk about, only because I’m just so new at it that I don’t really know how I feel about it. I don’t know what this is going to look like for me. I don’t know if this is going to have to be forever. I didn’t really ask her that. And I will. Like, “Do I have to do this forever?”
Claire: And I think also, it’s not necessarily, like every single detail that you’re going through, it’s a hard situation to talk about on the podcast because on the one hand we spend so much time and will continue to spend so much time encouraging everyone listening to not label foods as “good” and “bad” and to not move away from entire food groups or whatever the case may be. But I posted about this on Instagram and it’s true just to say again here that there’s a really big difference between treating a diagnosis and “going on a diet.” I don’t want anybody to hear this and think, oh well if Joy is not eating sugar and dairy, then I should stop eating sugar and dairy. Joy has an acute diagnosis that she’s working through, and you can guarantee that once this is back under control and as soon as you have the buy-in from your medical team, you will be eating sugar and dairy again.
Joy: Oh, yeah. Right, I’ll be eating all the things.
Claire: Right, this isn’t like these foods are bad and you can never eat them. There’s a diagnosis here. You’re trying to treat it, and this is one of the tools.
Joy: We’re trying to treat it. Yeah, this is one of the tools. And she truly believes, and again I’m not a doctor. I don’t know a ton about naturopath doctors. I should back up. I don’t know enough about the work and treatment plans that naturopaths use to be like, “Yeah, this is why she’s doing it.” I’m just like, yeah, this makes sense to me. When we sit in an hour-long conversation, and I’m almost ready to start taking notes, because she takes an hour for each appointment and she says so much during that appointment that I can’t remember half of it. Like, I remember, but I don’t remember it well enough to repeat it and sound like I know what I’m talking about. You know, like the diet stuff is truly, she’s very focused on treating the whole body. That’s what naturopathic doctors do. And kind of getting your gut healed and all these things. Dairy is out. I think that was probably the easiest – not easy. If anyone has suggestions for quick and easy meals for this type of eating, I am struggling with what to bring to work because I’m so used to my snacks and the daily things I bring to work for food. Because I always eat at work because I walk JT, so that’s my lunch break. Anyway. So those are the things where I’m like, my usual routine foods that I would usually made for myself are gone, so I kind of have to start over again. And I was eating a lot of dairy or things that I didn’t realize had dairy, so it’s kind of – not to quote a diet – but back when we did the Whole30 where you just have to read all these labels to be like, “What? That has sugar in it?” It was like. Like, this has diary in it? What are you talking about? And then, so the sugar and fruit thing is something I’m really having a hard time with because I’m like, oh I want to have this food but it has sugar in it, and then it also has fruit in it. Or those types of things where I just have to be so careful. And I’m giving myself grace. I’m not being strict about it at first. I know that this is something that will help heal me, so I’m not beating myself up over it if I’m like, oh crap, that had sugar in it and I had fruit an hour ago.
Claire: Right, it’s an art, not a science.
Joy: Right. Even my doctor was like, don’t worry about it. Do the best you can, let’s start moving towards it.
Claire: I think one thing too that you said that I really liked was that you actually said, hey, you know, I’m considering pushing back on this a little bit. This doesn’t feel sustainable to me. And recognizing that all of the advice or all of the medical directives in the world aren’t going to help you if they’re adding so – especially for something like hyperthyroidism – if they’re just adding all this stress to your life, then the outcome of that is potentially going to be a wash because you’re adding… yeah. So I think it’s interesting too that even when you really trust someone or even when you really have a doctor who you know is in your corner, to still have those conversations and advocate for yourself. And I feel like that’s the name of the game of this entire diagnosis is really putting yourself first and saying, I hear what you’re saying, but this is not working for me. This is making me crazy stressed out thinking that I’m going to mess this up. I think it’s also interesting for people like us who have lived in the health and fitness world for so long and are so sensitive. And you in particular are so sensitive to being told what to do and what not to do when it comes to your diet. We’ve talked about this a bunch, that as soon as somebody says, “Okay, Joy, go on this diet,” you’re like, “No.” You just immediately, your gut reaction is just like when you pick up a cat and they just thrash out of your arms immediately. That’s like you when someone tries to put you on a diet. So to have to go against those instincts. Finding out that you’re allergic to dairy. I’m also technically allergic to dairy. And I remember finding out I was allergic to dairy when I was 15, and I cried in the car on the way home because I was like, I love mac and cheese so much.
Joy: Everything I’ve been eating lately has dairy in it because I’ve just been enjoying all the dairy. That’s what I do.
Claire: You were even joking about it. You were like, “All my body wants is cake and ice cream, and that’s great.”
Joy: Totally.
Claire: And it’s just hard to be told you can’t have these things that you like. And even though you fully understand why and you fully understand the long-term game and you understand that there are far worse things on this planet than being told you can’t have dairy, it’s just so hard to hear, “Hey, you know that huge category of things that you really enjoy? You can’t have them.” It sucks.
Joy: Yeah, it totally sucks. And here was my first thought when she said it. I remember, she’s so cute. She has these papers, and she has them on her desk. She has this cute little office, and she kind of holds up the paper. And she’s like, “I have your nutrition results.” Or, it’s an intolerance test.
Claire: Your throat’s not closing up if you have –
Joy: 100%. Which she says, “Just for ease, just say you have an allergy because there’s sensitivities, there’s intolerances, and there’s allergies. You don’t need to be worried that you’re going to go to the hospital if you have dairy, but you just need to know that your body is not doing well on this right now, and this is contributing to some of your issues.” So, yada yada yada. My first reaction was, woah, we have answers. I get excited for answers and results and the data to show what is going on with me and maybe what’s contributing to all this stuff. So at first, I was like, oh yeah, that’s fine. I go into this A-student person that wants to do well. I’m like, okay, so I’ve been vegan before, so the dairy thing’s not going to be a big deal. So in her office, I’m planning all these things. Okay, I have some vegan cookbooks I can go back to. I kind of know what non-dairy products are out there, blah blah blah. And then the whole fruit-sugar thing I didn’t really grasp how fucking hard it was going to be. Scott and I were at the grocery store this weekend, and I was just like, I’m so sick of – I’m going to talk to my doctor and be like I’m really having a hard time with this. Can we start with one of these? But that’s something that she and I will discuss. But I started reading labels. And it just bothered me that I had to read labels to put something into my cart. And if it had something I didn’t really know if it was dairy or not, I just wouldn’t get it. And then all the vegan – I can eat meat, by the way guys, that’s fine. It’s easier for me to understand the non-dairy products. I was looking at some of the vegan cheeses and yogurts, and the vegan yogurt’s so soupy. I had a minor meltdown. I was like, I can’t eat anything. Scott was so cute. He started going around and looking for things that were vegan, that didn’t have dairy in it. He starts grabbing these crackers and these cakes and these blondies. I’m like, I can’t have a diet of blondies and crackers, Scott. It was just so funny. But it was just so cute because he was like, “This is vegan.” Yeah, I get it, and I love you for trying. So anyway. That long and longer short of it right here is I’m taking steps every single day. I do have a long-term goal of just being passed this and starting to feel better. The stuff that she has me on right now, I am feeling better. I’m taking those little wins. It’s not like I’m extremely 180 doing great, but I notice my symptoms have reduced significantly since seeing her and the things she has me on. I hesitate to – I’m going to talk about this just to stop putting a stigma on it, but I lost a significant amount of weight. I’m not going to say how much weight because I don’t want to get stuck on numbers.
Claire: And it doesn’t matter. Your body is your body.
Joy: It doesn’t matter. I’ve noticed in the past week I’ve gained some of that back, and that’s been so – for someone my whole life who’s trying to be in shape. Lose weight and lose ten pounds. I can’t tell you the mind fuckery around when I was losing weight to be like, oh wow, I must be just losing muscle. It must be the running, oh my gosh. And then when it was going down more and it kept going and then when I found out I had this diagnosis, I was so pissed. Every time I would get on the scale and it would drop, I’d be like, “Dang it.” To have that totally flipped in my brain now, to be like I will never, ever take for granted my health and being at a healthy weight. When I get back to that weight because I want to get back to that weight, I will never have a day – sure, I may have a day where I don’t feel great – but I’m never going to be like, “I want to lose weight.” We all have those days. I’m not saying we’re all perfect and we never think about that. But there’s certain days where I’d be feeling crappy in my skin. I just feel like now I have such a perspective. And it’s not to say, oh I had this great “ah ha” moment.
Claire: Right, love your body 100% of the time, all the time.
Joy: No, it’s just such a weird experience to go through this. Getting mad because I was losing weight. And obviously I have a diagnosis that causes that, and I think that’s why I was so pissed. And now being like, this week I’ve gained some of the weight back. It’s working, this is so exciting. So that’s just been something I’m celebrating too of just like, I want to be the weight where I know my body is the healthiest. And I think that’s something we all need to celebration. We all know where our body is the healthiest and where it should sit or where it feels its best naturally. Not saying, oh I lost 10 pounds and I feel great because whatever.
Claire: And I think we always kind of remind ourselves that we come into this conversation from a place of thin privilege for lack of a better way to put it. And I always try to remind myself of that. Any time I try to say, “I just want to be a healthy weight,” that’s just a loaded term for so many people.
Joy: Sure.
Claire: But I think what you’re saying is basically like –
Joy: Here’s what I mean by healthy. Let me define healthy for me. Healthy for me is where I know I just sit. Does that make sense? Healthy for me is, I know that my body is, for most of my life, and again that’s just me. I have sat at this place where I pretty much know that this is where my body wants to be. I guess, yeah, I see what you’re saying. We could go into so many weeds with that conversation about –
Claire: Totally. Where does your body want to be and what does that mean. I think for you to have that identified, and this is something that is a benchmark for you that you feel like is useful and is something that you want to go back to.
Joy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, right now, my body is not healthy because of this shit that’s going on with me. So I want to go back to be like, I could do a CrossFit workout. In my own world, in my experience, that’s what that definition means to me, just to make sure people aren’t taking it to be like, “You mean to be healthy.”
Claire: Right, “Go lose weight.”
Joy: No, no, no, no.
Claire: Gaining weight, losing weight. Your weight is your health. I think a lot of the things that you’ve been talking about, and a lot of the things that you’ve been saying about how it feels good to go back in the gym I think are very analogous to the way that it feels to go back to the gym postpartum or after a significant injury or surgery where you really feel like you don’t have a great baseline for expectations on your body. And that is really a jarring experience, and it takes a long time to gain that confidence back and self confidence in thinking, “My body will do what I ask it to do.” It’s so easy to take that for granted, and then when you lose it, you’re like, oh my gosh, it never occurred to me that one day my body wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. I think that for somebody like you who’s been very physically active and physically identified as being an active person –
Joy: Sure, like I’ve always identified as being like, I’m really strong, and I’m, you know, super identified.
Claire: Yeah. And to lose that, it’s like you really have to think to learn again how to value your body in a way that’s not outcome based. You hear that all the time. Like, “Oh I finally learned to love my body for what it could do.” But what if your body also doesn’t do what you wanted it to do?
Joy: Right. It’s hard not to compare what I used to do. It’s so hard not to compare to that.
Claire: Right, and so it’s like, that’s the narrative. You’re not supposed to love your body only because of how it looks. You’re supposed to love it for what it could do. What if it stops doing what you want it to do? So now what are you left with? Just loving your body for the sake that of the fact that it – we talked about this, what was the line where it’s like, I love my body just because it holds my organs in place most of the time.
Joy: Most of the time it holds my organs into place.
Claire: Thank you, body. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for holding my organs into place most of the time. That to me should be the bare minimum of things that we – you know, there are people out there whose organs are out of place, and that’s fine too. We have these imperfect meat bags that we are forced to walk around with. And for some reason we think our bodies and our identity are intrinsically connected, and they just aren’t. And it takes going through stuff like this to realize, you know, that stuff is so fleeting. And the less you can manage to have your identity be tied to what your body looks like or what your body can do, either of those things, just your body period. No matter what the metric is. I think that it’s something that none of us are ever going to get away from in the US, living here and sort of western society. But it is interesting when you have this experiences that sort of make you realize, oh wow, I didn’t realize how much I was relying on my ability to lift weights or X, Y, Z.
Joy: Yeah. And I feel like this whole year has been a flip upside down. I wasn’t even going into the gym. I guess I wrongfully assumed that I could just go back in and be like I could get some strength back pretty quick. That’s just how I’ve always been. It’s a process. I’ll keep sharing. I hope you guys find this helpful if you’re going through something similar or even just going through a setback like this and struggling with going back to something that you used to love and trying to get back into it and it feels like it’s brand new. It feels like you’re starting all over again. And that’s fine. Someone in the comments in our Instagram once said, “Oh, I’m so excited. You get to start all over and have PR’s again.” And that’s a great way to look at it because I’ve done the same stuff for so long with CrossFit, and I kind of hit a point where I didn’t get that much stronger unless I started really training hard core. That’s such a good way to look at it. Even this weekend I went into the gym, and I felt this – you know that moment where you start to get into the groove with something. You’re like, oh, this is how this feels. Or I’m confident even just picking up a barbell and cleaning it. I remember how a clean feels. I felt this motivation come back of, oh, this is what it’s supposed to feel like. Not that I was throwing tons of weight, but just that feeling of, this is what I know how to do. That felt really good. Thank you guys for just sharing your own experiences because I know I said that before. I can’t thank you enough for just sharing and being open to sharing what you’re going through because it really helps, and I hope that even just sharing the stuff that I’m going through helps someone out there. Because even if it helps one person, it sucks, and I don’t want anyone to feel alone. As always, that’s kind of the goal of our podcast. I’ll keep sharing, and I just appreciate you guys very much.
Claire: So other things going on in the world. Let’s see. We’ve already talked about the vaccine. We’ve talked about your thyroid.
Joy: I have some pop culture stuff that I’m very excited about. If anyone has HBO Max, they have this new show called Stylish with Jenna Lyons. Scott and I binged it in a weekend. It is so good. If you don’t know who Jenna Lyons is, where have you been? She was the head of J.Crew. She worked at J.Crew for like 30 years, but then she became the head designer at J.Crew. I think she did that job for six or seven years and then she left. But she like dressed America. That was kind of her label was she was the woman who dressed America. She has this show. It’s a really cool mix because it’s like reality show, competition show, and then it’s also beautiful things, beautiful architecture. Because she’s starting a new business and she wants to do more interior design, which she’s amazing at. So they kind of show some of her designs, she does all these different jobs, and then she hires a team for each job. So over the time, you kind of get to see these new people that she hires. It’s such a good show. She’s such an interesting human. Watching her, I’m just like, oh my gosh, she is someone I would definitely want to go to lunch with. So if you are into cool things, watch Jenna Lyons’ Stylish on HBO Max. That’s something I really was excited to share with you guys this week. Anything else pop culture?
Claire: Trash Truck came out with a Christmas episode.
Joy: Yes!
Claire: It’s actually so cute. If you have kids who are probably six and under or maybe seven or eight or under, they probably would love Trash Truck. It’s about this little boy who’s friends with a trash truck and a bear and a raccoon and this friendly rat lady, and they just go on adventures. And they just came out with a Christmas episode, and it was lovely, and I would recommend it. That’s my pop culture.
Joy: Oh, that’s so cute, that’s so cute. And Taylor Swift came out with her second album this year.
Claire: Oh my gosh.
Joy: What was the tweet that you posted that was like, “Have you accepted the lord and savior…”?
Claire: Yeah, “Have you accepted our lord and savior Taylor Swift into your heart?” My favorite, too, right now is, “Can’t believe we’ve gotten more Taylor Swift studio albums than government stimulus checks in 2020.”
[laughing]
Joy: It’s so true. It’s so true. That’s good pop culture. I love her new album by the way. It’s so beautiful, it’s so beautiful. Those two albums saved us this year, at least for me. It was great. Okay, the question from last week was a resolution – would you say resolution and habit both?
Claire: What resolution have you made in the past that actually turned into a habit that stuck?
Joy: Yes, thank you.
Claire: And I’ve always just been curious about this. So one thing that I thought of was several, several, several years ago, like in 2012 or 2013 I made a resolution that I was going to try and Zone diet. And I completely stuck to it.
Joy: [laughing] The Zone diet.
Claire: Do you remember that?
Joy: Yes.
Claire: But I loved it. At the time, it was exactly what I needed. It was perfect. I’m sort of a chronic under-eater, and it was exactly what I needed. And just for some reason, I’ve tried doing so many, like macros, since then and nothing ever clicked as much as the Zone diet did in January 2013.
Joy: It’s so funny,
Claire: And I’ve tried the Zone diet again, and it never clicked the same way. I don’t know what it was, but it’s just going to live in the past as this moment in time where the Zone diet really clicked for my life.
Joy: Okay, that was when Jennifer Aniston made it all popular I think. Like, she was on the Zone diet –
Claire: No, it’s because that’s what we learned in our L1 is to do the Zone diet.
Joy: Okay, hold on, hold on. I’m going back to like 1997 because the Zone diet was created forever ago, and I remember the… it was like, “Jennifer Aniston on Friends is doing Zone diet.” So it became super popular, Barry Sears, whatever. And I remember buying the book. This is how entrenched in diet culture I was. I bought the book. I didn’t have any money, I don’t know how I bought this book when I was in college. Took it home and did nothing with it. That’s my whole, like, [sigh] this is too much work. [laughing]
Claire: That’s your experience. I listened to it on audio book when I was driving. That’s my example for a time when for some reason everything came together and I just go so into the Zone diet.
Joy: Public service announcement to our listeners, please don’t do it.
Claire: I mean, I don’t know. I had a great experience with it.
Joy: I’m just saying, don’t get entrenched into diets. Okay, this one is from Emily. Emily says, “Hello Joy and Claire, another fun and thought-provoking question. I had to do some digging for this one. Attached is my voice memo. This is from Emily.”
Emily [recorded]: Hello Joy and Claire, this is Emily from Fort Collins again. And I was really trying to think of a resolution or goal that I made that stuck. So I guess two of these was I actually in my notes app every year I write down all of my New Year’s intentions. And I have a little check mark next to them if I completed them or not. So I started this in 2017, so I was able to go back. And that’s something I’ve carried over that’s actually been super fun that I love. But one of those that I saw in 2017 was I wrote and checked off if I can do a task in two minutes or less, I do it in that moment. So that one came about because of dishes in the sink. I would always pile up dishes in the sink and hand wash dishes and they just stack up over time, and then I’d always be stressed out in the morning and put it off. And so whenever I would do them, I’m like, this takes me, well sometimes, this takes me two minutes. So that kind of came about is, if I see my dishes in the sink, I’ll ask myself, if I can do this in two minutes or less I’ll do this now. And then same thing with laundry. If I can do this two minutes or less, I’ll do it now. So even like, I’ll fold like half my laundry and then go back to it the next day. So I just found myself that, I adopted that habit, so I’ll ask myself that all the time. If I put something on my to-do list, does it really need to be on my to-do list for the day, or can I just do it now. That’s something that I didn’t even realize I adopted from 2017, so I’m so glad you asked this question and I’m looking forward to hearing everyone else’s.
Joy: That’s a good one.
Claire: That’s really cute. I like that a lot. And actually, that reminded me. I don’t think it was a resolution, but it was a specific, okay, we’re going to start doing this now. A couple years, ago, we were like, okay, for whatever amount of time we are going to clean the kitchen every day before we go to bed. And now it’s just a habit. We never, ever, ever go to bed with a dirty kitchen. And if you out there are listening and you want a way to make your life smoother, clean your kitchen every night. Because waking up to a clean kitchen –
Joy: Is the best.
Claire: – is the best. I don’t care if it’s going to take you 30 minutes. That 30 minutes at night is going to save you from having to forget about your dishes again the next morning. You just start with a clean slate.
Joy: You totally do, yeah. It’s like staying ahead of the game.
Claire: And there’s something so cathartic about starting the dish washer and then going to bed.
Joy: Yeah, like the hum of the dishwasher. It’s so great. I agree. Okay, this one is from Kelly.
Kelly [recording]: Hey, this is Kelly from Knoxville, and my New Year’s resolution win was three years ago I wanted to be someone who flossed. I feel like people who floss have their life together, so I decided to floss every single day for a year. And not only did it stick and I still floss every single day, I have a favorite type of floss and I haven’t had a cavity since. So I don’t know if my life is together, but I am somebody who flosses. Have a good day.
Claire: Oh my gosh, I love that. Okay, this is not the official question for next week, but I would love for people to send us an email or DM and tell us, what is that thing that you are convince people who have their life together do “X.”
Joy: Oh, people who have their life together, oh my God.
Claire: Finish this sentence based on your personal beliefs: People who have their life together always do “X.” I think that I think people who have their life together always have regular hair and nail appointments.
Joy: The second you said that, I immediately thought of Emily from Cupcakes and Cashmere because I’m like her life is so perfect.
Claire: People who have their lives together have pasta night and pizza night and sausage night and –
Joy: I know her life is not perfect. Every time I see her Instagram, it’s one of those things where I’m like, my life is in shambles.
Claire: I mean, it’s perfect on Instagram.
Joy: It really is. Okay, this is from Jenny. She said, “Ladies, love this prompt. Hope a minute and 41 isn’t too long. Love the pods. Love hearing the listener memos, definitely makes this feel like a community. Thanks for letting me share mine with you.”
Jenny [recording]: Hi Joy and Claire, this is Jenny in Richmond, Virginia. Something I picked up a few years ago that’s been really transformative was budgeting. It wasn’t something I picked upon a whim. I picked it out of a complete necessity to get on top of my financial situation. I was 40 with no retirement savings and a lot of student loan debt that I just couldn’t seem to make any headway on. So I just started Dave Ramsey’s book and methods, and the Budget Mom’s methods and began really working at being an effective budgeter for the first time in my entire life at age 40. And it has been transformative. I was able to pay off my $28,000 in student loan debt in nine months, which is huge. I’ve been able to have a savings account that has actual savings in it. I’ve been able to cash flow all of our Christmas spending since that time for the last few years, all our vacations, pay off our car, and finally get to that retirement saving and planning that is so important that I was putting off. And it feels amazing. Budgeting has become a way of life. And to have a handle on my money is something that was not in my family tree or my family legacy, and it feels really good to be on top of that. Anyway, thanks for letting me share. You guys take care and have a great holiday.
Joy: Oh, I want her to like, how did you do it? Everyone’s going to be like, how did you do it?
Claire: Oh my gosh, we need a budget so bad.
Joy: Jenny.
Claire: Okay, she said Dave Ramsey, Budget Mom. Got it.
Joy: That’s amazing.
Claire: I feel like a budget is the number one thing that people know that they need but don’t know where to start. But that’s empowering to hear that she didn’t make it happen until 40 and still was able to get her crap together.
Joy: You know who’s good at a budget?
Claire: Scott Parish?
Joy: Yes.
Claire: I had a feeling.
Joy: Can I tell you, the man, he’s good at spreadsheets and he made a spreadsheet for Christmas gifts every year, and he logs them all of what he buys for each person.
Claire: Wow. I need a Scott Parrish in my life. Can Scott Parrish just become like, I feel like he needs to start a personal services brand.
Joy: He does, he really does, and he doesn’t even know it. He has no idea how good he is at it. Scott Parrish needs his own advice podcast.
Claire: Seriously. We need to have him on. I mean, we do and we don’t.
Joy: We do and we don’t, yeah. That’s so funny, oh my gosh, yeah. Okay, this is from Riley. It says, “Hi Joy and Claire, I’ve really been enjoying these voice memos. Long time listener, first time caller. What I didn’t get to say in the short memo is that Joy you also influenced my education path. I now am getting my master’s in psychology, and I believe listening to you put your therapy hat on for so many years really got me.” That’s so cool! Okay, this is from Riley.
Riley [recording]: Hey Joy and Claire, this is Riley. I just want to tell you about the new year’s resolution that stuck for me. I want to preface that it’s a little bit diet cultury, but it does end well. So about nine years ago, I was 15 and my mom had just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and I found the Whole30 through PaleoOMG. I love following Julie still, she’s awesome, and it’s eventually how I found you guys. And I’ve been listening to you guys ever since. But it really kickstarted this learning curve for me and my family about how what you eat impacts the body and eventually went to nutritional therapy school, and then I found out I had an eating disorder. I finally realized that after, anyways. So you guys have just been really, really influential and so helpful in getting a good relationship with food again for me. And I can’t tell you how good it feels to have that healthy relationship and how much you guys have helped. I love just everything you guys do. I have enjoyed listening to you over the past several years. You guys are great.
Joy: Thank you so much.
Claire: That always makes me feel like, “You mean I’m really nominated?” That was cute. I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face. I have had a good experience with things like Whole30 and macros, from an educational standpoint, and I think that those tools can be amazing tools for things like realizing, wow, the food that I eat has a huge impact on how I feel. I think that’s the lightbulb moment for a lot of people, and that’s why I’m actually grateful that Whole30 has become so mainstream is because it gives people this moment to be like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that I don’t have to have headaches every day and all of these things are so impacted by your food. For me, if I wake up in the morning and the first thing I eat is a pancake, like a really high, really carby – what’s that word?
Joy: Starchy?
Claire: When it has a lot of sugars in it. You know how you’re supposed to eat fat things with carb things. What’s that called? It was a buzz word in the diet culture not too long ago. You guys are all screaming at us right now.
Joy: I don’t want to know.
Claire: Glycemic index.
Joy: Oh geez.
Claire: I know, it was right there. So if I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is I only eat something with a super high glycemic index, I will have a migraine that day.
Joy: Oh, yeah.
Claire: And if I wake up and have pancakes and that’s all I eat and I don’t also have bacon or something else with it, I will have a migraine that day. That doesn’t mean that I never eat pancakes or that pancakes are a “bad” food. But it means that this food causes me to have a migraine. And it’s really liberating to know that “X” equals “Y” and I have control over that.
Joy: Yeah. And I will say, the thing that I will always be grateful for the Whole30 – I’m not saying go on a diet you guys – but I am grateful that I learned so much that I had just bought thinking there was no sugar in it had sugar in it. I was really grateful for that. Objectively speaking, it doesn’t make me feel good to have a crap ton of sugar in my diet. That is just objective, right? Not labeling for you. I feel like we always have to have disclaimers when we talk about diet stuff. But you guys know us hopefully. That we want everybody to just feel confident and do what makes you happy. The second you go on some diet and you start feeling restrictive and miserable, run, run, run away. Okay, let’s do two more. This is from EJ. I love EJ. It says, “Hi Joy and Claire.” We met EJ at the games. “Here is my voice memo response to the question you asked in Episode 52. Can’t wait to hear the new episode. I’ve been loving listening to the podcast on my drives home from work. Cheers.”
EJ [recording]: Hi Joy and Claire, it’s EJ calling from Houston. The most surprising thing about habits is that I have any at all because I am absolutely terrible at maintaining new routines. But the one that I have actually started and kept is that I stretch when I brush my teeth. I love it so much because it is a great way to get in some quality stretches after a tough day at work or a big workout. And it gives you a way to know that you’ve brushed your teeth for long enough. Anyway, can’t wait for this new episode so I can hear all of the awesome habits that I will think about doing and never start.
[laughing]
Claire: Oh, that’s amazing. Great, stretch while you brush your teeth. I love it.
Joy: I just love the visual. I love the visual EJ of just being like, “I’m going to do my stretches.”
Claire: But I can just see them brushing their teeth with their foot up on the counter, reaching over their head, a little Jane Fonda action.
Joy: That’s so good. Oh, I love that one. I’m excited to listen to all the habits that I’m never going to do.
Claire: That I’m never going to pick up. Absolute best.
Joy: Okay, last one. This is from Lindsey.
Lindsey [recording]: Hey Joy and Claire, this is Lindsey. Love you two so much. So the habit that I started when I was 22 was running. I had a friend who wanted to train for a half marathon. And at the time I thought she was nuts, but I thought, hey why not. And seriously the only thing I did was the elliptical for 30 minutes at a time. We started training together, and I remember the first time I ran two miles in a row and I was so floored. I thought it was so awesome. And our schedules never kind of worked out, so she ended up not continuing to train for it. She didn’t do it, but I did. Took me like 2.5 hours. It was raining. It was gross. At the end, I told my boyfriend, I said, ‘I’m never doing that again. Never let me do that again.” But then the next year I signed up for it again, and I really liked running because it gave me a schedule. It gave me something to work towards. And since then, I’ve completed one marathon. My boyfriend, now husband, has done one marathon, and it led us to CrossFit, just working out and exercising, and that led me to you two. So that is my habit that I still do today. Love you, bye.
Joy: Love you, too. That’s so cute where she’s like, “and then running led to CrossFit and then led me to you guys.”
Claire: Oh my goodness.
Joy: Yay running, leading you to CrossFit, leading you to us. I kind of like stories hearing about how people found us, so great. Well that’s all the voicemails. What’s our question for next week?
Claire: So next week when you year this, it will be Christmas Eve.
Joy: Oh my gosh.
Claire: So for those of you who celebrate Christmas Eve, I would love to hear – and it doesn’t have to be Christmas if you don’t celebrate Christmas. If you celebrate another, if you celebrate Equinox or Yule or Hanukah or Kwanza. Whatever you celebrate, I would love to hear, what is a tradition for the winter solstice holiday time period that means a lot to you that you think is fun and/or I would love to hear a tradition that you aspire to because I feel like a lot of people out there listening probably are aspirational traditioners. And I would love to hear if you’re like, I have always wanted to go look at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve, I never have.
Joy: I’m going to say mine right now. I aspire to be the person that (a) does holiday cards with cute pictures on them. I get them every year from all my friends, and they’re so cute, but I never do them. But fun fact, when I was in my 20s and living single, I used to do a newsletter to my friends for the holidays.
Claire: Yes. I used to get a newsletter from some of my friends’ moms.
Joy: I used to do a newsletter, and I used to put pictures on them. So funny. Anyway, and I also aspire to be the person that has the family that does matching pajamas every day on Christmas.
Claire: Oh my gosh. I mean, they make dog pajamas too.
Joy: But I’m just saying, wake up and everybody gets the gift of the same pajamas. I think that’s a cute idea. I love seeing families have the big – [sigh]. I’d love to know if you’re that family.
Claire: Is that your tradition, that you love getting on your pajamas? There was a great awkward family photo fail where it was everyone sitting in front of the Christmas tree in their matching pajamas, and the dad was just naked and shirtless, and it was like, “Amazon didn’t bring dad his pajamas.” It’s like, oh no, oh no. So please tell us. It doesn’t’ have to be Christmas, but in the spirit of Christmas Eve, I’m just curious what are your traditions that you like or what are your traditions that you aspire to have.
Joy: I have two.
Claire: So you can send us a voice memo. Use the voice memo app on your phone. Hold it up to your face like you’re making a phone call. Send it to thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com or you can also just write us an email and just type out what you want us to say and we’ll just read it on the podcast. You can also go to our Instagram @joyandclaire_. Click the contact us button, and it will take you to the Google Voice voicemail box that you can leave a message. Try to keep it to around a minute to a minute and a half tops. That lets us play even more voice memos, and we love hearing from you. Thank you guys for playing along. This has become one of my favorite things.
Joy: I know, I love it, I really do. Keep them coming. And if you’re hesitant, just send it. Don’t even think about it.
Claire: Just send it, right. Alright guys, well we will talk to you next week.
Joy: Love you guys.
Joy and Claire: Bye.
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