Underwear search, Victoria’s Secret days, emails from listeners, and a listener Q&A!
BMI AND COVID DATA ARTILE CHRISTY HARRISON
www.joyandclaire.com
email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com
instagram: joyandclaire_
This is Joy & Claire Episode 71: Change Your Underwear
Episode Date: April 22, 2021
Transcription Completed: May 1, 2021
Audio Length: 47:41 minutes
Joy: Hey guys. This is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire.
Joy: And this is Joy and Claire. How’re we doing? Let’s check in. Let’s check in. How are you? Are you eating well? Are you feeding yourself? Are you drinking enough water?
Claire: Are you getting outside?
Joy: Are you taking some deep breaths?
Claire: Are you sleeping? Are you moving your body? Are you wearing clean underwear?
Joy: Put in some dry shampoo.
Claire: Go put on some clean underwear. That is a self-care hack that we don’t see enough. Change your underwear. It makes you feel like you care about yourself.
Joy: I don’t know why my mind went here.
Claire: You were going to say, “Maybe just go commando,” weren’t you?
Joy: I was not. Though I do go commando when I wear leggings. Maybe you need to throw out and buy some new underwear.
Claire: Okay, so, on this topic. I’m so glad you brought this up.
Joy: Thank you.
Claire: I’ve been in the market for new underwear. If you guys remember back from Girls Gone WOD days, there was a brief moment where we had this subscription underwear box sponsor called –
Joy: Think.
Claire: No, Thinx –
Joy: After that.
Claire: The original name of Nix.
Joy: Yes, Nix.
Claire: And Nix now is like this huge brand. It is called MeUndies.
Joy: No?
Claire: Oh my gosh, this is going to drive me crazy because I am wearing them right now. If I can take them off, I’d be able to see them. Luv My Skivvies.
Joy: Yes! Luv My Skivvies.
Claire: Okay. And it was this super cute – they’re still around – super cute subscription underwear package. They to this day are my by far favorite underwear. I have tried so many other types of underwear, and this type of underwear is by far my favorite. It’s not high rise, but it’s also not a bikini rise. It’s a nice low mid-rise pair of underwear. It’s synthetic, which I know everyone’s like, “You’ve got to wear cotton underwear.” I don’t really find that to be true if I am otherwise a hygienic human and not prone to other health issues down there. I have a pretty big butt, and they have very good coverage. Panty lines, guys, I don’t care about that. 0% do I care whether or not people know if I’m wearing underwear. I posted about that recently on our Instagram stories, and someone was like – and I get this. But someone was like, “I see it as why would I wear a shirt with a wrinkle on the front? Why would I wear underwear that gives me VPL.” Because a shirt with a wrinkle on the front says my shirt was crumpled up on the floor. VPL says I’m wearing underwear.
Joy: Right, exactly.
Claire: Whatever, I’m also not going to judge you if you have a wrinkly shirt. Moral of the story, even though I love these underwear, they’re $15 per pair, which to me feels expensive. Again, they have a super long life. The ones that we got from the gal we worked with.
Joy: The Luv My Skivvies.
Claire: That had to have been five years ago, right?
Joy: Yeah, it was a long time ago. They still have their underwear, and they sent some socks one time that I always wear when I run.
Claire: Right. So anyway, the point of the story is, I’ve been trying to keep myself from buying more $15 per paid underwear. Even though I love it, and even though it lasts long, and even though I just need to just do it. So I bought some from Parade, and I hate them.
Joy: What is Parade?
Claire: You will know their ads when you see them. It’s like the hot new trendy underwear company.
Joy: Okay.
Claire: So I asked for a recommendation for underwear, and everyone was like, “You have to try Parade.” So I tried them, and I hated them.
Joy: Oh no.
Claire: I know. And they were not that expensive, like $7-10 a pair.
Joy: Sure.
Claire: But I was just really disappointed because I had high hopes.
Joy: I’m glad we’re talking about this because when we first started talking about underwear, I thought back to the days when I was always going to Victoria’s Secret for my underwear, and it was a really big deal. When I say back in the day, I probably haven’t shopped Victoria’s Secret, I don’t know… maybe early 30’s. I honestly can’t remember when the last time I went to Victoria’s Secret to buy underwear, sit there and pick out all the underwear.
Claire: And go through the bins.
Joy: Yes. And go through the bins and pick out the style. There was a time when I wore their bras. Man, I had some padding in those bras in my 20s.
Claire: Yes, oh my gosh.
Joy: I was obsessed with the padded bras.
Claire: Who wasn’t obsessed with the padded bras?
Joy: So much padding. And it’s like, the jig is up Joy. You just don’t have boobs.
Claire: I know. So much padding that you hardly even needed shoulder straps. They just stood up completely on their own.
Joy: Yeah. And then there was a time when, I don’t know, maybe I was feeling myself. It’s not a bad thing. I just went braless for a very good period of my 20’s.
Claire: That’s amazing.
Joy: Yeah. I specifically remember going on dates where I’m like, “I didn’t wear a bra.” Anyway. I’m glad we’re talking about this because it makes me reminisce for the days when I would really put effort into buying myself nice underwear. And really at the time, that to me was a splurge because I didn’t have a lot of money. Going there was an event. This is kind of silly, but thinking of Casper and rituals, of how that meant something to me, being able to go to Victoria’s Secret and buy myself some underwear. That was the thing you did. That’s the place you bought underwear. As you get older, and of course we got underwear through Luv My Skivvies, and I’ve probably tried some underwear here and there from Target. I think Champion had really awesome underwear that was super breathable for athletes. But I haven’t really found a brand that I’m super jazzed about. Because, again, it used to be Victoria’s Secret. That was it. That’s all we had.
Claire: It was like Victoria’s Secret or those four packs of Fruit of the Loom.
Joy: Seriously, no shame if that’s what you wear.
Claire: That’s not what I find comfortable.
Joy: Right, that’s not what I find comfortable. I’m just kind of thinking now, if someone has… maybe I just need to go back to Victoria’s Secret. I don’t know. The owner seems like a douche, but…
Claire: I used to really like Gap Body.
Joy: Oh yeah, Gap Body.
Claire: There’s something about going in through a Gap Body and rifling through those clear plastic bins. And when I can’t do that, I don’t know, I don’t enjoy shopping online at Gap Body. It’s not an experience I like.
Joy: Wait, you do or don’t like –
Claire: I don’t like going online.
Joy: But you do like going in the bins.
Claire: Which is weird because typically –
Joy: Yeah. You don’t like shopping. I know, I was like, you don’t like to do that. You don’t even like thrift stores.
Claire: I only like to do that when it comes to underwear for three for $12 underwear.
Joy: Right. So my latest purchase was probably a six-pack at Target for Fruit of the Loom or whatever the brands. I went online, and I read the reviews. I’m like, I just need something really fast to pick up, and it’s okay. I mean, it’s going to do the job. But I’m kind of like, maybe I just need to do some type of revamp. We should find a good brand.
Claire: Right, we just need to do like a blind fit test.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: I’m open to the fact that maybe if I had tried the high-rise Parachute that I would have like them. But I got the bikini cut or whatever. Maybe I’ve gotten used to a high rise without realizing it because I also still wear most of the underwear that I got when I was pregnant with Evie, so it’s a size larger. So maybe I’m just used… I don’t know.
Joy: It’s very particular, and everyone’s going to write in with 20 different answers.
Claire: That’s the other thing. I found this out when I was asking for recommendations for a mattress back in November is that when it comes to things like this that are very subjective, certain people love something about one brand that is the exact thing that somebody else hates about that brand. Some people will be like, “I love that this brand is all cotton,” and someone else will be like, “I don’t like cotton underwear” or whatever the case may be. “I love that this brand is so high rise,” and the next person will be like, “I hate high rise underwear.” There’s this one brand called Noma or Numa or Nurma… Soma?
Joy: Soma. S-O-M-A, yeah.
Claire: And it has this non-slip, they have a style that has this non-slip seem on the top that has that kind of gummy… you know? So many people were like, “You have to try this. It’s amazing. It’s no VPL.” Which VPL stands for visible panty line, in case you guys are like, “Claire, what does that mean? Stop saying it.” It’s like no VPL because it’s completely flat, no seems. And the way they get away with that is because they have this little gummy thing on the bottom, so it doesn’t curl. Are you following?
Joy: I’m following, I’m following, yeah.
Claire: I hate it. Those little gummy things, they’re horrible.
Joy: That sounds really uncomfortable.
Claire: So uncomfortable. Sticky, and your body has to not curve in exactly the spots that it’s not supposed to curve.
Joy: Exactly. And everybody is so different. When you find one that you kind of like – and actually I did. I found the ones at Target. I’ll have to look and see what brand it is. Those actually were okay. But I did buy a pack six months ago or whatever. Just where the little seam is digs into my hips and it’s so uncomfortable by the end of the day. I’m just like fudging with my underwear, trying to get it to where it doesn’t cut into my hip. It’s so annoying. So you just never know. It probably would fit beautifully on someone else.
Claire: Well, in case you’re still with us after ten minutes of talking about underwear –
Joy: Underwear makers have a tough job.
Claire: They do.
Joy: They have a tough job.
Claire: I don’t even remember how we started talking about this. Something about…
Joy: I don’t remember what we were talking about. Changing your underwear, yeah.
Claire: Go change your underwear. Okay, so we have a little bit more catching up to do this week after having a couple guests and then last week having a lot of current events that we needed to process. Thank you guys so much for all of the thoughtful comments that you guys gave us around last week’s episode when it came to gun control, when it came to talking about vaccines. One thing that I did want to kind of clarify a little bit about the vaccine conversation is that I personally am still very pro-vaccine.
Joy: As am I. We’re both very pro-vaccine. I work at the vaccine clinics every single week. They’re great.
Claire: Totally. You reposted on our Instagram stories this Adam Grant tweet that I think really sums it up that’s like, shaming people for having questions is not the answer. The answer – what did he say? I want to quote it correctly because he said it so well.
Joy: Yeah, go ahead and quote it. And it was really nice because he actually went back and edited it because he’s like, I realized that I stated it in a way that didn’t make a lot of sense. So he went back and edited.
Claire: So it says, “When people are afraid of vaccines, shaming backfires. A more effective option: ‘I understand your fear. My read of the data is that the risks of COVID, both in frequency and severity, far outweigh the vaccine risks. This is our best shot at protecting you and ending the pandemic.’” Yeah, that says it so beautifully.
Joy: So beautifully.
C; And I think that that sums it up. But I think in summary from last week’s episode, the shaming backfires was sort of my, not lightbulb moment because I feel like I understand that shaming backfires. But more so my lightbulb moment was like, there are people out there with legitimate questions that are not just based on misinformation and QAnon.
Joy: Right. Just true fears.
Claire: True fears that are legit and are worth being explored and worth being asked, and I needed to challenge my own assumptions and my own bias around my knee-jerk reaction to people not wanting to get vaccinated. And then we got some really interesting voice memos about people’s different experiences with COVID around the world. We’re going to compile all of those. Again, if you want to let us know what it was like if you’re from –
Joy: We got one from Belgium, we got one from California, we got one from Canada. So keep them coming, keep them coming.
Claire: So especially if you’re someone from outside of the US or if you’re from a part of the US that you feel like handled it in an exceptional way or you are a part of a population –
Joy: Or even just a small town or a big down. Whatever kind of community you’re in, what has it been like for you. We’d love to hear. So you can record a voice memo and then just email it right to us. Make sure that you’re recording in a small, quiet space if you can. Sitting in your car when you’re not driving.
Claire: In your car that’s not on. It’s hard if your car is on. We can hear the background noise of you driving.
Joy: Audio 101, okay. Send it to us. I want to read some emails that are very long overdue. But again, we read every single email. And thank you for just taking the time out of your lives to share with us because it means a lot. One of the first emails that I want to read was sent to us early in March, and it’s from one of our favorite listeners Mira. And she just wanted to let us know that she got a teaching job in Austria a couple of weeks ago. So at the end of February she got this new job. And she said, “I’ll be back in the mountains again and closer to home. Attached is the little celebration that I had after I accepted the offer. Thanks for your love and support. I can’t wait to listen to you guys from my new country.” So she sent a cute little video of her popping a bottle of Champagne and it’s adorable. So I just wanted to say –
Claire: Yay Mira!
Joy: Congratulations Mira! And we’d love to hear how it’s going because I’m sure you’ve started it by now.
Claire: And I know that there are a lot of listeners out there who are job hunting right now in general. I feel like we’re just sending you guys a lot of support and a lot of stress-relief, as much as you can accept throughout that process. I know how hard it is to find a new job, and I can’t imagine how crazy it would have been to look for a new job in a different country.
Joy: Yeah, for sure. Alright. And the next email is from Hannah. This is an email about commenting on bodies. So we’re going to be all over the place with these emails, but I just really wanted to get to them. “Hi Joy and Claire. I’ve been listening since the GGW days. Thanks for always keeping it real. We’ve all been through it in the past year, but I’ve been thinking about Joy’s recent diagnosis of Graves’ Disease, especially the comments she’s received regarding her body, health, and medical decisions. You see, I am the sole mother figure of a child with cystic fibrosis. He’s all boy all the time, so we don’t have to listen to many of the comments about weight or body issues. However, after listening to other women, females in the CrossFit community, many people feel the need to comment on their weight or changes in their physical appearance. While gaining weight for people with chronic illnesses such as cystic fibrosis is a good thing, a lot of people suffer from body dysmorphia from the constant weight gains and losses. I cannot speak for them, but from what I understand it makes them feel like shit to have their body constantly commented on when they do not feel like themselves. I guess my thought is, can we please stop commenting on people’s physical appearances? Every person is so much more than that. Let’s celebrate everything that makes people people. It’s great news that there’s so much more of us than just appearance, so let’s just eat the damn bread. Love you all. Thanks for all you do, Hannah.” Always just a good reminder to not comment on people’s bodies. Say that you’re going great. You’re just doing great. I’m happy you’re doing great.
Claire: I love your shoes. If you have to find something to comment on, comment on their necklace. I really love that necklace. It’s so you. I just think there’s so many more things – and even if it’s just a quick interaction. That’s what I hear a lot. Well if I just see someone for a second, what else am I supposed to talk about? I don’t know. Get creative. You really can’t think of anything else to talk about? But if you want to comment on their appearance, pick something other than their weight. I love that lipstick color on you. Those earrings are so your personality.
Joy: We have a lot of unlearning to do around that. The thing that I want to challenge us all – I’m saying this to myself – is when we have the instant reaction to comment on someone’s body, it’s really more about us and our insecurities than it is about giving someone a compliment. I think there’s a little bit rooted in that is when you’re thinking immediately about someone’s body, I think it’s because we’re always thinking about our own bodies. So then we also need to stop thinking about our bodies all the time. Let’s just stop thinking about bodies. Walk outside, get some fresh air, and go back in and reset.
Claire: Change your underwear again.
Joy: Change your underwear one more time. That is really just the episode. The solution to anything in life is to change your underwear. Okay, this is from our awesome Tai, which I always want to think of Clueless, who sent the amazing Christmas song. It was back around Christmas time I played that song. And she said, “I know I’d mentioned it that one of my goals is to upload my music to a streaming site.” So she finally did it, and I’m going to post it in the show notes. And the show notes – we got a question of where you find the show notes. It’s just if you look at the episode and you expand the episode details wherever you’re listening, it will be there along with the transcript. So she said, “Thanks for listening to my crazy Christmas song and being supportive as heck and being podcast friends. I’m donating all of my music proceeds this year to a local Pittsburg NPO that offers safe housing for trans community. I wanted to share music, and thank you for your awesome podcast. It always brings me joy and makes me laugh. Tai.” So I’m going to post her music and then we’ll also share this link in our stories this week when we release the episode. So than you Tai, and congratulations. She’s one heck of a musician.
Claire: And show notes is pretty much the lingo that means episode description.
Joy: Episode description. This is from Lisa. “Hi Joy and Claire, greetings from Melbourne, Australia.” I want to say [accent] Melbourne, Australia. Did I say it right?
Claire: [laughing]
Joy: Is my accent good? “I’m a longtime listener and so many times about so many different issues have wanted to email, but then life happens and the email never eventuates. I feel like the recent shooting in Boulder has been the catalyst to finally reach out. I’m born and bred Australian, but I lived, worked, and studied abroad for many years of my adult life. I’m a massive fan of the USA and spent a college abroad semester in Buffalo, New York and also traveled across the country. The one thing I can never get my head around is gun ownership in America. The first time I saw guns for sale in the store, I was shocked and horrified. I was 19 years old and couldn’t grasp the idea of walking into a regular store and buying a gun. The Columbine shooting happened when I was studying in Buffalo. I have vivid memories of being glued to the TV in my dorm room watching it all play out live on CNN. I struggle to piece together the incredible people that I had met and advancements I had seen in the US with the gun culture and inability to recognize that gun control is a good thing. I’m thinking of you both during this difficult time and just want to say thank you for helping me through the past 12 months. Your voices of reason, normalizing therapy ,and constant 90’s references keep me going. Sending hugs, Lisa.” Thank you, Lisa. Okay. Two more. I want to follow up on an episode that we mentioned BMI and COVID. I will also post this resource because I think it’s a really good article. Alisha said, “Thank you so much for speaking intelligently about COVID and BMI. The media just keeps hammering that obesity is a huge risk factor when that’s just not true. You referenced that data for H1N1. I think you said you didn’t have the exact data on COVID and BMI.” So I’m going to post it. It’s from Christy Harrington, who’s an amazing resource. If you don’t know her podcast, please listen to it. And she’s also the author of Anti Diet. So I’m going to post that. Okay, last one is from Deborah. “Hello Joy and Claire. I just finished listening to your latest episode and Joy’s brief review of that podcast episode interview with Fraser. I am in that obese category and to hear that comment saying that obese people are unhealthy, it sent me in that thought process of being labeled as fat and lazy, and that thought process of, “You’re fat because it’s your fault for not having enough willpower.” I’ve been in the obese category for most of my life, and I’m just over hearing this B.S. There’s so much more involved as to why someone could be overweight, such as hormones, food politics, genetics, mental health conditions, physical health conditions, socioeconomic status, etc. The list goes on. So to say that I’m fat because I have no willpower is B.S. Personally, I work full time, full-time college student, do the gym thing 5-6 days a week that has high-intensity workouts. I battle against my ADD when it comes to nutrition. That also comes with anxiety about am I eating too much? Why is this weight not falling off? What is it that I’m not doing enough of? I nourish myself to do strong man workouts, so I’m going to eat more than average person because of this. Last time I checked, food is pretty damn tasty. So to hear that being fat is my fault when I’m doing all I can to make myself healthier, however that looks, is utter B.S. Fitness does not equate to happiness. BMI doesn’t define health. It’s an indicator of body mass on an individual. It is not a social construct that belittles people over their size. Thanks for reading my impromptu Ted Talk. Thank you so much, Deborah.” Thank you, guys, for your emails. Reminder that you can always send us an email, thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Alright. Now we get to answer your questions.
Claire: Woohoo. So we just asked on Instagram for some questions from you guys, and as always you delivered. So we are going to dive right tin. I know you hate it when people say that. Kind of like how I hate it when people say that Christmas is right around the corner. But I’m doing it anyway.
Joy: It’s fine.
Claire: Okay. Do you have one you want to start with, or should we just go?
Joy: No, you can go ahead.
Claire: Oh, we’ve been getting a lot of questions about Cadet whenever you post the story about her. It was her first birthday this past weekend. Happy birthday – or not birthday, it was her anniversary.
Joy: Her anniversary.
Claire: That’s right, her birthday was a couple months ago. Her anniversary –
Joy: The day we picked her up.
Claire: First of all, I don’t know if I can’t believe it’s already been a year or that I can’t believe it’s only been a year.
Joy: I feel the same way. There’s days where I’m like, I have no concept of time. I can’t believe it’s been a year, but it kind of feels like it’s been a year. So we got Cadet a year ago yesterday. She is doing great. She’s an amazing dog. She goes to advance training, I’m guessing… we don’t have an exact date yet. CCI – that’s Canine Companions for Independence – they will give us the date when we’re turning her back in so that she can go to advance training. That will probably be August/September, maybe October, we’ll see. It’s going to be really hard. I will just reiterate. She’s not going to be our dog if she graduates. So I’m not training her to be another therapy service dog like JT. She will go off to be a service dog for someone in need or a facility dog, which would be what JT was. If she does not pass the advance training, then she is – the call is “released” to be a pet and then she would live with Scott and I as a pet for the remainder of her life. It’s very mixed feelings because to give her back is going to be very, very difficult. She’s such a part of our family. She has such a funny personality. JT’s the chillest, sweetest. He just kind of walks around. He’s a chill dog. She has such a funny personality that I can’t describe it unless you have a dog with a funny personality, that to have her absence is going to be really hard for us. It’s the mixed feelings of everyone I talk to who’s been puppy raising is you see the graduate and how it helps them and how we were on the receiving end of that as well. No matter how we slice it, it’s just going to be hard. We’re going to have a lot of emotions when we turn her in. Yeah, so she’ll be with us until August/September, possibly October.
Claire: And also for the record, because we get this question every once in a while if people are new, we don’t know what JT stands for.
Joy: No.
Claire: JT came with his name.
Joy: JT was named. Every litter in CCI, so they breed their dogs. All of their breeding is internal with CCI. They pick their breeder dogs, so Cadet could potentially become a breeder dog. She’s not yet spade. But even if she was a breeder dog, she would live in California. Any time a litter is born, the CCI people go by letters. So it’s the A litter, the B litter, the C litter. So it goes in order and it keeps recycling. So JT was in a J litter, so every dog’s name starts with a J. And we do not know what JT stands for. They call it the breeder caretaker. It’s the people who take care of the dogs when they’re having the babies. Gets to pick all the names. Sometimes donors will pay for naming a CCI dog, which Cadet is actually donor named. So her name is Cadet for a West Point gradates. Yeah, it’s a pretty cool thing that they do. So Cadet was from the C litter. All of her siblings start with the letter C.
Claire: That’s so cute.
Joy: We don’t know what JT stands for.
Claire: We should do that. How much does it cost to name the dog? We should do that.
Joy: I don’t know. I need to look and see how much, but that would be really cool.
Claire: We should name two. We should name them Joy and Claire.
Joy: Joy and Claire. We’ll have to wait for a J litter and a C litter.
Claire: Yeah, well. Okay. “How do we start wearing pants again?” This person wants to know.
Joy: Well I’ve been wearing pants since the beginning, so defer this to you.
Claire: I don’t know, guys. I really don’t know. I did have to wear pants a couple of weeks ago. I had to go to the office for a meeting, and I had to wear pants. I came home and I was like, “Get these off. Why am I wearing these?”
Joy: Yeah. Do you ever have a very full undressing, almost manic undressing when you get home?
Claire: Yes.
Joy: There’s times when I just, “Get this off me,” I just rip my clothes off really fast. Kind of like I need to be free.
Claire: Yes.
Joy: Almost like a baby. You know how Lorelei posts every day, undoes the swaddle, and he stretches out. That’s how it feels. You just get free from your clothes.
Claire: Yeah. It’s like – you don’t ski, but you’ve been skiing, right?
Joy: Oh yeah.
Claire: Right. Like taking off your ski boots at the end of the day. It’s the best.
Joy: Undoing the hook. That is the best feeling.
Claire: Or even if you’ve ever been on a super long hike and you take off your boots when you get back to the car, and it’s like –
Joy: Yeah, yeah.
Claire: The moral of the story is, I don’t know, buy some stretchier pants. I will also say, I recently – this isn’t somebody who listens to the podcast, but a person who I knew when I was younger was recently posting about some COVID weight gain and how it’s frustrating how her pants don’t fit anymore. We did an episode about this last year called “Shame Pants.” I would just encourage you guys to, if your pants that you used to wear before COVID don’t fit anymore, just go buy new pants.
Joy: Just go buy new pants.
Claire: Don’t hold onto your old pants because you might fit back into them one day. That’s what shame pants are. Just go buy new pants. Go to Poshmark. I don’t know if you guys ever use Poshmark. I’m obsessed with it. You can get a ton of really nice stuff for way less expensive than what you would buy it for at the store. So if you’re like, “I don’t want to just have to buy a bunch of new clothes, they’re so expensive,” go on Poshmark, find yourself a couple pairs of nice pants that are the next size up or two sizes up or whatever you need, and just let go of the shame. Let go. You are still a wonderful human. Buy pants that fit.
Joy: And you know what I think about too is how long I hold onto clothes sometimes. I’ll underestimate how long I’ve had something, and I’ll be like I’ve had this for ten years. I can let this go. Even though it may fit okay, if I don’t love it. It’s that Marie Kondo. Maybe we all need to do that again. Just get rid of all our stuff.
Claire: I recently found a tub of clothes. Or it was in the bottom of a tub that had some other stuff, and it was a couple pairs of these low-rise, probably now mid-rise – do you remember when those bright colored J.Crew skinny jeans were super in?
Joy: Oh Yeah.
Claire: I had these bright almost pink red ones, some green ones, a pair of robin’s egg blue. I was like, why do I… and they were like a size 2. I was like ,why do I own these? Did these ever fit me? Have I ever been a size 2? I don’t think so. But why do I still have them?
Joy: What’s the most interesting thing you’ve ever purchased clothing-wise or something that you remember purchasing? I used to buy the craziest stuff that I held onto even though it didn’t fit that well. I would always buy it because – like the J Lo denim jumpsuit. I mean, it wasn’t super comfortable. It was a little bit high in the crotch, so I always had a wedgie when I wore it.
Claire: One time – I don’t think I actually wore this anywhere, but there used to be – no, it’s still there. There’s this store on Pearl Street called The Ritz. It’s on East Pearl. It’s actually on Walnut. It’s a costume store, like you can rent these super elaborate costumes, but they also sell a lot of these crazy clothes. And when I was in college, you guys may or may not remember that I had fake boobs for like five years. So I had these fake boobs, and I went to The Ritz, and I bought this super elaborate beaded bra that had these dangly beads all over it. It was so cool. I literally don’t think I even wore it anywhere. I just needed to own it.
Joy: But you should have. Yeah. That sounds amazing.
Claire: That’s probably the craziest thing I’ve ever bought.
Joy: The J Lo denim jumpsuit. I mean, Scott Parrish has really made me appreciate fit, how important it is. I don’t care how good the price is. I don’t care how awesome the piece of clothing is. If it doesn’t fit you well, don’t buy it because you’re not going to wear it. And I used to do that all the time. I will say, my most proud purchase was when I was so dirt poor in grad school and we would always go to Boulder and go shopping at the Urban Outfitters. Because they didn’t have one down near us, we would always go to Urban Outfitters in Boulder and we’d walk around Boulder. This was like our thing to do. And I found the most amazing, awesome bomber with a fur hood for $5 on sale. I wore that thing to the ground. I probably just barely tossed it five years ago.
Claire: That’s amazing.
Joy: It’s so fun to find things like that. I’d love to see what people have found, like treasures that are super cheap. But the thing is, you have to wear it. You have to wear it.
Claire: Right.
Joy: Really remind people because we’re probably going to get questions why you took your boobs out.
Claire: Oh yeah. I know that a lot of people, especially lately it’s become more in the news, people having autoimmune reactions or unexplainable illnesses that they end up getting their implants taken out and those resolve. I didn’t have anything like that. I don’t know if I would have ever developed anything like that, but more than anything they were uncomfortable for me. They weren’t painful. I didn’t have any scar tissue or encapsulation or anything like that. I just didn’t like having big boobs as much as I thought I was going to. So that’s the end of that story.
Joy: Period, the end.
Claire: Period, the end.
Joy: I can give a quick health update. Okay, I’ll give a quick health update. So it’s been… let’s see, November is when I was diagnosed. I’ve been working with my naturopath for five months, almost six months now. My treatment plan is six months long. And I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m pretty sure when I get my blood work this week, because I’m going to get an update on my blood work, that it will be very close to normal. The reason I say that is I am feeling almost no symptoms of Graves’ Disease anymore. Truly, truly no symptoms. I’ve gained the weight back that I’ve lost. I’m feeling stronger. I’m able to do light workouts. I’m not doing anything crazy still, but I am feeling so good that all I’m doing right now with my naturopath is hydrotherapy. If you have a hydrotherapy practitioner in your area – I think she said there’s one in Boulder. She’s like, there’s really not many in Colorado, but there is one in Boulder. I don’t know the name, but if you are looking for a naturopath – it’s in Arvada, but even if you live in Denver. I don’t care where you live, I would drive miles to see her. It’s Clear Creek Natural Medicine in Arvada. It’s Dr. Cook and Dr. Lensegrav. They’re partners. They are both amazing, and I would highly recommend if you have any health struggles to just give them a call. They do a free discovery call, just to kind of find out if they can help you, and they’re not going to take you on as a patient if they can’t help you. It is out of pocket, really expensive. I spent most of my savings for this treatment. That was a personal decision that I was able to do because I had a lot of savings. I really was nervous about doing that at the beginning. Just money wise I was really nervous about spending that much money, thinking is this going to help. And just looking back months later, I can very confidently say that – I mean, I would pay more money. I would pay more money for how much she’s helped me, and I don’t regret one cent of that investment in my health. So if you’re kind of thinking about going that route for naturopathic medicine, I think cost is a thing we don’t talk about. I think it’s just really hard, especially in the US. This is not paid for by our insurance plans. Bottom line, feeling great. I’m excited to get my blood work so I can confirm what I’m feeling. But I also wanted to say, if you do find someone who can do hydrotherapy just for anything, it’s an amazing, amazing benefit to your health. Hydrotherapy is not a colonic. I know that’s what it sounds like. I even tried to Google it in the area for Denver just because I wanted to see how many practitioners were out there, and there’s just not many. So if you have one in your area, consider yourself lucky. It’s amazing. And then the last thing I wanted to say about that, just advice for people. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a nutritionist. All the disclaimers. But I just feel like having the lesson of not doing intense exercise for the last six months has been really eye-opening of how much better I feel. Really just reconsider if you’re beating yourself up every day in workouts or trying to kill yourself with the heart rate that you may want to step back and kind of reevaluate. because I just feel like that, especially women, it can really do us a lot of harm with all the stress we’re carrying on top of everything else. I have Dr. Cook, my naturopath, I’m going to ask her after all of my treatment plan is said and done, I’m going to ask her to be on the show because I really want her to have the expert voice and talk about what I went through specifically. I’m totally fine with her sharing everything that I have done with her. So look for that. But that’s how I’m doing. Almost better.
Claire: How did you find your naturopath in the first place?
Joy: I was lucky enough that I have a friend, I have a coworker who was seeing her. I had known about her for years because my coworker talked about her all the time. And so when I got diagnosed, I was freaking out and I said, “Hey, can you give me her name again? I know you’re seeing her.” “Oh yeah.” So I just called her. I scheduled, they called it a discovery call, which is basically an intro call. They don’t want to schedule an appointment with you if they can’t help your diagnosis. She’s like, ”Yep, I’ve helped plenty of women with this,” and so we went from there. It was just like, bam, bam, bam.
Claire: I know that for you this ended up being almost like a shockingly straight-forward process to work with her. It’s not like you had to shop around.
Joy: No, right.
Claire: But if someone is looking for a naturopathic practitioner in their area, do you have anything that you would recommend looking for or even just credentials?
Joy: I would say a doctor of naturopathic medicine. I would make sure that they have a doctorate in naturopathic medicine. There’s a lot of certificates and coaches and that type of credential that I think for my – maybe it’s helpful for some issues.
Claire: But if you’re dealing with a true diagnosis, go to an actual doctor.
Joy: Yeah, I just feel like a doctor of naturopathic medicine where they went to med school. They have all the years of education. It will say in their bio where they went to school, and you can even Google the school that they went to and make sure that it’s legit. So yeah. That’s a good question. Luckily, I didn’t have to do any research. I mean, I looked at her Google reviews online, which were all amazing. Not that I didn’t trust my coworker, but I was just at a place where I was like, do I really want to spend this much money. I freak out over spending a lot of money, and this was a lot of money. That was probably the hardest part for me. And Scott was like, “You do you, whatever you feel like you want to do.” When we had that discussion about the money piece. But anyway, feeling great. I truly feel like I’m almost back to normal, and that is something that I probably three months ago would have been like, “You’re crazy. This is not going to go away that fast.” Even when she told me that it was a six-month treatment plan, I was like, wow that doesn’t see like that long. Her confidence in the body healing itself is unbelievable. Every time I leave in tears thinking I was going to be doomed with this forever, she would always give me that confidence of, “The body is amazing, Joy. It’s amazing. It can heal so fast. Everything’s just so amazing.” Okay, I trust you. Yeah.
Claire: It will be great to have her on too because I know we’ve gotten a lot of questions from people who are like, I had Graves’ or I had Hashimoto’s or something. I did zap my thyroid. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but now what. Or even, I did know what I didn’t know and zapping my thyroid was still the best choice.
Joy: Exactly.
Claire: But still, now what.
Joy: And she is just a wealth of information.
Claire: Totally.
Joy: I’d be really happy to have her on, yeah.
Claire: Okay, “Is 44 too old to dye your hair purple or blue?” Absolutely not. In fact, I would say the older you get, the more appropriate it is.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: I feel like it’s a bell curve, like an inverse… what’s the opposite of a bell curve? Somebody who knows math is yelling.
Joy: Somebody who knows math, yell it. I wish we could hear.
Claire: I know. The amount of inappropriateness for dying your hair starting at age 13 is 0. And then it peaks, like peak inappropriate is maybe 30. And then it starts going back down the other direction. By the time you’re in your 60’s, it doesn’t matter. So at 44, you’re headed back down the other side of the inappropriate curve. It is becoming more appropriate every day.
Joy: I am all for it, as someone who had her hair pink just last year.
Claire: And to be clear, I also don’t think it’s inappropriate for 30-year-olds.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Okay. “How is Claire’s dog search going?” Guys, I’m going to leave you with a cliff hanger on this one. Watch our Instagram this weekend?
Joy: Yours, your personal one, or ours?
Claire: My dog search. Claire’s dog search.
Joy: No, no, no. On your personal account or the Joy and Claire?
Claire: Both, it will be on both. Don’t worry. If you guys don’t know what’s going on – I think I did this on my personal Instagram. Didn’t I?
Joy: You didn’t do it on ours.
Claire: Didn’t do it on Joy and Claire. On my personal Instagram, I’ve been asking people for any leads or recommendations. We finally decided that the time has come to get a dog. Miles and Evie just love all animals and love dogs so, so much. I’ll tell a little bit more of a story maybe next week about our previous dog and what happened. Keep an eye on our stories. It’s going to be exciting.
Joy: “What is the best sparkling water?”
Claire: It kind of depends. You guys know I’m in a huge Aura Bura phase right now.
Joy: Aura Bura is so good. Aura Bura.
Claire: It’s so good.
Joy: It’s so good.
Claire: And we’ve been getting a lot more distribution. Like you can get them at 7-Eleven in some places now.
Joy: Oh wow.
Claire: Yeah. The lavender one is my favorite. I also like the cactus rose one a lot. The watermelon peppermint and the basil whatever ones are not –
Joy: I mean, all those flavor combos are so amazing.
Claire: I don’t like the peppermint one.
Joy: You don’t like mint.
Claire: I don’t like mint-flavored things unless I’m brushing my teeth.
Joy: Right.
Claire: Okay. “Colorado real estate. Where are the affordable options? LOL.” LOL.
Joy: LOL. Have fun.
Claire: The eastern plains. It’s hard.
Joy: It is so hard.
Claire: Honestly, truly the most affordable area in the front range – we explained this before, but the front range is what we refer to as anything between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs, right along the I-25 corridor, which basically runs north to south right along the mountains. So it’s kind of the best of both worlds because it’s the very kind of metro part of the state where you can drive into the mountains but you aren’t living in the mountains where it’s isolated and cold. And then you’re not in the plains where it’s just windy and cows.
Joy: Windy and cows.
Claire: Windy and cows. The most affordable place to live in the front range right now is pretty much Longmont, which is where I live. But even still, you’re going to have a hard time finding a single-family home for under $400,000. The closer you get to Fort Collins, especially on the east side of I-25. Anything on the east side of I-25 is going to be a little bit less expensive. And then pretty much the further away you get from Denver, north and south of course, it gets cheaper. But then Colorado Springs gets expensive again. It’s tough. Living in Colorado is not cheap.
Joy: It’s so tough. It’s really not cheap. Scott and I were – you know, everyone always looks around on Zillow.
Claire: You guys are always looking around on Zillow.
Joy: Yeah, we’re always looking at houses. We’ve been looking for houses for like ten years. But the SNL skit is so funny.
Claire: With Dan Levy.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Dan Levy, did I get that right?
Joy: Dan Levy. I always get that wrong because there’s a Dan Levy comedian and there’s a Dan Levy who’s the Schitt’s Creek guy.
Claire: Dan Levy.
Joy: Yeah, so on Zillow, we’re always looking around.
Claire: The one that was like a phone sex commercial, but they’re actually on Zillow.
Joy: Yeah, exactly.
Claire: I do that all the time. And you guys at least are like, yeah, if we found the right spot we’d move. We’re not going anywhere, but I still look at Zillow all the time.
Joy: Yeah, we actually went to an open house last weekend for this awesome house in Golden. But the funny thing is, there’s so little houses on the market, the houses are gone within a day. It is insane.
Claire: Minutes. Minutes.
Joy: Minutes. And I saw a news report about houses in the United States. Most of the more expensive areas, the listing price – you know how you see a listing price, and you’re like, well actually, I could probably offer whatever below that. She’s like, now, listing prices are the starting point. So everyone’s overbidding. It is truly a seller’s market. It’s crazy. So we’re not going anywhere because there’s no houses for sale, but it’s just fun to kind of look around. But there’s so little on the market. Good luck because it’s expensive.
Claire: I know. But it’s doable.
Joy: It’s doable, but it’s just so hard right now because nothing’s for sale.
Claire: It is. It’s tough. And living in Colorado is not cheap. But we love it. We think it’s worth it. Obviously, because we live here.
Joy: Obviously.
Claire: Let’s do one more question, and then we’ll get to the rest of you guys’ questions on a later podcast. Thank you so much for sending in questions. We always love them and always read them and end up mostly getting to all of them eventually.
Joy: Eventually.
Claire: Okay. So I’m going to ask this one because it’s going to let us plug the new meals that we’ve been trying.
Joy: Yes.
Claire: So the question is, “Who does most of the cooking in both of your homes, and what are your go-to weekly meals?” At my house, Brandon and I split the cooking pretty much 50/50. I would say I do a little bit more meal planning than he does, but I think that’s more of because I have more experience with planning out recipes. But we both love cooking. Brandon really loves barbecuing. He loves smoking meats. I really love pretty much all kinds of cooking. We make the majority of our stuff from scratch, and we love it. I wouldn’t say that we’re unique, but I appreciate that that’s not everyone. A lot of people don’t truly find joy in cooking, and therefore they’re not like – like every night, every time I get to try a new recipe, I get really excited. If I’m going to make something brand new and I’m going to make something from scratch, that stuff really fires me up. And Joy is not that way.
Joy: Nope.
Claire: Quickly, what my favorite go-to meals are right now. We’ve been making unbelievable amounts of enchiladas. We’re in an amazing enchilada phase, and here is the secret. Goat cheese in the enchilada. Not on top, but inside. It gives this little creaminess to it. And enchiladas are the best leftovers. They’re so good. So we dice up some green pepper, some onions, do some spinach, mushrooms if you want, corn if you want, and some chicken. Put that in your little tortilla with some goat cheese. Build your enchiladas up. We use green has chili sauce, put some cheese on top. Bake that up until the sauce is bubbling. So good. That’s my biggest go-to right now.
Joy: Yay. And then, as far as the meals, do we want to pimp the meals that we’ve been –
Claire: Yeah. Why don’t you talk about what you eat more of because I feel like that’s going to segue a little bit better into –
Joy: Well honestly my diet has been so random because of my no dairy thing. So I’m just making the same things all over again because it’s just easy for me. So we still make, especially now because it’s been warmer, so we’ve been grilling burgers. I’ve been super obsessed, I don’t know why, with just buying a bag of potatoes and making potatoes in like 50 different ways.
Claire: Potatoes are one of the best foods.
Joy: They’re the best. Sexy Dietician has really good recipes that I follow, and I’m just like, “Oh, that’s a good idea” about seasoning. And also the Salt Gypsy, I always follow her tips as well. Hello to you both. But yeah, so we always make simple stuff. We don’t follow recipes. We throw protein, starch, vegetables. We just throw stuff together. But Scott’s been doing a lot of meal deliveries as well from a local place because he was having an issue with not eating breakfast or lunch. He’s kind of like you where he would just put his head down for the day and be like, “Oh, it’s afternoon and I haven’t eaten anything.” So he got a meal delivery from the local person that does meals, and he’s been doing really well with that. We recently were approached by a company. And I want to give full disclosure, we’re not being paid by them, but we are getting meals, and I want to share this with you guys. I do really like this meal delivery that we’ve been working with.
Claire: Yeah, so it’s called Eat to Evolve. Their meals are really good. The options are really interesting. I like that they have a lot of variety. But the thing I actually like the most about them is that you can get snacks.
Joy: Yes.
Claire: And I’ve never seen a meal delivery company that offers that before. You can get little banana – what are they called? Banana bread protein balls. You can get, I don’t know if they’re protein, but the little muffin balls. You can get just a bag of nuts.
Joy: Like the little bites, yeah.
Claire: You can get things that are more so packaged to be truly a snack. I love that because –
Joy: And breakfast options.
Claire: Breakfast options. And I love that because it totally fills in the gaps and you can then truly use it as more of a stand-in for grocery shopping, rather than doing a full food buy and then getting these meals delivered.
Joy: Right.
Claire: And also, the snack options are really good as kid’s meals. So we highly recommend them. Check them out. Eat to Evolve. If you guys want to try them, we have an affiliate link that we will share in our Instagram stories. We’ve been sharing it pretty regularly, and then our discount code is JOYCLAIRE15. As you guys know, we used to work with another meal delivery company that we talked about for years, and they unfortunately went out of business. So this is our go-to now. I’m really liking it.
Joy: Check it out. Alright. Send us your emails. thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. We want to hear underwear recommendations. We still want to hear what COVID has been like where you are living. What else? Questions, topics, what’s on your mind, how we can support you. If you’re looking for a job, maybe we can just help get the word out.
Claire: Seriously. We can turn the end of our podcast into a job board.
Joy: Oh, I have a job board. If you’re in Denver area, my naturopath is actually looking for someone who can do hydrotherapy. You don’t have to have any medical experience. You just have to be a good, reliable person. She can teach you how to do hydrotherapy. It’s a pretty simple thing.
Claire: And it doesn’t involve people’s colons.
Joy: No, it does not. You’re literally laying hot and cold towels every 10 minutes on the person and you let them relax. You’re not sitting with them. Anyways, she needs a hydrotherapy tech, someone to just do this for her, because her and her partner are so busy and she just wants someone else to be doing this so she can be focusing on other things. So she is actively looking, and you just contact Clear Creek Natural Medicine if you want to get a job doing hydrotherapy, which is a great treatment. It’s awesome.
Claire: And if you’re looking for a job in a specific area, a specific location, a specific field, let us know. Shoot us a note, and we can be like next week, “Hey, we have someone in Denver looking for a sales job in whatever.” You know, just let us know. You never know. It never hurts to put yourself out there, get some connections.
Joy: Oh man, connections are the best.
Claire: Connections are the only way you’re going to get a job.
Joy: And you know what, I found just getting the ball of energy moving, things start to happen. It’s crazy.
Claire: Totally.
Joy: So we will be that for you.
Claire: Yes. Well, thank you for joining us for another week and we will talk to you next time.
Joy: Bye guys.
Claire: Bye.