crossfit podcast

Joy: Welcome to the show, Sara Gross, the founder and CEO of Feisty Media. You are also an Iron Man champion, and you have a PhD in women’s history. So we have a lot to talk about because not only did you start this business, you have a lot of experience around women in sport and what is lacking for females in sport. But what first came to mind when we were looking at having you on the show, I heard your story about how you started Feisty Media – we’ll get to that in a second. But I was like, wow. A lot of the reason why you started Feisty Media is the reason why Claire and I started our original podcast, which is Girls Gone WOD. Now we just morphed into This is Joy and Claire. We saw a gap in what was out there. I think it’s not going to surprise anybody that there is a huge gap in a lot of resources or a lot of everything for women, especially in sports. I want to talk a little bit about what questions you were asking as someone who was an elite asking. What were you seeing that was lacking which then led you to Feisty Media?

Sara: Great question. First of all, I’m excited to be here. Thank you for having me. I’ve had fun already, and we’ve been here for four minutes.

Joy: We did have a lot of fun. We just need to start releasing our prerecording. That’s way more funny.

Sara: Now I forget your question. No, I didn’t forget your question.

Joy: It’s okay.

Sara: I listened to the episode with KaisaFit this morning on my commute and I thought the same thing you were just saying. I think there is a ton of synergy here with what you all were talking about and the things that we do at Feisty. So for me, really, the media part and why I launched the company, to answer your question, has to do with when we first noticed that at the Iron Man World Championships there were 35 slots for the pro women and 50 slots for the pro men. We have equal prize money in triathlon. Generally, there is a couple of exceptions, but generally we tend to. That, to us, was like, as an elite athlete, what’s going on? Do we have equal access to our world championships? So we went through the usual channels. We asked Iron Man, can we have equal slots? In the process, I’ve become friends with the CEO. But they said no.

Joy: Was there any reason why? I don’t like no’s without a why.

Sara: Yeah. Their why was business-related. So it’s a sport much like CrossFit. It’s a sport that’s owned by a corporation and it’s run like a business. Which is different than a sport that’s run with a federation where part of the federation’s mandate is to try to get people more involved in the sport and that kind of thing. So for Iron Man, I’m reading between the lines a little bit here, but I think they were scared that if they said yes to the pro women having equal slots that the amateur women would also want equal slots. Which they probably should have. I know, crazy, right?

Joy: Part of me is like, oh my gosh, how dare they?

S; Right. But they’re worried about pissing off their core customers who they perceive to be the 30–55-year-old men.

Joy: Is it rich, white men, though? Is it a lot of rich, white men?

Sara: Yeah. Spot on.

Claire: We know them. We love them. As you guys know, Joy and I, between living in Denver and Boulder, we’re surrounded by them. We know that triathlon type for sure, that Iron Man male persona stereotype. Not to say that means everyone who races Iron Man are like that, but you have that stereotype in mind of who this “core consumer” is for the Iron Man.

Sara: Yes. And the stereotype is there because the numbers back it up, and that’s what the CEO was concerned about in terms of pissing off those people who actually want – who he felt were his main customers. Even though – anyway. I have several solutions for him. But when they said “no,” we went to the media. There were 12 of us, and we sort of created a big splash on Twitter. This is 2015. And then we ended up with like 2 million impressions in one day. Many of us got higher level of media than we were used to. So I was used to being interview by, say, Triathlete Magazine or ARTA on media, but we were in Sports Illustrated. I was interviewed by Forbes. I saw the impact that media could have. And I also saw that we were never going to be able to empower women without and empowering culture to support that empowerment. It’s both sides. What better way to create an empowering culture than media? Which of course really is kind of a stupid endeavor. When I Googled “how to start a media company,” it was like, “make sure you have really deep pockets,” which I did not at all. It was this thing of, I don’t know how to do this but I’m going to try. So we started with one podcast in 2017, and we’ve gone from there.

Joy: Which podcast was that?

Sara: The IronWomen podcast.

Joy: Okay.

Sara: It’s still going.

Joy: When I first heard from you, when you first reached out, I was like, oh my God, I wonder if this has to do with the Feisty Menopause podcast.

Sara: Yeah, the Feisty Menopause podcast is also one of our podcasts.

Joy: Got it.

Sara: We have eight altogether. We have six that are currently running. And the Menopause podcast is actually our biggest podcast, our most active community. With menopause, there was no information for active women. When we realized what a wasteland it was, we were like, oh my gosh, we have to help. So that’s grown super fast over the last year.

Joy: Yeah. So I’ve heard of that podcast, and I’ve listened to the podcast a decent amount of episodes, and it’s great. Even if you’re not in menopause, it’s the whole piece around female health and especially if you’re an active woman. That’s a little crossover there that I know of that world. So you’re building this brand. What do you hope to accomplish through the media company?

Sara: Yeah, so like I said, our goal is to have an effect on the culture. Do you know what I mean by that? The culture needs to support us if we are going to continue being empowered. So it’s being a part of that conversation – and there is a bigger conversation obviously around women’s empowerment broadly and around women in sport that happens. So I wanted to create something that could have an impact in that space and keep momentum for those conversations.

Claire: So within all of this, when I was doing a little bit of Googling and looking around and seeing everything that you’ve been doing, the question that popped into my mind is something that I definitely think that I struggle with. I know a lot of people who listen to this podcast struggle with. Training for an Iron Man is like a full-time job basically, right? And then on top of that, you have all these other things going on. You have your family life. I would love to talk a little bit about creating those priorities in a world where your daily life still very much has to exist and stuff still has to get done. We often hear this “you don’t have time, you make time.” But that’s such a romantic notion, right? I actually also only have so much time. Talk to us a little bit about how the last few years it sounds like, at every turn you’ve added more and more to your plate and your resume and your list of accomplishments – talk us through those priorities.

Sara: So to be clear, I don’t train for Iron Man anymore while I’m running a startup. I’m glad you asked me this because I feel like I have this ongoing process of figuring out what my priorities are. When I retired from Iron Man training, I just ran a little bit every day, and I wasn’t feeling good. That’s when I started CrossFit, about four years ago. So for me, that’s become something that I can do in one hour that hits the level that I need of intense physical exercise to appease my inner elite athlete that I can forget about for a day. The people who train for Iron Man and have full-time jobs and kids and stuff like that, I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know that I have the answers. Or the kind of thing that I’m doing for my job, I’m responsible fully for growing a business. I’m the person that’s up late at night still doing emails. So I think if you have a job that can be contained to a 9-5 environment, then you probably have more time to train morning, noon, and night if that’s what you want to do. I was lucky enough that when I was an Iron Man athlete, I was full time, so that allows you to sleep and train. I often say that I’m a B+. We say Iron Man, A+ personalities, you know. I don’t think I am. I’m a B+. By 5 o’clock, I need my glass of wine and just go through some documents or something. I’m not out running.

Claire: How did you get interested in triathlon and in Iron Man in the first place?

Sara: I did my master’s degree in Kingston, Ontario. When I was there, I was on the swim team. I volunteered for the triathlon. I was checking in elite athletes, actually, and there were only about ten women in the entire race. After I finished my job at the check-in, I stood and watched all these athletes coming through in T1 – we call it the first transition from swim to bike. I’m watching them come in, every single woman who came through, because there were so few. I just found it the most inspiring thing. I was tired because I got up early to do the check in, but I was standing there by myself with tears in my eyes like, this is so cool. So the next year, I did that triathlon. Then when I went to Scotland to do my PhD, I found myself being a big fish in a small pond, if you will, where I never would have had a chance at winning a race in Canada because we were pretty dominant at that time in triathlon, in Scotland I thought, “Oh, I could be good at this.” So that’s how that started.

Claire: You’ve touched on this a little bit in pretty much everything you’ve said so far, which is recognizing the lack of representation in Iron Man and recognizing the lack of information about menopause for female athletes. Has this always been something that you’ve naturally been prone to noticing? Was there a lightbulb moment for you when you thought no one else is going to take up this charge, and I have to be the one.

Sara: For whatever reason, I was always a kid that noticed when women weren’t being treated in the same way as men. I have a very vivid memory. My dad was a PT at a local college. Being at the college with him and noticing that there were a bunch of exterior offices that were filled with executive-type people – my dad had one of them – that had windows. Then there were these interior desks that were just kind of pushed together that were the support staff. They were almost all men in the leadership roles and almost all women in those support staff positions. I remember thinking, “There’s something wrong here.” And feeling like there’s something wrong with me. I want to be in the exterior office. I want to rule the world. I mean, it’s a local college. But in your brain when you’re 7, it’s the whole thing. I always observe that stuff. I don’t really know why. Now we have a great conversation about gender in our culture, which I love. A lot to do with external expression of gender. I feel like I had those observations, even about the way that we culturally name gender. Even through high school and even being a kid who was an athlete, I always felt like I recognized when I was being valued and whether that value was labeled a feminine or masculine. So I’ve always been kind of aware of that, and I had some really great professors at university too who help me think critically around that stuff too.

Joy: While you were talking, it made me think of as a young woman – maybe men feel this way. But was there a moment, because I certainly have a moment, and Claire, did you have a moment, where you were aware of your body for the first time? Meaning as a female object. Maybe objectified. I have a very vivid memory. I started the track team. I think I was in 9th grade. They were taking team photos. Everyone had to put their track uniform on and go up and take the pictures. The boys and the girls were all there watching everybody get their photos taken. I walk up in front of the photographer and I get mine taken, and I just remember a guy being like, “Look at Joy’s legs!” I at that point had never considered any type of body part of mine to be good, bad, hot, not hot. I had no vocabulary for that, even in 9th grade. And that stuck with me as like, oh, that’s desirable? But I didn’t even know what that meant either. I think as women once you become objectified, everything changes for you mentally. I don’t know if males feel the same way. But back to your question, too, I don’t want to go off on too many tangents, but I’m very aware now as well of gender. I think that is an important conversation that we have to keep having. I watched JV Ness’ Getting Curious. I don’t know if you’ve watched that show yet, but you’ve talked so much about let’s get rid of the binary, and can we have those types of discussions. So we just need to keep digging deeper into things that we think we already know everything about.

Sara: Yeah, for sure. I don’t have a moment of remembering being objectified, but I do have a couple of moments. One is that I remember in puberty instead of understanding that I was going through puberty and that I was getting hips and breast, that I was getting fat. That was how I internalized puberty. Nobody talked to me about it. Maybe we had a class in school where they taught us, “Your hips will widen.” I didn’t take that in that that’s what was happening to me. I just had internalized some kind of feminine body image ideal, and thus felt fat because I was no longer a lean childlike figure. I remember that specifically. And also around sex, I went through puberty really early. Now I’m going… do you talk about this stuff on your podcast?

Joy: Totally. All of it. Nine years of it. Oh my gosh, yes.

Sara: Perfect. So yeah, I had sex for the first time when I was 14 years old. And afterwards, I had this vivid dream that I was evil and bad. I remember I had a reoccurring dream all through my teenage years of being locked in this closet and I was somehow this slut. I didn’t know that I had internalized that. I wasn’t thinking those things about myself in the daytime. It was just coming out in these dreams, and I had to work through that in my 20’s. So those are my two things when I realized, oh, I’ve internalized a bunch of shit here.

Joy: Yeah. And it’s all this baggage that we carry as women. I don’t think that we’re aware of it. And this is not to say we have to overanalyze all the things we’ve been through, but I think it’s just to say that all these things cumulatively affect us now. And even as you’re talking about Feisty Media and creating this media company for women, the thought that I have often is, okay, I’m in my 40’s and women have come along way. Women have more positions of power. But then you look at – and I’m not trying to get political. We’re not going to talk about this on a grander scale – but then you look at abortion rates. I’m just like, we are not even – what are we even doing?

Claire: Yeah. I have young kids. And on a less charged topic, you look at the medical research around pregnancy or even around women’s health in general, and it’s just not even there. I’m sure this is what you’re kind of speaking to with the menopause stuff. But it’s like, you go and try to get an “informed option.” There isn’t even information out there to have an informed option. You start asking the questions of, why isn’t this out there? There’s no funding for it. Well, why the hell isn’t there any funding for it? I think there’s that joke of if men could get pregnant, what would the world look like? It would be so different. But I do think that’s true. Female bodies and women’s bodies have traditionally not been seen as having that same amount of priority. I think it’s also interesting to then extrapolate that into sport and see where do the values lie. Even looking at the Olympics where the volleyball teams had to fight to not where these teeny tiny bikinis for their volleyball matches. It’s like, why was that even a fight? Who cares? Why should you have to practically where this Brazilian bikini in order to be able to compete? And there’s so many examples of that.

Sara: It goes on and on and on, right? We work really closely with Dr. Stacy Sims. She was a pioneer. She was the first to put up her hand and say, wait, if we exclude people in science studies, how do we actually know that the outcomes of studies apply to women? And what the hell are we doing?

Joy: As a side note, we’ve referenced her many times on the podcast. She is the author or ROAR, talks all the time about women are not small men. You can Google her. She’s great.

Sara: Yeah, she’s amazing. So with our women’s performance summit that we held for the first time last year at the end of March, and we’re doing again this year at the end of March, we felt like, to your point Claire, we needed to bring together some experts who do have expertise in this space or who are at least kind of taking some of the science that is available and then interpreting it for everyday women. So that’s part of our goal with our whole women’s performance vertical. With the new podcast and the new summit too is to go, somebody has to be looking out for women’s wellbeing. Because we do have a diet and fitness industry that actually is going to sell us a bunch of crap. When we launched our menopause brand, I started getting all the menopause advertising on Instagram, and holy crap, it’s terrible. There’s lots of special teas that are going to get rid of your extra belly fat. What is that?

Joy: So many teas. So many greens. If I see one more fill-in-the-blank greens – I’m not going to say it on the podcast, but if I see one more ad for that, I’m just going to puke. Like, stop.

Sara: That’s sort of part of our mission is to work with people like Stacy who actually know, who can actually vet information and then bring it into our summit and into our podcast in a way that’s helpful for the everyday active woman. I’m glad you said that Claire, because I think that’s a massive gap. And it’s only going to get better. That’s what I see. For Stacy being the first one, now I’m aware of at least ten Stacy’s that are doing PhD’s and working in the area of women’s sports science. So we’re going to start to get more information, and we’re going to learn more. It’s going to shift and change, but it’s only going to get better.

Joy: We’re going to take a quick break, and after the break I want to hear more about the summit that you guys are doing. So this week, we are sponsored by Ned. You know him. You love him. You can support the podcast by supporting our great sponsors, Ned. They have the destress blend. They have the sleep blend. Please support the podcast. They are a great, great brand. The sleep brand that I love because I get hotel sleep, but Claire says it’s the night after you get home from a hotel sleep. Either way you like to sleep, their products are amazing and great quality. USDA certified organic. If you’d like to give Ned a try, Joy and Claire listeners get 15% off Ned products with code JOY. That’s helloned.com/JOY to get access. helloned.com/JOY to get 15% off. Thank you, Ned, for sponsoring the show and for offering our listeners a natural remedy for some of life’s common health issues. So tell us all about your summit.

Sara: Well we have our women’s performance summit the end of March. It’s the 25-27th, and it’s virtual. We started the virtual summit because of COVID, and our audience said, we want to continue virtual. We said, okay. That’s great. And that means too that people can access it. So the point of the summit really is to bring vetted expert information to active women who want to know about nutrition, physiology, mental health, and culture. Because for us, we don’t think you can really separate those things. So when we’re talking about nutrition, we can’t separate it from the things we talked about, the things that we’ve all internalized and learned about nutrition. So we want to talk about things in a multi-disciplinary way and figure out how to be our very best throughout our lives too. So we often take things into account for life stages too with women and being active. So from puberty to menopause and beyond, there’s information for all of those segments. And we launched a podcast on that same brand, which we’re on episode three coming up this week.

Joy: What’s the name of that one?

Sara: The Women’s Performance Podcast.

Joy: Okay. We’ll link everything in our show notes here too. But when you were talking about nutrition and mental health and culture and how all of these play a part and are interwoven, this is not just for elite athletes. This is for every woman.

Sara: Exactly.

Joy: Who identifies as a woman.

Sara: We think performance is for every woman. That’s one of our big messages right now because that’s part of the – like, I don’t want to dumb down that word “performance” because we mean it. We want to thrive, and we want to find information so we can thrive. But we don’t want to – I don’t actually love the word “thrive” either to be honest. But you know what I mean.

Claire: It is getting a little saturated. Yeah.

Sara: Like “wellness.”

Claire: Right. It’s very like the same type of person that uses the word “juicy” a lot.

Joy: Or like “self-care.” “Take care of yourself,” yeah.

Claire: Oh I saw this tweet this morning that was like, “I’m tired of self-care. Everyone else can take care of me now.” I was like, I want that.

Sara: That’s awesome. I see “thrive” with the green. I apologize to anybody who uses the word “thrive” looking for better language, but there we go.

Joy: No. You know, we all have our words that we’re over. I have plenty of them.

Sara: Yeah, exactly. And I don’t remember what I was saying now.

Claire: Talking about how performance is for all different stages, all different types of women, all different goals. I think that’s something that we have really learned for ourselves. We also both have a long background in CrossFit. Even though it’s not something that either of us is actively doing right now, it’s something that has recently been a part of our lives and was a part of our lives for a long time. There wasn’t any great falling out. It’s just something that isn’t fitting into either of our lifestyles in this particular season. I think that through that process though, it redefined, definitely for me, what the definition of an “athlete” was. Broadened that scope for me to understand you don’t have to have passed the presidential fitness test in 5th grade. That wasn’t the only on-ramp to athleticism. Which is honestly how I had felt in my early adulthood where I was like, I wasn’t athletic as a kid. I couldn’t do the toe touch. That’s it. I missed the onramp for athleticism. I cannot be an athlete. That’s not who I am. Realizing not my adulthood that the term athlete really is a lot broader than I ever thought. To your point, being concerned with performance doesn’t just mean you’re going to the sports center or you’re getting your VO2 max tested. That’s what I imagine, especially growing up in Boulder, is when you think performance you do think these Iron Man stereotypes who have the drool cup strapped in while they are on the VO2 max machine. And if you guys have no idea what I’m talking about, I apologize. This is a very esoteric example that might not apply to you if you haven’t grown up in a world where triathlons pass you on the running trail. I love that you are bringing that into the conversation, that performance isn’t just for elite or ultra-endurance or ultra-focus. It can apply so broadly.

Sara: Yeah, a lot of the information that we get through this performance focus applies to everyone. So if you think about some of Stacy’s stuff around using your hormones as a guide to how you train, that could affect anyone, even if they’re someone who does hiking or someone who is training for their first 5K. Knowing that you might have an off day at the end of your luteal phase, for example, right before your period. Super helpful. If you think you’re going to do good – you’re in your easy jog – and you don’t, then you know why. We don’t blame ourselves. So from things like that to the types of things that we talked about earlier, those internalized notions that we all have around diet and fitness and how many people start those types of programs, get active again programs, as a way to “lose weight.” We need to totally reframe that and talk about it as feeling good or longevity or whatever is positive for us.

Claire: I feel like the idea of training around your hormones – or not even training around them but just being aware of them, so many of us who are in our 30’s, 40’s, 50’s – I don’t know if women in their 20’s are still experiencing this, being put on birth control the moment you start your period as the blanket prescription that almost everyone was on for a long time. I think only recently has the discourse come up of maybe not all of us need to be taking synthetic hormones every day. But what that has done to an entire generation of women to separate us from our cycles and to make us feel like the goal of your cycle is to not notice it. I think that’s definitely the message I got as I was a teenager and in college, that the goal of your cycle is to just manage the crap out of it until lit does not impact your life at all. Even to the point of you don’t have to have a period if you don’t want to. Just don’t take your sugar pills. Just roll into the next pack of pills. I am curious to see in the coming years – these days, we stop at the low fat, sugar free yogurt. Of course, that’s not good for you. Oh haha, we all know what now. But 15 years ago, nobody knew that. I wonder if that will be the next conversation, the next turn around the horn of, wow, I can’t believe we ever thought that just erasing your hormone fluctuations was the goal.

Sara: Yeah. Everything evolves and changes. Birth control as a thing created an extreme amount of sexual freedom for women, so I am very grateful that happened.

Claire: Great call out. That is a good point.

Joy: Very great point.

Sara: At the same time, I had depression caused by the birth control pill that I didn’t know, and it took me years to figure out that actually it was the synthetic hormones that I was taking that were causing my depression. That’s crazy, right? Now I stay away from all synthetic hormones. The other thing from what you were saying there, Claire, is we often talk about periods and our hormone cycles in a negative way. I never heard it talked about in a positive way at all. Until we started to actively change our language about that. I think that’s why in sport too, with coaches and stuff, we just have a couple off days. It was all bad. It wasn’t like, hey, how can we figure out how to perform well or how to get the best out of our bodies or do our training well every single day? How do we figure that out? It wasn’t that. It was just, I’ll just admit it’s going to be crappy for a little while, and you’ll come back around.

Claire: Right. Like, what words to we associate with our cycle? Tired, bloated, crabby, cranky, hungry. And let’s not even have an entire podcast series about how the word “hungry” is negative. But you’re exactly right. Never in my life has someone sat me down and been like, how can you see these as indicators of a way that you could be prioritizing different moments, versus just, no, your training is your training. And if you happen to be tired and cranky and bloated that day, you just have to deal with it.

Sara: Yeah. And even mentally, I reframed my cycle. I’m kind of an optimist, a positive thinker. Let’s go do it. Let’s change the world. So in particular, a couple times in my life was when I was deciding to leave my marriage. I would be like fine, fine, fine most of the month. But around that time right before my period, that’s when I would realize I’m actually not happy in some ways in my life. It caused me to be more reflective. Instead of being “oh, I’m grumpy and this is crappy,” I’m very grateful for this process. Otherwise I might live in that optimism world too much and realize years down the road I’m actually unhappy or fall off a cliff of some kind. Instead of having that monthly reminder of, okay no wait, let’s take a moment to reflect and make sure that everything is lined up in my life. That was just one way that I reframed that in terms of not seeing it as negative.

Joy: This is something that I want and hope eventually gets to be the baseline for all women of what we see in the media. That’s very wishful thinking. But it’s still very saturated with diet culture and what sells, and what sells is people that are wearing certain things that show abs, and everybody wants abs. That’s still pretty pervasive. I really hope that it continues to shift to where that is not as loud. I think it will always be there. There will always be an audience for that. It’s just so funny how things have changed. Like side note, I was watching an episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County last week from like 2008, and the language that they use about their bodies – I don’t really see that on reality, and I watch a lot of trash TV sadly. I don’t hear a lot of that language, of women talking about their bodies. I was like, wow, at least they’ve come somewhat far. Because they were talking horribly or talking about how their diet in the summer is they don’t eat. I’m like, oh my God, that is ridiculous. “This is how I get my figure – I just don’t eat in the summer.” I’m just like, horrible messaging. I think there will always be an audience. There will always be people who listen to that crap. But my hope is that it continues to be more and more of the discussion about education and people learning more and more about their bodies and digging deeper and asking more questions and being critical thinkers about, why is it this way? Instead of just being fed the crap that comes across our feeds of, drink this tea and you’ll have a whatever-sized waist. That’s the thing we need to keep pushing up against because eventually we will move the needle. I hope.

Sara: Yeah. And I think there is a ground swell for that change. And I also think that social media, while there are several downsides to social media, I think the upside is it’s more democratic in who gets to talk. If you are following certain people, you will get certain types of things on your feed. So gone are the days of some man in an executive office gets to decide what you’re watching on your media. You’re talking about The Real Housewives. Some of that pop culture stuff is amazing. I can curate for myself an Instagram that only has positive – mostly, except for when I am being advertised to like menopause teas – mostly positive messages about women and about our bodies too. So I’m grateful for that part of what social media can be.

Claire: And we’re far from those messages going away, but the huge difference to me is I notice them now when I hear them. I don’t just take them as norm. Joy, to your point, you listened to something or re-watched something from 15 years ago and you’re like, oh my gosh, and it really stands out. Whereas 15 years ago, it probably went in one ear and out the other.

Joy: Totally. It was totally normal back then, that type of talk.

Claire: Right. I watched the first episode in the most recent season of Cheer, and one of the girls was like, “We’re doing this three-day watermelon cleanse.”

Joy: Freaking watermelon cleanse.

Claire: I was like, “Oh no.”

Joy: Oh no.

Claire: But even 10 years ago, I would have been like, “Oh, a watermelon cleanse. I’m going to Google that.”

Sara: “I’m Googling it,” yeah.

Joy: Totally Regina George. The cranberry juice diet.

Claire: “I want to lose three pounds.” And I’m grateful that you are creating platforms to have these conversations. I think that the more it can be normalized. It’s even still sometimes taboo to just talk about hormones and talk about periods. If you can’t even talk about it, how are you going to be able to advocate for yourself when it comes to those topics and when it comes to getting your needs met.

Sara: Yeah, exactly. I think that normalizing is really important. That’s part of our mission at Feisty Media. Let’s just talk about all the things. I talk about all kinds of stuff on the other podcast I’m on too. And whatever, I think getting comfortable with your own story is really important and other women telling their stories. And listening to our bodies too. That’s always the first piece of advice that I give. When people say, “I don’t understand this hormone thing. I don’t want to track. I don’t want to pay attention to my cycle.” It’s like, actually, just listen to your instincts. Forget whatever you learned. Forget about watermelon cleanses. Forget about the training cycle of three days hard, one day easy, or whatever your sport taught, and just listen to your instincts.

Joy: And that takes a lot of practice.

Claire: I was about to say, to take a step back from that. If you are working with someone who has pretty much been told, “Tune out your body and stick to the program,” what advice do you give to people who don’t even know where to start listening to their bodies.

Sara: I was thinking about this this morning. There’s a time for everything. I give that advice – just get up in the morning and do the warmup. Damn it. When I was coaching. And I think that’s important because we can easily get inside our heads. I think that’s a very individual thing for individual people.

Joy: I was just going to say, it reminds me of some of the intuitive eating discussions we’ve had before where we talk a lot about people don’t know hunger and they don’t know full, so it just takes time for you to start throwing out rules. I think that’s what you said. Throw out the rules first. And then start with a clean slate, and don’t think about rules. Just tune into your body. How does it feel? How does it feel today? And with practice every single day, I think you’ll get to know what that means. It’s like last year, I had a really, really high stress year. It wasn’t until I took away all the stuff that was causing me stress that I realize what stress felt like. Because I was so stressed, I didn’t even know I was stressed. So it’s like you kind of have to take what you can. And obviously we’re not all in a position to take away the things that are causing us stress. But in terms of working out or feeling ourselves, you really have to take out all the rules first or all the crap that you’ve been fed.

Sara: I’ll going back to that just doing the warmup thing. I think that would be my practical advice. Sometimes I live in la la land, and I start talking big vision things. But really that practical thing of if you’re feeling unmotivated to go and do your workout or if you’re not sure whether to continue, do the warmup and see how you feel. Because at least then you got through the whole process of getting out of bed or putting shoes on or getting out the door, all those things. Those things, if you can’t do them, then it’s a motivation problem.

Joy: That’s great.

Claire: Rule out inertia.

Sara: Right, yes, exactly. Get that momentum going. And then if you still feel crappy, there might be something wrong and then you can look into it from there.

Joy: That’s great. I’ve scaled back workouts over the past year for other reasons, but there’s days when I’ll start moving and I’ll be like, what do I feel like doing today? I’ll wake up in the morning. I don’t make a training plan. I wake up every morning and I go, what do I feel like doing today? Do I feel like going for a walk? Do I feel like maybe lifting something? That to me helps me tune into what I’m feeling and where my body is at, versus, “You’ve got to push through your workout! You’ve got to hit it hard!”

Claire: But we’ve also talked about if I woke up every morning and was like, what do I feel like doing, my body would be like, you feel like staying in bed.

Joy: I’m a morning person, so I get I wake up and work out first thing because that’s my body clock. But you get what I’m saying.

Claire: But I’m more of the thing of, okay, overcome the inertia and then see how you’re feeling. Because the inertia for me is a little bit heavier than it is for Joy.

Sara: It’s so true. I was really into what you were saying, Joy. If you’re a livelong athlete and you’re used to just doing the exercise every day – like I can’t imagine not exercising, but I also recognize that’s not the same –

Joy: It’s not everybody.

Sara: And that there are other things needed sometimes to get going.

Claire: You guys obviously did not fail the presidential fitness test.

Joy: Oh, I sure did.

Claire: Is this a thing in Canada? Did you grow up in Canada?

Sara: I did, yeah.

Claire: Is this a thing? Do you know what I’m talking about?

Sara: We have Canada Fitness. I’m sure it’s similar. I actually have a funny story. This is my little feminist. When I was in about 4th grade and the Canada Fitness thing started, the boys – there was gold, silver, bronze, there was one above gold. I think it was platinum. But the boys did different things than the girls. So let’s say the boys did 30 sit-ups and the girls did 20. But I until that point had understood myself to be one of the more physically capable people in the class and was like, this doesn’t make any sense. Truly, my brain was like, why does this guy over here who I beat every time in gym class do a different thing than me? How does that…? So my friend and I basically were like, we are going to do the boys. We got the boys highest level on this thing. We stood our ground on that.

Joy: That’s like me when I started CrossFit. I was like, why can’t I just do the same thing as what the males are doing? Obviously, I’m not going to be lifting 200 pounds over my head, but that always pissed me off too. That’s really funny.

Sara: Those little things. Yeah, that pissed me off when I started CrossFit too. Like the size of the bar. That’s to do with hand size, not gender.

Joy: Yes. Yes.

Sara: Can we make the Rx weights about body weight instead of making it about gender.

Joy: And it’s all very binary. Now I just have binary on my mind because of JV Ness. I’m just like, everything is binary.

Claire: I just need my forever campaign of scaling wall balls based on height.

Sara: Yes. Right.

Joy: Claire is so mad right now.

Claire: I have a real big chip on my shoulder. I will die on this hill. I am 5’3”. I should not be throwing the freaking wall ball to the same target as someone who is 5’10”. I don’t care.

Sara: There’s other ones I struggle with too. Like in the cardio, we’re often doing 25% or 30% less calories, say, than the men. Whereas I know from doing an endurance sport so long, the difference is actually around 10% between men and women, if we are going to keep it gendered. But then on the flip side, I’m like, actually though, we have not as many women who have been encouraged to do sport. So in your everyday CrossFit gym like the one I go to, it actually feels more inclusive and more women feel like they’re winning when that bar is a little bit lower.

Joy: Right.

Sara: So I’m actually torn about stuff like that because my feminist brain is like, no, I can do it. I’m doing the boys thing. But I realize that –

Claire: Culturally, yeah.

Sara: There’s women here who really appreciate that they can actually hit the mark on some of those things.

Joy: We’ll just have to win another day.

Sara: Right.

Claire: I know we’re almost out of time, but there is one thing I keep thinking about that I don’t want to end this conversation before we talk about it. And this is a very big topic, and I’m sorry for doing this. It is maintaining and even peaking performance later in life. I feel like this is coming up more and more. Both with men and women. Like Kelly Slater who just won pipe the week before his 50th birthday last week. I recently had something come across my Facebook of a woman, a trail runner in Scotland who set a – I don’t know what they’re called in Scotland. Basically an ultra-marathon around the hills, and she’s in her 50’s. It feels to me, particularly when it comes to females – and Kelly Slater who is an outlier, we don’t need to talk about him – there is more and more of this sense that as you get older, the peak of performance might be later in life than we ever imagined. Is this something that has come up in your communities yet? Tell me more. I want to know more about this.

Sara: So I have a couple friends who podium in Iron Man when they’re 50. Women. Especially women. Since I was in my 20’s, I’ve observed this in endurance communities, especially with cycling, stuff like that. People maintain their strength for a really long time. In their 40’s and 50’s. It doesn’t just go away. And if you’re trained for a lifetime in whatever the sport, it doesn’t decrease that much. You just have to shift your training. So one thing I know. We do have more information now. We have more information that women actually need more protein in their 30’s and even more after 50. And we know that lifting heavy shit, it really does help maintain muscle mass, keep our fast twitch moving and can maintain that performance a lot longer. I would have been a better athlete in my 20’s if I’d known that, let alone now. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been just doing a little bit of CrossFit every day, and I was a professional athlete. It’s crazy. I think we have better information now to keep athletes going. I think we also realize when you’re doing a sport, if you don’t stop, you can keep going and you can maintain that high level of performance.

Claire: There is not this inevitable decline to the grave. I feel like – you watch like the Olympics. I had my first Summer Olympics – I know the Winter Olympics are happening right now. I don’t have cable. I have not been watching it. But particularly with the Summer Olympics last year, it was the first time that I watched it and thought, these people are children. But yet we see that, by and large as a global community, as the peak of performance. No wonder we don’t imagine, oh, I can be a high-performing athlete into my 40’s and 50’s, maybe even 60’s and beyond. I just have been so inspired. The more that I see these high performance – and some of them have been lifelong athletes, but some of them are like, I didn’t start X, Y, Z until I was in my 30’s or 40’s. Now here I am having podiumed or having set a world record or having accomplished this huge goal that only ten other people in the world have done. Yeah, I find that so interesting. It seems to me like it is becoming more and more prevalent, particularly with women. And then I just have to wonder, are there social factors at play where women do have a larger period in the middle of their adulthood where they have to be more family focused than men have had to be. So they don’t have the same opportunities in their 20’s and 30’s to really focus on performance. I don’t know. But yeah, it was something that I wanted to bring up because I had a feeling that you had some insight on that as well.

Sara: I think you’re right about all those things. And having said that people maintain strength as they age as they keep going, I think for elite athletes, it’s probably mental. There is a shorter period of time where you can focus on performance as the main focus for life. That can come later too for some people. Like when we see the young athletes at the Olympics, the reason they’re not in the Olympics still in their 40’s might be more to do with the fact that after they focus on that for 12 years, they are kind of over it and ready to do something else. Because that is an intense lifestyle. When I said 12 years, that’s a lot more than most Olympians actually do and can handle mentally. One of the best Iron Man coaches in our sport, he straight up says, “I’m giving you three years.” He plans with his athletes and trains them to perform at the highest level in the world for only three years. A lot of people continue after the three years, but that’s the level of – he just says dedication, focus, etc. So if you went to him and you were 40 years old, he would still take you in and turn you into one of the best in the world likely in your 40’s. I won my first Iron Man when I was 38. It came late for me too.

Joy: How about 44? Just kidding. [laughing]

Sara: I’m 45, and like I said, I’m stronger than I was when I used to push a bike around a 112-mile course.

Joy: Yeah, that’s crazy. That’s crazy.

Claire: I just cannot wrap my head around an Iron Man. I go for a run and within 15 minutes, I’m like, why am I out here? I could be doing something else.

Sara: I understand that. Before I did Iron Man, I had run a marathon before, and I swam. And I used to sit in my room and stare at my bike and be like, 112 miles… I don’t know. I don’t know about this.

Joy: When you think about it that way. Oh my goodness, well Sara thank you so much. Thank you for your time. This has been a great conversation. We would love to have you back and just keep up with Feisty Media because it’s amazing what you are doing. So can you tell everybody where you are on the socials.

Sara: Sure. So our website is livefeisty.com. On the socials, you can find us at @feisty_media. For me personally, it’s @sara.gross on Instagram. And our women’s performance brand if you want to check that out is womensperformance.com.

Joy: Is there also information there where people can sign up for the summit that is coming up in March?

Sara: Yes, and you can see all of the keynotes that we just got sorted out, which I’m super excited about.

Claire: Yay. Awesome. And everybody, you know where to find us. We are @joyandclaire_ on Instagram, you can find us at joyandclaire.com, send us an email thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Don’t forget to check out our awesome sponsor, Ned. Use discount code JOY. Check out their destress blend. It’s actually really high end CBG, which is the new hot cannabinoid. I just have always wanted to say, “new hot cannabinoid.”

Joy: It’s not a regular cannabinoid. It’s a cool cannabinoid.

Claire: It’s a cool cannabinoid. Cannabinoid is a fun word to say.

Joy: It really is. I thought it was saying it wrong. Cannabinoid? Cannabinoid.

Claire: Cannabinoid. So go check out helloned.com, discount code JOY, and support the sponsors that support our podcast. Thank you so much for being here, and we will talk to you next week.

Joy: Bye, everybody.

106: Understanding Nutrition with VANESSA RISSETTO MS, RD, CDN

December 23, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

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VANESSA RISSETTO

https://vrissettord.com/

Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Certified Dietitian Nutritionist, New York State License
New York University Master’s Degree in Marketing
Certificate of Training in Adult Weight Management (Levels I & II), Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

HELLO NED DISCOUNT CODE JOY for 20% OFF!

www.joyandclaire.com

Girls Gone Wod

email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com

Instagram: joyandclaire_

This is Joy & Claire Episode 106: Understanding Nutrition with VANESSA RISSETTO MS, RD, CDN

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

Transcription Completed: January 2, 2022

Audio Length: 49:36 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy. This is Joy and Claire. This is Joy with a hoarse voice. I was waiting to record this intro thinking that my voice would improve, and it has not yet. But it’s like Phoebe from Friends when she has the sexy phlegm. Except I don’t know how sexy I sound. But in any event, this interview was recorded last week before I lost my voice completely. So you just get a little weirdness from my voice, but the interview is wonderful. We were approached by Scout’s Agency, which we’ve talked about before, one of our favorite agencies who put women on podcasts. Of course, we are all about amplifying female voices. This is Vanessa Rissetto. She is the co-founder of Culina Health, and she has a really personalized approach to nutrition. Science is her first love. She is really interested in helping clients take an active role in their health. With the help of her expertise, they get a personalized lifestyle plan backed by evidence-based, science-driven nutrition counseling and building a better relationship with food. She received her M.S. in Marketing at NYU and completed her dietetic internship at Mount Sinai Hospital where she worked as a senior dietician for five years. She’s really fun to talk to, as you’ll hear in this interview. She has such a wonderful personality. I feel like we could be really good friends if we lived on the same coast. I think you’ll really connect with her and the realistic approach she takes with diet, nutrition. We’re always advocates for taking care of your health, but also doing it in a way that doesn’t slide down that slippery slope of diet culture. So without further ado, here is Vanessa Rissetto. We hope you guys are having a wonderful holiday. [pause] Thank you Vanessa for joining the show and joining the podcast. Claire and I have been doing this for a long time. We have been in and out of all the diets. And just a disclaimer, sorry guys for my voice. I’m still getting over this cold, so I apologize in advance for any cracking or weirdness that’s going on. We’re just going to have to go with it. Over the years, we’ve been through it all. Just a little bit of background on us, Vanessa, we’ve done macro counting. We’ve done fitness and nutrition challenges when we probably shouldn’t have because neither of us are trained in that. That was like ten years ago when everyone was doing that. And we became friends with a lot of nutritionists and dietician, and they’re like, “Yeah, stop doing that. You’re not in your lane.” So we know better now. But it’s just funny to see the evolution. So here we are. We’re at the end of a year. What are the things that we can do now to prepare ourselves for 2022? I know a lot of people get ready for the new year. What are the things that you feel are important as we’re going into the new year to get your mindset around how not to fall into the diet trap?

Vanessa: Yeah, just because it’s January doesn’t mean you have to go on some crazy food regimen or exercise regimen or whatever. If you feel like you want to do some better things for yourself, for your health, and January 1st because it’s a new year feels like a good launching pad for you – cool. But it doesn’t have to coincide with, “It’s 2022, so I’m going to give up alcohol for 30 days.” I mean, if you’re drinking a bottle of wine every day, it’s probably not the best thing and you should just want to slow that down. Or if you’ve been eating fast food every day for the last two months and no exercise and no water, running on empty, this might be a good time for you to do a little mental inventory and check yourself. But you don’t have to go balls to the walls because that never works. What happens is, you know, you go to the gym every single day for the first 31 days. And you stop drinking alcohol and you eat a salad every day. You feel really great, and then you’re like, “Great, it’s February 1st.” And you take a bottle of champagne to the head. So it kind of doesn’t work.

Joy: Yeah, it’s kind of like that all or nothing mentality. Which we get into a lot too, and that’s something that I continue to want to talk about is how we can get away from the idea that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You can do little, tiny changes. And that also doesn’t mean that we’re succumbing to diet culture. That’s another thing that I personally have a problem wrapping my head around. Like how do we do things that are just objectively healthier and that’s okay. But it’s doesn’t mean now we’re full-fledged into the diet culture.

Vanessa: Yeah. I think this is an American thing. You’re either to the left or to the right –

Joy: Right, you’ve got to pick a camp.

Vanessa: And if you’re in the middle, then there’s something wrong with you. Just practice good sense, right? I’m sorry, but if you are 5’3” and 500 pounds, even if your lipid profile looks great, your joints are probably not doing well. So if you come to somebody and you say you’d like to lose weight, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. We are trained professionals. I am a registered dietician. I don’t subscribe to diet culture. I’m not going to give you an eating disorder. I’m not going to tell you to restrict your calories. On the contrary, every time somebody comes to me, they’re like, “It’s so weird. You’re telling me to eat food.” Uh huh… and then they do it, and they’re like, “I ate the food, and then I lost the weight.” I’m like, “I know.” And then someone the other day said to me, “I feel like I need to tell everybody how you ordered the way that I eat, and that is very freeing for me.” Everybody is different, and everybody has different goals. Maybe your goal is that you want to lose weight and you need some guardrails around that. Fine. But maybe somebody else’s goal is that they over obsess with food, and even tracking their food with cause a trigger. Alright, we’ll approach you entirely different. So it’s not wrong. Just like if you want to be an intuitive eater – cool. I can tell you what all the intuitive eating people are on their soapbox telling you is the right way. Let’s just remember that they don’t tell you the rest of the studies. Every study – I’ve read 60 of them now – tells you it’s a good starting point, but after that people need a plan.

Joy: Right. They need a plan, and it doesn’t have to be a one-size-fits-all approach either.

Vanessa: That’s right, that’s right, that’s right. Personalized medicine exists for a reason, and so does personalized nutrition. What is your goal, and let’s help you achieve that goal.

Joy: Yeah. So what is your personal philosophy. As a registered dietician, after all these years of experience, what is your approach?

Vanessa: Well, I listen to the patient first. I don’t have any agenda. If you want to do keto, I’m going to give you all the science as to what it is and then if you do keto versus a varied diet, whatever. If you still want to do keto, alright. We can do it. In the end, you’re going to be like, “This is not sustainable.” I’ll give you that disclaimer, but my job as a practitioner is to help you navigate around all of this bullshit. And maybe for some people, they want to do lots of different things because they want to feel like they didn’t leave something on the table. They want to feel like they’ve tried it out. They want to feel like they’re very informed for the decisions that they’re making for their body. I will always tell someone, a keto diet, that’s just diet culture sexed up. But if you want to try it, fine. Why don’t we just try it this way? Why do you want to restrict? Why does restriction feel like you’re doing something? Because I feel like as a population of people, women especially, you have to suffer as like your badge. Like, “I’m exhausted. I’m not eating anything. I’m wiring my mouth shut. It means I’m better. I’m doing all the work.” And it’s like, really?

Joy: Right.

Vanessa: That seems really not good.

Joy: It seems like you’re making it harder for yourself.

Vanessa: Correct. You’re going to be on your deathbed and be like, “Shit, those ten years that I spent doing X, Y, and Z were such a waste.” But really, what are your goals and how can I help you achieve your goals? I also always tell people, you’ve been doing it your way – by the time someone comes to me, they’ve exhausted all the diets. That’s the one thing I will say. When they come to see a registered dietician, it’s like, “Alright y’all. I’ve done all the books. I’ve done all the fads and all this stuff. It’s not working, so I’m coming to you to help me.” Okay. And then what will happen is, I’ll help them and they’re having success, and it feels really uncomfortable because there’s no gimmick. I’ve had patients be like, “So what do you give me?” Just go away with the one thing that I told you to do today. Drink water. Go do that. See you in a week.

Joy: But people want this quick fix or think that you have this secret answer that’s going to make them lose 20 pounds magically.

Vanessa: Right. But when they do lose weight – like I had this one guy who’s done like every diet. He’s lost now like 12 pounds in 5 weeks. He’s like, “This is feeling really great.” And then the other day, he’s like, “Should I be counting macros?” Why? He’s like, “I don’t know. I used to count macros before.” Well, you came to me because that didn’t work. You’re not counting macros now, right, and you feel fine? “Yeah. I just feel like it’s really weird. I’m in control. Weird.”

Joy: People need that control. It’s so interesting.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Joy: What about clients or patients that come to you and they’re like, “I want to lose an X amount of weight,” but maybe they don’t need to lose… do you ever have that conversation around making a realistic expectation for themselves?

Vanessa: Yes, 100%. When someone comes in, no matter what they weight, maybe they think they want to lose 10 pounds, maybe they think they want to lose 100 pounds. I always just say, “Why don’t we just change some of the behaviors and get your eating in a better pattern, and then we’ll see where we go. We’ll see where we end up. We’ll see where you feel good.” I had one patient who – she is single and she lives alone. COVID really did a number on her, right? Because she’s really social. She travels a lot with her friends. She goes and visits her friends often. And now she’s stuck in her house. She had gained weight to a number that she didn’t like. I think she was like 217 or 218. She was like, “I just don’t like that number. Before COVID, that wasn’t the case. I was in the 190’s and that’s where I felt good, and I just want to go back there.” That’s totally fine. She was stuck in her house, she was eating her feelings, and she was unhappy. Okay, great. So we ordered her patterns. The world was opening back up. She was moving her body more. Eating more vegetables. Eating more timed meals. She had been doing intermittent fasting and that just wasn’t working for her. And then she went down to like 190. She was like, “I feel so great. I’m so happy. This is great.” I was like, “Okay, great.” She was like, “I want to lose more.” And I was like, “Well, you’re postmenopausal. You’ve already done so much. You would probably not be able to go out with your friends and have your cocktails three times a week. Is that what you want to do?” And she was like, “Oh. No.” I was like, “Great, so we’re good here. You told me you felt great. Why do you have to keep going?” She was like, “I guess I didn’t think about it that way.”

Joy: Now you mentioned postmenopausal. I’m in my mid-40’s and I have friends that are older too. And they talk a lot about how do hormones play into all of this. Are there things that we should be doing as middle-aged women to take control of our health going through that phase?

Vanessa: Yeah. It’s so interesting that nobody cares about the perimenopausal or postmenopausal women. They just don’t. Prenatal, postnatal. I mean, they don’t even care about you when you are pregnant or after you give person. They care about the baby. You’re just a variable.

Joy: Right.

Vanessa: I’ve experienced this firsthand. But this perimenopausal world where I have all the women coming to me being like, “I haven’t changed anything, but I gained ten pounds and nothing is different.” I’m like, “Right. This is menopause.” And what I’m about to say, I’m not suggesting that anybody do this, but I just have a very frank conversation. When you’re postmenopausal, the fat is stored in a different way. You don’t burn calories as efficiently. You’ve got to pay to play. You want to be a size 5, 6, 4, whatever when you are 65 years old? Well, guess what? You’re not going to drink wine every single day. You’re not going to have the sweets all the time. Your carb count is going to be lower. You’re going to have to move more. That’s just real talk.

Joy: You’re like, if you want that, fine. Here’s what needs to happen.

Vanessa: Right. And the thing is, everybody is affected much differently. I’m not saying that everyone is going to gain this ten pounds. Everybody is different, and we all know this. But these are things to pay attention of. I always see people drinking every night. They drink every night. And you’re like, this is not a good habit to get into. You’re going to have a hard time as you age. But flip side, I feel like 80-year-olds being like, “I need to lose 20 pounds.” I’m like, guys.

Joy: Come on. You’ve lived a great life. You really want to focus on that in the last maybe hopefully ten years?

Vanessa: I talked to one woman the other day. I was like, “Do you have elevated lipids?” She’s like, “No.” I’m like, “Are you prediabetic?” She’s like, “No.” I was like, “Well, you just want to lose weight because…?” She’s like, “I just want to lose 10-20 pounds.” Okay, but you’re 80, so… how are we going to do it? We can try, I guess, but you’re fine. Everything’s fine. Live your life.

Joy: It makes me think about even in our 20’s or 30’s how we look at other bodies and we’re like, “I want that body.” Now I’m 44. I want my body when I was 20. At what point do we just have to be like, we can’t fight out biology. Stop trying to fight out biology because what ultimately happens is when you start fighting your biology, it starts pushing back and it’s like, “What?” And maybe causes other problems. Is that a thing?

Vanessa: Yes. Also, mental health. I feel like when I’m 80, I just want to be a grandma who eats crumb cakes and drinks champagne and wears red lipstick.

Joy: That’s having too much fun.

Vanessa: Yeah and is super fresh. Like, “Oh, this is my grandma. She’s super fresh. She just says whatever.” Not like, “Oh, do I look fat in these pants?’

Joy: No, just like baking cinnamon rolls every day.

Vanessa: Yeah. I just think you’re exactly right. Nobody is ever happy with what they have and appreciates – your body does a lot of work. It gets you from place to place. Some people give birth. Some people run marathons, triathlons. You do all this good work with your body, and you’re over here shitting on it. Guys, it’s okay. And listen, I get it. You want to feel better about yourself. You know that you’re not operating in the best way and you want to do more for yourself. I’m on board for that. But yeah, when the girl calls you and she’s like, “I want to lose 4 pounds” and you’re like, “Oh. Okay.” That’s when I refer you out. I have to refer you out. That is a problem. Even if you are, for all intents and purposes, overweight in people’s eyes, this hyper focus on 4 pounds is problematic. You need to talk to somebody about that. You’re not going to be happy with 4 pounds anyway, so this is something else.

Joy: Right. You’re like, “I can’t help you with this” because there’s more going on here. So what are some things that everyone can do to just take the realistic approach to nutrition? What are the basic things that we can all do to better our health? There’s nothing wrong with bettering our health.

Vanessa: Totally. Guys, drink water. You heard it here first. Everybody needs to drink water. Don’t tell me that you drank two 12 ounces of Poland Springs. That is not enough.

Joy: Wait, what is that?

Vanessa: You know, like these little 8-ounce bottles.

Joy: The little bottles? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa: Guys, come on. I get these huge water bottles that are like 60 ounces. They have straws. I fill them up twice a day And everybody’s home, so don’t tell me that it’s hard for the bathroom. Your toilet is behind you. Drink water. Everybody, drink water. Don’t tell me you don’t like it. It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s hydrating. Do it. Drink water. Also, can you all eat one piece of fruit at least a day. There must be some fruit that you like. Please eat one. Also in that same vein, can you please eat a vegetable at lunch and dinner? Again, there is a vegetable that you like. My first son Rocko doesn’t eat anything. He eats vegetables. So if he eats vegetables, you all can eat vegetables too. Find one that you like. What we like to do with the children is we go buy fresh celery, bell peppers, carrots. We chop them up. We keep them in a container on a Sunday in water so they’re crunchy and fresh. Take a handful and put them on your plate. You don’t have to roast broccoli and brussels sprouts. Just something quick. Do that. Also, you need to sleep. You need to sleep. You need to prioritize sleep. It’s not cute to be on your cell phone at 2 o’clock in the morning because then you’re going to be crazy. You’re going to make bad decisions the next day, and you’re not going to eat the way that you want to. This is just not good for longevity or your brain. Please. Also limit your alcohol. I do not know why everybody is so crazy about cocktails all the time. I’m not anti-drinking at all. But guys, every day?

Joy: It’s kind of gotten out of hand.

Vanessa: Yes, it’s really out of hand. Everything is around alcohol. And people will be like, “Oh, you’re not drinking?” It’s Tuesday. I don’t know.

Joy: It’s noon. I mean, no judgement. But I’ve never been the person that can even have a mimosa because mentally, I’m like, “This feels weird.” No judgement if you do that on occasion, but I just feel like the culture right now is mimosas, and then we get happy hour, and then we day drink.

Vanessa: Yes.

Joy: Alright guys, can we just pull it back just a little bit.

Vanessa: Right. Can we do other things? It’s funny. It was my birthday three weeks ago, and I just invited a bunch of friends to a Soul Cycle class, and then we had lunch, and then everybody went home at 2 o’clock. I am old now, so there’s that. But it was fine. I was watching television and then in bed by 10:30. I didn’t need to be drinking all night. And it’s not that you can’t have a drink, but it disrupts your sleep, you make poor eating choices. It’s just this crazy cycle, and you never get out of it. You’re dehydrated, you’re hydrated. Stop. Everybody stop. Those are my tips. And for the holidays, people are like, “I gained 15 pounds over the holidays.” Well I’ll tell you why. First of all, you don’t need to go out to every event that people invite you to. You just don’t. You can stay home. I don’t have to go out.

Joy: We’re still in a pandemic too.

Vanessa: But you know, my husband has a holiday party. Why do I need to go? I don’t even know these people. See you later. I don’t need to do that. you don’t need to eat every cookie that comes into your house. You don’t need to go out to every single dinner. You can say no. And it’s not because, “Oh, you’re going to overindulge.” It’s save your peace. Save your space. You don’t have to be running and going all of the time. If you just slow down and take care of yourself and not try to have to be everything to everyone, you’re going to do better.

Joy: Yeah. And how much stress affects the body is huge.

Vanessa: So much. It’s huge.

Joy: And you mentioned something too around wanting to go to all of these parties. It made me also think about emotional eating and how people get caught up in the holidays and then they binge or they overeat – like truly overeat, meaning they’ll have that uncomfortable feeling. So what are your thoughts about how people can approach the overeating that they may be doing, on how they can reel it back or not have that guilt associated with it.

Vanessa: I think the first thing is that because people tend to be going to events in the evening, they don’t eat all day. And so then they go somewhere and they overdo it. And then they come home and they continue to eat. But you weren’t even fueled properly to begin with, and now everything is out of wack. If you have obviously a true binge eating disorder, we have to take care of other things first. But if you’re just somebody who tends to overeat and not pay attention, there’s a little bit of this emotional component – do yourself a favor, eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Or breakfast, lunch, and a snack, and then go to the event and have your meal and call it a day. I’m not saying that it’s going to be a perfect evening, whatever that means. You’re going to do better if there’s food in your stomach, a thousand percent. And also, you have to really pay attention to what you’re doing. Do you get sad and drink? Do you get sad and overeat? Do you get sad and eat desserts? Do you get sad and not eat? I’m not one of those people. I eat at all the times. I eat even when I’m sick. It’s just like all my life revolves around my meals.

Joy: No judgement to any time. I welcome food at all times of my life. Yeah.

Vanessa: All times. All times. That’s the thing, looking in the mirror is really hard. Also, having somebody show you the mirror is really hard. So you have to really explore some of these things. When people are super adverse to writing down their food – I would never tell anyone to track in perpetuity, but we track in the beginning so that we can understand our habits. If it’s on paper and we see it, then perhaps we can understand, have a little insight into how we behave, why we behave the way we do, and then attempt to do better. The people who are like, “I hate tracking.”

Joy: Oh, yeah. They don’t want to see it. The anticipation of that – and I tracked macros way back when it was a thing. I’m not even going to tell you what happened. It was really bad for me.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Joy: But thank God, I lived and learned and moved on. I had Graves’ Disease last year. I was diagnosed with Graves’ Disease last year. I have successfully, I don’t know, reversed it. I saw a naturopath instead of going through traditional medicine. Just because I didn’t want to have my thyroid removed, whatever, whatever. Anyway. I remember she asked me that same thing where she’s like, “I just need to know what your food looks like, just so I can see where the holes are.” And I just remember having a reaction of, “No, I don’t want to.” I was like, why don’t I want to? I think it’s almost like reading someone’s diary too. Food choices are just a personal thing. But we don’t have to be ashamed of that. It’s kind of silly how we make it such a big deal, at least some of us do. But we also don’t want to face it because food is so emotional.

Vanessa: That’s right, that’s right. Everybody had a relationship with food. Food insecure. Did your mother have an eating disorder? Did your parents use food to bribe you? Everyone’s relationship with food is complex, and everyone has to eat. This is tough stuff to work with. But yeah, tracking the food is no place of judgement. People will be like, “But I just don’t want you to judge me.” I’m not judging you. This is my job. I literally don’t care what you write down. I want to just know so I can help you. That’s it. Because you’re over here telling me X, Y, and Z and those things make you unhappy or those things make you sick, and we need to get a hold on how we can fix that.

Joy: No, that’s super important. Reassuring people, my job is not to judge here. This is a safe space. I’m just trying to help. It’s a part of my job. Yeah, so the emotional piece, I can see that. The emotional eating, kind of going back to that where you were saying just taking a look. Nobody likes to have the mirror held up to them. The other piece that I heart you talk about on another podcast that I really liked – again, with social media and trying to marry the idea of I want to be body positive, but I also want to look good. Sometimes I feel like we get… I’ll just speak for myself. I get it confused with wanting to look good versus, oh, am I succumbing to diet culture again? And I liked what you said in a recent interview where you were like, “It’s okay to want to look good.” I feel like the further point of that is, as long as we’re not beating ourselves up every day to try to look good type of thing. Talk a little bit more about that.

Vanessa: Yeah. Here’s the thing, what does “look good” mean to you versus what “looks good” means to me? Two totally different things. It’s okay if I want to look a certain way. It’s okay if I pay attention to my food. Because if I pay attention to my food and I eat in a certain way and my weight is this way, I feel that I look my best so I don’t have to be thinking about food and the scale and all this stuff. So that’s fine because my mental health is not suffering. It’s not being terrorized by thinking about this all the time. And also, I don’t look at people walking down the street and think they look whatever. First of all, nobody thinks that way. Nobody thinks about anybody but themselves because we’re all closet narcissists.

Joy: Oh, totally. I say this all the time to my clients. No one’s thinking about you, it’s fine.

Vanessa: Nobody’s thinking about you. So everybody calm down. It’s okay if you want to look good, and it’s okay if you feel that if you gain ten pounds during COVID and you don’t think you look good, and you know that it’s because you’ve been sitting around drinking and eating and not moving your body, and you just know that you’re 160 today but you feel really good at 150, then go ahead and do the work and lose the weight because that’s what makes you happy. And when all these influencers out there are like, “You need to explore why you want to lose weight.” Because I don’t want to fucking be 160 pounds. Because I don’t like it. Because my clothes don’t fit. That’s why. And I got to 160 pounds by being a dick and just eating and drinking my way through COVID. There’s no psychological craziness here. Super pragmatic.

Joy: Right, right. We’re just doing the math here. There’s just that black and white thinking that we fall into again where it’s like, okay, so on an individual level I want to weigh a certain amount because I know my body sits well there. Versus the example that I went through was when I macro counted I lost way too much weight. People who put me on these macro plans were not qualified to do so. That was an issue in and of itself. Then I got confused because I was like, oh wait, does my body want to sit there? Have I just been overeating my whole life? And it turns out, no, because my body quickly rebounded. Help us!

Vanessa: We’re back, we’re back, we’re back. You know, it’s funny. I went to the doctor the other day and I got my labs drawn. I definitely during COVID took it as an opportunity to be like, “I’m just going to snack a little bit more and not move as much.” I’m just going to wear leggings, and it’s going to be fine. Nobody notices but you, right? Only you are like, “I could really be doing something different.” Well, guess what? I went to the doctor. I have high blood pressure. Like, I have high blood pressure. I am not a big person. It’s stress, but also I could be doing things to help myself. And also, I have elevated liver values, which may or may not correlate with my weight at this moment in time. My husband is like, “Oh my God, this is so crazy. You eat so well, and you exercise.” I know, but I’ve been sort of dancing around here, seeing what I could get away with. Now it’s time to buckle in. I don’t like this because I don’t want these labs to keep going up. My cholesterol is high. But I was fucking around, so I have to do something about that.

Joy: Yeah. You’re like, objectively, these are the things I didn’t like. And I wanted to do something about it. I like that for listeners to hear. You really have to make that decision for yourself of what works for you and your own personal health and wellness and labs. You mentioned influencers too. I wanted to ask you a question about this. I see a lot of influencers pushing products. Maybe they don’t have the credentials to be giving nutrition advice. But we came from a CrossFit world where we were really heavy into CrossFit when we first started podcasting. Now we’ll see – and it’s not just CrossFit. It’s a lot of influencers – that will be pushing nutrition programs. What do people need to know as a consumer of what to be careful for when they’re entering into something like that?

Vanessa: Yeah. It’s so funny because I actually got on a call today with a big brand that has many brands underneath them and they were asking to work with me and how they could work with me and how do I work. I was like, the thing is, that’s really interesting. I’ll work with the same brand multiple times, but I won’t work with every single brand that comes in because it’s really about authenticity and integrity and that doesn’t align with it. I never want anybody to come back to me and be like, “You gave me some fiber powder that made me end up in the hospital.” I never want to hear that. Recently I did something with Hood Cottage Cheese. It’s high protein, and I made my kids these high protein muffins. It was really great. Ideas – this is just whole, fresh food, and that’s aligned. Or I just did one with a chip company, Stacy’s Pita Thins. Look, you can entertain with these and you can pair them as a snack. And that’s okay, right? If somebody’s telling you this is a food product that is good. It’s a registered dietician or a doctor. That’s fine. But you got to be careful. Supplement, meal program. Pay this money for this. That’s where it gets really dicey. Just think about it. Food brands are using influencers because they want to get more street cred. They know that an influencer like myself, someone who is a professional who does have a following, that helps them in a different way. One time, somebody was like, “Can you push our pills for weight loss?” I was like, “No.”

Joy: It’s amazing how many emails we still get after all these years. People will email us and be like, “We love your show. I’d love to be on your show.” And it’s all how to lose ten pounds in a week. Like, B.S. You can spot it from a mile away diet culture. I never write back because I don’t want to waste my time. But I always resist the urge to write back and be like, so what do you like about our show? They haven’t listened to one episode.

Vanessa: Right.

Joy: And also, if they had there’s no way in hell we would have them on our show to talk about how to lose 10 pounds in a week or whatever. It’s interesting.

Vanessa: It is really interesting. To your point, when they’re like, “Can you push this pill?” Do you follow me? Do you know who I am? No. No.

Joy: If you had read one post on our feed, you would know that this is not your audience.

Vanessa: But you know what else is so mind blowing? There are really people out there – people ask me all the time, “Do you think that this pill will work for me to lose weight?” I’m like, no, because we would all take it.

Joy: There’s always an audience for it.

Vanessa: Yes. You’re like, this would be a world of people who are all happy with their weight because they would be taking this pill.

Joy: This is why the diet culture is still around. It’s like Vegas. One more shot at winning the billion dollars. People will still buy into it because they think there’s that one thing that’s going to eventually happen to make everyone lose… they’re going to have the “perfect” bodies. There’s always going to be an audience. So what I always say to that is we’ll be here when you’re ready to –

Vanessa: Ready to come back to reality.

Joy: Come back and say, “Hey, actually I just want to be a happy person and not have diets consume my life.”

Vanessa: Right. I was looking at my kids the other day and I was thinking, damn, they’re so fucking lucky. And I was lucky too because my mother, we didn’t have a scale in our house growing up. My parents didn’t talk about weight. We just ate food. I didn’t know. The bad thing was that I didn’t know anything about foods when I got to college. I went to college in the Bronx, which is fast food everywhere and that’s a whole other episode. I gained 50 pounds. But then after college, I moved back home, and I lost all that weight just by eating my mother’s food. I actually didn’t make some attempt to lose weight. It was the year 2000. My influencers were found on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Joy: Yeah, totally.

Vanessa: But I don’t know, I just lost the weight because I went back to eating that food, and that was the end of that. It’s the same thing here. My kids just eat food. My kids are just annoyed by me because I’m like, “Please eat a vegetable, and please eat a piece of fruit.” But there’s still a candy jar they forget about. And then I go to throw the candy out and they’re like, “What are you doing?” Well it’s about to be Christmas, and I guarantee you’re going to get another 3.5-pound bag of candy, so everybody just relax. Which then I’ll have to throw out in April when Easter rolls around. Take it easy.

Joy: Yeah. Because it’s expired. You know what, we’re fine.

Vanessa: Exactly. They’re just lucky because they just see food and they eat it, and they eat what they like. The guardrail is that I want my kids to eat vegetables and try new foods because I don’t want them to be adults never having eaten a piece of fish. But otherwise, I don’t know. Just eat. So I hope that they will never fall victim to this diet culture, buy this pill, do this plan. It’s scary.

Joy: Right. I think back to the day – I was in college in the late 90’s. Oh my gosh.

Vanessa: Those were good days.

Joy: Such good days.

Vanessa: So good.

Joy: I was so happy. I didn’t grow up with social media. I’m just so grateful for that. But I’ll never forget when Friends came on the scene, it was all about the stars of Friends being like rail thin. And then Jennifer Aniston mentioned she did the Zone diet, and that just blew up.

Vanessa: Yes. Those Zone bars. Oh my God, you’re bringing it back, girl.

Joy: I mean, it was like, that was the world. I got the book. And I didn’t do it. Because when I was in college, I was like this is a lot of work. I just remember thinking back to where you don’t – I mean, you don’t know what you don’t know. But I would just drink gallons of coffee and take Ripped Fuel was the name – do you remember that stuff?

Vanessa: Yeah. That’s so funny. Wait, and then what was the other one?

Joy: I was like Jessie Spano trying to stay awake, and I’m singing “I’m So Excited” and crying on the floor. It’s so funny how you think back to, oh, poor body. You live and learn, and you try to be better, but you just can’t keep it – eventually, your body’s going to cry uncle. Done. Done, we’re tired. Maybe when you’re younger, you can rebound. But as you get older, your body’s not going to be so forgiving.

Vanessa: I mean, we talk about that all the time. “Remember when we used to go out until 3 o’clock in the morning, and then we would go to the gym at 5am and then do it all over again?” I’m like, sounds like I would need a month to recover from that.

Joy: Oh my gosh, my best friend and I in grad school, we would always talk about how we would go out and binge drink and get drunk and whatever. And then the next morning, we would wake up and go run ten miles.

Vanessa: Yeah. Yeah.

Joy: I have maybe one glass of wine these days, and I’m like, “Oh man, I need a nap.”

Vanessa: It’s like stroke inducing. Can you imagine? I would have palpitations if I drank until 4 o’clock in the morning and went running at 6.

Joy: Oh my gosh, yeah. So it’s like, okay. Let’s take care of our bodies. Especially coming into the new year, what are some things that we can – eat whatever we want, but it’s that whole taking intuitive eating – and we’ve had a ton of intuitive eating conversations with people who have been trained by Evelyn Tribole, and I really like that principle. I think it’s definitely one way to do things. But I also think there’s people who need structure. So again, it’s not black and white. Every person is different. But what are your suggestions for how people can start to get into a lane of actually really learning what intuitive eating really means, first of all. I hate when influencers are like, “I’m just intuitive eating.” We’re like, do you understand what that means?

Vanessa: Exactly.

Joy: But really also, just a balanced diet. Can we just move towards that too?

Vanessa: Yeah. People, eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You have all these people, I talk to them and they’re like, “So I don’t feel comfortable eating before 3pm.” And you’re like, “Okay…” “And then at night I don’t know why, but I eat a bag of chips, a pint of ice cream, cookies.” I’m like, ugh. I have to explain to them. During the day, your day is structured, right? So you can focus on your work. When you come home, your safe space where you can relax, so that’s when that happens. Help yourself. Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Literally, eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don’t even care when it is. Just eat the three meals and see what happens.

Joy: Yeah.

Vanessa: And then if you think you need a snack between lunch and dinner, which most people do because if you eat lunch at 12 and you don’t eat dinner until 7, you probably need to eat something in between. Good sense. And to help you stay awake. So have something. That piece of fruit that I said you should all eat. Eat a piece of fruit there. Not a big deal, right? And then once you get into the habit of that and understanding, oh, I’m actually hungry at this time. And when I eat cereal for breakfast, I need a snack at 10. But if I eat an egg and a piece of toast and an avocado, I’m okay until lunch time. But definitely after lunch, whatever lunch I have, around 4 o’clock, I need a snack. That’s how you understand your body and become intuitive. It’s not fucking rocket science. It’s not some magical principle.

Joy: Right. But I think a lot of people truly don’t understand how to listen to their body. That’s probably the extreme extreme. Just years and years and years, we let our mind take over instead of listening to those hunger cues. The shoulds, the shouldn’ts, whatever. How do you feel about intermittent fasting?

Vanessa: The thing is, the intermittent fasting studies that we’ve done, they’ve all been done on older white males. So if you don’t fit that bill, you probably should not do that. Although I have used intermittent fasting for my shift workers, for people that work while everyone is sleeping. It works for them. I helped a guy lose 50 pounds that way. Because of the way that his life operated. That works. That made sense for him. But everybody else, I’m not against it per se. But if you are not eating until 2 o’clock in the afternoon and you are seeing that you are overeating in the evening, then don’t intermittent fast. It’s not working for you. It’s not magic.

Joy: Why are you doing it in the first place? Is it because you read some diet article? Why are you doing it in the first place?

Vanessa: Probably. Because they read some stupid diet article. Also, the studies say that intermittent fasting and eating a varied diet with some parameters, you would lose the same amount of weight – which the average is like 6.6 pounds. So just change the way that you eat. Just eat regular food. But honest to God, eat timed meals. So intuitive eating doesn’t believe in timing your meal whereas eating competence, which is the precursor to intuitive eating by someone named Ellyn Satter, believes in timing the meals. Just for better intuition is what she says. And I subscribe to that.

Joy: It’s like my cohost, Claire. She’s very much that person who needs timing because she forgets to eat. That’s where it goes back to there shouldn’t be black and white thinking because everyone is different. And she’d be like, I have no issue eating. I just forget to eat. I need to have a timed meal.

Vanessa: Right. But once you time your meals and you start to realize what’s working for you, what helps you feel fueled, what do you eat that doesn’t sustain you that has you picking all over the place and maybe overeating. Once you pay attention to that – and maybe somebody will have to write it down because maybe you’ll forget – then you can up your game, and you can make better, more informed decisions about your body and how food affects your body. This is all just data so that we can help ourselves.

Joy: Okay, I have a couple questions from our listeners, and then we can kind of wrap up. Someone wanted to know, is it important to have a micronutrient intake? Do you have to track that?

Vanessa: No, girl. This is America. If you are eating foods – remember when we tried to put vitamins in Coco-Cola?

Joy: Oh my God, yes.

Vanessa: I was like, guys, the phosphoric acid in the soda is going to cancel out the minerals. And tried to charge people all kinds of money for that. You good. Don’t worry, I know that the soil isn’t as nutrient rich.

Joy: All those articles, yeah.

Vanessa: Yes, we know all of that. But eat a varied diet, maybe take a multi, eat vegetables. If you eat a lot of vegetables in your life daily, you should be okay with the micronutrients. Don’t make yourself crazy.

Joy: Okay, great. Whew. And I don’t want to make your head explode on this one, but I have a feeling you might. “I heard about the bean protocol. Any thoughts on that?”

Vanessa: What is the bean protocol?

Joy: Well apparently there’s a bean protocol that you basically just add beans to every single meal. It’s supposed to be a magical cure for something. I don’t know.

Vanessa: Because it makes you really full and then it makes you have diarrhea?

Joy: Maybe.

Vanessa: Is that why? Oh God?

Joy: It’s maybe more of a faddy thing. That’s what I take it as. I’ve seen it here and there with influencers on Instagram, of course.

Vanessa: Oh yeah, here I see it. It will heal you from infertility, inflammation, digestive issues, autoimmune diseases. Yeah, cool. If that was true, we would all be on the bean diet. Nothing’s wrong with beans. Beans are really good for you. Beans have vitamins. Beans have minerals. Beans have fiber. So it’s great. But also, if your gut doesn’t really do well with beans, then it’s probably not so good for you. It’s the soluble fiber that is the gel that moves the stool out. If you have too many beans, you’re going to have literal massive dishrag. I wouldn’t be adding copious amounts of beans to food that I eat.

Joy: Just be careful.

Vanessa: Be careful. Drink water.

Joy: Proceed with caution. And last question is, how important are vitamin supplements? I will go to Whole Foods or Vitamin Cottage or whatever, the health foods store. There’s a new aisle every single time I go there. I’m just like, do I need all of this stuff? What do people actually need, and should they be talking to their dietician or their doctor before they take stuff?

Vanessa: Yeah, 100%. Talk to your dietician. Talk to your doctor before you take stuff. Dieticians have access to medical grade supplements. We know where they come from. We can send you a script for legit formulations, so there’s that. Listen. Everyone should take Vitamin D, especially if you don’t live in the sunny areas. Like we’re in New York. It’s darn now. I take 10,000 IUs of Vitamin D. Also, my skin is darker so it’s harder for me to synthesize Vitamin D from the sun. So 10,000 in the winter, 5,000 in the summer. And I also take a probiotic. But remember, you can’t just take any probiotic. What is going on? Do you have any symptoms in your gut? Take the probiotic to minimize whatever gut symptoms you have. Don’t just take whichever one, so there’s that. And maybe a multi. After that, everybody relax. People are like, “I take biotin for my skin and hair. My nails are really brittle, and my hair is thinning.” I’m like, you need to take 10,000 micrograms of biotin a day for that to work. If it works. They’re like, “Oh.” B vitamins, when you have too much of them, you pee them out. Don’t get on this craze of vitamins. Like ashwagandha, I don’t know what it does. I know what it says it’s supposed to do, but I don’t know that it actually does it. It’s a placebo. But Vitamin D, calcium if you’re a woman. That’s helpful. Yeah, you guys are good. Take a B complex and keep moving.

Joy: Okay. And then move on with our lives. This is my question. What about collagen? I see all these collagen products that apparently we need.

Vanessa: So collagen is great. As you get older, you lose the natural collagen. So my skin is lower. I look at my daughter, and her cheeks are so high up. I’m like, “Your cheeks.” And she’s like, “Mom.”

Joy: You still have those.

Vanessa: Still puffy. So for the longest time, we thought that if we injected collagen it wasn’t going to help repair or make new collagen. But that’s not true actually. Eating collagen or injecting collagen will help you to make new collagen and to keep up the collagen that you have. But you could just add collagen to your smoothie. And remember, collagen is not soluble. It’s already broken down. So when people are like, “I put it in my coffee.” Well, you just denatured the protein so it’s not as stable when you’re drinking it. So just add a tablespoon of Vital Proteins in your smoothie and keep it going, but you don’t need collagen in every place. It’s not necessary.

Joy: Okay, perfect. This has been so helpful. Thank you so much, Vanessa. This is the perfect episode for right between Christmas – yeah, it’s going to be the week of Christmas. Then we’ll have New Year’s Eve. Everyone’s going to be wanting to jump on this diet, and we’re going to refer everybody to this episode to be like –

Vanessa: Live your life.

Joy: Live your life. It’s all going to be fine. Eat food. Time your meals.

Vanessa: Drink water.

Joy: Drink water. Alright, well where can listeners find you, Vanessa?

Vanessa: They can find me on @vanessarissettord and also www.culinahealth.com.

Joy: Do you want to talk a little bit more about Culina Health?

Vanessa: Culina, it’s really cool. We are a mentorship, telehealth platform. We give one-on-one nutrition counseling. We take insurance. So 91% of our patients exercise their insurance benefits, so we’re making health and wellness accessible to everyone. We actually just raised $3 million to scale our business and develop a tech staff and compete in the digital health space. Which is very cool.

Joy: That’s so cool. Congratulations.

Vanessa: Thank you. It will be the first time that registered dietician are doing it, and that’s really important. Because you’ve got other platforms that aren’t really helping people as they should. So we’ll always still do the one-on-one telehealth, but we’ll use the tech to make it more efficient. So we’ll never take the personalization out of it and still give people a chance to be healthy. For us, it’s not about weight loss. It’s about clinical nutrition, whatever that means. Mental, physical, whatever that is. The wellness space. Whatever. You want to lose weight? We can help you with that. But 122 million people have diabetes. Right? 40% of the people have disordered eating. We can help you with that. So that’s really what we’re aiming to do.

Joy: That’s a very integrated approach, which is totally needed. As you know, there’s so much more that goes into how someone eats. I’m sure you see patients where they really have stuff going on with their mental health going on and they have to get that [UNCLEAR 00:47:55.17]. So that sounds amazing. I’ll post everything in our show notes so people can find you. But thank you so much for your time. This has been really informative. And if you would be so kind as to come back some time, we would love to have you.

Vanessa: Yes, I would love to come back. And I hope you feel better.

Joy: Thank you. Hopefully I’ll have my normal voice. I sound like I’m on a sexy television show or something because I’m just whispering. At this point, I’m whispering into the microphone.

Vanessa: I love it.

Joy: Did you ever watch Friends when Phoebe has her sexy phlegm?

Vanessa: Yes.

Joy: Yeah, that’s kind of how I feel where she’s like, “I lost my sexy phlegm.”

Vanessa: I think you and I are secret soul sisters. I watch Friends every night before I go to bed. Every night.

Joy: I wish I could turn the camera around because I have an entire Lego set of the Friends cast. Yeah, anyway. I did that when I had Graves’ Disease. I had to take some medical leave, and my husband was like, “We’re getting Legos because you can’t do anything,” and I was like, “I need to do something.” It’s the whole set of Friends. It’s so cute. Anyway. Yeah. 90’d all the way.

Vanessa: All the way. The best time. The best time.

Joy: Well, thank you again. I really appreciate your time. And listeners, you can find us at joyandclaire.com and you can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. We’ll talk to you next week. Thank you, guys.

105: Gift Giving, Lip Fillers, and New Beginnings

December 16, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

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Don’t go rogue on gift giving! We both have new jobs that are going very well. And our thoughts on botox and lip fillers.

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email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com

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This is Joy & Claire Episode 105: Gift Giving, Lip Fillers, and New Beginnings

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

Transcription Completed: December 29, 2021

Audio Length: 52:50 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: Good morning, it’s Claire.

Joy: Good morning, good morning. It is so early.

Claire: Do we sound early?

Joy: I sound a little bit sniffly. I’ve got the sniffles.

Claire: I do normally wake up this early, but not to podcast. It’s not that early, guys. It’s like 7:30.

Joy: It’s early on a Sunday to be podcasting.

Claire: It’s early to use your voice. We need to do some vocal warmups.

Joy: Red leather, yellow leather. That’s really hard to do quickly.

Claire: Red leather, yellow leather. I mean, it is and it’s not.

Joy: Rubber. Baby. Can’t do it.

Claire: Rubber, baby, buggy, bumper. I saw this meme. The caption was like, “I’m losing it.” And the exchange was a Zoom thing. Somebody’s like, “Can you talk real quick?” And the person responded, “Well, not like auctioneer fast, but I can talk pretty quickly if I need to.” I was like, I’m going to say that next time. I feel like I could talk auctioneer fast.

Joy: You absolutely could. You know, Scott’s dad did that when they were kids.

Claire: Really?

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: That’s a fun fact.

Joy: It’s a very fun fact. He’s a real fast talker just in general, so I could totally see it happening.

Claire: People will occasionally comment like, “I thought I had my podcast on 1.5x, and I then I realized Claire just talks really fast.”

Joy: I can’t listen to podcasts 1.5, but I can do audio books.

Claire: I’ve never even tried.

Joy: Really? Podcasts are a little bit weird to me to do fast, but I feel like audio books there’s a cadence that all of the sudden I’ll be like, oh this is too slow for me. There’s also something very satisfying about finishing a book faster than it says it’s going to take you.

Claire: Yeah, like when you arrive at your destination before Google estimated.

Joy: Totally. Totally. Are you the type of person when someone says, “Do you have five minutes?” – what is your reaction? First of all, with friendship different. But work, work relationships? “Have you got five minutes?”

Claire: I’m going to turn the tables on you because I am that person.

Joy: Oh no. I don’t like that person.

Claire: I know. I am that person. I have been working from home at this point for so long – we all have, right? Especially by Thursday, Friday, I’m just so freaking sick of typing. And I was the person – in the office, I am the person who will just come over to your cubicle unannounced constantly. I am the stopper byer, one thousand percent. That is the equivalent in Zoom world of stopping by. “Hey, can I call you real quick?” Because I just always prefer to be like, let me give you a little backstory. Here’s this question I have. Versus spending ten freaking minutes typing all that out.

Joy: That’s true, that’s true. I guess I shouldn’t generalize because there’s definitely people that I worked with that I didn’t care at all because I like them. But if it’s people that I know say five minutes, but what they mean is an hour. That’s where I get weird. Because I’m like, no I don’t have five minutes because you’re going to take an hour.

Claire: I know somebody that I used to work with that they would IM me and be like, “Do you have a couple minutes to just debrief something?” And what that meant was, you’re going to be on with me for the next 90 minutes while I just vent. It’s like, okay. There’s a time and place for that once in a while. But it became kind of a regular thing.

Joy: Yeah, that’s that person. She would call me and say, “Do you have a minute?” This was at a previous place of employment. “Do you have a minute?” And I knew. She’s going to hold me hostage on the phone for an hour. It got to a point where I actually confronted her and said, “Look, I am willing to problem solve with you. But I can’t just sit here and listen to you vent and bitch about the company for an hour. I just can’t do it.” And she’s like, “Okay,” and she kept doing it. After that, I was like, I can’t talk to you. Once I set a boundary and you cross it, done. Bye.

Claire: I have this really sweet gal that I work with you is very – how do I put this? She’s the type of person that if you were to IM her and be like, “Hey, can you talk real quick?” She would immediately be like, “Oh my God, I’m getting fired. Something’s wrong.”

Joy: Yeah, that’s very triggering.

Claire: That signals the getting sent to the principal’s office feeling.

Joy: Totally.

Claire: So I had to tell her right off the bat.- as soon as I figured that out about her, I was like, listen. I’m going to do this, and I’m going to tee you up to be like, “Hey, can we talk for a minute? It’s just about this email. I have a question about whatever.” So that she doesn’t panic. But the first time I did it, she was like, “Is everything okay?” I was like, oh, I see that this is causing you a lot of stress. I’ll kind of set the expectation a little bit for people that I know that it freaks them out.

Joy: Which I think is good. I think that’s good because a lot of us carry baggage from previous places of employment. I think it has to do with age and experience and whatever. But I think right now, I’m obviously starting a new job. I’m two weeks in. And I find myself going, okay, this is a new environment. You don’t have to have a knee-jerk reaction when your boss emails you. This is not the past toxic environment anymore. I kind of have to talk myself through it of things to let go of and how I want to show up differently. If I am fearful of something instead of just making up stories in my head, being like, “I want to check things out” and being totally, totally open versus getting stressed out over it.

Claire: I actually got a new boss this week.

Joy: Oh, already?

Claire: The marketing department that I’m in, they have been on this hiring – they’re adding a ton of new roles. My role is not new. My role was a back fill. But throughout this year, they’ve added six or seven roles to the department, which is a lot. One of the roles is a director position, versus the lead. Which there previously was the lead, which most people would probably refer to as the VP of marketing. And there was a group of senior managers, but there was no director in between. That was fine when the team was smaller, but now that the team has grown, they wanted to add someone in between. So I got a new boss. It’s just very interesting to have just started, so barely know the dynamic of the person that I interviewed with. But then also to feel like, wait a minute, I didn’t interview with you.

Joy: You don’t know me.

Claire: Thankfully, I really like this person so far. And we were talking about something. We’re having this team-building activity this week where we’re all going to one of those experience kitchens where you all get together as a big group and cook a big dinner.

Joy: Oh, how cute is that?

Claire: Like a cooking lesson. It’s very my vibe, right?

Joy: So fun.

Claire: So fun. We were on a team meeting on Thursday, and somebody asked, “What are we making?” And the girl who was in charge of putting it together read out the menu. One of the things was a butternut squash galette. And someone was like, “What’s a galette?” And someone else was like, “It’s a type of pasta.” I was like, “No, no, it’s like a freeform pie. Crust on the bottom, and you kind of fold the edges.” Everyone was like, “Okay, wow.” I’m like, don’t ask the question if you’re going to make fun of me for knowing what a galette is first of all.

Joy: I know, I know, I know.

Claire: Guys, this is a pie question I happen to know the answer to, okay. If it had been a type of pasta, I wouldn’t have known. No one would know. But my new boss was like, “Oh, I knew that.” I was like, oh, we’re going to get along. A couple hours later, we were talking about something and he made a reference to something about bakeries. He was like, “Yeah, I was watching this YouTube show about this Bavarian pretzel bakery.” And I was like, oh, we’re going to be friends. [laughing]

Joy: You’re like, “We’re going to have a lot to talk about. Do you watch The Great British Baking Show?”

Claire: Oh, there have been several people so far at my job that I’m like, “Do you watch Bake Off?” And they’re like, “Oh, I love Bake Off!” And I’m like, “Cool, I have a Bake Off podcast you might want to listen to.” And they’re like, “You do?!” I am usually hesitant to tell people about the podcast because we talk about really personal stuff.

Joy: I know. I never share about it at work, but I’ll tell you a story in a minute when you’re done.

Claire: But I do tell people about the Bake Off podcast.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: Because it doesn’t feel as personal. That one feels like a funny hobby that I have.

Joy: Totally. Totally, totally. Yeah. No, that’s really funny. It’s the whole new work situation. My new boss too. I guess it’s like the honeymoon phase with the job, like I’ve said before. I’m not going to sit here and say that any job is perfect, but I can already tell the vibe with this person. I’m like, oh my gosh, you’re night and day from my old boss. Just the whole company’s vibe is night and day from my previous place of employment. My nervousness to try to – I’m always that person that wants to get to know people at work. I definitely am not an introvert at work. I try to get in and participate, let’s say. I don’t want to become friends with everybody. I have really weird boundaries about that. I don’t really believe in becoming friends with people at work. Like good friends where you hang out outside of work. I’ve just never seen it work very well. Majority of the time, it ends up getting weird, especially if you go into a management role. But there’s been very few times where I’ve maintained a good friendship outside of work. Maybe that says more about me. I don’t know. Anyway, so I’m trying to participate in these meetings because I’m wanting to get to know everybody. They were talking about this creative hobby that one of my other coworkers has. My boss was like, “it’s so cool that I get to learn about everybody’s creative hobbies. I love learning that about you guys.” She’s like, “Is anyone else creative?’ And I was like, “Well, not in that way.” And she’s like, “Well, in what way?” And I was like, damn it. Why did I speak up?

Claire: Now I have to follow this up with a thing. What did you say?

Joy: I was like, “Well, I’ve been doing podcasts for the last eight years.” And then I kind of made a joke. I’m like, “Yeah, we were doing it before it was cool.” And then I’m like, dang it, why did I mention that? Now everyone’s going to wonder what I podcast about, and I didn’t want to follow up questions. I was like, Joy, foot in mouth, shut up, stop sharing. Luckily, no one asked a follow up question like, “Oh, what’s your podcast?” Just Joy, no, cut, stop. It was kind of like you’re trying to participate because no one else was participating. I will be that person. If Zoom gets really quiet and the boss asks the question and no one answers, I always feel really bad. So I’m always the one to speak up if there’s silence. My nervous chatter turned against me. I just hope nobody follows up and tries to look at what we do. That’s too soon. It’s too soon to know what we’re talking about.

Claire: I feel like when I started, they asked me for a little short bio of myself for the employee newsletter that goes out every week. I was like, what do I say my hobbies are?

Joy: Right, I think you told Jess and I. You don’t want to say podcast.

Claire: I don’t want to say my hobbies are podcasting and CrossFit because the people are going to think I’m Joe Rogan.

Joy: Exactly. Exactly.

Claire: No, no, no, no.

Joy: These two things are very – they come with a stigma. They come with a stigma.

Claire: For example, right now there is this – I don’t know if “marketing memes” are a category, but there is this marketing mem going around about personas. Like marketing personas. Everybody knows what that is, right? When you go through an exercise to figure out who the target market is for your brand or your product or whatever, and you typically write out age – like demographic exercise. So there’s this marketing meme, if you will, going around that is a picture of Prince Philip and a picture of Ozzy Osbourne. They’re the same age. They’re from the same town. They both live in a castle. They’re both multimillionaires. They are in the exact same demographic. And it’s like, “Be careful what you say about demographics.”

Joy: Yeah, yeah.

Claire: I want to say that about podcasting. There’s me in this column of podcasting and CrossFit. And then there’s like Ben Bergeron. [laughing]

Joy: Oh my gosh.

Claire: Wildly different category. So I ended up not mentioning either of those things. I put one of my hobbies as drinking coffee. I ran out of hobbies so quickly.

Joy: Baking, drinking coffee.

Claire: I did put baking.

Joy: Hiking.

Claire: What else do I do? But on a regular basis. And everyone at this company puts hiking. You almost can’t work there unless you like to hike.

Joy: “What’s your favorite spots?” And then all the follow up questions and you’re like, “I maybe go once in a …”

Claire: And every single person is like, “Oh, I like hiking and mountain biking and skiing” and blah, blah, blah. So I put those things. But that doesn’t set you apart at this job.

Joy: No. But it’s funny how I get all shy about some of the hobbies. Podcasting, but I have to have a disclaimer. There’s some badge of honor about being like, “But we did it before it was cool.”

Claire: Right. But then that makes you sound even douchier.

Joy: Totally douchey. Where it’s like, “She’s got a hang-up about podcasting.”

Claire: We just got to own it.

Joy: Oh God. I totally was that geek that was trying too hard to be the cool person. Super chill. Breezy. Remember that episode from Friends that’s like, “I’m breezy.” And he’s like, “You can’t say you’re breezy. It just negates the breezy.” [laughing]

Claire: Okay, we also want to talk about a quick exchange that happened right before we hit record that we just glossed right over. We were talking about Joy’s –

Joy: A little sniffly.

Claire: Joy’s sniffly. And right before we hit record, Joy had JT in the room. She records in a spare bedroom in her house that’s been turned into a recording studio. And she’s like, “Oh, one second. I just heard Scott get up. I’m going to put JT out of the room so he can go hang out with Scott.” She opened the door, and Scott’s first words were, “You sound terrible!”

Joy: I said like one word. I was like, “I’m recording.”

Claire: And he goes, “You sound terrible. Oh no.” He immediately was like, “Oh, are you sick? You feel bad?” Joy’s like, “I don’t feel bad.”

Joy: I’m good, I’m good.

Claire: “You need to go to the doctor. I’m serious.” She’s like, “I don’t need to go to the doctor. I’ve got to record. Get out of here.

Joy: I’m like, “We are recording right now.” I’m shutting the door as I’m speaking.

Claire: I cannot go to the doctor in this moment. Thank you. Let’s discuss this later.

Joy: So the backstory is – okay, you can probably tell I’m a little bit nasally. I’ve got a bug, if you will. But Scott has been really sick for the last two weeks. Around Thanksgiving, I probably mentioned this, that he did not go to Thanksgiving with us because he was so sick. He tested for COVID, tested negative. It was probably a bronchitis type of thing. But it really hung on forever. Coughing, he was in bed. Probably in all of our years being married, I have not seen him that sick. There’s a part of me that’s like, I hate to do this, but I do get a little bit of man flu syndrome where it’s like, do you really feel that bad? So he is just fresh off of these two weeks comparing what he felt and thinking he gave it to me. Let’s knock on wood. I don’t think I have what he had. I think it’s probably either a lingering something, like maybe I caught a little bit of what he had or maybe I caught something at the grocery store. Who knows? I’ve been masking and hand sanitizing, but whatever. It’s flu season. I’m vaccinated. I’ve been booster. I had the flu shot. I feel like I’m pretty good. But also, crap happens. I think this is probably something that’s a minor cold. He’s like, “You should go to the doctor now.” Because he fears that if I wait, it’s just going to get worse and worse and worse. Maybe he’s right. But I just was like, this is the difference between men and women.

Claire: I agree with you that this is the difference between men and women in some ways. But also, I think the wild outlier behavior that he’s exhibiting is the willingness to go to the doctor.

Joy: That’s true.

Claire: The majority of men are like – the stereotype says that they want to just suffer. That they feel sick but won’t go to the doctor. You’re like, “Go to the doctor.” They’re like, “It’s fine.” And you’re like, “It’s not fine. Make a choice. Go to the doctor or lock it up.”

Joy: Bless his heart, I think he’s got a little bit of the hypochondria where any little thing he’ll start making it a big deal. He’s really good about going to the doctor, thank goodness. Because as we know, that one time Brandon had – what was it? Dengue fever or something?

Claire: Dengue fever.

Joy: [laughing] One of these days.

Claire: I’m never going to live that down. It was one time.

Joy: One time.

Claire: “She made out with a hot dog. That was one time.”

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: He had dengue fever and I made fun of him. That was one time.

Joy: One time.

Claire: If you guys don’t know this story. Back – this would have been, what? 2013? Brandon went on this medical volunteer trip to Guatemala. They stayed in this village. At the time, he was an EMT. He kind of just came with them and checked vitals. Whatever. It was a great trip. He came home, and he had already missed the first week of school. This is when he was getting his prereqs done for nursing school. I was like, you have to go to school. You’re in Organic Chemistry. You can’t just miss two weeks of O-Chem. And he was like, “I feel so sick.” I was like, “You’re not sick. You’re fine.” He legitimately had such a bad fever. He woke up in a puddle of sweat. He was very sick, and I just had no sympathy for him. Just get up and go to school. I was like, “You probably have an ear infection.”

Joy: Right.

Claire: Go get on some antibiotics and suck it up. And then it turned out that he had dengue fever. So to this day – that was 7, 8 years ago. If I ever make fun of him for being sick, he’s like, “Remember that time I had dengue fever and you made fun of me?”

Joy: He’s always going to use that, yeah.

Claire: I’m like, come on.

Joy: That’s my fear is one of these days – my whole mantra the whole time he was sick – I was bringing him tea, bringing him food, bringing him whatever he needed. Because there were times when I was like, oh my God, are you really this sick? But you know what? It’s not harming anybody. You have to live your life. He went to the doctor. He went to the urgent care once because he was worried that it was going to turn into pneumonia. To be fair, I was worried it was going to turn into pneumonia because that’s how much it was lingering. After a good week and a half of having a horrible cough, I was like, yeah, you can go to the doctor. But anyway, that’s a really funny exchange because I literally yesterday just started having a sore throat, a little bit of sniffles. And today this morning, he’s like, “You sound horrible. Go to the doctor.” I was like, can I just record? It’s fine. I’m going to push mute a lot. I’m going to cough. I’m going to blow my nose.

Claire: It’s going to be fine.

Joy: We’re going to get through this.

Claire: We’re going to get through this.

Joy: How are you doing on Christmas shopping? You done? Because I love a countdown. We’re on the third week of December. I’m going to Oklahoma next week to see his parents.

Claire: Most shipping deadlines are at the end of this week. Hot tip, the majority of retailers, ground shipping or guaranteed 3-day shipping ends by the end of this week for most places. So if you don’t want to have to pay even ore for shipping. So yeah, I’m pretty much done. There’s probably one more thing I want to give Brandon. I need to get my mom something. I feel like moms are the hardest to shop for. And my dad, my dad’s so hard to shop for.

Joy: Your dad is?

Claire: He’s just very – and I get it, because I am also like this. Where he is very picky. I’m pretty picky when it comes to gifts. Don’t give me something just to give me something. If you don’t have a reason to think that this is something that I actually want and will like, then just ask me. Don’t go out on a limb.

Joy: Don’t’ go rogue.

Claire: Don’t go rogue. Don’t go rogue. We always talk about this.

Joy: Brandon always goes rogue.

Claire: He always goes rogue. My perfect example is one year he bought me this sweatshirt that was a zip up hoodie sweatshirt. He’s like, “I noticed you don’t have any zip up hoodie sweatshirts, so I got you one.” Well, the reason I don’t have any is I don’t like zip up hoodie sweatshirts. I like pullover crew neck sweatshirts. Don’t go rogue. If you notice I only have one type of something, it’s not because I haven’t had an opportunity to buy the other type. It’s because I don’t want the other type. And he sees it the opposite, that if you have all one type of something obviously it’s because you would like a different type to branch out. I don’t want to branch out. Let the record show, I don’t want to branch out. I like what I like. My dad is very much like that. But he is way more to the extreme. I feel like I like what I like and don’t branch out. If you do branch out, I’m not going to get mad about it.

Joy: Right, you’ll appreciate it.

Claire: I might with Brandon. I’ll be annoyed because he should know this by now. But the majority of people in my life, I don’t expect them to know that about me.

Joy: Right.

Claire: Except now that you do because you listen to this podcast.

Joy: Don’t go rogue.

Claire: Mugs and cookbooks, guys. You can’t go wrong. But my dad, the phrase that I would say about my dad is it’s not the thought that counts with John Hay.

Joy: So what types of things have you?

Claire: I pretty much just get him golf balls.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: Every gift for every holiday since I was like four years old, I just get him a pack of Titlist golf balls.

Joy: Which is great.

Claire: You always need more golf balls. So I don’t know, that’s probably what I’ll get him.

Joy: With my dad, it’s always guerrilla tape and work glove. It’s all he wants. He wants guerrilla tape and work gloves. Very specific work gloves. Don’t go rogue on them. He likes what he likes. But there was a couple things I got for my parents this year. I actually think he’s going to like this. I may have mentioned this last week. I went on an Amazon wish list that was Oprah’s curated Amazon wish list. There were some really good gifts on there. There was a beanie with a light on it. My dad loves a flashlight, and he likes warmth. So he’s going to love this beanie. He’s always looking for something. He’s always got flashlights.

Claire: He’s always rustling in the corner somewhere.

Joy: Yeah, and he’s up early. He’s going into the garage early. He needs a flashlight so he doesn’t slip on the ice. This is perfect. He doesn’t have to carry something. But anyway, those types of things, I’m like, this is perfect for him because I know he would actually use this. But yeah, it’s hard to do. Would you ever buy your mom or Brandon something like tickets to the Meow Wolf or tickets to Van Gogh? An event, like something that you go to and experience.

Claire: I would do that for Brandon, probably not so much for my mom. My mom is also like – she and I share this problem of we have theories about the types of things we should like, but we never actually buy them for ourselves. Like nice shoes or something. I have one pair of nice shoes. I look at other nice shoes all the time. Or like bags, things like that. I talk myself out of it. I get that from her, talking myself out of buying. Which is fine in some ways. Yeah, I have lived my life perfectly fine with my one pair of nice shoes and my one bag. Or I look at nice shirts for work and then I talk myself out of them because I have enough nice shirts for work. That might be true. And also it makes it so that if I ever get into a situation where I actually need something new, I have analysis paralysis about it. And so she’s like that. So sometimes I’ll get her something that I know that –

Joy: That she has talked herself out of. That’s good. I can appreciate not being a bag person. I’ve never been a fancy bag person. Or purses or whatever. I use the same Lululemon festival purse that I’ve had for – I mean, I think I bought three of them in different colors because I love them so much. But I just can’t – I think when Scott and I were first dating, this was when he introduced me that he is a gift giver. One of the first gifts he gave me was an awesome pair of Nikes. Of course. And then another gift he gave me was this awesome, awesome beautiful purse that I still have. But it was just too big. I’m not a purse person. I don’t like carrying purses on your arm. I like a crossbody. I find it fascinating the people that get really obsessed with like Coach purses – you know what I mean? That to me is a very fascinating hobby, to be into purses. I would never invest that much money into purses.

Claire: Oh my gosh, it’s unbelievable. You know the crazy goop list? They have these $50,000 safari excursions.

Joy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to be like, like vagina weights? Yeah.

Claire: All the goop lists are crazy. This really extravagant one where they list all the most elaborate gifts you could ever give, and they’re like a gold-plated submarine. You’re like, why would I want a gold-plated submarine? But someone out there wants a gold-plated submarine. So. One of the things on that was a $5,000 Air Jordan workshop where you make your own.

Joy: That’s pretty amazing. That’s pretty amazing.

Claire: I don’t feel like Scott is a DIY type of guy.

Joy: No.

Claire: But I could imagine someone who’s so into sneakers being like really into that idea.

Joy: There’s definitely shoes where you can pick your own colors, and he’s done that before.

Claire: Customize them.

Joy: Customize them. He’s definitely done that before. Maybe he would.

Claire: I feel like it would be very specific person that would want to actually build their own from the ground up.

Joy: I think he would want to be in the room with the people and the artists that designed the shoes, that have all the lines of shoes. He would want to be in the room just watching. He went to Seattle this past week for a couple concerts. He went to the Pearl Jam museum. You guys. I’ve never seen so many pictures of Pearl Jam paraphernalia through my phone. He was so excited. He was so excited. It was really cute. If you don’t know, Scott is #1 Pearl Jam fan. He’s like, “All the jackets that Eddie Vedder wears are so small. He’s a tiny guy.” I was like, is he really? You just see Eddie Vedder larger than life. By the way, if you want a good listen, I love that Audible does this. Audible has done some amazing artist series. I think it’s only on Audible. Which I can post the link to our Audible account, which we rarely use, but you can use that link if you want a free listen. It’s called “I Am Mine” by Eddie Vedder. Basically they have this whole artist series where they go through a lot of their process or maybe how they started, talking about the songs that they’ve written, and that one was really good. So shout out to Eddie.

Claire: Shout out to Eddie Vedder.

Joy: [laughing] Shout out to Eddie Vedder. But as far as the Christmas shopping goes, there’s definitely things that I could buy one more thing, but I’m drawing a line. No, you’re done.

Claire: Yeah, that’s fair.

Joy: There’s always more you can buy, and you feel like you have to overdo it.

Claire: I feel like that with my kids. There’s always one more thing. We’re really lucky. Brandon’s family gets the kids so many presents. They get so much stuff. Last year, we literally spent like two years opening presents.

Joy: Two years?

Claire: Two hours, two hours opening present. This is way too much. So I told myself this year, we personally are only getting the kids three or four things because Brandon’s family really gets them so much stuff. Which I’m really grateful for, and I was like I don’t need to overdo this. But it’s so tempting. Like the other day I sent Brandon to Target for like paper towels, which I had preordered and paid for. I was like, “Pick them up at Customer Service. Do not pass go. Walk in. Go to Customer Service. Pick up the paper towels. Leave.” And he calls me like 20 minutes later and he’s like, “Hey, I’m at Target. I’m just looking at this microscope. I’m thinking maybe for Miles?” I’m like, “We have enough presents for Miles! Get out of there.”

Joy: This was a mission. You had very specific instructions. Do not look at the toys.

Claire: Do not look at the toys.

Joy: Oh my gosh. But it’s really hard. Like I was going on the Target app. I was trying to shop for my sister-in-law last week. I got on the Target app, and all of the sudden I see they did this line of clothing and toys and houseware with Lego. I was just like, oh my gosh. They had this really adorable puffer jacket. You could take off the sleeves. It was very much convertible. You could take off the bottom half, so it could be a long jacket, or it could be a vest. And they had this cute pocket on the front. I was like, I do not need any more puffers. I do not need any more jackets. I’m fine. But I wanted it so bad. This is how it happens. By the way, this is what I’ve been subscribing to. JK from The Muscle Feed, who’s been on the Girls Gone WOD podcast a few times. He had this great suggestion. I think we talked about this offline. We talked so much about how we love a certain thing that we’ll buy multiple shirts or whatever. The things that you like, you just keep buying the same thing. He’s like, “I don’t need any more graphic tees. So whenever I see one, I’ll look at it and if I want to buy it right now, I’m just like, ‘Nope.’ And I put that same amount of money that it costs into my savings, and I label it ‘graphic tee that I didn’t need’ type of thing.” That’s actually brilliant. You see how much money that you’re saving. Truly, it’s not about limiting. Hey, if you want something, great. Buy it. But there’s a certain level of, I don’t need any more sweatshirts or running shoes or whatever. And then you just put that into savings. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. So I’m going to put that puffer jacket, I’m going to put that money into savings, and we’re going to be fine.

Claire: My whole family just got new puffer jackets. Those are the last thing we needed new of. Every single person already has multiple of these, and now we have more. I can’t stop myself when it comes to puffy jackets. I just can’t.

Joy: When you live in Colorado. But here’s the other thing – you know I love fashion. You know I love makeup. You know I love all of it. And I live in a city and a state that you just don’t have a lot of opportunity – let me just say, at my age. I’m not going out. I work from home now. So I really just need to be presentable from the waist up. I feel like that is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about. Where you spend your money and blah blah blah. I just think about how something like that $5,000 Jordan designer thing. Or if you see something on the news about some type of memorabilia that sold for $20,000. I’m like, oh my gosh, that is just crazy. You have a piece of memorabilia that, sure, it’s something that they look at that as an investment. But I can’t wrap my head around spending that much money.

Claire: It’s still an item. Like, it’s a thing.

Joy: Yeah, it’s a thing. That’s where I get really caught up. Because I’m like, this is where I can never be a billionaire because I just get way too caught up in, “Oh, a private jet costs a million dollars?” Even if I had billions. Yeah, it’s whatever.

Claire: Well, first of all, when it comes to never getting dressed up. I kind of wonder in this day and age, where is a location where you get – I think anywhere you go at this point, any city in America where you need to get dressed up. Maybe there are some places where it’s a little let weird. That’s the thing. In Denver, you could show up dressed up to any restaurant, and it wouldn’t be weird. It’s just very uncommon. So maybe we just need to do that more. We need to be like, you know what, we’re getting dressed up tonight and we’re going out because I want to buy something dressy.

Joy: Which is fun, and I’m all for that. But people in Los Angeles I bet would beg to differ. Like Scottsdale. I always think of Scottsdale because every time I go there, I’m like, oh my gosh I can’t hang.

Claire: Really?

Joy: Oh yeah.

Claire: Tell me more about this Scottsdale. Because Maxine’s boyfriend lives in Scottsdale, and I just imagine it being golf courses.

Joy: Well, it is. But it’s a very wealthy part of Phoenix metro area. I don’t know. Without going into a lane of offending a lot of people, I think I would just say there’s a certain group of people – there’s very much a competition of appearances. Maybe I’m just transferring this to the group I grew up with in high school.

Claire: I can see what you’re saying, if there’s a cliquiness.

Joy: There’s a cliquiness. The appearance is very, very important. Let’s just put it that way. The appearance is very, very important. So when you go out, that is very apparent. It’s very prevalent in that city.

Claire: And I guess when I think about dressing up, I think about a cocktail type of attire type of dress up. Not a separate branch of casual where your casual wear is just really nice. I can’t imagine a world where – I was thinking about this last night. Miles had this Ninjas Night Out at karate. It was kind of like a lock-in where you drop your kid off for like five hours, and they just kind of babysit them for you. I had on effectively pajamas when I was dropping him off. It was the middle of the day. It was five o’clock. And I was thinking to myself, I’m so glad that I’m not the type of person that thinks I can’t go run errands in my leggings and my socks. I have my ski socks and my sandals on and my leggings. And my ski socks are kind of crumpled up at the bottom because I don’t want to pull them up over my leggings. And I have that big – Joy, for my birthday, got me this big, fleecy yellow sweatshirt that is very cozy and also looks like this big, fleecy, yellow thing. It’s yellow and fleece. You wear it and it’s like –

Joy: It’s a big bear hug.

Claire: But it’s bright yellow. There’s no getting around that you’re wearing this like… like it could not be more casual when it’s going with everything else.

Joy: Right, right.

Claire: It’s sort of the sweatshirt equivalent of a bathrobe.

Joy: But so cozy. This is clearly my comfort clothes. Like right now, I’m wearing –

Claire: You are also wearing the sweatshirt equivalent of a bathrobe.

Joy: Yeah, I definitely have a sweatshirt bathrobe on.

Claire: And I just had this moment of, oh man, I’m so glad I don’t care about getting dressed up to go to the grocery store or drop my kid off at karate or whatever.

Joy: Anyway. Here’s the thing. You do you, right? I guess we all – but I think when I think about the things that I want to buy and spend money on… whenever we go shopping and Scott will pick out this awesome ragged bone dress and be like, “This is awesome.” Where would I wear that? Where on earth? I wish I had a place to wear that. Maybe we should go out more. Anyway. People in Dallas are going to write in and be like, oh let me tell you a thing or two. [laughing]

Claire: Please tell us. If you have moved to a town and unwittingly showed off to drop your kid off at karate wearing leggings and ski socks and everyone around you had their outfits on and you were like, “Oh no,” please tell us if this happened to you. Because I can imagine.

Joy: I really want to know.

Claire: If I lived anywhere other than Boulder County, I think I’d have culture shock. Because Boulder is particularly very casual. You can show up at any establishment at any time in leggings and ski socks and someone else in there is also going to be wearing leggings and ski socks. You could show up in July in leggings and ski socks. Literally, I don’t think I’ve gone anywhere where at least one person wasn’t wearing socks and sandals. It’s like the Boulder thing. It’s horrible by the way, but you can’t resist it. It’s just so convenient.

Joy: It’s so convenient. Yeah, it’s so convenient.

Claire: Yeah, but if I moved anywhere else, I think I would have culture shock about it.

Joy: I would like to hear about it. Where you live, whether or not you feel pressured to do something with yourself before you walk out the door. And I’m not saying I don’t do anything. I’m just saying I don’t go out of my way. Even right now, it’s really funny because now that I work from home and I really only have to do a little bit of doing up my face and my shirt. I’m like, oh I’m always in sweatpants now. Is this a bad thing? Is this a bad thing? I have to tell a quick sad story that’s not sad at all. It’s just kind of funny and ironic. Over the past month, I’ve had really bad allergies in my eyes, and I think it’s a reaction to makeup. I’m like, this is the universe playing a cruel joke that I can’t wear makeup right now. It has been really, really bad to where even when I wear mascara, my eyes would get really red, my eyelids would get really red, around my eyes. It would just be this severe allergic reaction. Yeah, apparently this is the same thing where you can just develop an allergy over time. All of the sudden, your body can be like, “We don’t like this.” I’m like, my body doesn’t like makeup anymore? This is so sad. So I haven’t been wearing a lot of makeup because of that. But luckily, I found a few products that are helping.

Claire: Okay. I had a similar experience, and I think it had to do more with my contacts than anything and starting at a screen all day. First of all, fun fact, your body can develop and allergy to contact lenses.

Joy: Oh my God.

Claire: Over the course of your life, if you are someone who has been wearing contacts – like me. I’ve been wearing contacts since I was in third grade. But basically what happens is your body comes so, so, so, so, so sensitive to the types of crap that inevitably builds up in your contacts that even if you have the type of contacts where you throw them away every single day and put new ones in every single morning, your eyes can become oversensitive to the bacteria that just naturally occurs in your eye but builds up on your contact lenses throughout the day. So there are people out there who over time just get to the point where they physically can’t wear contacts anymore because their eyes reject them. I thought I was getting to that point like two years ago.

Joy: Oh really?

Claire: I ended up changing contact brands and having to go through five different brands to find one that didn’t do that. I also had a similar experience with mascara recently. I was asking on my personal Instagram for mascara recommendations for people who have sensitive eyes. The one that I tried that I’m really liking, it’s Tarte is the brand. It’s called like “surfer lashes” or something. I really like it, and it does not irritate my eyes as much as before. I was using a L’Oréal one. I tried the really classic Maybelline one, the pink and the green cap. I tried a lash scope, whatever that one was that Julie Bauer recommended like five years ago and I never update my –

Joy: Yeah, your mascara usually expires and you don’t use it.

Claire: No, not that I don’t buy a new one. Once I find on that I like, I’m just like, “I’m going to use this for the rest of my life.”

Joy: Oh, got it.

Claire: She recommended that to us like five years ago. And I was like, oh I actually really like this one. So I just kept buying it. Yeah, that one was bad. So if you are the type of person, if you have really watery eyes or you have contacts and you feel like you can’t wear mascara with your contacts and keep looking at a screen all day, try the Tarte mascara. I have found success with it. What did you find that worked?

Joy: Well I, first of all, I had to put – I mean, it was so bad. It was so itchy that I had to put eczema cream on my eyelids. Which, I know.

Claire: Oh my gosh, ow.

Joy: Yeah, it was really, really painful. But I got a very – I can’t remember the brand, but I can share it if people are interested. I got it at Target. I had to be very careful because obviously you don’t want that to get in your eye. But I was just like, I’m desperate. And then I got this awesome. Aveno nighttime moisturizer that has changed my life. So once I got my eyes a little calmed down, I tried a little bit of The Honest Beauty from Jessica Alba yesterday, and that has not caused a reaction so far. However, I only put it on my top lashes and barely put any on. Just to be like, I want to try this out. I mean, are the mascara companies trying to kill us? I feel like there are so many mascaras that I use – I’ve used two different ones in the past month just to see if it was… but apparently, I have to get a hypoallergenic mascara now. And I’m really worried about putting on eye makeup. Like, I can’t put on eye makeup right now. Which is really sad.

Claire: I also feel like maybe this is just our body’s way of telling us this is a really sensitive part of your body. Don’t keep putting crap on here all the time.

Joy: Yeah, exactly.

Claire: I would also like to say, I tried the Beauty Counter mascara, and it created the same reaction. So whatever it is. You know when people are like, “It’s because there are all these crappy ingredients in normal mascara. You have to try Beauty Counter.” Apparently, those ingredients were not the culprit. I also think that there is something that’s so odd about feeling like I want to wear makeup so badly that I will go through the process of my body rejecting it to find the one that works.

Joy: Yeah, it’s so weird.

Claire: Also, a lot of people recommended to me when I was putting that post about mascara that I just get my eyelashes tinted. Which I have done, and it does not create the desired effect.

Joy: No.

Claire: I need the volume.

Joy: Yeah, I’ve had my lashes tinted before, and I feel like it’s barely like a whisper of mascara.

Claire: Right. I have dark eyelashes. That’s not the problem. I need the volume that mascara brings.

Joy: The lengthening and the volume.

Claire: I also have gotten eyelash extensions and I loved them. But they were first of all, very expensive. And second of all, who has two hours every 3-4 weeks to lay there and have them do your individual little eyelashes? Not this girl.

Joy: No, no, no. No.

Claire: No, no, no.

Joy: Anyway. I was going to give a quick Sex and the City review of the new episodes, but maybe we’ll wait for next time.

Claire: I mean, how many episodes?

Joy: There’s only two episodes out right now.

Claire: What’s your initial impression?

Joy: My initial impression is, I appreciate the effort and I appreciate the nostalgia, but I’m just really feeling old watching it. Because this was a show that most of us, if you are in your 40’s or maybe your 30’s, if you watched it, it’s probably women in their late 30’s and older who really connected with this show. I was in my mid to late-20’s when I really got into it. It was just one of those things where you feel like you’re just so parallel to your lives and can relate to them. And now it’s just kind of like – I don’t want to say it’s sad to watch it. But I get a little sad watching it where you’re trying to make “fetch” happen type of thing. I just, I don’t know how I feel about it yet. I could talk hours about what they’ve done to Miranda’s character. This woke, white woman that’s really awkward, and it’s bizarre. I’m not going to give a spoiler, but if you can get past it, the first episode I was like this is the most boring episode ever.

Claire: But there’s only two episodes, and you need to get past the first one?

Joy: So far.

Claire: Okay. I was like, this feels like…

Joy: They’re releasing more, but only two have come out so far.

Claire: I feel very strongly about shows where people are like, “You just have to get past the first season.” I’m like, I don’t want to just have to get past the first season. I want to enjoy the whole thing.

Joy: I want to enjoy the whole thing, yeah. I almost was like, I want to watch it just because I want to watch the clothes. And I do like Jessica… Sarah Jessica Parker. Joy… Sarah Jessica Parker.

Claire: I was like, Jessica who?

Joy: I always want to see what she’s doing because she’s just great.

Claire: Right. It is sort of a moment of – that was the whole show.

Joy: Fashion, and yes. And the characters really were amazing. So then I went down a rabbit hole of watching old episodes, which I spent an entire day doing that. But Charlotte clearly has had some Botox so her face doesn’t move, and that makes me feel weird. I feel the same way about Jennifer Aniston by the way. When I watch Morning Show, I’m like, your face doesn’t move.

Claire: Your face is supposed to move.

Joy: And it drives me crazy.

Claire: I feel like there are some women like that where you can tell they’ve gotten a facelift when they didn’t really need a facelift, so they’re upper lip is sort of smooshed across their face.

Joy: Yes. And it looks kind of insane. I want to know what Britney had done. Britney has the same thing.

Claire: It’s a facelift.

Joy: Is it? I don’t know how to explain it. And they all look the same.

Claire: Okay, grab the extra skin on the backside of your jawbone and pull it up under your ears and tell me that that isn’t what is happening to your lips.

Joy: Yeah. I just…

Claire: Maybe not on Britney. Maybe it’s a combination of Botox and lip filler. I think in some instances also a facelift.

Joy: Someone tell us which celebrity that has maybe done it, but I have not actually seen a celebrity that looks good.

Claire: Or counter point, you have seen it and you haven’t noticed.

Joy: That’s the thing. I want to know – Lady Gaga had some work done. I think she looked great, but she still has that lip thing that doesn’t move.

Claire: The lip thing in a trend right now. It’s a trend to have big, unmoving lips.

Joy: It doesn’t look good, you guys. It doesn’t look good to get lip filler and then all of the sudden your lips are like this.

Joy and Claire: Like this.

Claire: I feel like we talk about this a lot because now I’m feeling like we say “and you pucker your lips like this” a lot, and I can’t imagine what other context.

Joy: You look like Sebastian.

Claire: You look like Sebastian.

Joy: [laughing] I just want to know – there’s this girl I work with. She has very large lips. She has a lot of lip filler. And that’s her choice. But it’s to the point where I’m like, how do you…

Claire: I wish you could see Claire’s face. I’m not making fun. Objectively, I don’t think anyone looks better. I think they look great as they are. You know what? I have seen before and afters of celebrities who’ve had nose jobs, and I think, oh, that’s a cute nose. But I never think –

Claire: You never think, oh yes, your upper lip should be that big.

Joy: Right. Exactly.

Claire: Or, oh yes, your face should not move.

Joy: Exactly. Like Kim Kardashian – you see all the Kardashians beforehand and they’ve had so much work done. But they’re beautiful to begin with.

Claire: And that’s not even a realistic – if you basically start from scratch and rebuild your face –

Joy: Rebuild your face, right. They have all rebuilt their entire bodies. They’re robots. But when I look at them when they were kids – or at least teenagers when you could see what they actually look like. They’re cute. Okay sure, now their noses are slimmer or whatever. But I’ve yet to see someone who’s had lip injections where I can’t stop staring at their lips because their lips don’t move. They look like they got stung by bees, and their lips are swollen.

Claire: And maybe if you’re someone out there and you’re like, hey, I get lips done and no one has ever noticed…

Joy: They’re just not telling you.

Claire: I will say – for example, I definitely know of some people, friends that I have who I know get lip filler but you would never know.

Joy: Okay. Really?

Claire: Yes. And I also think, to bring up Julie Bauer again, when she first started getting – and I don’t want to comment on Julie. She’s our friend. But I will say, she is someone who when she did her first blog post about lip filler, I was like, oh my gosh. I never would have thought that she was getting lip filler. I appreciate that she is very open about the injections that she gets and is realistic and is like, hey, my face looks like this because I get work done. And I love that about her that she’s very open about that. So that other people aren’t like, “If I start eating Paleo, I will have perfectly smooth skin.” No, there’s more to it than this. I remember specifically the first time she was like, “Yeah, I’ve been getting lip filler,” I was like, oh, I never would have known. So there are people out there that I think can accomplish it. But I also think right now there is a trend where it is the look. The look is to look like you’ve had lip filler.

Joy: Right. That’s interesting, yeah.

Claire: The look isn’t a natural look that you’re going for. The look that people want is, oh I want the bee sting look.

Joy: Yeah. Maybe… hmm… good for you, not for me.

Claire: Good for you, not for me. I agree with that.

Joy: Good for you, not for me. I think I just also appreciate –

Claire: You also have really big lips, I would say.

Joy: Yeah, I know.

Claire: You have big lip privilege.

Joy: But I don’t have big boobs, and I’ve never been like – I considered it…

Claire: Okay, you considered it. Every small chested girl out there has considered it. I had fake boobs for like five years. Hated it, got them taken out. In my 20’s, in case you didn’t know that about me. Now you do. But I have really thin lips. Particularly my upper lip is really thin. And I’ve definitely thought about it. What if I do just a little bit? I’ve done this in the mirror before where I lifted up my lip a little bit.

Joy: Yeah. But just –

Claire: But is it worth the risk of going too far?

Joy: Yeah. I don’t know.

Claire: And it’s so expensive.

Joy: It’s so expensive.

Claire: It’s like $500. I wish you guys could see what I’m doing. Don’t we all? We stand in front of our mirror and we hold up our skin and wonder what it would look like. Or we look at the filter on Instagram stories and are like, oh that’s what I would look like with a nose job.

Joy: Yeah. Now they have a filter where they give you lip injections.

Claire: Yeah, actually that filter has made me be like, maybe I should get lip injections. I look good.

Joy: That filter has probably caused a lot of people to get lip injections.

Claire: Yeah. You know what, you do you.

Joy: You do you.

Claire: If you want that lip, go get it.

Joy: I think when I see that – going back to the Sex and the City episode, it’s distracting to me. Because I know what they looked like before. So I can’t help but stare at what happened to your face. No one’s getting out of this life alive. And no one’s getting out without aging.

Claire: I always think about that quote that’s like, “Growing old is a privilege not afforded to many,”

Joy: So true.

Claire: Yeah, we aren’t all going to have the privilege of growing old.

Joy: So true.

Claire: Embrace it. And also, don’t overthink it. If you want to go get an injection in your face, by all means.

Joy: That’s fine. Yeah.

Claire: Joy is going to sit over here with her big lips and judge us all.

Joy: I really will.

Claire: For needing to get work done and we’re going to have big lips. Joy is just genetics. She’s going to be sitting over here wearing her bold lipstick while the rest of us look like we’re drawing on our faces with Crayola marker. If I wear bold lipstick, it looks like I’m a picture that a kid drew to outline their mouth.

Joy: [laughing] You do not.

Claire: [laughing]

Joy: You do not. [laughing]

Claire: It’s a line.

Joy: you do not look like that. You do not. Oh my gosh, okay.

Claire: Let’s wrap it up. Alright, guys. Well you can find us, if you want to have even more Joy and Claire in your life, find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can go to joyandclaire.com. We have all our episodes there. We have our gift idea you can check out if you’re looking for some last-minute gifts. A lot of our episodes are transcribed on our website, if for some reason you just want to read through them. They’re not transcribed in real time. They get transcribed a few weeks later by our awesome transcriptionist, transcriber Caroline who lives in Thailand and is wonderful and transcribes all our episodes. You can email us at thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Tell us about your really realistic lip filler.

Joy: Send us some pictures of how realistic your face work has been.

Claire: Joy, get off your lip high horse. Some of us need a little bit of help.

Joy: Put me in my place.

Claire: Yes, please. And that’s it for this week. Have a great weekend.

Joy: Love you guys.

Claire: Bye.

Joy: Bye.

104: Britney, New Year’s Eve, and Product Recs

December 9, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

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This is Joy & Claire Episode 104: Britney, New Year’s Eve, and Product Recs

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

Transcription Completed: December 20, 2021

Audio Length: 46:12 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire. Again.

Joy: You know why I’m laughing? Because I’m like, which podcast are we doing?

Claire: [laughing]

Joy: I was almost like… are we baking? What are we doing? I love that everybody today was sending us that picture about Chigs that’s like, “Chigs is keeping it on lock of whether or not he’s single.” He appreciated the crush, but he’s keeping it –

Claire: Okay. But also, I saw that Chigs posted in his Spotify Wrapped and his number one most listened to podcast is Joe Rogan, and it might be an unforgivable offense.

Joy: Really, that might be a deal breaker. It might be a deal breaker. if it was our podcast, maybe –

Claire: If it was On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake!

Joy: That would be a deal maker.

Claire: But it was a lot. Like thousands of minutes of Joe Rogan.

Joy: Aw, man, Chigs, you don’t need his voice in your ears. Come on.

Claire: Zero people need his voice.

Joy: Man. Okay.

Claire: Sigh. Also, speaking of the baking podcast, a lot of people were posting and asking if we are going to be covering the holiday one. We don’t have plans for that at this particular moment. We’ll see how we feel later on in the week. There is a new holiday special series that just came out on Netflix. So if you are really missing Bake Off. I just don’t really – I don’t know. To me, the holiday ones aren’t really worth covering because you don’t really know the bakers that well.

Joy: I mean, kind of call it in, phone it in, whatever. I just really wanted to comment on Prue’s hair because she dyed her hair blue for the Christmas one. And her nails looked amazing. You could just tell she was like, “Let me be Prue,” and they let her be Prue. I was just so excited.

Claire: Would you ever dye your hair blue?

Joy: Oh, absolutely. I want to dye my hair pink right now.

Claire: We know.

Joy: [laughing] We know. I was about to call my hair stylist. Because they got this new temporary dye at their hair salon. The last one I did for Moroccanoil just never washed out. I get it. It’s fine. It’s temporary. But that stuff stayed in my hair forever. It’s great if you want it to last, but I just didn’t want it to last that long. Anyways, so they got a new temporary tint at their salon. I’m like, I bet you that one is good and that one will actually come out. I was going to call her and be like, “Can I come by and get the pink one?” We’ll see. We’ll see.

Claire: Do it. What do you have to lose?

Joy: It’s not that. It’s just when you spend so much money getting your hair highlighted, I don’t want to just cover it with pink yet. But yeah, we know that Joy always wants to dye her hair. I would do blue. I would do purple. I like that filter on Instagram that gives you options. You can see what you would look like.

Claire: Yeah. I was talking to my hair stylist about this the other day, whenever was the last time I went in, like a couple of weeks ago. She was talking about how she has – you know, hair stylists I feel like are always changing their hair. I would be too if I worked in a hair salon. Right now, she has these super long extensions. Her hair is this cool grey. I said something about her color, and she was like, “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about going dark again.” Because she has really dark hair normally. And she’s like, “You spend a year getting it as light as you want, and then you immediately just want to go back to dark.” I was like, “Yeah, one day I’m going to walk in here and be like, we’re going blonde.” She was like, “Really?” I was like, “Yeah, one day. I just want to try it.” I just want to have platinum blonde hair for like –

Joy: It’s so much work. That was when I had short hair. I would do it again with short hair because it doesn’t take as long obviously. But I just remember when I was in the phase of changing my hair all the time, when I had short hair, I remember going in and being like, I want to do really really blonde. When you have a good hair stylist, they know when you’re ready, and you know when they’re ready. She looked at me and she was like, “F*** it.” And she just went and started mixing up the hair dye. Meaning, let’s do this. We’re both in the same spot to commit to this. It’s a lot of work on their end too, especially when you have darker hair. You don’t just put blonde dye on. It’s this whole process. Coloring your hair is such a science. But yeah, it was so fun. I look at pictures like, yeah, that was the fun days. But it’s so much work.

Claire: I loved your platinum hair. I just like that whole look.

Joy: Oh yeah.

Claire: One day I want like bleach blonde hair.

Joy: Let’s both do it at the same time.

Claire: [laughing] Mine would take so much – like, I would have to get a six-month head start because my hair is so dark.

Joy: It would take a long time, yeah.

Claire: Anyway, I don’t even know how we got on that tangent.

Joy: I don’t either, but we were talking about hair. Prue dying her hair blue. And we were talking before we hit record about more diet culture stuff. Is that still happening? Are we still doing that?

Claire: I somehow got signed up for text notifications from something. There’s this keto challenge this brand keeps texting me about. I’m like, I don’t want to do a keto challenge. I thought we circled back around and decided carbs were good again. It’s like you have to choose between carbs and fat. No, I want them both. [singing] “I want it all.” I just want all of the things.

Joy: Just give me the food without the rules. Is that so hard to ask for?

Claire: Yeah. So this is an actual brand doing this. I also regularly get those just straight spam texts that are like – literally I got one the other day that was like, lose 45 pounds in four weeks. I was like, oh my God.

Joy: No.

Claire: No. That sounds like a nightmare. I can’t imagine what your body would have to go through for that to happen.

Joy: That, and I wonder if people are still falling for that. Are people still falling for that?

Claire: Do you think you can lose 45 pounds in a month?

Joy: Right. Meaning, do people see that and go, “Oh, this is for me.” Maybe.

Claire: I don’t know.

Joy: It exhausts me. So we all know that Britney is free, and we’re very excited about it and we’re very happy for her. And recently she did a post about – she comments every once in a while sideways about her weight or how she looks. In my eyes, you guys, Britney can do no wrong. She can do or say whatever she wants in my eyes. She could murder somebody and I’d be like, I love you Britney –

Claire: [laughing] She could do it on Instagram, and then she’d twirl and just prance off.

Joy: She would flip her hair. She would flip her fake hair.

Claire: I don’t know if I would take it that far, but I do fully believe that at this point Britney has earned the right to literally do whatever the heck she wants.

Joy: I give her so much grace, and I have so much love in my heart for her. So she’ll comment every once in a while, and I’m just like, oh Britney. You grew up in that culture, so of course she’s going to be conscious about t-

Claire: Not just grew up.

Joy: I mean, the entire world –

Claire: Yeah, the entire world has been talking about her body since she was in puberty.

Joy: Right. So of course that is on her radar. It is her radar. So she made some comment recently –

Claire: She is the radar.

Joy: She is the radar. Truly, when I was in the early 2000’s, I was like, how do I get those abs? She recently made a post. I think it was with her fiancé. Maybe they got married? I don’t know. I’m not keeping up with all the Britney news moment to moment. Maybe this is old news by the time this podcast releases. But she made a comment about fasting and how she’s got to get her body in shape after eating all the turkey and lalala. I’m just like, Britney, I know you’ve been behind a lot of walls for the last 13 years, but we have moved a lot past this diet bullshit. Please, let us just wrap you in our arms and tell you that you are perfect exactly how you are. I just wanted to give her that –

Claire: You don’t need to earn your turkey.

Joy: You really don’t. You don’t need to dance off those calories. Just dance because it’s fun and you’re great at it. Yeah. I just love her so much.

Claire: Her Instagram – I will never forget the tweet that was like, “I’m going to go drop acid and see if I can figure out Britney Spears’ Instagram feed.” [laughing] Because I still feel that way. I still feel that way because there’s like a code that’s going to lead you to Area 51. [laughing]

Joy: Like we’re finally going to see where Martians landed. I think that whenever that tweet came out, apparently people were controlling her Instagram back then. Like, other people were posting for her. I don’t know. This is all – who knows? But I think now that she’s posting herself, I don’t see much of a difference.

Claire: That’s why I made that face. You guys didn’t see my face.

Joy: Like 80’s teddy bears and 80’s roses.

Claire: Right. Do you remember this thing that went viral on Buzz Feed probably a year ago that was like, “The difference between Kim Kardashian’s house and Britney Spears’ house. Kim Kardashian’s house looks like a high-end morgue, and Britney Spears’ house looks like an Olive Garden.”

Joy: Yeah, totally. And it’s so true whenever you see pictures of Kim Kardashian’s house. I don’t think there’s one piece of furniture, and it’s all white.

Claire: High end morgue is very much her aesthetic.

Joy: I’m vaguely following the Pete Davidson Kim Kardashian gossip.

Claire: I am not. Only enough to know what you are talking about, and only enough to have seen this very funny post from @commentsbycelebs, which is still one of my favorite accounts. It was a picture of Pete Davidson sitting in the floor seats at some basketball game. It was like, “Caption this.” One of them was like, “So, what’s new with you?”

Joy: I love reading people’s humor and comments. I love the thing where all of the sudden it’s like, I’m just here for the comments. I live for those moments. I just want to see what people are posting. Kind of like when Taylor Swift released the ten-minute version of “All Too Well,” and everyone was just going over to Jake Gyllenhaal’s Instagram, and it was so, so funny. It was so funny. I mean, Jake Gyllenhaal, they had some siting of him after that came out. I’m just like, this is great. I love this stuff. I think it’s so funny.

Claire: You love the palace intrigue.

Joy: I live for palace intrigue. I just want to know what happens behind those doors. I am that person that will zoom in on a photo and break it down. Like if Taylor posts a video of her and her cat, I’m like, what sheets does she use? I will zoom in. I’m that creepy person that is just so intrigued by their lives. She recently posted a video of her singing a song. They were doing a dress rehearsal with her and Aaron Dressner. I was just like, oh my gosh, I need to see this staircase. And it is a black and white photo, for crying out loud. I love that stuff. I love it. I love it. And I know it’s not as glitzy as I make it out in my head, but that just makes me happy. It’s almost like Cinderella. Let me have the fantasy.

Claire: Yeah, why not? Oh my goodness.

Joy: How did we get on that tangent? Oh, diet culture and Britney. Anyway, Britney’s free. We love her. Britney you do not need to go on a diet. If anything, just keep dancing and having fun. And eat whatever the heck you want.

Claire: Just keep spinning around in your crop tops. Stay cool, never change.

Joy: Say cool, never change. In those 90’s gym shorts.

Claire: Okay, also. Speaking of diet culture, not only are we in the middle of “don’t gain the holiday weight,” we’re also barreling headfirst into New Year’s resolutions.

Joy: Mom Sandy and I released an episode on the Girls Gone WOD feed this week, as this one drops, about creating new habits. You can go listen to that. I’ll talk a little bit about it here. I think it’s really helpful because so many times – I’m guilty of this. When we start the new year, it’s like “new year, new you.” When in reality, if you haven’t yet listened to the Brene Brown Dare to Lead podcast with James Clear. I have not yet read his book Atomic Habits. I know it’s a good book. There’s a lot of –

Claire: Okay, I’m going to –

Joy: Okay, go.

Claire: I’m going to let you finish, but –

Joy: No, go. Go, go, go.

Claire: I didn’t love Atomic Habits. I actually think you get more out of those two Brene Brown podcasts than the actual book.

Joy: Great. Because when I listened to the podcast, I was like, these are great, I don’t know if I need to read the book. And also, I’m not trying to be a know it all, but I know so much about human behavior and psychology.

Claire: I will say, if you are someone who never in your life has done any other reading about organizational thinking, the whole book might be useful. I felt like the book could have been about 30% as long as it was because I felt like the majority of the book was just him reexplaining the same concept in different anecdotes.

Joy: Right, I don’t love that.

Claire: And through slightly different angles. Okay, but you’re still just saying the same thing.

Joy: Alright, that’s good to know. Because I felt like I needed to read the book.

Claire: I listened to the book probably two or three years ago at this point and didn’t really care – it was fine, but I didn’t really get what all the hype was about. And then when I listened to the two Brene Brown podcasts over the last month, whenever they came out, I wish I had just listened to the podcast ones. Because not only do I think he hits all the main points, but it’s so much more interesting to listen to it as a conversation.

Joy: As a conversation. That really helps and saves me a lot of time, thank you. I was hesitating on reading the book because – I’ve said this before. I have some type of block when there’s things that I’m like, ah, I studied this for so long. I already know about human behavior and cognitive behavioral therapy and habits and behavioral change and behavioral activation. That I was really kind of having this adverse reaction to reading it. It was almost like a textbook for me. Because I love the podcast episodes. I agree. So if you have not yet listened to the Brene Brown Dare to Lead, there’s two episodes with James Clear. They talk about habits. It’s great. I was on this kick of, I really like how they approach habits and behavior change and developing something new in your life or adding something new in your life. I want to think about that for myself in the new y year. I do enjoy a new year. I enjoy it. I think it’s great. I like to look at life in chapters. We always look back in years. It’s just an easy way for me to think of my life and conceptualize my life and put it in my life as 2020, 2021. So that’s great. We could argue, “it’s just another day.” I’m not that person. I really enjoy New Year’s Eve. I think it’s really fun. And I like to wake up the next day.

Claire: The liturgical calendar situation, right? That you can turn the page, start going back around. That’s huge. Humans have always had their own ways of coming back around the bend. We can agree that December 31st at midnight is an arbitrary stamp to start that on. But nonetheless, here we are as a culture.

Joy: Nonetheless. I love it. Who cares? It’s fine. You do you. I love it. I think it’s fun. So I was thinking about this. We talk a little bit more in the Girls Gone WOD episode that you can listen to about how we think of habits.

Claire: Do you think you love it so much because it is the international holiday of glitter and sequence?

Joy: It’s absolutely that. I do love a New Year’s Eve glitter.

Claire: It’s not not that.

Joy: It’s not not that. I mean, let me just be honest with you. When you talk about New Year’s Eve, all I think about is glitter falling from the sky –

Claire: Yeah, and fairy lights and glitter and dresses.

Joy: So when you’re saying New Year’s Eve, anything New Year’s Eve, even though I won’t go out, I just think about what fake fur can I wear? What funny things that I can put on my face. Taylor Swift is selling her heart around the eye, for the glitter on your eye.

Claire: You bought that, didn’t you?

Joy: I haven’t bought it yet. I was waiting.

Claire: It’s in your cart.

Joy: [laughing] I’m trying to hard not to buy things for myself while I’m Christmas shopping, but man, it’s hard. I do think of New Year’s Eve, and all I think is glitter and flashing lights and the balls. Yes, I do love it because of that. On New Year’s Day, thinking of habits, thinking of the behavior change that I want to do. And I just really like thinking of it in the small, tiny little baby steps. So that’s all I’m going to say. I’m just going to kind of tease our other episode. But I will say, it’s very tempting – kind of like how we started this conversation – to go to the diet culture mentality, “I’m going to work out and go on a diet.” Let’s all just please refrain from that. Let’s refrain.

Claire: Pick something bigger. Pick something different. Just try something new. And we can talk about this. I mean, it’s only the first week in December.

Joy: I know, but we’re going to keep talking about it because you know I love a buildup.

Claire: You love a buildup. It’s just around the corner. Cringe.

Joy: [laughing]

Claire: Joy loves the buildup. I have been doing a lot of things on a whim lately, I would say. Things I have wanted to do and now finally am like, you know what? Screw it. Like I signed up for that surfing camp.

Joy: Which by the way, you follow their Instagram account and now I want to go on a surfing camp. It looks so fun.

Claire: Right? Just a bunch of women eating tacos and surfing. This is literally my dream. Which is great because I’m going to go do it. I signed up to learn how to hunt. Very excited about that. There is this organization called Hunt to Eat. I’m going to go on a deer/boar hunt. So you guys might not remember, maybe a year ago or more, we were talking about ethical meat consumption. This probably even goes back to early 2020 when we had Mark Ritchie on the podcast and talked about sustainable eating habits and regenerative agriculture. I started talking about my beliefs around sustainable meat consumption and the fact that I really wanted to learn how to hunt and that I felt like hunting is the most sustainable way to go about getting meat and finding it. Hunting is very closely regulated throughout the United States. I could go into that whole wildlife side of it. But I signed up for this women’s only, first time hunter. It’s four days long. It’s in Oklahoma. It’s bow hunting, which I also think is really badass. And also significantly lowers the chances that I’m going to actually hunt anything because I have never – I mean, I took archery classes when I was in elementary school, but that’s all. So yeah, really excited about that. I got a tattoo of a bear holding a croissant. Psyched on that.

Joy: Oh yeah, let’s talk about that decision. That just showed up on Instagram.

Claire: Yeah. I actually had not been thinking about it for that long. I have been wanting to get more tattoos and fill in my arm all the way. The tattoo artist who I see has had a hard time getting back into some form of organization since 2020. This whole year, she’s just been like –

Joy: I wonder why. That’s so weird.

Claire: She opened her own studio. It’s just been impossible to get on her books. She’s already someone who is very hard to schedule with. So I follow a bunch of other tattoo artists. I, a couple weeks ago, had this random idea, wouldn’t it be funny to get a tattoo of a bear holding a croissant? Similar to that artwork of the bear hugging the state of California, but instead of the state of California it’s a croissant. So then another tattoo artist that I follow randomly on a Saturday night was like, “Hey, I had a last-minute cancellation. If anyone wants to get a tattoo tomorrow, I’m free at 5 o’clock.” So I immediately DM’d her and was like, “If this is still available, I want it.” And she’s like, “Okay, great. What do you want to get?” I was like, “Uh, a bear holding a croissant.” I was like, this is going to go one of two ways. Either she is going to write me back and be like “That’s amazing,” or she’s going to write me back and be like, “Uh…” or she’s just going to ghost me. Luckily, she wrote back and thought it was awesome, so I got a tattoo of a bear holding a croissant on my leg. It’s right above my knee. I’m happy with it. I feel like I’ve turned a corner into someone who just gets random tattoos now, which I’m psyched about.

Joy: You’ve always been that person.

Claire: But not random. This feels truly like, this is a silly tattoo of a bear holding a croissant.

Joy: Alright.

Claire: Like, my other tattoos as least can sort of have a little bit more of – “Well, why did you get a tattoo?” I don’t know. I just thought it would be funny to have a tattoo of a bear holding a croissant.

Joy: Yeah, I can appreciate that.

Claire: I’ve always gotten tattoos, but a little bit less on a whim.

Joy: Yeah, tattoo and whim do not always go together.

Claire: I’ve said this before that people say getting tattoos is addictive. I think it’s less addictive and more that once you start getting tattoos, you realize they really are not that big of a deal. I think before you get tattoos, you have them built up in your head as this big life-altering event. And then you get one and you’re like, I’m just me but with a bird I can see sometimes on my arm.

Joy: Totally. Totally.

Claire: And you realize people out there don’t care anymore. Society doesn’t care about it anymore. It’s just not a big deal.

Joy: Nobody cares.

Claire: And they’re fun.

Joy: They’re very fun.

Claire: So I’m kind of like, this is so fun to look at. And if there is a deeper meaning behind it, it’s that I got it on a part of my body that is really not my favorite part of my body. Just my legs, I don’t know. My legs are not my favorite part of my body. But now I have this thing where I look down and look at my leg and I’m like, “Oh. Look at that guy.”

Joy: So cute.

Claire: Now I really like this part of my body because I have a bear holding a croissant on it.

Joy: That’s great. That’s great.

Claire: Why not? So instead of being like, I’m not a huge fan of my lower thighs. Now I have a bear holding a croissant.

Joy: I just want to say – this is not towards you at all. But I always wanted to be like, “Oh, your meaty thigh” because I used to say that to Cadet. It makes me really miss Cadet. She would always go on her back and want me to rub her belly, and I’d be like, “little, meaty thigh.” You have a cute little bear on your meaty thigh. But I’m just saying it in the dog voice. I’m not saying anything toward your body.

Claire: It’s okay. I’m not taking it –

Joy: Okay, thank you.

Claire: So I’m really excited about that. And then, I also got a new ring that I’m really excited about from this jeweler that I follow who I’ve always wanted a ring from, and I finally just bought one, because they’re expensive. It’s one of those – people release things and they’re sold out within two minutes. So there’s just a lot of little things where I’ve been like, you know what, I’m going to stop rationalizing myself out of this and I’m just going to do it, and it’s been really fun.

Joy: Congratulations.

Claire: I didn’t even need a new year to do that.

Joy: No. You don’t always need a new year. You don’t need the calendar to tell you.

Claire: But I had a new job, and then I had a birthday. There was some new energy in there.

Joy: Yeah, for sure. I think what I was thinking about too with the habits thing is that – okay, don’t judge me on this. I found myself finding the appeal of, let’s just say a fitness-related goal. So one of the Peloton instructors posted this thing. She’s so sweet. She’s so cute. She had a baby, I think, this year – last year? She posted this challenge for December. Every day, just move for 30 minutes. She’s doing a running or walking thing. But she basically was like, hey, join me. And posted a little calendar. I was just like, oh my gosh, looks so fun. It just reminded me of how fun it is to do something – there’s no pressure. It’s not like you have to run three miles. It was just, you have to move for 30 minutes a day and just be mindful of that. It didn’t feel diet cultury to me. I like her vibe. It just reminded me, it doesn’t have to be bad when it’s fitness related. I never want to come across like that either. Then it got me thinking about New Year’s and habits. It’s fun to do stuff together.

Claire: Yeah, I agree. And we also talk a lot about how physical goals are not inherently toxic. I feel like sometimes we swing too far in the other direction and say people aren’t allowed to have physical goals. Because then that means they’re a slave to diet culture. And that’s not true. You can make any goal you want for yourself as long as you are honest with yourself about where it comes from. I also think that there is a lot of freedom in having goals that are based on something outside of trying to look or weigh or be a certain body type that can still be very physical. I don’t ever want to be like, “You’re not allowed to want to lose weight” or “You’re not allowed to want to look muscular” or whatever the case may be. But if you’ve always set goals based on those things, maybe just try a different type of goal. And maybe try a different type of physical goal. Like, I want to work out 100 times next year. I want to do 100 workouts in a year. Or I want to do 200 workouts. That’s a lot, but have fun. Or for me right now, my training goal really has to do with my surfing thing. I really want to get there and not have to worry about being so sore the second day that I can’t enjoy myself for the rest of the week.

Joy: Exactly.

Claire: Or maybe you want to be able to outrun your five-year-old. I’m currently 99% sure Miles would beat me in a foot race. I have more endurance than he does, but purely because I’m older.

Joy: Yeah. But he could probably just sprint right past you.

Claire: He’s absolutely faster than me in a short distance race.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: All that to say, get creative.

Joy: Get creative. Have fun. If it fits for you, great. There’s no right or wrong way of doing it. I’m going to leave it at that. Okay, let’s take a quick break to talk about this week’s sponsor, Ned. We have the stressors over the holidays. We are probably feeling run down. The year’s been a year. The past two years have been a year. We would like to introduce to you if you haven’t already seen the Ned products, the CBD products. High quality products. I’ve been using the sleep blend. I still get hotel sleep. Mom Sandy is a huge fan of the mellow. If you don’t want a CBD product, you can use the mellow, which is a magnesium. And you’ve been using that too, right Claire?

Claire: Yeah. And they just came out with a new flavor. Meyer lemon. So delish.

Joy: Oh, I love Meyer lemon.

Claire: I love a Meyer lemon. Okay, also, here’s my other note. Call me crazy. I’ve gotten to the point where taking Ned before bed is so intrinsically part of my nighttime routine that as soon as I brush my teeth, I cannot forget to take it. Because one time I had my toothbrush – you’re going to think this is nasty. Because the Ned products taste a little skunky. I love the flavor of them after I brush my teeth.

Joy: Really?

Claire: So I brush my teeth. Then I do my dropper full of Ned. And I sit there for a minute with it under my tongue while I get the other bottles of the other supplements that I take and pour them out. Then I swallow the CBD.

Joy: You’re creating a habit.

Claire: I swallow the CBD. Then I put the vitamins in, and I chase it all with water to get the skunky taste out. But I don’t know, there’s something about it.

Joy: That’s interesting.

Claire: You guys are going to think I’m crazy, but I love it.

Joy: Alright. Hot take, hot take. I typically do a little bit of a chaser afterwards, but it’s fine. Whatever works for you. But we do want to say that full transparency is Ned. They have third-party lab reports who farms their products, their extraction process, all right there on their site. So you can get a discount for the holidays. Even more of a discount. Our listeners get 20% off Ned products with code JOY. And when you spend more than $150, Ned is throwing in free gifts with every order. Visit helloned.com/JOY to get access. That’s helloned.com/JOY to get 20% off plus a free gift with orders over $150. Thank you, Ned, for sponsoring the show and offering our listeners a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues. Thank you, Ned. Alright, can I give an update on what’s going on with the bone marrow donation?

Claire: Yeah, please.

Joy: Because that’s taken some turns. So about a month ago – gosh, it’s probably been over a month – I posted about getting called by Be the Match, which is an organization that has a registry for bone marrow donation. Just to be clear, these are a lot of things I’m learning as I go along. Some people don’t know this that when you join Be the Match, when you join the registry, you’re not going to donate. Just joining the registry does nothing. It just puts your sample on a list. You may never get called. Just because you get on the registry doesn’t mean you’re going to get called. In fact, it’s rare that you would get called. I want to say it’s 1 out of 2000. Maybe 1 out of 1000 people will get called if they are on the registry. So I joined this registry about seven years ago, got a call about a month ago that I was a match with a patient. And that, hey, would you want to donate bone marrow? So fast forward, I was supposed to donate in November. That got pushed out because of the patient’s health declining and just not currently being in a state where she was healthy enough to get the donation. It’s still going to happen, but we just have to wait. For privacy reasons, obviously, I don’t know a lot about what’s she’s doing or how she’s doing. But I am hoping that at some point in the next month, I’ll be able to still donate bone marrow and save her life. All I ask right now is that people send her prayers, if you believe in that. But it really made me sad. I have to take filgrastim shots, which is a bone marrow booster, five days before my donation. And the day before I was supposed to start shot one, I got the call that it was on hold. So I was just psyching myself up, psyching myself up. And psyching myself up in a way of I hope that she’s okay too. Because I can’t help but think, how is she doing? When I got the call, I was like, aw man, I just really felt for her. All I’m thinking is that at any time a donor could just pull out and say, “No, I don’t want to do this anymore” and maybe she’s worried about that. Now her whole family is like, okay, she’s not doing the bone marrow donation yet. We have to wait, and we have to do more treatment before she’s in a state of health where she could get the donation. So it’s all very like, I just want to send her good vibes. I don’t know who she is. She’s just this stranger out in the United States. That is the update. Some wonderful listener recommended – she sent us a DM and she was like, “I don’t know if you’ve read this book yet, but I thought it might be helpful for you to read because you’re going to be donating to hear it from a recipient’s standpoint. The book is called Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad.” I can post the book in the show notes. I read it within a week. It was so good. I listened to the book, and she reads it. It really talks a lot about her journey with leukemia and getting a bone marrow transplant from her brother and how it impacts her life and how it impacted her life. And luckily, she’s still alive. But thank you, listener, for recommending that book because I really, really loved it. I really wanted to get into the head space of what the patient that is going to get the donation is going through. I can already imagine it’s so difficult. But I think I feel even more close to her. It’s just an interesting feeling to be this person that they are banking on me too, to follow through. I just can’t imagine what that feels like. Anyway, that is the update on the bone marrow donation. To be continued. My biggest fear – and this happens. I see it in the private Facebook group for donors. Patients die. I think my fear when my caseworker called me, because she was like, “Do you have a second to chat?” I was like, oh crap, there’s going to be a change. She doesn’t text me just to chat. It’s usually something that we’re changing course. She’s like, “Unfortunately” – and when she said “unfortunately,” I thought she was going to say the patient died. She just said, “They had a relapse, and we have to go through some more treatment before you can donate.” That could happen. That’s just my immediate prayer. I just hope that she gets to a place of health. I will keep you guys posted. Go to bethematch.org, get on the registry if you’re between 18 and 35. That is the population that they need the most right now. And specifically people of color.

Claire: So we have a few questions left from a couple weeks ago. We did some Q&A. Let’s pull those up and finish off our week.

Joy: Leftover Q&A.

Claire: My fave.

Joy: I can do this one. Recs for how to keep hands moisturized through the winter. I feel like everyone has an opinion about this. Do you have a favorite lotion that you love?

Claire: No. I don’t like the feeling of lotion. And I think because I’ve always lived here –

Joy: Your body is used to it.

Claire: My body is used to it. I’m not saying that my hands are not a little bit dry, but they don’t get dry the way that I see other people’s hands getting dry. Like, my knuckles don’t crack or anything.

Joy: Nothing is more painful than the split fingers on the tips.

Claire: I’ve never had that.

Joy: I get that as least once a year. I use the Kiehl’s ultra-moisturizing hand lotion. It is amazing. As well as the Aveda hand cream. So good. Don’t buy anything else.

Claire: I just always think of that scene in Ocean’s Eleven where Burnie Sanders is trying to negotiate the van purchase.

Joy: Bernie Sanders?

Claire: Not Bernie Sanders. [laughing]

Joy: I was like, Bernie? Did they put him in a chair in Ocean’s Eleven with his mittens? That’s all I could think about.

Claire: Bernie Mac. Bernie Mac. [laughing] I wish it was Bernie Sanders. That would be way funnier. Hot take. Brad Pitt, if you’re listening, get Bernie Sanders on board for the next Ocean’s movie.

Joy: Just prop him up in a chair with mittens.

Claire: Bernie Sanders. Bernie Mac is trying to negotiate with his hands, and he’s squeezing that guy’s hands really tight. He’s talking about his hand moisturizer. “Ideally speaking, we should all wear gloves to bed.”

Joy: [laughing]

Claire: I always think about that.

Joy: That’s good.

Claire: You have nice hands. Do you moisturize? No. I will say though. Truly, a ritual thing that I do is every night before I go to bed, I do put on my Ned chap stick.

Joy: Oh my gosh.

Claire: I literally can’t get into bed without putting chap stick on.

Joy: I lather my lips in chap stick, and Ned chap stick is the best. What espresso machine do you have? We’ve got a couple people asking about espressos.

Claire: I don’t have an espresso anymore. I feel like we have maybe covered this. I had a Nespresso machine. Not “an espresso” machine, “a Nespresso” machine.

Joy: George Clooney espresso. Doesn’t he do the ads for them?

Claire: I don’t know. I thought you were still going all Ocean’s Eleven?

Joy: [laughing]

Claire: I was like, man, we’re really going to ride this one out. I don’t have one anymore. I used to have one. I had it for like a year. I really liked it. When we started being at home more, I found I wasn’t really using it as much. Brandon never liked the Nespresso coffee, so what we would do is we would buy these reusable pods and fill it with our own coffee from the local coffee shop that we like. That was just a lot of work, which is fine, and I did it. In the end, it was not as convenient as I want it to be because I have to do this whole thing with reusing our pods. I think I still have a highlight on my Instagram if you’re like, “Reusable pods, that’s a thing?” It really was not that big of a deal. It was like a faff. Now we use a Cemex, which I love.

Joy: Wait, you have to explain “faff” for our non-British Bake Off listeners.

Claire: Okay, so if you do not watch The Great British Bake Off, there’s a contestant named Freya who is so funny. She was 19 and vegan and just all the things. And she all the time would say that things were a faff. So I started asking what the heck does faff mean. And people told me it basically means anything that is more effort than it’s worth. Now I just use it all the time because we all need a word for that.

Joy: And everyone told us what “ta” means so from Lizzie when she’d be like, “Ta.” It is shorthand for “thanks,” which I think is adorable.

Claire: Adorable.

Joy: I love Nespresso and I use it every morning. I have the virtuo line.

Claire: What’s your favorite flavor?

Joy: I hate any flavor coffee. So just give me a mild or dark roast. I cannot stand flavored coffees. So I think I get the stormio – I get whatever the typical Nespresso brand is. I don’t do any of the special stuff. Whenever they have special roasts every month, I don’t get those. But pro tip, I was so annoyed for the longest time that they don’t sell virtuo line Nespresso pods anywhere but in the Nespresso store or on the Nespresso app. Until Starbucks started selling them at Target. Just so you know, they are now at Target.

Claire: I also feel like I would have stuck with Nespresso if I had waited another year because when I was using Nespresso, it was before they sold pods anywhere other than online or at the Nespresso store. You could only buy Keurig, and no one else made Nespresso pods. They were only the third-party Keurig pods. That was another downside in my opinion.

Joy: You really had to plan ahead if you were going to order – whatever. Someone asked favorite brand of lip balm. I would say Ned. Let’s just reiterate, I really love Ned lip balm. I probably also have about ten different types of lip balm at any time.

Claire: I would say Ned. But Ned is not cheap. Evie went through this phase over the summer where she ate all my chap sticks. She ate them.

Joy: Oh no.

Claire: It was disgusting.

Joy: Wax in her poo?

Claire: It was so gross. A chap stick stick would disappear, and she would just gnaw on it throughout the day and then it would just be gone. Luckily, she did not eat any of my CBD chap stick.

Joy: Delicious.

Claire: But for a while there, I was just buying the cheapest chap stick possible because I was convinced she was going to eat it if she got her hands on it. Not that this is the cheapest, but I also do Burt’s Bees. I like their vanilla flavor. I don’t love their peppermint one. The thingy, spicy chap stick thing, I’m not into it.

Joy: Not a fan. Okay. Do you have any irrational fears?

Claire: Yeah. We know I do. I’m terrified of moths flying in my ears and laying their eggs.

Joy: I just wanted you to say it.

Claire: Guys, please don’t DM me with the stories of when this happened to you. This always happens. Every time I say I have this irrational fear of moths flying in my ears and laying eggs, and five people DM us like, “Claire, it’s not irrational. Here’s a story about the time that it happened to my sister at summer camp.” Why? Don’t tell me these things. Let me believe that it’s not going to happen to anyone in the real world.

Joy: We will absolutely get at least one person who will say, “I work in an ER, and I treated someone.”

Claire: Please don’t do this to me.

Joy: I will be on alert the day we release this episode, and I will be deleting messages so that Claire doesn’t see them.

Claire: True friendship.

Joy: But the funny thing is when we had our live show at Camp Timeout –

Claire: A moth landed in my ear, practically, and it was horrifying. I know.

Joy: That was so funny – it wasn’t funny, but it was. Because the irony. It just killed me. Your worst fear is coming true.

Claire: Live.

Joy: In a live interview.

Claire: Oh my gosh.

Joy: Alright, should we do one more?

Claire: Yeah, we can do a couple more. Somebody asked me what my favorite things were for a baby registry. I always love this question because I think baby registries can get so overwhelming. If you’ve never had babies before and you’re like, do I need a million things? My suggestion is don’t register for clothes. People are going to buy you clothes whether you ask for them or not. You’re going to get them. You’ll get hand me downs. One thing I learned very quickly is the first couple times someone offers to give you their hand me downs, you’re like, oh my God, thank you. You’re amazing. Now that I’ve been the mom trying to get rid of hand me downs that you are doing someone a favor by accepting those hand me downs. They have been sitting in a basement in a freaking trash bag for two damn years. Accept the hand me downs.

Joy: Please take them.

Claire: You are doing them a favor.

Joy: They’re so happy to get rid of them.

Claire: So don’t register for clothes. Everyone will give you clothes. Just buy jammies. You don’t need little outfits. You absolutely do not. But you need really to start out with, you never in my opinion can have too many swaddle blankets. Like the linen muslin ones. You can just use them for everything. You can never have too many diapers. Although I would hesitate to say any diaper any size. You’re going to find a diaper brand that you like. So all of this to say, guys, register for gift cards. Target. Amazon. Walmart. Don’t overthink it. If you have a new mom in your life, give them a gift card. Because as you go on through the first couple weeks of being a mom, you will quickly identify the things that you like and want more of and the things that are an absolute afterthought. So if you have gift cards, that will just let you make up your own mind. I know it’s not exciting. But just do that. Or grocery store gift cards. And the other thing is register for a postpartum care fund. There are a lot of baby registries out there that let you accept cash. Or if there is a postpartum doula organization in your community, most often times they will have gift cards available. Really cash is the easiest way to do that. Or if there are people out there that are like I don’t want to give cash, I want to give a thing. To you, I say, who is this about? You or them? Try to find a place that does a pedicure or a laundry service or a yard care service or a dog walker. What are the chores that you can help them with through gift cards and gifts? There’s my soap box. Don’t overthink it. Gift cards and services. Okay, let’s take this one and then we can wrap it up. I feel like this is one that applies to both of us. Somebody said, “I need to learn to cook for myself, but I don’t like cooking. Any tips to make it more fun?” And my answer to them on Instagram was, “I’m a firm believer in using shortcuts when critical activities are not enjoyable.” And then we always joke that you assemble. You don’t cook.

Joy: Yeah. And I recently just saw this book on… I think it’s New York Times Cooking. We’ll have to go look it up and I can post it. But it’s basically a cookbook that is no recipes. It’s just assembling. And the Sassy Dietician has a lot of assembling as well. She doesn’t follow recipes. She assembles. She’s great at it. And as we mentioned in our last GGW episode, she has a new book coming out that is all about meal planning. Not in a diety way, but just how to assemble food way. I’m all about assembling.

Claire: And what we mean by that is buying prepackaged items. Like stuff that you might still have to prepare a little bit, like a side dish that comes frozen or a rotisserie chicken that you break apart. Just not overthinking it and going into Trader Joe’s or whatever. Trader Joe’s is perfect for assemblers.

Joy: Totally. Oh my gosh, so good for assemblers. And then you basically just buy the things and assemble the things. But I don’t have the creative brain to be like, what kind of things do I feel like need assembling. I just get stuck eating a banana.

Claire: What’s your go-to dinner that’s basically just a large snack when you absolutely do not have any inspiration?

Joy: Oh man. Avocado toast. I can assemble this, and I can put everything on it, and it’s great.

Claire: Do you often have avocado toast?

Joy: It’s not often. But when they’re soft enough at Costco, I’ll just buy a big bag

Claire: Mine is probably popcorn. I have definitely been known to just eat popcorn and a bunch of pieces of cheese for dinner.

Joy: Yeah. It’ll usually be avocado toast or some type of toast. But you have to have enough substance on top of it.

Claire: You’ve got to have a little something in there. That’s where cheese comes in. A bowl of popcorn, couple pieces of cheese, a pickle to round it out. I don’t know why I think those foods go together.

Joy: Oh, that’s so great.

Claire: Alright guys, thank you for listening to this absolutely random episode. They are our favorite ones to do, and I hope that they are your favorite ones to listen to. You can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can find us online joyandclaire.com. You can email us thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Don’t forget to support our podcast by supporting our awesome sponsor and you can get 20% off, which is more than our normal discount. 20% off through the holidays with code JOY. Go to helloned.com. Those little CBD bottles just go so well in a stocking, I’m telling you.

Joy: Yeah, it’s a nice little treat.

Claire: It really is.

Joy: It’s going to calm everybody down.

Claire: Just calm them down.

Joy: Calm those people that are talking too many politics, just calm them down. Just slip it in their drink.

Claire: We need an air freshener just full of CBD. Alright guys, that is all from us this week. We will talk to you next week.

Joy: Bye guys.

Claire: Bye.

102: Gravy Piñata Season

November 25, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

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Thanksgiving plans, Black Friday shopping ideas, Claire’s birthday and adjusting to new schedules.

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email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com

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This is Joy & Claire Episode 102: Gravy Piñata Season

Episode Date: November 25, 2021

Transcription Completed: November 29, 2021

Audio Length: 40:33 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire.

Joy: This is Joy and Claire.

Claire: Surprise.

Joy: Surprise! Wait, is it a surprise?

Claire: I hope not. If you’re surprised by this, then you might be listening to the wrong podcast.

Joy: I just always love that we get to entertain on Thanksgiving. Well, I hope we’re entertaining you on Thanksgiving. I hope you’re waking up maybe before your family and took a walk to get away from your family. Peace and quiet is us.

Claire: Or maybe we’re playing to your whole kitchen right now.

Joy: Hi family.

Claire: In which case, hi family.

Joy: We’re Joy and Claire.

Claire: We are insert your family member’s name here’s podcast friends, Joy and Claire.

Joy: We are the friends that you hear about all the time that people are like, “Oh yeah, my friends Joy and Claire.” “You mean podcasters?” “Yeah, they’re our friends.” You know that picture everyone sends us about the girl sitting in front of the group of friends sitting there like she’s listening? That’s what it’s like.

Claire: That’s how it feels when you listen to a podcast.

Joy: Yep.

Claire: And we embrace it, guys. We appreciate that about you.

Joy: I love that.

Claire: We feel like you’re our friends too. It’s true. So happy Thanksgiving if you are in the US. Remind us what your favorite Thanksgiving food is.

Joy: I can’t remember if I have a consistent answer on this. I do love pumpkin pie. I feel like that’s a very polarizing food. People either love it or hate it.

Claire: I just feel like pumpkin pie, pumpkin in general, has become a topic.

Joy: Yeah. I love pumpkin pie just plain. I don’t put anything on it. No whipped cream. Or, I guess, do people put ice cream on it? No. Is that a thing?

Claire: I hope not.

Joy: Whatever toppings you put on it, I don’t. And I also really enjoy stuffing. I probably think that’s my standard answer every year just because I love a carb.

Claire: I love a carb. I love a carb soaked in butter and broth.

Joy: Just the best.

Claire: I love pumpkin pie, but I also love whipped cream. I think you should have almost equal parts whipped cream and pumpkin pie.

Joy: Really? Okay. That’s a way to do it.

Claire: But not Ready Whip. Real whipped cream.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: And I don’t sweeten my real whipped cream. A lot of people add a little bit of powdered sugar or vanilla. I just do straight up heavy cream, whipped. Delicious. Love pumpkin pie. My favorite is gravy.

Joy: Which always makes me think of the Cherie Chan –

Claire: Cherie Chan.

Joy: Cherie Chan gravy piñata. Yes, how can we forget that story?

Claire: In case you don’t know what we’re talking about, it would have been 7 or 8 years ago now, probably 7 years ago. I took my CrossFit Level 1 right around Thanksgiving. And Cherie Chan who we love was one of my instructors. She was making small talk with the people in line as we were waiting to check in. I don’t even remember how this conversation went down, but long story short by the end of the conversation I was recommending to Cherie Chan that she dangle a piñata full of gravy above her Thanksgiving table so that people could swat at it to release gravy into their meals.

Joy: Which is genius.

Claire: I mean, I still think we should – the only flaw with that would be your piñata would have to be edible because the piñata would fall as well. But if your piñata is made out of puff pastry or something.

Joy: Right. I feel like this would be a really good challenge if we were to just go ahead and cross over into our On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! podcast. We should just put a bug in the ear of the judges for that show. Because we know they’re huge fans of ours.

Claire: They are.

Joy: And they listen to every single show that we do.

Claire: Of course. Right, like a hot water crust pastry piñata full of gravy.

Joy: Yeah, how would they not do soggy bottoms with that? That is the challenge. You guys figure it out.

Claire: It would be very challenging.

Joy: I’m not a baker. It’s up to you guys to figure it out.

Claire: It would be very challenging to be able to suspend it from the ceiling.

Joy: [laughing]

Claire: We have our work cut out for us, random bakers of podcast land. So you’re going to your parents’ house for Thanksgiving this year?

Joy: Yeah, I’m going to my parents’ house tomorrow in Westcliff. So we’re recording this on Monday when you guys are listening on Thursday. My twin brother, my sister-in-law, and the kids are all going to be there. They flew in today, and they’re going to be at my parents’ house all week. It’s a big deal. It’s a haul. It is a haul. My parents live not close to an airport. So the fact that they hauled all the kids to Westcliff to Thanksgiving for the week, it’s a big trip for them. We’re really excited to see everybody. My mom is just going to be beside herself. Because any time the whole family gets together, she just loses it. Throughout the weekend you can just catch her off in the corner looking at everybody. You can just tell she’s soaking it in.

Claire: Aw, your mom.

Joy: Yeah. Just being like, my family’s all together. And I guarantee you at one point in the week, she’ll –

Claire: She’ll just spontaneously burst into tears?

Joy: Yes. And I’ll be like, “Mom, what?” She’ll be like, “This is just the best gift I could ever ask for.” She’ll make some statement about how you don’t need gifts. This is all you need. And I’m just like, “I agree, mom.” And it’s the best. I’m sure my dad will have something to do with the kids that will likely get everyone into trouble. And by that, I mean I could just see my dad being like, “Let’s take the ATVs,” and he’ll just take all the kids on ATVs and roam across people’s yards and not think twice about it. But that’s my dad.

Claire: Love that.

Joy: Good memories. We’re going to create some good memories, have some good food. But yeah, what are you guys doing?

Claire: We are going to be at my dad’s house. For those of you who have listened for a while, you know my mom lives 5 minutes away from me and my dad lives about 20 minutes away from me. We get to see my parents a lot, which I really don’t take for granted. So we’re going to be over at my dad’s house doing Thanksgiving with my kids and most of my immediate family. All but one of my brothers lives here. I have a twin brother also, which every time we mention this – yes, Joy and I both have twin brothers. Joy’s twin brother’s name is Jay, and my twin brother’s name is James. We did not know this about each other when we started podcasting.

Joy: It’s just a great coincidence and a funny coincidence because everyone always freaks out. There’s always one person that freaks out about it. We’ve been doing this for eight years. We’ve mentioned it at least 5,000 times. But it’s okay, we’re getting new people all the time apparently.

Claire: And we don’t bring it up all that often, so you really have to listen. So Joy and I both have twin brothers. I also have a lot of other brothers and sisters. I have a really big immediate family because my parents are both serial monogamists and have both been married several times.

Joy: Did you say serial monogamists?

Claire: That’s what I call them.

Joy: How many times has your dad been married?

Claire: He’s currently married to his fifth wife.

Joy: Fifth. And your mom?

Claire: Third. Third husband, yeah.

Joy: The more the merrier, you know. The more the merrier.

Claire: The more the married, or…

Joy: [laughing] I didn’t mean that.

Claire: No, I did. My mom only has me and my brother. But then my dad has – okay, you guys ready? My mom has two biological children, me and my brother. Her husband has three biological kids who are all boys. They are all a little bit older than me, and they all live in the area. My dad has four biological children. So me and my twin brother plus I have two older half-brothers from a previous marriage of my dad’s. And then currently, his current wife has a son and two daughters who are younger than me. Along the way – so my mom was my dad’s third wife. He was married again in between my mom and his current wife. That ex-stepmom had a son and a daughter who I really grew up with. I mean, they were married from when I was 11 until I was 18. We lived with them all through middle school and high school. I don’t keep super close in touch with them anymore, but I grew up with them. An ex-stepbrother and an ex-stepsister. And that’s it. My stepdad’s three sons and my two half-brothers are all married with kids. And then Brandon has two sisters. He has an older sister and a younger sister. His older sister is also married and has a daughter. We have 11 nieces and nephews I want to say.

Joy: Yeah, that’s a lot.

Claire: And the oldest one is 9.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: So they’re starting to get older. But the majority of them are in the 5–10-year age range. Which is really fun because now they’re old enough that when they get together – they just had this experience for the first time this summer. Because Evie is finally old enough to really play by herself. It was the first time that we all got together and the adults could just kind of hang out and the kids could just play with each other in the background. I was like, oh my gosh, I feel like I’ve unlocked the next level of my life.

Joy: Oh yeah. Because oh my gosh. I remember how much fun my parents would have when we could just go off on our own.

Claire: The rest of your life begins, truly.

Joy: Yes, and it’s so fun.

Claire: It’s so fun. It’s so much more fun for them. So much more fun for you as a parent. So if you are a parent listening and you feel like you are in that phase, really from 0 to about 2-2.5, depending on your kid, maybe a little bit longer, you can have them out of your sight, but you need to have this awareness of all times of where they are and what they are doing. And Evie, I still want to know where she is, but I don’t feel like I need to have her in my line of sight all of the time anymore. It’s amazing. A switch flips. I think when it comes to parenting, there aren’t a lot of switch flip moments. A lot of them are very hard-fought slogs. But the first time that your kid can play in the other room and you realize they’ve been in there for 10-15 minutes and they’re doing fine. Oh my gosh.

Joy: Right. You’re not worried that silence equals something devastating has happened.

Claire: Exactly. You’re like [singing heavenly note]. It’s like the first time also that your kid sleeps through the night. The first time your kid plays for like 10-15 minutes in the other room and they’re fine, you do have this moment of [gasp] it’s been 15 minutes and I haven’t heard anything, and you go running in there only to find that they’re just sitting there being fine. And then you’ve ruined it at that moment, by the way. Once you appear in the doorway, the moment has ended. You just completely ruined it for yourself.

Joy: Right. You have broken the seal.

Claire: You have broken the seal. You have made eye contact with the enemy. Like, one thousand percent. It’s the same thing the first time your kid sleeps through the night, and you wake up in the morning and you’re like [gasp], are they breathing? You run in their room, and then they’re fine. And now you’ve ruined it.

Joy: And you’ve also broken the seal.

Claire: You’ve broken the seal. But there are a few of those moments where all of the sudden you realize they just did it on their own. And you have this moment of panic every time. “Something’s wrong!” And then nothing’s wrong. You can just do that now. To be clear, the first time your kid sleeps through the night, they can’t just do that now.

Joy: Right. It just doesn’t happen forever and ever.

Claire: For sleeping, that’s not how that works. But for playing in the other room, it kind of is.

Joy: Yeah, yeah.

Claire: So that’s nice.

Joy: That’s so fun. So you guys are going to have a big family – are you going to make the sweet potatoes for your dad? With the marshmallows because that is what John Hay wants.

Claire: Yes, I am. With the marshmallows. Because what John Hay wants –

Joy: John Hay gets.

Claire: John Hay gets. Regular size marshmallows, not mini size marshmallows. I have to make a special trip – we buy our groceries at Whole Foods because that’s the kind of people that we are. I wish I didn’t have to buy my groceries at a subsidiary of Amazon, but there’s not another option in my town. I mean, there’s a Soopers and Safeway and that kind of thing, but there’s not another organic, natural grocers option.

Joy: I’m just curious. Out of pure curiosity curious.

Claire: I hear you.

Joy: Do you feel like Whole Foods – are you more concerned about the quality of the ingredients, or why do you choose Whole Foods over King Soopers? King Soopers and Safeway for those of you who are not familiar with those chains, it’s just whatever your local grocery store is.

Claire: Safeway is like an Albertson’s. They’re owned by the same company. Yeah, we try to buy organic and natural as much as possible. And when it comes down to it, they just have more options. I, over the course of my life, have many times done comparisons where I will buy our normal groceries at Whole Foods, and then the next week I’ll go and try to buy the same things at King Soopers, Kroger. And the organic prices at Kroger are not any less than the organic prices at Whole Foods. So yeah, there’s stuff like spaghetti or whatever that I’m not worried about that might be a little bit more expensive. But it’s not worth taking two trips. And also, especially when you get the 365 Whole Foods brand, their generic brand, they have really competitive prices with the Simple Organics brand at Safeway.

Joy: Yeah. It really is, did we make a deal with the devil because of Amazon, but the prices did go down pretty significantly.

Claire: They did.

Joy: Freaking Jeff Bezos is ruining us all.

Claire: That free grocery delivery is a game changer. That grocery pickup is a game changer. And Whole Foods, as a whole, having worked the natural products industry for a while, they are great about getting local, about sourcing new, upcoming brands, about really prioritizing – they are in a position to really define the market, and they take that responsibility seriously.

Joy: I’ve seen that where they’ll have pictures of the people that created this product, and you’re like this is where they’re from. I really like that. Because I’ll be like, oh my gosh, this is a local product and I’ll be more inclined to buy it.

Claire: Exactly. You know, we could get into the ethics of that all day long. And we do try to buy – we do our cow every year. we were part of a chicken CSA for a while and that didn’t work out. We grow a lot of our own food in the summers. We try to get the local options as often as we can. So even within ultimately giving my money to Jeff Bezos, I try to be conscious of buying as local as possible. I wish there were better options.

Joy: I know. It’s one of those things where it’s kind of like how much – we should take to somebody who knows more about this. I feel like Mark in Thailand would be a good person to talk to about this. But on what level – because I always remember him saying, our individual decisions aren’t always the game changers. How much you can get involved in your community and local farmers and buying local, it’s not going to be the plastic straw thing that’s going to change everything.

Claire: It’s also, what are you willing – not even willing, but what are you able to do in your life? I’m not able to go to three different grocery stores every week to do the hyper local. I could drive to Boulder and go to the hyper local market. I’m not willing to do that.

Joy: It’s not feasible for your life.

Claire: Exactly. Maybe there will be a time where I can do that. I could, even in Longmont, go to two or three different locations at different stores and ultimately I’m really not willing to do that. It’s similar when it comes to, I think for a lot of people you see this for clothing choices maybe. I haven’t bought a brand-new item of clothing that was not second hand – or maybe I should say, less than 10% of my clothing purchases at this time in my life are brand new. The majority of them are second hand. I put a lot of effort into that, and it’s something that makes sense to me. I can use Poshmark. I can use apps. I can use whatever. But it’s a lot of work. If you need something right then and there, that’s not an option. Some other people who don’t have the time or the kind of thought process to put into that, that might not be worth it to them. I say this all the time, when it comes to our individual choices – supporting the local economy, supporting sustainable business, supporting insert whatever sustainability initiative here – when it comes to our personal choices, any one individual, even any group of individuals, you’re probably not going to move the needle. Because the reality is that the waste of resources and trash and everything that’s happening at corporate levels around the world is the problem. It’s not an individual. It’s the capitalist system of exploiting the earth’s resources. But why your individual choices do still matter is because those choices and being in that conservation-minded mindset will ultimately spark your motivation to get involved with local issues and get involved with regional, national, political issues that will ultimately move the needle and can influence policies around carbon, policies around extractive resource use. That really is what matters. And so that’s why I never want to tell people, oh it doesn’t matter if you use reusable grocery bags. Even though there are studies out there that say cotton grocery bags are just as resource intensive as single-use paper grocery bags. But if that is what allows you every week to have a moment of recognition that, yes, this is important to me and this is what keeps you in that mindset every time you go grocery shopping, that’s worth it, I think. Even though the cost-benefit of that in the actual scheme of resource conservation might not be there.

Joy: Yeah. And I don’t want to turn people away from doing those things at all. I just think that people like us that are very aware of the environment and what we can do to help will sometimes feel overwhelmed to say, does this even matter? Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes is does. But I think the effort is what matters and that you can continue to look for ways to contribute. And let me just be clear, don’t be using plastic straws.

Claire: But plastic straws even are not black and white.

Joy: I’m not advocating for them though.

Claire: Right. That can be an accessibility issue too. There’s not a black or white, do this or do that, and that’s what it comes down to. And also, in a way, it kind of is the thought that counts if you are able to look at it that way and let that motivate you to get involved at a larger scale. On that topic, this would be a great time to talk about Black Friday.

Joy: Sure, yeah.

Claire: I always post about this on Black Friday, on Prime Day, on any of these days. There are a lot of sustainability influencers out there who will really say, do not give into Black Friday, do not get on that bandwagon, you’re just buying into consumerism. And that’s not untrue, but at the same time it is a good opportunity to get things that you otherwise might not be able to afford. And they don’t even have to be necessities. It’s not like, diapers on sale, go ahead and buy them. It’s like, hey you work hard, and who am I to tell you that a new TV isn’t going to increase your quality of life? I’m not here to make that judgment call. What I am here to say is go into it with a plan because then you’re less likely to make impulse purchases. And the sooner you start shopping for your friends and your family, the more options you will have in terms of finding and seeking out local options. So my advice might be make a plan for Black Friday, know what big-ticket items you are really going to focus on, and then let the smaller things happen over the next few weeks as you’re out and about shopping for groceries. Stop into that little boutique that’s in the same shopping center as your grocery store that you’ve always meant to visit. Reach out to that small batch maker on Instagram.

Joy: Look on Etsy. These are all bigger, more well-known sites that support local artists.

Claire: Exactly. I don’t necessarily think that anyone needs to be doing 100% of their Christmas shopping on Black Friday on Amazon. But you know, make a plan. Try not to get sucked into the impulse buy because it’s a good deal.

Joy: Yes. And the allure of it and the marketing because that’s really what it’s all about. I was looking on Oprah’s Favorite Things for Christmas. She does it every year. And she actually has a list on Amazon that is Black-owned businesses. So even on Amazon, if you have to do Amazon as an accessibility thing or you just don’t have access or I don’t have time. I run out of time and Prime is faster. They even have a list of Black-owned businesses on Amazon. So it’s like, okay, just do what you can to be a little more mindful.

Claire: Right. Seek out those opportunities within whatever you have to work with. There have definitely been years in the past where I use Prime Day to buy a new car seat or we got a Roomba a couple years ago, stuff like that where I’m like, I’m not going to buy a car seat at the local baker. I literally can’t. That’s a safety issue. There are also those purchases where you aren’t going to be able to find a local artisan who is making big screen TVs.

Joy: Right. That’s fair. I mean, I don’t know if you guys are listening to the Busy Philips podcasts. It’s one of my favorite podcasts. It’s just chit chat. It’s kind of like ours. Her and her friend Caissie interview some famous people. It’s called Busy Phillips is Doing Her Best. But she recently started this kick of buying nothing new for a year. So she’s very into online auctions right now, which is hilarious because half the time she’ll be on an auction during the recording. I’m like, guys, this is not good podcasting. But it’s great. It’s a good message. And she’ll confess, “Hey, there’s this one thing I had to buy new because literally I couldn’t find it within a day used.” That’s fair. But to do that for a year, it’s pretty extreme for a lot of people. But I think, wow, that’s a pretty cool thing. Because she obviously could afford anything she wants new, but she’s putting in the effort just to be mindful about what she’s purchasing.

Claire: Did you know she has her own Poshmark closet? You can shop from Busy Phillips’ used clothes?

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: I have almost sent it to you so many times.

Joy: So great. Her style, I should actually look because – I don’t know if we’re the same size. But her clothing is exactly what I would wear. She has the cutest style, and she donates everything to charity. I think that’s just amazing.

Claire: So if Black Friday is your deal, don’t feel guilty. But also, make a plan. We have been meaning to send out a gift guide. I hope I make that happen this year. We got some amazing – so many of you. We asked for links if you guys have businesses, and we got so many. So at the very least, I would like to at least compile those into a blog post so you can support people in this community. Maybe I’ll get that done by Thursday.

Joy: Let’s do that for our newsletter. Do we still have a link to sign up for it?

Claire: Yes, we do. I will put that on Instagram today, Thursday, Thanksgiving. So you can look it up in our Instagram stories and you can sign up for our newsletter. If you were previously subscribed, you’re still subscribed.

Joy: We just haven’t done anything in a while.

Claire: If you really want to make sure you’re subscribed and you can’t remember or you feel like, “you know guys, it’s been so long, I don’t trust it,” go ahead and just resubscribe if you want to. Yeah. And we’ll work on getting that together because it is really fun to be able to showcase the different businesses and different products that our community members make. So cool.

Joy: There’s something else on Friday that’s a big deal. It’s your birthday.

Claire: Oh, [laughing].

Joy: You looked at me like you had no idea.

Claire: I was like, what? My brain was so in gift guide mode.

Joy: It’s your birthday.

Claire: Yeah, it’s my birthday. Happy birthday to me.

Joy: What are you going to do? What’s your plan?

Claire: I don’t know.

Joy: You said you wanted to hang out, have someone clean your house, and you just want to have snacks. I think that’s a great plan. You’re going to be all tired from Thanksgiving, and you just want to hang out.

Claire: Honestly, the least amount of effort I can put into this is really what I’m looking for. I don’t want to have to make a single decision all day. I want to just wake up, have someone hand me a cup of coffee. I want to sit on the couch and look at Instagram while I watch Harry Potter and someone brings me cheese.

Joy: I think that sounds perfect.

Claire: I think it sounds really amazing. That sounds like an ideal day to me, frankly. And that’s the goal for your birthday, just an ideal day.

Joy: Do you ever think about the past year when you’re another year old? Or are you like, we’re just moving forward?

Claire: I do. This year, again, just feels like a time warp. Like, what was even happening this time last year? I don’t even know. I’m feel like this year for me – it’s impossible to not just define it by global events. And I really look forward to a year that’s not like that. I’m tired of having so many global events. I think this time last year, the vaccine was about to be approved. We were all so hopeful that was going to be the end, and it didn’t turn out to be the end for a myriad of reasons.

Joy: We were also very, very relieved over the president.

Claire: Yes, we had a new president. But I feel like a lot of the things that I thought were going to be head and shoulders better in 2021 just didn’t ever get there. I am really grateful for my new job. I am grateful that my kids are doing well. I’m really grateful we still have Maxine. I’m grateful that Brandon got a new job this year too. We have had some change, a lot of change.

Joy: How long is Maxine staying?

Claire: That’s a great question. Okay, so for you guys who don’t know, Maxine is our au pair. She’s from Brazil. She moved in with us in January 2020. Obviously, we had no idea what was about to happen. We are so grateful for her. If she had not been here, I would literally have had to quit my job. We did not have a situation where – Brandon is a nurse. He is not working from home. The schools were shut down. And at the time, Evie had just turned one at the start of the pandemic. You can’t work with a one-year-old. You just can’t. 12-18 months is the highest maintenance phase. So we’re so grateful she’s been here. She and Evie are just like two peas in a pod. We really lucked out with her. For those of you who might be wondering who we used, we used the agency Au Pair in America. Which we had a good experience with them. I also have friends who use Culture Care that have had a good experience. They’re all pretty much the same because the program is federally regulated. I have just noticed that some programs are more popular in different parts of the world. So if you’re looking for an au pair who is from a specific country, I can’t tell you which agencies are more popular in which regions. But I have just noticed – for example, Au Pair America was really the majority of au pairs are from Central and South America. Also, she speaks Portuguese. And no, she has not taught my kids Portuguese. And also, obviously, she speaks English.

Joy: Wait, she speaks Portuguese, and what was the second part of that?

Claire: And no, she has not taught the kids Portuguese.

Joy: Oh, she hasn’t taught them. Okay.

Claire: People are always asking that. Do your kids speak Portuguese?

Joy: Interesting.

Claire: Maxine came here to learn English. She didn’t come to teach my kids Portuguese.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: If we had wanted her to, she probably could have. But I was like, I don’t need my kids to learn Portuguese.

Joy: Right.

Claire: So her au pair visa, you can only renew it a certain number of times. She actually is in the process of enrolling in school, and she’s going to be transferred onto a student visa. So she will continue living with us and she’ll be going to school. That’s really exciting.

Joy: So where is she going to go to school?

Claire: She’s taking more English classes. I forget the name of the school. It’s like School of the Americas or something.

Joy: It’s online?

Claire: It will be in person. In order to have a student visa, you have to be a full-time enrolled student in a physical school.

Joy: Got it.

Claire: And yeah. So she’ll be here. We’ll be supporting her with that. She’ll still be involved with Evie. Miles is in school, so she can help to pick up and drop off, but for the most part kindergarten – he kind of does his thing in kindergarten. So yeah, so she’ll be with us I don’t know how much longer. It’s kind of up to her. We want her to stay here as long as she wants.

Joy: Yeah. I was going to say, that’s going to be a really difficult transition because she’s been with you for so long.

Claire: And she moved in with us when Evie was 11 months old. So Evie doesn’t probably really remember life without her. I have really thought a lot about what are we going to do and how are we going to explain that to Evie? And as Evie gets older and older, it will get easier to explain. Or maybe she’ll just stay forever. I’m fine with that.

Joy: You’re like, “You live with us now.” It’s great.

Claire: Sorry to your mom. To your actual mom. It is funny because she is 26 or 27. I’m her host mom, but I’m only 8 years older than her. So sometimes that dynamic is just kind of funny. I feel like her big sister.

Joy: Has she been home to see her family at all?

Claire: That’s the main thing is she hasn’t been able to go home.

Joy: Oh wow.

Claire: Because of her visa status, she can’t leave and come back.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: So she’s here legally, obviously. It is completely legal for her to be here. But she can’t leave and come back. Up until recently, when the borders just reopened on whatever it was, November 8, her family couldn’t come here either. And so her mom is probably going to come visit in January or February, and that will be the first time she’s seen her in over two years. That’s been difficult. And she can’t leave and come back at all. We wouldn’t be able to go on a family vacation to Mexico with her or anything. It’s been interesting learning more about the visa restrictions that America has.

Joy: Yeah, that’s crazy.

Claire: They’re intense.

Joy: Well I hope she gets to stay for a long time.

Claire: I know, me too. We’re lucky to have her. Please, if you guys have questions about the au pair program, people always have a lot of questions. Isn’t it awkward? What did you look for? Reach out, and I’m always happy to chat about that. Send us an email thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com and I’m always happy to provide some insight. We really lucked out. I have some friends who have had less great au pair experiences, and Maxine certainly has friends who are au pairs who have had less great experiences with their host families. I think at the end of the day, if you treat your au pair like an adult, you are clear but not overbearing that you’re going to be fine. I mean, it’s awkward, but it’s awkward for both of you. So you kind of just have to ride that wave.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: It’s not that bad.

Joy: And then you get used to it and it’s fine.

Claire: Yeah. It’s great. I really am glad that we decided to do this with her. I literally can’t imagine what our lives would be like if we didn’t have her. Anyway, so all that to say that for my birthday, as I’m reflecting on the year, yeah there were some big headlines. But it also just feels like this year was very monotonous. I still miss leaving the house.

Joy: And because of your new job schedule, you’re going to be doing an at-home gym workout which you’re not super jazzed about. I know how much leaving the house – but also, you get to leave the house for your job.

Claire: So I’m going into work – so my office is in Denver, which is about a 45-minute drive from me. I am going into the office right now one or two times a week. Kind of just to get onboarded. It’s so much easier to learn stuff when you’re in the office. And the office is kind of closed. It’s closed in the sense that no one is required to be there. But you can go in if you want. So there are a hand full of people who go in that live nearby who just like to come in. It’s a really cool space. They have a really cool setup. They have a lot of perks. And the perks are still in action. They have a barista who comes in every day, and you can get a free latte. Amazing. That’s enough to get me down there, frankly. They have a cool gym. Anyway. So I’m going in a little bit. But I haven’t been able to go to CrossFit. I just had to cancel my CrossFit membership because at my last job, my gym was right near my office. CrossFit Roots, which I still absolutely love, was right by my office. CrossFit Roots recently moved because their landlord basically ended their lease without consulting them and leased the gym out from under them to a different company.

Joy: I can’t believe that happened.

Claire: I know. They wrote about this in the Morning Chalk Up, so I know that it’s public knowledge. I know this isn’t an insider dish I’m not supposed to share.

Joy: Right.

Claire: But basically that area of Boulder is really changing quite a lot, and apparently the landlord wanted a more traditional warehouse tenant rather than a gym in that space. Which I also don’t understand because there’s a gigantic gymnastics gym next door.

Joy: Yeah, and they’ve been such great tenants.

Claire: And they’ve been there for ten years. So they ended up having to move. They found a space only 1.5 miles away. At my previous job, I didn’t have as many meetings, so I could make it work to go to the gym even though it was a 2-hour commitment roundtrip. Because then I could just finish getting my work done later on in the evening and kind of balance it out that way.

Joy: Little more flexibility, yeah.

Claire: At this job, I have so many dang meetings. So maybe that will kind of settle back down when the holiday rush is over and when I’m not just being added to meetings for the sake of visibility.

Joy: Right.

Claire: And training. So we’ll see. But for now, I don’t have the ability to leave in the middle of the day for anything else other than picking my kids up from school.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: And the fact that I was able to before is pretty remarkable. So I’ve been doing at-home workouts. I’ve been sharing a lot about it on my personal Instagram. I started with a Gym Jones program. Which Gym Jones almost feels like a precursor to CrossFit. They are known for being very intense. They are known for training like Chris Hemsworth for the… come on, Chris Hemsworth.

Joy: Yeah, he’s the –

Claire: Thor.

Joy: Thor guy.

Claire: Right, Thor? That’s that actor.

Joy: Marvel maybe?

Claire: They train a lot of the celebrities. They’re known for training celebrities –

Joy: Not the cult leader Jim Jones.

Claire: No, Gym like a gymnasium.

Joy: Oh, okay. I was thinking like Jim Jones the cult leader. That’s not a great name.

Claire: Maybe they wanted to play off of that. I don’t know. I don’t know the history of this gym. People are probably screaming at me because they are well known. They’re very well known in the functional fitness space and the body building space. They’ve been around forever. They’re known for being very intense. They have a bunch of at-home programs. So I tried that because I thought, hey, CrossFit’s intense. I want that intensity. And the program that I signed up for was like 60-90 minutes per day, and I just don’t have that amount of dedicated time. That’s the problem.

Joy: That’s a lot.

Claire: If I had 90 dedicated minutes, I would just drive to CrossFit.

Joy: That’s a lot of time.

Claire: So much time. But that main thing that I struggled with about it is their ethos is very, “Go hard. All or nothing.” Which is what they’re known for. But because of that, and also, I very much know it’s a choice for me to buy into that or not. But I’m also a very extrinsically motivated person. If you come at me with that sort of mindset, I’m really going to really want to take that on. A lot of times, I would skip workouts. I tried it out for probably about a month, and I skipped a lot of workouts because I can’t give 110% to this workout, so I might as well just not do it. And that is kind of their ethos is if you can’t commit 100%, then why are you even here? I could not hang with that. I was like, oh okay, I guess I can’t commit. I’ll just go sit on the couch. We talked about this a few weeks ago that sometimes I feel like if you tell me, “just move when your body wants to move,” then I’ll never move. I’ll just go back to bed. And then also guys, I know about Street Parking. Every single person is like, “Try Street Parking.” I am well aware that Street Parking is out there. I’ve tried Street Parking before. I liked it. I have all the equipment. The thing that I don’t like about Street Parking is that I just can’t force myself to do metcon after metcon by myself. I have found that I respond very differently in terms of motivation depending on the environment that I’m in. If I’m in a CrossFit gym, give me CrossFit programming all day long obviously. When I’m at home, I am more likely to stick to a program that is a little bit more body buildingy. And what I mean by that, free weights. Where you can kind of work through some sets, but you’re not building up to this big metcon all the time. So I started using the Hungryfitness monthly programming. Which I’m really liking so far. I’m really liking Michaela also. She’s just so approachable. And their whole community is very, make it work for you. I think more than half the people who – I guess I should say, they really write stuff for a community of working moms, for working parents. That’s who their target is, people who just need to get it done in the garage. So I’m liking it a lot so far. I’ll keep you guys posted. It is very sort of body building structure.

Joy: Yeah. I’m looking at their Instagram. It looks very intense.

Claire: So you have two lower body days a week and two upper body days a week, and then probably two of those will also include a HIIT burner at the end. But other ones, you kind of just have a little ab cash out. Which I don’t always want to do a HIIT burner. I don’t always want to be running 200-meter repeats down my street.

Joy: No thanks, yeah.

Claire: No.

Joy: No thank you.

Claire: No thank you. Yeah, she’s just been really great and really approachable. And then my other big, exciting piece of news is that I signed myself up for a surf retreat in May. And so that’s kind of why I’m digging so hard into – in other times in my life, I would have thought like, you know what, I just don’t have time for regular workouts right now and that’s not a big deal. They’ll come back. I think something that’s been huge for me in the last five years is getting this perspective that I can take a couple months off from working out and nothing bad is going to happen. The workouts will find their way back into my life. Right now, I have this trip planned for May. So it’s about six months away. I really want to be really physically ready for that trip. And of course by that, I don’t mean anything about like, I don’t need to look a certain way.

Joy: Bikini bod.

Claire: By bikini bod, I’ll be wearing a full wet suit, thank you. I just want to know if I’m going to embark on six straight days of something that I don’t want to be held back by not being strong or not having the endurance to hang the whole time. That’s kind of my focus right now, and that’s why I’m really focused on finding a workout program that will work for me that I can stick with because I feel like I’m kind of training for this trip.

Joy: Love it. I think that’s great.

Claire: I feel like I just talked for so long.

Joy: No, it’s great. It’s your birthday week. You gave us all the updates. They’re important updates. I think that’s a wrap on Thanksgiving 2021.

Claire: Yes.

Joy: Everyone can tag us in your food pictures. Because we’re going to see them anyway, so let’s just see what you made. That’s all you see on Instagram on Thanksgiving day is all the food photos.

Claire: I used to hate it, but now I love it.

Joy: Now I love it.

Claire: Show me your food.

Joy: We know that that is what people are excited about. And most likely it’s some traditional meal. Maybe not. Maybe it’s a brand-new thing. Maybe you’re just going off script. Just tag us in some photos because we’re going to see them anyway, and we would rather see them from people that are in our community.

Claire: Yes.

Joy: And we’ll get on that gift guide.

Claire: We will. One of us will. Someone is going to do it. Alright guys, well you can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can find us online joyandclaire.com. You can email us thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Find us on iTunes, on Apple, on Spotify, on wherever. Rate us, review us, share us with a friend. Like our stuff on Instagram. It’s amazing how much just liking our stuff really does for our visibility. Send us a DM if there’s anything you want to hear from us. Don’t forget, we have two other podcasts. This is the semi-final…?

Joy: Final. It’s the final week.

Claire: It is the final.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: It’s the final week of The Great British Bake Off. How did that happen?

Joy: Yes, I know.

Claire: So don’t forget, we have our Great British Bake Off podcast, On Your Mark, Get Set, Bake! And then also check out Girls Gone WOD podcast, which has been back up and running now for a few months. There’s so much Joy and Claire to be had.

Joy: And we need feedback too because we may be arranging… the reason that we put Girls Gone WOD back up is to see what people are wanting to hear more about. So really, we do listen to what you want to hear. So please send us an email if you have feedback. Or if you’re just like, “No, I like what you’re doing,” that’s great too. But we do listen to what you have to say about what you want to hear.

Claire: Okay guys, we hope you’re having a great Thanksgiving. If you’re not in the US, happy random Thursday in November.

Joy: We’re eating a lot of food. I hope you are too.

Claire: We’ll talk to you next week.

Joy: Bye, guys.

Claire: Bye.

101: Money, Career, and Identity

November 18, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

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Talking with Brianne Firestone from School of Betty about:
Careers and identity, which types of bank accounts we should have, should we ask for more money at work, why it’s important to have a budget and know your debt amount, changing your thoughts around money, and setting yourself up for sucess in the long term.

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This is Joy & Claire: 101: Money, Career, and Identity

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

Transcription Completed: November 21, 2021

Audio Length: 46:00 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire.

Joy: And this is Joy and Claire. Welcome back. Happy Thursday. Hope you’re all well.

Claire: This week we’re so excited, Bri from School of Betty is joining us. We had Bri back on Episode 17 of This is Joy and Claire [00:00:42.10]. The episode was called “Money Talk” if you want to go back and listen to that. Bri is the founder of School of Better, which is an amazing program and coaching and universe based on helping women get more comfortable with their financial selves. We are excited to talk to Bri today about all sorts of things. Bri, welcome.

Joy: Welcome back.

Bri: Hello. Thank you, I’m excited to be here.

Joy: Thank you so much for joining us. This topic has come up again, so we were like, you know what? We should have Bri back. I feel like it’s one of those topics that we don’t talk about very often because… I don’t know, it depends on your comfort level. It’s not like a “how’s the weather” conversation. How’s your money situation? It’s not like we’re doing that all the time, but maybe we should be. But thank you so much for joining us again. We just want to dive into some separate things. Certainly, listeners, if you didn’t listen to the Episode 17 that we did on This is Joy and Claire [00:01:37.21] with Bri, you can go back and listen to that episode. We talked a little bit more about just your comfort level with money, how you were raised around money, and how it impacts how you deal with money now. I think this time we really want to talk more about how it impacts our identity, especially as it relates to career. You and I have had conversations offline about this, so can we start opening the gate with how that can be wrapped up into your identity as it relates to your career?

Bri: Oh my goodness. That’s such a layered question. And I think if you’ve ever gone through a career transition where you are actually changing careers and you identified really strongly with the one that you were previously in, that’s a rough shift. Because most of us don’t recognize or realize how much weight we’re putting towards something and how much we are identifying with it. So if you think about your life – I’ll use kind of a lame example. But when I was CrossFitting and a CrossFit coach and eventually left that, I had no idea how much I had put my identity into that. Being a CrossFitter, being a CrossFit coach. So when I needed to move out of it, a couple of things happened. Number one, I didn’t move out of it as fast as I probably should have for my health and what was happening in my life because I couldn’t wrap my brain around that not being a part of my life. And the second thing is, when that thing goes, if you have put too much of your identity into it, there’s a big hole that you have to fill. All of the sudden when it’s gone, you feel very ungrounded and very untethered. You can imagine what that does if you’re shifting careers and all of the sudden you’re leaving something that you have identified with it, it has been your whole personality, everything you do people know you as this thing. Which is often how the identity becomes really baked in. And you’re moving into a career that maybe is making less money, or the people around you are like, “What is that? I don’t even know what it is.” You will often be tempted to make decisions that feel more comfortable for those around you instead of what’s probably in alignment for you. Because usually what’s in alignment for you when you’re heading into one of those transitions, it’s hard.

Joy: Well, the other piece that comes to mind is how other people will project their discomfort onto you. So if you want to start your own business, they’ll be like, “Well, what about…” It’s all their projections onto you and their discomfort. Let’s say just with your example. So were you in a place where you didn’t want to leave because of the identity? Why didn’t you want to leave as quickly?

Bri: I had identified with that for so long. I mean, I coached for three years, but I was doing CrossFit for nine or ten years. It was very foreign for me. It was the unknown. It was the unknown of what is next. It goes into deeper, right? Will my body change? What kind of workouts am I doing? What is this going to look like? But the area I think really pops up is the unknown of you going into the transition. You just don’t know what it’s going to be. Are people going to judge me? Are people going to be like, “What’s going on?” Again, as I say all of these things, it’s never internal. It’s always the fear of someone judging you from the outside that is curbing how you move forward often.

Joy: Do you think that people need to have their next step planned out before they jump to something?

Bri: I don’t. That’s such a great question. What I do think they need, they need to feel safe and secure financially and emotionally in that space. Because if you are taking a leap and you don’t feel financially secure, emotionally it’s going to be different. You’re going to be dealing with a lot of different things. You’re going to add a lot more stress onto your life instead of creating the freedom and the spaciousness that you need in order to actually think through what the next step is, to have that discovery, to have that revelation. The flip side of that is so many people can take a leap, but they don’t ever run the numbers or actually did down with it. If they have a shared household with their partner to say, okay, what would this look like if I left my job and I wasn’t working for six months? What would it look like if I took a job that paid less? Sit down and actually get comfortable, actually know the numbers. Because so many people assume they can’t do it, and that’s not necessarily true.

Joy: Assume they can’t leave their job?

Bri: Can’t leave their job. Can’t take a leap. Can’t take a part-time job and start a business on the side. We make these assumptions because everything around us tells us that that’s really risky, but what most individuals don’t do is actually sit down and run the numbers and look at the numbers for their household. How much do I actually need to make to survive and live a life that I’m comfortable with in that moment in this transition?

Joy: And that can be uncomfortable in and of itself, to sit down and make a budget.

Bri: Yes.

Joy: I’m guessing.

Bri: 100%.

Joy: Sometimes even facing debt, and that can be scary to people. I know that that’s probably a lot of reason why people get into credit card debt. I’m not just not going to look at it, it doesn’t exist. So I think that that’s another thing. But facing this is really why we wanted to have this discussion too. If you are going to do it, you do have to face the reality of what your budget looks like. So for example, you and I talked briefly right after I left my job and I was like, oh yeah, it’s really scary. I’ve been really lucky in my life to have jobs pretty consistently out of grad school, and I’ve never really had to free fall with money because I’ve always been able to support myself in some way, shape, or form. You were like, “Cool. That’s what savings are for.” Because I was telling you, “Yeah, I have savings.” And you were like, “Awesome, that’s what savings are for, right?” And I was like, “Oh yeah. I guess that’s what savings are for.” Which sounded so silly, but I assumed – I’m just using myself as an example – but I was like, it’s going to run out. I’m so scared. But you’re like, “But that’s what savings are for.” I was like, yeah, I guess you’re right. You have to kind of check yourself sometimes about how you think about all of this.

Bri: Oh, 100%. And that is super common with a lot of my students lately, especially as we’ve gone through COVID and pandemic. So many, if they had savings had to dip into it. That has stirred a lot of feelings and emotions. You just have to ask the question, what would you use that for? So it’s really important when you have these buckets of money or you have savings that you actually sit and list the intention or how would I use this so that you’re almost giving yourself and your mind permission. Because when you get used to having a big chunk of money in an account, when it goes down, it’s going to stir naturally – and it doesn’t matter how good your money mindset it – it’s going to trigger an “Oh no.” I’m losing money. When we had the conversation and it’s like, it’s going to run out. And it’s like, well, what’s the actual timeline of it running out? Well, let’s run the numbers.

Joy: Run the numbers, right. That’s exactly what Scott would say. The other conversation is how you manage money with your partner. We have a very unique way of doing things that’s our business. But he was like, how much time do you have? And I was like, I don’t know. Because it’s scary to look at it. But you have to and you make a plan. Stop freaking out.

Bri: Yeah. Yeah, because there’s so much stress and anxiety in the not knowing when it comes to money. We worry about swiping the card at the grocery store if our financial circumstances have changed because we’re not sure exactly how much is in there or how much we have to spend on our groceries. We are stressed out about our debt because we don’t actually know what the total is or how long it will take us to pay it off or how much we have to put towards it. It’s all unknown, and there’s an easy fix for that y’all. We just rip the Band-Aid off and we look at the numbers. It sounds really scary, but once you do it – even just looking at your total debt and looking at that number you will feel relief in your body. It will be a very physical sigh because you at least know, and then you can get to work to start using your money and taking actions to chip away at it, to make a plan for it. But when you don’t know what it is, you’re just spinning around.

Joy: Yeah. This reminds me of how you do one thing is how you do everything. So if you’re like, “I just don’t want to look at that,” that there’s probably a lot of things in your life that you’re just trying to get through and not look at and not face. And that can bring up a lot of emotions too of course. I am a huge fan of rip the Band-Aid type of approach. You can’t just go gently into this. You just have to do it and deal with the emotions later But what are the first steps that people can do? How do you start? What do you do?

Bri: Well, first of all, just tell yourself before you start to do it that it’s just a number. Gosh, we give so much emotion to the money. And money cannot take on an emotion unless you give it an emotion. We’re so good at saying money is stressful. Money is just a number. It’s just there. I always use this example – it’s like your sock is stressing you out. You’re not stressed about your sock. They’re just socks. They do them what you tell them to do, and money is the same way. Money will do what you tell it to do. Simply listing all of your debts, the interest rate, how much you owe, what your credit limit is, and your minimum payment. Just list it all out, and then add up that total minimum payment so that you know every month I have to be able to at least make this payment. Because 35% of your credit score is making the minimum payment on time. You don’t have to pay it off. That’s why some people have a lot of debt. 30% is your debt to credit ratio, but a lot of people can really swing a decent credit score and still have debt. It’s because they’re still making those payments on time. But the fact if you know all of that, then you can create a plan. Then you can look at it and say, alright, let’s focus on credit cards first. And then I’m going to choose snowball. I’m going to knock out the tiniest debt first because that’s going to feel really motivating. Or, no, that stresses me out. I want to do avalanche. I want to start with the highest interest first. But the first step is going through and writing out all the numbers. And what’s really powerful for most individuals is they start to realize very quickly how little they actually know about their credit card and the interest rate and what’s going on with that. A lot of my students have to really search for their interest rate. They’ve got to find it. And their limit. They don’t know what they are.

Joy: And that’s huge. Huge.

Bri: Huge.

Joy: You could spend so much money on interest if you’re not paying attention to that. Or yearly fees, annual fees that a credit card will all of the sudden just spring on you or what have you. Okay, so that’s a good way to start. I’m kind of all over the place today, but I have a lot of questions that I really also want to ask. Back to our question on career changes, let’s talk a little bit about your beliefs or your opinions around working for a certain salary and then maybe taking a less salary because it will make you happier. I feel like especially in this day and age, we’re all kind of like, “We’ve got to climb the ladder.” At least with a little bit of hustle culture behind us. Talk a little bit about your opinions on that piece.

Bri: I’ve got a lot of opinions.

Joy: Yeah.

Bri: Well, I love that you brought that up because we do have a lot of beliefs and stories around success in our careers and what that looks like. For many of us, that looks like we have to keep gaining titles and we have to keep making more money. And that’s not necessarily true. I have students who are perfectly happy not being a manager, doing their worker bee job, 9-5 clock in. They make just enough money to live their life, and they are happy. Amazing. And so the first check I think is to ask yourself, what is it that’s driving me that makes me feel like I need to – I’m attaching some of my self-worth to the salary I’m making. We can get so focused on that. We can be in this tunnel vision around that when the other part of the equation, the other two resources we have to take into consideration, are the time and energy. So our money and our time and energy, those are the resources that we have every day and we’re using them every day. And you are never making a decision about one without considering the other two. Now when it comes to careers, we often forget or we don’t even think about the fact that I could make $20,000 less and run the numbers and how much time and energy I’m going to get back in my life to do these things that actually spend time with my family, move my body more, do some things that bring me joy, not have stress on my body. So many individuals aren’t taking into account the energetic costs, what they’re spending energetically, the debt that’s happening energetically because they took that higher job that is stressing them the “f” out because they got more money. When they can’t actually enjoy the more money because they’re just on the grind

Joy: I know this sounds really trite, but if you’re using that example – for example, $20k more a year is not – paycheck to paycheck, it’s really not that much more. So it’s how you weigh that out is that is really important. The reason I ask that question too is very much because I went through my health issues. The stress of a job was just not worth the money. But your thinking, especially as a woman and like, wow, this is really cool that you’re making more money or having a better title. At the end of the day, it was just – and I’m not saying this is every job, but I haven’t heard yet a lot of people who are climbing the ladders that are super, super fulfilled and happy. They’re usually pretty stressed out. I think it’s just that piece of paying attention and weighing that and also, it’s okay to look at what is the benchmark or the minimum that you need to make to live your happy lifestyle.

Bri: Yeah. And we’re conditioned to be in this space where – I mean, think about when you’re going to a cocktail party or meeting someone for the first time, one of the first questions you get asked is, “What do you do?” Wouldn’t it be amazing if someone was like, “What do you do for fun?” or “What makes you happy?” Who the freak asks that? That would be amazing.

Joy: I hate that question, I really do.

Bri: Yeah. Even with my students when we start doing a vision, like, what kind of life do you want? What do you want? No one knows. Because we haven’t spent enough time in this space ‘of what do I actually want my life to look like?

Joy: Yeah, what do you want your life to look like? I also wonder if the people who do the #vanlife, just stripping everything away to feel what it feels like to just have very little, to go to that extreme. I could never do that. What I’m saying is I think there’s some beautify in thinking, could I live without all of these things and experience what it’s like to just be bare bones? Yeah, the titles, the money. I was thinking about this the other day. Even if I was a millionaire, I would have different friends. People that have tons and tons of – maybe millionaire is like nothing these days. But a billionaire, someone who’s super, super loaded, it comes with a weird echelon of people that I’m like, I think I’m good. I don’t need to make a crap load of money. But as you’re growing up, that’s the thing is you see all these great, wonderful things that you could buy. It’s very interesting for me to watch. Maybe that’s just something because I work in psychology, I’m always observing the people aspect of it and how it changes people

Bri: Totally. And we’re not actually shown the millionaires and billionaires that are choosing to use their money in a different way. So we have this vision of what that looks like. And I always say that money doesn’t necessarily change you. It just amplifies who you are inherently. So when you’re running across someone who’s not a nice person and they have a lot of money, they probably weren’t that nice when they didn’t have a lot of money.

Joy: That’s super true.

Bri: That’s the belief that I have. Because most of us want more money and we judge individuals who have it and we’re afraid to ask for it.

Joy: Yes, yes. And that was my next jump. We’re talking money right now about the lack of it. Most of the people you’re talking to and coaching don’t have their finances in order – and they want more money? Or they want to get out of debt? And so that’s kind of the next jump of, then, how do we either ask for more money – fi you’re at a career, maybe asking for raises, and advocating –

Bri: Yeah. I think first of all, and I know this is not a sexy answer, but you have to know your money for your household. You have to know your expenses. You have to know how much you need to live. Because if you don’t know that, we’re flying blind. We have no idea. It’s like you have no senses around what is a good decision and what isn’t a good decision because you don’t have that base level knowledge. If you were going into a career change, if you were going to ask for more money, you have to know what you need to be paid just to walk in the door. What do you need to be paid just to walk into the door for the promotion? If it’s a promotion and you’re going to be managing ten more people, you need to have a sense of what that is for you, which is going to require that you are doing an audit of your money, time, and energy. To say, is this worth it for me? So first and foremost, I think you have to understand that and you have to know that. It’s not sexy by any means, but so many don’t know what that is. It’s not bad to ask for money or want more money. We just have a lot of judgement around that because we have this idea of if you want more money, you aren’t thankful for what you have, you’re super greedy. And we have this belief that if I have more money, someone misses out. I don’t believe that because I come from an abundant mindset. That’s not to bypass the inequities that are very inherent in money. I know we could talk about the inequities with women in the workforce. Then we have to go the layer deep to see the inequities within the inequities because I as a white CIS [00:20:48.26] gender woman, my experience is very different and I make more money on the dollar. Although not a dollar like a man makes, but it looks different than my Black friends or friends who identify as indigenous or people of color. So we have to just keep that in mind and be present and aware of that. But because we have this fear of judgement, so many women – 60% of women don’t even try to negotiate their salary. They don’t even try to ask for it.

Joy: That is very interesting to me. I learned that a few years ago. I was just like, oh my gosh, that’s insane. But I also noticed it when I would talk to my husband about salary and about how innate – no bash on Scott. It was normal to him, normal speak of asking for bonuses, asking for raises. He was getting a raise like every three months. I’m like, how are you doing that? And then I was like, oh, because this is your world, and you just do that.

Claire: I feel like when it comes to finances, there are so many parallels to dating. There are so many parallels to diet culture. Where so many of the same things come up of “who am I to want that,” “who am I to ask for that,” “what if they get mad that I asked for it.” When you’re accepting a new job and you go back and ask for $5k or $10k. Well, what if they get mad and they’re like, “You can’t have the job anymore. You weren’t supposed to ask for more.” I also think about with diet culture that we want this quick fix. We want things to just flip a switch and everything look the way we want it to look in our finances. And also, I think that there is a component there that is similar to diet culture where we see these people who have these big dramatic success stories, whether that’s with they got this big raise or they quit their job and started their own company and now they’re posting every month about their six-figure month and all these things. When the reality is maybe those dramatic lifestyle changes do work for some people, but for the majority of us, it’s small daily habits and that’s where any of this will shift. It’s not necessarily in that – Bri, to your point, if you don’t know what you need, if you don’t have a pulse on your day-to-day, then how can you expect to get what you want walking into that annual review. Yeah, the annual review might be the one big moment where everything shifts, but you need to have your poop in a group first before you can walk into that shift.

Bri: Totally. I’ve never heard that before.

[All laughing]

Joy: It’s a nicer way of saying “shit together.” Get your shit together.

Bri: I love it. Poop in a group.

Claire: It’s the kindergarten-friendly way.

Bri: And it’s so true. I mean, your money cannot work for you if you don’t know where you’re going and what you desire. Identifying what you desire is not a bad thing. We only get one ride in this crazy burning rock. We only get one ride. We get to decide what that looks like and how we want it to go. I just lost my train of thought. I had something to say in response to that.

Joy: Why don’t we take a quick break because we have a sponsor to plug. So this will be a good time, and then you can think about what you wanted to say. This week’s sponsor is our favorite people, the makers of Ned. Alright guys, we’ve talked a lot about Ned in the past weeks. We hope that you will support the podcast by supporting Ned. You know, the CBD market has become very saturated over the last few years. I’m sure you’ve seen a bazillion ads for CBD. You can buy it in almost every coffee shop or grocery store. But many of the companies out there source their hemp from industrial firms in China. So be careful where you buy your CBD because just like with low quality alcohol, low quality CBD can have undesired effects. We’ve really touted the products we’ve been using specifically. Mine is the sleep blend, which I still love and I stand by it. I’ve been starting to use just their CBD oil during the day. Most of you know we turned Cadet in last week and I was having some really stressful days, so I was taking that almost every single day just trying to calm myself down. But we love this product. Claire, you’ve also been using this as well.

Claire: Yeah, I love the destress blend. I just kind of use it throughout the evenings as needed to keep me off the cliff when it’s bedtime. You know, it doesn’t necessarily make the cliff go away, but it does help take a few steps back. So that’s what I love about CBD is that it really just kind of helps you manage your own mindset a little bit more easily.

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Claire: Thank you to our listeners for supporting the brands that support our podcast. Yeah, let’s pop back into that conversation about noting the day-to-day and how those little habits add up so that you are prepared if you do have the opportunity to have a big picture moment.

Bri: Yes. Here’s the thing, y’all. There are a lot of millionaires walking around and you would never know, and it’s because they have these tiny habits or they’ve been putting into their retirement for a long time or they’ve been maxing it out. I think I talked about this on Episode 17 where the very first thing I had my students do is start looking at their bank account every day to start desensitizing themselves around money being emotional. And what happens with that is they actually start to become very aware of their spending habits and what’s going on. It is those tiny little habits that are going to change the game. I always say, you don’t have to move mountains. You just have to start having movement. It’s really important, as we’ve said a million times, that you know what your money flow is, you know what your expenses are, you know what you want to do, and you know you have this vision for your life. I say that because it’s really easy to get dazzled by someone else. It’s really easy to be like, oh, I’m going to do that. I want that. I should be doing that. Do you? Do you actually want that? Does that feel good to you? But we want to know all of those things because you could have an opportunity where a promotion is coming towards you and you don’t actually want it. That’s not in alignment with the goals you have for your life. Or you don’t want the extra responsibility. And that’s okay too, but you have to know what you want and what you desire in order to make those moves. By not asking for money, by having this idea that by asking for money I’m greedy and I’m not grateful, the reality is that with the pay gaps that women experience and also being out of the workforce, out of a 40-year career, that adds up to over $900,000. That’s significant. So if you’re in a moment where you’re worried about asking for $5,000 or $10,000, pop it into an IRA calculator or 401(k) [00:28:24.22] calculator just to show yourself so that you can see a number, know the number, what that actually might do in 15 or 20 years. Then it’s different. I had a student say, can I pull out from my 401(k) [00:28:38.09] to pay off this credit card debt. And it’s like, well how much are you really spending? Run the numbers. That $50,000 you want to use would actually be $350,000 at your retirement. Know the numbers. Then it’s like, oh, I’m not doing that. Cool. Are you willing to pay this interest? When you know the interest in the time span you can pay it off, totally different. Because you’re going into this with knowledge to make a decision.

Joy: I have a very basic question. Are there certain banks or accounts that you’re a fan of to have – separate from retirement, just a savings account – which banks have great interest rates? Do you have any preferences or do you think, no, people just need to find a savings account and a checking account? What kind of accounts to people have?

Bri: I mean, find what works for you. If you’re loyal to your bank or whatever, great. I’m not sponsored by anyone. I love Ally [00:29:34.02]. I like Capitol One [00:29:36.17]. I’m drawn towards online banks. They’re just easier I think to open up accounts. And for example, Ally – [00:29:43.16]

Joy: Is that A-L-L-Y?

Bri: Correct. You get to bucket out your savings. Just in general, what I want my students to have is you have your main checking account. If you struggle with overspending or you’re struggling to try to stay within a spending amount or your play money. And everyone should have play money, y’all. You cannot expect – that needs to be a line item. Even if it’s $20 a month, you have to have money that is yours to spend however you want because if we don’t have that, we are in a budget diet mentality and that doesn’t work. We’re looking for sustainability. So I always encourage my students, have an account where you get to move your spending money over every month that has its one debit account. Then you know you won’t overspend or dip into any of the money that you need for your actual living expenses. I always say, have a high interest savings account. You can literally pop in “high interest savings account” and Google that and see interest rates aren’t that great right now, but a lot of the online banks will give you really, really awesome interest rates. That’s great for your emergency fund. So when you’re not necessarily going to touch that money a whole lot. And I always recommend another account that is – let’s just say you cut and color your hair, and it’s a chunk of money every time. Or you pay your electric every three months. I don’t know, I’m making these up. But you can add those up. How many times do I those in a year? Divide it by 12. And each month you can move that money into that account. It’s called a sinking fund [00:31:18.23], and that just allows you to get a better cash flow. So when you go to the salon and you need to drop a couple hundred dollars, you’ve already been saving for it a month at a time, and it actually is going to give you a better cash flow. I always want people to have their main checking account, a spending account, their savings account for sinking funds [00:31:39.01] for things that they’re just kind of placing the money there to hold for a little bit, and then an emergency fund that’s probably at another bank because it takes a few days to get to you, It’ll help stop you if you try to move some money and you probably shouldn’t.

Joy: Some built-in buffers. That’s actually pretty smart. And as you’re talking about all that, if listeners have recommendations for online banks that they really like or credit cards that they find are giving good bonuses or benefits. I know Capitol One [00:32:05.11] is great. I really like the online bank Synchrony [00:32:08.14] because they have awesome high-yield savings accounts that have really good interest rates. But once again, it’s not for the cash flow. It’s just for putting your money there to save it and get interest. I’d love to hear from listeners. Maybe we can put a resource list together for people. Alright, do we want to do some rapid-fire questions?

Claire: Yes. So mere moments ago, Joy posted on our Instagram to get some listener questions. I think it would be great to wrap up with those and hear what is on everyone else’s mind about money. I think these conversations that we’re having, again similar to relationships, similar to diet culture, this stuff never goes away. I don’t think you just wake up one morning and you’re like, I have solved my finances. I may go on with the rest of my life now. Unless maybe you win the lottery. But actually probably not even then. This person asked, and we’ve kind of already covered this, what are the basics of taking care of our money that we should all be doing?

Bri: Yeah, that’s a big one. Number one, you have to start reframing your mindset around money. The easiest way to do that is to start thinking of your money as a relationship you care about. It sounds really silly. But it will change your behavior with the actual money. Because what we don’t want to stay in is in this space where money equals bad and money is scary. Because your brain will do anything it can to keep you away from it, to keep you in avoidance. And we don’t want to be in avoidance. We want to spend time with our money. Because knowledge is power. And so when we think about our money as being a relationship that we care about, that looks like checking our numbers every day just to see what I spend my money on. Having a money date every week where you’re actually updating your budget and you know how much money you have left in your line items and you’re moving money around. A budget is meant to be flexible y’all. It’s just guiderails. When you know the guiderails and, “Oh, I’m overspending in this area,” then you know what you can move around and what you’re willing to do without. But when you don’t have that, you have no idea what you can and cannot do. So treating your money like a relationship you care about, which is going to lead you into creating a good money flow, AKA a budget. Know what that is. Money coming in, money going out. It should feel flowy. There’s a reason why I use that word. It should not feel restrictive. If your budget feels super, super restrictive – and granted, there are going to be individuals who are paycheck to paycheck, and this is going to be an edge [00:34:32.09]. It’s going to be a tough. [00:34:32.05] But we want it to be flowy because when it’s flowy we know we are in a space of sustainability. We are not in a space where we have to grit and willpower our way through it like an extreme diet. That’s not what it’s about. We are about changing your habits completely so that you have a really good relationship with that money. So starting to build your money flow and getting used to it is great. And just recognize, y’all, give yourself some grace because when you put numbers down in a budget, you’re committing to new habits and behaviors. So recognize that, right? If you go to extreme, you’re not going to be able to do it. If you’re living off of credit cards still, you might have to still live off of credit cards a little bit as you start to dial in your habits and behaviors and just get used to everything. And that’s okay. Because again, we’re not playing the short game. We’re playing the long game. Start doing that. If you have credit card debt, start paying attention to that so that we can actually create a debt plan and eliminate that. So many individuals, they pay so much money towards their credit card debt and interest, it’s stifling. It removes the freedom that they have to do the things that they want to do in their lives. And then start to educate yourself around retirement and how you’re going to set yourself up for your future. I always tell myself, give your future self a name. Mine is Shirley. How’s Shirley going to feel? When she’s edging on retirement, what kind of life does Shirley want? Is she doing bridge a lot? Is she traveling to the beach? What does Shirley look like, right? Because we want to take care of her, and that’s not to say you can’t enjoy your life now. But I think once you go past 40, you’re like, oh, second chapter here we go. I need to start paying attention to this stuff. It’s coming. It’s coming, y’all. The time will come.

Joy: Faster than you think.

Claire: You’ve got to keep Shirley in pink lipstick and curlers.

Bri: Yes.

Claire: You can’t run out of her pink lipstick budget. Okay yeah, so speaking of that, somebody asks, we have our budgets but what happens when inflation throws everything off? Eat less? Help.

Bri: I hate this. We are in it for sure with inflation. Here’s the reality. Not sexy, you’re not going to like the answer. These are our options. We can spend less. We can make more. We can do both. And so when we are in that space and inflation is happening, then we have to start going through an audit. Again, know your values for your life. Know your values for your life. Know the vision for your life. These might have to shift. You might be in a circumstance where you’re not making enough money or the dollar doesn’t stretch as far as it used to. You need to be able to go back and say, what am I willing to let go of or shift in order to make this work? Are there options for me to make more money? That’s the reality. I’m not going to say eat less, but you could – I don’t want to give anyone diet, food, eating advice. This is not what this is about. But it might be something like, oh, I eat vegetarian twice a week now. That helps me on my grocery budget. I don’t know what that is, but you have to start being creative. But know, make more, spend less, do both, those are your three options. They really are the options. And when you know that, it removes any of the angst because you’re like, well, okay I’ve got to figure it out within these parameters.

Claire: That sounds so simple. It’s like, make more, spend less. What could be simpler? But that process is so much more complex. It is always so freeing to hear super complex processes summed up in quick advice. And also, I feel for anyone out there who is sitting there being like, but I had this figured out. Come on. That’s a crappy feeling.

Joy: And you’d be surprised of what you come up with if you just kind of evaluate all your expenses and maybe the businesses you’re doing business with. For example, we just recently looked at our trash pickup people how much we were paying per month, and we asked our neighbors. They were like, “What? You’re paying like five times as much as we are.” We were like, what? So we changed garbage disposal services. So things like that, you just don’t know until you dig into some of the services that you’re doing. Or Scott will be like, “We don’t watch Showtime anymore. Can we get rid of that?” Or just the things you assume you’re always paying for – do you really need to pay for that? So that’s what I would suggest too is just everything that you’re already paying for, see if there’s something cheaper or you really need to do that.

Claire: And maybe this is just city of Longmont. I don’t know that I would have an option to change my trash pickup people. Who knew? Who knew that that was even something that you could be looking at? Not me.

Joy: Oh yeah. We are saving so much money.

Bri: I love that. Assess everything that you’re currently spending and ask yourself, am I using this? Do I care about it? Is it important? What attachment do I have to having this thing? And that can do wonders for sure.

Joy: Yeah. Another example is we were paying every single month just auto draft, those gnarly things that it’s impossible to cancel. And every month I was getting automatic draft or whatever from a security company because we had an alarm system in our house. We got our windows reinstalled. We got new windows. So we had to redo all of our security system. Well it turns out it’s so much cheaper long-term to just get cameras around your house, and I cancelled that service. Even though it was impossible to cancel. They really lay it on thick. They’re like, “How about a dollar a month?” They really want you to stay. It was like Ross on friends where he’s like, [00:40:07.16] “I want to quit the gym.” That’s exactly how it was for me. But I was spending way more long-term than I would just buying cameras for the house. And we’re like, actually cameras are way better than an alarm system because the noise just goes off versus you have – anyway, those are the things we were just kind of like, why are we paying for this? Yeah, so highly recommend doing that too.

Claire: Okay, one last question. This one is a big one, so maybe this is a more of where to look for information on this. The question is, thoughts on crypto? [00:40:36.29]

Bri: Oh boy, that’s a big one.

Claire: So maybe what are some resources? Maybe we can share some links. I know crypto is this whole gigantic topic. Very quick, do you think it’s worth it for the average person to be spending time worrying about crypto? Is this the compression tights of the financial world where if you don’t have everything else dialed, then compression tights aren’t going to help?

Bri: Oh my God, that’s the best. You know, there are a lot of different schools of thought. There are some coaches who would guide you to say you have to start investing in the stock market, even if you have credit card debt. And there are others who are like, pay off your credit card debt and then you can start investing. So you have to start to find your edge and your risk and what feels good to you. I always tell my students this. What feels good to you? Because your risk tolerance, the life you want, your values is different from the person next to you, and you have to pay attention to that. Otherwise, you’re going to get on a plane and a trajectory that’s not going to serve you. There’s so many sites you can look at. I really love Investopia [00:41:45.12]. It’s a site that gives really good articles to break things down. I’m sure Elvast [00:41:51.09] probably has something as well. There are other money coaches out there that are doing trainings on it. I think if you popped in “crypto currency and money coach” you would start to find a lot of individuals. I’m not going to tell you if it’s good or bad. That’s not my space. I know that sucks. Because it is so up to your risk tolerance. Some students don’t want to get into the stock market or it freaks them out. Well it freaks them out because they don’t know enough about it. So knowledge is power, just remind yourself of that. And whatever money you feel like you’re going to put in just in the stock market, you’re playing the long game. That’s my philosophy. You’re playing the long game. So if you were hoping to beat the market, good luck. Lots of people have tried it. And if you lost that money in five years, how devastating would that be. Start to go through some questions in your head so that you can evaluate your own risk tolerance for those things.

Joy: I almost feel like that was a little bit on the edge of I could have asked you about multilevel marketing, but I’m not going to.

Bri: [laughing]

Joy: It feels like the same answer. Uh, just be careful.

Claire: I think that crypto is so new and shiny that we feel like it’s kind of forget that it’s kind of just another stock market. A lot of us use stock market experts to help us invest our money in the stock market. I have money invested in the stock market, and I have a financial advisor to help me with that because I know that I don’t have the time or the resources or the background knowledge to really understand what’s going on. I also don’t know why I would expect that from myself around crypto. But all of the sudden, I’m going to wake up one morning and have special interest in this entire currency system that I have not been paying attention to.

Bri: Well, what’s really fascinating is most people don’t think about this. Our money system, our current currency, it is make believe. There’s only 8% of the currency that’s real. If everyone went to the bank right now and wanted to get their money, it could not happen. So 92% of the currency rolling around is in spreadsheets and hard drives and whatever, and it works because we believe in it. So remind yourself of that the minute you’re telling yourself “I can’t make more money.” Listen, have you ever transferred money and you’re like, “There went $6000. I haven’t seen it in the other bank yet. Just hanging out in the ether.”

Joy: Just floating around.

Claire: We should all aspire to have a Scrooge McDuck pool full of gold coins, but that’s just not the reality.

Joy: [laughing]

Bri: And you could get it and no one’s going to take it. Like, we don’t take actual money.

Claire: Right, right.

Joy: Yeah, that’s true.

Claire: The only place they can is at the farmer’s market.

Joy: We’re doing touches now, thank you. What is this money? This dirty money with COVID all over it.

Claire: Actually I’m just going to scan your retina and deduct from your credit.

Bri: Yes, remind yourself. We believe in it, so it works.

Claire: Great point.

Joy: Well Bri, thank you so much.

Claire: Where can everyone find you?

Bri: You can find me at theschoolofbetty.com. That’s Betty, B-E-T-T-Y, not Buddy. That happens a lot. I spend most of my time on Instagram if you are on the social media platforms. That’s @theschoolofbetty as well. Yeah, I’ve got courses. I’ll be launching the next year’s [00:45:12.16] finances in January. That’s usually our biggest cohort. It’s so fun to get everyone rolling into the new year. So you can find information on my Instagram and on my website for that.

Claire: Well thank you again so much for joining us. Listeners, you know where to find us. @joyandclaire_ on Instagram, joyandclaire.com, thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Send us your questions. Send us your thoughts. Send us your hopes and dreams. We will talk to you next week. Don’t forget to check out our sponsor, Ned, helloed.com, discount code is JOY. Thank you so much. See you next Thursday.

Joy: Bye, guys.