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Lessons from going viral, Cadet’s graduation date, what to do if you’re overwhelmed with the state of the world, collective grief, lime washing, and diet culture reminders.

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Girls Gone Wod

email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com

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This is Joy & Claire Episode 131: Not Our Normal

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Transcription Completed: August 6, 2022

Audio Length: 53:32 minutes 

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire.

Joy: How do you like our new theme song, by the way? It’s really, really uppity. So we have to lift up our intros a little more.

Claire: Which is hard sometimes. Like right now when it’s 8am on a Sunday morning, and my voice has not quite joined us yet. We’re recording this really early, like almost two weeks early. We always release on Thursdays. Normally we record that same week on Monday or even Tuesday. So our episodes are typically not recorded all that far in advance. But when life gets busy, we do batch them a little bit more. When you’re listening to this, these time frame statements will be out of date. But I am still a little bit in Covid recovery. I had Covid. I ended up testing positive for Covid for like 12 days. It was really pretty tough. I did not enjoy it. Zero out of ten. I have a little bit of asthma. For those of you who don’t know a fun fact about me is that I was born pretty prematurely. I was born at like 30 weeks or something and lived the first month of my life in an incubator.

Joy: Do did I. I think that’s pretty common for twins.

Claire: It’s pretty common for twins. Actually my mom had gone into labor at like 23 or 24 weeks. I’m going to tell this horror story. I think I’ve told it before. They sewed her cervix shut. And then finally at 30 weeks, my water broke. So I’m a twin. I have a fraternal twin brother. Two sacks, right. So my water broke. Well, this train is rolling, so they removed the stitches, but they missed one.

Joy: Nope. Nope, nope, nope. You should have put a warning on that one. You should have put a warning on this one.

Claire: So she was in labor with a stitch in her cervix, and she was like, “Something is wrong.” And they were like, “It’s supposed to hurt.” Because medical professionals gaslight women. She was like, “You will look again.”

Joy: Go Carol.

Claire: There was one in there. Anyway. So I was a preemie. 

Joy: I think we have to sing from now on anything that’s horrific. Just sing it.

Claire: Just sing it. The reason I bring this up is that when you are a fetus, one of the last things to develop are your lungs. So preemies tend to go on to have sensitive respiratory systems for the rest of their lives, and that is very much me. I’m the type of person that any time I get sick, I will have a cough for weeks. Even if it’s not really like a respiratory illness. With Covid being very much a respiratory illness, I anticipate – I almost said participate. I anticipate.

Joy: You are participating.

Claire: I am participating against my will. I anticipate having a cough all summer, so fun for me. Anyway. 

Joy: All that to say is the first time that we put the new intro song, it was on the episode that you had Covid. I texted Claire and I was like, “This is a real right turn.” It goes from a real uppity song, and then Claire is like, “Hi…”

Claire: My voice is just so far down.

Joy: Anyway, whatever, we like it. We got a rebrand. We’re all happy. Things are rocking. 

Claire: It’s been a couple years.

Joy: I changed my mind about going viral is the new update.

Claire: Oh, you like it now?

Joy: No. I don’t like it. I don’t hate it.

Claire: Oh, okay. You’ve half changed your mind.

Joy: I’ve half changed my mind. I don’t hate it because what it did for me was completely made me ignore the comments section. I don’t read it anymore.

Claire: Not a one.

Joy: I don’t pay attention to it anymore. If you’re commenting, great. I love you. It forced me to completely ignore the comments section. Because there were so many comments rolling in that we couldn’t keep up. At first, we were browsing, reading, and then we’d see all the awful people coming in that were just saying the stupidest crap. So I changed my mind a couple weeks later. Actually, that was the silver lining of going viral is that you just don’t pay attention.

Claire: You get desensitized. I go onto our newer posts and specifically look at the comments. I feel like the people who actually know us are still commenting and I don’t want them to feel left out. And not even left out. That’s why we’re on social media is it’s a place where we can engage with you guys in real time, unlike anywhere else. If we did not really deeply value that, we would have left social media years ago. But I agree with you. So also, just your friendly reminder that if you ever really have a question for us that you are really hoping for an answer to, please send us an email. Don’t send it in a DM. DM’s get lost super quickly because we have a lot of notifications. People just send random reaction not our Instagram stories all the time. Those quick little comments, we like to read. And we will often times see your DM with a longer question and think, oh I need to get back to that later, and then it’s gone by the time we get back to it. Send us an email if you ever have a question that you are hoping for an actual answer to. Our email address is thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Great. This feels like a lot of housekeeping.

Joy: Sometimes we have to do it.

Claire: It’s true.

Joy: Well, when this episode airs – it’s kind of weird to… that’s another reason we don’t like recording so far in advance, just because I like to talk about the week ahead. But when this episode airs, I will be in Arizona. I’m going to visit some family for the week. So I’ll be there all week. And hopefully by then, Cadet will have graduated. I wish I could give you an update now, but we’re recording this so far in advance, it’s hard to tell. It’s hard to tell. So just keep an eye on social media. Or you already have seen it actually. It’s in the past.

Claire: There’s already a reel about it.

Joy: This is old news already.

Claire: But the update this week, as of Sunday, June 5, is that Cadet pre-matched. Which last week we talked about what that meant. So she is on her way, potentially, assuming that everything goes well during team training. And it’s very exciting.

Joy: Yeah, it’s so cool. So they called us a couple of days ago. Again, this is old news by now. But it’s still great news. I’ll celebrate it forever. But they called us and said she has a pre-match, and that just basically means when you go to team training, you are pre-matched with a person. They watch you for a week to make the trainers watch very closely to make sure it’s the right match. They want to do a really good job of making sure that everything is set up for success. And if all goes well for the remainder of that week, then you graduate. So we’ll be flying out. It’s kind of funny because a cousin is getting married on June 11. We had always planned to go out for that wedding, and then I am going to stay for the week to see family and just hang out. I was so worried that Cadet’s graduation was going to be the same day as my cousin’s wedding. Honestly for a hot minute, and my cousin Lauren, if you’re listening, don’t worry, I would never miss Garrett’s wedding. She listens to this podcast. She’s like, “Joy!” For a minute, I was like, oh man, that would be a tossup.

Claire: Right.

Joy: Do I miss Garrett’s wedding? Or do I go to Cadet’s graduation? Thankfully I don’t have to make a choice. We are just going to be jet setting and flying to Arizona right after Cadet’s graduation. But I’m so excited to see her. But this podcast will be in the past, and I have hopefully already given her a big hug and sent her off to her new journey.

Claire: Cute, cute. Okay, the other thing we wanted to open this episode with is in the past couple of months, with just the world getting more and more horrible, we get a lot of questions from you guys around what do you do to manage the stress, the fear, the hopelessness. There’s just a lot that we have all been dealing with for a long time now. At varying degrees, but at the same time, I don’t know a single person who is like, “I’m actually pretty fine.” One of the things that, Joy, you always say is don’t let it get to the point where you just don’t care anymore. You want to avoid getting there. But I think the reality is that a lot of us have actually been at that point for a while. I want to hear from your therapy hat perspective – and friendly reminder, Joy is a licensed clinical therapist with a decade plus of experience.

Joy: Two decades almost. Which is actually really scary every time I say it. But it is what it is, guys. Age happens.

Claire: Age happens. It is a privilege to grow old. What do we do if we are past the point of being so overwhelmed by the deluge that we don’t care anymore? How do you come back from that?

Joy: Well, my first question – I want to say this as a little bit of context. Where are you at? I’m curious to hear, and I’m sure a lot of listeners are curious to hear – I’m not saying people who are parents have a – I think you absolutely have a different experience. Maybe I’m projecting. I feel like you would have a more intense experience around the school shootings because obviously you have school-age children.

Claire: Yeah, no, it’s horrible.

Joy: Not to do the comparative suffering thing, but when these things happen, I think of all the parents who are dropping their kids off at school. Where are you at as a parent? Talk to all the parents out there about what that does for you and how you’re currently dealing with that stress.

Claire: It’s really, really hard. Miles will be going into first grade. Evie is 3.5 but will be entering kindergarten in two years. I just keep thinking, this problem is not going anywhere. You want to think that you are safe, and you want to tell your kids that they’re safe. I think about the shooting at the Boulder King Soopers last year. I knew people who lost people in that shooting. The illusion of convincing yourself that it can’t happen in your community is gone for me already.

Joy: Gone completely, yeah.

Claire: I think that is actually such a helpful illusion. Even if you know in the back of your head that there is nothing different about your community. If you can convince yourself that it can’t happen, I honestly think that that is kind of helpful. Because at the end of the day, there is really so little that you individually can do. So just letting yourself believe that you’re safe… I wish that I could still do that. I don’t want to say, live your life willfully ignorant. But I think we all understand at some level. We all definitely understand that we’re not safe. But the less you have to consciously think about that, I think the better. This is my very non-professional opinion of how to process this. But yeah. I would say I really can’t think about it because there is nothing I can do.

Joy: Well, it’s a protective factor. Like when you’re at that level, you’re overwhelmed. I think that’s what happens when people – so kind of parlaying that into what your question was. I talk about this a lot during therapy. You get to a point where if you imagine the bucket filling to the top, you can’t take anymore. You are tapped out. So your body just shuts down. Or your mind shuts down. And you’re like, I can’t take anymore because it’s like your mind and your body are doing its job in a way to where you’re like, I can’t take any more so I’m just going to completely ignore what’s going on. On some level, you may have to do that for a while to take care of your family or to take care of whatever you need to take care of. So I think what I’m saying is, when you get so overwhelmed to a point where you don’t care or you just get complacent, I think that’s when you want to recognize that difference. I think there’s little bit of nuance in that in the sense of, yes, it’s a protective factor of you can’t keep facing the horrible news. But at the same time, where do you feel you can contribute? So turning that energy of overwhelm and not looking at the negativity per se but turning that into something where you feel like you can take some action. I’m not saying you have to go out and do something 24/7. But instead of looking at the news and absorbing the bad news or looking at the worry and absorbing the worry, where can you donate to places? Where can you make a contribution in your community? Those types of things that put more positive back into your system and build your back up, as opposed to make you feel tapped out. So that’s what I think is the important difference. You become so stressed and overwhelmed to the point where you’re like, I just can’t pay attention anymore. Well the sad reality is we have to pay attention in order to fix it. So it’s this weird catch 22. But at the same time, we also have to realize that we have responsibilities, and we have to take care of our families, and we have to take care of our jobs, and we have to do the things that we normally do. You add onto the normal responsibilities of your life, and that’s where people are like, “I don’t have the bandwidth for that.” It’s interesting too where people will also start to do this thing of, “Well I don’t have it as bad.” People will also start to feel guilty – that was amazing. River has entered the chat. 

Claire: River just came into the room. I’m sitting on the floor. She just opened the door and started licking my face. Sorry, go on. I’m sure that was very chaotic on camera.

Joy: It was very chaotic. I was like, woah, there is a dog right here. But people start to do this thing to where you start to feel guilty for tapping out. So I don’t want to say that if you’re tapping out you are doing anything wrong. Your body is doing what it is supposed to do, which is protect you from completely shutting down. It’s almost like a trip wire where your body is just like, “We’re done.” You start to do this thing too where you’re like, “Well, I have so much to be thankful for.” A lot of people do this in therapy. They come to me and are like, “I feel bad for feeling bad because I have it better than most people.” I appreciate that. That means you are a caring, compassionate person.

Claire: But your nervous system doesn’t care about that.

Joy: Right. Your nervous system is like, we are in danger. There is danger in our environment. We are in fight, flight, or freeze. What the heck do we do? I think that’s something to notice as well. Thank you so much, human, for being a caring, sensitive person that you do recognize all of your blessings. But at the same time, you can also feel overwhelmed. And there’s probably a million different answers to this question, but what I personally do and what I tell people to do when we’re talking about this in therapy is to find some sense of control where you feel like you are contributing to a solution, whatever that looks like to you. There’s a lot of talk about the problem. I think what we need to be paying more attention to is the solution. And I’m not talking about reading the news of opinions or the comment sections or people posting. That actually drains you. That’s also what I’ve been telling people. Do not read news. Be informed, but don’t read opinion pieces. Don’t watch people arguing over what the solution is, what you feel might be a solution. What is the action step, a very tangible action step that feels like a part of a solution? And that’s going to be different for everybody. But that’s why it’s important to find what that answer is for yourself. Then you feel like you are doing something to move the needle a little bit. I think what we get wrapped up in is the problem feel so big and has been going on for so long that there’s that whole, “Well, if Moms Demand Action hasn’t been able to do anything,” – well, actually they have. If you read what they’ve accomplished so far, they’ve actually done a lot. Don’t get caught up in the whole, “I’m just one person” fallacy. We can’t do anything if I’m just one person. Trust that you have a lot of power. If we all take one small step every single day or every single week or every month even, whatever you have the energy for, we can move the needle. I think that’s what battles that overwhelm. 

Claire: I think that’s been a big thing for me is feeling like it doesn’t matter what I do. All I can do – I deleted Instagram for a while. It feels so intense that even if I see a post about it that I’m not ready for, I just have to walk away. I can’t take in any amount of information at this point. Hopefully that will change. It’s not always this intense when there is a shooting. I don’t want to get too far into it because I know a lot of other people are in that boat too, and describing it might not be helpful. It’s hard even for me to talk about it. I think I quickly get to that point of almost the next level of no amount of action will change anything, so I’m not even going to look for ways to feel productive. And not only that but feeling like the way for me to get out of this is to channel into action almost just feels like something else, like another box I have to check off, like something else I have to do.

Joy: I hear what you’re saying. It’s not that you have to do it. It’s that most of the time when we are feeling overwhelmed and numb, it feels like we don’t have control or we’ve lost a sense of stability in our life. And we do. There’s all of these bad things that are happening, and we live in a society where people are making decisions about the very important laws around us and we don’t have that control. But I think using your voice in some way – even something as small as telling a friend something kind that day. It doesn’t even have to be a large cause because maybe that is feeling like too much right now. Even a small act of kindness to take you out of that spin can be really helpful. I’ve been trying to do more of telling people a compliment if I’m thinking it. Or writing someone a thank you note that was something very small. Or whatever it is – picking up a piece of trash when I’m walking outside. You feel like I’m doing something so small, but I feel like the thought and the energy towards doing something positive for this world right now is the only thing I can muster. Fine. That is okay. Not every single one of us needs to be Shannon Watts on the frontline of Moms Demand Action for gun safety. She is amazing. She’s been doing it for a very long time, and I think that’s another piece of we feel like we have to be doing it to that level. I’ll get caught up in this too. You’ll see on Instagram all the people that are doing very large acts of advocacy. Then you feel like you should be doing that level of advocacy. No. And maybe your solution isn’t advocacy. You see what I’m saying? It’s just getting to a point where you feel like it’s just not constantly taking, like where the energy of the world is not taking from you. You are at a point of filling yourself up in a way that’s contributing to society. 

Claire: Yeah, I think that makes sense. If you’re somebody listening to this who is also to the point of feeling really helpless and overwhelmed by it and have had a hard time getting out of that space, the biggest thing I have learned over the last couple of weeks is that it really feels like grief. 

Joy: It’s absolutely collective grief. And I think that started when the pandemic started.

Claire: Sure. And I think that – oh, here comes Evie Joan.

Evie: Momma, the sun is awake.

Claire: The sun is awake? Thank you for telling me. Okay, bye.

Joy: I mean, that’s a part of joy.

Claire: It’s a headline.

Joy: It just fills you up. That just touched my heart. The sun is awake. We all needed that. Case and point. 

Claire: She just needs to come and tell everybody. I just want to also, at least for me, to say out loud, I can’t. I still can’t. I just can’t do anything. And deleting social media has been really helpful. I get teary just thinking about it. I’m still at a point where there are almost no option, it feels like, available to me other than to just step away. So I am trying to honor that as much as I can and not worry about finding things I have to do.

Joy: There’s a lot of levels to this. I think that if you’re at a point where you’re like, I can’t even take an action, then maybe it is just doing nothing for a while. Because this can also be so individual. Where my suggestions come from, you guys, is not that these are the right answers. It’s just a answer. It’s just a suggestion. Everyone is so different of how you deal with it. But I think the bottom line is that it’s normal to feel like you can’t handle any more because this should not be our normal. This really should not be our normal. This should not be happening in our world. We should not be losing children to gun violence. This is the sad part of reality is that it is happening. So how do you marry that in your mind of reality, especially if you have young children? So if you are at that point, like Claire just said too, of “I just can’t.” Then that is where you start. You shouldn’t feel guilty about that either. Maybe all you can do is focus on providing love and care for your family and getting a good night’s sleep and drinking enough water and putting your own family as your main focus. If that’s all you can do, then that’s all you can do. It’s a good point to bring up too, Claire, because I’m sure a lot of people also are at that point of, “I don’t even know where to start. I have zero energy to even think about it. I have to turn it off.” Sometimes people are like, “You can’t look away. This is a problem.” But we should never be forced into… it’s fine to take a break. That doesn’t mean that you don’t care. You care so much, and that is why you have to take a break – because you care so much. Because you’re a mother of two young beautiful children. Because you’re trying to think about their safety. It’s so interesting to watch this play out on social media too of people judging how social media influencers post or the stances they take. That all of the sudden gives value to how much you care about an issue or not, or how much you’re posting about it. It’s very interesting ho that plays out. But needless to say, it is okay, listeners out there, if you are taking a break, if you are stepping away. I think it’s fine to be informed then to the extent of saying, “I do want to help move this needle” because we do feel like we need to do something. But maybe the doing something in this phase of your life right now, after a freaking pandemic that we’re still in, is to take care of yourself and your family and that is where you start. Because like we kind of started this conversation at the beginning of what do you do if you feel like you’re already at that point where you feel like you are completely tapped out? Then you start there. And you just take care of yourself and your family.

Claire: Whew. Okay We are going to move into to some more just broad life updates, but let’s take a quick breather. A moment.

Joy: Let’s take a quick breather with our favorite sponsors, Ned. I couldn’t think of a better transition because they are just all about self-care and love and products that nourish you. I think y’all saw on our stories last week – maybe not. This is so outdated. But maybe you saw a story where I posted, I’m so amped about Cadet, but I need to calm down because I need to go to bed. That’s when I took Ned. It was the perfect solution for that evening because I was so amped up. We talk so much about the ways that we use Ned, but that was an example where I’m like, this is a perfect time to show when Ned really, really world.

Claire: The other thing I want to say too is sometimes we get emails from people that are asking, hey, this is the problem that I’m trying to help through CBD use. What would you suggest? Joy and I obviously can only speak to ourselves and our experiences. You guys all know that. Ned has an awesome service that you can go online and sign up for a consultation where they have herbalists and experts on their staff who will meet with you for free and talk through what it is that you’re trying to accomplish and recommend the best regiment of products for you. It’s basically a sales consultation. So to be completely honest, they’re trying to get you to buy their products. It’s not an unbiased moment. But if you are really curious about CBD and exactly the best way for you to be using it for something specific, highly recommend signing up for that. I have a ton of friends who have done that, and it’s really, really helpful. The suggestions that they make are really, really effective. Definitely check that out because it’s a cool service that they provide.

Joy: Yeah. And just a reminder that you are supporting the podcast when you support our sponsor, Ned. They have full transparency on their website. They share their third-party lab reports, who farms their products, their extraction process. All on their website. And remember they have a full money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied. Become the best version of yourself. Get 15% off Ned products with code JOY. Go to helloned.com/JOY or enter code JOY at checkout. That’s helloned.com/JOY to get 15% off. Thank you, Ned, for sponsoring the show and giving our listeners a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues.

Claire: Okay. Well in other life updates, I’m still living in boxes. A fun project that we’ve been working on that I wanted to share is we’re doing lime wash paint on our living room. Which is something that I asked a question about on my Instagram, and I think people are kind of confused about what it is. You can paint brick with lime wash. That’s the application that most people know. But you also can do your walls. It ends up with this really awesome, very, very matte, very lightly textured finish that almost looks like plaster. But it’s not as gloppy as plaster. The primer was bizarre because you basically are creating a super porous surface on your wall. Let me back up. It’s basically a type of paint that’s made out of actual lime from limestone. 

Joy: I’m googling images right now because I’m not familiar with it. Where did you learn about lime wash?

Claire: Instagram.

Joy: Of course you did.

Claire: I spend a lot of time on the ‘Gram.

Joy: I really want to paint my fireplace BTW. 

Claire: Oh, we’re going to paint our fireplace. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Joy: Okay. With lime wash?

Claire: Probably not with lime wash. We’re probably just going to use paint. The thing that people like about the lime wash for brick is that it still leaves the natural brick look, but it just makes it look a little powdery for lack of a better word.

Joy: Yeah, because paint makes it look a little too painted.

Claire: So the lime wash is not a stain. It is actually a type of paint. But because it’s so porous on brick, it gets absorbed into the brick. It makes it just look like an old whitewashed look.

Joy: Okay, okay.

Claire: The point of the story – I won’t get into exactly the details of every single thing, in case you’re like, “I don’t want to listen to you talk about lime wash paint for 20 minutes.”

Joy: We’re watching paint dry on our podcast.

Claire: Exactly. But it’s really been fun and interesting. I’m really excited for how it’s going to make the room – we’re doing it in the front room of our house, which is this big, open room that connects to the dining room. It just creates this really nice little texture and makes the room feel really cozy. And then we’re deciding on the cabinet paint colors we want to use. Our house that we moved into was built in 1970. It’s a floor plan that – I think I already talked about this. It’s literally the exact same floor plan that Brandon grew up in. It’s also extremely similar to the house that I grew up in. The main floor is almost exactly the same, and the upstairs is just a different configuration. So this was a very popular plan, the house plan, in the 70’s. Where you walk in the front door and you’re staring at a coat closet. To the right is a sitting room that backs up to a dining room that flows into the kitchen. Then as you walk through the kitchen, you’re looking at the living room and you can turn up the hallway to go back to the front door. And then if you’re standing at the front door and you look to the left, you go up the stairs into the upstairs.

Joy: Okay. 

Claire: Really common in the 70’s, and the last time it was updated was in like 1990. So we are not doing a renovation per se because that’s expensive. 

Joy: Just a little pricey. Just bought a house.

Claire: And I currently still own two houses because, fun fact, the housing market has slammed on the breaks the last month and our house has not sold yet. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Joy: But you just put it up.

Claire: I mean, yes, but it should have sold. We don’t have any offers yet. It’s been up for a couple days. That has not been the norm for the past few years.

Joy: Sure.

Claire: Hopefully by the time you listen to this… I don’t have any wood around me that’s real. I have some particle board wood.

Joy: Touch wood, yeah.

Claire: Hopefully our house will be under contract. It’s a cute, cute house. But for a variety of reasons, including the fact that we don’t know for sure how long it’s going to take our other house to sell, we are not doing any big renovations. We’re painting everything, and that’s just a really fun process to go through. We’ve been using these paint stickers. This is not an ad. This company called Samplize, and they will send you this 8.5 by 11 – those aren’t the real dimensions, but it’s about that big – piece of vinyl sticker that is the paint color that you want. So you can put the sticker on your wall, and you can move it around your house to see how it looks in different lights.

Joy: That’s brilliant.

Claire: Instead of having to paint a sample and paint back over it and wait for it to dry. They are like $5 or $6 a piece. I have been going ham on these samples. Maybe if I was going less ham on the paint samples, I would have enough money to renovate our kitchen. But highly recommend if you are painting. These are so fun. So we’re kind of in that mode right now of choosing paint colors. We’re still really not unpacked. Because part of it too is we don’t want to unpack everything, only to then have to paint and move everything again. We’re still sort of in this annoying in between of having a lot of stuff in boxes, but that’s just going to be my whole summer I think with the way that the timing played out and that we couldn’t get it done – we missed our window to get it done the week before we moved. So now instead, we have to pay the price. And by get it done, I mean painting and those sorts of thing. So that’s pretty much my 24/7 project right now is trying to get this house into a livable condition so it doesn’t feel like we just moved in. Even though we did just move in. I just hate that feeling. It’s very disorganizing. I don’t know if you guys saw my reel about this, but my brain has really not recovered from Covid.

Joy: Oh man.

Claire: And I have been forgetting things. It is very unlike me to forget things. I am not the type of person who forgets appointments or anything like that. Two days ago, I forgot to take River to doggy day care. Just forgot. It wasn’t like I’m so late or I forgot to reschedule. Halfway through the day, I was just like, oh my God, I was supposed to take River to doggy day care today. Just forgot. And then Joy and I did a little content shoot where we have this really cute little photo studio that’s in Longmont called Sugar Hill Studios that we rent out just for an hour. We just take our iPhones. If you are in the Denver area and you are someone who is supposed to create content for any reason and you hate it, I would recommend trying this place out. This place is so cute. It’s really affordable on an hourly basis. I love it. And it’s run by the cutest photographer. Her name is Sarah Hill. And also, not an ad, but if you’re ever looking for family photos in the Denver area, highly recommend her.

Joy: I can’t stop looking at lime wash, by the way. [laughing]

Claire: Oh my gosh, right. It’s so soothing. 

Joy: Now I want to paint my fireplace, and I’m like, what do I paint it? I’m going to stop. But it’s very soothing to look at.

Claire: It is really soothing to look at. It’s a nice texture. But I forgot about the photo shoot until I got the reminder on my phone 30 minutes before, and I was standing in line to order coffee by the grocery store. It’s a whole thing.

Joy: Yeah. Claire texted me. You’re like, “I’m going to be a few minutes late.” I was like, “Okay.” I’m pulling up, and you’re like, “I forgot.” 

Claire: Thank God this place is five minutes from my house. I probably just wouldn’t have made it.

Joy: Right. 

Claire: It would have been Joy only. So that’s been super fun. What are you guys doing for the summer coming up?

Joy: A lot of puppy watching. I’m going to Arizona. I’ll be in Arizona when this airs. We don’t really have trips planned yet because we have a lot of dog sitting situations coming up where we are puppy sitting for a lot of the CCI dogs. But as far as a vacation, we really want to go back to Hawaii. But I don’t know, it’s at that point still where you just don’t know what’s going on with Covid. I don’t want to plan too many things. It’s hard to tell. As of right now, we’re mostly trying to visit family because we haven’t been able to do that in the past few years. So we’ll probably go see Scott’s parents, do more trips to my parents’ house, and obviously I’ll be hanging out a lot in Arizona and having a good time seeing all those people.

Claire: So as we march directly into summer, we wanted to talk a little bit about diet, exercise stuff that really flares up this time of year. Just remind you all that your winter body and your summer body are the same. Your year-round body does not need to change in any way, shape, or form for the summer, just because it’s summer. If this is a season where you find it’s easier to fit in more activity, that you are already naturally drawn toward eating more fresh foods, let that just be what it is. Let that just be a seasonal rhythm of your body. I think it’s natural in the summer. It’s lighter way longer. Fresh foods are more readily available. They are more delicious because they are more fresh. You don’t have to assign any value or weirdness to that. It can just be what it is, and you can just not have to overthink it. If you’re finding yourself naturally wanting to move more, do it and you don’t have to start a whole program. You don’t have to sign up for a marathon. You don’t have to buy a Groupon, Joy, for a marathon.

Joy: I know. There was a half marathon this weekend that Scott was like, “Maybe we should just run this half marathon. We just ran ten miles.” I was like, maybe we should. We didn’t.

Claire: No. No.

Joy: But there’s beer at the end, and it’s put on by this beer company.

Claire: You don’t even drink beer.

Joy: We don’t even drink beer right now. Non-alcoholic beer is really my jam these days.

Claire: And guess what? It’s available to buy at the store without running a race.

Joy: Yeah, without running. So funny.

Claire: Zero running required. Probably cheaper than the race entry. People are like, “It’s free beer.” I’m like, it’s definitely not free beer. You just spent $100 to run the race. Anyway, I just wanted to say that because I know that this is the time of year – and it’s been that way now for a couple months already. But now that it really is summer break for kids. I think we’ve come a really long way in the last several years of not getting swept up in that stuff. But we used to not only get swept up in it but lead the sweep. Like, “Okay guys, time for a challenge.” It doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to suddenly decide you want your body to be different. It can be the same. It can be exactly the way it’s always been. A lot of people gained weight in Covid, and that’s great. 

Joy: We were just soothing ourselves through a really hard time.

Claire: Your body is creating protective instincts. And again, it doesn’t mean anything about you. It could mean something about your health. If you’re worried about it, go ask your doctor about it. That’s valid. We’re not saying to just sweep unexplained, rapid weight gain under the rug. That could be a red flag.

Joy: Right. There’s so many different ways it could go. I think what we’re trying to say is a blanket whole statement of, watch out, diet culture is going to rear its ugly head if it hasn’t already. I am loving seeing a lot of ads from retailers with every shape and size in bathing suits. We’ve come a long way. It used to be I’d be flipping through J.Crew magazine, eating my cereal before I went to college class – and yes, this is an actual catalog. 

Claire: It’s a real piece of paper.

Joy: And actual paper. And I’d be like, aw man, I don’t look like those girls with their very small stomachs. But it’s so funny how now we have an inclusion, an inclusivity… what’s the right word? Inclusive body types.

Claire: Yeah. A variety of representative body types. Representation.

Joy: Representation. And I love that. I think that’s been really good to see. But be careful of like, you need to take this supplement, you need to go on this diet. Claire and I are not immune from this. I think we each deal with it in different ways of course. But I have noticed, speaking of bodies and the news and media and how that affects us. Recently there’s been so much press around the bodies of the Kardashians. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the articles, but any time I scroll on my little Apple News feed, it is weather Khloe’s body –

Claire: I think you must be in the Kardashian algorithm or whatever.

Joy: Yeah. Our phones listen to us. I’m screwing myself right now. My phone is listening. Khloe’s body is too this or too that. Or Kim’s body and her diet that she did to fit into that dress is too this and too that. And honestly, it just is distracting us and making us think what is wrong with our bodies or how we look like that. Let me just remind you, that’s not reality. I hate to project this, but I know that I’ve seen ads for them doing that cooling scoped whatever it is. Have you heard of this? There’s a machine that you can put on your body that literally will –

Claire: Freezes your fat cells or something.

Joy: That or it works out a part of your body. Kind of like one of those things that used to shake your waist. You know, like those belts from the 50’s and 60’s? It’s kind of like that where it works out a body part the equivalent to an hour workout in five minutes, so it really tones your muscles. My guess is that they’re doing that, guys. And it’s okay, it’s fine. But –

Claire: Here’s a reminder for everyone. If it seems too good to be true, it is.

Joy: It is. It is.

Claire: When it comes to diet and fitness, if it seems to be too good to be true, it is. 

Joy: It’s an MLM. Run away.

Claire: This is how cults start. I have been seeing a lot more posts. I think Laura Ligos is really good about this. JK is really good about this. People who are like, hey, if you are somebody that has health and fitness goals. Again, you don’t have to have health and fitness goals. Blanket statement. I used to think that an absence of health and fitness goals meant that I was letting myself go or I didn’t care about myself or it wasn’t self-care. A lot of times, self-care means letting yourself not have those goals for a season of life because you’ve been drilling away at them for decades and you need a freaking break. But if you are someone who has health and fitness goals, it is the little consistent habits, unsexy habits – going for walks, taking the stairs, making sure you’re drinking enough water, making sure you’re getting enough freaking sleep. The things that are going to take a really long time to move the needle are still the things that are most effective. So if it sounds too good to be true, it is. If there is a challenge that promises anything in 30 days or 6 weeks or even 90 days or 75 days or whatever it is, it’s probably too good to be true. You can’t change your life and your body in a couple of months. It takes years to get to that point in a sustainable way. We all know this. We all know this. And yet we let logic fly out the window when we get an email saying, “90-day body shred,” and you’re like, oh 90 days.

Joy: They must have cracked the code.

Claire: No, they have not. What I was just talking about around feeling like you have to have a health or fitness goal. We got a great email recently, and I’m going to paraphrase it because I’m not going to pull it up right this second, but we got a great email from somebody who recently had a baby and used to be really, really active and worked out a ton, who basically said through some of the comments we’ve made on the podcast and through some of her own realizations has been embracing the fact that what you are doing or not doing in a certain season of your life is not who you are. We are so programmed to make our activities about who we are. For an example that I brought up a few weeks ago, I haven’t been baking that much lately. That doesn’t mean I don’t still love baking. That doesn’t mean that it’s not still something that is important to me from a standpoint of creativity, of sharing it with my family, of sharing it with my community. There’s so many things I still love about it. I just haven’t had much time to do it lately. Same thing for CrossFit. I think I’ll always love CrossFit. I think I’ll always love being in the gym in that environment of people, in that group, lifting weights, the high-intensity workouts, the loud music. I love the environment. There’s not a CrossFit gym that I like that’s in a convenient enough place for me that I can do that right now. It’s not that I’ve moved away from CrossFit. No, it just doesn’t fit in my life right now. Who knows if that might change. Maybe I’ll start going to a gym in Denver one day. Whatever the case may be. I think the opposite is true. We talked about this with JT a little bit on our more recent episode with him around you can still do things and it doesn’t – just because I’ve been waking up every morning to go work out doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly a morning person. Or just because I want to try going on a couple more trail runs doesn’t mean, oh, now I’m a runner. We need to move away from making the blanket statements around ourselves based on just these activities that we’re doing. I think that feeds so much into diet culture around making you feel like if this is not one of your top priorities your whole life, then that means you are not a healthy person. And that is just BS. We all know it is, right?

Joy: I feel like this has always been around, but when did we value health and fitness as this elitist, “we’re better than other people” type of mentality that used to be a thing. It used to be like that. I think that I was guilty of that for a while early in my fitness career. And when I did all the trainings to become a fitness instructor in college. I was in a different mindset. Or the way that I would talk to my friends and coworkers about how I was eating. And everyone always wanted to know what I was eating, and I would always tell them what I was eating. It was always like at thing, I remember, of what does Joy eat or not eat. Or how much I worked out and how that was this badge of honor. And now you look at it and you’re like, that was just a really unhappy part of me that people were idolizing or at least just commenting on. I think it’s more along the lines of making sure, because it’s such a sensitive thing and I don’t think it’s ever going to go away, to be aware of where our Achilles heels are in this fitness space, in the fitness/wellness/diet space, to follow people like Laura Ligos, to follow people like JK who are just doing it for the purpose of, if this feels good for you, do it. If this feels right for you, do it. It’s okay to want to eat well because if we just want to look at it objectively, I feel physically better when I eat better.

Claire: Your body thrives on nutrients and sufficient calories.

Joy: It just does. It just does. And I’m also not the person who is like, “I wish I could thrive off of cookies.” That doesn’t sound good to me either. I know that people will be annoyed by that. But I am at a point in my life where I am not restricting, so I don’t have to torture myself to eat healthy either. I just objectively feel better eating “healthier foods.” Foods that make me feel good, however you want to label it. I’ll even see influencers. I’ve unfollowed so many people over the years who every single post is about optimizing every nutrient that goes into your body, or you have to eat this every day for this mineral. It’s like, I just feel like having a liquid IV because it tastes good. Maybe it throws some extra water my way. But I don’t need to make sure I’m eating beef liver for this part of my whatever. It can go a little too far, I think. 

Claire: Yeah.

Joy: That’s all I’m saying is we don’t have to be perfect with it. Find what works for you. Just be careful.

Claire: Also, we try to be really transparent around the stuff that we’re doing and the fact that it can be fun to try stuff out. It’s all about allowing yourself to try stuff and not make it about anything bigger. Not make it a lifestyle statement. Not make it a statement about your personality. Right now in my health and fitness journey, right now I’m not doing anything. I love June because I love berries. Why are blackberries so expensive, but I will take out a third mortgage for blackberries.

Joy: Which reminds me, I think the farmer’s market is going on this morning. I need to run down there and get some flowers.

Claire: Yeah, you should. We went yesterday to the Longmont one. The Longmont farmer’s market is so cute, you guys. They had this little Celtic band playing yesterday. I just loved it. Yeah, so cute. All these little toddlers dancing around. I loved it. And then they had these popsicles, which my kids loved. Which are almost $4 per popsicle. This is just highway robbery, but I buy them. I am basically paying $8 to be able to stay at the farmer’s market for longer now that my kids have popsicles. But I am excited about summer and about food because I love summer produce. I love corn. I love peaches. I love berries. I love asparagus. I love fresh lettuce. Just all the things. I love tomatoes. Oh, I love tomatoes so much. Those are the main crops that we really get that are grown in Colorado. We don’t get citrus or avocado, stuff like that. You can’t grow that in Colorado because the growing season is too short.

Joy: Take me to California.

Claire: I know.

Joy: They have the best farmer’s markets.

Claire: And when it comes to fitness, I haven’t been to the gym really since my surfing trip because of the move and the whole Covid situation. But I’m still signed up for HungryFitness. I still really like that programming. I like that it’s flexible. I like the ethos around her community. I don’t follow them all on Instagram because I do feel like their accounts are pretty health and fitness culture.

Joy: It’s a little before and aftery if I can be honest. 

Claire: A little before and aftery, if I can be honest. I don’t love that.

Joy: Not so much a fan of that.

Claire: Not my vibe. But I do really like the programming, for what it’s worth. So you know, all that to say, I’m not changing anything this summer.

Joy: Yeah. A couple weeks ago, whenever it was, I posted a reel of making a smoothie because I do make this smoothie every morning. It’s so basic, and I’ve said it a billion times that I don’t follow recipes. I’m like, I can throw this together. I do it because I do objectively know that I don’t go for protein in my diet. Basic facts, you kind of, sort of, should focus on a more balanced – moving towards the middle, not being perfect.

Claire: Yeah, man cannot live on carbs alone.

Joy: No, sadly. And I’m such a carb person that I’ll just move towards the carbs. I know that about myself. I’ve just been ready more Dr. Stacy Sims of women as you age and you need more protein. I’m also on the Wild AI app. If you don’t have it, it’s amazing. It has a lot of really good tips for fueling for women. Science-backed. It’s run by doctors, so I feel like that is a really good app that’s how to fuel for female performance. So I was making protein smoothie. That feels really good to me. I just need to go for more protein in my diet. But not from a diet verb perspective. And then I’m just doing my Peloton. I’m working outside. I’m doing some Peloton workouts. I do some little bootcamp workouts, trying to get some more weightlifting in there because that just feels really good to me. And then walking my dogs. That’s something I have to do to train Joe, so that’s a daily activity. I just love being outside. But I will say, I’m screwing myself. I will say this lastly, which is really funny. I feel like social media is playing a cruel trick on us because I see a Tracy Anderson ad every single day on my social media feed. She is in a mesh fishnet looking bikini. I don’t understand why I am getting this ad. Why are you catering to me in a mesh bikini. I don’t want to look like that. If you want to wear that, great. No judgement. But why is this coming to me? And why is this the ad? Most of her customers, my guess, already look like her. It’s such a weird – now I’m going to get Tracy Anderson –

Claire: The fact that ten years later we’re still complaining about Tracy Anderson on this podcast, the longevity of those ads. It’s just amazing. It’s just amazing.

Joy: Yeah. Well on that note –

Claire: As you guys know, nothing sends me into a rage spiral faster than Tracy Anderson who thinks that women shouldn’t lift more than three pounds because they don’t want to get bulky and other things that are bad. 

Joy: Have you seen that ad? I texted you a photo.

Claire: Oh yeah, you texted me. And I’ve seen it. The neon green fishnet underwear is just like I don’t need to see another human wearing that. I just don’t need to see that in my feed.

Joy: I’m scrolling through Facebook right now, and I’m just waiting for – oh, another Canine Companions litter was born.

Claire: Oh, dogs. And we’re back. Alright, guys. I think that’s it for us this week. Thank you for joining us. Don’t forget to check out our sponsor, Ned, helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY for 15% off your order. Check them out. And don’t forget, they have a risk-free trial. You can try anything you want for 30 days on their website that you order. Their 30-day risk-free trial is available to all first-time Ned customers. So if you’re not completely satisfied with how their CBD products are impacting you or working in your toolbox, you can return it and you’ll get a refund. It’s fantastic. They’re wonderful. We really love this brand. We love working with them. We love their products. So check them out and thank you for supporting the brands that support our podcast. We will talk to you guys next week. Thank you for being here.

Joy: Bye, guys.

Claire: Bye.

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