Liz Talks Podcast, Episode 13: Ask Me Anything!

No question is too personal! Top products, future births, motherhood anxiety & weight struggles.

TRANSCRIPT

Liz Talks Episode 13

This is episode 13, topic: Ask Me Anything 

In case you missed it, episode 12 was the second episode in my baby sleep and sleep training series, where I talked about:

• My very different experiences with my second child. 
• Hiring a sleep consultant, and how it worked or didn’t work for us. And what worked even means. 
• Research that my teammate and researcher, Amanda, the neuroscientist from The Curious Coconut, has done on the topic on my behalf.
• Where we stand now with sleep in our house. 

Today, I’ll do one of my favorite types of episodes, an ask me anything episode. I love this kind of grab-bag episode, because it allows me to answer questions that are top of mind for you, my community. And it definitely also keeps me on my toes. Remember, my email subscribers can always ask me anything, so if you’re not subscribed already, be sure to go to Www.RealFoodLiz.com and drop your name in the sign up box. 

So, before we begin; a quick note. I’m so excited to give an update already on the follow-on program to Athletic Mom. We are already preparing to film our home strength program, which will be all about developing strength and muscle from home with minimal space and equipment. And barring any production issues, it will be ready this spring! 

Now, a note about all of our programs. We’re really a boutique operation in many ways but certainly in the way of; this is not mass produced fitness. This is fitness training catered towards people who want the most efficient, most intelligent route from point A to point B. That’s what a personal trainer does, and this is me gifting my incredibly gifted personal trainer to everyone. It’s not just about blasting your glutes, or making you sore. It’s about progressive programming that is intentional in every way. Where every single day builds on the next.

So Athletic Mom home strength will build on the Athletic Mom signature program, which is more focused on agility, flexibility, and overall athleticism. But it also builds on itself to progress you in a linear fashion. There’s no wasted time. There’s no wasted measures. Everything is intentional and everything has a purpose. We want to have your full fitness needs covered, and we’re just getting started. We’ve just found that we are such a good team; me, Nick, and Brit, and the larger team; Derrick, who is our videographer, and Malay Ishikawa, who is our graphic designer. And we just get things done. 

So this has been such an amazing process, and we’re so excited for round two, progressing us from Athletic Mom signature, which is really focused on all the different aspects of athleticism, into a strength focused portion, and beyond. 

Ok. Another note; y’all {laughs}. We are just recovering from; well since it’s only been two of the four of us so far, plus the nanny. We’ve been struck down, about half of us so far. So maybe we’re just in the middle of this. But the stomach bug from hell this week. And I’m just grateful to be recording this today, at the very, very last moment I could possibly record it to publish it on time. I just had a rehydration IV. An in-home IV service, which was awesome, and I’m recording this in between that, while the baby naps, hoping that when she wakes up, she’ll be fever free and things will just be easier from here. Because it has been a rough winter in our house. And I know that we aren’t the only ones. 

I feel like we’ve had multiple respiratory infections; none of them COVID. And now this. Which is just crazy, because we’re not a tummy bug family. I don’t know that my older daughter has really ever had a tummy bug; certainly not like this. She’s definitely, of course, thrown up before, as all kids do. But an actual tummy bug that laid her up for two days? Never before. So this is just; my god. I mean; again. Another thing I’m hoping the rest of the winter and into the spring goes a little bit faster. Because I feel like we’ve paid our dues. But of course, I ended up getting it as well. And I’ll talk a little bit more about that in my weekly overshare. 

But for now; let’s start the ask me anything questions. I won’t be able to get to all the questions that came in, but I hope to get to most of them. These are from both email and Instagram. So first up; I thought about reading these in like a British voice, but I don’t think I have the energy for that today. So I’ll just read the questions in my normal voice. Maybe one day I’ll pretend there’s another person here asking me the questions. Or maybe at some point I’ll have a co-host that will ask the questions for me. 

But for now, it’s just going to be me and my normal voice. So hopefully you can tell the difference between Q and A. 

Here’s our first question. “Quick question about red light therapy; is an infrared heating panel, my yoga studio has them in the ceiling for heated classes; delivering any of the same benefits?” 

This is a really great question. And I’m not a super-duper expert in red light therapy, but what I have read and what I know of red light therapy, red infrared light therapy, is that your proximity to the bulb actually does matter. And I think it’s actually ideally in the centimeters range. Like; 20 centimeters or less range. I could be wrong about some of that. I’m sure there are still some benefits to being in the presence of infrared light. But from what I know, your proximity to the light actually really does matter. In particular, the benefits conferred by the upregulation of cytochrome-C oxidase; which I believe is an enzyme that is upregulated by red light. So if you’re looking for the benefits of that, from that effect, I doubt you would get them from ceiling lights. But if anybody knows differently; let me know. 

Next question. And I actually got a couple of questions about this, so I’m going to combine them. “Do you still sell Beautycounter? I think no, and why did you get out?” And another one, “Do you work your Beautycounter business?” 

No, I did not get out of Beautycounter, actually. I still sell it. I still love it. I still use it. It has actually been one of the most educational, eye opening, and enriching experiences that I can imagine having had, being involved with this company over the last; what is it? Five to seven years? I’m not sure when I actually first joined, now, since it’s been so long. But I feel like I have been witness to so many of the growing pains, the transitions, the changes. And everything else that has gone on with Beautycounter as a company. 

Because I did end up sort of in the upper; I don’t know what the word would be. Not the upper echelon, but being sort of in a top position in the company as far as a sales rep goes. I’ve been able to really see how the sausage is made. They’ve let us in on all of that. And it’s ugly sometimes. Even Gregg Renfrew, who founded the company; she will say that very directly. It’s ugly; it’s not pretty sometimes. But the one thing I feel like I have taken from it is that being able to witness it has made me a better businessperson. It has given me a better understanding of the challenges of running a business; even on a small scale. On a corporate scale, on an individual scale, all of that. And I’m still really proud to be involved with the company.

The reason you might not hear me talk about it much, is because for a long time I wasn’t talking about anything on social media. And another reason is because I built my business really; I went all in, whole hog, and ended up with such a broad and busy group of clients to serve, that I just felt like I didn’t need to be going after the new business. Now, of course, that’s not really a businesswoman’s perspective; you don’t build your business by not seeking new business. But I did end up in a place where I really felt like I was good as far as my customer base, I was good as far as my team and supporting them. And then life got crazy. You know; got pregnant, had some other stuff going on, pandemic. So many different things. Homeschooling. Family stuff. So you just haven’t heard me talk about it all that much. 

But I am still very much engaged with Beautycounter. I still really love and respect the company, warts and all. And certainly if anybody is new to Beautycounter, doesn’t have a consultant already, you can always reach out to me. I’m happy to answer questions. I don’t use all Beautycounter products, but I don’t think it would be realistic to think anybody, even the CEO of Beautycounter, would use only Beautycounter products. But they do have a few that have been in my rotation.

One of them; their charcoal mask, I’ve been using since day 1. That one and the charcoal bar. It’s just a phenomenal product. So woman-owned, woman-started business. Works with a lot of integrity. Is politically active; all of that. It’s a good company. So no, I’m definitely still with Beautycounter.

Next question. “More on your CBD experience?” 

I’m actually not sure if I have anything to share about CBD. I did use it for a little while, just because I was curious. But I didn’t get much out of it. And that could have just been; not because there’s anything wrong with CBD, but because maybe I used the wrong type. Or maybe I just didn’t have anything going on that would see a benefit from using CBD. So I’m very interested in CBD and in all of these derivatives that we’re seeing on the market right now. It seems like a really cool thing. But I’ve had a lot less to say about CBD, and more to say about things like ketamine, for example. Which I talked about in a previous podcast. 

Next question; “Tell us about your husband, his job, and more about life at the lake!” 

Well, what do you want to know? My husband is super sexy, and super awesome. I married well; I’ll just say that. I made a good decision for once in my life, picking him. He is; I’ll be a little bit vague, just because he’s not an Insta-husband. He’s not on there all the time. He’s a private guy. I’m a private person. A lot of people may not remember when I had the cartoon cave-girl as my website header. But for a long time, I was kind of hiding myself from the internet until I realized you either have to get out there, or you’ve got to just forget about it.

Anyway, he’s fairly private. And just like I keep my kids private; I give him sort of a layer of privacy, as well. Even though I would love for him to make more appearances on my social media. But he is a part time military guy. We were full time military until a couple of years ago. Somehow now we’re old enough to have transitioned into part time military. And he is a pilot. So he also pilots commercially. So his schedule, and this will go to another question that will pop up later. But his schedule is very irregular, very random, very inflexible at times, and very flexible at times. So there are really good things and really bad things about it. 

Now, one of the things that tends to happen is he will be here for a lot for a period of time, and then he will be gone a lot for a period of time. And man. It’s hard to decide what I like better. Like I said, we’ve had a rough winter with illness, and there was a time a couple of weeks ago where I was like; I just need you to be here. Because for a second there, it felt like every time he left, by the next day somebody came down with something. And it was just getting so, so stressful for me. 

So I mentioned that I would love it if he had a regular schedule, a regular job. And then the more I thought about it, I was like; you know, actually I think there are really good things about this. And if we can just get through this season of there being times when I have very little support at home; I’m specifically thinking about nighttime, because that’s the worst when you have sick kids, the night times. But one of the things that’s good about it is when he’s gone, I put my head down and I get through it. And when he’s here, I can really relax. Schedule the things in that I need to schedule in. And he can be home with the kids.

So there are really rough things about it. There are times when he’s gone for 6-7 days at a time. But there are also times when he’s home for that long, or longer. So overall, I’m really grateful for it. 

And life at the lake is just awesome! There are a couple of places that I would love to live, but there’s just no place like this anywhere that I know of. And where we live is so special. It’s like a small town in the middle of, not the big city, because it’s Kansas City. But small town in the middle of a bigger city, so it’s nice. I can drive 20-30 minutes and get almost anything I need from anywhere, but when I come into the boundaries of my little city, it’s like a completely different place. It’s calm. It’s tranquil. We’ve got everything that we need as far as health and being outside and enjoying nature. And the fact that people know each other. We wave to each other. It’s just really special. So I love it here. Hopefully that was enough.

Ok. “What’s your favorite shampoo and conditioner for kids?”

You know, right now, I really just go for something that’s unscented. And a lot of the time, the choices that I make have more to do with the ease of use; which I know sounds silly. But a pump top, to me, is a lot easier than a bottle that you have to invert, squeeze, close, open, all of that stuff. And it’s really silly. But that’s kind of what I go for. So I’ve been using the unscented Honest company shampoo and condition for my kids for quite some time. But to be honest with you, I don’t wash their hair all that often. We like to go with that, you know, natural bacterial. Natural probiotic, let them get dirty and stay dirty type of look. 

Alright, next question. “How is Diane? Will you have her as a guest on your podcast?” 

It’s so funny; I had no idea people were curious about this. Diane and I were actually supposed to catch up over the phone over the weekend, but I had to cancel because we all had the stomach bug, and it was just horrible. So we had to reschedule that. But we were talking recently about the Balanced Bites podcast with each other; just kind of reminiscing on what a special thing that was. And had a catch up scheduled for the weekend that we’ll have to reschedule, hopefully really soon.

You know; I didn’t even think about inviting her to be a guest on the podcast. This little old thing? But, I mean, if she wants to, of course! And we had even talked about doing a podcast together or pushing just an extra podcast out to the Balanced Bites podcast feed so people know what we’re doing. So yeah. 

Alright, “What’s the one skin product/one supplement/one food you can’t live without?” 

Alright. So when I literally was doing nothing; like after the baby was born, and I was just barely using water or wiping my face with a washcloth at night, I really figured out the answer to this question for myself. I was starting to notice some fine lines, so I thought I was going to pull out the big guns and I was going to try a placenta cream. A placental stem cell cream. So I did that, and it was amazing. I don’t want to say it worked, because maybe that’s the wrong word. But it resolved these stress lines that I was coming up with very, very quickly. Which I appreciated very much. It was ridiculously expensive, but I knew that if I was going to just be doing one thing, that it had to pack a punch. So I went ahead and I tried that, and I’ve been using it ever since. So I really liked that. 

Before that; before it was really rubber meets the road, I need that one product because otherwise I will do nothing, I will probably say the Beautycounter intense moisture serum. Which is a hyaluronic acid serum that is just so, so good. 

Ok, supplement wise. My views on this are so in flux. We talk a ton about supplements in the Baby Making and Beyond program for pre-pregnancy and pregnancy. And for a long time, other than pregnancy, I was kind of ambivalent abut multivitamins. But now my thinking has shifted a little bit, and I actually think multivitamins are underrated, just as a day to day thing. As long as you’re using one that has the nutrients, and the proper forms, that type of thing.

I tend to use supplements in a more targeted, as needed manner. So it shifts a lot. And what I would like to actually do is try something like Athletic Greens; which, I’m pretty sure my hero, Michael Rutherford, who was my coach like 10 years ago or more, he’s been recommending. I think I remember him recommending Athletic Greens like 10 years ago. But unfortunately I actually think Athletic Greens has trace caffeine in it, and I don’t even eat things that caffeine has looked at anymore. So I think that actually takes me out of the running for something like Athletic Greens. But for a long time, I was really hoping to find something like that that tasted halfway decent, that could just kind of be like a dehydrated greens powder to add in a couple of times a week. 

I’m not sure that I’m a big fan, unless there’s an acute situation, of doing something every single day. I don’t know what the official argument for or against that might be. But I do have this idea that getting the same amounts; particularly B vitamins, which a lot of these multivitamins have extremely high amounts of B vitamins. Which I know it’s said that those are flushed out through the urine. But I still wonder, the exposure to those really high amounts of B vitamins over time, if it could pose a problem. I’m not saying it does; I’m just saying, I get curious about that. 

So I don’t like to do anything every single day. But I think maybe here and there, adding in a multivitamin when dietary choices aren’t great. That type of thing. Might not be a bad idea. 

And as far as the one food I can’t live without; even though I do live without it sometimes. But the one food; and I know this is not the nature of the question. The question is not like, if you were on a desert island, trying not to die, what food would you bring with you. But this is kind of also the answer to that question. That food would be raw milk. I absolutely love raw milk. I just think, from a nutrition perspective, it has everything that we need. So if it was like a real emergency, and all I had was a goat and some grass, I would let the goat have the grass and I would drink the milk. You know? 

But I’d also like to say; and this is going to get me in trouble with some people, but I also like to say sugar and fat, right? Sugar and/or fat. So I guess that means ice cream. But something I used to talk about quite a bit on the Balanced Bites podcast was how anti-stress sugar can be. And I’m hearing now that there are a lot of; I guess the word is pro-metabolic. I mean, I’m so checked out of anything other than what’s right in front of my face. I didn’t realize this was becoming more of a thing. But the whole Ray Peat, pro-metabolism way of eating. That it’s really having it’s moment. And a lot of this comes from that.

But I used to talk about this on the Balanced Bites podcast, when I was looking at some of what Ray Peat had written about sugar, and about progesterone, and things like that. Where I realized how anti-stress sugar could be. So one of the things I would encourage people to do is have some ice cream. because it’s got sugar, it’s got fat, it’s got flavor. And just a little bit of that, and you don’t have to eat a little bit. You could eat a lot if you want to. But just that combination can just calm your stress hormones down so elegantly. 

So I don’t know. I do think that there’s a time and a place for sugar. So anyway. Raw milk, sugar, and fat; so I guess that means ice cream. {laughs} 

Ok. Next question. “If you had a third baby; C-section, or vaginal?” And I also had another question come through Instagram that was more detailed, somewhat in this realm. But Instagram ahs been so buggy lately, so the message that I flagged is no longer popping up. So if that was you, reply to that message again or send me that message again so it will come to the top. I replied to hundreds of messages a week, and there’s no easy way to search Instagram messages. Or maybe there is, and I just don’t know about it. But if you can do that, I’ll do that for the next ask me anything.

But this is a really interesting question. In some of my earlier episodes of the Liz Talks podcast, I talked about I had a vaginal home birth, and I had a C-section birth before that. Or belly birth, which is I guess what some people are calling now, which I really like. And gosh. I don’t know. I talked about how my healing from my C-section birth was actually much easier than my healing from my vaginal birth. I do believe that there are biological/physiological benefits to vaginal birth, for the baby. And certain for mom if she’s in the correct frame of mind. But it was hard. It was really, really hard. 

And it taught me an important lesson; which is that it doesn’t matter how a baby comes into the world. I mean, sure it matters. I’m sure there are things you can measure that would say; yes, it matters. But for me, having been so hung up on how I should have had a vaginal birth, and then having one and feeling like; wow. This isn’t that different from the perspective of how healthy my kids are. Or how happy I am. Or my satisfaction as a mother. I thought that was really interesting. And it was an important lesson that I needed to learn. 

So I’ve thought about it before. I thought; gosh, if I had a third, maybe I would do hospital with a well-timed epidural. {laughs} I don’t know. Might as well have the full spectrum of experiences. And I think it would be intellectually dishonest for me to say that anything other. Well, I don’t want to phrase it that way. But I think it could be intellectually dishonest for me to pretend that there is no universal benefit to vaginal birth. I do think it’s the way nature intended. I think that it’s very beneficial; not just from a nature intended perspective, but from colonization of the baby’s gut with good bacteria, that type of thing. There are a lot of statistics that we could cite about the benefits of vaginal birth. But; it is also foundationally important that mom feels safe, cared for, protected, and prepared for what ever is about to happen. And for that reason, I support women however they choose to birth as long as they have; not even as long as. But I hope that every woman has a supportive team in place for whatever their decisions are.

So that’s why I feel like now I can say I think I would probably do, now that I have my OB that I love and I have more experience with this whole thing, I would probably choose a hospital birth with a well-timed epidural. And also knowing that things can go sideways, and to be open to that. I think there are stays you can put in place against some of the cascades of interventions that people talk about, like in movies like the Business of Being Born. All of that can be protected against, so that you can have the best experience possible, no matter what you’re doing. 

So that’s how I feel. I know it does me no favors in the home birthing community. And some of the things I just said probably do me no favors in the medical community, either. But that’s how I feel based on my experience. 

Ok, next question. And I loved this one. “You don’t seem anxious at all in motherhood. Can you talk about how you cope?” 

Oh my gosh, I am shocked that I don’t seem anxious at all in motherhood. Because I am the most anxious. And if you’re listening to this podcast, and you asked this question, please go back and listen to my two episodes about mental health where I talk about all the different things that I do to try and stay at least a little bit balanced. I don’t do all of those things anymore, but for a while I was utilizing a ton of tools just to get to a place where I felt like I could survive. 

So I am super-duper anxious. I’ll give an example. I have always been very, very anxious about respiratory infections. They scare me a lot. You guys; if I’m sitting in bed and one of my kids clears their throats in their bedrooms, I go into a physiological fight or flight response. It’s not something I can intellectualize and say; she was just clearing her throat. It was just a little cough. She got some spit down the wrong pipe. It’s not something that I can rationalize myself out of. I get like an electric shock to my body when I hear that noise. It is physiological. It’s instantaneous. It’s not rationale. 

I am the most anxious. So coping with that; a lot of times I wait until it gets to a point that I have to do something. And when I get to that point where I’m like; I can’t live like this. I’m too anxious. This is too much. I need to have either a good cry; which is very hard for me to do. Or I need to do some expressive writing. And expressive writing is something that I talked about in one of the mental health podcasts that I did. It is the most phenomenal tool. It is amazing. And there are also times where I reach out to my therapist, and I’m like; actually I need to see you. I haven’t done that in a while, but my most recent appointment with her was one of those, where I was like; I just need to talk. So there’s that.

I’ve done quite a few things. Man, it’s tough. Sometimes just breathing and focusing on my breath is all that I can do. And I said this in one of the previous podcasts, as well. I’m also an anxiety purchaser. So if something is going on and I find some obscure study about something random in a medical journal about how some random compound that’s safe for children cures some other random thing, I will order 17 different things of that from Amazon at 3 o’clock in the morning. 

So please, guys. I’m the most anxious in motherhood. It’s the hardest, most emotionally taxing thing I have ever done. I’m still not prepared for it. And I am very, very sorry for not communicating that reality to you through social media. I’m not sure how that would work; but I’ll try to be a little more real with the real. Because I am quite anxious. 

Ok. “Dry skin recommendations? Nutritional or topical.”

Here are my recommendations. It’s wintertime; I’m assuming this person is living in a dry environment. You need a humidifier in your room at night. You need to eat saturated fat rich foods; that’s the thing that works most for me. And I’m not saying eat spoonful’s of ghee. I’m saying, just make sure your diet is rich in healthy, stable fats. And if you use a hyaluronic acid product, remember to seal it in with some kind of moisturizing lotion. A lot of people forget to do this, and it’s so simple. 

Hyaluronic acid, if there’s moisture in the air, it will draw that moisture to your skin. If there’s no moisture in the air, it will draw the moisture out of your skin. Make sense? So there’s that moisture differential that it’s responding to. So if you put on a hyaluronic acid product, you’ve got to seal it in with moisturizer so it can’t draw water out of your skin. 

Ok, next up. “What have your daughter’s school experiences been like; formal versus homeschool?” 

I think about this a lot. Our homeschool year was kindergarten. That was the pandemic year. And we kept her home; in part because kindergarten is not even required, so we were already thinking about skipping kindergarten. And in part because of the pandemic. It was just something that we had the wherewithal to do in our family, so we decided to go for it. 

But here’s the thing; I was very, very privileged in that my mom is a reading specialist. And she had just retired. So my only real concern for kindergarten was that she stayed sort of on the level with reading. So my mom actually taught her to read. And other than that, we sent her to this beautiful nature school and had just a wonderful, beautiful homeschool year. I didn’t teach her much, to be honest with you. We would do little math games; we would do a lot of outdoor stuff. But most of what she actually learned in a school-like setting or a school-like way was reading. And that was taken care of for me. And it was amazing. 

When I decided to send her to “a regular” school for first grade, it was a really, really, really hard decision. Now, part of that decision was hard because we chose to send her to a small private school. I had gone to a small private school for some of my education and it was wonderful. And at the same time I had a really rough go at public school. So it just alleviated some of my extreme anxiety to send her to a smaller place where I felt like I could have more involvement.

But the problem with that was, we had to commit to tuition for the full year. So it wasn’t like a; we’ll see how it goes, and pull her out if it doesn’t work. It was a; we’ll see how it goes, and if we pull her out because it’s not working, we’re out thousands of dollars. So it was a touch decision for that reason. 

But we decided to send her to a really amazing school. And the guiding light for me has been that she loves it and she wants to go. So not only did I love everything about it, but she seems to love everything about it. 

And I don’t know that the peer group, or that the education is all that different than it would be at one of our local public schools. The public schools around us are wonderful. But it was just something that resolved some of my anxiety for me. So, I went ahead and made that choice. Or we went ahead and made that choice. So it has been wonderful. And there’s more to think about in the future. It’s just crazy to me; some people are saying things like; third grade is when it really ramps up! And I’m like; what? These are children! Third grade? They’re still babies! 

But it’s a very strange thing. And an earlier question was about our lake community; we actually have a preschool here, which is amazing. But the school that my older daughter goes to also has a preschool attached. So there’s that option of one drop off when the time comes. So that’s good, too. 

One of my impressions from our homeschool experience was; I just don’t know that my daughter and I have the teacher-pupil dynamic. I know a lot of people do a great job with it; are really flexible, and can kind of go with it. But it just didn’t feel native to us to try and teach anything academically. And at the same time, the idea of findings ways to teach that weren’t academic was also a big mountain for me to climb. Especially since I had literally just had a baby when we started that year. So there was a lot at play. 

And I still follow a ton of homeschool accounts that are amazing. Julie, the Brave Writer, and a couple of others that I still learn a lot from. And we still have a lot that we need to work on. We need to read more. We need to prioritize that. But overall, I’m happy where we are educationally, right now. 

Ok, this might be the last question. “Have you ever struggled with your weight?” 

So I hate to give a roundabout answer, but I think we’d have to define some terms here. By struggled, do we mean have I ever had a weight problem? And I say problem in quotes, because what is socially problematic is not only based in perception and not necessarily reality but it’s also different from what is physiologically problematic. And for that matter, the process of even attempting to change one’s body can sometimes be more physiologically problematic than simply doing the best one can do to take care of oneself. I.e., choosing foods that nourish and satisfy; and moving and maintaining muscle for healthy aging, and letting the chips fall where they may. 

So I hate to say I struggled. Because I feel like I’d need to define what constitutes a weight problem, if that is even a thing, before I could even launch into that. And that, my friends, is how books get written. 

So let me say first; I think I represented this well in our years of the Balanced Bites podcast. And in my work. What is socially reinforced; what many of us think we need to look like is not an image we have in our minds because it’s truly the vision of health. What the CrossFit and paleo community sort of suggested; maybe not always intentionally, but what many of us gleaned from their shear existence, was that leanness, for example, is an ideal. And anything outside of that ideal could lead to these feelings of struggle.

And what are we struggling for? An arbitrary ideal. Or is it that? Or is it a true improvement in our quality of life? Our ability to do the things that we individually are capable of doing when we’re enjoying a sustainable lifestyle. And I feel like I should interject on myself and say; everyone has different capabilities. Not everyone will be able to pick up the grandkids or walk a mile, ever. But if you can. If it’s within your scope of possibility, it’s nice to meet and enjoy that capability for as long a time as you can. 

Ok, so you’ve heard why I hesitate to answer a question like this, but there’s more. I also hesitate because, while I certainly have put myself through; one, mental anguish about my appearance, and two; physical anguish through not taking care of myself. And I mean those as two completely separate things that only intersect sometimes. By not taking care of myself I mean, drinking too much. Not sleeping enough. Not keeping up with my obligations. That type of thing.

But I’ve done really dysfunctional things in pursuit of some ideal. Yet, at the same time, I don’t know that I can speak to any kind of true struggle. Because in general, I feel my weight has stayed within the bounds of socially acceptable. Even when I’ve gone a bit outside my norms, I’ve still been fairly within bounds from a social perspective.

So there’s an aspect to this that it’s just not fair for me to speak to. So I guess it comes down to this. Everything I’m creating right now comes from a place of; all are welcome. I hope that most of us can stop thinking about what we see in the mirror, and start thinking about what we can do in life and how we truly feel. Not about our bodies. Not about ourselves in comparison to somebody else. Because all of that requires a ton of unwinding, anyway. And we have to be willing to acknowledge that our self concept has been warped for a long time for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with actual health or enjoying our lives. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to separate that journey from taking pride in another journey. Which is discovering what we can do. 

Again; what we can do is highly individual. My max effort is some other people’s bad day, and that’s ok. I want us all to just turn inward and find something we can be proud of ourselves about. And I feel like often that helps actually alleviate some of the pressure around feelings of struggle around weight and your body.

But again; I don’t know that I have a right to speak to this. So yes and no. I’ve struggled mentally; but I’ve also existed in a weight range that most would be comfortable with. Whether I was battling my body and treating it horribly, or treating it well but being obsessive about it. Or just enjoying life and finding a balance of feeling good. I’ve remained within a pretty steady range; probably between size 8 and 12, in between 155 and 175 pounds. And I don’t know; I don’t think about it. I don’t worry about it anymore. 

But I did find, a long time ago, I found some of my old binders from when I was really, really obsessing about being healthy. Which was not healthy at all. But I was tracking every last ounce, gram, bit, bite of insoluble fiber, fiber, calories, carbs, fat, protein. Every single thing. Working out crazy. And it was no way to live.

So I don’t know if that answers the question. If it doesn’t, feel free to ask me to expand on it. But that’s most of what I have to say on it. 

OK, I have a couple more questions, so maybe I will do a second ask me anything episode. I’m really still getting used to keeping this podcast a half an hour. It’s hard to do! So I apologize for that. Before I go, though, it’s time for a weekly overshare. 

Today, I’m going to share about dealing with the stomach bug. And I will warn you; this is not for the faint stomached. Feel free to just turn it off now, because there’s nothing beyond this in the episode, so you can just click away if you want. But it all started when my daughter just happen to be sleeping in my bed with me that night because my husband was out of town. And it all started with that sound. That sound of upchuck in the middle of the night. And I was like; great. My husband had literally left the day before. 

So I pop out of bed. She barely even woke up during that whole ordeal. So from that point on, it was poop and puke every two hours. every last thing that went in would come back out. And it was just bad. And I shouldn’t be surprised that I ended up getting it myself, because I was dealing with bodily fluids nonstop for two days. But it happened. And we seem to be getting closer to the other side of it, which is good.

But what we did was this; I rode it out for the first 12 to 16 hours. Then started to feel a little bit nervous about dehydration. It’s just hard with kids, right? When it’s you, you kind of know your limits. But with a kid, especially with that first stomach bug, I just didn’t know. So I did go ahead and take her to the urgent care. Not because I felt like we were really in an urgent situation; well, I did. But I also felt like she needed to be seen by somebody. I needed somebody to just have eyes on her. Because you can call your pediatrician’s office; you can do all that. But if somebody doesn’t actually have eyes on your kid, sometimes it just doesn’t feel right. 

So I went ahead and took her in. Of course, she started acting fine the second we got there. But they went ahead and gave us Zofran to help her keep some stuff down, and I felt pretty good about that. So we did a couple of doses of that, and it worked really well for us. I know people feel differently about that, depending on your proclivities, but I was really grateful for the break. 

So after that, things kind of took a turn towards fever. We made it through that, thank goodness, and now she’s on the other side, back in school. And the rest of my house is dealing with it. So that’s been the last 5 to 7 days of my life. And I am just floored by how crazy something can be for 48 hours, and then all of a sudden; boom. It’s just gone. It’s just incredible to me.

So like I said earlier; I just got through it. I just got a rehydration IV today. Hoping to feel tons better by tomorrow; fully rehydrated and whatnot. And then we’ll see how the baby and the husband do. 

Alright. I hope you enjoyed episode 13. Please share this podcast with everyone you know. Shout it from the rooftops. Spread the word. It helps so much to know that we’re all sending bat signals to each other. I appreciate you! That’s it for episode 13. I’ll see you next week.