I never really envisioned myself telling anyone about my nude sunbathing experiment that turned into a habit. But here we are.

I also never imagined how strong the pull would be to bathe my boobs in the sun. It’s like a weird instinct takes over when the sun’s out and you just want to take off your shirt. Obviously I have restraint. I said it was an urge, not a reality.

But it goes to show how much my body craves it (more on how my biology has actually changed below). This post is about so much more than nude sunbathing. It’s actually about the story I’ve created about my body, and how that story has rubbed off on my girls.

That’s why I’m giving you all the details about how sun on my naked skin changed my perspective of my body. And it even changed something in my kids, which is the most shocking part of this whole experiment.

Honestly, I think this is a conversation we need to have more of.

Serious question (and this might be too far, but…): If we’re not allowing our kids to see our naked bodies in safe spaces, how are they learning about their changing bodies? They’re getting it somewhere.

Now, I know how some of you might feel about talking about nude bodies. And I promise, this isn’t a sexual thing… although we’ll talk about that. Because this is a “sensitive” and vulnerable post, it will be subscriber-only.

Here’s a quick look inside this post so you know what you’re getting:

• Why I started nude sunbathing

• The pattern interrupt it created in my story about my body

• The changes I noticed in my body/breasts (I feel weirdly like I need to impart some professionalism here 😉)

• The creative ways my husband has kept this practice alive

• Contemplating living in a topless society (joking… mostly)

• Talking about bodies with my kids & the changes I’ve noticed in them

Note: Please proceed only if you’re willing to keep an open mind and have a friendly conversation. If you’re here to pass judgment, please note that you’re wasting your time.

Here’s the thing: This conversation isn’t really out of character for me. It’s more me than how I’ve shown up here. And I don’t want that anymore. I’ve played small and secure, when naturally I’m kind of spicy. Or, better said, I’m actually really curious.

AND even more than that, I think it’s important we have/create safe places to talk about such topics. Because not everything needs to be sexualized, and even if we’re having conversations about sexual things, that doesn’t mean it automatically needs to be vile, gross, wrong, or objectifying.

SEX IS NORMAL. So is NAKEDNESS.

Unfortunately, our world has just distorted good things and made them bad, and now we are living in a world of extremes.

I get it. As someone who was hurt at a young age by our oversexualized world, that distorted my reality for a really long time. After doing work to heal that story, I’ve realized not everything needs to be, or is, sexual. Even if our world swings wildly between oversexualizing and undersexualizing, completely missing the middle ground where things are just normal, safe, and pure.

My own freedom story has led me here… talking about the things we need to talk about without feeling weird about it.

My experiment with nude sunbathing was nothing other than pure. So let’s get into it, shall we?

Read more

Yesterday, I told you why I suck at being a health coach. Not because I’m bad at helping people; I’m just back to problem-seeking and fixing. Because what I really believe, the problem was never the problem. It was just information. And most of what we call a problem is really just a product of an old story controlling the narrative.

Anywho… today I wanted to get specific and share what I mean. That not every story we pick up has to be true. And seeing it from a new angle might just be the thing you need to actually move the needle (or at least motivate you to do some story work).

Here are some crappy health stories we’ve believed and the plot twist to see it differently.

Common Story: Disease is inevitable (because apparently we can’t just pass from old age anymore).

Plot Twist: What if disease is just your body’s way of getting loud enough to be heard.

Common Story: Pregnancy and delivery are always going to be painful and hard.

Plot twist: What if pregnancy and delivery weren’t obstacles to survive, but your body’s most capable work?

Common Story: Menopause is the beginning of the end.

Plot twist: What if menopause was the beginning of one of the best chapters of your life? What if it was the beginning of finally being done performing for everyone?

Common Story: Perimenopause means something is wrong with you.

Side note: perimenopause wasn’t even a mainstream medical term until fairly recently. So what did women have before it existed? A body full of undiagnosed symptoms or just… a life?

Plot twist: What if perimenopause wasn’t a problem to diagnose, but a body asking for something different?

Common Story: Your metabolism tanks after 40 (and funny how it breaks once we’re told to expect it).

Plot twist: What if your metabolism didn’t break, but was actually just indicating the health of your cells?

Common Story: Marriage gets harder, not better, the longer you’re in it (which could be why we use difficulty as evidence you’re doing it “right”).

Plot Twist: What if marriage doesn’t get harder with time, but it actually gets easier and more enjoyable the longer you both stay curious with each other?

Common Story: Stress is the cost of being a responsible adult.

Plot Twist: What if stress is just the cost of ignoring what you already know?

Common Story: Hitting a plateau means your body is failing you.

Plot Twist: What if the plateau is your nervous system working to catch up?

Common Story: Having kids means putting your life on hold (so ambition and motherhood get treated as opposites).

Plot Twist: What if raising healthy kids meant showing them you can have both? What if what they needed was not a mom who had it all figured out, but a mom who showed them how to grow?

Your turn.

What would you say is a common story you tell yourself? And what happens if you add a plot twist?

Take what you think is certain and add a "what if..."

And not because the old story is a lie, necessarily, but because there might be a truer, more useful one sitting right beside it.

Maybe the question isn’t what is most true, but how do you want it to go? What do you want it to be?

Leave a comment:

What crappy health stories have you been carrying around that might not even be true? Drop it below, and I’ll pick a few to break down in the coming weeks.

Leave a comment

Diary Confession: I suck at being a health coach.

Strong language, I know. But it’s the truth. I’m terrible at telling people what to do, and I’m even worse at convincing myself it would work if I did it.

For a long time, I chalked that up to just being “bad with people.” But in most cases, I’m not. I love people and deep conversations. Village is part of what makes me tick. While I can’t say I’m always the best with humans, I don’t think it’s why I suck at health coaching.

I think I suck at it because it feels out of integrity with who I am. I don’t think health, as we know it, is actually the source of most of our problems. And pretending it is just doesn’t work for me.

Most of the time, I couldn’t even get myself to do what I was telling you to do. And if I’m even more honest, I hadn’t been my healthiest self since before I got into the health space in the first place.

I know this is going to sound extreme, but I actually don’t believe I would have had my “health crisis” if I hadn’t decided to walk into this space. Of course there is a lot to that. It partially has to do with what psychologists call reticular activating system filtering. Or what is more commonly known as: self-fulfilling prophecy.

My work (like most in the health space) amounted to trying to solve problems while often creating more. And the fixation on problems is what led to my own demise. The majority of the messaging in the health space declared nearly “everything a problem,” which meant I was bound to get myself into the fight ring and go to war with…

Well, who exactly?

Who are we fighting in the ring in this so-called war on health?

See, that’s the thing I just couldn’t get over.

If health is a destination and your body is the villain? Who or what is the hero?

The next fad diet? The supplement stack? The biohacking tool?

If history repeats itself, as it often does because we repeat ourselves, then just as quickly as these become our heroes, they become another villain.

Where does the cycle end, except with you working so hard at being healthy only to end up unhealthy?

I know this because I lived it… and it’s always exactly what I can’t get behind.

What doesn’t align, ever, is you being a victim of your body. Because there is no winning in that equation. At least no winning for you. Of course, the multibillion (almost trillion) dollar health space wins, at your expense.

But here is what I realized, for you and for me.

Your body isn’t the villain. It’s not a problem just because you’ve called it a problem. It’s just void of you.

And that brings me to what I am good at… challenging the norm. Not because I want to be a rebel, but because I need it to make sense. And things just aren’t making sense.

What does make sense is that your body can’t be both the villain and the hero.

As long as you call it a problem, it will always be/have/create problems. Not because it wants to, but because that’s what you’re expecting it to.

And this is where my problem lies… WE HAVE TO STOP MAKING EVERYTHING A PROBLEM.

Even more, we have to stop sacrificing you from your story, handing it over to the worst parts of you to control. We have to stop allowing the shame, the trauma, the weight, the disease to run your story. To be your identity. Because that only makes you the master of your own misery.

It’s also not how it was intended to be. And it’s not how it has to go.

Now, to be clear…

I’m not discounting that we have or will have a problem. But what if the problem was never the problem? What if the problem was just information to help you?

What if it’s exactly the knowledge you need to stop repeating the same patterns that present similar problems? Because it’s rarely the problem that’s the problem. It’s the repetitive, systematic, chronic problem that we end up dramatizing, and eventually creating crappy health stories around, that actually aren’t true.

And then these crappy health stories get handed down and picked up by the next generation. Making them believe things that really aren’t true.

Tomorrow, in part two, I’ll be showcasing some crappy health stories I’m over. But for now, can we get on board with ending the need to call everything a problem?

And can you imagine, just for one second, what life could be like if said problems weren’t problems?

Can you imagine what else you could be doing with your time?

Maybe…

Sitting on the back porch sipping your favorite drink. Or, lingering in bed on a Saturday morning because nothing is chasing you. Playing with your kids instead of watching the clock. Talking with a friend about how beautiful this life actually is. Planning a trip. Redecorating a room just because. Taking a walk not because you have to, but because you want to.

What you have to know is this: Your current problem is only a problem to maintain the evidence needed to keep telling the story you’ve been telling. It’s the symptom, not the disease. It’s a signal. A sign attempting to get your attention that things don’t have to stay this way.

WHICH IS THE PLOT TWIST YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU NEEDED.

Ready for a better story?

Let me help you (with what I’m actually good at). Learn how to edit your story, reclaim your past, and put yourself back into your story to create the future you were called to.

It’s the easiest way to change your life and also make it last. That’s the power of story work.

Join the next Freedom Story workshop to learn the framework and put it into action.

Note: Spots are limited to eight people per workshop. Your seat will be reserved on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you’re interested, apply here, and we’ll send you more details.

APPLY HERE

NOTES:

1. You have to attend live, either online or in person, on the day of the workshop.

2. You have to do the work.

Let’s start a conversation:

What’s a ‘problem’ you’ve been fighting for years that might actually just be information?

I’m leaving a few of mine in the comments… including the one where I thought my husband was my problem….

And I’d love to know some of yours.

Drop them below.

Leave a comment

Last week, I shared a message from my friend. Maybe we need to start a new series, Life Advice From Friends… Isn’t it wild how wise they can be? I firmly believe we all need people in our lives who are close enough to know us, but also outside our situation enough to keep us on track.

Friends are great pattern interrupts. Spiral stoppers. And that’s why…

Read more

One of the greatest story edits I made in my life was the understanding that, on this side of eternity, life wasn’t a chase to a destination. It was an opportunity to show up, live, and grow.

Life is always a verb, not a noun.

I was recently listening to a podcast, and the guest (Zach Bush) said, “Trees aren’t “trees”; they’re treeing.”

I know that soun…

Read more

I would be lying if I didn’t think about trying peptides, because I’d be lying if I told you I was 100% content with where my body is. I’ve made so much progress, and yet why is it that our desires are always for more?

Thoughts on peptides have been living rent-free in my head.

It’s not just the results people are getting. It’s also the fear of missing o…

Read more

We all have different strengths. For instance, I’ve realized some people are really good at organizing their cupboards and drawers, and some of us aren’t.

One of my friends brought this to my attention. In her words, and I quote, “I realized we’ve been friends for a long time, and I never opened your cupboards before. So I just did.”

“Annnnnnnnnd???” I re…

Read more

I met a new friend the other day. I say friend lightly because we talked for maybe four minutes max. But I’ve already decided we’re going to be friends.

It started because I may or may not have unintentionally eavesdropped on their conversation and overheard her friends say, “I can’t believe you’re going to be 80.”

This made me whip around so fast I nearl…

Read more

The summer I took a pause. I fully embraced the in-between.

I’m talking about letting weeds grow where I thought I needed to rush to finish the landscaping because I still don’t know what I want the landscaping to be. Buying the “on-trend” monochromatic shorts and tank outfit even though I’m not fully sure it’s my look (and I’m also not sure my legs are …

Read more

You know how I feel about biohacking tools. I think they’re great. But I also don’t think they’re step one.

I came across this great post by @Jordanmatthews31, and I may have said "preach" out loud to my phone in a public place:

“I don’t know why we’re talking about: biohacking, CGMs, insulin spikes, cold plunges, peptides, supplements, and optimization.…

Read more

Get the unofficial fit of the summer! Take part in the Living Well merchandise and snag a high-quality tee, perfect for your morning walk or dressed up with a pair of jeans.

Grab your shirt here.

Read more

Your brain is already predicting the future.

Right now, as you read this, your brain is doing what it always does, predicting the future. Or at least attempting to.

Research has found that 70% of our thoughts are attempts at predicting the future. Not simmering in the past, but building assumptions about what’s to come.

You know what they say about assum…

Read more

Have you ever made a decision that actually changed things?

I’m not talking about the kind you’ve made a hundred times before, where you write, do the thing and feel good for three days, and then quietly let it go. I mean the kind that hits different. The kind that lands differently and where something actually moves.

I’ve spent time trying to understand the difference between the decisions we make to do the thing and those we don’t. I’ve been trying to figure it out for years.

While there may not be a specific formula, I think there is something worth noticing.

The difference between making the decision and sticking with it and making the decision and just talking about it is the willingness to be open to options.

It’s the willingness to be open to options you haven’t considered yet. Even open to the possibility that options exist.

For most of us, myself very much included, we approach change as if it were a straight line. If I walk every day, I’ll lose the weight. If I increase my protein, I’ll build muscle. One decision, one path, one expected outcome.

But life doesn’t move that way.

And neither does your body. As frustrating as it feels, I think this is exactly what you have been looking for.

Last year, I opened up to more possibilities.

And some of these possibilities, I would have flatly rejected two years ago. Things I was sure weren’t for me. Even approaches to health I’d quietly dismissed, like ketosis.

Yet, what I found on the other side of that openness genuinely changed how I feel in my body, not just physically, but in the deep, sustainable, this-is-finally-working kind of way.

I wanted to share that with you because things are finally working.

But first, my June goals. Because I think the way I’m setting them this summer says something important.

My June goals are:

1. Make the good choice, THE EASY CHOICE.

2. Sunshine every day

3. Daily walks

4. See the good in EVERYTHING

5. No AM carbs

6. Slow down

7. Less screen time, MORE PEOPLE TIME

Here’s what I love about this list: I’ve defined what each one means, but I’ve left open how I’ll reach them.

Take walking, for example. The measurement is doing it daily. But when I go, how long I’m out or what it looks like on any given day can vary. That allows me to take control of what doesn’t need to be controlled and let my actual life shape what I need in it. It’s been such a game-changer. Not just for the habit, but for how I feel about the habit.

And that’s the standard I want to invite you into this summer. Start treating your body from a place of respect for what it does for you and what you want it to keep doing. Not punishment or pressure. Just actual care.

Before We Go Deeper…

Truthfully, one of the most underrated metabolism tools I know isn’t a supplement or a diet protocol. It’s something that helps you reach a metabolic state, and that comes back to energy.

The most powerful thing you can do for your body is always, first and foremost, the basic things like sunlight, sleep, and movement.

Before you diet. Before you supplement. Before you make a major life change like quit your job, charge your body battery. Because the charge of your body changes your thoughts.

Which is why I’m pushing you to walk.

I know you’re probably over listening to me talk about it. And it sounds too simple. But here’s what I’ve come to understand: movement, especially consistent daily walking, changes how your body uses food.

It changes your metabolic state by improving insulin sensitivity, it supports your mitochondria, it regulates your nervous system, and it creates the kind of baseline charge in your body that it needs to make every other healthy decision easier to make.

That’s actually why the Summer Walking Club exists.

It’s not really a step competition. It’s not a fitness flex. It’s a 3-month community challenge built around one of the most powerful things you can do for your metabolic health, and doing it together, which research consistently shows makes consistency more likely.

If you haven’t joined yet or if you’ve been on the fence, this is your nudge.

The doors close this Sunday! Come walk with us. Your metabolism will thank you.

Now, to get back to the macronutrient shift I didn’t see coming but I 100% don’t regret, might shock you, but I also hope it inspires you.

The rest of this post includes:

• The big macronutrient shift I made

• What that looks like in my daily life.

• The first real steps to becoming fat adapted

• Five actual breakfast ideas I eat with this macronutrient shift feel completely doable

Is for paid subscribers. If that’s you, keep reading. This is the part I’ve been most excited to share.

The Macronutrient Shift (I Didn’t See Coming)

About halfway through the Summer Walking Club last summer, something shifted.

I started feeling charged. I was energized in a way I hadn’t been in a long time. And with that energy came a kind of determination that helped me realize my diet was the last piece holding me back from feeling truly good in my body.

Read more

I feel like we should talk about the slow Saturday morning for a second.

You know the one. Back porch. Steaming mug of coffee. Sun coming up. Birds chirping. Quitness…

I’m going to need you to hold that image very loosely, because I’m about to wake you up to reality for most of us.

For a lot of the people I know, and honestly, for me, the slow Saturday mo…

Read more

Can I be honest with you for a second?

I have days where I genuinely love moving my body and eating healthy.

And then I have days where I want to protest the entire concept of physical activity, couch-rot, and scroll until my thumbs give out.

Sometimes both of those days happen within 24 hours of each other. Which is exactly what happened to me this weeke…

Read more

Have you heard? The 90s mom summer trend is officially back. Honestly? I kind of love it.

It’s part of what inspired the Summer Walking Club. Because before there was the Summer Walking Club, there were walk-a-thons. I vividly remember my mom hitting the pavement in her long neon spandex shorts, a Starter windbreaker, and a Walkman blasting her favorite …

Read more

I hear you. The wellness graveyard is real.

If we’re honest, most of us have a whole cemetery of abandoned programs, half-used journals, and gym memberships that expired while we were definitely going to “get back to it.”

So let me tell you specifically what is different about The Summer Walking Club. Bec…

Read more

My most difficult client isn’t really a client. She’s my sister.

Before I say anything else, I really do love her deeply. At the same time, we couldn’t be more opposite.

She’s the fun to my serious and the chaos to my calm. She’s also the self-appointed “voice of opposition.” The one who tells me everything everyone wishes they could say but doesn’t have the guts to.

Last year, she “participated” in the Summer Walking Club. I say that loosely. And with love. Because I think she’d rather do just about anything than work out, even though I tried to tell her that walking and working out don’t have to mean the same thing.

Her participation was best described as “aware that it was happening.”

I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to understand what motivates her. She’s never been driven by what moves most people in the health space, changing her body.

Honestly, she’s probably one of the most confident humans I’ve ever met. And while I do think she cares about her health, it tends to come across the same way you care about your taxes in April. You know they exist. You know they matter. You’re just not really wanting to do anything about it.

So I asked her to give me the number one reason she doesn’t move her body.

I had my guesses. I thought she’d say the most common responses:

• Not enough time.

• Too overwhelming.

• No energy.

I even thought she might say pain, since she hates it. That’s another place we’re opposites. I’ve always been a pain-addict. She is aggressively pain-avoidant.

But she didn’t hesitate.

“It’s not fun.”

I really tried to stay in professional mode. I tried to be compassionate, curious, and non-judgmental.

But fun?!

We are out here with research on longevity and nervous system regulation, and the miracle that is a daily walk, and her answer is that it’s boring?

All I had at that moment was the words of my mom, running through my head: "If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

So I ghosted her.

Obviously, she didn’t notice. She stated the fact and moved on with her life. I, on the other hand, have been reeling ever since.

When I finally came back to the conversation, a week later, as non-judgmentally as possible (though she tends to have a problem with my tone), what would actually make it feel different?

She said: “I don’t know. Maybe if it didn’t feel like something I was supposed to do.”

On the surface, it sounds just like the excuse my girls give me when I ask them to clean their rooms. Can’t we ever do anything fun? And I’ll be honest, my first instinct was to call out her childish response.

But the more I sat with it, the more I think she was saying something much deeper. Something a lot of people feel but don’t always say out loud.

I think she was really saying: I can’t make myself move toward something that doesn’t feel alive.

And I think, if we’re honest, that’s where a lot of us have been. Not stuck in laziness. Not a lack of discipline. But in something deeper than either of those things.

A sort of running-on-empty that no program, no challenge, no fresh start on Monday has ever actually touched.

Because we’ve tried those things. Some of it worked for a season. Most of it, if we’re being real, we secretly hated. And then something in us went quiet again, and we slipped right back to knowing we should, without being able to make ourselves want to.

So we quit.

As much as I didn’t understand it at first, on a deeper level, I get it.

While I might not need it to be ‘fun,’ I don’t want to engage with things that take more than they give.

And honestly? I think a lot of what we’re doing, even the so-called-healthy things, is the opposite of healthy. Not because they can’t be, but because they drain us more than they add to us. And it leaves us feeling bad because we stop the action, all because we haven’t addressed what’s under the surface.

While I assumed my sister was bad at wellness (in fairness, she owned this). She was actually just pointing out something much bigger under the surface. She needed it to be real, to matter.

And the health space has done a terrible job at creating what matters. Which is why I know she’s not alone.

Do you feel the same way?

I’m not going to promise the Summer Walking Club is the same kind of fun as a summer concert or floating in a pool. But I do think if we expand our definition of fun to include feeling alive, movement is exactly what opens that up. Not because of the act itself, but because of what it unlocks in you.

I want to give you a taste of it. Because you have to experience it to know it.

Next Monday, we open the doors to the community called The Summer Walking Club.

We built it to change the way you experience movement this summer, and truthfully, how you experience health. And we don’t want to just tell you it’s good, but allow you to experience it for yourself.

Try it for free!

That’s why we’re giving you two weeks to try it out for yourself. You don’t even have to enter a payment option until you know you’re in. Enter your email address, and we’ll send you everything you need to get into the club, poke around, and be ready to hit the ground running walking on Monday.

Click here to try it for two weeks on us!

Your sneakers are waiting!

If you’re a subscriber, don’t forget to snag your subscriber discount below!

Read more

Can we talk about something for a second?

There’s been a story running through women’s culture for a while now. You know the one:

• “I haven’t slept since 2012.”

• “I can’t remember the last time I did something just for me.”

• “I’m so busy, I don’t have time for anything else.”

• “I put everyone first. That’s just what women do.”

We laugh at it. And we share in the…

Read more

I’ve been getting asked what the most impactful changes I’ve made are. Today, I wanted to share some of those ideas, even the ones that are a little off-the-cuff.

To be upfront, this isn’t going to break down the specific diet changes (I’ll break those down throughout the summer). And yes, I know I’ve been really elusive with what diet changes I’ve made…

Read more