Live Joy

  With Thanksgiving just a few weeks away, I wanted to talk about something that I think is important this time of year: how to stay on track with your health and fitness goals while still enjoying everything the holiday season has to offer. Let's be real. Between Thanksgiving and New Year's, it's easy to let our healthy routines slip. We skip workouts because our schedules are packed, we don't get as many steps because it's cold outside, and of course, everywhere we turn there are cookies, pies, holiday parties, and all those delicious foods we look forward to all year long. But here's the thing: You don't have to choose between enjoying the holidays and taking care of yourself. You can absolutely do both! Listen, I LOVE the holiday season. And I want you to enjoy it, too! I want you to eat the special cookies your mom makes every Christmas. I want you to have that slice of pie you only get once a year. I want you to enjoy the Chinese food your fami...

  I want to ask you something this week. What are you saving for someday? Maybe it's the nice outfit hanging in your closet that you're waiting for the perfect occasion to wear. The beautiful dishes you only pull out when company comes over. The trip you've been talking about taking for years. Or the hobby you've always wanted to try but never seem to have time for. Why do we do that? Why do we convince ourselves that we need a special occasion, more money, more time, or the perfect circumstances to enjoy the things that make us happy? Here's something I've been thinking about lately. What if today is the special occasion? What if we stopped waiting for life to slow down before we started enjoying it? I think one of the biggest lessons of midlife is realizing that time is something we can't get back. And while we can't control everything that happens in our lives, we can be intentional about how we spend the time we have. That doesn...

  It's hard to believe we're already approaching the end of 2026. It feels like just yesterday we were setting our goals, choosing our words for the year, creating vision boards, and thinking about all the things we wanted to accomplish. And now, here we are, with less than two months left in the year. If you're anything like me, you're probably already starting to think about 2027. What do you want to accomplish? What changes do you want to make? What experiences do you want to have? What will your word of the year be? I love this time of year because there's something exciting about the possibility of a fresh start. I've been creating vision boards and setting intentional goals for more than 15 years, and it's a tradition I genuinely look forward to every December. But before we get caught up in planning everything we want for next year, I think there's something really important we should do first. We need to take a look back at the year we...

  Every year, around the end of October, the great Christmas decorating debate begins. When is the appropriate time to put up your Christmas tree? Some people are firmly in the November 1st camp. Others insist you must wait until after Thanksgiving. Some believe December 1st is the only acceptable answer. And believe it or not, there are people who wait until the actual week of Christmas. People have some pretty strong opinions about this, and I've always found it a little funny how worked up someone can get over when another person decides to decorate their own home. I mean, when you really think about it, how does my Christmas tree being up on November 1st affect your daily life?   For me, decorating for Christmas has never really been about the date on the calendar. It's about the feeling it brings me, and that feeling is pure joy.   For years, I decorated the weekend before Thanksgiving. When you share custody of your children and only have them every other we...

  I was talking to my friend the other day, and she was saying how she can’t stick to diet if it’s too strict and short term. And I said “it has to be a lifestyle.” There are so many diets that eliminate complete food groups, or ingrediencies and it puts so many limitations on what you tell yourself you can and can’t eat. Think about the no-carb diet. And then you want pizza because you are going to some great pizza restaurant or traveling to a city (Boston) that has great pizza. So you eat it, then you feel bloated, but now you have the taste so now you go off your diet for weeks and it’s so hard to get back on. That’s because you body doesn’t need you to eliminate carbs it needs you to choose good carbs 80-90% of the time. If this sounds like you, no diet or meal plan seems to work. Try this till the end of the year. Find a breakfast that is healthy has at least 30g of protein that you love enough to eat every day. I have eaten the same breakfast for almost a year and a half ...

  Think about the trees. The leaves begin to change, turning beautiful shades of red, orange, and yellow before eventually falling to the ground. Then the trees stand bare for months. And just when it feels like they have nothing left, spring comes and slowly, they become full again. There is something about fall that has always felt like transformation to me. When things start changing in my life, I tend to look back at all the other seasons of change I’ve already lived through. And believe it or not, fall seems to bring more change into my life than any other season. I have bought four houses, and every single time I moved between September and November. I got married for the first time in October. I have started four different jobs in October. I got engaged to and later filed for divorced my second husband in October. Even my hormones seem to get the memo, because every time I retest them around October or November, my body seems to be thrown into some weird loop. And pr...