Live Joy

  There is something about the beginning of fall that naturally feels like a reset. The mornings become cooler, the days get a little shorter, routines settle back in after summer, and there is a noticeable shift in the energy around us. While January gets most of the attention when it comes to fresh starts, I have always thought fall offers its own opportunity to pause, reflect and decide how we want to move through the remainder of the year. The Fall Equinox marks the astronomical beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and occurs when the sun crosses the celestial equator. Around the equinox, daylight and nighttime are nearly equal before we begin moving toward shorter days and longer nights. Because of this near equality between light and darkness, the equinox has long been associated with balance, transition, gratitude and letting go. I love the symbolism behind it because balance doesn't necessarily mean giving equal amounts of ourselves to every area of our lives. T...

The universe has a way of making you make changes and usually, it happens when you least expect it and definitely when you don’t want the change. At least, that seems to be how it works in my life. Things will feel good. Stable. Predictable. I’ll finally feel like I have found my rhythm, and then suddenly life decides it is time to shake things up. And there I am, standing in the middle of a situation I didn’t ask for, didn’t plan for, and certainly didn’t feel ready for. I was talking to a friend recently who is going through her own version of a life “shake-up.” We were talking about how difficult it can be when something changes that you had no intention of changing yourself. She said something that stuck with me: When unexpected things happen, I try to find the lesson in them. I love that perspective. Not because I believe we need to immediately turn every difficult experience into something positive. Sometimes things just hurt. Sometimes we are angry, disappointed, c...

  In life, we’re often told to strive for balance. Yet when it comes to our emotions, it can be surprisingly easy to live at one extreme or the other. We tend to think negativity is bad and positivity is good. Be grateful. Look on the bright side. Stay positive. Don’t focus on the negative. But the truth is, neither extreme serves us. Life is made up of hard seasons and beautiful ones. There are wins and losses, joy and disappointment, excitement and grief. We are supposed to experience a range of emotions. The goal isn’t to eliminate the uncomfortable ones. The goal is to learn how to feel and regulate them without allowing them to take over our lives. We all know what constant negativity looks like. You say something good, and they find the problem. You share an idea, and they tell you why it won’t work. Something goes wrong, and it becomes proof that everything always goes wrong. They are constantly looking for what could go wrong, what didn’t work out, what isn’t fa...

  Every January, we start with the best intentions. This is going to be the year. The year we finally get stronger, save the money, take the trip, start the business, change careers, get organized, prioritize ourselves, finish the project, build the habit, or finally do the thing we have been talking about doing for years. And then life happens. January becomes March. March becomes summer. Summer flies by, and suddenly we look at the calendar and realize another year is almost over. Some of those goals we were so excited about are still sitting there, untouched. Maybe we made a little progress. Maybe we completely forgot about them. Maybe somewhere along the way we decided there was always next year.   But here's what I want you to remember: 2026 isn't over. We still have approximately 16 weeks left in this year, and 16 weeks is a lot of time. That's 16 weeks of mornings, workouts, saving, writing, learning, practicing, changing, and showing up. Sixteen weeks is enoug...

  I came across this quote from Yung Pueblo, and there was one line that really stayed with me: “The magic happens after you accept that you can’t regulate other people’s emotions or experiences.” I think this is something a lot of us spend years learning. Especially if you’re someone who cares deeply about other people. You want everyone to be okay. You don’t want anyone to be upset with you. You explain yourself when you feel misunderstood. You replay conversations wondering if you said the wrong thing. You try to smooth things over, fix situations, keep the peace, and sometimes even make yourself smaller so someone else can feel more comfortable. And somewhere along the way, you can start living your life based on how other people might react to it. You Are Not Responsible for Everyone’s Reaction This might be one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned in midlife: Someone can be disappointed in your decision, and it can still be the right decision for you. Someone...

After almost 10 years of working out at home, I recently started going back to the gym. And one of the biggest things I’ve noticed is how many people are “working out”…without much of a plan. They wander from machine to machine, do a few exercises, maybe whatever they feel like that day, and then come back the next day and do something completely different. And the next week the same thing, different machines, different exercises. And listen, if your goal is simply to move your body and say, “I worked out today,” there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I spent years doing that, with Beachbody workouts and other online programs. But if you are in midlife and your goal is to actually build muscle and get stronger, you need a plan. I personally strength train five days a week (3 to 5 times a week is suggested), and I use an app that tracks every workout, every exercise, set, rep and weight. I follow the same workouts for eight weeks at a time. I just finished my first eight-week blo...

I heard a quote the other day that stopped me in my tracks: “The life you want is built on ordinary Tuesdays.” We spend so much of our lives looking forward to the big things. The vacation. The new house. The promotion. The birthday. The holiday. The milestone we’ve been working toward. And those things are wonderful. I love having something exciting on the calendar as much as anyone. But when you really think about it, those big moments make up such a small percentage of our lives. Most of life happens on a Tuesday. It’s the coffee you drink in the morning. It’s getting stronger during a workout you almost didn’t feel like doing. It’s walking the dog and noticing the weather is finally starting to change. It’s sitting around the dinner table talking about absolutely nothing important. It’s hearing a song in the car that instantly takes you back to another time in your life. It’s laughing at something stupid with your kids. It’s your favorite show at the end of a long day...

  Over the last few weeks, we've talked a lot about strength training, nutrition, protein and building a stronger body in midlife. But there's another piece of the equation that deserves just as much attention: recovery. I'll be the first to admit, this one is hard for me. I'm a former athlete and a self-diagnosed ADHD person (lol), sitting still has never exactly been my specialty. I've spent most of my life believing that if you want better results, you work harder. If you're tired, you push through. If you're not seeing progress, you add more. More workouts, more steps, more effort. Rest was something you did when everything else was finished and we all know everything is never finished. But especially after 40, I'm realizing how far that is from the truth. Our bodies don't actually get stronger during a workout. The workout creates the challenge, but recovery is when our bodies repair, adapt and get stronger. We can have the perfect strength-...

  Every year when summer ends, I think I’m going to immediately fall into the perfect back-to-school routine. Wake up at the same time. Get my workout in. Walk the dog. Get the boys off to school. Work all day. Soccer in the evening. Get everyone home, reset the house, go to bed at a reasonable time and do it all again the next day. Sounds great, right? Except that is definitely not how this school year has started. We are already a few weeks into school, and I still haven't mastered my morning routine. And surprisingly, I'm okay with that. Our Schedule Completely Changed Back-to-school always changes our routine, but this year it feels like almost everything changed at once. The boys have a new school start time, which means they need to be on the bus at 6:55 a.m. Soccer practice times seem to change daily. Then we have weeknight soccer games where we sometimes don't get home until 10:30 at night . I've also changed my own routine. Instead of working out ...

  Just about everyone I know rolls their eyes when I say, "You need to track your macros." I get it, it sounds like a lot of work. But I want you to change the way you think about it. Don't think of tracking macros as dieting. Think of it as collecting data. That's really what you're doing.   Most people think they know what they're eating. The truth is, until you actually track and weigh your food, you probably don't. That handful of chips while making lunch? Count it. The bite of your kid's food? Count it. The splash of creamer in your coffee? Count it. The dressing on your salad, the oil you cooked with, and the BBQ sauce on your chicken? Count it. Those little bites and sips may not seem like much, but over the course of a day and then a week they add up quickly.   If you're serious about learning what you're eating, invest in a digital food scale. And use it. No guessing. No "that looks like about four ounces." Measure ev...

  I love having a good show on while I'm working out or when I finally get a little "me time" to relax. I don't have cable, so everything I watch is on streaming services. Over the last few months I've found several series that were absolutely worth the watch! I won't give away too much, just enough to help you decide what to add to your list.  If You Love a Good Chick Flick... Off Campus (Amazon Prime) A fun college romance full of chemistry, friendships, and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. It's light, entertaining, and easy to binge. Every Year After (Amazon Prime) A heartfelt friends-to-lovers story that follows two people over the years as life, timing, and fate keep bringing them back together. The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime) A coming-of-age romance centered around first love, family, friendships, and unforgettable summers at the beach. If you haven't watched it yet, it's definitely worth catching up on. Ransom Canyon ...