I’ve spent enough time in the wellness world to know what works for me, but I can also see how overwhelming it can be — if you spend any amount of time on social media, it can make it feel like you need 47 habits, a perfect morning routine, and a pantry full of pills & powders to be “doing it right.”
It’s exhausting.
At this point, I’m less interested in doing wellness perfectly and more interested in what actually helps… so, in the spirit of realistic wellness, here are 3 things I don’t do, and 3 I do.
Collagen powder has been promoted as supportive of hair, skin, nails, and joints for a long time now - maybe going on 15 years (at least in the wellness space)?
The thing is, unless I feel or notice strongly that something in my body feels lacking, I struggle to find a place for an expensive supplement in my life. And collagen isn’t cheap!
Of all the things I may lack physically (a strong jawline/chin, cheekbones?!), I guess my hair, skin, nails, and joints have always felt just fine and even “good” to me. At a young 30-something-ish age, I didn’t see a need for this supplement in my life. And, at 48, I still don’t.
Notes: I have gone in and out of using collagen here and there, so if there’s been a time I said I was using it, I really was! I can recall for a couple of periods of time here or there when I’ve used it, but it isn’t a staple/consistent-use item in my life personally.
I have seen / learned about newer, liquid forms of collagen that some peers are expressing great satisfaction with in using, and I’m not saying they aren’t having that experience at all! I am sure they are - and perhaps one day I’ll try that. For now, it’s not something I use personally.
I reserve the right to change my mind on this one down the road, but as of now, if I can’t justify that I feel I’m lacking something in my diet or how my body is feeling while existing, I can’t also justify spending a lot of money on that thing.
Over the years, I’ve made so many different types of protein shakes. I’ve tried upping the protein, upping the fat, upping the carbs, all different combinations - and I just keep coming back to not drinking them.
No matter what I put into a shake, my blood sugar feels weird after I drink them - and I feel oddly shaky.
I’ve tried regular whey protein, collagen, goat whey, plant-based protein powder, yogurt instead of powder… it all feels the same for me.
I used to drink them as a quick way to get extra protein post-workout (who remembers my Periscope / “Great by 8” era?!), but I still had that weird feeling from them.
Ultimately, they just don’t work for my body despite how much I may enjoy them texture-and-flavor-wise. My body always tells me they just don’t make me feel great after, and it’s a real bummer.
Listen, if I’m going to do a thing, I’m going to try my best to actually do it and be consistent. That’s about it.
I don’t have the capacity to maximize anything in the wellness realm. I legitimately cannot push things to extremes.
Anytime I may try to be at all extreme about anything, I find resistance brewing within me.
At the end of the day, I don’t think I’m wired for any extremes. Sure, I may push myself hard in a workout, and then I will rest to follow that up. I cannot and will not push myself hard day in and day out in a relentless fashion.
I like living in the boring basics. I like doing my best to just be consistent and see whatever incremental progress on a journey I’m on while operating at an 80% effort at best.
Maybe this is slacker-ish of me, but I think it’s a balanced way of existing. I am exhausted by trying to be or do the most in anything, truly.
I just want to live a quiet little life, enjoy the flowers, good meals, time with my husband and dog in our home, make pots, and just be.
But, as noted above, I’m not proteinmaxxing or fibermaxxing. I’m just… focusing on eating protein and fiber as much as I can manage to think about it.
This means I sometimes eat lower protein and fiber meals. I do not stress about either of these nutrients, I simply do my best to focus on them.
A lot of that focus is really on buying foods that support that aim to keep on-hand and in my weekly plans for meals and snacks.
I’ve always eaten a lot of meat for most meals, so that’s not a new focus for me. Fiber is definitely taking more thoughtful planning for me these days, but my digestion has definitely been better as a result.
Buying cottage cheese and Greek yogurt as a frequent breakfast or snack base.
Keeping fresh berries on-hand for yogurt/cottage cheese bowls more consciously.
Keeping canned beans stocked for adding to whatever I can.
Eating higher fiber tortillas.
Adding brown rice and whole wheat waffles into my rotation of carb sources.
I’ve talked about each of these topics in more depth already here on Substack:
I’ve taken this supplement on and off for about 20 years now. I re-started taking it again (this is the one I take), and I may combine it with L-glutamine again as well (known to support recovery and repair) - which is the combination I’ve taken for that 20 years.
Creatine monohydrate is one of the most well-studied supplements you can find, and is known to support muscle growth and performance.
Interestingly, a consistent dosage may be the most effective approach, with an increasing dosage not showing relative improvement in strength or performance. So, with Creatine, as with many things in life, more is not better, it’s just more.
I’ll be taking 5mg/day in my workout water or first water of the day and I’ll report back how my workouts are going and feeling in a few months! I keep pretty detailed records, so we’ll also be able to see if my strength gains seem improved, or essentially the same.
Receipts (as far back as the quick search in my Amazon history will show with a quick search). I got the micronized once, but I intended to get just plain Creatine Monohydrate. NOW Foods has been the brand I’ve used for forever.
I know, yawn!
If you follow me on Instagram, you see my posts on the workouts I’m doing every week. But, just in case you’re one of the folks who got off of the social media roller coaster, I’m still on my strength training game over here.
Years ago I was an after-work workout person. Whether that meant a 3/4pm workout when I was living in California but working east coast hours, or it meant a 5/6pm CrossFit class when I was living and working in NJ - I’d let my day go by with the weight of getting a workout done on my mind until much later.
Ever since moving back to California in 2015, I’ve been getting workouts done in the morning and it’s felt much better for me. I feel strong in the mornings as I’m what I’d call an “extreme morning person.” I don’t wake up at an ungodly hour, but I am very happy to be doing as much as possible before 10am most days.
I’m checking a box of something I truly want to be doing for myself every day - first thing!
I’m getting the anxiety out of my body so that my brain can focus and be calm without anything weighing on it that I need to save capacity for later in the day.
I’m emotionally setting myself up to feel like I can keep promises to myself. As a middle-aged woman with ADHD, this is more important than you may realize if you are neurotypical.
My workouts are centered around strength training, with a further focus on hypertrophy / linear progression.
This means that week after week (well, I’m actually on more of an 8-10 day cycle) I complete the same strength workouts over and over again. Each time I approach the repeated workout, my aim is to increase the weights whenever possible with the same number of reps, and, if not, I decrease the time I rest, or I increase weights but decrease reps.
If I complete 6 movements in a workout, I hope to see improvement in at least 2 of those, generally in my heavier lifts, and the remaining lifts can be consistent from previous weeks.
This is the aim, but I don’t always increase weights or reps, etc. Sometimes, I don’t feel as strong and that’s okay - ultimately, the primary aim is consistency and showing up!
xo,
Diane
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