This is what I know about making your life matter. — It’s still strange to me that I’m a person who’s had cancer. Like many people, my unspoken belief about life was that it would go on and on. Cancer was something that happens to other people. It’s a singular shock when the news becomes your own. One that for better…

How do you have sugar without bingeing, deal-making, or battling cravings? Read on. — Use these strategies to safeguard your mental and physical health. Sugar consumption is slippery. That’s by design. The modern world is filled with sugar. It’s in nearly everything and offered everywhere you turn. It’s so ubiquitous that it seems to have altered our collective palates. You might now be accustomed to having sugar in your food without knowing it.

Here are mine. I promise they have little value. — It’s nearly impossible to talk about weight loss without showing before and after photos (look, it worked!). Except, here’s the thing, I think they’re kind of bullshit. I’ve felt pressure to display mine and resisted thus far. …

What you’re really after are better outcomes. — This is an important distinction. You can learn, you can grow, and you can change, but not one of these things happens because you improved who you are. You, as you exist right now, here, today, are just fine. You might be countering me in your mind with the laundry list of things you’d like…

It revealed how you cope. — Now’s a good time to rethink how you self-soothe. About 42% of U.S. adults reported undesired weight gain in the first year of the pandemic, with 29 pounds gained on average, a recent survey shows. Lots of people gained weight through the pandemic. The conventional wisdom is that stressful times call for comfort food measures. It’s ok to eat…

Go gently and #getoutside — I went from a lifetime of avoiding exercise to someone who can’t live without it (and there wasn’t a boot camp in sight).

But hating yourself for gaining weight might be. — The world has so many bad ideas. It’s hard to keep up. Apparently, it’s all the rage to hate on people who’ve lost weight and feel great about it. The idea being you’re displaying fat-phobia if you’d prefer to lighten the load on your knees, did something about it, and want to share that experience. While I can understand feeling bad when…

Understanding the limits of this approach for weight loss. — Intuitive eating has some good ideas but overlooks important realities. It’s likely in your search for a healthy weight without going on another diet you ran across intuitive eating. Maybe you even tried it. Intuitive eating is a non-diet approach to eating that emphasizes internal cues over external diet rules. The idea of living well and making peace with your…