Saturday morning I joined my women's cycling team's group gravel ride (my first on my new gravel bike!). It was so much fun. It was also the first really warm day we've had this year, I didn't have enough water, and I was riding in the sun for over two and a half hours.

I felt strong during the ride. That afternoon, I felt like a corpse.

But my parents were visiting and it the first real spring day, so instead of lying down, I walked around downtown with my family and later went out to dinner. 

Sunday morning I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a bus. I had some breakfast and a cup of coffee and went to the pool for an easy swim, hoping I just needed to move my body. However, nothing about it was easy. I felt like I was moving through quicksand. I was about 500 yards into the workout when I pinpointed the probably culprit behind my fatigue: underfueling.

I wasn't particularly hungry when I got back from my ride the day before, so I ate a pathetic snack: most of an apple, a couple of hard boiled egg whites, and a small piece of parmesan cheese. The rational part of my brain knew this was a poor choice and that my body needed a real meal even if I wasn't hungry for it. 

But at that moment, the diet culture part of my brain was the loudest. It was saying, "You're going out to eat tonight. Don't eat too much!" 

I could beat myself up over this misstep. I could ask myself how in the world I have any right to be an intuitive eating coach when I'm making mistakes like this myself. I could declare myself a total fraud. 

But I'm not doing any of that. Instead, I'm acknowledging that I messed up and asking myself how I can do things differently next time. I'm reminding myself that failures are an inevitable part of any journey. I'm telling myself that it takes more than a few years to undo a lifetime of diet culture. I'm giving myself the same compassion I'd give to a friend or a client.

I hope that if you've messed up lately — whether on your intuitive eating journey or any other — that you're being gentle with yourself, too. 

xo,

P.S. If you haven't seen my newsletter in a while, it might be going to your Promos in Gmail. If that's the case, go back to your inbox and drag this email over to your Primary tab and it should start showing up there in the future. 

4 Things Worth Checking Out 

• If you have one minute: This recent IG post of mine in which I tell a (brief, unsexy, but important) story about a bike ride which is about way more than a bike ride. 
   
• If you have six minutes: I loved this thought-provoking Vogue article, "Is the Next Phase of Sex Positivity Choosing Not to Have Sex?".  Through personal experience, interviews with experts, and others with lived experience, my good friend Amanda McCracken, who was a virgin until the age of 41, explores the question of what it truly means to be sex positive.
   
• If you have seven minutes: When I pitched this story to The Washington Post, it was going to be about the transformative power of doing nothing. As I Zoomed with experts in St. Louis, Tel Aviv, Texas, and the Netherlands, it quickly became clear, this needed to be a story about the benefits of mind wandering.
   
• If you have an hour: Listen to my crazy and delightful interview with pro ultra-endurance cyclist Lael Wilcox. This woman is a legend AND a ray of sunshine.