weight loss

May 15th, 2025

A very unglamorous day followed by a substantially more glamorous night: I wore this out to get some medical tests done, including my routine STI testing (Safer Six is my go-to in Toronto these days; they’re always lovely!), and then later to meet up with my brother Max for dinner at Fran’s and to go see the Classic Albums Live performance of Michael Jackson’s Thriller at Massey Hall, for which I’d bought us tickets as Max’s birthday gift a few months prior. The show was fantastic – so much energy, so many good vibes!

What I’m wearing:

• Red camisole with built-in bra (a.k.a. “brami“) – Gap; I have like 4 of these now and they’re so good, especially for those of us who medically cannot tolerate real bras
• Black leather jacket – Danier Leather, covered in pins from various sources
• Black short-shorts – H&M back in 2017; I wore these for practically the whole summer when I was 25 and they are back, baybee
• Black leggings (worn under the shorts) – H&M
• Black leather Converse sneakers
• Vintage black leather Coach Station bag
• Silver disco ball earrings – H&M

May 16th, 2025

During the day, I wrote a rabbit vibe review. Then, in the evening, I slithered into this cute little outfit to trek across town to Comedy Bar East for a show that one of my musical improv teammates was in. It was a longform improv show (my fave kind) and the troupe was trying out some cool new formats. Non-musical improv, in this case, although my friend did do some rapping in one scene! Afterward a few of us hung out shooting the shit in the bar until late, and then moseyed tipsily to various other locations, eventually ending our night by doing musical improv over YouTube karaoke tracks in a friend’s cozy basement apartment until 3 a.m. Truly can’t remember the last time I was out that late (and not fucking miserable about it), but time flies when you’re having fun with comedy friends!

What I’m wearing:

• Pink cropped T-shirt – Gap (can you tell I placed a big order there recently to update my wardrobe for improv classes/shows? I didn’t have enough solid-color, casual shirts!)
• Black velvet skater skirt – Forever 21 several years ago (worn with black bike shorts underneath, because being constantly fearful of flashing passersby when a gust of wind arises is not chic, darling)
• Pink leather Doc Martens
• Vintage black Coach Station bag
• Rainbow earrings – 3Delightfulshop on Etsy

May 17th, 2025

My friend’s show was so good that I ended up going to the second one the following day! Wanted to see more of those interesting longform structures his troupe was doing. Then I journaled on the long streetcar ride back home, at which point my far-away cinephile sweetheart (a.k.a. the Movieboy) and I watched a Hitchcock flick together online (The 39 Steps, which was quite good).

What I’m wearing:

• Bernie Sanders campaign tank top (frayed and full of holes at this point… just like my faith in democracy, ha ha)
• Red polka-dotted midi skirt – Forever 21
• Black leather Chuck Taylors
• Black leather jacket – Danier Leather
• Rainbow earrings – 3Delightfulshop
• Vintage red leather Coach Willis bag

May 30th, 2025

I have been on low-dose naltrexone (LDN) for my fibromyalgia for about 6 months. Some of the effects are not-so-great for me (of which more later), but the main ones are fabulous: I’ve noticed a significant reduction in pain, and a significant boost in mood and energy. As a result, I’ve been able to lead the closest thing I’ve had to a “normal life” since developing this disease at age 23 and receding gradually further into the isolated chronically ill lifestyle since then. I am grateful every morning when I take my LDN, because it has totally turned my life around!

In fact, I have so much more energy now that I can usually go on 1-2 walks a day, of about 45 minutes each. (For reference, a year ago I would’ve needed to lie down for a few hours after taking a walk like that.) This is especially great right now, since I’m trying to keep my energy/endurance up for the weekly musical improv shows I’m doing every Sunday in June, and am loving being able to actually exercise without needing to take an achy depression nap afterward! It’s also great because I get to put together cute outfits like this one for my walks, which of course just helps motivate me further.

What I’m wearing:

• Turquoise “Slime Puppy” tank top – an impulsive and probably drunken late-night Amazon purchase some years ago (for those unfamiliar, “slime puppy” is an epithet from Succession which Gerri slings at Roman in one of their erotically fraught tête-à-têtes; it famously was not scripted, and was improvised by J. Smith-Cameron during filming)
• Black short-shorts – H&M
• Black leather belt – Gap
• Black leather Chuck Taylors
• Turquoise/purple “Think Positive” snapback hat – MaruHats
• Prescription sunglasses – Zenni
• Apple Watch with navy leather Hermès band (gotta track those biometrics, baby!)

June 1st, 2025 (daytime)

Another outfit for a walk. This look is a prime example of what Gala Darling might call “dopamine dressing” – i.e. putting together outfits purely for how good they make you feel, and how good they might make other people feel when they see you! Sure enough, kindly strangers lobbed compliments at me as I sauntered past in my fruity finest.

One of the errands I ran in this ensemble was stopping at the liquor store for a bottle of rosé for my aunt… Something iconic about rocking up to the booze shop in an all-pink outfit to buy an all-pink wine 😂

What I’m wearing:

• Pink knit hat – Only
• Pink “brami” – Gap (gift from my mama the night before, who knows me very well, evidently)
• Pink fleece-lined sweatpants – Gap, soooo cozy
• Pink & red custom Nike Air Force 1s
• Pink leather Coach bag
• Apple Watch with navy leather Hermès band

June 1st, 2025 (nighttime)

For the evening’s improv show + jam, I changed into this. My troupe has been dressing in blues and blacks when we perform lately, to give us a more professional/unified look, so I’d pulled some old black/blue/navy dresses from the far reaches of my closet, including this little number, which I seem to remember wearing on lots of sweaty, sexy dates the summer I was 25.

It was a good show for me – I improvised a jazz song about dancing in the streets and a blues verse about scarves, among other things – and I even won the rhyming-based elimination game we played at the end of the jam, so I was deemed the ‘champion’ of the evening and had my photo taken for the champions’ wall… hence the silly triumphant poses in some of these photos, haha! (The middle one is just me laughing at one of my hilarious pals. This type of full-on head-tilted-back cackle is not at all unusual for me at these shows…!)

What I’m wearing:

• Navy polka-dotted dress – H&M many years ago
• Black leather belt – Gap
• Black leather Chuck Taylors
• Red heart-shaped prescription glasses – Zenni (I try not to wear these during our actual shows because they are A Bit Much when you’re trying to play lots of different characters, some of whom would never dream of wearing something so silly-looking – but I usually put them back on for the improv jam afterward and get lots of compliments on them, haha)

June 3rd, 2025

Another all-pink outfit for a walk! It was super sunny and warm so I decided to bust out these very small shorts from my mid-twenties. There aren’t many places I would wear these, but they’re fine to wear on a walk, so long as I keep my noise-canceling earbuds in and aggressively ignore any men who try to shout anything my way…

What I’m wearing:

• Pink snapback hat – an impulsive eBay purchase some years ago, I think?
• Pink “brami” – Gap
• Tiny pink shorts – H&M many years ago
• Black leather belt – Gap
• Black prescription sunglasses – Zenni
• Pink & red custom Nike Air Force 1s

June 4th, 2025

I wore this to go see lesbian rock legend Carole Pope perform an unplugged set at Hugh’s Room with some family members. Carole was a long-time bandmate and collaborator of my late uncle Kevan Staples, who passed away earlier this year, so it was emotional for us to see her perform again, especially some of the songs she co-wrote with Kevan. Really awesome set, and a great crowd full of fellow queers, who sang along with wild abandon to Carole’s songs about fisting and safewords – what a way to kick off Pride month!

What I’m wearing:

• Pale blue cropped T-shirt – Gap
• Black pleated tennis skirt – Uniqlo
• Royal blue knee-high socks – the now-defunct kinky Minneapolis coffee shop Leather & Latte
• Black leather Frye harness boots
• Turquoise leather Tiffany’s dog collar – from my beautiful wife
• Silver disco ball earrings – H&M
• Black leather jacket – Danier Leather
• Vintage black Coach Station bag

June 5th, 2025

Here’s what I wore to run some errands today, including picking up an antibiotic for a UTI that I didn’t even know I had until my doctor called me this morning to tell me 😂 Bodies are strange…

(Content note: This next paragraph is gonna talk about weight loss, appetite/eating, and body image. I aim to discuss these things from a body-positive or at least body-neutral perspective – no fat-shaming here! But please absolutely feel free to skip the whole paragraph if that stuff is gonna trigger/trouble you. Thanks for taking care of yourself!)

Speaking of “bodies are strange”: As I mentioned, I’ve been on LDN for a while – and one of the unfortunate side effects (in my view) is that it severely fucks with my appetite, which was already lessened due to the Wellbutrin I’ve been taking for my depression for the past 5+ years. This makes sense, due to how both drugs interact with the brain’s reward system (which is also why naltrexone is so useful for treating alcohol dependency, for instance), but is super annoying for people like me who like food and want to be able to enjoy it! I can really only eat maybe one-quarter to one-third as much per meal as I used to be able to, before I start feeling uncomfortably full and have to stop. This has resulted in some significant weight loss, as eagle-eyed readers may already have noticed (thanks for not saying anything about it, that would be rude and gross!), and I’m still actively adjusting to these changes. A lot of my clothes are literally hanging off me, as seen here (this skirt used to sit at my waist and now droops down to my hips), which makes me feel weird/bad/like this isn’t really “my body,” and it’s also weird to be feeling so energetic, motivated and happy while I’m literally shrinking away, especially since I have some history of disordered eating and bad body image. I guess the next step is probably to get a bunch of my clothing tailored to fit my current body, since I plan to stay on this drug for the foreseeable future and don’t want to keep living in this limbo where almost nothing fits me. But it’s also tough to accept that this really is my body now, and that it won’t change again anytime soon (because who knows?! it might!). Anyway, if you’ve ever been through something similar and have advice/wisdom to share, I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

What I’m wearing:

• Pale blue cropped T-shirt – Gap
• Turquoise pleated tennis skirt – not sure
• Royal blue knee-high socks – Leather & Latte
• Grey knit beanie – eBay
• Black prescription sunglasses – Zenni
• Vintage black Coach Station bag
• Blue metallic Doc Martens – bought when I was ~19 and recently rediscovered in my closet at my parents’ house; aren’t they wild?!

P.S. Want more posts like this? Check out the ‘outfit‘ tag!

Dear darlings: I know that weight talk and body stuff can be tough for some of you. It’s never my intention to shame you or make you feel bad, and this post definitely won’t aim to do that – but if you know that this subject matter is tricky for you, I encourage you to skip this post. You know what’s best for you, my friend!

I’m a chubby bunny, and mostly I’m okay with that. I’ve been lucky enough to have lovers and suitors in my life who’ve lavished attention on my curvy bod, making me see that my wide hips, soft belly and thunder thighs might not be the end of the world.

That said: my body seems to work better at a weight that’s a little lower than where I’m at right now. Currently I hover around 165 pounds, and when I’m down around 140-150, I feel stronger, healthier, happier, and more energetic. And who doesn’t want that?!

Last summer I lost 20 pounds (most of which I gained back from the stress of school and a break-up – oh, woe!), and during that process I learned a lot about habit formation, nutrition, and self-control strategies that work for my particular brain. As far as tangible processes go, calorie-counting is the only thing that’s ever worked for me – but my calorie-counting successes were only made possible by practicing mindfulness.

What is mindfulness? It’s an old, old concept often attributed to Buddhism. It’s the practice of being present, of being here now, of noticing and fully experiencing the sensations and thoughts and events of the current moment. When you’re being truly mindful, you don’t replay the past or worry about the future. You just be – here and now and only here and now.

You may be familiar with the idea of mindfulness if you practice meditation or yoga, or if you’ve studied facets of the Buddhist tradition, or even if you’ve used certain psychotherapeutic techniques like CBT or deep breathing. It’s all part of the same overarching idea, but today I’m going to tell you specifically about how mindfulness helps me lose weight. (If phrases like “lose weight” bother you, you can sub in the phrase “get healthier” – the same principles apply!)

1. Mindful eating.

I am still learning how to do this well. Meal times are often blessed breaks from work, so it’s natural to want to kick back and do something relaxing while you eat, like catch up on your Netflix queue or scroll through your Twitter feed.

But experts say eating mindfully is a way better approach. You digest your food better and get more nutrition from it. You’re less likely to overeat due to distraction. And amazingly, you actually enjoy your food more. Tastes and textures seem fabulously vivid and pleasurable when you give all your attention to what you’re eating.

2. What am I really hungry for?

I have learned that often my desire to eat is rooted in some other kind of desire, some non-stomach-based hunger of one kind or another.

If you feel yourself wanting to eat something that may not be so good for your body, it can be helpful to ask yourself: what am I really hungry for right now?

If I’m just bored and want something to do, I can put on a TV show, work on a creative project, go for a walk, read a book, do some yoga, or pretty much any other activity that will capture my attention.

If I’m craving the pleasure I’d get from eating a piece of chocolate or a big-ass burrito, I can seek out pleasure in other ways – for example, by masturbating, listening to some favorite tunes, starting a conversation with someone who makes me laugh, or cuddling my cat. (Of course, it’s important not to replace unhealthy pleasures with other unhealthy pleasures, like excessive boozin’, drugs, or a shopping addiction!)

If I want the energy boost I can expect from certain foods, I can get the same kind of kick from tea or coffee, a brisk walk around the block, or a groovy yoga flow sequence.

If it’s just a “mouth-boredom” thing, I can make a pot of tea, chew some sugar-free gum, or even engage in some hardcore flossing.

And of course, there are times when hunger is actually hunger. Practicing mindfulness has sharpened my ability to identify when I’m actually, physically hungry. And when I am, I eat!

3. Mindful exercise – or not.

I used to hate exercising. (Well, honestly, sometimes I still do. But mostly I don’t.) While running on the treadmill or contorting myself into yoga poses, my mind would go a mile a minute. “I hate this!” “This is so hard!” “This is taking too long!” “Is this almost over?”

Eventually I learned that I experience less psychological turmoil about exercising if I choose to really center myself in the present moment. If I’m intimately focused on every footfall, on the stretch and pull of every muscle, on the dependable in-and-out of my breath, not only do I have fewer resistant thoughts, but the exercise actually starts to feel better. It can be downright pleasurable sometimes!

Learning about mindfulness has also shown me, though, that sometimes focusing too much on my present moment can emphasize any discomfort I’m experiencing. Mindfulness experts would tell me to “breathe through it” but sometimes that just doesn’t work for me, and the only way I can get through my workout is by watching a riveting TV show or listening to a fascinating podcast to take my mind off the exertion at hand. And I think that’s okay, because at least I get the workout done, even if I don’t do it the way I “should.”

4. Stop procrastinating.

Procrastination comes from being out of sync with the present moment. It comes from distraction, fear, and laziness. When I tap into the now, I don’t want to procrastinate.

“I could work out, but I don’t wanna,” I think. And then I ask myself, “What will I do now, if I don’t work out?” and the answer is usually some variation of “sit around doing nothing,” an activity that I know will just make me feel bad and gross.

Procrastination is avoidance – not only avoidance of the thing you’re putting off, but also avoidance of your feelings and experiences in this moment. When I’m really in the now, I often find that I want to work out. My body is crying out for it.

5. The moment will pass.

Studying mindfulness has taught me that no one moment is unendurable. Moments go by. They give birth to new moments. And the new ones feel different from the old ones. It sounds obvious but it can be a revelation.

Sudden snack attack? I can breathe into it. I can choose to think about something else. I can remind myself, “I will not actually die if I don’t eat a bowl of chips right now.” And the moment will pass.

Tired muscles during a workout? I can breathe into it. I can choose to think about something else. I can remind myself, “This is difficult, but it will not kill me.” I can remind myself, “I did this last time. I can do it again.” I can remind myself, “I will feel so awesome when this is done.” And the moment will pass.

Look at my body in the mirror and hate what I see? I can breathe into it. I can choose to think about something else. I can remind myself, “Lots of people have called you beautiful.” I can remind myself, “It’s okay to have ups and downs.” I can remind myself, “My body is strong and can do lots of great things.” And the moment will pass.

All moments pass. All moments can be endured, if you just take them one at a time.

Extra resources: Leo Babauta has taught me more about mindfulness than anyone else. He’s got great articles on mindfulness rituals, beating a food addiction, forming habits, overcoming instant gratification, getting in shape, and lots more.