Work appropriate?

 Has anyone else noticed that dress in the workplace has gotten more casual lately?  I work at a high school and I’ve seen plenty of staff wearing leggings, really short skirts or dresses or even just a shirt for a dress and even crop tops. Not just on casual Fridays either. I’m not sure when Daisy Dukes became appropriate work attire but I’m sure we’ll be seeing those soon too. 

There is a big movement going on that every body is a bikini body and you should wear what you are comfortable in but should that apply to work too?  I had this conversation with my coworkers this week. One of the things brought up was is it acceptable but only for younger staff members?  I should note that this it isn’t just younger staff members wearing questionable attire. 

For an experiment, I decided that I was going to wear a crop top to work. This is significant for a number of reasons.  Even a year ago I would not have worn a crop top EVER.  Slowly, I started to wear one at home, then for a walk around the neighborhood and eventually for short trips out. I still am nowhere near comfortable in one. So all day at work was going to be a serious challenge.  In all fairness, I wore a zippered up hoodie over it but it was unzipped for a small amount of time. 

I may be old fashioned but I still feel that work place attire should be different than clothing that you would wear hanging out at home or to a club. I know that times are changing but I still want to feel professional at work and as a result I will continue to have separate wardrobes. I’m just not ready to wear a bikini to work. 

Magic Pill

 I know when it comes to losing weight, you have probably all heard that there is no magic pill, you have to put in the work. That is true but that’s not quite the magic pill I’ll be talking about.  I remember when I was growing up one of the things talked about in the future would be a daily scanner to analyze your health and a pill that would provide your meal with everything your body needed. We aren’t there yet but we are getting closer to that “magic pill.”  But why do we need the pill when we can just follow a diet?  There are tons of them out there to chose from.

The main reason is because we are all different so there would need to be as many diets as there are people out there.  This is very simplistic so all of you chemists out there please don’t take offense.  Your chemical makeup is different than your friend, your neighbor, your cousin and even your sibling.  The chemical makeup of the foods you eat are different also.  I think we can all agree that a blueberry has a different chemical makeup than a raspberry.  Given all of this I think it is fair to say that the chemicals in the foods you eat are going to interact with the chemicals in your body differently than in someone else’s body.  That is why one size fits all or even one size fits most diets don’t work. 

I’m not really trying to diet but I am trying to provide my body with the fuel that it needs for optimum performance.  I’ve been doing this through trial and error paying attention to how my body feels when I eat certain things. While that has helped me narrow down the foods that don’t make me feel so good it hasn’t helped me to find the foods that are best for my body. I am trying to eat more organic, whole foods and less processed things.  I’m also trying to eat at least 30 different things that are plant based per week. I feel ok but could I feel better?

I listened to a podcast this week that talked about testing how your body is reacting to the foods that you eat to try to determine the best foods for your chemical makeup. I’m excited by this. Right now it is in the testing phase and you can sign up to participate.  Hopefully this is the wave of the future. While we may not have that magic pill anytime soon, maybe we will have an individual road map to helping us feel and be our best in the not so distant future.