If in 2020, you used the word “homeless” instead of “unhoused,” you would’ve been canceled. If you stumbled over the pronunciation of a foreign name, you’d be accused of a microaggression. Assume a woman is taking her husband’s last name? Blatant sexism. But in 2026, the kids are saying gay and retarded again. Not behind closed doors, like in public, and on the internet, like it’s 2002. “That’s so gay” and “you’re retarded” and most often used “that’s gay AND retarded.” I’m feeling nostalgic and deeply uncomfortable. So it’s got me thinking about why, after years of millennials working tirelessly to remove these words from our vocabularies, is the pendulum swinging the other way.

I’ve been turning it over in my mind for quite a while and I have my own theories. I think the reason why young people are casually using slurs again is the same reason why cigarettes are back, clean girl aesthetic is out, and skinnytok is on the rise. In the 90s, I remember kids being radicalized to harass our parents to stop smoking. I was so traumatized by learning about how cigarettes kill, with images of black, rotting lungs seared into my brain. I would come home every day crying to my mother to put down the Marlboro Reds because I was terrified she was going to die. And it worked... kinda. She pretended that she quit smoking for five years and just hid it from us instead, but then she did eventually quit. As I got older, social cigs became my vice. They still are. But it became more and more taboo to smoke them in public. I remember going outside of a bar in 2019 to smoke a cigarette and being the only one not puffing on an electronic device. In that moment, I thought give it five years, and it’ll be cool and retro to smoke cigarettes again. Now, I can’t scroll my Instagram Reels without someone on my screen puffing on a cig for likes. Mind you, they don’t even seem to be inhaling, but that’s another story.

Clean girl is out, mob wife is in. Or at least it was for a short while. I knew these midwestern girls couldn’t commit to the bit. My culture is not your costume, honey! And I’m not going to beat a dead horse about how we went from body acceptance and healthy at any size to everyone looking like they’re about to snap in half due to malnourishment. I drone on about that enough on here.

Living through 2020 felt like one giant witch hunt, where everyone was afraid to say, do, think, or post the wrong thing. When I think back, I don’t even remember worrying about the pandemic itself, but rather the social tension and the impacts of not being morally perfect. I laugh now, thinking about how I posted a black square on my Instagram. Not because I thought it was a helpful thing to do, but because I was worried about how people might react if I didn’t.

This is why, in my humble opinion, it pays to just be normal, to be moderate, to not police every word or action you don’t agree with. Because the pendulum is always going to swing the other mothafuckin way. I mean, Catholicism is on the rise, have you heard?

As a society, we must be experiencing some sort of morality fatigue. And when you combine that with the velocity at which our trend cycles are spinning, you get 25-year-olds calling each other retards, I guess? After years of being afraid to misgender people, use a plastic straw, enjoy the wrong celebrity’s music, want to lose 5 pounds, or eat anything that’s not certified organic non-GMO, maybe we’ve all just said fuck it.

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In case you’re new here, we don’t do research. Nearly everything I write about comes straight from the dome and the comments section is an open forum. If you’re a smarty pants, or you know more about a topic I’m yapping on, or if you just like to share your opinion with strangers online, please hop into the comments section and we’ll chat.

If you want to form a parasocial relationship with me, follow on Instagram or TikTok.

I’m hungry. I eat 3 sad scrambled eggs and a handful of cotton candy grapes.

Having my period isn’t just uncomfortable and painful, but it also makes me feel empty inside, so I draw the blinds and sob while watching Outlander. Four hours later I emerge from my couch-cocoon, riddled with guilt for wasting a sunny Monday morning in my PJs. I cry some more.

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I have some lunch, an organic Gala apple with an individually wrapped cube of parm and 3 slices of prosciutto, clearly forgetting about the eating disorder I planned to have this morning. I do some client work, the bare minimum is all I can handle today, and post a silly little reel to my personal Instagram, filmed prior to the hormone-induced breakdown I’m currently having.

My husband returns home from work and I dramatically collapse into his arms and sob. “What’s wrong?” he asks. He will immediately regret asking this question.

I’m fat, I’m crampy. I have no creative ideas. All day, every day, I think about how I feel nowhere near ready to start a family and I’m not sure I ever will. I haven’t accomplished anything personally and definitely not professionally in a really long time. My hip hurts. My hair color looks weird. My back hurts. I wish I could afford to do CrossFit because everyone I know who does CrossFit is ripped. It’s too hot out. It’s too cold in here. I hate all my clothes. I can’t go to yoga because I am afraid I’ll bleed everywhere. What if I’m never ready to have a kid and then you have to divorce me because how would you be able to give up something as big as that? Remember when we didn’t want to have a kid at all? I just want more time. Oh my God, we’ll be dead before they’re 45. Should I just swallow my pride and go on Ozempic? Or Tirzepatide? Google the difference. I only want to lose 40 more pounds. But I don’t want to be on it forever. I’d probably gain it all back. And remember when my sister couldn’t shit for 2 weeks when she was on it? I hate my teeth. I hate our dishwasher.

He doesn’t flinch, just hugs me tighter. He’s used to this sort of thing. God bless a man who can hold your feelings.

For dinner I cook ground beef in a tablespoon of butter and throw it into a bowl with half an avocado, grated pecorino, sauerkraut, and a drizzle of honey. It’s a weirdly delicious combo I picked up from eating animal-based/carnivore. Somehow it’s the only way I’ve been able to lose weight the last few years. I wish it was pasta. I wish I was normal about food, like a French woman who can eat bread and drink wine every day without completely overdoing it. I feel the waterworks wanting to emerge again, a lump forming in my throat. Get it together, Kristina. You cannot cry over pasta. I swallow it down. Enough is enough.

We sit down to watch the new Harlan Coben show on Netflix. This one isn’t set in the UK, booooo. It doesn’t hit the same without the British accents. I wish I had some ice cream. I think about Ozempic again.

I wake up the next morning and the scale is down 1 pound. I don’t cry.

You can find me on Instagram and TikTok.

If it were up to me, concerts would begin at 6pm, end by 7:30 — just in time for a cutie little dinner after — and most importantly, there would be no opener. That’s just one of my little Sheldon Cooper-esque requests for the universe. Joe would have us going to concerts every week if it were up to him. I find the experience somewhat daunting depending on who’s playing, but I’m a Sagittarius so I’m always down for a good time. I’ll go with you to the gyno as long as I’m getting out of the house.

The last time we went to a concert together was when we saw The Cure in Tampa. I don’t even remember if they had an opener because the concert went on for what felt like a full week. We sat ground level, and everyone around me was 100 feet tall, so I couldn’t see the stage. The band made us suffer through every new and niche song before allowing us to hear all the old school stuff that everyone was there for. It didn’t help that I also hit Joe’s weed pen too hard and got lost coming back from the bathroom. And who knew that today’s youth was so obsessed with The Cure? I saw so many teen goths I forgot I wasn’t in a mall.

We recently saw the Sublime tribute band Badfish. Joe’s been following them for a while and has been to a few of their shows. The concert situation in Orlando is bleak. No one comes through unless they’re Sabrina Carpenter or someone else super mainstream, so it was like the event of the year for us. We settled into our spot at the House of Blues at Disney Springs, perfectly situated between the bar and the bathroom. It’s a small venue, and these days I stay away from the weed pen so I could escape as often as needed, especially during the two openers. One was a Grateful Dead-ska cover band situation, which was not my cuppa tea, and the other was a rapper named Grieves. I see this white dude in a black hoodie step on the stage, and I’m thinking ohhh here we fucking go. Time to chug my beer and head to the bar to kill some time. Yet to my surprise, this guy was great. After the first song, I looked to Joe and said “Is it weird that I’m enjoying this?”

Why was it my initial reaction to want to make fun of him? Because he’s a white rapper in his 40s opening for a Sublime cover band in Disney World? Sounds kinda funny when you say it out loud, right? But the funnier thing is, one of his songs could go viral on TikTok tomorrow, and he could be a Grammy winner by this time next year. Then, everyone would think he’s cool. His talent and music and stage presence probably wouldn’t change that much. The only thing that would change is that he finally “made it.”

With my extra time off, I’ve made it a priority to post more on Instagram. My clients are going viral, why can’t I? Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think it’s embarrassing to be an influencer or a content creator. In 2026, having a personal brand has the potential to bring in the wildest of opportunities: gifting, travel, paid collaborations, Substack subscribers, and I want a piece of that pie. I’m not afraid to admit that. I no longer lie and say “I’m just doing this for fun.” Yes, it’s fun, but I also see the immense opportunity. There’s so much money to be made online and I’d like to have some. My recent posts have been performing well, with a few of my reels hitting over 100,000 views. I’m posting mostly skit content and hot takes, but people are following and relating, with most of the comments being people saying how funny they find my videos.

But there is a noticeable silence from my close friends. There are a handful who reach out to acknowledge and encourage me, but from the rest there are crickets. At the time of writing this, I have less than 3,000 followers on Instagram. I’m not being paid from my social media and nearly all of my Substack subscribers came from Substack (I love it here), so I’m still very much in the “trying” stage. I haven’t made it. So I can’t help but wonder if the lack of support is due to my friends thinking I’m cringey and embarrassing. It’s not cool when you’re trying. It’s only cool once you’ve made it.

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It’s possible that this is all in my head. Most of my friends are busy mothers with their own lives. There’s no reason to bring it up, and at the end of the day, they’re not my target audience. Our friends and family don’t need to support everything we do, especially when you’re someone like me who’s tried many different things in the last few years. I’m sick of myself, too. It’s all good.

There’s part of me that knows I’m clearly projecting, because I’ve judged people who’ve been cringey. It’s jarring to see your friends pop up in your FYP dancing with a green screen background. I was ready to write off a rapper because he wasn’t famous. Imagine how much more cringey we’d think Drake is if he wasn’t Drake? None of us are immune to this level of judgement.

So, if you’re a close friend reading this, I have a couple of things to say:

1. Hi! What are you even doing here? I didn’t know that you read my Substack because you’ve never once mentioned it. I didn’t think you even knew what a Substack was!

2. I love you, and I don’t care that much about your lack of interest in my ever-changing creative endeavors, but it reallyyyyyy helps when you click the like button. No pressure.

If you want to cringe or make fun of me or leave a hate comment or form a parasocial relationship with me, follow me on Instagram.

I was starting to think that maybe living somewhere “cooler” with art, events, and walkability would lend itself to more exciting things to share. After four years of living in central Florida, I started to feel homesick for New York City. I mourn the life I never got to have there. Staten Island is part of New York City, but it’s like living on another planet, a planet with really good pizzerias. It just doesn’t have the same walkability, culture, and vibes as the rest of NYC. So when Joe had a business trip pop up in New York, I obviously wanted to tag along. When we visit, we rarely make it out of New Jersey and Staten Island, so I was looking forward to spending time in Manhattan. Plus, all of my friends were excited to commute in and meet me for drinks.

Good food, good drinks, and a few cheeky cigs were had. I drank beers at The Standard Biergarten and spilled gossip at Ulysses. I ate Artichoke Pizza for the first time in over ten years and enjoyed a seven-hour martini lunch at The Beekman with two of my closest girlfriends. We had late-night ramen in a Chinatown hole-in-the-wall and the best carbonara in Little Italy.

I had a wonderful time... and I’m happy to be back in Florida. I’ve written about this before, and I don’t want to be one of those New Yorkers in Florida who’s all like hOw’S tHe sNoW. New York City is the center of the universe, the place my family built their own American dream after immigrating from Italy in 1970, and it will always be home. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad, and honestly a bit disgusted, by how unsafe and dirty I feel when I’m there.

Last trip, I watched a woman take a shit in the middle of the street, and this time I was almost puked on by a homeless man (unhoused, whatever, cancel me). No, I didn’t grow up in Manhattan, but I spent my childhood in Brooklyn, commuted to the city for school and work, and spent my fair share of late nights at dive bars in the West Village. Something ain’t right. I’m so confused about how a city like London, which is basically New York City across the Atlantic, can be so much cleaner and feel safer, even considering how much older it is and with all the phone snatchers running about.

All this isn’t to say that Florida is the best and I don’t miss New York, because it’s not and I still do. But I’m starting to think that I won’t be happy living anywhere. Actually, I’m lying. I’d probably be happy living most places in Europe and the UK, but leaving my nephews in Florida would kill me. I often daydream about what it might be like to spend half the year in another country, but the logistics, finances, and family planning make that all feel impossible right now.

I think this is why travel is one of my top priorities in life. It’s the thing that matters most to me. It’s why I’ll be 36 this year and haven’t started trying to get pregnant. The thought of getting to the end of my life and feeling like I haven’t seen enough is the most terrifying thing. If you were to tell me I can’t have children or I’ll never own my own home, I wouldn’t care as much as I would about not being able to travel. That is my biggest fear.

With that being said, we booked a “last hoorah before we maybe try to have just one child” trip. We’re going to London, Florence, and Rome in late October. It’ll be our third time in London and first time in Italy. We’re open to all of your recommendations for restaurants, tours, and more. We are 20k-step-per-day travelers, so don’t be afraid to lay it on us. We haven’t booked hotels yet, so we’re open to your recommendations for that too. I’m hoping to bring in some more freelance work soon so we can justify some of the nicer spots we’ve been eyeing.

Last week I got laid off from my safety-net part-time job, a remote customer service gig where I spent 10-15 hours per week answering chats, emails, and phone calls. It was super low-stress and easy as hell, but it was also the most boring, soul-crushing way to spend my time. Answering the same customer questions day after day while listening to the maddening sound of Microsoft Teams chats pinging every five minutes is... just... kill me now, ya know? But I was afraid to leave.

Even though I was working so few hours, it supplemented my freelance social media work, which is growing but not enough to make it full-time yet. From a woo-woo, spiritual-ish, the-universe-got-my-back perspective, I’m not surprised this happened. For a part-time job with no desire to grow, it was taking up too much space in both time and energy. My entire week and freelance work revolved around my part-time schedule, and I had this nagging feeling that it was getting in the way of me bringing on more clients. So when I got the random Kristina x Manager 1:1 calendar invite, I knew what was coming. They made me wait my entire shift to find out I was being let go, which is a diabolical move by the way. I sat in the anxiety of the unknown for six hours, but after it happened, I was washed over by an overwhelming sense of relief. Of course, there’s a part of me that’s freaking out. A chunk of my income has vanished overnight and my freelance hours are inconsistent (I’ll be working on a retainer basis going forward), so naturally I’m left scrambling slightly.

As I said, I’m looking to take on more work. If anyone you know needs social media/marketing support in their business or personal brand, I’m your girl. I offer social media audits, monthly planning sessions, and full-service social media management. You can view all of my offers here.

If you want to form a parasocial relationship with me, you can follow me on Instagram and TikTok.

My conversation with Morgan May is finally here. We go deep on Nice Girl Deprogramming, the fear of being seen, and why getting dressed is about so much more than clothes.

Morgan is an oracle and advisor to the rich, hot, and powerful. If this conversation resonates with you, here’s where to find her:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themorganmay

TikTo…

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Welcome to Hot Girl Protocol. In this series, I try products, habits, rituals, diets, and exercises for at least 21 days before reporting back with my honest, uncensored review. If you have a drawer full of beauty products you don’t use, a piece of exercise equipment that’s now become a place to hang your laundry, or a stack of half-read books, then you’ll like it here.

Hot Girl Protocol is free to read, but if you upgrade to a paid subscription, you’ll also have access to exclusive interviews and bonus material.

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In April, I set out on a challenge to get fully dressed, no sweats, no leggings, no pajamas, every single day, even when I was working from home. I shared the journey on social media, documenting my outfits every day on Instagram and TikTok as a way to hold myself accountable. If you were one of the people watching every day, you witnessed what appeared to be a very simple personal style journey, a girl with a tiny microphone trying on new outfits in her living room. But what happened behind the scenes during the prep was much deeper. I had some big questions to answer before I dove in: why did I stop getting dressed every day? And what do I want my personal style to communicate to the world around me?

During COVID, lots of people picked up new hobbies. For some people that included learning TikTok dances and baking banana bread, but for me it was binge-eating sleeves of Oreos and having daily anxiety spirals. I was furloughed from my job as a retail manager in the beauty industry, so I’d stopped getting dressed every day. I lived in sweatpants and didn’t realize my clothes didn’t fit until I got on the scale in May. I’d gained thirty pounds. I never went back to my old job and began working remotely. I bought more sweatpants. I gained twenty more pounds.

Fast-forward to today. I’m 35 pounds down and freelancing in the social media and marketing space. I usually wear leggings and a ratty t-shirt while working from home, and when I go out, my clothes are just kinda... basic. I’ve been a self-proclaimed jeans and a t-shirt kind of girl, having fun only with accessories and my hair, which is dyed pink. I’ve been feeling the nudge to level up in the fashion department for quite some time now.

After I published the last installment of Hot Girl Protocol, I put up an Instagram story looking for experts to interview for my next post.

Enter Morgan May. She’s an oracle and advisor to the hot, rich, and powerful. She helps women step into their most powerful and authentic selves, mainly through a program called Nice Girl Deprogramming.

In Morgan’s world, the term “nice girl” is not a compliment. A nice girl is the result of conditioning that keeps women weak, sacrificial, and in a cycle of prioritizing everyone else over themselves. So when Morgan popped into my DMs volunteering to be the next expert I interviewed, I jumped at the chance.

Last fall, I joined NGD. I’d developed stronger boundaries and gotten more comfortable with conflict resolution as I’ve gotten older, so I figured I’d deprogrammed my nice girl a long time ago. I joined mainly to support Morgan and to build connections with the other women in the group, but I was shocked at how rattled I was during weeks five and six.

Week five was all about sexuality and desires, with the archetype being the Sacred Whore. Week six was Diva Week, where we shamelessly learned to fill our own cup first before meeting the needs of others. During those two weeks, I felt disconnected from the material and the group. I didn’t feel sexy. I didn’t think I was allowed to be a diva. I thought I needed to lose more weight to relate to the material. Turns out I just needed to go a bit deeper.

Weight gain made me hide my body behind leggings and oversized t-shirts. I didn’t feel sexy, so I didn’t think I was allowed to be seen. And even though I categorized myself as a jeans and t-shirt girl, deep down I knew that’s not who I really am. I’d regularly find myself feeling jealous or annoyed when other women were more dressed up than me. Not showing up as my authentic self, as the bold, colorful person I really am, was resulting in a lot of hater energy in me.

I thought back to a time recently when I was going to dinner with my best friend. She was wearing heels, and I only had flats with me. She asked me if it was okay that she was wearing heels, and in that moment, I realized how we all shrink ourselves to make other women comfortable. A version of me from five or ten years ago might have asked her to change her shoes so I wouldn’t feel underdressed standing next to her, but now I would never dare.

In the past, I wanted other women to shrink to make me feel more comfortable, when the solution was really to make myself bigger, bolder, more me. Why have I been walking around wearing jeans and a black t-shirt when my Pinterest board is full of women wearing funky patterns and statement pieces?

In my conversation with Morgan, we also uncovered how being sexualized from a young age, something that a lot of women experience, was also a contributing factor in my fear of being seen. More recently, I’ve experienced some creepy energy from men while out for my walks. I’ve had men in cars beeping at me and construction workers staring, which makes me want to shrink and hide in my oversized clothing.

But Morgan shared some powerful reframes on how to take negative or creepy energy and alchemize it to your benefit. Any time you’re receiving negative or creepy attention, imagine it being deposited as money into your bank account. Unless you’re in real danger (which is a completely different scenario), choose to transmute the energy into something positive.

There’s something about a conversation with Morgan that awakens a beast in me, so it was the perfect interview to set me up for my 30-day journey. We only scratched the surface on all of this, and I can’t wait for you to hear the full conversation. I’m posting it in a few days and it’s for paying subscribers (so upgrade if you want the sauce).

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I almost started the 30 days with a closet purge and a shopping haul, but it turns out skipping that was the best accident. After my interview with Morgan, the rest of March got away from me since Joe and I were traveling a lot. I didn’t want to start the 30 days until I knew I’d be home for a while. After putting off starting for long enough, one day I just went into the closet and found an outfit. Things I usually saved for my once-in-a-while trip to an office or special occasions, even things I’d deemed unflattering, were all hiding in plain sight.

I started day one with a Playboy t-shirt I got at PacSun three years ago with leopard print jeans. Even though the outfit isn’t “dressy,” it was still out of my comfort zone. I loved the t-shirt when I bought it, but it still had the tags on. Every time I thought about wearing it in the past, I envisioned strangers laughing at me, thinking chubby girls should not wear Playboy logos or something dumb like that. The jeans felt daring, like I was drawing even more attention to myself, and they weren’t the most flattering on the lower belly. Even though I didn’t feel super comfortable in the jeans, it was great to experiment with a large-scale pattern and led me to finding a pair I like better.

I knew myself well enough to know I needed external accountability, so I posted my outfits online every single day. It wasn’t for growth or views. Nothing went viral, and it definitely didn’t help my following (lol). It was purely for commitment. The internet knew I was doing this, so I had to show up. Some days I really didn’t want to get dressed, and I did it anyway. And because I was showing up every day, I didn’t want to repeat outfits, so it forced a creativity I didn’t know I had. It was also kind of like exposure therapy, because my fear of being seen was on steroids when posting outfit videos for thousands of people. I’ve been posting online for as long as I can remember, but it was rare that I would show my full body. I’d been too traumatized from a handful of fat comments I’ve received in the past.

I was 14 days in before I needed to go shopping. At that point, I really had nothing to wear. Even my mother agreed that I had “no clothes,” because every time she saw me, I was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. I didn’t buy many pieces, and some of them were relatively basic, but I was slowly starting to feel more like me. The true me. The me I want to communicate to the world.

[You can find links to some of my favorite pieces in my ShopMy.]

And I really was communicating to the world. For years, I’d felt invisible, and that was safe, but I can’t deny that a big part of me hated it. I’m a Leo rising. I have pink hair. And at this point, I know I like being seen. Getting dressed every day meant finding excuses to leave the house, even when I was working from home. I’d never received more compliments from strangers, and I was being treated noticeably better by customer service people.

Because I was sharing on social media, old friends and people I hadn’t spoken to in years were reaching out to tell me how much I was inspiring them to get dressed more often. The weirdest part: men were checking me out for the first time in nearly a decade. Of course, that comes with some complicated feelings, but I mostly thought, “still got it.”

The negativity was very minimal. I had some unsolicited opinions, but I guess posting my videos online lent itself to that sort of thing. I had one friend completely roast me over a funky pair of checkered pants I love, and another share her disgust over my footwear choice. She really hates flip-flops. And you can always count on my opinionated Italian mother to let you know if she thinks an outfit is unflattering.

But I thought back to Morgan’s reframe: take the energy, transmute it, and don’t let it send you back to the black t-shirt. Plus, if I want to dress boldly, visibility is part of the deal.

My style journey is far from over. I think getting in the habit of doing it was the first part. As of writing this, I’m nine days out and still haven’t gone back to my old ways. I get dressed every day, even when I’m working from home.

I think the next part of my journey will be amping up my personal style even more, while also figuring out how to dress cute in the unbearable summer heat. Living in central Florida has been quite a learning curve.

I’ve learned that warmer colors are better for me than I thought. I’m looking forward to experimenting with burnt orange and rosier pinks. I’m surprised at how much I enjoy boho vibes with an edgy twist. I’m unapologetically millennial. I’ve rediscovered my love for skinny jeans and Converse.

And inspired by my conversation with Morgan, I’m excited to try a more multiple-personality-disordered approach to style: different archetypes, different vibes, a different woman every day.

If you’re interested in what it’s like to work with Morgan May, I highly recommend watching her free masterclass, Deconstruct the Nice Girl. You can also follow Morgan on Instagram and TikTok.

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It wasn’t my first kiss. I started doing that way too young. But anyone I’d kissed previously had been a friend or classmate, often during a game of spin the bottle.

But this night was different. It was the first time a stranger, a boy one year older from another school, wanted to kiss ME.

B was tall, Irish American, and a little goofy. He was shy, almost mute, until he had a few beers. We’d nervously spent the night catching one another staring until we finally crossed paths outside the bathroom. He barely said two words to me before pulling me by the hand and dragging me up the attic stairs.

He playfully pushed me onto the bed, and we were off to the races. Or should I say he was off to the races, since he was doing all the kissing. In the pitch-black room, all I could hear was the sound of his teeth clacking against mine. I tried to slow down my kissing, hoping he would follow. I desperately tried to take control, but my limbs were pinned down by his giant body. I needed to have my Bring It On teen movie makeout session, if it was the last thing I did. But I only lasted another five minutes before suggesting we head back downstairs. There’s nothing quite like a teenage boy slurring “you’re ssso hot” while licking your face to kill the mood.

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It wasn’t a great kiss, but surely he could be taught? I was just happy to have been chosen. Out of all of the pretty girls I was with that night, he wanted to kiss me, and that’s all that mattered.

With cheeks flushed and burning red, I bolted down the steps, hoping no one would notice how long I was up there. Boys played beer pong in the living room while some of the girls were in an intense flip cup battle at an old wooden dining room table. Lil Wayne was blasting through the boombox, and Jackass: The Movie played on a nearby TV. My eyes were still adjusting to the bright living room lights, and before I could head to the keg, three of my girlfriends surrounded me and promptly rushed me into the kitchen.

Backed up against the sink, one friend picked at my hair while the others started rummaging through the cabinets.

“Ooouuuuchh!!!” I yelped. “Why are you pulling my hair?”

“Because you have gum in it,” my other friend slurred as cheap beer sloshed out of her red Solo cup.

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A few minutes later, I had the contents of the entire pantry in my hair, and things were getting worse. The gum was breaking apart and ending up all over my head. The smell of peanut butter, olive oil, and Vaseline was enough to sober me up.

For hours, my friends picked at strands of my hair, only stopping to take shots or for cigarette breaks. B, on the other hand, was clueless about the entire ordeal. He continued winning drinking games and winked at me every time he came into the kitchen for more beer.

After what was, and still is, the worst kiss I ever had, I still hoped he would call me after. I saw our future flash before my eyes. I started thinking about what I could wear to his prom and dreamt of what it would be like to visit him at college in the fall. But after that night, I never heard from him.

It was the summer after my senior year before I saw him again, and I should be ashamed to tell you that this time we didn’t just kiss. We went All The Way™. And would you believe me if I told you it was sooo much worse?

Thanks for reading! Just a few notes:

1- I’m currently writing the next installment of Hot Girl Protocol! I’m hoping to drop it next week. It’ll be free to read, but bonus content will be reserved for paying subscribers!

2- lmk if you like these stories. This one was tame, but I have some way more embarrassing ones (if you could believe it) and some nsfw ones that I’d love to share, but not with everyone.

Love you, bye!

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This summer will mark eight years since I started really posting online. And I don’t mean posting on Facebook and Instagram for friends and family to see, I mean actually putting myself out there, trying to make a career out of existing on the interwebs. I don’t have much to show for it, no offense to my 9 paying subscribers. I love you, but I can’t pay my bills with Substack money just yet.

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Since before the word influencer existed, I think I knew I wanted to be one. When I was in high school, I was Myspace friends with this moody, gorgeous emo girl with black hair and giant green eyes. She had thousands of friends and posted selfies in her bra and blogs detailing her underage binge-drinking nights out in rural Wisconsin. I was in awe of her and couldn’t believe that someone could post so freely about their life for thousands of people to see.

Inspired by the Midwest vixen, I briefly blogged about my breakup from my first “real” boyfriend, but deleted the blog and stopped posting altogether after he sarcastically commented “kudos”. God, I would pay any amount of money to recover my old Myspace account.

At nineteen, I became obsessed with makeup tutorials on YouTube. Does anyone remember the Makeup Geek channel? It was the OG beauty channel before beauty content was a thing. Marlena Stell doesn’t get the credit she deserves. I became obsessed with Makeup Geek around 2009, and a year later, I started my own beauty blog (you can still read it here). I’ve always loved sharing and connecting on social media, especially once I learned that you can make a living doing so.

My dreams of being a beauty blogger were immediately crushed once I went to makeup school. Back then, the only “real” makeup artists were the ones working in TV and fashion. The idea that someone could make a living doing their own makeup on camera was unheard of. I’d probably have a mansion in Beverly Hills by now if it weren’t for my pretentious MUD instructors who scoffed when I talked about all the cool techniques and products I’d learned about online.

Anyway!! I’ve been back on the content creation horse now since 2018, and it’s been a humiliation ritual to say the least. I’ve had many different niches and even dabbled in the coaching industry. I’ve gone through the full range of experiences and emotions from going mega-viral and being a guest on podcasts, to absolute crickets and no views. I’ve been called fat and had my teeth made fun of more times than I can count. I’ve had weeks where I posted daily and consecutive months when I ghosted the internet. I’ve changed my usernames like six times and wiped my Instagram feed more times than I can count.

I’m ashamed to admit there were times in this journey when I compromised my integrity out of financial desperation. Not to the level of FYRE festival or Caroline Calloway scammer antics (I’m a Calloway apologist, though, sorry), but I posted content and sold a lot of things I thought I should rather than what was really on my heart.

I thought that for people to take me seriously, they couldn’t think I wanted to be an iNfLuEnCeR. I needed to have a product or service to sell, wisdom to share, and a presence of all-knowing authority.

I loved talking about relationships and dating, so I took a course to become a certified dating coach and started selling coaching packages. When that stopped feeling right, I discovered Human Design and became a certified Human Design reader. I loooove Human Design, it’s changed my life. But it didn’t take long before I realized that doing it professionally wasn’t what I wanted either.

I’ve spent too much time playing the career version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, trying on different things, seeing which one fits. And none of them fit because when you’re lying to yourself, you will fail. Maybe not right away, but it’s unsustainable to live in chronic untruths.

I don’t want to be a coach or a guru. I don’t want to sell e-books or do high-ticket affiliate marketing. I love freelancing, but I don’t want to do it forever. And most importantly, the one that triggers well-meaning people: I DON’T WANT TO HAVE A TRADITIONAL JOB. I refuse to have a traditional job. I rebuke having a traditional job. A stale job. A job that keeps me tied to a desk and lets me know when I can take a vacation. A job that tells me I can’t have pink hair or a face tattoo or post dick jokes online. A job where I can get laid off after talking ad nauseam about KPIs on 2-hour-long Teams calls. I simply refuse.

I want to be paid to exist. To create. To write. To overshare. And I don’t care who makes fun of me for it. Some people sell their fucking farts in a jar and make millions. Believe me, there’s a world where I get paid to exist online.

I don’t care if you think it’s delusional. I will succeed because I’m delusional.

I don’t care if you think it’s impractical. I will succeed because I’m impractical.

I’m a Sagittarius, babe. Miss me with your 5-year plan, your budgets, and your PTO. I’ve been known to take risks and burn my life to the ground to live the life I want. Maybe I won’t ever get there, but it will kill me if I don’t at least try.

I can’t help but laugh as I read this back. Do I sound like Timothée Chalamet, “I want to be one of the greats,” but instead of going for an Oscar I just want to have a bestselling Substack about nothing? Maybe. But why is it only acceptable to become a successful creator, influencer, or blogger if you accidentally stumbled your way into it? The romanticized version of the story is “I was just doing this for fun, and it went viral.”

I was out to lunch with two friends recently and admitted to them, “I post videos online because I like it, but I’m not just doing this for my health.” It felt good to say out loud.

I’m not just doing this for fun.

There’s a lot of money to be made online, and I want a piece of the pie, bitch.

If you’d like to partake in my daily humiliation rituals, you can follow me on Instagram and TikTok.

I’m 35 days away from this stupid runDisney 5K I signed up for, and I’m having regrets. I’ve never been a cardio girl, aside from dancing, so I knew I had to train. My goal was to get to race day and be able to slowly jog the entire 3.1 miles without needing to stop for walk breaks. It seems like a good measure of cardiovascular health — being able to run for three measly miles.

I’m nowhere close to doing it. I won’t get there. It’s not happening.

My bum-ass knee — the one that was always messed up from dancing competitively as a kid — started acting up around training week three. I thought it was a good idea to add dance classes into my exercise rotation to get extra cardio on non-run days. Bad idea. My knee did not like that.

After ten days off, I got back into it more slowly and with my knee held together by kinesiology tape, and I can still only manage short intervals of walking and running. I hate every minute of it.

If I was running alone, I probably wouldn’t care. Lots of people walk the entire thing. But my cousin and his husband are joining me, and they’re being trained by some psycho who runs marathons, and now I’ll just have to let them leave me in the dust so I don’t hold them back.

My friends who do all the runDisney events tell me I’ll be hooked, that I’ll eventually do a half marathon. I disagree. I might be the only person who does a 5K and thinks, cool, I don’t have to do that again.

Who are these freaks that get runner’s high, and where can I get some? I only have runner’s anger, runner’s regret, runner’s disdain.

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And before you ask, yes, I have the right shoes. I’m eating enough protein and carbs. I’m not running too fast, and I know it’s mental and blah blah blah. Go away. I hate it.

I had this bright idea that while I was training for this horrible race, I would also join a 40 Days to Personal Revolution program. I completed this at my old yoga studio in 2013, and it changed my life. I broke up with an abusive partner, lost fifteen pounds, developed a meditation practice, and connected deeper to myself.

My current yoga studio doesn’t offer the program, so when I saw a virtual version available with the founder, I joined instantly. In the program, you do yoga six days a week, meditate twice a day, meet with a group twice a week, and complete shadow-work-type journaling exercises.

I was desperate to recreate the success I had with it thirteen years ago, but it was too much to take on with race training. Plus, I’m so sick of Zoom meetings with groups of people who only want to hear themselves talk.

I stopped after week three.

It’s embarrassing how typical this is — going into a new year guns blazing, only to crash and burn shortly after. To be fair, I haven’t had a New Year’s resolution in years. I was so down in the dumps and hopeless for like five whole years that I didn’t even bother setting a single goal.

But this isn’t giving up. It’s reevaluating.

I already do lots of yoga and get my steps in. I’m more active at 35 than I was at 15. It’s okay for me to just settle into that and focus on areas I’m avoiding… like writing.

Almost everything I post on Substack has been written in less than three hours. I ghost the platform for 10–14 days and then publish something when I have a creative surge of energy. I don’t write every day, and if I write once a week, that’s a good week.

I so desperately want to be one of those people who has a writing practice, who takes this seriously. I love this platform. I feel so accomplished and good about everything I publish, so why is it like pulling teeth to just sit down and write?

When I think about why I avoid it, I know it’s because I’m afraid to put out “bad” writing. I know I’m not the best writer. I’m okay with not being the best writer. I just don’t want to be the worst, you know?

I don’t write beautiful prose, and I think you can very obviously hear the Staten Island college dropout in my writing.

But is that such a bad thing?

I see the Substack Notes of people joking about how they have multiple drafts they never post, and I’m just like howwww? Do I need to take yet another whack at The Artist’s Way? Meditate more? What’s it gonna take to get over this?

Unlike the running thing, I won’t yell at you if you give me tips in the comments.

On a positive note, I now have NINE (!!!) paying subscribers to CHEEKY. I suspect my new series, Hot Girl Protocol, is to thank for the recent jump.

In case you missed it, Hot Girl Protocol is where I try a practice, habit, ritual, etc. for 21–30 days and report back. It’s completely free to read, but any extras like interviews with experts or bonus resources are reserved for paying subscribers.

I’m prepping for the next one now, where I’ll be getting fully dressed for 30 days. Yes, even though I work from home. But it goes much deeper than that, and the expert I interviewed is an absolute badass friend of mine.

In the meantime, be sure to read the last installment where I try manual lymphatic drainage for 30 days.

Now I’m off to Magic Kingdom for the day and then Detroit for the weekend. My husband is turning 40 tomorrow, so I’m meeting him on his business trip.

Enjoy the photos below of the Sopranos-themed birthday party I threw for him last weekend!

love u!

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Now that I’ve lost a bit of weight, I can’t help but notice how differently men are treating me. Not “omg dat ass” different, but I didn’t realize how invisible I was before. Men barely held the door for me or looked me in the eyes when I was 35 pounds heavier. But now that I’m smaller (but still technically considered obese lol), they’re starting to get creepy again. I forgot what it felt like to be scared of men all the time. I can’t go for a walk without getting eye-fucked by creepy construction workers or being honked at by random men in cars. It makes me wonder if a subconscious fear of being seen by weirdos is what’s made it so difficult to keep weight off my entire life. When you’ve been getting sexually harassed since age 11, having a hot body just doesn’t feel worth it. Maybe this is why I don’t have a juicy ass yet. I’m too afraid! Remind me to look into self-defense classes. I can’t let this dream die.

At 35, I’m starting to feel some of the regrets about the experiences in life I haven’t had. I know I’m still young and I have time to do some things, like traveling the world and finally learning how to ride a bike. Lol, don’t ask. But there are other things that just can’t happen once you reach a certain age. For some people, that could be the unrealized goal of becoming a professional athlete or never doing a semester abroad in college. For me, it’s the sad fact that I never had a slutty job.

When I say “slut” or “slutty,” it’s a term of endearment. I’ve reclaimed it for myself. I deeply, deeply regret not having a slutty — or slut-adjacent — job in my 20s. What’s a slutty job, you ask? It’s a job where you’re hired based on your level of hotness. Think Hooters server, go-go dancer, bottle girl, promotional model — any job where you can make cash tips from smiling and showing your cleavage. Sure, a lot of those jobs involve being objectified, but you can laugh your way to the bank and evade taxes at the same time. Sounds like a win-win to me. I, instead, spent my twenties working my way up the ladder in the beauty industry and being slutty for free. I mourn the life I never had.

Don’t get me wrong, life is good. Better than it’s been in a while. Uh-oh, you know what that means! The devil on my shoulder is all, be a psycho, burn it all down, babe.

Life is so good and calm right now that it makes me want to be love-bombed and/or recruited into a cult so badly. Have you ever felt that way? I think back to the time I was recruited into an MLM, and the women in my upline had me believing I’d made friends for life. I couldn’t wait to travel the country attending seminars. I dreamed of the day I’d finally “earn” my red Mustang. It was all motivational conference calls and vision board parties until I didn’t sell anything and went $3,000 into debt. But it was so fun while it lasted. I felt so alive.

If you’re not stalking me yet, what are you even doing? Find me on Instagram @kristina_nasti and Tiktok

Welcome to the first installment of Hot Girl Protocol. In this series, I’ll be trying products, habits, rituals, diets, and exercises for at least 21 days before reporting back with my honest, uncensored review. If you have a drawer full of beauty products you don’t use, a piece of exercise equipment that’s now become a place to hang your laundry, or a stack of half-read books, then you’ll like it here.

This piece and the ones that follow will be free to read. However, if you upgrade to a paid subscription, you’ll get any bonus material and freebies included at the end. So don’t let the paywall freak you out. You can keep reading, and even if you don’t upgrade, I think you’ll walk away with a lot.

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Writing and experimenting for this piece taught me more about rituals and habits than I thought it would. In the last 15-ish months, I’ve eased myself into a life of healthy discipline. I’ve naturally lost 30 pounds. I’m training for a 5K. I’m meticulous with my Google Calendar. Hell, I even started flossing more regularly.

But as I dove headfirst into my first month of Hot Girl Protocol, I realized how easy it is to stick with habits and rituals when there’s a very obvious and instant result. If you reduce your calories, you’ll probably see the number on the scale drop. When you floss regularly, your teeth feel squeaky clean. But not all habits have such obvious results, or at least not right away.

I think we all glamorize being “that girl,” thanks to TikTok brain rot. We see skinny East Village 25-year-olds wearing neutral Alo Yoga sets, drinking matcha at 5 AM before heading to Pilates at 6 AM, and they make discipline look so sexy. I think it might always look sexy from the outside looking in?

If it wasn’t for the fact that I announced to Substack that I’d be starting this series, I’m not so sure I would’ve gone through with it. Seriously, I almost gave up two weeks in because I thought it “wasn’t working.” Boy, was I wrong.

Lymphatic drainage was my gateway drug into wellness. Sometime around 2018, I was introduced to Lauryn Bosstick, a.k.a. The Skinny Confidential. I heard her on a podcast talking about lymphatic drainage, which she credited for her gorgeous skin. I literally pulled my car over mid-podcast to order a gua sha stone and face oil on Amazon.

I stuck with it for a while, but never daily. Something about having to lather my face with oil and massage for 5–10 minutes on top of everything else I do on my skin felt daunting af. So my gua sha routine became more and more sporadic until it was non-existent. I didn’t stop there, though. I wanted to look snatched, de-puffed, and all the things. So I tried dry brushing, promising I’d do it before every shower. I kept forgetting, even though I had the brush hanging with my towel. Then I bought a giant gua sha stone for my body, which I used approximately 1.5 times. Did I think it would somehow be less daunting to gua sha my entire effing body? I even tried rebounding a few times after a generous friend gifted me a mini trampoline. And in case you haven’t guessed by now, that was also short-lived. I almost bought a vibration plate when they were trending on TikTok Shop, but then I thought “who are you kidding?!”

On all my socials, I have various saved collections of lymphatic drainage tutorials, none of which I’ve actually done, because why are they all over 10 minutes long? Who has the time?

I had all the information and products I could ever need, and yet I couldn’t stay committed. If buying all of these products and watching a gazillion TikToks hasn’t translated into action, what would?

This series is about commitment and habit-forming, but I quickly learned that you can’t always force yourself into a habit. Sometimes you need to adjust, pivot, or simplify to find what sticks.

Enter Brit…

Even though I knew lymphatic drainage would make its way into this series, I wasn’t sure when. But when I saw Brit Adams, friend and licensed massage therapist, comment on my announcement post, I decided to start here.

Brit is one of my many online friends. If you have a remote business or are a freelancer, then you may also have online friends whom you’ve never met IRL. I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing some of Brit’s magic during a group coaching program we were in, so I knew she had to be involved in this piece.

And since my Googling and TikToking only ended up confusing me more, I decided to interview her and get some expert tips before diving into my personal experiment.

In preparation for our call, I gathered all my lymph-things: my gua sha stone(s), two dry brushes — one for the body and another for the face — an ice roller, and my NuFACE device (I don’t think the NuFACE is for lymphatic drainage, and I’ve only used it four times, lol). I was ready to show off and be the student who had so much potential, “but only if she applied herself!” — pretty much what I heard from all my teachers in school.

I figured Brit would tell me I’m doing everything right and that I’d just have to suck it up and stick with it. But I didn’t even have a chance to show off everything I own because, get this, I didn’t need any of it.

Brit doesn’t just specialize in lymphatic drainage. She’s trained in Manual Lymphatic Drainage. So all you need to do is use your hands.

So that’s where the manual part of Manual Lymphatic Drainage comes in. It’s supposed to be done with your hands, duh! No tools necessary. Over-consumption strikes again. It’s not bad or wrong to use tools, but using your hands and touching yourself (get your mind out of the gutter!) releases oxytocin. Incorporating an MLD practice can help lower cortisol, get your body into a parasympathetic state, and encourage the lymphatic system, since it doesn’t have a pump. So while MLD can make you look snatched, it’s really about helping the body do what it already wants to do.

According to Brit, this is foundational self-care — just like putting on a face mask or writing in your journal. And it’s not just about how it makes you feel. Brit, along with many of her clients, has experienced insane results after incorporating a daily lymph practice. She personally attributes an 80-pound weight loss and the resolution of her PCOS symptoms to it. Her clients have had miraculous results ranging from relieving symptoms of Lyme disease to reducing symptoms during detox from alcohol or drugs.

And the best part? This doesn’t need to be a long, ritualistic practice to work. Doing it in small increments throughout the day is even more effective than one long 30-minute session.

So here’s the gist of the practice: it relies on movement, breath, and gentle stimulation in the “big six” lymphatic areas — the collarbone, sides of the neck, armpits, abdomen, groin, and behind the knees.

While taking deep breaths, you do gentle rubs, circular motions, and tapping in each area, starting with the collarbone up to the sides of the neck, then moving down to the armpits, abdomen, groin, and ending with the back of the knees.

Brit walks us through a full tutorial in the video reserved for paid subscribers, and it’s way less daunting than using devices and rubbing your face or body with oils every day. According to Brit, doing an MLD practice daily for two minutes is more beneficial than paying a practitioner for occasional, expensive sessions.

So I decided to approach my own experiment with one rule… just show up. It didn’t need to be perfect. I didn’t put pressure on myself to do it at the same time every day. It just had to get done. I made sure to put it in my daily planner every single day because obviously checking something off a to-do list is an instant boost of serotonin. By the way, I’m totally obsessed with being a digital planning iPad girly.

I wanted it to naturally fit into my day. There were times I did the routine on the couch while watching TV. There were days when I stood up from my desk and did it in the middle of my workday. But my favorite has been in the few minutes before a yoga class starts. I’m always one of the first ones in the room because God forbid I don’t get an ideal spot to do a headstand against the wall. So while the room is quiet and I’m already in a peaceful headspace, it’s nice to take the time and do my lymph routine then.

I had high expectations going in. After seeing girls snatching their waists overnight and hearing Brit’s weight loss story, I thought I’d see results instantly. But the reality was that at first, not much happened. Like I said, I almost gave up after the first two weeks. I thought about how awkward it would be to tell Brit that I wasn’t seeing results and even considered pivoting to a new topic so I wouldn’t have to bash a practice that so many people love.

But then I remembered that I’m not immune to wanting instant gratification and how quickly I’ve been to abandon practices that don’t deliver immediately. Social media only feeds that expectation, and I don’t want to be part of these toxic cycles anymore. So I asked myself how many things have I quit right before they started working?

And I gave it the time to let it work.

The first noticeable shift was in my digestion. Once every few weeks for the past year, I’d have a random spell of constipation. Not to be gross, but it felt like I never fully emptied, if you know what I mean. But ever since starting this practice, I’ve been going regularly and haven’t had an issue since — despite having a few nights of drinking alcohol and eating less-than-optimal foods for digestion.

There were also a few stressful situations that would’ve normally sent me into an absolute mental spiral, yet I felt weirdly regulated. I even think my husband was freaked out by how calm I was. I’m not proud to say that I lean on him for a lot of emotional support when I’m stressed, and I think we were both shocked by how steady I felt despite a few really stressful moments over the last month.

As many of you know, I’ve been on a weight loss journey, and I lost four pounds in January. But I swear I look like I lost twelve. The thing that surprised me the most, though, was when I got my period. It pretty much snuck up on me. No mood swings. No bloating. No usual chin pimple.

The days before I get my period are usually brutal. It’s all doom and gloom with a tiny mountain growing on my chin. But this time, it literally came out of nowhere with virtually no bloating, glowing skin, a reduction in cramps, and a shorter cycle. It lasted four days instead of the usual six to seven.

So even though my initial experiment was 30 days, at the time of writing this, I’m seven weeks in and still going strong.

What this has taught me is that discipline, keeping promises to myself, and choosing a practice that seamlessly fits into my life create something that eventually feels like second nature. I prioritize my lymph practice in the same way that I do brushing my teeth. I don’t intend to give it up.

And I think the biggest takeaway for me is that there are things we can do every single day that are 100% free. Any person, regardless of privilege or socioeconomic status, could do this practice.

Thank you to Brit Adams for being a part of the first installment of Hot Girl Protocol! If you want to connect with her and learn more about her offers, you can visit her site or email her at wildrootllc@gmail.com.

Paid subscribers will have access to a Notion dashboard generously provided by Brit, as well as the ability to watch our full interview, including a tutorial of the exact sequence I’ve been doing every day. Paid subscribers also get access to the comment section and group chat so we can hold each other accountable.

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“This guy is a stalkerrrr,” I whined in disgust as my phone buzzed again. “It’s 2018! You don’t just cold-call people anymore!”

It must have been the fourth call in the last 36 hours, all of which had gone unanswered. We’d spent Sunday Funday chatting and sharing drunken kisses at the Jersey Shore before exchanging numbers for a tentative date later that week. He was the first guy in years who wanted to take me on a real date… at like 8 PM … for actual dinner.

The other guys in my life couldn’t be bothered to communicate in full sentences. Drunken “u up?” or “wyd?” texts would hit my inbox late into the night. A man was finally putting in real effort to get to know me. I should have been happy about this. Why wasn’t I happy?

After a few years of soul-sucking situationships and meaningless hookups, I thought I was ready for a real relationship again. And after all, this wasn’t a marriage proposal. The poor guy was just calling me, like he said he would. What a weirdo.

An employed man in his thirties who was kind and handsome was calling me to make dinner plans. At the peak of hookup culture, it was like hitting the lottery. But I just wasn’t… feeling it. Something was off.

“This is why you can’t find a nice guy!” my mother snapped, growing tired of my single party girl antics. Maybe there was such a thing as being too honest with your parents.

But with each call, my heart raced, and my stomach did cartwheels, and not in an omg I like this guy way. More like I’m going to have to change my number and fake my own death.

As women, we’re sold this idea that all men are trash who just want one thing. So if you’re fortunate enough to meet a guy who shows interest in you beyond what was between your legs, you were supposed to pounce on him before someone else snatched him up.

But what happens if you’re lucky enough to meet one of these unicorn men and your intuition tells you something is wrong? Get this: you’re expected to go on the date anyway. I’d lost count of how many times I’d heard things like, “I didn’t like my husband right away, he grew on me,” and “Give the guy a chance. Worst-case scenario, you get a free meal out of it.”

Are we really that desperate for free meals? Maybe, in this economy. But I’d rather starve than have dinner with a man I didn’t like.

Up until this point, I hadn’t been on many first dates. All of my exes I’d met through school or mutual friends, and we’d done the Netflix-and-chill thing until eventually finding ourselves in a relationship. I’d never experienced a meet-cute at a bar or library, and to this day, I’d never been on a date with someone I’d met on a dating app.

The thought of sharing a meal with a stranger was scarier to me than sleeping with them. Dinner felt too intimate.

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My late teens into early twenties were spent dating two awful guys in quick succession. The first one was a controlling and abusive psychopath who practically locked me up in his parents’ basement with him until I worked up the courage to leave. Then, a year later, I began dating a love-bombing, gaslighting manipulator who I found cheating on me by hacking his Snapchat account.

By my mid-twenties, I’d learned that being in a serious relationship meant toxic arguments, lots of tears, and abandoning myself. I decided on no more relationships for a long time. This meant no dates, no dinner, no feelings. I thought that being the cool, down-for-anything girl was easier. Little did I know that the cool girls still get their hearts broken and cry more than the girls in bad relationships.

But I was determined to change things, to take more risks with my heart, and to get out of my comfort zone. No more Netflix-and-chill. I was approaching thirty and knew I deserved more than late-night texts and lazy couch hangouts. But I was ready to find the guy, not just a guy. Going on “just because” Plan B dates with men whose calls I avoided didn’t feel like the way to go about it.

Rapid texts followed the missed phone calls. This guy wasn’t letting up, and I felt sicker with each notification. Was I self-sabotaging? Was I so used to the casual, no-strings-attached thing that someone calling me for more than a booty call was enough to make me spiral?

“Or!!!” my gut screamed at me from within, “maybe it is weird and creepy for a guy to call you repeatedly and you should stop gaslighting yourself into thinking otherwise.”

It’s attractive when a guy puts his pride aside to actively pursue you, but this was on another level. I wasn’t looking to play games, but he was incapable of playing it cool. Why was this guy acting so desperate to reach me?

I had to get to the bottom of it. I didn’t care that he was cute, and nice, and respectful. It didn’t matter that he was a unicorn, because something just didn’t feel right.

It took less than a 30-second Google search for me to find out he’d lied about his age. He was 37, not 32, like he’d told me. If he could lie about something so stupid, what else was he capable of? I finally texted him back, this time letting him down easy. I didn’t bother telling him what I’d found out.

Then, whoooosh, the anxiety left my body and I melted into my bed like butter. Not because I’d successfully avoided the dreaded intimate dinner date. Not because I could smugly tell my mom I was right. I was relieved because, against all the dating rules and advice out there, which never resonated with me anyway, I decided to listen to my instincts instead.

I used to think that finding love meant I had to date around and kiss lots of frogs. But maybe the key to finding the love you’re looking for is trusting yourself enough to turn down a unicorn, no matter how good he looks on paper.

I added a lil voicenote as a follow-up with some extra backstory 👇🏻

If you want to connect, follow me on Instagram or TikTok 📲

But things weren’t always this way. I used to be a messy, forgetful disaster.

If I had a nickel for every time a teacher told me, “If only you would apply yourself,” I would be a gazillionaire. I rarely ever did my homework. I forgot about book reports and science projects until the night before, if I remembered at all. And my school desk? Remember the ones with the cubbyhole underneath for your books? It was jammed with crumpled sheets of loose-leaf paper and unsharpened pencils.

My bedroom almost always had laundry, dirty and clean, piled in every corner, and a wastebasket that was overflowing.

In high school, while most of my friends showed up with straight-ironed hair and Abercrombie outfits they laid out the night before, I’d throw on school-branded sweatpants and coat my lashes with expired mascara in the passenger seat of my mom’s car.

In my first few years as a makeup artist, I’d show up to the Macy’s beauty department in a boring outfit: black T-shirt, black jeans, black booties, no accessories (yikes), with my hair slicked back in a pony because I’d only wake up with enough time to prioritize my makeup.

In my mid-twenties, things started to slowly shift. Maybe it had something to do with the passion I had for my job at the time. I was working at MAC Cosmetics and desperately wanted a promotion. I think it was also around the time when ’s Girlboss came out. I devoured the book in a few days. I knew I wanted to live an extraordinary life, so I had to step things up.

So I started with things like making the bed and tidying up my bedroom every day. I noticed how much more cozy and relaxed I felt at night before bed. I started planning my outfits for work with intention and leaving extra time to curl my hair. My colleagues and supervisors responded to me differently, and I went on to receive three promotions in three years.

Making the bed and getting fully dressed for work are hardly accomplishments, but for someone who grew up kinda lazy, it was a big deal for me. And these days, the thought of passing out in my makeup or forgetting to take my vitamins gives me goosebumps.

I’ve picked up and put down so many habits, routines, and products over the last few years without committing for long enough to see any real benefit. Some of the things I’ve inconsistently tried include gua sha, dry brushing, oil pulling, morning pages, meditation, walking 10,000 steps a day, wrinkle patches, drinking enough water, breathwork, acupressure mats, hair oiling, jumping on a trampoline, and eating enough protein. You get the point.

But in the midst of trying something new, I’d get distracted like a squirrel and go running toward it in the other direction.

The last few years have been a dark night of the soul. I’ve lost my job, gained weight, gone viral on TikTok, started and closed an online coaching business, worked a few shitty jobs, moved from New York to Florida, and gotten married… just to name a few things. My life has changed in so many ways, and I’ve done more soul-searching than a person needs to do in their entire lifetime just in the last five years.

And sometimes that soul-searching involved habits, products, routines, and practices recommended to me through a viral piece of content. I was so desperate to find the solution to my chaos that I was willing to believe something like drinking more bone broth or learning to pull my tarot cards would fix my life. I’ve collected so many tools and resources over the last five years, but I can’t honestly say I’ve given any of them a fair shot at “working.”

I’m at a point in my life where I feel mostly good day-to-day. I’ve started to lose weight. I’m freelancing as a social media manager, and I’m consistently posting over here in my little corner of Substack. I’ve taken a lot of pressure off myself to live perfectly and overload my days with never-ending habits.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious. Is it possible that if I gave some of these things a significant amount of time to work, they would actually change me? Even though I’m not living my dream life yet, I’m hell-bent on getting there. And I think the level at which a person commits to their self-care and habits can be a direct reflection of how successful they are.

I’m not sure I’ve ever actually reached a New Year’s resolution. In the last few years, I stopped making them altogether. But I’m realizing that we’re doing resolutions all wrong. We can’t control the exact number on the scale or the dollar amount in our checking account. We can only control the habits and routines necessary to get us closer to those goals. So that’s what I’m committing to.

Introducing…

The Hot Girl Protocol, a CHEEKY Substack series.

They say you need 21 days to start a habit, so each month, for at least 21 days, I’ll commit to a new routine, try a new product, or implement a new practice. Then I’ll report back with my no-bullshit review, and ultimately decide if it’s something I’ll stick to for the long haul.

Prior to going to makeup school and becoming a makeup artist, I had a little beauty blog. I only posted a handful of times, but I thought I’d have a career reviewing products and doing makeup tutorials. This was in 2010, before blogging and content creation were considered real work. I was discouraged from pursuing this endeavor by my pretentious SoHo beauty school instructors, but I can’t say I ever stopped wanting to share my recommendations online.

Am I the only one who’s been feeling super nostalgic for beauty magazines lately? I know they still exist, but not in the same way they once did. I sometimes wonder if, in another life – one where I did well in school and didn’t drop out of college – I might have ended up working as a beauty writer for Glamour magazine or something like that. So, selfishly, this will also be a fun way to live out that dream.

It’s important to note that we are living in the age of mass consumerism, influencer culture, and new-age spirituality. Part of the reason I’ve tried and bought so many things is because I was the perfect victim. Being sad, fat, and unemployed can make you desperate. And being desperate helps you rationalize swiping your credit card.

I think we’re all sick of buying shit we don’t need, so I promise to make my reviews as honest as possible. My reviews will not always involve a product. Oftentimes, I’ll be solely adopting a habit. If I do share a product, I may include an affiliate link, which I’ll do my best to disclose every single time.

I’ll be starting in January. Let’s get hotttt.

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PS – The reviews themselves will be free to read, but paying subscribers will have access to exclusive perks: tutorials, video footage, voice notes, photos, and behind-the-scenes content. I’ll also be reserving the chat and comments section for paid subs.

Your first year of a paid subscription is only $40. This promo will end on December 31, so get in now 🩷

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Influencers across TikTok are armchair-experting their way through the current Jaclyn Hill drama. In case you’re not chronically online on TikTok, the TL;DR is that OG beauty influencer Jaclyn Hill posted a video complaining about getting low TikTok views.

According to most comments and many response videos, Jaclyn’s unrelatability plays a major role in her decline. The beauty influencer started YouTube back when she was on food stamps, and now she wears designer clothes, has owned multiple homes, and drives fancy cars.

Some disagree, like this video from livigoldi saying that it’s okay to be unrelatable as long as you advocate for communities you aren’t a part of and speak up politically. It’s a sentiment we’ve heard ad nauseam, right? Use your platform for good and all that.

And while, yeah, I’m sure some people have unfollowed influencers for their unrelatability or their unwillingness to speak out against injustices, I don’t think that’s the majority. I think the reason for Jaclyn Hill’s downfall is much simpler and much less romanticized than we think.

The real reason no one cares about Jaclyn Hill anymore isn’t because she’s not the Mother Teresa of influencers. It’s because she’s hiding who she really is. Deep down, she’s a bad girl cosplaying a good girl, so everything about her content just feels lukewarm.

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She’s always struck me as the kind of girl who says the thing out loud that everyone’s thinking but is too afraid to say. She’s abrasive, loud, and cancel-culture bait. But when you’re afraid of being canceled (again), you begin to self-censor, and that’s boring af.

IMO, TikTok views don’t boil down to relatability or Using Your Platform for Good, whatever that means. It’s about authenticity and what you’re providing your audience, and she’s currently providing a sedative via short-form content. Yawn.

What started as a platform built on educational beauty content quickly devolved into tacky over-consumption, inconsistent posting, and a sales pitch around every corner. We all long for the days when Jaclyn taught us how to perfectly apply our Champagne Pop highlighter. If she isn’t going to bless our feed with educational content, then she sure as hell better be entertaining or inspiring us. Right now, she’s doing none of the above.

She is rich-rich, possibly one of the first influencers to make an insane amount of money online. I was personally introduced to her content through a viral closet tour video she posted years ago on YouTube. It wasn’t relatable to me at the time, and unfortunately, it’s still not. But I found it aspirational. I enjoy that sort of content. Lots of people do. Yes, the financial landscape in the U.S. is difficult right now, but there will always be an audience for closet tours and Sephora hauls.

So no, I don’t buy this unrelatable bullshit. We are living in the era of new-age spirituality. The manifestation girlies are currently defrosting as we lead up to New Year, New Me Vision-Board Season. There is an audience for luxury and out-of-touch influencers.

Because what people really want is honesty. We’re tired of people lying about who they are, even if they’re flawed. We want people who say things with their whole fucking chest. Maybe these are people who unapologetically say controversial things or who genuinely don’t give a fuck about the political landscape, but at least they’re honest about it.

It doesn’t mean it’s right. It doesn’t mean it’s moral. But it’s real, for crying out loud. And in a world where people set up their cameras and pretend to get candid moments, we want real.

Many viral women are unrelatable, sometimes controversial, and flat-out toxic. See Anna Delvey, Caroline Calloway, HRH Collection, Liv Schmidt, and Julia Fox. None of those women pretends to be a good girl. They are viral sensations because they stay true to themselves and take the criticism on the chin.

Jaclyn Hill, baby girl, lean the fuck in. Right now, you’re giving lukewarm, and we’re bored to tears. Give us even more luxury. Give us your controversial, unpopular opinions. Say the shit you know will piss people off, since we know it’s what you really think inside anyway.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you what’s right and what’s wrong. But I am here to say that this idea that we all want people to be relatable, upstanding citizens is a lie. What we really want is authenticity, to know that somebody is telling the truth and being themselves instead of a watered-down, cancel-proof version.

We are romanticizing our influencers in the same way we romanticize politicians. We think we’re going to make the “right people” famous and they’ll change the world.

But energies of fame and celebrity have no morals. Eyeballs are eyeballs. Views are views.

2026 will be the year of pay-walled content. I’ll be posting some exclusive content for paid subscribers! I’ve decided to extend my Black Friday promo until the end of the year. Get your first year of a paid subscription to CHEEKY for only $40.

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“Two pounds down since your last weigh-in.”

I exhaled and felt the pride manifest as a goofy grin across my face. I high-fived my mom and aunt, and we made our way into the meeting.

These days, it would be a crime to take an eighth grader to Weight Watchers. But in the early aughts, it was an absolute sin to be thirteen and weigh more than 110 pounds. It was the age of everything low-fat, Lean Cuisine microwave dinners, and 100-calorie packs. This was when heroin-chic-Nicole-Richie-scary-skinny was in, and everybody was getting stupid thin.

Thankfully, we all eventually came to our senses, and with the rise of social media, more people started talking about eating disorders. Then the Kardashians came on the scene, and it became very cool to be curvy for a bit. Of course, that came with its own societal issues like unattainable hourglass dimensions and dangerous BBLs. I’m not sure what’s worse, starving to death or flying to a third world country to get the fat sucked out of your belly and into your ass?

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And when curvy/body acceptance became the norm, it wasn’t long before the pendulum swung the complete other way… out into another dimension.

We called this period of time “healthy at any size.” Any size? Yes, ANY size. Even if you were 600 pounds? It’s fine! You can be healthy! And diet culture is toxic, didn’t you know? And God forbid you count your calories. You’re an idiot. Don’t like the size of your body? You’re perpetuating diet culture.

And of course it was the thin women, the ones who were never overweight a day in their lives, berating anyone who wanted to fit into smaller pants.

Fast forward to 2025 and I have whiplash. Because everyone around me is emaciated and losing twenty-five pounds a month. And their hair is falling out and they literally look ill, and we’re not allowed to talk about it. We’re not allowed to talk about how absolutely insane and scary it is.

I see the looks of pity when I tell people I’ve only lost thirty-ish pounds via a calorie deficit. And gasp!! It’s taken me a whole year. I can practically hear their thoughts bitch, just go on Ozempic.

But I don’t. Fucking. Want. To.

I’m sorry, but I don’t buy this “I can’t lose weight” bullshit. But I have PCOS, but I tried everything, but my cOrTiSoL, but my gut is inflamed, but but but… spare me, please. Have you stopped to consider that you, too, just have whiplash? That the pressure to be skinny AF is real and it would take so long to lose the weight, it’ll be out of style again?

Is it possible that you are also just so burnt out from the conflicting weight-loss advice over the last twenty years that when a miracle drug came along, you just wanted to… don’t hate me… take the easy way out?

Because after the 2000s low-fat phase came the low-carb, then the no-carb, then the clean eating, then the raw vegan, the non-GMO, the gut-health craze, the intuitive eating, followed by the carnivore diet. Millennials are all walking around doing mental gymnastics over what to have for lunch due to crippling orthorexia.

And before you accuse me of judging you, how could I? How could I judge anyone who is probably just like me, who has been thinking about their weight and food and everything that goes into their body their entire lives?

I don’t blame you, babe, for taking meds as the way to finally get the body that you want. But we’re allowed to talk about it. I’m allowed to not be treated like an idiot. It’s scary how skinny people are right now and how skinny some of these celebrities are right now.

And of course, the fat girls are always gonna be gaslit.

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PS — If this was triggering, I get it. And, truly, I do not judge anyone for being on a GLP-1. I’m not just saying that, I just think things are inching toward scary right now. Love u!

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This was the shit that would come out of my mouth when I was a single twenty-something. In my smug little brain, I thought I was special (I mean, I am special, but that’s irrelevant here). I felt that other girls around me were in relationships because they were basic. “Simpletons” is what a friend of mine called them. But not me. I was just so different and cool. Guys were scared by different and cool. They wanted girls who bake sourdough and shop at Lilly Pulitzer. Those girls don’t have brains like me, right?

Wrong.

Without needing a lobotomy or becoming a Swiftie, I met an amazing man. I was wearing a distressed Led Zeppelin tee and a leather skirt. I was taking shots of tequila and dragged him outside the club while I smoked cigarettes. I married the dude.

Have I become a Simpleton, or was it just my time to meet the right guy?

Lately, there’s been this common sentiment among single women in their 30s that I just can’t quite escape on my TikTok FYP. It’s the idea that if you’re single and everyone else around you is partnered up, then it must be because your standards are so much higher than everyone else’s. It’s because all the other women around you are mindless, boring, easy women who settle for the first guy that looks at them.

And while yeah, I’m sure that’s the case for some people, I can’t help but feel like single women in their 30s are on their way to becoming the next incel. But instead of hating men, they also hate women.

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In a past life, I became a dating coach. And when I say “in a past life,” I actually mean, like… three years ago. Societal conditioning had me believe that I cracked some code. That I did something “right.” I was hopeless in the love department until I wasn’t, and everyone around me commented on what a beautiful relationship I had. So I did what I do best… tried to monetize it! I’d hop on TikTok to teach women how to finally attract the man of their dreams. I believed that if you were single and didn’t want to be, then you had to be doing something wrong.

And sometimes that’s the case. Maybe you’re not putting yourself out there, or your bad-boy “type” is holding you back. Maybe you’re emotionally unavailable, so you’re attracting emotionally unavailable guys.

But then I sat back and really reflected on things, and I couldn’t help but call bullshit on myself. Spoiler alert: I’m no longer a dating coach.

You see, I think that being partnered up is not something that anyone is entitled to. Just like being born with great tits or rich parents, I think finding a good partner is often about luck. Sure, you can increase your chances of finding the right person by raising your standards, honing in on your aesthetic, and putting yourself out there. But sometimes it’s just about being at the right place at the right time.

We’re all about girl power and hyping up other women, until it comes to the area of relationships. Maybe your high school frenemy didn’t settle. Maybe her standards aren’t lower than yours. Maybe, and I’m sorry if I sound super woo-woo here, she was just destined to find success in a relationship, and you incarnated into your meat sack to find success in your career.

Maybe your standards aren’t sOoOoOo high, and you’re not “too intimidating.” Maybe your breath smells or something! Maybe you’re super annoying. Maybe you talk over people or are condescending. But maybe, MOST LIKELY, you’re perfect, and it’s just not your time. You have simply not found your person yet. It’s not that deep.

And no, having a boyfriend is not embarrassing. Don’t even get me started on that one. Relationship statuses are not trends.

So while I didn’t become a Simpleton to find a husband, I did change one tiny thing. I bought some sage, cleansed my whack-ass energy, and stopped being a hater. I started third-wheeling a bit more. I got to know my friends’ partners and became friends with them too. Most of them are like brothers to me. I never missed a moment to express joy for my friends and their happiness.

Unlike famous party girls, growing up in Staten Island didn’t lend itself to ultra-glamorous partying. Nights at New York City’s hottest clubs were far and few between, so I definitely wasn’t rubbing elbows with the Olsen twins or anything like that. Yeah, you’re technically in New York City, but The Island is a hike from Manhattan. You couldn’t pay me enough to hop on the godforsaken ferry in six-inch Jeffrey Campbell knock-offs and a crop top in the winter. So local dives and Guido hotspots were the move until summer, when it was finally time to head “down the shore.”

Being at the Jersey Shore with my girlfriends was better than the MTV show. We spent our first summer living in a house next to D’Jais, which was the superior Jersey Shore club (and where it should’ve been filmed). We’d sing and dance until the bar closed down, followed by late-night mac and cheese bites and a continued dance party at our house. Every Thursday night felt like Christmas because weekends at the shore were from Thursday to Monday. Getting in the car after work, I’d be buzzing with energy in anticipation of what was ahead. But by Monday, the switch would flip. I’d be hangxiety-riddled, replaying every bad thing I did that weekend as I drove up the Garden State Parkway back to my job at the MAC counter.

It wasn’t all dance parties and drunk munchies, you see. While I look back fondly on my twenties, I also remember the bad decisions and dark moments. Like spending half of my night at the bars in a bathroom stall with three girlfriends and a rolled-up dollar bill. Or that one night our creepy neighbor, the fat-fuck DJ, followed me home as I stumbled down the street and proceeded to take advantage of me. I’m horrified by the thousands of drunk texts sent to boys who didn’t love me and the gallons of tears I cried when they’d hit on my friends.

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Being a party girl is equally fun and scary. My core group of girlfriends, who I am still super close with, are fun with a capital F, but I had to be the wildest one of the bunch during those times. Some would dabble in substances, pull all-nighters, and hook up with the occasional sleazy guy. I’d do all that and then some. (I blame it on my daddy issues and a controlling ex-boyfriend.)

I was in Staten Island this month for my cousin’s wedding. My best friend generously offered to host us for the weekend, and I was beyond excited to spend some time lounging, gossiping, and catching up with one of my favorite people. I can’t remember the last time we went out to dinner, so we decided to hit the Guido hotspots town. Not surprisingly, a mini-rager was had. The next night was the highly anticipated ✨ Big Gay Italian Wedding 🌈, where I binge-drank Hugo spritzes while shaking my ass to Gaga and bumming smokes off my stepdad. By the time Sunday morning came, the booze was seeping out of my pores, and I could still taste cigarettes on my tongue despite brushing my teeth. The old but familiar hangxiety flooded in, along with memories of my party-girl past.

Listen, it wasn’t all bad. If it wasn’t for being a party girl, I wouldn’t have met my husband at that boozy brunch and proceeded to have what I thought would be a one-night stand. I wouldn’t have gone on girls’ trips where I made memories and kissed British boys. And I wouldn’t have had some of the deepest heart-to-heart conversations at 4 a.m. around the patio table of a rundown Point Pleasant Beach house.

I always say that people my age, give or take a few years, were robbed of their last few party years during COVID. Like we had one or two more years left, and they were abruptly taken away from us. Between that and then moving to Florida, where my social circle is pretty much nonexistent, I didn’t realize how drastically my lifestyle has changed.

Now I drink alcohol once every other month, I’ve never bought a pack of cigarettes while I’ve lived here, and I’m asleep most nights by 10:30 p.m. I whine from time to time about my lack of social life and level of boredom, but it’s peaceful, it’s healthy, and I like it this way.

But if you ever want to hit me up for a few dirty martinis and Marlboro Menthol Lites… I’m game.

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On the day after Thanksgiving last year, I woke up two pounds heavier than I’d been the day before. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t spiral.

Earlier that week, something just clicked. I knew it was time to finally lose weight, and not like how I’ve lost weight in the past by going on some crash diet, losing ten pounds in two weeks, and instantly gaining back twenty. No, this time I was going to lose it slowly, sustainably, and keep it off for good.

So when Thanksgiving came around, only two days after beginning a new nutrition program, I didn’t vow to “be good,” nor did I binge on everything in sight with the intention of restricting again on Monday. I ate what I really enjoyed, stopped when I was full, said no to leftovers, and went back to my plan the next day.

I continued to enjoy my birthday, Christmas Eve and Day, and New Year’s Eve while still losing weight. It’s been eleven months since then. I’m down twenty-five pounds, and while I’m proud of myself for slowly and naturally losing some weight, I’m ready to kick things up a notch.

We all know that Halloween through New Year’s Day can become a bit of a free-for-all shit show. It’s a delusional time when calories don’t count and somehow eating twenty fun-size candy bars feels better than eating one full-size bar. Every week at the office, there’s another party and a new box of pastries to avoid eye contact with.

By January 1, you’ve eaten so much crap that your pants don’t fit and you have more pimples than a teenager, so you resort to manically vision boarding while listening to biohacking bro podcasts. THIS WILL BE MY YEAR.

We can do better than that, babe.

This is the part where I’m going to ask you to be an adult and use discernment. I shouldn’t have to tell you I’m not a dietitian, doctor, or nutritionist, but in case you need the reminder, here it is: I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. I’m just telling you what’s worked for me and what I’m planning to do in case you want to join me.

Get in, losers. We’re doing 75 Real.

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We’ve all heard of 75 Hard, with its strict and rigid guidelines that most people abandon within the first week. There have been TikTok iterations like 75 Soft and 75 Hotter. But what I’m proposing is a seventy-five-day plan that’s actually realistic and meant to lead you into a lifestyle change. That’s why we’re starting on some random day in November instead of trying to get skinny by summer or waiting until the new year. We’re doing a full-on pattern interrupt because, if you’re anything like me, you’re going insane repeating the same toxic diet-culture bullshit you’ve been stuck in since 2006.

I’m starting on Monday, November 3, and the last day will be January 16, but feel free to start tomorrow or even Thursday. Remember, we’re breaking patterns here.

The Guidelines

Follow a nutrition plan.
This could be a calorie deficit, elimination diet, macro tracking, Mediterranean-style eating, or just logging your food consistently. When I first started, I did the animal-based diet paired with a calorie deficit (don’t @ me, I know Paul Saladino is controversial). I love eating meat, dairy, eggs, and fruit, so I was excited to eat foods I love, and eliminating other foods made it easier to stay in a deficit. Eventually, I transitioned into solely following a calorie deficit. That’s just what worked for me, so do you, girlfriend.

Drink a fuck ton of water.
Like 80–100 oz. I won’t patronize you by telling you to put lemon in it as if that will make it less annoying. It won’t. Just be a good girl and drink the water. It’s good for you.

Take your damn supplements.
Whatever they are, we all need different ones. But I know you have a bottle of magnesium sitting in your cabinet that you keep forgetting to take. Get a cute pill box, set an alarm on your phone, and do what you gotta do to get those bad boys down.

Move your body every damn day.
It doesn’t have to be intense. Dance, do yoga, lift some weights, ask your mom for the old Tae Bo DVDs. Walking is queen. Just move your body for 20–30 minutes a day, minimum.

Enjoy every holiday, event, and occasion… with a game plan.
Choose what you really want and plan in advance when you can. No, you don’t have to be the weirdo microwaving chicken and broccoli in the office kitchen. Have the pizza and baby hotdogs if that’s what you really want. But the shitty store-bought cookies that are just kinda sitting there? Maybe skip those.

Limit alcohol and sugary drinks.
I get it, my family drives me to drink too. But maybe a breathing exercise in the bathroom will do the trick instead? Aim for a 3-4 drinks max at events and holidays, and skip sugary drinks altogether. Now’s the time to let that Diet Coke addiction shine.

Stop doom-scrolling.
You’re not going to find happiness at the bottom of someone else’s Ralph Lauren-inspired Amazon Christmas Decoration Haul. Replace scrolling with something actually relaxing, like journaling, reading, meditating, or watching Christmas movies. Limit scrolling to when you’re on the toilet. Don’t act like you don’t do that. We all do.

Prioritize sleep.
Try to get 7–8 hours every night. Lack of sleep leads to poor decision-making, like texting your ex or eating an entire sleeve of Ritz crackers.

Don’t explain yourself.
You don’t need to tell anyone you’re “on a diet” or “trying to be good.” Just be that bitch. No explanation necessary.

Optional (and slightly controversial): weigh yourself every single day.
If weightloss is not your goal and you tend to fixate, you might want to skip but it’s been weirdly liberating for me. I used to avoid the scale every time I ate “bad.” I didn’t want to face the damage I’d done. Now that I weigh myself daily, I know exactly what foods bloat me, and the scale always balances out after a day or two. Plus, I pay attention to my weekly average, which helps account for hormonal changes throughout the month.

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If you plan to join me, lmk in the comments! And to make things easier, I’ve created a Notion tracker here.

Hey girls (and gays. I assume no one else is reading this, right?),

The thing that I love most about myself is also the thing that I’m most insecure about, and that’s my ability to change my mind. To switch lanes, burn my life down, and rebuild a new one very regularly.

I’m almost 35 and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I know I want to create. I know I don’t want to work a 9–5. I know I want freedom and flexibility and I want to be really fucking rich… eventually. If you give me a life rule, I’m most definitely going to break it. I don’t care that I should own a house by now or have more money in retirement. I don’t care that my resumé doesn’t make any sense or that I don’t have a Real Job.

And yeah, I like this about myself. I like that societal pressure doesn’t usually weigh on me or sway my decisions too much. But lately, I am starting to feel a little weighed down. I wish I were the type of person who could weigh the pros and cons, make decisions based on research, and have a 10-year plan. Shit, I wish I had a six-month plan.

But I need to try. I need to fail. I need to do things that scare me and embarrass me and probably make people in my life talk behind my back or speculate about me. What’s this bitch up to now? I wish I were a little more responsible and wanted a simpler, regular life. But I don’t.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I am a bit of a Disney adult. I moved closer to the Florida parks earlier this summer and dipped my toe into posting Disney content, only to find out that it wasn’t for me. For a while, I thought I had finally found my groove. I was receiving a lot of great feedback, and I was being more consistent in my creative pursuits than I have been in a while. But the last time I went to Epcot, I decided not to film, and I was relieved. And I realized that my happy place (drinking around the World Showcase) should not be accompanied by a fucking tripod.

In one way or another, I’ve been pursuing a career in social media since 2018, and I have nothing to show for it. I’ve gone viral a few times. I’ve made a couple of bucks. But it hasn’t provided the career I thought it would. Social media is making me increasingly anxious. It’s adding an increasing amount of pressure on me, and I’m kind of over it. I’ve posted videos that have had millions of views, and felt empty inside. The only time I feel connected to my purpose or accomplished is when I hit publish on Substack. And I have less than 300 subscribers!

But I’m sad to admit it’s the thing I’ve been giving the least amount of attention to lately. It’s the thing I avoid the most. Which means it’s probably the thing I need the most. If I weren’t a freelance social media manager, I would probably delete the apps altogether. I’m thinking of logging off my personal accounts for a while and seeing if the anxiety and pressure subside.

There’s so much I want to share. There are so many reflections I have about life, but it just doesn’t seem to want to come out right, and that’s okay for now. I’ll sit in this period of reflection.

I’m realizing that the things I need to be focused on right now are cleaning house things. Like actually having a clean and organized home, finally finishing decorating our new apartment. Hunkering down and getting back on my weight loss journey because it’s been stalled for a few months. Getting back into my meditation practice and finally finishing The Artist’s Way. These are the things that matter most right now. I’m just in a season of wanting to feel cozy and grounded and creative.

I always wanted to be kind of famous, and I do think that’s a trauma response. I think people who don’t feel seen or understood as kids look for that sort of attention as adults. And now with social media, anybody can become famous overnight, and I think I might need to let that go.

For now, I’m holding onto the belief that I can still live a creative, flexible, freedom-based life outside of traditional social media.

Love you,

Kristina

PS — Your girl is trying to get her bag while keeping a flexible schedule. If you or anyone you know is looking for a creative virtual assistant or social/content support, I’m currently open to taking on one or two new clients. DM me or email me at kristina@readcheeky.com.

I’ve spent most of this week indoors, only stepping outside for necessities like errands, walks, and yoga. This is the first week since June that I haven’t gone to Disney, and it’s got me thinking that most Americans spend their weeks like this, not leaving their homes for days at a time. It’s like, unless you live in a major city and work in an office, you spend most of your time working from the couch, wearing stained sweatpants and a faded t-shirt you got from a bachelorette party.

In my twenties, I was out four to six nights a week. After work, nearly every night, I’d grab dinner or drinks with friends. But socializing in your mid-thirties is a strange thing. You either have kids and your life revolves around their sleep, school, and activity schedules, or, if you’re like me, you don’t have kids yet but everyone around you does. Social gatherings are less let’s get a drink tonight and more the baby goes to bed by 7:30, so we have to start our bedtime routine at 6:30, which means I’m only free until 6.

My early thirties, COVID, and my move to Florida collided, so for a while I couldn’t pinpoint why my social life turned bland. Pre-pandemic I saw my girlfriends every week, but when we emerged from the depths of Netflix binges and banana bread mayhem, things started to rapidly change. Someone’s been pregnant every year since, and the friend group has grown by eight babies. Moving away didn’t help the situation, but I suspect my social life would’ve changed regardless of distance.

I blame the lack of third spaces and this country’s obsession with kid-centric activities. How I yearn for British pub culture in America. Imagine living in a village where you can pop into the pub on your way home from work, or with your baby to meet your friends for an hour before bedtime. No militaristic planning or Google calendars necessary.

The lack of spontaneity is what scares me the most about becoming a mother one day. The naptimes, the meal planning, the extracurriculars. The thought of spending my weekends on a soccer field or at dance competitions makes me want to off myself. And sleep training? We have to train kids? To sleep?!

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I’m 77 days away from my 35th birthday and can hear my ovaries screaming at me, Bitch, what are you waiting for? To take one more trip. To finally get in shape. To learn to speak Italian. To enjoy the alone time with my husband while I still can. Because I’ve heard it’s all over when a kid comes along.

Or is it? Maybe I’m a victim of motherhood fear mongering, this collective idea that life is over when you have children. That being a mom means putting everything else in your life on hold indefinitely. But when I tune out the noise and consider what motherhood might look like on my terms, it’s not so bad. Traveling the world. Dance parties in the kitchen. Magic Kingdom fireworks on Friday nights.

Joe and I finally having our third musketeer, because propaganda I’m not falling for? Having more than one. And I know this sounds delusional to most people with children. You’ll see when you have kids. But I think the key to life going your way is being delusional.

I don’t do anything by the book now, so why would I start when I have a kid?

Love ya,
Kristina

If you’re not stalking me yet, what are you even doing? Find me on Instagram @kristina_nasti and TikTok @kristina_nasti