The Martha Plan
Posted by in Whole LivingIf you’ve watched the Martha Stewart Show this month, you know she’s promoting her Body & Soul Challenge. Living magazine also has a section in it with the 10 important components Martha includes in her daily life.
I have some thoughts about this. First of all, I’ve tried over and over again to sign up for the Body & Soul Challenge emails, but I have not gotten a single one. I get all my other Martha emails with no problem and there is no filter that is catching them. So that’s annoying.
My second gripe with the challenge is that it seems very scattershot. There doesn’t seem to be a cohesive plan somewhere. Each day there is a short little thing on the wholeliving.com site about that day’s focus, but none of this comes off to me as a “challenge”. I guess I was expecting a checklist or something more interactive. I don’t feel like there is an overall plan to follow or daily challenges to meet. Martha makes reference to the challenge on the show, but again, that’s not very cohesive either. I’m feeling a bit frustrated with it all.
That being said, I did very much like the piece in the magazine (pp. 17-20 in January Living). This was something that fit with my life. In fact, just about every single point in it is something that is important to me as well (although that gross looking green juice for #6 is not something I’m interested in!). I too walk for exercise and lift weights. I drink lots of water, work on skin and hair care, make time to relax and keep a very organized calendar. I don’t have a home gym like Martha does, however.
Since I can’t seem to get any real inspiration or guidance from Martha’s Body & Soul challenge, I’m kind of fashioning my own. I’m stepping up the amount of exercise and trying really hard to cut back on calories. We’re eating more fish and veggies. I’m also trying to eat protein in the mornings. I find that if I have a hard boiled egg with breakfast, I don’t get hungry for hours, whereas if I just have cereal, I’m starving by 10 am.
I would love to know if any of you have been able to get the emails for the challenge and if so, what you think of them.
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I kind of feel like Martha felt she had to go along with everyone else in the “It’s January, holidays are over, now let’s diet exercise and lose weight” bandwagon.
My goodness, if I could have her gym though then I would have zero excuse to not exercise!
By the way, I checked out her “Bedford Gray” paint color at Lowes this weekend. This is the color she has painted all of her houses at Bedford…I think her whole kitchen is that color too. I was disappointed in the color b/c she said it matches the bluestone found around these parts and I have it on my fireplace and I’m trying to pick out a color for my living room….the color is beige not gray…anyway, just FYI
I am doing the Body and Soul Challenge, although I find the emails quite annoying and just go straight to her website. I found it very confusing, especially as I couldn’t find what I was supposed to be eating in week one until the first day of the challenge. Someone on there had already lost 10lbs in the first few days, so it is obviously working well for her. I looked forward to the challenge before Christmas and am sticking to it – drinking more water, salad etc.
I enjoyed the Living magazine very much this month, however I turned the page from ‘From My Home to Yours’ to be met with the list of ten things, I wish Martha had written a bit more about a day (say when she is at the studio). I liked her ten things as they are quite adaptable (even if I can’t afford the same face creams).
Pru
Good to know I am not the only one scratching my head over this one. I really was excited about this. She kept mentioning it in December and I thought, wow, this is going to be a terrific on-point sort of approach, just like Martha does for other things.
I agree – it would have been more interesting to hear about her day. I also agree the moisturizers are too expensive. My dermatologist told me not to waste money on expensive moisturizers and just use Cetaphil, so that’s what I do. She also said the best thing you can do is use sunscreen every day, so I do that too.
Much as I love Martha, I’m not a fan of the Body + Soul magazine. It wasn’t one that she created (her company bought the magazine a few years ago and just redesigned it) so maybe that’s why. I love eating healthy foods and cooking in healthy ways, but I find that magazine just too over-the-top. It’s probably also because I’m a man and it’s mostly geared to women’s issues. Anyway, I’m not doing the challenge, nor am I promoting it on my blog. I checked it out briefly, rolled my eyes and moved on. (I’ll stick with “Living” and “Everyday Food” I think.)
Yes, I know what you mean Andrew. One thing that really puzzled me was this whole notion of “detox”. I don’t quite understand what good it does to take a week and stop caffeine, alcohol, sugar, etc if you are just going to turn around and consume it again after that week.
I agree about the “detox” idea. I find it is just silly to eliminate things like caffeine, sugar, alcohol. Just seems pointless to me if you are gonna go ahead and put it into your system again. Plus, life really would be boring and definitely not happy without those things—what about the psyche? Mine really enjoys a cup of Joe in the morning and a glass of wine now and then. I’m just not gonna be a slave or a party to mass marketing of new year’s resolutions every January. I’m tired of getting bombarded with all the cookies and decadent stuff in Nov and Dec and then January it is BOOM no sugar, no fat, no alcohol, detox, get fit, etc. It makes one feel guilty in Nov and Dec and it is SOOOO PREDICTABLE.