#22: Vivian Xu
"I was frenziedly fermenting, soaking, sprouting, and dehydrating ingredients I had ordered on Farmmatch.com."
Vivian is a woman in STEM and designer at Lariat. We met in a friend’s car 6 years ago.
At a glance…
Location: NYC
Big 3: Capricorn/Capricorn/Pisces
What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
Lucidity, agility, and the ability to feel connected to the world. I'd like to feel more in touch with my body and become more aware of my immediate surroundings. When I'm stuck in my head, it often feels like I am letting life whizz past. One time, I stubbed my toe and it wasn't until an hour later that I noticed because there were bloody tracks all over my house...
How would you describe your current lifestyle?
I'm stuck in a painful cycle of reinforcing my nerd neck when working my remote tech job, accumulating inflammation, and getting massages at Fishion Therapy Center. Do you scrunch your toes? My toes are often scrunched up and it makes so much sense that the toes map to the neck. I have lots of left neck tension. When I got gua sha last month, purple marks signifying metabolic waste buildup were only on my left neck, as opposed to more mild red ones on my right side. Last night, I had a dream that my toenails became deeply ridged like a peach from all the scrunching.
One time when I was getting reflexology, I yelped in pain when she was working on an area under my big toe. She told me it was my thyroid. I have hypothyroidism :( Feet are the window to the body and soul.
How do you start and end your days?
I think I'm only ritualistic about sleep hygiene... Maybe because a lot seems to happen when my eyes are closed — I walk, talk, laugh, punch, kick, and explain while asleep. I also have a lot of vivid dreams and ascribe too much meaning to them. Since I was little, I've believed that dreaming is almost as important as IRL because we wake up having processed those emotions and experiences.
I've tyrannically banned screen usage in the bedroom and instead use one of those manual sunrise alarms that gently wake you up with inspiring sounds like those of Tibetan singing bowls and birds. I use a red-colored nightlight and reading light that claim to be free from any blue light wavelengths. This summer, I got a bamboo mahjong mat to help with staying cool at night. I dream journal after waking up. I take 1/2 tsp of fermented cod liver and butter oil gel during the day.
Was there a specific moment in life that made you change your approach to health, or become more conscious generally?
Around five years ago, I totally had a health eureka moment. Prior to that, I had been vegan for five years. Since high school, I had not been able to get my period naturally and had to resort to using progesterone therapy and birth control to induce it. This disgusted my mom, but at this point we were both pretty passive about my health issues since we just had moved to the US and the doctors told us it was fine to regulate with medication until I wanted to have children. I was so bloated and lethargic. When I started birth control, I suddenly developed 4 random patches of ringworm on my body and fungal acne on my face. Ironically, this was a time when I had a pantry stocked full of adaptogens and tinctures.
My friend referred me to a TCM clinic back in Shanghai and I got prescribed a bundle of herbs to drink for a couple of months. My period magically came back. During this time, I also did a lot of research so that I could regulate my hormones through lifestyle once the herbs ran out. I slowly re-built my own definition of health, which was so far from the orthodox definition I originally believed in. With the same conviction that I told my mom in ninth grade “Free People is and will always be my quintessential style,” I told myself a decade ago that “eating a bunch of oranges, apples, plums, and bananas after spinning class is the quintessence of health.” So funny.
Where do you look to for advice?
I grew up in China with doctor and health nut grandparents, so I default to TCM simply because it's the holistic paradigm I'm used to. It is not informed by any lobbying industries, nor is it as sequestered as Western medicine.
When the pandemic broke out, I found myself in the world of the Weston A. Price Foundation, which I had learned about during a food sociology course in college. I read the Nourishing Traditions cookbook cover to cover — there are so many embedded tidbits of knowledge in it that aren't exclusively recipes. I was frenziedly fermenting, soaking, sprouting, and dehydrating ingredients I had ordered on Farmmatch.com. Because it was early pandemic, I had time to do things like make pemmican from dehydrated ground bison, dried fruit, and beef tallow. I don't do that anymore :(
My quirky grandpa is also inspo. He always tells this tall tale of him almost having been Bill Clinton's tai chi master at the “Mind, Body, and Spirit Institute,” but ultimately rescinding his mentorship because Clinton would have needed a bodyguard present. He is a #1 earthing fan. He learned how to play piano at age 70 and still practices everyday.
The dowsing rods woman.
Do you have any guiding principles when it comes to your health?
Yes, old wives' tales. For example, don't go out in the chilly air with wet hair. I've developed many sicknesses this way.
I also try to avoid eating things for the sake of convenience. That means I usually cook 6/7 of the days of the week. I work at my food co-op once every four weeks in order have access to fresh, local produce. I do complain before each shift.
What’s your perfect meal?
I'm imagining a hot, broth-y soup with cooked green leafy vegetables and rice on the side. A golden chicken soup with jujube and herbs or a sparerib soup with corn, daikon, and lotus root would be great. I grew up eating both of these soups and I also make them frequently in the winter and fall!
There also has to be dessert. I usually like lemon ones because I am severe~ lemon FTW.
What advice would you give to your past self?
You have allergies to at least: stone fruit, crab, cinnamon in concentrated doses. No need to avoid…it’s just info.
What advice would you give to the person reading this?
Be yourself, everyone else is taken.
Note: this Q&A was originally published via Mailchimp. Read the full issue here.