#70: Dia Lupo
(@brokebutmoisturized) is a writer and mother with bylines in HuffPost, Betches, and EDM.com. She runs Broke But Moisturized, “a slice-of-life newsletter on beauty and aging, dispatched from American suburbia.” She is bullish on Health Gossip.
Health Gossip with Dia
Cancer/Gemini/Capricorn
New Jersey, USA
What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
Embracing the transcendental possibilities of discipline. Peace-and-love-maxxing. Having the humility to cultivate a “boring” life.
How would you describe your current lifestyle?
Intentional, but still Type B enough to keep me on edge. I’m a new mom with a full-time corporate job that requires me to commute into Philadelphia four days a week; a paid newsletter; and a body and relationships to nurture. It forces me to flex that prioritization muscle, which has been good for me, even when some days feel unmanageable. Too much free time and I embody the proverb, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
My natural state is frenetic, a bit impulsive. Luckily I’m risk averse at this stage of my life, so it’s just a matter of expending that energy productively: lots of movement. Writing in feverish bursts. Tending to my hyperfixation du jour. Spending time with family and friends. If I think too hard about my next move, I go catatonic.
Suburban life suits me, though. I’m a very simple person. I like going to the mall.
How do you start and end your days?
Nursing my baby and drinking 20 oz of water, except at night, it’s Topo Chico. Costco sells cases of the bigger bottles and I drink one or two every day. It allegedly has the highest PFA levels of any carbonated water. Pleasure should feel a little dirty, anyway.
I’m not sanctimonious about how a mother feeds their child, but breastfeeding has been great for my health. It boosts your immune system to protect the baby. Emotionally, the bond is unmatched. The moment she latches, once the weird electric shock wears off, I feel deeply attuned to a kind of universal caretaking. One time in the shower, I expressed some milk into a spider’s web thinking it might enjoy that. That was psychotic of me. The spider’s still around, though, so who knows.
Can you recall a moment when you became more aware of your health, or your relationship to it changed?
Health is snobbery to the Appalachian white trash mind. I grew up in a dive bar in the smallest county in Pennsylvania. My parents smoked cigs in the house. We ate Hot Pockets and Hamburger Helper. I think I was in high school when I watched my mom do a total 180. She dove headfirst into nutrition and exercise and lost 50 pounds, and gained a new community through group fitness. Her awakening was my awakening. My consciousness has been renewed many times since.