The Man Behind The Camera
Other than my dear friend Liz, the remainder of the MCLV Personal Style photographs are taken by the current boyfriend Sean. He has written a guest post for us in the past and trained me in the ways of CrossFit, but has never been featured on the blog for his fashion prowess before.
That is, until today.
True, he spends the majority of his waking hours in workout clothes, but when he does deign to put on street clothes, he has a great personal style.
When we initially met in our senior year of high school he was extremely preppy – Polo shirts, button downs, and wool or cashmere collared coats. But over the years his style relaxed, becoming more and more low-key, and when we got back together two years ago he wore very little other than t-shirts, jeans, and flip-flops.
But miracle of miracles, over the last two years his sense of style has begun evolving again. And more than that, he has actually started to enjoy clothes and fashion more, like he did when he was younger. Now he shops online, asks for advice on putting together pieces in his wardrobe & picking things out, and genuinely has an interest in shopping and expanding his wardrobe.
These days he prefers to keep his daily look low-key and minimal, and primarily wears black, white, and navy. Jeans are usually his preference and he traditionally pairs them with a Lacoste Pima V-Neck, a button down, or a Polo shirt. As for brands, we’ve found that the shirts that fit him best are Express for Men and Lacoste, they both have slim fit versions that work well for his frame.
When it comes to shoes he’s tried virtually everything, from boots to slip-ons to boat shoes to loafers. He loves slip ons and its all I can do to make sure he doesn’t wear his rubber soled slippers out of the house. The most worn pair of shoes he has are his tan, lace-up Banana Republic loafers, but he did just get a new pair of slip-on boat shoes that are very versatile.
They can even be worn with pink!
And a style post wouldn’t be complete without mentioned his creativity, he picked a kick-ass Halloween costume last year that suited him quite well despite being an incredibly last-minute choice – The Travelocity Gnome! 🙂
In the mood for more? Check out my Let’s Hear It For The Boys post filled with tips, ideas, and inspiration for putting together a complete and stylish wardrobe.
What do you like most on the men in your life? Are there certain styles that appeal to you more than others? When it comes to mens accessories, do you think less is more?
Health & Your Relationship
When I read Rachel Wilkerson’s How CrossFit Has Helped My Relationship it got me thinking.
A lot.
Rachel said that by encouraging her boyfriend to take up a healthy hobby – in this instance CrossFit – their relationship ultimately benefited despite the fact that in the end it actually meant less alone time. I have no trouble at all believing this. In my experience, if there’s a substantial disconnect between how much two people value health & nutrition in their lives it can potentially lead to problems down the road.
I don’t believe that you need have all the same views, do the same workouts, or approach food the same way. But if only one person takes their health seriously and devotes time, energy, and effort to maintaining said health, the other individual may become resentful, jealous, threatened etc. Or things can go the other way around and as one person becomes healthier and more fit they begin to pity, worry about, and/or neglect their partner.
Take a look at this piece by the Primal Parent entitled When Good Health Destroys a Marriage. It’s written from the perspective of a woman who changed her diet and was feeling her best, while her husband was… Not. Ultimately their marriage couldn’t survive because she has a strong, well-tested belief in the importance of good health & nutrition, and refused to settle for someone who couldn’t – or wouldn’t – put forth the effort to investigate improving his own health.
{Kyle & Rochelle – The authors of Eat Drink Paleo}
If you can find someone who shares your views, that’s fantastic – like my friend Kyle & his lady-love who write the oh-so-entertaining Eat. Drink. Paleo – Two foodies who fell in love and are now transitioning to a paleo lifestyle. But at a minimum you need to show an interest in the other’s routines and goals, and be able to talk about and share your successes and failures.
Take my relationship for example, on the surface my boyfriend and I have virtually opposite views on all facets of fitness and nutrition:
- He eats an incredibly regimented high protein, low carb diet composed primarily of chicken, eggs, and vegetables which he tracks on a daily basis. I eat a mostly vegan, gluten-free, high raw diet.
- He does intermittent fasting – meaning that he doesn’t eat until early afternoon & only eats three meals a day. While I eat at least every two hours after my 4am wakeup time.
- He follows a lifting schedule & does CrossFit-style workouts that leave him wheezing, covered in bruises, scrapes, and rope burns, and stress his nervous system for days. I run, do circuit workouts & go to Pilates, martial arts & boxing classes.
- His ultimate goal with his work outs and eating regime is to retain & increase strength while dropping body fat. I’m only interested in being healthy and not having daily back pain.
Pretty different, right? But the truth is that those are fairly superficial differences – underneath it all we’re both incredibly passionate about health and fitness, and that’s what really matters.
We love going for walks & hikes, cooking, eating, going to the farmer’s market, and planning our meals and workouts for the week, and most of all, we love debating our positions on these topics. If you looked through our emails, Facebook messages, Tweets, and text logs you’d find photos of our meals, new recipes to try, books to add to our Amazon basket, articles to read, great blogs we’ve found, documentaries & movies to add to our Netflix queue, and questions about what we’ve eaten, what workouts we’ve done, and how far we’ve walked that day.
Every day.
{Hers vs His}
It doesn’t matter that we’re not spending our days doing the same things, what matters is that we both approach our lives with a profound respect for our bodies, what we put them through, and how we fuel them. Yes, we debate topics like veganism versus paleo eating, different types of fat, which oils to use in cooking, fasting, detox programs & cleanses, and strength training. Yes, sometimes I question his sanity when he comes home with his hands shredded from doing hundreds of pull-ups or muscle-ups or toes-to-bars. But mostly, we just talk about it.
Our shared passion for health and nutrition was not what brought us together 12 years ago, nor is it what has kept up together, but it does give us something to talk about and share every single day. And because it’s important to us both, we appreciate the other’s routines and ambitions, even though they’re different.
Like Rachel said:
One more lovely side effect of the fitness revival: Eric and I are back to bonding through nerdy, fitness-related conversations. (We’re also bonding over our sore muscles.) I’m really enjoying little things like talking about our workouts and progress, discussing an article about diet or exercise, trying new healthy foods together, or going shoe shopping for new athletic shoes.
You don’t need to be 100% in sync with your partner, you just need to be with someone who has the same appreciation and respect for health and fitness as you do. Added bonus if it becomes something that you can share and bond over!
Moi Contre La Vie 