Coffee Break: Lorraine Loafer

67 Comments

1. I love these shoes. i have two pairs. One is a similar slightly warmer shade of tan. I bought them before COVID. Everyone talks about fast fashion but i am finding that fashion isn’t moving at all. nothing looks that fresh or new.

   1. I feel like this sometimes, but it feels inevitable with the accelerated trend cycles. I’m 50 and feel like I’ve seen it before for the last 15 years.

   2. I feel this a bit. I’ve been gravitating towards finding the nicest version of things I’ve always loved and moving in that direction (so sweater vests from Palava, a shirt maker on etsy who uses Liberty fabrics, wool pencil skirts.) I think with the internet, nothing is fresh because the whole world exists as an option, and it’s on us to make style choices now instead of being sold inspiration.

   3. I don’t think fast fashion refers to trends moving fast so much as things produced fast and cheap and the toll that takes.

      1. +1 Exactly

      2. +1 – fast fashion specifically carries implications of poorly made garments that don’t last more than a few wears, are mass produced by underpaid people, distributed in a manner that has outsized negative environmental impact, and then it repeats tomorrow.

   4. Same! I have two pairs— one in black, and one in leopard calf hair

2. My teen son is getting to the hungry/eat everything years. He’s already (very) overweight. I’ve tried to talk to him about protein and fiber and exercising, but it falls on deaf ears. Any tips from teen boy moms?

   1. Protein shakes, make sure meals are high protein, and can you swing a personal trainer at your local gym?

      1. I thought protein shakes were for weight gain.

         1. They don’t have to be. I find they curb my appetite if I’m tempted to otherwise snack.

         2. They are for weight gain.

         3. They’re for muscle building, but it only works if you’re actually working out.

         4. Lots of people use them for meal replacement, but no, it’s a nutrient dense option to keep you going, they don’t make you gain weight.

   2. My son is in kindergarten, so a little early for this. Just my own thoughts as a lifelong athlete:

      Exercise isn’t a punishment for being fat or eating junk. Exercise is good for its own sake. Have him find a sport that he likes and be physically active.

      Food is fuel. Underfueling during a growth spurt is a terrible idea, but that means he has to eat well.

      Maybe one solution is that whatever he’s eating that he shouldn’t just isn’t kept in the house. Maybe he can talk to a doctor or a RD about this.

      It is also where athletics help. People who get fit (being able to run, lift, etc.) often naturally gravitate towards less-bad food. Their bodies crave the healthier options to rebuild after a hard workout, and they don’t want to undo all of the hard work they put in.

      1. Yeah, don’t buy unhealthy snacks, even if the other kids and spouse like it. This has to be a family affair. But maybe buy more sandwich stuff so that they can put something substantial together instead of eating chips mindlessly. I have never felt good after eating chips, but I still grab them if they are there.

   3. ha, “talking” to my son doesn’t really do anything.
      things that helped –
      – a trampoline
      – leaning into active stuff with him – he hates to run, but loves to swim, hike, and rock climb
      – is he depressed? Especially if he’s already very overweight, I just can’t imagine a world where educating him is going to lead to meaningful change.

      1. +1 to your second point. Running sucks for many people and making your child run against their will just SCREAMS “you’re fat.” Find stuff that is actually fun to most people – snowboarding, swimming, biking, skateboarding, archery, etc.

      2. I kind of hate the thing, but my very unathletic son has slimmed out a bit since getting one of those VR headsets.

         1. This was kind of us with the trampoline. I was pretty firmly anti-trampoline, but at some point, the risk of my son not actually moving his body every day (and the risk to our relationship when we were trying to FORCE him to move his body) was greater than the risks of injury from a springfree trampoline with a net. He’s out there almost every day now, and has really leaned up. Also, just has less angsty pent up energy.

            So, I guess, add trampoline to the list of things that I said I would never purchase when I was a perfect parent with no children, ha.

   4. You can cook healthy meals and model exercise and plan active vacations but the only thing nagging will do is ruin your positive relationship with him. Ask me how I know.

   5. Don’t buy snacks only stock ingredients, if he wants food he has to make it.

      1. My parents did this when my sister and I hit middle school–they didn’t make a big production out of it, they didn’t tell the family what they were doing or why, they just made the change and we adjusted. It was probably the right move.

      2. I don’t agree with this at all. Nobody has time to cook whenever they need to eat. Stock real foods that can be eaten as snacks or as part of a meal, and stock them in single-serve packages so that he can grab them to take to school or practice instead of eating junk from the vending machine or the gas station. Nuts, cheese sticks, pita + hummus, peanut butter + baby carrots, etc.

         1. Agreed. Didn’t we just have multiple conversations about how stressful people find meal prep? Except for the one wildly anomalous poster who says cooking for a large group is her annual highlight?

            1. There was also the conversation about how kids need to learn executive function, feeding themselves, etc. I’m hardly the adultiest adult on this comment section, but can tell you first hand that keeping a kitchen full of ingredients and learning what to do with them (including preparing extras, snacks, feeding a group) is absolutely a learnable skill.

            2. Teens also need to learn time management, and cooking and cleaning unnecessarily when you are in a hurry and could just grab a cheese stick is not good time management.

      3. So much effort goes into making snack foods something that a subset of people will overeat (up to and including ingredients that are now being found to specifically block our own body’s GLP-1 production).

         It’s totally okay to just opt out.

         1. Your comment is unclear to me – can you please elaborate or re-state it? I’d love to hear more, especially if you are trying to say that certain snack foods have ingredients that are designed to make people overeat those particular snack foods.

            1. Not who you’re replying to, but higly recommend «Ultra processed people» by van Tulleken, and the older «Salt, sugar, fat» by Michael Moss.

            2. Yes, snack foods have ingredients designed to make people eat more of them; a lot of research that goes into this. They don’t phrase it that way of course, but the goal is to produce a food that people will eat in greater quantities and purchase in greater quantities, for whatever reason.

               So I’m not saying they knew at the time that specific additives block GLP1 specifically (that is new research coming out now that we understand it all better); they just knew from industry research that the test groups ate more of foods with these ingredients, which is what they want whether it’s from palatability or any other factor! It is a kind of interesting moment right now because it’s being argued that GLP1 med prescribing has already impacted sales of certain types of snack food that people are prone to buy and eat in excess.

         2. I think we’re confusing “snacks as packaged snack foods” and “snacks as food that doesn’t require cooking a meal”. A box of tangerines or a handful of walnuts or a glass of milk can all be “snacks” without being “snack food”

   6. Does he need a better doctor? It sounds like this has been going on a while. I had insulin resistance and needed to eat very differently.

      1. +1. He may also be on the verge of a growth spurt where he shoots up and leans out (happened to me around age 13).

         1. Yes. Some kids grow out and then up, and some grow up and then fill out.

         2. yes i am thinking of all of the boys i went to school with who the summer after 8th grade grew in length a lot

         3. At 12 I went from 4’10 chunky 115 lbs to 5’6 lean 115 lbs, it was magic.

         4. Right! I think the point isn’t feeding him less, it’s feeding him better–yogurt, cheeses, steak, roasted chicken, potatoes–real food so he has less affection for fake food.

            1. Maybe even a veggie or fruit.

            2. Don’t become the food police, though. It’s miserable for everyone involved and doesn’t work anyway.

            3. Being the food police is miserable, but it’s often the case that the people who buy the groceries can make better choices for what’s available in the house. Plenty of grown adults still make sure that what’s around when we get hungry at home is something we’ll eat a reasonable amount of because it’s nutrition dense and satiating. It works fine.

         5. this is what we’ve been hoping for for years (and his doctor has too I think)… so I really feel like if I can encourage him to make good choices during these hungry growing years then he can even out.

            1. I hope so. I hope his doctor also knows his liver numbers though.

   7. Sign him up for an active hobby or sport. We required each of our kids to do one active thing for at least an hour three times a week all the way through high school. It doesn’t have to be a traditional sport. One picked rock climbing after she “retired” from competitive gymnastics.

      1. the problem we’ve found is that even hobby sports seem to think they deserve 9 hours a week of a kids’ time — he’s already giving that to after school activities and more so he doesn’t have time to go to 2 hours of rowing on top of that daily.

         1. This is true of ball sports but there should be a lot of options for non-ball sports you can do as a true hobby. In my area, rock climbing, ninja gym, archery, swim, dance, gymnastics, etc. are all available once a week for this age group. And I live in a pretty small town – I’m sure major metro areas have more choice.

            1. The The Big Lie

   8. Don’t call it exercise! That is the most unhelpful lecture. Find stuff that gets him out having fun: throwing axes, bowling, archery, ping pong? Anything that gets him moving will be great.

   9. If he’s clinically obese, have his pediatrician refer him to a dietitian or sports nutritionist, whichever is less damaging to his ego. You, as his mother, are not going to be the adult who gets through to him at this point.

      1. genuinely asking – have you personally worked with a nutritionist who helped you? i feel like they can educate you but beyond that it’s the equivalent of reading an article in Self. (I’ve been to one and he’s been to one with me.)

         1. Do you mean a nutritionist or a registered dietitian? I got some helpful tips from the RD I saw (like about timing meals and when to eat various things). But I do think it can be a “okay we tried that, now what’s next” sort of thing. People always have reasons for eating the way we do, and sometimes that is itself a symptom of something else a doctor needs to handle.

         2. Yes, I’ve worked with both a registered dietitian and sports nutritionist who were excellent at different points in my life.

   10. Lecturing never works for teens (or anyone really). Lead by example; buy the healthy food and eat it yourself, do physical activities (both for yourself and as a family). If those would be big dramatic changes, maybe slow it down and make a slower and more sustainable change. I also recommend looking at the Health at Every Size movement if your son had always been husky/overweight/fat. Judgements create shame, which triggers avoidance.

   11. This is a conversation with your pediatrician more than your an internet question. If you have access to a children’s hospital with a specialized pediatric obesity program, that is best too (healthy weight loss during high growth adolescent years is certainly possible but requires expert support)

       1. +1 that if his weight is a concern medically to his pediatrician, then talk with the pediatrician about next steps (referral to an RD, a children’s hospital pediatric obesity program, etc.)

       2. +1

          We had the opposite problem, OP, and getting help from pediatric specialists was absolutely essential to turning things around. Nobody expects their 14-year-old to be labeled as “failure to thrive.” It was a scary time. The internet was not super helpful.

          I’m telling you this because it is so very easy for us to blame ourselves for food issues and weight issues, and it’s just not that simple or straightforward. If you haven’t been there, kindly shut it.

   12. Change the snacks with the goal to eliminate them entirely. I also walk a lot with my kids. They easily walk 3 miles a day mid week and 5-6 miles each day at the weekend.

       Snacks in my home are carrot chips, Greek yogurt (plain), fruit (banana, apples, berries, dried mango), smoked salmon and proper cheese they need to wrestle with the packaging to open (Brie, Stilton & sharp cheddar).

       When they have to work to put the snack together they will stop snacking so much. Also no starbucks. Those drinks are more calorific than most realize.

       1. I find snacks you need to open (peeling an orange, scooping yogurt out of a larger container, slicing cheese) are eaten more mindfully than things you just grab.

       2. Can I move to your house and snack on smoked salmon and brie? Sounds divine.

   13. This was my son last year. He’s still in the eat/sleep phase but I’ve found that the chubbiness last year quickly goes away during his growth spurt, then the cycle repeats. He walks to the school bus every day, does at bit of school sport (not much) and eats well. He would eat pizza, pasta and bread for every meal if allowed, but we have normal fast food easily available (boiled eggs, avocado, nuts, seeds, fruit, carrot sticks etc) so that it’s easy for him to eat decently if he’s snacking.

       Super important to drink enough too, and to go to bed on time. Easier said than done!

3. I like the look of these loafers but find the brand uncomfortable for my feet. Anyone have recommendations for something similar at a similar price point?

   1. Naturalizer loafers are very comfortable.

   2. Talbots usually has something very similar and can be had for less when on sale. I’ve always found their shoes comfy, but everyone’s feet are different.

   3. i would look at macys or nordstroms, they let you sort by brand and type of shoe. hard to recommend for different feet,,,,,

   4. What shape are your feet? If duck, Cole Haan or Dansko.

   5. I like this brand but find Cole Haan very uncomfortable. So maybe try CH?

   6. I have a similar pair from Clarks that I have been happy with.

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