Author: Jackie Fogel

My title is both a metaphor and the absolute truth of my experience in life thus far.  Of late, I CAN find my keys almost all of the time… a serious accomplishment if you knew me back in my early twenties.  In addition to being able to find my keys, I now put every appointment and obligation neatly into my iphone…no more notes taken on cocktail napkins and crumpled receipts. Furthermore, I’m married, have a dog, and rent a cute little house in Hollywood with a white picket fence. These days I know I come across to some as a…

My first real introduction to yoga was my sophomore year of college.  My movement (for the actor) teacher taught us a version of a sun salutation, and we began each class with a sun salutation.  We later work-shopped a few of the asanas (or yoga postures), and I learned that I had a pretty decent downward dog.  That was about the extent of it, though.  I remember enjoying it, but I knew very little about it.  That being said, I am grateful for the introduction. After college, I moved to NYC. It was there that a friend of mine took…

First of all, welcome to Los Angeles! It’s a wonderful town.  The ocean, sunshine, palm trees, and yes the smog. First tip: Try not to listen to the haters, and don’t be too quick to judge this new town you’re in.  When I first moved here, I somehow managed to spot a bad facelift or obvious boob job on every corner.  At the time, I thought that everyone got plastic surgery in L.A.  It was a part of what I believed  about L.A. when I first moved here so of course that’s what I saw!  Now that I’ve been in…

Hello friends and strangers! Today I want to talk about being honest with yourself.  I want to talk about this because it’s been at the forefront of my mind.  I’ve been doing quite a bit of self-inventory lately and I’ve discovered that if I am being honest with myself, I’ve been living too much in the past and in the future, and not enough in the present.  I’m not the person I was 10 years ago, a year ago, or even a month ago, and I’m not the person I envision myself to be in a month, a year, or…

I don’t think that the concept of learning something new– is a new concept.  I’m sure we can all intellectually agree that learning is a good thing, right?  However, I can’t say that I had ever really thought about this and what it means to me now until… just recently. As a kid I loved school so it makes sense that as an adult I might still love school.   As a kid, school came easily and I got off on excelling in academics. I didn’t care for homework or tests, but all in all I found school stimulating.  Of course,…

If my acting career and I were in a relationship… it was until recently an abusive one. I think it was a year ago that my then fiancé told me he felt like I was in an abusive relationship with my career and he hated seeing what it was doing to me. And, for a long time I was dismissive of this assessment… clearly he didn’t get it because he isn’t an actor… this is just the type of thing actors have to put up with… there are good days, too…  But the more I started to think about it,…

I was married to my amazing husband, Jeremy Fogel back in November.  Before we got married we had discussed what I would do about my last name, and at that time it was decided that I would legally change my name to Fogel, but I would keep Clifford as my professional name.  I felt lucky!  I could have the best of both worlds.  My husband felt happy that I was taking his name and I got to keep Clifford, the name I had when I decided I wanted to become an actress, as my professional name.  But then I had…

So if you read my blog last month you know that I’ve been sick for the past few months.   And, in my pursuit of getting back to “normal” I’ve been talking health with lots of different people: the coaches at my cross-fit gym, a well informed woman who works in the vitamin section at the West Hollywood Whole Foods, my gynecologist, my chiropractor, an ayurvedic practitoner, my mom who was one the first people to own a wheat grass juicer back in the early 90’s, and even a renowned naturopathic doctor who was listed in Time Magazine’s “Alt List” as one of…

For the past few months, my body has not been cooperating, i.e. I’ve been sick and run-down despite the fact that I live a relatively healthy lifestyle.  And, it’s been frustrating because being sick interferes with my other plans, plans to move my acting career further along, plans that I’m excited about, plans that I’d rather not put on hold any longer… But alas, my body has taken a different course than my mind, and those big plans have been shelved for the time being.  However, while I’ve been putting everything on hold, I’ve had a chance to take a…

Several months ago when Ms. In The Biz was still coming together,  Ms. In the Biz herself, Helenna Santos-Levy asked if I would like to contribute.  My immediate response was “YES!!” followed by uncertainty and dread of the unknown. Blogging  was unchartered territory for me, … one of those… “one of these days” things to do on my endless to do list in life.  And, what to write about??? Helenna, in her infinite wisdom, suggested that I use my blog as an opportunity to reflect on the health and fitness changes that I’ve made over the years.  You see, when…