September 18, 2019 at 12:00AM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd3F29ZBAYc] Confused about which protein bar option is truly healthy? Watch the video to discover the best ones. You may think the alternative pasta aisle is getting crowded, but it’s nothing compared to the protein bar section of the grocery store. From keto-crafted bars to ones that taste like birthday cake, there are endless options of what to stash in your gym bag—which makes choosing one that’s truly good for you a huge challenge. Fortunately registered dietitian Tracy Lockwood Beckerman, RD, reads food labels for fun the way other people read books. In this week’s episode of You Versus Food, she reveals the seven protein bars that get her healthy seal of approval, along with some general tips on what to look for when choosing a bar. “Pay attention to how many servings are in each bar,” Beckerman says, adding that it’s usually one, but it pays to double-check. If your bar is serving as a snack, she says it should be about 30 grams of carbs, 7 grams of protein, and 5 grams of fiber. But if it’s a meal, the protein and fiber numbers need to be higher. With these tips in mind, two of Beckerman’s favorite protein bars are Health Warrior Superfood Bars (made with plant-based protein sources pumpkin seeds or chia) and Perfect Bar (made with nut butter, organic egg powder, and rice powder). Both are made with easily-identifiable ingredients but have the nutrient balance that will lead to
Day: September 17, 2019
Post-makeout beard burn is a bummer—’face lube’ to the rescue!
September 17, 2019 at 11:21PM by CWC I have admitted many things publicly throughout my career as a writer, but perhaps most embarrassing is that I used to date a guy who had a goatee. To my credit, I eventually convinced him to grow a full beard, which is a much better look. (I also taught him to dress well and, ahem, do certain other things well, and then he dumped me—and now he has a new girlfriend.) This is a long way of saying that I prefer men with facial hair; even ill-advised facial hair patterns render a man approximately 50 percent more attractive to me. Yet as anyone who has ever had a makeout session with someone sporting any amount of facial hair knows, it is hot but also it can hurt. (Coincidentally, this is how I would describe my love life overall.) Often you don’t even realize it’s happening until after you get home, when you look in the mirror to see a face that is raw and scratched, but beard burn is real. Oh, and then of course you’ll probably break out because life is—and I cannot stress this enough—not fair. I do not do a 10-step skincare routine every night so some guy can come along and give me beard burn and not text me the next day. This is not my America. Speaking from personal experience, this can happen with any sort of facial hair but it is most common with stubble. Dermatologist Mona
‘Mandala’ yoga deletes all your negative thoughts—these are the 5 best flows on YouTube
September 17, 2019 at 10:37PM by CWC Yoga is near and dear to my heart. It’s the one hour of my day when I can tell my brain to be quiet and actually get it to listen to me. When you’re flowing on your mat, tuning the teacher out for even a second can land you in dancer’s pose instead of downward dog. You have to be hyperaware—especially if the instructor decides to teach a mandala sequence. Last night at a yoga studio in New York City, my instructor kicked off an hourlong vinyasa by explaining that the class would be taught in the mandala style. A mandala is an ornately designed orb with spiritual connotations in both Hinduism and Buddhism. In the style of yoga that borrows from the shape, your body replicates the circular pattern. Meaning, you basically end up revolving around and around your mat. With the right teacher guiding your, mandala sequencing can be fun, dizzying, and exhilarating. Best of all though, it requires so much physical focus that your brain basically wipes all of its current data. (It’s possible! I promise!) Within minutes, you’ll forget about that nail-biting project at work, the fact that you really need to do your laundry, and anything else weighing on your mind. You get swept up in a meditative dance and emerge on the other end like, “What’s a to-do list?” Clear your mind right this minute with 5 mandala yoga flows [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9_6eoHDEy4] 1. Do-it-all 40-minute strength mandala flow
We need to talk about verbal coercion: 56% of women report being pressured into sex the first time
September 17, 2019 at 10:21PM by CWC Nearly two years have passed since actor and activist Alyssa Milano wrote a sentence that would change the conversation around consent. “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet,” she wrote. The blast sparked a wildfire first kindled by social activist Tarana Burke on Myspace back in 2006. But in the home stretch of 2019, consensual sex is still not a guarantee. A study published Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the initial experience of sexual intercourse for 1 in 16 women is rape while 56 percent reported being verbally pressured into having sex the first time. The research, which was culled from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) annual survey asked 13,310 American women about their first sexual experience. When you extrapolate the data to the rest of the American population, you find that more than half of women in the United States are having the most basic part of sex stripped from their first experience. That is, full consent that’s not the result of coercion. “Coercion is a spectrum—there’s a variety of different ways it can look.” —Morgan D. Dewey, communications director of End Rape on Campus “Coercion is a spectrum—there’s a variety of different ways it can look,” explains Morgan D. Dewey, communications director of End Rape on Campus, whose job is to support survivors by educating student populations on consent advocacy and rape prevention. Through the
The 8 best ‘Friends’ moments that double as legitimately helpful wellness tips
September 17, 2019 at 09:22PM by CWC In the 25 years since the September 22, 1994, premiere of Friends on NBC, the sitcom has not only proved to have incredible staying power in pop culture via its characters, its cult-beloved haircuts, and its syndication. Often cited as one of the most-viewed shows on Netflix (though its days available on the platform are numbered), people can’t stop watching over and over and over again. There are surely many reasons for this, including that some of the best Friends moments double as healthy-living tips we can all stand to bookmark. No one’s arguing that many plot lines from those late-’90s/early-aughts episodes don’t hold up in today’s more socially conscious world. (For one example, consider the highly insensitive Fat Monica back-story. Yikes.) And the series couldn’t have been more homogenous from every angle if it tried. If there were ever a reboot, rallying for more authenticity and diversity would be the top priority. But to be clear, celebrating the series doesn’t mean ignoring its pain points—it means acknowledging them, and demanding more of entertainment sources moving forward. It also means appreciating the additions the six Friends have added to our cultural lexicon. So, without further ado, turn on that Rembrandts bop (in your head, where it will no doubt continue playing involuntarily for the next stretch of time) and check out the best Friends moments that double as serious wellness tips. 1. Say it with me: coffee Other than their apartments, the Friends
Get the perfect match every time by following the ‘rule of 3’ when shopping for foundation
September 17, 2019 at 09:20PM by CWC I’m going to level with you: Shopping for foundation isn’t fun. At all. It’s not like swatching with lipstick or eyeshadow, where you get to decorate your arms with various different pigments as you decide on a shade. It’s more just…. tedious, considering your whole mission is basically just to figure which texture/shade/formulation is going to make you look the least like a caked-on Barbie doll. Which is far less exciting than painting the back of your hands with glitter, IMHO. To simplify the process ever so slightly (and make it less, well, horrible), we tapped makeup artist Gabriel De Santino, creator of Gabriel Cosmetics, to fill us in on the “big three” of what you should look for when shopping for foundation. The result? A product that will give you flawless, Instagram-filter worthy skin with every application. Shade: First things first: With foundation, you’re always going to want to make sure you match your shade to your skin. “Always try a sample before you buy a product—test it on several areas of your face if possible,” says De Santino. Keep in mind that different parts of your face are actually different colors—for example, your forehead tends to be much darker than your neck—so decide which you want to match your makeup to and go from there. Skin type: When selecting a formula, skin type is the number one thing to keep in mind. “Depending on whether your skin falls into the dry,
4 dietary habits that benefit your liver health more than any ‘detox’
September 17, 2019 at 09:05PM by CWC In case you’ve forgotten what you learned high school biology, your liver plays an often overlooked role in healthy digestion. A quick refresher: the liver processes nutrients absorbed in the small intestine, and uses them to make the chemicals the body needs to function. With that in mind, you might want to avoid certain foods for the sake of your liver health. “The liver has a variety of functions in the body and one of them is detoxification,” says nurse practitioner Erica Matluck, NP. Your liver detoxifies the body through two phases, she says: the first involves the use of enzymes to turn fat soluble (toxic) compounds (such as hormones, medications, and pesticides) into water soluble ones; and the second involves the binding of protective substances to the toxin. “Both phases help to transform the toxic compound so it can be safely eliminated from the body,” she says. Now you probably already know that excess booze isn’t great for your liver health (and it’s not), but it’s far from the only dietary habit that impacts proper function, according to Matluck and Kristin Kirkpatrick, RD, author of Skinny Liver. You don’t need a ‘detox’ to support liver health, but here’s what you can do 1. Fill up on fruits and vegetables You knew this one was coming, right? “Colorful fruits and vegetables—especially foods like beets and cruciferous options—and legumes all have a high amount of phytonutrients which in turn help to strengthen the liver
New science aims to delay menopause or banish it altogether
September 17, 2019 at 07:57PM by CWC The internet went wild last month over a the news of a new treatment promising to potentially delay menopause for decades. The procedure, currently offered by British IVF clinic ProFam, involves surgically removing, freezing, and later re-implanting a piece of ovarian tissue from a person’s own body to boost their estrogen levels later in life. But as science-fiction as it sounds, the technique isn’t new at all. Known as ovarian grafting, it’s a spin on a decades-old procedure for young women who are undergoing chemo and radiation. Doctors have been cryopreserving (i.e. freezing) and transplanting ovarian tissue for cancer patients since 2000, says Mindy Christianson, M.D., a reproductive endocrinologist and the medical director of the Johns Hopkins Fertility Center, who specializes in preserving the future fertility of young female cancer patients. To date, several hundred babies have been born from this technique, she says. However, ProFam is taking this existing tech and going one step further. “This [clinic] is using it as a sort of hormone therapy to delay menopause,” says Dr. Christianson. While not all experts agree on the potential of this particular procedure to delay menopause (and indeed, it has not been approved in the U.S. for this kind of use case), experts say treatments for the debilitating symptoms of menopause are long overdue. “Menopause is not a good thing for most women. It can bring quite a lot of symptoms that are very unpleasant,” says Norbert Gleicher, M.D., a reproductive endocrinologist
The queen of cleansers answers every question you’ve ever had about washing your face
September 17, 2019 at 07:44PM by CWC At first glance, washing your face seems like the most straightforward step in your skin-care routine. After all, it’s just a quick, 60-second trip to the sink, which is easy enough, right? Not so fast. In a not-at-all scientific Instagram poll we put up last week, 55 percent of respondents said they were confused about cleansing, and we’ve gotta say: us too! To help clear up the confusion around skin-care’s sudsiest step, longtime publicist and beauty smarty-pants Emily Parr decided to start HoliFrog, a new line of four clean cleansers: a balm, a milk, and a gel, and an acid-spiked wash. “Washing your face isn’t the sort of thing you overthink, but we found that there needed to be much more thought put into this category than what was currently being offered,” she says. “Washing your face is a skin-care non-negotiable, and not doing so properly is like eating a salad without washing the leaves.” While Parr saw a lot of innovation in serums, creams, and masks, she felt like the cleansing market was made up of water and surfactants with “a few key ingredients sprinkled in for good measure.” With the right cleanser in hand, skin should feel like a”fresh canvas” on which to apply the rest of your routine. So to turn it from a got-to-do skin-care step into a can’t-wait-to-try-it step, here she answers the most common questions we get from you, our readers. Real talk: Can I just use regular
Yes, 10,000 steps a day *does* matter—but not in the way you think
September 17, 2019 at 06:44PM by CWC Every morning, I grab my sneakers, put on a pair of bike shorts and an oversized sweatshirt, and head out on a walk. It’s something my mom has done for years, and I never understood the hype until recently. After even a quick mile on the trail, my mood is boosted, my stress is gone, I feel more energized, and I’m that much closer to hitting my daily 10,000 steps. And while that standard count does matter, there are other aspects to focus on, too. Having a goal of reaching a minimum of 10,000 steps a day will do your body good, but there are two factors to focus on other than distance: time and speed. In a 2017 study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, researchers analyzed data from nearly 3,400 participants, finding that those who had a faster stepping rate reaped similar health benefits as the people who walked the most steps every day, including a lower BMI and lower waist circumference. To be sure sure, steps are important. However, if you change you consider how fast you’re walking instead of how far you’re walking, you’ll be doing yourself a favor—even if you’re just power-walking for 20 minutes over your lunch break. If you’re not sure where to start, John Schuna Jr., PhD, one of the study authors, told Consumer Reports he recommends going for a minimum of 100 steps per minute, which equates to 2.5 to 3