You are Here

Year: 2019

2019 Health

Derms sing the praises of collagen-stimulating peptides for plumping up skin

3 min read

April 30, 2019 at 06:00AM by CWC There are some skin-care ingredients that are widely discussed and I can tell you exactly what they are—like vitamin C, for example, which is a skin-brightening antioxidant that comes from many sources. Then there are others that I hear about all the time but couldn’t tell you where on Earth they come from…like peptides. I hear dermatologists and facialists sing the praises of peptides all the time these days, and read beauty product labels that tout the ingredient as an active. Since these mysterious ingredients are on the tips of skin-care fanatics’ tongues, I thought I’d go straight to the source to get a stronger grasp on why people need peptides in their beauty regimen. “Peptides are another class of ingredients,” says Dennis Gross, MD, a board-certified dermatologist and founder of Dennis Gross Skincare.  “There’s vitamin C, hyaluronic acid, retinol, folic acid—and so peptides are just another class of ingredients. They’re more like proteins.” The top item on peptides’ skin-boosting resume? They’re anti-aging. “The thing about peptides is that they can stimulate collagen,” explains Dr. Gross. “The way they do it is because the skin has a receptor for peptides.” If you’re not a dermatologist or a biologist though, you might be thinking.. well, what are receptors? (Same.) Dr. Gross explains them as being a sort of lock within your skin. “Receptors are these things that sit on the outside of a skin cell that the peptide connects to,” he says. “If you think

Read More

2019 Health Yoga

Never heard of a wellness-aid kit? Here’s why you need one

4 min read

April 30, 2019 at 05:01AM by CWC Look, life is full of unexpected moments (like that traffic jam after work and that line at the grocery store). But if there’s any truth throughout the chaos, it’s that snacks—and a thoughtfully packed arsenal of essentials—can help you through any jam. That’s the central idea of a wellness-aid kit, AKA, your carry-around survival pack of essentials to deal with all of the little things life throws at you (including a stalled subway train at rush hour). Kate Von Horn, a Los Angeles-based yoga and meditation instructor who travels at least once a month to lead retreats around the world, knows the power of being prepared. “Being busy is a gift—especially having many moving parts of your life related to a business and career you’re passionate about,” says Van Horn. “That said, when you’re being pulled in many directions, traveling frequently, and connecting with new people all the time, it can feel draining. Accepting we are never really in control is made easier when you take small steps (like building a personal kit) to support yourself in the beautiful chaos.” Building your own kit is personal—so if keeping your nose in a YA romance novel helps you ditch stress, it belongs in your tote. But one thing Van Horn says is an essential? JUSTIN’S® Squeeze Packs (because there’s no such thing as a bad time for nut butter). We hit up Van Horn to find out what else makes her tried-and-tested list. Keep

Read More

2019 Health Diet Keto

This new crop of keto 2.0 products proves we’ve reached peak healthy fat love

7 min read

April 30, 2019 at 04:00AM by CWC Love it or hate it, the buzz around the ketogenic diet has proved to have staying power. Last year, the eating plan dominated the wellness world, bringing the love for healthy fats back in a major way. Food brands of course took notice, brainstorming ways to capitalize on the trend and give consumers what they want. Now, practically any food that was once painful to give up in order to live the keto life—pancakes! potato chips! fruit smoothies!—have now been reformulated to be fully high fat and low carb. All the new innovation has made it easier (and tastier) than ever to go keto, if that’s your thing. I got a first look at some of the newest and most innovative keto products coming out later this year at ExpoWest, a.k.a. the world’s largest natural products convention. The intel is too good for me not to share, so I’m exposing it all here. Keep reading to see what to expect in the growing keto space. Keto for breakfast Breakfast is notoriously not keto-friendly because it tends to be, well, pretty carby. Pastries of any kind, cereals, oatmeal, toast, and fruit-based smoothies are all ketogenic no-nos. Yet there’s a limit to how many days in a row someone can look forward to eating eggs—which is why perhaps the biggest keto miracle of the year is Birch Benders’ new keto pancake mix and syrup. “It wasn’t easy to make a keto pancake,” says Lizzi Ackerman, the

Read More

2019 Health

Surprise! I actually reduced my food waste by using meal delivery kits

6 min read

April 30, 2019 at 03:00AM by CWC People commonly assume that meal kits (you know, the services that deliver all the ingredients you’ll need to make dinner right to your doorstep) have a disproportionately negative impact on the environment. Everything is pre-packaged in plastic, and then the food is shipped to your doorstep? That sounds like quite the carbon footprint; meal kit food waste must be off the charts! Well, what if I told you that a new study in the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling found that the carbon footprint of home-delivered meal kits like Blue Apron is 33 percent smaller than grocery meals? You’d be surprised, right? Apparently, the meal kits contribute to less food waste—a finding that didn’t surprise me in the slightest. Why? Because I’ve experienced that reality first-hand. Since January, my fiancé and I have tried three different meal kit services: Hello Fresh, Home Chef, and SunBasket. (We had briefly dabbled with Blue Apron back in 2015, but we weren’t that into it, and so we decided to skip it in our new experiment.) We had been in a rut with food. We both have busy, intense jobs with long hours, which made planning meals and cooking for ourselves a bit challenging. More often than not, we’d just resort to takeout or eat microwave dinners. (I know, I know.) We were looking for something to take the thinking out of meal preparation. With a meal kit, the recipes are chosen a week in advance, the

Read More

2019 Health EDITORSPICK Fashion

It took doctors 20 years to diagnose my Lyme disease—here’s what I wish I knew during that time

11 min read

April 30, 2019 at 02:00AM by CWC I used to brag that I was the only person in my family who’d never had Lyme disease. Turns out I should have been bragging that I was the only one never diagnosed with it. Because I had Lyme disease, alright. Symptoms like pain and tingling, digestive problems, anxiety and fatigue followed me like a shadow for 20 years before I got a proper diagnosis. Even as a 5-year-old, I knew something wasn’t right. After spending the summer romping around in my favorite brambly woods, I experienced leg pain that left me unable to walk. My pediatrician tested me for a number of ailments, including Lyme, and all the results came back negative.The diagnosis was growing pains, and two weeks later, as suddenly as it arrived, the pain disappeared as suddenly as it arrived. Throughout the next two decades, I’d undergo this same song and dance a handful more times: blood test, negative results, rinse, repeat. When I was 9, something was wrong again, and I visited specialists for chronic headaches, vertigo, and motion sickness only to be told, again, that nothing’s wrong. By the time I was a teenager, regularly sick to my stomach, anxious, and weighed down by chronic fatigue, I was lost the zeal to advocate for myself to a doctor who considered me a hypochondriac. Whatever was wrong with me could only be my fault, and it was my job to muscle through it. And since no one outside

Read More

1 … 504 505 506 507 508 … 789