February 04, 2020 at 11:00PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TCx91K8lNM] Chickpeas are officially the new cauliflower—here’s why they’re so damn healthy for you. In case you haven’t heard, chickpeas are the cauliflower of 2020. No longer just eaten on top of salads or in plain hummus, the legume has morphed into everything from pasta and chips to vegan ice cream and cookie dough. But of course just because something is popular doesn’t always mean it’s healthy—even in the world of wellness. In the latest episode of Well+Good’s video series You Versus Food, registered dietitian Tracy Lockwood Beckerman, RD, shares the low-down on chickpea benefits, and if they’re really worth adding into more of your meals. (Spoiler alert: This is one trend she’s super into.) One reason why Beckerman loves this legume is because it’s a low-glycemic index food. “That means that the combo of fiber and protein helps slow carb absorption and maintain healthy blood sugar levels,” she says. By promoting even blood sugar levels (instead of spikes and crashes) throughout the day, these types of foods can help maintain energy and mood stability, too. The fiber in chickpeas—which, FYI, contain a whopping 11 grams per cup—offers up other important benefits, too. Beckerman says chickpeas are a heart-healthy food, since they’re rich in soluble fiber (the kind that helps move fatty acids and cholesterol out of the bloodstream). That fiber count makes chickpeas a gut-friendly food, too, since fiber helps keep bulk moving through the digestive tract and can feed your
Day: February 4, 2020
The case for swapping group hangs for workouts—and why research says it’s legit
February 04, 2020 at 08:30PM by CWC In the age of “if you didn’t Instagram your workout, did it really count?” fitness can feel like an all-or-nothing proposition—but it shouldn’t. Together with Michelob ULTRA—the next-level light beer that wants to take the stress out of staying fit—we’re exploring ways to be active that you’ll actually enjoy. Because being healthy doesn’t require fitness to be your whole life, just one (fun) part of it. Not-so-breaking news: Life is busy. Between work, commuting, and the nitty gritty admin of our personal lives, it’s hard enough to make time to squeeze a workout into your jam-packed schedule, let alone spend quality time with your friends. But those social experiences shouldn’t have to take a back seat to life obligations, and science agrees. This 2010 research combined data on 308,000 people across multiple studies and found a strong correlation between deep personal relationships and increased life span, suggesting that spending time with people you trust can actually help you live a longer, healthier life. All those feelings of reward, happiness, and accomplishment science says you can get from friendship? You can get them from working out, too. Something else science agrees on? Working out is also good for your health (big shocker there). Exercise is constantly proven in scientific studies to help you lose weight, keep you healthy, boost your self-esteem, and increase your overall happiness. All those feelings of reward, happiness, and accomplishment science says you can get from friendship? You can get them
Can Finland’s 24-hour workweek *really* solve our burnout problem?
February 04, 2020 at 08:00PM by CWC I have to imagine there are few nine-to-five workers out there who’d oppose having one fewer day in the office per week or two fewer hours in the office per day. In other words, most people probably find the idea of working less to be appealing, whether that looks like a four-day workweek or a six-hour workday. And Finland’s newly appointed millennial prime minister Sanna Marin is aspiring to normalize both, simultaneously, Forbes reports. In her ideal future, Finnish citizens will work 24-hour workweeks so as to be able to spend more time with their loved ones, on their hobbies, and immersed in culture. While theoretically, reallocating nearly 50 percent of working hours to more soul-nourishing pursuits may sound like the antidote to widespread burnout plaguing some populations these days, in practice, would it actually help workers decompress and disconnect? Or would it more likely make little difference in a world where work follows you everywhere and diminished hours on the clock wouldn’t necessarily equate to a lightened up to-do list? It’s complicated: Why reduced hours are so tricky to implement “My guess is the [prime minister’s] thought pertains to workers who have to be at a particular location for a certain amount of time, like manufacturing, or the work is not getting done,” says Jeffrey Stanton, PhD, a data scientist who focuses on job satisfaction and workplace stress. If it is the case—that only those who work in these types of roles
The 7 golden rules of heart-healthy eating, according to cardiologists
February 04, 2020 at 07:30PM by CWC Fact: cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States. Want to live a long time? Protect your heart. Genetic predisposition certainly plays a role, but there’s a lot in your control—including what you put on your plate. What you eat is directly linked to your heart health. We asked three cardiologists to share the heart-healthy eating recommendations they give to everyone who walks into their offices. The cardiologist-approved golden rules for heart-healthy eating 1. Read the nutrition label This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s so easy to get lured in by clever marketing and flashy packaging that the nutrition label on foods often gets ignored. “Nutrition facts labels contain valuable information needed to help you choose food wisely,” says Aurelio Duran, MD, of the Orlando Health Heart Institute. “Calories, fat, sodium, and protein are some of the information to consider.” Avoid foods high in saturated fat and sodium, which is definitely bad news for your heart, he says. 2. avoid added sugars While you’re eyeing the nutritional label, Dr. Duran says to be conscious of added sugars, including the various pseudonyms for sugar that companies use to deceive consumers. “Added sugars increase risk for diabetes and other heart disease risk factors,” he says. “People who eat large amounts of added sugar—25 percent or more of their calories—have double the chance of dying from heart disease than those who limit their added sugar to less than 10
Training like an athlete boosts more than just your strength—here’s how
February 04, 2020 at 07:00PM by CWC You may notice a subtle change in the workouts that you’re doing in fitness studios these days. Mixed in with your classic strength training and cardio intervals, there’s a high probability you’ll be doing athletic conditioning drills that you’ve only previously seen professional athletes do on ESPN (or that take you back to two-a-days training in high school #tbt). Take a look around your gym, and you’re likely to see that treadmills and ellipticals are making ways for turf, tires, and sleds. “People want to feel more like they’re training like athletes—they want to be more athletic,” says Chase Weber, a Los Angeles-based celebrity trainer. Rather than simply cranking out reps with dumbbells, with athletic training, there’s more of a focus on dynamic movements (think: lateral bounding or ladder drills), which is functional training that helps you to work in multiple planes. When a tennis star or basketball pro does this type of training, you see it in how quickly they can respond on the court, but when you do it IRL, you’ll see a host of improvements in day-to-day life that range from improving your reflexes to having more side-to-side mobility. According to Weber, sports-inspired workouts activate your fast-twitch muscle fibers, which help with power and agility. “You learn how to work with your body in a better motion. Instead of doing linear movements or working straight up and down, athletic training is more dynamic, more nimble, and more mobile, which then plays into
5 gloriously healthy, semi-homemade dinners you can have on the table in under 10 minutes
February 04, 2020 at 06:30PM by CWC Every once in a while, you may get the itch to walk on the wild side of the kitchen and—gasp—prepare a complicated recipe from scratch. You chop all your veggies to one-eighth-inch (aka a French “brunoise”), knead your own pizza dough as sweat beads on your forehead, and accidentally take out an eyebrow as you flambé. (Okay, hopefully not that last part.) Most of the time, though, it makes sense to skip the drama and opt for simple dinner recipes that cut prep time in half—and don’t equate to a HIIT workout. For those nights when you want to keep dinner on the chill side, Tracy Lockwood Beckerman, RD, registered dietitian and host of Well+Good’s You Versus Food, is coming in clutch with five recipes that combine fresh and healthy packaged ingredients for no-mess meals that will be on the table in minutes. From Asian-inspired noodles to riffs on Italian favorites like chicken parm, these are Beckerman’s weeknight go-to’s. They’re so easy to throw together that you don’t even need a formal recipe or instructions. Just combine the ingredients and eat up. 5 simple dinner recipes that make the most out of pre-made ingredients All Graphics: Well+Good Creative Monday: Asian-style veggie noodles Nailing the perfect Asian-inspired sauce can often require using a ton of different ingredients—which doesn’t always translate into weeknight-friendly cooking. Haven’s Kitchen’s lemongrass sauce takes that off your plate—metaphorically-speaking—so you can make the entire dish in minutes. Plus, Beckerman says the water-dense zucchini noodles
Why giving your taste buds something new can be good for you—in more ways than one
February 04, 2020 at 05:49PM by CWC If you’re a creature of habit (guilty), your eating routine is probably down to a scripted science: meal prep, eat, and repeat until you finally decide you’re over it. Trying new foods on the reg? Not necessarily on the menu. There’s a reason why so many people repeat the same rice, chicken, and broccoli combo, though: Routine provides a sense of control and order. And while peace of mind is an obvious “yes please,” getting creative and outside of your comfort zone could do more for you. First, a little science: Research shows that your taste buds send neurochemical signals to your brain communicating sweet, salty, sour, or umami (savory) flavors. Your taste receptors have about 10 different levels of sensitivity, which means we can taste up to 100,000 flavors (yep, there’s a whole wide world out there). At the same time, taste buds can change or diminish as you age—which means that something you previously found too intense, you suddenly might not be able to get enough of. Translation: Now is a good time to try something new. “Exploring new foods and drinks can be beneficial to your health because consuming a wide variety of nutrients from varied sources helps your body function at its best,” Juhy Ali, RD says. Speaking of richer experiences, try starting with something specific like KeVita’s delicious probiotic drinks. From Master Brew Kombucha to Sparkling Probiotic Drink, they come in tons of flavors like Mojita Lime Mint
Some of the best beauty products have notorious scents—here’s why
February 04, 2020 at 05:00PM by CWC Everyone warned me before I first started using the iconic beauty product Biologique Recherche P50 ($67) that it had… a smell. As soon as I swiped the acid toner all over my face, the aroma hit my nose, and I had to remind myself that it’s a holy-grail product for a reason. I kept on slathering and in no time, I too, could see why everyone clamored for it. Now, I associate the smell with a radiant complexion and winding down at nighttime. In the beauty world, a stinky scent is no reason to be deterred, though. P50, SkinMedica TNS Serum ($281), and SkinCeuticals CE Ferulic Serum ($166), for instance, all have scents that are left of center. “I can totally understand why people would shy away from skin-care products that smell unpleasant,” says Shirley Chi, MD, a Los Angeles-based dermatologist. “But that being said, there are many reasons to work through this. Some of the most effective anti-aging treatments out there smell.” “Some of the most effective anti-aging treatments out there smell.” —Dr. Shirley Chi Angelina Umansky, star facialist and founder of Spa Radiance, agrees, noting that her spa’s top sellers are these three aforementioned beauty products “because they perform,” she tells me. “These brands formulate to give consumers results. Period.” And results are what you get when you slather on these star beauty products. For example, that TNS Serum? It’s got human-growth factor in it. “SkinMedica TNS is one of the
A physical therapist and a stretching expert explain how to tell if you’re overstretching
February 04, 2020 at 03:00PM by CWC Hot yoga is perfect when you’re feeling tight, because the heat loosens your muscles, allowing you to go a bit deeper. But sometimes, you can feel a little too open. I’ve definitely had moments where I popped into a pose way too easily, and felt like I was overstretching my muscle to a length it had no business going. Co-founder of Body Evolved and physical therapist Corinne Croce, DPT, explains that the issue here is lack of control, which is something that can happen with or without heat. “Flexibility is the available length a tissue has and can be moved into,” says Croce. “Mobility is the ability to move and control the tissue throughout a range of motion. Without control over ones available range of motion/tissue length, injury risk is higher.” Austin Martinez, the director of education at StretchLab, says strength is the key to maintaining control. “There’s no point just being as flexible as s pretzel or a gymnast if you don’t have the proper strength to protect your body within that range of motion,” says Martinez, who is also a certified trainer and strength and conditioning specialist. “On the flip side there’s, no point of being, you know, the world’s biggest bodybuilder, if you can’t even put your hands behind your back.” You can be overstretched in a few different ways. “Overstretching typically means the length of the tissue is greater than ones ability to control said length,” she says. “It can also
How to get over trust issues so they don’t sour an old or new relationship
February 04, 2020 at 02:00PM by CWC Trust is like a mirror. Depending on how badly it’s broken, you can fix it to an extent, but you’re always going to at least see cracks in the reflection. Sure, I’m paraphrasing Beyoncé and Lady Gaga from the “Telephone” video here, but the sentiment rings still extremely true. When someone shatters your trust in a relationship that’s new or old, it can really smash your emotional looking glass and make seeing anything clearly a tough challenge to overcome, no matter how diligently you try. And if you notice your fixation on those cracks hurting your current relationship—even if your issues are deeply rooted and have nothing directly to do with your current relationship—you might be wondering how to get over trust issues. But before diving into that huge emotional undertaking of mental and emotional strength, awareness, and work, know that building trust isn’t easy. It requires a lot of time, commitment, and, most importantly, vulnerability. You are holding your heart in your hands, offering it to someone else, and essentially saying, “Here is this gushy, sensitive organ of mine—please don’t mess with it.” So when someone cheats on you or breaks up with you or commits to any other action that leads you to feel like you made a grave mistake in opening up your heart and world, it’s as if the universe is gaslighting you. And that’s tough to get over. “It can be a long road to rebuild that trust,”