April 27, 2019 at 11:00AM by CWC A good night’s sleep is a luxury. Because, really, is there anything better than waking up feeling well rested? And on the other side of the mattress coin, is there anything worse than tossing and turning until 4 a.m. and then spending your day in a total zombie fog? Well, I’ve got good news: According to new research, the secret to the luxury of sleep is something everyone can afford (because it costs zero dollars)—all we’ve gotta do is move more. Scientists from the Sleep Research Society conducted a study of 75,074 post-menopausal women, and found that the more physical activity you get during the day, the better you’ll sleep at night. Women who were getting 7.5 to 17.5 hours of activity per week were more likely to sleep more than six hours, and those who were getting more than 7.5 hours a week of activity were 7 to 15 percent less likely to have restless sleep. It’s important to note that while more activity didn’t necessarily equate with more hours of sleep, it did help to improve the quality of those precious hours. So think: six hours of tossing and turning versus six unflinching hours deep into the REM cycle. And just as the hours the women spent moving affected their sleep, so too did the hours they spent sitting. If they were sedentary for more than six hours and sitting for more than 10 hours a day, they were likely to spend less
Category: 2019 Health
8 keto-approved recipes you can make in your Instant Pot
April 27, 2019 at 08:00AM by CWC If you’re in a committed relationship with the ketogenic diet, chances are you’ve been eating a lot of salmon, eggs, and avocado. (Like, a lot.) The trio is tasty and nourishing, yes, but it can also get a little…well, boring. You know what you need to jazz up meal time? Your Instant Pot. There’s a reason why everyone is so obsessed with the kitchen tool: Not only does it cook foods quickly, you can throw essentially anything in there and out comes a delicious meal. (Magic!) If you’re looking for some guidance on what keto-approved ingredients to mix together, consider this your guide. Rounded up here are eight 100-percent ketogenic recipe ideas to get you cooking. Whether you’re looking for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert, this list has you covered. Keep reading for eight keto Instant Pot recipes for every single meal. Photo: Low-Carb Yum 1. Coconut low-carb porridge In your pre-keto life, your go-to breakfast may have been a big bowl of oatmeal. Thankfully, going low-carb doesn’t require giving up hot cereal—you just have to be game for a few tweaks. This high-fiber recipe from Low-Carb Yum is made with shredded coconut, coconut flour, coconut milk, water, psyllium husk, and a few key warming spices. Ten minutes in the Instant Pot transforms the ingredients into a hot breakfast that will hit the spot. Photo: The Keto Queens 2. Instant Pot keto cinnamon rolls Today is a special day because it’s the day
Ok, this time we really did find the hardest oblique workout in the history of oblique workouts
April 27, 2019 at 07:00AM by CWC Give me a series of arm, ab, or ass sculpting moves, and nine times out of ten I’ll be able to (very sweatily) power my way through them. But the minute a trainer mentions that it’s time to target obliques, I am out. IMHO, there is no muscle group more difficult to sculpt—less than 15 seconds into a side plank, and my entire body is quaking. So if I am going to suffer through the motions of strengthening my obliques, I want to make sure I’m doing it as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to keep the time I have to spend on the moves as minimal as possible. To find out how to get the most bang for my oblique-work buck, I consulted SLT trainer Ian Richardson, who regularly puts my side body through the absolute ringer in his Megaformer classes. “Proper form is essential when it comes to any exercise being effective,” he explains. “Proper form, whether you modify or advance the exercise, will allow the muscle to become stronger, thus reaping the benefit of the exercise itself. When it comes to working your oblique, be cognizant of how your feet are placed, the alignment of the hips in relation to the rest of your body, and the placement and alignment of the elbow and shoulder.” As straight-up awful as oblique exercises can be, Richardson notes that they really are important—and not just for the sake of having those
Educate yourself in the sexiest way with this reading list from 12 leading sexperts
April 27, 2019 at 06:00AM by CWC Finding answers to questions relating to sex and sexuality is easier than ever before. No matter what you’re looking for, there’s likely a sexpert or a podcast or another source to point you in the right direction. There’s even a whole Netflix show, Sex Education, devoted to the filling in the gaps of our knowledge. Still, there’s a (tech-free) resource you’re probably not utilizing to the max that can seriously boost your sex IQ: books. Below, Well+Good’s go-to sex experts and educators share their favorite sex-education books—including buzzy newer releases and tried and true faves alike—that’ll rock your mind. Add the following 12 sexpert-approved reads to your TBR pile and boost your sex IQ in the process. Photo: Getty Images/Tammy Hanratty 1. The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love, by Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton “This was one of the most transformative books for me. I grew up in a community where having many sexual partners, engaging in kinky activities, or having relationships outside of strict monogamy was seen as abnormal, even immoral. The Ethical Slut changed my entire concept about what sex and relationships can be. It validated my sexual desires, encouraged exploration, and valued sex with consent and respect. Its explanation and understanding of jealousy also reframed my perception of the feeling. I would highly recommend this read for anyone who feels outside the sexual norm (whatever that
This derm-office facial taught me everything about how to apply my skin care
April 27, 2019 at 04:00AM by CWC Among the beauty myths that I’ve come to believe, I’ve always surmised that the only way to get your skin to really drink up beauty ingredients extra well is via a microneedling treatment. This works by puncturing your complexion with uber-tiny micro-tears that stimulate your skin’s collagen and also help products to sink in better. And yet—I’ve heard lots of beauty brand founders and dermatologists tell me that you need to be patting and pressing products into your skin for better absorption, too. So I’m on a quest to find out how fingertip pressure—of all things—can help ingredients get into your epidermis. My first stop? To Dennis Gross, MD‘s dermatology practice on New York’s upper east side, where he’s offering a brand new technology via his “Infusion Facial.” It literally uses a new pressured jet stream technology to infuse potent ingredients into the complexion. After my esthetician cleanses my skin, she uses this machine, which has a pen-like stick that blows into my face. She goes over section of my face various times, each one infusing a different active ingredient into my skin. “This is a new amazing technology,” Dr. Gross gushed to me afterwards. “I always say that facials are not an anti-aging treatment, if you really think about it. For something to be anti-aging, it has to do something—like build collagen, help with redness, give internal hydration, or plump the skin.” His take? Regular facials will not do these things. “Conventional
Move over, almonds: Pistachios are pretty damn good for you, too
April 26, 2019 at 04:00PM by CWC When it comes to nuts, almonds and cashews seem to be getting all of the attention. They’re now transcended their whole nut form to take the shape of milks, butters, and in the case of almonds specifically, flour. But there’s one healthy nut that has been left out of this golden age: pistachios. “Pistachios are super healthy,” says Laura Ligos, RD, CSSD, founder of The Sassy Dietitian in Albany, New York. “They contain high quality fats in the form of monounsaturated fatty acids, which support heart health and help your body absorb fat-soluble vitamins, like A, D, E, and K.” Now, no one’s saying that you need to break up with your favorite cashew or almond snack. But allow me to make the case for pistachios, which are currently green with envy over the attention their other nut cousins are getting. Are there any particular benefits of pistachios? “One of the best things about pistachios is the volume you can have,” says Ligos. One 1-ounce serving of pistachios translates to about 49 nuts. Comparably, there are 23 almonds or 14 walnut halves per serving. Let’s break down the nutrition info for 49 pistachios: Calories: 159 Protein: 6 grams Fat: 13 grams (2 grams sat fat) Carbs: 8 grams Sodium: 0 milligrams Sugar: 2 grams Fiber: 3 grams Beyond the barebones nutrition facts, here are some of the biggest benefits of pistachios: 1. They have a really high protein count: Compared to other nuts,
Help! My new S.O. hates that my ex is in my old photos on social media
April 26, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC It’s stupid, but it happens: Your current main squeeze is jealous of an ex haunting your old Instagrams, and you refuse to go on a deleting spree. It’s a tale as old as, like, 2005, when you first put your fling in the number-one slot of your Myspace Top 8, probably never considering that doing so might not be well-received within the scope of your next relationship. But despite years spent dating in the digital age, many of us have yet to figure out how to be a regular, life-documenting human being on social media as one relationship gives way to another (and probably another and another). The pressure to delete evidence of having a freaking past is a complicated thing to navigate, and unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. That said, there’s plenty to keep in mind, and one major point to make clear is that keeping an ex in your social-media presence almost certainly has nothing to do with your current partner. Online dating expert Julie Spira points to a few reasons people tend to cling to old photos: “They’re part of their history, and just because the relationship ended doesn’t mean there weren’t happy memories.” Furthermore, they may not take the time or energy to digitally detox,” she says. The reality is, we all—including your jealous partner—have a past, and that’s not something intended to be a personal offense. I, for one, have never been an ex-eraser when it comes to
So you’ve popped that zit and shouldn’t have..now what?
April 26, 2019 at 12:05PM by CWC You are fully aware that you need to stop prodding at that zit, but there it is, glaring back at you in the mirror, taunting you to do something, anything, to somehow fix the situation. Picking and squeezing at it until something emerges is never the best move—you know this, and yet, you continue. For what simultaneously seems like five hours or maybe five minutes, you’re stuck at the mirror, picking and prodding, with Lady Macbeth’s “out damn spot” monologue echoing in your head. You hate what you’re doing as you’re doing it, and before you realize it, you’ve created a mountain from a molehill, the damage has been done, and it’s too late to go back. “The goal here is obviously to learn from the mistake so that it doesn’t happen again, but also, to make a pimple less noticeable,” says celebrity esthetician Renee Rouleau. “Depending on where the blemish is in its life cycle, you’ll want to treat the infection, and use a product that creates a seal over the texture.” If your pimple is going through its scabby, flaky phase, Rouleau recommends using a product like her Daytime Blemish Gel ($40) to help simultaneously smooth over the texture and keep bacteria at bay, but if you’re in a pinch, a few drops of water and the curve of a spoon can do the trick. “When the skin is crusty and flaky, the cells have dried in that position and are
Neck in knots? “Shoulder flossing” is the surefire way to loosen up
April 26, 2019 at 11:19AM by CWC As much as I love yoga, a good chunk of a vinyasa flow can be pretty uncomfortable. High lunge with a twist? Not easy to hold. Chaturanga is just a glorified, high-vibe push-up. And don’t even get me started on chair pose. So when I found myself in a yoga class at New York’s Sky Ting yoga studio yesterday doing something called “shoulder flossing”—which felt really, really good—I was pleasantly surprised. If you’ve never experienced such a move before, allow me to explain: It involves standing up straight, clasping your hands and turning your palms outwards, then circling your arms behind and over your head, coming through on the other side of your body. And over and over again in both directions. It looks kinda funny and you feel like a monkey or something, but it is a delight to do. “I do it every single day—it’s my go to,” raves Tommy Lucas, my yoga instructor from Sky Ting. “I teach shoulder flossing in every single class. You just clasp your hands, put them over head, and pretend you’re Vogue-ing, sing a song, do anything—put music to it. Go in both directions and get weird with it.” Doing this shoulder-opening technique feels good for a reason: It moves them around a lot, which is necessary considering how much of the day most of us spent hunched over. “It’s great because it moves truly around every possible direction of the shoulder,” says Lucas. “We get pretty
6 low-sugar electrolyte drinks for fast rehydration after everyday workouts
April 26, 2019 at 11:09AM by CWC The first time I was made aware of electrolyte drinks, I was a kid and my parents were pushing Gatorade on me after soccer practice. These days, the neon beverage is still handed out on the sidelines of marathons and plenty of special waters are branded with “extra electrolytes.” “Studies show that most people enter into the gym in a dehydrated state,” says sports nutritionist and The Vitamin Shoppe expert Jacob Wilson, PhD. “When we sweat along with fluids we also lose electrolytes. During vigorous exercise the average person loses one-and-a-half liters of sweat per hour on top of this.” Yes, replenishing your body with fluids high in electrolytes is, in fact, important. But have you noticed that most electrolyte drinks out there tend to be coupled with a heck of a lot of sugar? If you’re working out intensely—running a half marathon or perhaps taking a spin class—that added sugar serves a purpose. “For quick energy, you want rapid digestion and quick blood-sugar spikes—so sugar from refined foods,” trainer-nutritionist Albert Matheny, MS, RD, previously told Well+Good. But for a typical workout, you likely don’t need electrolyte drinks with any added sugar. “Following exercise it is recommended to consume about one to 2 grams of sodium, an essential electrolyte which would range from two-and-a-half to 5 grams of table salt,” Dr. Wilson says. “For the electrolyte potassium, we would recommend 500 to 600 milligrams of potassium which can be found in a cup