December 25, 2019 at 01:00PM by CWC Olive oil is metaphorical liquid gold in terms of health benefits. The amber glue that holds the almighty Mediterranean diet together, healthy food experts love to rave of its heart- and brain- healthy benefits. Given the price of some olive oils, you’d think it’s actual gold, too. While there are plenty of quality options on the shelves that fall between the $15 and $30 range, “trendy” olive oils like Brightland and Fat Gold cost more, at $37 and $44.75, respectively. Some even have price tags in the three digits. Lambda olive oil, for example, is $185 per liter, making it one of the most expensive olive oils in the world. Curious as to if pricer olive oil has more health benefits than the inexpensive store-brand bottles I typically buy, I reached out to olive oil experts and high-end brands themselves to see if there really is a difference. Keep reading for all the intel. Check out the video below to see why a registered dietitian loves olive oil so much: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rof-B24i37s] “In terms of price, buying olive oil is not unlike buying wine” The first person I reached out to for insider olive oil intel was Joseph Profaci, the executive director of the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA). “In terms of price, in many ways, buying olive oil is not unlike buying wine,” he tells me, in that expensive doesn’t always equal best. His general olive oil buying advice is to
Category: Your Healthiest Relationship
Spiritual activist Rachel Ricketts challenges white women to rethink wellness
December 25, 2019 at 12:00PM by CWC Spiritual activist, speaker, and writer Rachel Ricketts doesn’t shy away from painful truths; on the contrary, she provokes them, painfully extracting uncomfortable thoughts and feelings in order to facilitate transformation and healing. Through this work, Ricketts (who is one of Well+Good’s 2020 Changemakers) aims to dismantle the “racist heteropatriarchy,” aka white, cisgender male supremacy. This is no small task, but Ricketts has carved out a meaningful niche for herself by pushing white women to have difficult internal conversations around their role in global systems of oppression. Through Instagram posts, workshops and, eventually, a book she’s currently in the process of writing, Ricketts aims to illuminate the ways in which these systems aren’t just hurting people of color, but are also damaging everyone who participates in them. It’s her belief that true wellness is not possible until the heteropatriarchy ceases to be, and destroying it has, as a result, become her mission. I rang Ricketts up to experience my own painful extraction, one that illuminated not only my own part in hurting people of color as a white woman but also, more broadly, the role wellness plays in committing what she calls “violence” against oppressed populations. Well+Good: How is wellness defined for you? Rachel Ricketts: Wellness to me means peace, vitality, and safety in an emotional, spiritual, psychological, mental, physical way, a full-body, 360, comprehensive state of being in alignment with your highest and best self possible. How does your work fit under that
50 million dead cells give you dull skin—here’s what you need to do to make it shine
December 25, 2019 at 01:00AM by CWC Lately my skin looks like it was forced to sit through a screening of The Irishman. It’s tired, dull, and just generally lacks that glow that normal alive people seem to have. Dull skin is “skin that doesn’t reflect light and feels and looks sluggish,” says Renée Rouleau, celebrity esthetician and founder of her eponymous skincare line. I enlisted both Rouleau and dermatologist Mona Gohara, MD, to explain why dull skin happens and how to fix it. There could be several things making your skin duller than that one date you went on where the guy ordered Chardonnay. One of the main culprits, according to Dr. Gohara, is dead skin. “Dull skin usually comes from dead skin cells that are clinging on for dear life—evict those babies to bring back your glow. We shed 50 million dead skin cells a day, they need an extra nudge or else they will hang out on your body for a long, long, time,” she says. “As the skin ages, everything tends to slow down including cell metabolism, blood circulation, oil production and the natural exfoliating process of the skin,” Rouleau says. Not moisturizing your skin properly or stripping it with harsh products (e.g., sulfate-based soaps and cleansers) can also contribute to a dull complexion, says Dr. Gohara. Lack of blood circulation can also contribute, Rouleau says. “It means that less nutrients and oxygen are being brought to the skin cells causing skin to look dull,” she
‘Pseudo planche’ push-ups strengthen your biceps and shoulders for real
December 25, 2019 at 12:00AM by CWC There’s one general way to do a push-up. You get into a plank position and raise and lower your body until your arms burn. Here’s something cool, though: By simply changing up the placement of your hands, you’ll fire up your muscles in a totally new—and challenging—way. While typical push-ups involve facing your fingers toward your head, pseudo planche push-ups change things up and have them facing your feet. You also situate your hands further down your body. They’re simple tweaks that up the toughness of the exercise and work different areas of your body than the traditional version. “Pseudo planche push-ups are harder than regular push-ups. The orientation of the fingers pointing toward your feet and sitting farther down your torso places a greater demand on your shoulders and biceps, causing them work harder,” says Korey Rowe, trainer at Dogpound in New York City. “The lower placement of the hands also requires more core involvement in order to keep the hips from dipping, making them harder on the core.” When you do these push-ups on a regular basis, Rowe says they can help strengthen your biceps, shoulders, triceps, chest, and deltoids—not to mention your core. “Basically, the entire upper body muscles get involved,” he says. “In addition to being a great way to build strength, this exercise will also improve your vaulting power, climb-up strength, and advanced handstand and shoulder stand related movements.” Because who doesn’t want to master their handstand in
This natural mascara can withstand a Bikram yoga class
December 24, 2019 at 07:30PM by CWC I’m (perhaps clinically) addicted to hot yoga. It’s more than just my workout: It’s my refuge, my therapy, my calm before, during, and after the storm of my busy days. Because I tend to be rushing to and from the yoga studio, I don’t always have time to wipe my face clean before heading into a sweat-sesh. And so, I’ve been on the hunt for a mascara and sweat-proof makeup that won’t drip down my face while I flow. “It’s ok to want to wear a little something to your workout, but when you’re that warm and sweaty, you want products that hold up and won’t contribute to breakouts,” says Merrady Wickes, a makeup artist and beauty director for The Detox Market. She recently helped me figure out how to get my eyeliner to stay put, and it turns out that’s not the only trick she has when it comes to staying power. “Kjaer Weis Lengthening Mascara ($38) has been known to last through a Bikram class,” she tells me. “It’s seriously a yoga teacher favorite.” Wickes says the product, which utilizes carnauba wax, delivers length and separation without making you look done up. Hungry for more help, I ask her if there’s anything else I can apply to my face without looking like a sad clown after class. “It might feel counterintuitive, but a cream bronzer formulated without water will in turn have slightly waterproof qualities,” she says. “I love swiping Vapour
Only 24 percent of people who need fertility treatment can access it. Gina Bartasi wants to change that
December 24, 2019 at 07:00PM by CWC When Gina Bartasi launched Kindbody in 2018, she already knew a thing or two about the fertility industry. After all, she had previously founded two other startups in the space, and had given birth to twin boys after undergoing IVF. Her main takeaway from all of that in-the-trenches experience? She wanted to do things differently—and if you’ve ever looked into freezing your eggs at Kindbody, you’ll know that Bartasi and her team have more than achieved that goal. In contrast to the cold, sterile vibe that’s a hallmark of many medical clinics, Kindbody offers its services in stylish digs that look like the “after” shot from an HGTV home makeover show. (The brand currently has flagship offices in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, plus two mobile clinics, with more brick-and-mortar locations to come in 2020.) Some of its services are also significantly less expensive than its competitors. While egg-freezing traditionally costs around $11,000 per cycle—minus the cost of medication and egg storage—Kindbody charges $6,500. Plus, the brand’s clinics offer a full scope of women’s wellness services under one roof. Along with egg freezing, embryo freezing, and IVF, patients can pop in for general gynecological care, nutrition counseling, and mental health services, with an annual membership priced at just $120 per year. For Bartasi, Kindbody isn’t just about innovating for innovation’s sake. She’s on a bigger mission to make fertility treatment financially and geographically accessible to anyone who needs it, from
This low-tech $2 tool scrubs away blackheads just as well as a Clarisonic
December 24, 2019 at 06:30PM by CWC When it comes to facial brushes, the Clarisonic is queen. But there’s one thing that can come between you and your dreams of having silky-smooth skin: the price tag. Luckily, you don’t need to drop upward of $100 on the brush—you can use a $2 tool intended for something else instead. The thing that makes the Clarisonic work so well is the bristles on the brush head. And if they look familiar, that’s probably because they’re very similar to what you see every day on your toothbrush. You can use toothbrushes to scrub away blackheads around your nose—it really works. Really, really well., according to Gretchen Frieling, MD, a board-certified dermatopathologist. “The Clarisonic makes exfoliating the pores and clearing blackheads easy—you don’t have to worry about the intensity with which you scrub, the motion with which you cleanse, or the surface area you can cover. The luxury cleansing brush does it all for you,” she says. “However, for those who cannot particularly afford it at the moment or prefer to keep things low-tech, a toothbrush with medium to soft bristles can also get the job done as long as consumers are conscious of not scrubbing too harshly, moving in circular patterns, and spending an extra 30 seconds to cover the entire face, as a toothbrush is smaller than the Clarisonic.” To exfoliate your skin just like a Clarisonic would, all you need to do is follow Dr. Frieling’s skincare instructions. You’ll have great
9 healthy foods Greek centenarians eat for longevity
December 24, 2019 at 06:00PM by CWC Hoping to live to see 100? Blue Zones expert Dan Buettner recommends eating like an Ikarian. Located 30 miles west of Turkey, Ikaria is a small Greek island (just 99 square miles) where locals are known to live into the triple digits without chronic illnesses like dementia, cancer, and even depression. Healthy Greek foods certainly play their part when it comes to ensuring longevity for these centenarians. While a diet with plenty of vegetables is part of eating like Ikarian, Buettner says there are certain foods that set their way of life apart. “The local diet is unique from other Greek, Italian, and nearby islands because of its focus on beans and legumes—especially chickpeas and lentils—and wild greens,” he says. There are nine healthy Greek foods considered staples if your goal is to live a long life. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dan Buettner (@danbuettner) on Dec 14, 2019 at 9:21am PST //www.instagram.com/embed.js 9 healthy Greek foods you should eat 1. Wild greens “Most of the food eaten in Ikaria is harvested from seasonal gardens, which provide the purest form of the Mediterranean diet in the world,” says Buettner. Dandelion greens and purslane are two examples of wild greens widely available here in the United States, says registered dietitian and Foodtrainers founder Lauren Slayton MS, RD. “Often wild greens have higher nutrient content than their cultivated counterparts,” she says, adding that they are also typically free of
Right now is the best time to sign up for ClassPass if you like spending $0 for pricey workouts
December 24, 2019 at 05:45PM by CWC Workout classes get pricey. I mean, I love Pilates… but if you’re spending upward of $40 per class, it adds up quickly. That’s what makes ClassPass such a great option. You can attend all your favorite boutique fitness classes for a fraction of the cost, and now you can get your first month for free. As a Christmas present to fitness lovers everywhere, ClassPass just announced quite possibly its best deal of the year. When you sign up for the service, you get your first month for free. That means you can take up to five classes without spending a cent. Now that ClassPass is available all across the United States, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to use it in a city near you. This deal runs until the end of January 2020, so there’s no better way to start the year off right. The gym is going to be packed with everyone going after their New Year’s resolutions, so the choice is yours: Wait in line for the treadmill, or casually sign up online for a fun group fitness class. I know what I’m going to do. When you want to get sweaty at home, try this HIIT workout: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXBh8TgwefQ] Here’s what you should know about ClassPass’ audio workouts. Then get the scoop on the company’s getaways—aka the ultimate wellness vacays. Continue Reading… Author Tehrene Firman | Well and Good Selected by CWC
These 5 beauty products have been drugstore best-sellers for two years in a row—and they’re all under $11
December 24, 2019 at 05:30PM by CWC I’m a sucker for a best-seller list, especially when it involves beauty products. If a product is flying off of the shelves, it usually indicates skin-boosting/hair-rejuvenating/beautifying pigment powers that a lot of people are running to get their hands on, which gives me FOMO and convinces me that I need it in my arsenal, too. So when drugstore beauty hotspot CVS tells us that certain beauty products were not only best-sellers in 2019 but also 2018—AKA the ultimate must-haves for two years in a row—my skin perked right up. Which beauty products are the hot-ticket items with staying star power? According to CVS, their absolute top sellers for the past two years are a mix of cult-fave makeup essentials (including a drugstore mascara, which is always so good), a dermatologist-beloved facial cleanser, acne-busting pimple patches, and a makeup remover that’s garnered tons of five-star reviews. Without further ado, I present to you the five best-selling beauty products at CVS that made the ranks for the past two years. 1. L’Oreal Paris Voluminous Lash Paradise Mascara, $11 Considering how drugstore mascara has always been just as good (if not better) than its more expensive competitors, this one’s not such a surprise. The top of the list is this baby by L’Oreal Paris, which gives your lashes a fringe effect but is easy to wash off with soap and water. Photo: L’Oreal Paris 2. Revlon ColorStay Eyeliner, $9 If you’re looking for an eyeliner that doesn’t budge and