December 02, 2019 at 04:42PM by CWC From your work wife to your IRL bestie to your favorite spin instructor, you’ve got a long list to shop for this season, which means finding high-quality, budget-friendly gifts is a must. To help you spread the wellness vibes without breaking the bank, we rounded up our 12 picks that are all under $25. Grab a rose quartz gua sha skin-care tool (that looks way more expensive than it is), a matcha-lover’s dream kit, or a luxe snail gel facial serum from Dr.Organic®, and no one will believe how little you paid for everything (so snag something for yourself while you’re at it). Scroll down for the wellness-inspired, budget-friendly gifts to add to your holiday shopping list. Avocado Huggers, $11 How many times has an avocado died because you wanted to save half for later, but it turned too brown before you could eat it? Too many times. These avocado saviors are designed to fit tightly to the green fruit (the pits push in or out depending on which side you’re saving) to keep them fresher longer. Your giftee will love you almost as much as she loves avocados. Dr.Organic Rose Restoring Day Cream, $18 Who needs over-priced skin treatments when you can score products that are effective and affordable? Skip the gift card for an expensive facial, and instead treat your friend (and yourself, while you’re at it) to a luxurious, moisturizing facial experience with this delicately scented, ultra-softening day cream. It’s
Category: Your Healthiest Relationship
The only 7 spices you need to create a million flavor combinations
December 02, 2019 at 04:40PM by CWC Salt and pepper are irreplaceable—but as creativity goes, we can do better. If you build a small kit of top spices designed for fast, healthy, and flavorful meals, you can expand your repertoire in the kitchen without buying so many that you end up tossing them before they expire. (Yes! Spices go bad!) Kate Jenkins, MScN, blogger and home chef behind VeguKate, knows first hand what’s it’s like to try to whittle down a spice cabinet to the bare necessities. “I have so many spices. It’s a bit embarrassing, but there are a few I return to again and again and again,” she says, noting that she uses just seven often enough to merit buying in bulk. The 7 top spices for healthy, tasty weeknight meals 1. CINNAMON “Cinnamon is my favorite spice of all time,” says Jenkins. “I love cinnamon because it’s considered a warming spice in Ayurvedic medicine and helps to boost circulation and improve digestion. I also am a fan of cinnamon for it’s blood-sugar stabilizing abilities; so many studies have shown that consuming cinnamon with a high-insulin meal can help stabilize intense spikes and crashes.” She sprinkles the aromatic spice in smoothies, in the batter of sweets, in oatmeal, and on top of sweet potatoes. 2. TURMERIC “Well, everyone and their mom now stocks turmeric in their kitchen—but for good reason! Turmeric is another warming spice in Ayurveda and is clinically studied to possess anti-inflammatory abilities. I love turmeric
Video killed the radio star, but digital won’t end the reign of boutique fitness
December 02, 2019 at 04:00PM by CWC Cheers had the bar, Friends, the coffee shop, and Seinfeld put diners squarely on the map. None of these ’90s shows have been rebooted, but if they had been at some point in the last decade, it’s likely their crews would’ve been popping in and out of a spin shop or yoga studio (or at least hitting the smoothie bar) instead of their OG signature haunts. In the last 10 years, boutique fitness studios have become the place to work out and hangout, and as early-morning wake-up calls to sweat have become integral to spiritual, mental, and physical health, there has been a boutique fitness boom. Because of this, fitness enthusiasts have shifted away from big box gyms to boutique studios like Orangetheory, SLT, and Y7, where they can do hyper-targeted workouts as part of a community that believes in the same core pillar of sweat. When Well+Good launched in 2010, SoulCycle and Barry’s Bootcamp (which were founded in 2006 and 1998, respectively) were the only mainstream options to speak of, but as wellness became the gospel of the decade, the number of studios quickly started to grow. In fact, in the five-year span from 2012 to 2017, boutique fitness membership increased by 70 percent, according to the International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association. The rise of wellness certainly propelled the adoption of boutique fitness forward, but community and convenience were core to studios’ staying power. Boutique fitness studios became the place everyone
Black Friday is officially *the* time to snag a Peloton Bike
December 02, 2019 at 03:30PM by CWC You take your commitment to fitness seriously (kudos to you!) but sometimes making it across town to your favorite studio just isn’t in the cards with your jam-packed schedule. Don’t skip your sweat sesh—just bring it home with you. The Peloton Bike (AKA the ultimate at-home workout upgrade) is here to help with a game-changing Black Friday deal, Peloton’s best offer of the year. When you buy the Peloton Bike over Black Friday weekend, you’ll get “The Works”—Peloton cycling shoes, weights, headphones, heart rate monitor, and bike mat—for free (FYI, that’s $229 worth of goods). And the bike itself has major perks: With crystal-clear streaming on a high-def touchscreen, you have thousands of live and on-demand workouts at your fingertips. Since you can work out whenever it fits your schedule (and not have to worry about your fave instructor’s class being waitlisted), you’ll feel that much more motivated to give it your all. Plus, the new financing plan makes owning a Peloton Bike the equivalent of taking just three studio classes a month. #Score. Click here to snag the Black Friday deal of your fitness dreams. But there are other spin bikes offering serious deals over this shopping holiday, too. Keep scrolling for other home gym options to jump on. Photo: Car.o.l. CAR.O.L. AI HIIT Bike, $2700 This bike uses artificial intelligence to push you to your limit. That means you’re working for a shorter amount of time, but you’re getting a full-on cardio sesh that’s personalized to your body’s capabilities.
This egg fried rice lettuce wrap recipe might cancel your weekly takeout plans for good
December 02, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC Fried rice is a comfort-food essential—it’s warm, it’s filling, and you have leftovers to feast on for days (not to mention, it smells heavenly while cooking). But rather than opting for takeout, try creating your own elevated version at home—like this egg fried rice lettuce wrap recipe. By leaning on your home-chef skills, you don’t have to wonder which ingredients are going in, and you’re the one in control of the nutritional elements to include and the flavors to enhance. On that note, the recipe calls for Eggland’s Best eggs, which contain only 60 calories and double the amount of omega-3s and vitamin B-12 compared to ordinary eggs (plus, they stay fresher for longer due to the hens’ wholesome, all-vegetarian diet). And to ensure it becomes a go-to recipe, all you have to do to refresh it the next day is wrap your fried rice in a fresh leaf of lettuce. Leftovers, upgraded. Watch the video below to learn how to create this egg fried rice recipe from home—plus, grab the step-by-step instructions. https://content.jwplatform.com/players/EAB5yqmK-AjgxWzQ7.js Continue Reading… Author Well+Good Editors | Well and Good Selected by CWC
The biggest healthy food lesson of the decade I’ve learned: You can literally milk anything
December 02, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC I can say from experience that having a dairy sensitivity in 2010 was rough. The only two mainstream options were soy and rice milk (yum?), and starting-to-trend almond milk was still pretty hard to find outside of a Whole Foods. I have never liked soy milk, so 10 years ago, I had to decide if my grande Starbucks skim milk latte (okay, fine it was a frapp) was worth the upset stomach. Pardon the pun, but holy cow how times have changed. The alt-milk aisle is more crowded than the line outside Glossier—and the industry is now worth an estimated $11.9 billion. Besides the diverse collection of nut milks now available (almond milk, macadamia milk, pecan milk, walnut milk), there’s also oat milk, coconut milk, brown rice milk, sesame milk, banana milk, and pea milk. Now, I can get a frothy oat milk latte at my local cafe in Raleigh, North Carolina, or buy the same quality stuff used by my barista to make my own alt-milk drinks at home. What a time to be alive! Entering the new decade, the only “alt” question remaining is, what can’t we milk? How we became so infatuated with dairy alternatives “The growth of alternative milks was a perfect-storm situation,” says Mike Kostyo, a trendologist at food industry research firm Datassential. Kostyo says the alt-milk trend was born from another wellness trend: the rise in plant-based eating. “Consumers were moving away from the ‘all bacon all
How all travel became wellness travel in the past decade
December 02, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC Even if you’ve always been the type to take an annual yoga retreat or use hotels gyms, healthy-travel options were fairly limited and siloed off until recently. You certainly couldn’t meditate via a seat-back airplane TV, book a consultation with a sleep concierge, or score kombucha from your in-room minibar. But, as we close out a decade in which wellness has transformed every facet of the travel experience, it’s clear that good-for-you amenities like those have become the rule rather than the exception. “It’s hard to even wrap your mind around how fast the [healthy travel] concept has grown,” says Beth McGroarty, director of research and PR at the Global Wellness Institute (GWI), which has been tracking the union of wellness and tourism since 2010. “Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have even known what someone was talking about if they said ‘wellness travel.’ Now, it’s everywhere.” Not only is wellness travel now ubiquitous, but it’s also thriving. According to the Global Wellness Institute, the category is set to be worth $919 billion by 2022—which is double its 2013 valuation. GWI data shows that wellness travel makes up about one-sixth of all tourism dollars spent worldwide, and that it’s been growing at twice the speed of general tourism. “People who are really tracking the tourism industry are saying this is one of the fastest-growing travel categories in the world, if not the fastest,” says McGroarty. “Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have even known what
Woo-woo wellness has gone mainstream and it looks like it’s here to stay
December 02, 2019 at 01:00PM by CWC Sound baths, crystal healing, Reiki—back in 2010, spiritual healing practices like these were still way out on the fringes of the wellness scene. Maybe you’d hear about them at a particularly progressive yoga studio or from your friend who went to Burning Man, but they certainly weren’t widely embraced by mainstream audiences. Flash forward 10 years, however, and people in all corners of the country are filling their homes with rose quartz and balancing their chakras with the help of energy healers. So-called “woo-woo” modalities are now just as integral to the wellness mix as avocados and boutique fitness classes, and all signs point to the fact that they’re not just a passing fad. If you ask Reiki healer and Wellness Official founder Millana Snow, the turning point came around 2012, when meditation and yoga were just starting to take hold in a big way. “I think in 2012, there was a lot of hype around the Mayan calendar [which people inaccurately claimed predicted the end of the world], but at the same time, people became aware of a larger narrative around consciousness,” she says. Soon after, that story started to spread outside of the burgeoning wellness world. “In 2013, my company and our practitioner partners were doing angel card readings and Reiki for Alexander Wang’s corporate team the week of New York Fashion Week,” Snow recalls. “The next year, we lead Samsung’s first ever yoga class for the public. Those two things,
If your regular old abs workout has started to feel snoozy, try adding a kettlebell
December 02, 2019 at 12:00PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNAFwRSCydg] Tis the season of jingle bells, sleigh bells, and our personal favorite: Kettlebells. If you’ve heard the term “kettlebell” in your workouts before, chances are it was immediately followed by the word “swing.” While these moves are great for building strength in your entire body and spiking your heart rate, it’s time that they move over to give other moves their time to shine, because there are a whole lot of things that you can do with a kettlebell that don’t involve slinging it forward and back. In fact, as our December Trainer of the Month Roxie Jones proves, you can use a kettlebell to get an abs-quaking workout at home. It only takes five minutes, so it’s great to add to the end of your cardio routine (Jones likes to do it after a long run) or do as a quick hit on its own. To make it more challenging, you can repeat the entire sequence three times… just be ready for it to hurt the next day. Grab a 10-pound kettlebell (or lighter, if you need, because as Jones says, “a heavier weight doesn’t make a better workout—it’s form that makes your workout better”), and follow along with the video above. Don’t forget to check back next week for an all new kettlebell workout, care of Roxie Jones. The kettlebell abs workout to try now 1. Russian twists x 12: Holding one kettlebell in both hands, sit in a
Your favorite way to cook eggs, according to your zodiac sign
December 02, 2019 at 04:30AM by CWC You turn to your horoscope to guide you through your relationships, career, and personal growth—but what about your habits in the kitchen? (Yes, astrology is a total 360-degree life thing.) So next time you’re stumped over what to make for breakfast—or dinner, TBH—look to the stars for inspo, like we did with Eggland’s Best. Which brings us to eggs. Your astrological characteristics can reveal a lot about how you approach preparing food (looking at you, impatient Libras), including our fave style of how to eat everyone’s protein-packed meal booster of choice. The common denominator no matter what your star sign is? The fact that you’re going to want to be eating the freshest eggs possible, regardless of how you’re cooking them up. For that, opt for Eggland’s Best farm-fresh eggs, which pack in extra nutrition compared to ordinary eggs (including more B vitamins, vitamin E, and folate) thanks to their vegetarian-fed hens. Scroll down to see the best ways to cook eggs for your zodiac sign. Aries: Egg-Topped Avocado Toast Independent Aries is always tempted to fly solo, but she’s her best self when she accepts support from others—sort of like how avocado toast is delish on its own, but a certified culinary masterpiece when you add an egg (even better if it’s an Eggland’s Best egg for added nutrition). Spice things up by topping your toast with bacon and tomatoes, add sun-dried tomato pesto, or really turn up the heat with Zaatar