February 26, 2020 at 12:00PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJIyAiLh4IU] Looking for the best soup to ride out cold and flu season? You’ll love this one from Kelly LeVeque. It’s the ultimate cold-and-flu-season paradox: The one meal that’s been scientifically proven to help you feel better fast—a steaming bowl of soup—can also be one of the most time-consuming to cook from scratch. Not sure about you, but when I’m laid up with a stuffy head and chills, the last thing I feel like doing is chopping veggies, prepping protein, and waiting for what feels like hours as the ingredients simmer on the stove. Thankfully, holistic nutritionist Kelly LeVeque has proven that making the best soup for a cold or flu doesn’t have to eat up your entire sick day. In fact, it can all come together in less time than it takes to watch an episode of Love is Blind. In the latest installment of Cook with Us, Well+Good’s new cooking challenge show, senior food and health editor Jessie Van Amburg tasks LeVeque with preparing a satisfying, warming, vegetarian winter soup in 30 minutes or less. The Body Love Every Day author responds with a quick and easy take on Italian meatball soup, using a few smart swaps to make it plant-based and a bit more nutrient-dense. “Swapping out pasta for zoodles is really popular right now, but it’s a great way to increase your fiber and antioxidants,” says LeVeque. Amping up the fiber content are the plant-based lentil meatballs—all of
Category: Your Healthiest Relationship
How to find an online personal trainer for less than the cost of a gym membership
February 26, 2020 at 03:01AM by CWC Working with a one-on-one fitness coach used to mean schlepping to the gym, shelling out big money, and trying to make the most out of a few 45-minute sessions per week. But now, thanks to online personal trainer technology, it’s become increasingly common, accessible, and affordable. Instead of having to hit your local brick and mortar, you can now get a personal trainer in the palm of your hand. “Working with a trainer online provides flexibility in schedule and location, while still giving you the expertise and accountability of a trainer. It also integrates all things fitness into one place: your workouts, running, biking and anything else you like to do to stay active,” says Aftan Noon, ACE certified personal trainer at TRAINIAC. “Beyond that, your trainer can also review and adjust your workout based on metrics like your heart rate, heart rate variability, and steps.” Want to know more and see how an online trainer could work in your life? Read on for everything you need to know about hiring an online personal trainer… and why it just might convince you to quit your gym membership once and for all. What are the benefits of an online personal trainer? In general, working with a personal trainer allows you to have a totally customized fitness program, and the same is true when working with a digital personal trainer, as well. In fact, there are many ways that working with someone digitally actually is even
Cocktailing your shampoo and conditioner will help deal with different concerns at once
February 26, 2020 at 02:00AM by CWC Long ago, some genius came up with the idea that shampoo and conditioner should be sold as a duo like PB&J or avocado and toast. Ever since that storied time, we’ve been shopping for these two essentials as a set: moisturizing shampoos go with moisturizing conditioners; curl shampoos must be paired with curl conditioners. But actually, by mixing and matching different categories of shampoos and conditioners, you can do your strands multiple solids at the same time. “I’ve always been a believer of mixing and matching your shampoo and conditioner, because most people don’t have the same issue from roots to ends,” says Suave celebrity stylist Marcus Francis. That means that if you have oily roots and dry ends, you can use something that will clean hair more thoroughly up top (like a clarifying shampoo), and then use something with more moisture on bottom (like a moisturizing conditioner). “Hair is complex, and may need different things at different times,” says Glamsquad Creative Director Giovanni Vaccaro. He suggests thinking of your hair the same way you think of your skin: Just as your skin can be “combination” (aka: oily and dry at the same time), so too can your strands. “Sometimes hair may need volume at the roots and moisture on the ends,” Vaccaro says. For others, you might want to pair a color conditioner with a curl shampoo to support both the texture and highlights. “It’s great to build your product wardrobe so
The average woman spends $17,000 on menstruation—so, again, why aren’t tampons and pads free?
February 26, 2020 at 02:00AM by CWC For the vast majority of people with a uterus, sanitary products—including pads and tampons—are a necessity. For five days a month (on average), through no choice of our own, we need them. While menstruation cups and period-proof underwear are becoming more popular, pads and tampons remain the sanitary products of choice for most women, and the cost adds up. As determined by Dollars and Sense, the average woman will spend $17,000 on menstruation in her lifetime, including an approximated three to five products a day, five days a month, for 33 years. For tampons and pads, the cost breaks down to approximately $144 each year. Not cool, right? One country at least is recognizing the unfairness of women having to spend so much money on something they cannot control. On Tuesday, the parliament in Scotland approved plans to make sanitary products available for free, making it the first country in the world to do so. The draft for the bill was first proposed in 2017, a nod to the lengthy process it took to get it approved and put into action. Under the new law, pads and tampons will be available for free in places such as community centers, youth clubs, and pharmacies. “These are not luxury items. They are indeed essential and no one in Scotland should have to go without period products,” says Scottish lawmaker Monica Lennon, who submitted the bill. While Scotland is the first country to give free access
We’re all a little psychic—here are 4 ways to develop that intuitive muscle
February 26, 2020 at 01:30AM by CWC Regardless of your stance on psychics and their powers (maybe you have yours on speed dial, or you’d never ever get a reading from one, or you fall somewhere in the middle), you likely possess your own intuitive, psychic-leaning prowess. In fact, according to one pro, we all have that otherworldly sense—we just need help learning how to develop psychic abilities. That’s because “psychic” is a term that Laura Lynne Jackson, psychic medium and author of Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe, says can often be used interchangeably with “intuitive.” To that point, knowing how to tap into your powers reflects your ability to see, hear, or feel things beyond the psychical realm—which she says happens all the time, both knowingly and unknowingly. Need convincing? Consider this: Have you ever turned around because you felt someone staring at you? Or, has the thought of a certain person randomly popped into your mind, and then you ran into that person later in the day? Or maybe, you’ve simply gotten a bad vibe upon entering a room. All of these are examples of an intuitive psychic gift in action. “We can become much brighter, stronger, vibrant, engaged versions of ourselves in the here and now by reactivating and reopening [psychic] abilities.” —Laura Lynne Jackson, psychic “It can be an incredible, very practical tool to help us navigate our lives, whether it’s relationships we’re in, career choices, releasing artistic gifts we have, or whatever paths
For some parents, raising the next generation of healthy eaters is about more than eating vegetables—it’s about ending diet culture
February 26, 2020 at 01:00AM by CWC Keto, intermittent fasting, ketotarian: It’s hard to escape talk about dieting in America these days. Diet culture—a system of beliefs that glorifies thinness and weight loss, and equates those things with health, beauty, and virtue—is so pervasive that it’s even reached our children through Paleo baby food and a controversial Weight Watchers app for kids. But with girls as young as 3 saying they need to go on a diet, something in America has gone undeniably awry. “We as a society teach them that,” says Alexandra Caspero, RD, a dietitian and plant-based chef. “Kids are so impressionable when comes to figuring out their own relationship with food.” Translation: The examples that we as adults set goes a long way towards teaching kids about what it means to eat healthy. As a new generation of parents have become aware of the harms of diet culture and all the food demonizing that comes with it, many are approaching nutrition differently. For many, that means abandoning the “eat this not that” mentality of their own parents and radically transforming how they talk to their kids about food. How American diet culture negatively affects kids All parents want their kids to be healthy. But social media, commercials, and TV make that hard with incessant messaging that champions weight loss and demonizes certain foods while praising others—messaging that doesn’t lend itself to a healthy relationship with food. Dalina Soto, RD, a mother of two young kids and dietitian
I’m a physical therapist, and this is the only posture-boosting device I ever recommend
February 26, 2020 at 12:00AM by CWC All sorts of gadgets exist with the sole purpose of improving your posture. This is a good thing, considering the fact that we live in world riddled with bent-over heads and rounded shoulders. But it’s come to a point where it’s tricky to nail down just which posture-boosting device you should buy. So what can ya do? Well, physical therapist Karen Joubert, DPT—a self-professed “posture freak”—swears by one thing: the Truweo Posture Corrector ($21). The posture corrector—which you can easily snag on Amazon—is a simple back brace that goes around your upper back, connecting across your chest to help you sit up straight. Out of all of the posture-bettering devices out there, from this tiny, iPod-looking sticker to kinesiology tape, the Truweo Posture Corrector is probably the most basic. But Dr. Joubert says that it is the only tool that she recommends to her patients time and time again for the best impact on posture. She would know—a large part of her job as a physical therapist is to help people learn how to keep their bodies in proper alignment. Photo: Truweo “I like the simplicity and user-friendliness of it,” she says. “It reminds you to sit up straight and tall, and once you take it off, you’re supposed to practice sitting in the same way that the brace held you.” Over 13,000 people that have purchased it on Amazon, and clearly they’re fans: The back brace has 4.5 out of five stars,
This yoga teacher swears by weekly baths with 200 pounds of ice
February 25, 2020 at 11:05PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThvmuboEOo4] What happens in a yoga class inspired by the Wim Hof Method? Watch the video to find out. When an instructor says to wiggle your fingers and toes to wake up from savasana, I’m always a little sad. It’s a bit jarring to go into the real world after reaching peak relaxation. Five, a unique practice in Brooklyn created by Danielle McCallum, takes that feeling to the next level—breathwork followed by an ice bath. In the latest episode of What the Wellness, host Ella Dove takes Five, a class comprised of five parts: yoga, meditation, breathwork, cold exposure, and you. McCallum, a yoga teacher and Wim Hof Method instructor, created Five in part to share the benefits of cold exposure. “Ice baths are good for circulation, they’re good for energy. They decrease inflammation, so that helps with recovery from injuries and illness,” says McCallum. “These are tools that have greatly increased my health, and I wanted to package them together.” The Wim Hof Method has three parts: training the mind, breathwork, and cold exposure. “The philosophy behind it is that greater health leads to greater happiness,” she says. “When you get out of the tub, you’re going to feel so alive, so invigorated, you’ll feel like super woman.” The meditation and breathwork—athletic, deep, and fast—are meant to help prepare the body for the cold exposure. Once you’re in the tub, McCallum says you have to maintain that focus on the breath. “When you get
Why a burnout expert says you should have an ‘Untouchable Day’ every week
February 25, 2020 at 09:00PM by CWC Every minute I type this my fingers are sad that they can’t grab my cell phone, and can I just say, that is horrifying. Even having it in my eye line makes me stressed out, as if it was my child dangling from a broken bridge instead of an iPhone 8 placidly charging. Technology dependency bones us all, and this addiction feeds into our collection cultural burnout problem. There’s a reason for that. At our most recent Well+Good TALK, we learned that that chronic stress leaves us in a constant fight-or-flight mode, and those little technological pings feed into the stress cycle. “Every single notification that comes in your brain treats exactly as though the phone rang or someone knocked on the doors,” says Celeste Headlee, journalist and author of Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving. “So the whole time that phone is present, or the computer is in your island, your brain is sitting there like a runner at the starting gate, waiting to respond to what it thinks is some kind of threat or alert. So that’s part of what is exhausting you because you never stop working.” Wow, I absolutely hate that. As such, getting a handle on your tech means you physically and mindfully have to step away sometimes. That doesn’t mean throwing your cell into the nearest body of water, it just means ungluing your eyes from a screen once in a while. If you’re
A $10 acne soap sold out in under a week at Ulta—and it’s gentle enough for sensitive skin
February 25, 2020 at 08:41PM by CWC Acne is one most common skin concerns in the United States, affecting nearly 50 million people each year (so, yeah—you’re not alone). With that massive number in mind, it’s hardly a surprise that when a legendary breakout-fighting product makes its way over from across the pond Harry and Meghan-style, skin-care aficionados jump at the chance to get their hands on it (especially when said product only costs $10). Such has been the case with Carbon Theory’s Charcoal & Tea Tree Oil Breakout Control Facial Cleansing Bar ($10). The UK cult-favorite launched at Ulta two weeks ago and sold out almost immediately. Peek at the ingredients list and you’ll see why: The bar’s active acne-fighters are charcoal and tea-tree oil, which zap zits without being as harsh as other acne treatments like retinoids and hydroxy acids. This means the bar isn’t just great for pimple-prone skin, it’s good for even the most sensitive skin types. Photo: Carbon Theory Why is that the case? Charcoal has long been thought of as a “detoxifier,” thanks to its ability to pull out dirt, grime, and oil from your pores, while tea tree oil acts as an anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory for skin. Together, the duo won’t leave behind flaking, scaling, or dryness (the way retinol often tends to), and just to make good on that, there’s also some shea butter in the formula to help with hydration. The soap may have sold out within a week after launch,