March 11, 2020 at 10:00PM by CWC Raise your hand if you’ve ever been tempted to skip the warmup in your workout in the name of efficiency. As hard as it can be to carve out the time to fit a sweat sesh into your jam-packed day, shaving off a few minutes to jump right into your workout seems harmless, right? Not exactly. That’s one of many myths about stretching and warming up that simply aren’t true, and we’re here to bust the biggest three. Warming up for any workout is a non-negotiable—that is, if you want to prevent injury and protect your joints. “More often than not, people come from a day of sitting at a desk or a computer all day. Their muscles have been in this shortened position with very little mobility. They then leave the office head to the gym and jump on a machine. Guess what? Those muscles are shortened, over recruited, and without a proper warm up they are asking for injury,” says Brooke Taylor, certified trainer and founder of Taylored Fitness. Before you start stretching it out—or doing any other warmup, for that matter—check out the most common misconceptions Taylor hears about warming up. 1. You don’t need to warm up Repeat after me: Warming up is not optional. If you want to keep working out as you get older, it’s especially important since “the structure of your workout is so important to sustain body longevity,” Taylor says. “I cannot stress enough how
Tag: Well+Good
Working from home? Here’s what productivity experts say you should do to stay on task
March 11, 2020 at 09:00PM by CWC Spoiler alert: not everybody has the luxury of a home office. Not everybody even has the luxury of a desk. And while working from home certainly has its perks (working with my dog? Yes, please), it can be a challenge without a defined workspace. Temptations like Netflix loom and distracting roommates linger, which can result in productivity and motivational challenges. Not to mention, there’s just a different that comes with working in an office. “When you commute to your office and sit at your desk all day, see people, and then commute home, you feel like you’ve ‘done’ something,” says Laura Vanderkam, author of several time management and productivity books, including Off the Clock and Juliet’s School of Possibilities. “When you work from home, you don’t have that. So you judge the day solely on what you’ve done. If that’s not much, well, that doesn’t feel so good.” The good news is there are plenty of tips to “hack” your way into a productive work from home day. Whether it’s setting a clear schedule or taking a mid-day shower (talk about a WFH perk), these work from home tips from productivity experts that can help maximize your remote work routine. These are the work from home tips that actually make a difference in your productivity 1. Schedule out your day Whether it’s using Google calendar or writing your to-do list down before you get to work, setting a clear schedule for your work
The top 3 buzziest beauty product categories in the Whole Foods skin-care section
March 11, 2020 at 08:00PM by CWC You love Whole Foods for its organic fruits and vegetables, hot bar filled with a never-ending supply of work-lunch favorites, and the cool innovations like being able to bottle your own almond milk. But if you’re not hitting up the beauty aisles at Whole Foods for skin-care products, you’re seriously missing out. Whole Foods just released its annual list of beauty trends, and there are some super buzzy product categories every beauty buff should know about. And from March 11 through March 17, all the beauty items are on sale. The grocery store might not be as well-known for its skin-care section as massive retailers like Sephora and Ulta, but it’s one of the most underrated places to find clean beauty items to add to your skin-care routine. The top 3 buzziest beauty categories you can shop at Whole Foods 1. Blue light defense Everyone knows how important it is to protect your skin from harmful UV rays with sunscreen. Now, the focus is on protecting against blue lights, too, through blue light defense products. Whole Foods says there are multiple different types of products that offer protection, from serums to sprays. One product you’ll find on shelves is DERMA E Blue Light Shield Spray ($17), which uses lutein to “shield your skin from free radical damage and blue light aggressors,” reads the website. 2. Bakuchiol If you haven’t heard of bakuchiol yet, you’re about to see it everywhere. The ingredient—which comes from
This competitive boxer’s caffeinated smoothie packs a one-two punch of fiber and protein
March 11, 2020 at 07:30PM by CWC To kickstart your day, you can’t go wrong with the energizing combination of coffee, protein, and fiber. Take it from retired competitive boxer and founder of Juice Press Marcus Antebi. He’s been making his signature coffee smoothie recipe to fuel his workouts for years. While training as a competitive boxer, Antebi changed up his diet to consist primarily of cold-pressed juices, smoothies, and salads. It was this lifestyle change that led him the open the very first Juice Press in 2010. “Eliminating processed foods and replacing hem with pure, plant-based options has given me the physical health to succeed as a Muay Thai boxer and yogi,” he says. “Eliminating processed foods and replacing hem with pure, plant-based options has given me the physical health to succeed as a Muay Thai boxer and yogi.” —Marcus Antebi, founder of Juice Press Antebi’s caffeinated plant-powered smoothie, which comes from the Well+Good Cookbook, provides more energy, mental clarity, and all the fire you need to make through the morning. You’ll get a decent amount of protein from the almond butter as well as a serving of fiber from the cauliflower and banana. Cacao nibs and dates add depth and sweetness. And the coffee adds a just the right energizing buzz you need to get your day doing. It’s an excellent pick-me-up before early morning workouts. Call it plant-powered—with a punch. Competitive coffee smoothie Ingredients 3/4 cup brewed coffee, cold 1/4 cup nondairy milk 1/2 frozen banana 1/4
The firefighter physical fitness test ignites every muscle in your body
March 11, 2020 at 06:00PM by CWC The work of firefighter is physically demanding. The job requires wearing up to 75 pounds of gear, not including the additional strength needed to carry ladders, fire hoses, and people out of burning buildings. Obviously you have to be in great shape to become a firefighter, which is why the Fire Department of New York employs the Candidate Physical Ability Test (CDAT) to determine whether someone is up to the task. If you pass, you get to move onto the next stages—and let’s just say that’s easier said than done. According to the FDNY’s prep guide, there are eight tasks involved in the firefighter fitness test: a 75-pound weighted stair climb, hose drag, equipment carry, ladder raise and extension, forcible entry using a 10-pound sledgehammer, a search portion that involves crawling at least 70 feet, a rescue portion that involves dragging a 165-pound mannequin, and the ceiling breach and pull. All of these must be successfully completed in 10 minutes, 20 seconds, or less. In order to help candidates pass these events, the FDNY has a training program that focus on improving body strength and endurance. The exercises involved can be done with or without weights and work pretty much every muscle group in your body, including your quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, triceps, back, biceps, pectorals, shoulders, forearms, abdominal muscles, and more. That means plenty of squats, abdominal curls, chin-ups, bench presses, and other exercises. Only one question remains: Knowing what you know
Beyond Meat’s new breakfast sausage is here to take on pork
March 11, 2020 at 05:15PM by CWC It’s been a great year for anyone who’s looking to cut back on consumption animal products. We’ve got “bleeding” plant-based burgers, creamy dairy-free cheeses, and every type of alt-milk imaginable. And now there’s a new Beyond pork breakfast sausage to make your morning bagel set-up more delicious than ever before. Beyond Meat just announced the launch of its latest product, Beyond Breakfast Sausage ($4.99 for six patties), which arrives in the frozen section of select retailers ate the end of March or early April. If you’ve tried the popular breakfast sandwiches available at both Dunkin’ and Hardee’s, it’s pretty much the same thing. And let me tell you… after enjoying both on multiple different occasions, I can say with confidence that you won’t be disappointed with the weirdly-realistic vegan sausage good enough to fool even the biggest meat-lovers in terms of both taste and texture. Photo: Beyond Meat “It’s seen early success at some of the most popular and iconic quick service restaurants, and we’re excited to introduce the first extension of the platform in retail,” said Ethan Brown, founder and CEO of of Beyond Meat, in a press release. “It’s been a staple in my own household, and I’m glad that families can now enjoy this delicious breakfast option at home while feeling great about nutritional wins.” “It’s been a staple in my own household, and I’m glad that families can now enjoy this delicious breakfast option at home while feeling great
Why do we keep coming back to 100-year old beauty products? Because they work
March 11, 2020 at 05:10PM by CWC Pond’s Cold Cream has been around since 1846, Vaseline just celebrated its 150th birthday, and it’s estimated that 60 Dove Beauty Bars—first invented in 1957—are sold every single second around the world. Despite the fact that new beauty brands are launching every week, beauty enthusiasts continue to sing the praises of tried-and-true products, decades (and centuries!) after they were first introduced. Given that innovation drives the multi-billion dollar beauty business forward, what’s behind the back-to-basics mentality? “The beauty industry is always needing to reinvent itself to sell new products, but just because something is new, doesn’t mean it is better,” says Caren Campbell, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in San Francisco. That point is easy to miss in the age of shelfie. Overflowing cabinets and countertops are leaving many consumers with a try-it-all mentality that ultimately results in confusion about the options at hand. As such, using tested, dermatologist-backed products is a clear-cut way to combat this. “I think that more people are going back to the basics because they feel like they’ve been let down by multi-step routines that cost a lot of money and time,” says Papri Sarkar, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in Brookline, Massachusetts. “They want something simple that they can do in their sleep…or right before sleep, in this case.” And some dermatologists even point to fewer, simplified steps as being better for skin. Older products tend to be blander, and these products are meant to keep moisture within skin,
I didn’t expect Harvey Weinstein to be convicted—and that’s a problem
March 11, 2020 at 04:25PM by CWC On February 24, a jury in New York convicted producer Harvey Weinstein on two of the five charges for which he faced trial: rape in the third degree and criminal sexual assault in the first degree. As the news broke, my colleague Katie (who asked to use a pseudonym) and I—both victims in our own right—were shocked; we didn’t think Weinstein’s victims would be believed or protected. And that, I think, is a pretty good indication of how far we still have to go in the war against sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination, despite sporadic victories yielded by the #MeToo movement. UPDATE: On March 11, Harvey Weinstein, 67, was sentenced to 23 years in New York State prison after his conviction on felony sex crimes. My #MeToo experience involved the movie business, and it has given me an empathy for the victims that I just didn’t think Weinstein’s jury would be able to muster. Much like his victims, I’d had to walk a tightrope; on one side, my livelihood was threatened and on the other, my sense of safety. In order to report the male executive who was harassing me (I was an assistant), I’d had to strategically circumvent the “old boys club” that ran the studio. I knew that if I told my (male) boss what was happening, he would protect the (male) perpetrator, and that I would be the one to lose my job. I was too scared to approach the
Going keto might come with a side of diarrhea—here’s how to quell those runs
March 11, 2020 at 03:50PM by CWC When your BFF is telling you all about how following the ketogenic diet has completely changed her life, there might be one thing she’s forgetting to mention: how the eating plan sometimes comes with major…just going to say it…pooping problems. Because the diet is so high-fat and low-carb, having trouble in the bathroom in the form of “keto diarrhea” isn’t at all uncommon. “Constipation is often the biggest problem with the keto diet due to the lack of fiber, but in fact, artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols, as well as a very high fat diet, can also cause diarrhea,” says Ginger Hultin, RD, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and owner of Champagne Nutrition. Keto diarrhea is exactly what it sounds like: diarrhea that happens because of the switch to the keto diet. “It could be anything from noticing looser or more frequent bowel movements to full-on diarrhea, which is generally defined as having three or more loose, liquid bowel movements in a day,” Hultin says. But what is it about the keto diet that can cause such a crappy situation, and is there anything that can be done about it? Here’s everything you need to know about keto diarrhea. What causes keto diarrhea? Some people, not all, experience keto diarrhea as an unpleasant side effect when switching to the keto diet. There are a few possible reasons for keto diarrhea, Hultin says: Fat can be hard to digest. In general,
Why slow-twitch exercises are key for muscular endurance
March 11, 2020 at 03:00PM by CWC There are two different schools of thought when it comes to working out. One says that you should go fast and get as many reps in as possible (HIIT workouts, for example). The other says that low-and-slow is the name of the game (like Pilates). With fast, explosive movements in HIIT, you activate fast-twitch muscle fibers, but slow-twitch muscle fibers activate when you’re doing a Megaformer workout, distance running, or lifting heavy weights, and these slow-twitch muscle fibers are the ones in charge of your endurance. “Fast-twitch muscles fire quickly, exerting a lot of power, but can also tire very quickly,” says Abbie Rosser, co-owner of Urban Lagree fitness studio. “Slow-twitch muscles take a longer time to burn out, so building on these and making them more efficient will significantly improve endurance.” Keep scrolling to learn why slow-twitch-activating exercises are important to improve your endurance. The connection between slow-twitch muscle fibers and endurance First up, some biology. While fast-twitch muscles work in anaerobic situations (aka you’re holding your breath to get 60-second squat series o-v-e-r), slow-twitch muscles are responsible for oxygen generation within the muscle fibers. “This oxygen is fuel for continuous exercise, so that there’s less lactic acid buildup, meaning that you can go for extended muscle contractions in a longer amount of time,” says Amoila Cesar, a trainer and NBA strength coach. The fibers are actually a deep red in color, which Cesar explains is from oxygenated blood within the muscles