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"Few lifestyle choices come with as much cultural baggage as when to eat dinner. There are all the national stereotypes: Americans eat early, Italians eat late, and Spaniards eat even later. An early dinner opens up the evening. A late dinner can be an event in and of itself. But is there a best time to eat dinner from a health perspective? Sort of. What you definitely want to do, says, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, is finish your food at least three hours before you plan to go to sleep. If your usual bedtime is midnight, for example, you’ve got a 9 pm deadline. This is because eating too late can disrupt the circadian rhythms which govern how our body transitions from day to night and back again. “If you push your dinner later and later, the message to your system is [that] you should still be active,” says Longo. It might negatively affect your sleep (the same way being exposed to bright light before bed will do) and how efficiently you burn calories. When you eat dinner also dictates the total time you fast between the last meal of one day and the first one of the next. This is what “time-restricted eating”—a type of that involves keeping all your day’s meals in a window of 12 hours or less—is concerned with, says, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Surrey. If you extend your overnight fast between dinner and breakfast, “then you’re allowing your body to go into the more catabolic phase, where you’re shifting to oxidizing fats. You’re training the body to do what it’s designed to do: burn carbs when you’re eating carbs, and then burn fat when you’re not.” This can help with weight loss and is generally good for your metabolic health. Should eating in a restricted window mean making your breakfast later or your dinner earlier? “The consensus seems to be that you get more bang for your buck if you restrict your calories to earlier in the day,” says Collins. “That makes sense from a circadian perspective, because you’re geared up to deal with food in the early period of your active phase.” The most common habit among centenarians, says Longo, is a “light dinner” early enough to allow 12 hours to pass before breakfast the following day. Eating less later in the day healthy too, at least if we believe the old saying instructing us to “eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.” This isn’t always realistic. “It’s quite difficult to eat a big breakfast because you just haven’t got the hunger,” says Collins, partly because your body has “started to export glucose out into the blood” as you wake up, so your energy levels are already high. And given that many people have sandwiches for lunch—how many of us have cooked meals the office?—it’s inevitable that most of us calorie load in the evening. Don’t stress about this, though, Collins says. Calorie loading at night is fine as long as you give your body a “period of rest” with a low-carb breakfast the next day. Having an early dinner is one thing, but it’s also important to make sure you’re “not sitting in front of the TV having [chips] and chocolate and alcohol” afterwards. If an early time-restricted eating window is unrealistic, then a later one is still better than letting your mealtimes sprawl across the entire day. And if you’re doing exercise in the day—particularly the resistance-based kind, like weightlifting—then a big, carb- and protein-rich dinner can be just the thing to help your muscles recover. Ultimately, says Longo, the key is to keep your meals in a 12-hour window and finish dinner three hours before you go to bed. Altering your eating habits any further than that is only necessary if your body isn’t reacting well to your existing schedule. “If you do have a bigger dinner, and you’re sleeping well, your cholesterol and blood pressure [are] fine, then you’re good,” he says. “But if you’re sleeping poorly, and you have [health] problems, maybe you should move to having a bigger breakfast, a bigger lunch and a smaller dinner, which usually seems to be the healthiest [pattern] of all.” British GQ."
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"for the summer takes serious commitment. But it can be easy to burn out on an overly ambitious plan to look like, say,. So we consulted experts on how to find a good middle ground between couch rotting and. Here’s a summer body workout to help you you feel confident without going to extremes. We’re all built different, so trying to achieve a version of what a “beach body” looks like in one's mind is impossible. But, for arguments sake, let’s think about what men usually think of when they hear the words “beach body”. “When men picture their summer body, they usually aspire to be toned with lean muscle mass that’s highly defined and ripped with a low percentage of body fat, or they prefer to by having more muscle mass to emphasize their athleticism with a slightly higher amount of body fat that contributes to the mass of their muscles,” says personal trainer and founder of The training method Farren Morgan. Even within that definition there are two different versions which would be impossible to achieve simultaneously. Figuring out what your goals are shouldn't be based on society's standards, but your own fitness goals. “There shouldn't be an idealistic summer body,” says English CrossFit athlete, fitness model and television personality. “Everyone's summer body can be totally different. You could have someone who struggles to gain weight, who wants to increase muscle mass. Then you could have someone who's overweight and their summer body might be just to go from [238 pounds] down to [210 pounds] and they're really proud because they've lost [28 pounds].” So, the ideal summer body is subjective. Ask yourself what you want? Maybe you feel great and all you need is a and a cold and you’re good to go. All power to you. But if you do want to add muscle or tone up for summer, it’s important to pick a realistic goal that you know you can achieve in a given time frame. If you have trouble staying accountable to your workout schedule, consider hiring a personal trainer to help you with your goals. Or, if that's out of your price range, George suggests setting a goal with a friend and keeping each other accountable as you work toward it. If you’re already an active person, getting into summer shape might be less about a huge lifestyle overhaul, and more about adding some little tweaks to your day-to-day. Morgan suggests: There isn’t anything drastic here. It’s just a more measured approach to a training regime, and one that will help you hit your goals sooner. Of course, sticking to a plan is difficult. While we wouldn’t suggest a restrictive regiment, even hitting the gym a few times a week can be tough for most of us. Not quite on track? Don’t beat yourself up. “As a PT, you'd try and drill that fear of failure out of clients; within four weeks, you're not going to have a drastic change,” says George. “When you take before and after pictures you're not going to set any expectations whatsoever. We just want to make sure—in this first four weeks—that we're that we put in place, we're sticking to the nutrition that we put in place.” In other words, even turning up is progress. Be as consistent as you can, and the results will eventually come. “You're always gonna have weeks when you don't feel great at the gym or you don't want to eat your specific nutrition or you want to go off the rails a little bit,"" says George. “I think it's an important process to know those weeks or those days will be part of the journey. And you've just got to accept them for what they are and appreciate that you need them to enjoy all the positive days that you're having.” That holiday approaching faster than you’d like? If you’re down to the wire and in need of a final push, dial in your diet. “Both your diet and exercise routine go hand-in-hand when it comes to getting in shape within a short timeframe,” Morgan says. “If you want to lose weight, your focus should be ensuring that you maintain a caloric deficit.” Cutting about 300 calories a day should do it. You’ll still want to hit all of your macros and maintain a balanced diet, though. If you already eat well, try cutting down portion sizes instead of opting for chicken breasts and nothing else. It’s vital you’re still eating enough to fuel your workouts. “Your diet would be the main focus, while your exercise routine becomes the catalyst to amplify your weight-loss results,” says Morgan. Whatever your goals, if you’re looking for a workout to mix things up and alter your shape in a hurry, the below is a great place to start, especially since you can do it while on summer vacation, too. “I’d strongly recommend calisthenic workouts for those looking to get stronger, loose excess calories, develop lean muscle mass, and make noticeable developments to achieving their summer body,” says Morgan. Aim for three rounds of: If this feels easy, Morgan recommends grabbing a kettlebell during your squats or, if there are none in sight, a rucksack filled with your beach reads. Remember that summer comes every year. Instead of waiting until the first sunny day of spring to start exercising, then putting pressure on yourself to get fit by June, aim to maintain a moderate fitness routine as a year-round hobby. That way you’ll always have a decent base level to work from. So, with that in mind, don’t ditch your exercise routine as soon as summer’s over. “Find another goal,” suggests George. “Don’t say 'Right, I've done it. Now I'm gonna fall back into old ways and eat junk every week.’” Instead, George says it’s important to reflect on your journey: appreciate the highs and lows, and what you can improve on next time. A great way of keeping fit is to work toward a new milestone, like a half-marathon, or even a competition in your gym. “Just find that goal that you want to work towards,” George says. “Make sure you put it in place and set another plan for yourself so that you stay motivated. Make sure you still have something else to aim for and don't let yourself go off track.” Do this and instead of obsessing about summer, you’ll foster year-round fitness, leaving you healthier, happier, and yes, ready to whip your shirt off at a moment’s notice, whatever the season."
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"Every morning for the past three weeks I have spent five minutes chewing on a smooth piece of plastic the size of a small egg. It's called a Jawzrsize, and, at least according to hundreds of online testimonials and more than a few viral videos, continuing to regularly chew on this thing will grow and sculpt more than 50 muscles in my neck and jaw, leaving me with a sharper and more “masculine” appearance. Which is easy enough to laugh at—but not when you've still got a minute to go and your jaw is burning. It's a real workout—it feels like I'm trying to lift a weight that I'm not quite strong enough for. I first became aware of Jawzrsize through a video on my Instagram discover page. (It's that kind of product.) In the video, CEO Brandon Harris held forth on the “forgotten value of biting” before chomping down on the product and flexing his neck. It was completely bizarre—and I couldn't help but click for more. When Harris speaks he sounds like Matthew McConaughey after four Red Bulls, quickly shifting between surf-bro philosophy to impassioned sales pitches. Harris created Jawzrsize after a series of intense accidents. In his early twenties, he broke his jaw in five places and lost a portion of his ear after a brawl broke out during an MMA event in Alaska. His jaw had to be wired shut for several months. Almost immediately afterward he moved to Hawaii—where he crashed his motorcycle and landed in a coma. During rehab, he wanted to find a way to strengthen his face the same way he was strengthening the rest of his body. ""My older brother had a pit bull we called Kane. He had the meanest bite. And all he’d ever do is gnaw on his Kong toy,"" Harris told me from his Maui home. “I’d sit there and watch him use his masseter muscles and see his neck engaging. And I thought…I want something just like that.” According to Harris, who repeatedly points out that he is not a doctor, the science behind the Jawersize is simple. The soft foods in the current Western diet have divorced us from the way our ancestors ate. That in turn gave us weaker facial features. The resistance that Jawersize offers builds the muscles in the jaw and face through repeated use, resulting in a sort of primal connection to our historical lineage and a more defined and handsome jawline. Using himself as a guinea pig, he tested prototypes until he found a design that he was happy with, touting his facial transformation post-coma as proof of concept. A successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016 propelled the company forward, and after a years of growth—including coverage on and Dr. Phil spin-off —Jawzrsize claims annual sales in the seven figures. I am not particularly self-conscious about my jaw, nor have I recently had it broken in a fight, but my curiosity quickly got the better of me. Jawzrsize While it was in the mail, I asked, a clinician with specialization in kinesiology, about his thoughts on those claims. He was skeptical. “Your jaw is not just made up of muscles, but the mandible—the jaw bone—largely determines the shape of the jawline,” he said. “Training the masseter muscles could, in theory, give you the appearance of a wider, more defined jaw. But this will not affect other aspects of the jawline. While it is possible to get some change in how the jaw looks, you will will be limited by the bones that you were born with.” Another contributing factor to a person’s face shape is their body fat percentage. Even if you are able to grow the masseter muscles, a change is less apparent if you’re carrying more weight. It’s like trying to build your abs when you’ve still got a beer belly. On Reddit and Youtube you’ll find people championing Jawersize and showing off You'll also find about as many insisting that Jawzrsize is a or could potentially cause injury. The small print on the Jawersize website does say that the transitions they showcase are not typical results. They also offer a money-back guarantee to anyone unsatisfied with the product. But for lots of guys, it seems a theoretical shot at a slightly more defined jawline is worth it. In fact, there are even enough true believers to support a second facial fitness product,. Dmitrii Vasiukov was inspired to create the device after seeing a demo of Jawersize online. He was fascinated with the potential of the product, but he thought the chew toy aesthetic of Jawersize was too silly to be taken seriously. The Chisell promises similar results to Jawersize with a more discreet design—users chew on a smaller piece of plastic positioned over the back molars. But it's the way Vasiukov talks about what getting a better jaw can do for your life that really got my attention. ""Historically people with wider bigger jaws are automatically perceived as more dominant,"" he said. “The dominance aspect is not only felt by girls. It’s also felt by your peers. The majority of interactions have a dominant and submissive, even if the difference is very small, and what I’ve noticed since I trained my jaw is that people perceive you as a bit more dominant.” This seemed more than a bit too good to be true, but I asked Harris if his jaw had been a factor in attracting the opposite sex.""You should have seen the girls at the conventions coming up to me,"" said Harris. ""It was like having abs for your face."" The idea that you could unlock some secret level of manhood through the power of chewing was both laughable and sort of intoxicating. Here were these people achieving big things: starting companies, getting laid, and fulfilling their dreams, through the power of a stronger jaw. On the first day of my facial fitness journey I completed 150 reps—bites—on my Jawzrsize in five minutes. There was an undeniable pump—I knew that something was happening. Within a week I was clearly making gains: The chewing had gotten easier and I'd managed to up my rep count to an even 200. But I doubted whether or not that feeling was going to actually lead to any changes in my face. Each day in the mirror I kept looking at myself wondering if there were any discernible changes, like a middle schooler hoping for that first peach fuzz of a mustache. I took a picture before I started, and another after three weeks of chewing. If you really squint, my jaw does look slightly more defined in the “after.” Maybe. It might just be the lighting. What I do know for sure is, shortly after starting my facial fitness journey, a co-worker from an old restaurant job hit me up on Instagram to confess a crush. Could that be a coincidence? It's hard to say, really. GQ grooming columnist Phillip Picardi asks: If face rollers are bullshit, how come they deliver such sweet, cool relief?"
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"It is 2024, and we're talking about macronutrients as if they're star athletes. You know about protein, carbs, and fats—they get all the attention. Fiber, on the other hand, is flying under the radar, but if (and when aren't they?), it is about to climb the ranks as the macronutrient du jour. This is all to say: Americans are ignoring their fiber intake: Recent research estimates that only are getting the recommended amount of fiber in their diets daily. And by neglecting the nutrient, they’re sleeping on some major health benefits. “There are so many benefits to fiber,” says author and celebrity holistic health coach (who has worked with the likes of Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, and Emmy Rossum. “[They include] normalizing bowel movements and preventing constipation, maintaining bowel health, lowering cholesterol levels, inflammation and blood pressure to support overall heart health, and helping to control blood sugar levels and increasing satiety to manage weight and hunger.” Technically a type of carbohydrate, “dietary fiber, also known as roughage or bulk, includes the parts of plant foods your body can't digest or absorb,” says LeVeque. “Unlike other food components, such as fats, proteins, or [other] carbohydrates—which your body breaks down and absorbs—fiber isn't digested by your body.” Even though the body doesn’t digest fiber itself, its presence in your diet helps your digestive system function in top form, says, a functional medicine nurse practitioner and author of. According to LeVeque, this is because fiber acts as a prebiotic, promoting the growth and health of good bacteria in the gut. “The human gastrointestinal tract is home to a complex community of microorganisms, collectively known as the gut microbiota or microbiome. This community includes various bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microbes,” she says. “When we consume dietary fiber, it travels to the colon undigested, where it becomes a source of nutrition for the gut microbiota.” To get sciencey real quick, LeVeque explains that the undigested fiber is converted to short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in the gut. “These SCFAs … play a vital role in supporting both gut and overall health because they act as an energy source, maintain intestinal barrier function, fight inflammation, and support our immune system,” she says. There are two types of dietary fiber: soluble and insoluble, and each has a role to play. “Soluble fiber attracts water and turns to gel during digestion. This slows digestion,” LeVeque says. You can find soluble fiber in foods like beans, lentils, nuts, and some fruits and vegetables. Insoluble fiber, meanwhile, “adds bulk to the stool and moves it quicker through the stomach and intestines,” says LeVeque. Insoluble fiber is rich in foods including whole grains, veggies, and wheat bran. As mentioned, dietary fiber is great for your gut: It keeps your bowel movements regular and helps prevent bloating and GI discomfort. But the benefits don’t stop there. Research shows that by helping regulate blood sugar levels and aiding with the release of gut hormones, adipokines (a type of anti-inflammatory protein), and bile acids. These are all factors in the onset of Type 2 diabetes; so in this way, fiber is protective against the disease. High-fiber diets have also been linked to a reduction in the risk of,, and. Berghoff notes that the recommended amount of fiber will vary based on your sex and daily calorie intake, but the (USDA) recommends 14 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories of food. “If you're at 25 to 35 grams of fiber per day, you are in fairly good shape,” Berghoff says. Some signs you might not be getting enough fiber include bloating, constipation (and hemorrhoids), irritable bowel syndrome, or diverticulitis, says LeVeque. LeVeque says she recommends getting your fiber from whole foods like produce, nuts, and seeds before turning to supplementation. “Embracing a holistic approach to nutrition, I find that incorporating these wholesome options not only contributes to my daily fiber intake but also offers myriad [other] essential nutrients,” she says. Here’s what you can load up on to reap the health benefits of dietary fiber: “Fruit has a bad reputation often with dieters because of its sugar content, but fruits are high in fiber,” says Berghoff. “I want you to your fiber, eat your fruits and vegetables”—preferably with the skin on. “When you juice them, it takes away most of that fiber and then leaves just the high sugar, which … spikes your insulin levels.” LeVeque says some of her favorite fruits include berries and avocados (yes, avo is a fruit). Pears, apples, kiwi, and pomegranate also pack a punch of fiber. Shocker, I know, but fiber is another reason to eat your greens. Peas (8.8 grams of fiber per serving) and broccoli (5.2 grams) are really high in fiber, says Berghoff. Other expert-recommended high-fiber veggies include cruciferous vegetables like kale, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts; carrots; and sweet corn. Artichokes top the (9.6 grams per serving), and potatoes and sweet potatoes are also great sources. The USDA recommends cooking most of your vegetables to maximize their fiber content (although there are some instances where raw is the better choice, such as for red bell peppers, carrots, and jicama). High-protein beans and legumes include navy beans, white beans, lima beans, mung beans, lentils, and chickpeas—each of which has 7 to 9 grams of fiber per standard serving. Berghoff says that oats are her top pick for an easy way to reach your fiber goals. “Most people are eating oats in some form anyways, and that's a really good high fiber choice.” According to the USDA, many ready-to-eat cereals are high in fiber, including shredded wheat and bran flakes., quinoa, bulgar, spelt, and barley are also fiber-rich whole grains (clocking 3 to 7 grams per serving). In addition to being rich and fiber, LeVeque says she loves nuts and seeds because they “offer a satisfying crunch along with healthy fats,” says LeVeque. Pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, coconut, almonds, and chestnuts are at the top of the USDA’s list., which are also rich and omega-3 fatty acids and help promote hydration by absorbing water, are an easy way to add a fiber boost to your meal. “Chia seeds are my secret sauce,” says Berghoff. “I will put them in drinks, I will put them in meals. If I'm doing an Instant Pot recipe, I usually add chia seeds.” Nutrition experts, including Berghoff and LeVeque, say that it’s best to get your nutrients from whole foods. But if that’s difficult for you to do consistently, supplementing your food with fiber powder—from a source like psyllium, inulin, or methylcellulose—may be a good way for you to go. “A daily non-negotiable for me is adding to my smoothie as a main fiber source because it provides six grams of soluble fiber in one serving,” says LeVeque. Just remember to check with your doctor before adding any supplements to your regimen. Supplements, even something as harmless-seeming as a fiber supplement, could exacerbate certain health conditions or impact medications you’re taking."
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"Rich, 33, has always admired butts—on everyone. As a kid, he grew up reading superhero comics and sketching exaggerated physiques, so a shapely backside was just part of the package. “When I started taking fitness more seriously, a nice butt became my top goal,” he says. “I can’t lie, I like it when close friends grab or pat mine. It’s oddly comforting to know that all that hard work—and it’s so much work—has paid off.” He feels more comfortable in shorts, too, because butt workouts have helped to build his thighs and hamstrings. Queer men have long appreciated a good butt, and are often trailblazers when it comes to male aesthetic trends. But recently straight men have been catching on. And the tides are slowly shifting, one shapely bottom at a time. After decades of gym culture prioritizing biceps and six-packs, glutes are finally having their time in the spotlight. In 2023, more than 400 men in the US got Brazilian butt lifts (BBLs), and interest in male glute enhancements is growing. Brands are rolling out butt-enhancing,, and even. Popular fitness influencers are now speaking directly to men about, and guys are like Pilates that prioritize glute strength. ""It is trending more the last few years than the last few decades in my career,”, the physical therapist and personal trainer behind, says. “It was once laughed at. And now people are standing in line at commercial centers to use the hip thrust machine.” Not only that, but the male butt is increasingly a bona fide thirst object. When I (very informally) polled my Instagram friends, 81% of respondents—people who date men—said that they love a good man butt. The remaining 19% said they didn’t care either way. (Unsurprisingly, no one chose the “prefer a flat ass” option.) Conversations with the people who responded backed this up: One person told me she has to actively remind herself not to smack her boyfriend’s ass every time he walks by. Another bragged that her husband’s “unfairly excellent booty” is something she could talk about for hours. Someone else said a woman once told him he should model for an underwear campaign—and he still thinks about that compliment years later. As the appetite among men to be caked up rises, it’s bumping up against decades of gym culture that treated the lower body as an afterthought. So what shifted? And what does that tell us about the world’s ever-changing body expectations for men? While the ideal female body has whiplashed through trend cycles over the years, the “ideal” male body, as cosigned by pop culture, advertising, and other popular iconography has remained suspiciously consistent. (With the brief exception of the.) Broad shoulders. Big chest. Strong arms. Legs that don’t draw attention. “The ability to have a bigger, broader shoulder, a V taper-style of torso—it’s the separator from men and women many times,” says. “Many men think it’s more masculine to be able to have bigger, broader shoulders, big chest, biceps, upper body. The lower body just goes to the wayside.” You can see it in the classic weekly “bro split” weightlifting routine: chest and triceps one day, back and biceps another, then a., if they happen at all, are begrudgingly squeezed in once a week. Even ’s famous six-day program only gave them two days. But the consequences are visible, especially when hot weather hits and you can’t hide behind baggy sweatpants. “There’s nothing worse than a guy that has a great upper body but two toothpicks for legs,” says Taylor, 29. “My boyfriend has a literal shelf butt and looks really strong. So much of the power when he’s doing sports—or having sex, TMI—comes from the lower half of his body.” Kevin, 33, says that his butt is the body part he gets complimented on the most—by men and women. “I have a huge ass that has been used as a pillow,” he says. He doesn’t target it directly in the gym—that attention goes to his calves—but the payoff comes from his well-rounded routine: strength training, reformer Pilates, Muay Thai, and yoga. He’s not trying to sculpt a shelf butt on purpose, but he’s aware of how it plays in dating. People notice, he says, and he’s definitely into it when other guys have one, too. A good butt isn’t just nice to look at, it’s also a sign of physical competence. Athletes with explosive lower bodies, like sprinters, soccer players, and football stars, aren’t skipping glute day. Their power, agility, and resilience all come from below the waist. “The glutes are the powerhouse of the entire body,” Rusin says. “They sit on the backside of the hip, which is the second most mobile joint in the body, and are really active in every single movement that you could possibly think of.” When Rusin works with clients, he programs glute work into every single lower-body training session—hip hinges, single-leg work, activation drills. “We’re training from different angles and different planes of motion,” he says. Strong glutes also help you move better: protecting the knees; supporting the hips; reducing lower back pain; and making lifting, carrying, running, and jumping more efficient. “Whether you’re a man or woman, you can’t afford not to train them,” Rusin adds. Even Rich, who started training his glutes mostly for the aesthetic, says he feels more powerful on the squat rack now, and that confidence has carried over into other lifts. “I can handle more weight, and I don’t second-guess myself,” he says. In recent years, the rise of training programs that prioritize functional strength training and sports-specific movements, like and, have laso pushed more men to take glutes seriously. “I’ve seen a major evolution in how men approach glute training, and we’re seeing a growing focus on functional glute strength,” says Juddy Ferguson, F45 headquarters senior athletics educator. “We’re incorporating more unilateral movements like single-leg RDLs and split squats, as well as sled pushes and hip-dominant step-ups. This is becoming more popular with our athletes who train at F45 exclusively for competition prep."" Despite both the aesthetic and health benefits, a lot of guys still dread leg day. The main reason? It’s brutal. “Honestly, it’s fucking painful,” commented one Reddit user in a. “I do it 2 times a week but it fucking sucks. It takes a hell of a lot more mental energy to go to failure on legs than upper body.” But even when they commit to lower-body training, many men still avoid direct glute work, says Rusin. They might crank out a few barbell squats, but ask them to do a set of hip thrusts or cable kickbacks, and you get a dismissive shrug or a visceral aversion. Certain male fitness influencers have even expressed their distaste for glute exercises on social media. In a video clip that has made its way, an Australian bodybuilder named Jeff Myth went so far as to say: “If you’re a man doing hip thrusts, you should be very upset. Because it upsets me.” That aversion, shared on social media or elsewhere, has a way of trickling down to the average male gymgoer. “Before I understood how important strong glutes are to almost any athletic hobby, I was probably hesitant to train them,” says Alex, 36. Part of the hesitancy to take part may be due to the fact that some exercises can be seen as more masculine or feminine, says Rusin. “Men just love the ego drive of throwing a bar on their back and acting like squats save everyone from cancer,” he says. “I think [direct glute work] has been polarized with Instagram culture where nobody wants to be mistaken for a booty chick.” But Rae, 39, says it’s a huge green flag when a man gets over that hang-up. “If they’re doing hip thrusts or other glute-focused workouts, their desire for health outweighs their hang-ups with masculinity,” she says. “Maybe it’s a little biology, but they look healthier. Healthy men take care of themselves, and somewhere in my brain, it’s connected to the idea that I won’t have to nag them to take care of themselves. And they’re just hotter—point blank.” In the basic big box gym I go to (Blink Fitness), I’ve been seeing more guys sliding glute bridges or machine kickbacks into their workout without looking around self-consciously first. Slowly, the stigma is breaking down—not just around the exercises, but around the idea that men can train for power, longevity, and yes, a little cake, without it threatening their masculinity. There’s something liberating about that shift, about owning a part of your body that used to be ignored. As Alex puts it, “it’s honestly really empowering to have a fat ass."""
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"Even if you spend the entire night on your back, ( ), you probably wake up feeling a little creaky and stiff. Any prolonged time you spend being sedentary can make you feel that way, sleeping included. That’s why it’s good for your body to have a short morning routine. Stretching in the morning helps loosen stiff muscles and joints, which will help set you up for success whether you’re headed to the gym or to sit at your desk for the next eight hours. (And if it’s normally the latter, at the end of the day too.) We talked to leading stretching experts who help athletes and average Joes alike avoid injuries about what a good morning stretch routine looks like. The 13 stretches rounded up here get their expert seal of approval as the best ones to start the day with. One of the main pros of having a morning stretch routine is that it primes the body for movement. “It allows the muscles to get a bit warmer as we start to walk around to make coffee and get ready for the day,” says physical therapist and owner Syd Young. That’s in part because moving around after you wake up helps mobilize the muscles and joints, says, a physical therapist and owner of Graham Therapy and Fitness. She recommends starting your morning stretch routine even before getting out of bed as a gentle way to get the body moving. “A morning stretch while in bed allows the initiation of range of motion in a non-weight-bearing position,” she says. “This can help make those first steps a little easier before applying weight bearing through the joints.” When you’re sleeping, blood flow is slowed down, so Graham says that stretches done in bed and out of bed also help restart that flow of blood to the muscles. If you have a physically demanding job or are about to work out, she says that stretching in the morning is associated with muscle activation, injury prevention, and reduced perception of effort. Simply put, the strain you put on your body won’t feel as intense and you’ll move easier throughout the day. “Stretching in the morning helps to improve your freedom and ease of movement, or how far you can bend, reach, and turn,” says stretch coach and sports injury specialist, who is also an exercise scientist at the Stretching Institute. “It also reduces aches, pains, and muscle and joint tightness. Plus, it helps to improve posture and coordination, promotes circulation, and increases energy.” With all these benefits in mind, give the below routine a shot. These are the best morning stretches to prime your body for the day—no matter what it holds—according to the experts we interviewed. You can start your morning stretch routine while you’re still in bed. “It’s a great lower back stretch that allows for slight hip movement and is good for desk workers because the lower back stays in the same position all day as we sit,” Young says. Plus, it can help prevent lower back pain, according to Walker. The first stretch flows nicely into this second one. Though you can still technically stay in bed for this one, you might find more stability doing it on a surface that isn’t as soft. “It helps to improve rotation through the spine, making it easier to turn and bend without restriction,” Walker says. This is a beneficial stretch for people who sit all day because the hip flexors are constantly shortened as we sit at a desk. “It’s a great hip flexor stretch as well as a continued lower back stretch,” says Young. Okay, time to officially get out of bed to finish stretching. This stretch improves range of motion in the chest, shoulders, and arms while supporting good posture, per Walker. If you work a desk job, Young says that this morning stretch is a must. Show your neck some love before it spends the next several hours slightly forward toward your screen. To prevent back and neck tension, Graham says this stretch can work wonders. It can also relieve stress, so try it before you dive into your inbox. “[This move] stretches the shoulders, back, and feet—and if you add in a little self-traction by leaning the hips back you can also elongate the spine as well,” Graham says. “It benefits mobility of the shoulders, back, and feet, which can help with overhead reaching activities.” If you’re about to go for a morning run, Graham recommends the wall lunge stretch to warm up. “It helps with quad, hip flexor, and ankle mobility,” she says. “This stretch helps to open up the hips and improve posture,” Walker says. Other benefits of doing this stretch after you wake up include increased quad and hip flexibility and better joint circulation. Walker recommends the standing leg-up hamstring stretch for improving flexibility, reducing muscle soreness, and preventing lower back pain. It keeps your hamstrings and hips nice and loose, which also supports posture. You’ve likely moved through cat-cow in a. And for good reason: Young says this classic stretch is great for stretching the middle part of the back, a.k.a. the thoracic spine. They say that this part of the back tends to get supertight after sitting around, which is why it can be a good one to do before you start the work day. Don’t forget to give your wrists a good stretch in the morning. “This is super important if you type all day,” Young says. “The tendons of the wrist muscles attach to the hand and fingers, so it’s important that we stretch this area to avoid pain.” While finding time to add anything else to your morning routine might be a (sorry, we had to), spending a few minutes moving through these poses will keep you moving freely and help you avoid getting injured as you get older. It’s one of the easiest ways to support your body—no matter what you spend the rest of the day doing."
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"GQ’ Hacking one’s health in the name of longevity can often lead to an unyielding assortment of trends, takes, and tips each one more unaligned with each other. Do a cold plunge. Sit in a sauna. Walk 10,000 steps a day. Bryan Johnson,, pops supplements like candy—but, of course, he’s not eating any candy. When it comes to eating, and specifically how what we eat affects how long we live, the information out there regarding any links between diet and longevity can be equally conflicting. Some people will tell you to eat lots of meat. Others are on record saying that isn’t exactly the case. (“Meat is like radiation,” Walter Willett, a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health nutrition researcher,. “We don’t know the safe level.”) Walter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, even spells out precisely what to do if you want to live a long time. It’s, where the first line reads, “Eat mostly vegan.” ? Low. ? Stick to a, confining all meals between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. What, you might ask, are we supposed to do then, if the idea is to optimize a diet in the name of our health so that we can live a long, healthy life? “Certainly there is no one-size-fits-all diet that’s best for everyone,” says Dr. Frank Hu, Harvard professor of nutrition and epidemiology. “The good news is there are different patterns that can help prevent chronic disease and improve longevity.” By far, the overarching principle across all diets, if you’re looking to live a long life mostly free of disease, should be the. Packaged snacks, cookies, fast-food burgers, soda—all are examples of the sort of food that will do more harm to your body, regardless of how good a sleeve of chocolate chip cookies might taste in the moment. “Nowadays ultraprocessed foods are everywhere and ubiquitous in our food supply, but they’re very high in sugar, sodium, and unhealthy fats,” says Hu. The is commonly promoted as one of the best diets out there for preventing chronic disease and preserving cardiac health. Limiting the intake of dairy products while upping the amount of fish and foods high in omega-3s, are. Meanwhile, the diet’s other key feature is paying attention to the types of fats and carbs you eat as opposed to eliminating them entirely. Consuming extra virgin olive oil is a big part of eating like you’re in Italy. “It’s not just beneficial in terms of lowering your cholesterol,” Hu says. “It may prevent other chronic diseases, like dementia or Alzheimer’s.” Red meat. If you’re a person who likes cooking up a steak every now and then, keep it to something like a strip or a flank, which are both lean cuts that contain key nutrients like zinc, heme iron, and B vitamins. Blue Zones around the world—Okinawa and Sardinia, for instance—are famed for the exceptionally long lives of their inhabitants. People there, who tend to get regular physical exercise and lead rich social lives, are known for living well past 80. Their diets are generally a 95-5 split. That is, just 5 percent of their meals contain any animal protein, while are composed of plant-based foods. In Loma Linda, California, where more people 100-plus years old live than anywhere else in the world,, and. So is. The, which has followed 96,000 Americans and Canadians since 2002, that people who eat vegetarian or mostly vegetarian diets have lower levels of cholesterol and high blood pressure, as well as lower prevalence of type 2 diabetes. As Hu says, however, that doesn’t mean you need to radically change your diet. What the Blue Zones have in common is that they follow a key principle. “You don’t have to follow a rigid regimen,” he says. “Basically, you want to eat minimally processed and whole foods: fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, and seeds.”"
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"Whether you're new to or just ready to upgrade the cheapo mat you impulse-bought before you were sold on this whole asana thing, the very best yoga mats are a major upgrade to your practice. Think of them as your safe harbor—the little plot of land that's all yours—no matter what happened in your day prior to. So long as your mat stays grippy, the surface isn't sticky with debris and sweat, and it has just enough give to support your body weight, you've got a solid landing pad for nailing any posture. Once your feet and hands are planted firmly on that squishy surface, all you've got to do is ""follow your breath""—that's yoga speak for chill out and move a little—and you're more or less guaranteed to walk out feeling at least somewhat rejuvenated and at peace. While it can be a bit overwhelming to stay present amidst the sweaty, athleisure-clad chaos of a crowded yoga class, a modest investment in a good yoga mat can make all the difference. There are as many quality mats out there as there are classes, so it can be an equal challenge to find the one that’s right for you. To point you in the right direction, we tested a number of mats and consulted yoga teachers on their favorites, too. As a bonus, we’ve also included options for accessories that can round out your practice. Feeling pressed about finding the right mat? Cut to the chase with this lineup of our top recommendations, according to us and a panel of experts: Manduka Pro Amazon : PVC : 6 millimeters : 71 x 26 inches : 7.5 pounds Now you may be thinking, Well, we're here to tell you that the Manduka Pro will last you a lifetime—literally. It’s the preferred mat of many veteran yogis (including pretty much everyone we chatted to for this story) due to its superior grip and supportive six millimeter thickness for wrists and knees. Lamb notes that he's practiced on many Mandukas over the years and can vouch for their longevity. “Each Manduka Pro is basically a tank: sturdy, durable, and weighs accordingly."" Justin Temple—co-founder and co-director of and a practitioner of yoga for the past 15 years—adds that the mat only gets better with age, too. “I practice Ashtanga yoga six days a week, which is a dynamic way to spend my mornings—and the Manduka Pro's thickness provides just the right amount of extra support,” Temple says. One caveat: This thing is heavy (we're talking over-seven-pounds heavy). Another downside for sweaty-palmed folks, Lamb says, is that the mat can be something of a slip-and-slide if you're engaging in more rigorous practices. Temple suggests using a practice rug or non-skid towel on top in humid weather or during sweatier sessions, though if you feel the mat starting to lose its grip over time, you could also restore it with a little salt scrub. If that’s not doing the trick, Manduka offers a so you can trade yours in for a fresh one. Jade Yoga Amazon Natural rubber 3.2 mm 68 (or 74) x 24 inches 3.2 pounds If your idea of a perfect shavasana includes ocean views or hotel blackout curtains, the JadeYoga Travel Mat is the one you’ll want tucked in your carry-on. It’s ultra-thin and featherlight compared to your average studio mat, but unlike most travel options, it still offers impressive grip, whether dry or sweaty. That traction is especially useful if you're practicing on slippery hotel tile or an uneven Airbnb balcony. This mat has gone the distance, literally. It’s a longtime favorite of seasoned yogis for everything from weekend retreats to international teacher trainings, and it folds flat into a compact square, making it easier to pack than traditional roll-up mats. It doesn’t bunch or curl at the corners, and it stays in place during transitions, whether you’re flowing through sun salutations or settling into seated twists. During testing, it performed best in more active vinyasa and hatha practices, where lightness and stickiness matter more than plush support. That said, you’ll probably want to double it up for longer holds or kneeling poses. The thinness that makes it packable does mean you’re sacrificing some comfort, especially if you have sensitive joints. But if you’re used to making the most of what’s available (think: beach towels, borrowed mats, or hotel carpeting), the tradeoff is more than worth it for the ease of travel. And just like every other mat from Jade, this one gives back. The brand plants a tree for every mat sold. Stakt Nordstrom : EVA Foam Blend : 12 mm : 69 x 24 inches (Flat), 12 x 3 x 24 inches (Folded) : 3.4 lbs Plenty of mats promise extra cushioning, but the Stakt Mat Pro takes it a step further with a smart, foldable design that allows you to layer up support exactly where you need it. It opens like an accordion, which means you can easily double or triple it under your knees, wrists, or seat without breaking flow or digging through your closet for props. If your joints tend to bark during tabletop, lunges, or kneeling poses, this mat makes a noticeable difference in comfort. The thick foam design gives it a supportive, almost Pilates-mat feel, but it still offers solid grip for a wide range of flows and functional training moves. During testing, it stayed put on both hardwood and tile, and the textured surface kept our hands and feet from slipping even during longer holds and low lunges. Unlike some plush mats that turn into balance nightmares, this one strikes a good middle ground between cushion and control. It also folds flat, which makes it way easier to stash than standard roll-up mats. If you’re tight on storage or don’t like the look of a yoga mat permanently propped in a corner, this one tucks neatly into a closet or even under a bed or couch. While it’s not the lightest option out there, the added structure makes it ideal for anyone who practices regularly at home and wants a mat that multitasks as a bolster or cushion. The one downside? Because it doesn’t roll, it’s not the best pick for studio-goers who need something to sling over a shoulder and commute with. But for anyone who mostly practices at home—or wants to build a mini gym in their living room—it’s one of the smartest designs on the market. Carmu Carmu microsuede top and eco-rubber base 5 mm 72 x 27 inches 4 pounds If you practice hot yoga regularly, you’ve probably slipped, slid, or sweat-soaked your way through more than one mat. The Carmu EchoMat is designed specifically to solve that problem, combining a velvety microfiber suede surface with a grippy natural rubber base that stays planted no matter how steamy your practice gets. Unlike traditional PVC mats or towel-topped options, this one blends comfort and function into a single layer, meaning no need to carry a towel separately or adjust mid-flow. During testing, the surface became noticeably grippier as practice went on, especially once sweat entered the picture. The mat lays flat without curling at the edges and feels secure during standing flows and transitions. At five millimeters thick, it offers a solid balance of cushioning and stability, and the slightly wider dimensions give extra room to move through wider stances and reclined poses. The EchoMat is also machine-washable, which is a huge plus for anyone practicing regularly in heated studios. Just toss it in on a cold cycle and hang to dry. The weight makes it more suitable for leaving at home or in your car than for commuting on foot, but for dedicated hot yogis, the ease of cleanup and consistent traction might be well worth it. Carmu also offsets carbon emissions for every purchase, and the brand’s mats are made without PVC, silicone, or phthalates, which may appeal to eco-conscious buyers. Lululemon Lululemon FSC-certified natural rubber 5mm 26 x 71 inches 5.2 pounds If you practice several times a week and expect a mat to deliver studio-grade performance, The is your next-level staple. It rolls out sleek and stable with a smooth, tacky top layer that grips immediately and keeps improving as heat and moisture build during hot flows. You’re not asking it to replace an eight-pound studio tank, yet it still feels anchored under both handstand drills and low lunges. One of the most impressive parts of the test was its consistency. Whether used in heated vinyasa, weekend workshops, or on slick hardwood floors, the mat stayed right where we left it. Transitions felt cleaner, poses felt tighter, and hands didn’t slip out from under us in peak stress positions. That balance of grip and cushioning makes it truly stand apart from lightweight travel mats or wobbly gym slabs. That said, it's not perfect for everyone. At just over five pounds, it's heavier than some travel-friendly mats, and the deep rubber scent can be noticeable at first. Also, because it absorbs moisture for traction, you’ll need to commit to wiping it down after sweaty classes to avoid mildew or lingering smells. But the antimicrobial finish helps minimize that, and a quick wipe and air-dry routine usually does the trick. For serious practitioners who aren’t hauling mats around daily but want studio-level feel at home or in class, The Mat is a rare find. It’s the kind of foundation that doesn’t just stay out of the way of your practice—it elevates it. JadeYoga Amazon : Rubber : 4.76 millimeters : 68 x 24 inches : 4.2 pounds Long a favorite of yogis and yoga instructors, Jade’s Harmony mat strikes the ideal balance between grip, support, and sweat absorption. Unlike other thick, squishy mats out there that can feel comfy underfoot for a winding-down but can actually cause problems for your joints, the natural rubber on this yoga mat provides a solid base—with enough springiness and resistance to keep your wrists and ankles safe. Other perks: Jade manufactures all of its mats in the U.S. and has vowed to plant a tree for every mat purchase (to date the company has surpassed more than two million trees). With a variety of lengths and colors to choose from, you also won't be stuck with the exact same mat as everyone else in class. Lamb—a long-time user of Jade mats for their sponginess, eco-friendly production, sweat absorption, and variety of widths/weights and colors—confirms that the Harmony mat is a “solid investment” for the price. Manduka Pro Manduka : Rubber : 6 millimeters : 78 x 78 inches : 26 pounds Yes, holding downward-facing dog for 10 breaths is challenging, even for experienced yogis, but a downward-facing dog on a mat that is too small is even more challenging. Luckily, Manduka makes this extra-long, almost comically wide version of its Pro Mat that's perfect for tall guys, or for doing yoga in pairs. With nearly seven feet of real estate (compared to the standard six for most yoga mats), you can spread those limbs out comfortably without worrying about rolling off the mat. It also offers the same bona fides as the original Pro, including the dense six millimeter thickness, closed-cell material that keeps bacteria and moisture from seeping into the mat, and the enviable lifetime warranty. The only hangup? It weighs, uh, fully over 25 pounds, so it's not exactly the kind of mat you roll up for class. If you've got the square footage in your home gym for it, though, it is the perfect way to embrace the sprawl. JadeYoga Amazon REI : Rubber : 7.5 millimeters : 68 x 24 inches : 7 pounds Even some of the squishiest yoga mats can be harsh on your joints and bones over time, which could be remedied by folding your mat over for extra cushioning under your knees, but this PVC-free mat is already almost twice as thick as Jade’s Harmony mat—no folding required—at nearly eight millimeters thick. With that thickness comes extra weight, so this 8.5-pounder mat won't be your top choice for a travel mat, but it's still endlessly supportive underfoot, whether you're planting your feet into a chair pose or digging into a side plank. lululemon Lululemon : Rubber : 6 millimeters : 26 x 71 inches : 4.4 pounds Lululemon has a huge following for its aesthetic-minded, reversible yoga mats and accessories, and we'd be remiss to not at least give them a nod here. We think Manduka still has an edge over the athleisure giant overall with its lifetime guarantee, but Lululemon recently released a thicker mat with a textured surface that's a great option if you're looking to buy one foundation for everything from pilates to HIIT to yoga. The rubbery top layer of the mat is designed to give you a better grip during precarious poses like a half-moon asana, while still remaining durable enough to hold up to the treads of your sneakers during jumping jacks and burpees. This one's also supposedly stain-resistant and uses a closed-cell design to keep sweat from soaking into its upper layers. But be warned that any of the brand's rubber mats are going to take a couple days to release their strong rubbery odor, so stick that sucker in a room with good ventilation and crank the air purifier up. Manduka Eko Amazon : Rubber : 1.5 millimeters : 71 x 24 inches : 2 pounds If you're cool with slightly thinner mats, the Eko is a very popular alternative to Manduka's Pro Lite travel series. Wilson says he always travels with the Superlite for a couple reasons: “The natural rubber surface offers grippy contact. And it’s ultra-thin at 1.5 millimeters which means it can easily roll and even fold when you need to save space.” Just a head's up that the thin density is going to be tough on joints, but you can always double up with a towel or blanket on top if you need more cushion underneath your feet. JadeYoga Target : Rubber : 1.6 millimeters : 68 x 24 inches : 1.5 pounds You don’t want to be on the subway during rush hour, hurrying to make your evening class while your mat is sticking awkwardly out of your bag primed to get stuck in the closing doors or the turnstile or knock over a small child. For those on the go, Jade Yoga’s ultra-light, ultra-thin, Voyager Mat is perfectly portable. Weighing just over one pound, it folds up to about the size of a yoga block, and easily fits inside,, and. It’s only 1.6 millimeters thick, so if you need a little more support, just throw it on top of a rental mat from the yoga studio and you’ll still get premium grip without the germs or the fuss of a sweat towel. Liforme Amazon : Rubber : 6 millimeters : 71 x 26 x 0.24 inches : 7.5 pounds For absolute yoga beginners, knowing where to plant your feet in a warrior one versus a warrior two pose can be challenging to master, especially in crowded classes where teachers are less inclined to offer hands-on adjustments. Just short of arranging private lessons, a mat like Liforme's can at least provide a helpful blueprint so you can measure out the distance between your hands and feet in a downward dog, for example, or set your alignment in any of the sun salutations. It doesn't come at a beginner price, for sure, but it might be worth it to get you up to speed during a fast-paced vinyasa class. For what it's worth, we prefer the markings on this mat to Lululemon's similar Take Form mat, which we found a little tougher to follow. Oko Living Oko Living : 6-ply cotton : 5 millimeters : 72 x 25 inches : 3.4 pounds Whether you’re into Bikram or you just sweat a lot, it can be difficult to find a mat that gives you enough support without feeling like your hands might slip out from under you at any moment during downward dog. Laying a towel on top of your mat can sometimes do the trick, but can also be a hassle to fumble with throughout your practice. If this sounds like you, try out a woven mat instead. It's not only a stylish, easily portable choice for grounding down into your practice, but can also be helpful for gaining traction during a sweaty hot yoga class. —an ashtanga yoga practitioner at Brooklyn's —appreciates the look of Oko Living’s Herbal Mat for at-home yoga, and the feel-good knowledge that the woven material supports artisans and preserves an ancient craft. “It's hand-loomed from super soft cotton, which offers fantastic stability especially when you work up a sweat,” Wilson says. “The underside is coated in natural rubber which keeps the mat from slipping,” he adds, and it all rolls up into its own woven carrying bag. 42 Birds 42 Birds : Cork : 5 millimeters : 72 x 26 inches : 1.9 pounds Some people prefer the sturdy, tactile feel of cork under their palms in a downward dog, and 42 Birds specializes in accessories and mats made from exactly that. Its five-millimeter “Robin” mat weighs in at just under two pounds, so it's a good combo of supportive and lightweight. Cork is also recyclable, which gives it an edge over PVC mats. The only downside is that these type of mats really need moisture to help you maintain a better grip, so give it a spritz of water before class so you don't topple out of a pose midway through. Gaiam Gaiam : Synthetic rubber and foam : 10 millimeters : 24 x 72 inches Gaiam wouldn't be our first pick for yoga mats since its options tend to be less grippy than we'd like, and don't hold up as well over long periods of time. But for first-timers or people who want a thick yoga mat for all sorts of floor exercises, we'd recommend this 10 millimeter Fitness mat. It's even thicker than the Jade Fusion above for toggling between a variety of exercises comfortably—from running jacks to burpees to vinyasa poses—without pissing off the downstairs neighbors. Blessedly, it even includes its own carrying strap for toting it elsewhere, or just hanging it up after your latest sweat session. Your choice of a yoga mat will be dictated primarily by price point, since even a cheap $20 surface can give you a place to move through your flow. But if you're getting more serious about developing a practice, you should also consider the sustainability of the materials and which ones will provide the best grip for your sweaty hands. Our top pick the Manduka Pro uses a polyvinyl chloride (or PVC) surface, for example, that's known for its grippy exterior. That said, PVC isn’t your only option. Natural rubber is another widely used material that offers excellent traction and a more eco-conscious profile, especially for those looking to avoid plastics. Cork mats are naturally antimicrobial and resist slipping as you sweat. TPE (thermoplastic elastomer) is another lightweight, recyclable option that’s free of PVC and latex. Each has its pros and cons—some are better for grip, others for weight or sustainability—but if grip is your top priority, you’ll find solid choices across both synthetic and natural materials. That feature becomes especially critical in styles like hot yoga, where sweat can turn an average mat into a slip-and-slide. For this reason,, a certified yoga instructor based in New York City, emphasizes grip as one of the most important features in a mat, especially for hot or dynamic practices. She notes that an ideal mat for hot yoga is one that absorbs sweat in real time. While some yogis use towels, her preferred options are mats with built-in sweat absorption like those from or. Thicker mats offer more cushioning for your joints, which can make a big difference during kneeling poses, long holds, or slower-paced practices. If you have sensitive knees or wrists, or if you’re recovering from injury, a mat with more padding can help reduce discomfort. That said, thicker mats tend to be heavier and less stable for balancing poses, especially in faster flows. If portability or stability is a priority, a thinner mat might be the better fit. Cooke notes that thickness is especially important for people managing chronic discomfort or joint sensitivity, while others may prefer the grounded feel of a slimmer mat with stronger floor connection. : Kevin Lamb—a New York-based, Yoga Alliance-certified instructor who's been practicing for over 20 years—also suggests thinking about whether you'll be using your mat at home or rolling it up to tote to your nearest studio. A lighter-weight, foldable mat will be easier to carry-on to a plane or roll into a duffel bag, though it won't have the same support for your limbs as a thicker, heavier mat. Cooke also encourages buyers to consider size, especially for larger-bodied practitioners. Standard yoga mats are typically around 68 inches long and 24 inches wide, which may not offer enough surface area for taller people or those with broader frames. For more comfort and coverage, she suggests looking for mats that are at least 72 to 84 inches in length or labeled as “extra-long” or “oversized.” She notes that she’s worked with basketball players who needed longer mats and adds, “In this case size actually matters,” she says. “If you are a larger human get a bigger mat to support your whole body. This practice is about taking up space, being fully yourself.” Lamb adds, “A lot of this is knowing how your body is inside your practice, what exercises you’d like the mat to support, the size of your home space to practice in, floor type (different mats will respond differently on wood or concrete floors than they would carpet), and whatever other atmospheric factors you are working with.” For anyone who wants to dabble, Lamb says it might be a good idea to visit local studios and gyms to get a feel for which in-house mats they prefer. Cooke advises looking for a non-toxic mat and warns against mats with strong chemical smells right out of the packaging. “If you open the packaging and first practice get you high from the smell of toxins this defeats the purpose of your practice,” she says. It’s worth considering the materials your mat is made of—both for comfort and sustainability. PVC, which is used in mats like the Manduka Pro, is a high-density material designed for durability and long-term use. It tends to last longer than most biodegradable options and is backed by lifetime guarantees. Natural rubber, which is popular in mats from brands like JadeYoga and Lululemon, is biodegradable and offers excellent grip but may degrade faster with regular use. If you have a latex allergy, rubber mats may not be the best choice. Cork and TPE are other alternatives, each with their own trade-offs in terms of grip, weight, and longevity. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference and how often you practice. A yoga mat gives you a non-slip surface to practice on and provides some cushion for your joints. It helps define your personal space, absorbs impact, and makes standing, balancing, and seated poses more stable. Even if you're not flowing through a full class, it offers a consistent surface for stretching, core work, or meditation. You can, but it probably won’t feel great. Practicing on hardwood, tile, or carpet means more sliding, less support, and a higher chance of aggravating your knees or wrists. Yoga mats are designed to provide grip and cushioning in all the right places, especially as your body heats up and the sweat kicks in. Most mats can be wiped down with a gentle solution of water and mild soap or a store-bought mat cleaner. Some higher-end mats, like the Carmu EchoMat, are machine washable on a cold cycle. Just make sure to let your mat dry fully before rolling it up again. Cooke advises letting mats dry before putting them away. “I wouldn’t roll up a wet mat,” she says. “Even if it’s just wet from cleaner. Let it dry a bit then put it away. Or if you roll it up to leave class try opening it back up to air out when you get home. Moisture can facilitate growth of germs.” Natural rubber, cork, jute, and TPE are popular eco-conscious choices. Natural rubber offers great traction and cushion but may have a strong smell at first and can degrade faster than synthetic options. Cork is antimicrobial and resists odors, making it ideal for hot yoga. TPE mats are lightweight and recyclable but may not hold up as long with daily use. PVC mats last the longest, but they are less sustainable and can release chemicals during manufacturing or with heavy wear. It depends on how often you practice and what your mat is made of. PVC mats can last five to 10 years with proper care. Natural rubber or cork mats may need replacing every one to three years, especially if you practice frequently. If your mat starts to lose grip, show signs of thinning, tear easily, or develop an odor that won't go away, it's probably time to retire it. To figure out which yoga mats were actually worth rolling out again and again, we combined firsthand testing with expert insight. We spoke to certified yoga instructors to get their recommendations on what really matters in a mat, whether you're sweating through a hot vinyasa class or stretching it out in your living room. We also tested mats ourselves over the course of several months (and in some cases, years). That included home practices on hardwood and tile floors, group classes, heated sessions where grip really mattered, and packing mats into suitcases for yoga retreats. We paid attention to the little things that start to matter after week 10, like how a mat holds up to daily wear, whether it curls at the corners, how fast it dries after cleaning, and how annoying it is (or isn’t) to carry around. We evaluated each mat for traction, cushioning, durability, portability, sweat absorption, and overall feel. Some were immediate standouts. Others didn’t make the cut. And the best of the bunch? They’re the ones listed here, mats we actually want to practice on again and again."
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"VO2 max is among the most elusive terms in fitness. You may have heard of it, as it’s often heralded as number that defines your cardiovascular fitness. Yet for many, the concept is confusing and misunderstood—a pinnacle of athletic prowess for elite endurance athletes, sure, but not for average folks without access to a performance lab. Well, this metric is still important for those of us who are just hitting the gym, going for runs, or trying out a new fitness class from time to time. “VO2 max affects your ability to sustain exercise,” says, sports medicine program director at the University of Western States. Want to cycle faster without feeling winded? Finish a round of boxing without getting gassed? Or keep up when you challenge a D1 track star to a foot race? “For runners or swimmers or cyclists or anyone working on their cardiorespiratory fitness, [improving VO2max] can help them have longer and more productive workouts,” he says. But it’s not just about your fitness; it’s also a really good predictor of overall. Improving your VO2 max has daily benefits even away from the sport, says Donna Cennamano, manager of training at Cyclebar and personal trainer and certified breath coach. “It promotes a sense of calm and increased awareness. When you improve your aerobic capacity, you have greater mental alertness, increased energy, and more stamina.” And who couldn’t use a little more of all of that? Ever wondered what fuels your body during a long run, brisk hike, or any activity that you sustain for more than just a few minutes? You’re in what’s called an aerobic state, and oxygen is the predominant fuel source for your muscles. This is different from anaerobic activities, like sprinting or lifting heavy weights for a few reps, where your body relies on other sources, like glucose, for quick bursts of energy. VO2 max is a measure of your aerobic capacity, or “the amount of oxygen we can consume during physical exercise,” says Cennamano. Basically, the more oxygen that your muscles can use during workouts, the easier it will feel and the longer you can go. But here’s the thing: VO2 max is not just about how much oxygen you can breathe in. It’s all about how efficiently your body can. Your heart and lungs need to be working in sync to deliver this oxygen to your muscles. Naturally, this process becomes harder as you pick up the exercise intensity and your breathing becomes labored. So that threshold before your body switches over to an anaerobic process—where you have to dig deep to keep going and push through the pain—that’s your VO2 max. VO2 max is quantified in millimeters of oxygen consumed per minute per kilogram of body weight—the higher the number, the more aerobically fit you are. But it is notoriously hard (and rather expensive) to measure precisely, requiring clinical testing, specialized equipment, and the somewhat daunting task of wearing an oxygen mask as you perform a grueling workout. So, this rigorous protocol has been relegated to the realm of elite athletes who are serious about crunching numbers to improve their performance. Today, modern fitness trackers, like a, also have VO2 max predictors, and can give you a ballpark figure of your VO2 max. Although, this estimate is based on your heart rate and how fast you’re moving, it is as in-lab testing. You can also judge your perceived effort during exercise to gain useful insights into your aerobic capacity. Marshall recommends a basic running or cycling test as a simple yet effective method. First, choose a pace that challenges you but is sustainable. For beginners, this might mean a brisk walk or light jog that you can maintain for five minutes before your muscles start to burn and legs turn to Jello, he says. The goal here isn’t to push until you drop but to find a steady, challenging pace that you can maintain for a set period. You can track your workout with a fitness tracker or apps like or to determine your pace and how long you can hold it. In about a month after training regularly (which we dive into below), you can repeat the same test again under similar conditions. The aim is to see how much longer you can maintain at the same pace. If your muscles gave out at the five-minute mark last time, you might now be able to push through to 12 or 15 minutes. While you won’t have a number to reference, “you can really see those gains in fitness,” says Marshall. Whether you measure it or not, you can improve your VO2 max. It comes down to two things: high-intensity training and breathing. According to Marshall, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is for improving VO2max. This is highlighted across research, including a 2023 study that found that interval runs were much more effective than moderate-intensity continuous running to boost VO2 max in soccer players. During interval training, you perform a short bout of really intense exercise, then rest and repeat. “Essentially, what this does is push your body in and out of the aerobic-anaerobic range,” Marshall explains. “You’re going up to that threshold—maybe a little bit past it.” By oscillating between the two, you challenge your body to adapt to both aerobic and anaerobic demands. We won’t lie—this type of training is very physically demanding: You need to put enough load on your body to get a response. “If you’re not pushing yourself hard enough, you might see some improvement, but it won’t be as efficient as if you’re pushing yourself to the upper end of those ranges,” Marshall says. For the most effective interval training, aim to perform exercises at about 80 percent of your maximum heart rate during the high-intensity phases, Marshall says. You can estimate your max heart rate with the formula 220 minus your age. And although running is a great method, you can perform any dynamic movement that gets your heart rate up, like jump squats or burpees, instead. Initially, work within shorter intervals (45 seconds to a minute), but as you progress, you can push your intervals longer to result in to VO2 max. According to a, the most effective interval length was between three and five minutes. Remember when I said it isn’t about how much oxygen you consume but how well you use it? Well, efficient breathing plays a critical role in maximizing oxygen uptake and utilization, and it may be the most overlooked factor for improving VO2 max. You don’t need to take in more air to increase your VO2 max, Cennamano says. Instead, you need to slow it down and learn to lighten your breath. This will help improve your, which helps deliver more oxygen to your tissues. But because breathing isn’t instinctual for everyone (myself included), you need to train it. When you’re first developing a breathwork practice, Cennamano recommends doing it separately from exercise to stay intentional and mindful. First, just perform a check-in. Ask yourself how you’re breathing, she says. Are you using your nose or mouth more? When you take a deep breath, are you a vertical breather—bringing it all the way into the stomach—or a horizontal breather—expanding your ribs? Once you know your tendencies, you can start to incorporate common techniques, including nasal breathing, which was found to be effective for increasing sub-maximal power output in cyclists, and diaphragmatic breathing. Cennamano also recommends the if you want to take a workshop. After you feel in control of your breath, you can start incorporating it into exercise, like during a walk or light jog. You don’t have to breathe through your nose the whole time, says Cennamano; just focus on it for five to ten minutes of your practice and then start to increase that as you become more comfortable. The goal is to build a foundation that will support you when you ramp up the effort: “You need to build the tolerance so when you are venturing into higher intensity workouts, you’re not over-breathing,” she says."
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"Rejoice, irritated bowels! We're living the halcyon days of gut health drinks. No longer the exclusive domain of crusty health food stores, gut health is serious business for a major range of big businesses and cool smaller producers all looking for a slice of the probiotic pie. Most people now know that is one of the most important things to get right for a healthy, happy life. But why is your gut so central to health, and do gut health drinks help or hinder the process? To put it bluntly, a healthy gut helps you live better and look younger for longer. According to epidemiologist and founder Tim Spector's landmark, our diet, the microbes in our guts, and our general health are inextricably linked: what happens in our guts supplies a more accurate picture of our risk of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes than even genetic predisposition. A 2019 study also demonstrated “ ” in the link between diet and disease. “Gut health has become a hot topic in recent years and for good reason,” Sas Parsad, founder of, earlier this year. “Our gut is home to trillions of microbes that are crucial to our overall well-being. Good gut health is about maintaining a diverse and harmonious ecosystem in our gut. Our gut is not just responsible for digestion, but it also influences our immune system, metabolism, brain function, and even our mental well-being. Caring for our gut health is like nurturing a within us.” puts it rather neatly: “If you have a million-dollar racehorse, you're going to make sure you know how to train it and feed it and take care of it so it's fully optimized, right?” Think of yourself as the new Secretariat and get your gut in order. The best way to keep your gut happy is by focusing on a diet rich in a variety of plant-based foods, encouraging healthy bacteria to flourish. However, if you find yourself struggling to get enough of the good stuff, pre- and probiotic drinks and supplements can help boost your gut flora without much effort. “The effectiveness of gut-health drinks largely depends on their ingredients and the individual’s gut health,” says James Cunningham, coach at. “Many gut health drinks contain probiotics, which are beneficial bacteria that can help balance the gut microbiome. These bacteria aid in digestion, support the immune system, and can even impact mental health.” ‘Good' bacteria was first discovered in the early 1900s in a drink favoured by centenarian Bulgarian villagers—the aptly-named was present in the yogurt they consumed every day. Fast forward a hundred years, and that Yoplait lost at the back of the fridge is a proud descendant. As you'd expect, much of the food and drink you'd associate with gut health—yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and more—has been around for centuries, and is usually linked to the fermentation process. It's not just about probiotics, either. It's all well and good topping up your good bacteria, but they'll need something to eat, and that's where prebiotic fiber comes in. “Prebiotics are important always—they’re the bedrock of gut health because they’re feeding and nourishing bacteria that are part of your gut flora,” says Rory Paterson, co-founder of. “Prebiotics create the setting for a healthy microbiome to flourish.” Prebiotics are found in foods like onions, garlic, bananas and whole grains, and are a vital lifeline for the billions of bacteria lining the gut. For those of us whose bodies might not with onion and garlic, a prebiotic-focussed drink is a good way to get our bacteria-feeding hit. The main issue is that everyone's microbiome is different, based on genetics and lifestyle, so what works for your kefir-laden friend might not be as effective for you. A good rule of thumb, though, is to look for a high bacteria count. “Look for a drink that's got a high CFU (colony-forming units) count,” advises Cunningham. “This guarantees the number of live bacteria in the drink, ensuring they'll survive the journey to your gut where they can do their job. Look for drinks with a CFU count of at least 10 billion. Anything less, and you might not be getting the full benefits.” Probiotic drinks aren't traditionally the sweetest, so it can be tempting to go for a drink that curbs some of the more bitter notes. This, however, is one of the most counterproductive moves you could make. “I would advise looking for a gut-heath drink that is low in sugar, as sugar can negatively impact the gut microbiome,” says Maz Packham, consultant at. “ While gut health drinks have been around for hundreds of years, the technology behind getting your gut flora to its best has evolved, with pre- and probiotic pills a quick and easy alternative. “In today's fast-paced world, eating a perfect diet is only sometimes feasible, with very few of us consuming probiotic foods like kimchi and sauerkraut on a daily basis,” says Emily English, founder of gut health capsule brand. “That is where the right supplements can fill nutritional gaps. Supplements can provide that safety net,"" she says, ""for you to be able to know that you're doing the best for yourself without having to overcomplicate it.”."
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"In its annual Best Diets ranking, has for the seventh year in a row. According to the publication, this style of eating—inspired by the eating habits of people living in the Mediterranean region—has such serious staying power because it’s easy to follow long-term and has been shown to support heart health, bone, and joint health, and help prevent certain diseases, such as diabetes. But “diet” is really a misnomer, says, author of and a member of. “It's less of a diet, more of a lifestyle, an eating pattern,” she says. “[It] can be customized based on the individual's likes, dislikes, personal preference, religious needs, and access.” “The Mediterranean diet is really a long-term dietary lifestyle…versus another kind of restrictive time-period diet,” agrees, a functional medicine nurse practitioner and author of. Rather than cutting out certain food groups or counting calories, “it focuses on [eating] a lot of healthy fats, healthy oils, and plant-based foods,” she says. The Mediterranean diet started to gain attention as a healthy way of eating in the 1950s, when scientist Ancel Keys, PhD, of the the University of Minnesota School of Power discovered a. “What the research found was that people who followed Mediterranean patterns of eating actually tended to have better cardiovascular profiles, so lower cholesterol, better lipid markers, good cholesterol,” says Feller. Dr. Keys didn’t invent the Mediterranean diet, of course; he simply began to popularize a way of eating and enjoying food that people in the Mediterranean had been following for centuries. “The biggest tenets of that are seafood; lean proteins in the form of beans, nuts, and seeds; whole grains; ancient grains; fermented dairy; fruits,” says Feller. “And then alcohol is consumed in moderation.” When looking for inspiration for your Mediterranean menu, Feller says it’s important to consider all 22 countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea—not just Greece, Italy, and France. “The countries of North Africa and the Middle East are not often highlighted [when talking about the Mediterranean diet], when in fact, their patterns of eating are credible and really centered on legumes, grains, seeds, fermented dairy, and really interesting types of fruits,” she says. “We often are told: cucumber, feta, olives, tomato, and red onion—that's the Mediterranean diet. Yes, that's wonderful, but it could also be couscous and chickpeas in a curry with berbere. There's so many different ways that it can show up.” Great news, folks: With the Mediterranean diet, it’s a very “you do you” approach to healthy eating. That being said, the Mediterranean lifestyle does encourage you to load your plate with particular foods and food groups. Alcohol should be consumed in moderation, if at all, on the Mediterranean diet, says Feller. Wine is not a health food, let’s be clear. But there is research to support that a “ ”—or drinking no more than one glass of wine per day with food—may have certain health benefits for adults over 35, including. In addition to alcohol, the Mediterranean diet asks you to limit ultra-processed foods, refined carbohydrates, and foods that are super high in sugar (excluding fruits), says Berghoff. According to Berghoff, many of the Mediterranean diet’s health benefits stem from the ways this eating style reduces inflammation within the body. On the one hand, you’re cutting back on foods that are known to cause inflammation, such as high-sugar foods, highly processed foods, red meats, and alcohol, she says. On the other, you’re increasing the amount of inflammation-reducing foods you’re eating, including plants, omega-3 fatty acids, and monounsaturated fats (largely from olive oil). As mentioned, the original draw to the Mediterranean diet for many people was the research that supported its positive impact on heart health. And since Dr. Keys’s work in the 1950s, new studies have continued to support the Med diet’s ability to improve cardiovascular fitness. In one study published in 2013, approximately 7,500 people with a high risk of cardiovascular disease in Spain were asked to either follow a Mediterranean style of eating or a controlled diet. After following the participants for nearly 5 years, the diet’s impact was clear (so clear, in fact, that the study was ended early): for those following the Mediterranean diet, the risk of cardiovascular disease was reduced by 30 percent. The also supports the Mediterranean diet, saying: “This style of eating can play a big role in preventing heart disease and stroke and reducing risk factors such as obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.” “What the current research says is that a plant-forward type of eating is also supportive when it comes to blood sugar management,” says Feller. A 2017 meta-analysis of studies that included a total of 1.5 million people found that the heart-friendly Mediterranean diet has a “.” In 2020, research published in the journal concluded that following a Mediterranean-style diet was effective for (or blood glucose) levels and could also play a role in managing the progression of type 2 diabetes. Recent research also shows that adhering to a Mediterranean diet that’s rich in anti-inflammatory and antioxidant nutrients can improve bone mineral density, muscle mass, and movement ability—and could, therefore, slow the onset of osteoporosis and sarcopenia (loss of muscle strength). According to the, the Mediterranean diet has been shown to reduce cancer-related deaths and also play a role in preventing certain cancers, including colorectal, breast, stomach, pancreas, prostate, and lung. “There is some around high intakes of plants as well as seafood-rich patterns of eating [having an impact on] some cancers. So this is thought to be an anticarcinogenic pattern of eating,” says Feller. Feller also makes clear, however, that while the Mediterranean diet may be protective against some cancers, it is not a cure for cancer. Put all these benefits together, and you’re looking at the potential to live a longer, healthier life. In fact, two of the original five —or regions that are home to the longest-living people in the world—are within the Mediterranean: Ikaria, Greece and Sardinia, Italy. We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again: The Mediterranean diet is more of a way of life than an actual diet. According to Feller, a Mediterranean approach to food focuses on seasonal ingredients and slow food—and she means slow literally. “A lot of these dishes take a long time to make!” she says. “Think about fermented dairy…[fermentation] is a process.” Taking time to create and enjoy your meals comes with another benefit: connection. “When we eat in community, we generally tend to be happier and do better,” says Feller. Beyond eating habits, Berghoff says that a Mediterranean lifestyle encourages physical activity. “[It doesn’t require] a specific workout, just generally moving your body and being a more active person,” she says. One of the best things about the Mediterranean diet is its “choose your own adventure” approach to eating. But because of this, Berghoff cautions, it’s important to get in touch with what makes your body feel and work in tip-top shape. Take grains, for instance. Grains, including bread and pasta, are on the menu for the Mediterranean diet, Berghoff says, but not everyone can stomach them. “You want to be sure that you are paying attention to how you feel,” she says. If you’re experiencing bloating or irritated bowels, you’ll want to adapt your choices to avoid the foods that cause this discomfort. With that in mind, if you’re interested in trying the Mediterranean diet, Feller recommends starting with foods you already know and love. “Think about what you’re eating: What are the vegetables that you like? What are the grains you like? What is the seafood that you like?” she says. “Go back to foods that [you] already eat and think about the ones that fit with [the Mediterranean diet’s criteria].”"
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"If you’ve ever walked away from with the poise of an immortal gladiator, only to wake up two days later feeling like you’ve been run over by a horse-drawn chariot, you’ve experienced what experts call delayed-onset, or DOMS. Unlike the acute muscle soreness you usually feel during your workouts—toward the end of a tough set, for example—DOMS has nothing to do with buildup. Rather, it is the result of caused by or other forms of. It isn’t quite as painful or ominous as it sounds (actually, it’s a good thing), but it’s not exactly a picnic. No surprise then, as more people have found their way to fitness, it’s become increasingly common to hear about folks using over-the-counter pain relievers to get themselves over the DOMS hump. But while that might sound like a simple fix, the experts say it is anything but. “Generally speaking, what I would say is I advise against routine use of these,” says Dr., assistant professor of sports medicine in the department of rehabilitation and regenerative medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. “It actually works against the intended point of the workout, so to speak,” says Dr. Stacia Woodcock, pharmacy editor for. “You’re working against your body.” Here’s why experts recommend you pop the cap back on the bottle and ride out post-workout muscle soreness the old-fashioned way. If you’re taking OTC pain medication to treat post-workout muscle soreness, you’re most likely turning to either nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or acetaminophen. The former is a category that includes drugs like ibuprofen, Advil, and Aleve; the latter, also known as paracetamol, is the generic name for Tylenol. While NSAIDs work at the source of inflammation, acetaminophen steps in downstream. “It’s more of what we call a central inhibition,” says Dr. Singh. “It kind of tells your brain that there’s less pain.” While NSAIDs are considered to be more potent than acetaminophen when inflammation is involved, they can be hard on the stomach and pose potential risks to, among other things, your kidneys and heart. But the thing is, for all their various pros and cons, neither type of drug has actually been found to be very good at soothing aching muscles. “Most of the clinical studies actually show the opposite—that taking anti-inflammatories can delay the muscle healing that is causing that soreness,” says Dr. Woodcock. As for acetaminophen, “it’s good for pain and fever, but doesn’t really do much for inflammation—and again, isn’t likely to do much for post-workout pain.” Still, that doesn’t stop wounded weekend warriors from reaching for the ibuprofen. “As a knee-jerk reaction, that’s what people tend to turn to when they’re in pain,” says Dr. Woodcock. “It’s almost like a placebo effect. As a society, I think we’re much more inclined to take a pill for things as opposed to looking for holistic treatments.” isn’t a prerequisite for getting big, but inflammation is. As mentioned, strength training causes microtears in the muscle tissue; this, in turn, triggers an inflammation response in the body. Basically, your body increases the supply of blood and nutrients to the area in order to help the muscle rebuild bigger and stronger. So, because NSAIDs work at the muscular level to, they’re probably one of the last things you’d want to lean on if your goal is to —or even if you’re just hoping to bounce back soon from a workout. “Muscle inflammation brings blood supply, and with that blood supply comes growth factors and nutrients that your body needs to build the muscle back up,” says Dr. Singh. “If you were to decrease inflammation, it’s almost like dehydrating or closing off that fluid supply to an area.” In other words, whatever minimal benefit you might be getting from your pain reliever right now, you have to weigh that against the potential gains you could very well be sacrificing in the process. “In the long term, maybe you are doing yourself a disservice,” says Dr. Singh Even though OTC relievers lack the firepower to fully mask muscle pain, they don’t do. In fact, they can do just enough to plaster over symptoms indicating your muscle soreness might not be DOMS at all, but rather a serious condition called, or “rhabdo” for short. “Rhabdomyolysis is essentially where you get so much muscle breakdown—because you’ve done a really intense workout that your body’s just not capable of adapting to—that the muscle product then starts to get absorbed into the body,” says Dr. Singh. Left untreated, it’s a potentially fatal condition that can also have devastating effects on not just the kidneys, but your entire renal system, as well as your heart. Rhabdo isn’t super common, but it’s not unheard of—especially among beginners who are still getting to know their limits. Generally speaking, the symptoms are hard to miss: debilitating muscle pain accompanied by noticeably darker urine. ""It’s something that kind of gradually just gets worse and worse and worse,” says Dr. Singh—compared with DOMS, which usually kicks in around 48 hours after a workout and can be gone just as soon. The most important thing, once you clock the symptoms of rhabdo, is to get to an emergency room or urgent care as fast as possible; and that’s where a pain reliever can complicate things. “It could potentially decrease your symptoms enough to the point where you’re not feeling it, even though there’s muscle breakdown happening,” says Dr. Singh. If you can fully avoid taking pain relievers to ease post-workout muscle soreness, that’s your best bet. That said, they can be useful when used sparingly in special circumstances. “If there’s a scenario where you did an activity or an exercise and then you need to get to work, or you’ve got a long commute or you just need something to treat the pain so you can do what we call your ADLs—your activities of daily living—that is a situation in which I might say, ‘Okay, yeah, then I would take something,’” says Dr. Singh. “If it’s just once in a while, that would be okay, but and NSAIDs are not meant to be used regularly,” says Dr. Woodcock, who cites increased blood pressure, heart attack, heart disease, stomach ulcers, and digestive issues among the many potential risks of regular use. “There is no pain medication that is safe to take on a regular basis over the long term without any risks,” she says. “It should really only be few and far between for severe pain that doesn’t respond to other treatments.“ Another risk of using these drugs for an extended period is that the research is still ongoing, and the medical field doesn’t currently hold all the answers—especially for acetaminophen, which was and continues to baffle pharmacists to this day in terms of how it actually works. “I would say that there’s a lot we don’t know about this—a lot that we’re still learning,” says Dr. Singh. “I’d be curious to see, if we have this conversation 10 years from now, what that would be like.“"
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"I’ve been told by a reliable source (my husband) that: “We all want ups.” After conversations with multiple fitness experts and a scroll through TikTok—where videos with the hashtag #verticaljump have over 1.9 billion views—I’m convinced he’s onto something. “Jumping is commonly associated with athletes, but this type of training has benefits that extend to everyone,” says, founder of Par Four Performance. “Improving your vertical jump height can help you feel more athletic, improve coordination and balance, reduce fall risks as you age, and help improve strength levels.” Certified strength and conditioning specialist, who is also a personal trainer and soccer coach in the UK, agrees, adding that showing some love to the muscle groups associated with getting more height in your jumps has functional benefits as well. Developing your lower body strength, for instance, “will also enhance general mobility and balance,” he says. And you’ll notice the payoff when you climb stairs or reach for something high on a shelf. Jumping higher can also—and here’s the kicker—help you feel younger. “Strength and power levels do begin to drop every decade of our lives after 30, so improving vertical jump can help minimize this loss, helping you feel like your younger self as you get older,” says Gambino. If increasing your vertical jump height just skyrocketed to the top of your list of 2024 fitness goals, here’s everything you need to know about how to get more air. Your lower body does most of the heavy lifting when you jump, says Los Angeles-based, lead trainer at celebrity-fave personal training gym (, and Hugh Jackman, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber are known fans). Specifically, Gambino says that in order to jump higher, you want to strengthen your glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves (both the gastrocnemius and soleus, the two main muscles that comprise your calves), and tibialis anterior (which runs down the lateral side of your tibia). “Your calves, your hamstrings, your quadriceps, your glutes—these are the muscles that help propel your body upward when you jump,” says Antoni. “Your calves help with stability and ankle extension. Your hamstrings help extend your hips and flex your knees, and your quads help you have a strong takeoff.” But jumping is a full-body exercise, and jumping will require strengthening not just your lower body but also your core, back, shoulders, and arms—all of which need to be engaged to get you off the ground, says Antoni. Beyond strength training, “mobility and flexibility are also going to be key factors on how high your vertical can become,” says Washington. So it’s important that you incorporate exercises that improve the range of motion in your hip, knee, and ankle joints into your workout plan. Last but not least, “vertical jump height is dependent on your power output, which is your ability to produce high amounts of force quickly,” says Gambino. “A combination of both strength and power training can boost your vertical jump.” Let’s back up for a sec: In order to jump higher, you first need to learn how to do a proper jump—period. Because according to Antoni, there’s a lot that can go wrong in a jump, and he’s seen it all. Antoni breaks down proper vertical jump form: Landing, Antoni says, is where he sees a lot of injury-causing mistakes. “What you find is some people will try to land on their toes or their heels,” he says, which can put too much pressure on your knees or cause you to roll an ankle. To land correctly, Antoni says you want to roll through the foot as you make contact with the ground. “Come down to your toes, drop to your midfoot, and then your heels,” he says. “Then land by bending your knees so you’re not landing on straight legs. Keep your head straight forward.” Washington recommends you stick and hold your landing—essentially in a squat—in order to ingrain proper form into your body. This sort of isometric, or static, hold will also help build strength in your lower body and core. First things first: “Figure out where your starting point is,” says Gambino. “If you have never worked on strength before, you should probably start here. Haven't jumped in years, you shouldn't be scrolling through Instagram and selecting the coolest jump variation you could find or performing the ones your favorite athlete is performing right away. Large changes in the demands placed on your body can increase your injury risk. So starting slow and building up as your body tolerates this type of training is the key to success.” Gambino says that if he were putting together a training program for someone who wanted to learn how to jump higher, he’d approach it in four pieces: You’ll want to do your homework before going to the gym. “Don't make it up when you get there,” Gambino says. “Pull a program from the internet if you have to, but follow a plan and stick to it.” If regularly exercising hasn’t really historically been your thing, it’s a good idea to speak to a certified professional before embarking on a new fitness program. (Many gyms will offer a consultation when you sign up.) “This doesn't need to take forever,” says Gambino. “Go for about 10 minutes of movement that gets your heart rate up and engages the muscles that will be worked in your training session. You’ll want to train both strength and power within each workout you do. But, Gambino says, the order you do these exercises matters. “Your power movements should be performed early on in your workouts so that your nervous system is fresh,” he says. “Speed and power are the primary goals when trying to jump higher. If you are working on these qualities fatigued and your speed is reduced because of it, the benefits won't be there.” Accessory exercises, also called secondary or auxiliary exercises, are meant to complement your workout’s primary, compound exercises. According to the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA), “The idea is that the right smaller, more focused isolation exercises will build some of the individual muscles, or smaller groups of muscles, used in the compound moves.” Another pro tip: “When it comes to jump training, I like to focus on unilateral movements, which means working one side of the body at a time,” says Washington. “So that could be single-leg step-ups, single-leg lunges—anything single-leg is really going to [help] increase our vertical jump simple because, when we’re working one leg at a time, we’re able to really build up that strength for our take-off.” Now for the meat and potatoes. What specific moves can help you jump higher? For power training, Antoni recommends (exercises that involve, usually different types of jumps, skips, and hops) and ballistic exercises (training in which an “ ”—most often throwing or swinging a weighted object). There are a lot of options for power exercises, says Gambino, but “the key is that these are things that allow you to move.” Some examples of power exercises that can help with jumping higher include: Zooming in a little, there are two buckets of speed exercises that can help increase your power. “Speed-strength is an exercise with no weight, done quickly—like fast squats, fast pushups, fast jumping up and down,” says Antoni. “And then you’ve got strength-speed, which is those exercises, but under stress.” Examples of strength-speed exercises include using a light load (or small weight) during squats or jumps. We’ll get to the lower-body exercises, I promise—but not until we talk about your core. “Where most of our power stability [for jumping] comes is through the trunk,” says Antoni. When it comes to core work, think beyond the crunch. Antoni recommends plank variations, including side planks, which work the obliques, while Washington says his go-to exercise for a stronger core is the. When building strength in your lower body to help you jump higher, Gambino breaks the movement down into two main parts: the squat and the hinge at the hips. According to Gambino, key exercises for strengthening your squat pattern include: To strengthen the muscles used in the jump’s hinge motion, try: For your auxiliary training, Gambino says you’ll want to “train your quads, hamstrings, and calves in isolation.” “Any lower body exercise really works here,” says Gambino. “The key for strength-building is that it needs to be heavy—think at least an 8/10 on the difficulty scale. [What this means] is that you can perform the weight, but you stop when there are about three more reps to go before you feel like your technique would start to break.” At first blush, jumping straight in the air seems easy—we’ve all been doing it since we were kids, no? But in actuality, vertical jumping is a complex, full-body exercise; and if it’s done incorrectly or mindlessly, you put yourself at risk of injury. In addition to nailing the form, Washington says it’s important to be cognizant of the amount you’re training. “We just want to be mindful of the amount and the frequency we’re going at,” he says. “You want to make sure that you’re tallying the amount of jumps that you’re giving yourself within a single period.” While the overtraining threshold will be different for everyone, Washington says a good benchmark is 50 jumps in a single week period. If you’re looking to increase your vertical jump height for bragging rights, that’s one thing. But, Antoni says, if your air is in service of something specific—a particular sport, for instance, versus better overall movement function—it’s best to work with a professional to tailor a training plan to your individual situation."
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"Let’s get one thing straight. When someone goes in for abdominal etching—the procedure that uses liposuction to suck fat out of the stomach and —those abs are not fake. “‘Fake abs’ is really not fair,” said Dr. Joshua Korman, a Silicon Valley-based who regularly performs ab etching. “The whole idea is to have them better. They are not fake; they are real. But they can be helped along.” Abdominal etching, but after posted a new mirror selfie on Instagram showing off a chiseled stomach (and a massive collection of top-shelf liquor), the procedure has. This content can also be viewed on the site it from. So how do you spot an ab etching in the wild? I sought the expert opinions of people who see this kind of thing every day for some much-needed perspective. Dr. Daniel Markmann—a plastic surgeon in Ellicott City, Maryland said that it can be “tough to tell” if they’re enhanced or not when the patient already had some nice ab definition. Similarly, guys who were already working out like crazy but were struggling to see the results will look a bit more natural when their abs get carved out. But when someone with a protruding gut thinks they can have a doctor wave a magic wand and give them the washboard of their dreams, that’s when things get a little visually inconsistent. “When people have that belly, it’s not like you can just do this operation and get the abs,” Korman cautioned. “That’s a misconception.” The ideal patient, according to Markmann, is already fit with a. As Korman explained, the very well-defined and noticeable vertical line you can sometimes spot going through a person's abs is called the linea alba, or what is essentially the border between the left and right rectus abdominals. Like abs themselves, the linea alba is naturally occurring phenomenon in all humans, and it becomes more pronounced the more the fat around the stomach is removed. Of course, if one undergoes an ab etching surgery—which can take multiple hours and cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $13,000—that line can seem like it came out of nowhere. “The objective when you do this surgery is to suction down the midline, so you define it more,” Korman said. Anyone who’s thinking about getting the procedure should also be prepared to lay low for at least 72 hours. “It’s a very aggressive surgery,” Markmann says. “Usually [patients are] in a lot of pain [afterward]., I usually recommend a week off. Don’t shower for a couple days.” Should you find yourself in the same room with someone who you suspect has done the procedure, Markmann has some advice for determining whether their are “fake” or real. “When you feel it, you can actually move it up and down or side to side. With real muscle, the skin would slide over the bulge, whereas if it's a liposuction six-pack, it will move with the skin. In many cases you can tell just by touching it.”"
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"From skating pools on Oahu to walking for Bode at this year’s to melting television sets on the recent reboot, pro-skater has been collecting hyphens his whole career. “I've always kept my options open, and I've never closed doors or shut things down—even things that I maybe thought I was uncomfortable with,” says Mock, who admits that acting was never on the agenda. Beyond acting, Mock’s island-inspired lifestyle label,, debuted a new collection this month, with a second drop coming June 20. Speaking to via Zoom from Denmark—in between shredding at the Copenhagen Open and DJ’ing the contest’s afterparty—Mock, who is using 2025 as an opportunity to maximize his well-being, spoke about his farm-to-table dining habits, how his inner circle helps him take risks, and his new obsession with. There is definitely a balance, but I'm not one to be in the gym every day, or on a crazy diet regimen. Growing up in Hawaii, we didn't really think about that ever—like, at all. Surfing was such a big part of my life growing up, and it still is. I didn't really think about my physique too much. That comes naturally with the things that I have passions for and I have an appreciation for. It was just a natural thing. Like, you're just outside being active, surfing, skating, hiking. Walking in the sand is a workout in itself, honestly. I'm not 18 anymore, though—I'm 28 now—and I'm thinking about it a little bit more. But I haven't really reached that point where I'm like, Oh my God, I need to get into the gym. My lifestyle requires having to be slender and fit, I guess, but it has just kind of come naturally with the things that I've been doing. It was crazy. If someone random just made a mannequin of you, that's, like, a bizarre experience. But the fact that we flew to Nice, to the factory that makes all the mannequins, and it was for Louis Vuitton, and it was during Virgil's era—that whole time was already special. Looking back at it, now that Virgil's passed, it's become so much more of a thing that I think about often. But it was a surreal experience, getting to see that and having friends go into the Louis Vuitton store in multiple different places around the world and taking photos next to my mannequin. It’s been cool to see my friends send me photos from different parts of the world, where they were with “me” under their arm. Honestly, no. It's a carbon copy. It's exactly the same. Like, their whole process of doing scans of your whole body for it to be 3D is—I forget exactly how many cameras, but it was upwards of 250 cameras in a circle that all take a photo at the same time. And so you have that 360 view above and below and you're just standing in the middle of the circle. It was just cool to see how they actually make it come to life. You know what? Yeah! That's more of an old trick now, but I was definitely doing it as a kid. Pros back in the day would microwave their shoes, and it would kind of mold them. So, here's the trick: It's one minute straight on one side of the shoe—left or right. Then, after the minute, you take it out and put your foot in it. Then you put it back in for another 30 seconds, and then you put your foot back in the shoe, and you just walk around and it kind of molds to your feet as if they've already been skated in for a couple of sessions. My microwave didn't have settings like that at the time. Back when I had to buy my shoes, so probably when I was like 14 or 15. Exactly. It’s just one less task. It goes back to having a great friend group, or circle around you, with people that you know are going to support you in anything that you do. The people who say negative stuff are either jealous or they're too afraid to do it. But the people who are saying that are the people that don't necessarily matter in your life. If you have a great circle and you feel the freedom to do whatever you want, why wouldn't you? Look, I'm just full of clichés today, but life is short. I don't want to waste time doing things that other people say to do. Sometimes in our careers we have to do some of that stuff, but I think it’s about finding a balance. You’ve got to play the game a little bit, but you also have to put your own flavor on it as well. I've been traveling for the last two or three weeks, and everywhere has been no longer than three days, so I don't know if I'm the best representation of good sleep right now. But I haven't been drinking alcohol for the last month or two, so my sleep schedule would be way worse if I had. The fact that I'm traveling a lot, it doesn't seem as bad as it would be if I were also drinking. I've been falling asleep really well, and I've been having crazy vivid dreams—and waking up refreshed as well. So, considering how much I've been traveling the last couple of weeks, my sleep schedule has actually been pretty good. Definitely, definitely. Well, now it's It's crazy; I don't know when these kinds of electrolyte things were created, but I feel like I've wasted so many years of my life not drinking them, because it just hydrates your body faster than anything. The beer at the time was just for theatrics and the interview. But sometimes it just calls for a beer in the morning, you know? If you wake up hungover—I believe they call it the “hair of the dog”—you’ve just got to do it sometimes, and it'll somehow get you back to feeling better than when you woke up. We don't question it. But I’m usually not waking up with a beer. Yeah, I've just been wanting to feel better every day. I’m trying to see what I can cut out of my life that has been hindering it. And it’s a bunch of things. It wasn't just alcohol. It was social media, it was just being on my phone too much, watching stuff on my iPad too much. I want to really take a stab at this year and be the best I could possibly be. I'm not the healthiest cookie in the bunch. But, definitely as I get older, I’m thinking about it more consciously. Also, I've been kind of blessed in the places that I've been going recently; they just have really great food. A lot of farm-to-table places. There's a bigger kind of conversation happening about people growing their own stuff locally and living off the land. In Hawaii, we grew up seeing that, but as I travel more I’m realizing everyone else is doing it as well. There are amazing restaurants here in Copenhagen that have been blowing my mind this past week, just with how good everything is and how vegetables actually taste like vegetables, you know? Living in New York City, there's obviously an endless plethora of options, but coming out here and it being a lot more normal to have farm-to-table stuff, it's refreshing. They’ve got it figured out over here. It's kind of crazy, right? And late nights, nothing healthy is open, so it's really easy to get into that. Man, I would say a Coca-Cola with a lemon wedge on a sunny summer day. It just hits the spot. Even if I'm in New York, I don't really stay in the house. And I do leave quite frequently. So, the last few months, I have been really bad with grocery shopping. My fridge, right now, if we were at my house, I'd open it for you and show you. It's probably just filled with hot sauce, bottles of water, coconut water, and electrolytes. That's literally it. There's no food. When I said I'm working on myself, I truly am. Like, every single day is a challenge to be better. And, I think, coming from a skate background, you are always trying to improve and get better at skating. You want to be the best you can be, hopefully, and when you're in that mentality of wanting to be better, it just makes you better. There are a lot of people who don't think about making themselves better every day. They kind of just take whatever they can get, and that's their life. But I'm working towards doing better, especially with skating. And so I think that's just kind of the fire that I've lit under myself, to just continually be better, and it translates into life as well—not just skating. But skating is my blueprint for how to do life., "
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"Aldis Hodge knows that an actor’s work extends far beyond their physical form. While audiences might look at him and simply see the 38-year-old playing homicide detective Alex Cross, legendary rapper MC Ren, or football players Jim Brown and Brian Banks, they may not know that behind the scenes, Hodge has endured multiple back surgeries and intense mobility exercises that “whoop his butt.” But, thanks in part to his background—Hodge grew up in a military household and still believes that a disciplined mind is the key to finishing a grueling workout—there’s no physical challenge too daunting for him. The second season of is in the can but does not have a release date yet. Before it drops, we caught up with Hodge about embracing painful workouts, how he makes room in his diet for his favorite Japanese candy, and gaining 30 pounds for a movie role. It depends, man. Sometimes I’m diligent, other times—my health, I think like many people’s health—is often tied to their. So, if I’m in a good progressive state, happy, flowing, everything’s good, it’s easier to keep a schedule. When emotions are down, or when you’re distracted, or dealing with some weight, or some stress, then it runs away a little bit. I think that’s an interesting thing to discuss, because your emotional state has a high effect on your, which then affects your physicality. Sometimes I will get away from that I need to drink. Oftentimes we run around dehydrated, not realizing that we are. Sometimes you won’t carve enough time to prepare the right meals, so you start relying on quicker meals, or even restaurants, but you can’t control what goes in there. So, you’re ingesting a lot of different things that you’re not necessarily aware of as it relates to your physical needs. I think emotional health is what dictates your physical. It’s a state of mind. When I talk to my fellas who do this on a regular basis—like, who’s a friend of mine, he’s a trainer, he’s also an actor, but he’s made a big presence in the training world. Every time we talk, he’s like, “Look, prioritizing physical health will help you maintain a better state of mental health.” And there’s a balance there. I think there are different properties to physical health than just looking at one’s physique. There are different effects. It should always be a part of the conversation when people think about why they want to get fit or why they want to eat this way. It’s going to help improve everything mentally, emotionally, spiritually. It will! Yeah, both my parents were Marines. It informed everything on discipline. I was raised in a single-parent household by my mom, and yeah, discipline was everything. To be on time, you were late. To be early was to be on time. I had to prioritize reputation, decorum, cleanliness, had to hit those chores. We had a disciplined environment growing up. We had to do our best at it. We had to give it our all. When it comes to physical training and working out, I don’t really think about what I’m doing in the moment. I think about the goal I’m doing it for. That’s what helps you push through a couple of those last reps that hurt like hell. Growth is in the pain, not in the ease. Sometimes you have to switch your brain, discipline your brain to know that when your body starts feeling that strain, or when your body starts feeling weary, you can push further. A disciplined mind is going to help you get there. That’s where your growth really starts. If you do 10 push-ups and you don’t feel it, you ain’t doing nothing. When you start feeling something, that’s when you start actually doing the work. Your limits are, to a degree,. How disciplined are you going to choose to be? How intentional are you going to choose to be about pushing past those limits to reach your goals? Absolutely not. No. No! My mother was very open with my brother and I about her experience in the military and never wanted the military for us. Granted, we have a great deal of respect for soldiers out there doing their thing. We know what it’s like with the soldiers on the front lines, and it’s scary when you don’t know if they’re going to come back home to their families. But within that world, there are a great many threats and dangers that my mom and father both faced. There’s some things people talk about, some things people don’t talk about. But yeah, [my mom] was like, “Nah, y’all going to have a different path.” Yes, but from a different point. I wasn’t so much into the physique side of bodybuilding or anything like that as a kid. I came up with martial artists. I watched a lot of films. So, for me, the physicality came from always wanting to just do. That was part of my culture growing up. My mother and father met in Japan. They were stationed over there, and my mom was actively practicing. So it’s been with my brother and I since we were kids. For me, the physicality came from that, from fighting. I still love it. Then wanting to, that was always there throughout my childhood, because I had asthma and things like that. I always felt limited physically by my body’s natural defaults, and I wanted to find a way to push past that. I was not a big, still not a big runner. Endurance in that space is a big priority. But physicality has always been there since I was a kid. I only got to the bodybuilding later in life when I was given that green light from a job. I’d always wanted to get bigger, but the jobs I was on were contractual: “We want you to stay this size.” I’d work out and they would literally tell me, “You got to stop working out.” There was one job where I was playing Brian Banks, an actual former football player who studied the law and exonerated himself of a false charge that he caught. My first real time getting in the gym and going through some heavy bodybuilding stuff was with Brian. I had to put on some size. I was like, “Bro, how did you do it?” That’s where I started learning the foundation of how to build my body. I think I went from 185, 190 [pounds] up to, like, 215 in a couple months. Yeah, it is in a very small amount of time. That’s something you want to stretch out over—not two or three months, [maybe] six months to a year—to put that on gradually. The first thing is massively changing your eating habits. This is probably going to sound stupid, but also I feel like there’s some truth in it. There’s a lot of people who maintain a wonderful physique without actually going to the gym on a regular basis, because of how they eat, and regulate eating habits by paying attention to the sugars and all that kind of stuff. It’ll help you do the work without you having to physically get in there and do some heavy stuff. Now with I obviously got to maintain the physique there. So, anytime that I have a job that forces me to maintain the physique, I get happy, because now I have no excuse. What you learn is there’s a way that they organize and prioritize their lives to maintain the goals. There’s a huge discipline that goes into that. is the most energetic person I’ve ever met in my life. He’s got this trailer that’s a traveling gym. That dude would be up in there, I don’t care what time of the morning it is! I don’t know when he sleeps—or he sleeps—but he’d be up in there getting it. I was training with him in his trailer gym as well. When we were shooting some of the core work I realized I had no grasp of. You think, Then they’re like, “Okay, stand on this ball.” You’re basically balancing yourself while you’re kneeling on a rubber ball, trying not to fall. It put a focus on actually strengthening my core. I realized I didn’t know shit. But he’s got a great team around, and he motivates. And DJ [Dwayne Johnson] is the same. He puts people in place to maintain the discipline that he knows he needs to reach his goals on a daily basis. That really matters. Strength ain’t got nothing to do with size. There’s a lot of cats that are little, itty bitty! A lot of times we have lazy muscles because we don’t know how to engage them. Particularly, a lot of people will say, “I’m going to do. I’m going to do. I might do here and there.” But when you really engage your glutes, that actually helps to support your back. If you know how to do it the right way, then you’re going to increase your maximum potential for results everywhere else. If you don’t know how to engage your glutes on certain exercises, you’re going to fail. Same with. If you don’t know how to engage your core in certain exercises, you’re not setting your body up to reach its peak potential because you’re not connecting the dots. I’ve had. I had two back surgeries. Severe sciatica, herniated discs, all that kind of stuff. I mean, there was one period in my life, I walked around with pain every day for about three years straight. That was off of the sciatica. My mobility is mostly back. I’d say I’m a cool 90% now, but I had to learn how to engage my glutes to support my back. The healing was long, it was slow, it was painful. There’s no quick route to it but consistency. So, core, glutes, those are the oftentimes missed or neglected areas when you’re talking about thinking about getting into the whole body building game. Those are key to doing whatever else you want to do. Oh, I’m lazy, man. I will do all day. Now, I quite enjoy just hitting the treadmill. I thought to lose weight, you had to do high-intensity training. You had to do some crazy cardio running this, that, and the other.. All you have to do is get on the treadmill, hit the highest incline you can at a good walking pace—usually around 3.5—and you keep that steady pace for 30 minutes to an hour every day. It’s going to cut your fat but maintain your muscle and your size, so that you can thread the needle of losing the bad weight while gaining and maintaining the big, good weight. It’s a hard thing to do. Usually you have to pick one. Either you’re going to lose weight and slim down, or you’re going to build muscle. But usually trying to do both at the same time is lunacy. Hitting that treadmill on the daily? It does wonders, man. It’s magic. But yeah, the bench press for me is—I’m chilling, lying down. You know what I mean? It’s also a competitive thing for me, trying to figure out how much I can max out on that daggone bench without breaking my arms. But it’s easy and comfortable, I don’t really feel much of a strain there. Everything else, though? The mobility work is what kills you. Having to stretch. The pre-workout is what whoops my butt, literally just and. I like it when I stretch. Some of us over here old, bro. I was doing for a minute. I had just gotten into that because everybody had been telling me about Pilates forever, especially my wife. I got into Pilates late. I still need some discipline there, I ain’t going to lie. But it’s great. All those muscles that you didn’t know you had, Pilates targets those. This ain’t no game. It is not for the meek! But I love that, because it educates me further on my body’s capabilities and what I actually can achieve. I live on a plane these days, I’ll want to get back into it just to give my body some sense of normalcy and consistency. I do love to cook, [but] I don’t get to cook often because I am on the go a lot. I grew up cooking in my house. My father is Caribbean and my mom is from the South, so that’s just automatic. My brother and I loved cooking shows growing up. I want to own restaurants. I have four or five different ideas. But I keep it simple. If I’m on a training regimen, honestly, it’s really down to rice and chicken on a daily basis, or ground turkey, because you can get creative with it.. But when I’m going for quick, truncated results, I go hard and heavy, cut out the processed sugars and things like that. I start doing the fasting. But that’s when I’m training. When I’m not training, I eat whatever the hell I want to eat! Right now, it’s cutting back on ramen. Dear Lord, I love ramen. In New York, there’s a spot called Ichiran. God-dang, it’s good. I love food. I be out there But now I’m trying to feel better mentally and physically. So, it’s back on the waters, it’s back on eating my clean meats, my, all that. I love fruit to death. Vegetables, depends. When I’m doing, I usually won’t eat until about 3 o’clock. if I’m trying to drop weight fast. If I don’t have to be as severe, it’ll usually be around 12 o’clock. The challenge with fasting is you’re not taking in a lot of carbs and your body gets to do more rest, which is great. However, you need to find a way to meet your protein goals on a regular basis. And if you’re eating between 3:00 and whatever time I stop eating—8:00 or 9:00—I got to find a way to pack in that protein. Usually, people get big and then drop. I’m the kind of person where I like to just cut fat and then build muscle. For me, getting super, super big and then having to cut weight for some reason is harder. I think it’s mentally harder for me than to just keep a smaller frame and go get bigger from there. When you put on massive size and you’re intensely trying to drop that, it’s the cardio. I got to get into a lot of heavy cardio, and it’s just not my favorite thing. I just prefer weightlifting. It’s simpler. If I’m going to cardio, cardio’s going to be fighting. Like I said, I’m good with the treadmill. My basketball knees are bro. They’re dead. I actually already mentioned it. Ramen. My vice comes down to carbs for some reason. I used to be a sweet-tooth guy. Now it depends. But my vice is definitely some carbs, man. Pastas, it’s a beautiful thing. But once that gut gets a little wobbly, you’re like, “Hey, bro, it might not be worth it. Those last little bites, you might want to chill.” I’m trying to think of anything else that is a vice. They got these little candies called Hi-Chews. It’s a problem. They’re addictive. I’m like, I’m sure none of it is good for me. I eat it anyway., "
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"William H. Macy is one of the more revered character actors of his time—whether he comes to mind as a dopey Minnesota car dealer in or busting out of the small screen as a deadbeat on Macy embodies his onscreen characters in a way that’s as memorable as he is. Macy, who turns 75 on March 13, primarily calls Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado, home. He and his wife, actor Felicity Huffman, purchased the house that she grew up in, which is situated next to. This proximity led to Macy becoming a partner and “spokesdude” for the distillery. Macy told us via Zoom all about the trainer whom he and Huffman have been working with for more than two decades, speed-sledding down Colorado mountains, and why he quit oat milk. : I’m in Woody Creek right now, and things are going well. I’ll probably go to the distillery. There’s a bar there. I do hope you can come by someday if you find yourself in the Roaring Fork Valley. It’s a lovely little bar that’s attached to the distillery, and I go there and I play ukulele songs about Woody Creek and alcohol, and sometimes birthdays. Well, you don’t. I wrote songs for my wife and two daughters for a couple of years, and so every once in a while, I throw one of those birthday songs into the mix. I’ve been doing backing tracks so it’s got a pretty good sound to it. You can go to our website, go to the, and they’ll hook you up with me. I’ve got things on SoundCloud, but I haven’t added to it in a while. I’ve got two new songs, too, but there’s a bunch of songs on. That way is Mark Kleckner, one of the owners. I can’t see his house because there’s leaves on the trees, but on a good day I could almost hit a baseball that far. And the next house up is Pat and Mary Scanlan—they’re the other two homeowners—so we all live in Woody Creek. And you know, this place is sort of lousy with celebrities, but I guess everyone was busy, and they came by one day about six years ago and said, “Do you want to be the spokesdude?” I said, “Yes, I really do.” What spurred it was I looked out the back there, and there were all these potatoes growing, and they’re beautiful. I don’t know if you’ve seen potatoes when they go into bloom—it’s a beautiful white flower, and it was magnificent. I asked my brother-in-law, Moore Huffman, what’s with that? He said, well, Woody Creek uses one of our fields to grow potatoes for their vodka and we’ve been doing that for a couple of years. When Mark came down and talked to me, he brought me a bottle of vodka that had come just from that field. I wish I’d saved it, but I drank it. It’s true. We all live here. We all know each other. Everything in a bottle of Woody Creek spirits comes from Colorado. With the exception of the gin, there’s some botanicals that are kind of rare, but it’s all from Colorado. Some of the greens travel less than three or four miles before they’re in the bottle in our warehouse. I’m a big fan of Mary’s gin. It’s a blue gin, and it’s a potato-based gin, and it’s got a delicious taste. I went to Africa riding horses a couple years ago, and I got hooked on gin and tonics. I just love them, and Mary’s gin makes a fabulous gin and tonic, but it’s also great on the rocks with just a little squeeze of lemon. My other great passion is the rye whiskey. I put out a signature bottle. It’s got a special package. The mash bill was 80% rye and 20% malt, and I chose it in a blind barrel tasting. We tasted eight barrels, and that was my favorite and so we put it out. It’s sold out pretty quickly, but you can still find this in places. I’m a skier. I’m a hiker. I’ve had the same trainer for 22 years. Her name is Kristen Hultreen, and she’s a genius. She’s been training Felicity and me for 23 years? Something like that, and it’s weight training. Our home in L.A. has stairs, and we do these stairs, and if you do this little loop, it’s a little under a mile. So, do two of the two of those, and you’ll have a teenage butt. I mean it’s stair after stair—there are 444 of them. I know that because I’ve climbed them and I built them all. No, but it’s on the side of the hill— we can hear the Hollywood Bowl. We can hear it when almost anything’s playing. When The Who was there, you could hear the lyrics. So that’s where we are. It’s all terraced with all these places, and I’m a bit of a carpenter and that’s been great. I built all these stairs and now I run that. I’ve been running them for a long time. I used to be a jogger and my feet are a bit FUBAR’d, but with stairs you get so much more of a workout. Well, we live in Woody Creek officially, and we go back to LA for work. Every once in a while the girls like to go there, my two daughters, but the majority of the time is here in Woody Creek. Exactly. She invented this 30-minute workout, which is mostly strength training, and I get all the aerobics by hiking or biking or skiing. I’m in pretty good shape for an old guy. At least three, sometimes four when I can—we add a Saturday in there. And lifting the [resistance] bands we do that. I like to hit a speed bag, that’s great for the shoulders. Yeah, getting back to Woody Creek, not to be indelicate or anything, but I do like to drink. And when you drink fine spirits like Woody Creek, you can have a rocking good time and get out and go to work in the morning. I mean, you gotta drink responsibly, but you know, one man’s responsibility is another man’s boring night. I’m still an actor, so I have desk work to do for a couple of hours every day. I read scripts—I finished writing a script which we’re trying to get made. Since the pandemic, you don’t have to live in any particular place since there’s very few in-person meetings anymore. So I do Hollywood business, as we call it, and just paperwork, paying bills and all of that kind of stuff. Then I like to work out or take a hike if I’m not working with Kiki, as we call Kirsten. We hike a lot. In the summertime, we’ve got fabulous bikes and we ride. In the winter time, well, I only skied 11 days last year, but I skied 11 days. We go to Snowmass because it’s a 20-minute drive from our house. But I ski Buttermilk a little bit, and Ajax, which are in Aspen. And I ski cross-country every once in a while. That’s jogging. You know what Flicka [his nickname for his wife, Felicity] loves to do? They’ll let you do this [on the ski mountain]—you hike up at the end of the day with these nasty, gnarly little sleds. They’re about the size of your butt, not much bigger. You hike up there and sled down, and they’ll let you bring your dog there. So we take Gus with us, and you just hit breathtaking speeds. I’ve been skiing a long time, so it’s not pretty, but I can get down anything. These days at my age I say, “Slow down, Bill!” And that lasts about half the run. And then the next thing you know, I’m going pell-mell, so much faster than I should. You should see Felicity ski. She grew up in this house—we bought her childhood home—and she would walk across the fields there to the community school. And at the community school, you’d go to school three days, and you’d ski two days. So she is a magnificent skier, and her brother’s even better. I get up and I have coffee, and I’m a snob about coffee. We have a Breville coffee maker which grinds the beans and steams the milk. You know, last year we were in Europe, and the year before, we were traveling around, and as far as I can tell, if you want a good cup of coffee, you have to go to my house. I mean, we went to fancy restaurants, and they had those little pod things at a fancy restaurant! That’s not coffee. That’s not what God had in mind when he invented the coffee bean. Not those pods. Come on! That’s instant coffee! Anyway, I have one cup of coffee with whole milk. I’m boring with my meals. I eat the same thing pretty much every day for breakfast. We call it. I don’t know where the word came from. It’s a made-up word. It’s granola, and Felicity makes it for me. I wrote it down: It’s got almonds, cashews, pecans, it’s got coconut flakes. It’s got rolled oats, raisins, sometimes currants, other dried fruits, and some oil. She gets the nuts raw and roasts them on a big pan and makes them nice and toasty, and then mixes them all together with a little salt and some kind of oil. Maybe coconut oil? I don’t know what kind of oil she puts in it. She makes a huge vat of it and she’ll make enough to last me for three months and you put ’em in the freezer. I do—I used to drink oat milk, but the word is that that spikes your insulin. And so people are off of oat milk. From what I can read, and this is what I’m doing now, even skim milk kind of jacks your body around. So I’m having whole milk on my. You know, I don’t eat meat. It was perhaps eight years ago that my daughters came to us and said, “We’ve got to go vegan—it’s good for the planet, it’s good for our bodies.” They made us watch that movie called and it’s pretty convincing. I lasted longer than anybody [as a vegan], which was about two years. One of my daughters was eating meat a week after, but Flicka and I were pretty strict with the vegan diet. Although, I’d rather be dead than to not have my latte in the morning, so I always had the milk in mine. Then Felicity was worried we weren’t getting enough protein—you really have to work at it if you’re going to do that—so we added in fish and some dairy. That’s kind of where I am now. It’s really good. I read somewhere that we should all eat purple foods, and so I’m a fan of blueberries. I usually put the blueberries in it with the whole milk, and not in a giant bowl, but as you can well imagine, that holds me pretty well. If I eat that at eight o’clock in the morning, I’m not hungry until four o’clock in the afternoon. It’s a little too rugged for some people, but I love the taste of it. I’m a nut for nuts. I eat so many almonds that when I get my cholesterol checked, they said your bad cholesterol is a little higher than we would like, but your good cholesterol is literally off the charts. It goes to 100% because I eat almonds all day, and peanuts. My wife is a great cook. And she’s a salad aficionado. We’ve had guys come to dinner, like five of them, and all that is on the menu is three salads and you can see it in their eyes. They’re going, “Oh man, we’re gonna have to go to a restaurant after this.” But these salads are so fantastic that you’re full. Even the manly-men carnivores among us go, “That was a great meal.” She makes a romaine-and-egg sort of a salad. There’s a great arugula and black bean salad. She gets these from ; she’s gotten some from Gwyneth [Paltrow’s recipes]. A kale salad with brussels sprouts in it, with the brussels sprouts sort of chopped up. That’s a great salad. Oh, me too. You remember 10 years ago? Nobody ate brussels sprouts, and now they’re on every menu. There’s another salad she makes—you know the actor Titus Welliver? Well, he made this up. It’s called Mr. Bear’s Nobody Salad. I think his son named it. And it’s mostly avocado, but it’s got about 12 other things in it, and it is stunning and so filling. In our home in LA, we have a pretty big orchard with a lot of fruit trees and three mature avocado trees, so when the avocados hit around Christmas time, we got avocados out the wazoo. I mean, we take a bag of them, go to our neighbors, put them on the door, knock on the door, and run away. There’s just avocados everywhere. Oh yeah. She gets them from cookbooks. She’s got a food processor and a lot of fresh ingredients and mustards and stuff. Some are sweet, some are sour, some are salty, and she’s always playing with them. She makes a vat of it, so we get two meals. She’s also great at soups. She does a lentil ginger. And again, we’ve got these giant pots—the Le Creuset pots—you get a work out just washing the things because they’re cast iron. She makes a wicked cool chili—sometimes we use Impossible meats, Impossible Burger, in it. But I’ll eat bison. I’m not strictly anything. I’ll eat ice cream. I’ll eat anything. The Woody Creek guys are restaurant aficionados and for business we’ll go to some of the finest restaurants. I mean, places that it takes a year to get a reservation. It’s a little wasted on me, but they always get the finest steak you can. But you know, I’ll eat anything at a restaurant. That’s usually where I get my protein. My go-to is to order a fish. I try to eat the fatty fishes, the ones that are good for you. We’ve got a freezer full of it, because first of all, the elk have huge herd numbers. They come down off the hill and there are 400 of them. It takes them 40 minutes to pass our house. I mean, you wake up and they’re on the back porch. Just six of them. They eat you out of house and home. You’ve got to put wire mesh around everything in the winter time and they knock the fences down. We have horses, and they knock the fences down. My brother-in-law, Moore Huffman, lives with us, and he’s got three horses, and so he’s constantly fixing the fences. It’s magnificent to see the horses go by, but the good Lord ran out of pretty when he invented the elk. I’ve been working on my garden all morning, and I had to build a six-foot fence to keep the elk out. But it’s almost planted, so in about four weeks, we’ll start eating., "
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"Look up ‘fat burning exercises’ on your favorite social media platform and you'll find a fount of chiseled individuals extolling the virtues of their trendy workouts. Some do the trick (the, for instance, is a pretty effective low-impact fitness boost), but for every success story, there are a thousand abandoned workout routines. Sometimes, it's best to. There's no one-stop shop for the perfect body. Everyone has their own pace, shape and limits. No matter your unique personal goals, we're here to help you burn the fat–and keep it off. There are two main factors behind, and they both (unsurprisingly) concern calories. The good news is that we burn calories even when we aren’t exercising, simply by existing. Even better, workouts with a big ‘afterburn’ effect—like those targeting your biggest muscle groups—can ramp up this sedentary fat burning activity. “Basal metabolic rate is the number of calories your body burns simply to sustain life,” says Anthony Maritato, a physical therapist and personal trainer at. “Your body requires energy to power your brain, pump your heart, and simply maintain normal resting posture. Several studies have shown that increasing muscle mass also increases BMR resulting in greater calorie burn over while you rest.” A suggested that ten weeks of resistance training could increase lean weight by approximately 3.1 pounds and increase resting metabolic rate by 7%, and reduce fat weight by 3.9 pounds. This means that “a person who gains 3.1 pounds of lean body mass could burn an additional 150 to 300 calories per day at rest,” explains Maritato. How do you achieve this body composition? As is usually the case, ‘best’ and ‘quickest’ don't go hand in hand. “The quickest way to burn belly fat is not also the most effective,” warns Rachel MacPherson, an ACE-certified trainer and nutrition coach at. “If you want sustainable results, you need to pace yourself and take it slowly.” It's simple math: to lose weight, burn more calories than you consume. However, to burn fat, the type of exercise you do is key. “A 20-minute jog will burn calories, not fat specifically, which will help you lose overall weight,” MacPherson says. ""However that weight can come from fat and muscle. It’s vital to also perform weight-bearing activities like strength training to preserve muscle and keep your metabolism up while focusing on fat loss.” There's a that for the best fat burning potential, you should aim to reach somewhere between 67.6 and 87.1% of your max heart rate. “At too high an the human body burns more sugar than fat,” Maritato says. “At too low an intensity workout the body burns mostly fat, but not enough to make a measurable difference.” To sum up: the best fat burning exercises incorporate big muscle groups, will get you mildly sweaty and your heart pumping at a healthy rate. Twenty minutes focused on the below circuit (with an eye on your heart rate) will have the fat melting away, and provide the added bonus of getting your abs sculpted. Don't know where to start? Below are a list of exercises to try: Start in a plank position with arms extended. Jump your feet forward so you can stand up straight. Jump on the spot, and return to your starting position. Get into a plank position. Raise your leg so that it forms a 90-degree angle with the corresponding elbow, then return to the start. Repeat for the other leg. Hold a medicine ball at chest height. Hinge at the hips as you drive through your, twisting the ball to one side then the other. Lie on your back and cycle your legs in the air, forming a 90-degree angle to the ground and bringing your elbow across the body to meet the opposite knee. We all know that too much junk food is bad for us because it's high in calories, but it may also interfere with your progress in ways you might not realize. “Fat loss is not just about burning calories through exercise, but about optimizing the body’s metabolism and hormonal profile as well,” Maritato says. “Minimizing processed foods and simple sugars may help reduce gut inflammation and fluid retention. While further research is needed, a suggests gut inflammation is linked to fat gain and difficulty burning fat.” Again, there's no single solution for each individual person, but a good way to start is by ensuring your : fresh fruit and veg, lean meats and nuts. Studies have also shown that. Now switch off your phone and get to bed."
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"Even before I stepped into a first the first time, I had to look up the best gym clothes for men. Sadly, the results page yielded all the usual suspects, none of which were up to my standards. Am I seriously trying to get a fit off at the gym, all sweaty, hot and bothered? You better believe I'm trying to look my best while I'm hinging at the hips to deadlift two plates. Clearly I'm not alone in the pursuit of galactic-level gym fits, because a whole crop of fresh workout apparel brands have made it easier than ever to have outfits that are as hot as a gym packed with after-hour office warriors. To help you look good while going after it, we went deep on cutting-edge athletic labels we love—each a top-notch purveyor of the best gym wear for men—to keep you feeling motivated and ready to smash your next PR—and sure, we threw in some stalwarts, too. Just maybe don't mix and match your and. Longtime Recommends readers know how we feel about Rhone. Its breathable, odor-fighting tees have held down the top spot on our list of for years now, and we're such big fans of their thoughtfully designed shorts that we made them the flagship product of the a few quarters ago, too. Rhone Rhone Rhone Rhone Despite its reputation as an athleisure brand, Lululemon does in fact make workout clothes that's actually pretty good. Think: stretchy pants, excellent fits, and classic silhouettes. And heck, if you do end up at a post-workout bar with your workout fit on, you won't look too out of place. Lululemon Lululemon Lululemon Lululemon Before designing cycling gear, Pas Normal Studios founder Karl-Oskar Olsen was behind Danish clothing brand Wood Wood. Beloved for its minimalist designs and Scandinavian styles, Wood Wood's design aesthetics could be applied to Pas, which is equally stylish (but more functional) for coasting down the streets of Copenhagen, New York, or London. Pas Normal Studios Ssense Pas Normal Studios Ssense Mall brand Abercrombie has long been on its come-up, and after branching into athleticwear, we can say A&F has reached peak form. YPB, which stands for “Your Personal Best,” features a mix of tees, tanks, and other workout gear for achieving just that: your personal best. Abercrombie & Fitch Abercrombie and Fitch Abercrombie & Fitch Abercrombie & Fitch Who says distance running can't feel punk rock? Satisfy's moth-eaten muscle shirts and leopard-print shorts reflect their 's roots in skateboarding and hardcore. Satisfy Haven Satisfy Haven Need to feel completely free in order to really hit your stride? Ten Thousand's featherlight Session training shorts and Distance tees—both some of the brand’s best sellers—are built to be as efficient as possible—and stay out of your way in pursuit of that next PR. Ten Thousand Ten Thousand Ten Thousand Ten Thousand Boston-based Tracksmith transplants -era aesthetics onto modern marathon-ready gear in a way that feels natural, stylish, and not the least bit kitschy. Its singlet (a fancy tank top) might be its most famous piece, but it’s hard to go wrong with literally anything from this brand. Tracksmith Tracksmith Tracksmith Tracksmith After with its ultramodern Japanese frames, District Vision has turned its attention to apparel. The brand's latest innovation is a stretchy, lightweight mesh called Air-Wear, with thousands of tiny pores that open and close as you move to regulate your body heat and sweat. District Vision Mr Porter District Vision Mr Porter If hand-feel is your number-one criteria, then Vuori is the move. Its buttery, sumptuous, stretchy sweats make all other pants feel like sandpaper by comparison. Vuori Vuori Vuori Vuori Reigning Champ is Canadian through and through, focusing on high-quality materials (its French terry is ) and high-functioning performance details. Everything is made and designed in Vancouver, Canada, yielding year-round staples that will take you from couch to crunch with comfort and ease. Reigning Champ Nordstrom Reigning Champ Reigning Champ Ever wondered what it would feel like slanging weight at Gold's in its sweat-soaked heyday? Y,IWO harnesses the endearingly cheesy energy of -era Schwarzenegger—think retro graphics, bicep-hugging cuts, and bright, saturated colors—to imbue your gym selfies with a healthy jolt of '70s-era sleaze. It’s about time you tried a anyway, especially when you’re. Y'IWO Y'IWO Y'IWO Pacsun All it took for Miler Running to take home a was equipping its top-notch shorts with a couple of damn pockets; they're that good. To absolutely no one's surprise, the rest of the brand's murdered-out wares—made in New York with fabrics sourced from the European capitals of the world—are equally stellar, too. Miler Running Miler Running Miler Running Miler Running Chances are you've seen Rapha if you've ever come close to someone speeding away on a bicycle. It's arguably the most popular cycling apparel brand for the people who have a sick rig mounted above their bed. The clothing can be be loud or subtle, but above all else, you'll be seen on the road (for safety reasons). Rapha REI Rapha REI Search and State's premium apparel is made in New York City, one of the most stressful places to ride your bike. The brand features a lot of camo, but if you're more on the toned-down side, you'll find a nice selection of sleek and minimalist pieces, too. Either way, you'll be ripping through the streets like a cab trying to drop off a fare. Search and State Search and State Search and State Search and State If you’re a fabric nerd and love a deep dive into how your workout gear is designed to perform, you need to check out Path Projects. The brand was founded with the mission of creating a superior running short system and—guess what—they did it; their shorts are out-of-this-world comfortable. Two-in-one shorts are excellent, don’t get us wrong, but Path Projects did something miraculous—they made base liners and shorts that function perfectly together. Don’t get it twisted, the pairing is no simple Hanes-and-Mesh-Gym-Shorts combo; it’s a highly technical system that lets you define how you want to wear it. In the years since their inception, they’ve mastered shorts, but also mastered running tees, hats, hoodies, and travel apparel. Path Projects Path Projects Path Projects Path Projects On Running is a running brand first and foremost (hence the name), but it somehow feels like their performance running shoes have finally caught up to the hype. Their famous, or infamous, casual-leaning Cloud trainers have been a mainstay on the feet of Upper East Side dads, but, in our opinion, the brand is just now coming into its own as a performance and style mainstay. Their latest running shoes and technical sportswear are well worth the cash, but even if you don’t care about performance, On is putting some weight behind its lofty fashion ambitions, most notably with its recent Loewe collab that debuted on the back of American tennis phenom Ben Shelton. They are a running brand, but they’re becoming so much more. On Running Nordstrom On Running On Running If you’ve been running the streets of New York at any point in the past couple of years, you’ve probably seen Bandit. What started as a project to make the best running sock possible, Bandit took a community-based approach to development, handing out their prototypes at Brooklyn Track Club workouts, which let them soak up actionable feedback in real time. Its socks are still pretty much perfect, but its assortment has grown to include some of the best shorts, tees, and outerwear a runner can buy—all worthy additions to your gym bag. Bandit Bandit Bandit Bandit If you prefer that your strenuous activity happens on the water, whether that means paddleboard yoga or hitting your local point break, Florence has you covered. Founded by North Shore legend John John Florence, the eponymous brand blends surf, sail and the outdoors with technical fabrics and aquatic-focused sensibilities. While obviously inspired by surfing and surf style, their designs look more at home in the local SCUBA shop or atop a beachside lifeguard stand, which gives them an air of technical prowess and functionality that surf shops might be lacking. The drapey, lightweight UPF hoodies are excellent and their shorts toe the line (or should we say hang ten) between fitness and surf, making them ideal for hitting the waves or the local gym. Florence Florence Florence Florence We say that with love, for the record. If you've been to a gym squat rack, you've seen Gymshark, no doubt. The brand features bold, out-there graphics alongside more discreet pieces to help you squat lower than you ever have before. Everything from their joggers to their pump covers is also pretty affordable—which is good, because all of your money's going towards your gym membership and tape for your torn calluses. Gymshark Gymshark Gymshark Gymshark No athleticwear discussion would be complete without including Nike. From running gear to shoes for your next HIIT workout, Nike has your bases covered. Dri-FIT is where it's at, keeping you dry while you get your sweat on, and no one can deny the power of the swoosh. Nike Nike Nike Nike Just like the swoosh, Under Armour's developed quite the legacy for its hard-wearing, built-for-athletes workout gear. Its base layers make up the foundation of many a weightlifter, though you shouldn't sleep on any of its other wares. Under Armour Under Armour Under Armour Under Armour As other sports—like running, lifting, and even cycling—have developed stylish athleticwear, climbing gear might not have been on the list to get the next fashionable facelift. Since 1982, Gramicci has been focused on clothing for climbers, from durable pants to warm fleece. While function was the priority for the brand, an interest by Tokyo tastemakers helped to turn the brand into something more fashionable. Its cozy materials and rugged silhouettes have helped propel Gramicci into an athleticwear brand that looks as stylish on the streets as it does against a mountain cliff. Gramicci Gramicci Gramicci Gramicci Maybe you just left the office and decided it was time to head to your gym. Whether it's because you're actually going to get a sweat on or you're there for social hour, Literary Sport's range of workout-ready apparel will make sure you look good even if you're only scoping out the squat rack instead of actually, you know, squatting. Its clothes are perfectly apt for casual days or workout nights, highlighting modern silhouettes and high-end fabrics. Literary Sports is the kind of brand you scope out first when you decide you're in need of good-looking workout gear. Literary Sport Literary Sport Literary Sport Literary Sport Most know the OG outdoor company for Snap Fleece pullovers and bomber duffel bags, but deeper in the Patagonia catalog are super-lightweight, breathable shirts and shorts that are made to handle sweat. They might've been made for crags and trails but we can attest they're right at home in the gym. Patagonia Patagonia Patagonia Patagonia Multi-sport activists face a quandary when stocking their bureaus with duds for running and cycling. Courier delivers a solution with socks dedicated to both and knit with the company's trademark FlowPODs, which are like soft Candy Button studs that provide texturized cushion and allow for additional breathability on runs and rides. Get the HiFi for extra feel and the LoFi for max cushion. Courier Socks Courier Socks Courier Socks Courier Socks 2XU's signature compression clothing uses something the company calls ""muscle containment stamping"" to bolster your muscles and joints when workouts get tough. The design is meant to reduce fatigue and injury and, hey, we could all use little extra support during those last few sets. 2XU 2XU 2XU 2XU Like a secret handshake, wearing Ciele's used to be a sign among runners of who was clued-in. Then word got out and now everyone wears 'em, they're that good. Few know that Ciele also has an incredible apparel line built on the same foundation as the hat, namely, the best technical materials out there and functional, aesthetic design. Ciele Ciele Ciele Ciele Your engorged bis and tris need their time in the light, so you better believe it's a sleeveless day at the gym. Complement that with some sweats (because maybe you've missed a few leg day sessions) and you'll be spending more time checking yourself out in the mirror than working on curls. Reigning Champ Reigning Champ Y'IWO Pacsun Kapital Canoe Club Nike Nordstrom Every major muscle group is getting its time in the hot seat, so you're going to want to stay cool, fresh, and ready. Just make sure you opt for pieces that wick away sweat so you don't quit halfway through your workout because you're being weighed down my water-packed tops and bottoms. Path Projects Path Projects Ten Thousand Ten Thousand Bandit Bandit Reebok Amazon Whether it's the elliptical, treadmill, or StairMaster, you're going to be getting your steps in. Our favorite make all the best apparel for your cardio-heavy day, able to help you go further for longer. Miler Running Miler Running Satisfy Huckberry Tracksmith Tracksmith Nike Nike It's never OK to skip leg day, and even if you absolutely dread doing squats, maybe donning a fit this good will actually ensure you hit your lower half. 2XU Amazon Gymshark Gymshark Lululemon Lululemon NoBull NoBull"
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"You've probably seen a man with a latte in your feed recently. The creamy has emerged as, more eye-catching alternative to coffee, gaining so much international popularity that there may be in our midst. But is it acceptable for men to enjoy what many have deemed a girl drink? This is the latest question making the rounds online thanks to a handful of posts about the bright green beverage. It’s sparked conversations about food and gender. But most notably, it has given us a new type of guy: a matcha man. A matcha man is simply someone who enjoys the glorious bitter hit of some pulverized green, preferably on ice and, if they've properly developed their palate, an alternative form of milk. Given the fact that matcha has been around, men who drink it have always lived among us, and, for a lot of Asian cultures, that's completely unremarkable. But the gendered conversation comes at a moment of a, and the concept of the matcha man appears to have originated here in the U.S. from two viral videos earlier this year, the first from digital creator Kyle Umemba declaring his and riffing that “it’s cooler, it’s smoother, it’s matcha.” (He has since with the catchphrase.) The second is from and his impersonation of what he described to as a mosque board member who is suspicious of the beverage: “You are a man? You're getting a matcha?” goes the audio, which has since been used for many a matcha-themed TikTok. Why not can you be a macho? His character goes on to lambast oat milk. In all corners of the internet, people are repeating the phrase: “Men used to go to war, now they drink matcha.” Some are doing so in what appears to be an assertion that the drink is feminine. In one, one woman writes, “Don't let no man who drinks matcha raise his voice at you. You talk to him…woman to woman.” Unfortunately, we've been here before. Drinks have been assigned unofficial genders for ages, so much so that one on gender and food showed that men avoid food seen as delicate and sweet, as a way to protect their masculinity. (Of course, gendered food discourse is a scourge that women are also taught to internalize with often disastrous effects.) On the internet, these trends manifest as,, and promoted. In contrast to all that, drinking matcha has become a way to coolly buck gender expectations. TikToks of men as the finishing touch are everywhere. So are posts of them with their friends or with their girlfriends. In, a creator with the handle @yngjefe_95 weighed in on the backwards nature of matcha men detractors: “Once men get outside of their bubble, you critique them and try to call them names.” Hussain, who has watched his matcha man TikTok launch this debate between genders, thinks people should be able to drink what they want. “I genuinely do not like the taste of matcha alone,” he tells “But I don't see any problem with drinking it as a man.” The growing swarm of matcha men might be a sign that guys are freeing themselves from gender conformity. Or, at the very least, enjoying what is undeniably a delicious beverage."
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"Wondering what the new 75 Hard is all about and whether you should try it? You've come to the right place. Allow, the host of podcast, to explain. Like most busy young creatives, Larbi's fitness schedule was fine, but also somewhat sporadic. “I was going to the gym two, three times a week, but I wasn't doing much of the stuff that you should be doing for functional health, such as stretching, mobility, cardio,” he says. Larbi's focus was on and not much else. Wanting to challenge himself and broaden his fitness horizons, the 26-year-old turned to 75 Hard, one of the many new floating around on the internet. Not only did Larbi try it, but a few months after finishing, he’s still kept in shape. Here’s what he learned along the way, and his advice to set you on your own 75-day levelling up odyssey. 75 Hard is the brainchild of fitness beast who created the challenge in 2019 as a way to develop a stronger sense of discipline. “I don’t care how good looking you are, how much your mom loves you, or how good your GPA is; at some point, life will kick your ass, and put you in a choke hold,” Frisella on his website. The program lasts for 75 consecutive days and entails two 45 minute per day (one of which must be outside),, a gallon of a day and reading 10 pages of a non-fiction each day. Miss a day and you have to start over again from day one. Frisella created the challenge after interviewing, who is known for completing 50 Ironman races in 50 U.S. States across 50 consecutive days. His key takeaway from the conversation was the necessity of repeatedly placing oneself in uncomfortable positions to develop mental fortitude. Frisella took this as his starting point to create a fitness challenge that was also a “transformative mental toughness program.” For Larbi, it was this mental challenge that was most rewarding, but sticking to a strict routine also showed him how far he could push himself, further building his fortitude and sense of self-belief. “I really wanted to prove to myself that my word matters,” says Larbi. “It was a mental challenge, nobody's making me do this. Nobody even knows that I'm doing this. So if I stopped, there'll be no big deal. But I told myself I was going to do it.” Apart from that, the benefits are obvious: stick to any fitness routine and your body will thank you; your brain will benefit from the 750 pages you might not have otherwise read; drinking enough water and sticking to a meal plan will help you and eat a more ; and you’ll develop discipline to take into your next challenge. Larbi reports feeling more and more energized by the challenge. That being said, this is an intense regime and might not be for everyone. Maybe you have a bum knee, or you're living with a condition that makes harmful. If you still want to try it but aren't sure if it's safe for you, consult with a doctor. Luckily there are 75 Soft and 75 Medium programs you can adopt in lieu of 75 Hard. Naturally, a regime like this takes planning. So Larbi wasn’t stuck downing most of his gallon of water last thing at night, he made sure to keep a full glass handy during his morning workout, thereby making a solid dent in his water consumption for the day. In terms of the themselves, Larbi swapped his few-times-a-week heavy sessions for lighter daily sessions that he knew he’d be able to maintain long-term. Often his first session of the day would be a weights session with added mobility work. As the days progressed, he found he preferred. He invested in a press-up board on which he’d perform 30 press-ups as a warm-up before typically working through a mixture of pull-ups, lat pull downs, and cable rows, aiming for light weight, high rep to ensure he didn’t burn his muscles out given the volume of work they’d be performing throughout the challenge. The next session would be cardio-focused, be that walking, stretching, yoga or a run. Larbi found this a refreshing approach to fitness. “Before this, I was prioritizing the aesthetic muscles,” he says. “I’d do a push day, a pull day, legs and that would be it. I wasn’t doing much. I wasn't doing much. But doing a challenge like this, you have to look at the bigger picture. It made me respect exercise across the board, as well as think more about taking care of my body. It forces you to vary your approach, too; I probably did more mobility work in those 75 days than in my entire life before that."" One word:. “Stretching before and after every session was absolutely non-negotiable,” says Larbi. “No matter how I felt.” Larbi’s approach to maintenance used to be “cure over prevention” but his 75 Hard journey taught him otherwise. It makes sense; if you’re working this hard day in, day out, you need to look after yourself. And treat yourself. “ with Epsom salts was also super, super useful,” he says. As for diet, there is no hard and fast rule, but it makes sense to. Larbi made changes as he went depending on his daily schedule, while still keeping everything healthy. Setting aside the thought of having to start over again should you slip up, Larbi says the key to surviving is taking it day by day. “At the beginning, I thought that by the time I’ve done a month I’m going to be exhausted, but I was surprised by just how much I was capable of,” he says. “You don't know how strong you are until you give yourself no other option. The more I did, the better I felt. And because it’s quite intense and because I had so much going on with work, I was only thinking about completing today, not that I had X many days left.” Depending on how you look at it, there’s also a nice reward waiting for you at the end of each day, which is when Larbi chose to get his reading in. “I am an avid reader anyway,” he says. “75 Hard does specify non-fiction, so I read: by Malcolm Gladwell, by Mikaela Loach; and by Philippa Perry, which is really good.” As anyone who’s ever put themselves through a fitness transformation knows, maintaining your pace after an initial push is tricky. Larbi did spend days 76-80 mainlining junk food but eventually cut himself off, saying he “didn’t want to get used to it again.” A few months on, his diet remains “much healthier” if not quite as strict as it was during the program. He’s mostly sticking to his newfound fitness schedule: more sessions a week, but of less volume. Plus plentiful mobility and cardio. “If I’m having a busy week I might go back to my previous way of doing two or three heavier sessions, but generally I prefer doing half an hour every day,” he says. The biggest change has been to his mental state. “Working out for me now feels just as emotional as it does physical,” he says. “You never feel worse for working out.” Larbi points out that 75 Hard worked for him because of his flexible schedule. It might not fit with yours. But that’s no reason not to set your own goals. “If you do any one thing for you for 75 days in a row, it'll make a big difference to your life,” he says. “It doesn't have to be something as intense as this, just sticking to something you told yourself you were going to do for two and a half months, whatever that thing is, will have a huge impact.”"
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"Every night, once I get tucked into bed and start counting sheep, my brain is flooded with the same thought: As a single, childless person in my late 20s, I admittedly have very few barriers to slumber. There’s no snoring, blanket thief on the other side of the bed or overzealous tyke who wants to start their day with an episode of at 5 a.m. Still, I rarely get the type of I so desire. And I can’t shake the feeling that someone with my incredible sleep privilege should be waking up far more refreshed. In the past, I’ve done several things to improve my sleep hygiene, a term that describes your sleeping environs. Everything from the actual time your head hits the pillow to not exercising or consuming caffeine too close to bedtime are part of the sleep hygiene equation. A few years ago, I turned to (which I still take five milligrams of every night, and did so for each night of this endeavor), and more recently adopted the (which I highly recommend). During a particularly construction-heavy period in my neighborhood last year, I even resorted to (which fell out pretty much nightly, causing my surrender). The only thing I refuse to try is going to bed earlier, because all the fun stuff happens at night. But amid all my sleep hygiene improvements, one radical option still loomed large in my imagination: what I’m calling the “honk shoo” method. Partially inspired by a, I went Ebenezer Scrooge on my sleep routine, purchasing a polyester cotton old-timey pajama set, complete with the nightcap, candlestick, and holder. My logic here was threefold. One, sleeping in this garb for a week was funny as hell. Two, I figured there had to be a reason people used to sleep like this. Before smartphones, screens, or even electricity, were these people getting a tranquil eight hours every night using the honk shoo method? I had to ask an expert—Joshua Tal, PhD, a sleep and health psychologist—for his thoughts. “I would imagine having any clothes dedicated to sleep would be beneficial for sleep,” Tal said. “It is a signal to your body that it is time for rest and relaxation, similar to a nice blazer giving you a feeling of competence when presenting to your company board, or a sweatband giving you the extra edge in sports.” Perhaps, by wearing a gown and cap, I could unlock the wisdom of our ancestors and get the most serene sleep of my life. To monitor my experiment, I secured a Fitbit tracker to log all my nighttime statistics. Remembering all the things I learned in childhood about the scientific method, I knew I would first have to establish a sleep baseline by gathering one week of data without employing the honk shoo method. Once that was over, I slept in the honk shoo fit for a week—Monday night to Friday night—and compared the metrics. In the category of aesthetics, the early data was undeniable: I looked phenomenal. Someone told me I was “holding the candle like a glass of wine.” A few things to mention before getting into the experimental weeds here: For the control week, I was sleeping without air conditioning; instead, just cracking the windows and turning my ceiling fan on, which creates my preferred snooze temperature. Every night was spent wearing basketball shorts and no shirt, which has been my sleepy-time move since I was a teenager. The weather was much cooler this week than it was when I wore the honk shoo fit, which usually makes for the most placid sleep conditions, but interestingly, my average sleep score was a modest 71.3. I should point out that the first two nights of the control week did not render a sleep score, which is probably because I didn’t fully understand how to use the Fitbit yet. I was able to gather data on my average amount of REM, light, and deep sleep every night though, as well as the amount of time I spent awake each night: 67.8 minutes 55.25 minutes 4.83 hours 69.25 minutes In thinking about all the circumstances that would change once I started the Scrooge cosplay, the thing I was most worried about was going from the liberation of sleeping shirtless to the tyranny of being fully draped in cloth. While I presumed that would have a negative effect on my sleep, ending every night of the honk shoo method with candlelight seemed like it would be quite charming, the same sleepy-time effect as a warm, soothing cup of tea. Below is a daily diary of my week wearing the honk shoo fit. The material of the honk shoo fit forced me to ditch my beloved basketball shorts, which I was planning on wearing underneath. Instead, it was just underwear down there. Wouldn’t you know, this was the jackpot. Sobriety unquestionably aided this pristine sleep score, but I like to think it was also the ridiculous paraphernalia I shrouded myself in. 7 hours, 6 minutes (12:00 a.m.—8:01 a.m.) 54 minutes 1 hour, 21 minutes / 4 hours, 30 minutes / 1 hour, 12 minutes 82 My evening uniform felt more worn in after its first night of usage, which made it marginally more comfortable to wear. I decided to try basketball shorts underneath it this time, and also could not avoid the devil’s lettuce’s temptation. Surprisingly, while under the influence of ganja, I achieved my highest REM score. As for candlelight, I used the candles that normally adorn my coffee table, because I’m a man of taste. Those became a weeklong stand-in for the melted husk I thought I’d be relying on. 6 hours, 52 minutes (12:17 a.m.—8:00 a.m.) 51 minutes 1 hour, 41 minutes / 4 hours, 29 minutes / 41 minutes 79 My notes just say “hat is easily the worst/most annoying part” and “had dream about going to Quizno’s,” which was notable because I rarely have dreams, or at least rarely remember them. This was a no-weed night, though, which was probably the catalyst. 7 hours 27, minutes (11:40 p.m.—8:00 a.m.) 52 minutes 1 hour, 15 minutes / 5 hours, 17 minutes / 55 minutes 78 There was some strange beeping noise happening on the street below my window in the morning, which produced a prolonged period of being awake. For the second consecutive night, I was back to just wearing underwear beneath the gown, which had just been cleaned (along with the hat) by the lovely couple who owns my neighborhood laundromat. It took me a while to calm down for bed here because this was the night that Tyrese Haliburton hit his, and I had to consume a bunch of content about that, naturally. The whiplash of hootering and hollering about modern basketball and then strapping on pajamas from the 1840s really made me chuckle. 6 hours, 45 minutes (12:18 a.m.—8:19 a.m.) 1 hour, 16 minutes 49 minutes / 5 hours, 15 minutes / 40 minutes 70 Finally, the last night of this wildly silly endeavor. Hilariously, my notebook tells me I dreamt I had a lab report due, a fitting take on the classic recurring dream. (I also wrote “dreamt of grape lollipops,” for what it’s worth.) Once again, with nothing to do on Saturday morning, I slept in, and woke up without that foolish hat being anywhere near my head. This was on the heels of seeing T-Pain, Mk.gee, and Tyler, the Creator’s sets at, so the exhaustion of standing for so long is part of the stew here. At long last, I knocked out for eight hours, and was in a state of deep sleep for two of those, a new personal best! Thank you, music. 8 hours, 14 minutes (1:21 a.m.—10:59 a.m.) 1 hour, 24 minutes 1 hour, 1 minute / 5 hours, 5 minutes / 2 hours, 7 minutes 79 The main item in the honk shoo ensemble—the long nightshirt—was a bit like a hospital gown, with three buttons and a breast pocket on the front, and then more snap buttons on the back. It was made, as many a novelty Amazon purchase are, from an imported polyester cotton. Wearing it made me feel stifled, so I usually wore it with the bottom two buttons on the back undone for optimal comfort. The worst part was the hat. It refused to stay put as I slept. I’d wake up at various stages of this exercise to find the hat lying next to me, tucked between pillows, or banished deep into a hard-to-find cavern of sheets. The little ball that dangles from it, while cute as hell, provided its own challenges. It would get stuck underneath my shoulder blades—I’m a side sleeper—and always required some care when I’d roll over to find a more comfortable position. Boy, I hated that thing. Though the hat had an elastic band to fit scalps of all shapes and sizes, I didn’t want to pull it down over my ears. That would’ve made it too snug, and me unbearably sweaty. As for the candle, well, it sucked. On the very first night, I lit it while I powered down for the evening. It sat nearby as I journaled, did some dishes, went through my usual bathroom procedure, and eventually listened to a baseball game on the radio for my last bit of entertainment. All told, it was lit for about an hour and a half, and at some point while I was immersed in the radio broadcast, I looked over to see that the candle had partially collapsed. This candle was not ready for prime time. You get what you pay for, I suppose, and the honk shoo fit, candle, and holder came in a set that cost $39.99 altogether. Ironically, after the devastation of losing a major part of my research on the very first night, I enjoyed my best dozing, when I put up an 82 sleep score on Monday night just minutes after the candle debacle. From both a scientific- and feelings-based perspective, my sleep was only slightly improved when I wore the dumb clothes. My average sleep score when drifting off regular-style was 71.3. In the honk shoo regalia, it was 77.6. While my longest total night of sleep my longest period of deep sleep were both in the flimsy striped outfit, I averaged two more minutes of deep sleep when I was not wearing it. However, my average REM sleep per night leapt from 55.2 minutes without the honk shoo method to 73.4 with it. I’m choosing to believe my eyes were moving so rapidly because they were delighted by my little outfit. So, what have we learned? First, I will do pretty much anything for content. Second, if you want a surefire way to get better rest every night, you’ll probably need to do a bit more than a bizarre wardrobe change, especially if that comes in the form of an internet acquisition that cost less than $50. Beyond that, I decided that Ebenezer Scrooge was a hack, and just because he’s the face of the honk shoo community doesn’t mean he knew what he was doing. Sometimes the past should remain just that, the past. All of the sleep-maxxing technology we have today has become popular for a reason: It’s more effective than a candle and a frock. In conclusion, if you want to get better sleep, you absolutely do not need to try the honk shoo method. Hopefully I saved you $39.99."
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"For most of your life, you probably didn’t think much about beef tallow. Yet these days, the use of the substance as a cooking fat or isn’t just a lifestyle choice. For many of the subcultures united by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, it has become a marker of identity. Months before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed as the US Health and Human Services Secretary, he posted a to “Make Frying Oil Tallow Again,” singling out as a key driver of the American obesity epidemic. While it’s true that obesity rates and seed oil consumption have both in recent decades, this is mere correlation. There are countless additional factors—including but not limited to, as well as —at play in American diets. Even so, franchises including quickly took note and made the switch. Meanwhile, other chains such as have since decided to ditch seed oils, in favor of extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil, for their fries and cooked items. The symbolizes a handful of larger health and wellness trends, according to, a registered dietitian in Brooklyn, New York. These include the growing politicization of food, an emphasis on simpler ingredients and fewer processed foods, and the desire to. Simultaneously, beef tallow—which is created by cooking down beef fat to separate it from tissues and impurities—as skincare has become big on TikTok, with proponents touting it as a dew-inducing, moisturizer. But is beef tallow actually any good for your skin or your health? It turns out that beef tallow is one of the lesser evils circulating on SkinTok. That’s because it has emollient properties that soften and smooth the skin, says, a board-certified cosmetic dermatologist in New York City. “Its fatty acids closely resemble the natural oils of the skin, allowing it to effectively replenish moisture,” she says. “Linoleic acid, a type of fatty acid in beef tallow, also has known anti-inflammatory properties that can reduce redness and swelling.” Though more research is needed to determine beef tallow’s safety and efficacy in moisturizing skin, a of 19 studies found that beef tallow offers hydrating and moisturizing properties. On top of nourishing dry skin, it may also improve conditions including dermatitis, psoriasis, and wounds. Beef tallow is best to apply to parched or rough areas without sebaceous glands, such as the elbows, knees, and heels, says, a board-certified dermatologist and the founder of in Birmingham, Alabama. But because it’s comedogenic (read: pore-clogging), he advises against using it on your face. “If you have oily skin, which men tend to have, using comedogenic products is,” Dr. Hartman says. “When products get stuck in pores and mix with oil, acne is almost guaranteed.” Those with sensitive skin should also exercise caution, adds Dr. Green, as irritation, inflammation, and allergic reactions are all possible. All things considered, safer, more vetted alternatives exist to cover what beef tallow might potentially offer. Per Dr. Green, these include and glycerin—humectants that attract and boost hydration—as well as to lock in moisture and support the skin barrier. Fans of beef tallow say it is rich in healthy fats and fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K2, which “support everything from thyroid health to estrogen metabolism and even liver detox,” says, a double board-certified physician in Corona, California. However, she says there’s no clinical research to date attributing hormonal health benefits to tallow specifically. Beef tallow is high in saturated fat content—typically around 50%—which risks increasing LDL cholesterol, according to, a cardiologist specializing in preventive cardiology in Charlotte, North Carolina. “LDL cholesterol is responsible for plaque buildup in arteries, especially arteries that supply blood to the heart,” says. “For this reason, beef tallow and saturated fats should generally be avoided as much as possible.” Individuals with diabetes, elevated cholesterol levels, and/or a personal or family history of cardiovascular disease should be extra cautious. If you absolutely indulge in fried food on occasion, Dr. Dabhadkar still deems seed oils—which primarily contain unsaturated fats—as a better option. (FWIW, a found that higher intake of plant-based oils—including olive oil but also canola and soybean oil—was associated with lower cardiovascular, cancer, and total disease mortality compared to higher intake of butter, itself another high source of saturated fat.) Pasquariello agrees that any purported benefits of beef tallow—hormonal or otherwise—don’t outweigh the risks. “Tallow is also by no means a healthier, ‘cleaner,’ or ‘less toxic’ alternative to seed oils, nor does it contain higher levels of any fat-soluble vitamins than you can find elsewhere,” she says. For example, sweet potato, spinach, and carrots are all good plant-based. Yes, —but consuming more fat is far from ideal, as most Americans already. You’re better off prioritizing unsaturated fats with proven health perks, including but not limited to oily fish, avocados, nuts, and seeds. And, if you’re so inclined, seed oils. “Culinary-wise, I have no problem if people want to cook with tallow from time to time due to flavor or application,” Pasquariello says, “but claiming there are extra health benefits to doing so is not accurate.” After all, whether you’re eating potato chips with seed oils or beef tallow, the fact is that they’re both still high in fat and sodium and won’t meaningfully offer micronutrients or fiber, which. She suggests that the fervor over beef tallow may be informed by ulterior motives. “It's a tactic to tug at people’s emotions, to create fear, and to drive [clicks and] sales by capitalizing on a trendy moment,” she warns. Despite its recent airtime, beef tallow won’t magically transform your skin or your diet. But if you want to smear some of it on your dry elbows, or use it to add some flavor to a dish, go right ahead. Just remember: It’s not the miracle fat that MAHA says it is."
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