Month: May 2018

Categories
In the Kitchen Nosh

Vegetarian Meal Prep Ideas That’ll Make Your Life A Whole Lot Easier

Meal prep sounds great in theory—until you realize you didn’t buy everything you needed at the grocery store, you check the clock and realize you’ve spent your entire day in the kitchen, or you microwave the dish you made two days ago and are disappointed with how blah it tastes. When you’re a vegetarian or incorporating veg-only meals into your week, meal prep can cause even more headaches. How are you supposed to keep produce fresh all week long? How come the meatless options at your grocery store are lacking? And why does it seem like plant-based foods are always so pricey?
More and more people are adopting plant-based diets these days, whether they’re vegetarian—opting to eat eggs, cheese, milk, and honey, but no meat, fish, or poultry for example—or vegan—meaning they choose to forgo all animal products according to Michelle Smith, a registered dietitian and integrative health coach who follows a vegan lifestyle.
In fact, Baum+Whiteman, international food and restaurant consultants, predicted plant-based foods would be the top food trend of 2018. The Vegetarian Resource Group estimates that there are about eight million Americans who follow a vegetarian diet. In a Harris Poll the group conducted, 8 percent of participants said they eat one meatless meal a week, while 20 percent said they stick to a vegetarian meal plan about half the time, give or take.
It’s no wonder then that Meatless Mondays are still so popular. The Meatless Monday movement was started in 2003 by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The goal was to help Americans reduce their intake of saturated fat (which we get get almost solely from animal products) by going meatless just once a week. Research from Johns Hopkins found that because Monday is thought of as the beginning of the week, it would be the perfect day to convince people to make healthier choices. And there is a huge supportive community around this campaign—do a search for #MeatlessMondays on Facebook or Instagram and you’ll find plenty of Meatless Monday groups and vegetarian meal inspiration. “Meatless Monday is how I got started,” says Smith. “It’s a really great way to dip your toe into the pond of a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle.”
There are a few reasons why so many are turning to vegetarianism and veganism, but one the biggest is the idea that cutting out meat is healthier. And there’s definitely something to that. In 2015, the World Health Organization labeled processed meat and red meat as carcinogens since both types of meat have a strong correlation with certain cancers. Whether you want to incorporate more vegetarian meals into your life or you’re already a vegetarian full time, there are steps you can take to make meal prep easier. Here are vegetarian meal prep ideas to get you started.

10 Easy Vegetarian Meal Prep Tips That’ll Keep You Full All Week

The experts share their best tips so easy vegetarian meal prep can become a reality for you.

1. Formulate your plant-powered plan of attack.

“Personally, I love a great deal,” says Smith, who suggests looking at your local grocery store’s sales flyer and using that to determine what you’ll buy for the week. Once you narrow down your shopping list, find recipes that include these ingredients so that you’re not wandering around the supermarket aimlessly.

2. Cut corners with healthy prepared foods.

“Prepared foods will make your life easier,” says Smith. She recommends stocking your fridge with prepared hummus and salsa to spice up vegetarian meals with minimal effort.

3. Shop strategically.

Fresh produce is delicious, but it can spoil quickly. Plus, all that chopping you’ll have to do eats up time, especially if you’re a beginner in the kitchen. “When you’re just getting started, buy them frozen while you learn the ropes,” says Smith of fruits and veggies. Lauren Lobley, vegetarian chef and author of The Accidental Paleo, suggests looking for pre-cut veggies (such as zoodles) to cut down on your meal prep time.

4. Buy in bulk.

“One of the best cost-effective ingredients [is] canned beans, and you can even find organic ones,” says Melissa Eboli, certified nutritional chef and certified nutrition and wellness counselor. One struggle that vegetarians often face is getting enough protein, says Eboli, and eating beans is an easy way to bump up your intake (a half-cup serving of black beans has six grams of protein). You can even find canned beans in bulk at stores like Costco, says Smith. Eboli says you can throw beans into plenty of high-yielding vegetarian recipes, including salads and chilies.

5. Don’t procrastinate on your prep.

“Clean your produce immediately, chop everything up, and store it properly,” says Smith. “For me, that includes lettuce and cucumbers. That way I have no excuses when it’s time for lunch. My salad is ready to go.”
[related article_ids=1004299]

6. Toss whatever you have into a bowl.

Lobley says that when she first went vegetarian, she used to throw together salads using anything she had on hand. “My dinner most nights used to be salads full of legumes, quinoa, avocado, olives, and olive oil—basically anything I could find in my fridge,” she says. Have quinoa laying around? It only takes 15 minutes to cook, says Smith, and you can add it to a bowl with black beans, salsa, and a frozen veggie, like broccoli.

7. Store salads properly.

“Keep your dressing on the side and add it to your salad right before you eat it,” says Eboli. “This helps to keep the buoyancy of the veggies.”

8. Prepare breakfast for the week on Sunday night.

“When it comes to preparing things ahead of time, I love overnight oats,” she says. “It takes under five minutes to prep.” All you have to do is combine oats and milk and place the container in your refrigerator before you go to bed.

9. Put your slow cooker to good use.

“One of my best recommendations is investing in a Crock-Pot,” says Smith. Just throw a bunch of ingredients into it in the morning and you’ll have dinner ready when you get home from work. Smith says two vegetarian recipes you should have in your back pocket are chili and curry. Both are customizable (you can add whatever beans, grains, and veggies you like best), can be made in a slow cooker, are super flavorful, and yield a ton of food.

10. Pack your freezer with leftovers.

Lobley suggests portioning out your leftovers into containers and popping them in the freezer so you can enjoy your meal again at a later date.

Your Vegetarian Meal Prep Shopping List

Wondering what to buy this week? Here’s a handy-dandy vegetarian meal prep shopping list.
Vegetarian Meal Prep Shopping List

3 Tasty Vegetarian Recipes That You Can Meal Prep

Now it’s time to get cooking! Here are easy breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes courtesy of Smith that you can make ahead of time and enjoy for multiple days. While the following recipes each yield enough for four servings, you can easily double the amounts to make more!
[sol title=”Breakfast: Overnight Fruity Chia Seed Pudding” subheader=”Yield: 4 Servings”]

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups almond milk
  • 2 Tbsp. maple syrup
  • 6 Tbsp. chia seeds
  • 2 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 cup fresh fruit (such as strawberries, bananas, and blueberries)

Method:

  1. Combine everything except the fruit in a large bowl, making sure to mix completely.
  2. Refrigerate for an hour.
  3. Take out of fridge to mix well again, then put it back in.
  4. Store for at least another two hours so the pudding can set.
  5. Top with fresh fruit when you’re ready to eat.

[sol title=”Lunch: Black Bean and Lime Soup” subheader=”Yield: 4 Servings”]

Ingredients:

  • 1 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 cup shredded carrots
  • 1 cup sliced peppers
  • 2 small red onions, chopped
  • 3 cups water
  • ¼ cup quinoa, uncooked
  • 2 tsp. chili powder
  • 3 tsp. ground cumin
  • ½ cup corn
  • Two 15 oz cans of black beans, rinsed
  • ½ cup salsa
  • ¼ tsp. salt
  • Juice of one lime
  • 3 Tbsp. cilantro

Method:

  1. Heat oil in a medium-sized pot on medium heat.
  2. Add the onion, cooking until it’s transparent.
  3. Add the chili powder, cumin, salt, and salsa, cooking for a few minutes, still on medium heat.
  4. Add the beans, carrots, peppers, uncooked quinoa, corn, and water, bringing to a boil.
  5. Reduce the heat once the mixture reaches a boil, cover the pot, and cook for 15 minutes.
  6. Stir in the lime juice.
  7. For a creamier consistency, let the soup cool, then blend.

[sol title=”Dinner: Chickpea Burgers” subheader=”Yield: 4 Servings”]

Ingredients:

  • 15 oz cooked chickpeas, drained
  • ½ cup brown rice flour
  • 1 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. black pepper
  • ½ tsp. ground cumin
  • 3 tsp. garlic powder
  • ½ tsp. chili powder
  • ½ Tbsp. parsley
  • 3 Tbsp. minced red onion
  • 1 large tomato, sliced
  • 1 cup greens
  • 4 burger buns
  • Ketchup to taste

Special Equipment:

  • Food processor

Method:

  1. Use a food processor to completely mash the chickpeas.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the mashed chickpeas, spices, and parsley. Mix well.
  3. Add about ¼ cup of the flour to the mixture, working it in well. Then, add the remaining ¼ cup of flour. The mixture should be stiff enough not to spread or fall apart.
  4. If made ahead, store the mixture in the fridge so you can form and cook the patties just before you plan to eat.
  5. Remove the mixture from the fridge and form your patties (you should be able to make four).
  6. Heat the olive oil in a cast iron skillet. Once it’s warm, cook your patties for five minutes on each side.
  7. Let the patties cool.
  8. Assemble buns with lettuce, tomato, and ketchup.
Categories
Uncategorized

Is She Actually Born With It? Here's How Genetics Influence Your Skin.

“Maybe she’s born with it.”
That’s the tagline of a popular cosmetic line, which we won’t mention here—okay, fine, it’s Maybelline—and a reference to the timeless appeal of beautiful, natural skin. Dig a little deeper, though, and there’s an assumption within the tagline: Our genes control our skin’s appearance.

iStock.com/Peopleimages

That’s partly true, but of course, it’s a lot more complicated than that. We decided to look into the science of skin genetics—with special attention to products that claim to leverage the power of genetics to slow down the aging process.

When people discuss “aging” and “skin,” they’re really talking about something else.

Admit it: When you think about aging and skin, you think about wrinkles. They’re arguably aging’s most visible sign, and for the most part, wrinkling is inevitable. However, we wondered what actually causes wrinkles to form and whether there’s a way to slow down or reverse the process.
As we age, we produce less collagen, the structural protein that gives our skin its strength. We produce about 1 percent less collagen every year, so over time, the skin becomes more susceptible to wrinkling and sagging. That’s a simplified version of the aging process—we also become worse at sweating (which sounds way more awesome than it actually is), and we produce less elastin, another protein that acts as a connective tissue.

While everyone ages, the process is certainly more pronounced for some people. That’s partially due to genetic differences.
“One of the bigger factors is how your parents have aged, how your grandparents aged,” says Suzanne Friedler, MD, a board-certified fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology. “If you look at that, you’ll probably get a good idea of how you’ll age.”

Michele and Mikaela Lilly, winners of the Herald-Whig’s Mother & Daughter Look-Alike contest. (Phil Carlson/Herald-Whig)

However, external factors play an enormous role, and it’s difficult to completely isolate the genetic factors from those external factors. UV radiation is an especially significant problem; while our bodies have some built-in protection from sunlight, sunlight can cause extraordinary damage to the skin in a fairly short amount of time. That’s why sunscreen and sun avoidance are crucial to slowing the skin’s aging process. Unfortunately, people typically apply sunscreen at under 25 percent of the recommended dose.

If you’ve got lighter eyes and hair, you’re probably more susceptible to getting wrinkles.

That brings us to one of the key ways that genetics affect skin aging.
“In general, darker-skinned individuals skin will age more gracefully as there is more melanin in the skin which protects the skin from sun exposure,” says Jerome Potozkin, MD, a California dermatologist.


This is the reasoning behind the saying that’s now the title for Viola Davis’ possibly-upcoming comedy, Black Don’t Crack. Research backs that up. A 2016 paper found that “individuals with darker skin are overall thought to have firmer and smoother skin than individuals with lighter skin of the same age.”

The authors also noted that cultural ideas of beauty differ quite a bit, and that all types of skin age, albeit in different ways. Nevertheless, darker skin tends to show fewer wrinkles due to the melanin difference.
That brings us back to one of those external factors, because…

UV light—the light from the sun—ages the skin.

“UV light is probably one of the biggest factors in skin aging,” says Friedler. “To put it simply, the more sun exposure you’ve had, the worse your skin ages. Darker skin tones have more natural protection against UV, so they tend to age a lot better.”


With that said, people with darker skin can still get skin cancer, so sunscreen is important for everyone. Don’t assume that your skin’s natural defenses are enough to keep you safe.
“The two most common forms of ultraviolet exposure are exposure to sunlight and tanning beds,” Potozkin says. “To decrease the acceleration of skin aging, it is prudent to protect the skin from the sun through the use of sunscreen and sun-protective clothing.”
[pullquote align=”center”]”There’s no such thing as a healthy tan.”
—Suzanne Friedler, MD[/pullquote]
Granted, you’ll want to get some sunshine, since vitamin D is a crucial nutrient, and your body creates vitamin D when prompted by sunlight. Still, high levels of vitamin D have also been associated with premature skin aging in mice, so moderation is key.

Never assume that your skin is healthy simply because you didn’t get a sunburn.

Friedler says that’s a common mistake.
“There’s no such thing as a healthy tan,” she says. “A tan is a sign of skin damage, period.”

iStock.com/Filipovic018

Tanning occurs when your body is exposed to relatively high levels of UV radiation, typically from sunlight or a tanning bed. Your body responds to the threat by increasing melatonin production. That sounds like a healthy response, but the FDA notes that suntanning is associated with higher levels of skin cancer. Even if you don’t tan or burn, you shouldn’t step into the sunlight without adequate protection.
“All kinds of UV affect skin aging,” Friedler explains. “Not only UV-B, which we associate with sunburns and suntans, but UV-A, which is more of an invisible radiation—it also affects your skin aging.”


“For example, the windows on a car block out UV-B. In Australia, there have been studies that look at people and compares the driver’s side—which is hit with a lot of UV-A rays—versus the passenger’s seat, which is on the shadier side of the car. And in the studies, the side that was exposed to UV-A had a lot of solar elastosis, which means a breakdown of the collagen, breakdown of the elastin, and a lot of fine wrinkling. That’s just from those UV-A rays.”
[related article_ids=1001303]
Moral of the story: Wear your sunscreen, even if you don’t think it’s necessary.
[Editorial note: We think that Friedler is referring to this study, performed by a team led by Matthias Moehrle, MD.]

If you have thicker skin, you might also age more gracefully.

As Friedler explains, thicker skin contains more collagen, that fun structural protein we’d referenced earlier.
“The more collagen you have, the better your skin will look [as it ages],” she says. “That’s if you naturally have more fullness or thickness to the skin. But I don’t know if that’s a main factor in skin aging—it’s just one of the factors that has a genetic basis.”

iStock.com/Youngoldman

Once again, darker-skinned people tend to benefit in this department, specifically because they have smaller collagen-fiber bundles than lighter-skinned people.
“People with darker skin naturally have a little bit more collagen and a different kind of collagen, and your skin might age a little better along the way,”  Friedler says.
iStock.com/Wavebreakmedia

Still, our experts agreed that, over time, external factors tend to play a much bigger role than genetic factors. That’s not a bad deal—external factors are controllable, but genetic factors obviously aren’t.

What about skincare products that claim to use genetics in order to provide better results?

We’re talking about products that claim to use a “genetic profile” to create an optimized skincare routine for every consumer. Basically, these products claim to be the 23andme of dermatology. Orig3n, a Boston-based company, offers a “skin health and appearance” test for ~$38, along with a more comprehensive “beauty DNA test” for ~$47.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh_3oZknoDv/?taken-by=orig3n_inc
“It sounds a little hokey to me,” Friedler says. “I don’t know too much about it. But I think the things that determine a skincare routine have more to do with oils.”
Friedler notes that oilier skin tends to have fewer wrinkles. There’s a big caveat to keep in mind: Some wrinkles seem to pop up regardless of your oil levels or skin type, according to recent research in Clinical Anatomy. Crow’s feet (the little lines around your eyes) are a notable example.
Still, oilier skin tends to prevent forehead wrinkles, per the Clinical Anatomy research, and forehead wrinkles are obviously pretty notable. If you’re not dealing with issues like acne, oily skin might actually be a good thing. Unfortunately, it’s also unpredictable.

iStock.com/Youngoldman

“If you’re younger, your skin may produce more oils,” Friedler says. “But there are patients and people who age and their skin stays so oily, which is unusual. Typically, skin gets drier as you age, but there are people who actually get oilier skin as they get older. And oil levels also vary depending on the time of year.”
If you use a skincare routine optimized to your “genetic profile,” you’re probably going to be disappointed, simply because genetics are far too complicated for a single test to reveal anything useful.


“I don’t think a genetic test is really going to give you the answer to that. It can’t tell you how oily your skin will be at a certain point in your life,” Friedler says. “It’s not going to tell you what to expect in that department.”
To put it another way, products that claim to offer some sort of advantage thanks to genetic science might not be worth the money, simply because genetics are, well, complex.

iStock.com/Wavebreakmedia

“While everything ultimately has a ‘genetic’ origin, it’s a very different line,” says Ranella Hirsch, MD, a Boston dermatologist. “[The line is] straight, say, for eye color or a condition like xeroderma pigmentosum (a genetic skin condition). How you wrinkle has a much more indirect connection [to genetics].”

Regardless of your skin type, effective dermatological maintenance makes a difference in aging.

We consulted with a few dermatologists for this story, and they all gave us the same advice: Wear sunscreen. If you skipped over that section of this article, that’s the big takeaway. UV radiation can age the skin, so if you’re spending a decent amount of time in the sunlight, make sure that you’re adequately protected.
Another good tip for staying young: Put your phone away at the end of the night. Melatonin production seems to have a beneficial effect on the skin aging process, per a 2012 paper published in the journal Dermatoendocrinology. And your body naturally produces melatonin, a hormone, at night.

iStock.com/Melpomenem

The hormone plays a critical role in healthy sleep, and various factors can influence its production. If you regularly look at your phone at night, your body will produce less melatonin, since your body interprets the electronic light as sunlight.
While genetics play a big role in skin aging, researchers are just starting to understand that effect. Ultimately, if you want to preserve your youthful looks, your best bet is to think about the factors that you can control—for instance, skin moisturization, sleep health, and sun exposure—and leave those miracle, “genetically optimized” products behind.
We’re all the subjects of our genetics, but the good news is that we can control some of the factors that drive aging. Pass the sunscreen.

Categories
Motherhood

6 Things To Remember When Giving Birth In A Turkish Hotel Room (Or Any Other Unusual Place)

Here’s the scenario: You’re in a Turkish hotel, giving birth. You don’t think that anyone in the area speaks English, you’ve never given birth before, and you’re absolutely positive that the baby’s not going to wait another second. What do you do?
For Tia Freeman, the answer was obvious: Get on YouTube. With some help from the internet, she recently gave birth to her first child, Xavier Ata, alone in a hotel bathroom.


About 1.5 percent of U.S. women give birth in locations other than hospitals, per a report from Reuters Health. But many of them do so by choice, according to Karly Nuttall, a home birth midwife—they do it to keep control, to maintain body autonomy, to curate a comfortable setting. Tia did it out of necessity.
We spoke with Tia and Karly to find out what it’s really like to give birth in a strange place—and what every woman should know if she finds herself in that position.  

1. In desperate situations, you might not think to call a hospital.

As soon as she arrived in the hotel, she started prepping. We asked Tia why she didn’t call a hospital right away.
“I thought about it,” she says, “but from the limited amount of time I’d been in Turkey—there were so few people who spoke English, and I didn’t know any Turkish other than ‘Thank you’ and ‘Okay.’ That was a factor. I also knew that each country had a different 911 number, and I didn’t know that number in Turkey.”


She also had practical concerns.
“I didn’t know how my insurance was going to work overseas,” she says, “and on top of that, he was coming so quickly. My contractions were, like, back-to-back at this point. I didn’t think I was going to make it to a hospital anyway, so I said, ‘Well, I guess we’re just going to have to figure this out.'”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BC-c9CxpDsv/?taken-by=teenwitchtia
“If a pregnancy is not planned and a baby is coming fast, sometimes people can’t get to the hospital in time,” says Karly. “A birth under three hours is a precipitous labor, and usually that means that there are no complications. Sometimes, the baby may need a little assistance breathing because it can be shocking for them, but more often than not, if a woman is having a rapid birth, usually everything is fine.”

2. A bit of guidance goes a long way.

After she realized that she was giving birth, Tia looked up tutorials on YouTube.
“In true millennial form!” she says. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I was like, ‘Well, the internet’s got my back. YouTube, Google—one way or another, I’m going to figure this out.'”


She boiled shoelaces in her hotel room’s teapot (Tia tells us that most Turkish hotel rooms have teapots), grabbed towels, and ran water in the bathtub. The shoelaces would tie off the umbilical cord, at which point she could cut through it with a sterilized pocket knife.
“I was like, ‘Alright, this should get the job done.’ I put the towel in my mouth to muffle out the screaming—because the only labor I’d known was what I saw on television, and those women always look like they’re going through hell and high water.”


Tia was preparing to “freebirth” it—she was delivering her own child, on her own, without any sort of assistance whatsoever. While, spoiler alert, everything worked out in her case, Karly recommends against that practice.
“If you are birthing at home with a midwife, they will have proper training and education,” she says. “There are three common types of complication that can happen out of hospital: hemorrhage, shoulder dystocia, and infant resuscitation. Midwives are trained and have all of the same equipment to deal with these situations. Our best tool is our ability to observe and know when something is no longer low risk and make the call to transfer if necessary.”

3. Ultimately, your body knows what to do.

As Tia began giving birth, she had a brief moment of panic.
“So I’m groaning into this towel and pushing, and I’m like, ‘Why is this baby not coming out? Where’s my epidural? How did I get into this situation?'” Tia recalls.


“And then, finally, I’m guiding his head, because I know not to pull. Suddenly, he just comes popping out into the water and floats to the top,” she recalls, laughing. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s a baby!'”
We asked Karly what women should know if they find themselves in the same situation. The short answer: Relax and let your body take over.


“Stay calm and realize that is a normal and natural process,” she says. “Mothers usually know what to do instinctively. You want to deliver the head as slow as you can. You want to keep the baby warm, you want to help stimulate the baby to breathe if they are not doing so on their own with rubbing or a quick puff of air.”
Of course, the safest option is to have a midwife or doctor nearby.

4. Cutting the cord can be pretty traumatic.

After the delivery, Tia successfully clamped and cut the cord. That was the first time she felt afraid.
“‘What if I cut the wrong thing?'” she remembers thinking. “‘This isn’t a game of Operation, this is the real deal. It’s game time.'”


Karly notes that this can be a tricky part of the process.
“You want to let the umbilical cord pulse until it’s finished,” she says. “Don’t touch it or do anything to it.”


Per the American Pregnancy Association, the umbilical cord doesn’t have to be cut immediately; in fact, one study found that babies whose cords were clamped more than a minute after delivery had greater iron storage three to six months after birth. However, those babies also required more phototherapy due to jaundice.
If you find yourself in Tia’s situation, you’ll want to clamp and cut—but take your time, don’t panic, and wait for the pulsing to stop before you reach for those scissors.

5. If you can give birth in a Turkish hotel room, you can do just about anything.

Amazingly, Tia didn’t panic at all during labor, and while she admits that the experience seems scary in retrospect, she remembers feeling fairly calm.
“I just thought, ‘What’s step one? Water birth, I saw that somewhere on the internet. Okay, step two: What position do I get in? On to step three.’ And the whole time, I’m talking out loud to myself. I probably sounded crazy to the person in the next room, but I was just trying to coax myself through it.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BhVAbgJjfqo/?taken-by=teenwitchtia
“And I’m on the internet this whole time. The internet’s like, ‘Don’t push until your contractions are two minutes apart,’ and I’m like, ‘Psh, I’ve got a timer, I can do this. My iPhone has prepared me for this.'”

6. Flight authorities ask a lot of questions if you suddenly show up with a new baby.

The consulate authorities asked her how she’d boarded a plane in her third trimester.
“I didn’t really know the official rules regarding who can’t fly, but no one ever asked. No one ever told me I couldn’t—in their defense, though, I didn’t really look pregnant.”


Airlines typically prevent women from flying in the last several weeks of their trimester without a doctor’s note, but some airlines don’t have any policies whatsoever. According to the CDC, the typical cutoff date is 36 weeks into a pregnancy.
“At no point did anyone chastise me or anything, but they had a lot of questions,” Tia says. “They kept saying, ‘I can’t believe you did this.’ And I was like, ‘I barely believe it myself.'”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bih5bUslgK9/?taken-by=teenwitchtia
Tia answered dozens of questions to prove that the baby was actually hers, then filled out paperwork for a United States birth certificate. Xavier received an emergency passport.

Xavier, by the way, is doing well.

His middle name, “Ata,” references the unusual circumstances of his birth.
“It’s Turkish,” she tells HealthyWay. “I kinda just got it from the ladies that were helping me at the airport. They were like, ‘Oh, he needs a Turkish name, he needs a Turkish name!’ And I was like, ‘Well, I think I can do that.'”
Ata is both the name of the city where Tia gave birth and a reference to the founder of the Republic of Turkey.


“If you’re planning on traveling later in a pregnancy, pack a baby-go bag,” she says, “even if you’re super early and you don’t think that you baby’s coming. Babies come on their own time! If you do end up going into labor somewhere where you can’t get to a hospital—say you’re stuck at traffic or you’re at home and you can’t get to a phone—deep breaths.”
“I know, it sounds very cliché. Breathe and focus, and your body and your instincts will take over.”

Categories
Happy x Mindful Wellbeing

What Is Reiki? A Skeptic Dives In To Learn More (And Try It!)

Can shifting your body’s natural energy help you stay healthy and heal faster? Absolutely, according to practitioners of reiki, an Eastern technique in which a healer channels energy through a person’s body by placing their hands on and above your chakras.
While I try to be open minded about wellness (there’s no one path to self care!), I have to admit that I’ve always been skeptical about reiki. The idea of tapping into some invisible energy field just seemed too far fetched to be real.
I wrote off the practice as a scam and forgot about it until reiki started popping up everywhere. Everyone from Cameron Diaz and Angelina Jolie to Gwyneth Paltrow has reportedly been doing reiki. Even Jax Taylor from Vanderpump Rules calls it the highlight of his week!
Why do so many people swear by it?
I had to learn more, so I sought out some answers from Dana Carretta-Stein, a licensed mental health counselor at Peaceful Living wellness center in Scarsdale, New York. A certified reiki therapist, she uses the technique to help people with panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other concerns.
“A lot of times, clients who have been through traumatic events have a hard time talking about it, so reiki helps me heal their emotional trauma and get them to relax and open up,” she says. “A lot of people experience relief after just one session.”
So reiki works for some people, but would it do anything for me? I had to get to the bottom of this healing technique—and put the practice (and my skepticism!) to the test during a session.

Before we go on, let’s level set. What is reiki?

“Reiki is hands-on energy healing. The practitioner uses their life force energy to heal blockages in the receiver. It’s about using our own healthy energy to cure someone else’s stagnant or blocked energy,” explains Carretta-Stein.
The word “reiki” comes from the Japanese words for spirit (rei) and vital force (ki), which loosely translates to universal life force. The technique stems from the theory of chakras, which are centers of spiritual energy that line our bodies. Supposedly, we have 114 chakras, of which seven are major (you might already be familiar with these if you practice yoga).
When the flow of energy between our chakras is blocked or imbalanced—which can be caused by stress, anxiety, conflict, and other negative emotions we experience every day—it shows up as other ailments in our bodies.
Got self-esteem issues? Headaches? Stomach pains? A low sex drive? Writer’s block? Blame your blocked chakras. Then schedule a reiki session to get it fixed, believers say.

How does reiki work?

Okay, so I get the philosophy, but how exactly does reiki work?
It all stems from something called “attunement,” the part of the training that activates the healing power of reiki in a practitioner’s hands, says Carretta-Stein.
“To become a reiki practitioner, you have to be trained by a reiki master who has gone through all three levels of training. The reiki master is able to attune your energy by putting his or her hands over your head to open up the crown chakra and align your energy with the highest good. By doing that, the practitioner can then help others,” she explains.
Once they have undergone attunement, a reiki practitioner can begin healing clients during sessions at spas and wellness centers by placing their hands on or above different chakras in need of attention. The healthy energy then transfers from the healer to the client’s body to clear their blockages.
“As I go over the troubled spots and set the intention of letting the life force energy from my body go into theirs, it can help heal trauma,” says Carretta-Stein.
The reiki practitioner may also use other healing modalities, such as crystals, essential oils, and guided meditation, to enhance the experience. But none of the techniques, including reiki, will work unless you intend to be healed, Carretta-Stein notes.
“Reiki is right for someone who is wanting to be healed and open to receiving healing. It’s about intention. Our thoughts are really powerful,” she says.

Why do people try reiki?

You’ll try just about anything to find relief when you’re in chronic pain, suffering from a disease, feeling stressed out, or creatively stifled. These are frustrating issues that often don’t have quick-fix solutions. While some people go for exercise, meditation, and acupuncture, others turn to reiki for respite.
“Working with energy centers can help heal emotional trauma, physical or sexual abuse, chronic pain, cluster headaches, migraines, and inflammation in the body. Reiki can work on anything in the mind, body, and spirit,” says Carretta-Stein.
The idea of using something as non-invasive and peaceful as reiki to heal some pretty serious issues sounds amazing, but unfortunately, there might not be a lot of evidence that supports those claims. According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, few high-quality studies have been done on this technique, and reiki hasn’t been proven to be an effective technique for health-related purposes. Bummer.
But, let’s take a step back and look at the potential upsides of reiki. You take some time out of your busy, stressful week to go to a calming environment, rest on a comfortable bed, and have a healer focus on you. For one hour, you leave the hustle and bustle of the world for a little TLC—which isn’t a bad thing.
“The biggest benefit is a deep sense of relaxation from the inside out. That stress relief may, in turn, help chronic inflammation go down, headaches get better, and overall give you a renewed sense of self,” says Carretta-Stein. “After reiki, you’ll have better moods, feel more balanced, and be less on edge.”
I can definitely get on board with these kinds of benefits, even if they’re not easily measured. But would reiki give a skeptic like me true tranquility? I had to try it for myself.

A Skeptic’s Experience Trying Reiki

The first week of May was a tough one for me. I somehow fell uncharacteristically behind on all my deadlines, my tasks were taking three times as long as usual, and I couldn’t seem to get enough rest no matter how much I slept. Oh, and did I mention it was my time of the month?
Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling much like myself.
My first reiki session could not have come at a better time. On Friday afternoon, I hopped on a subway downtown to Modrn Sanctuary, a luxury wellness center in Manhattan’s Flatiron District that offers just about any alternative treatment you might be looking for, including aromatherapy, life coaching, acupuncture, and hypnotherapy.
My reiki session kicked off right in the lobby, where intuitive energy worker Alexis Alvarez had me fill out a questionnaire on an iPad. I answered questions like “Are you disorganized?,” “Do you have an aggressive nature?,” and “Do you find it difficult to be loved?,” and looked at a color spectrum to choose hues that I felt attracted to and repelled by. My responses would give a sense of my state and which chakras needed work, Alvarez explained.

what-is-reiki
Joni Sweet

Then it was time to go into the reiki treatment room, a dim, soothing space with a special therapeutic bed (similar to a massage table, but it had subtle vibrations) beneath a line of crystal lights. After I was given a brief consultation and explanation of how the session would go, I kicked my shoes off, lay on the table, and hoped for the best.
Alvarez guided me through a short meditation to calm my breathing and quiet my mind. Next, she placed crystals around my body and on my chakras and began slowly moving her hands along the space above my feet, knees, and other parts of my body. I felt restless at first, but before I knew it I was in a completely chilled-out state that reminded me of a savasana after a tough yoga class. She continued to work on my energy for a while.
When the reiki was over, Alvarez gently woke me from the restful place I had drifted to. I felt in a daze, and I barely remember slipping my shoes back on. How long was I in there? What time was it? My mind wondered but then let the concerns go in carefree way.
Alvarez explained the work she had done. She said she noticed something disruptive in the chakra near my reproductive system (how did she know I had my period?), healed some creative blockages (please let her be referring to my writer’s block!), and worked on my solar plexus chakra (the one associated with self-discipline). All of that sounded like just what I needed—but how long would it last?
I drifted out of Modrn Sanctuary and back into the city. It was rush hour on a Friday, yet everything moved in slow motion, like I was swimming. My typical mindset runs a mile a minute—Where am I going? What do I have to do? What’s next?—yet today, I felt completely at ease just standing there. Energy felt like it was buzzing through me. And I was content with just letting that happen and not immediately funneling it into a project or task like I typically would have.
I grabbed myself an iced matcha drink and slowly made my way to Madison Square Park, where I sat quietly, observed people enjoying the evening in the grass, and gazed at the trees, just taking in everything that early spring has to offer. I couldn’t remember the last time I was this relaxed. For once, I was fine with just being.
Over the weekend, I felt like my state continued to improve. I focused on resting and catching up on some essential things that were now overdue—no longer burdensome, my projects felt fulfilling. I felt like an improved version of my old self by the time Sunday rolled around. And it was bliss.
Did reiki actually work? I went into the session with a deep hope that it would fix my issues. But whether the healer cleared up blockages in my internal energies or it was just the placebo effect, something changed for me in the room that day. I finally got what Jax was saying—reiki was the highlight of my week—and that’s the only thing I know for sure.
[related article_ids=26341]

Categories
Healthy Pregnancy Motherhood

So You Want To Be A Surrogate? Here’s What You Need To Know

Because she’d experienced pregnancy loss herself, Crystal Henry, a writer who blogged about her surrogacy experience, had no reservations when she decided to carry a child for a friend whose chances of natural conception were slim at best. When her friend decided to try IVF treatments, though, Henry knew she still wanted to be a surrogate.
“I remember thinking I’d love to help another woman become a mother. I loved being pregnant, and after my natural delivery with my second daughter, I knew I wanted to do that again. I also knew our family was complete, so surrogacy was the next natural step to chase that birth high.”
Though Henry knew right away she wanted to be a surrogate, the decision to become a surrogate or gestational carrier is a huge decision.
If you’re considering becoming a surrogate, here’s what you need to know, from fertility doctors, surrogacy lawyers, intended parents, and surrogates who’ve been there.

Surrogate, Gestational Surrogate, Egg Donor: What’s the Difference?

There are a couple of different ways to become a surrogate, and each one has its own pros and cons for all parties involved. Traditional surrogacy is when the surrogate’s own egg is fertilized with either the intended father or a donor’s sperm, meaning that the surrogate is biologically tied to the child. A gestational surrogate, on the other hand, carries a fertilized egg from the intended parents and/or egg and sperm donors, so they have no genetic ties to the child. An egg donor is just that: a woman who only donates her eggs to be fertilized.
Now that we’ve got the basics down, here’s what you need to know if you’re considering becoming a surrogate.

Surrogacy won’t make you rich.

Kim Kardashian West, who famously became a surrogacy advocate when her daughter Chicago was born via surrogate earlier this year, reportedly paid the surrogate around $45,000 (the average cost to hire a surrogate) over a 10-month period. If you’re dreaming of ways to pay down your student debt or make a down payment on your dream home, a $30,000 to $50,000 check can sound ultra-tempting. But when you break down the actual cost-to-work ratio of incubating a little human for almost 10 months, your earnings may surprise you.
“I did get pre-birth child support. If you think about it, there aren’t a lot of babysitters who would do the job 24 hours a day for nine months for free,” says Henry. “It took us two years, months of IVF injections, countless [reproductive endocrinologist] and OB doctor’s visits as well as the risks and pain of labor and childbirth—I delivered without so much as a Tylenol. I think when we totaled it up I got paid just over $1 per hour. So I can assure you that no surrogate does this for the money.”

I just want to help people have kids. How do I become a surrogate?

Becoming a surrogate is a lengthy process. First, you’ll need to meet a few standards that almost all surrogacy agencies require.
“Ideally, surrogates to have a healthy BMI, have delivered at least one healthy baby vaginally, and pass any psychological testing required,” explains Shahin Ghadir, MD, of the Southern California Fertility Center. “In California, a surrogate must also be between the ages of 21 and 39 years old, have had no more than three cesareans, and no more than five vaginal deliveries.”
While the agency won’t require it, Stephanie Caballero, a surrogacy lawyer who practices at the Surrogacy Law Center in California, recommends surrogates also have a stellar support team.
“She’s [a surrogate], been pregnant before, and she gets it,” Caballero says of the ideal surrogate, “but a surrogacy really does take a village and that village includes agency personnel, if any, intended parents, OB-GYN, IVF physician, nurse coordinators, attorney, and a mental health professional.”
After her friend decided to pursue IVF, Henry decided to work with an agency to become a surrogate, but it took a couple of tries to find a good fit.
“During the initial interview process they asked how I felt about termination. …While I’d never begrudge another woman’s decision, I couldn’t be in a position to terminate,” says Henry.
So, she reached out to other agencies until she found a surrogacy agency that did not require termination as part of the surrogate’s contract. If you feel strongly about a particular issue, as Henry did, make sure that you find a reputable surrogacy agency that’s right for you. It may take a little longer to make a match with intended parents, but it’s in everyone’s best interest to be on the same page.

What are a surrogate’s legal rights?

A surrogate will enter into a contract with the intended parents before becoming pregnant. Every single detail will be outlined in that contract, but actual surrogacy law differs from state to state.
“In the United States every state handles surrogacy differently so the potential gestational carrier—the most common form of surrogacy, where the woman carrying the child is not genetically related—needs to check the laws in her state to see if surrogacy is practiced,” says Caballero.
“For instance, surrogacy is very limited in the state of New York where only compassionate surrogacy is allowed. No fees are involved, so typically surrogacy is between family or friends,” Caballero explains. “Contrast that with the state of California, where my firm is located. California has very solid case law and a surrogacy statute that defines the roles of both the gestational carrier and the intended parents and protects them.”
Surrogacy contracts are very detailed. A surrogacy contract will cover everything from the rights and responsibilities of both the parents-to-be and the gestational carrier, medical and life insurance, parental rights, intent of the parties, escrow and trust holder information and details, medical procedures, delivery and birth, and conduct of the surrogate, as well as payment to the surrogate, if that’s applicable.
While extreme surrogacy cases (like a surrogate keeping a child) make for great Lifetime movies, they hardly ever happen in real life, says Caballero.
“These situations are extremely rare and usually happen when corners have been cut and the surrogate has not received psychological screening and testing and she did not have an attorney represent her,” Caballero explains.

Who uses surrogates—and is it weird for a surrogate to be friends with the intended parents?

The demographics of intended parents vary: Of course there are heterosexual couples who cannot or choose not to conceive and opt to use a surrogate, as in Henry’s experience, which involved an intended mother and an intended father. That said, gay couples are increasingly using surrogacy to build their families, too.
The Chicago Tribune reports that at Fertility Centers of Illinois, gay men rarely pursued surrogacy just five years ago. Since then, the number has been increasing. A 2018 report showed that overall, gay male couples are content with the level of contact they have with their surrogate; the only men in the study who were discontent wanted more contact with their surrogate, not less. Also heartening if you’re considering becoming a surrogate: The findings of a 2016 report showed that children conceived by surrogacy and raised by gay men tend to have positive relationships with their surrogates.
But before anyone can build a positive relationship with their surrogate, they have to find one! So how do couples feel about finding (and nurturing a relationship with) the right surrogate?
“It takes a long time to meet the right surrogate, but when you do, you just know,” Dustin Lance Black, an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, tells HealthyWay. He and his husband, Olympic diver Tom Daley, are expecting their first child via surrogate later this year. “I knew the first time we met our surrogate that we’d made a match. It was partly how she was with her own kids and husband, loving and hilarious, and how she was with Tom and I. …She reminded me so much of our own families that I hoped and prayed she’d say yes to carrying our firstborn. Because at the end of the day, she’s going to be in our family’s heart and lives for a good long time, and we adore her and her family.”
The relationship between a surrogate and the intended parents is very intimate for obvious reasons, but it will mostly be defined by the contract both parties agreed upon. For example, the intended parents will probably want to attend the surrogate’s OB appointments and be present for the birth of the child. Still, each surrogacy relationship is totally unique.
“An open line of communication is key in these relationships,” says Ghadir. “It is very important that both parties—potential surrogates and intended parent(s)—feel a good connection.”
When Henry was matched with her first intended parents, she felt an immediate connection.
“They asked questions like Would I feel comfortable with them being in the room during delivery?” Henry remembers. “I joked that not only would they be in the room, but [the intended father] would deliver the baby. They laughed, but two years later he sat at the edge of my hospital bed and caught his daughter as she came into the world. Baby mama was laying next to me in the bed ready to be the first one to hold her daughter skin-to-skin. It was absolutely the most incredible thing I’ve ever done.”

Surrogacy is a challenging (and totally rewarding) experience.

Being a surrogate is a life-changing experience for the surrogate, intended parents, and most importantly, the child who’s being born.
Most of the people I spoke to about surrogacy said they’d do it again without hesitation. For Henry, helping a family have a child fulfilled her own desire to make a difference in the world.
“If this little surro baby grows up to be president, I get to say I played a role in her existence,” explains Henry. “People always say I’m some kind of angel or some selfless person, and they couldn’t be more wrong. I was just trying to fulfill my own dream, and it happened to fulfill the dreams of another couple. The family who allowed me to carry their only hope of a child were the brave and inspiring ones. They were the ones that had to wait for two years, and to trust someone they hardly knew to care for their child.”
For Black and Daley, surrogacy has been a lesson in gratitude.
“I lost my mother many years ago now. Tom lost his father as well. When Tom and I first met, we shared our dream of having children of our own one day, to pass on our parents’ love and lessons to our own. Surrogacy has given us this chance. There’s nothing I’ve ever been more grateful for.”

Categories
Fresh Fashion Lifestyle

Faux Leather Pieces That Look And Feel Like The Real Thing

Are you lusting after the newest dusty rose moto jacket gracing the shelves of your favorite boutique, but can’t justify buying the gem, knowing the potential ethical costs?
Luckily for you, sustainable, faux leather is a rising star in the fashion industry and is an important player in the mindful consumerism movement. This animal-friendly sister of traditional leather is good for your wardrobe, good for your conscience, and good for all creatures, great and small.
It’s clear that cruelty-free businesses have headed a widely welcomed shift in collective consciousness. We now have a seemingly never-ending list of items that are as humane as they are chic. From jackets to pants and shoes to purses, you can feel safe making faux leather a staple in your wardrobe.

What is faux leather?

If you’ve ever heard the term “faux leather” thrown around, then you’re likely familiar with imitation leather made from plastic—and let’s be honest, you may be a bit hesitant about it as well. Although “pleather” might ring a bell, don’t get the millennial-era staple confused with what’s trending today. Now the name of the game is faux leather, and it’s been getting serious play in the last few years from brands big and small; Stella McCartney is one of the biggest major brands laser focused on this form of cruelty-free sustainability.
The leading material for faux leather in previous years was PVC. Thanks to some major reworking in the ’70s, polyurethane became the widely accepted leather alternative. But now our faux leather pieces feel like the real thing, if not better.
Truth be told, though, polyurethane isn’t the most environmentally sustainable choice considering the details of its production. Many of the solvents polyurethane pieces require are highly toxic, and the product itself is incapable of biodegrading or being recycled. That said, any form of faux leather is arguably better than animal farming for something as impermanent and insignificant as pop culture’s aesthetic waves.
While most brands still opt for 100 percent pure polyurethane as the chief component in their faux leather products, others focus on truly sustainable leather alternatives create their textiles from recycled nylon, cardboard, rubber, and cork. Each one boasts its own benefits, but all are valid alternatives to painfully produced cowhides. For our friends who are eager to support businesses that decrease our carbon footprint and eliminate animal harm, then the latter group of materials is for you.

The Brands to Look For

If you’re looking for high-quality pieces that are also kind to our furry friends, look no further than these eco-friendly brands.

Fauxgerty

The leather jacket: Is any wardrobe complete without one? Now you can get a cruelty-free one that looks and feels just like the real thing. Fauxgerty, based in St. Louis and Los Angeles, is rooted in mindfulness and consciousness. Every piece is cruelty (and PVC!) free and ethically made. Brand founder Chrissy Fogerty pays Fauxgerty sewers 36 percent over the regional average because she stands with and values those involved with the company’s mission. We’re torn between the vegan leather and suede Dolma and the faux suede Swazey, which comes in a stunning olive green. Might just need to get both.

Shop More Faux Leather Jackets:

Jeane & Jax

Montreal-based luxury vegan brand Jeane & Jax has mastered the art of blending cruelty-free fashion, reasonable price points, and premium quality. We especially love the Chloe tassel bucket in ivory and the Maya perforated zip crossbody in coral.

Shop More Faux Leather Bags:

Matt & Nat

Matt & Nat’s pieces are some of the most consistently stylish ones on the market. For a modern take on another ’90s trend, try their Aki belt bag. Need something a little roomier? We like the Mini Fabi, which is perfect for on-the-go fashion.

Shop More Faux Leather Accessories:

Dr. Martens

Even Dr. Martens has hopped on the vegan leather train. The ’90s staple remains relevant by creating their classic 1460s with 100 percent vegan construction; try the cherry red color for a modern twist. We’re always happy to recommend a good Chelsea boot, and you can’t go wrong with the Flora.

Shop More Faux Leather Shoes:

Categories
Health x Body Wellbeing

What It Means To Be Gender-Fluid Or Non-Binary In Today’s Society

Gender-fluid. Genderqueer. Non-binary. Gender non-conforming. The language of gender is changing, and it’s doing it faster than you can say LGBTQIA.
Whether your best friend has just asked that you start referring to them as “they,” or your child has come home and shyly asked if it’s okay that they don’t really “feel” like a boy or a girl, it can be hard to know what to say and when to say it.
That hesitancy and confusion is absolutely normal, says Joel Baum, senior director of professional development at Gender Spectrum, a San Francisco area non-profit dedicated to creating a more gender-inclusive world for kids and adults alike.
“Gender hasn’t changed that much,” Baum says, “But we’re understanding it differently.”
And that understanding has brought along with it what Baum calls a “language explosion,” with a host of new terms that many people are struggling to understand. Sometimes they’re trying to figure out if those terms are right for themselves or an appropriate way to describe their own gender identity. Sometimes they’re trying to understand the terms used by friends, family members, or their kids, hoping to say the right thing and not be offensive or cruel.
What matters most, Baum says, isn’t the words you use at the outset but the ability to be open to hearing from others what their chosen terms mean and to be able to change.
“A big part of the work around this is becoming more comfortable with not knowing and being able to ask,” Baum says.
So what is gender-fluid? And how about non-binary, genderqueer, or gender non-conforming, for that matter?

Gender-fluid is just one term.

If you go by its dictionary definition, gender-fluid refers to “a person whose gender identity or gender expression is not fixed and shifts over time or depending on the situation.” That fluidity doesn’t mean that people can’t make up their minds. But it does mean that their identity is not constrained to just one binary, such as boy or girl.
Non-binary and genderqueer, on the other hand, are defined by GLAAD as “terms used by some people who experience their gender identity and/or gender expression as falling outside the categories of man and woman. They may define their gender as falling somewhere in between man and woman, or they may define it as wholly different from these terms.”
GLAAD defines gender non-conforming as “a term used to describe some people whose gender expression is different from conventional expectations of masculinity and femininity.”
So do they all mean the same thing?
Not at all, says Ellen Kahn, director of the Children Youth and Families Program at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
“Most of us are familiar with a binary, with male and female,” Kahn says. “We know folks who are transgender and binary too. Jazz Jennings is a binary person; she expresses herself as female, she identifies herself as female. Chaz Bono likewise is binary. He identifies as male.”
But for many people, the constraints of the binary are just that: constraining.
“In the middle range of binary there is a range of experiences,” Kahn notes.
That’s where these other terms come into play for people. They are words that have evolved in our language to allow people to give a descriptor for their gender identity. And just as each person’s identity is extremely personal, so too is their relationship to the words they use to identify themselves.
While “gender-fluid” is in the non-binary experience, the actual lived experience of folks who identify as gender-fluid or non-binary or genderqueer or gender non-conforming can all differ in qualitative ways, Kahn says.
In a forthcoming Human Rights Campaign survey of LGTBQ teens, Kahn says the kids were given the chance to describe their own identity in their own words. The responses included at least 50 different terms the kids used to identify themselves. And not a single one of those kids was “wrong” for using a different word.
“I’m surprised and intrigued at how the language is evolving,” Kahn says. “Young people don’t feel confined, don’t feel constrained. You can be free to be who you are.”

Ask, don’t tell.

Some people may identify as gender-fluid, some as non-binary, and so on. What’s important, Kahn says, is to be open to allowing people to describe their own identity to you.
Part of that is asking someone their preferred pronouns. While many who identify as gender-fluid or non-binary identify as “they” rather than using “he” or “she,” pronoun usage is again very personal.
For Sula Malina, the decision to ask friends and family to call them “they” was years in the making. Malina, who works as a children, youth, and families coordinator at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, came out as queer as a teenager.
At the time, Malina says they began to dress in a manner largely associated with masculinity in our society, and eventually began binding, a technique wherein fabric is used to minimize the appearance of breasts. When they applied to college, Malina did so identifying as a cisgender female.
But their understanding of their identity was already shifting, and that shift became more pronounced at college.
“There was a lot of grappling with whether I was more transmasculine,” Malina says. And yet, they were very aware that they did not have the experience of the many transgender people who knew they were a gender other than the one assigned at birth from an early age.
“I don’t think it’s inaccurate to have identified as a girl growing up,” Malina says.
But after top surgery to remove their breasts, Malina says they found that acknowledgement of their masculine side made them all the more comfortable exploring their feminine side. Eventually, Malina came out to friends and family as non-binary.
“There’s something that was really empowering about it,” they recall. “It’s who I am, and it also aligns with what I stand for.”
The relationship to one’s identity can be difficult to explain to people who are cisgender, Malina says, because there is no correlating experience.
“With sexual orientation, there’s an analogy. Just as you love a boy, for example, you can say I love a girl. But with gender there isn’t an analogous experience,” Malina says.
While gender identity is not a choice, it’s often something people have to think about and come to an understanding of, if only because society is still very much built on a binary system, wherein children are assigned “boy” or “girl” in the delivery room.
When someone comes out to you about their gender identity, be it as gender-fluid, non-binary, genderqueer, or using any other term, the fear of making a misstep is often there.
This is where you should give yourself a break … at least to a point, Malina says.
“I think people are stressed about definitions,” they said. “But it’s very complicated and yet in some way very simple. The real skill and real gain when you are developing ally skills is to ask people about their experience.”

Don’t force disclosure.

So asking is okay. What’s not okay?
Forcing someone to disclose their gender identity is never okay. While it’s becoming more common in college and business settings to ask people to identify themselves and their pronouns, that has to be done with safety measures in place, Malina says.
It’s not okay to simply go around the room and make everyone share their name and pronouns because that can force folks who identify as non-binary to out themselves in spaces that may not be friendly to people who don’t identify as “male” or “female.”
Instead, Malina suggests a one-on-one conversation where you give someone the choice to share their identity. Doing it that way lets the person know they’re in a safe space and that their identity is respected.
It’s also not okay to make dismissive statements about gender identity, Baum says, casting it as a choice or phase.
“If you’re dismissing another person’s experience, that’s really arrogant,” he notes. Worse, for those who are opening up about their gender identity, having people dismiss their experience can be downright dehumanizing.
“Suddenly it’s not just ‘I’m a different kind of kid,’ it’s ‘I’m a sick kid,’” Baum says. That can have devastating effects. Suicide rates for the transgender and gender non-conforming population exceed the national average, and a study by the Williams Institute found that as much as 57 percent of people in this demographic have experienced families who refuse to speak to them, and 69 percent have experienced homelessness.
It’s something Malina tries to explain to people who are grappling with how to be good allies. Malina’s mom, a gender studies major in college and an educated woman who supported her child’s transition, struggled with the transition to “they/them” pronouns because grammar rules had been ingrained in her head dictating the use of these terms only in reference to multiple people.
But she called Malina one day and said, “Every time I think about how hard it is for me to use they/them pronouns, I think about how hard it is for non-binary people to exist.”
For allies who are struggling with the transition, Malina puts it this way: “Maybe you can’t end trans-violence, but you can certainly use someone’s pronouns!”
One final note from the experts? It’s also important to understand that gender identity and sexual orientation are not synonymous.
Coming out as gender-fluid, non-binary, or any other term beyond “male” or “female” does not equate with being gay or lesbian. Again, it’s important to have open communication with someone and to let them lead you.
People can identify themselves in many different ways, and the words they choose to do so are important. More important, however, are the humans behind the words and the efforts taken to understand their experiences.
[related article_ids=1005029]

Categories
Life x Culture Lifestyle

How To Make A Budget That Actually Works For Your Lifestyle

According to recent research, in 135 out of 144 countries, women know less about finances than men do. (Guys aren’t off the hook, though—about 38 percent of men are financially illiterate.)
The problem isn’t going away anytime soon. In the United States, women hold roughly two-thirds of all student debt, and the gender pay gap is totally still a thing. Women make less, owe more, and often have trouble creating basic budgets that actually work, thanks to cultural biases and outdated societal expectations.
Yes, it sucks. Fortunately, there’s a way to get the money you do make in order: Learn how to make a budget. Don’t worry; it’s not nearly as painful as it sounds, and it’s a remarkably simple process once you’ve got the right outlook.

If you’ve been putting off learning how to make a budget because you’re worried about ruining your awesome lifestyle, relax. Learning how to make a budget actually reduces stress, eliminates debt, and—our favorite—gives you spending money.

It’s basically awesome financial witchcraft performed with a spreadsheet, smartphone app, or (our preference) a paper planner. Unless you have access to actual financial witchcraft (let a girl know), you’re going to want to read on.

How to Make a Budget, Step One: Understand why most people can’t stick to budgets.

Budgeting has a bad reputation, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that people who are learning how to make a budget for the first time often end up cheating a little…then eventually dropping their budgets altogether. More often than not, they’re trying to do too much without understanding the first rule of budgeting.
“The goal is to make the budget realistic,” says Michelle Hung, who is a Chartered Financial Analyst and the founder of online financial education platform Sassy Investor. “It’s no fun setting so many restrictions on yourself, because you’ll start to resent your life.”

“It’s like a diet,” Hung explains. “If you are super strict and don’t allow yourself little splurges, or if you set up unreasonable workout schedules, then you’re just setting yourself up for failure.”

That’s not to say that you won’t be reining in the expenses. But before you try to conquer your mountainous student loan debt (sorry to bring that up) or cut your food budget down to a dollar a day, make sure that you’ve got the right perspective. For most people, that means thinking carefully about what you need versus what you want.

Remember, when you figure out how to make a budget that works, you will be able to make space for wants. But for that to happen, you need to take a long hard look at your perception of money.
“For the ‘big spender,’ they have to distinguish between needs and wants, and this can go even further back and dig deep into what they value,” Hung says. “Do they value material things? Do they spend on these things to make them feel good? Are they insecure about something? Can they simplify their life and not have so much ‘stuff’?”

As you start figuring out how to make your budget, keep asking yourself those tough questions. Try not to take anything for granted—and trust that, in the end, you’ll still have money for the occasional splurge.

First, though, you need to reach for a pad of paper.

How to Make a Budget, Step Two: Write down income and expenses (and ask questions).

Okay, ready for the hard part of learning how to make a budget? (Spoiler: It’s really not that hard.)

Start by listing all of your income sources along with every recurring bill or predictable expense. You’ll want to list everything from your Netflix subscription to your mortgage. If you don’t have exact numbers (like for utility bills, for instance), it’s okay to estimate.

Once everything’s listed, break your expenses into categories. Some common examples:

  • Entertainment: The aforementioned Netflix subscription fits in here, along with books, movie tickets, and other non-essentials.
  • Personal Care: This might include skincare products and cosmetics, but you can also lump in haircuts or spa treatments.
  • Mortgage or Rent: For most people, this the biggest single item in the budget, so it often gets its own category.
  • Wellness: This might include things like health insurance, therapy co-pays, or gym memberships.

Those are just a few basics, and you’ll build in plenty of other categories as you work through your list. If you’re struggling to think of categories, apps like Mint, You Need A Budget, and Mvelopes can help (we’ll have a few more words on those in a moment).

Right away, if you’re not already living frugally, you’ll see a few places where you can trim down your expenses. However, remember to look closely. Some “needs” might actually be “wants,” and properly identifying them can help you avoid sinking deeper in debt.

With that said, we’re not quite at the “eliminating expenses” stage yet, and we’re not quite done with that paper.

How to Make a Budget, Step Three: Set up your financial goals.

Here’s the whole point of learning how to make a budget: It’s time to set up your goals. This is where you’ll start to see how your budget will revolutionize your financial life, so be prepared to celebrate (ideally, without purchasing any new bottles of champagne).

First, let’s address one of the other major reasons that people don’t follow their budgets: They encounter an emergency scenario, start spending…and immediately run out of money. That emergency might be a busted car, an unexpected visit to the doctor’s office, or a layoff you didn’t see coming.

Therefore, your first financial goal should be to build up some savings. Budget experts often call this “paying yourself.”
“Unfortunately, many people put this last on the priority list,” personal finance consultant Andrea Woroch tells HealthyWay. “What happens then is that some months may get tight with additional expenses and [saving] gets ignored.”

Woroch recommends incorporating a hard-and-fast rule as you make your budget: Always put a percentage of each paycheck directly in your savings, without exception. Experts often recommend 20 percent, although the exact percentage will change with your financial goals over time. The point is that you’ll always be paying yourself.

“Put this money into a separate account,” she says. “Consider opening up an online savings account to get a better interest rate.”

Set your emergency fund goal to cover several months of your essential expenses. Your emergency fund will be your first major goal, after which you can think about home down payments, retirement funds, and fun things like vacations and private Cardi B concerts (hey, we don’t know how much you’re budgeting).
There’s one thing that should take precedence over your rainy day fund.

“In building a budget, there are a few things [women] should do before saving for their goals,” explains Hung. “One being, if they have credit card debt, or any high-interest loans, they need to get rid of that first—before saving for their emergency fund or their goals. Then, they definitely should have an emergency fund set aside, ideally three to six months of expenses, depending on the risk of their primary income or [whether they have] dependents.”
If all goes well, you’ll eventually set up your monthly budget with last month’s income, which is an incredibly liberating feeling if you’ve been living paycheck to paycheck.

How to Make a Budget, Step Four: Track your expenditures.

At this point, your budget is pretty much good to go. It’s time to start tracking every single payment you make.

That might sound like a big deal, but depending on your current spending habits, it might not be too bad. Dedicate 20 to 30 minutes at the end of the day to tracking those expenses (though you probably won’t use that entire chunk of time, unless you’ve been doing some serious shopping).

The good old internet makes expenditure tracking pretty easy. If you pay for everything with a debit card, check your bank statement at the end of the day and enter expenses in each relevant category. If you use credit cards for some payments, track them at the point of purchase, making a note of the payment type so that you’re able to pay down the credit account at the end of the month.
Apps like Mint can help you track payments automatically, but our financial experts recommend tracking transactions by hand wherever possible. Whether you’re entering numbers into a spreadsheet or writing down expenses in a money planner, you’re thinking about the transaction and creating a habit that might stop you from overspending in the future.

How to Make a Budget, Step Five: Make mistakes, make adjustments, and enjoy your new budget.

You’ve learned how make a budget, you’ve set some goals, and you’re meticulously tracking every purchase you make. You’re doing everything according to plan.
Guess what? You’re going to screw up.

We’re not just being pessimistic! Successful budgets aren’t rigid, inflexible rulesets. They require constant adjustment, and in some cases, you’ll find yourself going over budget in certain categories.

The best practice is to pass those overspends off to the next month, where possible. For instance, if you budget $200 for entertainment and spend $210, budget $190 next month to get your books back in order. When that’s not possible, learn from your mistake, adjust your budget or spending habits, then move on. Don’t dwell on mistakes, and don’t get discouraged if you don’t immediately upgrade your financial habits.
While you’re logging expenditures, look for places where you can save without significantly reducing the quality of your lifestyle. Sometimes that means rethinking old advice.
“If you’re expecting a kid, don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need a bigger house or car,” Woroch says. “Babies don’t need much room! Stay put and save up until you can truly afford more space.”
That’s a fairly extreme example, but it gets to the heart of the problem: Learning how to make a budget is all about differentiating the wants from the needs and logging absolutely everything. Commit to those two principles, and you’re probably in good shape. There’s no hard-and-fast rule, and your budget will adapt to your lifestyle over time.

“As long as people live within their means, are being diligent with saving, and are not overspending, especially on fixed items (e.g., having a mortgage they cannot afford so they end up being house-poor), then it really is up to the person what works for them,” Hung says.
“I believe budgeting is something anyone can do, and frankly should do,” she notes. “I always say that if you know how to make money and spend money, you certainly need to know how to manage it properly.”

Categories
Conscious Beauty Lifestyle

Meet Skinno, The App That Wants To Tell You What's In Your Skincare

Aqua. Propylene glycol. Aloe barbadensis leaf juice. Phenoxyethanol. Fucus vesiculosus extract. These are all ingredients of the closest skincare product to my desk right now (Mario Badescu’s Facial Spray—rosewater version, obv).
But what are those things? Aqua: water—got it. Aloe barbadensis: aloe vera is good! The rest? Not so sure. Some of them sound pretty chemical-y, and I never did too well in chemistry class. That extract though, that’s probably good, right?
And herein lies the problem with skincare: Most people don’t know what’s in their products. And even if they’ve heard of some of the product’s ingredients, the average consumer doesn’t know what those ingredients do. Or if they’re effective for their skin type. Or if they’re even all that safe.
You’ve likely heard various reasons we should avoid synthetic chemicals: If you can’t pronounce it, don’t use it! That ingredient is a chemical! Chemicals are used to clean toilet bowls! (Nevermind the fact that even plain old water is a chemical substance—effectively, everything is, in fact.) This fear of chemicals, often termed “chemophobia,” is misguided at best, as plenty of researchers attest.
Still, the cultural trend toward safety via nature has led to an industry-wide movement—which is a bit misleading given the fact that “natural” means zilch to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates (but doesn’t approve) cosmetics and skincare in America. That term, and some others like “clean” or “green,” aren’t actually regulated at all. While the FDA does ban intentionally false or misleading packaging, it’s the responsibility of the manufacturers to act in good faith when it comes to what can be put on the front of products.
So what’s a consumer to do?
This is a problem Lisa Guerrera has been researching for years. A self-described skincare junkie, Guerrera is a chemist focused on the science of skincare. She did her undergraduate thesis on chemophobia, and now she’s pursuing her master’s in cosmetic engineering and building Skinno, an app aimed at educating consumers about ingredients in their products.
Most consumers have difficulty decoding ingredients and their applications. Guerrera, Skinno’s founder and CEO, realized that this lack of knowledge—combined with the largely unregulated cosmetics industry—leads consumers to make decisions about products based on marketing and scare tactics instead of concentrating on ingredients.
Guerrera co-founded Skinno with Christina Torres, whose background is in biology and science communication, in October 2017. The app, which has been in development since February, uses a scanner to read ingredient labels and break down what’s in your product and what those ingredients do. The app’s searchable ingredient database is entirely sourced by Torres, who has professional experience with biological databases; she personally researches each ingredient and writes consumer-friendly descriptions. Skinno also has a Routines feature to help users remember to actually use their products.
As the Skinno team develops the app further, they’re focusing on personalizing users’ skincare experiences: What does your skin need and why? What are the best ingredients to achieve that and why?
We hopped on the chance to speak with Guerrera about the app and how it can help consumers navigate the current skincare market.

HealthyWay: I love the idea of knowing what each ingredient in my products is used for. What’s your ultimate goal for Skinno?

Guerrera: Ultimately we want people to be educated about their products before they buy them. Consumers have the right to easy access to scientifically accurate information about products, and we know Skinno will be able to help with that through instant education and personalization.

What can ingredients tell us about our skincare products?

Ingredients can tell us a lot! These days, a lot of products are marketed based off of some “miracle” ingredient that will cure all our skin woes, but in reality, if you look up the ingredient, there is no real research backing up those claims. Ingredients can tell us if a product is really doing what it’s claiming to do for our skin.

What should people be paying attention to when they’re buying their skincare?

Definitely pay attention to what’s at the top of the ingredients list. Those are the most concentrated ingredients in a product. So if a product is claiming certain things, you would want the ingredient that will do the thing to be toward the top. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but it’s overall a good rule of thumb.
People should definitely pay attention if they have a known allergy or sensitivity to an ingredient. Sometimes ingredients can be called a different name, but it’s still the same ingredient. So it’s important for people to pay attention to the label to make sure the product doesn’t contain allergens. Skinno will actually alert you if an ingredient you’re allergic to is in a product!

Are ingredients with names we can’t pronounce or things that are “chemical-y” necessarily bad? What about ingredients we notice all the time or ingredients that are “natural”? How can Skinno help users tell the difference?

Everyone has heard the rule, “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t put it on your skin!” But that is so wrong! There are tons of amazing ingredients in skincare with long, complicated names or names that are unfamiliar. Just because something “sounds” like a chemical doesn’t mean it’s bad for you. The idea that chemicals are “bad” stems from the societal phenomena of “chemophobia,” or fear of chemicals. We are conditioned to be wary of unfamiliar chemicals or anything that sounds chemical-like. With Skinno, my hope is we can educate people to know that just because it sounds scary, doesn’t mean it is!
Natural ingredients are interesting … They don’t really exist. Natural has no meaning or definition under the FDA, so companies can label pretty much any product as “natural.” So even ingredients that are “naturally derived,” usually from source plants or other means, are usually put though many chemical processes before arriving in your skincare bottle. This by no means makes them worse; I just want people to see that there isn’t much of a difference just because something is labeled natural.

How can skincare junkies know what’s best for their skin, besides trial and error? How do you see Skinno helping them?

The best way to mitigate trial and error when it comes to product choice is to make educated decisions before purchase. Being a skincare junkie myself, and someone on a budget, I research every product as much as possible before I decide to buy it. Skinno can really help people with this task. Instead of taking hours to do research on every product, you can just scan to see what each ingredient does and, in the future, if it will actually work for your skin type. Certain ingredients can work better for certain skin types, and we can help you decipher that!

Skincare is really having a moment. Why are you building this app now?

Honestly, it was just good timing! I’ve always loved skincare, and the opportunity to build this app fell into my lap, so to speak. But I really felt people were craving more information about the products they use every day. Ingredient consciousness is on the rise, especially in skincare, which is uniquely chemistry-driven and difficult to dissect. I wanted to help people become smarter consumers.

Tell us more about the app’s tech! The scanning feature is one of the coolest things I’ve seen and reminds me a lot of technology I’ve only seen in shopping apps or on Google Translate.

Yes exactly! So we are using optical character recognition or OCR technology to literally read ingredient labels with your smartphone camera. It’s the same tech Google Translate uses; we’re applying it to ingredient labels. This means that if a product is not in our database or doesn’t have a barcode, you can still scan it and get a readout on the ingredients, which is totally unique to our app!
We do have a barcode scanner just in case the ingredients aren’t on the product. We’re also launching the app with machine learning in September, so the app will learn about you and your skin over time to give you personal recommendations.

Right now, the app is in beta. What can beta testers expect from the experience?

So right now the app can only give you simple ingredient explanations, and you can use the routine feature and be able to flag ingredients you like and ingredients you’re allergic to or don’t like. But we’re pushing new updates to the app every few days with improvements and fixes. Users will basically get a glimpse into how an app is really made. They will see us grow a lot in the next few months. All the features in there now are very basic, but they are stepping stones to help us get to the final version of the app. We always ask users to give us as much feedback as possible. We’re building this for you!

What features are you hoping to incorporate as you further develop the app?

Our biggest project is the complete personalization of the app. We want to be able to give easy-to-understand, simple, and personal skincare recommendations to users, instantly. That means when you’re shopping and scan a product with Skinno, we can tell you immediately if we think this product is worth the purchase based on multiple factors such as skin type, your environment, and budget, to name a few!
To do this, we will be using machine learning and a skin type quiz (that we’re developing right now) to learn about the user over time. The other big feature is product comparison. We can automatically compare the ingredients so you know whether to splurge or save!

What challenges have you faced creating this app?

We face a lot of challenges since we’re building a product using technology that’s never been applied to this space. Definitely the biggest challenges we face are building out an extensive database with ingredients verified by science literature. It takes a long time to truly research each ingredient. Next is our OCR scanner: Round bottles or shiny packaging can be challenging, so we are in the process of creating our own technology to read special packaging. Lastly is automating something so personal! We have to consider skincare and people’s preferences from all angles, so I talk to a lot of people about skincare daily.
Both Christina and I are women in science, a sometimes difficult position to be in professionally, but getting better every year thanks to amazing initiatives. But now we are also women in tech, a notoriously hard industry to get into, especially knowing that only 3 percent of companies backed by Venture Capital Investment are women-owned. We’ve definitely had people doubt us, ignore us, and assume we didn’t have the knowledge to execute this, but that only makes us work harder and smarter. We also have amazing mentors that have believed in us from the start, so that has been very encouraging.

Can you tell us about your personal skincare journey?

My skincare journey has been a long and very difficult road. Since I was 12 I’ve dealt with cystic acne, a severe type of acne that comes in the form of very painful, long-lasting cysts on the skin. I tried so many products, went to many dermatologists, and over the years developed my knowledge on skincare via trial and error, reading, googling, and getting my degree in chemistry and learning formulation. I even remember at multiple points in my life looking at my face in the mirror and actually crying because of all the painful cysts. I still have acne today, but thankfully it isn’t as bad now because I found it was hormonal acne and took the steps to get treated for it. Now I focus on acne scar reduction and keeping my dry skin moisturized.

What are your favorite ingredients?

That’s such a hard question these days! Definitely a favorite is ceramides. Such an amazing ingredient to have in a moisturizer. Another is lactic acid: It’s a gentle yet effective exfoliant that’s great for dry skin like mine.

What are your favorite products right now?

Products I’m loving are the CeraVe Hydrating Facial Cleanser; it’s been my holy grail cleanser for years. Next is the Dr. Jart Ceramidin Cream, a new favorite moisturizer. Lastly, the e.l.f. Cosmetics Primer sheet mask, it’s got some surprisingly great ingredients and only costs $2!
Download Skinno for iOS to try it out yourself and follow Skinno on Instagram to keep up with their progress.

Categories
Favorite Finds Sweat

The Best Black Leggings For Everyday Wear (And Long Travel Days)

We, the badass women of the world, have reached a consensus: Leggings are pants. Let’s face it, black leggings are a wardrobe staple that tells the world I’m chic, comfortable, and could jump into virtually any athletic situation at a moment’s notice.
There’s just one small problem—our best black leggings, the ones we rely on for our early morning runs and sweaty yoga flows, aren’t always conducive to everyday wear. While your go-to LBLs provide support while showing off your shape during your workouts, tight compression can make a four-hour flight a little more uncomfortable than it already is.   

Best Black Leggings for Everyday Wear

To help you find the perfect leggings for everyday wear, I trimmed down the seemingly countless options and tested out five of the most popular pairs. From the moment I woke up to the moment I hit the sack, I kept careful (and honest) notes detailing my experiences. Taking factors such as the level of comfort, quality of the waistband, fabric type, and aesthetic appeal into account, I came out with a clear bracket winner. Follow along to see which leggings I deemed the best for everyday wear!
[sol title=”lululemon Align Pant” subheader=”Size 2″]
Was I naked? Was I floating on a cloud? Or was I wearing the most buttery soft pair of leggings? The lululemon Align Pant has unparalleled comfort, taking me from flows at my favorite local yoga studio to lunch at the nearby organic eatery and out for an evening of drinks with the girls. I even toted this matte black legging on a quick trip to Colorado for a round of graduate school interviews. When my world was buzzing and bustling, my outfit was one less thing to worry about.
The thin material hugged every inch of my lower body, from my waist to my ankles. It flaunts a ⅞ length, hitting about 2 ½  inches above my ankles (keep in mind that I’m 5’4”). The key word here is hugged. The leggings fit snugly against my body, but there was no feeling of compression or squeezing. Think of it this way: no residual marks from the seams after taking these leggings off!
If I had to describe this pair in one word, I’d choose angelic.

lululemon

Pros

The minimal seaming and matte black finish make the lululemon Align Pant one of the best leggings for everyday wear because they’re comfy and cozy, yet polished. Without a single hint of the stereotypical “athletic look,” I happily paired these with everything from checkered Van’s slip ons to boho booties and vintage crop tops to silky kimonos.
The high-rise waistband sits above the belly button and laid flat around the entire circumference of my torso. There is absolutely no digging, pinching, or folding.
The small pocket in the waistband of the Align Pant is best used for a loose key, small wad of cash, or a credit card and ID when you’re out and about on the town. The tapered mouth to this pocket kept my items perfectly secure throughout my daily adventures.

Cons

Due to the thin nature of the material used for the Align legging, these pants are fairly delicate. I would opt out of machine drying altogether to preserve the integrity of the pant. Machine wash on cold with like items (no jeans or zippers—they’ll snag!) and air dry. A hassle? Perhaps, but I can assure you that once you’ve got your hands on these leggings, you’ll want to ensure they last as long as possible, which means giving them proper care.
This pair of leggings also has the priciest tag of the bunch, but trust me when I say that lululemon is providing you with unrivaled quality. That said, if the price tag is a bit outside for your current budget, read on!
Reminds me of: Heaven
[link-button href=”http://fave.co/2D9fGg4″] Get them from lululemon [/link-button]
[sol title=”Old Navy High Rise Compression Leggings” subheader=”Size XS”]
For a pair of leggings that you could wear on the daily, $30 seems like a steal, right?! Well, Old Navy nailed the concept with their High Rise Compression Leggings, but unfortunately under-delivered with the quality. Perhaps it was the fact that these tights had to compete against brands like lululemon and ZELLA, but I was considerably underwhelmed.
In a pinch, heck yes I’ll grab these Old Navy leggings, but it may only happen when they’re the one pair not sitting in my dirty clothes hamper.

Old Navy

Pros

These soft black leggings are tailored through the leg, slimming down from belly button to ankles. They have a cottony finish, reminding me of the traditional legging many of us are familiar with from years past.

Cons

Due to the cottony feel, the High Rise Compression Leggings feel noticeably limited in regards to movement and flexibility. As opposed to the four-way stretch many brands offer these days, this pair of leggings only offers two-way stretch. If you have a tendency to sit in slightly wild, very contorted positions like I do, this may not be the pair for you.
The thin fabric also had a shine to it, which translates into sheerness when bending and hinging. These leggings lacked the matte black finish that complements my everyday attire. Although they didn’t have a standard athletic look, their texture meant they appeared far too casual to pair with cute outfits.
One more “ouch” for this pair of everyday leggings: The material used for the High Rise Compression Leggings is prone to pilling, clinging, and fading.
Reminds me of: The C9 Freedom Legging
[link-button href=”http://fave.co/2BP3tN7″] Get them from Old Navy [/link-button]
[sol title=”ZELLA Live In High Waist Leggings” subheader=”Size XS”]
The name says it all! Trust me when I say you can live in these ZELLA Live In High Waist Leggings. The thick, brushed material is as cozy as it gets, making them a dream for everyday wear, long travel days, and even grooving through my 25-hour yoga workshop weekends. These leggings were particularly wonderful for the late-spring chill and rain Mother Nature decided to surprise Midwesterners with this year.

Nordstrom

Pros

I kept my driver’s license, debit card, and car keys handy—without needing to lug around a purse—thanks to the hidden pocket cleverly placed in the waistband of these Live In High Waist Leggings.
The leggings hit at the ankles, making them appropriate for my favorite sneaks and best pair of combat boots. The seams were faint, with one wonderful surprise that all of the other pairs in this cohort lacked: piping over the glutes! Hello, shaping.
And can we talk affordability? You’ll be just as shocked as I was: For how comfortable and functional these leggings are, a $54 price tag is nothing short of incredible.

Cons

The brushed material these everyday leggings are made of was fairly prone to clinging. An impromptu snuggle sesh with my pup required thorough lint rolling before strutting out in public again. If you have any long-haired, light-colored furry friends running around at home, be warned.
Reminds me of: A portable hug—whether you’re in a plane, a train, an automobile … or yoga teacher training
[link-button href=”http://shopstyle.it/l/ImD3″] Get them from Nordstrom [/link-button]
[sol title=”Beyond Yoga High Waist Leggings” subheader=”Size XS”]
The Beyond Yoga High Waist Leggings are a welcome alternative to the jeans sitting in my dresser drawers. No zippers and no nagging waistlines digging into your obliques! That said, when compared to other pairs of leggings, these fell short.
Similar to the Old Navy High Rise Compression Leggings, these bottoms only offer two-way stretch, which means they’re significantly limited in terms of overall flexibility and functionality.

Amazon

Pros

The fabric used for these leggings is fairly thin, and the overall style is very simplified. There aren’t any bells and whistles to distract from a perfectly executed casual or athletic outfit. Instead, I was able to pair these everyday leggings with whatever my heart desired.

Cons

Without any technical features for moisture-wicking or quick-drying, the sweat (even minimal amounts) that accumulated throughout the day just … sat. I experienced a lingering clingy feeling after spontaneously hopping into an afternoon power yoga class. From yoga to a night out with the girls? Probably not.
The Beyond Yoga High Waist Leggings are also prone to clinging, pilling, and fading. All factors considered, this pair isn’t worth the price tag.
Reminds me of: The Old Navy High Rise Compression Leggings
[link-button href=”https://amzn.to/2LdPwfX”] Get them from Amazon [/link-button]
[sol title=”Athleta Meshblock Pocket Salutation Tight” subheader=”Size XS”]
If you take the lululemon Align Pant and sprinkle it with super cute aesthetics, you get the Athleta Meshblock Pocket Salutation Tight. Merging heavenly soft material with side pockets and mesh cutouts for both functionality and style, these leggings are the ultimate game changer. Not only was I able to comfortably move through my daily schedule in these everyday leggings—I also looked gooood.
The waistband was one of the most comfortable, tying with the Align Pant. These had a similar fit down the leg, hugging tightly around the bottom of my shins. I happily noticed no bunching fabric behind my knees or around my ankles. If you ask me, this in itself is a major win. Great for a spin bike and for gladiator sandals.

Athleta

Pros

The matte black material lacked any hint of sheerness. It passed my goddess-warrior squat test and remained opaque throughout my wildest stretching. These leggings weren’t shiny in the least. After the most zenned out yoga flow, I threw on platform Vans and a boxy striped crop to balance the femininity of the cutouts, then grabbed a casual dinner with my beau in the city. Thanks to the breathability featured in these leggings, I didn’t have a single worry about lingering moisture.
Despite what you may think would come with the territory of the luxurious softness of these leggings, the Athleta Meshblock Pocket Salutation Tight was essentially anti-clinging and anti-pilling. And no pup hair, despite our best cuddles.
No compression and all of the stretch? Exactly what we want for a long day of wear and travel days.

Cons

They may be stolen by my best friend when I’m not looking.
Reminds me of: The lululemon Align Pant
[link-button href=”http://fave.co/2D7oUcE”] Get them from Athleta [/link-button]
[related article_ids=26396]