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In the Kitchen Nosh

5 (Nearly) Sugar-Free Desserts That Will Delight Your Taste Buds

Although most of us intend to follow a healthy diet, sugary foods take up a large portion of what the average American eats and drinks. In 1970 Americans consumed 123 pounds of sugar per year, whereas current statistics show that the average American consumes 152 pounds of sugar per year (or nearly three pounds per week!)
As delicious as sugar is, its overwhelming presence in the average American diet has contributed to a startling rise in diabetes across the country. Fortunately, it’s entirely possible to enjoy the taste of sweet desserts without having to rely on sugar, honey, maple syrup, or other added sweeteners.
We’ve got plenty of sugar-free dessert options that don’t skimp on taste—and we also have tips for following a sugar-free or low-sugar diet.

How much sugar is too much sugar?

According to the American Heart Association, adult women should aim to consume no more than 6 teaspoons of added sugar per day. Despite this recommendation, many average Americans consume at least 19.5 teaspoons a day, which is more than three times the recommended daily intake. Although this number may seem particularly high, consider the fact that the average 12 ounce can of soda contains over 10 teaspoons of sugar.

What counts as sugar?

It’s important to note that the term “sugar” doesn’t simply mean white granulated sugar. Jodi Robinson, a registered dietitian who specializes in low-sugar and diabetic-friendly diets, explains that: “‘Sugar’ is inclusive of white sugar, brown, cane, honey, maple syrup, molasses, agave, etc. There are many forms of added sugars and many claims that some are better than others because they are ‘natural’ (the one I often hear the most is honey), and the truth is that they are all essentially the same to the body. So don’t be lured into believing otherwise!”
Unfortunately, although some sugars may seem better for you than others, sugar is sugar and your body has no real way of telling the difference.

Who benefits from a low-sugar or sugar-free diet?

Cutting your daily sugar intake is largely beneficial to anyone looking to improve their health in any capacity. Individuals who have diabetes (both types 1 and 2), who experience high blood sugar, or who take certain medications (such as antipsychotics) all may benefit from a low-sugar diet.
Robinson explains that a low-sugar diet doesn’t have to mean a lifetime of limitations and deprivation. In fact, it can encourage creativity within your existing diet: “Watching your sugar intake isn’t a life sentence of boring food. It’s an opportunity to explore and experiment with new and exciting healthy alternatives! Everyone, no matter their health status, is better off watching their intake of added sugars, so think of it as an opportunity to learn about new nutritious and delicious alternatives that will help your health and the health of your loved ones that you share meals with.”

How to Add Sweetness Without Adding Sugar

There are a multitude of ways in which you can create sweet desserts without heaping on the sugar. For example, registered dietitian Anjali Shah likes to make good use of ingredients that are naturally sweet without any added sugar.
She says: “I use a lot of dates, bananas, pears, and applesauce when I’m making no-sugar treats. Additionally, some nuts like cashews or hazelnuts are naturally sweet, and cocoa powder is a great way to make something taste chocolatey without adding sugar. All of these ingredients are really nutritious but are also very sweet!”
It’s easy to keep a supply of jarred applesauce, frozen bananas, and dried dates if you have an interest in desserts without added sweeteners.

A Quick Note About Artificial Sweeteners

There are many sugar-free dessert recipes that rely on the use of aspartame, Splenda, stevia, and alcohol-based sweeteners such as xylitol and maltitol. Although many people have no trouble digesting these chemicals, there are others who find that they can have unwanted effects. Some people find that aspartame can cause headaches, and others find that Splenda and stevia have an unpleasant aftertaste.
Alcohol-based sweeteners such as xylitol and maltitol can be disastrous to your digestive system, potentially causing diarrhea and uncomfortable gas. Although artificial sweeteners can improve the flavor of sugar-free desserts, it’s important to exercise caution when first using them as the main source of sweetness.

Sugar-Free Desserts for When You’re Craving Something Sweet

These desserts offer plenty of sweetness without any added sugar, and most of them can be brought to school or work for a healthy and satisfying snack between meals.

Sugar-Free Date Squares

The sweet butterscotch flavor of Medjool dates is a natural pick for this sugar-free dessert. A combination of orange and lemon juice boosts the natural sweetness of the dates. Serve these classic date squares as an accompaniment to coffee or tea.
Filling

  • 1 lb pitted Medjool dates
  • Juice of 1 large orange
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 Tbsp. lemon zest
  • 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp. baking soda
  • Generous pinch of kosher or sea salt

Bottom and Topping

  • 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • Generous pinch of kosher or sea salt
  • ¾ cups Splenda
  • ¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

Special equipment: food processor, parchment paper, 9”x13” baking pan
Method

  1. Preheat oven to 375° F.
  2. Blitz together the Medjool dates, citrus juice and zest, butter, vanilla, and baking soda in the food processor until smooth, scraping down the sides with a spatula when necessary.
  3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, oats, salt, and Splenda. Using your hands, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles loose gravel.
  4. Using your fingertips, press half of the flour mixture into a parchment-lined 9”x13” baking pan. Carefully spread the Medjool date mixture on top of the crust. Sprinkle the last half of the flour mixture on top to cover.
  5. Bake for 30 minutes or until the topping turns a light brown color.

Greek Frozen Yogurt

Although low-sugar frozen commercial frozen yogurt exists, it often contains alcohol-based sweeteners that may upset sensitive stomachs. This healthy option makes use of the natural sweetness of frozen bananas and the smooth texture of sugar-free vanilla Greek yogurt to produce delicious frozen yogurt that can be customized for every taste.

  • ½ cup sugar-free vanilla Greek yogurt
  • 2 frozen bananas, cut into ½ inch pieces
  • 1½ cups frozen fruit (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, peaches, and mangos all work well)
  • 1 tsp. vanilla

Special equipment: food processor, lidded container
Method

  1. Add the vanilla Greek yogurt, sliced frozen bananas, frozen fruit, and vanilla to a food processor.
  2. Blend all of the ingredients for several minutes until completely smooth, scraping the sides with a spatula every 30 seconds. Depending on your food processor, this may take several minutes.
  3. Transfer the yogurt to a lidded container and freeze for at least two hours.
  4. Scrape the frozen yogurt back into the food processor and blend once more for two minutes.
  5. Transfer back to the lidded container and freeze for at least one more hour. Serve the frozen yogurt alone or with extra fruit.

Apple Crisp

Apple crisp is a great sugar-free dessert option because of the natural sweetness of the apples. Adding finely chopped Medjool dates to the topping gives this tasty dessert a hint of caramel flavor, and a small amount of stevia will go unnoticed in the topping. Serve this apple crisp warm with a dollop of sugar-free vanilla yogurt and a dash of cinnamon.

  • 6 apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced (a mix of Honeycrisp, Braeburn, and tart Granny Smith apples is an ideal combination)
  • 2 Tbsp. cornstarch
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 Tbsp. lemon zest
  • ¾ cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup rolled oats
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • ½ tsp. dried nutmeg (or a generous grating of fresh nutmeg)
  • ¼ tsp. ground cloves
  • ¼ tsp. dried ginger
  • Generous pinch kosher or sea salt
  • 1 Tbsp. powdered stevia
  • ¼ cup unsalted butter, cubed + 1 Tbsp. for greasing the baking dish

Special equipment: paring knife (for preparing the apples), 9”x13” baking dish
Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
  2. In a large bowl toss together the sliced apples, cornstarch, lemon juice, and lemon zest until the apples are evenly coated.
  3. In another bowl combine the all-purpose flour, oats, spices, salt, and stevia. Using your hands, rub the butter into pea-sized pieces in the flour and oat mixture.
  4. Grease a 9”x13” baking pan with the remaining tablespoon of butter. Add the apple mixture and spread the oat topping evenly across to cover the whole pan.
  5. Bake the apple crisp for 35 to 40 minutes or until the topping is browned and the apples are fork tender.

Black Bean Brownies

No one will ever guess that these rich brownies contain black beans as a secret ingredient! Black beans add plenty of fiber and an authentic fudgey texture that will satisfy any chocolate cravings you might have.
Best of all? These can be made entirely in the food processor, which means less time washing dishes for you!

  • 1 15-oz can of black beans, drained and thoroughly rinsed
  • ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 large eggs at room temperature
  • 3 Tbsp. melted butter, unsalted
  • Pinch kosher or sea salt
  • 2 tsp. vanilla
  • ¼ cup Splenda
  • ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1½ tsp. baking powder
  • Toppings of your choice (shredded coconut, chopped nuts, seeds, or chopped dried fruit)

Special equipment: food processor, 8”x8” baking pan, parchment paper
Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
  2. Add all of the ingredients except for the toppings to the food processor. Blitz until completely smooth, scraping down the sides with a spatula as needed. Note: It could take a couple of minutes for the mixture to completely emulsify.
  3. Line an 8”x8” baking pan with parchment paper and pour in the black bean brownie mixture. Sprinkle with the toppings of your choice.
  4. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, checking the brownies often toward the end to make sure that they aren’t browning too quickly. If they are, loosely tent a sheet of aluminum foil over the pan.
  5. The brownies are done when they begin to pull away from the sides. They will be quite moist when removed from the oven.
  6. Enjoy your brownies immediately or store in a lidded container or tin for several days at room temperature.

Coconut Banana Chia Pudding

This is a great recipe for using up super-ripe bananas that are completely brown on the outside or any frozen bananas you might have kicking around in your freezer. You can use regular dairy milk or unsweetened almond milk (or a combination) in place of the coconut milk.
Running the pudding through a food processor gives this sugar-free dessert an ultra-creamy texture.

  • ½ cup chia seeds
  • 2½ cups unsweetened coconut milk
  • 3 very ripe bananas
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 Tbsp. cocoa powder
  • Pinch kosher or sea salt
  • Toppings of your choice (shredded coconut, fresh fruit, or carob chips)

Special equipment: food processor or high-powered blender
Method

  1. Grind the chia seeds in a food processor or high-powered blender until they become a fine powder.
  2. With the motor still running, add the coconut milk, bananas, vanilla, cocoa powder, and a pinch of salt. Blend until completely smooth, scraping down the sides with a spatula occasionally.
  3. Transfer the chia pudding to a container and refrigerate for at least an hour to let the pudding set.
  4. Serve with the sugar-free toppings of your choice.

Low(er)-Sugar Granola Bars

Store-bought granola bars often contain ridiculously high amounts of sugar, making them off-limits for anyone looking to curb their sugar intake. Making your own lower-sugar granola bars is simple and gives you the opportunity to customize these favorite snack treats however you’d like. Looking to lower your sugar intake but wary of going totally sugar free? These low(er) sugar granola bars have you covered.
(Basic bar recipes based on Bless This Mess)

  • 2½ cups rolled oats
  • ½ cup nuts (or seeds), chopped
  • ¼ cup honey or maple syrup
  • ¼ cup melted butter or coconut oil
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • Generous pinch kosher or sea salt
  • 1 cup of additional mix-ins (chopped dried fruit, shredded coconut, extra nuts, or seeds)

Special equipment: 9”x9” baking pan, baking sheet, small saucepan, parchment paper
Method

  1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
  2. Line a 9”x9” baking pan with parchment paper.
  3. Spread the oats and nuts evenly on a baking sheet and toast for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent burning.
  4. Stir together the honey, butter or coconut oil, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and salt in a small saucepan over low heat.
  5. In a large bowl, combine the butter and honey mixture with the toasted nuts and oats. Stir in your choice of mix-ins.
  6. Press the mixture into a 9”x9” pan with your fingertips and chill for at least half an hour.
  7. Use the parchment paper to lift the bars onto a cutting board and cut into bar-sized pieces.
  8. Sliced granola bars can be stored in the fridge wrapped in parchment paper for several days or they can be wrapped up and stored in the freezer for several months.

Look for balance when making sugar-free desserts.

Instead of feeling limited by sugar-free desserts, think of including sugar-free or lower sugar desserts in your eating plan as an excuse to get creative in the kitchen. Shah encourages us to: “Take an ‘inventory’ of all the sugary things you might eat on a daily basis. And try to replace one of those things each week with something less sugary. For example—if you normally drink soda, try replacing your soda with sparkling water mixed with just a splash of fruit juice or lemon/lime. If you love chocolate, try switching to dark chocolate that has greater than 72 percent cocoa. Or if you snack on sugary things, try replacing those snacks with fresh fruit, which is naturally sweet and good for you! All of these changes are small but can make a big difference in your health and well-being!”
Small steps are crucial but will ultimately lead to a wealth of dessert options you previously hadn’t thought possible!

Categories
Favorite Finds Wellbeing

Wellness Watch 2018: 6 Trends To Try In The New Year

We spent 2017 eating avocados, sipping bone broth, and breathing in essential oils. Some of the big trends of this year are probably going to stick with us for a while (#AvocadoToastForLife), but 2018 is bringing us a whole host of new things worth trying in the pursuit of health and wellness.
As we head into the new year, the variety of new foods we’ll get to eat and workouts we can opt to tackle are endless. But what [linkbuilder id=”5664″ text=”fitness trends”] will get you up and moving in 2018 and what eats will find their way onto your breakfast table?
Read on to explore the surprises and advances that are in store for the new year…

1. Digging Into DNA

One of Amazon’s top Black Friday sellers wasn’t a hot toy or a big TV. It was a DNA testing kit—and this is a trend that’s just getting started, says Jennipher Walters, founder and CEO of Fit Bottomed Girls. While DNA testing used to be either exorbitantly expensive and thus limited to medical needs, in recent years, at-home testing has allowed people to dig deeper into their genealogy. New advances have taken the at-home tests one step further, empowering people to access information about their own bodies and well-being thanks to more detailed results.
[pullquote]Testing is rapidly becoming a powerful purveyor of medical information and is on its way to being a standard aspect of the average person’s healthcare.[/pullquote]
“Individual tests … are delivering medically actionable results that can change people’s healthcare plans and even save people’s lives,” explains Ben Kobren, a spokesperson from Color, a company that offers testing for the BRCA breast cancer gene and other hereditary disorders.
“For too long, high costs and other barriers prevented large populations who could otherwise benefit from learning risks of hereditary disease from genetic testing, but today that testing is rapidly becoming a powerful purveyor of medical information and is on its way to being a standard aspect of the average person’s healthcare.”
An increasing number of testing companies are offering tests that detect cancer genes and allow people to better understand their risk for high cholesterol and conditions that can be addressed with their physicians, empowering them to develop a plan to mitigate, if not eliminate, their risk. When Walters took her own test, she says she found out more about how her body is designed to react to diet and nutrition than she could have learned in a decade of trial and error with food and workouts.
For some people, the results can do even more, Kobren says.
“The expertise that goes into a clinical-grade test—board-certified genetic experts analyzing data, interpreting genetic variants, reviewing and signing out reports—makes the information they provide highly reliable and, in many cases, life-changing because they’re medically actionable,” Kobren notes. “Recreational genomics can be fascinating. Clinical genetic testing could change or even save your life.”

2. Working Out Your Way

If you’ve been mixing up your week with boxing on Mondays, yoga on Wednesdays, and maybe a step class here and there, consider yourself ready for 2018.
Committing yourself to only one type of fitness is old school, Walters says.
“People are finally getting that there is no one-size-fits-all approach [to fitness],” she notes. That’s reflected not just in allowing people to customize their workouts within a particular discipline but also in how people are looking to diversify their routines, spending time dabbling in different forms of fitness to touch on the whole body.
[pullquote]People are opting for ways to stay fit for reasons besides superficial ones.[/pullquote]
“In general, the days of doing just tons and tons of cardio [are] over, unless you’re training for a race or something,” she notes.
Fitness expert Nadia Murdock says the diversification trend will move us toward treating exercise as medicine—a way to treat our bodies rather than “improve” them—in 2018.
“People are opting for ways to stay fit for reasons besides superficial ones, fixing common ailments with workouts and improving lifestyle practices have larger rewards,” Murdock says.
For example, she notes that impact workouts are excellent for improving bone strength and could remedy osteoporosis. Yoga, on the other hand, offers stretching that can undo the damage done to the body by long hours in front of a computer.
In 2018, expect trends that will support you in giving your whole body attention, whether that manifests as CrossFit gyms that also offer yoga classes or wellness centers where you can find yoga and pole dancing classes alongside acupuncture and massage services.

3. Sleep for Strength

Sleep has been getting the short end of the stick for decades now, with most of us falling woefully short of the doctor-recommended seven to nine hours of shut-eye. If you’re one of the many sleep-deprived Americans, you’ll fall hard for this 2018 health and wellness trend: sleep!
“For years we’ve pushed to diet harder, work out harder, and stretch ourselves thinner,” Chris Brantner of SleepZoo tells HealthyWay. “We are just now beginning to understand that sleep is crucial for our health. Our muscles actually grow post workout during sleep. Adequate rest helps us lose weight and make wiser food choices. Meanwhile, new studies show that not getting enough sleep disrupts metabolism and hormones, increasing obesity risk. In fact, data suggests that [linkbuilder id=”5668″ text=”people who sleep more”] tend to have lower BMIs.”
[pullquote]Club members curl up with music, sleep masks, and cool temperatures for 45-minute naps.[/pullquote]
Of course, you can sleep at home. But if you’re struggling to catch enough Zs when you’re snuggled in bed (raises hand, guiltily), Napercise could be 2018’s answer to your problem. Think napping…in exercise class form.
“During these classes, club members curl up with music, sleep masks, and cool temperatures for 45-minute naps,” Brantner explains.
Started in Britain by fitness club David Lloyd in 2017, Napercise was designed to “reinvigorate the mind, the body and even burn the odd calorie,” according to the club website, which explains, “The frantic nature of modern life means that few of us seem to get enough sleep, and if you’re a parent, a good night’s rest becomes even more of a luxury. So we’ve created a new group class—group napping classes for exhausted mums and dads to help boost their mental and physical wellbeing.”
The trend has jumped the pond, and it’s expected to take hold in the U.S. in 2018.
“I think this is only the beginning,” Brantner says. “In this fast-paced world, the pendulum is swinging back, and we’ve only begun to realize how important sleep is. More and more research is coming out linking lack of sleep to things like Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and other ailments.
“I think lack of sleep and fatigue are growing due to an increasingly fast-paced way of living, as well as an obsession with our devices (teen sleep, for example, seems to have decreased in direct relation with social media and smartphones).”
He concludes, “I think new technology like sleep trackers (think Fitbit, Sleep Cycle app, etc.) are making people more aware of the type of sleep they are getting.”
Sound familiar? Time to take a nap!

4. Food as Medicine

The word diet has long been a dirty word, one we associate with weight struggles and deprivation. But 2018 could offer a new take on the term according to April Peveteaux, author of the Gluten Is My Bitch cookbook series.
While some people still look to diets for weight control, Peveteaux sees an increasing number of people turning to food as a means to treat the body, with diets designed to address specific issues—be they gluten-free (Peveteaux started her popular blog shortly after being diagnosed with celiac disease), anti-inflammatory, or otherwise.
“The most common is an anti-inflammation diet (Whole30, Paleo, anti-lectin, plant based) to calm the body down to keep it from reacting,” she says. “[There’s also] cutting out hormones and anything that has antibiotics as a way to keep those things out of your system and not causing inflammation and cancer and cutting out sugar for the same reasons: inflammation and cancer growth.”
Eat for health in 2018 with:

5. Biohacking

We’ve been hearing about hacking computers for decades, but hacking the body is a relatively new idea that can sound a little scary. A Pew Research Center survey from 2016 showed that the majority of Americans were worried about biomedical technologies.
And yet just two years later, biohacking is one of the hottest wellness trends on the horizon.
Lest you worry that someone’s going to implant a computer chip in your brain and take over, the good news here is that it’s less newfangled invention and more “new term for an old thing.”
[pullquote]The concept came about a few years ago, when non-scientists got together to start exploring anecdotal health therapies and pool their knowledge.[/pullquote]
“Biohacking is a fancy term for healthcare DIY—taking everyday things we use and/or do, and turning them into healthcare treatments,” says Tania Elliott, MD, chief medical officer at EHE. She calls biohacking a new version of the home remedy.
The idea behind this 2018 wellness trend? You “hack” your body’s biology to improve how you feel. Biohacking goes hand-in-hand with trends such as digging into your DNA results to change your lifestyle or modifying your diet to stave off health concerns, and it takes advantage of technology and advanced know-how about the body to help us bring out the best in ourselves.
“The concept came about a few years ago, when non-scientists got together to start exploring anecdotal health therapies and pool their knowledge,” Elliott explains. “Now people have gone out on their own with all kinds of health tricks and tips.”
Technology plays a major role here too, says Geoff Woo, CEO of human enhancement company HVMN.
He tells HealthyWay, “Biohackers rigorously track inputs into their bodies and quantifiably track the bodies outputs with biosensors, assays, and other tools to obtain quantitative feedback measures.” He goes on to say, “Biohackers are especially interested in nootropics (cognitive enhancement), intermittent fasting, ketosis, and biosensors.”
Learning more about the science behind these fads might be a good idea before the new year!

6. Cannabis

Legalization measures have made cannabis legal for recreational use in seven states plus the District of Columbia, and medical marijuana now has state approval in 29 states (plus DC).
Ballot referendums and an increasing number of studies showing that cannabinoids (chemical compounds in the cannabis plant) can treat conditions ranging from chronic pain to depression have done much to change the image cannabis brings to mind.
[pullquote]Cannabis is a powerful anti-inflammatory with an excellent track record for managing pain. It’s also a wonderful mood enhancer and contributes to overall quality of life.[/pullquote]
More than half of the country wants to see marijuana legal across the land, and the vision of the dude bro with no job smoking a bong in his grandma’s basement is slowly but surely being replaced by stories of blue and white collar professionals making use of cannabis-related products to treat diagnosable conditions.
The biggest growing sector of cannabis users? Women, says Christie Strong, marketing communications manager at Kiva Confections, a California-based company that makes cannabis-infused edibles.
“Analytics have shown us that women are among our largest demographic of users,” Strong tells HealthyWay. “Many report using our products for cramps; cannabis is a powerful anti-inflammatory with an excellent track record for managing pain. It’s also a wonderful mood enhancer and contributes to overall quality of life.”
The reason for the change in the market comes down to science, Strong says. There’s more evidence out there about cannabis, and that evidence is helping us feel safer about using cannabis-derived products.
“New research is leading to new products, formats, and approaches to cannabis ingestion. We have learned more in the past decade about this plant and its benefits than the thousands of years before it,” Strong says. Her predictions for 2018?

If I had a crystal ball, I’d say we’re going to see the cannabis microdosing trend increase this year as more and more people realize what a safe, effective alternative cannabis can be to many pharmaceuticals. We’re going to see the demographics of users evolve and the stigma of the “stoner” further fade as increasing numbers of parents, seniors, and business professionals speak up about their cannabis use. The fact that it is a Schedule I controlled substance is going to seem more and more absurd as time goes on.

While some cannabis use involves traditional marijuana smoking, if you’re looking for smoke- and high-free alternatives to add cannabis to your wellness routine, there’s plenty to choose from, and there will be even more options in the new year.
Thanks to scientific advances, many of those products make use of cannabis strains that are devoid of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, a cannabinoid that gets you high. A prime example? CBD oil, short for cannabidiol hemp oil, is derived from a part of the plant that’s THC-free, and studies have shown its healing properties can help with conditions and symptoms including seizures and pain.
Looking to 2020, the Hemp Business Journal expects the CBD market will grow to $2.1 billion in consumer sales by 2020. Yes, billion.
Another cannabis-related wellness trend you might be trying in 2018 ties into biohacking: More women are expected to be microdosing in the new year—using small amounts of the drug and testing how it reacts with their body, tweaking dosages to improve their health and performance.
“Microdosed edibles and CBD products in all formats are gaining steady market share,” Strong says. “Users want more control over their cannabis experience and they’re realizing that they have more targeted options than ever before to treat their conditions.”

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Favorite Finds Sweat

Women’s Winter Workout Clothes To Keep You Cozy And On Track Despite The Cold

Working out during the winter months takes incredible dedication. You’ve got your cozy bed, snuggly blankets, hot chocolate, and holiday cookies all working against you. But working out in winter is just as important as it is the rest of the year. Keeping your body in top shape means a regular fitness routine, all year long.
When it comes to a frosty jog you, need the best of women’s winter workout clothes to keep you comfortable and healthy. Proper workout attire can help ease the transition from the heated indoors to the cold air outside and keep you safe from the elements so you can make it through the winter fit and frostbite free.

Keep your bod protected.

Keeping your fitness routine going during the winter months is super important, but you can’t just wear the same tops and shorts that were your go-to’s in summer. You need your whole body protected from the elements to make sure your fitness routine isn’t going to do you any damage.
You know when you walk outside in the winter and the air is super dry and cold? That dry air is actually drying your skin. This means that in addition to stretching and warming up, part of your pre-run routine needs to be skincare.
Marina Peredo, MD, FAAD, says that you need a well-rounded, hydrating skincare routine in winter. “In order to prepare your skin for running in the cold weather, make sure you hydrate before, during, and after your run to avoid dehydration.” This means drinking lots of water and stocking up on your favorite facial moisturizer.
Peredo says, “Wearing sunscreen in the winter months is just as important as the summertime.” She says your pre-workout skincare routine should involve applying a layer of moisturizer, letting that soak in for a minute or two, then applying a layer of sunscreen.
“After a run, make sure to rinse and again apply a layer of moisturizer.” Keep up with your moisturizing routine all winter and your skin is sure to thank you.
There’s also the lovely issue of Raynaud’s syndrome—a spasm in your arteries that reduces blood flow to your extremities including your fingers, feet, and toes—which occurs when you’re subjected to a stress, like exposure to a very sudden temperature drop in a workout ensemble that doesn’t protect you.
One cold-weather run may not trigger an episode, but according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, women and those who live in cold climates are at increased risk and severe Raynaud’s can develop into skin sores or even gangrene (which is the death of bodily tissues—something you definitely want to prevent).
To avoid these potential issues, do a little prep work, wear your sunscreen, and choose winter workout clothes that will keep you comfortably warm and protected.

Opt for quality over quantity.

If you’re a diehard runner all year long but your budget is tight, we strongly suggest investing in a few key pieces of winter workout gear that will keep you protected. It’s better to do laundry a little more often than to go out in harsh conditions wearing workout clothes that could literally put your health at risk.
There are several things you need to look for in winter workout gear. You want clothes that are going to keep you warm and protected from harsh winds and low temps, but are still breathable. You know you’ll still sweat—even in winter—so clothing made of fabrics that wick away moisture is your best bet. When moisture comes into contact with your skin, it helps you cool down, which is great during the summer heat but can pose a risk in winter weather.

Say no thanks to cotton.

A 2011 study found that the best fabrics for cold weather use moisture-wicking technology. This means no cotton (which does not wick moisture well), at least when it comes to the first layer of clothing that will be touching your skin. Studies show fabrics with increased moisture-wicking abilities made study participants feel more comfortable, and that added comfort was noted if a fabric was ribbed.
Keep an eye out for ribbed thermal shirts and leggings made of moisture-wicking fabric. You can look for labels like Coolmax to see if an item is moisture wicking.

Outdoor Winter Workout Clothes

The colder it gets, the more layers you should wear, starting with a long-sleeve top and long pants as a first layer and adding layers of tops, jackets, pants, and accessories the colder it gets. You’ll have to use your best judgement (and maybe a little trial and error) to make sure you’re adequately prepared for the cold, but not overheating once you get into your groove.

Leggings

Start off with a pair of performance leggings as your first layer. Something nice and tight that’s made of moisture-wicking fabric is a must. If you need more layers on your legs, it’s much easier to slip on a pair of sweats over compression leggings that fit like a second skin.
Our recommendations are Under Armour’s ColdGear Leggings, ASICS’ Winter Tights and Thermopolis Tights, and Athleta’s Polartec® Sculptek Tight.

Jackets

We like winter workout jackets to be light and breathable while still adding a lot of warmth (bonus points if they have reflective elements to ensure you’re seen by passing cars, whether you’re jogging before sunrise or grinding it out after work at night).
The Under Armour Storm Layered Up Half Zip and the Nike Dry Fit Element Half Zip Running Top are perfect for when it’s definitely cold but you’re not going to be freezing.
When the temps really drop (or when it’s raining or snowing), go for the Athleta Wind Sprint Jacket. It’s made with Primaloft Eco insulation to keep you warm, has a hood that packs down into the collar, and is water-resistant to help you brave the elements.

Shoes and Socks

Breathable shoes—like those with mesh vents—are necessary to let moisture out, no matter what time of year you’re exercising. Of course, this is a major double-edged sword in winter, since shoes that let moisture out can also let the cold—and moisture like slushy snow—right back in. When it comes to winter running shoes, look for a pair with Gore Tex, since it’s both breathable and waterproof.
The Adidas Terrex Trailmaker Shoe and the Salomon Speedcross Trail Running Shoe are both great options.
If an investment in your shoes isn’t in the budget, grab some Quik Solve Traction Shoe Cleats to help keep you from slipping and falling on snow or ice.
Socks for running in winter need to keep your feet protected from routine workout perils (like blisters), keep your toes and ankles insulated, and keep your feet nice and dry.
We’re really choosy when it comes to running socks! Our favorites for winter are the Balega Running Socks, SmartWool PhD Run Ultra Light Socks, and the Darn Tough Vermont 1/4 Socks.

Accessories for Fingers, Face, and Beyond

Other things you’ll need (but may not have thought of) are mittens, ear warmers, and eye protection.
In general if it’s not too frigid, opt for gloves like The North Face Women’s Etip Gloves. They’ll keep your hands protected but won’t weigh you down. That said, if it’s particularly cold, mittens are your best bet for trapping warmth and keeping your fingers protected from the cold.
The Carhartt Insulated Breathable Mitt is an awesome option for freezing days, but they can be bulky. If you need a little more flexibility, opt for lululemon’s Run Fast Gloves, which are a mix between gloves and mittens that give you the best of both worlds.
As for ear warmers, we like fleece options that will keep your ears nice and warm while you run. The TrailHeads Ponytail Headband is great because there’s a slot for a ponytail to slip through so longer-haired gals don’t get all tangled up.
The Turtle Fur Heavyweight Headband doesn’t have the same ponytail slot, but it is kitten soft and ultra warm. If you’re headed out on a freezing cold day, up the ante and go for a full balaclava. The Self Pro Fleece Hood will keep your whole head and neck covered and you can slip off the head covering if you get a little too steamy.

Protecting Your Peepers

Although we all love a good winter snow, the reflection of the sun off an endless surface of white can be painfully bright. Invest in a pair of running sunglasses to protect your eyes from sun rays and fast-falling snow.
The RIVBOS Sports Sunglasses and the Duduma Sports Sunglasses will both get the job done.
If you’re exercising in inclement weather—or maybe skiing or snowboarding—opt for a pair of UV-blocking ski goggles. The COOLOO Ski Goggles will do the trick, keeping the sun and all the other elements out of your eyes.

Winter Gym Gear Guide

While winter workout gear may inspire a frosty jog, who’s to say you’ll do every single one of your winter workouts outside? Some of us become gym rats the second the temperature drops because even though the outdoors afford us scenic views, a treadmill gets the job done without the necessity of braving the elements.
Switching up your workout routine to include indoor-only days isn’t a bad idea during winter, but dressing to go from the chilly outdoors into the gym and back again is important. Here are our winter gym recommendations:

Tops

The dreamy lululemon Get Set Long Sleeve offers an extra bit of warmth thanks to its long sleeves while still being super cute. It has an open back that is downright fashion forward and will serve as a heat vent during sweaty spin classes.
If you need a lighter top without the long sleeves, we’re digging the Athleta Yogini Tank and Studio Crop Tee. Both offer a loose fit for days when you’re hitting the pilates studio or a hot yoga class.

Bras

We want our sports bras to have support (without being suffocating), be wire free, and—please!—be attractive if at all possible.
The Queenie Ke Cross Back Sports Bra, Adidas Training TechFit Bra, and Under Armour Eclipse Mid-Impact Bra all get the job done. Plus, each of these has a thoughtful detail on the back that would be perfect peeking out of the lululemon open-back top.

Pants and Leggings

The legging options from Girlfriend Collection are amazing. They’re compression leggings, so they’re very tight (which makes your butt look incredible, by the way) and extra soft.
We also love lululemon leggings like the Align Pant that are super soft and made of moisture-wicking fabric.
For more low-key workout days, suit up in fitted sweatpants. They’re easy to move in and keep you cozy. Our top pick is the budget-friendly C9 Champion Jogger Pants, which are also moisture wicking, meaning they’ll keep you dry and warm.
You could also wear these sweats over compression leggings if you’re going to be doing some traveling inside and out. We like to have larger layers for our outerwear so it’s sure to fit over our gym clothes. Another option is to kick it oldschool with these Adidas Warm Up Pants.

Jackets

Go for something casual that will fit inside your gym locker no problem. The lululemon Fluff the Cold Parka may look big and puffy, but it squishes down with ease. You won’t mind wearing it when you’re out and about, too, which means its versatility goes beyond the gym.
For an athleisure vibe, try the Champion Tech Fleece Asymmetrical Jacket. It’s way more interesting than your standard hoodie.

Winter Transitional Workout Clothes

When the winter weather is finally starting to let up (can we all get excited for that yet?), we like to lighten things up a bit. These transitional workout picks are cute enough that you could run errands in them before or after pounding the pavement. They’re still made of moisture-wicking fabrics to keep you comfortable, but aren’t quite as heavy duty as some of our previous picks.

Jackets and Vests

The luxe lululemon Light as Warmth jacket is made from a lightweight fleece so you can wear it over a workout top and underneath a heavier winter jacket if you need to.
Our lighter, sportier picks are the Adidas Designed 2 Move Track Top and the Urban CoCo Zip Hoodie. These both ensure that extra layer of warmth without any added bulk.
Of course, the weirdest weather to dress for is that time right between winter and spring. It’s still chilly enough that you typically want a little more than one of those light jackets on, but a big puffer jacket is just too heavy. This is when we turn to cute vests.
We’re a little in love with the lululemon Down For A Run Vest, The North Face Mossbud Swirl Vest, and the Columbia Heavenly Vest.

Accessories

Top your transitional look off with a cute scarf and a headband and you’re looking downright stylish for your pre-run school pickup or trip to the grocery store.
We’re digging this lululemon Vinyasa Scarf because you can loop it up for several different looks. Or opt for this Reflective Knit Neck Warmer, which is a great option for shorter days since it will keep you visible and safe when running in the dark.
Regardless of whether you’re hitting the running trail or the treadmill, we hope you keep your fitness goals going this winter! Not only is getting exercise in good for your whole body, but it can help you pep up when you’re feeling the winter blues. Just make sure to layer up, and don’t forget your mittens!

Categories
Healthy Pregnancy Motherhood

Am I Pregnant? 8 Early Symptoms That Could Indicate That You’re Expecting

The earliest weeks of pregnancy can be a tremendously exciting—and confusing—time. Your body is undergoing an enormous number of changes at a rapid clip. You probably don’t feel like yourself. You are nervous about the viability of the pregnancy and overcome with exhaustion. And chances are you’re trying to keep the whole thing a secret!
First, the basics. Pregnancy is divided into three trimesters. The first ranges from week 1 through week 13. The second trimester reaches through week 27, and the third goes through week 40. So really, pregnancy lasts 10 months, not nine, as most of us have been taught.
pregnant picture
If you take a pregnancy test a week after missing a period and the results are positive, you are already considered around 4 to 5 weeks pregnant. This is because pregnancy is calculated from the date of your last menstrual period, not from the date of conception, which occurs two weeks later. (A pregnant woman will be asked over and over again in doctors’ appointments when the date of her last period was, so it’s vital to keep track, especially as cycles vary.)
The first trimester is often filled with the most anxiety, because up to 20 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. A miscarriage is a pregnancy loss that occurs before week 20; anything after that is a stillbirth. The most important thing to know, however, is that there is nothing you can do to make a pregnancy viable—and little you can do to lose a pregnancy that is viable, explains Kerry Price, an OB-GYN in Laguna Hills, California. “Whatever is going to happen first trimester-wise has nothing to do with what you’re doing.”

HealthyWay

8 Earliest Signs of Pregnancy

Pregnancy symptoms are wildly variant from one woman to another. Even the same mother-to-be can experience two or three pregnancies completely differently—one leaving her incapacitated with nausea and another with just the slightest bit of fatigue. So don’t panic: Just because your best friend threw up every day of her first trimester doesn’t mean you will.
That said, there are some common early signs:

1. Fatigue

Growing a baby is physically akin to climbing Mount Everest. Your body is working extraordinarily hard and there are very high levels of hormones coursing through the body—specifically progesterone, which tends to make you very sleepy and nauseated.
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself falling asleep at 8 p.m. on the couch, dropping into a deep slumber for 12 full hours, and waking up feeling exhausted. Many women start experiencing the extreme fatigue really early—around 6 weeks, says Jocelyn Brown, a licensed midwife at GraceFull Birthing in Los Angeles.
HealthyWay

If You’re Experiencing This Symptom

“If you can completely surrender to the exhaustion, build your work schedule around it,” says Brown. “If you have the luxury to take a nap, take a nap. Many women in my practice say, ‘But I have all these things to do!’ You have the rest of your life to do them. Just go to bed—you’re building a skeleton right now!”

2. Nausea

Although this is frequently referred to as “morning sickness,” many women experience it all day every day for weeks (or months) on end. This can begin as early as week 2 and last all through the pregnancy, although it begins for most women in the 4 to 6 week range and abates at the end of the first trimester. Many women feel it most acutely between weeks 9 and 11, when hormones are peaking.
The reasons for nausea are multifactorial, explains Price: Rising levels of a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and progesterone (women who are on progesterone often feel even more nauseated). Progesterone slows the bowel, which can cause constipation; it also slows the esophageal sphincter, which causes acid reflux.
HealthyWay

If You’re Experiencing This Symptom

If your nausea is run-of-the-mill morning sickness (you’re not utterly incapacitated, you can keep food down, etc.)…
Do not let yourself get too hungry. Eat small, frequent meals, and keep them bland. Think crackers, bananas, and popcorn. Keep saltines (or any snack you can stomach) with you at all times—especially by the bed. Eat a few when you get up in the morning or in the middle of the night to pee.
Brown suggests setting an alarm for every hour or two and eating even if you’re not terribly hungry. An empty stomach should be avoided at all costs, and steer clear of spicy foods. Try adding 25 mg of ginger four times a day (or ginger candy or lozenges) to your diet and taking a vitamin B6 complex. Some women find that wearing pressure bands around their wrists (airplane-style) helps. Make sure to stay hydrated.
If your nausea is incapacitating and you can’t keep anything down…
Consult your doctor or midwife right away. In the age of Kate Middleton’s well-documented hyperemesis gravidarum—a condition in which a pregnant woman is debilitated by nausea and vomiting—it is vital to seek out treatment if you cannot function.
Brown asks her patients: How much is this disrupting your life? Do you need medication or to go on disability? Do you need to be hospitalized?
Fortunately, this condition only affects 0.5 to 2 percent of pregnant women. Unfortunately, if you have it for one pregnancy, you are likely to have it for another. “We encourage people to try to go medication free,” Price says, but adds that if a woman really cannot function normally in her day-to-day life, she will prescribe it.
HealthyWay

3. Implantation Cramping and/or Bleeding

Implantation bleeding usually occurs a few days—or up to two weeks—after implantation. In other words, before you actually know you’re pregnant.

If You’re Experiencing This Symptom

“There are a ton of pregnancies that have early trimester bleeding and turn out to be fine,” explains Price. This has to do with changes in the level of progesterone in the body, or it can be related to the cervix. If the blood is brown and painless, assume all is fine and wear a liner.

4. Heavier Bleeding and/or Cramping

This could (or could not) be a sign of something more serious, like a miscarriage.

If You’re Experiencing This Symptom

“There are 99 reasons why someone would be bleeding in early pregnancy,” Brown explains, “and only one is miscarriage.” If the blood is dark brown or pink, Brown says she doesn’t usually worry. “Bright red gets my attention.” If a woman is having cramping but no bleeding, it’s not usually a problem; and bleeding but no cramping may not be cause for alarm either. “It’s when a woman is cramping and bleeding that I worry.” If you are experiencing those symptoms, call your doctor or midwife immediately.
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5. Frequent Urination

Have to pee all the time? This is because the rise in hormonal levels brings more blood to your kidneys, which fills your bladder up more quickly. It is also caused by an increase in blood flow (50 percent more!), which means that way more fluid is being circulated through your kidneys.

If You’re Experiencing This Symptom

Stay hydrated with water, but avoid diuretics such as coffee, tea, and other caffeinated drinks. You also want to make sure to empty your bladder completely each time you pee; you can help this along by bending forward slightly when you’re on the toilet.

6. Mood Swings

Wanting to cry for absolutely no reason? Or feeling totally blissed out? Suddenly wracked with anxiety? It may be the hormones.

If You’re Experiencing This Symptom

Mild mood swings are totally normal, but if you suddenly feel markedly different from how you usually do—or if you’re feeling anxious and/or suicidal—consult your doctor or midwife immediately. They will probably refer you to a psychiatrist who specializes in pre- and postpartum depression and anxiety.
HealthyWay

7. Breast Tenderness

This tenderness can resemble a sign of PMS, but it’s generally more acute and unrelenting. (In fact, it’s not unlike the feeling of first growing breasts.) This often begins in the 4 to 6 week range (so just when you’re taking a test) and abates at the end of the first trimester as your hormones level out.

If You’re Experiencing This Symptom

Avoid underwire bras when possible, and wear a sports bra to bed.

8. Heart Palpitations

When you’re growing a baby, your heart has to work considerably harder, and blood supply is increased, which can cause the heart rate to increase by 10 to 20 beats a minute. In some cases, this can result in heart palpitations or abnormalities.

If You’re Experiencing This Symptom

Most heart palpitations are benign, but it is wise to ask your doctor about them.

And Three More Early Pregnancy Symptoms

  • Breast Changes: The areola often darkens considerably and can grow larger.
  • Increase in Body Temperature: This is something that you may only notice if you’ve been charting your basal body temperature while trying to conceive. If the basal body temperature stays high, it can indicate that you are pregnant.
  • Smell Sensitivity and Food Aversions: Some women report being able to smell scents from many rooms away and not being able to stand the look or smell of certain foods.

How early can I know for sure?

HealthyWay
For most women, the earliest sign of pregnancy is a missed period, but some women can sense it even earlier. She may have incredibly tender breasts (much more so than with PMS), a little cramping, or feel uncharacteristically emotional, nauseated, or exhausted. She may already have sudden aversion to, say, coffee, which she has always loved. But the best way to know is to take a test.
An at-home pregnancy test will measure the level of hCG in your urine; this hormone is only present if you’re pregnant. According to the Mayo Clinic, the best time to take a test is one week after your missed period.
If you take it before then, the pregnancy may not be detectable, because it takes seven to 10 days for hCG to be present in the urine after successful implantation of the egg. In fact, the hCG concentration doubles every two to three days during early pregnancy, so even taking it a day after a missed period can result in a false negative.
That said, if you take it too early, you could also get a false positive. A chemical pregnancy is when you have a fertilized egg that doesn’t implant. Pregnancy tests are so sensitive these days, however, that you are given a positive result before the egg implants. A week later, your period comes, which indicates that you are not pregnant.
Although tests vary by sensitivity, if you wait a week, chances are the pregnancy results are accurate. There’s a catch, though: Positive results are almost always accurate. But you can get a false negative if you take the test too early or don’t follow the instructions on the box properly. If you get a negative result and your period still doesn’t come for a few days, take the test again.

I’m pregnant! What do I do now?

So you saw the double line or the “pregnant” sign on the test. Now what? It’s time to find yourself an obstetrician or a midwife, who will perform a blood test to confirm the pregnancy.

Self-Care During First Trimester

HealthyWay

Eat well.

If you are feeling very sick, this can be tough. Look for protein-rich foods and eat whichever of those you can stomach. Brown suggests peanut or almond butter, salted nuts (the salt will bring up your electrolytes), hard-boiled eggs, protein smoothies (don’t worry if you can only get half of it down), or a piece of jerky.
“Pregnant women tend to go for the carbs, but this is putting the wrong kind of bacteria in your gut,” Brown explains. “Bad morning sickness can be exacerbated by poor balances of flora—a gut bacteria that’s not helping you.” She advises reducing carbs if possible because that will also decrease your sugar intake, which is good. If this doesn’t seem possible, take a probiotic; this can reduce nausea in the long run.
HealthyWay

Continue exercising.

What were you doing before? This is usually a good gauge of what kind of strain you can put your body through while pregnant. If you were a ballet dancer, there’s no reason to stop dancing. But if you were a fan of hot spinning, hot tubs, saunas, or hot yoga, you’ll want to steer clear. If you hadn’t found time to exercise in your pre-pregnancy life, it’s a good time to start.
“I advise 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week,” Brown says, “and start small.” This means 30 minutes, five times a week. It can be anything from going for walk in your neighborhood to taking a prenatal yoga class to swimming.

Take prenatal vitamins.

Folic acid supplements are the most important prenatal vitamin, since they help prevent neural tube defects like spina bifida and cleft lip. The time to take them, however, is in the first 4 to 7 weeks.
“We tell people to start taking them three months before conceiving so you have good levels of folic acid in your body already,” says Price. The usual suggestion is 400 micrograms of folate a day, says Brown. In addition to folic acid, you can also get folate from food, such as dark leafy greens, broccoli, avocado, beans, peas, and lentils. If you can’t stomach those right now, “make the ‘better than’ choice,” advises Brown.
HealthyWay

Manage any chronic health problems, including weight.

A healthy weight can influence pregnancy outcomes, Price explains—everything from risk for C-section to postpartum depression and success with breastfeeding. This does not mean to diet or restrict your intake; it simply means to maintain an active, healthy lifestyle and address any chronic health problems, including your mental health.

Some foods should be avoided.

Many women stick to certain foods during the first trimester, and they are by and large safe.
But some to stay clear of are any raw, undercooked, or unpasteurized fish, meat, or dairy; raw sprouts (especially alfalfa, which can contain Salmonella); and alcohol. Make sure to wash raw vegetables very well and avoid eating fish with high levels of mercury (e.g., tuna, shark, and swordfish). Caffeine should be drunk minimally (no more than one cup of coffee a day).
That said, as with everything pregnancy related, these will vary from culture to culture. Women in Japan eat sushi during pregnancy, but it’s fresh. Some French women drink a minimal amount of wine.
In all things, talk to your doctor and trust your own body.

Categories
Life x Culture Lifestyle

Dating In The Digital Age: What Dating Apps Can Teach Us About Finding Love

Finding that special someone can be hard (and frustrating and time consuming—we’ve been there!), but it’s all worth it when you find the right person for you. The last few years have seen a huge boom in the use of online dating and dating apps. No surprise there; everyone wants love. And if technology can make it that much easier to find The One, why not use a dating app?

The Rise of Digital Dating

Dating apps are so ubiquitous that they’re just a part of everyday life for many people. According to a 2015 study, 15 percent of adults in America have used dating apps or websites. Although 15 percent may not sound like a lot, this number has almost tripled among 18- to 24-year-olds since 2013.
Part of the reason for this growth? Online dating is no longer taboo. Amanda Bradford, founder of the dating app The League, told Insights by Stanford Business, “we’re cracking a whole new demographic of people that even two years ago wouldn’t even dare to consider online dating because there was still a stigma attached to it. It used to be if you’re online dating, people thought it meant you couldn’t meet people in person so you had to resort to doing it online. I feel like that isn’t true anymore.”
New to online dating or thinking about giving it a try? There is a fairly good chance that it could work for you. A 2016 Consumer Reports survey of 115,000 people found that among those who use dating apps, 44 percent had found a long-term relationship or marriage.
Hearing a success story or seeing a friend in love with a partner they met online is enough to convince just about anyone who’s been reluctant to finally give digital dating a try.

The Best Things About Using Dating Apps

One reason dating apps are so popular is that they’re just so simple to use. You get to skip right past that awkward stage of wondering if someone is actually interested in dating because you know that they are on the market.
As dating apps grow in popularity, each app develops its own niche for what kind of date you’re likely to set up and with whom. Some are inherent in the theme of the app (looking for Jewish singles in your area? There is a dating app for that), but others have gotten a rep by word of mouth or through the media.
Doing a little research allows you to pick and choose which apps you want to use to make sure the other people using the app are looking for the same thing. This can help save you from going on a date with someone who just wants to hook up when you’re looking for a long-term partner.
Of course, even if you’re matched with someone who has the same goals as you do, it may not work out. This isn’t a bad thing, though! You can make friends with people you’ve never met before, see parts of your city you wouldn’t have otherwise, and learn more about yourself and what you need from a relationship.
Dating apps can also provide a ton of options of people to meet. Instead of hoping to connect with the couple of singles in your friend group or maybe hit it off with a friend of a friend, a dating app will allow you to meet basically as many people as you want. And you can find them through the phone that’s right there in your pocket or purse.
But having all those choices isn’t always the best thing when it comes to making an actual decision about a possible partner.

The Downside of Dating Apps

Having so many options is both a plus and a minus when it comes to dating apps. There’s plenty of choice just picking which app you want to use, let alone the numbers of potential partners you can find there. Feeling overwhelmed by choice is the one of the worst bits about dating in the digital age: You could send hundreds of messages across different apps in a day if you really put your mind to it.
This is called the paradox of choice, which boils down to the feeling that nothing (or in this case nobody) is the right choice when you’re given a great many options—meaning it’s easier to choose one person to date when you only have a few options total versus, say, considering every eligible bachelor in New York.
Paul Hokemeyer, PhD, is a licensed marriage and family therapist who tells HealthyWay that dating apps are changing the way that we see romance. “Because these apps provide what seems like an endless stream of options, romance has become a commodity. Something we acquire on the open market, like a pair of sneakers.” He says that this allows us to get easily distracted because there are always more choices.

Digital Dating on Your Brain

The growth in the number of dating apps and the number of people using dating apps leads many to wonder what kind of emotional impact this has on all of us. Psychologist and relationship expert Paulette Sherman, PhD, says that we need to be careful using dating apps because it can “depersonalize” a new relationship until you’ve met several times.
Depersonalization means “the person may not allow themselves to get too excited initially and they may be more practical and jaded” than excited. Sherman says “Romance is fueled by the heart not the head, so this initial mental (or judgmental) context can decrease romance in favor of practicality at first.” But, have no fear, you can still build a romantic relationship from a slightly awkward first date. “Things can still get more romantic after they have met offline and are connecting in real time.”
Sherman suggests that if you’re using dating apps, you should try to meet someone in person sooner rather than later. “Too many singles text back and forth for months before meeting and that virtual relationship feels intimate and real. But oftentimes that person may not intend to put effort into meeting in real time and you respective real lives would not mesh. So make this transition early on.”
It’s also a good idea to start off small if you’re new to the world of digital dating. Hokemeyer suggests treating dating apps like you would a condiment: “use them sparingly and with discretion. The main nutrients of a robust romantic life should be physical encounters with other human beings who you can experience with the fullness of your senses.”  

The Best Dating Apps

There are more dating apps right now than any one person could possibly ever use. Although they have some fundamental similarities (like the most basic goal of finding you a date) they’re all different in their own way.
These are 18 of the most popular dating apps and a little bit about each.

Tinder

The app that brought the dating world the swipe left or right feature is most popular with young adults looking for romance. Tinder finds users who are in close proximity to your location that you swipe through. If you and a potential date both swipe right you can chat within the app.
Erin Shields, a 26-year-old startup account manager in New York, met her current boyfriend of eight months nearly seven years ago, but they had lost touch when she moved to a new city. They were able to reconnect by matching on Tinder when he moved to the same city, and they’ve been happily dating ever since.
Tinder is free to start but limits the number of right swipes in a day (you can opt to pay for extras).

Bumble

Bumble is similar to Tinder in that you are matched with people based on your location, and it features the swipe left and right function. Bumble differentiates itself by only allowing the woman (in a heterosexual match) to message first. Either person can message first in a same-sex match.
No matter who is messaging, the other person must reply within a day or the match disappears. “I use Bumble most often because I have fun coming up with interesting conversation starters. Though be warned: Dudes apparently don’t like it when you ask if Amy Dunne was justified in Gone Girling herself” says Tegan Reyes, a 25-year-old publicist from New York. Bumble is free to start and you can choose to pay for extras.

Grindr

For LGBTQ+ people, there is Grindr, which calls itself “the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people.” It’s similar to the above apps, because it chooses matches by location. You can scroll through photos and send messages to people you’re interested in chatting with. Grindr is free, but you can pay for premium features.

Clover

Clover bills itself as a mix of just about every dating service you’ve heard of. It’s got a similar setup to Tinder, except you can see everyone who has liked you. Clover finds potential matches based on location but allows you to turn your location off. You can also filter by different physical types (e.g., height, hair color), and you can set up group chats as well as one-on-one messages. Clover is also free but you can pay to get extra features.

Raya

Raya is the dating app for celebrities only—or so we’ve heard. Raya is very hush-hush about who is accepted into their “private network” and why. If you get make it through their tough acceptance algorithm, Raya costs eight bucks a month. According to Nylon, you just may be able to chat it up with celebs like Cara Delevingne, Ruby Rose, Cody Simpson, Elijah Wood, and more. Let us know if you do!

Hinge

Hinge is a subscription-based service that calls itself “the relationship app” because their goal is for you to find a lasting relationship (as opposed to a casual fling). Instead of swiping or sending a like, you can comment on people’s profiles, which puts a little more thoughtul interaction into each match.
“Hinge is great because it allows you to engage with diverse aspects of someone’s personality, rather than just a picture and their height. Through the questions and prompts that you can answer on your profile, you are able to get a sense of whether or not you might click with that person” says Rachel Benzing, 25-year-old freelance performance artist from Chicago.

OkCupid

OkCupid uses a detailed questionnaire to help find matches with similar interests through their algorithm (as opposed to finding people based on location alone). When OkCupid matches you with prospective dates you can send a message. OkCupid is free to use but you can pay for extras such as advanced filters.

Match

Match claims it’s the #1 dating app. Think of this subscription-based service as a mix between Tinder and OkCupid. You can choose to see people who are near your location, and Match can use their algorithm to set you up with people they think you will like. From there you can send winks and messages.

Tastebuds

Tastebuds seeks to match you with possible dates through your taste in music. Everyone needs a good concert buddy! Tastebuds can be used to find both romantic and platonic relationships. If music is a big part of your life, this would be an awesome app to try. Add your favorite bands and get to know new people nearby by sending them a song in app. Tastebuds is totally free to use.

The League

The League is a dating app geared toward working professionals. Unlike other apps where you can swipe through a great number of different people per day, the League narrows it down to just a few prospects. If you choose to go for the free app you get three matches per day; if you pay to become a member you get five (and other bonuses).

JSwipe

JSwipe, which bills itself as the number one Jewish dating app, is pretty darn similar to Tinder (location based, swipe left and right, chat with people who match with your right swiping). It’s free to join but it’ll cost extra for perks, such as boosting your profile to be seen more often and connecting with people across the globe (as opposed to just those nearby).

Plenty of Fish

Plenty of Fish (POF) says they have “more conversations than any other dating site,” and it has you take a “chemistry test” to help find matches who have similar interests. You can send as many messages as you want for free. You can also choose to pay to upload more photos to your profile, among other perks.

Happn

Happn tries to match you with people you’ve literally crossed paths with. Want to meet that cutie you saw in the elevator? Happn is the app for that. You can see users whose path you’ve crossed and like the people you’re interested in meeting. If they like you too then you can send messages to each other.
All of that is free, but if you want to send a hello without waiting for someone to like you back it costs one in app token (you free tokens to start, then you pay to get more).

Fliqpic

If you’ve been catfished before, you may want to use Fliqpic. Their whole selling point is that you can instantly video chat with matches before meeting in real life.
Similar to Match and OkCupid, you take a personality test and are matched with people through your answers. Another selling point? It’s totally free.

Once

Once brings you one hand-picked match every day instead of using a computer to choose matches for you. Your and your match of the day get 24 hours to decide if you like each other before the two of you can chat. Once is free to use, but if you would like more than one match per day you can pay for a premium subscription.

Align

Align seeks to match you with the perfect person based on your astrological signs. (It uses Western astrology, Chinese zodiac, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to find out as much as possible about you.)
Then you can send messages and get to know your matches. This app is only available in Los Angeles, New York City, and the San Francisco Bay area. If you live in one of the three lucky cities, Align is totally free.

Coffee Meets Bagel

Having more detail makes finding the perfect date easier, right? Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB) uses your interests, preferences, and Facebook connections (so you can meet friends of friends) to help find you a match. Their algorithm learns over time what you’re looking for to help find you better matches, and the app has a new video feature. CMB is free to use, but you can pay for premium features like deeper insights into your matches.

Pure

Pure doesn’t beat around the bush with their users. It’s a subscription-based app for finding people to casually hook up with, not for long-term relationships. Pure matches you with people nearby, and you can chat for up to an hour before the app totally deletes your conversation (similar to Snapchat).
Ready to give one or more of these dating apps a try? We’ve got some tips for that!

Digital Dating Safety Tips

Once you’ve connected with someone and you’re planning to meet up, it’s important to take a few precautions just to make sure you’ll be safe. It’s not just for your sexual health (where bringing protection is a good plan) but also for your physical safety. Most of these are common sense but bear repeating.
Getting together with someone you’ve never met before isn’t a necessarily a bad thing. But if you have a roommate, friend, or co-worker you trust, letting them know your plans is an easy precaution to take. Just give them the name (and number, if you have it) of the person you’re meeting and the when, where, and for how long. That way you have some backup if things go amiss.
Also, you’ll probably want to provide your own transportation to and from the date. Being stuck in a car with someone you just don’t click with isn’t exactly fun. The University of South Carolina also suggests setting your first meeting during the day in a public area.
Finally, trust your instincts. If you feel like a date is going south, your date is raising some red flags, or you just don’t have chemistry, you don’t need to stick around. This is when having your own transportation or cab money is super helpful. Text your trusted friend to let them know you’re leaving early and head on home. No harm done.
Relationship expert Sherman reminds us to appreciate the ease that comes from dating apps. Dating should be fun, after all! She says “dating is a numbers game, and with people being so busy these days, dating apps are a good tool to meet one-on-one with other singles at a time and place that works for you.”
Now that you have a good idea of which dating app is the right fit for you, set up an account and get busy meeting your perfect person!
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Categories
Food Philosophies Nosh

How To Keep Clean Eating Healthy (And Real Talk About The Dangers Of Dietary Obsession)

On the surface, the phrase “clean eating” evokes our thoughts and feelings about healthy dietary options that are unprocessed and highly beneficial to our overall well-being. An interest in clean eating is in many ways a positive shift in terms of our attitudes toward holistic nutritional health. In fact, recent statistics indicate a gradual movement toward healthier eating choices across the United States.
While eating a so-called clean diet can have many beneficial effects on our health, there is the potential for an interest in healthy eating to become an obsession. In particular, while today’s social media climate has the power to inspire us with imagery, recipes, and how-to’s, it can also showcase a carefully curated world of endless green smoothies, raw food diets, and toned bodies that may fuel obsessive behavior and result in unintended damage.

What is clean eating?

The term “clean eating” has become ubiquitous among health and fitness communities, and the specifics of its definition tend to be dependent on the context in which it’s used. Fundamentally, clean eating is about the inclusion of whole, unprocessed foods in your diet and the exclusion of over-processed, unhealthy foods. For some people, clean eating may simply mean that they attempt to eat whole foods whenever possible. For others, this could mean a paleo-inspired or vegan diet. Some people also opt to remove GMO foods from their diets completely.
In theory, following a clean eating–inspired diet is beneficial for your health, helps you maintain a healthy weight, and can sustain your energy needs—whatever they might be. Problems can arise, however, when clean eating ceases to be about health and begins to be about identifying different types of food as either “good” or “bad,” “pure” or “impure.” Dairy and gluten are two good examples of ingredients that are now on the outs for many people who follow clean eating plans, even if these individuals have no medical condition or ethical perspective that necessitates avoiding them. In these cases, clean eating can become potentially dangerous as it moves away from a healthy eating plan and into the territory of a newly emerging eating disorder called orthorexia.

Orthorexia Nervosa: What You Need to Know

Orthorexia nervosa is a term that was coined by Steven Bratman, MD, in 1996 to describe the health-obsessed behavior, or “fixation on righteous eating,” that he was noticing in some of his patients. Orthorexia nervosa manifests as a need for dietary control and a desire to only consume foods considered pure or good, unlike anorexia, which involves “an intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat” and intentional restriction of caloric intake despite being underweight.
Because of the relatively new understanding of orthorexia nervosa, it isn’t included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition—the current go-to for psychiatric diagnoses in the U.S.—despite having a profound effect on those who suffer from it. The damaging effects of orthorexia arise when the pool of acceptable food choices becomes smaller and smaller, to the point where a sufferer may only find themselves able to eat one or two foods. Other symptoms of orthorexia nervosa include intense feelings of guilt if the sufferer doesn’t adhere to a clean-eating diet, isolating themselves from group meals and situations in which food has been prepared by others, depression, anxiety, and obsessive behavior.
Ali Eberhardt, a registered dietitian with a strong focus on eating disorders such as orthorexia, believes that while clean eating doesn’t always lead to orthorexia, it can often signal the beginnings of obsessive behavior. She says, “There are people who are able to eat clean without developing obsessive ideas about food. However, the more rules, rigidity about food in a person’s diet, or if there is any predisposition to develop disordered eating, the more potential for this diet to be a catalyst.”
Although orthorexia often begins with an interest in clean eating, clean eating in and of itself doesn’t indicate that someone will eventually struggle with orthorexia. Clean eating often begins with the elimination of processed foods from your diet, which makes it important to understand just what it is that makes a food processed (hint: it probably isn’t what you think!).

What does the term “processed” mean when referring to food?

The term “processed” brings to mind frozen TV dinners, sugary cereals, and mystery lunch meats—all foods without very much nutritional value that include a surplus of salt, fat, and sugar. In reality, processed foods are any foods that have been changed in some way during preparation. Although this definition absolutely includes the aforementioned unhealthy processed foods, it also includes store-bought and homemade methods of preparing food including canning, freezing, baking, and dehydrating. It isn’t the actual act of processing that diminishes a food’s nutritional benefits but the excess salt, fat, and sugar that are so often added to improve flavor in commercially prepared foods. In fact, there are certain foods that require processing to be edible at all.

Which processed foods fit into a healthy eating plan?

Unless you have unlimited time and financial resources, it is difficult to eat only homemade foods. Luckily, there are still minimally processed foods that have an important place in the average American diet. For example, frozen fruits and vegetables are actually preferable to fresh in many circumstances due to nutrient retention and convenience. Canned tomatoes are another example of a processed food that is preferable to fresh in many cases due to the short growing season many Americans experience in the northern hemisphere (when purchasing canned tomatoes, just be sure to check sodium levels). Canned fish, especially sardines and salmon, makes heart- and brain-healthy omega-3 fatty acids easily accessible, especially compared to the time it would take to prepare fish from scratch.
Generally speaking, processed foods make the leap from healthy to unhealthy when they are ultraprocessed.

What makes a food ultraprocessed?

With few exceptions, frozen meals such as lasagna, pizza, waffles, chicken wings and nuggets, breakfast pastries, and TV dinners are jam-packed with all three processed-food offenders: salt, sugar, and fat. Deli meat, hot dogs, and pepperoni sticks commonly involve the use of sodium nitrite, which has been linked to health problems such as migraine headaches and digestive issues, as a preservative. Soda, juices, iced teas, energy drinks, and protein shakes can all be guilty of packing massive amounts of sugar into fairly small servings.
Everyone knows that candy and chips aren’t ideal foods to be snacking on every day, which is why marketers will describe chips as “whole grain” or candy as “organic” or “without added sugar.” The reality? These products are typically still unhealthy choices that aren’t fit for everyday consumption.

Do certain processed foods have benefits?

There are certain foods that are processed in a way that can actually boost their nutritional value. For example, in the U.S., milk and non-dairy milk products are often fortified with vitamin D during the processing stage, which is highly beneficial to people living in cooler climates with less daylight. Eggs, juice, margarine, milk, and yogurt are often fortified with omega-3 fatty acids, a nutrient that our bodies are unable to create themselves but are necessary for heart and brain health. Fiber is added to many breakfast cereals, crackers, and health shakes to improve digestive health and help prevent certain types of cancer. Regular canned salmon contains small fish bones that become softened and edible during the canning process, resulting in a much higher calcium content than regular salmon.
Of course, while each of these foods is nutritionally superior because of processing, it’s still important to read the labels and make sure they haven’t had an excess of salt, sugar, or fat added to make them tastier.

A Note About GMO Foods

GMO stands for genetically modified organisms, and when it comes to food, it indicates that an ingredient has been genetically modified. Although the term GMO is painted in a negative light by some authorities in the clean eating community, the truth is that there are very few studies on the long-term effects of genetically modified foods. Penn State University hosts a GMO literacy project that aims to shed light on some of the misconceptions surrounding the safety of genetically modified foods. The resource gives the question “Are GMOs safe to eat?” the following answer:

There is no solid answer to this question because no irrefutable evidence has been presented that proves GM food crops are any less safe to consume than non-GM foods. The fact is that GM crops have not been in commercial production for an extensive period of time, therefore the health benefits/risks have not been researched to a point where a conclusive decision on their safety can be determined.

It’s also a fair observation that the people most consumed with worry about the danger of GMO foods are financially privileged and living in wealthy, first world countries when, in fact, GMO foods may very well be the solution to feeding a growing worldwide population.

How to Eat Clean Without Exhausting Yourself

Clean eating doesn’t have to be a stressful endeavor full of deprivation and unhealthy cravings. In fact, clean eating can be a joyful way to nourish your body. Problems arise when the goal is perfection in terms of food, but it can be a rewarding experience to treat your body with kindness and respect by eating foods that are nutritionally robust. Focus on whole foods that you enjoy eating such as fresh produce, grains, legumes, nutritionally dense canned and frozen convenience items, lean dairy, and locally sourced meat and fish.
Also, make room in your diet for the occasional treat. Studies show that people who allow themselves the occasional less-than-healthy option are able to stick to their diets with greater ease than those who don’t.
Make it a habit to double recipes so that you have leftovers for lunch and dinner throughout the week. Grain and legume-based salads will keep in the fridge for several days and can be paired with simple proteins such as meat, fish, and tofu to create satisfying meals.

Shopping for Meat While Eating Clean

When sourcing ethical meat, it’s important to adopt the attitude that smaller amounts of high quality meat are much better than large amounts of low quality meat. Since ethically sourced meat is generally more expensive than supermarket meat, this is an especially important point to make note of. Whenever possible, buy your meat from a trusted butcher who won’t shy away from answering any questions you might have about where the meat comes from and how the animals are slaughtered.

Learning to Trust Your Body

Developing a healthy relationship with food is an important step when trying to eat in a way that is nourishing for your body and your mind. Eberhardt offers the following advice for individuals who may be questioning their relationship with clean eating:

I think if someone is wanting to eat well, the focus should be on eating a balanced diet and incorporating whole foods from a variety of sources without labeling it as good or bad. When we attach a label to food, whether it’s healthy or unhealthy, good or bad, we also attach emotion. If I eat ‘good’ I feel proud, like I have strong willpower, and am disciplined. But if I eat ‘bad’ I can feel shame, guilt, and a need to compensate. Learning to trust our bodies is a key element to developing a healthy relationship with food.

If for any reason you feel like you might be veering into obsessive behavior with food, make an appointment with a registered dietitian, family doctor, or mental health professional to talk about your feelings and concerns when it comes to your current diet.
If you’re looking to eat clean on the go, try the following recipe.

Curried Quinoa Pilaf Salad

This curried quinoa pilaf is simple to make and will leave you with leftovers for workday lunches and easy late-night dinners. Experiment by adding other vegetables and fruits you enjoy. Serve this salad warm or at room temperature with a side of chicken, fish, or tofu.

Ingredients:

  • 1 ½ cups of quinoa, uncooked
  • 1 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 2 shallots, diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
  • 1 cup of orange juice
  • 2 cups of vegetable stock
  • 1 tsp. curry powder
  • ¼ tsp. dried turmeric
  • 1 large sweet red pepper, finely diced
  • 1 small zucchini, finely diced
  • 2 oz fresh goat cheese or feta cheese, crumbled
  • Zest of one orange
  • 1 cup of finely minced flat-leaf parsley
  • ½ cup of pomegranate seeds
  • Salt and freshly cracked pepper

Special Equipment:

  • Fine-mesh sieve
  • Medium-sized, lidded saucepan
  • Large salad bowl

Method:

  1. Rinse the uncooked quinoa in a fine-mesh sieve under cold water for two minutes. This will help remove the thin layer of saponin coating the quinoa that can cause it to have a bitter or soapy taste.
  2. Heat the olive oil over medium-low heat in the saucepan, adding the diced shallots and finely minced cloves of garlic once the oil’s hot. Stir until the shallots begin to soften and become translucent.
  3. Add the rinsed quinoa and stir until coated with the olive oil, shallots, and garlic. Stir in the curry powder and dried turmeric. Cook the pilaf for two minutes, stirring frequently.
  4. Pour in the orange juice and vegetable stock and increase heat to medium-high. Once the liquid begins to boil, turn the heat down as low as possible, cover with a lid, and allow to steam for 15 minutes.
  5. Remove the quinoa from the heat and let sit for another fifteen minutes before removing the lid and fluffing up with a fork. Set aside for an hour to let cool.
  6. In a large salad bowl, combine the sweet red pepper, zucchini, crumbled goat cheese or feta, orange zest, flat-leaf parsley, and pomegranate seeds. Fold the cooled quinoa into the mix and stir gently until combined. Sample and add salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste.
  7. Serve the salad warm or at room temperature as a leftover with fish, chicken, or baked tofu slices.
Categories
Health x Body Wellbeing

Signs And Symptoms Of Magnesium Deficiency…And What To Do About It

If you’re focusing on maintaining a healthy lifestyle, you have a lot to keep track of. You’ve got to make sure you’re getting the right balance of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. You’ve got to make sure you’re getting the recommended amounts of exercise and spending lots of time outdoors. Then there are the dozens of minerals and vitamins that help your body function at its best. Making sure you’re getting enough of each can be daunting.
Magnesium is an element that is essential to many bodily functions—from mental health to the neurotransmitters that relay messages between your nerves to bone formation. Yet about half of Americans are not getting the optimal amount of magnesium, according to a study published in the journal Nutrition Reviews.
On hearing that statistic, you might be questioning whether you’re getting enough magnesium in your diet. And because this mineral doesn’t often make headlines, you might not even know what foods it’s found in, making it difficult to know whether you’re getting enough each day.
Here’s everything you need to know about magnesium, including the role it plays in your body, where it is found, and what happens if you’re not getting enough.
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The Role Magnesium Plays in Your Body

One of your first questions about magnesium might be what systems in your body need this mineral to function well. The answer? Pretty much all of them!
“Magnesium is a mineral needed by every organ in your body to function properly, especially bone,” says Sherry Ross, MD, an OB/GYN and women’s health expert at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
Ross explains that magnesium helps your body with metabolism, the process of turning food into usable energy. Because of this, magnesium is important in controlling blood pressure, blood sugar levels, supporting a healthy immune system, and keeping your heart beating regularly. It also helps with nerve messaging and the formation of muscle and bone.
If you are at risk for type 2 diabetes, magnesium is especially important. That’s because having low levels of this nutrient has been shown to predispose people to developing type 2 diabetes (also known as adult-onset diabetes). One study published in the World Journal of Diabetes found that low levels of magnesium increased the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, whereas having higher levels of magnesium offered some protection against developing diabetes.
The same study found that low levels of magnesium increased the likelihood of complications for people with diabetes. In particular, people with low magnesium levels were found to have cardiac hypertrophy (enlargement of the heart) and arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats) more often. In general, the study found that having too little magnesium was an indication that patients would have more severe complications from diabetes, including kidney failure.  
“Magnesium also helps your body regulate blood sugar, which is especially helpful for those with diabetes or insulin resistance,” Ross says.
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This mineral has important health implications for the general population too. A recent review published in the journal Nutrients concluded that existing evidence suggests that magnesium can help relieve anxiety symptoms. A study published in the journal Neuropharmacology had previously found that a magnesium deficiency was associated with increased risk for anxiety.
An important consideration for women is that magnesium is also believed to help alleviate the symptoms of PMS, making anything from cramps to anxiety more bearable. In part that is because magnesium can help keep bloat at bay.
“Magnesium helps with bloating and water retention,” Ross says. “Taking additional magnesium works well for women experiencing disruptive bloating and water retention during the dreaded premenstrual period.”
magnesium-13
Finally, magnesium is closely associated with strong bones. In fact, one study published in the journal Nutrients concluded that magnesium was “critical for bone health.” The study found that low levels of magnesium contribute directly to osteoporosis, a disease that causes weak bones and is especially common in older women. Because of this, maintaining adequate magnesium intake over the course of your life is important for women who want to prevent frailty in old age.

How much magnesium do you need?

With all those health benefits, you’re no doubt wanting to incorporate more magnesium into your diet as soon as possible, and you’re probably wondering how much magnesium you need and where this important nutrient is found. Fortunately, if you’re eating a healthy diet you’re probably already getting some of the magnesium that your body needs.
As with many vitamins and minerals, the amount of magnesium that you need depends on your age, sex, and other factors. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), women ages 18 to 30 need 310 milligrams of magnesium a day, whereas women older than age 30 need 320 milligrams. If you’re pregnant, you should consume an extra 40 milligrams of magnesium every day, although nursing moms do not need to consume extra amounts of this nutrient.
magnesium-8
When considering whether you’re getting enough magnesium, it’s important to recognize that only 30 to 40 percent of the magnesium that you consume is actually absorbed by your body, according to the NIH. That means you might need to eat double the recommended amount of magnesium—or more—to make sure you’re meeting the recommended daily intake.
So, where can you get all that magnesium? Almonds are the best source, with 80 milligrams per serving—about 20 percent of the recommended daily intake. Spinach is almost as rich in magnesium, with 78 milligrams per serving. There are also many other options.
“As with most vitamins and minerals it’s best to get magnesium through your diet,” Ross says. “Leafy greens, nuts, beans, soybeans, dark chocolate, whole unrefined grains, fish, and low-fat yogurt are great sources of this helpful mineral.” Some tap and bottled waters also contain magnesium.
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What is magnesium deficiency?

As we’ve seen, magnesium is incredibly important. However, many people in America are not getting enough. So how would you know if you weren’t getting an adequate amount of this nutrient?
Unfortunately, determining this can be a bit tricky, because the symptoms of magnesium deficiency can mimic the symptoms of many other illnesses.
“Some common symptoms of magnesium deficiency include headaches, low energy, poor sleep, muscle cramps (especially nocturnal), and poor appetite,” says Sally Warren, a naturopath and practitioner at Metro Integrative Pharmacy in New York City. “Magnesium deficiency can also lead to arrhythmia, tremors, seizures, anxiety.”
Certain populations are especially at risk for developing a deficiency she says, including people with Crohn’s disease, celiac disease, or type 2 diabetes​, all of which can make it harder to absorb magnesium. People who don’t eat many fresh vegetables or who rely on processed foods are also more likely to be lacking magnesium.
“Most deficiencies are caused by a bad diet lacking in minerals and vitamins​,” Warren says.
magnesium-9
People who frequently use alcohol are also at increased risk for magnesium deficiency, according to the NIH. Excessive alcohol consumption is often associated with poor diet, and people who abuse alcohol are likely to have gastrointestinal and liver issues that can make it hard to absorb magnesium.
Certain ethnic groups are also at increased risk for magnesium deficiency, according to Christopher Calapai, an osteopathic physician board certified in family medicine, anti-aging medicine, and chelation therapy.
Calapai points out that magnesium deficiency isn’t just a problem for people who are unhealthy or who don’t eat well-rounded diets. In fact, athletes often don’t get enough magnesium, he says.
“People that are extremely active can use up more vitamins and minerals, such as magnesium,” Calapai says. Because of this, he recommends that everyone get their blood tested periodically to measure their nutrient levels and identify any areas where they are deficient.
magnesium-2

How to Get More Magnesium in Your Diet

If you are worried that you may be suffering from a magnesium deficiency, you can consult with your doctor and request a blood test that can show what your magnesium levels are. Even before you get the test, it’s okay to increase your magnesium intake, since excess magnesium presents no risks for healthy adults, according to the NIH.
If you want to increase your magnesium intake, the first place to start is with your diet. Increasing your intake of nuts, leafy greens, and beans will help you get more of this nutrient naturally. Keep magnesium-rich almonds in your car or desk for when you need a quick snack. Spinach can be blended in smoothies or put in sauces to boost the whole family’s magnesium intake.
Despite the abundant natural options for getting more magnesium, many people choose to supplement with magnesium tablets.
magnesium-4
“Knowing all the health benefits of magnesium would be an important reason to ensure you are getting adequate amounts of magnesium in your diet or through supplementation,” Ross says.
Magnesium supplements come in many different forms, including magnesium oxide, magnesium chloride, magnesium gluconate, magnesium citrate, and magnesium orotate. These supplements contain different amounts of magnesium and various other substances. Your doctor can help you determine what form is best for you.
To absorb the most magnesium when you take your supplement, take it at a time of day when you are not taking other minerals through food or supplements. “Doses of magnesium can be relatively large and should, ideally, be taken apart from other minerals or at different times of the day,” Calapai says.
It’s also important to recognize that certain foods and minerals can also affect your absorption of magnesium. According to Oregon State University, taking magnesium alongside fiber or protein can decrease absorption. Zinc can also make your body absorb less magnesium.
On the other hand, some minerals help boost absorption of magnesium. Vitamin D and calcium can increase your body’s ability to absorb magnesium, so you will often see vitamin D sold in tablets that contain both calcium and magnesium.
All of this can be a little complicated, so working with a doctor or nutritionist who can help you understand magnesium supplements and other minerals that can interact with them is a great idea if you are trying to correct a magnesium deficiency.
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Magnesium and Kids

Magnesium is as important for kids as it is for adults, so you’ll want to make sure that your children are getting enough of this nutrient as well. According to the NIH, toddlers ages 1 to 3 need 80 milligrams of magnesium each day, whereas children age 4 through 8 need 130 milligrams. Kids ages 9 through 13 need 240 milligrams, and teen boys need up to 410 milligrams of magnesium each day to keep themselves healthy.
Magnesium has many of the same health effects for children as it does for adults. In fact, children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders were shown in one study to have fewer symptoms after being treated with magnesium alongside fatty acids and zinc. Another study found that magnesium decreased violence, spasms, and other symptoms in children who were prone to overexcitement.
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How to Work Magnesium Into Your Life

Considering all of its health benefits, it’s a good idea to add magnesium to the list of nutrients that you try to get enough of every day. If you find yourself feeling less energetic, experiencing headaches, or sleeping poorly, try increasing your intake of magnesium-rich foods like almonds and spinach (or for an extra treat, dark chocolate).
If you up your intake but still feel that something may be wrong, consult with your doctor about having bloodwork done that can help you determine what your magnesium levels are. After all, magnesium deficiency can have potentially serious health consequences, so if you think that you are at risk, you should advocate for yourself to get the care you need.

Categories
Food Philosophies Nosh

Intermittent Fasting For Health, Weight Loss, And Beyond

In recent years, more and more people have turned to fasting as a weight loss regimen. At first glance, the idea of going without food, even for a short period of time, can seem to fly in the face of everything we were raised to believe about nutrition. And while it’s true that fasting finds its origins in religion, there’s now compelling evidence that the practice of abstaining from food and drink every other day can actually lead to many health benefits, from a longer life to an improved mood.
Fasting as a spiritual practice has been around for thousands of years. According to the Old Testament, people often abstained from food and drink for long periods of time in order to focus their attention and hear from God. In the Islamic faith, Ramadan is an entire month of fasting commemorating the first revelation of the Qur’an to the prophet Muhammad. Some Buddhists live an ascetic lifestyle, often choosing to skip meals in order to improve meditation and overall health.
Yet recently, fasting has become more widely practiced not just as a spiritual exercise but as a means of pursuing physical health. There’s even a chance that fasting can lower the risk for major illnesses like heart disease and cancer, suggesting that the men and women who’ve made fasting part of their lifestyles for millenia were onto something.

Intermittent fasting is not a diet

The practice of intermittent fasting—that is eating every other day, which is also known as alternate-day fasting—is becoming one of the hottest health and weight-loss trends. There’s a ton of research and writing online surrounding the topic, and it can be hard to know where to start. Is intermittent fasting just another fad, or does it have staying power? Even more importantly, is intermittent fasting something you should consider for yourself?
To understand what intermittent fasting is, it’s first important to understand what it’s not. Intermittent fasting is not just another diet or weight-loss regimen. It’s a pattern of eating, a conscious lifestyle choice. But why would you choose to deprive yourself of food? While eating every other day can contribute to weight loss, studies have shown that the practice actually has many other compelling benefits, such as lowering the risk for major diseases, improving mood and focus, and positively impacting insulin levels.

The Science Behind Intermittent Fasting

So how exactly does intermittent fasting work? While there is a large body of research on the health benefits of intermittent fasting, it’s important to point out that so far, much of it has been conducted on animals, not humans. Nevertheless, the results look promising. In a 2013 article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Mark Mattson, chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, says there are significant biological parallels between fasting and exercise:
“There are several theories about why fasting provides physiological benefits, says Mattson. ‘The one that we’ve studied a lot, and designed experiments to test, is the hypothesis that during the fasting period, cells are under a mild stress,’ he says. ‘And they respond to the stress adaptively by enhancing their ability to cope with stress and, maybe, to resist disease.’”
Mattson goes on to compare the stress put on cells during calorie restriction to the stress put on muscles and the heart when we exercise. Not all stress is negative and regular taxation on these systems—provided there is adequate recovery time—can increase their strength. This is similar to how cells respond during periods of intermittent fasting.
The implication is that, while a certain amount of calories can be good for you, Americans are eating too much. Earlier this year, it was reported that Americans on average consume more than 3,600 calories daily, which is way over the recommended amount, no matter who or how old you are.
But there’s also the fact that we might be eating too often. According to the abstract of another study that Mattson co-authored on the link between meal timing and health and disease, most members of modern societies consume an unusual number of meals a day. Mattson says that three meals a day, plus snacks in between, is abnormal when looking at eating from an evolutionary perspective. What’s more, studies on both animal and human subjects show that restricting energy for as little as 16 hours can counteract disease and improve several health indicators.
Stephen Mount, PhD, an associate professor at the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Maryland, corroborates this fact. “Research in molecular genetics has long supported the idea that caloric restriction leads to longevity, and that these effects are mediated through the insulin signaling pathway,” he says. Mount has been fasting every other day since 2004 after coming across a paper touting the benefits of intermittent calorie restriction.
“Although my own research does not directly involve aging, metabolism, or nutrition, I read widely on related topics, and have followed the work of researchers who do work directly on these topics,” he says. “I’ve followed research on autophagy and stem cell maintenance that has implications for the potential benefits of intermittent fasting.”
Even with this intriguing research, most people will be drawn to intermittent fasting because of the basic weight loss benefits it provides. “For many people, intermittent fasting results in significant weight loss, and it certainly allows people to maintain a weight below their ‘set point,’ so that’s a good reason to recommend it,” Mount says.

Getting Started With Intermittent Fasting

If you’re interested in getting started with intermittent fasting, you should know that there are many different types or methods of fasting that have emerged in recent years. You may have heard of the 5:2 diet, which involves eating “normally” five days a week and then eating only 500 calories for the other two. There’s also the 16:8 diet, according to which you fast for 16 hours a day and eat only within a select eight-hour window.
Of course, it’s important to realize that not every fasting strategy will work the same for every person. On his blog detailing his fasting experiences, Mount explains in an early post the unique schedule that he follows, which is entirely different than the 5:2 or 16:8. “I haven’t changed my practice much, except that I no longer drink a latte on fast days,” he tells HealthyWay. “I still take a bit of cod liver oil in the morning and a glass of wine at night, but otherwise nothing with calories between dinner one day and dinner the next, three days each week, usually Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, but sometimes a different three days.”
In a more recent blog post, Mount goes into further detail on his current practice. “My fasts have evolved a little over time, but my basic practice has remained the same: three one-day fasts each week,” Mount writes. “I’m flexible (for example, if I’m meeting friends for lunch on Saturday, I’ll fast on Sunday instead). Fasting means no calories between dinner one night and dinner the next night (with minor exceptions…). The fasting period is typically about 23 hours, but I don’t pay attention to precise timing. I eat dinner at the time I would normally eat based on other considerations. There’s a lot of variation (from 19 to 28 hours).”
If you’re interested in trying intermittent fasting for the first time, it’s important to make sure you do it safely, which means you still need to maintain a healthy caloric intake daily. For specific schedules and tips on how to ease yourself into fasting, the folks at Precision Nutrition have some excellent suggestions.
However, don’t get intermittent fasting confused with simply not eating. “During the 13 years I’ve been at it, intermittent fasting has become much more popular,” Mount says, “first with the 5:2 diet, and more recently with people who seem to think that skipping breakfast counts as intermittent fasting.” Mount highlights the fact that intermittent fasting is an intentional practice, not just deciding not to eat.
He also notes that each person has to find an intermittent fasting routine that works for them. “To be honest, I’m not a proselytizer,” he says. “People have to find what works for them. What I like about fasting is that it’s simple. It is so much easier to simply not eat because it’s Thursday than [to] limit yourself to one cookie and not two.”

The Impact of Intermittent Fasting

Different for Men and Women

Most evidence suggests that intermittent fasting has different effects for women than it does for men. “While some women who try IF say it’s the best thing that’s happened to them since grapefruit, others report serious problems, including binge eating, metabolic disruption, lost menstrual periods, and early-onset menopause,” writes Helen Kollias in a Precision Nutrition post on the practice. “This has happened in women as young as their mid-20s.”
Kollias goes into further detail, explaining that intermittent fasting can drastically affect women’s hormone regulation. “It turns out that the hormones regulating key functions like ovulation are incredibly sensitive to your energy intake,” she writes. “Even short-term fasting (say, three days) alters hormonal pulses in some women…There’s even some evidence that missing a single regular meal (while of course not constituting an emergency by itself) can start to put us on alert, perking up our antennae so our bodies are ready to quickly respond to the change in energy intake if it continues.”
Mount says he’s heard a few concerns from women who try intermittent fasting. “The only reasons I can think that intermittent fasting might be different for women are: A) pregnancy—I think fasting during pregnancy might be a bad idea, B) menstrual disorders (missed periods) due to caloric restriction. I have heard this reported by women who have started intermittent fasting. I’ve also heard of this associated with heavy exercise (e.g. marathon training) or extreme weight loss,” he says.
“It’s also true that more women than men have told me that they tried intermittent fasting but could not keep it up,” Mount adds. “That could be due to a different response to fasting.”
When it comes to weight loss, intermittent fasting has shown to be an effective tactic, especially in obese women and in young overweight women. In a study on young overweight women, intermittent energy restriction (IER) was found to be an equivalent alternative to continuous energy restriction (CER) when it came to weight loss and lowering disease risk. The other study showed that intermittent fasting when combined with calorie restriction was “an effective means of reducing body weight, fat mass, and visceral fat mass in obese women.”
The takeaway here is that intermittent fasting can’t be considered the same for everyone, and that women especially should approach the practice with caution. “Considering how much [to fast] remains unclear, I would suggest a conservative approach,” Kollias writes. “If you want to try IF, begin with a gentle protocol, and pay attention to how things are going.”

Successful Intermittent Fasting

If you’re ready to try intermittent fasting and looking for strategies for success, there are a few that the experts recommend:

Do plenty of research.

The data surrounding the benefits of intermittent fasting is plentiful. Spend time doing your own research, and find a routine that you like and works for you. “I can only suppose that what works for me might work for others,” Mount says. “The key is to find something that is compatible with your lifestyle.”

Don’t binge on non-fasting days.

Intermittent fasting is not about “treat days.” The point is not to overindulge on junk food every other day just because you can. If you do, you will counteract all of the good effects of the practice.

Don’t try intermittent fasting if you’re suffering from other health issues.

Fasting can often be incompatible with other health issues, especially if your body needs to be taking in regular calories to fight an illness rather than experiencing caloric restriction.
Additionally, Mount suggests that if you try fasting and experience adverse effects, you should stop. “I think that if someone has given fasting a fair shot (three weeks) and still suffers from extreme fatigue, inability to concentrate, or irritability on fast days, then intermittent fasting is probably not for them,” he says. “My advice for everyone is to find out what works for them!”

Categories
Happy x Mindful Wellbeing

Understanding Body Image And Learning To Love Your Body (Just The Way It Is)

I’m not sure when it hit me that I cover my mid-section when I’m alone. In the car, fully clothed, I still grab for a sweatshirt from the back seat and drape it across my lap. I sit in the living room with a pillow against my stomach.
I’m 35 years old, and I’m as uncomfortable in my own skin as I was as a 12-year-old still learning to make sense of hips and breasts and stretch marks. I want to love my body.
I want to.
But the words “positive body image” leave me gasping for breath.
The first time I made myself throw up, I was 14. That was more than two decades ago, and yet I carry bulimia around with me every day, a devil perched on my shoulder urging me toward the toilet. I am healing, but I don’t know that I will ever be healed.
And I know I’m not alone.
In a 2009 University of Central Florida study of girls just 3 to 6 years old, half already worried about being “fat.” A third said that if they could, they’d change at least one physical attribute. The numbers hardly improve from there.
In a Dove-sponsored survey conducted in 2016, 85 percent of women and 79 percent of girls said they opt out of day-to-day activities (from sports to spending time with family) when they don’t feel good about the way they look. Nine in 10 women said they’d keep themselves from eating if they weren’t feeling good about their looks.
For some, it stops there. For many, struggles with body image take them into dangerous territory. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD) estimates that at least 30 million people suffer from an eating disorder in the U.S. That’s people of all ages and genders.
ANAD’s statistics show that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
So how do we combat that? How do we face a society rife with photoshopped models and fat-shaming tabloids only to come out on the other side with a happy, healthy mind and positive body image?
Can you be that mom on the beach rocking a bikini with her tiger stripes out there for all the world to see—or the woman in the mall wearing a tank top, her upper arms bare and tanned?
I’d like to be her one day. But learning to love my body just the way it is has made me face one salient fact: I need to understand body image before I can form one that’s positive.

What is body image?

It seems self-explanatory, right? Body image is the image you have of your body. But according to Lauren Smolar, program director at the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), the concept is much more nuanced than that.
“Body image is how you see yourself when you look in the mirror or when you picture yourself in your mind,” Smolar tells HealthyWay. “It encompasses what you believe about your own appearance, how you feel about your body, how you sense and control your body as you move, and how you feel in your body; [it’s] not just about your body.”
In other words, our body image isn’t just visual. It’s mental. It’s emotional. It’s physical. And it’s ever changing.
“We hear the idea of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ body image quite often, but in fact, body image isn’t that simple,” says Ashley Solomon, psychologist and executive clinical director of Eating Recovery Center. “It’s never all good or all bad, and it’s not static. It’s constantly evolving, even as we move throughout our day.”
Studies have found that the way we look at and feel about our bodies can be complicated by everything from the way different manufacturers cut clothes to the images in the media. And it’s not simply what we see in media but how the world around us responds to that media.
In one study performed in Nicaragua, for example, a group of 80 men and women who lived in a small town that had little exposure to Western media were shown images of thin and “plus sized” (the term used by the researchers) models. The study determined that exposure to the images shifted the participants’ perception of ideal female body size. The women internalized it, but the men also had their views skewed by the imagery. Feeling judged based on impossible standards only exacerbates the problem.
Writer Roxane Gay has long been a vocal opponent of fat shaming, all while sharing her own body image struggles with the world in frank and poignant essays. In her recent New York Times best seller, Hunger, Gay wrote, “This is what most girls are taught—that we should be slender and small. We should not take up space. We should be seen and not heard, and if we are seen, we should be pleasing to men, acceptable to society. And most women know this, that we are supposed to disappear, but it’s something that needs to be said, loudly, over and over again, so that we can resist surrendering to what is expected of us.”
Bucking those expectations is not easy. And yet, for all the bad news, for all the statistics, there are the success stories. There are the people who love their bodies or at least accept them. There are the people who have struggled and have come out on the other side. So what’s the difference between them and people who tear themselves down?
It may come down to how our brains work, says Kimberly J. Ujcich Ward, PhD, a professor in the department of psychology at Middle Tennessee State University who specializes in body image and children.
“Research with individuals with anorexia and bulimia suggests that certain brain areas seem to be negatively impacted in those who inaccurately perceive their bodies and/or are dissatisfied, especially the parietal lobe (somatosensory cortex),” Ward explains. “Recent research across medicine and psychology (especially neuropsychology) [has] been working to try to more clearly define the brain–behavior relations and to evaluate the neuropsychological and body image connections over time.”
Other risk factors for body image concerns include biological ties to someone who has struggled with mental illness, especially an eating disorder, and living with conditions that are diet controlled, such as diabetes. A parent’s difficult relationship with their own body image—particularly a mother’s—can also heighten your risk, especially if they are vocal about it in your presence.
Your risk of developing an eating disorder also jumps if you identify as LGBTQ, have a history of dieting, have suffered from weight-related teasing or bullying, or struggle with an anxiety disorder.

Positive or Negative?

The facts and figures sound daunting, but body image can and does go either way. There are hundreds of thousands of women (and men) out there who love their bodies.
Nor is every single bad thought about yourself proof that you’re doomed. Simply feeling like you don’t look good in a v-neck shirt at the mall is not a sign you’re going to have an eating disorder. Nor is it symbolic of “negative body image.”
“Negative body image is a distorted perception of your shape—you perceive parts of your body unlike they really are,” NEDA’s Smolar explains. “This can mean you are convinced that only other people are attractive and that your body size or shape is a sign of personal failure, you may feel ashamed, self-conscious, or anxious about your body, and you feel uncomfortable and awkward in your body.”
Positive body image, on the other hand, is what Smolar calls a “clear, true perception” of your shape.
“You see the various parts of your body as they really are,” she notes. “In addition, you celebrate and appreciate your natural body shape and you understand that a person’s physical appearance says very little about their character and value as a person.
“You feel proud and accepting of your unique body and do not spend large amounts of time worrying about food, weight, and calories and you feel comfortable and confident in your body.”
Clinicians tend to speak of the two sides of the coin in terms of satisfaction. There’s body satisfaction and there’s body dissatisfaction. Treating the latter means helping someone find their way toward the former. But as with anything else, there are degrees.
“It’s really important to note that even people with an overall positive body image can have plenty of critical thoughts or negative feelings about their bodies,” Solomon points out. “What’s more important is how much those thoughts and feelings take a front seat.”

Is there a better way for us?

It’s the push for overall positive body image that’s led to the body positivity movement, a grassroots effort that’s been gaining steam on the internet in recent years.
Linked to the fat acceptance movement, the trend dates back to the 1990s, but it’s social media that’s amplified voices from people who were long ignored by traditional media, people who don’t fit into the ideals once favored by mainstream magazines.
Instagram is now home to hashtags such as #LoveYourBody and #EffYourBeautyStandards. Bring them up on your phone, and you’ll find not dozens or even thousands but millions of images from people working out, showing off bodies in a variety of sizes and colors, and proudly proclaiming their confidence. Alongside them are photo sites like the 4th Trimester Bodies Project that allow women to celebrate their changing bodies in the wake of pregnancy.
Simply looking to them may be a way to find our own sense of peace with our bodies, Solomon says.
“We can learn some wonderful things from people who have a good relationship with their bodies,” she explains. “Our research has started to pay more attention to these people in recent years to determine just what we can learn. People that have a positive body image tend to see their bodies as functional—they help serve a purpose and a greater good. They tend to treat their bodies well by fueling them with regular meals and water, getting enough sleep, and moving regularly. They are grateful for the gifts that their bodies give them, like carrying a child or running a race.”
Another key facet of body positivity comes in embracing change. People who have high rates of body satisfaction tend to recognize that their bodies will change, be it over time or through different experiences. They accept it and often embrace it.
That is important, Solomon says.
“Body acceptance doesn’t mean loving every nook and cranny of our bodies or always feeling happy with the way that we look,” she points out. “It means deciding that you will stop fighting against yourself and actively commit to treating your body well.”
Solomon calls it body peace—making a truce with your own body and accepting the status quo.
“We don’t have to like each other, but we have to co-exist and show respect!” she says. “Body peace starts with some important basics—dropping the punishment and nourishing your body well. For me, just getting enough rest is an important way that I cultivate body peace. Practicing gratitude can also be an opportunity to build a stronger awareness of all that your body allows you to do.”
Author Lindy West is known for fighting the internet’s body shaming and calling out the concept of the perfect body as a lie. Coming to love her body, however, is not a perfect process either.
As she put it in her memoir, Shrill, “I hate being fat. I hate the way people look at me, or don’t. I hate being a joke; I hate the disorienting limbo between too visible and invisible; I hate the way that complete strangers waste my life out of supposed concern for my death. I hate knowing that if I did die of a condition that correlates with weight, a certain subset of people would feel their prejudices validated, and some would outright celebrate. I also love being fat. The breadth of my shoulders makes me feel safe. I am unassailable. I intimidate. I am a polar icebreaker. I walk and climb and lift things, I can open your jar, I can absorb blows—literal and metaphorical—meant for other women, smaller women, breakable women, women who need me. My bones feel like iron—heavy, but strong.”
There’s no magic pill to get us to that point. But Solomon likes to say that our bodies are vehicles for our values.
“How can we show kindness to them so that we can do the things we love and be the people we want to be?” she asks. “It can be easy to fall into the trap of believing that we’ll love and appreciate our bodies a few less pounds from now, or if we were a few inches taller, or if that skin cream works a little harder. I see my patients fall prey to a lot of the industries that profit off of all us hating our bodies and selves. It’s hard not to, especially when they invest billions in convincing us that we are not quite good enough. But we are good enough, even without any special creams or diet foods.”

What if I don’t love my body?

Okay. So loving your body is good, even when you can’t do it all the time. But if you’re not there yet, that doesn’t mean you need to feel left out in the cold.
“Being an advocate of positive body image doesn’t always mean loving your body 100 percent of the time,” Solomon says.
Instead, it means creating an environment in which all body types are embraced and valued. To that end, she advises people to:

  • Stay away from discussions that talk about food or weight in a negative light, such as avoiding discussions of food as “bad” or “good”
  • Refrain from talking about calories
  • Not comment on weight loss or gain for yourself or others
  • Engage in “media literacy,” thinking critically about the appearance-related media messages you see, hear, and read

Finally, don’t buy into the hype that a “perfect” body type will solve your problems.
“Everyone is different, and genetics can influence one’s body shape, weight, and size,” Solomon says. “One’s ideal body weight is the weight that allows you to feel strong and energetic rather than the size the media thinks is acceptable. If someone is struggling with their body image in a society that promotes an unattainable ideal, we encourage them to celebrate all the good things their body allows them to do and recognize that their self-esteem and identity comes from within.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with body image or an eating disorder, there is help available. Please call the National Eating Disorders Association’s toll-free hotline: 1-800-931-2237. 

Categories
Nutrition x Advice

From Supplements To Safe Home Recipes, Here’s What You Need To Know About Probiotics

Your gut doesn’t just tell you swiping right on Tinder after 2 a.m. is always a bad idea. Your gut is your body’s entire digestive tract. Its work begins the moment you open your mouth to take a bite and ends in the bathroom (where, let’s be honest, most Tinder swiping takes place).
The gut is actually a pretty complicated system: Food moves from your mouth through the esophagus into your stomach, where digestion occurs. Once food is digested, the contents of your stomach move into the small intestine, where amino acids, fats, and sugars are broken down and absorbed into the bloodstream. Any material left over is sent to the large intestine, where unabsorbed sugars and proteins are turned into energy. From there, what’s left in your large intestines solidifies and is excreted as your so-called morning constitutional.
Living inside the gut are probiotic bacteria, which help the digestive tract do its job.
But what exactly are probiotics?
Kara Landau, gut health expert and founder of Travelling Dietitian, explains:
“Probiotics are live microorganisms that line our gut and have a symbiotic relationship with us, the host. We have evolved together over the years, and require a healthy balance of good to bad bacteria in order to maintain a strong immune and digestive system.”
Grace Derocha, a registered dietitian, certified diabetes educator, and health coach at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, elaborates: “Probiotics help control the growth of harmful bacteria in the gut and help restore the balance of good bacteria affected by antibiotics and poor diet. They aid in the proper digestion of food, preventing issues like gas, bloating, cramps, diarrhea, or constipation.”
Gut microbes, like probiotics, are ultra-important to our overall health.
According to a resource hosted by Harvard Health Publishing, not only do gut microbes metabolize nutrients from food, protect against infection, and help prevent blood clots, they can also help prevent certain diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and heart disease from developing.
“What the science has shown is that the more diverse our gut microbiome is, the better,” says gut authority Mahmoud Ghannoum, PhD.

So how do probiotics play into gut health?

Jaimi Jansen, a holistic nutritionist, breaks it down this way:
“The human body has thousands of bacterial cultures that live in the large intestine, the stomach, the skin, and the urethra amongst other places. Probiotics help promote good health and proper function in each of these areas. Communities of microorganisms found in parts of the human body are known as flora. The gut flora, for example, refers to the many microorganisms that live in the digestive tract.”
Jansen goes on to say, “Some antibiotics—which kill gut flora—can disturb the microbial balance and leave the body prone to infections. Maintaining a well-balanced microbial environment is extremely important to good health.”
In addition to overall wellness, probiotics can also play a significant role in weight management.
“When it comes to weight loss specifically, while we aren’t aware of probiotics specifically proven to reduce weight, there is a growing body of evidence showing that people that are overweight have different levels of different germs than people who are not overweight. That seems to indicate that our microbiome does play some role when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight,” says Ghannoum.
Problems in the gut can often arise because the ratio of good to bad bacteria gets out of whack.
According to an article by Rebecca Lee, a registered nurse from New York City and founder of the natural health resource RemediesForMe.com, “At times our beneficial microbes are accidentally wiped out by external factors that are intended to get rid of only the bad bacteria.”
Lee breaks down the most common culprits of bacterial imbalance in the gut as follows:

Antibiotics

Antibiotics can be introduced into our systems both as prescriptions and from animal food sources since antibiotics are sometimes used to treat animals—giving them an opportunity to find their way into milk, meat, poultry, and fish products.
Antibiotics are used to combat a bacterial infection, hence their name. However, once they’re in the body, antibiotics can’t tell which bacteria are good and which are bad, which means, depending on the dose, the antibiotics in your system may wipe out all the bacteria your system needs to function properly.

Recent Surgeries

Not only are gut-disrupting antibiotics routinely given during surgery, but anesthesia can also have a negative effect on gut health. That’s because anesthesia can paralyze your digestive track, which stops probiotic bacteria from doing its job and allows the bad bacteria to take over.

Colon Cleanses

Unless you’re scheduled for a colonoscopy, a colon cleanse is never a good idea. Not only is it like the worst diarrhea of your life times a million, but it wipes out the good and bad bacteria from your gut, wreaking havoc on your digestive system.

Too Much Fiber

Yes, you need fiber as part of a well-balanced diet. Fiber can help control weight and prevent certain health conditions like heart disease and diabetes. But too much fiber can be bad for your digestive health. According to the website GutSense.org, when you get too much fiber in your diet, “the intestines are colonized with symbiotic bacteria (normal intestinal flora), which are essential for many health-sustaining functions. Normally, mucin—a component of mucus—provides bacteria with the nutrients they need. But when fiber—soluble as well as insoluble—reaches the lower intestine, the bacteria go wild, ferment everything in sight, and multiply prodigiously.”

Stress

It’s no secret that mental health plays a huge role in how you feel physically. The physical manifestations of stress, like muscle aches, fatigue, and an upset stomach can then exacerbate the stress you’re feeling, leading to a terrible cycle. An estimated 90 percent of serotonin is created by good gut bacteria, so when you’re stressed, the amount of serotonin (the feel-good hormone) that the body releases is drastically reduced, and bad bacteria can take over.
Osteopathic physician and cofounder of DrFormulas Bryan Tran says that boosting probiotic intake not only helps manage stress, but can aid in weight management as well:
“Through their effect on mood, probiotics may have a role in weight loss. Differences in diet also change the composition of probiotics in the gut which can then affect mood and appetite. Obese individuals also have a higher level of inflammation in the body. Probiotics …  are able to lower systemic levels of inflammation and dampen the inflammatory response, which could support weight loss.”

Where can I get these magical micro-organisms?

Ideally, probiotics will come from your regular diet rather than probiotic supplements.
One of the best ways to get your daily dose of probiotics is through fermented foods, which naturally contain probiotic bacteria.
“Fermented foods were some of man’s first probiotic supplements and are still effective choices today for helping introduce healthy bacteria into the body,” says Elizabeth Trattner, an acupuncture physician.
That’s because [linkbuilder id=”6838″ text=”fermented foods”] often contain lactobacillus, a common probiotic strain of lactic acid bacteria that can help alleviate diarrhea and fight infection.
If you feel your gut health isn’t up to snuff, you can change your diet to make sure you’re getting right amount of probiotics in your system.
Tran recommends these probiotic-rich foods:

Brine Cured Olives

Olives are a great source of probiotics because the brine, which is simply a saltwater mixture, ferments the olives, loading them with lactobacillus probiotic bacteria. Not only are olives great for gut health, they are also one of the most nutrient-dense foods available, full of antioxidants and healthy fats.

Cultured Veggies

Similar to olives, cultured vegetables like sauerkraut and kimchi are fermented using a saltwater process, which allows lactic acid bacteria to multiply naturally. In addition to probiotics, sauerkraut and kimchi are great additions to your regular diet because they are full of vitamin C. Kimchi in particular has been used for centuries in Korean culture as a regular menu staple and is now readily available in many grocery stores.

Cultured Dairy Products

Kefir, a fermented milk drink, contains thousands of probiotics as a result of the fermentation process. In addition to its probiotic benefits, the fermentation process involved in making kefir helps break down lactose, so even if you have a lactose intolerance, you may be able to enjoy kefir.
Yogurt is another cultured dairy product that contains probiotics, but you have to be especially careful when purchasing yogurt in the grocery store, as not all yogurts contain probiotics. When shopping for yogurts containing probiotics, look for packaging that includes a seal from the National Yogurt Association. If yogurts claim to contain live probiotic cultures but do not have the seal, read the ingredients on the back. If the yogurt contains probiotics, they will be listed there.

Kombucha

Kombucha is a black tea and sugar mixture that has been fermented using a bacteria and yeast culture. As the tea ferments, the bacteria and yeast grow thousands of probiotics. While kombucha is having a moment right now, it’s definitely an acquired taste as the sour flavor make take some getting used to.

Tempeh

Tempeh is a meat substitute made of fermented soybeans, but unlike many of the other foods Tran recommends, it has a rich nutty taste. Tempeh is different from its cousin tofu because it derives its probiotic goodness from the fermentation process it undergoes. Tofu, unlike tempeh, is a [linkbuilder id=”6839″ text=”processed soy”] product that does not contain probiotics.

Opting to Supplement

If you’re a picky eater or you have dietary restrictions that prevent you from eating some of the probiotic-rich foods on this list, you can still get beneficial gut flora from probiotic supplements.
Before purchasing a probiotic supplement, do your homework. There are thousands of different strains of probiotics, and some are better than others at helping to manage certain gut issues. For example, a probiotic that helps alleviate diarrhea may not the be same probiotic that will help relieve constipation.
Additionally, Lee recommends “buying from a reputable brand that contain[s] strains like bacillus coagulans, lactobacillus rhamnosus, lactobacillus acidophilus, saccharomyces boulardii, bacillus subtilis, or other longer-surviving probiotic[s]. You want probiotics that will survive past your stomach.”

Can I make my own probiotics?

Absolutely!
Making your own fermented probiotic foods is easy, especially since the fermentation process kills most harmful organisms that might otherwise contaminate food. Still, contamination can happen, so make sure to practice good food safety, which means washing all fruits and veggies, sterilizing storage containers prior to use, and allowing food to ferment at the right temperatures.
Ready to make your own probiotics at home?
Lee shares her two favorite probiotic recipes:

Kombucha

You’ll need:

  • A large pot
  • A coffee filter
  • Large glass jars for storage

Ingredients:

  • 2 gallons of water
  • 8 black tea bags
  • 1 ½ cups organic sugar
  • SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Yeast and Bacteria)*

Instructions:

  • Heat 2 gallons of water in a big pot with 8 black tea bags.
  • Add 1 ½ cups of organic sugar to the tea and boil about 15 minutes on low heat.
  • Turn the heat off and let liquid cool completely.
  • Once it’s cooled, carefully pour the tea into a glass jar that contains the SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Yeast and Bacteria).
  • Place a coffee filter or paper towel over the top of the jar and keep closed with a rubber band.
  • Let the jar sit somewhere in the kitchen that is warm and not in direct sunlight for seven to 10 days.
  • Pour and enjoy!

*It’s easy to make your own SCOBY from scratch. Here’s a great tutorial from Emma Christensen at The Kitchn.

Yogurt with Active Probiotics

A note from Lee: “This type of yogurt is good for people with slight lactose intolerance. The majority of the lactose (milk sugar) is converted into strong probiotic cultures. Make sure to mix or scoop out the curd with plastic spoons and not metal spoons.”

You’ll need:

  • A bowl
  • Saran wrap

Ingredients:

  • 4 Tbsp. curd or dahi—also known as Indian yogurt
  • 1 cup organic milk

Instructions:

  • Add the milk to the curd in a bowl and cover gently with saran wrap.
  • Let the mixture sit on the kitchen counter undisturbed and out of direct sunlight for 6 to 8 hours. After a few hours, if it is still not as firm as soft yogurt, let it sit out for longer.
  • Enjoy your yogurt!