The crock-pot has earned a reputation as the lazy cook’s best friend, but it can also be an athlete’s secret weapon. Just ask , a classically trained chef and former triathlete whose high-quality performance food can all be prepared in a crock-pot, sometimes also known as a slow cooker. Based in Boulder, Colorado, Alexis also works as a culinary consultant for brands like and , so she’s intimately familiar with endurance fuel. Besides flavor and nutrition, most athletes prefer their fuel to be efficient. Enter the crock-pot.

Though it’s an incredibly simple kitchen tool, there are a few tips to remember before whipping out the crock-pot. First and foremost, keep the lid closed. It might be tempting to sneak a peek at how your food is looking throughout the day, but releasing the heat trapped inside even for a minute can push back your cooking time. Secondly, if you have a tiny bit of time beforehand (this tip isn’t for everyone) brown your meat ahead of time so the juices are sealed inside the cut. And lastly, don’t overfill the crock-pot!

Her go-to dish—a savory porridge—is the ultimate low-maintenance meal. And making it in a slow cooker means you can get it started before taking off for a long training day. The porridge features healthy fats, protein, salt, and both fast- and slow-digesting carbs, and the mild flavor means you can top it with whatever you’re craving. “Throw on a couple eggs and vegetables for dinner. Or cook it overnight with almond milk, add fruit and seeds, and it’s breakfast,” Alexis says.

Miso and Maple Grain Bowls

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In his new book, , Michael Easter investigates the connection between modern comforts and conveniences and some of our most pressing problems, like heart disease, diabetes, depression, and a sense of purposelessness. Turns out, engaging with a handful of evolutionary discomforts can dramatically improve our mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. One of those fruitful discomforts? Thinking about dying.

Death has always been the most uncomfortable fact of life. And as modern medicine, comforts, and conveniences have given us more years, we’ve seemingly become less and less comfortable with life’s only guarantee. Roughly seven out of ten Westerners they feel uncomfortable with death. Only of people over 65 have considered how they want to die.

After someone dies we’re encouraged to stay busy to take our mind off it. A dead person’s body is immediately covered and sent to a mortician where it is prepared to look as youthful and alive as possible before one final, hour-long viewing, after which it is dropped into the ground of a perfectly manicured cemetery.

But new research is showing that death awareness is good for us. For example, had one group of people think about a painful visit to the dentist and the other contemplate their death. The death thinkers afterward said they were more happy and fulfilled in life. The scientists concluded, “death is a psychologically threatening fact, but when people contemplate it, apparently the automatic system begins to search for happy thoughts.”

The country of Bhutan has made it part of its national curriculum to think about death anywhere from one to three times daily. The understanding that we’re all going to die is hammered into Bhutan’s collective conscience, and death is part of everyday life. Ashes of the dead are mixed with clay and molded into small pyramids, called tsa tsas, and placed along heavily trafficked areas like roadsides, in window sills, and public squares and parks. Bhutanese arts often center around death; paintings of vultures picking the flesh from corpses, dances that reenact dying. Funerals are a 21-day event where the dead body “lives” in its house before being slowly cremated over fragrant juniper trees in front of hundreds of friends and relatives.

All of this death is doing anything but bumming out the Bhutanese. Despite being ranked the 134th most developed nation on earth, extensive studies conducted by Japanese researchers have found that Bhutan is among the world’s 20 happiest countries. But what you probably don’t know is how morbidity contributes to their feelings of happiness. And neither did I.

After four flights across 48 hours, 14 time zones, and 9,465 miles, I stepped off an aging 737 onto a runway 7,333 feet above sea level at Bhutan’s Paro International Airport. THE thin air filled my lungs as the sun illuminated the surrounding snow-capped Himalayan foothills. I was there to find out how Bhutan’s uncomfortable intimacy with death might improve my life—and maybe yours too.

I’d arranged to meet with a host of characters, including government leaders who study happiness in Bhutan. But the most compelling men I met with were both leaders in the Buddhist faith.

The first was Khenpo Phuntsho Tashi. He knows as much about death as a living human can. He’s one of Bhutan’s leading Buddhist thinkers, and he’s found a niche in the study of death and dying. The Khenpo is the author of a 250-page book called “The Fine Art of Living and Manifesting a Peaceful Death.” And unlike many of Bhutan’s monks, the Khenpo is intimately familiar with what ails people in the West. Before he dedicated himself to his spiritual practice he lived in Atlanta, with a girlfriend who was the Dalai Lama’s translator. He, I thought, would be able to get to the heart and consequences of the West’s fear of death.

My boots kicked up a low-hanging dust as the Khenpo’s cliff-side shack came into view. It was wooden, tin-roofed, and in the shadow of Dakarpo. Dakarpo is an ancient Buddhist monastery built on an outcropping that overlooks the Shaba valley. Fifteen or so people walked clockwise around the white, fortress-like monastery. They chanted as they carefully stepped around its rocky terrain. Bhutanese mythology says a person will be cleared of all of his or her sins by circumventing the Dakarpo 108 times. Each lap takes roughly 25 minutes. The full 108 takes most pilgrims about four full days, a relatively small fee for absolute absolution.

The scent of burning incense crawled into my nose as I peeled back the heavy orange embroidered silk drape leading into the Khenpo’s room. Light was entering the room through a hazy window, catching smoke. It obscured a small altar anchored by a three-foot statue of the Buddha. Around it were smaller Buddhist statues, photographs, and burning sticks of champa. Through the smoke I saw the profile of a face. It was the Khenpo.

“Welcome,” said the Khenpo, his voice a heavily accented butter. I bowed and sat. “You want to talk about death?”

I nodded. “Hmmmm,” he said. His chest slowly rose and fell in the silence.

“You Americans are usually ignorant,” he said, using a word often seen as an insult in the United States, but that by definition means “lacking awareness.” In Bhutan and other Buddhist countries, “ignorance” is the rough English translation of “Avidyā.” That’s a that means having a misunderstanding of the true nature of your reality and the truth of your impermanence. “Most Americans are unaware of how good you have it, and so many of you are miserable and chasing the wrong things.

“You act like life is fulfilling a checklist. ‘I need to get a good wife or husband, then I get a good car, then I get a good house, then I get a promotion, then I get a better car and a better house and I make a name for myself and then 
’” he rattled off more accomplishments that fulfill the American Dream. “But this plan will never materialize perfectly. And even if it does, then what? You don’t settle, you add more items to the checklist. It is the nature of desire to get one thing and immediately want the next thing, and this cycle of accomplishment and acquisitions won’t necessarily make you happy—if you have ten pairs of shoes you want 11 pairs.”

The Khenpo then pointed out that by pursuing this checklist, we’re often forced into acts that take us away from that higher reality and happiness. He was echoing a sentiment shared among many leaders in the tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism. Sogral Rinpoche in his 1992 work The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying called this checklist phenomenon “Western laziness.” It consists of “cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues 
 If we look into our lives, we will see clearly how many unimportant tasks, so-called ‘responsibilities’ accumulate to fill them up 
 Going on as we do, obsessively trying to improve our conditions, can become an end in itself and a pointless distraction.”

The average American works 47 hours a week. Our entrepreneurs and “productivity gurus” preach that a “grind” and “shut up and work harder” mentality is the secret to satisfaction. This upset in our work/life balance—or, perhaps, our problem integrating our work into our life and not the other way around—factors into why other research has shown that America is, in fact, less happy than it was decades ago.

“So this checklist plan does not make you truly happy. Then what?” said the Khenpo. He was silent. Left it open for me to ponder.

“I don’t know. I’m an ignorant American,” I said and smiled.

“Then you could be happier!” he responded with a chuckle. “Whereas if you understand this cycle and nature of mind and you prioritize mindfulness then everything will be ok. Even if you don’t become rich. Fine, you’re mindful. Even if you don’t get a perfect wife? Fine, you’re mindful.”

Ah, yes. “Mindfulness.” That squishy, what-the-fuck-does-that-even-mean word that’s so hot in America today but has, in fact, been a part of Eastern traditions since before Christ. It’s roughly defined as purposefully paying attention to what’s happening in the present moment without judgment, according to Jon Kabat Zinn, a profes-sor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and pioneer of mindfulness in the Western world. In other words, it’s being aware of what’s going on upstairs.

The Khenpo made mindfulness sound akin to jamming a stick into the spokes of the checklist and developing a state of okayness. In other words, whether I’m rich or poor or famous or a nobody, I should avoid becoming caught up in the narratives my mind spits out and just accept the direction of things. This will help me go beyond the checklist and be just fine.

The woman who took me through the cleansing ritual entered the room. She placed a plate of sliced cucumbers and mandarin wedges on the floor between the Khenpo and me. “All organic!,” he said and grabbed a spear of cucumber. It crunched as he bit into it.

“Well, the Bhutanese, we also have ignorance, anger, and attachment. We have the same problems of the checklist. But I think less. This is because we apply what we call mindfulness of the body. We remember that everyone is dying right now,” said the Khenpo. “Everyone will die. You are not singled out. Do you know this? To not think of death and not prepare for it 
 this is the root of ignorance.”

Pretend you are walking along a trail, he explained, and there is a cliff in 500 yards. The catch: The cliff is death and we will all walk off it. “Buddha died. Jesus died. You will die. I will die. I would like to die on that bed,” said the Khenpo, pointing to a twin mattress on the floor.

“Don’t you want to know that there’s a cliff?” he asked. Because only then can we change our course. We could take a more scenic route, notice the beauty of the trail before it ends, say the things we truly want to say to the people we’re walking it with.

“When you start to understand that death is coming, that the cliff is coming, you see things differently. You change your mental course—you naturally become more compassionate and mindful,” said the Khenpo. “But Americans, they don’t want to hear about the cliff. They don’t think about death. After a funeral, they want to get their mind off the death and just eat cake. The Bhutanese, they want to know about the cliff and they will be happy to talk about death and ruin the cake eating.”

“So remember,” he continued. He was able to sustain the perfect upright lotus position while I was slumping and couldn’t feel my legs. “We are all dying right now. To develop this mindfulness of death you have to think of Mitakpa.”

“Mitakpa?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Mitakpa.”

Before I could probe the Khenpo on Mitakpa—what it is and what it might be able to do—his time was up and I was back in Dorji’s hatchback. We were like bouncy balls in the seats as gravity aggressively pulled the car over all the rocks and ruts that once thwarted us. As we descended I asked, “Dorji, what is mitakpa?” He looked at me and shook his head. “Mi-tak-pa,” I said.

“Ołó. Mitakpa,” he replied, pronouncing the word less like an ignorant American. “Takpa ‘permanent,’” he said. “Mi ‘no.’ Mitakpa ‘no permanent.’”

I began to ask him to explain further, but a Bhutanese traffic jam interrupted me. A herd of seven bulls and cows ambled up the one-lane road. Dorji pressed into the brake to slow the car to a crawl. The half-ton animals lazily parted around us. Their bells clanked as they slid down the length of the hatchback.

The next day, I headed into an apartment in the city of Thimpu to meet Lama Damcho Gyeltshen. He doesn’t ponder death in any abstract sense—he experiences it every day. He’s the head Lama at the Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital, the main hospital in Bhutan. It’s there that he councils the dying. After the Khenpo elucidated the problem and hinted at some solution, the Lama, I figured, might be able to expand.

The Lama was sitting on a platform that was covered in silk meditation pads. He hopped off of it as we entered. He and I shook hands and did a lot of smiling and nodding. He was bald, short, and doughy, with wire-framed glasses. His bright white smile popped against his blaze orange robes. He sat back atop the platform, in the lotus, while Jigme and I sat on the floor. Jigme explained what I was there to talk about. Death, dying, and the Bhutanese death complex.

“Well first I’d like to thank you for coming and reminding me of death because it is important for the mind,” said the Lama. His words, naturally, set me up to ask why.

“When people come into my hospital there is a chance they leave,” he said. “But there is also a high chance they do not leave. My job is to help people prepare for death. I have found that the people who have not thought about death are the ones who have regrets on their deathbeds. Because they have not used a necessary tool that could have made them live a fuller life.” An American study conducted across various hospitals like the Yale Cancer Center, Dana -Farber Cancer Institute, and Massachusetts General Hospital supports this notion. It found that dying patients who had open conversations about their death experienced better quality of life in the weeks and months leading to their passing, as judged by their family members and nurse practitioners.

“The mind is afflicted with many delusions. But they come down to three,” continued the Lama. “And those are greed, anger, and ignorance. When your mind is not taken care of these three things have an advantage. The dying people I council 
 they suddenly do not care about getting famous, or their car or watch, or working more. They don’t care about the things that once angered them.” In other words: When a person realizes death is imminent, their checklist and everyday bullshit becomes irrelevant and their mind begins to center on that which makes it happy. Research from Australia found that the top regrets of the dying include not living in the moment, working too often, and living a life the person thinks they should rather than one they truly want to.

“Whereas those who have thought of their death and prepared for it,” said the Lama, “they do not have those regrets. Because they have often not fallen so much into those delusions. They have lived in the moment. Maybe they have accomplished a lot. Maybe they have not. But regardless it has not affected their happiness as much 
” He expanded on this phenomenon, explaining that a sort of cosmic psychic shift often occurs in the dying. It brings them closer to the things that matter in the end. A living person who thinks of dying will, yes, initially face mental discomfort, but they’ll emerge on the other side having stolen a bit of this end-of-life magic.

“What is mitakpa?” I asked. “Someone told me it translates to ‘no permanent
’”

“Close. Mitakpa is impermanence,” said the Lama. He raised an arm and finger, like a professor making a point. “Impermanence, impermanence, impermanence.” This, he said, is the cornerstone of Buddhist teachings. Nothing lasts and, therefore, nothing can be held onto. By trying to hold on to that which is changing, like our life itself, we ultimately end up suffering. Buddha’s final words were on impermanence, a reminder that all things die. “All things change. Whatever is born is subject to decay
” he said. “All individual things pass away.”

“It’s important to preserve this precious understanding of mitakpa in your mind. It will significantly contribute to your happiness,” said the Lama. He echoed the Khenpo’s sentiment. He explained that not thinking of mitakpa often leads a person to believe that “things will be better when I do X.” Or with a false sense of permanence that causes a person to put off the things they truly want to do because “I can do that when I retire.”

“But when you understand that nothing is permanent you cannot help but follow a better, happier path,” he said. “It calms your mind. You tend not to get overly excited, angry, or critical. With this principle, people interact with others and it improves their relationships. They become more grateful and gratuitous. Because they realize all their material goods and status will not matter in the end.” And not just in Bhutan. A study in Psychological Science discovered that people who thought about their death were more likely to show concern for people around them. They did things like donating time, money, and even their blood to blood banks.

“How often should I be thinking about mitakpa?” I asked.

“You must think of mitakpa three times each day. Once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening. You must be curious about your death. You must understand you don’t know how you will die or where you will die. Just that you will die. And that death can come at any time,” he said. “The ancient monks would remind themselves of this every time they left their meditation cave. I, too, remind myself of this every time I walk out my front door.”

We talked for a half-hour more about death and his work at the hospital. Then it was time for me to leave.

“Remember,” said the Lama as we were saying goodbye. “Death can come at any time. Any time.”

The next day I spent the morning hiking five steep miles to Paro Taksang, “The Tiger’s Nest,” a sacred 15th-century Buddhist monastery built in the traditional Bhutanese Dzong style. The monastery sits at 10,240 feet above sea level and clings to a cliff like a reptile on a vertical wall. It’s the location where in the eighth century Padmasambhava, a man considered the “Second Buddha,” meditated in a tiger-filled cave for three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours.

I’d come to see the monastery’s famous artwork, much of which depicts death. It holds various images and statues of, for example, Mahakala, a protector god whose crown is ringed with skulls and whose sash is strung with severed heads. His Sanskrit name translates to “beyond time” or, more simply, “death.”

As I exited the monastery and put my shoes back on, Dorji, my driver (Bhutanese law requires all tourists to hire a guide and a driver 
 my guide had conked out due to the altitude), hurriedly approached me. “Someone sick,” he said in his broken English. He pointed up the trail, to a set of steep stairs cut from a cliff that lead up to a small meditation hut next to a waterfall. Towards the top of the steps, a group of people huddled. They were all wearing either traditional Bhutanese ghos or monk robes. Dorji jogged towards the group. I followed. As I quickly stepped up the thin stairs I could see feet hanging from the edge of the steps.

A monk—bald head, thin glasses, maroon robes—was down on the steps, unconscious. I recalled some basic emergency wilderness training I took and checked his spine for signs of fracture. Nothing. A general understanding arose within the group. The man needed to be moved to flat ground so he could be airlifted out.

The stairs were too steep and thin for a group carry. So we carefully propped the monk onto the back of the largest driver, who hoofed him down the steps. With the help of the group, he laid the monk onto a flat grass patch along the cliffside trail.

The monk’s eyes were rolled back as if he was scrutinizing the brain above them. “I’m going to do CPR,” I slowly told the group. They only partially understood me. As I knelt in front of him two tiny women, a mother and daughter who were both doctors in Hong Kong, were suddenly at my side. They were hiking to the monastery when they walked into this scene.

They pressed their fingers to the man’s neck to check vitals and agreed that CPR was needed. These two were surely better trained. But I was the only person with any training who was also large enough to optimally execute CPR on the 200-pound monk.

I tore open his robe, revealing a gold t-shirt. I dug my knees into the dirt, overlapped my hands, and placed the heel of my right hand on the monk’s sternum. Then I began hammering into his chest; 100 beats a minute as the daughter doctor began a timer.

I was unsure of the cultural implications of giving a monk mouth-to-mouth. So the younger Hong Kong doctor quickly instructed one of the other monks, a woman, on how to do it. She breathed into him, repeatedly pushing air into his lungs. Then I was back to compressing his chest.

“Time is 10:26,” said the daughter. A crowd had formed around us, and a driver who was on the phone stepped into the group. “Helicopter cannot come,” he told us. There was nowhere to land, and the cliffs were too close for an airlift.

The daughter checked the monk’s vitals. She shook her head. I continued pressing. Pressing, pressing, as hard as I could, thinking that if I could push hard enough it might kickstart his heart. We hit the fifteen-minute mark. His face was distant. “20 minutes 11 seconds,” said the doctor. “You can stop.” He was gone.

Here was a man who just minutes ago had hiked five steep miles. And he was joking and laughing and talking with friends along the way. Death can come at any time.

čó°ùŽÇłŸÌęTHE COMFORT CRISIS: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self,Ìęby MichaelÌęEaster. Copyright © 2021 by MichaelÌęEaster. Published by Rodale Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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Despite some initial hesitations, Petri HollmĂ©n had a hell of an Austrian ski trip. He and nine friends spent a textbook mountain weekend in St. Anton in early March, hammering the slopes by day, enjoying lagers and schnitzel by night. Sure, coronavirusÌęwas a thingÌęin EuropeÌęthen. But the data showed thatÌęinfectionsÌęwere mostly centered in northern Italy. There were supposedly only 20 or so cases in Austria’sÌęentire 750,000-person Tyrol region. So why not ski?

“I didn’t notice anyone sneezing or coughing on my flights or on the chairlift. I used hand sanitizer and washed my hands like never before,” says HollmĂ©n, a fitÌę40-year oldÌęFinnish entrepreneur. (Picture Bode Miller with a Finnish accent.) “I got home Sunday evening, and by Tuesday, I heard that the area inÌęTyrol I was in was declared .”

HollmĂ©n worked from home the next day out of precaution, even though he “felt totally fine,” he says. Thursday, too. But that morning, his Ìęfitness tracker—which gives wearers a dailyÌę“readiness” scoreÌębased on their level of recovery—displayed an oddity. “My score was 54,” he says. “For meÌęthat is very, very low. I’m usually in the eightiesÌęand nineties.” Part of the reason HollmĂ©n’s score was so low wasÌęthat his body temperature, which the ring measures along withÌęother biometrics like heart-rate variabilityÌęand respiratory rate to formulate that readiness score, was about two degrees higher than usual throughout the night.Ìę

“I still felt fine, and I tested myself with a thermometer in the morning, and my body temperature was normal,” he says.ÌęHollmĂ©nÌęwas going to shrug theÌętemperature anomalyÌęoff,ÌębutÌęhis wife, a medical researcher,Ìętold him to check in with his doctor. “They had me come in for a test. The doctors came out with these space suits on and stuck a cotton stick up my nose,” he says. “And they called me back after an hour or two and said I was COVID positive.”Ìę

Experiences like HollmĂ©n’sÌęare leading some wearables companies to partner with research institutions around the world. Eleven days after HollmĂ©n received his test results, as states were locking down and 43,000 Americans tested positive, Oura ring users were posedÌęa question on the company’s app: Would you like to participate in a University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) study using Oura ring data to predict COVID-19?ÌęOver 40,000 users and 3,000 frontline health care workers have since signed up (the health care workers received OuraÌęrings for free as part of the study). Each dayÌęthey report any symptoms and whether they’ve knowingly come in contact with an infected person.Ìę

Oura and other fitness-tracking companies, like ÌęandÌę, think body-temperature, breathing, and heart-rate data from their devicesÌęcan do more than assessÌęrecovery and improveÌęfitness—theyÌęmight also help users know when they’re getting sickÌędays before they do. And with that information, perhaps they wouldn’t go out to the grocery store and get close to others. Or visit an older relative. Or decide to go for a long run, which could potentially dampen their immune system enough to give the virusÌęan upper hand. If enough people were using trackers, public-health institutions could even use the data to create a sort of infectious disease “weather map” that alerts the public about trends in diseases like the coronavirus.

Many of the study’sÌęscientists were already using trackers in other research projects, but the focus shifted as COVID-19 tipped into a pandemic. “The early data is very encouraging,” says Benjamin Smarr, a professor of data science and bioengineering at the University of California atÌęSan Diego, who is leading the Oura study along with UCSF colleagues. “We’re noticing things change at least a few days ahead of a fever in most cases. The data isÌęvery clear.” In fact, the data is so encouraging that both theÌę and theÌę having players wear fitness-tracking devices—Whoop bands for the former, Oura rings for the latter—to help detect COVID-19Ìęsymptoms as theyÌęstart to resume their seasons.Ìę

On April 8, West Virginia University’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute launched a similarÌęstudy. It’sÌęanalyzing Oura data from over 1,000 hospital workers in New York City, Philadelphia, and Nashville, Tennessee, andÌęaskingÌęthe workers to enter psychological and cognitive informationÌęaboutÌętheir stress, anxiety, memory, and moreÌęinto a separate app created by researchers. The lead researchers of theÌęstudy recently announced that the ring, paired with their app’s algorithm, could predict COVID-19 symptoms three days before they start to manifest.Ìę

Smarr’s study, in contrast, mainly tracks temperature data. “You tend to see daily temperature oscillations destabilize as the body begins to fight an infection,” says Smarr. SuchÌęchanges usually occur at night and are comparable to skirmishes—the body’s early, imperceptible warning shots as it begins to fight a virus. “A fever is not the start of the fight,” says Smarr. “Fever is when things have gotten serious and your body is going to total war.”Ìę

If a tracker could flag those skirmishes a few days in advance—which isÌęwhen unaware carriersÌęareÌęlikely to infect others,Ìębecause they have yet to be diagnosed withÌęCOVID-19 but are still contagious—users could change their behavior to avoid spreading the virus. “We haven’t really known whether wearables are useful in the field to inform public-health efforts or to inform individuals,” says Smarr. “They absolutely are.”Ìę

Previous studies have noted that activity trackers can beÌęirregularÌęwhen it comes toÌęcertain metrics. Researchers at Stanford, for example, Ìęthat calorie-burn data was in some cases off by as much as 93 percentÌęin the seven different trackers they tested. But more straightforward measurements, like temperature and heart and breathing rates, seem to be more reliable.ÌęThat same Stanford study, for example, showed that heart-rate data in six of the seven trackers wasÌęaccurate to within 5Ìępercent. And a recent small study conducted by researchers at Oura and the University of Oulu in Finland found that Oura’sÌędata on resting heart rate and heart-rate variabilityÌęwasÌęaccurate to within 0.01 to 1.6 percentÌęwhen compared to readings from a medical-grade ECGÌęmachine. Another small , this one published in May by Arizona StateÌęUniversity researchers, found that the WhoopÌędeviceÌęassesses breathing rate nearly as wellÌęas hospital devices.Ìę

In early April, WhoopÌępartnered with CQUniversityÌęin Australia and the Cleveland Clinic to launch a study lookingÌęto determine ifÌęchanges in respiratory rate could predict the infection. “COVID-19 is known to impair lung function and cause respiratory symptoms (shortness of breath, hypoxia, tachypnea), so respiratory rate was a pretty obvious target for us to base a study on,” Emily Capodilupo, vice president of data science and research at Whoop, wroteÌęin an email. Respiratory rate may beÌęa particularly good indicator to help detect the virus, Capodilupo says, because few things can cause a person’sÌęrespiratory rate to increase.ÌęWhoop that the 271-patientÌęstudyÌęfound that itsÌędevices were able to detect 20 percent of COVID-19Ìęcases two days prior to the onset of symptomsÌęand 80 percent of cases by the third day of symptoms. (While encouraging, it’s worth noting that the study has yet to be peer-reviewed.)ÌęBoth Duke and Stanford Universities are also currently conducting independent research to learn if they can predict COVID-19 through Garmin heart-rate data.

What makes theseÌętrackers compelling to researchers is that they constantly measure your body—day and night. This is different than, say, going to a doctor, who takes one measurement at one point in time.Ìę“You can think of it as analogous to your radio being on for one second a day versus all day,” says Smarr. “With just a second, all you know is that a signal is coming through. Leave it on all day, and you can hear music.” This means you can also notice an oddity that indicates an oncoming illness.

The field is promising, but don’t count on public-health salvation quite yet. Smarr says there won’t be one magic metric that will detect COVID-19 in anyone who has it. Human biology is intricate, and all data points must go through an intricateÌęset of algorithms. Those algorithms aren’t standardized and are still being figured out and tweaked by researchers.ÌęIt’ll take time—and lots of thinking on the part of Smarr and other researchers—to develop ones that can learnÌęhow different individuals react to a virus. “Unfortunately, the ‘there’s an app for that’ culture makes everyone think machine learning is magical. And it definitely struggles in the face of complex human biology,” says Smarr.

Oura will soonÌęsend participants antibody tests to confirmÌęwhether or not they’ve had COVID-19 during itsÌęstudy with UCSF. (Whoop will also release its preliminary data soon.) The resultsÌęwon’t guarantee the researchers completely accurate data—the that antibody tests can render false positives.ÌęStill,ÌęOura’s CEO says the virus has forced his company to pivot from personal fitness and recovery to personal and public wellness.Ìę

All the fitness-tracker companies mentioned in this story say they’re going to continue conducting more, bigger studies on different public-health topics,Ìęeven when COVID-19 is no longer a worldwide threat.ÌęSays Smarr: “This is a whole new way of approaching public health that we’ve never had before, that we now get to contemplate.”

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I thought I’d given up playing Army around age nine. But in July, I found myself alone at a high school track on the outskirts of Las Vegas, trying to pass the new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT).

I worked my way through five exercises: a set of three deadlifts, a behind-the-head medicine-ball throw, two minutes of hand-release push-ups (rest your torso on the ground and lift your hands at the bottom of each rep), a timed sprint-drag-carry, and pull-up leg tucks. The test wrapped up with a two-mile run. I hit a button on my stopwatch and sprinted into the Mojave Desert, finishing in 13 minutes 10 seconds. Each exercise is worth a maximum of 100 points, and I scored 547 out of 600. Not bad. For infantry the minimum to pass is 420. But the soldiers with the hardest jobs—Rangers, Night Stalkers, and Green Berets—often score close to 600, according to multiple sources within the military. To find out if I was Special Forces material, I hatched a plan to train for four weeks and crush the test.

The Army is currently experiencing a fitness crisis. New recruits are often in bad shape, and more than half of U.S. soldiers are injured each year, often because they grind through boot-camp workouts without formal exercise training. As a result, the branch is now rethinking its approach. Step one: overhaul the test.

The ACFT’s predecessor was established in the early 1980s and consisted of two minutes of push-ups, two minutes of sit-ups, and a two-mile run. It required no equipment and could be performed anywhere. “But it was only 40 percent predictive of how you’d perform in combat tasks,” says Army major general Lonnie Hibbard. The exercises simply didn’t translate to the physical realities of modern warfare. The new version of the test is about 80 percent predictive, he says, because it evaluates agility, explosive power, and upper- and lower-body strength, not just muscular endurance. By October 2020, all recruits will take the updated exam when they enlist and every six months after that. Top Army officials would also like to roll out new on-base gyms staffed by certified trainers. If a soldier fails the test at any time, they’ll be placed in a program to improve their fitness.

To prepare I called my friend Doug Kiessewetter, who serves in the Special Forces and helps run Soflete, a company that trains soldiers for Special Forces selection camps. When I mentioned the idea of a perfect score, he reined me in: “Your goal is to get the highest score possible, without getting injured.” Seeing my weak push-ups score, Kiessewetter assigned me a handful of exercises to build muscular endurance in my chest and arms and instructed me to practice the test’s other four exercises to build efficiency. Each week I did an easy five-mile run, keeping my heart rate below 150, and a day of intervals at the track. In total I was working out about five days a week. Come test day, I felt ready.

First up: the deadlifts. Three hundred pounds was easy, so I added 20 more to the bar—good enough for 98 points. (See “Test Yourself,” below.) I maxed out the medicine-ball throw, sprint-drag-carry, and hanging leg raises, and managed 40 push-ups before my arms felt like they were full of battery acid. I failed at 50, earning 90 points. Then I flew through the two miles in 12 minutes 29 seconds for a final score of 588. I might’ve kept on running to the recruiter’s office, but the endorphins wore off before I left the track.

Test Yourself

Here’s what it takes to pass the ACFT—or get a perfect score on each exercise.

Deadlift

Lift the heaviest weight you canÌęthree times.

Max (100 points): 340 pounds
Pass (70 points): 180 pounds

Power Throw

Launch a ten-pound medicine ballÌęover your head and behind you.

Max (100 points): 13.5 yards
Pass (70 points): 8.5 yards

Hand-Release Push-Ups

Perform as many reps as possible inÌętwo minutes.

Max (100 points): 70
Pass (70 points): 30

Sprint-Drag-Carry

For 50 meters each, sprint, dragÌę90 pounds, side-shuffle, farmer’s-carryÌę80 pounds, then sprint again.

Max (100 points): 1 minute 40 seconds
Pass (70 points): 2 minutes 9 seconds

Pull-Up Leg Tucks

While hanging from a pull-up bar, hoist yourself until your arms are at 90 degrees while bringing your knees into your chest, then lower. Complete as many as you can.

Max (100 points): 20
Pass (70 points): 5

Two-Mile Run

Finish as quickly as possible.

Max (100 points): 12 minutes 45 seconds
Pass (70 points): 18 minutes

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When I gave up caffeine, the first day was like a scene out of Trainspotting. Picture a grown man balled up on the couch, sweating in November, on the cusp of vomiting, head split right in two. Then a low-grade headache that lasted for a week set in. But I was also sleeping sounder and longer, and,Ìędespite a few mornings with a serious coffee craving,ÌęI felt better. I didn’t have as much of an afternoon slump, and I was less irritable—I wasÌęusing my carÌęhorn less, and I didn’t feel as annoyedÌęby things not going exactly how I planned. Within a few weeks,ÌęI’d lost four pounds. I’ve been off the stuff ever since.Ìę

Caffeine can indeed beÌęa great thing, but it can also work against you. Your experience with the drugÌędepends on your biology and how much of it you take in. Before I decided to give up caffeine for good, I was drinking upwardÌęof three cups a day. But conversations with people much smarter than myself—biochemists, nutritionists, sleep experts, neurologists—led to me to believe that I was overdoing it at a rate that was bad for my health, sleep, disposition, and performance.

When you’ve been mainlining caffeine for your entire adult life, it can be tricky to parse out how it impacts you. Start by analyzingÌęjust how much you’re consuming, then check in with your physical and mentalÌęstates. If you think it might be time for an intervention, here’s someÌęadvice on how to cut down.

How Much Are You Really Taking In?

of American adults ingest caffeine every day, and the average intake is about 300 milligrams, or roughly a medium-sizeÌęcoffee. The humbleÌę16-ounceÌęStarbucks drip coffee 310 milligrams. A 20-ounce light roast Ìęmilligrams. So if you’re downing multiple cups a day, you could be ingestingÌęnorth of 1,000 milligrams.

Anything over 400 milligrams a day can bring aboutÌęside effects like headaches, insomnia, an upset stomach, and anxiety, according to the, and of Americans drink that or more regularly. However, there isn’t a hard number that is unhealthy for everyone, says Maggie Sweeney, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute. Your response is likely influenced by your lifestyle and yourÌęgenes. , large amounts of caffeine can even increase the likelihood of having ministrokes (also calledÌętransient ischemic attacks), during which blood flow to your brain is briefly cut off, says Chris Winter, a neurologist and author of . “It’s really weird to see a 21-year-old who’s had lots of subtle vascular strokes over the years, and these tend to be people who were really pounding energy drinks,” says Winter. “There is certainly such a thing as too much caffeine.”

When I did the math, I’d been consumingÌęroughly 1,200 milligrams throughout the day and had been every day sinceÌę2001. Caffeine has ,Ìęmeaning that if you drink 300 milligrams at noon, you will have about 150 milligrams in your system at 6 P.M., about 75 milligrams in your body at midnight, and so on. SoÌęmy body had likely spent almost two decades under the influence.Ìę

Side Effects

I determined I might be overdoing caffeine afterÌętalking withÌęTrevor Kashey, a registered dietitian nutritionistÌęwho owns Ìęand holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He has his new clients—who range fromÌęaverage janes toÌęOlympians—go caffeine-free for two weeks as part of a larger approach to suss out foods that might be causing indigestion,Ìęsleep issues, bloating, or sluggishness. Coffee is a well-known gastrointestinal irritant, Kashey and Sweeney both point out.

Caffeine alsoÌęblocks the action of adenosine, a chemical that occurs naturally in the brain and clues the bodyÌęin to fatigue. Meanwhile, it increases the release of cortisol, a hormone that exacerbates the stress response and can interrupt normal patterns of wakefulness and sleep, Sweeney says. Taking caffeine out of the equation means sleepÌęnaturallyÌęimproves.

Plenty of research has shownÌęthat ample sleep makes for a happier, healthierÌęmind and body. According to Kashey, those advantages could outweigh anyÌębenefitsÌęyou’d see from caffeine. WinterÌęexplains that better sleep often leads to better eating habits, which was likely why I dropped a few pounds in those early weeks.Ìę published by the American College of Chest Physicians found that sleep-deprived people ate nearly 600 more calories a day than people who got in a full night’s worth. When you’re tired, the hunger-inducing hormone ghrelin goes up, while the fullness-signaling hormone leptin goes down,ÌęWinter says. If you're eliminating caffeine fromÌęsweet coffee drinks or energy drinks, the benefits can be twofold, since you’re cutting a lot of sugar.Ìę

Both Kashey and Sweeney also frequently hear from clients who say they feel less anxious after cutting their coffee intake. Caffeine has been implicated in anxiety inÌę dating back to the late eighties, Sweeney says. The DSM-5, basically the bible for mental-health professionals, officially recognizes caffeine-induced anxiety disorder.Ìę

How to Give It UpÌę

Kashey has a litmus test to determine if a client is due for a breakup with caffeine. “Ask someone to remove caffeine, and watch the look on their face,” he says. Keep an eye out forÌęa flash of existential dread. Winter echoes the suggestion, explaining that your reaction to the idea of going caffeine-free should offer insight into whether you’re overdoing it. Sweeney relies on well-known signs of withdrawal, like headaches, fatigue, and irritability, to clue clients into their own dependenceÌęand decide whether it’s time for a detox.

The good news: quitting doesn’t have to be hell. SweeneyÌęsuggests gradually weaning yourselfÌęoffÌęcaffeine. Just start mixing decaf into your caffeinated coffee. “If you’re a particularly heavy user, it may take several weeks to gradually reduce your caffeine consumption,” she says. Drinking plenty of water and herbal tea can ease the transition as well.Ìę

Winter described my method—cold turkey—as “unnecessary suffering.” But it felt a lot more practical to me. (Kashey agreed: “Take a shitty weekend with herbal tea and some aspirin,” he says.) I’m glad I ripped off the Band-Aid and didn’t have to do any caffeine-mixing math. Plus, I got to see the results of a caffeine-free diet much more quickly.Ìę

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You may have noticed that cannabidiol, or CBD for short, has quickly become a booming industry. According to Hemp Business Journal, the market is poised to hit $1.9 billion by 2022, a 400 percent increase from 2017. With research suggesting that the extract, a nonpsychoactive component of cannabis and hemp, can reduce pain, inflammation, and anxiety, you can now find it in everything from lip balm to cooking oil. Not surprisingly, some hard-­training athletes , including ultrarunners and professional football players, are fans of the stuff. There’s some debate when it comes to recommended dosage, but most experts agree that ten milligrams is a good place to start. If you’re looking to ease your way into the supplement, here’s a sampling of CBD-fortified provisions.

Livity Foods Everhemp Bar ($10)

The energy-bar aisle is a crowded place, but , with 25 milligrams of CBD and a solid nutritional profile: each 240-calorie bar has 14 grams of protein and a solid dose of omega-3’s.

Luce Farm Hemp Honey ($50 for Six Ounces)

Stir a teaspoon of this Ìęinto your morning coffee or yogurt for ten milligrams of CBD. For a less conventional fix, try it as an energy-gel substitute.

PureKana CBD Gummies ($38 for 20 Servings)

You might be tempted to blow through an entire bottle of Ìęin one sitting, but be mindful: each bear delivers 25 milligrams of CBD.

Hemp Health Pharma CBD Peanut Butter ($50 for Six Ounces)

Your favorite sandwich spread just . There’s roughly 14 milligrams of CBD and eight grams of protein per serving, though it’s also higher in carbs than most peanut butters.

To Whom It May Chocolates ($30 for Four)

come in four flavors, including cherry cayenne and smoked almond butter. Whichever you choose, each delectable piece contains 10 milligrams of CBD.

Tree Below Zero Soda ($7)

Ìęis the perfect post-workout beverage, with 25 milligrams of CBD per can. It comes in four flavors, including mandarin blood orange and cranberry ginger. (Sweet lime, coming soon, will pack an added punch, with 75 extra milligrams of CBD.)

Buddha Teas CBD Tea Bundle ($70 for 72 Bags)

[Currently Out of Stock]ÌęIf you’re not a coffee drinker, check out Ìęof chamomile, mint, green, and turmeric ginger tea. Each bag delivers a flavorful organic cup and five milligrams of water-soluble CBD.

Delta Botanicals CBD Cooking Oil ($20 for 6.8 Ounces)

Ìęof coconut and hemp oils lets you stir CBD into anything. There’s roughly 15 milligrams per tablespoon.

StrÀva Craft Focus Coffee Beans ($20 for 12 Ounces)

Consider brewing a cup of as part of your pre-run routine. The 30 milligrams of CBD is enough to potentially reduce on-trail joint aches.

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Active people tend to overthink what food is doing for their body—Is keto good for endurance? What’s the perfect post-training macro spread? Butter or no butter in my coffee?—but underthink what it’s doing for their mind. Yet you’ve probably noticed that what you eat impacts what’s going on upstairs. We’ve all devoured a cheat meal and afterward felt off,Ìęnot just physicallyÌębut also mentally and emotionally. And new research suggests that the connection between diet and mental well-being is a little more nuanced than scientists once thought.

suggest what you might expect: eating junk isn’t great for your brain. People who consume plenty of fruit, vegetables, and fish seem to be less at risk of depression compared to those who favor fatty meats, processed carbs, and sweets.ÌęBut emerging research shows that even among healthy diets, some might beÌębetter for mental health than others.ÌęIn a recent review published in , researchers analyzed 41 studies that sought to quantifyÌęthe impact of various dietsÌęon clinical depression. The analysis accounted for a variety of eating plansÌęincludingÌęthe Mediterranean diet, theÌę, and theÌę.

The winner? TheÌę, which according to the Ìęfeatures abundant fruits and vegetables, olive oil, dairy products like yogurt and cheese, cereals, beans,Ìęfish and poultry, and moderate amounts of red meat and wine. (Sometimes it seems to be the best diet for just about everything: it , and it recently won the top spot in anÌę of 40 diets based on metrics like being heart-healthy, plant heavy, and easy to adhere to.)

Drew Ramsey,Ìęan associate professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and the author ofÌę,Ìęsays the Mediterranean diet may have a positive effect on mental health because it helpsÌęfightÌęinflammation. “Molecules that are responsible for inflammation influence things like your mood and energy levels,” says Ramsey. “For example, inflammation gets in the way of the brain’s self-repair process. Many antidepressant medications are also powerful anti-inflammatories that spur brain growth.” The diet may also improve your gut microbiome, whichÌę suggests influences depression.

But don’t purge your refrigerator or medicine cabinetÌęquite yet. Observational nutrition studies, whereÌęresearchers ask participants to recall their eating patterns, can be unreliable, says Trevor Kashey, an Ohio-based registered dietitian. “People lie, don’t know how to track their intake, and have terrible memories,” he says.

More importantly, every diet in the study showed someÌępositive impact on depression. “When we begin to dissect which particular healthy diet is optimal, it misses the point,” says Ramsey. “The big take home for individuals and for our mental health care systems is that food matters.” The study itself concludes that “adhering to a healthy diet, in particular a traditional Mediterranean diet, or avoiding a pro-inflammatory diet appears to confer some protection against depression.”

To that end, Ramsey recently conducted a separate that looked at which foods are highest in the 12 nutrients associated with preventing or relieving depression. Low levels of, for example, are associated with depression, and the symptoms are often relieved by taking in more of those vitamins. TheÌęÌęwith purported mental-health benefitsÌęis expansive, but vegetables, organ meats (like liver), fruits, and seafood took the top four categories.

No single food has magical powers, however. “We want to shift [the conversation away] from singular foods and diets and into talking about food categories,” says Ramsey. His study, for example, found that spinach, Swiss chard, kale, and lettuceÌęcontain the highest antidepressant nutrients per serving, but that it didn’t really matter which leafy green you ate—what matters is that leafy greens are a regular part of your food intake.

“As a clinical psychiatrist, it’s intriguing to think about food interventions and how they could shift an entire organism,” says Ramsey. “What happens if I get someone using food for a more diverse microbiome, lower overall inflammation, and more connection to a sense of self-care? Those are all great things for someone struggling with mental and brain health.”

These findings could have a big impact.Ìę,Ìę4Ìępercent of men and 7Ìępercent of women suffer from depression, and the disorderÌęcan affect all facets of life, including productivity and athletic performance.ÌęNutrition is just one piece of the mental-health puzzle, but it has researchers excited. “I really am a big fan of responsibly using medications and effective talk therapy to treat depression,” says Ramsey. “But [focusing on] diet allows us to empower patients to think about their mental health as tied to nutrition.”

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Costco. A place where you can buy things like gasoline, durable goods, and—most important—healthy calories, all in bulk yet without sacrificing quality. That last item is exactly what outdoor athletes, who burn through energy at rapid-fire pace, need to fuel all those runs, rides, and ascents. The best part? Everything is outrageously cheap, debunking the idea that you have to spend a pretty penny to eat well or boost your performance. Rather than shop at pricey specialty markets or natural food stores, make this warehouse your go-to grocery and you’ll save time, energy, and money.

“I actually give my clients a Costco shopping list,” says Rachele Beck, a Wasatch Front–based nutritionist who works with clients ranging from tech execs to professional outdoor athletes. “There are so many healthy, economical options. It just makes it easy and affordable for people to eat healthy.”

For first-timers, a trip to a Costco warehouse can be utterly overwhelming. The aisles aren’t marked—a major departure from the organized, easy-to-follow Whole Foods model. While it is at first frustrating, you’ll soon realize that this chaos affords you the opportunity to explore and discover nutritional gems that you either haven’t heard of or wouldn’t buy in your regular market due to price. Costco’s shelves hold the best Saigon cinnamon you’ll ever taste (11 ounces, $2.50), mass quantities of organic chia seeds (two pounds, $7.50), and gigantic jugs of pure, organic maple syrup (one liter, $11)—all for a fraction of what you’d pay at a typical grocery store. Consider the syrup, which the average organic grocer sells for anywhere from $0.75 to $1.25 an ounce. Costco’s? Less than $0.33 an ounce.

You’ll leave the warehouse feeling like you get more than you paid for. Costco is bullish on organics, and the majority of its in-house brands, labeled Kirkland, are produced by some of the country’s most well-known food makers. For example, Starbucks roasts Kirkland coffee (two pounds, $10), Bumble Bee produces the albacore tuna (eight cans, $13), and Adams reportedly does Costco’s organic peanut butter (56 ounces, $10).

The place will save you time in two ways. First, when you buy in bulk, you come home with more, meaning you make fewer trips to the store. Second, Costco usually features just one or two versions of a given food. For example, instead of offering you, say, 11 different types of almond milks, eggs, or energy bars, the buyers pick what they consider to be one to three of the best takes on the product and offer only those at a competitive price. This also helps cut down on decision fatigue. (I repeatedly reached out to Costco for comment regarding how the team selects the items that make it to store shelves. They declined to divulge.)

A standard annual runs $60. If you do most of your shopping there, you’ll make that up in no time. In fact, Beck’s husband is a certified financial planner and and swears by the value of Costco. “For example, even though you have to buy a massive three-pound bag of organic spinach,” Beck says, “it’s only $5. That’s way more economical than buying the one-pound bag for $4 at the regular grocery store.” Single and worried you won’t eat bulk items in time? Freeze them.

Another benefit: “Costco’s food is usually much fresher than the grocery store’s,” Beck says. “They have so much traffic that they have to turn their food supply over much quicker.”

If you’re a new (or soon to be) Costco membership holder, Beck’s expansive food list below will help you get your bearings. It focuses primarily on single-ingredient foods, which a recent found can help you lose weight no matter how you approach your diet.

Here are the list’s highlights—don’t worry, you don’t have to buy them all at once—and a sample meal plan showing how you could put them together:

Fruits and Vegetables

• Organic spinach
• Baby kale
• Baby carrots
• Frozen mango chunks
• Organic lemons
• Sugar snap peas
• Frozen berry mix
• Romaine lettuce
• Cauliflower rice
• Yams
• Avocados
• Dried figs
• Bananas
• Broccoli

Meats

• Ground turkey
• Wild-caught frozen salmon burgers
• Boneless skinless frozen chicken breast
• Rotisserie chicken

Dairy

• Almond or coconut milk—unsweetened
• Kirkland 0% fat plain Greek yogurt

Carbs

• Quinoa
• Brown rice noodle ramen
• Organic raw-corn tortillas
• Lentils

Snacks, etc.

• Raw almonds
• Hummus
• RX Bars
• Nuttzo nut butter
• Harvest Stone organic quinoa crackers
• Kirkland protein bar—great protein and a treat
• Hemp seeds
• Organic protein powder

Breakfast

Blend the following:

• Spinach (frozen)
• Bananas (frozen)
• One scoop protein powder
• Unsweetened almond milk
• Kirkland 0% Fat Greek Yogurt
• Kirkland frozen berry mix
• Raw almonds
• Hemp seeds

Lunch

Make a salad that includes the following:

• Baby kale or spinach
• Carrots
• Snap peas
• Broccoli
• Chopped wild-caught salmon burger
• Lentils

Dinner

Make a one-pan meal featuring:

• Quinoa, riced cauliflower, or sautĂ©ed yams
• Chicken breast or rotisserie chicken
• As many vegetables on the list as you like

Snacks

• Dried figs and protein shake
• Nut butter with a banana
• RX or protein bar
• Crackers and hummus and/or rotisserie chicken

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It’s 4 p.m. on a Thursday, and I’m in for another beating. I enter the Roadrunner Athletic Club—the unpretentious, one-member, Las Vegas–based gym inside my garage. I eye the lineup of dumbbells, kettlebells, and sandbags parked in front of my pickup, then drop to the yoga mat on the cement floor and begin to stretch for a workout. But something feels off.

As I sink into a hip stretch, my muscles are about as pliable as particle board. And when I stand to grab a 50-pound kettlebell, my strength wanes. The thought of repeatedly snatching the kettlebell from floor to overhead seems about as fun as dropping the weight on my face. I’d normally stuff these feelings and begin cranking my heart into overdrive. But today’s different. I take a deep breath, set down the weight, and change course—I go back inside, plop down on the couch, and start watching a late-’90s episode of Cops.

It’s another day of my monthlong exercise program, an experiment where I’m doing away with any semblance of fitness planning and instead training entirely based on how I feel in the moment. And today? Today feels like a day where I’ll benefit more from Netflix and chilling than I will from working up a sweat.

For half my life, I’ve exercised four or five days every week for one hour—usually two or three precise lifting sessions and one or two prescripted aerobic workouts. I haven’t been “off” an expert-designed fitness program for more than a couple weeks since the airing of the fourth season of The Sopranos. My interest in fitness started as a hobby in high school, grew in college, and eventually became part of my career, a decade of which has been spent writing about health, performance training, and nutrition.

So when my editor at șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű asked me to see what would happen if I suppressed my affinity for exercise micromanagement and instead moved exactly how and when I felt like it, my reaction was mixed. I looked into the future and saw some possible good—maybe I’d uncover something about myself—but far more bad. What if I lose a step, get hurt, or just come to the realization that I’m an inflexible fitness robot? Nevertheless, I accepted.

My editor’s instructions were simple: Take some basic fitness tests, exercise entirely by disposition for a month, take the tests again, then send me a story.

I tested my pushups, pullups, rear-foot elevated split squats, weighted walking lunges, and aerobic fitness. I also weighed myself on a scale.

Day one: I enter my garage. Absent from the work bench is the usual Excel spreadsheet that charts my month of training and lists the day’s workout.

I begin with some basic stretching, followed by a warmup of dumbbell . My hips feel a bit tight, and the exercise acts like a crowbar to pry them open, but I feel like going hard. I grab heavy dumbbells and do , an exercise that causes my upper legs to feel like blimps, so I know something’s working. Then I do because they’re easier on my shoulders and I can do more reps (which, admittedly, boosts my ego). Then I do weighted pullups because they’re more difficult and the weight vest makes me feel like I’m a kid playing army. Then I grab the dumbbells and do because I want sore hamstrings the next day. Finally, I do biceps curls, a bro-tastic exercise that I haven’t done since college, because, hey, why not? After doing four sets to failure of each of those exercises, I skip my regular core routine because I hate doing core work.

The next day, I don’t exercise because my legs felt like they’ve received a few hundred bee stings. Some trainers say soreness is not a sign of a good workout, and they’re probably right, but this is a freeing, change-signaling soreness. I’m back in the gym improvising on day three.

This pattern continues for a month.

Many of my strength sessions hit the six fundamental movement patterns—push, pull, hinge, squat, plank, and carry—which my friend and renowned fitness expert Dan John make a good combo for most workouts. Some days I’d go hard and heavy, others were less aggressive. At times, a standard weight workout felt plain boring, and I’d do something a little more interesting, like . Occasionally, I’d keep it simple with something like 500 kettlebell swings and some pushups and pullups; other days, I’d give myself a basic goal of running, walking, or walking with weight from home to a location anywhere from one to five miles away and then back home.

At the end of the month, I retake the performance tests and measure my weight.

Not impressed with the data? Well, neither was I. That’s because the numbers do lie. They hide some critical truths—truths that will likely change how I approach exercise from here on out. Here’s what my month of exercising by feel taught me.

Take the Long View

One day, I stood over a 75-pound kettlebell and planned to set a timer for five minutes and do as many reps as possible of the a rather technical exercise at a heavy weight for me. I wanted to do it, and my anarchic program said I should. But impulses also tell me to buy a motorcycle, eat Lucky Charms for every meal, and head down to the casinos near my home and play blackjack. In exercise, as in life, just because you want to do something doesn’t mean you should.

My goals have usually been performance oriented; for example, rowing 2,000 meters in less than seven minutes, running a sub-1:30 half marathon, deadlifting twice my bodyweight, doing 15 or more pullups. But once I hit those goals, I, like most people, extended them. Faster, heavier, more reps. I did 100 snatches in less than five minutes with a 55-pound kettlebell. Why not try with the 75-pounder?

Here’s why: The long view of why I train is that I want to feel good, be physically capable of doing the things I love, and infrequently visit the hospital from now until I die at, fingers crossed, a very old age. Ripping a big-ass weight from the ground a bunch of times may improve my capacity, but is it making me feel good and stay “healthy”? That’s debatable.

Performance and health are not the same. “Performance is about pushing boundaries. Health is about staying within them,” says Trevor Kashey, an Ohio-based performance and nutrition coach. Like a Venn diagram, the benefits most people see from training for performance and/or health overlap. But the more you push performance, the further you get from health. “Where that exercising-yourself-into-pain-and-suffering threshold lies is totally individual and also determined by your training method of choice, because some training methods are inherently riskier,” Kashey says.

Consider that found you need only burn roughly 1,000 calories or run seven miles each week to significantly reduce your mortality risk. A large body of evidence suggests having a larger amount of muscle improves health and disease outcomes. “But adequate isn’t really about building muscle,” Kashey says. “It’s about loss prevention.” That’s something you can do by eating enough protein and hitting minimal activity requirements.

Standing over the kettlebell, I realized that I fall somewhere in between exercising for maximum performance and exercising for health. While I know intellectually that pushing myself to hit faster splits or pump heavier weights just to say I can won’t necessarily leave me any healthier, I’m still inclined to do so. But without a specific performance goal, just being active regularly is enough to help me achieve longevity and positive health—which should arguably be the goal in and of itself. The trick for me, I realized, is finding a happy medium—choosing performance goals that don’t potentially leave me burned out or injured (my current track before this experiment), but also keep me motivated and excited about following some sort of training plan (which requires a little more direction than my approach over the past month).

Walking Is Ridiculously Underrated

Before this grand experiment, I was nearly always good for a couple weekly runs. But one day during this month, I laced up my running shoes and faced an alarming pre-run mental dialogue: I’d rather do my taxes inside a bullfighting arena than jog right now.

I’d normally just shut up and pound pavement. Sure, I haven’t ever regretted a run, but most of my runs have moments of sheer shittiness. So why bother? This experiment dictates that I ČőłóŽÇłÜ±ô»ćČÔ’t run if I don’t want to. (So I didn’t.) But I still wanted to do something active.

I leashed my dogs, and we walked my regular running route in the desert foothills behind our home. There was no pacing, no coordinated breathing, no considered foot-strike patterns. This was an unplugged, untimed, unmanaged experience, complete with stops to sniff around and soak in the surroundings.

Did my fitness suffer for it? Probably not all that much. Consider a that found no differences in body composition changes between people who did shorter, higher-intensity exercise bouts compared to people who did longer, lower-intensity exercise. Caloric burn is caloric burn, regardless of the burn rate. Other suggest walkers live just as long as more-intense exercisers. Of course, my walk took twice as long to see equal benefits, but it was worth the time—and it made me feel fresher the next day.

Consider my friend , a 6'2″, 250-pound former UFC fighter who trains twice a day and is the fittest person I know. A few years back, he saw a drastic jump in his strength and endurance—something that just doesn’t happen to people at his level of performance. Perplexed, Maximus analyzed what had changed and could only find one answer: He’d recently adopted a dog and was walking 30 to 60 minutes a day, which, he thinks, was helping him recover much faster.

Walks replaced my runs for the rest of the experiment. Most times I’d leave my phone at home so I could completely unplug and be present in nature, which gave me a physical and mental benefit. Research from the University of Utah shows that people who walk in nature without their phone scored better on memory tests and showed changes in their brain that suggest significant mental restoration compared to people who walked with their phone.

Yeah, I’ll surely still run relatively frequently—different heart rates do seem to deliver unique cardiovascular benefits—but I’ll also do a lot more walking.

Consult an Expert

I know more about health and fitness than the average person, but as a journalist, it’s my duty to not pose as an expert. Yet even certifiable experts—the ones with advanced degrees who conduct or follow research and work with clients 40 hours a week—may not want to create their own programs, says , owner of Core, a Boston-based gym.

“I know the body and how to write solid training programs,” Gentilcore says. “But the last person I want to write a program for is myself. Just like everyone else, I’m prone to my own biases and tend to gravitate toward what I’m good at or what’s ‘easy.’”

Take me, for example: By week two, my lower back ached—because I’d been neglecting the core work I loathe. By avoiding what you don’t want to do, you overlook what you’re bad at or just don’t like (like, ahem, running). And it’s often the latter that keeps your healthy and fills your fitness gaps. An expert-designed program holds you accountable and covers your blind spots.

The DIY method is probably not ideal for most people, because the vast majority don’t have a firm grasp on fitness program design, says Kevin Carr, co-founder of . “There should be a balance between mobility, strength, power, and aerobic activity in your program. That’s true in individual training sessions as well as in how the workouts come together over weeks and months.” When you don’t understand that, you end up having blind spots that hurt your fitness or set you up for injury.

Not all people can or will hire a coach, and that’s fine. Buy a program online, Carr says, and learn what constitutes a solid gym workout for most fitness goals. Do five to ten minutes of mobility work, followed by strength and power work where you push (like a pushup), pull (pullup), hinge (hip bridge), squat (squat), and plank. Finish with something that gets your heart rate up. That covers the five fundamental human-movement patterns and checks an aerobic box.

You Can Build Fitness Anywhere

There was one day during this period when I wanted to work out but had in-laws heading into town and a long list of chores. As someone who has always believed that exercise can only really happen in the gym or with a prescribed running workout, my lack of time should have posed a problem. Feeling innovative, I placed a 45-pound sandbag inside my backpack. Then I tossed the backpack over my shoulders and started crushing tasks: folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming, mopping—each chore morphing into exercise thanks to the added weight.

I moved for two hours while wearing that pack. The military calls this rucking, and it’s an . It burns roughly three times the calories of walking, helps relieve and prevent back pain, makes you stronger everywhere, builds your endurance without impact, and rounds out your fitness.

That pack is forever my new chore buddy. Turns out you don’t always have to choose between exercise and getting shit done.

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Imagine this: You just spent the day giving your all on a big hike or ride, or a long day at work followed by an evening gym session. You arrive home tired and ravenous, without an ounce of give-a-shit to spare. Typically, you’d respond to this situationÌęby stopping at a drive-through or microwaving a plastic-enclosed food item with an ingredient list that’s 75 percent unpronounceable.

There’s a better way, says , a classically-trained chef, nutrition consultant, and former professional endurance athlete. Take a natural carb, a bunch of vegetables, a dose of protein, thumb of fat, and some sauce, and throw it all into a pan, then let it rip for a few minutes. You’ll have a delicious meal that covers all of your nutritional bases—lots of protein and your RDA of vegetables—without much cleanup.

“I love one-pan meals,” says Alexis. “They’re stupid easy, and great for athletes because we often get home having under-eaten all day and we need a healthy meal.”

Cultures from around the world have long had their own spins on the basic formula of combining the above ingredients. In Korea, there's bibimbap: rice with beef, pickled vegetables, chili paste, and a fried egg. In Spain, paella: rice, green beans, meat, seafood, spices, and beans. In Thailand, pad thai: rice noodles, meat, eggs, peanuts, spices, and vegetables. In America, the breakfast skillet: potatoes, eggs, bacon or ham, vegetables, and cheese. The flavor profiles you can create with the basic formula will keep you culinarily satisfied for years.

The meal is easy to customize for your nutritional needs, too. Need a lot of protein? Add a lot of meat. Trying to cut carbs? Go easy on the rice (or noodles, or potatoes, etc). Vegan? Use tofu instead of meat.

One-pan meals are best on week nights, when you have leftover grains and meat in the fridge, says Alexis.

Here’s the basic formula you’ll toss on the pan:

• Two tablespoons oil
• Eight to 12 ounces of protein (eggs, chicken, shrimp, steak, tofu)
• Two cups of cooked grains, tubers, or pasta
• 1/4 cup sauce
• Four cups of vegetables (roasted, steamed, baked, or fresh)

And while you should feel free to let your creative culinary juices flow, we know that sometimes a little inspiration is much appreciated. Try one ofÌęAlexis’ favorite combos, each ingredient portioned out according to the basic formula above:

1. Eggs + Black Rice + Miso-Turmeric Dressing + Avocado + Roasted Broccoli
2. Chicken + Rice + Maple-Soy Dressing + Kale + Radishes
3. Tofu + Blue Emmer + Sriracha Mayonnaise + Roasted Mushrooms + Butternut Squash + Torn Kale
4. Skirt Steak + Tagliatelle + Olive Oil + Harissa + Torn Olives + Kale Ribbons

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