“It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize what I was doing.”

As a Senior Editor at BuzzFeed, I cover lifestyle topics including books, work and money, health, and home.

"Honestly, most of the snacks labeled as 'high protein' changed so very little that it won't matter.

You'll get a total of like 5-7 more grams of protein a day eating the protein version compared to the regular version."

"The entire meaning of red flag has shifted.

It used to mean this is a signal of something that could be a problem, you need to keep an eye on it.

Instead, red flag has morphed into meaning 'disengage instantly and walk away.'"

"Yeah, food-related anxiety like that can easily become orthorexia or another diagnosable eating disorder." 

"So, what should I do instead to get rid of my coffee breath before I leave the house in the morning?"

"Drink water and chew some gum. Gum with xylitol is good for your teeth."

"You can get into a mode of thought that your inherent humanity isn't good enough and you need to be 'fixed.'

Self-help is for when you have goals you're trying to achieve and want to make changes because they would help (literally) help you get there."

"Agh, this whole alternative-medicine belief runs rampant in my family, and what I never understand: they keep complaining about Big Pharma wanting to make money off medicines or vaccines, but then go and spend crazy money on sugar pills or vitamins."

"A lot of people don't realize you don't need pre-workouts or caffeine/taurine supplements. If you need caffeine to get through a workout, you're either not sleeping properly, working out too much, or not eating enough."

"My wife was constantly tired. Constantly. She would nap daily for a few hours. 

Got blood work done. Turns out she has the lowest vitamin D level her doctor had ever seen."

"People turn rest into another performance metric, then wonder why they’re burned out. Sometimes the healthy move is doing nothing on purpose."

"The remote work version of 'healthy' is answering every ping in under a minute. It looks like discipline, but working from home taught me that never being unreachable just means never being off, and the tiredness sneaks up slowly."

"I believe it's good, even healthy, to be in uncomfortable situations. That way, you can teach yourself not to be uncomfortable. That's how I overcame my social anxiety, by deliberately putting myself into those situations."

"It took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize I was working out too much. I was constantly struggling to progress and constantly tired. Switched to three workouts per week, and I've never progressed so fast and had so much free time. It's really that simple."

"I like to imagine I'm a really elaborate Tamagotchi."