Pam Moore

Krystal Salvent was an avid road cyclist — until she found herself lying in a ditch after a driver ran her off the road. That experience prompted the Boulder, Colo., co-leader of Black Girls Do Bike Denver to buy her first gravel bike. “If I can remove that obstacle for myself and focus more on my bike handling, rocks and maybe rattlesnakes, I think I’m a little better off,” she said.
Salvent represents the growing community of gravel cyclists, who prefer pedaling alongside fields and forests...

For Mindy Kaling it took a major mindset shift to finally find joy in her workouts. Now at 42 she’s overhauled the way she thinks about exercise.
“I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been,” she tells SELF. “I love it.”
As an actor, writer, director, producer, comedian, and mom, Kaling knows all too well about the difficulty of setting aside time for herself. But carving out time for movement—and keeping it fun and interesting—makes her better at everything else she does, she says.
“I am funnier, mor...

The holiday season means holiday gatherings. Gatherings, of course, mean food, and food — especially the treats that make an appearance at only certain times of the year — often leads to talk about the effect on our waistlines. For people with a fraught relationship with food and their bodies, these conversations can be stressful, draining and sometimes toxic.
Marquisele Mercedes is no stranger to such talk. When she was accepted to her first-choice graduate program, a close family member off...

The fitness world can feel intimidating for anyone. But as folks in larger bodies know all too well, it can often be exclusive, unwelcoming, or even unsafe.
Diet culture is largely to blame, Nancy Ellis-Ordway, Ph.D., LCSW, a Jefferson City, Missouri, psychotherapist specializing in eating disorders and weight stigma, and author of Thrive at Any Weight, tells SELF. It can work its way into physical spaces, like gyms and studios, where fitness instructors can rely on harmful, body-based “motiv...

When pro triathlete Sika Henry signed up for her first ultramarathon, she had no expectations—which is exactly what drew her to the event. On November 20, Henry crossed the finish line at the JFK 50 Mile in 9:01:36, over two and a half hours behind the first woman.
“I thought I would be devastated,” Henry told Runner’s World, regarding her results.Instead, she was thrilled. “I was not competing against anybody for once. Place was just completely inconsequential to me.”
For years, the athlete ...

If you’re overwhelmed, you’re not alone. Even before the pandemic, 60 percent of adults in the United States reported sometimes feeling too busy to enjoy life, according to a report from the Pew Research Center, and 52 percent said they were usually trying to do at least two things at once.
Some experts say the antidote is free and accessible to anyone willing to try it: setting aside some time to let your mind wander.
This practice has been portrayed recently as “doing nothing,” thanks in pa...

Jim Edmunds wasn’t sure what his next step would be after graduating from Whitman College.
“Like a lot of students, I was sort of a blank slate as to what I was going to do,” he says. At the time, he didn’t see himself creating a company that would ultimately give back to both Whitman and to the greater Walla Walla business community.
Fast-forward 44 years, and not only is Edmunds the founder of software firm Ingeniux, his company is helping create technology to support regional entrepreneurs...

As wildfires, floods, hurricanes and other climate-related disasters grow more frequent and severe, many people think businesses need to step up their sustainability efforts. According to a 2015 Public Affairs Council survey, 59 percent of Americans believed major companies were generally not doing a good job of protecting the environment.
Some fitness facilities are trying to do their part. In April 2021, for example, gym chain Life Time updated its five-year sustainability plan. The company...

If your sleep life tends to not be great and you find yourself dreading bedtime, it’s time to flip the script. Your thoughts about sleep can frame what happens when you shut your eyes. Will it be the restful night you need, or are you in for hours of tossing and turning?
Sleep can go awry for many reasons. While changing your sleep mindset can’t counteract poor sleep habits or a health issue that’s keeping you up, your expectations do matter.
Yale Medicine behavioral sleep medicine expert Sus...

After a debilitating ski accident, Ben Davis trusted his instincts — and found a surgeon he could believe in.
In 2021, Ben Davis, 39, saw himself falling into a depression. His Lafayette, Colo. Window washing business had survived the COVID-19 shutdowns, only to be threatened when a ski accident stopped Ben in his tracks. “I was watching tens of thousands of dollars slip away,” he recalls. With back pain so severe he could hardly think straight, Ben was cancelling clients left and right. “I r...

You might think of pull-ups as an upper-body exercise you’d never have the strength to tackle, but your first one might be closer than you think. While you need full-body strength, tenacity and patience to master the move, according to Angela Gargano — a certified personal trainer, four-time “American Ninja Warrior” contestant and founder of Strong Feels Good — it’s worth it. “Being able to lift yourself above a bar is invigorating,” she says.
Pull-ups, which require you to hang on to a bar u...

When Michelle Mathieu ’92 was approved to join the Clubhouse networking app by Sam Geschickter ’20 in January 2021, she was pleased—and slightly perplexed. Mathieu, whose promotion from chief investment officer of Fulcrum Capital to chief executive officer becomes official Jan. 1, 2022, had been wanting access to the then invite-only platform, but Geschickter’s name didn’t ring any bells—which is understandable, given the timing.
Not long after the two met at a 2020 Seattle Whitties Helping W...

The pandemic has come with many disruptions — not all of them bad. One example is the spike in popularity of electric bicycles, which are like regular bicycles in every way but one: They are equipped with a battery and motor that allow riders to pedal with less effort. In the first half of 2021, sales of e-bikes were up 64 percent compared with the same period in 2020.
According to Megan Hottman, a.k.a. the Cyclist Lawyer, “e-bikes really are the future of transportation in so many ways.” The...

I'm an award-winning freelance health and fitness journalist and content marketing writer with over ten years of healthcare experience. A re
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