A year ago, I set myself a challenge: Go the whole month without ordering food or going out to eat more than once a week. I was able to complete this challenge, but I did not like it. I felt constrained, anxious and antisocial. And I was sick of doing dishes. But the important thing is that I made it and I realized I could mentally cope with producing all my own food. However when...
We polled 10 UAE trainers on what they’ve found to be the most common fitness mistakes. Here’s what they said you are doing wrong — and how you can start doing things right. Fitness Mistake: Thinking you will see results right away In short, you won’t — at least not results that will last, explains fitness pro Anna Holmes. “In the fast-paced world we live in, we are on the hunt for the easiest and...
Oral hygiene is as important as a healthy lifestyle and it all starts with you, because children adopt what they see. Here’s how to get a head start in boosting your child’s dental health — and keep it up. Children should see a dentist early They should have their first dental visit within six months of their first tooth coming in or at 12 months of age, whichever happens first. Taking them to the dentist...
Rapid massage guns — selling by brand names including Theragun, Hypervolt and more — are everywhere these days. But what do they actually do? Here’s everything you need to know about these percussive tools, and just where to find them in the UAE. What is a rapid massage gun? This pulsing device looks like a drill on steroids, with a hefty handle and rounded end that is to be applied to various points on the...
The phrase “cool as a cucumber”, written by the English poet and dramatist John Gay, is an idyllic Ayurvedic idiom. Cucumbers are a summer vegetable that can have an inner temperature up to 20 degrees cooler than the ambient temperature. An accumulation of summer heat can heighten emotions, creating impatience, anger, and agitation. Physical manifestations of excess heat can cause imbalances of the liver, gallbladder, urinary bladder, blood, skin, and eyes. Luckily, the cooling and...
Have you ever been at the grocery store or standing in line somewhere and someone else backs into you? Chances are, you find yourself apologizing and saying “I’m sorry” even though you didn’t do anything. I used to be the person who would apologize if someone stomped on my foot while walking past, or knocked into me and spilled my drink. I’m still that person sometimes. It might seem like manners, but apologizing for our...
When Renos Fountoulakis headed from Dubai to Zanzibar in 2016, he was hoping to unwind from his job in the financial services sector and enjoy the beauty of the beaches and resorts with his wife and brother. Yet something the 36-year-old from Greece saw during a trip to the village of Kizimkazi, where families of eight lived in small houses made of mud and palm fronds, changed him forever. “I looked around and saw some...
A visit to the plant souk at Abu Dhabi’s Mina Zayed, particularly in the depths of summer, can be like a breath of fresh air — believe or not. Sure, you have to shimmy through narrow alleys lined with giant bags of soil and assorted greenery. You have to step around watering hoses, navigate a street cat or two and even a mechanical butterfly. But at the end you are likely to come away with a...
The sun’s rays are all our bodies need to generate the vitamin D that is so essential to our health and, as anyone currently bracing for yet another long hot summer in the region knows all too well, there is no shortage of those in the Gulf. So why is it that the Middle East and North Africa region consistently has some of the highest rates of vitamin D deficiency in the world and, as a...
Instagram-friendly and cute-as-a-button Tania’s Teahouse is so committed to wellness that the Jumeirah Beach Road cafe is having its first special dedicated-to-wellness week later this month. One of the events will be a workshop, personally hosted by owner Tania Lodi, all about DIY face masks. The New Yorker, who moved with her family to Dubai in 2005, became obsessed with the power of tea and also mindfulness and positivity while learning how to overcome chronic...
Veganism, exercise, sobriety. They all seem like the negation of experience, the rejection of pleasure. No more can you have gooey cheeses and fat-dripping meats or lie about all day in indolence and decadence with numbing chemicals carrying you away from the pressures of life. All of that is cast aside in favor of clean. Clean food, clean actions, clean chemicals, clean living. I’ve come a long way on this journey, from where I was...
