It's the 2025 Birthday Subscription Sale!!

"These newsletters are undoing decades of programming that a lot of us have been through, and any time I open them, I feel a little bit happier. " —NPR

Subscribe now (30% off)

Beginner? New here? Start here>>

Beginner? New here? Start here>>

Just trying to get started with working out and eating? Here are a bunch of posts to get you going (plus a link to LIFTOFF, a starter program that has lots more info and structure).

I’m gonna make this easy for all of us: how much protein to eat, period
There’s even a chart. Plus: “rate me” subreddits, Depression Cooking Zine, a great play by play of the Luis Rubiales problem. This is Link Letter 98!
LIFTOFF: Couch to Barbell
A guide for absolute beginners to go from sitting on the couch to lifting weights.

If you want to know why to lift, what to lift, how to lift: it's all in here.

How to start going to the gym, part one: The case for the gym visit
Plus: the case for the supermarket as a place to hang out, Smith machine circus antics, and DFW on Hot Ones. This is Links 44!
How to start going to the gym, part two: the pre-production dry run
Plus: how to spot a fake gym clout-chaser on TikTok; weaponizing your inner monologue; Meryl Streep’s one weird trick. This is Links 45!
How to start going to the gym, part three: how much weight to use
Plus: the mystery of Elon’s torso and the tyranny of Silicon Valley biohacking; Lorde and Kristin from Laguna Beach are deadlifting baby!!; Lululemon is unionizing. This is Links 46!
How to act normal in the gym
Swole Woman’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the matter of asking to “work in,” whether you were actually using those dumbbells, et al. This is Links #18.
The two things everyone gets wrong when they start to lift
It’s not the cold plunge. Plus: Savoring food, millennial motherhood, and PLATESLAM STARTS TOMORROW ! This is Link Letter 113!
How to escape the gravity well of “not working out”
What NASA and Kim Kardashian (HEAR ME OUT) have to teach us about the process of doing deceptively hard things.
“Diets don’t work”: What dietitians (and others) do and don’t mean
I love to clarify; I love to define terms. Plus: a Starbucks potato egg bite dupe; upward mobility isn’t a prerequisite for security; 23-year-old suspects the wellness industry *just might be* a scam. This is Link Letter 134!
How to eat like a big beautiful horse
I’ve been on the “eating more” grind for years now; here is every tip I’ve fought to learn along the way.