Just Ask David

Irritable bowel syndrome, often shortened to IBS, is a common condition that causes abdominal pain and excessive gas. Many people who suffer from IBS don’t realize that a simple change of diet can alleviate or even get rid of many symptoms.

Colleen Francioli joins us today to share how digestive health is important for everyone, even if you don’t have IBS. Colleen is the founder of FODMAP Life, one of the best online resources available about low FODMAP diets, FODMAP recipes, and living with functional gastrointestinal disorders. She is also certified nutritionist and a Digital Marketing Consultant for the Health & Wellness sector.

What is FODMAP?

But what does FODMAP stand for? Each letter in the acronym stands for the chemical properties of food to avoid -- fermentable, oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. FODMAPs are highly fermentable and osmotic, which can cause excessive flatulence, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, and abdominal pain -- all reasons to avoid them if you’re suffering from gastrointestinal problems.

Benefits of a Low FODMAP Diet

When following a low FODMAP diet, high FODMAP foods are eliminated from your diet for a period of about 2-6 weeks. And the results are promising -- studies show that about 70% of people who suffer from IBS experienced reduced symptoms. That’s groundbreaking!

To learn more about gastrointestinal health and tasty low FODMAP recipes, follow @fodmaplife on Instagram and Twitter.

Imagine an online community where women from all across the world can share their health and beauty tips and tricks -- the ultimate “Girl Code,” if you will. Add a beautiful, ambitious, and business-savvy blogger as the creative director, and you’ve got the Skinny Confidential.

Lauryn Evarts created the Skinny Confidential blog a few years ago. It’s become so popular that the Skinny Confidential is now also a podcast, a book, an app, and has even been featured in the likes of Women’s Health Magazine, the Huffington Post, and many others.

Even though Lauryn is the creator of the Skinny Confidential, her blog is not only about her. The Skinny Confidential is about encouraging women to march to the beat of their own drums and live unapologetically.

How do you do that? By sharing the beauty tips women really want to hear, like alternative options to cotton tampons or the pros and cons of getting cosmetic surgery. A lot of topics featured on the blog are beauty secrets shared by readers. Although some are too controversial to be seen on a commercial blog, women still want to know the answers to some of their questions. Look no further than The Skinny Confidential.

“[The Skinny Confidential] represents the movers, the shakers, and the ones who without a doubt want to be the best damn version of themselves,” Lauryn says.

Want to keep up with Lauryn? Follow her @lauryneverts on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Do you use a Fitbit or a weight loss app?

These new fitness gadgets are revolutionizing the way we think of achieving our health goals. For the first time, we’re able to see our progress using these fitness tracking tools -- which is encouraging when we don’t see instant results.

Special guest Sarah Wells elaborates on how fitness trackers are helping more and more people realize and achieve their long-term fitness goals, especially those of us who are getting older or live sedentary lifestyles. Sarah is a personal trainer and a Strength and Conditioning coach, as well as being talented in a variety of sports. She’s written for publications such as LiveStrong, Volleyball Magazine, Sport Strength Newsletter, and more.

Measuring Your Health with Fitness Trackers

Now, people who want to become more active can actually set personal goals on their fitness tracker and track their progress. They’re perfect for people who want to take steps toward living a more active lifestyle.

Setting Your Personal Long-Term Fitness Goals

Luckily, fitness trackers are able to quantify physical activity. It’s incredibly helpful to see how much progress you’re actually making, even if you don’t see the results in your physique.

To stay up to speed with what’s new in fitness, check out the SAPT website or follow Sarah on social media.

Eating a balanced diet is easier than it’s ever been before. There are so many resources out there nowadays to help us eat healthier. There are even special diets that claim to not only help you lose weight, but to improve your body’s overall health from the inside -- like paleo, gluten-free, or vegan diets. It can be pretty overwhelming for a beginner to find out where to start.

Special guest Phoebe Lapine joins us to share her journey to a healthier diet and a happier lifestyle. She is best known for her award-winning blog, Feed Me Phoebe, where she shares a variety of healthy comfort food recipes for any diet. Phoebe has also recently released her first book, “The Wellness Project.”

Healthy comfort food? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

Not to Phoebe. In fact, she embraces using healthy ingredients in her comfort food recipes to contribute to a balanced diet. In her own words, “a kale margarita is better than no margarita at all.”

Plus, healthy comfort food recipes have more benefits than tasting great and being great for us. Phoebe cites changing her diet as the reason why her chronic health problems have made a shockingly huge improvement.

“The Wellness Project” encourages healthier eating by challenging readers to cut one unhealthy thing from their diet for just one month, every month. This method works so well because you’re introduced to how to eat a balanced diet without the pressure of being forced to indefinitely cut out the foods you enjoy.

But in some cases, the effects of eating a balanced diet aren’t all positive. Although some foods are great to leave out of your diet, like alcohol or sugar, Phoebe invites us to ask ourselves, “What does it do for my spirit?”

Sticking to a certain diet can be uncomfortable and force you to go outside of your comfort zone -- that’s to be expected. But sometimes, cutting out our favorite foods in the name of eating a balanced diet can be downright distressing. For example, cutting out alcohol completely can seriously diminish some peoples’ social lives. -- so Phoebe suggests treating yourself every now and then or looking for healthier alternatives -- like kale margaritas.

“I kind of let myself have a little wiggle room and consider where being too healthy or too extreme was infringing upon my ability to live life to the fullest,” Phoebe adds.

To check out Phoebe Lapine’s healthy comfort food blog, Feed Me Phoebe, or buy her book, “The Wellness Project.”

Cosmoprof Beauty Supply is an international chain that sells exclusively to beauty and wellness professionals. Cosmoprof often has special deals and beauty products that have yet to hit the market. In other words, if you’re in the beauty industry, Cosmoprof is your version of the Emmys.

Mary Bemis is here with us today to talk about Cosmoprof. She is the co-curator of Cosmoprof North America Discover Green Pavilion and the editorial director of Insider’s Guide to Spas. Mary is an award-winning journalist who has launched both American Spa and Organic Spa magazines.

Cosmoprof Products Go Green

The American consumer of today is a lot different from the consumer of the 80’s or 90’s -- even the early 2000’s.

Many of the beauty products sold at Cosmoprof today wouldn’t have had a fighting chance in our past economy. Cosmoprof products donning the labels “all-natural,” “environment friendly,” and “organic,” just wouldn’t be in demand back then.

In the past, natural beauty products were always at odds with the consumer because many of us believe that anything “natural” couldn’t be grounded in science. We now have the better insight to see that’s just not true. Even products like aromatherapy are booming in popularity.

“Talking about natural products, people didn’t want to hear it ten, twenty years ago,” Mary says. “The consumer’s really driving this market. Especially the ‘m’ word -- Millennials.”

To discover a store near you, visit Cosmoprof’s website.

We all want to be able to age gracefully and live active, independent lives when we get older. Nutrition and aging are deeply related, but many of us aren’t sure how to start a healthy diet -- some of us have been eating mostly processed foods for years.

On this segment of Just Ask David, we have special guest Anne Danahy here to speak with us about how to have a healthy diet as we age. Anne is a registered dietician and nutrition communications consultant, specializing in women’s health. Anne has also written dietary pieces for numerous health and nutrition publications.

Nutritional Needs for Middle-Aged Adults

Diet impacts how you age, not just in terms of health and disease, but also how you look and feel. There are foods and diet patterns out there that make us feel better -- mentally and physically.

Nutritional requirements for middle-aged adults are a bit different from that of younger adults. Our metabolisms tend to slow down when we age, making it easier for us to gain weight. But instead of focusing on eating less overall, Anne suggests focusing on what you can eat more of -- the foods that can speed up your metabolism -- in an effort to crowd out the food that slow it down.

Healthy Diet Tips for Aging Gracefully

There are thousands of diets out there, but many of the ones that have gained popularity in recent years demand that you cut out certain foods completely, like keto, paleo, or vegan diets. Still, Anne says that most diets don’t work -- lasting health comes from real, long-term life changes.

So what’s the best diet plan for older adults? What are the people who are aging gracefully eating? “They’re not necessarily vegetarian or vegan or anything like that, but just people who have a more balanced diet and include more fruits and vegetables and plants and whole grains and leave out the processed and fried food,” Anne says.

To stay up-to-date with what she’s doing, follow Anne’s blog, Craving Something Healthy, or follow her on Twitter @CraveSomeHealth.

A couple times each year, a few of the fashion capitals of the world host a week-long event called Fashion Week. For those of you who don’t know, the entire fashion world tunes in every Fashion Week to get the scoop on the latest fashion trends directly from the most highly acclaimed designers in the world.

Nykia Spradley joins us on this segment to talk about how New York Fashion Week trends are becoming more and more influenced by online and street fashion. Nykia is a beauty writer who has written for several renowned publications, including Essence, Marie Claire, and PopSugar.

The Evolution of NYFW Runway Looks

In the past, Fashion Week in New York City was a time when fashion designers and editors dictated to the fashion world what was in style for the season. But according to Nykia, all that’s changed.

With social media changing the way we communicate with each other, it’s no surprise that it’s even forcing a progressive event like NYFW to evolve.

Now, the designers at New York Fashion Week often take inspiration from the fashion trends they observe online. And in the era of individuality, everyone is making their own fashion statements on their social media accounts. Many of these fresh and undiscovered ideas end up on the runway during fashion week.

NYFW Trends: From the Internet to the Runway

Fashion designers aren’t getting New York Fashion Week style ideas from social media because they can’t do it on their own -- they do it because recent online and street fashion is refreshingly different from anything we’ve ever seen before in the mainstream.

Nykia says that the reason why social media fashionistas are influencing NYFW trends so much is that people are becoming less afraid to try new things when it comes to fashion. Maybe they’ll try something out today, but if they decide they don’t like it, they’ll just try something new tomorrow.  “People are driven by the Millennial mindset of just experimenting, having fun, and doing things that highlight your individuality,” she adds.

To stay up-to-date with Nykia and check out her beauty tips, visit her website or follow her on Twitter and Instagram @nyksprads.

The makeup industry is growing in a big way.

With self-taught YouTube makeup artists gaining a staggeringly huge following and all of the new technology available to us now, it’s a perfect storm for the latest makeup trends (and the makeup industry as a whole) to take innovative leaps.

Today, we have special guest Cori Stoddard to give us an insider’s eye on the current state of the makeup industry. Cori is the managing editor at the highly acclaimed Makeup Artist Magazine. She’s been in the industry as a journalist for twenty years and has seen plenty of popular makeup trends come and go.

Dark & Messy is “In”

Dark purples are a trending makeup favorite this fall, so try adding burgundies, plums, and maroons to your makeup collection.

Makeup Technology Trends

The things we like to watch, from Game of Thrones to Saturday Night Live, all rely on makeup to enhance (or even create) the characters. In the past, we relied solely on makeup, prosthetics, and props to believably turn an actor into a character. Now, makeup is often paired with CGI to make a character really come to life.

“Makeup artists are having to incorporate more of [technology] in their jobs,” Cori says. “A lot of filmmakers are saying, ‘Actually, I want this to appear as real as possible.’” Whether that means CGI or lifelike prosthetics, one thing is clear -- the makeup trends in 2017 are inspiring plenty of outside-the-box thinking.

To stay up to date with the latest makeup trends, visit the Makeup Artist Magazine website and follow Cori Stoddard.