Blog Posts by Details Magazine

Photo: Condé Nast Archivesby Mike Dawson, DETAILS

The yolk has been the enemy of breakfast for years-but no more, my egg-white-omelet-ordering friends.

Like most of you, I ditched the yolk thinking I was lowering my cholesterol, helping my ticker, and staying lean. But it turns out those yellow-less free-ranges were doing more harm than good. Here are three reasons to go for yolk (boo!) when you eat eggs.

See also: 5 Foods That Will Make You Look Younger

First, assuming you are not obese, eat relatively well, and work out at least a little, a few or more whole eggs a week aren't going to lift your bad cholesterol levels.

Second, whole eggs are packed with protein, good fats, vitamins, and nutrients that have been proven to help boost your brain. Some studies suggest they may even guard against dementia.

Third, last year a study at the University of Alberta, home to one of the world's leading food-science programs, discovered that cooked whole eggs, yolk and all, are equal to apples in their antioxidant

Corbisby Mike Dawson, DETAILS

According to several studies, most professionals sit an average of nine and a half hours a day. It almost sounds like a low figure, right? We young guns are probably locked in for far longer. Start with at least nine hours at work, then add the commute, the restaurant, the bar, the couch . . . how many is that? Point is, you sit a lot. And your body isn't really designed for it-even if you're sitting in an ergonomic Herman Miller.

See also: 5 Foods That Will Make You Look Younger

Parking your rear for that long can jack up your back and make you fat. But it may also kill you. According to a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, those who sit for six hours a day are twice as likely to die within 15 years as compared to those who sit for only about three hours a day.

You're now imagining someone who's smoking, eating Burger King, and sucking down giant sodas on the couch while watching a Storage Wars marathon. Well, don't. We're also talking

by Mike Dawson, DETAILS

There have been several studies recently showing that people who work out in the morning without eating breakfast burn slightly more fat during cardio workouts than people who do eat breakfast.

See also: Hollywood's Top Vanity Muscles

The reason is simple: When you're sleeping, you're fasting. By the time your alarm goes off, your body has already burned up most of its main fuel source-carbs. Head out on your morning run on an empty stomach and your body starts to burn its next favorite fuel-fat.

But according to a study from the Strength and Conditioning Journal, what those other studies don't show is that if you make a habit of it, your body will not only burn up fat, it'll start burning up protein in your muscles, thus shrinking those bulges you worked so hard to build.

See also: 5 Foods That Will Make You Look Younger

What's more, if you don't have some food in your system, you can't work out nearly as hard. So sure, you might burn up more fat for one

by Mike Dawson, DETAILS

Static stretching--flexing and holding a position, like bending over and touching your toes, has earned a bad rap lately. Sometimes it seems like the entire fitness universe, especially personal trainers, pooh-pooh this practice before a workout. They say it weakens your muscles and may increase your chance of injury.

See also: Hollywood's Top Vanity Muscles

This sentiment is understandable: It's based on a solid, and widely read, 2008 University of Nevada Las Vegas study that described how college athletes lost about three percent of their leg power if they static stretched before a super-short "explosive" sprint.

Boom. Fact. Right?

Hold on. You're not a college athlete whose three percent power loss may cost him an inch in a 40-yard dash. Our "performance" stakes are much lower-like a weights workout or a three-miler through the park (assuming it's sunny). Most of us will never notice we're a few points shy of peak performance.

We just want to be

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Details.comby Mike Dawson, DETAILS

Put down the sugar, sport.



If you're working out for less than an hour a few days a week, you don't need some Day-Glo-colored sports drink, recovery gel, or even a banana right after your sweat session.

See also: Hollywood's Top Vanity Muscles

In fact, if you eat or drink carbs (i.e., sugar) too soon after exercising, you may actually slow down your body's natural ability to burn fat.

Here's why. Sugar spikes your insulin level. While this ultimately sparks muscle repair, insulin may in fact inhibit the fat-torching effects of human growth hormone, which is released during and post workout (see this Journal of Applied Psychology article)

Related: The Ultimate Take-It-Anywhere Workout

Now, if you're cycling all day or a basketball star who plays hard four nights in a row or a marathoner training intensely for more than an hour a day, six days a week, then recovering with carbs (both during and immediately after exercise) is key to your stamina and ability

Photo by Tom SchierlitzBy Tim Murphy, DETAILS

The way Aaron Sachs holds his eight-month-old daughter betrays a tentativeness that most first-time dads don't have. Roque (pronounced Ro-KAY) is perched on his knee as he sits at a picnic table in the verdant back yard of a mid-century ranch-style house in Riverside, California, that belongs to Roque's grandma. It's the week after Christmas, and the electric candles are still in the windows. Sachs has just taken the wriggling, dark-haired bundle of joy from her mom, Aimee Carrillo Rowe, an attractive 45-year-old professor. As he cradles her, Sachs, 31, also a professor, gently rubs Roque's back, then sets her down to crawl across the picnic table.


See also: Hollywood's Top Vanity Muscles

"The last time I was here, she wasn't crawling," Sachs says, gazing at her with big warm eyes. "She doesn't look that much different this time, but she seems happier." This is only Sachs' sixth visit with his daughter. He and Rowe are not a couple-in fact, both prefer women.

Details.com
by Mike Dawson, DETAILS

Each week, writer Mike Dawson tackles the complex, confusing, and often dead-wrong health and fitness myths so you can live smarter.

Good news for us overscheduled go-getters who catch only six hours of shut-eye during the week: We may actually outlive those snoozers who rack up eight or more.

See also: Sexy New Men's Swimwear

A recent long-term study of 500 folks published in the journal Sleep Medicine claims those who sleep for more than seven hours a night have a higher mortality rate than those who clock far fewer hours.

Yes, you read that correctly: That old, outdated standard of eight hours a night may, in fact, lead to an early death.

"The best survival was for those who slept five to six and a half hours," says the study's lead researcher, Daniel Kripke, M.D., professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. "This means [those] who sleep as little as five hours have nothing to worry about."

See also: The