Matt Gross


From how to crash the business class lounge to the best in-flight cocktails, former New York Times Frugal Traveler Matt Gross shares his air-travel tips

1. Hit the Lounge: I fill up on free booze, salty snacks, and the last fresh fruit I'll see for a while--and I don't need an upgrade to do it. How? I have an American Express Platinum Card, which gives me access to 600-plus lounges worldwide, and the strength to face 14 hours in coach. At $450 a year, it's worth every penny.

2. Drink Early, Drink Often: If I'm squeezed into a middle seat, I need to relax. Preferably with Frontier Airlines' selection of craft beers from their microbrew-crazy home base of Colorado (all around $7). On long hauls, Singapore Air serves a freshly mixed Singapore Sling in all classes. On the ground, the gin-and-pineapple juice cocktail may feel kitschy, but over the Pacific, it tastes like love.

See more: 8 Essential Kitchen Gadgets

3. Lower Your Tray Table: Korean Air's coach-class bibimbap is

Sam Dean

We like science as much as the next guy, but historically, it hasn't been the most consistent when it comes to telling us what we should and shouldn't eat. Even though ingesting (and digesting) food is key to the biological definition of life itself, scientists just can't seem to make up their minds about what happens to us when we put things in our mouths.

We already went through wine's up-and-downs (poison! medicine! kinda both!), but what about chocolate? Going way back, chocolate was thought of as medicine. The Aztecs used it as a religious energy drink, and old-school quacks wrote that chocolate helps digestion, coughs, jaundice, the "New Disease" (i.e., syphilis), and gout, among other things. Some said it was perfect for pepping up the constitutionally frail; others said it was perfect for calming down the overstimulated. Either way, everyone agreed that it was probably good for something, and it tasted great.

Then milk chocolate, science, and dieting came along.

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By Chelsea Roff

In 2007, Israeli fashion model Hila Elmaliah died of anorexia at 34-years-old. She had dwindled away to just under 60 pounds when she passed.

Elmaliah's untimely death motivated her friend, Israeli photographer and modeling agent Adi Barkan, to campaign for legislation in Israel that would prevent underweight models from walking the catwalk. Just over a year ago, Barkan got his wish and Israel passed a law that imposes strict regulations on the country's modeling industry.

In January of this year, five years after Elmaliah's death, the new law finally went into effect. The law bans underweight models in Israel from catwalks and commercials, a measure that many believe will reduce eating disorders and promote a healthy body image in a country where the fashion industry runs supreme. The new legislation requires models to produce a medical report at every photo shoot for the Israeli market, demonstrating that a doctor has agreed they have a body mass

Jancee Dunn

At a recent art opening near New York's High Line, the air was practically opaque on the sidewalk, thanks to an assemblage of gallery sylphs, cigarettes dangling from their manicured fingers. At another event, at the Lever House on Park Avenue, it seemed like half the stylish crowd was huddled outside by the entrance, puffing away as they teetered on their stilettos. Didn't these people read the headline-making study in the New England Journal of Medicine? Earlier this year, it reported a steep increase in tobacco-related ailments among female smokers, who are now more likely to die of lung cancer than men who smoke. Equally bleak news came from a separate study published in the same issue of the NEJM: It found that women who smoke die, on average, a full decade sooner than nonsmokers.

Yet despite the warnings, one in five Americans still lights up. Fortunately, the same NEJM study found that kicking the habit at any age dramatically lengthens your life expectancy. In

"I live an alternate life.""I live an alternate life: during the day, I am a self-restrained, authoritarian who works as hard as I can to show professionalism, and on my own time, my husband and I are bikers. We spend several weekends out of the year and a week or two during the summer traveling on our Harley. Our kids love spending time at their grandparents, especially in the summer, so we take trips across the United States on our bikes. We take with us only what will fit on the bike, and we travel through several states at a time." -- Leeann Bailey, "Confessions of a Working Mom"

"My confession I

My recent post, Beware of "decoy habits," spurred a lot of conversation, and it's clear to me that the subject is much more complex, and interesting, than I initially realized.

Readers made many thought-provoking comments. One reader pointed to research that suggests that talking about a goal can lead to the false feeling of already having achieved that goal. I've seen that research-and I've also seen research suggesting that talking about a goal can help you stick to that goal, by making you feel more committed, and also more accountable to the people you've told. So it seems to go both ways.

From my own experience-a statistically insignificant yet often helpful data point-this is a point on which people differ. Some do better if they don't talk it up too much; some do better if they tell others what they want to do.

Exhibit A is my former roommate, who told people that she did yoga, and telling them seemed to convince her that she did, in fact, do yoga. Perhaps

Learn which popular nutrition claims aren't as healthy as they soundBy Jessica Girdwain

What Does It Really Mean?
Pick up an innocent box of granola bars or a bottle of iced tea and you're hit with health claims-from less fat to made with real sugar. In fact, a USDA study showed that 43% of products introduced in 2010 splashed nutrition ads on their packaging. But despite their promises, you could be eating more fat, calories, salt and sugar than you think. Get the facts on the most deceptive claims so they never mislead you again. Photo by Getty Images.

1. "Cholesterol Free"

What you think it means: Heart-healthy!

What it really means: Cholesterol's only in animal products, but the cholesterol-free stamp is frequently used on plant-based foods that would never contain it. Plus, plenty of junk food is naturally cholesterol-free (think Red Vines and Fritos), which doesn't make it heart-healthy. "Besides, research shows that dietary cholesterol doesn't affect blood cholesterol levels the way we thought it did decades ago," says Darya Pino Rose,

eggiesWhen I look back onto the 13 months I've been involved with fertility treatments, specifically IVF, I'm amazed at how much I have learned, and can hardly remember what my life was like before this all began. IVF can be all-consuming. No matter what doctors and therapists and nutritionists and yoga instructors and fitness coaches tell you about finding a balance and still doing non-fertility related things in your life, it's next to impossible to separate fertility treatments from any other part of your life.

Quickly, you become a slave to the cycle. Everything revolves around the exact timing of the cycle. And while it is possible to enjoy those little and few moments that aren't necessarily related directly to your fertility treatments, you're always aware that at any moment, those moments can be disrupted by a sudden change in treatment or any number of unexpected things that can cancel your cycle entirely that month.

Naturally, any woman that gets involved in IVF wants