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Health & Fitness

10 Home Workout Essentials that Every Man Needs Right Now

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Though some businesses have begun to reopen during these uncertain times, this doesn’t mean that we can start letting our guard down. Until a cure or vaccine is found, the safest thing we can do for ourselves and for others is to stay indoors and avoid outdoor activities whenever possible. 

This can present numerous challenges for fitness buffs who, by this point, may have already gone a couple of months without a single visit to their usual gyms or fitness centers. Fortunately, it’s completely possible to do challenging and rewarding workouts without ever leaving the house.

Indeed, you can stay fit while sheltering in place. To do so effectively, check out our list of things that you should get right now, from men’s mid-calf crew socks to dumbbells.

What You Need for Your Workout Attire

The clothes you should wear will depend on your exact exercise routine. Generally speaking, though, you’ll want them all to be made with sweat-wicking fabrics that pull moisture away from your skin. This will help keep you cool and comfortable whether you’re pumping iron or shedding calories through cardio. Added features such as breathability and odor repellence will all come down to your personal preference.

Workout Shirts

When it comes to shirts, you’ll want ones that fit close to the body while still allowing you to have a full range of motion. If you’re going to be running or biking around the block, you may want to invest in tight-fitting tops, as these will reduce drag and help you perform better.

While cotton is an extremely popular fabric choice for its lightweight and moisture-absorbing qualities, keep in mind that this material will simply absorb sweat and moisture without releasing it. If this bothers you, stick to a synthetic blend instead.

Workout Shorts

Much like picking the right shirts, choosing the best shorts or bottoms will also depend on the types of exercises that you like to do. Most of the time, you can go with your usual gym shorts or your favorite pair of basketball shorts.

Just make sure that they fit close enough to your body so as not to be a hindrance. It also shouldn’t be so loose as to catch on equipment, potentially causing you to injure yourself in the process. 

Shoes

In addition to good-quality shirts and shorts, you’ll also need a good pair of shoes and moving socks to match. While there is some literature about the benefits of going barefoot while working out, shoes and socks can still protect and cushion your feet as you move around. 

What You Need for Your Workout Gear

Water Bottle

Staying hydrated while exercising is important, as this can regulate your body temperature as well as lubricate your joints. That said, minimize trips to the kitchen by keeping a water bottle in your workout area. While it’s best to pick a bottle with a leak-proof seal cover or one that unscrews from the bottom for easy cleanup, these features aren’t strictly necessary. 

Towel

Another essential item that you should buy is a towel to wipe yourself off as you exercise. This can be especially useful to stop sweat from getting into your eyes and blurring your vision. Additionally, a towel can help keep your hands dry, preventing workout gear from slipping out of your grasp. If you can, go for a towel that’s made with microfiber fabric, as this material can absorb moisture well. 

Gloves

A pair of workout gloves can be a good investment if you lift weights regularly. They can not only protect your hands and palms from developing calluses, but they can also help you keep a firm grip on your equipment. 

What You Need for Your Workout Equipment

When choosing exercise equipment, keep in mind the types of activities you incorporate into your usual routine and how much free space you have at home. After all, it wouldn’t be practical to buy a treadmill or a stationary bike if it can’t even fit in your house.

Those with only a minimal amount of space to work with may want to consider a set of resistance bands. They are an incredibly versatile purchase, as they can be used to target different muscle groups, all without taking up much room.

Another space-saving must-have is a jump rope, which is a great way to improve your agility and coordination. If you’re not a fan of cardio, though, try doing stretching exercises with a yoga mat instead. For strength-training, try a kettlebell, as they’re considered a more-than-viable alternative to traditional dumbbells.

These are just some of the most essential exercise clothes, gear, and equipment that you should have at home. Take your time when looking for these items, as getting the right ones can help you maximize your workouts and avoid sustaining injuries. Though it can be challenging to stay healthy in an environment that’s designed for relaxing, these essentials should help reignite the fire in your blood.

General

4 Helpful Tasks You Should Add to Your Quarantine To-Do List

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In March, it was common to see people start new posts on Facebook or Twitter with the phrase, “Quarantine: Day 12.” They would then offer a funny message like, “Another sourdough bread fail!” or “Spent the morning putting my socks in alphabetical order.” 

The message: We are all bored and have no idea how to live properly in the era of coronavirus. Hearing such things can be comforting. We’re all in this together, we’re all bored, and we’re all going a bit crazy.

Fast forward a few months later, however, and things are getting harder and harder. Nobody even remembers how many days it has been, and we’re all bouncing off the walls. 

While this is all natural, it’s important to find ways to adapt. You need to keep your mind occupied and maintain your mental health. Until this is all over, life will probably never feel normal. But the following tips will provide a few useful tasks that you can add to your quarantine to-do list.

1. Start to Get Organized

Spending so much time around the house makes the small annoyances even larger. Chances are, your closet or the Tupperware drawer has been out of sorts for years. But you’ve always just kind of dealt with it, saying you’ll fix it later when you have time. Well, “later” is finally here. With little better to do next weekend, attack the little problems and rearrange things into a better system. 

2. Work to Declutter Yourself

Even better than reorganizing is culling! In those closets and drawers — not to mention the garage or attic — you surely have a lot of stuff you don’t need. Well, it’s time to get with the Marie Kondo method and declutter you life. Whether you’re finding clothes that don’t fit, old sporting goods you never use, or discarded electronics from a decade ago, now is the time to get rid of the junk and free up some space.

3. Do Some Life Planning

After finding physical order comes peace of mind. Coronavirus has forced us all to consider our own mortality and you should use this moment to get some affairs in order. The no-brainer, must-do move is to evaluate your life insurance situation. If you don’t have any, get some! And even people with a plan can usually use more. After that, look into estate planning, craft a will, and consider setting up a living will. Some of this isn’t as hard as it might seem, but consulting a qualified professional is always helpful.

4. Find Ways to Relax

Even people who can handle all the isolation and stay-at-home drudgery well are now starting to struggle. It is just very hard on people — from missing our favorite friends and activities to grappling with all the societal problems and pain of the moment. So you need to find some healthy ways to relax, unwind, and cut down on stress. Whether it’s picking up new techniques (like yoga), trying new hobbies (maybe photography), or refocusing on former activities you’ve dropped (consistent exercise), it’s important to do something every day to calm your mind.

Making the Most of Tough Times

Eventually, this too will pass. While such words of wisdom might help a little, they don’t do much for us right now. Still, we can try to make the best of these strange times to stay at least somewhat productive and make a few positive changes.

Some of the best tips center around organizing your life a bit better. Start with some physical spaces by rearranging your closets and decluttering your home of unneeded belongings. Then get your house in order in terms of life insurance and planning. Finally, pinpoint a few ways to reorganize your mind to lower stress and relax.

It’s hard right now to feel like we’re doing anything meaningful. But just by checking a few of these items off your quarantine to-do list, you’ll get a little bit of that pep back in your step.

Sales

5 Ways Smart Money Management Makes Life Easier

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Surviving in an ever-changing world comes with many different financial changes. One of the most important for many families today is learning how to develop smart money management skills. Since the best budgeting strategies can make a big difference in living from one paycheck to another and making life better in every way, you may want to look at the following ideas as you make your own customized plan.

1. Learn What it Means to Adopt a Frugal Mindset

When you are living on a tight budget, one of the best things that you can do for you and your family is to adopt the frugal mindset. With this mindset, you will have many opportunities to buy what you need, while also saving money, too.

Additionally, there are a lot of excellent tips online from consumers all over the globe. Many of these tips can help you and your family to get started right away. For instance, before you decide to buy the latest new technology for someone in your household, you can explore the wide range of options available to you. In some cases, you can save money by renting the item, borrowing it, or making a decision to re-evaluate the need for the new item altogether.

2. Set Aside Money for Dividend Stocks

In addition to developing a new way to think about your spending, you may also want to consider the possibilities of investing in monthly dividend stocks. Now that you have learned to save money by being more frugal, you should have a little leftover to create additional wealth from the stash that’s stored away.

You can accomplish this goal or objective by setting aside a specific amount each month to invest in monthly dividend stocks. In this way, you can also build several different avenues to enhance your portfolio and have money that can be used for many years in the future.

3. Set Financial Goals for the Future

To make sure that your family can live the life that others only dream about, you need to set some financial goals early. It really does not matter what these goals are during this present time, you can create a financial pathway to achieve anything. From buying a new home in the inner city to paying for your child’s college education, you need to set these financial goals in advance so that you can chip away at it a little bit at a time. If you do not set these goals in advance, the high cost that it takes to get what you want may be out of your reach during the most opportune times.

4. Utilize the Best Available Financial Software Tools

The age of writing your expenses down on a hard copy paper ledger is not only a part of the past but may even hinder your progress. Since balancing a budget properly and tracking finances can be very time consuming, you should change your methods of recording your finances. Therefore, when you are looking around for the best resources available, you need to pay close attention to the alternatives in this industry. For instance, when you are shopping the internet for the best software for budgeting your income and expenses, here are some features that can help you with accuracy and expediting the process.

  • User Friendly – Software that is simple for anyone in the family to use for budgeting.
  • Easy Accessible – Software can be accessed via your computer, mobile phone, laptop, and etc. These programs must also be available everywhere a user goes via the internet or wi-fi connection.
  • End to End Solution for Personal Budgeting – The software product that you purchase should include a wide variety of essential features and capabilities, including online real-time information, print out capabilities, reporting, tracking, and other critical capabilities that make-up a robust budgeting process.

5. Pay Cash – Avoid Interest

Whenever possible, pay cash for the items that you want to purchase. By paying cash, you can eliminate the high costly interest attached to credit card debt. Even though your credit card may have a low-interest rate, these little extra amounts can add up to large sums of money over longer periods of time.

Home Decor

Items to Make Your Home Decor Pop

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Owning your own home comes with a fantastic opportunity to let your creativity run wild and make it your own. The most memorable homes in our communities are the ones that portray the personality of the people who live within them. When you are finally able to stop renting and get a place of your own, your creative juices can flow. Follow these few tips to make your home stand out and stick out in the minds of your guests and visitors.

1. Use Decorative Planters On Your Porch

Decorating your large porch in a welcoming way is like a perfect invitation to your guests to take a load off. Use some of the same plants in your home as are in your garden. Plant the same species of plants in large decorative planters to make a cohesive link between the outside of your home and the inside. This is a great way to keep a theme going throughout your living area.

2. Install a Decorative Ladder

We all know the purpose of a ladder is to be able to reach taller heights than we can without one, but a decorative ladder is a way to represent the upward motion of an actual ladder and be beautiful at the same time. No matter what your style or how your home is decorated, there is definitely a decorative ladder that will work for you. They can be a great complementary piece to hold blankets and throws, cooking utensils, or other items you can use to decorate your home.

3. Choose an Accent Color

One of the first steps for decorating your home is to come up with a paint color scheme that speaks to you. Whether you are looking to redecorate the inside of your home or the porch area, an important part of that paint palette is a color that is complementary to the main colors. Use this complementary shade to accent the main color, with little touches along with the wall trim, baseboards, or with furnishings. This is a sleek look that can bring your whole room together.

4. Extend Your Window Sill for Added Storage

Having a window sill that is wider than normal increases the number of things that you can store on top of it. In your own home, if your window sills are shallower than you would like, it only requires some accurate measuring and a bit of scrap plywood to make a wider one a reality. Your updated window sills can be painted to match your style and you can store decorative knick-knacks on top of them. A deeper window sill is the perfect way to update your home’s decor.

5. Update Your Doors

Replacing the doors between rooms in your home, or even exterior entrances, is an incredibly easy and cost-effective way to update the whole look of a room. Many styles of doors are simple to install yourself and are designed to be quick enough to not disrupt your life. Adding a vintage style barn door is an amazing way to interpret some farm-like atmosphere in your home. They look fantastic in the kitchen or as an entrance to a dining area.

6. Use Cute-as-a-Button Containers to Organize Your Kitchen

If you are like most people, your kitchen is full of things and it is difficult to perform many tasks. By artfully arranging wicker baskets or brightly colored plastic containers, you can arrange all your implements so that you have enough room to use them and you always know exactly where they are. Be sure to lump like items in with each other and always store them so you can see what they are at a glance.

7. Establish a Wall as Your Art Gallery

Whether it has appreciated in value or not, your art is special. Display your various pieces in a well-lit area and artfully arrange the items to appeal to your visitors. Having a wall to be used as your own personal art gallery is a tremendous idea to display your most prized possessions. Art is a great thing to invest in. People will love to see what means a lot to you.

Fashion

Redefining Yourself: 5 Tips for Finding Your Fashion Style

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Women get a lot of advice about fashion. Social media, magazines, and TV shows all have a lot to say about what is and isn’t in style. Despite this, fashion isn’t one-size-fits-all. Trendy, cutting-edge fashion often doesn’t make women feel comfortable or self-confident. Many don’t even like these pieces and stick with what they know and are comfortable in. And that’s actually not a bad thing. With a few tweaks, that approach can be the key to creating your own fashion style. These five tips can help.

Signature Jewelry

Create a memorable look with signature, much-loved jewelry pieces. This could mean being the woman who wears turquoise, the woman who always wears silver layered necklaces, or the woman who wears large, eye-catching teardrop earrings as her only accessory. It’s not boring to stick with much-loved pieces—it’s iconic. Unsure about choosing a single style to reflect individual taste and personality? If you’re looking for help, visit urbanaccessoriesnyc.com and other jewelry websites to see what catches your eye

Color Palette

Choose wardrobe pieces to match a set color palette. For example, base pieces in shades of grey, and tops, scarves, and other complementary pieces in soft pastels, with accessories in black. Having a wardrobe that sticks with one palette gives a woman signature colors while allowing her to mix-and-match pieces for flexibility and variety in outfits. Pro tip: choose colors that compliment skin tone, complexion, and hair color.

Body Shape

Cosmo advises keeping body shape in mind when choosing pieces, in addition to colors. Look for cuts and styles that compliment your body’s features. Short women, for example, should look for slacks that fit the wearer’s inseam and don’t drag on the ground. Choose pieces that fit well in the store, but don’t pass up an item because it’s not quite right. Tailoring pants and skirts that are too long, for example, is quick and affordable.

Signature Scent

Wear a signature scent. Style isn’t all about clothes: hair, makeup, and even nails all play into a woman’s personal style. Those things often change throughout a woman’s life, but to help create and maintain a signature style, perfume shouldn’t. Scent and memory are entwined, and most everyone has that one woman they remember when they catch the scent of a certain perfume. Be the woman in someone’s memory who always wore Chanel N°5, for example.

Designer Pieces

Include a few dressy designer pieces in your wardrobe for special events. Look for styles that are classic rather than trendy, and choose iconic fashion labels like Vera Wang, Prada, and Balenciaga. Be the woman who appreciates a few perfect designer pieces, not the woman who has a new, flashy outfit for every event that she never wears again. In fact, this is Harper Bazaar’s number one tip to be more stylish.

Creating a signature style is about ignoring fashion trends and choosing a look to carry through the years. Consider Marilyn Monroe, arguably one of the greatest fashion icons of all time. In our collective memory, we remember her signature colors and styles: black, white, and red, in pieces that are still considered stylish and chic today. Of course, that doesn’t mean never buying new styles. Rather, it means choosing new styles and pieces that go with your signature style so they’ll fit seamlessly into your wardrobe and last for years.