Hot Takes: Mouth Tape, $20 Smoothies, Cold Plunges, and Pilates

Time for some hot takes, and this round is not medical. Wellness trends, workout tribalism, and the $20 smoothie. Here's where I actually land on each.

I think it's all nonsense.

The whole overnight-contraption genre, taping your mouth shut, strapping your chin, layering on a silk mask, strikes me as a symptom of something bigger:

My honest advice is dramatically less interesting than the trend: take good care of your body, eat healthy, and take good care of your skin. That's it. Stop taping your face and doing weird stuff at night.

The basics are unglamorous, which is precisely why they don't go viral. But a consistent skincare routine will do more for you than anything you strap on before bed.

Eye roll. Complete waste of time.

There's an Erewhon down the street from my office, and there is a line around the block from the second they open. For what?

They're really mid.

I don't have a deeper analysis than that. Twenty dollars, an hour of your morning, and a genuinely unremarkable smoothie.

Pilates, all the way. This is the one I feel strongly about.

I've done Pilates three days a week for about ten years. In my opinion it is the absolute best exercise, and it isn't just a personal preference:

It is incredible for strengthening your core, which is exactly what you want when you're rebuilding after abdominal work. If you've had a tummy tuck or other body contouring, core strength is a real part of your long-term result, not an optional extra.

Ten years in, three days a week, and I still recommend it above everything else.

It's sweaty. And I hate being sweaty at baseline, so I'm not the target market.

But my real objection isn't the sweat, it's the injuries. I've known too many people who get hurt doing it.

Here's the mechanism, and it applies to any workout in a heated room:

• The heat lets you overestimate your flexibility and your abilities
• Your tissues feel more pliable than they safely are
• It becomes far too easy to hurt yourself

Combine a real injury risk with a benefit I don't find compelling, and I don't really see the point.

Absolutely not.

Two reasons, one petty and one substantive.

The petty one: I hate the cold. No apologies.

The substantive one: the research isn't great. For something being marketed as a near-mandatory recovery ritual, the evidence behind it is considerably thinner than the enthusiasm around it.

Don't waste your time with a cold plunge. I just don't get it.

• Morning shed gear (mouth tape, chin straps, silk masks): nonsense. Take care of your body and your skin instead.
• $20 Erewhon smoothies: eye roll. The line is long and they're mid.
• Pilates: the winner, ten years running, and required for my body contouring patients.
• Hot yoga: too many injuries, because heat makes you overestimate what your body can safely do.
• Cold plunge: no. The research isn't there and I hate being cold.

The theme running through all of it: the boring fundamentals beat the trend almost every time. Eat well, move consistently, look after your skin, and skip the gadgets. (More unfiltered opinions in the other round of hot takes and my personal rapid-fire Q&A.)