ATHLEISURE KITCHEN WITH GAIL SIMMONS

Earlier this month, we had the honor of sitting down with one of our culinary faves at NYC's The Kitchen Table in NoLita with Gail Simmons. In addition to her role at Food & Wine Magazine, she is also known as a judge on BRAVO's Top Chef. We talked with Gail about her journey in food journalism, the importance of working throughout the food industry to gain invaluable knowledge of professional kitchens, Top Chef history, food diversity, how she maintains calm when planning for guest arrivals for food celebrations, key ingredients in her kitchen this Spring, where we can find her shopping in Brooklyn and more!

ATHLEISURE MAG: So tell us about your background and how you came to work in food journalism?

GAIL SIMMONS: It’s sort of a long story and I have always started with a love for food. I graduated from college and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my career and everyone else seemed to know what they wanted to do with their degree out of college. All I knew was that I loved to cook and I loved to write. But back then, that wasn’t necessarily a one plus one equals two situation. People were just starting to cover the food world. The term food media back then just meant writing for a handful of magazines or a couple pages of newspapers and there wasn’t the kinds of opportunities that they are now. But I knew that cooking was my passion and so I got a job first as an intern in a magazine and as an Editorial Assistant in a newspaper as sort of a lifestyle food and travel section. I realized that in working everyday around all of these different subjects that food is really what I am more interested in. Then I was given this really great piece of advice that anyone can write as you can practice on your own and that’s what you have editors for, but if you want to differentiate yourself and really make a mark in the food world then you really need to understand the professional kitchen and learn to cook.

So I picked up, packed up and moved to NYC and went to culinary school and from there I worked in a few really tough, but incredible professional kitchens as a line cook and always with an agenda that I wanted to write about it and knowing that I never wanted to be a chef in a kitchen full time. When the time was right and I had a lot of experience and felt that I really understood how to cook well properly with a good foundation, I moved back into writing first with Vogue Magazine as an Assistant to the Food Writer and then for a chef doing events, marketing and PR all sort of learning around the events of the restaurant industry in every different aspect of what it takes to work in the food industry. About 15 years ago, I landed at Food and Wine Magazine and I’ve sort of been there ever since.

AM: That is a journey and what was the moment while you were on this food journalism track that you realized that you wanted to enhance your brand and make that jump into TV as well?

GS: I didn’t actually. I never ever consciously thought, I want to enhance my brand as a personality – the word brand, was never in my language or in my purview. I never thought about going on to television it was always about writing and publishing for me back then – 14 years ago. I did a little bit of food television in my early days on behalf of Food & Wine because often morning shows would need someone to talk about recipes, wine trends from the magazine or what we were doing for our spring issue ,so I was the one that would often go on because I had the cooking and marketing background to go on and be able to do cooking demos and to talk with the anchors and the hosts. So that sort of became what I did for the magazine and about a year into my job at Food & Wine, BRAVO came to Food & Wine with this idea of a reality show about the lives of professional chefs and they wanted to call it Top Chef and they wanted to partner with Food & Wine to teach them about the world of food and cooking and in exchange, they would put one of their editors on the judges panel and so they screen tested me and asked me to do it and I have been doing it ever since. I never meant to do it, I never sought it out, but we also certainly never knew that it was going to be a hit show and that it would last this long. We’re going into our 17th season and it doesn’t seem like it is going to be slowing down.

AM: We love your authenticity and in doing the research to chat with you, it was amazing to see how many areas of this industry that you have touched to immerse yourself in this space. Clearly this is why you can speak about so many aspects of it due to your knowledge.

GS: For me, everything I did up until now, and what I continue to do, feeds into my experience and my knowledge. I don’t think that I could have ever gotten the job on television had I not done all of those things. I think that being able to speak to the real life of professional kitchens, which is what our show is about – we want to speak fairly and honestly in a constructive way and understand the work that chefs do. I think that you need to have a working knowledge of that to come across to your audience not only as authentic, but in a way that the audience of a show can identify with you because the audience can’t taste the food. You really become the taste buds for your viewers and I think that all of the work that I have done and before leading up to Top Chef helped prepare me.

AM: What led to you creating cookbooks and what is that process like for you when you’re making them?

GS: I think that these days, cookbooks for me was a very natural offshoot for everything that I do and finding a place where all of my favorite recipes could live that shaped me and make me who I am and recipes that I have learned and brought home from my travels that have become staples in my household and I wanted to just share those with everybody because I am asked for them so often. It was a great opportunity to put them in one place.

The process was rigorous. It took me 2 years to write my most recent book. 2 years is sort of par for the course and sometimes it can take many, many more. From conception to publication, so it was an all encompassing process. It was so much work in every aspect – testing, developing, testing, rewriting the recipes, editing etc. Writing all the head notes, the introduction, making sure that they are accurate having someone else retest for that accuracy. I really wanted to make sure that every recipe in the book not only sounded delicious, but was absolutely attainable for everyone to make at home.

AM: That’s intense. Going back to Top Chef, we have had the pleasure of interviewing Chef Brooke Williamson and Chef Richard Blais previously in Athleisure Mag as well as on Athleisure Studio’s podcast network show – Athleisure Kitchen. What is it like for you as a judge to be on Top Chef? What is the process like for you and how do you get yourself prepared for those moments that are taking place?

GS: I mean we have been making this show for so long that we have gotten it down to a science. It’s a great process though as we have a great crew that has worked with us for so many years and everyone really understands what every episode takes. So we’re a pretty fine tuned machine. I would say that the most important part of what I do is balancing - being constructive and fair with the challenge that is being presented every episode and making sure that I am speaking to that challenge and what all the different chefs that are doing. The great thing about the show is that we travel to a different city every single season so I always do a little research about the place because the location is going to inform so much about the cooking, the ingredients and the history. You know, the history of Charleston is going to be different then the history of Boston which is going to be very different than the history of Kentucky or California. I think it really plays a role and is what differentiates our show from all others.

AM: It’s also so inclusive to food diversity from a geographical standpoint. This season’s Top Chef was in Kentucky and one of our Co-Founders is from Indiana and many of the recipes that were made this season were also indicative of areas she grew up in and which allows audiences to connect from that standpoint as well.

GS: Exactly there is a lot of food overlap and that is what makes our show so fun. You don’t have to be a great cook to identify with loving food or understanding the history of this country. Food plays such a great role in that and in our families in the way that we eat, the way that we go out, the way that we celebrate and we try to stay true to the locations that we go to.

AM: How would you define, your style of cooking?

GS: I think my cooking is spontaneous and changes with a season. I’m a mom and I think my food has changed a lot since I became a mother. I want flavor and I want it to be healthy and easy to make because I don’t want to give people recipes that will take them 3 days in the kitchen and I certainly don’t have time to dedicate that. So my style really calls from all of my travel experience and my childhood which has a lot of influences. People always ask me, “what’s your favorite thing to cook?” I never have one favorite thing, it always depends on the time of year, where I traveled to last, the ingredients that I am most excited about and then ways that I go about organizing them and being the most efficient in the kitchen to get the most flavor by doing the least to the great quality of food that I have.

AM: Because you have done so much in the food industry, are there other projects that you would love to be a part of that you have yet to tackle – but would want to?

GS: I think there are so many things. There is so much travel that I want to do and I think that giving back to the community that helped me for so long is really important to me and there are so many ways to do that right now. Cooking is such a life skill, so not only does it nourish people, but it teaches people to translate that skill into a job anywhere where they are. Certainly, there are so many things where food applies to our lives, whether it’s politics or math and science. Teaching my child to cook, you become some conscious of that and so just teaching is always in the background for me, whether it’s through books or in television championing my industry, and giving back to my community through all of these different channels is always top of mind and there are always more things to be done.

AM: With Spring being here finally as we see the leaves on the trees – there are so many Spring holidays coming up and reasons to just come together just because. What are some trends taking place in the kitchen that we can incorporate right now into our dishes just to change things up?

GS: I think that Spring is just the most exciting moment in the year because we have all just been in hibernation for so long and I got real cozy with lots of soups and stews over the winter but I am ready for bright new ingredients. I am really excited about bringing all of those fresh herbs, fresh flavors, different fruits and vegetables into my diet that I haven’t been able to get all winter long. But I also want to be efficient with what I am cooking and because there are holidays in the Spring where you are cooking for a crowd often of all ages with family and friends with Easter and Passover – you really want to optimize your time in the kitchen. My entertaining strategies are always about finding recipes that you can be organized with and prepare as much as possible with in advance, so that when guests do arrive you’re just doing the minimal to get food on the table so that you can spend time with them.

AM: People come by unexpectedly sometimes. What do you suggest that we should always have in our fridges so that we can ensure that we are always ready as sometimes you never know when Auntie May comes by!

GS: Yes and there’s nothing to eat – it’s true! I mean I think with a few simple ingredients, whether it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner, there are ways to use them so that you’re picking ingredients that are versatile. A few products that I love are having lots of fresh herbs in my fridge and lots of citrus as they can be added to lots of things from pasta to cottage cheese. They can be turned into so many things in so many different ways. Or even eggs that they can go on top of. I love keeping good quality dairy products as they are always in my fridge. As I said, herbs and citrus, cheese, eggs, and then as much fresh ingredients as possible. So if you have salad greens or you have a few key bowls of berries, you can make 100 different things. Breakfast for example, is a time where I feel that people run out of ideas. There are a ton of things going on in the morning or if you’re entertaining in the morning there is a lot you have to do so quickly. If you have people over for brunch for Easter for example, if you can think a little ahead of time – you can make a really beautiful statement with minimal work. One thing that I always advocate is big batch cooking. I love making granola for example and I make it a week in advance in a big batch that I can eat throughout the week and I can have it as my go-to to put on top of things in the morning. Or just eat it as a handful to grab and go as a snack. When you have granola and some fresh berries, granola in the fridge and cottage cheese, then there you have the perfect protein packed, versatile and easy breakfast parfait that looks great and beautiful for everyone.

AM: When you are planning for 8-10 people that you know are coming for a dinner party, people get overwhelmed with the idea of tackling this – what do you do?

GS: I always make sure that I make my list and be organized. I can never underestimate how important that, is especially when you have guests arriving. Try not to do too many things and remember that you can ask for help. I think that people forget to do that. If I’m having people over, I want to think 2 days out about what I can do and then 1 day out, what I can do. Sometimes that feels daunting – no one has 3 days to make a meal, but I’m not talking about major cooking. Just marinating your meat in the morning so that 8 hours later when you cook it, it has all that flavor that is already done. That’s just 20 minutes in the morning and then you’re ready to cook as soon as guests arrive and it’s the same when you’re making your dressings in advance if you’re making a salad. I love making bowls – grain bowls for example, so doing things like making the dressing in advance, washing the lettuce, if I’m using quinoa or another grain like that – cooking it in advance really takes 15 minutes and then it’s cooled and ready to go and it’s in your fridge and all you’re doing is really assembly.

AM: What are 3 ingredients that you always have in your kitchen that are really good for versatile dishes?

GS: I would say that right now it’s fresh herbs, lemons because I use every part of the lemon from the juice to the zest and Hood Cottage Cheese because I feel it is the most versatile dairy product that I have that everyone loves and you can do so many things with it.

AM: Do you have some recipes for those of us that are busy and running around that are easy to satisfy and easy to make as well?

GS: One recipe that is my go to because it’s great for lunch, it’s great for a snack and it can feed a crowd and it’s easy to batch it up for 10 people or to just have a personal bowl of when I need something that is healthy and really satisfying – I make a really delicious Mango Avocado Salsa. Lots of lemons, lots of lime juice and lime zest and fresh cilantro tossed with fresh mango and avocado and I put it on a base of Hood Cottage Cheese with Black Pepper in a bowl. My little trick is I always make a little well in the center of the cottage cheese using the back of my spoon and I pile all the salsa right in the middle so that when you’re dipping you’re getting a little of both and you’re not searching for one ingredient or the other. I find that it’s a great after school snack for my kids, it’s a great appetizer for a dinner party or the perfect quick lunch for me on the go and it really doesn’t require many ingredients.

I talked with you about the grain bowl which is another one to make in advance and then the granola that I make all the time for breakfast for parfaits. Because if you have some fresh wash berries in the fridge, you can have your granola that you made before and all you have to do is layer it on together.

AM: Are there other ways that cottage cheese can be used beyond what someone would think is their “traditional” use?

GS: I think that cottage cheese is having this renaissance moment because people are rediscovering it from their childhood. First of all, it’s packed with protein which is a bonus, it can be used the same way that you use other dairy products. I love it in smoothies, I can use it in place of ricotta for pasta and lasagna. My kids love it and my little baby loves it for breakfast in the morning. It has texture and a rich creaminess and it's a great item to have around.

AM: You’re based here in NYC, where can we find you working out, grabbing a meal/cocktail and shopping?

GS: In NY the options are endless and I live in Brooklyn – I love my neighborhood. It’s a quiet treelined neighborhood in Brooklyn. There’s a lot of great places to eat nowadays. I’m really obsessed with eating at a lot of places with fresh little small plates and a glass of wine so there’s a great wine bar close to me called June that I love and another wine bar with great food called Frank’s Wine Bar. When I’m in downtown NY, where we are today in NoLita – I love eating at a little Middle Eastern spot that has really fresh fast casual food called In the Dez, it’s delicious and right up the street. That’s where you can see me grabbing food.

Working out - now that the nice weather is out, I can pick up running again. I love running, but I don’t like running indoors so winter is kind of out for me and I take a break from running. But I live near the Brooklyn Promenade so running from my house to the Brooklyn Bridge is sort of my go to run when the weather is nice. If not, then I’m a spinner so you can catch me at SoulCycle.

And shopping – what kind of shopping?

AM: Well whatever, whether it’s for clothes or food – it’s so open!

GS: I mean, that’s a tough one! Shopping – I’m shopping for lots of things all the time! Let’s see, I love Veronica Beard for clothes, she’s a great designer that I wear a lot from these days. For food, what I love about my Brooklyn neighborhood is that it’s so old school in that instead of going to big huge grocery stores, there are small shops so I have my local butcher that I love, there is an amazing Middle Eastern store that I get all of my spices and things like pita and fresh bread and things like that. I’m at the regular grocery store buying all of my pantry items too.

AM: Your makeup is always great and you have great skin. As someone who travels a lot, what are 3 skincare products that you use?

GS: I have really dry skin so traveling definitely takes a toll. But I am also someone that doesn’t use 50 products a day because I’m someone that has to get up and go and I am always in a rush. So 3 products that I love my under eye I believe in helping as much as possible because tired is real. I’m a big fan of Drunk Elephant Vitamin C under eye cream that I use all of the time. There is a really beautiful store here in NYC and there is another in Boston and in a few other locations possible in DC, and It’s called Follain that has the most non toxic products from body to face to make up and hair products that are not only good for the planet, but with ingredients that are pure and all natural – so I use a lot of their products. I love Naturopathica skin care. I use a bunch of their products – I love their Daily Moisturizer and there’s this Body Balm that I absolutely love OSEA. They carry it at Follain so I get it there, but I initially got it as a gift and I’m obsessed with it. I love the smell, it’s rich and luxurious and really a great natural and beautiful skincare product for your whole body.

AM: You’re very busy. How do you take time for yourself to just recharge and disconnect?

GS: It’s a hard thing to do and it requires actual carve out time on the calendar for sure. Working out and clearing my brain is really important. I have to force myself to do it, but for me, it’s not about losing weight as obviously staying healthy is important. It’s about clearing my head and destressing because I know I will feel better at the end of the day if I can. I love that I live in NYC and I don’t have a car and that I can walk everywhere as I find that therapeutic. Cooking is also something that lets me relax at the end of the day. There is nothing that I like more than anything at the end of the day, relaxing with friends where I can sit around the table and I can cook for them and destress and really connect with the people that I love the most and that to me is taking a great time for myself. Once or twice a year, I like a really good massage and date night with my husband is also nice every once in awhile! We forget to do it, but when we do it’s always important.

IG @GailSimmonsEats

You can hear this interview with Gail Simmons May 3rd on our show, Athleisure Kitchen, which is a part of Athleisure Studio, our multi-media podcast network! You can hear it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and wherever you enjoy listening to your favorite podcast shows.

Read Athleisure Mag’s April Issue and see Athleisure Kitchen with Gail Simmons in mag.

SHE'S GOT THAT GLOW WITH TRINITY FATU

Athleisure Mag’s April celebrity cover is Trinity Fatu who goes by the name Naomi in the ring as a WWE Superstar as well as being on E! Total Divas! We had the chance to hang out with her while she was here in NYC for WrestleMania which is the WWE’s equivalent to the Super Bowl. In addition to a fun shoot at The Loft in Flatiron and Limelight Fitness Club, we sat down with Trinity to talk about her journey from studying dance, being a NBA Orlando Magic Cheerleader, transitioning into the WWE, her love for performing and entertaining, sharing her personal life on E! Total Divas, endurance in the business and her coupleship with her husband Jonathan Fatu, who is a WWE wrestler under the name Jimmy Uso, and is half of the tag team The Usos.

ATHLEISURE MAG: Prior to coming to the WWE, tell us about your background as we know that you were an NBA cheerleader previously with the Orlando Magic.

TRINITY FATU: Yes! I started dance at the age of 8 and I studied tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical, modern and hip hop up until the age of 18. I competed nationally and once I was 18, I was too old to compete and graduated high school. So it was time for that next chapter and from there, I auditioned and went to the Magic from there. I wanted to go to Alvin Ailey Dance School, but at the time I just wasn’t mentally prepared and honestly, I was just scared to leave home! I had never been away from home so I ended up doing community college and stayed local and ended up doing Magic.

I’m kind of glad now that I didn’t go, because I don’t think that I ever would have gotten into wrestling and then I would have never met my husband and so on and so forth! It all kind of worked out how it was supposed to. I also come from a very musical family. My father is a musician – he’s a guitarist, my uncle is George McCrae.

AM: Shut up!

TF: Yes he had the song, “Rock Your Baby” in the 70’s and some other songs! Yes it’s just the ability to perform and entertain is in my blood and in my family’s so it was inevitable for me that I would do something in entertainment. One year, I had 12 jobs working through temp agencies and just trying to find the right job for me. But I was never satisfied with a 9-5 job. It had to be something that involved me being with people and being active. Socializing and working with people is that I ended up realizing that I like to do.

AM: So what led you to going to the WWE and what was that process like?

TF: So at the time, I was still an Orlando Magic dancer and the wrestling show came to the Amway Center one night and I ended up just wanting to watch the show. My girlfriend and some of the dancers told me about it and we ended up watching the show. When I saw the women perform, I was in awe and blown away by the entire show. I didn’t know much about wrestling and let alone that women had a role in it as much as they did and that they could do all the things that they did. It was a 6 woman tag that I saw and I mean they were killing it and they looked so beautiful. I knew right then that it was something that I wanted to do and that I could do!

So from there, I talked to my friend who knew someone that knew someone that knew someone. I went around asking questions to figure out how to get a try out. Fortunately, at the time, the developmental was in Tampa which was only an hour and a half away. I literally drove one weekend to Tampa to do a try out and then 3 months later, I finally heard back from them and they told me that I got a development deal and that I could start training. Then I left right from home a few weeks later, moved to Tampa and started my wrestling journey!

AM: Did you have a mentor when you were coming up through the system?

TF: Well I met my husband (Jonathan Fatu who goes by the name Jimmy Uso in the WWE) and it’s crazy because he was there a few months before me. But when I first got there, my husband was one of the first people that I met and so he has always been a mentor to me and my guidance through this whole thing. Norman Smiley who still develops and trains new talent now. Dr. Tom Prichard is also a former wrestler, as well as Dusty Rhodes – developmental is diff

erent now with NXT because I came through a different name. Mine was called FCW. All the guys that came around at that time, I felt that they all had some kind of influence and help. But most definitely would be my husband.

AM: What does it mean to you to be a WWE Superstar?

TF: It has become so much of who I am and my identity at this point. When I came in, I was just looking for a transition, I had been cheerleading for a few years and I just wanted something new and to express myself creatively. I had no idea how big wrestling was and what type of platform that I would be on and that I could make a career out of it! At the time, it was something to do at the moment and to just get me to that next chapter of my life until I figured out what I wanted to go to school for and how I would make a living. I was just thinking of doing something that kept me performing and when I got into it, realized how incredible an opportunity that it was, how massive it was and how global it was and the effect that it has on people – I completely fell in love with it, the lifestyle and it came apart of my life. That's when I realized that it was something that I wanted to do.

So to me, this was my life and it is my world. At this point, it’s like everything – it’s how I take care of my family, how I found my purpose, it’s how my husband and I bond over it. It’s become so entwined into my life that it really is everything to me! I take pride and appreciate the responsibility to not only represent African American women, but to be a role model for all women on this platform

AM: Well we got the chance to do our photoshoot during WrestleMania – for those who may not know, can you tell us what this is and how important it is to your year?

TF: Wrestlemania is our Super Bowl! It’s our biggest Pay-Per-View of the year. People travel all over the world to come into town to see our WrestleMania. It’s what we work towards all year to be on that show and to be on that Pay-Per-View. The best of the best is on WrestleMania.

So, to be on that and to share the ring with the greats like John Cena, Randy Orton and all of these incredible Superstars it’s definitely one of the biggest events of the year to perform live in front of 80,000 people at Met Life Stadium, one of the biggest and known stadiums around the world. It’s epic and it’s massive and to just be in that environment to feel that adrenaline from the audience – it’s something that you can’t get anywhere else!

AM: Are there additional matches that we should keep an eye on that are also significant throughout your year?

TF: I am most stoked about the Women’s Main Event. It’s the first time in history that we’ll be main eventing at WrestleMania. Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair as well as the Fatal 4-Way Women’s Tag Team Championship Match for the first time ever as well. So the women, it really is an evolution they are just killing it and they are going to raise the bar. So aside from the Women’s Battle Royal at WrestleMania, you can also look forward to these other women’s matches that are going to be awesome.

AM: In addition to being a wrestler for WWE, you are also on E! Total Divas which we are a fan of. How did you come about getting on this show and how important do you feel that it is to amplify your brand as well as to showcase your personal life?

TF: Well the original cast was handpicked by the company – Vince and at the time, I had a tag team partner, Ariane Andrew known as Cameron. They thought that we would bring a different dynamic to the show and we were a contrast to The Bella Twins at the time for our angle. We worked against them at the time and her and I had a great chemistry. They were right about all those things at the time and that’s why initially we were selected for the show. I was apprehensive at first. I used to be very private and protective of my personal life – I mean now with social media and so many opinions, so many critics – I was protective of that. But I also saw the bigger picture, the platform that we were being given and I did want to be able to tell our story as women in the business as well as seeing the other side of us. To see how hard we work, that women can do it and to motivate others. I knew that there would be a different audience that we would be able to connect with and reach out to that we can’t always do with wrestling. That’s why along with speaking with my partner at the time, we decided to go ahead and do it together. It was a package deal, we had to do it together.

AM: That’s what makes the show so interesting to see you guys in the ring, prepping for it, coming off the ring and to see your dynamics when you’re with your colleagues as well as your personal life. Watching you and your husband talking about your business as well as your personal life. It’s something that is applicable to people regardless of what their jobs are. The dynamics of a coupleship and how you live day to day is a great component of this show that we get to see in your dynamic and it really strikes a cord as we watch it and can completely relate!

TF: I really wanted people to see that because there is only so much that you can know about me when watching, RAW or SmackDown. I just knew that with the girls that I was working with, with the show we’re on and the company that was backing us that it would be an empowering show and uplifting one for women. I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to do that.

AM: So what is an average week like for you as you could be prepping for your next match, maybe you’re going into tapings, doing a charity – if there is such a thing in terms of average, what would it be?

TF: Well we’re moving and traveling 5 days a week and we have appearances weekly with radio stations, charity events, signings and our show is each night. We perform, we fly into town, perform for the show and then drive to the next city, and we do that about 4 days a week and on the 5th we’re traveling to get back home to recharge and do it all over again, year around – there is no off season.

I think that the toughest part is the travel. You would think that it would be the wrestling and the physical part, but that’s the best part and easiest part. When you calculate and think about all the hours that it takes to get there just to perform for 10 minutes and for the women, you’re fortunate if you get the 10 minutes – it’s good! The hard part and the most energy draining portion is the traveling. Being on the road so much, you’re away from home, friends and family. But that is part of the lifestyle.

AM: Since you do travel so much, what are 3 must hav3s that you have with you in your suitcase whenever you’re on the road?

TF: I always have my travel blanket, because I am always cold no matter where I am or how warm it is. I am always just cold! I’d also say my makeup bag and just lotions and moisturizers – all of that good stuff since traveling a lot really dries your skin out. Sunglasses for those days when I don’t want to put makeup on.

AM: Who would you say are your go to people in the WWE squad?

TF: Other than my husband and my brother-in-law (Joshua Fatu/WWE’s Jey Uso) his twin. As far as girls, I would say Lana, Natalya and Tamina Snuka. We all kind of broke in around the same time and have been around each other for the last few years. We have experienced the ups and downs together which has naturally made us bond and be very close with one another.

AM: Because you do travel so much, how do you maintain your coupleship with your husband – do you have date nights?

TF: Yes! We always try to make sure that we tell each other to never stop dating one another. We are always together, but I feel like we’re always in work mode. The hard part is being able to turn it off – not to talk about work, not to talk about wrestling and really just tune everything and everyone out and just focus on each other. We’re together all the time, but there are so many distractions. We’re together, but we’re not. We get to the arena and we’re there for 12 hours a day. Sometimes, I don’t see him all day because he’s preparing or he’s meeting people and getting ready to do the things that he needs to do. I'm over here getting my match together or filming for Total Divas. Then we get into the car and we have whatever amount of hours to drive and I’m asleep or he’s asleep. It’s finding that quality time.

AM: Our Co-Founders are a couple and they totally get this – it’s a balancing act!

TF: I know! A lot of people don’t understand like how can you be together that much, but then you don’t have time? You just have to live it to explain it because it sounds ridiculous!

AM: We had the chance to work out with you a few years back at TapOut gym and some of your fellow Superstars. It was great to do some of your routines that were simple and yet effective to get a great physique! What are some routines that people can get into their workouts that they should pick out that you do?

TF: For me, I just eat in moderation, I have a really bad sweet tooth so I pretty much eat what I want, but I just watch my portions which works for me. I just do a lot of cardio. I’m not a stickler for any kind of regimen. I just get in there and really do what I want. I don’t really lift heavy with a lot of weight. I do more of a full body workout and lots and lots of cardio. I do at least an hour of cardio the 5 days that I’m on the road and then when I’m home, I’m off. But if I eat bad, it just means that I have to work harder in the gym and if I eat better, then I don’t have to work as hard. So I just try to always balance things out. For the most part, it’s just eat healthy, a balanced diet. I feel like as long as you’re active and moving, it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re using your body and making it do something, you can feel when you’re working and when it burns. You can feel when you’re tired. I feel like as long as you’re pushing your body to do something, you will be ok! If you're working, your body will work. If you don’t use it, you will lose it.

TF: Beyonce, Beyonce, Beyonce

AM: So have you watched the release of her film Homecoming on Netflix?

TF: Girl, you know I did! I watched it like 5 times! I have been watching it everyday since it came out on repeat! I think that she is the greatest thing that has ever walked this Earth!

AM: She doesn’t quit!

TF: No no she doesn’t and I will not tolerate anything bad that is said about her! I will pop off on anybody that does. She is truly amazing and my idol – her work ethic, her personality and you never hear any bad stuff about her. To be in the entertainment business for so long and to just have that kind of character – it’s insane to me. She is a great feminist and humanitarian – I just love her.

AM: How do you take time for yourself as you’re schedule is beyond busy.

TF: Honestly, I don’t have much down time to myself. I do have a little room in my house that I call it my Little Lounge – it’s my She Shed. It’s very yoga like and bohemian. I have my pillows on the floor, the colors are warm and it’s very cozy and relaxing. I’ll get up there and relax and turn on my meditation music and nature sounds, write songs, think and relax. That’s probably the most that I feel to get away. I don’t like to go anywhere because I’m always gone so my home is the best getaway and vacation. We’re gone over 300 some days out of the year traveling. My home is my sanctuary. I go up in my little room and have my me time.

AM: We’re all about tribes and #TRIBEGOALS those who inspire us, who are 3 people that do this for you?

TF: Oh yes – one would be my Uncle Buck. He’s my best friend. He’s always on my Instagram. He has been an uncle and like a father to me since I was born, my whole life. We just have a really tight bond and relationship. He has always been there for me. He is a huge supporter has always been at every dance competition, every track meet, every prom – always there and still there. He really is my best friend. My mom – I mean just watching her strength growing up and being a single parent and just how gracious she has been my whole life. My mom can do no wrong in my eyes and I would probably say Beyonce and Michelle Obama!

AM: How would you define your personal style when you’re going out with the girlfriends for drinks vs date night vs just hanging out?

TF: I would say that I am very funky and spontaneous. For gym flows and my days off, I’m always very comfortable in sweats and a hoodie. For a date night, I like to be extra spontaneous – sometimes it’s a freakum dress and other times it’s an elegant dress. One day I could be dressed like 80s and retro and then the next day, I could want to be classy and in some designer stuff. I love rave clothes, funky, bright colors. I’m all over the place. Whatever I see, I like and I’m not set in a certain style. I do like to be loud and different. I have never been afraid to stand out. I would just say spontaneous and to just keep it fun.

AM: We’re a big believer in that if you don’t feel comfortable with what you’re wearing – no matter what it is, it’s not going to look right!

TF: That’s so true. I remember one day waking up and I had spent 5-6 hours getting braids put in but the next day, I just took them out because I didn’t want my hair like that anymore – I wanted a bob or a fro ha! I’m just like that and have always done that!

AM: We know you’re based in Florida, where can we see you grabbing a meal/cocktail, shopping and working out?

TF: Well nowadays, I shop online. I also like the simple stuff where stores have a lot of options so I like Forever 21, love Topshop, American Apparel, Fashion Nova, House of CB. I really love Fashion Nova which is taking over my closet because it’s affordable, it always fits and you can find so many things that fits my style. With what I do, I can’t wear something once it has been on TV and I can’t be caught wearing it again. I like to mix and match them with my style for whatever I am going for at the moment.

For food, I love Ramen noodles so Jinya Ramen Bar I could eat that everyday! They are a ramen bar and only major cities have them, but I love them and you can catch me there! I also love shopping at Whole Foods.

I workout everywhere. My husband and I have talked about getting a gym membership, as when we’re home there are a number of gyms but then when we travel, those gyms may not be in the cities that we are going to! Sometimes we’ll be in the Midwest and there won’t be a LA Fitness, they have Planet Fitness so we get to the town and look up the gym and we just take a day pass. When I’m home, I just train at our home gym in my garage.

IG @Trinity_Fatu

FASHION CREDITS

TRINITY'S SWIM LOOK | SOUL OF A HIPPIE Sundown Kimono Floral Pastel | MEI L'ANGE Ella Ruched Maillot | Sequin Jewelry Turquoise Color Karma Tassel Necklace | LOVARD Gila Necklace | REVO Sunglasses | VIA SAVIENE Cut-Out Ring | QUPID Peep Toe Booties |

TRINITY'S OUT AND ABOUT LOOK | LOVE BINETTI EY: Sweet Dreams Sleeveless Cotton Dress | NAGICIA Bamboo Framed Donut Ring | QUPID Peep Toe Booties |

TRINITY'S FITNESS LOOK | HANRO Touching Feeling Crop Top + Touching Feeling Boyleg | CARTON OUTERWEAR Clear Hooded Jacket |

TRINITY'S EVENING LOOK | F21 Plunging Maxi Dress | MIRIAM HASKELL Necklace |

S1. E3. | ATHLEISURE KITCHEN WITH FOOD & WINE MAGAZINE + TOP CHEF JUDGE GAIL SIMMONS

On today’s Athleisure Kitchen, we head downtown in New York’s NoLita neighborhood to The Kitchen Table to sit down with Food & Wine as well as Top Chef judge, Gail Simmons. We talk about her food journey and the array of jobs that she took on in professional kitchens to understand the industry in order to be an effective food journalist. In addition, we talk about her unexpected transition into being a TV personality, how it’s like to prepare for being on the show as well as what’s currently in her kitchen as we continue through the Spring in making new dishes, welcoming guests into our homes for Spring celebrations and what key ingredients are in her kitchen for this time of year!

Check out the latest issue of Athleisure Studio for additional episodes.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

We’re in the thick of The Tribeca Film Festival which is filled with panels about movie/TV shows, showing new films, honoring films that have been successful, an array of parties and more! With so many options, it’s worth checking out a number of films that cover various topics and interests. This season, we enjoyed seeing Ashe 68 which was presented in VR and is an immersive way to understand iconic tennis player Arthur Ashe who broke barriers while winning a number of titles in his career. We also enjoyed seeing the Virtual Arcade which had an array of VR, AR and other technological ways to experience moves and TV shows.

Read the latest issue of Athleisure Mag.

S1. E8. | #TRIBEGOALS WITH LAILA ALI

In today's episode of #TRIBEGOALS, we talked with undefeated boxer, Laila Ali who continued her father's, Muhammad Ali’s legacy, by excelling in the sport as well as trailblazing outside of it. Laila embraced being a TV Personality by hosting OWN's Home Made Simple, participating in Dancing with the Stars as well as Celebrity Apprentice. We took some time to chat with her about the importance of fitness, nutrition and how we can focus on Spring Cleaning during this time of year.  

Check out the latest episode on Athleisure Studio’s podcast network

THE MAESTRO WITH DRUMMA BOY

This month's issue focuses on love in many forms. When we talked with music producer, rapper, composer, philanthropist and businessman Drumma Boy, it was clear that he has a love for music, fashion and the ability to bring people together. We chatted with him about how his life started infusing with diversity in music, the important role that producers play in Artist Development, his upcoming projects with Too $hort, Musiq Soulchild, his musical work with the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies, his business in Atlanta and his must hav3s that you will find in his studio if you're ever working with him.

ATHLEISURE MAG: Clearly music heritage runs in your family. What was it like to be infused with such insights and talents growing up?

DRUMMA BOY: Coming from my mom, she used to always tell me stories about plugging the record album into the speaker and playing Isaac Hayes and all of that. I was young, but from her doing that, I would have these dreams of hearing music and when you would put your hands over your ears it sounds like this beautiful sound. Like you know it’s coming from somewhere, but you don’t know where! So in real life, even right now – there is a beat swimming in my ears. There is music in my ear and I have to transfer that to actuality which is what the recording process, beat making and all of that is. And to me, that’s the writing of music.

That’s the best way that I can understand Beethoven. By losing your hearing, you can still hear. Your brain can hear. Even if I muted my ears or covered them where I couldn’t hear anything – I could still hear the music. That process transfers into writing music.

AM: What was the moment that you realized that producing was going to be the way that you worked musically?

DB: That inspiration came from my brother, Ensayne Wayne who was older than me and was recently shot and killed on Feb 10, 2018. I remember being 12 or 14 and he took me into the studio with him and he was working with Three 6 Mafia and all of these different artists through Memphis. Just going through all of these different studios was amazing. I remember that the first studio I went into, it was like I was in a spaceship. I was like, “man all of these lights!” I knew that if I could transfer the orchestral knowledge and the ability to write, compose and to arrange and to put that with this Hip Hop – I could have my own sound! That’s how I came into the game making beats.

I was motivated by Ensayne Wayne, Jazze Pha, and a lot of the legendary cats that were doing it at that time.

AM: How would you define your style?

DB: I call it a pot of gumbo, there are so many different styles of the music in it. Mama would make the best from the scraps. She had some leftover chicken, black eyed peas and whatever and cooked it down in one pot and stretched the food out. Like gumbo, my style is a little bit of blues, a little bit of country, a little splash of rhythm and blues, and you have a bit of hip hop and a pinch of orchestra. Just all of these genres of music like jazz, bluegrass, funk, oldies but goodies. I loved Isaac Hayes, operas and orchestras as well as plays and then I could run out into the street and hear Three 6 Mafia. Then I could go downtown to hear the blues like BB King. There was so much history musically that it was just destined.

AM: What artists and groups have inspired you beyond a lot of those that you have mentioned? Do you get inspiration from EDM artists?

DB: Yeah I mean, I always respected the DJ. I DJ’d parties when I was coming up and I would do things here and there. As a DJ, it’s about spreading good energy because people just want to have a good time, dance and have fun. As a DJ, when you have that repertoire and that ear for what people really want to hear you can infuse that energy. So for me David Guetta, Tiesto, Flosstradamus.

When I met Flosstradamus in Atlanta, they told me that I needed to get in on EDM and doing my first song Hulk Smash Remix which hit a million streams on Spotify – it’s a blessing to get that genuine love with independents and pushing heavy on that party side. When I first released Hulk Smash Remix, Dan Bilzerian picked up the record and put it behind one of his videos and I was like, “damn this is my first time even playing around with EDM!” It was just mad love!

AM: What’s involved in producing? How do you work with your artists to your vision and the artists’ vision come together in a true collaboration?

DB: Well when I say produce music, I mean it starts with the vibe, the music and the energy of the room. Sometimes the artist may be pacing back and forth even when the music starts playing. Then we might come and bring in more energy like singing a vibe or coming up with concepts with adding in words here or there. Throw a bar or two in there. I mean producing – I look at it like I’m in therapy. The artist may not be in the mood to do the job in a certain way. I’m telling them that we need to go about it in this way or that because that is what the record label is saying. I’m telling them that they need to do something uptempo, but they may have come out of the hood and they’re about Trap. T hey may have negativity going on in their lives, they’re frowning, frustrated, they’re on the phone arguing and I’m like, “hey put the phone down – let’s get some drinks, we might have to go to the strip club, or whatever to get your mind off of that so that we can take the good energy and go back to the studio.

So now it’s been 7 hours, but it comes down to that one moment that you can capture. As a producer, we capture moments and when that artists gets into that rhythm – we capture that. That will be the best presentation that will be the best presentation that you record and then you will study that to see that it’s a hit or a smash and as you perform, it’s a completely different ballgame when game when you do that. As a producer, we’re really about artist development, enhancement, choreography, concept, theme, messages, stories etc and really giving that dedication to a successful artist.

AM: What artists are you working with that are coming out this year that you’re really excited to work with?

DB: Right now, we’re heavily working with my label Drum Squad Records. We just signed an artist Kdogg, 17 out of Memphis. He just comes from the mud, that bottom and you can just hear his struggle in his music. We released his single on Apple Music that you can download now called No Turning Back. We’re also working with Scott King a very cool artist out of Atlanta whose voice is his message. Also go get The Pimp a Too $hort Album that I just did 2 tracks on: Ain’t My Girlfriend and Tables. There are so many different artists it’s hard to say. I just went in with Kevin Gates. We’re working on DJ Drama’s new album – there’s no telling who he will drop on a track. He might pull an artist from Toronto, another from NY and an artist from the West Coast. I just got off the phone with Jeezy, he’s working on some exclusive things so I’m definitely excited about that as well. I’m all over the place!

There are so many great songs I’m working on with songwriters, I’m working on 2-3 albums and I’m about to drop my album, My Brother’s Keeper – another rap project that gives more details into my family and how we plan to continue the legacy of my brother. It will drop on 2-23 which is Insane Wayne Day in the city of Memphis. I’m also executive producing Musiq Soulchild. When I say that it has been some of the most amazing music I have made in my life! I’m very excited about that as well!

AM: Who have you yet to work with that you would like to work with?

DB: I’d say John Legend. I’ve always wanted to work with him and I’m a real jazz and R&B hip cat. I haven’t had the opportunity to really showcase my expertise in that world. Beyonce would be another one as well. Rhianna is also in there too!

AM: We know that you work with the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies. How did this come about and how do you approach the projects that you create with them season to season?

DB: Man with the Memphis Grizzlies they just wanted energy and me and DJ Paul did a rap project collaboration back and forth called Clash of the Titans and we did a song called We Don’t Bluff, which is the message behind Memphis. We don’t take no shit and it was just an amazing run for the city and the people don’t understand how big the Grizzlies are for our youth in our community because there aren’t too many things to do. They took Liberty Land which is an amusement park, we don’t have any water parks, not too many community centers or things of that nature. So there’s not a lot of things to do for the youth and one of those things is to go to a Memphis Grizzlies game. So to be able to create a record like We Don’t Bluff, to sit floorside with them and it’s been a 3-4 year process – it’s been a blessing. To be able to support them and to just believe and to share that message that someone can get it done is great.

AM: We also know that you have worked with Grey Goose – how did that come about?

DB: We have a lot of chemistry and a lot of love. They reached out and wanted to show some love so although it’s not an official deal, they respect what I do and appreciate it. It’s been a relationship that continues to expand and I am open to future opportunities with them as well? It’s a great non exclusive relationship.

AM: What is the House of Fresh, what do you carry there and how did it come about?

DB: The House of Fresh – well one of my first jobs when I was 14/15 was selling shoes and they put me in the Com bat Zone which was where the cheap and ugly shoes were. Nobody wanted to buy those $9.99 shoes and the retailer put you there first because they felt if you could do well there, then you could make it to the Shoe Pit. Everybody wants to buy the Jordans and other hot shoes that are in that area.

In a week, I probably sold the most $9.99 shoes because I was good at selling in the Combat Zone. So they saw that and let me go to the Shoe Pit. Within a month, I was the number 1 sales person. You got a $500 bonus every time you came in as the #1 sales person. That incentive made me push for it. I did it by selling accessories with them. You came in for shoes, but I said let’s dress that up and I let them know about sneaker cleaners, hats, etc. When you come into the store expecting to spend $200, you leave spending $500 or $700.

That energy, I liked it and I liked making people happy. Touching people through music has always been my things, but fashion is also the other. I started selling my own clothes because people wanted what I was wearing. When you look at my pictures on Google, you’ll see me in Drumma Squad gear. My own custom, extra large waist and oversized clothes. We would have it all over and people would buy it. I used to sell it out of my trunk and one day I thought what could I do with the relationships that I had with these clothing labels? So many of the lines would send me free packages. I knew I was bigger than a sales rack and a walking billboard. I looked at how I could expand the relationship and I saw a location and said if I can get it, then that's it. House of Fresh is an actual house that is on a busy street in the middle of Midtown Atlanta with a lot of walking traffic. I called Reebok, this one and that one and they said that they would send their shoe reps in. My music relationships with Ludacris, 2 Chainz played well for love and support as well.

I’m also excited that we’re opening Pre-Game, a Bar, Grill and Lounge. It’s on 899 Martin Luther King Jr Dr SW in Atlanta. It’s right down the street from the Mercedes Benz and we plan on being open right before the Super Bowl.

AM: What are three key things that you truly believe in in terms of the success of your career?

DB: I believe in the importance of watering relationships. You get so many contacts, but it’s important to circle back from time to time to ask them how they are doing. I love to share the message of loving practice. Loving to get up every day and to practice - whatever it is that you want to do and enjoy that process. It’s the ultimate confidence builder. I also believe in having multiple revenue streams of income. I feel that these things have been instrumental in my success.

AM: Your hands are in so many pots, how do you take time for yourself?

DB: Well it’s weird. The music saves me. I’m up every morning 8/8:30am and I start out with breakfast and getting the proper nutrients, fruits and of that nature and I just think/brainstorm on what I want to accomplish for the day. I start getting phone calls and I attack the priorities. I zoom in on the top things that I have to do and I have that schedule. Usually House of Fresh, Pre-Game Lounge and everything that I have to do business wise is orchestrated between 9am - 2:30pm. By 2:30/3pm I’m all studio. I’m not so much on the phone so people can just leave a message and I’m there until 2:30/3am. I come home, I get about 3-4 hours of sleep and then repeat. It’s a dedicated process, but I find it very effective.

AM: What are must hav3s that you always have in the studio when you’re working?

DB: I would say company is one thing

that you have to confirm – ladies in particular – to know when you have a hit. It’s when they move or not period point blank. If someone says, “ooo I like this.” You know we have a hit. When you get a lot of chatter and no one is paying attention, then that just confirms that I need to go to the next beat. Another thing is candles. We’ve been supporting a brand, 1122 Candles for the simple fact that they’re natural and soy – there are no chemicals when they burn. They also have a great scent! My third thing is the fun – I have to have fun. That’s one thing I do. I’ll do something silly or just try something out for no reason and that turns out into something incredible.

AM: In Atlanta, where can we find you grabbing a cocktail/meal, working out and shopping?

DB: I work out at Heat Gym. I work out with my trainer shout out to Mr Shut Up and Train on Instagram. As far as grabbing a meal you may catch me at the STK or at Paschal’s. It’s a really well known Southern wine and dine spot. For shopping, you will find me at Phipps Plaza as I love that it’s exclusive and you can get right to the point and get out without being stopped by too many people. Every now and then I might run into Lenox Square to stop by Zara and see what they’ve got.

PHOTOS COURTESY | Drumma Boy

IG @DrummaBoyFresh

Read more from the Feb Issue of Athleisure Mag and see The Maestro with Drumma Boy in mag.

COMMUNICATION ESSENTIALS WITH DR. V

When it's coming from a place of love and concern, we're all about a straight shooter. We've been team Dr. V since we first saw her years ago on BRAVO's LA Shrinks, where we were introduced to this Clinical Psychiatrist that was never shy to tell you how it is and to call you on your crap! We continued to follow her as she appeared on a number of daytime, primetime and reality TV show spots, including as a host on WE TV's Marriage Bootcamp. We took some time to talk with Dr. V about her job as a Clinical Psychologist, the power and importance of communication, her new book Bad Advice and of course being on Marriage Bootcamp.

ATHLEISURE MAG: We fell in love with you on BRAVO’s LA Shrinks as well as on the The Real Housewives of NJ and on WE TV’s Millionaire Matchmaker and Marriage Bootcamp! Can you tell us how you came to Clinical Psychology as a career and then how you were able to parlay that into you being on Reality, Daytime and PrimeTime TV?

DR. V: You know I knew from a very young age that I was very equipped to solve problems. So I kind of went from the stoop to the screen. As I sit here talking with you, I think about how I used to sit on my neighborhood stoop and solve problems. It was a very working class neighborhood where all the houses were connected – row homes. So it was the kind of place where people would gather out front in front of people’s stoops.

I remember being super young like 4-5-6 and hearing people discuss their lives in very intimate ways! I mean a lot of shit goes down on the stoop for sure! So I would listen and it seemed like people would have this idea that somehow their problems were unsolvable. At a very young age, call it naivete or hopefulness, I never saw it that way. I always thought that the problems could be solved and I would go into my own head and solve the problem.

Like I’d be like, “wait let me tell you how shit goes – this is not a big problem.” I would go inside myself and be like, this is easy guys, it can’t be this hard. By the way, this is very different than giving advice. Because when you’re young, you’re able to use and even when you’re older – you use what’s called Executive Functioning in your brain. It’s when you’re able to re-engineer problems. I think that at the end of the day to get back to your first question, I had a very early development of that in my brain of Executive Functioning and being able to see problems and than rearrange them, which is different then giving advice. I don’t even like to give advice by the way – I stay away from it.

AM: We like that you make that distinction because hearing you say that – definitely is a difference and to do so at such a young age and to understand that is phenomenal.

DR. V: It’s the idea that solutions and advice are different. I think that when you come from it at that perspective, how can we work together to find a solution as opposed to “I’m the expert, I know better than you and you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Fuck that – we can work together and find solutions. I think that at the end of the day, that’s how I got started in Psychology and it was at that young age – I knew I was able to re-engineer my own problems and other people’s problems.

Taking that a step further, I sought after higher education. You had pointed out Clinical Psychology which is different the Counseling Psychology and other forms. Clinical Psychology just means that it’s research based and as a science lover, I love doing research. But at the end of the day, it’s really just that I was dumb enough to take the longer route – that’s really what’s happening! You tack on another couple of years for your dissertation, so a lot of doing the same things, just the degree of Clinical Psychology which is a PHD has more of a research focus where Counseling Psychology has more of a counseling focus – talk therapy. So that’s really the only difference there. I love research, I love doing it, collecting other people’s research. Anyone of those degrees, they can also share that same love of research – it’s just required as a PHD in Clinical Psychology to do the research for the degree.

So how I found myself, I was there on the stoop re-engineering everyone’s problems and I gained enough confidence to tell people what if you did this or what if you did that? And I think that coming from a very working class Italian neighborhood where there was a sense of community, the volume was turned up and we never had enough of anything but love and emotions – I think I developed a way of communicating that I had to be super clear. I had to make my point super clear and it has to land! Because for Uncle Rocky to take in my advice or my solutions – it has to land. Because of that, that was Prime TV talk as it has to land and it has to make an impact. If not, it’s not entertaining or there is no reveal or whatever entertainment words we use.

I think that is how I find myself in front of the screen and I battle on a regular basis – my own shyness. I know it doesn’t come off that way, but I am a very shy person.

AM: We would have never guessed that!

DR. V: Oh yeah! I am incredibly shy and I have had to really talk myself through my own levels of courage. Obviously as I have gotten older, it’s gotten easier as I will be 47 and I am sitting in this bath of “I don’t give a fuck” – but I battle this on a daily basis in front of the camera. I battle this by getting so into the process that I forget that the camera is there. I immerse myself into the person that we are talking to or the project that we are dealing with and I really have to forget that the cameras are there and I am able to cope better with my shyness and I can hone in on the person I am talking to?

AM: How important is communication with the person that you are talking to whether it’s a significant other, a friend etc?

DR V: Well communication defines the relationship. It is the key to every aspect of our lives. Communication, if we were to think of it as our form of expression and creativity, it leaves us room to be able to take in feedback about our communication. Your sense of self expression isn’t my way of self expression. The way that you communicate is not the way that I would creatively do so. The words that you choose, the metaphors that you give and how you choose to communicate with someone else is really quite magical. Communication and how we communicate in the world defines who we are, defines the relationship, defines our friendships and really is the most important ingredient in life!

I don’t like when people say, “that person can’t communicate effectively.” It just means that you can’t hear their message. Communication is co-created. We don’t realize that as humans we help each other feel things. As we sit on the phone with one another, we help each other feel things and this is what sets us a part. We’re almost contagious to each other. Communication seems like it’s such a simple word, but to me it’s more then just that word and it embodies so much more! It embodies the self expression, how you perceive yourself and others – it’s creative. It’s a creative endeavor.

AM: It’s a great point as for years we use to say, “this person isn’t an effective communicator.” One day we thought, we should try to figure out what this person is saying as they are making a point, they seem to believe it, perhaps we’re just not getting it. So we started re-engineering. Hearing that this person said x and then trying to get the meaning behind it really makes us understand what you just shared as they had a different method and that it is a creative process to understand what is being said.

DR. V: Right and then from that place, you’re able to go to where I excel with solutions! You’re able to find the solution. If someone isn’t communicating effectively if we use that word, you’re immediately put on your heels, you’re set off, you’re turned off – when you categorize it in that way. We need to be more curious and ask more questions instead of having this knee jerk judgement. There is nothing more that makes things go wrong then taking a cruise on the SS Judgmental! Once people begin judging each other, things go wrong. When we get curious and ask questions, you’re better able to understand the person you’re talking to. If you’re curious in a genuine and relaxed way – I have been in situations where I was curious but being a bitch and I was asking questions only to hide my annoyance and that wasn’t good! But when you do it genuinely, that person gets curious too and then they relax too!

So when we talk about communication, it’s obviously one of my favorite topics – I see it differently. Usually when people are bringing it up, they mean it in a, “we just don’t communicate well” kind of way. That’s when I say, “we have to ask more questions.” We’re allowed to help each and other. My husband and I have been together for 22 years and I think it was about 5 years in where I would create narratives for him. I would write him in an email, which is a little condescending haha – I’m not going to lie. This would take place during an argument where he would go to his respective work and I would go to my respective work and I would say let me help you. In quotes I would write what I wanted to hear and he would write back, “wow I didn’t know it was that easy as I would have said that to you. I just couldn’t find those words and didn’t know the words you wanted to hear.” This would go on for 3-4 years about what I needed to hear. A lot of people would say, “that’s not genuine – he should know what you need to hear.” But no, not at all. Sometimes it’s ok to help people figure out how to love you. Because that is a creative endeavor. Many people say that men and women have different language styles, but I don’t believe that. I think everyone wants the same thing. Both men and women want to be loved and to love – everyone wants it. How people get there is very different and men aren’t pushed or taught to be emotional leaders, “boys don’t cry” – this sort of toxic masculinity has infiltrated our society to a point where it has stopped men’s growth to express how they’re feeling. Men get this bad wrap for not expressing how they are feeling and women feel like they have to consistently be the emotional leaders or that we’re all emotional brains and we’re crazy – no it’s just that you don’t understand her – she’s not crazy.

AM: We were going to ask about the difference in love languages between men and women. But we like hearing how you were able to articulate what you said and what you wanted to hear reminds us that when we're talking to our significant other, we’ll say that we know you said x, but what I actually here is y. This makes the conversation a lot longer to break down the components of what’s said vs felt vs what we should do.

DR V: Right it becomes a creative endeavor. When you’re saying what you heard and what was felt it actually entails a vulnerability. So not only are you attempting to have better communication, but your partner is learning about you, who you are, what makes you tick and your deepest vulnerabilities which invites them to do the same. When we talk about men and women and their differences, men are not able to show their vulnerabilities as a society. They are uninvited to that party usually. So when they get with someone who is an emotional and has a creative expression of how they use language and are able to communicate what you feel, these men are like, what the fuck?

I have so much empathy for that struggle and form of expression and I don’t believe that we’re talking in different languages. Everyone knows what it’s like to be sad, hurt or to feel vulnerable and both men and women feel that. It’s how we express those emotions that matter.

AM: With us being firmly in the New Year, a lot of people are looking at their resolutions, being their best selves etc. What is the best way for people to optimize their lives without feeling the pressures of changes that may not have taken place or come out the way that they had hoped?

DR. V: Wow well patience is it’s own kind of confidence. It takes patience with other people and ourselves to attain goals. It’s a trust in your self and in the process. If you have fallen off of the wagon or have fucked up, it’s never wrong to start again. It’s always right to start again!

AM: So you released Bad Advice last fall. What led you to writing this and tell us more about this book!

DR. V: Look, I was just tired of hearing things repeated back to me – bad advice. Theories are very important! How we walk through the world and how we define our world is through theories and words. If those theories aren’t correct and are in fact, scientifically wrong – where does that leave us? I was inspired to write this as I’m just irreverent in general and I love to punch holes in things. I just got tired of hearing these one liners that seemed to have blown up even more so on the Internet like: “Just be yourself”, “You can’t love anyone until you love yourself”, “Expectations lead to disappointment” or “Follow your bliss” – it’s like birds flying! Because we’re passing around this bullshit more and more, I got curious about it. Is it really true that you can’t love anyone until you love yourself? Is that true? In the event that you need to hear, just be yourself – does that help? Is it helpful? Do expectations lead to disappointment – is that true – I got really curious! I found these statements and of course, I have my own hypothesis. I collected pieces of Bad Advice that enjoy the shit out of me and I debunked them in the book with heart and humor and it’s a super fun read. It’s one of those books where my hope is you get done reading it and you say, “you’ve never thought of it that way.” Then I have done my job as an author. My favorite books were always those that I would close them and be like, “Oh my God I never thought of it that way – that is so interesting.” You’re able to affect how people view the world.

AM: How long did it take for you to put that together?

DR. V: I would say that while the writing process was 2 years, it’s a lifelong project for me. There were so many pieces of Bad Advice that I didn’t include that I am still collecting them.

AM: Will there be a part two?

DR. V: Yes! I feel that I have been doing this my whole life. I am a very curious person and I always ask myself, how do I know this to be true and forget about bad advice – I’m just curious about the world. What we know – how do we know this to be true and forget about bad advice. Who is the messenger – who is saying it, why are we saying it and who is coming from? I ask myself things like this all the time.

AM: How can someone identify when bad advice is being given to them?

DR V: When it denies your humanity. When it denies what you feel. For example, “Nobody can make you feel bad without your permission” – that’s a chapter in the book. That is like the worse advice that I have ever heard. I get it. My mom used to say it to me when people would make fun of my name. We say it because we want to help people but what it does – I mean when was the last time you gave someone permission to hurt your feelings?

AM: Um never!

DR. V: EXACTLY! Like I will give you permission to hurt me? It doesn’t make sense. So when it denies your humanity and how you’re feeling then you know it’s bad advice!

AM: You’re so right. I mean I can see why we say it because we’ve all heard it from other people who meant it from a good place. But when you think about it, it’s kind of taking a knock at you and you’re internalizing it!

DR. V: You’re right and so for a split second, you’re put in a an area of denial and those emotions come back double fold because you’re trying to hold back from what you really feel. When it comes to relationships, “you can’t really love anyone until you love yourself.” Look, we are meant to love people that is what humans do. So you’re going to love people and your self doesn’t give a fuck about what you think of you. It also creates a “series of events” first I love me, then I love you it implies that love is linear and it’s not – it’s co-created. But we hear love yourself and we’re all the while being conditioned to self hate! Self hate is very real, but the concept of self love – no one tells you how to love yourself. Do you know why? It’s because it’s impossible to love yourself the way that you would love someone else because it’s not supported by brain circuitry. You’re going to love other people and that’s just what will happen – it’s what we do. It denies your humanity – you will love people regardless – you may not love them well, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

AM: How do you prepare for your work on WE TV’s Marriage Bootcamp, especially with all of the different personalities that are involved? How do you ultimately get them to the relationships that they desire?

DR. V: Well bigger personalities require bigger jolts. They require different methods. So, the goal of Marriage Bootcamp is to provide a cellular experience which jolts the system. What I love about the show is that my goal isn’t to keep the couple together. It’s my hope, but it’s about choice. Is this the person that you should be with? It’s about re-engineering that problem – is this the person for you? With all the evidence given to you over the last 10 days, do you want to be with this person? It’s about giving the couples the information they need about themselves and the relationship and asking them to make a choice.

My hope is that they do, but then again staying together is not always the right choice. It may be that they need to live a part. This is what I love about the show – our stakes aren’t in whether the couples stay together, but that the right choice is being made for the person and the couple.

How I prepare for the show, well before those 10 days, I get a lot of sleep. I don’t sleep for 10 days!

AM: We’ve been a fan of the show for years, but we can only imagine how it must be to be there in your position. With such big personalities how do you take the space you need so that you can do the best work for them?

DR. V: Well I’ll tell you. I have been in the field for – I started volunteering at Mt Sinai at 20 – I’ve been doing it a long time, 25 years. You really do learn how to separate yourself and it came naturally over time for me. I know when I need to restore myself and when I begin to become a judgey asshole. I’ll say wow, “I really need to take a break because this person is really getting on my fucking nerves!” Because you can’t help people if you can’t find something to love about them. That is the truth. You have to find something about them that you love and that you like. If you don’t like them – you can’t help them. It’s an incredibly professional and profound thing to admit that this person is tapping into something in me that I don’t like. I need to take a step back and to restore myself and grow from that. That’s what I love about the work because I am consistently growing and being pushed to my own limits season after season after season. I love that – whatever field can I grow and learn in a fun and chaotic way haha!

AM: Everytime we see that you’re back for another season we’re like she’s still hanging in there!

DR. V: Haha Dr. V is still alive! It’s funny because when people are put in a therapeutic environment when they may attack me or say something to me – I feel their pain. They are really talking to pieces of themselves. I feel like I have a deep empathy for that.

As a side note. You know what’s funny about Marriage Bootcamp? That show is so fucking crazy and YET when I watch it on TV – they actually make the drama LESS! They don’t even need to make it more dramatic like a lot of reality shows do. They don’t edit it a certain way to make it more dramatic. I was there – I know that that was way more intense than what they are showing. I think that is what has made the show last for 13 seasons, because the drama is already there. So they don’t have to do much!

You get to see some of your favorite personalities in a different light. Like Brandi Glanville on Marriage Bootcamp was not the same Brandi Glanville on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. People who follow her and love her got to see her in a different way and that’s amazing to me.

AM: You’re based in LA – where do you love grabbing a meal/cocktail, working out and going out for a little shopping?

DR. V: Let me tell you – I love a good diner! I’m from Philly – I did my education in NYC and there is nothing to me that beats a good diner. Kitchen 24 in Hollywood is open 24 hours. I can go there and get egg whites and feta. If I am working late and I need to wind down, I can get a margarita at 3am in the morning – it’s the best place on earth – it’s like my mother’s kitchen! There is nothing like a good diner.

I love to cycle and I feel that at my age it’s so great because you’re not compounding your joints. I’m a big SoulCycler and I do that 2 times a week. For shopping, I love style but I’m not much of a shopper. I’m not one of those women that get up and say, “I’m going to go shopping.” I can’t handle that, but I do love shopping online. I don’t have to shop, they just send shit to me, “we think you’ll like this.”

AM: Are you a beauty girl and do you have 3 must have products that you enjoy using?

DR. V: Ok I want to tell you that I recently decided to go from a rose kind of color to more of a peachier color for my face, lips and eyes. I’m completely obsessed with Stila Cosmetics that has these Liquid Eyeshadows that are glitter! The Bronzed Belle for brown eyes and a little olive skin is so gorgeous! Girl, I got the small one - the travel one and I keep it in my purse – that’s how much I love it! That’s my shadow and I like that it is so glittery and pretty. I’m obsessed with MAC’s Spring Sheen Shimmer Blush and it’s the most beautiful, peachy shiny and luxurious look!

AM: We love a peach moment!

DR. V: I know! Peachiness adds a beautiful alive and awake color. The right peach shades just are natural but then you’re wearing makeup. Then I just recently changed from Chanel’s Foundation to Santees – no. 280 and it’s beautiful! I know you said 3 but the 4th one popped into my brain – so you know it’s the winter months and you want a little color on your face. I am in love with La Luxe The Face and it is an illuminating and self tanning drops. It can be placed in any moisturizer or even an exfoliant that you put on your face at night – you can control the color with the amount of drops you put in. I love that you can just have it in your moisturizer. I use it as night and I get up and I love that I wake up with color on my face! It’s beautiful and one of my favorite products!

AM: We believe that your vibe is your tribe from a #TRIBEGOALS perspective. Who are 3 people that you look to for inspiration?

DR. V: I find that people in my immediate environment are inspiring. When I am feeling unlovable and I can think of nothing good about myself, I turn to my husband. There is so much unconditional love I can turn to him and he is able to help me see me through his eyes. That is a really beautiful thing when you can count on someone to recenter you. Then, the hopefulness of children. I have a 10 and 12 year old boys and a 2.5 year old daughter. The hopefulness of kids is just so inspiring me and when I am feeling a little cynical, I hang out with them! That spark of hopefulness is boom right there! I am also 1 of 5 so I have a few sisters and one brother and there is nothing like the love that a sibling has! No one can get under your skin or build you up like a sibling. I feel that as I have gotten older, I have relied on my immediate relationships to bring a sense of purpose, meaning and fulfillment and I’m really happy about that. I value these relationships with my life!

IG @Doctor_V_

We enjoyed chatting with Dr. V and you can hear this interview at Athleisure Studio, our podcast network with one of our latest episodes of #TRIBEGOALS. Enjoy wherever you hear your podcasts including Spotify, Apple Podcast and Google Podcast.

Read more from the Feb Issue of Athleisure Mag and see Communication Essentials with Dr. V in mag.

S1. Ep 1. | Athleisure Kitchen with Chef Brooke Williamson

The latest episode of Athleisure Studio’s culinary show, Athleisure Kitchen just dropped today with Chef Brooke Williamson.

When it comes to culinary competition shows, BRAVO’s Top Chef is one of our favorites. We enjoy the quick fire challenges, restaurant wars and watching competitors navigate across the show. We also like finding out about their restaurants and often seeing them re-appear on future seasons or other shows. On season 10, we were introduced to Chef Brooke Williamson, who came in second only to come back in season 14 - to win it all! In addition to these accolades, she is the Co-Owner and Co-Chef at The Tripel, Playa Provisions, Hudson House Bar, Da Kikokiko, Small Batch Icecream and Triplikit in Southern California. We find out more about her creativity, how she got into the industry, how she keeps fit and it all together.

SEASONALITY AND LOCALITY WITH CHEF BROOKE WILLIAMSON

Hands down, BRAVO's Top Chef is one of our favorite culinary competition shows. In addition to seeing talented chefs come up with creations on the fly, Restaurant Wars and cities being showcased - it's being introduced to chefs and their restaurants that we are constantly making a note to visit when we are in the midst of our travels. We have quite a list of our favorites that we have enjoyed seeing at Cochon555, culinary events, and of course interviewing as well in Athleisure Mag. This month, we chatted with Chef Brooke Williamson who was second runner up on Season 10 of the show and won it all when she came back for Season 14, we talked with her about her start in the industry, being the youngest chef to cook at the James Beard House, being a Restaurateur of a collection of restaurants and more!

ATHLEISURE MAG: What was the moment that you realized that you wanted to be a chef?

CHEF BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I don’t really remember that moment because I was so young and I was probably 6 or 7 years old when I realized that I wanted to be a chef. Then it became a thing that I just worked towards during my whole childhood so I don’t have one defining moment – it was just something that I knew I always wanted to do.

AM: Where did you train and what were restaurants that you worked at starting prior to the first restaurant that you opened?

CHEF BW: Well, I didn’t go to formal culinary school, I did take some cooking classes in my teens at a little cooking school called Epicurean but otherwise it was all restaurant training. My first kind of formal culinary job was at Phoenix at the Argyle Hotel under Ken Frank on Sunset and then I was there for about a year and a half and moved onto Michael’s in Santa Monica and moved up to Sous Chef like within a year so it all happened very quickly within a year. But I think that personally it’s because I I had been cooking my entire life.

AM: How do you define your style of cooking?

CHEF BW: I don’t really – my husband, Nick Roberts and I have several different restaurants and they are all very different from one another. I would say that the one constant throughout is seasonality and locality. I would say that we try to cook with seasonal, local ingredients as much as possible. I think that with both of us being native Californians we just naturally gravitate towards a lot of produce and just kind of work from there. All of our restaurants are very different just conceptually so I don’t have a definitive answer for that.

AM: It’s amazing that at the age of 22, you were the youngest chef to cook at the James Beard House, what do you remember preparing for that to take on such a big task?

CHEF BW: I think that at that age, I kind of didn’t know the magnitude of what I was doing which may have helped me with my composure. I knew what the James Beard House was and what an honor it was, but I didn’t understand the magnitude of what it was.

AM: When you opened your first restaurant, what is the first takeaway that you took from it that you learned from that and how did it inform how you went about opening and managing your future ones?

CHEF BW: Well my husband and I opened it when we were very young. We were chefs, we were not restaurateurs. We didn’t know what the difference was and we learned very quickly that we went into a space that we didn’t do a ton of research on the lease or the history of the location. I think what we took out of that was probably the most expensive culinary education that I could have had! That’s what I consider it – your first failed restaurant is such a learning experience and I’m so glad that it happened the way it did and I had something to fall back on by the time we closed the doors, but I can’t even count on 2 hands the number of takeaways from that. I just became more business savvy and understood how important the business side of a restaurant was.

AM: Can you tell us about each of your restaurants because they have a different feel to them – so walk us through the worlds of your restaurants!

CHEF BW: So the oldest restaurant which is currently open is Hudson House which has been around for 10 years and has morphed a lot since we have first opened it. It is still this warm gastropub kind of feeling. It’s sort of the first gastropub in the Redondo area of its kind and it’s changed a lot. It’s matured a bit as we just did a facelift on it so it looks more mature and more modern than it ever has. The menu has changed a lot and it still has that neighborhood feel to it. Then, The Tripel opened 2 years after that which is kind of a craft beer bar with upscale bar food. We have a couple of signature burgers which is what we are known for at The Tripel. Then we have Playa Provisions which is just down the street from that which is a 4-in-1-concept, we have a whiskey bar, a sit down seafood restaurant, a café that serves pastries and coffee in the morning through lunch, and then an icecream counter where we make all of our own icecream in nostalgic flavors. Then in Playa Vista, we have Da Kikokiko which is a fast casual Hawaiian concept – we serve mainly poke bowls, musubi and shaved ice and Dole whip as well. We have an icecream shop in Mar Vista which is a bit of an offshoot of Small Batch Ice Cream which is in Playa Provisions. We also have a retail store called Tripli-Kit as well that is specialty kitchen related goods.

AM: Do you think that you will open additional restaurants and concepts in California and also do you think that you will open up in other cities down the road?

CHEF BW: I would say if history tells correctly, we will probably continue in California. We do have this tendency to remain very local because my husband and I are very hands on and I like to be able to visit every place within a day if I need to or to get anywhere where I need to be or if I have to be. I’m kind of a control freak that way – I wouldn’t rule out opening a place out of state, but if we were to do something that wasn’t hyperlocal, then it would be an extension of something that we already have. That way we would feel that we would have control over from afar as well.

AM: Seeing that you and your husband are both chefs and restaurateurs and run your business together – how do you maintain how you work with one another as business partners as well as to maintain your coupleship?

CHEF BW: It’s the only way we have ever known each other. We met each other in the kitchen many years ago so it feels very natural to be in business together which is a struggle for a lot of couples that didn’t start out that way, I think. We know each other in a business sense very well. The hardest thing is juggling the parenting with the business. We want to stay active and engaged as parents as we juggle our busy days with the restaurants and with what we do. It’s really been the hardest part but we have somehow managed to make it work. We’re very fortunate that we have one another that we can kind of play off of and understand each other’s lives and the fact that we don’t want someone else raising our child. That mindset about what we want our lives to be is really helpful.

AM: What are 3 signature dishes that if you had to select them from across your restaurants – what should we try?

CHEF BW: Well, Hudson House we just completely redid our menu and in 10 years we just shifted things to a slightly overall Asian feel. There is a lot of Asian influence but it stil feels like a gastro pub menu. There are a couple of items that we will never be able to get rid of so we put it on a secret menu as we knew a lot of people would be mad with us if we didn’t still offer it. The Hudson Pretzel Burger and we do these Brown Sugar Pork Ribs which people go crazy for.

At Playa Provisions, I would say the Lobster Roll is something that we are pretty known for. The Crab Claw Pots, which is a snow crab claw with a crab cake at the end of it and then the whole thing is fried. That has become a signature staple as well as our specialty pastries. We do a Unicorn Cake it’s a special order. It’s a rainbow sort of pastel layer cake that is decorated like a unicorn and is filled with sprinkles which we sell a couple a week.

At The Tripel, I would definitely say that The Tripel Burger is a go to staple that we are known for on that menu. It’s duck confit, ground pork and beef with truffle cheese and apricot jam on an onion brioche bun.

At Da Kikokiko the spicy tuna bowl and the spam musubi, although we do a really good salmon musubi which sells almost as well, and of course the shaved ice. People come in just for the shaved ice.

I would say that our signature staple flavor that we have over at Small Batch, which is also my son’s favorite, is Mint Oreo or Chocolate Malted Crunch which is kind of a play on the old thrifty Junior flavor.

AM: You were asked to collaborate with a brewery to create Girl Grey. Where did this idea come from by having these interesting flavors of the Belgian style ale, the almonds and earl grey tea to come together?

CHEF BW: I knew I wanted to do a Belgian Tripel style of beer as it is my favorite style of beer and it is also why the restaurant is spelled T-r-i-p-e-l in the style of this Belgian beer. So it felt like it made sense to do a Belgian Tripel beer and then I used my chef brain in the sense that I thought about flavors that naturally went well with a higher alcohol creamy aged ale. There were probably 7 different flavor ideas and combinations that were on the table. That’s the one that really stuck and we made a sample of it, tasted it and that is the one that we went with.

AM: Is it still available?

CHEF BW: It was a one time release so I’m sure that there is some stashed away, but I don’t know if it is still purchasable from the brewery.

AM: We know you also did a sour beer with them, do you see yourself doing collaborations like this?

CHEF BW: I would totally be up for it! I felt like it was a one time collaboration that they were looking to do, but if they came back to me, and were interested in doing another flavor with me – I would totally be down to do it.

AM: So what led to you to the decisions that brought you to Top Chef for Season 10 and after having all of the experience from that season, what made you say that you would come back for Season 14 where you ultimately won that one?

CHEF BW: Well the first time it was a really difficult decision. I had a 4 year old at the time and I had turned it down several years before and then finally said yes after seeing what it had done for the previous chefs, that the platform creates for chefs who do well on it. I felt it was a personal challenge to do something that was out of my comfort zone for myself, but I also felt that now more than ever – the restaurant business is a difficult business and I felt like anything that you can continue to do to stay relevant and to let people know that you are out there and waiting for them to recognize you is worth doing! Of course, you don’t know how you are going to do or come off when you do something like that, but I felt that I was relatively unconcerned with my personality coming off in a terrible way so it was more of a personal challenge to see where we could take this.

AM: For season 14 was it more of a nobrainer?

CHEF BW: No it wasn’t because I felt like, what were the chances that I could do better than second place? On a personal note, it was a much more difficult decision. Professionally it was more of a no brainer. I saw first hand what it did for my business and what it did for me. But personally, the thought of going back and being eliminated first, second, third or anything less than winning would have been a total disappointment to me. So I kind of went into it with that mentality which helps and hurts in several ways.

AM: In terms of your Top Chef squad we see you with Richard Blais on the show and we see you with other chefs from the show for your appearances etc. When you are not in those areas, who from the show do you hang out with?

CHEF BW: I feel like I made a lot of really good friends from the show. They’re people that I would consider closer personal friends that I made and keep contact with on a very regular basis. Kristen Kish is one of my very best friends that I stay in touch with, Casey Thompson is one of my closest friends and I have a plethora of other people – I’m good friends with Shirley Chung, Kelvin Gillepsie - I could go down a list of people that I have kept in touch with on a regular basis and I would say a handful of people I stay in really close contact with and consider them my closest friends.

AM: We know that you have done a lot of TV from Top Chef, MTV’s House of Food, and Esquire Network's Knife Fight – what are upcoming shows that we can expect to see you on?

CHEF BW: I haven’t done a ton of shooting lately. I did an episode of Top Chef recently that just aired that I judged.

AM: We loved seeing you on there with your Christmas Sweater – so cute.

CHEF BW: Haha yeah my Ugly Christmas Sweater.

AM: You have so many accolades under your belt from being a chef, restaurateur, whisky aficionado, beer creator – what else is on your list that you want to add to that you have yet to tackle??

CHEF BW: Not really, there are areas that I feel like I want to do better in. I would say that the way I feel about my life and career is that I have done a lot of things pretty well. I would love to say that I do more things very well. I’m kind of at a point right now where I don’t have to do more stuff to do more stuff. I want to make sure that what I am doing is really quality. I don’t feel like I need to expand my horizons. I want to make the restaurants that I have open are doing the best that they can and that the people that come in are having great experiences as often as possible. I want to be more present in my restaurants, my life and as a parent. I don’t feel like I need to branch – I feel like I need to branch in.

AM: That’s a good one. I feel like a lot of times we do bite off so many things and branching in is a good thing.

CHEF BW: Totally, I mean – when it comes to my health and mental, physical, wellness, my parenting and my friendships and that there have been things that have suffered – not dramatically because I have been stretched too thin and I just want to do everything a little better.

AM: We know that you are an avid SoulCycler and you do fitness and various workouts – why is this so important to you to have this as a part of your lifestyle?

CHEF BW: One because I feel like I physically need to maintain my health in order to live the lifestyle that I live and to do the things that I do. The travel takes a lot out of me when I do the appearances, dinners and stuff like that. I’m not a great traveler so just maintaining that and some sanity is really due to my exercise regimen and I can really feel it when I don’t exercise and I don’t get that energy out in the right way – I feel like my life suffers. Even from an energy standpoint to maintain the energy to do it all. I feel like it’s so important to maintain sanity.

AM: You recently cycled through Italy to tour their countryside as well as to enjoy the foods of the region. Did you have to train yourself to do that kind of cycling as it seemed like you were on your bike quite a bit to get everywhere!

CHEF BW: I think I had to train myself on how to be on a real road bike which is not a no brainer! It’s actually a scary piece of equipment and if you don’t use it properly, it can kill you. I felt that I needed to up my game on how to be on a real bicycle outside and not on a stationary bike like I was used to. It was also about sitting on a saddle for such a long period of time that’s really where I struggled the most sitting on those bike seats. It seems like it would be nothing when you’re talking about biking hundreds of miles – but it’s not nothing!

AM: How many hours were you on this bike without a rest?

CHEF BW: I mean, we would stop for coffee and when we needed to stop. But, we were with a group of people and I wasn’t going to be the reason why we were taking so long. Especially since I was technically helping to lead this trip. We would go for a couple of hours and stop for a cup of coffee and then go another couple of hours and stop for lunch and then it was a quick ride to whatever hotel we were staying at. The difference between a 45 mins or hour SoulCycle class and 5 hours in a bike seat is huge!

AM: Since you do travel so much, what are 3 must haves that you bring with you regardless of where you are traveling to?

CHEF BW: If I am taking a flight, I always have Flopsy my stuffed rabbit that I take with me that I have had since I was 4 in my carry on! If I get on a flight, I’m going to have Flopsy. I’m not religious at all but have a Saint Christopher that I travel with as well. Those are the kind of things that I don’t get on a plane without having those. The other thing is that I travel with snacks always. I’m always the one that travels with a ziplock gallon bag full of snacks because I feel like unnecessary travel hunger just adds to the stress of travel. I also hate having to grab a bag of Doritos because there isn’t a banana. I always have a little pot of lavender scented balm or something that smells good. Usually it’s lavender scented as I am a bit of a high anxiety person and smells really help me. I also love Dr. Pepper Lip Smacker Chapstick.

AM: We love the throw back!

CHEF BW: I actually mentioned that I had them and I couldn’t remember where I said it, but I couldn’t find them anywhere and Target stopped carrying them – specifically the Dr. Pepper flavor and Lip Smacker actually sent me a 6-pack where I am currently on the last stick.

AM: So where can we find you grabbing a meal outside of your restaurants, working out and doing a bit of shopping?

CHEF BW: Oh my gosh those are so different questions! Alright so, I don’t often grab a cocktail outside of my restaurant. I grew up in Los Angeles, I was a total bar hopper at 20/21 I was sitting at the Vermosa Bar sitting by myself just after work drinking a Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks on a school night – loving it. I feel like I got that out of my system and that I don’t need to go to bars just to go to bars anymore. I have a child that I appreciate putting to bed at night and I can have a really good cocktail at my own restaurant. I’m not a bar goer. When it comes to eating meals outside of my restaurant, we generally go ethnic. Generally Asian, we do a lot of sushi and go to Kanpai in Westchester a lot. We go to Aiara for Thai food a lot we go to ASAP Phorage for pho – so we do a lot of Asian food and we like to keep it local.

I definitely am a SoulCycler but every so many months I do this Boot Camp with Lacey Stone and I love her. She does a 2 week boot camp called Reboot which I am actually doing and it’s 2 weeks of no drinking, eating super clean and I prep all my own meals. I still go to my spin classes, but 3 days a week, I go to her Boot Camp in the morning and the next one will be at The Wall - so I’ll be there.

AM: We love The Wall.

CHEF BW: I’ve never been there.

AM: It will definitely be good to check it out.

CHEF BW: I like shopping online – I’m not a huge shopper. I don’t like to try things on. I do like to see things in per son. I don’t like to go on shopping excursions. When I see something that I like in a store, I often buy it on an impulse and hope it will fit as I don’t like returning things. I’m not a huge shopper so I actually prefer that when my conditioner is getting low, I like to go on Amazon and order it and would rather have Amazon deliveries every single day!

AM: It’s like Christmas every single day with a new box – but you know exactly what’s in there!

CHEF BW: It’s amazing. By the time I decide that I need to buy something, it always takes me a couple of days to get to whatever store it is anyway, so I can have it on my doorstep without having to go anywhere!

AM: How do you define your personal style in terms of what you wear when you go to work and what you wear when you’re going out with friends or for a date night?

CHEF BW: They are all very different from one another. I love fashion, I love clothes, I love shoes. I also am not someone who will make themselves look great every time they leave the house. I work out a lot. I wear a lot of workout clothes, but I also try not to make that my daily outfit and try not to fall back on that for my go to. I work out in work out clothes and try to care about what I look like when I am going out someplace else. I love to be comfortable. I love overalls, love jumpers and am a big fan of being comfortable and also having a cute outfit on. I do love getting dressed up and am the first person to say that I am going out to dinner to a nice restaurant and that I am excited to put on a pair of heels and a dress, especially because my everyday life means I’m dressing down in jeans, a button down flannel or long sleeve shirt. So when I get dressed up,

I love getting dressed up.

AM: I can only imagine how busy you are. What’s your morning routine like to get to your restaurant?

CHEF BW: I’m very fortunate that in a sense, my husband is a morning person because I am not! So on a weekday, my alarm goes off at 6:20am or 6:18am don’t ask. I start by complaining that I have to get up and my son will come one eyed down the hallway into our bathroom because he is not a morning person either and he found that his morning routine needs to include a shower. My husband will get up and make coffee and usually that’s how I am able to get out of bed because he makes me coffee. Then I am a workout first kind of person. If it is my turn to take my son to school then I will take him and head straight to a SoulCycle class which depends on whether I am in a bootcamp or not. If my husband takes him, he goes to a trainer on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he can’t go to school before that so on Tuesday and Thursday, I can kind of take my time a little bit and go to whatever class I want to as opposed to the one that is closest to the school. I’m a take-a-class-kind-of person usually but if I can’t, I have a Peloton bike at home and if I can’t pull it together to take a class then I will take it from home. Or maybe I will go for a run if I am on a running kick which I haven’t been for a while. Then I shower and get as many things as I can get done so that depending on where I have to be and when – before one of us has to be home to pick up our son from school.

AM: How do you take time for yourself with such a schedule that you have?

CHEF BW: I consider that when I workout, that that is time for myself and that I don't know if everyone considers it that. Working out is me taking care of myself and working out to keep myself sane. So me scheduling a workout into my day is really my way of taking care myself.

IG @ChefBrookeW

PHOTOS COURTESY | Chef Brooke Williamson | LEFT IMAGE courtesy of TOP CHEF -- "Naughty and Nice" Episode 1603 -- Pictured: (l-r) Richard Blais, Brooke Williamson, Padma Lakshmi -- (Photo by: Michael Hickey/Bravo)

Make sure to follow our new multimedia podcast network, Athleisure Studio and specifically our show, Athleisure Kitchen. You can get the latest episodes when they drop by following and listening to us on your preferred listening platform (Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, etc). You can hear the full interview with Chef Brooke Williamson on Athleisure Kitchen when it drops in Feb.

Read more from the Jan Issue of Athleisure Mag and see Seasonality and Locality with Chef Brooke Williamson in mag.

THE BACHELOR | 23RD SEASON ANNOUNCES THE CAST + ADDITIONAL UPDATES

Singapore was but a memory as the competition moves onto Thailand! An early exit takes place leaving Colton grappling with why she wanted to leave and of course more girls feel the need to spill details that they think that Colton has to know about. With Hometowns looming closer and closer, its inevitable that tonight’s episode gets a bit messy.

ALEX B. 29 | Vancouver, British Columbia | Dog Rescuer

ALEX D. 23 | Boston, Massachusetts | Sloth

ANGELIQUE 28 | Hamilton, New Jersey | Marketing Salesperson

ANNIE 23 | New York, New York | Financial Associate

BRI 24 | Los Angeles, California | Model

CAELYNN 23 | Charlotte, North Carolina | Miss North Carolina 2018

CAITLIN 25 | Toronto, Ontario | Realtor

CASSIE 23 | Huntington Beach, California | Speech Pathologist

CATHERINE 26 | Ft. Lauderdale, Florida | DJ

COURTNEY 23 | Atlanta, Georgia | Caterer

DEMI 23 | Red Oak, Texas | Interior Designer

DEVIN 23 | Medford, Oregon | Broadcast Journalist

ELYSE 31 | Soldotna, AK | Makeup Artist

ERIKA 25 | Encinitas, California | Recruiter

ERIN 28 | Plano, Texas | Cinderella

HANNAH B. 23 | Tuscaloosa, Alabama | Miss Alabama 2018

HANNAH G. 23 | Birmingham, Alabama | Content Creator

HEATHER 22 | Carlsbad, California | Never Been Kissed

ADRIANNE "JANE" 26 | West Hollywood, California | Social Worker

KATIE 26 | Sherman Oaks, California | Medical Sales Rep

KIRPA 26 | Whittier, California | Dental Hygienist

LAURA 26 | Dallas, Texas | Accountant

NICOLE 25 | Miami, Florida | Social Media Coordinator

NINA 30 | Raleigh, North Carolina | Sales Account Manager

ONYEKA 24 | Dallas, Texas | IT Risk Consultant

REVIAN 24 | Santa Monica, California | Nurse

SYDNEY 27 | New York, New York | NBA Dancer

TAHZJUAN 25 | Castle Pines, Colorado | Business Development Associate

TAYSHIA 28 | Corona Del Mar, California | Phlebotomist

TRACY 31 | Los Angeles, California | Wardrobe Stylist

01.28.19 | Sometimes engaging in the cattiness may send you home and other times a weird sense of tension doesn’t mean that you go home! We’re not going to lie, one of our faves exited stage left this week in Singapore - next week, it’s onto Thailand!

01.21.19 | The third rose ceremony took place tonight, but before we could even get to it - one of the ladies was eliminated during a group date due to a lack of chemistry. The pageant ladies continue to bring drama which leads everyone to want them to go on a 2 on 1 date. Three additional ladies were eliminated at the end of the night. Next week, everyone will move onto Singapore!

01.14.19 | With a second rose ceremony completed, we saw a Camp Day, the world’s strangest toast which almost caused one of the ladies to go home on her birthday, a winning sleep over and lots of noise! In the end, 4 people were sent home so of course, here are the ladies who you can expect to see in week 3!

01.07.19 | After the first rose ceremony, here are the girls that will be back next week and the 7 that were eliminated. After 3 hours of a premier filled with live viewing parties, various members of the Bachelor franchise and more, we were introduced to a lot of personalities that we embraced and those that were completely cringe worthy!

12.06.18 | On Jan 7th, right after the Golden Globes, ABC’s The Bachelor begins its 23rd season where Colton will look for his perfect match from a series of 30 fabulous girls. In addition to watching throughout the season, make sure that you follow along with us on Twitter (@AthleisureMag) as our Co-Founder/Creative + Style Director, Kimmie (@ShesKimmie) shares her commentary on what’s going on with a number of our friends who also enjoy watching the show!

Get to know who will be on this season as well as who is eliminated each week!

Read from the latest issue of Athleisure Mag

NEW YEAR N3W YOU

Read more from the Dec Issue and see NEW YEAR N3W YOU in mag.

IT BEGINS AND ENDS WITH THE BREATH WITH POPPY JAMIE

This time of year, there are a number of activities that are pushing for our attention. There are notifications on our phones, making various appointments, checking that we're not missing studio time at yoga as well as getting our nails done. There are times where you forget to eat or even to breathe! Breathing is one of our most vital tasks and as much as we do it, many of us are not doing it right! We took a moment to chat with Poppy Jamie, Breathing Instructor and enthusiast, TV presenter, Co-Founder/Designer of Pop and Suki and Founder of Happy Not Perfect, a new app and lifestyle brand that recently launched to find out what a breathing workshop is, how we do it and what led her to this career!

ATHLEISURE MAG: Where did the year go? How is it almost Christmas.

POPPY JAMIE: I know right, I mean I was just telling myself, where did the year go and how can it be the end of the year already? At least we have the holidays to look forward to!

AM: You cover a number of areas so in looking at your background, how did you get into doing TV, have a successful line – Pop & Suki (accessory line created by best friends Poppy and actress and model Suki Waterhouse), your app/lifestyle brand, Happy Not Perfect as well as being a breath enthusiast?

PJ: Well really, I was inspired I suppose by my upbringing. My mum is a hypnotherapist and my dad is an entrepreneur. When we were growing up, we spoke about the mind at the age of 8 and it was so normal to talk about emotions, how you process them, how you manage your mind, meditation, breathing. These were all things that were just as normal as brushing your teeth, washing your face and going out for a walk. Mental health has been such a part of the way that I was brought up and in my DNA.

I always knew that I wanted to be a TV presenter. Ever since I knew I could talk, I wanted to be able to communicate with people because I just found it so incredible how you could share a conversation and storytelling and that really led me to my first career as a TV presenter and host. While I was a TV host, that was the thing that really gave me insight into this social setting and made me analyze what people were looking at and how they were reacting to things. When I launched my show on SnapChat, PillowTalk (the first show to air on SnapChat), I would see hundreds of thousands of messages of people just reacting about what they were thinking, feeling and going through. At that moment, it was my upbringing and where I was in my career that came together. I would start to call up my mum and I would ask her advice on how I should respond to these questions that included people that were struggling at work/school or feeling stressed about their relationship. In that moment I realized how little we know about the mind and how fortunate I was to have a mum that would teach me about the mind and these sort of things. I began to wonder how I could go about sharing my mum and putting her into an app and to give her to everyone. It wouldn’t matter where you were or what time of day it was – it’s about the thought process. It’s really what a great therapist does – they help you process your thoughts and find a new perspective by using different tools such as breathing and journaling. It’s funny that my career has gone in so many different directions, but it all happened to go into the creation of Happy Not Perfect.

At the time, I was living in LA with my best friend and that’s how the handbags started. My best friend and I are two of the most disorganized girls that you could ever meet as we’re always losing things and we thought that if we could design handbags, we’d be less disorganized. It’s been a really crazy 3 years and I couldn’t be happier working on these things that I now are really helping people. We have so many messages a day where people are like, “Oh my God this is really helping me.” People thanking us on teaching them how to breathe and those who were feeling low before Happy Not Perfect and n ow after using it they feel less anxious. I love how I am doing my part into what I should be doing.

AM: I love how connected it is and how the app also has an extension as a lifestyle brand with products that are attached to it as well – correct?

PJ: Exactly! We found that in our focus groups that people really struggled with dealing with things and that Millennials are some of the most stressed out people that ever lived. It showed through our qualitative research in America, Europe and Australia that we did. I wondered what we should do and how could we assist in managing their stress levels and people were silent about it. That’s when I learned that people weren’t so sure on what they could do to manage their mental well being. People wanted to know what they could use! This holds true for why there is product in Happy Not Perfect as well as why I was intrigued to work with Breathe Right Strips. Even a simple thing like putting the strip on your nose, you can sleep better because you are getting more air and it’s an upward spiral. Suddenly you have a clearer mind in the morning and it’s a simple thing that can help you feel better. We found that with the site and lifestyle components that everyone can benefit from these items.

AM: We were unable to attend the breath workshop which was unfortunate, but how did this partnership between yourself and Breathe Right Strips come about as we understand the natural synergy here.

PJ: I’ve been using Breathe Right for years and it has been a bit of my secret hack! When I trained as a breathing instructor and when I would do my classes in London, NY and LA afterwards I would say, if you guys are struggling with breathing at night when you’re trying to sleep, you should use these strips. Someone then said, “I know them – you should connect with them.” I was being their biggest advocate even before they knew me because I loved them. Then we were connected and I was so happy about that because I love the natural way that you can just be help yourself and be a little more relaxed and have a clearer mind. It’s about sometimes having the simplest thing like a breathing strip and learning how to breathe into your belly that will have a formative effect on your mental and your physical health.

AM: I heard that you have a 24kt gold Breathe Right Strip – is this true?

PJ: I do and I’m very excited about my it and honestly, it’s one of my favorite beautiful mantle pieces! I mean I never ever thought that I would have a 24kt gold basically nose statue! Now I do! I was traveling back from NY to London because my parents were so excited to see this and it is the coolest thing. I carried it in my hand luggage and when I went through security, nobody could believe my gold karat nose and it has now traveled halfway across the country and it is now very close to my heart.

AM: What’s it like going through a breathing workshop and how do you guide people through their proper breathe?

PJ: A breathing workshop begins with teaching people how to breathe. When I first started out as a breathing instructor under Dr. Belisa Vranich, who is one of the leading experts in the world, she is the author of Breathe and she is one of the most crucial women that I have ever met. I couldn’t believe it when she said that 9 out of 10 people breathe incorrectly! It’s unbelievable. We all breathe, but when you realize that we pick up bad breathing habits from the age of 5 because we go to school and begin to hunch over tables and we start breathing too much air and we start to do shallow mouth breathing. This is a forced habit from the central nervous system it pumps up our stress level and makes us feel like we’re in danger and we have that fight or flight feeling. But when you start engaging in belly breathing and slowly inhale through your nose and slowly exhale with lower body breath, it emulates your vega nerve and takes you out of that fight or flight state.

This is a calming breath that allows you to have a pretty instantaneous moment of clarity. You make better decisions and it reduces your nerves. So the breathing teaching and the breathing workshop teaches you the power of learning how to relax your nervous system when you need to and the best way to do that is through nose/belly breathing, and then once you kind of learn that, we can practice by putting weight on our bellies to practice bringing that weight up and bringing it back down, as that is helpful. A great trick to do this is to do so when you’re in bed and you can’t get yourself to sleep, you can put a heavy book on your belly to breathe the book up and to breathe it back down (editor’s note: this is an exercise to calm you down to be able to sleep as the book is only for the breathing practice). It’s a great trick and if you have friends who are a bit anxious or stressed out, teach them to lie down, put a book on their belly to breathe it up and down as it is really calming and relaxing. I really like to teach people tools that they can share with their friends and family. And then, we go into a kind of breath work meditation which uses the breath to sink into a meditative state and during the breath workshop that we did a few weeks back at the event, we did a Love and Kindness Meditation, which is one of the scientifically backed meditations that really help to nurture kindness and compassion not only for ourselves, but for those around us and after experiencing that, we come out of meditation which lasts at about half an hour or 45 minutes in terms of the education, the practicing and the meditation. Hopefully everyone leaves feeling a little bit happier and calmer and a lot less stressed.

AM: That sounds fantastic. With a new year coming up, there is a lot of stress and anxiety that people will have in wanting to do resolutions and things that are different, but also coming down from a busy holiday season – how can breath work help with this so that they can calm down and do what they need to during the day?

PJ: This is why I love breathing! It doesn’t mean that you have to meditate for 20 minutes if you don’t have time. The holidays are so busy and you have loads of family around. So the belly breath which I actually do this while I am talking with someone or perhaps in a stressful meeting, I lightly put my hands on my belly and I start breathing slowly into my nose and out through my nose into my belly. I consciously have this hack knowing that I have it whenever I need it is powerful.

Even if you want to just take a couple of moments in the morning to just lie down on your back and to just focus on your breathing through your nose and down for a couple of minutes as it really just sets your nervous system. During the holiday season, it’s so hectic because people are buying their presents and you need these short effective tricks for your nervous system and belly breathing is definitely one of them and anyone can do it which is fantastic!

AM: You’re based in NYC where would we find you grabbing a drink/meal and working out?

PJ: Oh my gosh my new favorite place is abcV the new vegan place that I am newly obsessed with that! I have to say that no one can't beat The Bowery Hotel! It's really magical and fun and I always have a lot of friends there. I like to think that wellness is a little bit of everything. It’s not only about looking after your mind, but it doesn’t mean depriving yourself of other things. It’s a bit of everything. My favorite yoga studio is Yoga Vida and I love this yoga instructor named Will Schneider who is my favorite. I also love dancing as it’s incredible for your mental health and great for a mood boost that makes you feel good. If I am in a really dedicated mood, I love SLT which is incredible, but dancing and yoga are really my thing as I find yoga is really great for the mind and to stretch the body, you need to relax the mind. This exercise incorporated meditation and I’m a big yoga fan.

IG @PoppyJamie

PHOTOS COURTESY | Poppy Jamie + Happy Not Perfect

Read more from the Dec Issue of Athleisure Mag and see It Begins and Ends with the Breath with Poppy Jamie in mag.

BINGELY STREAMING

VANITY FAIR

Amazon Prime

Season 1; Debuts 12.21.18

This classic novel created by William Thackeray comes to Prime Original as a 7-part miniseries that focuses on an orphan girl that climbs the social ladder of English society in the Georgian era.

Her mobility takes place in a post Napoleonic defeat. Becky Sharp is focused on rising above her station regardless of the consequences and social implications that may take place in doing so.

Every movement that drives her forward creates an entrance into King George IV's court as she breaks the hearts and fortunes of those that happen to fall between her and her ultimate ascension.

REMASTERED WHO KILLED JAM MASTER JAY

Netflix; Debuts 12.07.18

Musically speaking, there are a number of mysteries involving the deaths of great artists, musicians and performers. In 2002 at the age of 37, Jason Mizell (Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC) was added to this list. Friends and family of this artist have toiled over the DJ's unsolved murder. In Netflix's docu-series, ReMastered, each episode analyzes these deaths and in the latest installment (the first episode looks at Bob Marley's attempted assassination and the second looks at the political evolution of Johnny Cash) they investigate, "Who Killed Jam Master Jay?"

This show looks at his rise in the music industry in the 80s with Run-DMC along with interviews of those who were impressed and inspired by his work. But it all comes to a head when the series focuses on his murder when his individuals were buzzed into his Queens recording studio and moments later, they opened fire killing the hip-hop legend.

Theories of how this happened includes, looking at witnesses that were intimidated, security cameras that were tampered and more. As someone that was known as a peaceful force in the industry, the idea of having so many unanswered questions that have resulted in a lack of justice for his friends and family and no convictions is perplexing.

GLADIATOR

Spotify

Wondery

The Boston Globe's Spotlight Team sits down and investigates football's Aaron Hernandez as he climbed the ladder from high school sports in Bristol to playing with the New England Patriots and hitting the stage of the Super Bowl. But as quickly as he moved closer to his epic dream, he found himself a convicted murderer years later.

The investigative team looks at the story of Anthony Hernandez's life through the crimes he committed and how football via brain damage may have contributed to his violent behavior. Were his sexual interests in a masculine football culture also an element to how he approached his life? Did elite coach interests trump his needs when he wasn't ready to participate as a mature adult despite his skills? The podcast shares new documents as well as audio about his life, death and what has taken place since.

See more from the Dec Issue of Athleisure Mag and read Bingely Streaming in mag.

SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW WITH LA LA ANTHONY

When it comes to someone who has a number of credits across verticals to her name in entertainment, La La Anthony is on that list. This powerhouse started in radio, went on to VJ on MTV's TRL, is a best selling author, a beauty mogul with her brand La La Anthony Motives, had a successful reality series and directs/produces. As an actress in a number of movies and shows, fans know her as LaKeisha in STARZ's Power. Currently she is taping the upcoming season of Power and with the year coming to a close, we wanted to to know about the importance of leaning into all of your talents - no matter how many there are, how she is able to multi-task and be present and to continue her success.

ATHLEISURE MAG: When you say La La Anthony, you are a legacy. Starting from radio and many of us first heard you as a VJ on MTV, to being someone who owns a beauty line and is an actress and best selling author. How important is it to establish yourself as a powerhouse not only for yourself, but for women and women of color?

LA LA ANTHONY: I think it’s important! You want to stand for something and be about something. For me, it’s always been about show people that you can do more than just one thing and be great at it. You can start in radio, be a VJ, have a reality show, be an actress, be an author, be a producer and be great at all of them! So many times people try to put us in these boxes and say, “if you’re a VJ, that’s all you’re going to be and if you’re a radio host, that’s all you’re going to be.” I’m just trying to continually break those misconceptions and those barriers down.

AM: We know that we’re busy and many of us are in a number of projects, but you are constantly on the move – how do you keep it together with your schedule, your family, a number of red carpets….

LA: I always say that I don't sleep! But no, you have to prioritize and I always say that my son comes before anything else. Being a mom is my most important job and I put him before anything. I have a great support system and am so fortunate to have a family that helps me out with Kiyan when I need it, friends that can help me out so if I’m at work at 4am in the morning or like a day like today that the alarm went off at 5:30am in the morning and I was like, ugh – I know that my mom is there to help and Melo is an amazing dad and has always stepped in and been a great father and partner for me when it comes to raising Kiyan. We just make it work!

AM: School is a large part of your focus with Kiyan and we’re in the midst of cold season, how do you go against that to make sure that your son is fine and you coming off of set with all the germs that are found in these areas?

LA: The first thing is to wash your hands and I’m constantly doing that! I’m shaking people’s hands all day, Kiyan’s hands and I’m always disinfecting and using Lysol disinfecting spray to take care of my kitchen, bathroom, video game console, and it brings me to the partnership that I have with them known as the One Less Sick Day Program. It’s all about reducing the number of sick days in school which starts at home. You have to make sure that you’re doing your part at home so that these kids aren’t coming into the school sick. When kids have sick days, not only are they not feeling well, but when you’re at work, it also throws your schedule off. They’re missing school or Kiyan’s missing school and basketball practice and it throws everything into disarray. We want to prevent that and one of the things that Lysol is doing is providing 10,000 schools with Kinsa thermometers which helps with early detection of cold and flu symptoms and viruses which is great because a lot of these schools don’t have the proper tools to help with this properly and it’s why I wanted to be a part of this program.

AM: How do you stay fit because you always look amazing.

LA: I do workout and I realize that you can’t cheat the gym no matter what you do! You always have to go back to the gym. I do traditional weights with my trainer, a FlyWheel Bike in my house that they gifted me which I am so grateful for that. So I do FlyWheel at home and boxing I love. You have to find things that you do that you love or you will never be able to stick to it. I’d be lying if I said that I loved working out, but I know that it is something that I have to do to stay in shape and be healthy. But I am not one of those people that are like, “hey I’m going to the gym today and I can’t wait to work out – it’s just not me!”

AM: We’re all about moments here so who are 3 people that inspired you in your career, where those were your key moments that you needed that little push to take it to the next level.

LA: I think that watching some of my mentors from Oprah to Mrs. Obama, just they embody everything I want to be as a woman as a successful career woman. Mrs. Obama as a successful career woman, wife and mom. Oprah Winfrey, building this entire legacy and everything that she stands for – so I just watch people that I love and watch what they navigate and if I can even get a piece of what they are doing correctly, then I would be very happy! For me in my day-to-day life, it has always been my mom. She hasn’t had this amazing career, but she has given me so much life common sense that has taken me further than a lot of the business advice that I have ever gotten. Because my mom always says that, “when it is all said and done – some of these answers are just common sense and you guys just make it so complicated.” That has really helped me throughout my journey as well.

IG @LaLa

Read more from the Dec Issue of Athleisure Mag and see Something You Should Know with La La Anthony.

BACK IN SEASON WITH PARVEEN KAUR

When the holiday season hits we tend to think about the umpteen events we are invited to and of course, closing out the year which means something a little different depending on what you do! We caught up with Parveen Kaur as she is in the midst of tapings for her hit show, Manifest which debuted this fall and will be back from its midseason break on Jan 7th! We have been fans of a number of her shows including Saving Hope, FX’s The Strain and Freeform's Beyond. We sat down with her to find out about what it’s like during Pilot Season, playing Saanvi on NBC’s hit show, what’s coming up for the remainder of the season and how she takes time for herself in the midst of such a crazy schedule!

ATHLEISURE MAG: What was the moment when you realized that you wanted to be an actor?

PARVEEN KAUR: Oh oh that’s a really good question! I don’t know if there was ever a particular moment, but I had always known that ever since I was really young that I was going to be in show business and I kind of went all over the place I remember at one point I was like, I am going to be a WWE wrestler and then I thought I wanted to be a stunt driver. Then I was like, I want to be a singer but it all kind of fell under this umbrella of wanting to be able to perform.

When I moved to Toronto when I was 18, I just had a friend that encouraged me to take some classes and it was something that felt natural and I had a lot of fun doing it. I think that was around the time when I felt like, yeah let’s do it – I was working at the mall and I wanted to figure out what I actually wanted to do with my life. The stars just kind of aligned in that way and then I was able to get an agent pretty quickly and then I just kind of kept at it. I mean I just really loved it and I still really just love it!

AM: That is a great story. What is Pilot Season and what is its duration as we always hear people refer to it, but it seems like there is so much that takes place within this.

PK: Yeah – so Pilot Season is typically from January to March. It’s a couple of months where studios are just trying to throw their scripts at the wall and seeing what sticks, making new projects and seeing what will be the next big thing in a condensed period of four months. All the studios are putting out their scripts and seeing what can be made and what will hopefully be their next big hit. Now Pilot Season isn’t just about being between January and March – I think that timeline has grown a little bit, but that is definitely the most. You’re going on like 4-5 auditions a day, you’re getting the script the night before and then you’re auditioning the next morning and it’s very fast.

If you are lucky to be booked for something, the Pilot gets made and then you also keep hoping that it gets turned into a series – because there are no guarantees that this will happen. Pilot Season is VERY stressful.

AM: That’s intense! So if you’re getting all of these scripts with different characters/personalities and going to the auditions, how do you prepare for all of them with so little time? What is the preparation for Pilot Season versus when you are working on a show like Manifest that you know has already been greenlit?

PK: Well you don’t prepare for it in Pilot Season. It’s like a marathon and your stamina has to be there, you go in and you just hope that whatever little time that you do get that people will see you potential! You’re right that it’s such a short period of time and you’re hoping that you go into the room and that the casting director is mindful of the fact that there is such little time and that they are looking strictly for whether I could be this person and not so much that this person is the one. It’s just not a lot of time to prepare. Now when I am on Manifest, or when you are on a show, it’s such a luxury!

AM: Knowing this, looking at you being on Manifest, how did you prepare for this role, what was the process like to be on this show and what was the audition like?

PK: So ok, I have the quintessential sad actor story for how I got into Manifest. So I was in Pilot Season and I was really close to getting on another show as I had not read the one for Manifest yet. This script fell into my lap and I fell in love with it and it doesn’t happen so often – like in every Pilot Season you may get 2 or 3 that you really love or connect with. It’s just that it’s such a high volume season that you’re reading so many of them – it may be only 1 that you really love. When I found out that I didn’t get the other project, I was really devastated and that one hit me really hard! It was my third year doing pilot season and it is really draining and you start thinking, “Oh my God it’s never going to happen.”

I was in this rut for a couple of days and then Manifest fell into my lap and then I read for Saanvi. I just took all that tension and weight that I was carrying from that rejection and I put it into my audition. It couldn’t have been more – I mean it’s that cliché of sometimes things are meant to be and happen in a certain way. Things were supposed to happen that way and I took that energy and put it into my Manifest audition and then the next day they were like, we’re going to have to fly you to NY to audition for David Frankel and I was still in kind of a funk because the same thing had happened to me for other shows. I’m based in Toronto, so you get that call and you’re being flown to LA or to NYC – where you are one step closer but it doesn’t turn into anything. So, I was still in that mind frame and when I went in to audition for David Frankel, I took the pressure off of myself and it ended up being the best audition that I have ever had in my life and it has forever changed the way that I now audition which is great!

AM: How do you describe Saanvi and what do you see as similarities or differences between you and her?

PK: Well Saanvi is a lot smarter than I am ha ha! When I had spoken to Jeff Rake showrunner and the creator of our show, he really described her to me as someone that is tough as nails, a fighter and someone that is really resilient. To me, that was very exciting to play someone like that. I feel that that part of her description is a common characteristic of her and I. Like, I have had an interesting upbringing and I have gone through a few things that made me resilient and maybe I have put up some walls and Saanvi has definitely done that as well – we haven’t seen her have any kind of breakdown like some of the other characters have had on the show. They are really struggling and Saanvi is really just pushing forward and just putting her head down and really just focusing on the work and looking at what happened. She just has this wall up and is guarded as well and I can understand that side of it. That will change as you will see when we get back to air as she has a huge turning point and I think fans will be excited to see this!

AM: We were wondering if there would be more about her backstory – does she have a love life? Her head down approach has been great, but it felt like there should be more about her and we know that you can’t give it away!

PK: No spoilers! I think that since the rest of the cast is so traumatized, not to say that she is not, but I think that she is a good balance and counterpart to the Stone family. I mean, they are really struggling as they have so much going on in their personal lives and she has been a good balance for them and the show. She is being shown as someone who has yet to absorb what has happened and she will! I’m so glad that the writers have waited to show this and I think that when people see what she is about to go through, I think that that will be really rewarding for the fans, everyone that watches and even for me as an actor. I have been patiently waiting for something to happen so when it does, I am really grateful.

AM: What’s great about the show is that you have two major pillars, obviously what has happened in terms of what took place on that flight and then it’s the Stone family. But the way that the other characters are integrated, you don’t feel that they are side people – they are just as important as the family. It’s like looking at a diamond with a number of facets and I think that’s what draws people in. You end up finishing the episode and talking with others about it and going online to read theories and it makes it a fun show to watch and to talk about.

PK: Do you have any theories?

AM: The show is maddening, in a good way as you guys are dropping these pieces where you see a connection and then something else happens and you realize that we’re still not figuring out what happened. Obviously the government is involved, but who and is there a secret arm and even the government agencies aren’t working together and are definitely not on the same page.

PK: Well, wait until Season 2 (knock on wood) because Jeff just came in to talk to me the other day and gave me kind of a vague idea of where the show would go as well as Saanvi’s character and it gave me goosebumps! It’s going to be really great and I am really excited. I think our show is still a baby too! In Season 1, we are figuring out our footing, what we are, who we are and that's really common. I mean the people that love this show will be rewarded and pleasantly surprised as they stick around for the back half of this season and as we continue into the next. We just started to get closer and closer and closer. We know the characters and we’re attached to them so we can really start finding out what’s happening. I’m excited for us to come back in the New Year.

AM: In addition to what we like about you as a person is the importance of representation for women as well as being a woman of color. How do you bring this into your roles and making sure that you’re amplifying this as much as possible in a situation where representation is still an issue?

PK: That’s definitely a complicated topic and issue because it doesn’t start with me – it starts in the writer’s room and it’s their responsibility to have representation in their room so that when they are writing the nuances of people from different walks of life, that those nuances are truthful and accurate. Also, as an actor, I can try to pick projects that reflect me as an actor as well as my community in an accurate way, but truth be told – it’s not like I get those opportunities all of the time to begin with. I’m still playing in the medical field which is very complicated and as grateful as I am to be working and on such a big show, I am still a South Asian woman playing a doctor. I would like to move away from that, but the difference with Manifest is that they have written her in a way that as we get to know her, she will be humanized and she’s not just an Indian doctor, she is someone with purpose and who you will get to know in a personal way. I think that that is why I was happy to be on the show and play someone in the medical field again. And I said that after this show I wouldn’t do it again and I hope that this show will lead to opportunities to play different characters. I think that that would be a blessing and all that I can do is to bring as much humanity to Saanvi as I can and as much nuance as I can and hope that people love her and appreciate her. There are a lot of people that watch and there are young people that are looking at who we are, who watch and are inspired by Saanvi, as well as my journey as an actor.

It’s a complicated question as far as how I deal with it and I think it really boils down to the writer’s room and asking them! I always find it to be counterproductive when people ask people of color what they think about diversity as I’m like, “you don’t have to ask me – I already know it.” I can talk about it for days – I understand it. It’s the people in power – those who are making the decisions they are the ones that need to be asked about diversity as they are the ones that need to start answering that question for themselves.

AM: You recently were in a film, are there additional areas in TV/Film that you would like to tackle – perhaps directing or producing?

PK: I would like to try to break into fashion!

AM: Oh!

PK: Yeah, it’s my first love. I would like to start breaking into that world in some way. I’m not sure into what capacity I could, but that is my heart. I like fashion, styling, creative directing. It gives me a lot of joy. I have been sewing since I was a kid and I was one of the people that would lock myself in my room coming home after school and by high school I was making the clothes that I made – it was therapeutic. It was a great expression for me and it took a lot of my frustrations and feelings that I felt as a child and it was put into clothing. So that’s a big passion of mine that I hope that I get the opportunity to work in, even if it’s just wearing the clothing.

I don’t know if I can get away with just making something at this point, but I am so inspired by fashion and the work that we do. Our costumes and wardrobing are a big part of our characters and it’s no small feat for our costuming departments to come up with something beautiful and accurate and that is a creativity that I know is acknowledged, but we can always do more! When we watch characters, what they are wearing is very important and I am one of those actors that you will find me in the Costume Department all of the time – just hanging out!

AM: How do you take time for yourself in the midst of your busy schedule – do you meditate or take inspiration walks?

PK: That’s a great question! I decompress in the shower and I need a hot shower before work and after work – that’s how I decompress. I like to just hang out with my dog. My mom gave me her Curry Chicken recipe for my 30th birthday and I am not a cooker and I don’t cook! She gave it to me and all of a sudden, I am enjoying cooking and trying to understand it. I like working with my hands as I find it very therapeutic and I’m sewing which is really nice so that’s how I wind down. I love spending time with my family and that’s great for me. I’m a pretty chill person. I love going to the movies – I go a couple of times a week. If there were enough movies, I’d go even more. I love escapism and the whole thing of going to the theater, grabbing snacks, the lights come down and I can escape and go somewhere new – it’s one of my favorite things to do! It’s so funny because I live in this particular area in Brooklyn where there are three different movie theaters and it’s really awesome!

AM: In Brooklyn, where can we find you grabbing a meal, drinks and working out?

PK: One of my favorite restaurants is Lucali's in Brooklyn - it has the best pizza in the world. People need to make their way there! I am a coffee snob and whenever I move to a new city, I need to find my coffee. If I don’t have my coffee place, I end up feeling very lost and don’t enjoy my time there. It’s such a big part of my routine because I get up and go get my coffee. So there are a few shops that I like to go and work from. In terms of working out, I love to do yoga and actually I haven’t been that good at doing it because my schedule has been so hectic! I do work with a personal trainer when I am in Toronto and I love doing hot yoga! I’m small and I like to stay toned. Being small and tiny, I want to have curves and there is this myth that if you workout, you will lose weight which I don’t want to do because if I lost weight, I’d look sick! Yoga and hot yoga was the perfect balance for me to practice mindfulness, working my body and exercising – that’s a good one for me as well.

IG @YoParveen

PHOTOS COURTESY | NBC Manifest + Parveen Kaur

Read more from the Dec Issue of Athleisure Mag and see Back in Season with Parveen Kaur in mag.

SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW | RICHARD BLAIS

Richard Blais trained under phenomenal chefs from Thomas Keller at The French Laundry, Daniel Boloud and Ferran Adria and then took the runner up spot on Top Chef's fourth season. Seasons later, he won Top Chef: All Stars. Richard continues to be a judge on Top Chef as well as a number of guest appearances on Food Network. In addition, his successful restaurants include: Juniper & Ivy and The Crack Shack.

With the holidays starting this month, we wanted to talk with Richard about what we should have on hand in our cabinets, how can we make great leftovers, and what he is up to that we should keep an eye out for.

ATHLEISURE MAG: With the holidays coming up, what are ingredients that are always good to have on hand regardless of whether we’re making our appetizers, mains, sides and desserts?

RICHARD BLAIS: Salt is a given! My personal favorite is Morton Fine Sea Salt as it gives any dish – appetizer, main, side or dessert – that additional flavor boost needed to upgrade your Thanksgiving meal.

AM: What is the key to proper planning when making our holiday meals?

RB: Getting ahead! Don’t be afraid to start the work a week ahead if possible! Stock, sauce, gravy, cutting vegetables, and getting as much done in advance of the day of eating!!!

AM: What are common ingredients that can be used for sweet and savory dishes that we may be surprised to know?

RB: Salt of course really wakes up any dessert! I love cinnamon in savory dishes as well!

AM: After an epic holiday meal, how can we breathe life back into our turkey in a new way for leftovers?

RB: I’m a big fan of upcycling your Thanksgiving leftovers. The go-to at my house is to take dinner’s leftover sweet potatoes and turn them into breakfast waffles. My kids are big fans of this too!

Leftover Sweet Potato Waffles

Serves 4-5

Ingredients

2 ¼ cups all purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

3 tbsp sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp Morton® Fine Sea Salt

1 cup cooked mashed sweet potato (recipe below)

1/2 cup melted butter

2 cups milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs, separated

1 cup Pomegranate seeds

1 cup toasted, Pumpkin seeds

1 cup your favorite granola (or recipe below)

1.5 cups crème fraiche, whipped (or whipped cream)

2 tsp apple pie spice

1 tsp Morton® Coarse Ground Sea Salt

Directions

· Preheat your waffle iron and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

· In a large bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, Morton® Fine Sea Salt, sugar and cinnamon.

· Beat the egg whites in a mixer or with a whisk, until stiff peaks form. Set aside.

· In a medium bowl whisk together the milk, vanilla, melted butter and egg yolks.

· Add wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir until fully incorporated.

· Fold in sweet potato and egg whites.

· Spray all sides of waffle iron with nonstick cooking spray, pour batter into waffle iron so that it fills the shell completely.

· Close waffle iron lid and wait for notification that it is finished (likely, a beep)

· Open iron and remove hot waffle.

· Serve with a handful of pomegranate, pumpkin seeds, granola, and a dollop of crème fraiche, as desired.

· Finish with a dusting of apple pie spice and Morton® Coarse Sea Salt.

Mashed Potato Recipe

Ingredients

1 ea large sweet potato

1 tsp Morton Kosher Salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp olive oil

Directions

· Preheat oven to 350 F.

· Rub sweet potato with Morton Kosher Salt, black pepper and olive oil and wrap tightly in aluminum foil.

· Bake in a baking dish in the oven for 35-40 minutes, or until fork tender.

· Remove from oven, peel once cool enough to touch, and mash with a fork.

Granola Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup slivered almonds

¼ cup honey

¾ tsp Morton® Coarse Sea Salt

1 tbsp browned butter

Directions

· Preheat oven to 250F.

· Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and pour into a baking dish.

· Cook for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes to toast evenly.

· Remove from oven and let cool.

· Use handful of granola to top the waffle, as desired.

AM: What does a Richard Blais Thanksgiving meal look like?

RB: A few variations of turkey! A traditional roasted one and then something experimental for that year. This year I’m in Italy, so maybe porchetta for thanksgiving! And lots of sides! Mac and cheese, braised greens, homemade bread, but always CANNED cranberry jelly! Don’t judge!

AM: What tips do you have in making a moist turkey that guests will enjoy?

RB: The key to a moist, flavorful turkey – it’s all about the brine! Brining really helps to lock in the birds’ natural juices. My tips on bringing – ask Alexa. With the Alexa skill, Morton Brine Time, you simply call out for help and you get step-by-step answers to all your brining questions.

AM: We know that you enjoy truffle hunting – any tips that you can give us when we have the opportunity to do so?

RB: You need time, a good guide, and an amazing dog. I’m no expert, but I forage regularly in California for all sorts of wild foods, and I recommend it as a fun family hiking activity. Just know what you are grabbing and consult a field book, or expert always!

AM: We know that you are a busy guy with a number of restaurants, appearing on shows etc., but when you’re home, where would we find you grabbing a bite/cocktail, working out and doing a little shopping?

RB: I travel so much I feel like it’s hard to pin down a routine, but I call North County San Diego home. You can find me running a trail or foraging when I’m not in the restaurants.

PHOTOS COURTESY | RICHARD BLAIS

Read more from the Nov Issue of Athleisure Mag and see Something You Should Know with Richard Blais in mag.

GRAMMYS 2019 | NOMINEES + WINNERS

Who’s excited for the 61st Grammy Awards which airs on Feb 10th? The nominees came out earlier today and as always we picked out who we think we would win. We can’t wait for the show.

BOLD | Athleisure Mag’s Prediction

BOLD ITALICS | Winners predicted correctly by Athleisure Mag

ITALICS | Winners that we didn’t predict

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

H.E.R. - H.E.R.
Brandi Carlile - By the Way, I Forgive You
Drake - Scorpion
Various Artists - Black Panther: The Album
Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour
Post Malone - Beerbongs & Bentleys
Cardi B - Invasion of Privacy
Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer

RECORD OF THE YEAR

Cardi B - I Like It
Brandi Carlile - The Joke
Childish Gambino - This Is America
Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper - Shallow
Drake - God's Plan
Kendrick Lamar & SZA - All the Stars
Post Malone & 21 Savage - Rockstar
Zedd & Maren Morris - The Middle

SONG OF THE YEAR

Kendrick Lamar & SZA - All the Stars
Ella Mai - Boo'd Up
Drake - God's Plan
Shawn Mendes - In My Blood
Brandi Carlile - The Joke
Zedd & Maren Morris - The Middle
Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper - Shallow
Childish Gambino - This Is America

BEST NEW ARTIST

Chloe x Halle
Luke Combs
Greta Van Fleet
H.E.R.
Dua Lipa
Margo Price
Bebe Rexha
Jorja Smith

POP

BEST POP SOLO PERFORMANCE

Beck - Colors
Camila Cabello - Havana (Live)
Ariana Grande - God Is a Woman
Lady Gaga - Joanne (Where Do You Think You’re Goin’?)
Post Malone - Better Now

BEST POP DUO/GROUP PERFORMANCE

Christina Aguilera ft. Demi Lovato - Fall In Line
Backstreet Boys - Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper - Shallow
Maroon 5 ft. Cardi B - Girls Like You
Justin Timberlake ft. Chris Stapleton - Say Something
Zedd, Maren Morris, and Grey - The Middle

BEST POP VOCAL ALBUM

Camila Cabello - Camila
Kelly Clarkson - Meaning of Life
Ariana Grande - Sweetener
Shawn Mendes - Shawn Mendes
Pink - Beautiful Trauma
Taylor Swift - Reputation

BEST TRADITIONAL POP VOCAL ALBUM

Tony Bennett & Diana Krall - Love Is Here to Stay
Willie Nelson - My Way
Gregory Porter - Nat "King" Cole & Me
Seal - Standards (Deluxe)
Barbra Streisand - The Music... The Mem'ries... The Magic!

RAP

BEST RAP PERFORMANCE

Cardi B - Be Careful
Drake - Nice for What
Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Future, & James Blake - King’s Dead
Anderson .Paak - Bubblin
Travis Scott, Drake, Big Hawk, & Swae Lee - Sicko Mode

BEST RAP/SUNG COLLABORATION

Christina Aguilera ft. Goldlink - Like I Do
6LACK ft. J. Cole - Pretty Little Fears
Childish Gambino - This Is America
Kendrick Lamar & SZA - All the Stars
Post Malone ft. 21 Savage - Rockstar

BEST RAP SONG

Drake - God’s Plan
Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Future, & James Blake - King’s Dead
Eminem - Lucky You
Travis Scott, Drake, Big Hawk, & Swae Lee - Sicko Mode
Jay Rock ft. Kendrick Lamar - Win

BEST RAP ALBUM

Cardi B - Invasion of Privacy
Mac Miller- Swimming
Nipsey Hussle - Victory Lap
Pusha-T - Daytona
Travis Scott - Astroworld

ROCK

BEST ROCK PERFORMANCE

Arctic Monkeys - Four Out of Five
Chris Cornell - When Bad Does Good
THE FEVER 333 - Made An America
Greta Van Fleet - Highway Tune
Halestorm - Uncomfortable

BEST METAL PERFORMANCE

Between the Buried and Me - Condemned to the Gallows
Deafheaven - Honeycomb
High on Fire - Electric Messiah
Trivium - Betrayer
Underoath - On My Teeth

BEST ROCK SONG

Greta Van Fleet - Black Smoke Rising
Twenty One Pilots - Jumpsuit
Bring Me the Horizon - MANTRA
St. Vincent - Masseduction
Ghost - Rats

BEST ROCK ALBUM

Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Fall Out Boy - M A N I A
Ghost - Prequelle
Greta Van Fleet - From the Fires
Weezer - Pacific Daydream

BEST ALTERNATIVE MUSIC ALBUM

Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
Beck - Colors
Björk - Utopia
David Byrne - American Utopia
St. Vincent - Masseduction

R&B

BEST R&B PERFORMANCE
Toni Braxton - Long As I Live
The Carters - Summer
Lalah Hathaway - Y O Y
H.E.R. - Best Part [ft. Daniel Caesar]
PJ Morton - First Began

BEST TRADITIONAL R&B PERFORMANCE
Leon Bridges - Bet Ain’t Worth the Hand
Betty LaVette - Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight
MAJOR. - Honest
PJ Morton - How Deep Is Your Love [ft. Yebba]
Charlie Wilson - Made for Love [ft. Lalah Hathaway]

BEST R&B SONG
Ella Mai - Boo’d Up
Miguel - Come Through and Chill [ft. J. Cole and Salaam Remi]
Childish Gambino - Feels Like Summer
H.E.R. - Focus
Toni Braxton - Long As I Live

BEST URBAN CONTEMPORARY ALBUM
The Carters - Everything Is Love
Chloe x Halle - The Kids Are Alright
Chris Dave and the Drumhedz - Chris Dave and the Drumhedz
Miguel - War & Leisure
Meshell Ndegeocello - Ventriloquism

BEST R&B ALBUM
Toni Braxton - Sex & Cigarettes
Leon Bridges - Good Thing
Lalah Hathaway - Honestly
H.E.R. - H.E.R.
PJ Morton - Gumbo Unplugged (Live)

DANCE

BEST DANCE RECORDING
Above & Beyond - Northern Soul [ft. Richard Bedford]
Disclosure - Ultimatum [ft. Fatoumata Diawara]
Fisher - Losing It
Silk City & Dua Lipa - Electricity [ft. Diplo and Mark Ronson]
Virtual Self - Ghost Voices

BEST DANCE/ELECTRONIC ALBUM
Jon Hopkins - Singularity
Justice - Woman
Sofi Tukker - Treehouse
SOPHIE - Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides
TOKiMONSTA - Lune Rouge

COMEDY

BEST COMEDY ALBUM
Patton Oswalt - Annihilation
Dave Chappelle - Equanimity & the Bird Revelation
Jim Gaffigan - Noble Ape
Fred Armisen - Standup for Drummers
Chris Rock - Tamborine

REMIX

BEST REMIXED RECORDING
Labrinth, Sia & Diplo present LSD - Audio (CID Remix Official Dance Remix)
Charlie Puth - How Long (EDX's Dubai Skyline Remix)
Gabriel & Dresden feat. Sub Teal - Only Road (Cosmic Gate Remix)
Kygo, Justin Jesso - Stargazing [ft. Justin Jesso] (Kaskade Remix)
HAIM - Walking Away (Mura Masa remix)

MUSIC FOR VISUAL MEDIA

BEST COMPILATION SOUNDTRACK FOR VISUAL MEDIA
Call Me by Your Name
Deadpool 2
The Greatest Showman
Lady Bird
Stranger Things

BEST SCORE SOUNDTRACK FOR VISUAL MEDIA
Ludwig Göransson - Black Panther
Benjamin Wallfisch & Hans Zimmer - Blade Runner 2049
Michael Giacchino - Coco
Alexandre Desplat - The Shape of Water
John Williams - Star Wars: The Last Jedi

BEST SONG WRITTEN FOR VISUAL MEDIA
Kendrick Lamar & SZA - All the Stars
Sufjan Stevens - Mystery of Love
Miguel - Remember Me [ft. Natalia Lafourcade]
Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper - Shallow
Keala Settle & the Greatest Showman Ensemble - This Is Me

PACKAGING

BEST RECORDING PACKAGE
Mitski - Be the Cowboy
BTS - Love Yourself: Tear
St. Vincent - Masseduction
The Chairman - The Offering
Foxhole - Well Kept Thing

BEST BOXED OR SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION PACKAGE
Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction (Locked N' Loaded)
The Decemberists - I’ll Be Your Girl
Grateful Dead - Pacific Northwest '73-74': The Complete Recordings
“Weird” Al Yankovic - Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of “Weird Al” Yankovic
Sarah Dodds and Shauna Dodds - Too Many Bad Habits

BEST ALBUM NOTES
Various Artists - Alpine Dreaming: The Helvetia Records Story, 1920-1924 (James P. Leary)
Charles A. Asbury - 4 Banjo Songs, 1891-1897: Foundational Recordings Of America’s Iconic Instrument (Richard Martin & Ted Olson)
Sonny Clark Trio - The 1960 Time Sessions (Ben Ratliff)
Various Artists - The Product Of Our Souls: The Sound And Sway Of James Reese Europe's Society Orchestra (David Gilbert)
Bob Dylan - Trouble No More: The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981 (Deluxe Edition) (Amanda Petrusich)
Various Artists - Voices Of Mississippi: Artists And Musicians Documented By William Ferris (David Evans)

PRODUCER

PRODUCER OF THE YEAR, NON-CLASSICAL
Boi-1da
Larry Klein
Linda Perry
Kanye West
Pharrell Williams

MUSIC VIDEO/FILM

BEST MUSIC VIDEO
The Carters - Apes***
Childish Gambino - This Is America
Joyner Lucas - I’m Not Racist
Janelle Monáe - PYNK
Tierra Whack - MUMBO JUMBO

BEST MUSIC FILM
Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars
Whitney
Quincy
Itzhak
Elvis Presley: The King

Read the latest issue of Athleisure Mag

WHEN FANTASY IS REALITY WITH FIELD YATES

This month's cover is graced by Field Yates, an NFL Insider for ESPN who contributes analysis, breaking NFL news and fantasy football for the network. We enjoyed catching up with him to know more about how he got into the industry, shows he's on and more about Fantasy Football.

ATHLEISURE MAG: What was the moment when you realized you wanted to work in sports?

FIELD YATES: For as long as I can remember, I wished to work in sports. I often joke that I had an early realization that my future in sports was not going to be on the field forever - my college career at Wesleyan University on the football and lacrosse teams - was inglorious. But, without hesitation, I always knew that I wanted sports to be a foundational part of my life. So much of my life has revolved and will continue to circle around sports, which I'm grateful for everyday. So while pinpointing a specific moment is difficult, I'm hard pressed to remember a time when I didn't envision a career in sports.

AM: We know prior to coming to ESPN, you worked in the front office on the staff for scouting and coaching. Tell us about your background and how you transitioned your career into joining the ESPN family.

FY: My career at ESPN was, well, not by design. My desire growing up was to enter into the world of football coaching, and after spending several training camps working with the Patriots during my high school and college years, I was hired by the Chiefs in 2009 following my graduation from Wesleyan University. My summers with the Patriots were a combination of scouting and coaching duties, learning the ins and outs of each while contributing in any way that was asked of me. I draw the parallel to learning a new language: for me, training camps were my football Rosetta Stone. Learning from an organization with incredible success was my foundation and my time in Kansas City (2009-2011) provided me with a chance to put my football education into action. Both were truly remarkable opportunities.

AM: What shows on air as well as on the podcast are you a part of and tell us about these as well?

FY: My role at ESPN has some elements of a utility player, as my assignments span across almost anything tied to football. During the season, I serve as the co-host of the Fantasy Focus Football podcast with the amazing Matthew Berry and Stephania Bell. Our show is live-streamed daily on Twitter, making it a bit different than a traditional podcast -- it's TV-lite. On Sundays, I appear on our popular Fantasy Football Now show, with in-season work on NFL LIVE, SportsCenter and any other football-related segments on other shows. My work also includes extensive ESPN Radio opportunities and some writing for ESPN.com.

AM: What is an average week like for you as we know you are at ESPN HQ as well as work out of Boston?

FY: During the season, my week lays out as such: I depart Boston first thing Sunday morning, arriving to Bristol by about 7:30 AM in advance of our meeting for Fantasy Football Now. From then until Friday afternoon, I remain in Bristol (I'm familiar with all of the local hotels near Bristol by now!), as our podcast airs every Monday-Friday. It's a blitz from Sunday-to-Friday, but one that seemingly goes by at the speed of light. Between TV obligations, the podcast, developing our weekly rankings for those who play Fantasy Football and so much more, there is rarely a dull moment.

AM: How do you take time for yourself with such a busy schedule?

FY: My goal is to carve some time each day for myself to unwind from the ever-moving football news cycle. I'm a morning person - always have been - so my days begin with a workout every day. It's a chance to decompress and set the tone for the day ahead. As a creature of habit, I know that bypassing on a workout in the morning will inevitably result in it falling by the wayside later in the day. Get up and get going is my mindset.

AM: What is it about reporting about football, focusing on fantasy sports and giving fans analysis that resonates with you?

FY: I truly believe the advent of fantasy football has led to make the sport relatable in a way that is incomparable. Hardly a day goes by when I don't hear from someone who has a question about his or her fantasy lineup or favorite team. That connectivity to fans, readers, followers, listeners, viewers, etc. is something I am truly inspired by. The appetite for football is insatiable; from the 17 weeks of the regular season to the playoffs, the draft, free agency and so much more, everyone seemingly loves football!

AM: What is your personal style when you're on the air, when you're podcasting and when you’re at home with friends and family?

FY: I aim to be myself above all else. That's the starting point for how I approach my work, as it's easy to see others in the world of reporting or podcasting and try hard to emulate their style. But that is what works for them; it's important to be authentically yourself in any walk of life. Style-wise, specific to apparel, my goal is to always look sharp: an outfit that you aren't trying to draw attention to, but an outfit that when people see it, they understand there was thought put into pulling it together.

AM: How do you stay in shape? What are 3 of your go to workouts?

FY: My workouts do tend to go into phases: sometimes they involve more weightlifting, while other times I place more of an emphasis on cardiovascular activity. But three workouts that you can never go wrong with: a run around the Charles River in Boston, any sort of core workout and a full-body exercise.

“My desire growing up was to enter into the world of football coaching, and after spending several training camps working with the Patriots during my high school and college years, I was hired by the Chiefs in 2009 following my graduation from Wesleyan University.”

— Field Yates

AM: What's on your playlist when you're working out and what do you listen to when you're hanging out?

FY: The world of podcasting is not one I live in simply as a host; I'm a huge consumer of podcasts as well. Be it the other fantastic podcasts we have on our ESPN feed (Adam Schefter or Mina Kimes football-themed shows) or anything related to the NBA - I'm a hoops junkie - podcasts are a perfect workout soundtrack for me.

AM: In Boston, where would we find you grabbing a drink/getting a meal, working out and shopping?

FY: Boston has such a great mixture of culinary options and I'm fully convinced its on the rise. Our local seafood is as good as and deserves to be advertised and the next time I ever grow tired of eating lobster will be the first time. During the summer, the Seaport area has seen tremendous growth, becoming one of the best areas to spend time in its mixture of top restaurant options, activities and shopping make it a can't miss Boston spot. For my favorite sandwich in the city, 3 Little Figs in Somerville is hard to beat.

AM: Let's talk Fantasy Football. How important is the draft and what are some tips if you are with a group you know well versus venturing out into new waters?

FY: The draft is supremely important in fantasy football, but it is unquestionably just the first step in the process. I always remind people, the team you draft is not the team you finish your season with! It's essential to be active on the waiver wire and fielding/offering up trades. Along those lines, the most important thing to remem ber in the draft is to find value; even if you start your draft with a surplus of wide receivers, it won't be long before someone with a dearth of pass catchers comes calling with a compelling trade offer. While NFL teams often draft for need in the NFL draft, draft is based for value in fantasy football!

AM: What are some surprises you've seen for this season?

FY: While I had an extremely optimistic outlook for Vikings wide receiver Adam Thielen, his emergence into the best fantasy football wide receiver so far in the league has been tremendous to see. He does everything well, is consistent and represents one of the best values in this year's draft. On a non-fantasy side, the robust number of trades has been fun to see as well. NFL teams have often been hesitant to make trades when compared to what we see in other major sports league (i.e. NBA, MLB, NHL), but the spike in trades has been neat in the NFL. Teams are far more wheeling and dealing than we're typically accustomed to, as was evidenced leading up to the recent trade deadline (October 30th).

TWITTER @FieldYates

Read more from the Oct Issue of Athleisure Mag and see When Fantasy is Reality with FIeld Yates in mag.

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH WHITNEY PORT

We fell in love with Whitney Port during her days on The Hills as well as The City on MTV! We watched the rise of the budding fashion and PR girl through her internships, love life and more. With the reboot of The Hills coming back, we took some time to chat with one of our fave girls to talk about the importance of fitness, coming back to the show and other projects that she's working on.

ATHLEISURE MAG: We fell in love with you on The Hills and then seeing you step into the next phase of your life with The City! How did you get on The Hills and what was it like for you to be on this reality show?

WHITNEY PORT: I got onto “The Hills” pretty organically. I was an intern at WWD, and I was starting college in the fall in LA. I wanted another fashion internship, and Teen Vogue, which was in the same offices as WWD, was looking for interns. I decided to go in and interview. They told me that they thought I was a great candidate, but asked if I was interested in being on TV because they were starting to film a TV show there. I was unsure at first. They suggested I do a casting tape and see what happens. The next thing I knew I was called back in for the next on-camera interview with Lisa Love at Teen Vogue. Lauren Conrad walked into the waiting room while I was waiting for my interview. I then realized I was auditioning for her spinoff show because I had watched “Laguna Beach” and knew who she was. I had no idea that they had already casted me on the show. The rest was history!

AM: What made you decide that you wanted to continue onto the spinoff and what lessons did you learn from both shows?

WP: I really wanted to start my clothing line, and I saw the power that the show could have in terms of exposure. I joined the cast of “The City” because I thought it would be the perfect platform for me to launch my clothing line. I looked at itcompletely from a business perspetive. I also always wanted to move to NYC and thought that this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

What I learned is that just saying “yes” to things is so powerful and even though you may be scared, just say yes to more things. We are only young once and these opportunities fade so quickly so just really take advantage of these random fun adventures as often as you can.

AM: What can you tell us about The Hills Reboot?

WP: I cannot necessarily share so much at this moment, but we just started filming and its been really fun reconnecting with everyone. I’m excited for fans to see what we are all up to. It’s very different from how we used to spend our time.

AM: Are you excited to be back on the show - how do you think it will be different and what are you most looking forward to?

WP: It’s been ten years since we first started, and we all have grown up so much since then. We all have families and careers, so I think hopefully it will show a different perspective from a career standpoint as well as the intricacies of more mature relationships. A lot of the people that have watched the show have grown up with us, so I think they will be in similar places and have similar situations going on in their lives.

AM: Since being on the reality shows, we have enjoyed seeing you take on a number of projects from your clothing line, TV hosting and more - what are you currently working on that we should know about and feel free to share launches etc.

WP: I’m the Creative Director and Co-Founder of Bundle Organics, which is a tea, snack and vitamin booster line for pregnant and nursing women. We are launching 24 new items in Buy Buy Baby in the beginning of November, so I’m really excited because the new items are really delicious. I’m really excited to be a trusted brand for pregnant and nursing women, who have so many questions about what to put in their bodies and what brands to trust. I’m just excited to be that brand that they can look to.

AM: Health and fitness is important to us as well as to you. Why have you partnered with LACTAID and what is it that you enjoy about it?

WP: I’ve partnered with LACTAID because living a healthy lifestyle is important to me and real dairy is part of my balanced diet, plus I love the taste. I started buying LACTAID Milk because my husband, Timmy, is lactose intolerant. It has become a staple in our home.

AM: We know you created a LACTAID smoothie recipe, what's in it?

WP: Yes, after a good workout, I make sure to refuel with a smoothie made with LACTAID Milk, which has all the good nutrients found in real dairy without the discomfort of the lactose, so my husband Timmy can enjoy it too. The protein and sugar are just what my body needs after a good sweat. Check out the recipe below:

Ingredients:

1 Tsp cacao nibs
3 dates
¼ cup almonds
1 ripe banana
1 cup LACTAID® 2% Milk

Directions: Blend all ingredients and enjoy!

AM: What is your favorite healthy fall meal that you enjoy eating for lunch or dinner and what's a splurge food that you enjoy eating?

WP: My favorite healthy fall meal is my favorite meal year-round. I love steak. It’s always been my favorite food. My husband recently got one of those Big Green Eggs, so he grills the most delicious NY steaks and then we like to make a side of roasted potatoes. I also like an arugula salad for a side. My favorite splurge is French fries!

AM: What are 3 workouts that you enjoy including in your workout routine?

WP: Hot yoga is my favorite because it always feels so refreshing. I also like spinning and Pilates. I love a good sweat. I feel like my workout was worth it if I sweat out a bunch. Pilates is good for strengthening and lengthening. Spinning is just a really good release…

AM: We know you are based in LA, where would we find you working out, grabbing a bite/cocktails for date night and where do you shop?

WP: My favorite workouts are at Core Power Yoga, SoulCycle and Pilates by Amanda! My fave spots to grab a bite to eat are La Scala, Katsuya in Studio City, South Beverly Grill and my new fave Tocaya Organica! I just went to this AMAZING store called Mohawk in Los Feliz that had the coolest stuff ever! I wanted everything! I also love Only Hearts in Santa Monica for lingerie and Barneys just for everything!

AM: How do you balance the demands of being a wife and mother, stepping back into the reality world, running your other businesses/projects as well as taking time for yourself?

WP: I really just try to be as organized as possible with a shared calendar with my husband and all my work comrades! I try my best to be in the moment and stay present at any given time but I find that the need to plan always seeps in. I don’t really find perfect balance, rather I try every day to just be ok with the imbalance. It is REALLY hard and if anyone else has suggestions, I’d love some!

IG @WhitneyEvePort

Read more from the Oct Issue of Athleisure Mag and see The Hills Are Alive with Whitney Port in mag.

THE HITMAKER WITH NATHAN MORRIS

When you think about R&B you always come to Boyz II Men who had one hit after another with their cool sound, great sense of style and music videos that you remember when thinking about their songs. Although they are a phenomenal music group, we had the chance to hear about a project one of the founding members and Grammy winning artist, Nathan Morris is doing with the DIY Network in his new show, a four part series premiering on Oct 6th – Hit Properties with Nathan Morris. We had a moment to chat with him while he talked about the legacy of his group, his interest in real estate, how this show differs from a number of flipping programs and what we can find him doing when he is not touring and flipping houses!

ATHLEISURE MAG: Before we get into your new show on DIY Network, we know you kicked off this year’s NFL season with Boyz II Men at Lincoln Financial Field. We’ve been a fan of the group since Cooleyhighharmony. How have you guys continued to be an amazing group that has produced a number of hits, videos and more?

NATHAN MORRIS: I just feel that we are truly blessed to still be able to do what we love, to see our fans and for them to still find that after 27 years, our music is still relevant to them. Our fans are from all over the world and they give us so much love. When you hear fans say that the first song they slow danced to was, “I’ll Make Love to You” or they had a Boyz II Men baby – to know that we have been a part of people’s important moments is crazy!

AM: You guys have a residency at The Mirage in Las Vegas – how is it to prepare for these shows and is there a place that you have yet to perform that you would still like to do?

NM: We love that our fans know that 22 weekends out of the year, they can come see us at The Mirage – we have done this for the past 3 years. We know a number of our fans who have really enjoyed our music over the years may have never seen us in concert - so this is the venue to do it! We just signed an additional 3 years there.

I’d love to see us performing throughout South America and we’d love to be able to have the chance to go to the Middle East and to perform in Duabi. We’d also love to go to Africa as well.

AM: Clearly, we know you’ve been a powerhouse in the music business but how did this translate to real estate?

NM: I’ve had the pleasure of investing in some serious real estate deals on the business side and on the personal side, I’ve done some construction, renovation and designing.

AM: Tell us about your new show Hit Properties with Nathan Morris?

NM: I’m really excited about this show. I know that there are a lot of shows about flipping houses, but we really go in there to show you what it’s like. I take this old mansion in Orlando and I Nate-a-cize it – I love luxurious upgrades and I really like smart home upgrades, remote controlled toilettes and WiFi enabled lighting. In addition to showing the work of taking this 8,200 sq feet mansion from a decrepit place to a glamourous one, we also have humor in this show and you see my right hand man, Bryant Gipson working right along side with me as he has done in other projects that we have partnered on together.

AM: Why did you focus on Orlando?

NM: Mainly, the weather is ideal there as you can pretty much work year around and it just made sense to do it there.

AM: What do people who want to get into the flipping industry need to know about the business?

NM: If you’re a person who can’t be flexible and only has a plan if everything goes right – then this is not for you! You also have to remember that when you're flipping a house, you're not building it for you. You want to put finishes and touches that someone buying it could see for themselves. If you make it with amenities that you personally want, you may find that they are too much to your taste and not universal.

AM: What are areas that you suggest a flipper should focus on when doing a home?

NM: I believe that the kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms are essential. I spend the most time in these areas of my home after my bedroom. These are areas where you want to be able to relax. I don’t like small spaces so you’ll see in the show that I increased one of the rooms by 15 to 20 feet in order to be more spacious and inviting.

IG @NathanMorrisPHD

Make sure to check out this season this season of Hit Properties with Nathan Morris on DIY Network which debuts on Oct 6th at 10:30pm EST.

Listen to our conversation with Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris, on an upcoming episode of #TribeGoals on Athleisure Studio, our multimedia podcast network.

Read more from the Sept Issue of Athleisure Mag and see The Hitmaker with Nathan Morris in mag.