I'm Feeling Lukewarm

In a good way. Plus eggmaxxing, Hyrox's billion-dollar rumor, and a summer of new bathhouses.

A very cute photo from a very long summer camp drop-off line.

I live in Brooklyn, and we don’t own a car. My modes of transit include Citi Bike, the subway, Lyfts, and—when I have to get George to a soccer tournament or Charlie to a fencing meet—a Zipcar that smells faintly of someone else’s fries, with crumbs and a few rogue M&Ms thrown in for good measure.

So my long weekend adventure through the Four Corners region was a genuine luxury, because this time I splurged on the Hertz version of a chariot: a Toyota Highlander. I have no idea if that qualifies as fancy—I just needed the biggest vehicle I could find to fit three children, three camp trunks, three enormous hiking backpacks, three overstuffed bags of linens, plus my little roller bag and a backpack.

We were living large! Charging ports. Functional A/C. Seat warmers. A stereo that means it. It felt—dare I say—empowering to zoom that thing through valleys, hills, and mountain passes for five days.

Road trip music is a democracy in our family. We take turns being the DJ. George is deep in a Michael Jackson phase. Lucy likes to match the artist to the landscape—that’s my girl!—so we listened to a lot of Lord Huron. Charlie, sweet boy, sentimentally surfaced a former camp counselor’s band. When it’s my turn, I’m ready: weepy emo-girl anthems about heartbreak and longing that Matt would’ve generously called “a cry for help” if he’d been with us. Plus the same four bangers I’ve had on repeat all month.

My turns may be short, but I make them count.

I love to travel, but I’m almost never simply “on the road.” There’s usually a panel, a story to file, a retreat to lead—or, in this case, kids to wrangle and deliver to camp. Add an itinerary I’d engineered within an inch of its life, and you have my default mode of operation. I’m great at building the plan. I’m terrible at loosening my grip on it.

My solo stretch didn’t start until Saturday morning, after I’d dropped the kids at their backpacking camp. I queued up some Taylor Swift, pointed the Highlander toward Pagosa Springs, and every turn was mine. Weepy ones included, on repeat. No one to scream “Skip!” Just me, singing out of key at the top of my lungs like the lead in a rom-com.

Truth is, I’d been losing my grip since we left home at the crack of dawn on Thursday. Flights were delayed. The kids and I sprinted through the Denver airport and made our connection by seconds. A surprise storm rolled onto the Ice Lake peak before I could take a dip, thwarting the annual tradition I’d been hyping myself up for all year. A migraine leveled my youngest hiking partner, Georgie. (Buddy, I’m so sorry.) It was a lot of plans, interrupted.

So by the time I had the car—and the music—to myself, I was already cracked open. For once, I didn’t try to force the day back into shape. I skipped the big hike to the hidden hot spring outside of Pagosa. I pushed this newsletter from Monday to Tuesday. Instead, I did an easy workout, waded in the San Juan River, wandered the mountain shops, and soaked in the hot springs.

I’d arrived in the mountains scheduled, disciplined, unable to sit still. An ice cube holds its shape by staying frozen; I hold mine by never stopping. But during 44 unhurried hours in the searing Colorado sunshine, I melted.

Not dramatically. I didn’t become a new person. Just...more of the easygoing person I am when I’m not rushing. Softer around the edges. A puddle. Lukewarm. And I have to admit: I like that Liz.

I live and breathe wellness for a living, so let me put it plainly for all of us: sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is stop optimizing for health. Discipline gets me up mountains. But lukewarm turns out to be a pretty great place to visit.

I’m taking a real, actual, unhurried vacation next week. So here’s the plan: a gated deep dive for my Gold Star subscribers later this week, then a week off ATWW. But first, buckle up—there’s a lot to cover…

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Across The Wellness World

HEALTH & TECH

• The Information reports on an “eggmaxxing” Silicon Valley group chat—80-plus tech founders and professionals, cheekily named “To Make an Omelette”—trading strategies for preserving as many eggs and screening as many embryos as possible. The tools of choice: polygenic embryo-screening startups like Orchid and Herasight.

• Also in femtech: Oova, a hormone-tracking platform, has integrated with the Oura Ring, putting daily hormone patterns, sleep, and symptoms on a single timeline—so women can see how their cycles and recovery scores interact.

• A number making the rounds: a new meta-analysis presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), Europe’s big fertility conference, reported men’s average testosterone levels fell 54% between 1972 and 2019. Eye-catching—but worth a squint: the findings have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and combine studies across five decades and multiple countries. The jump to “a major crisis in male reproductive health” is the researchers’ framing, not settled science.

• Sonata launches today in NYC, San Francisco, and Los Angeles with a $2,500 annual doctor-led membership model combining whole-genome sequencing, 140+ biomarkers, wearable data, clinical AI, and ongoing physician care. The goal: turn the flood of personal health data we collect into patterns that help members take action.

• Longevity obsessive Bryan Johnson has spent millions of dollars trying to slow aging. Last week, the entrepreneur shared that he’s been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that affects his stomach lining…a reminder that even the most optimized among us are still human. I was impressed by how his team framed such a deeply human moment for someone whose brand is built around optimization.

• Elsewhere, the WSJ profiled Kate Tolo, Johnson’s longtime girlfriend, who opened up about her reproductive health and sex life—and about Immortals’ forthcoming expansion into women’s health. The company, which sells blood-testing kits tied to Johnson’s longevity protocols, is betting women want the same data-driven approach.

FITNESS & SPORTS

• NYC emerges as the first city to require gyms and fitness studios to make it easier for customers to end memberships, reports Athletech. I know this will be controversial among fitness founders, but I think the “click-to-cancel” mandate is a huge win for gym-goers.

• Cult yoga mat brand Manduka debuts P/ROX—a foam-free, footwear-proof mat built for strength and HIIT, in addition to sun salutations. “Hybrid athlete” is a full-fledged category. (It even made Puma cool again!)

• Speaking of…you’ve probably seen this one ricocheting around fitness newsletters: L Catterton—the LVMH-backed firm behind Solidcore and Peloton—is reportedly circling a major stake in Hyrox at a rumored $1 billion valuation. A couple weeks ago, I was at the World Championships press conference in Stockholm when co-CEO Moritz Fürste was asked about the rumors. His answer was a masterclass in the art of the non-denial denial: “We were also reading [about] it with a lot of excitement…there’s zero information we can share.”

• With the U.S. knocked out of the World Cup, The Athletic explains U.S. soccer’s pay-to-play problem—our country’s development pipeline, where the road to elite play requires fees many families can’t afford. As a mom to a kid who’s played club soccer since he was five, I found this “who gets to become a soccer legend?” piece illuminating (and heartbreaking).

• Before the Norway–England World Cup quarterfinal, Norwegian Air and British Airways made a bet: the loser wears the winner’s logo on Instagram for 24 hours. (The wager was reportedly sealed by an employee flying to London to hand-deliver the assets in person.) England won 2–1, so Norwegian spent a day in BA livery. Clever, gracious, and free: the marketing trifecta.

~HALFTIME~
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
—Mary Oliver, “Sometimes,” from Red Bird (2008)

CULTURE

• Quitting, made chic. Nicotine-replacement brand Jones rebranded its lozenges (and behavioral app), ditching the pharmacy-blue bottle for something you’d actually leave on your nightstand—right down to a $295 sterling-silver lozenge case that doubles as a necklace. Aww.

• The cannabis beverage category is bracing for regulatory blowback by debuting THC-free alternatives, reports Express Checkout. Cann is swapping THC for magnesium and L-theanine, while Cantrip’s founders are betting on kanna, a botanical ingredient marketed for delivering calm and social ease within 20 minutes. The science here is intriguing, but I cannot find a peer-reviewed study supporting that specific promise.

• You’ve heard of “the Alpine Divorce”? “Instagram face”? These two new features in The New Yorker are so shivery and unsettling.

• Job stuff. The NYT brings on contributor Danielle Friedman (who I’ve linked to approximately two dozen times in ATWW) as the Well desk’s full-time fitness reporter. Let’s go! Meanwhile, Condé Nast is looking for a health editor to work on branded content. And Lee Glandorf has some more full-time leads on the brand side in this week’s Sweat Lookbook.

• My favorite IG post of the week, right this way.

SELF-CARE & SAUNA

• Outside reports on Therme Group’s plan for stadium-sized thermal-bath complexes across the U.S.—up to 10 over the next decade, starting with an ~$800M resort in Dallas. Are Americans, raised on the private tub, ready to bathe together?

• File under yessss. A new bathhouse called Marshlands is opening in Dumbo in 2027. Its Brooklyn creators say the name comes from “the places where water meets land, a threshold, somewhere to set down what you were carrying before moving on.” Founding memberships are $3,600 annually (noooo).

• Eater digs into bathhouse dining, scrutinizing the menus at spots like San Francisco’s Onsen and Detroit’s century-old The Schvitz.

• The Atlantic launches a newsletter course called “Ordinary Extraordinary”—a guided nudge to notice the small, overlooked wonders of daily life. Which is to say: a whole syllabus for what Mary Oliver already told us to do up at Halftime. Or as I like to say, Celebrate everything!

LIZ, LIVE!

• My new guide for Culture of Bathe-ing maps hot springs in Southwest Colorado, from the 50-plus terraced pools at The Springs Resort in Pagosa Springs (where I became a puddle over the weekend), to the luxe soaking at Dunton, to the nude springs in Ridgway, plus everything in between.

• This was, I think, my favorite interview I’ve ever given. S.P.A.’s Courtney Wittich asked me all sorts of introspective questions for her delightful What’s In Your Spa Bag? franchise. I share stories you’ve never heard before!

• I’m excited about this one: Tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. ET, I’m talking hormones, fitness, nutrition, body composition, and more with Stacy Sims, Ph.D. The webinar is hosted by Alloy and it’s free to register. Come with questions; nothing is off-limits.

• Last week’s Kelly & Mark Fitness Week segment sparked hundreds of comments and DMs from people sharing their sitting-rising test scores (and asking me to grade theirs). Also, the braids the glam team gave me are 100% making me reconsider how short to go with my next haircut.

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I hope you learned something, laughed at something, or found something worth sharing. A heart or comment helps more people find Best Case Scenario—and fuels my writing. Thank you for being here!