The Beginner's Mindset

I know a thing or two about fresh starts. Like how, at the outset, you feel a mixture of exhilaration and fear at the exact same time.

I’m Liz, the former Editor-in-Chief of Women’s Health, and author of the book, Own Your Morning. My mission is to cut through the overwhelm of information in the wellness world and give you a real-world playbook of stuff that actually works. I’m here to help you feel your best…physically, emotionally, and mentally.

It takes a leap of faith, and also belief in yourself and your potential, to start something new.

I feel that viscerally today, because now I’ve pressed publish on my first-ever Substack. This is step one in launching my multi-platform Best Case Scenario community, including a podcast, events and more. (Eeee!) It’s all in the works. I am so hugely happy that you’re here. I really hope you’ll stick around.

Beyond the whole starting-a-newsletter thing, I’m in the midst of an existential life moment—that’s a wee bit dramatic, I know, but it’s honestly how I feel—as I begin an entirely new professional chapter. At the very end of 2024, I stepped down from my role as Editor-in-Chief of Women’s Health to seek out new challenges and adventures.

The faux magazine cover my team at WH presented to me as I left. It’s a tradition in media, and they got the cover lines exactly right!

My tenure at WH was seven years long, and I am grateful for every moment of it. I love the brand, the team, the content, the experts I met, the readers, the places I traveled. But I also felt strongly that I’d made the maximum impact I could make, and I’d learned everything I could possibly learn. Before that, I held leadership roles at other health brands, like SELF, Well+Good, SoulCycle and Canyon Ranch.

To realllly go back in time, I was a competitive athlete as a kid. Growing up, entering the real world after graduating from college, and now today as a 45-year-old woman, I was/am fascinated by how training, nutrition, recovery and more influenced my performance on soccer fields, tennis and basketball courts, and in LIFE. (Full disclosure: I was more likely to fuel myself with a vending machine Snickers bar than a protein smoothie as a kid. I’ve come a long way.) Careers in health run deep in my family DNA. I have an insatiable curiosity about this stuff, and I always have.

Now that you’re caught up on what’s behind me, I’m excited to share where I’m headed in the future. (Best case scenario, of course.)

The changes that I personally want to experience in 2025 are both seismic and subtle. And I mean that on both a professional and personal level. I want to work with brands and people who are smart, passionate and kind. I want to build new things—things I’ve dreamed about for a long, long time—that I can only create now, and through my own personal lens. I want to learn and grow. Most of all? I want to help others do the same right beside me.

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“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”―Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

My dear friend Meg texted me this quote the other night. I can’t stop thinking about it so I wanted to share with you, too. xo, Liz

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My mission is to equip you with the best tips, ideas, tools—plus personal stories, expert interviews, guests posts—that you can leverage for your own physical, emotional and mental journey. Best case scenario? You hold on to what resonates, and let go of the rest.

I’m a sunny person by nature. (Unless I’m talking to my therapist. I mostly save my darkness for his office. Ha!) “Best case scenario” is something that I say regularly, in case you wondered where the name of this newsletter comes from. It’s also a reaction to the world: We all know how much toxicity, negativity, misinformation and polarization are swirling around the internet and social media these days.

I’ve never leaned into that vibe, even though it would’ve scored us more clicks at WH, and despite the fact that it would’ve built me a bigger following on my personal platforms.

I don’t do fear-mongering, and would rather use my time and energy to vet and share the good stuff that you can #ApplyToLife. What can I say? I love upsides, silver linings, and comeback stories. So expect lots of that.

If you follow me on social media or if you have read my Editor’s Letters over the years at WH, consider this a new space to get to know me better, and to connect on a deeper level with one another. I would love your feedback, ideas, thoughts…honestly, all of it!

I’ll be here once a week to start, sharing what’s going on in my head and heart; articles, studies and books I’m reading; who I’m talking to at summits, conferences and events; wellness spots I’m visiting; and all of the trends, launches and other excitement I discover in the wonderful universes of health, fitness, nutrition, emotional and mental health, longevity, and sexual and reproductive health.

Soon, I’ll launch extensions of Best Case Scenario. But first things first. And with that, here are a few things I’m reading this week…

Across the Wellness World…

• Women can kick ass at the gym no matter where they are in their menstrual cycle, per a new study. (If you feel BLAH before/during menstruation, it’s unlikely you’ll be up for a super-intense workout. But also, DUH, women are awesome no matter where they are in their cycle.)

• One of the final, big features I worked on at WH is called The Year That Transformed Therapy As We Know It. (This modality changed my life, and I really hope the pieces in the package help others, too.)

• Everyone’s obsessed with On sneakers, and Bloomberg Businessweek has unpacked how they are dethroning iconic brands like Nike and Adidas. (If you have AppleNews, you can read there; it’s paywalled otherwise.)

• Alcohol should come with a cancer risk warning label, according to an early January advisory report by the Surgeon General. (Full disclosure: I don’t drink alcohol, but I can find no downside.)

• Tonal just launched a new piece of equipment that goes up to 250lbs. (As a super-tester of fitness gadgets, tech and equipment, I want to check it out. Do you work out at home or in a gym?)

• Therabody is leveraging Garmin users’ recovery insights in a new collab. (Cool, but I’m curious how Garmin benefits from this. Hmm.)

• Walking clubs were *just* behind running clubs with 52% growth in 2024, according to Strava’s 2024 Year In Sport trend report. (It’s a fun geek-out read if you’re into that kinda thing.)