The Best Playbook I Ever Created
Six months in, I'm sharing your most-loved posts—plus a few that cracked *my* heart wide open. And! It was a very busy week in wellness news.
Tomorrow marks exactly six months of Best Case Scenario.
When I pressed “publish” on my very first post, I was hopeful and nervous. I didn’t have a playbook, but I did have instinct, determination, and a deep-rooted desire to help all of us feel a little better today than we did yesterday.
Word by word, post by post, Best Case Scenario has become a twice-weekly digest that’s part lab notebook, part love letter to personal growth. (It’s read by 4K subscribers, and has climbed as high as #11 on the Health & Wellness leaderboard. Eee!) I’ve unpacked nutrition topics, developed training guides, explored hormones, and shared heart-cracked-open personal stuff.
You’ve given so much back to me—comments, questions, re-stacks, DMs, texts, and emails. Many readers have leveled-up to Gold Star subscriptions. One of you is even my high school English teacher! Thank you all. 😭
I'm not being dramatic when I say that Best Case Scenario has become the most creatively fulfilling risk I’ve ever taken. And now? I’ve penned more than 50 pieces: some research-heavy geek-outs, some raw and vulnerable, and some wild-card experiments. Expect more of all of that…my deep-dive later this week is a banger, if I do say so myself. :)
I’ve loved working on every single one. But a few really landed with readers. In case you missed them, here are my three most popular posts so far, including my creatine opus that went viral, omg…
The Weight I’ve Carried For More Than a Decade I brought the same backpack to work every day for many, many years. This piece unpacks why I did it, what it meant, and the surprising place my ruck took me in my new 2025 chapter.
The Mobility Routine That Rebuilt My Body After years of lifting, running, pushing, and yes, injuries, it was this simple, daily routine that helped me feel strong, resilient, and pain-free again.
I Began Taking Creatine at 43—Here’s What Happened to My Body Exactly how my body changed when I began supplementing with creatine—plus the science, unexpected side effects, strength gains, and answers to your most frequently asked questions.
And if you’ll indulge me, allow me to share a few of my personal favorites…
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart—And A Playlist I reflected on why music is my co-pilot in life. If I could publish it all over again, I’d annotate the entire piece with Taylor Swift songs. :)
I Am Better Sober Probably the most personal thing I’ve ever written, and I’m so glad I did. I am the best and truest version of myself—clearer, calmer, more confident—because I don’t drink.
This Might Be the Most Overlooked Wellness Tool Like muscle memory, but for the soul! Hard to convey the spark I felt reporting and writing this one—it’s about the way scent can guide you back to your true essence.
And now, please enjoy my Monday roundup canvassing the news in the health, fitness, and nutrition landscape…
Across The Wellness World…
Outdoor Voices wiped their entire IG feed, and now follows only one person: Founder Ty Haney, who was pushed out during the pandemic. Interesting!
Simone Biles wore a gorge custom Zac Posen x Athleta (a first for the activewear brand) gown to the ESPYs.
Jack Dorsey, who founded Twitter, is building a sunlight exposure app called Sun Day. Cute name.
For all of my swimmers out there, Form just released smart goggles that show your metrics while you’re racking up laps.
Whoop takes on the FDA after receiving a warning over the device’s blood pressure monitoring feature in the new 5.0 model.
Vogue Business says community leaders will be the new fitfluencers. (IDK, I feel like these are not mutually exclusive.)
Protein bar heavyweight, David, sharply pivots and launches…cod, as in the fish.
At $15K and up for each cycle, egg freezing has created a new “fertility wealth gap,” per Fortune.
Speaking of: men will be key to any future baby boom, reports The Atlantic. The article is really about male-factor infertility.
The NYT Well sees your healthspan, lifespan, and musclespan and raises you this sweet sibling phrase: joyspan.
Collagen gets a lot of hype right now. This new study (shout out to Athletech for surfacing) stirs the pot.
Hope you’re not “power peeing”!
Goodles was the best-kept secret for (healthier) adult mac & cheese, but that’ll change with this Wall Street Journal piece.
America’s obsession with whey (the key ingredient in protein powder) is transforming the dairy industry.
Annnd, here come the private equity firms for the $40 billion youth sports business, per Sports Business Journal.
The Wall Street Journal tracks how Vacation, the SPF brand that markets like a meme and smells like summer, turned retro vibes into a multimillion-dollar business.
Gen Z women want the men they’re dating to be in therapy. I get it.
Hospitality brands continue going big on wellness, including Marriott, which is rolling out a luxury wellness series blending “culture, nature and holistic health” in Asia.
Health luminary, Marion Nestle, Ph.D. (who I first interviewed as a wee associate health & nutrition editor in my mid 20s), shares insights on how alcohol will be treated in the forthcoming 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines.
The return-to-office gap is widening: men are back in person more often than women, largely because caregiving and invisible domestic labor still fall disproportionately on women’s shoulders.
Late last week, the FDA hosted a live streamed Expert Panel on Menopause and Hormone Replacement Therapy, and those experts passionately recommended removing the black-box warnings on various forms of MHT.
Here’s the New York Times with the latest research on how exercise fights anxiety and depression.
~HALFTIME~
”Canon Event”: A pivotal moment that shapes who you become, often in ways you couldn't have predicted. Maybe unwanted, usually transformative, ultimately essential. Looking back, you realize you needed it to happen. I've collected a few this year. How about you?
There’s a new women’s world record for longest-ever plank, and it belongs to a 59-year-old grandma!
Female-founded Stringys recently snagged a Shark Tank deal, and now their stay-put, no-show thongs are coming for every activewear drawer.
When did displaying your DNA and biometric markers become a status symbol?
Skincare brand Topicals leverages WNBA star Lexie Brown to launch its new “Slather” soap. If you’re curious, the retinol-infused bar purports to “scrub away dry skin, texture, and bumps to reveal softer skin.”
On my weekend jog, I listened to this new Huberman podcast with nutrition researcher Alan Aragon. The convo about the science of body recomposition beginning at the 55 minute mark is fascinating.
What is a D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine)? Here’s a new primer from the NYT on this type of physician.
Lululemon expands to Italy with a flagship store in Milan, per the Financial Times.
If you want to go down a deep SSRIs rabbit hole, this series from fellow Substacker Chris Masterjohn, Ph.D. is incredible.
Blank Street Coffee goes all in on the biggest summer trends with an iced, salted, pistachio-matcha drink, and the crowds go wild!
Fibermaxxing! Something I aspire to do in the second half of 2025.
GLP-1s are disrupting a slew of unexpected businesses, from airlines to casinos, and AdWeek has receipts.
Business of Fashion says leggings are out. Hmm.
Planet Fitness awards $250K in youth scholarships to “kindness advocates.”
Liquid Death, the water brand with aggressive beer-like branding, debuts an energy drink.
If you need proof that “physique inflation” is a thing, see: Christopher Reeve as Superman in 1978….and 2025’s David Corenswet.
Marketing guru Oren Jones goes off on candles in this new Reel. But most of all, I’m loving the passionate recs in comments.
Oh boy, Grub Street calculates the sodium content in famous NYC restaurant dishes with help from the University of Nebraska Food Processing Center. Cool story idea.
My alma mater, Women’s Health, published a longevity package, including a list of trailblazing women.
Now you can purchase trad wife–coded protein powder from the Ballerina Farm. And BF also collaborated with Happier Grocery on a protein soft serve.
Liz, Live!
I’m back on the TODAY Show for a live segment in the 8 A.M. hour tomorrow. See ya there!
Check out the Endless Summer Sculpt challenge that I appear in with Tone It Up.
Make my BCS six-month anniversary week and heart this post and/or leave a comment. Every single one lights me up, and helps me in the Substack algorithm. Thank you!
My ‘read later’ app always fills up with links from Best Case Scenario. I love getting these curated reading lists. Our interests are so aligned! Thanks, Liz Plosser!
V jealous you interviewed Marion Nestle. Also, loved the Huberman ep with Alan Aragon — fascinating indeed! Great post 🙌